“At least he’s won us the partial freedom of the camp, sir. The Ch’in figure, if they guard the water, the desert will guard us.”
Quintus chuckled. “I won’t give them a fight about that. They know this land.”
“And I think they’re curious about what we’ll do. The tribune says they have all sorts of notions about us. The merchants?” he shrugged. “A couple of them have women along.”
Quintus tensed.
“That Lucilius tried. Didn’t get anywhere, but you had to expect him to try.”
Their eyes met. Every Legion had one—at least. A man who was an accomplished scrounger. Or who could talk his way out of any punishment. Or help his friends get round the centurion or the tribunes. Perhaps that was one reason why Lucilius had approached the female merchants. Odd concept, that. Foolishness, perhaps, to think they might be softer-hearted.
Usually, the Legion scrounger was not a patrician. But then, he usually scrounged for wood or leather straps or food or wine. Not for political favor, like a client.
But all the Romans who survived here had been bred in a Rome shadowed by the terrors of Marius and Sulla. And Lucilius had sucked up politics with the mists of the Tiber. If Fortune favored them, he would protect their interests as well as his own. If not… Quintus shrugged. Long-disused muscles protested. If not, how much worse could things get?
An uproar brought their heads up. Bells clanged from harness as a small camel caravan approached the pass. Camels groaned, a rebellious clamor that sounded echoes as camels already unloaded for the night remembered their own grievances. Voices shouted in at least three languages.
“Others approach from Nisibis,” Arsaces said. “It is best to travel with friends.”
The auxiliary’s head came up. “They drive their beasts hard,” he commented. “Too hard. Unwise…”
“Friends?” Rufus half rounded on the Persian.
“Compared with the desert, all honest men,” he paused, with conscious irony, on the word, “are friends. Of course, there are also the bandits. Thus, honest…” again that pause, “… caravans join together for the journey east.”
Quintus could understand it. The Ch’in, with their well-armed troops, would stand a good chance of surviving anything but an attack by an army—and no huge army (such as the doomed Legions of which he had been such a guileless and reluctant part) could safely cross. Just the supplies of water and food for man and beast would require a caravan of their own. Thus, a small, well-equipped military party, their small entourage of captive Romans, and…
“Who comes?” Quintus asked.
“Some merchant or other,” Rufus muttered. “Armed. I saw spears, guards.”
“Nisibis is one of the staging points for the road east.” Arsaces’s voice took on a chanting overtone. “From Nisibis to Boukhara, Boukhara to Marakanda, to Ferghana of the blood-sweating steeds … into the hills and down from the high pass to Kashgar, before we venture across the Anvil of Fire….”
“If this were a merchant caravan, we would wait… oh, a long, long time, excellent sirs, until all who wanted to cross had assembled. And then, we would depart. It can be a long time until the next caravan … especially in the high summer.”
A roar, of laughter and surprise mixed, came from the central fire. The shouts reminded Quintus of the fight in The Surena’s camp. He grabbed again for the sword he no longer owned. No weapons at all, let alone the miracle weapons that Draupadi had promised could be—might be—found in the desert.
Damn! Had she been only a fever dream?
A crunch of the grit that passed for sand in this godforsaken wilderness brought him around, his head and heart pounding.
“Stop there … hold it, it’s the tribune!”
Lucilius broke back into the firelit circle. Even in the play of firelight and darkness, his face was red, and his breathing came too rapidly.
All around the fire, the surviving Romans leapt up. Arsaces glanced beyond, out at the beasts where they were staked out—and guarded—then set himself to listen.
“You saw that caravan come in,” Lucilius said. “You saw how fast it was moving. Well, I found out why.”
Long ago, Quintus had found out that when the patrician “found out” anything, he kept it to himself unless he could trade it for greater benefit.
What does he want this time?
“It came here from Artaxata,” he went on. “From the court of Artavasdos in Armenia.”
Arsaces whistled. “How many of their beasts did they kill?” he muttered to himself. “What news from the wedding?”
