‘Language, Spartacus,’ a stern Diana rebuked him.

  ‘How many people aboard this ark?’ he asked Lucius.

  ‘Er, well, I believe there was Noah, his wife, three sons and their wives, majesty,’ replied Lucius.

  ‘Eight people? To muck out thousands of animals? The Jews are even more deluded than I thought.’

  ‘But you forget one thing, Spartacus,’ I said.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘This Noah had the aid of a god, who presumably provided the food, water and other things needed to stay alive aboard a boat for months.’

  Spartacus rolled his eyes. ‘The universal answer to all the nonsensical myths and fables in the world, which all happened thousands of years ago. Interesting that. We never see the handiwork of the gods on an everyday basis.’

  I glanced at Gallia who gave me a mere hint of a smile.

  Spartacus pointed at the mountain. ‘Is it still there, general, the ark, I mean?’

  ‘I do not know, majesty, the tale of Noah is thousands of years old.’

  Spartacus laughed mockingly. ‘So, it would have rotted away thousands of years ago. How convenient.’

  He seemed to have forgotten about the legend of Gordis and how it had nearly cost the life of one of his sons. But Spartacus had always been more concerned with the here and now, though I often wondered if being raised in Hatra, a city and kingdom where the gods were treated with great respect and honoured daily, had cultivated his resentment against all things religious. That and the fact Gordyene, always been a wild, godless place devoid of grand temples and armies of male and female priests, had encouraged his disdain for religion.

  ‘Tell me, general,’ said Spartacus, ‘how do you intend to deal with the formidable defences of Artaxata?’

  ‘That is for my king to decide, majesty,’ replied Lucius.

  ‘It is your plan, Lucius,’ I said, ‘so there is no point in me taking the credit. Tell my nephew your intentions.’

  ‘The intelligence I have collected on Artaxata reveals a city with stout stone walls and a moat surrounding it. It has paved streets, public buildings, baths, shops and many workshops. It is also filled with many fine bronze statues of Greek gods.’

  ‘It will be a hard nut to crack,’ agreed Spartacus.

  ‘I do not intend to crack the nut, majesty,’ said Lucius, ‘more roast it.’

  ‘Explain,’ snapped Spartacus, not appreciating the Roman’s witty retort.

  ‘We must assume the Armenian king has sent his horsemen to the north to rally fresh forces,’ opined Lucius, ‘or at the very least saved the city granaries from having to feed thousands of horsemen and their horses with a siege imminent. But we have forty thousand horsemen to both reconnoitre far and wide to warn of the approach of any relief force. Not that it will make any difference.’

  ‘How so?’ asked Gafarn.

  ‘Because King Artaxias will have asked for terms long before a relief army can be organised, majesty,’ said Lucius. ‘Our siege engines will see to that.’

  ‘It takes time to batter down a city’s walls, Roman,’ said Spartacus, ‘and these walls are thick and high.’

  ‘I do not intend to batter down the walls, majesty, more shoot over them. King Artaxias has by all accounts a beautiful city. He will not wish to see it burn. Our siege engines will shoot over the walls to bring Artaxias to the negotiating table.’

  ‘Shoot what?’ asked Castus.

  ‘You would call it “dragon fire”, prince,’ smiled Lucius.

  It had been many years since Dura’s siege engines had been used in anger, but the army’s engineers had not been idle when it came to developing more effective ammunition for when they were employed. The most potent machines were six giant ballista, each one weighing several tons, three times the height of a man and around thirty feet in length. They worked like a bow, with a strong wooden frame holding two skeins of animal sinew in place vertically. Two horizontal wooden arms pass through each skein and are linked by a strong bowstring. As the arms are pulled back the sinews become twisted to create great tension for propelling a missile forward, the latter resting in a groove in the horizontal stock of the ballista. The bowstring is pulled back using winches and held in place by a rotating trigger. There was also a score of smaller ballistae, which could throw a metal-headed bolt, solid metal balls and stones over great distances. Worked by two-man teams, they were essentially scorpions but were employed exclusively by Lucius’ men.

