The bars of the cells nearby rattled to the tune of a spearpoint. Pavo and Khaled stiffened.
‘Come drink your water, dogs!’ a grating voice called out gleefully. There was a shuffling of thirsty men rushing to the bars of their cells. Gorzam soon came to their cell, rattling his spearpoint more slowly, as if he had been looking forward to this. He held the whip in his other hand as if in expectation, and the guard with him carried a large water skin. ‘Cups,’ Gorzam rasped.
He and Khaled approached the bars as the second guard readied the skin to pour. They passed their cups through the bars, avoiding the guards’ gaze, Pavo struggling to resist a glance at the phalera on Gorzam’s chest. Gorzam watched as the other guard filled the cups, then took them and handed them back through. Pavo reached out for his cup and Khaled his. His fingers were but an inch from clasping it, when Gorzam let both go. The cups bounced on the floor and the water soaked into the salt and dust in a heartbeat. Khaled and Pavo stepped back, stifling their anger.
‘Ah, it is a shame to see the precious water go to waste, is it not?’ Gorzam grinned. ‘Still, at least you have your food.’ He nodded to the other guard. The man turned to rummage in the hemp sack he carried and produced two lumps of bread.
As Gorzam moved on to the next cell, Pavo prodded at the flint-hard, stale bread, then looked to the spilled water cups. He felt the absence of his spatha more keenly than ever. He pressed his face to the bars, watching as Gorzam halted, he and the other guard pouring water into cups of their own, then squeezing some viscous, grainy substance into it. Pavo frowned, seeing Gorzam lick his lips then gulp at this hungrily. The guard drained the cup then spotted Pavo watching. In a flash, the whip cracked towards the bars of Pavo’s cell. Pavo leapt back, the barbs gouging at the iron where his face had been a heartbeat ago.
Khaled placed an arm on his shoulder. ‘He has but two joys in life: one is the strained seeds from the joy plant – the poppy,’ Khaled whispered. ‘Its juices calm his pickled mind – one day hopefully he will take too much and it will kill him. The other, and by far his favourite pleasure, is to provoke the poor bastards in this place,’ Khaled said, stooping to pick up the two water cups. ‘Don’t give him what he seeks.’ He pushed Pavo’s cup into his hand. ‘Here, drink the drops that are still in there, it will give you moisture enough to chew on this year-old bread. Failing that, we can set about it with our pickaxes,’ he grinned wearily.
Pavo sat with a sigh. ‘That’s two days running he’s denied us water.’
‘It is a complement of sorts. He sees us as a threat. If they spoil our food we will be weak – not so weak we cannot work, but not so strong that we might think about tackling him or his comrades.’ Khaled nodded through the bars to where another guard was crushing the bread of another slave under his heel. ‘There are thousands of wretches in this underground vault, and only a few hundred guards.’
‘Aye, an army . . . but half-blind and lame,’ Pavo commented wryly, seeing the sorry packs of slaves cowering under the guards’ whips all around the cavern. Suddenly, a cracking of bone sounded behind him. He swung round to see Khaled stretching his painfully thin and knotted limbs, his arms looped behind his back and the bones in his chest popping.
‘I tell you, it means less misery at the end of the shift,’ Khaled said, seeing Pavo wince with every crunch and grind. ‘Did it not aid you yesterday and the day before?’
Pavo sighed, nodded and set about following the man’s routine. First, he stretched his hamstrings by sitting on the flattest area of the cell floor and reaching out to grasp the toes of one foot until the back of his leg burned, before switching to the other leg. He shot furtive glances at Khaled and wondered again how long the man had been in here. Years, was all Khaled had said when he asked.
‘Tell me, when you were brought here, Spahbad Tamur must have been little more than a boy?’ he asked in an attempt to date Khaled’s time in the mines.
‘Ah, yes, a young boy with a supple, malleable mind,’ Khaled shrugged, then twisted until his shoulder blades cracked. An incongruous grin of relief followed this. ‘His father, Cyrus, was the Spahbad of Persis before him. A noble soul, but one who neglected to nurture and educate his son. Thus, Tamur has fallen under the influence of others . . . ’
Pavo frowned as he dipped to rest his weight on one knee then pressed forward upon it, stretching his quadriceps. ‘Aye, who?’
‘The same cur responsible for casting me into this place. Ramak, Archimagus of the Fire Temple.’ Khaled’s gaze grew distant and haunted. ‘Spahbad Tamur controls a vast wing of the Savaran. Shahanshah Shapur trusts Tamur. But it is Ramak who truly rules the Satrapy of Persis. There was an internecine war, thirteen years ago, I was chained at the ankle and forced to fight as a paighan in the armies of Tamur. He was a young warrior then – little more than a boy, as you say - over-eager and yet to understand that his orders could cost the lives of men. He sent us in against a gund of clibanarii that day. A thousand iron riders. Man for man, paighan versus clibanarius.’ Khaled shook his head.