Hippothous reached for some water on the table. He was annoyed that his hand was unsteady. He saw Maximus smile. You had better watch yourself, barbarian bastard, Hippothous thought savagely, I might yet mark you down for death.

‘Polemo,’ continued Mastabates, ‘is important to Rome in two ways. First, as a check on the kings of Iberia and Albania, in case they should be misguided enough to throw in their lot with Shapur. Second, Polemo holds the Caspian or Caucasian Gates, the best pass through the central Caucasus. It keeps the nomadic hordes of the Alani away from civilization. There is a fort in the pass, but it is said to be in grave disrepair – hence our opportunity for the Vir Ementissimus Marcus Clodius Ballista to bring his experience as a siege engineer to win the favour of the king.’

‘Now, as to the forces available to Polemo…’

The eunuch began to explore Polemo’s military capabilities (large) in conjunction with the byways of his soul (devious, if not warped). Hippothous’s attention wandered. He was running a cold sweat, felt sick. Fragments of the night before floated through the wine fumes clouding his thoughts. Castricius teasing Ballista about a girl from Arete, called Bathshiba or some such Syrian name: how had he not fucked her? Maximus joining in: tits and arse that would have made even Hippothous here change his position. It was shocking the informality Ballista allowed. But, then, they were all really barbarians; Rutilus was nothing but a Thracian, and Castricius a Celt from Nemausus; generations of Roman rule had hardly civilized them at all.

Deep into the comissatio, long after the food, drink flowing, the conversation had turned maudlin. That poor bastard Mamurra. He had been a Roman officer. For some reason, which the drink temporarily had removed from Hippothous’s memory, Ballista had left him to die in a siege tunnel in Arete. The others who had been there – Castricius, Maximus, Calgacus – had vehemently and repetitively denied that Ballista should blame himself – there was nothing else he could have done. That was it – if Ballista had not collapsed the mine, the Persians would have poured into the town, killed everyone. That poor, square-headed bastard Mamurra – sure, what a very square head he had – the squarest head you ever saw, like a block of fucking marble it was . They had moved from misery to childish hilarity in a moment, wine sloshing from their cups. Mamurra was destined to die, not like Castricius. Nothing could kill him. Sent to the mines, the little bastard survived; volunteered for a night raid, only three survivors, sure enough one of them was Castricius; the Sassanids massacre every living thing in Arete, but not the little man. Castricius had risen to his feet, struck a mock-heroic pose: it was all true, even the spirits of death dare not touch me.

Hippothous felt his gorge rising. He looked around the headquarters – a sea of faces, the eunuch still talking. By the Graces, do not let me throw up. It would be too humiliating. Practise physiognomy: take your mind off your physical condition. Which one? Not Ballista: Hippothous was reserving judgement on him. Not Calgacus or Maximus: one too ugly, the other too disfigured – leave them for a later date. Hippothous thought physiognomy was easier with children, before a face became weathered by time and accident. Experience writes its story on the face, but chance – a broken nose, a scar – confuses things. Certainly not one of the eunuchs: he was feeling sick enough without dwelling on those monstrous, disgusting creatures. Castricius: he would do – little Castricius the survivor.

Slim lips in a small mouth, indicative of cowardice, weakness and complicity. The lower lip protruded, a sign of tenderness and a love of well being. But a sharp, pointed, small chin, meaning badness entering into evil, also boldness and killing. A thin nose, showing the presence of great anger. And, now Hippothous studied him, he saw that Castricius had beautiful eyes. There was nothing redeeming about that. A man with beautiful eyes was treacherous, concealing what was in his heart; also, he was bold, had potency of spirit and strength in action. Castricius was a complex case, but a bad, dangerous man. That was what physiognomy was for, to guard against the vices of the bad before having to experience them.

A real master of the science could go much further than generalities of that man is bad, that one good. A real master could read the specific actions that both had been and would be committed by any man. If Hippothous studied hard, devoted his mind to the science, he felt he might achieve that god-like mastery.

A question from Ballista brought Hippothous back from his physiognomic studies. ‘Mastabates, at Heraclea you spoke of a problem at the Suanian court – the widow of the Iberian prince I killed.’

