CHAPTER 3 – INTO THE INDO-SCYTHIAN KINGDOM
15:20 (Central Asia Time)
Wednesday, May 15, 61 B.C.E.
Mountain pass, nine kilometers from Alexandra Caucaso
Kingdom of Tocharistan (part of Yuezhi Kingdom)
‘’Alexandra Caucaso is within sight, at last!’’ said Hiram on seeing the mountain pass his caravan had been following starting to enlarge into a fertile valley ahead. Those last twenty days of travel had been tough ones, being mostly in mountainous terrain and while following narrow trails along often steep gradients. Now, he could hope to be able to sleep in a real bed tomorrow night. A loud shout of alarm then came from Gorudos, who was positioned at the tail end of the caravan.
‘’ALARM! A LARGE CAVALRY COLUMN IS APPROACHING FROM OUR REAR.’’
That was enough to make Hiram and Nauca, who had been riding point, gallop at once down the line of horses and camels to join up with Gorudos. Stopping next to the grizzled guard, Nauca concentrated her eyes on the large cloud of dust approaching rapidly along the trail, coming from the direction of Bactra.
‘’This is indeed a very large column of riders, Hiram: that troupe must count at least a few hundred cavalrymen.’’
‘’A FEW HUNDRED?’’ nearly shouted the merchant, shocked. ‘’Who could they be and why are they coming this way at such speed?’’
‘’That, I believe, must be some kind of army on the move. Do you know if there is some war going on around here, Hiram?’’
Hiram was silent for a moment, trying to remember all that he had heard about this region in the last few months.
‘’Well, this whole region belonged until a few decades ago to the Indo-Greek Kingdom of Bactria, but was progressively taken over by the Kushans, a tribal group part of the Greater Yuezhi Kingdom, who by the way control Samarkand, among other cities of Sogdiana. The Kushans have been pushing south lately in order to take control of more territory from the Saka’s Indo-Scythian Kingdom, which itself had been pushing eastward the remnants of the old Indo-Greek Kingdom of the Greek Seleucid. We could well be heading towards some war-thorn territories, which is not good at all for us. If those incoming cavalrymen decide to replenish their supplies at our expense, then there will be nothing that we will be able to do to stop them. If we resist, then we will all be massacred in short order.’’
‘’I agree!’’ said Gorudos, while Nauca nodded her head. ‘’Stopping a band of bandits is one thing: to resist a whole army is another thing. What do we do, Hiram?’’
‘’We get off this trail and free it for the use of those cavalrymen. Let’s stop our beasts as far away from this trail as we can and let’s all stay calm. With luck, those soldiers will ignore us and continue on without stopping.’’
While Nauca was not sure that this would be enough to avert a disaster, Hiram’s suggestion was unfortunately the only one that made sense right now. She thus trotted back towards the head of the caravan, telling in passing to the merchants and camel drivers to go to the narrow flat band of ground to the right of the trail, where some long grass and bushes grew.
The whole caravan had finished moving to the band of ground only minutes ago when the head of the approaching column of cavalry appeared at a bend of the trail. Hiram, standing next to his horse, focused his eyes on the newcomers and spoke after a few seconds.
‘’They are Kushan cavalrymen alright and they seem to be in a fair hurry. Somebody must have been calling for some urgent reinforcements somewhere to the South. Hopefully, they will not pay much attention to us.’’
Every person in the caravan held its breath as the cavalry column started passing by on the trail. Hiram couldn’t help shiver with fear on understanding that the column counted thousands of cavalrymen rather than hundreds: he and his caravan was now at the mercy of whoever commanded those soldiers. It took nearly half an hour for the whole column to trot past the caravan and disappear down the trail in a big cloud of dust. Hiram then let out a deep breath in relief.
‘’By Ahura Mazda, that was one scary encounter! Well, I believe that we should set camp here for the night: the more distance we will leave between us and that Kushan army, the better.’’
Nobody objected to that and the caravan men promptly formed a sort of square with their camels along the rocky slope to the right of the trail, with the horses corralled inside that square and with the unloaded bundles of merchandises lined up to form a sort of rudimentary defensive wall for the beasts. Next, a work party, in which Nauca and her three girls participated, went down to the small mountain stream running along the trail, some twenty meters from it, armed with buckets that they then filled with water. An hour later, with the beasts having drank water aplenty and having been given rations of grains, their riders finally took the time to erect their tents and start a fire.
