The Caspian Gates

XXI

On the fifth day, the kalends of June, the expedition had divided. Felix sailed for the north-eastern shores of the Black Sea to pursue his diplomacy with the two kings of Abasgia and their clients the longbeards and the lice-eaters. As the Armata had already returned straightaway to Byzantium bound then for the west, the consular had been obliged to charter a merchant vessel. The best the put-upon prefect at Phasis could provide was a small liburnian as escort.

Hippothous noticed that, as soon as the self-appointed embodiment of old Roman values and virtue had left, the spirits of the others lifted. As a Hellene, Hippothous could understand. A little conspicuous western antique mos maiorum and virtus could go a long way, but there was something inherently wearing in constantly, if silently, being made aware that you fell somewhat short of the ideal.

The remainder of the expedition was to travel together up the river Phasis as far as a fort called Sarapanis, said to be set in a range of hills on the border between Colchis and Iberia at the very limit of navigation. This involved embarking themselves and their baggage on several native boats. Hippothous was most unimpressed with these so-called camara e. Long and narrow, they were dirty and uncomfortable. There was no cover; far from having a cabin, they were actually undecked. Each had benches for thirty rowers. The camarae were so cramped that, although the expedition now totalled just eighteen persons, they had to distribute themselves and their possessions across five of these squalid craft. And there was something more distinctly unsettling about these camarae. Clinker-built, they had a prow and steering oars at either end. To Hippothous’s eye, they looked like nothing so much as small versions of the longboats of the Goths and Borani – hardly an auspicious thing.

At first, the river Phasis was very broad, wonderfully calm – like smoked glass – after the Kindly Sea. On either bank, beyond a thick screen of reeds, was low, marshy primeval forest. Everything was very green, very flat. The air was humid, misty. At clearer moments, the Caucasus loomed on the left.

The river meandered in great sweeps, little archipelagos of sodden, uninhabitable islands in the bends. Nothing but the splash of the oars, the water singing down the sides of the boats, and the endless croaking of innumerable frogs. However, not all was peace. A constant impediment, if not actual danger, was the great lashed-together rafts of logs the natives floated down to sell in the city for shipbuilding. Again and again, the camarae hurriedly had to pull to the banks to avoid collisions with the unwieldy masses of timber. It was, Hippothous thought sourly, the only time their oarsmen displayed the merest hint of energy or alacrity.

By the end of the second day, another problem materialized. The silt carried down by the river created an ever-changing pattern of shallows and mud banks. A man in the prow of the lead boat probed the riverbed with a long pole. The helmsman was faced with continual choices as the channels of the river divided again and again. Not all his choices were good. Although the camarae drew little water, they ran aground with increasing frequency. Here, the double-ended form of the boats came into its own. Quite often, the rowers merely reversed their position, the helmsman scurried to the other end of the boat, and the oars pulled her off. If that did not suffice, things became considerably more fraught. The crew had to go overboard and, standing waist or even neck deep in the turbid water, manhandle the boat free. This they were most reluctant to do. Like most of the great watercourses, the Phasis bred man-murdering monsters. The travellers were told these looked like catfish but were larger, blacker and stronger; as man-eating as any in existence, as deadly as the horrors that were hauled from the Danube with teams of horses or oxen.

Each time the men came back over the side, muddy but unmolested, the Colchians would laugh, clap, break into song. One solemnly assured Hippothous that their continued good fortune was owed to all on board heeding local wisdom. Before setting out, Hippothous and the others had been enjoined to empty all their water skins and the like. To carry alien water on the Phasis was to bring the very worst luck.

Whether it should have been credited to the absence of foreign water, or to the kindly hand of a deity, none of the dark monsters made an appearance. But with the searching for a channel, the logs and the groundings, the perceived idleness of the natives, progress was very slow.

Dawn on the fourth day, and the river narrowed and the forest thinned. Signs of habitation increased: fields, orchards, isolated log huts. Small, near-naked children tended flocks. They waved as they brought their charges to water at the riverbank. To the north, the Caucasus seemed only a little closer. But to the south, the hills advanced near, rising in steep, timber-covered slopes.

The things that did not change were the dampness, the lushness and the interminable noise of the frogs: brekeke-kex, ko-ax, ko-ax. They preyed on everyone’s nerves. Brekeke-kex. None more so than Maximus – what he would not do for some fucking peace. Sat in the stern of one of the stinking camarae, Hippothous told Maximus every fable of Aesop featuring frogs that he could recall. It was like soothing a child. The barbarian enjoyed the ones where the frogs suffered and died an unpleasant death. His favourite was the one where the frogs, tired of their democratic existence, asked Zeus for a king. The god sent them a log. Unimpressed with its inactivity, they petitioned for a new monarch. So Zeus sent them a water snake, which ate them.

‘And the moral is?’ Hippothous asked.

‘Be very afraid of snakes.’

‘No.’ Sometimes Hippothous wondered if the barbarian was mocking him. ‘It is better to be ruled by an indolent emperor than an active one who is malevolent.’

‘Or,’ Calgacus suddenly spoke, ‘the obvious truth that all change is likely to make things infinitely fucking worse.’ Hippothous was not sure he had ever met anyone more gloomy than Ballista’s old Caledonian freedman.

