Harry Sidebottom: The Caspian Gates

The chariot of the sun hauled over the shoulder of the mountain. Up above, the swallows flashed gold and black. Along the Embolos, many of the early risers turned to the east and blew a kiss. A few went further, prostrating themselves in the street in full proskynesis . None in Ballista’s party moved. Each to his own gods, some to none.

‘ Dominus.’

Ballista turned, and there was his wife. Julia looked good. Tall, straight, what the Greeks called deep-bosomed. Her hair and eyes were very black against the white of her matron’s stola.

‘ Domina.’ He greeted her formally. Her black eyes betrayed nothing. Things had not been comfortable between them for a year or so. He had not asked why. And he was not going to. It might be to do with a girl in Cilicia called Roxanne. The unease had appeared after that, after he had come back from Galilee, where he had been sent to kill Jews, when Julia had returned from the imperial palace in Antioch. Someone there might have told her about Ballista in Cilicia, about Roxanne. Things were not comfortable. But the daughter of a senator never made a scene in public, and she did look good. Then there were their sons.

‘ Dominus.’ Isangrim stepped forward respectfully. He was a tall boy, just turned ten. And he was quick. He knew his mother expected a certain formality between father and son, expected him to behave with the dignitas appropriate to the descendant of a long line of senators on her side. But he knew it irritated his father. Having held the dignified pose for a moment, Isangrim grinned. Father and son clasped forearms, as Isangrim had seen Ballista do with Maximus, Calgacus and the other men he had served with. They hugged.

It was all too much for Dernhelm. The three-year-old escaped the hand of Anthia, one of the two maids with Julia. The boy launched himself at his father and brother. Ballista scooped both boys up. He heard a tut of annoyance from his wife. Ignoring it, he swung the boys high, burying his face in the neck of first one then the other, hair flying, all three laughing; deliberately defying her.

As Ballista set his sons down, another small child barrelled into them. Wherever Dernhelm was, Simon, the Jewish boy Ballista had brought back from Galilee, was also likely to be found. They were much of an age; both full of living. Rebecca started forward to retrieve her charge. Ballista smiled and waved her away. He hugged Simon as well. He had been told often enough by his wife that it was a bad idea to treat a slave child as if it were free, to make a pet of it. He knew it was true. He would have to do something soon. Modify his behaviour or manumit the child. Then there was Rebecca herself. She had been purchased down in Galilee to look after Simon. With her, it depended on what Calgacus wanted. Soon Ballista would have to ask him.

The Caledonian himself came forward. ‘Aye, that is it, why not mess up your toga.’ Calgacus often seemed to be under the misapprehension that, if he adopted a muttering inflection, his voice, although pitched at a perfectly audible volume, would not be heard. ‘After all, it is not you that has to sort it out.’ Quite good-naturedly, he shooed the children away.

‘And it is not you either these days.’ Ballista gestured to Constans. The voluminous woollen drapes of the barbarian’s toga rearranged just so, Constans collected Rebecca and Simon and went back up the steps that ran between the blocks of housing that clung to the terraced hillside. Ballista, his wife and two of her maids, his sons, his two freedmen and his accensus set off up the Sacred Way.

The Embolos ran away uphill in front of them, the smooth, white base of a vertiginous ravine of buildings climbing the slopes on either side. Now there was activity along its length. Precariously up ladders, men fixed swags of flowers from pillar to pillar, garlanded the many, many statues. Others were bringing out small, portable altars, readying the incense and wine, kindling the fires. The air already shimmered above some of them.

All the Ephesians were taking pains over this festival, none more so than the members of the Boule. The four hundred and fifty or so rich men who served on the city council had paid for the flowers that festooned all the streets and porticos. They had paid for the frankincense and wine the ordinary citizens would offer as the procession passed, and the much greater quantities of wine they would drink when it was gone. It had cost a great deal – Ephesus was a large and populous city. Yet it might prove worth every obol. The city had been on the wrong side in the latest civil war. The year before, it had supported Macrianus and Quietus against Gallienus. Of course, it had had no real choice. But that had not always helped in similar circumstances when the winner was feeling vengeful, or simply short of funds. If imperial displeasure fell on the city, it would fall on the members of the Boule. Rich and prominent, serving for life, there was no way they could escape notice.

No one had more reason to be generous than the current asiarch in charge of the day’s festival. As high priest of the imperial cult in Ephesus, the metropolis of the province of Asia, Gaius Valerius Festus could not be more prominent. He was one of the very richest men in the city. Recently, he had pledged a fortune to dredge the harbour. He had been one of those whose homes had been deemed palatial enough to entertain the pretender Macrianus and his father when they travelled through on their way to the west to meet their fate. To add to his sensitivity, his brother was a Christian. The deviant brother had disappeared from jail and had been in hiding abroad for more than two years. He had reappeared shortly after the fall of Quietus. The emperor Gallienus was known to be extraordinarily relaxed about such things, but the family reunion had caused no great pleasure in the soul of the asiarch. It was no wonder Gaius Valerius Festus had invested a huge sum in the festival: choirs, musicians, several leading sophists – and the gods knew they did not come cheap – and a whole herd of oxen to be sacrificed and provide a roast meal for everyone in the city.

They had made no distance at all, had not even got past the temple of Hadrian at the front of the Varius Baths on their left, when they were brought to a halt. Up ahead, a muleteer was having problems with his charge. Long ears back, the beast was circling. It had shed its load of flowers. Now its narrow hooves were stamping and slicing the fallen blooms into a muddy mush.

Ballista checked that his sons were out of range. A mule finds it easier than a horse to strike out in any direction. Seeing the boys safe, Ballista put it out of his mind. He looked back the way they had come, down to the library of Celsus, and beyond to the harbour. Just a few days, and they would take ship for the west. There was no point in waiting in Ephesus for Gallienus’s decision. It would find them wherever they were. That was part of the god-like power of an emperor. Allfather, Death-blinder, Hooded One, let the decision be good: no worse than exile, with the estate to my sons.

Ballista was half aware that Maximus was giving the party a lengthy account of breeding mules in Hibernia. It all seemed to hinge on cutting the mare’s mane and tail before taking her to the donkey – it humbled her pride; would probably work on women too. There was a small stream of water running down the Embolos. Idly, Ballista’s eyes tracked it back up the hill, past them and under the careering mule. The rivulet ran on beyond where the driver’s stick was being employed in anger. The water was coming from the left-hand side of the Sacred Way, from the Fountain of Trajan.

Twice the size of a man, Trajan soared up, his head and shoulders reaching level with the second storey of the building. He was near naked, as befitted a god. Other, smaller deities peered out at him from their columned niches. In the big pool at his feet, barbarians cowered. It was from this pool that the water was coming.