With Nauca’s conical tent up and with the girls’ things inside, Nauca decided to go to the stream to see if she could catch some fish, taking Talya with her while bringing a fishnet shaped like a large bag. Stopping on the shore of the stream, Nauca and Talya eyed the waters running past them, with Talya soon shouting out happily.
‘’A FISH JUST SWAM DOWN PAST US!’’
‘’Then, let’s take off our boots and pull up our pants and let’s go stand in the water with our net deployed.’’
The water of the stream, not surprisingly, proved quite cold at once, making Talya shiver as she cautiously walked on the polished stones at the bottom of the stream.
‘’Yikes! This water is really cold!’’
‘’Come on, Talya, don’t be a soft one. Those fish will be our supper, remember?’’
‘’I know, but it is still cold.’’
Standing some four paces apart, Nauca and Talya then held firmly to their ends of the net while the waters flowed through it. Maybe a minute later, they were rewarded by a sudden movement and extra weight inside their net.
‘’Yay! We have one fish!’’
‘’It’s a good start, but we need a few more fish in order to feed all of us.’’
A few more minutes of patience brought more fish into their net, with the two of them finally walking out of the stream after some fifteen minutes, nine big fish inside their net and with their feet half-frozen. Leaving the net and its trapped fish a few paces from the stream, Nauca then quickly dried Talya’s feet with a scarf, then vigorously rubbed them with her hands to revive circulation in them. Talya then returned the favor before they put their boots back on. The two of them returned to the campfire while proudly carrying their net full of fish, attracting a concert of happy exclamations and comments when they lined up their fish near the campfire under the satisfied look of their Kazakh caravan cook, Askhat.
‘’Excellent! If you could get little Amara, I will then teach her how to eviscerate and prepare fish.’’
‘’I’ll go get her!’’ volunteered at once Talya. As the teenager ran towards their tent, Nauca smiled to the cook.
‘’I could spare some of the spices I have in order to make those fish tastier, Askhat.’’
That made the Kazakh cook grin with contentment.
‘’Nauca, if you didn’t exist already, Ahura Mazda would need to invent a girl like you. You are priceless as a member of this caravan.’’
‘’I do my best to be helpful, Askhat, but I will never be as good a cook as you are.’’
‘’Am I? Those cruds I feed keep complaining about everything and anything concerning my food.’’
That attracted a concert of weak protestations from around the campfire, along with a chuckle from Nauca.
10:45 (Central Asia Time)
Thursday, May 16, 61 B.C.E.
City of Alexandra Caucaso, Kingdom of Tocharistan
‘’Thank Ahura Mazda that the city is intact: I was afraid that there would be a battle for its possession between the Kushans and the Saka-Scythians. Let me ask one of the gate guards to see if he knows where that Kushan army went.’’
Pushing his horse, Hiram then galloped towards the open city gate of Alexandra Caucaso and stopped next to one of the four guards there.
‘’I am sorry to bother you, good man, but my caravan saw a large cavalry unit pass by its camp yesterday and I was afraid to find this city burned down to the ground.’’
The response of the guard, who wore a lamellar armored vest and was armed with a sword and a lance, was to give him a reassuring smile.
‘’You did not need to worry about that, merchant: this city belongs to the Kushan, while that cavalry unit you saw was also Kushan. It simply stopped for the night here and replenished its supplies before leaving this morning.’’
‘’Is the road beyond this city safe? My caravan is heading towards India, via the Khyber Pass, and I have no wish to be caught between two fighting armies.’’
‘’An understandable worry, merchant. However, I can’t say how far this road will prove to be safe for your caravan…or for anybody. The word around is that a Saka army was on its way to try to retake this region from us.’’
‘’Well, in view of the mass of valiant Kushan cavalrymen I saw pass yesterday, I gather that this Saka army is going to hit a big bump in the road.’’
Hiram’s declaration, calculated to make the guard sympathetic towards him, made the guard briefly laugh.
‘’A very big bump indeed! Your caravan is welcomed to enter our city, merchant…after you will have paid the usual toll, of course.’’
‘’Of course!’’
Hiram then searched into his purse and paid the toll the guard asked for, then waved at his caravan to come forward and enter the city.
Finding a caravanserai with available space for his caravan promised to be easy, the city being on the main road leading to Persia and India and seeing many caravans pass through it. In turn, those caravans constituted the lifeline of the city, something that had stimulated the establishment of many caravanserais. While trotting at the head of the caravan with Hiram, Nauca was able to appreciate the large size of the city and its apparent prosperity and said so to Hiram, who nodded his head in response.
