Three times a day the door opened. The food varied. Nothing else changed. They had long exhausted their one book of poetry. For long hours Barbad would tell the boy stories: Persian folktales, anecdotes from the many books of the Greeks, gossip from happier days. The latter was carefully selected not to upset the prince. The rest of the time they slept or stared out of the windows, watching the wheeling buzzards, seeing the occasional eagle, noting the play of sunlight on the crags and ravines. Sometimes Barbad wondered if he was going insane.

Barbad had been cut just before his fourteenth birthday. It was when Ardashir, the father of Shapur, had seized the throne. Barbad’s family were of the old Persian nobility, and had been faithful supporters of the rightful king. To become King of Kings, the pretender Ardashir had murdered his own brother. It was given out as an accident: a building at Chumai on the road to Darabgerd had collapsed. Nothing but the will of the gods. The persecutions that followed were evidence of the lie.

Many of those who had kept faith with the true king had fled into exile. Barbad’s family had not been so lucky. His father, his uncle and two cousins – all his adult male relatives – had been captured. They had been condemned to die slowly in the troughs. As a boy, Barbad had been ‘spared’ to watch. Then he had been cut. Even now his mind shied away from that day. He tried not to think of his pain, or the terrible suffering of those in the troughs.

For years Barbad had harboured a dream of revenge. Like Hermotimus, he would castrate the man responsible for making him a eunuch, wield the knife on all those the man loved, take the manhood of every man and boy in his family, make Ardashir watch their agony and humiliation. Yet even as it had sustained him, he had known that it was no more than an idle fantasy. A eunuch scribe could never emasculate a King of Kings. Now it was too late. Ardashir was long dead.

The wine was warm. Barbad diluted it with three parts water. With fussy precision, he arranged the boy’s morning meal. It was dawn. Almost time to wake Sasan.

Barbad hesitated, reluctant to open the door on another interminable day. There had been no news for months. They knew nothing of the outside world. Confined to two rooms and a privy. No companionship but the silent and watchful guards. Nothing to see but the bare crags of the mountains. Any man might lose his mind.

Nothing remained but duty. Sooner or later, Barbad would perform the last service for Sasan. He would save the boy from torture. The slender knife was still concealed. Before it was too late he would act. Barbad was ready.

Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

Adiabene