  His corps of engineers did not drag large stones from Dura. There was no need – the same quarries that had been used to build Artaxata would provide ammunition should it be needed. But they did bring along metal balls that were shot by the smaller ballistae to decapitate enemy soldiers standing on the walls – small victories that had a devastating mental effect on those of the garrison who witnessed them. But the ammunition wagons also contained clay pots filled with a dangerous material; so dangerous that these wagons and their drivers travelled away from the rest of the engineers and the disassembled siege engines. It was stored in a cool storeroom beneath the armoury in Dura’s Citadel, where oil lamps were forbidden and candles were carried in containers with metal grilles to prevent flames spilling on the floor if dropped.

  The substance in question was highly flammable and was a concoction of a number of ingredients, chief among them being the sticky, black, highly viscous liquid that was found in the southern regions of Agraci lands. In the desert could be found pools of the black liquid, which was poison to drink and which caught fire for no reason at all. The Agraci viewed it as useless and in truth no one could think why the gods had created such a substance. But Marcus Sutonius, may the gods treasure his soul, realised its flammable properties could be harnessed for siege warfare.

  He employed a team of experts in noxious substances that devised Dura’s equivalent of ‘Dragon Fire’. They combined the black sticky substance termed bitumen with quicklime, which raised the temperature when the liquid was ignited. Sulphur was added to increase flammability and pitch sourced from trees to bind all the materials together comprised the final ingredient. Poured into clay pots, which were sealed with a pitch-soaked wick, they shattered after being shot from a ballista, spewing burning liquid in all directions. Difficult to extinguish once it stuck to surfaces, it burnt at high temperatures for long periods. It was truly a dreadful substance but it made Dura’s siege engines extremely powerful weapons.

  Artaxata was surrounded by green pasturelands and vineyards and the city itself looked pristine in the sunlight, its walls and towers constructed from well-dressed stone. Those walls were lined with soldiers, the sun reflecting off their burnished helmets and whetted spear points, red eagle banners flying from every tower. The drawbridges spanning the moat had all been raised and archers stood ready to repulse any assaults we mounted, the ground beyond the moat having been cleared of anything that would impede the field of view of an archer or slinger.

  It took a whole morning to assemble and site the ballistae, the soldiers on the walls shooting a few arrows and slingshots in their direction but giving up once they realised the engines were beyond their range. Lucius had positioned them some three hundred and fifty yards back from the moat, which meant their crews would not be disturbed by enemy missiles.

  Malik, Spadines and Kalet had grown bored by the slow proceedings, wishing to see the machines in action straight away. So they decided to explore the Ararata Plain, hoping to run into the Armenian lords and their retainers they had encountered in the battle at the river. Spartacus had his own scouts out, and Talib and his men had left camp, a mile south of the city, at dawn to search for the enemy.

  ‘They are wasting their time,’ said Spartacus, leaning on his saddle, clearly bored. ‘The Armenian horsemen will have fled to the north and east, to their clan homelands, there to raise fresh forces. But it will take time to organise a new army, though at the rate your Roman is going, uncle, it will be autumn before your siege engines are in operation.’

  ‘Patience is a virtue,’ I told him.

  He had arrayed his Immortals in front of the city and I had ordered Chrestus to deploy the Durans and Exiles on the other side of Artaxata. But as the day wore on there seemed little point in having thousands of men standing idle and so most had returned to camp. A thousand Durans and the same number of Immortals stood either side of the siege engines, reinforced with scorpions, just in case the Armenians tried a sally to destroy Lucius’ machines. Companies of horse archers enforced a Parthian perimeter around the city to ensure no one left or got in.

  ‘It is a beautiful city,’ remarked Diana. ‘I hope King Artaxias sees sense and agrees to terms.’

  ‘He will,’ I said.

  ‘Either that or dies of old age,’ quipped Spartacus.

