‘Pavo,’ Sura gasped.
‘I’m sorry, Sura. I was wrong. All this has been for nothing. You shouldn’t have come down here with me . . . ’
‘Pavo!’ Sura hissed again, then clamped a hand on Pavo’s shoulder, twisting him round.
Pavo stood tall, frowning at his friend, then followed Sura’s outstretched arm and pointing finger. There, from the shadows at the far side of the wheel, a seventh figure shuffled forward.
A shiver of realisation raced up Pavo’s spine; seven handles on the wheel . . . seven men!
This one wore a torn rag like a Roman robe. He carried with him a flat piece of slate containing a meagre pile of bloodied rat meat scraps. He was grey-haired. The long, thick tumbling locks were caked in salt dust, his shoulders were crooked and his back hunched like the others. When the man looked up, Pavo’s stomach fell away. He gawped at the aged, tired face, the blood-matted sockets where his eyes had once been. The wiry beard under a hawk-beak nose that had been broken many times. The stigma on his knotted, scarred bicep.
Legio II Parthica.
Pavo’s heart crashed like a war drum. A warm wash of tears spilled across his cheeks, splitting the white coating of salt dust. ‘Father?’
‘I told you,’ Arius spoke next to him, resting a hand on his shoulder to pat him warmly, ‘you will not find Falco amongst in the bones. He is a hardy whoreson who refuses to die, like the rest of us!’
Pavo heard Arius’ words like a distant echo. Father approached him, holding out one shaking and knotted hand, a broad and frayed leather bracelet hanging loose around his sinewy wrist. He said nothing, then clasped his hands over Pavo’s.
‘Is this another of the dreams, taunting me?’ Falco spoke in that gravelly tone Pavo had not heard since childhood.
Pavo shook his head, but was unable to reply, his lips trembling. He clasped the phalera and held it to Father’s hands.
Falco gripped the phalera, an intense frown knitting his brow as he traced a fingertip across the engraving. At last he reached up to touch the hot tears on Pavo’s cheeks. ‘Son?’
‘Father, I . . . ’ his words dissolved and he and Falco embraced. It was long and lasting, both men sobbing. Myriad memories exploded through Pavo’s mind. The past, the warmth of the sun on his skin as he and Father had paddled in the waters of the Propontus, the joy of Father returning from campaign, the games he would play in the streets with his friends under Father’s doting gaze. Then he recalled the last time he had embraced Father like this in the year before Bezabde; he had barely been chest-high to the broad warrior in freshly oiled armour with the scent of wood smoke and dust in his tousled chestnut locks. Now, he towered nearly a foot over Father. The years in this dark Hades had reaped their toll.
‘You are the warrior now,’ Falco sobbed, as if reading his thoughts.
‘So many years, Father. So many years I thought you were dead,’ Pavo shook his head as they stood back. A flurry of questions danced into his mind. ‘Your eyes,’ Pavo raised a hand, his fingers hovering just before the bloody sockets. Memories of the nightmare barged into his thoughts. ‘Gorzam did this to you?’
Falco smiled dryly at this. ‘Gorzam? No. He is responsible for many of the scars that lace my back, and for putting my men and I down into this chamber. But if that witless creature were to heat an iron to burn out my eyes, he’d doubtless pick the iron up by the hot end and injure himself. No, this happened to me before I was brought to the mines. After the fall of Bezabde, my men and I were taken to Bishapur. We were paraded in chains, marched before the spahbad in his palace, then taken to the Fire Temple. I was made an example of. The Persian Archimagus, he lifted the glowing iron from the Sacred Fire,’ his head dropped in defeat, ‘his was the last face I ever saw.’
Pavo shook with rage. ‘Ramak?’
Falco grappled him by the shoulders. ‘Pavo, do not be angry . . . ’ he said then broke down in a coughing fit. The coughs were dry and rasping, thick dashes of blood spitting forth with each one. The lung disease had its claws deep in his chest, it seemed.
Pavo saw the blood but could not make out its colour in the gloom. Red or black? He bowed his head and pressed his lips to the phalera, trying in vain to stifle his fury. Then another question rose to the fore. ‘This,’ he held up the phalera, ‘you sent it to me?’
Falco reached out, feeling the bronze disc and clamping it in his hands again. ‘I did, Pavo.’
‘The crone, how did she carry it from here to Constantinople?’ Pavo remembered the withered old woman who had hobbled up to him and pressed the piece into his palm on the day he was sold into slavery.