Despite the exorbitant fee, far more even that the most avaricious doctor would have charged back in Rome, Vespasian led Magnus and Hormus into the tent. A waiting slave bowed to them as he took the purse that Hormus proffered; having satisfied himself that it contained the correct coinage, he said something in Aramaic to which Hormus replied, causing the slave to switch languages to Greek. ‘Follow me; my master Lindos is waiting.’
Like so many doctors, Lindos was a Greek and, like so many Greeks, he treated those not of Attic blood and speaking serviceable but accented Greek with contempt. ‘Where are you from?’ he asked after Magnus had told him some rubbish about how he had broken his arm. ‘Your Greek is ghastly.’
‘We’re from …’ Magnus stopped and groaned with pain to cover his inability to answer the question truthfully.
‘Colchis,’ Vespasian answered after a couple of nervous heartbeats thinking.
Lindos’ expression made it quite clear what he thought of the morals and sexual proclivities of those who hailed from that far-flung kingdom on the eastern coast of the Euxine. Having made his displeasure clear at having to come into physical contact with lowlife hardly better than barbarians, Lindos went to work at setting the bone and splinting the arm with remarkable professionalism. Biting down on a strip of wood, Magnus fought the pain, which, judging by the way Lindos pulled on the broken limb and also by the variety of Magnus’s facial expressions, must have been considerable.
Within a quarter of an hour Lindos was finished and Magnus, with his arm set straight and protected by two splints, was covered in sweat, his eyes screwed shut. ‘Jupiter’s cock, that hurt,’ he blurted as the slave removed the wooden bit from his mouth. He opened his eyes to see Vespasian staring at him aghast and dawning suspicion on Lindos’ face.
He had spoken in Latin and had invoked Rome’s best and greatest god.
Hormus was the first to react, grabbing the slave, and with both hands clamped to his head, twisted it, violent and sudden, breaking the neck with a snap.
Vespasian’s shock at his previously timid slave’s new murderous abilities was the instant that Lindos needed to flee and scream for help and quickly and loudly he did so, retreating back into the depths of the tent.
‘This way,’ Vespasian said, gathering his mind and drawing his sword. He ran to the side of the tent and slashed a long rend in it as burly bodies bundled through the entrance. He pushed the loose material aside and ran out into the night with Magnus and Hormus following. At speed they sprinted away, dodging a couple of guards whose agility was not helped by their bulk. Behind them cries of warning rang out. After they had covered fifty paces or so Vespasian slowed down so as not to draw attention to themselves; as he did so he caught the sweet animal scent of the horse-lines and, following his nose, walked swiftly towards them.
The horses were tethered in long lines and tended by slaves who groomed, fed and exercised them; hundreds of horses meant scores of slaves and Vespasian knew that any pursuit would soon think to look at the horse-lines. ‘There’s no time for niceties,’ he said, striding forward with purpose towards the horses nearest them, his sword still naked in his hand. With a swift, military jab he rammed the point into the throat of an enquiring slave and within a few moments had unhitched the first three horses in the line. ‘It’ll have to be bareback,’ he said, hauling himself up onto the unsaddled beast.
Hormus gave Magnus a leg up before mounting his horse as slaves came running towards them, their shouts alerting the guards, coming from the opposite direction in pursuit, as to the whereabouts of their quarry.
Pulling his mount round, Vespasian kicked it into action, followed by Magnus gamely hanging on with one hand, as Hormus slashed down at a slave attempting to grab his leg, opening up his face with a spurt of blood; the iron tang caused his horse’s nostrils to flare and with flattened ears it sped away after his master.
Vespasian did not slow his mount as it clattered through the arriving guards, sending them diving to either side and leaving the escape into the empty south clear. They thundered their horses out into the night, leaving uproar behind them, and headed, with as much haste as possible in the black night, for the tributary of the Tigris that would take them down to the great river itself. Then they would follow it south, drawn by its current, into the beating heart of the Parthian Empire.
CHAPTER XIIII
THE TIGRIS WAS being kind to them, flowing at a steady pace, its surface smooth, gliding them south at the speed of a trotting horse. Vespasian lay in their boat’s bow, looking up past the triangular sail at the cloudless sky and wondering how he could have lived for two years without seeing such beauteous colour; the intensity of the blue transfixed his eyes and it was as much as he could do to check the tears that he could feel welling up within him. Now that he had time to think, relief coursed through his whole being; relief that the dark ordeal was now over; relief at once again feeling the companionship of a fellow human being.