  Finally, Lucius reported that the machines were ready and did Gallia or Diana want the honour of shooting the first projectile? They both turned down the offer but Spartacus, eager to amuse himself, said he would pull the trigger. So we rode over to the first ballista, its crew bowing their heads as we dismounted to gather in a semi-circle around the end of the machine, where a team of engineers used winches to pull back the wooden throwing arms. On a nearby cart were clay pots carefully packed in crates stuffed with straw to secure them in place when the vehicle was on the move. Lucius gave the order for one to be brought over, the two men assigned to the duty having the utmost care not to drop the container. The pitch-soaked wick was only lit when the pot had been placed in the machine’s slider, ready to be launched. They stepped back and Lucius turned to Spartacus.

  ‘At your convenience, majesty.’

  Spartacus looked at the pot resting against the strap fitted to the thick cord and then glanced at the city walls beyond the moat.

  ‘You sure you’ve got the range right?’

  ‘Range and elevation have been established, majesty,’ said Lucius.

  Spartacus released the trigger, there was a loud crack and the clay pot was propelled forwards and upwards, arching through the air over the walls to disappear behind them. Lucius raised his right arm to signal to the crew of the second machine positioned twenty-five paces away. Seconds later, its thick bowstring shot forward and the whole machine shook, another clay pot arching into the sky to land in the city. The third, fourth, fifth and sixth ballista shot their pots in turn, their crews then commencing the reloading process.

  ‘Continue shooting for an hour,’ I told Lucius, ‘then we shall see if the Armenian king is willing to talk.’

  As soon as the ballistae began shooting, Chrestus and Motofi moved the rest of Dura’s legionaries and Gordyene’s Immortals out of camp and deployed them facing the city’s southern entrance; the route any force sent out to destroy the machines would take. Gafarn deployed Hatra’s cataphracts and horse archers to support them – nearly forty thousand soldiers arrayed before the city walls to deter a sally.

  After an hour, each ballista shooting one pot every fifteen minutes – twenty-four in total – thick black smoke began to appear from inside the city, legionaries and Immortals cheering and banging the shafts of javelins on the insides of their shields to signal their delight at the destruction being visited on the Armenian capital.

  We reassembled near Lucius’ engines, the banners of Dura, Hatra, Gordyene and Mesene fluttering in the refreshing northerly breeze that had picked up, the sky now filling with light grey clouds to banish the sun. The flapping of the banners was the only sound now the ballistae had ceased shooting. I turned to Chrestus.

  ‘Send forward a herald to the walls with a message for King Artaxias that the rulers of Dura, Hatra and Gordyene wish to speak to him.

  ‘I will go, highborn,’ said Klietas.

  Chrestus froze him with a stare. ‘Silence, boy, no one was asking you.’

  ‘Do you speak Greek, Klietas?’ I asked.

  ‘No, highborn.’

  I pointed at the city.

  ‘They do not speak Parthian, so we have to use a language that both sides understand. I therefore need a Greek speaker.’

  ‘Besides,’ said Gafarn, ‘we don’t want the king’s squire being killed after so recently being appointed to such an august position.’

  ‘Forgive me, highborn, but why would they kill a herald?’

  Gafarn pointed a finger at the black smoke.

  ‘The enemy might take exception to their city being set alight.’

  ‘If the herald is killed, the king will burn the city to the ground,’ stated Klietas with conviction.

  ‘We might burn it to the ground anyway,’ threatened Spartacus.

  Chrestus sent one of his senior officers to the city walls, the officer in mail armour and white-plumed helmet carrying a bow aloft with the bowstring removed, a traditional sign he came in peace. It was considered the height of ill manners to kill a herald making such a gesture, but manners are singularly lacking in war and there was an even chance he would be felled by one or more arrows when he rode within range of the walls. We all held our breath as his horse plodded forward, reaching the edge of the moat, many bows trained on him. We could not hear what he shouted up at the walls but the fact he remained in his saddle as he apparently conversed with someone on the battlements was a good sign. After what seemed like an age, he turned his horse and cantered back to us.

  ‘The Armenian officer will report your offer to King Artaxias, majesty, as long as no more flame pots are launched into the city,’ he reported.

  ‘Describe the officer,’ ordered Spartacus.

  ‘Tall, majesty with broad shoulders, black hair and a heavy brow.’

  ‘Geghard,’ said Spartacus. ‘At least he will talk directly to his king.’

