‘Are you ready for war?’

‘Yes!’ bellowed the men of Legio VIIII Hispana as each one stamped his right foot. That was a peculiar affectation of the legion, for Roman soldiers dearly loved to be different and set themselves apart from other units. The question was a tradition for the whole army, performed whenever a substantial force marched out in the spring as well as before a real campaign.

There were plenty of other rumours doing the rounds apart from the one about Armenia. Some said that they were going to Osrhoene, and that was a little worrying, especially when there was talk of overthrowing King Abgarus or indeed of protecting him from a usurper. Other stories – heard it from a despatch rider, from the beneficiarius on the main road to Antioch, from a cousin who had a friend – insisted that they were going to Adiabene to intervene in a similar struggle within the royal family. A few were more ambitious. One of the rivals for the Parthian throne wanted to take Osrhoene or Adiabene or Syria and they were going to stop him.

‘Are you ready for war?’ The herald had a good, clear voice, if a little high pitched. Crispinus had considered shouting out the question himself, until deciding that at his age there was no need to prove the power of his oratory. There were more important things to prove.

‘Yes!’ The shout and the stamp were louder this time.

From what the centurions were saying some even wilder rumours had popped up in the last few days. One claimed they were the spearhead of a march down the Euphrates all the way to Seleucia and Ctesiphon. Trajan’s talk of Armenia was all a decoy, and the emperor would bring the main army down the Tigris, where he would depose all the rival Parthian kings and appoint his own choice instead. Hispana had the special job of getting there first and capturing the royal harem. ‘Think, boys, hundreds of the bints, one for every night of the year and all of them gorgeous, the pick of a vast kingdom. All of them know what they’re doing too.’

Crispinus guessed that only the wildest optimists believed the tale, and few even of them truly believed that the emperor would let loose a horde of sweaty legionaries among such a political prize. Still, plenty of others surely wanted to believe. In his younger days, Crispinus would have found it all rather amusing. Instead, the legatus in him worried because if the Nicopolitans admitted them willingly, he did not want the citizens turned against him because the legionaries had run amok. The man felt more sad than anything else. He had been ill for a long time, and much of it he could not remember, which was better than some of the episodes when he had lost all control and part of him was aware of it all, but could do nothing to stop. He could also remember the darkness and despair.