Rome's Lost Son(99)

‘To keep your subject races from contemplating too deeply their position?’

‘Amongst other things, yes; it also makes me look as if I’m defending my peoples’ honour and keeps my army sharp. War with Rome is a necessity, not a luxury.’

‘Yes, I’ve come to see that too, but from the opposite position.’

‘No wonder the powers behind the Roman throne only allowed you the bare minimum time as consul: too much insight into high politics is a threat.’

Vespasian made no comment; if the Great King of Parthia could make inferences from his two-month term of office, then he knew he had been right to read it as an insult.

‘So, my friend,’ Vologases continued, ‘I may call you that, mayn’t I?’

‘I am honoured.’

‘Because of Radamistus’ behaviour, when I go back to Armenia next year I will have the nobility on my side and I will sweep Radamistus from the country and reinstall my younger brother as king. It will take quite an army a few campaigning seasons to prise him out again once I’ve put him back. It will provide a very good distraction in Rome during the change of regime and will no doubt give young Nero his first victory in the Purple and thus secure him in power. From what my agents tell me he has the potential to make Caligula seem a sane and reasonable man. A man who gets pleasure from sleeping with his own mother on a regular basis will undoubtedly descend into unrestrained excess and depravity in search of new thrills.’

Vespasian nodded, smiling thinly. ‘And you think what I think?’

‘I think he will be the last of the line, which is why Parthia will do everything in her power to ensure that he inherits. We’ll let the war rumble on in Armenia, then come to some diplomatic solution, after which Nero will concentrate on glorifying himself and financially ruin Rome. His subsequent assassination will spark a civil war that will further deplete Rome’s coffers and whoever comes out on top will have such a financial crisis to deal with that he will find it hard to defend his borders. Then, if Ahura Mazda has spared me, I can decide how to treat with the new Emperor from a position of power.’

‘Why do you tell me this?’

‘I was just curious as to why you support Nero with its inevitable consequences.’

‘To rid Rome of the Julio-Claudians once and for all.’

Vologases got to his feet. ‘And with whom would you replace them? I tell you, my friend, if you were my subject there would be very few extremities still attached to your body.’ He gave a friendly smile as Vespasian, too, rose. ‘I wish you a safe journey tomorrow. I have ordered a troop of royal camel archers to accompany the caravan; not too many so as not to draw undue attention to it but enough to see you safely back to your empire. I wish you luck; I doubt that our paths will cross again.’





CHAPTER XVI

‘YOU’VE GOT TO be joking with me.’ Magnus stared in horror at the saddled camel, kneeling, waiting to be mounted; a grinning camel-wrangler held its bridle.

‘How else do you plan to travel across the desert?’ Vespasian asked, sizing up the beast that he was supposed to ride; it eyed him back with a haughty look, chewing methodically.

‘We had horses when we crossed from Syria.’

‘That’s further north and it wasn’t such a long journey. Mehbazu tells me that horses only stand a chance of making it across to Judaea in winter.’

‘Mehbazu should know; he’s made the journey at least a dozen times,’ Gobryas said. ‘It can take up to fifteen days to make the crossing once you’ve taken the ferry over the Euphrates.’

They were on the west bank of the Tigris having taken one of Gobryas’ boats across at dawn. The caravan had been ready, waiting for them along with the eighty royal camel archers that Vologases had promised. Mehbazu, the caravan leader, had greeted Vespasian with a degree of awe as the man to whom the Great King of Parthia had shown such honour in providing him with men from his personal guard.

The seven other merchants travelling in the caravan had touched their foreheads and bowed to Vespasian as a man in high favour with their monarch, and so it was with a fervent desire not to make a fool of himself in public that he approached the waiting mount that seemed to have the entire fly population on this side of the Tigris feasting in its nostrils.

A loud, bestial bellow announced Hormus’ successful mounting as his camel rose, hind legs first, almost unseating its novice rider. Hormus’ camel-wrangler then mounted his own beast, showed him how to hold his legs to one side of the neck and then demonstrated how to use the goad to persuade the animal to move.

Vespasian and Magnus watched the lesson, which Hormus seemed to digest well.