Harry Sidebottom - Iron and Rust

Not far now, Mauricius assured them. Soon — today; tomorrow morning at the latest — we will reach the oasis of Ad Palmam. All will be good there.

They pressed on, the dust working its way into them as if every particle were animate with malice.

The landscape was like nothing Gordian had seen. The cliffs to the right were steep and jumbled, their stratifications tipped and fanned. In the main they were bare slopes. Some of the heights were ringed with darker, vertical rocks like cyclopean crenellations. A harsh place, but not that out of the ordinary. There were pockets of green in the dips and hollows. Now and then a flash of white or black movement betrayed the presence of a flock of goats.

To the left, there was no remission to the harshness. A great flatness stretched as far as the eye could see. Its surface was banded like agate; brown, tan and white. There were pools of standing water and dusky lines coiled between them. There was no telling if they were tracks, animal or human, or now dry channels carved by last winter’s rain. In the high sun mirages shifted; water, trees, buildings. Once, Gordian thought he saw a boat. Nothing else moved in all that vastness. Nothing real.

This was the Lake of Triton, the dreadful, great salt lake. Once it had been a real lake, if not an inlet of the sea. The Argo had sailed its waters. But even then it had been an evil place. Two of the Argonauts had been killed here; Mopsus by a snake, and Canthus by a local herdsman. For the rest to escape had needed an appearance by Triton himself.

Mauricius had told Gordian the local legends. At night men saw torches moving far out in the desert. They heard the music of pipes and cymbals. Some said they had seen the satyrs and nymphs gambolling. There were stories of buried treasure: a huge tripod from Delphi, solid gold. Those who searched never found it, and many never came back. Once, a caravan of a thousand animals had ventured off one of the two safe paths. Nothing was seen of them again. There had been no epiphany for them.

Looking hard, Gordian saw there were patches where the crust was broken, and a dark sludge exposed.

‘Ad Palmam.’

There — two or three miles ahead — was a line of green, utterly incongruous in the waste.

They rode on without speaking, every man trying to hide his trepidation.

Two hundred yards short, Gordian called a halt. Time was against them, but he did not know by how much.

Gordian dismounted, to ease his horse. Most of the others did the same. They watched the oasis. Nothing much moved. A couple of chickens scratched in the shade of some outlying trees. Once, further in, a flight of doves clattered into the air.

‘Well, we can not stay here for ever,’ the legate Sabinianus said. ‘I had better go and take a look.’

Gordian felt a rush of affection at the calm courage of the man.

‘Of course,’ Sabinianus continued, ‘if Arrian were here, I would recommend you send him. He is far more expendable, and I would sacrifice him happily to ensure my safety.’

Men smiled. Sabinianus and Arrian were the closest of friends, always laughing at each other, and at everything else.

‘Actually,’ Sabinianus said, ‘I would sacrifice anyone at all. I want you all to remember that.’

Gordian gave Sabinianus a leg up into the saddle. He wanted to say something, but the words would not come. The wry look on Sabinianus’ face, the turned-down mouth, was more pronounced than usual. With his knees, the legate moved his horse into a walk down to the settlement.

It had all happened with a dislocating suddenness. Just fourteen days before, all had been normal. As far as Gordian and his father, the Proconsul, had known, the province had slumbered under the North African sun in a state of profound peace. They had passed February in Thysdrus for the olive season; a round of local festivals and outdoor meals in the shade of the evening. As ever, the presence of the Proconsul had drawn intellectuals from all over the province, and abroad. There had been literary recitals and plays. The old man had formed a strong fondness for the town. He had bought two estates nearby, and had commissioned a new amphitheatre at vast, possibly ruinous personal expense. Gordian Senior had lingered there until the nones of March, when he had felt compelled to give orders to begin to prepare the journey north to the town of Hadrumetum, where he had to fulfil his duty as a judge on his assize circuit. There was much to organize in the entourage of a Proconsul. The representative of the majesty of Rome could not arrive like a beggar. When, finally, they took to the road, the gubernatorial carriage and its cavalcade went by easy stages. Gordian’s father was a septuagenarian; things should not be rushed. Ten miles a day was enough. Hadrumetum was in sight, but still some miles distant, on the ides , when the messenger drove his sweat-lathered horse up to them. The beast stood, head down, trembling, as he told them the bad news. Gordian found it difficult to accept. His mind kept shifting to the horse; the way it was standing, it might be permanently broken down.

The nomads had come up out of the desert to the west of the Lake of Triton. There had been no warning. They had rampaged through the oases — Castellum Neptitana, Thusuros, Ad Palmam, Thiges; each was left a scene of desolation. Not yet sated, the barbarians were riding north. Soon they would reach Capsa. Their numbers were immense; like nothing seen before. Their leader was Nuffuzi, a chief of the Cinithii. His prestige was such that warriors from other tribes of the Gaetuli had joined him, some from as far south as Phazania.

Gordian’s father might be nearing his eightieth year, but he had a long career behind him. He had governed many provinces, armed and unarmed. He had not survived, and usually prospered, by giving way to panic. ‘If you left the barbarians on the road to Capsa, and we are outside Hadrumetum, we have time to finish our journey, go to the baths, and then take counsel over dinner.’

The defence of Africa Proconsularis was overseen by Capelianus, the governor of Numidia, the province adjacent to the west. Between Gordian Senior and Capelianus there was a personal disagreement of very long standing. It was a delicate subject, best not mentioned in front of either man. The governing elite of the empire had long memories for any slight, let alone anything worse. Duty, or at least fear of imperial displeasure, would make Capelianus act eventually, but habitual animosity would not encourage the governor to rush to the aid of his neighbour.

The governor of Africa had few troops at his disposal. There was an Urban Cohort in Carthage and two auxiliary cohorts in the west, one at Utica and the other at Ammaedara. They were there to prevent riots in the towns, and the latter to suppress banditry in the countryside. Strung out along the borders to the south-west was a cohort of legionaries from 3rd Augustan and an irregular unit of mounted scouts, and to the east three cohorts of auxiliaries in Tripolitana. Although within the province of Africa, all the troops along the borders were notionally under the command of the governor of Numidia. For his father’s security, and greater dignity, Gordian had sought volunteers throughout the province from the regular units and from the various small groups of soldiers on detached duties. With these, and some veterans who found life outside the army less than they had expected, he had raised a mounted bodyguard one-hundred-strong for the Proconsul. This unit of Equites Singulares Consularis had been the sole military force with them in Hadrumetum.

The plan which the younger Gordian advanced over dinner was bold and did not meet with universal approval. Menophilus, the Quaestor in the province, and Mauricius, the local landowner, saw its merits. One of the Proconsul’s legates, Valerian, had been talked around, but the other two, the inseparable Arrian and Sabinianus, remained deeply sceptical. ‘Putting your hand in a rat’s nest,’ said Arrian. ‘You are not Alexander, and I am not Parmenion,’ said Sabinianus. You should abandon this desire for military glory. It does not fit the type of philosophical life you profess. You should take the sort of cautious advice the Macedonian King rejected from the old general.