Harry Sidebottom - Lion of the Sun

The horse stood quite still as its life blood pumped away. Everyone watched. For what seemed a long time, nothing moved, except for the gushing blood and the spreading dark, cloudy pool. Then, without preamble, the horse collapsed.

When the horse was dead and the communion between Shapur and his god complete, all the members of the court, Valerian included, performed proskynesis.

Shapur settled himself on the throne. A scribe moused forward. Giving the impression of keeping low to the ground, he began to read from a book. Although the Persian king's hands toyed with a strung bow, his eyes were attentive. The sound did not carry, but Ballista knew the dibir was reading the words spoken by Shapur the night before when he had been drinking.

At length the scribe had finished and was dismissed. Ballista and Cledonius were gestured forward. They got down on their bellies by the carcass of the horse, the smell of its blood strong in their nostrils.

'Rise.' The Sassanid king's jewels and crown glinted in the morning sun. His dark, kohl-lined eyes regarded them.

'But what is to be done? The will of heaven must be endured.' Shapur recited the Greek verse with but the slightest hint of an eastern accent. Recognition swam just below the surface of Ballista's thoughts.

'But how to ask what I want to know without causing you any pain, that is my dilemma. And yet I long to be satisfied.' Shapur raised his hands in mock-uncertainty.

Cledonius replied. 'No, ask your question; leave no desire unfulfilled. Your wishes are also what my own heart desires, Great King.' Only the title broke the metre.

Shapur smiled. He pointed his bow at Ballista. 'And does a barbarian from the quarter of the world not to be named by the pious know the works of the troglodyte of Salamis?'

'A man has to bear the senseless acts of his rulers.' As Ballista finished the quotation from Euripides, a terrible stillness spread across the terrace.

Shapur clapped his hands, threw his head back and laughed. Quickly, but more quietly, those around him joined in.

'The power of Euripides transcends all.' The courtiers fell abruptly silent as the king spoke. 'Last night, we diverted ourselves with his poetry. Everyone finds what he wishes in it. Truly, there are as many interpretations as readers.' The long line of heads nodded to acknowledge the profundity of the monarch's words.

'Now to affairs of empire.' Shapur still spoke in Greek, but his tone became brisk. 'It was the will of heaven for me to capture in war, to seize with this, my right hand, the emperor of the Romans. Now my prisoner Valerian begs for me to reinstate him on his throne. It is his heart's desire to become my vassal. He wishes to arrange his ransom.'

Out of the corner of his eye, Ballista looked at Valerian. The heavy old face was immobile.

'Valerian assures me that no one has more influence with the crippled servant he left in charge of those troops fortunate enough to have remained in Samosata than the two of you.' Shapur paused. 'As a messenger to Macrianus the Lame, the name of Cledonius was received with pleasure by my ears and those of my court. Who could be more fitting for the task than the faithful doorkeeper, the man who once said come and men came, who said go and they went.' A polite titter at the king's playful words ran through his entourage.

'But many were shocked, no — many were angered at the name of Ballista, the unrighteous man who offered me futile defiance at Arete, who tricked my loyal warrior Garshasp the Lion into defeat at Circesium, who there defiled the purity of fire with the corpses of the slain. Even our majesty was surprised when the mobads led by Kirder our high-priest spoke in favour of letting you go.'

Ballista glanced at the priests. There were two distinct groups, one ranked around a priest with a long nose and a jutting chin, with Hormizd standing at the shoulder of what must be Kirder the Herbed; the other gathered about a figure wearing a sky-blue cloak, yellow-and-green-striped trousers and carrying a long ebony cane. Between the two groups there was a palpable animosity. In every monarch's court there are factions, Ballista thought.

'Yet the arguments put forward by Kirder and the mobads were telling,' Shapur continued. 'A man to whom Mazda has not shown his face cannot know the ways of righteousness. How could a barbarian born in the cold quarter of the world where lies the gate of hell discover Mazda?'

Shapur leant forward and closely scrutinized Ballista. 'And it is as Hormizd said: you have one or two of the marks of the Evil One on your face. It is certain that Mazda will not reveal himself to a man with freckles.'

Ballista fought down a suicidal urge to laugh.

'Now, to the question I must ask you,' said Shapur. 'Will you, of your own free will and following the custom of your people, swear a binding oath, a great and terrible oath, to carry out this task and, in success or failure, return to perform proskynesis before my throne?'

When Ballista and Cledonius gave their assent, Shapur commanded the things necessary for the ritual to be brought forth. The priests came forward carrying several bowls and two lambs. Ballista wondered what exactly was behind all this. What was Valerian thinking? It would be hard to find two Roman officers more detested by Macrianus the Lame. And what game was the King of Kings playing? Macrianus had betrayed Valerian to Shapur. He was hardly likely to want the old emperor freed and returned to power.

Hormizd handed a heavy knife and one of the lambs to Ballista. The young Persian explained in Greek the form the oath would take and said that Ballista would swear first. The northerner's heart sank at the weight of the words. An oath was an oath. But there was nothing else for it.

Crouching, Ballista pinned the lamb between his thighs. It bleated piteously. With one hand he gently pulled up its chin. With the dagger he cut some tufts from its head. He tossed the tufts in the air. They floated away in the quickening breeze. Lifting his arms to the sky, he began to speak.

'Zeus, be my witness first; the highest, the best of gods! Then the Earth, the Sun, and the Furies who stalk the world below to wreak revenge on the dead who break their oaths — I swear I will carry out my task in good faith. I will travel to Macrianus and spare no effort to arrange the ransom of Valerian, emperor of Rome. I swear, in success or failure, I will return to perform proskynesis before the throne of Shapur, the Mazda-beloved King of Aryans and non-Aryans.'

Again Ballista pulled up the lamb's head, roughly this time. He dragged the ruthless blade across its soft throat. The little lamb fell at his feet, dying, gasping away its life breath.

Ballista took a silver bowl in one of his bloodied hands. 'Zeus, god of greatness, god of glory, all you immortals.' He tipped out some of the wine. 'If I break my oath, spill my brains on the ground as this wine spills, my brains and the brains of my sons too.'

Calgacus and the others rode up to the walls of Zeugma late in the morning. It had all taken far longer than they had expected.

After the landslide, the Caledonian and the three cavalrymen had climbed down from where they had levered the rocks from the cliff. Demetrius and the other Dalmatian were where they had left them holding the horses. They had all mounted and waited.

Maximus had walked his horse up to them. The Hibernian was powdered white like a man who has worked a long day on the threshing floor. A cut showed bright red in the dust on his cheek. His face was motionless, drained. He had thanked them, haltingly, in a monotone.

Calgacus had seen the like before. A man who has resigned himself to death is unexpectedly saved but, instead of revelling in the reprieve from execution, in a released-from-gaol euphoria, the man is overcome by his troubles and fears, things he thought he had left behind him. Calgacus was not unduly perturbed. He knew that Maximus's moods changed like the weather in springtime. In no time the Hibernian would be his usual self.