For the two days since they had come across the boat pulled up on the riverbank and covered with vegetation, Vespasian had lain prone in the bow as they sailed down the tributary river to its confluence with the Tigris. He had joined in some conversation with Magnus and Hormus but it had been an effort and he found that he preferred just to let his thoughts wander free and enjoy the exhilaration of having nothing over his head preventing him from seeing the sky.
He had listened to his companions’ account of how Magnus, having befriended the gaoler, had sold Hormus to him at a reasonable discount after they had murdered his original slave and the sexual ordeals that Hormus went through at the hands of that man for the six days that he had served him before their escape. Vespasian’s gratitude to his slave for sacrificing himself so that he could rescue his master was profound and he understood that Hormus was completely devoted to him, serving him in such a way that he could be trusted with anything. Hormus sat in the stern of the boat, holding the steering-oar as the current and the small sail, full bellied with wind, pushed them on towards Ctesiphon; his eyes fixed on the river ahead and his mouth set firm in concentration beneath the beard that masked his undershot chin. Vespasian studied the man and wondered what he had done to deserve such unquestioning, animal loyalty; he swore to himself that he would repay that loyalty by freeing Hormus at the earliest legal time: when he reached the age of thirty in a few years.
Magnus sat beneath the mast, his head on his chest, snoring; his splinted arm lay across his lap. Vespasian smiled at the sight. He had never dared give rein to the hope that his friend would find and rescue him in all those dark days; but there had always been a little flicker in the deeper recesses of his mind that it was a possibility. Now he was free he could afford to admit to himself that the reason he had survived relatively unscathed was because he had clung on to that tiny morsel of hope, nurturing it but not relying on it. He knew that he was extremely fortunate with his companions and, as they sailed on south, he said a prayer of thanks to Mars for holding his hands over him and promised the finest bull as soon as he was back within the Empire.
They kept to the middle of the river, a hundred and fifty paces from either bank, both of which were dotted with farms, small settlements and larger towns. The land was lush, most of it under cultivation and the communities that they passed seemed prosperous. Occasionally they would land just downstream from one and Hormus would walk back to buy food; they aroused no suspicion and other craft that they passed on the water would hail them cheerfully and sail on without incident.
Days melted into one another, the river widened and the temperature grew hotter. Gradually Vespasian began to feel the weight of his incarceration lift; he could sleep without fear of waking up to find himself back in his cell so that for the first time in two years he began to feel rested and strong and capable of an arduous caravan journey across the desert to either Judaea or Syria. As his strength returned so did his ambition: somehow he had survived an ordeal that would have left most people gibbering wrecks; he had done it with his will and, he was well aware, with the help of the gods. He was now sure that there was substance behind all the omens of his birth and the subsequent prophesies and signs. Mars was preserving him: how else had his mind been kept from cracking?
‘We should be getting there soon,’ Magnus observed, shading his eyes and peering forward. ‘When I looked at a map back in Syria, from what I could make out, it seemed to be about two to three hundred miles from Arbela to Ctesiphon. This is our fifth day on the river.’
‘How will we know that we’re at Ctesiphon?’ Hormus asked.
Vespasian sat up and looked south. ‘Because it will be the biggest city that you’ve ever seen outside Rome or Alexandria. It’s even bigger if you count the Greek city of Seleucia on the western bank of the Tigris.’
Magnus was surprised. ‘You mean there’s a whole city full of Greeks in the middle of the Parthian Empire?’
‘Yes, and most cities have a sizable Greek or Macedonian minority. Thousands of colonists came out in the wake of Alexander and most of them stayed. There are Greek speakers all the way to India. Parthia is not an empire just comprising Persians, Medes and Assyrians; there are many different peoples and all owe allegiance to the King of Kings, who, incidentally, is the son of the previous incumbent, Vorones, and a Greek concubine.’
‘They get everywhere, the Greeks,’ Magnus said, shaking his head in disapproval.
‘What have you got against the Greeks?’
‘What, apart from being liars and cheats with an uncommon desire to be buggered and a penchant for sleeping with close relatives?’