  ‘I am to return in an hour to learn the Armenian king’s answer, majesty,’ stated the herald.

  The tension was unbearable as the clouds thickened overhead, ballista crews waited for the order to either stand down or re-commence shooting, and thousands of soldiers focused their attention on the drawbridge to see whether it would drop to herald an enemy assault. Low rumblings in the sky to the north signalled a storm and the breeze turned into a brisk wind that carried spits of rain. Servants brought cloaks and warm wine to fortify our bodies as each of us mulled over in our minds whether we would be forced to storm what was a formidable stronghold. When the hour was up the herald returned to the walls, to be told Artaxias was willing to speak to us.

  The news was met with disappointment by Spartacus, who I sensed wanted the Armenians to defy us, thereby leaving us no choice but to storm the city. The reality, however, was that neither Gafarn nor I wished to see Artaxata reduced to rubble, and neither did Diana or Gallia for that matter. Only my wife and myself knew what the son of Geghard had told us regarding the Aorsi dressing up as Medians to provoke the Armenians. He could have been lying, of course, but what did he have to gain from such deceit? If anything, he had risked his life to divulge such information, for as family we could have been outraged by his words and had him killed on the spot. But we knew Spartacus better than he did and our nephew was more than capable of such a ruse. When it began to rain, the dreariness suited my mood, for I was angry and morose that a family member had deceived us.

  Gallia was more sanguine about the matter back in our tent, bringing her hands together and resting her elbows on her shins as Klietas rubbed balm into my leg suffering the effects of the old arrow wound.

  ‘He is grieving over Rasha and his judgement is impaired.’

  I winced when Klietas’ strong hands provoked a spasm of pain in my leg.

  ‘Apologies, highborn.’

  ‘You have nothing to apologise for. The wet always brings on a constant pain. I thank Shamash Dura is at least hot and dry.’

  ‘Will you tell Gafarn and Diana?’ asked Gallia.

  ‘What, that their son is as conniving as Phraates? No, with a bit of luck the negotiations tomorrow will be concluded to the satisfaction of all parties and then we can go home.’

  ‘What if the Armenians refuse Spartacus’ terms,’ she said.

  ‘They won’t. And he won’t renege on his promise not to torment the Armenians any further.’

  ‘Ten thousand talents is a lot of gold.’

  ‘The Armenians must learn that the actions they take have consequences, and they must take responsibility for those consequences.’

  ‘Even if Spartacus agrees to stop his aggression towards the Armenians, I doubt Spadines and his warlords will stop their raiding.’

  I looked at Klietas massaging my leg.

  ‘Perhaps I should send Klietas and Haya to cut off his head, like they did the former governor of Mepsila.’

  He stopped kneading my leg and looked up.

  ‘It would be an honour, highborn.’

  I looked at Gallia. ‘There is no honour in assassination, Klietas.’

  She leaned back in her chair.

  ‘But you do believe in justice, don’t you?’

  ‘Justice, yes. Murder, no.’

  I could see her anger rise but I shook my head.

  ‘I have no desire to fight old battles. What’s done is done. Hopefully, Artaxias will agree to Spartacus’ terms, peace will be restored on the northern border of the empire and we can all go home.’

  I could tell by her expression she was sceptical but she said nothing. I thanked Klietas and asked him to request the cooks send us some hot porridge. The rain had chilled the air and I suddenly felt cold.

  It got colder as day gave way to night and it continued to rain, a light pattering on the roof of the tent that increased in intensity and volume as the night wore on. The new day dawned bright but cool, the rain having stopped to leave the air fresh and invigorating and the land soaked. Soldiers wrapped in cloaks huddled round campfires while cooks prepared breakfast and horsemen groomed and fed their mounts. I walked into the morning air, my breath misting when I breathed, much to my surprise.

  ‘Late spring can be cool in the Armenian highlands, uncle.’

  I turned to see a beaming Spartacus, his boots and bottom of his red cloak splashed with mud. The tents of the kings were in close proximity so I assumed he had been out before dawn, fortifying his men’s spirits.