The Tortoise in Asia (13 page)

“General Crassus, you have appetite for gold. Tried to steal ours. But no need. We give it to you. See how generous Parthians are.”

In silence, he nods his head in a gesture scarcely noticeable. The part of the creature not holding the ladle, whose hooded eyes are fixed on Surena, suddenly jerks the Roman commander's head back, its gloved hand jammed under the nose – Crassus has little hair to take hold of. It forces the clenched mouth open with an instrument like the sacred mouth opener the Egyptians use when they perform the ceremony of the dead. The other hulks pour liquid metal, smoking and whitish yellow, into the mouth of the richest man of Rome. In sizzling climax, the gold fills his throat, some running down his chin, burning a channel. Within seconds it congeals and darkens to its normal colour. Crassus' head slumps to his chest, a large lump fixed inside.

A roar, tentative at first but building into tumult, erupts from the Parthians at the demise of the man who came to grab their country's wealth. The Romans are spellbound, the horror of their leader's death a presage of their future. In a black thought he can't help thinking, Marcus recalls the syllogism invented by someone seeking to praise the precious metal. Gold equals sun, sun equals love; therefore gold equals love. There's no love today, but only punishment for a love that lurked in the dark side of gold. That errant love blighted the virtues of an intelligent, cultivated and sometimes kindly man and led inexorably to his tragic end. Does his own fate also stalk in the shadows of that love?

“Cut off his head and his right hand.

“They'll be a fitting trophy for our King. Sillaces, take them to His Majesty with my compliments. The rest of us will go to Seleucia with the prisoners to celebrate.”

It's best to enjoy his glory unpolluted by the King's presence. He has in mind a particular jubilation, one where he's the principal figure. It should be his occasion after all. That will take place in Seleucia, the rebellious city he brought back to the Parthian fold. The King will be far away to the north, in Armenia.

As he's turning to go back to his tent to prepare for the march, the gimlet-eyed Maiphorres sidles up to him and whispers,

“My Lord, it's done. The Arab had an unfortunate fall last night into a gully and hit his head on a rock. There was a brief investigation in the morning when he was found. It concluded the fall was an accident brought on by a night of heavy drinking. His people accepted the explanation.”

“He deserved it. Where's the silver?”

“I've recovered it secretly. I put the word out it must have been stolen in the night.”

“Put it in my tent”.

The grisly ceremony over, the captives are forced into a column of march. The guards display an arrogance often seen in a people once inferior who're now on top. The Romans must endure insults shouted in recently acquired and badly pronounced Latin, and the humiliation of the cattle whip. They've no idea where they're going but the position of the sun indicates they're heading south, off the Road. It's disappointed to see them leave, but knows they'll be back.

The march is gloomy and hard, not of military precision but more like a straggling trek, each man on his own. Some fall behind and are whipped into catching up. Stripped of their weapons and armour which are now in the baggage train under guard, the prisoners are dressed only in their tunics. Gone is the shining glory of their march through Syria. And it's quieter, much quieter, the quiet of subjugation.

Marcus barely notices the well watered grassland over-painted with bright summer flowers and graceful trees. The defeat has destroyed beauty. Beauty can't live in slavery. Only ugliness can. He looks around without focus as colour slinks away leaving only a grey and horrible abstraction of that tragedy-laden land.

Life has shut down, like a lamp doused into darkness. All that remains is an oily smoke around the wick which discloses that once there was a flame. His life has lost its substance; it's a bare remnant hanging off the past, hardly there at all, even in memory.

How long will leather sandals stand up to the sharpness of the unpaved road? Already he feels the wear. An extra pair is in his back pack. He's thrown out most of his clothes to lighten the load but has kept the picture of Aurelia. That would be the last thing to go.

