Centurion

A flash of red caught his eye and he saw Macro emerge from the city gate, striding back towards his column. As he reached the carts Macro caught sight of Cato and made directly for him.

'Don't get up!' he called out as Cato made to rise and stand formally at attention. A moment later he squatted down heavily beside Cato and untied the chin straps of his helmet, removing it with a sigh of relief.

'Was that necessary?' Cato nodded.'The helmet, I mean.'

'I think so.' Macro mopped his sweaty brow on the back of his forearm. 'There's bound to be some kid in Chalcis with a sling and Parthian sympathies. Why take the risk?'

'Fair enough. Any news from Palmyra?'

Macro had made it his priority to visit the ruling council of Chalcis the moment the column had arrived. He lowered his arm and nodded.

'A Greek merchant and his family arrived at dawn. The situation in Palmyra doesn't look good for our side. The king and his followers are still holding the citadel, while Artaxes controls the surrounding streets. Seems that he doesn't have full control over his men. They've started looting the city. That's why the merchant has fled the place. He has young daughters. Probably the wise thing to do.'

Cato nodded.

'He also provided me with a map of the city,' Macro continued as he pulled a flattened scroll of papyrus from his harness and unrolled it. Placing it on the ground he weighted the corners with stones while Cato leaned forward and briefly examined the diagram. It had clearly been drafted in a hurry and lacked any detail. Only the outline of the walls and the most important districts had been depicted.

'Not much to go on,' Cato ventured.

'Well, it's all we have, for now. The Greek merchant did his best for me.' Macro glanced up with a thin smile. 'Before you ask, I did put it to him that we needed someone with local knowledge and could use him as a guide.'

'What did he say?'

'Something colourful. Diligent as I have been in my studies of the language in recent months, it was a word I was unfamiliar with. But his response was, in a word, no.'

'A pity.'

'But he did tell me a bit about the ground.' Macro indicated the flattened semicircle of Palmyra's walls. 'The defences are in good order, he claims, so we will need to gain entrance by a gate.The citadel is here.' Macro tapped an arrangement of black boxes at the right of the diagram.

'Then we can skirt round the city and enter the citadel directly,' Cato observed hopefully.

'Sorry, sunshine. It ain't going to be that easy.The citadel is built on a low bluff of rock on the wall. There's no access there. There's only one entrance into the citadel inside Palmyra. According to the merchant the best way into the city for us is here, a gate on the east side of Palmyra. It's the most direct route to the entrance to the citadel.'

'That means going through the streets.' Cato shook his head as he considered the prospect. 'If we have to fight our way in, then the rebels will be able to hit us from all sides, and from the roofs. If they get any advance warning they can block our route. If we lose our direction…'

'I can imagine the details, thank you,' Macro responded tersely. 'But for now that's the only plan we have. Like it or bloody lump it.'

Cato raised his eyebrows in resignation, and then continued,'Did your merchant have anything else to tell us?'

'I got as much from him as I could. The citadel is well fortified and the king's bodyguard are the pick of his army. Tough cases, every one of 'em. So says the Greek, but he's no soldier, so we'll have to take that comment with a pinch of salt. But there is one good piece of news. The Palmyran siege weapons are stored in a compound inside the citadel. So Artaxes is going to have to build his kit from scratch before he can manage an assault. Buys us a little more time at any rate.'

'What about the size of Artaxes' forces? What did the Greek know of their numbers?'

'He says that Artaxes has a huge army at his command.' Macro spat with contempt. 'It's probably the first mob the merchant has ever seen. He couldn't tell me if there was one thousand of them or ten thousand. He just didn't have a clue. But he did say that Artaxes is telling everyone that a Parthian army is on its way to help him, and when it arrives, then those in the citadel and anyone who does not swear an oath of loyalty to him will be put to death.'

'We can assume that it's true,' Cato reflected. 'After all, Longinus put a force into the field the moment he was aware of the situation. There's every reason to believe that the Parthians would do the same. In which case, it's all down to which side reaches Palmyra first.'

'My thoughts exactly.' Macro nodded, and rolled up his map. 'So we'd better get the lads back on the road as soon as we can.'

A short time later, the column resumed its march and the men could only glance wistfully at the sparkling surface of the lake as they marched along its bank. They had had only the briefest of opportunities to fill their canteens and rest in the shade of the palms and only a handful had had the chance to immerse themselves in the cool water before the orders to pick up their packs and fall in had been bellowed out, rousing the men from the comfortable shade of the trees. The people of Chalcis watched them for a while before drifting back to their homes to anxiously contemplate the future.

On the far side of the lake the route to Palmyra abruptly branched off through a strip of irrigated farmland, and then gave out on to the desert. Cato's heart sank as he contemplated the flat expanse of pallid yellow sand and rock that stretched ahead into the distance, where the horizon was lost in a shimmering band of hot air that looked like molten silver. The column marched on into the afternoon heat, gradually leaving behind the thin strip of palm-fringed green that marked the lake, until it too was swallowed up by the stifling air that wavered far off in every direction.

Parmenion took one last glance over his shoulder before he turned to Cato and grumbled, 'Five days of this, at least, before we reach Palmyra. When I get there, I'm going to make those rebel bastards pay for every step of the way.'

08 Centurion

CHAPTER EIGHT

Each day began with the same ritual. At the first glimmer of light on the horizon the duty centurion of each cohort woke the other officers. They in turn moved down the lines of sleeping men, shouting the order to rise and prepare to march, pausing here and there to stick the boot into any man slow to respond. With groans and the stretching of cold, stiff limbs the men stood and shook off the sand that had blown over them during the night. They attached their equipment to their marching yokes and then ate a quick meal of dried meat and hard bread from the rations in their haversacks and washed it down with a few mouthfuls of water. Every centurion and optio was conscious of the need to make the water last as long as possible and closely supervised their men as they drank from their canteens.

Once the men had formed into their centuries there was a quick roll-call and then Macro gave the order to begin the day's march. As dawn lightened the sky the air was still and cool and the cohorts marched in an easy rhythm, the heavy crunch of their nailed boots accompanied by the irregular slap and jingle of loose equipment, and muted conversation. The early hours were the most comfortable time of the day to march and Macro deliberately kept the pace up, before the day's heat smothered the desert in its searing embrace. Before this campaign Cato had thought that dawn was the most beautiful time of the day. Now, as the sun rose over the horizon, casting long shadows across the desert plain, he quickly came to regard it as a source of torment.