donât like spending all that time booty hunting. Shit, we could pay for that when the battle starts. Too damn slack.â âMaybe, but you have got to admire the crafty way he requisitioned those men from Damascus and then let them off after they paid. He didnât want them anyway â useless idiots; just after the money. I know the locals hate us for it, but who cares.â âYeah, but he donât keep the drills up. Look at what happened when he robbed the Jewish Temple â seemed like the whole damn army went on leave. Nobody did anything for weeks.â âI agree about that. Wrong to do it. Pompey never took their gold when he invaded Jerusalem. Had respect. Remember? We were both there. Iâm glad Crassus didnât make us go with the squad. I donât know what I would have done.â âThatâs not the point â he shouldnât have wasted time.â âI know. I know. Look at those engineers. Arenât they terrific. No one can build like Romans.â Men with huge saws are cutting local trees into planks. Long, square â edged nails drive into newly planed boards. Rafts spring into life and are lashed together to make pontoons. A timber walkway is progressively nailed on top. Steadily and efficiently the structure moves across the rushing current. Its leading edge rolls towards the Parthian shore like the tip of a chameleonâs tongue lunging towards its prey. Engineers overcome the impatient waters with technology which has no rival. The scout attached to Marcusâs cohort comes to the riverâs edge and says in a loud voice; âWeâre going to cross near Zeugma. Itâs a small trading town a couple of kilometres away â almost three hundred years old. One of Alexander the Greatâs generals founded it. Itâs a stopping off point on the Caravan Road.â Marcusâs heart quickens. Finally theyâre about to enter enemy territory. The interminable boredom will yield to the exitement of danger and action. Nothingâs better. Heâll have a chance once again to use his fighting skills, work with his comrades to smash the enemy. Owlâs Head is ready to do its job. âThis is it Gaius. Donât worry about a little slackness. Weâre going to win just the same. This time weâll change history. Those barbariansâll sink below the tide of another Roman victory. Theyâre too disorganised to be respected. No point in showing any mercy to them.â Showing no mercy is just a figure of speech. He doesnât think of himself as a cruel man. In fact he treats prisoners well and has never killed a man whoâs surrendered. âI donât doubt weâll win. Whatâll we do afterwards?â âOnce we roll up Parthia Iâm sure weâll push into Bactria and India. Crassus is ambitious and heâll have the troops to do it. Everyone knows he wants to be civis princeps . Probably the Parthian victoryâll be enough for that but heâll go further. Itâs in his nature â heâs greedy. Weâll get past where Alexander went, past the Indus.â âWhatâs the Indus?â âItâs a big river, a long way east. On the other side is where huge booty lies, even more than what the Parthians have. Weâll really be wealthy, really rich. The Macedonians conquered the land where the Parthians are. Now itâs our turn, but weâll go further. Itâll be interesting to see what itâs like that far east. But not as much as seeing the booty â ha ha ha.â He doesnât say he hopes to become a landowner of substance and be inducted into the Ordo Equester . What a climb that would be for the son of a farmer who lost his land.
CHAPTER 2 O rodes II, divine ruler of Parthia, king of Kings, Brother of the Sun and Moon, hasnât arrived yet. In the congress hall of his grand summer palace in the Zagros foothills, long-robed