Aulus turned away. ‘Either the sun has addled your minds, or some daemon is leading us to destruction.’

Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

The Castle of Silence

THE WOMAN HAD DANCED SLOWLY and sensuously. Beneath a glittering veil, her robe was sheer and clinging. It revealed all the contours of her body. Barbad had taken her breasts in his hands, felt the nipples harden against his palms.

Only fragments of the dream remained, but his semi-erect member told the story. Barbad smiled: a seventy-five-year-old eunuch with an erection. The good god Mazda be praised. It depended when you were cut. If a boy had reached puberty before the knife, as a eunuch he might achieve an erection, although obviously he would be sterile. Some women sought out certain eunuchs for those qualities.

Barbad half remembered a simile employed by a Greek philosopher. Something or other was as frustrating as a woman attempting to have sex with a eunuch. They could spend the whole night together, and he could do no more than annoy her. Greek philosophers were not always as wise as they claimed.

Barbad had been old to be cut. Later, in his youth, he had lain with women. He was not one of those eunuchs who had run to fat. His muscles had not withered. His voice was not effeminate. He had shared the bed of women into his vigorous middle age. They had not seemed annoyed at all. Some had appeared to enjoy the experience.

It was late summer, warm even here in the mountains. The shutters were wide open. Barbad looked out at the night sky. A garment of stars was stretched across the heavens. The boy was fast asleep in his own bed. The young lived in the moment. Although he still did not want to pass the night alone in his sleeping chamber, it had been more than a month since Sasan had had a nightmare. Perhaps the young were just more resilient, or it could be that life had yet to crush their natural optimism.

Barbad regarded the stars. The Hyades, the Bear, Orion, and the Dolphin; they were as familiar to him by their Greek names as their Persian. As scribe to Prince Papak, Barbad had learnt Greek. It was the language of diplomacy. When a Persian met a Roman, they talked Greek. And some of the prince’s tenants were Greek; either prisoners recently taken in the campaigns of Shapur, or the descendants of those settled long ago by Alexander and his successors.