‘Oh, but you haven’t, Vespasian; there’s one more thing that you should see.’ Paelignus pulled his gaunt face into what was meant to be a pleasant smile but looked to Vespasian as if he was in an advanced stage of rigor mortis. ‘It wasn’t an invitation from the King to come with me.’ He signalled to his guards. ‘It was an order.’
Six spear heads immediately pointed at him; he was surrounded.
‘Take his sword,’ Paelignus ordered, riding off after Radamistus, ‘and tie his hands.’
*
Vespasian sat on his mount, his wrists bound tight and then secured to the horns of his saddle so that he had no possibility of riding off. Paelignus took regular gloating, sidelong glances at him as if he were anticipating a sweet moment. Ten paces ahead of them, Radamistus stood in his chariot, facing Babak, having a long conversation which had been punctuated with many polite gestures, in what Vespasian assumed was very flowery language as each sentence in the unintelligible tongue seemed to go on for an age. Although Paelignus too had no idea of what was being discussed, Vespasian saw him nodding in agreement occasionally and then noticed that the bodyguard to his other side was whispering a translation into his ear. Behind him the Armenian army had formed up for battle, while behind Babak a small force of dismounted Parthian cavalry held the bridge. They were not enough to attack and defeat the Armenian host but were certainly enough to impede their passage.
Vespasian felt confident that Babak would cede to Radamistus’ terms and let him pass so that he could head north. Babak would remain in Tigranocerta until news of Radamistus’ treachery travelled down to him; then he would lead his army into the heart of Armenia and Tryphaena would have her war.
The negotiations seemed to be coming to some conclusion; Vespasian pulled on his bindings. ‘Untie me, Paelignus.’
‘You’ll be released soon enough.’
As the procurator finished speaking, Radamistus turned around and signalled to the guard holding Vespasian’s horse’s reins; he led the beast forward. However, he did not stop when he was level with his master, but, rather, carried on to Babak who signalled to one of his entourage to take the reins.
‘What’s the meaning of this?’ Vespasian demanded.
Babak signalled to his men on the bridge who began pulling back to let the Armenian army cross.
As he crossed the bridge with Babak at his side, Vespasian repeated the question.
‘It’s custom to conclude business with a surety in my country,’ Babak informed him. ‘And you are just such a thing. If Radamistus breaks his word and Rome sends her armies in to support him, then, until they are removed, you will spend the rest of your life in the darkest dungeon in Adiabene.’
‘But you know that he’ll break his word.’
‘Do I? He swore on Ahura Mazda; for him there is no more powerful a god.’
‘But he swore to you and he considers you to be too far below him in status to be able to hold him to his oath.’
Babak bridled at the implied insult. ‘Then it would seem that things are not going to go well for you as a hostage of Parthia.’
PART III
THE PARTHIAN EMPIRE, AD 52
CHAPTER XII
‘WHAT WOULD YOU recommend that I do with him, Ananias?’
Vespasian knelt on the floor with his hands tied behind his back. The iron tang of blood filled his battered mouth; blood dripped onto the marble from a cut above his swollen, closed right eye. His tormentor, a massively muscled, bearded mute, wearing only a loincloth, stood before him, massaging his knuckles, raw from the beating he had just administered.
‘He seems to turn the other cheek.’
If it would not have hurt so much, Vespasian would have smiled at this description of the way he had dealt with the punishment that had been meted out to him. He looked up at the speaker; he was seated on a wooden throne with gold and silver inlays of strangely foreign animalistic design. In his early fifties, with a long grey beard, his hair wrapped in a white cloth headdress wound around his head, and with a black and white patterned mantle over his shoulders, he did not look as if he was the King of Adiabene. Yet he was; and more than that, as Vespasian now knew only too well, he was a Jewish convert. But it was not to the mainstream religion that the King adhered, but rather to the new cult promoted by Paulus’ rivals in Jerusalem.
‘King Izates, our master Yeshua,’ the man named Ananias replied, ‘did indeed preach that to be righteous we should turn the other cheek; but this man is not a Jew and Yeshua’s teachings apply only to Jews, not Gentile dogs like this faithless scum.’ Ananias consulted a scroll, his rheumy eyes squinting and his age-spotted hands shaking as they unfurled the parchment. ‘I have a record of much of what he said here, left by his disciple, Thomas, on his way to preach to the Jews and god-fearers of the East; and it is clear that the Righteous are only those who fear God, whether as full Jews or as god-fearers who adhere to much of the religion. This man, Vespasian, cannot be one of the Righteous.’