Rome 3: The Eagle of the Twelfth Read Online Free PDF

horses to a level halt.
    Their leader stepped his horse forward. The silks at his waist and neck, I saw, were blue, and the sign on the funnelling banner behind him was a blue seabird; a tern.
    Monobasus of Adiabene took off his helmet and the same fox-faced, death-eyed king who had wanted to kill us in the forest on the afternoon of what was now known as the Day of the Traitor’s Death looked out at us.
    Bowing to his King of Kings, he raised his right hand. ‘We give our lives in the service of the King of Kings. Adiabene is ready for war, whenever it comes.’
    He had a good, carrying voice, if somewhat nasal in its tones. Vologases inclined his head. He looked more massive now, as if kingship had given him layers of his own personal armour. ‘Parthia is grateful to her sons for their sacrifice, and will honour their memory if death takes them on the field of battle.’
    It was the same that had been said, by both sides, seventeen times before. All the eighteen client kings were here, for Tiridates had found that he could, after all, leave Armenia for the celebration of his brother’s return to power. Each had brought three hundred cataphracts, the heavy cavalry of Parthia, so feared by her enemies.
    Earlier, we had seen the lighter cavalry, and before them the horse-archers, who had shot their deep-bellied bows in the eight directions at targets in front, at angles on either side, behind. Having seen them with my own eyes, I can vouch that what men said was true: they could shoot a dozen arrows in the space of a long, slow breath, and do it as easily backwards as forwards.
    Monobasus of Adiabene led his horsemen away in a jingle of mail and harness-mounts. A small brass gong sounded to end the display. The King of Kings rose. His courtiers rose with him, and then fell to their knees, brows pressed to the canvas beneath our feet. I was with them, Pantera on my left, Cadus on my right. I felt the swirl and play of silks as Vologases, King of Kings of all Parthia, walked down from his dais. His son, now dead, had used a litter to move amongst his subjects. Men respected his father more for rejecting it.
    I felt him walk by, and then stop. An order was given in a language I did not know. The silks passed us, and the faint smell of frankincense, which was burned to keep the king free from ill intent.
    A shadow remained over us. I looked to my right and saw a courtier bend and speak to Pantera. ‘Be at the palace in the hour before dusk. The King of Kings will speak to you then.’
    I bit my lip and offered a prayer to the local gods, begging that this might not be the final audience that saw us chained and impaled on spears in the market square for our actions on the Day of the Traitor’s Death.
    ‘I must leave this place and return to Parthia. Before I go, there is the matter of the bay mare on which the traitor was mounted. She has shown herself to be ill-favoured by the gods. She cannot remain here.’
    Vologases let his words roll across the floor. His voice carried an authority I had never yet heard from any man. Even Corbulo, Rome’s greatest general, who many, even then, said should have been emperor, did not sound this comfortable with power.
    Nobody answered; the King of Kings had not yet asked a question. I remained on my knees with my brow pressed to the oak boards. Cadus and Pantera held my either side. Neither of them moved. Together we three contemplated the fate that had befallen the traitor whom Pantera had killed.
    There had been no pyre for the king’s late son; his corpse had been left to lie in the forest as food for the wolves and carrion birds. It was the worst thing they could do to a man who had paid with his life for his treachery, for here even the stillborn children were given fire to carry them to the gods; even the women who died on the cartwheels pushed into the sea were drawn back out at low tide, and burned.
    Nobody was left to the wolves, except this prince who had thought to usurp his