They slept that night in a town with the happy name of Rhodopolis. There were indeed roses. The polis was set in a fertile plain. Once, maybe in the days of Hellenic freedom before Rome crossed the Adriatic and her greed impelled her to the ends of the earth, Rhodopolis had been a fine place: temples, agora, Bouleuterion; everything a Hellenic polis should have. But it was much decayed, and bore the signs of both violence and neglect. Possibly, Hippothous thought, in this case Rome was not to blame. Rhodopolis had been sited with a view only to wealth and not defence.

On the fifth day, the hills crowded close on both sides. The stream was narrow and fast, the going slow. At the time when two thirds of the day had gone, the time when exhausted labourers pray for the dark to hurry, the camarae fought their way around the last corner, and gratefully moored at Sarapanis.

Sarapanis was a neat, small village of tiled houses, a touch run down. It clustered at the foot of a steep, conical hill. At the top was the fort. Its garrison proved to consist of only sixty men. But the walls were sound and they had two pieces of artillery. The whole – fort and village – was almost entirely encircled by the confluence of the Phasis and another river. To make good the fort’s lack of a natural spring, an underground tunnel had been dug down to one of the rivers. It was an eminently defensible site, dominating the crossing from Colchis to Iberia. It was easy to see why the garrison of locals had been replaced with Roman regulars. It was a pity there were not more of them. Freed from the noble shadow of Felix, Ballista slipped easily into the role of senior Roman army commander: touring, inspecting, questioning, speaking words of encouragement. At such times, Hippothous thought, the northerner had an air of competent authority.

At Sarapanis, the expedition was to divide again. Rutilus and Castricius were to travel together as far as Harmozica, the capital of Iberia, to the court of King Hamazasp, the king whose son Ballista had killed. Whenever Hamazasp was mentioned, Hippothous noted, Ballista’s face became hard, closed in: most likely guilt, possibly with an edge of fear. From Hamazasp’s palace at Harmozica, Castricius would journey on to Albania to deal with King Cosis. The latest report placed Cosis at Tzour on the Caspian coast. Undoubtedly, the Albanian king was there keeping an eye on and ingratiating himself with the Sassanid prince Narseh, who was finishing off rebels among the Mardi and the Cadusii just to the south.

As their contubernium was to end, Ballista – subtly, if not indeed unconsciously asserting his primacy – decided that a feast was in order. Hippothous was instructed to produce money from their travelling funds, and soldiers were dispatched to procure the good things necessary. Ballista demanded these include his favourite suckling pig and black pudding, and amphorae of local wine – dozens of amphorae of local wine.

Hippothous came back to life reluctantly. His one servant, Narcissus, was talking to him. Hippothous wished he would stop. The slave continued talking. Hippothous opened his eyes. His head hurt. Narcissus passed him a cup of water. Hippothous sat up and drank it, held it out for more.

The local wine had not come in amphorae but goatskins. It had tasted of goatskins. Hippothous’s mouth still tasted of goatskins. However, he did not feel quite as bad as he had expected. Probably he was still drunk. It meant the full horror of the hangover would overwhelm him later.

‘ Kyrios, the eunuch Mastabates is to talk to you all in an hour.’

In the small headquarters, Ballista, Rutilus and most of the others were waiting. They all looked crapulous. Castricius had not appeared yet.

‘You do not look well, Accensus,’ said Maximus.

Hippothous did not reply.

‘I feel fine.’ Maximus pulled down the neck of his tunic. ‘You should get one of these amethysts. Sure, they are the finest preventative of the effects of over-indulgence. Drink all you want, stay sober, feel good.’

Hippothous noticed that, as well as the gemstone on a thong, the freedman wore a fine golden necklace, Sassanid work. And where did you steal that? he wondered.

‘Cabbage.’ said Rutilus. ‘Fried is best, but boiled will do. Or eat almonds before you start drinking.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Ballista. ‘Old wives’ tales. None of them works, amulets and gemstones least of all. Drink milk first, lines the stomach.’

‘Olive oil, if you are not a barbarian,’ said Rutilus.

Castricius entered to laughter from the rest. The little man looked half-dead.

‘Now we are all here,’ said Mastabates. ‘Before we go our separate ways, I was ordered to remind you all of what information our noble Augustus Gallienus, long may he reign, has received of the three Caucasian kings whose fortifications you will repair and whose allegiance you must secure.’ The young eunuch paused, seemed to swell slightly with pride. ‘I do not think it indiscreet to mention that this order was given to me personally by the Praetorian Prefect Lucius Calpurnius Piso Censorinus. He assured me the information was as accurate as could be found, having been gathered from previous diplomacy, from merchants, and from specially instructed frumentarii .’

‘First, Polemo the king of Suania. He is a man who cares little for either Rome or Persia. He is dominated by two passions – survival, a tricky proposition for a monarch of his race, and the acquisition of as much wealth as Croesus. Polemo’s spirit is dominated by avarice. He taxes heavily those crossing the passes in his territories, and his mountains are said to produce much gold and many gems. Yet none of it is enough to satisfy him. So, he takes gifts from both the imperium and Persia, while keeping faith with neither. Frequently, his men raid the lowlands, as far as the client cities of Rome on the Black Sea coast. Pityous, Sebastopolis, Cygnus – all have suffered. Of course, he always denies responsibility; his warriors act without his permission – which, given his subjects, often may be true.’

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.’