‘Yes, Pythonissa. Despite her name, she is a priestess not of Apollo but Hecate. With her husband dead, there was no place for her in Iberia. She had produced no children and was not needed for the succession. Hamazasp has a brother, Oroezes. He in turn has grown sons, and they are married with sons. Pythonissa was sent back to her father. He proposed marrying her off to the ruler of the lice-eaters. She is a wilful young woman, said to be skilled with poisons. She would not accept the marriage, thought it beneath her. Pythonissa wished to marry her own father-in-law, old Hamazasp, become queen of Iberia, and breed an heir to the throne. Even Suanian sensibilities, such as they are, were revolted by the idea. So she remains, a discontented woman at the court of Polemo.’

Ballista grunted. ‘What of the rest of the royal house of Suania?’

‘We know of no other evident difficulties. Polemo has two surviving sons, Azo and Saurmag. They had a good Hellenic education. There is nothing to suggest a problem.’ Mastabates smiled. ‘Polemo had two other sons. They both died violent deaths, one recently. Nothing surprising there. It is hard to find a subject of Polemo that does not have at least one or two murders to his name.’

XXII

From the fort at Sarpanis to the Caspian Gates, as a bird would fly, Ballista guessed, was not more than one hundred miles. It had taken them fifteen days, and the village outside which they were now halted was still one short stage – maybe five, six miles – from the fortified pass.

Of course, no one in their right mind ever tried to travel in a straight line in hill country, let alone in mountains. Paths sometimes switched from low, clinging to the valleys and water- courses, to high, the shoulders or even the ridgeways. They often made wide detours around ravines or particularly severe slopes, as they tried to thread their way from one pass to another. Yet it was not so much the terrain that had detained them as the natives.

The travelling party was small, ten in all: Ballista himself, Hippothous, Maximus, Calgacus, and Mastabates, with just five servants – the boy Wulfstan; Agathon and Polybius, the slaves Ballista had bought at Priene; Hippothous’s Narcissus; and the eunuch’s man, who was called Pallas. Such a number needed only a small baggage train; the diplomatic gifts they carried were expensive but readily portable. Little was called for in the way of food, fodder or lodgings. Yet the difficulties in procuring these things had been legion. The Roman cursus publicus did not run out here. In this debatable zone of influence, rather than direct rule, it was uncertain if they were still in the imperium or not. Certainly, flourishing purple-sealed diplomata in Latin did not produce animals, men or materials. To achieve anything, coins had to appear, a surprising number of coins. The locals wanted old coins. Given the radical debasement of precious metal in recent imperial coins, that was to be expected, but they seemed to take caution to excessive lengths, preferring coins minted more than two and a half centuries before, in the reign of the first Augustus. Significantly, they were quite happy to take eastern coins, recent Sassanid ones as well as those from the previous dynasty, the Parthians.

Finding the right coins and enough of them had been merely the beginning. Local horizons were narrow. The owners would only let their animals go so far – two, maybe three valleys – then new ones had to be hired. The beasts never turned up on time, sometimes never arrived at all. When they did, either the animals themselves or the price had changed. It was the same with porters for the sections where the locals insisted that the going was too bad for animals, and little different with supplies. The majority of the negotiating fell on Hippothous, with Mastabates translating. The Greek often looked as if he wanted to kill someone, but then, to some extent, the irritation infected everyone. For sure, the delay was shared by all.

Yet when they were moving, out in the country, the early days of the march had been glorious, even uplifting. It was a land of rolling wooded hills and valleys; birch, beech and laurel, with white rhododendrons underneath. There were mists and showers, usually in the afternoons. Sometimes the latter were heavy, but both alternated with soft, warm sunshine. Broad, defined tracks, dappled in sunlight, ran alongside clear, babbling streams.

The villages had been another matter. Walled compounds clustered together, seemingly as much in suspicion of each other as for defence. Each was surmounted by one or more stone towers, tapering and forbidding. There was mud everywhere. Hairy pigs, geese and mangy dogs wallowed in it, or wandered, snapping and posturing in mutual hostility. There were children everywhere. They were half or totally naked, indescribably dirty, faces often bestial. Sometimes, they would ignore the arrivals, carry on playing noisy games involving stealing what little the others might possess. At other times, they joined the adults in silence, their dark stag eyes watchful, all unwelcoming.