The Romans stared at the slight, dark auxiliary, who laughed softly at them. “Oh, aye, there was sure to be a wedding. As soon as Artavasdos and the … most worthy proconsul parted company, those of us born in this land knew there would be a new alliance.”
“As long as Rome was strong, Artavasdos, like a dockside…”
Quintus raised a hand, cutting off Lucilius as his voice rose in a kind of vicious anger. Gravitas was a virtue, one—of many—that Lucilius lost sight of all too frequently. And if he lost control now, how could they expect the men he—or someone—must command to keep it? They would become a rabble of slaves, not veterans who had managed to survive. And they would die in the desert, names and souls as lost as their bodies.
“You heard the tribune,” Rufus growled.
Quintus flicked a glance at Lucilius. Like a bowstring stressed near to snapping, he was no good for his proper job until the tension was removed. Well enough, he thought. The men will need time to think of me as their leader.
The idea was presumptuous, impossible, probably even treasonous, but who remained to say so? Crassus, who nailed traitors to crosses, was dead, and Quintus had all but died in trying to defend him. He did not want command, any more than he had wanted to take the Legions’ brand or leave his farm or lose his father. What decisions he had made before, he had made to survive. Quite simply, he trusted his judgment before he trusted Lucilius’s—and he trusted Rufus’s judgment before he trusted his own. If Rufus had decided to follow him—a case of the strong serving the weak, if ever was—he must assume that the wily old man would get him through this, too.
“Armenia could choose its allies. The King of Kings, for so they style themselves in Armenia, chose Rome.” Even muffled by wrappings, Arsaces’s voice held all the scorn of the Persian for an upstart king.
“Once the most excellent proconsul decided to travel directly across Syria, rather than the safer upland route, Artavasdos realized that he had chosen wrong.”
Again the muttering. Lucilius had concurred with that decision to cross Syria, Quintus recalled. When he himself had expressed doubt, he had gotten the lash of the other man’s tongue. He said as much, and was gratified to hear a murmur of approval run round the Romans’ fire.
“Will you let me speak?” Arsaces demanded. “The King of Kings Artavasdos has a sister. And the King of Parthia, Orodes, has a son, Pacorus. Not always the most faithful man, Prince Pacorus, but I would swear by the Light that Orodes would prefer him as his heir to, say, The Surena. Would not you?”
Lucilius made a warding-off gesture.
“We should have known that this one would pick up all the scandal, working with the grooms,” Rufus said. He lumbered to his feet, holding out a hand to Quintus.
Quintus looked at Arsaces, then at the noble. “Is that the entire story?” he asked.
To his shock, Lucilius hung his head. Shame—on him? “Come,” he said. “Hear it. I would tell you, but my tongue would wither in my mouth.”
Quintus braced himself and took the centurion’s hand up. Once on his feet, he found himself able to walk, however slowly.
“It is beautiful, Artaxata, with its ramparts overlooking the Araxes, which flows swiftly, even in the summer. And Artavasdos is a man of some culture, even if he is not Persian.”
Rufus snorted. “Don’t play off your airs, horseman. You’re a plain soldier like the rest of…”
“Artavasdos knows Greek,” Lucilius said. “Knows it well enough to write in it. He wrote an ode, they’re saying down at the fire. They sang it at the wedding.”
“You can translate it for us, if you will,” Quintus said. A neat touch that, turning patrician and officer into mere interpreter. Nothing wrong with his head, even if he had been struck on it by the Eagle. (Best not think of that. Best not think of their Eagle, captured and packed away, perhaps along with the arms they had been relieved of.) Instead, salve the wound to Lucilius’s pride. “Your Greek has always been much better than mine.”
Which was close to nonexistent, but don’t let on about that.
They walked toward the center of the camp. Quintus’s eyes were still quite sensitive from the blow; he found himself able to see quite well in the darkness. One or two of the men scuffled their feet.