Companions (The Parthian Chronicles) by Peter Darman Read Free Book Online

so the red pennants bearing a white horse’s head hung limply on the thick shafts. Nevertheless Hatra’s professional armoured horsemen looked magnificent in their scale armour comprising overlapping steel scales shimmering in the sun. Hugely expensive to raise and maintain, cataphracts were a visible symbol of a king’s wealth and power and Hatra was blessed that it could field fifteen hundred of them. The Hatran camp had been established across the river, in Hatran territory, where the four hundred squires and servants waited with the camel train loaded with armour, weapons, tents, food and fodder for the journey back to my father’s capital.
    Trumpets sounded, the colour party stood to attention and my friends led their escort from the Citadel. We stood on the palace steps until the last of the cataphracts had left, piles of horse dung in the courtyard the only reminder of their presence. Domitus dismissed the Durans, stable hands came into the courtyard to clean up the mess and Gallia took Claudia back to her nursery. Godarz made his excuses and walked over to the treasury where Rsan waited for him to discuss new farming tenancy agreements. The royal estates extended south from the city for a distance of a hundred miles and the peace with the Agraci meant that there was a lot of land adjacent to the Euphrates waiting to be irrigated and farmed.
    I walked to the stables, saddled Remus and rode him from the Citadel to the Palmyrene Gate. I left him in the care of a guard and ascended the stone steps in the gatehouse to reach the stone griffin that stood sentry over the city. Already the entrance to the city was filling with travellers, traders bringing their wares to Dura to sell in the markets, and citizens walking from the city to work in the fields or in the sprawling legionary camp half a mile to the west. Across the deep wadi beyond the city’s northern walls was the vast caravan park where hundreds of camels spat and grunted as they were led to water troughs fed by water from the nearby Euphrates. The ill-tempered, stinking beasts were Dura’s lifeblood for they transported the precious silk from China to Egypt and Rome where it was worn by fine ladies and men. As I stood beside the stone statue I subconsciously turned the gold coin Byrd had given me in my right hand.
    ‘So, the feast of drunkenness and gluttony is over for another year.’
    I stopped playing with the coin and turned to see Dobbai approaching.
    ‘The stable hands told me that you had left the Citadel,’ she said. ‘I thought I would find you here.’
    ‘Really? Been using your magic again? I could have been visiting Domitus or practising shooting on the ranges.’
    She stood next to me, saying nothing as she stared at the legionary camp where hundreds of men were going about their daily duties.
    ‘You always come here when you are brooding,’ she said at last.
    I turned the coin between my fingers. ‘Who said I was brooding?’
    ‘It’s written all over your face. What’s that?’
    She was looking at the coin I was toying with.
    ‘Nothing. Just a coin.’
    She suddenly looked very serious. ‘May I see it?’
    I shrugged and passed it to her. She held it up and examined it closely, holding it up to the sun.
    ‘Byrd gave it to me,’ I said as she grunted and scratched at its surface with her hawk-like nails.
    ‘One of Haytham’s lords collected it when a trade caravan paid him to cross the desert from Gerrha to Palmyra. It is…’
    ‘The currency of Persis,’ she said. ‘It is a message from the gods, son of Hatra. The spectre of Narses rises up.’
    ‘I have scouts on the other side of the Euphrates,’ I told her. ‘Nothing stirs on the borders of Persis.’
    ‘What else did Haytham’s lord tell your Cappodocian?’
    ‘That the agents of Narses are hiring boats at Gerrha,’ I said. ‘Perhaps he intends to sail his army up the Euphrates,’ I joked.
    She said nothing, fixing me with her black eyes. She held up the coin