It was the day before the Kalends of August, midsummer in Syria. It was hot, hotter than Rome. Valens had never left the west before, and Zeugma was hotter than anywhere he had ever known. To escape the stifling streets, Valens had toiled up the stepped path to the citadel. Below the temple and the palace there was an orchard. The young equestrian officer sat in the shade, back against an apple tree, hoping to catch whatever breeze might blow. At least it was quiet up here.

The fruit trees ran steeply down to a low, crumbling wall. Beyond, a jumble of red-tiled roofs descended the slope. The drop was vertiginous, and the houses seemed to be built on top of each other. Halfway down, on a flat shoulder of the hill, was an open space fronted by another temple, a monumental arch, a theatre and other public buildings. Valens cast a disparaging eye on these symbols of Hellenic civic life. The inhabitants of Zeugma might claim to be Greeks, but they looked Oriental. Some even had earrings, and many answered to Syrian names.

Far below was the Euphrates, and the bridge from which the town took its name. Valens let his gaze wander across the river to Apamea, the settlement on the far bank. Unlike Zeugma, with its narrow, twisting alleys, Apamea was laid out in a regular grid on its plain. Yet on both sides of the river there were abandoned dwellings, their fallen roofs and smoke-blackened beams like missing or rotten teeth in the lines of the streets. It was more than a decade since the Persians had sacked the twin towns. Before, these had been thriving settlements, rich from the endless caravans trading with the east. Now the stream of merchants had dried to a trickle, and the towns were shrunken and run-down.

Valens looked out to the east, beyond the walls that had failed to keep out the Persians. The land, shimmering in the heat, stretched perfectly flat to where a range of hills rose like a mirage. They were the foothills of the great high plains of northern Mesopotamia. Into that bare expanse, infested with predatory nomads and swept by raiding Persian horsemen, Valens would soon depart.

The disquieting thought made him glance at the military camp in the northern quarter of Zeugma. Even the base of the Fourth Scythian Legion had seen better days. Once, imperial expeditions had assembled there. The parade grounds would have been full of marching troops, bright with standards, loud with the call of trumpets. Now the legion itself was below full strength, with many men on detached duties, and only a handful of troops moved desultorily across the baked bare earth. Tomorrow, at long last, after the lengthy journey from Rome and this interminable waiting, Valens would report for duty.