What would she think of him now, a failed soldier? He's too ashamed to think of it. She's there in his mind though, fading in and out like a firefly on a hot summer's night. Maybe she would still love him. Certainly she would; she's loyal. Maybe not though, if her feeling for him is driven only by loyalty, and perhaps pity. Love could degrade to mere affection. Can love exist in the absence of respect? Could she still have that for him now? Maybe she wouldn't lose respect for him on the grounds that his shame is shared by the entire army. How would he know? It's all so sudden. Only a short time ago, a flash of time, any such thoughts would have been a ridiculous fantasy.

The flies are abominable, buzzing and crawling everywhere; perhaps they're congregating in expectation of a feed after the inevitable collapses, maybe his own. He gives them a desultory slap from time to time. There's no longer need to show indifference to the irritation.

The march carries on for days; two weeks pass by. For a while the captives get relief from the sun in the forest clumps on higher ground. While the canopies don't completely cover the path, they interrupt the cruellest shafts. Hunger grips them, and intolerable thirst. Their need generates scant sympathy from the guards. At the one mealtime each day, they're provided with a few sips of water and fed just sufficiently to sustain them for the march, like a herd of cattle only kept strong enough to make it to market. The most they get is thin gruel with bits of gristly lamb bobbing in grease, and thirst is like a fly that won't go away.

Every morning, as the sun peeks into the robin's egg sky, Surena goes for a ride along the straggly line. The prisoners are already on the march. In the full stretch of gallop he swings down in his saddle at random and lops off the head of any man who fails to duck or drop to the ground fast enough. It seems like a cruel ritual, a morbid combination of morning exercise and retribution. He always does ten, in mockery, the guards say, of the Roman custom of decimation. However the parallel is not exact; it isn't one in ten but a random killing that stops at ten for the day.

No one halts to bury the decapitated men, but only to strip them of their clothes. The dark –winged vultures accompanying the march, do the rest. Marcus says to one of the guards who speaks Latin,

“Why don't you bury them, or least bring them with us so their comrades can bury them at the end of the day? Don't you Parthians have any respect for humanity, even if these men are your enemies? Romans would not just leave our foes to rot without dignity”.

“Zoroastrians don't bury the dead, we leave them on towers of silence. Their flesh is eaten by the birds. It's a purification; birds are the messengers of heaven. There're no high structures here, so we have to leave the bodies on the ground. True, we pay respect by collecting the bones and keeping them in a special place. But how can that be done for you people, out here?”

After several days on the pitiless trek, the outlines of a great city emerges out of the distance, its stone block walls indicating it's not as big as Rome, but perhaps not much smaller.

Surena orders a halt and calls his officers together in the shade.

“Ride on ahead”, he says to Maiphorres, “and spread the word that Crassus is alive. Tell the people of Seleucia that we're bringing him and ten thousand Roman prisoners of war.”

He gives instructions to Sillaces and the other senior officers how the celebration is to be conducted and orders the march to be restarted. He might have smiled or even laughed at the ludicrous nature of the event he was ordering, but, not a man imbued with a sense of humour, he keeps a straight face and none of the officers has the temerity of doing other than accepting the command is if it were perfectly normal.

❧

Before long, the prisoners are at the high stone gates of Seleucia. On Surena's orders, the guards pick out one of the soldiers near Marcus who has a face like a melon and could be taken for Crassus at a distance. They lead him away with impatient shoves.

The main street is lined with somewhat bemused local people who've been told by Parthian emissaries to expect a victory parade. They're required to attend, even though many have Roman sympathies. A spectacle is about to occur like none they have ever seen or are likely to see, something designed in the most malicious quarter of Surena's imagination.

The parade commences, unremarkably enough, with a group of Roman trumpeters pressed into service, long thin tubes winding into the form of a G around their shoulders, with flaring bell pressed against their heads. It's in mockery of a Roman Triumph.

Next comes a contingent of prisoners who are meant to represent a victorious Roman army, not horse mounted as in a normal Triumph, but on camels, signifying that they're better suited to be merchants of the Road than warriors. The bedraggled men are carrying bundles of rods and axes, the fasces borne by Tribunes which symbolise a Roman consul's authority. But these are different. Purses are hanging from the rods and blood-soaked heads severed by Surena in the morning are fixed to the tops of the axes.

The Crassus look – alike follows on a horse. Forced to respond whenever he's called Crassus, or Imperator, he's dressed in women's clothes, long powder blue robes of high Parthian fashion flowing over his mount. A group of bawdy female singers from Seleucia's demimonde walk behind gesticulating in derision and singing mocking songs about how cowardly and effeminate he is.

The rest of the prisoners stumble along on the cobblestone street, shamed and exhausted, consumed by dread of their future. Parthian guards prod those who don't keep up, black lashes arcing in the air when the prods don't work. Marcus is near enough to the front to see the grotesque figure on the horse. His stomach is wound in knots of humiliation at the sight. It would've been better if the man had committed suicide. How can it be that the conquerors of the world, soldiers favoured by the gods, have been brought so low that one of their number prefers such ignominy to its honourable alternative?

When the sarcastic Triumph ends, the Romans are herded together outside the city, awaiting the next stage of their fate. They're kept in the dark; when questioned, Latin speaking guards say they don't know what's in store for them, and they probably don't. Marcus thinks it unlikely that Surena will have them put to death; there're so many and it would be a waste. Using them somewhere as slaves would be more economical, but the man has shown such cruelty, anything can happen. Anxiety rises like bile from a sick stomach as nothing develops. No information, no commands, just silence and waiting. A few soldiers go mad, shouting irrationally, even trying to run away. They're lashed back into submission by the guards and settle down.

Hope, the only form of happiness in this world left to the prisoners, still animates most of the men, including Marcus. But it's the hope that accompanies those who're sentenced to death when the date of execution is some time off. It's not necessarily forlorn, but very thin, inadequate to dry the tears of the soul.

I
n the Armenian foothills to the north, another weird ceremony is about to take place. The Parthian monarch has secured a truce with King Artavasdes of Armenia and is celebrating the wedding of his son to the sister of his new ally. It's being held in the well apportioned but not opulent Armenian palace. He's pleased that the first part of his strategy is working. No need for battle, Artavasdes was content with an alliance. Now there're two armies to deal with Surena, weakened as he's sure to be after the Romans have finished with him. Things are going well; he's got reason to celebrate, to drink with confidence alongside his new found friends.

As the bonhomie of the sumptuous feast is filling the grand hall to the ceiling, brute-faced Sillaces appears at the large bronze door and looks around for the Parthian King. A hush quells the partying mood as the big man strides through the tables to Orodes who is sitting next to his host. Standing several paces away, he bows low, holding something wrapped in cloth under his arm. Murmurings begin among the guests.

He straightens up slowly and with a flourish, removes the cloth and tosses the blood – congealed head of Crassus towards the feet of his King, its partly dissolved lips and teeth set in a grimace of horror. It rolls bumpily across the floor. The guests are transfixed. The movement gives the head a bizarre appearance of life, as if Crassus has shed his limbs and shrunk into a head and is about to speak, accuse his enemies of unnatural cruelty and lay an eternal curse upon the King. A lump of gold falls out, larger than the biggest nugget. It's bloodstained and tarnished with bits of charred flesh, but still recognizable as the precious metal. A gasp fills the room, and a horrified silence.

It takes a few moments but when the Parthians realise the identity of the grisly figure they erupt in joy, shouting and banging the tables. The Armenians congratulate them, more than ever convinced of the wisdom of their alliance. Sensing that Sillaces wants to speak, the King waves his hands to tamp down the noise. It continues to rock the hall, but eventually dies down as the happy guests obey the royal signal.

“Your Majesty, we engaged the Roman army at Carrhae in a battle of the centuries. With the brilliant tactics of our esteemed Commander we smashed them to bits, killing twenty thousand and taking ten thousand prisoners. The remaining ten thousand have slunk back to Roman territory, broken and disorganised. Casualties on our side were light. It was an absolute victory. You have the head of the Roman general at your feet to prove it. The victory has shown our troops are the best in the world and Surena the greatest general. Nothing can stop us now”.