‘’Alexandra Caucaso has been an important town since the conquest of the region by Alexander the Great, who made this city the capital of the Indo-Greek Kingdom, populating it with his soldiers and their families nearly three centuries ago. It also benefits from being close to the most productive mines in the whole region. We should be able to make some good deals on gems and precious stones here.’’
‘’Good! In turn, I don’t think that the local merchants will spit on my amber.’’
‘’Amber should indeed be an item of interest for the locals, since it can be found only in northeastern countries far from here and has to come via the steppes. Aah, I see a caravanserai ahead. Let me just check it out to see if it can lodge us.’’
Pushing his horse ahead, Hiram entered the said caravanserai’s courtyard, where he met with a tall and thin bearded man in his forties who greeted him in Greek.
‘’Good morning, traveler! Do you seek lodging at my humble caravanserai?’’
‘’I indeed am! Do you still have enough space to lodge a caravan with over sixty beasts and close to twenty riders?’’
The contrite smile the caravanserai master then made raised at once questions in Hiram’s mind.
‘’I have plenty of space available for your caravan, as my caravanserai is presently empty.’’
‘’Empty? In a city of such trading importance? How so?’’
‘’War!’’ said the bearded man, as if spitting a bad word. ‘’The Sakas have been trying to retake some ground they lost to the Kushans during the past years and were coming in from the South and Southwest. As a result, they have blocked many of the more important roads, preventing caravans from India and Persia from reaching this city for a whole month now. Business for my caravanserai and for the other establishments in the city has thus been quite difficult.’’
‘’Meaning that I will be in a good position to bargain a good price for lodging here.’’ thought Hiram to himself before speaking out loud. ‘’Then, I will tell my caravan to come in…if your price is right.’’
A short session of haggling for the price of lodging followed but the caravanserai owner proved to be quite accommodating, most probably because he was desperate for getting paying customers. Hiram was thus able to negotiate a price that was nearly one third lower than the standard prices expected at caravanserais. With the price settled, Hiram then called in his caravan, which soon trotted into the courtyard and started occupying the numerous empty stalls of the establishment. Hiram was about to lead his own horse into one of the covered stalls when he heard a concert of female voices coming from the upper windows of the local inn. Looking up, he was mildly shocked to see over twenty young women and girls waving at his associates and camel drivers and inviting them to go see them. The caravanserai master, whose name was Theophilas, made an apologetic smile to Hiram while shrugging his shoulders.
‘’Since the caravan business was so poor, I decided to let prostitutes lodge in my inn for the time being. In return for having a decent roof over their heads for a change, they give me a portion of their earnings from the clients they attract. I hope that this will not be an inconvenience for you, Hiram?’’
Hiram shook his head in amusement in response.
‘’I bet that my associates won’t object to that, Theophilas. Uh, do you by chance have a bath establishment as part of your caravanserai, or is there one nearby? We really could use a hot bath, plus the services of laundry girls.’’
‘’Do not worry, Hiram: I have all of this right here. In fact, your men will be able to soak in hot water while in the company of girls, who will then be able to rub them aplenty.’’
Hiram couldn’t help chuckle as he mentally pictured that scene.
‘’Well, I am no prude and my men do need to relax after all those days and weeks on the trail. I am sure that they will provide some excellent business for your prostitutes. Your girls are clean, I hope?’’
‘’Of course!’’ replied Theophilas in a nearly offended tone. ‘’They are all clean and in good health. I could even get a few young nice boys if your men would need some.’’
Hiram shook his head, amused further: Greeks had an old reputation about liking the company of boys, so he patted in a friendly matter the left shoulder of the caravanserai master.
‘’I do have four girls with my caravan: two of them act as guards, while the two others help with my beasts and with cooking. I don’t think that they will mind the presence of boys around.’’
‘’Then, I will have four boys come for your girls. Even if your girls do not use them to the fullest, those boys could still help rub their backs while they bathe.’’
Hiram again shook his head in amusement: tonight promised to turn into one memorable group orgy. But what was the worth of living if you never engaged in some good fun?
When Hiram’s caravan left Alexandra Caucaso after two memorable nights, Nauca felt as sexually satisfied as her male associates and as her two older ex-slaves. That satisfaction was however tempered partly by the discovery that young Amara had been raped by the Romans when they had enslaved her. The young, prepubescent boy who had ‘played’ with Amara had then told Nauca that Amara had not been a virgin before she had entered the big bath reserved for the female customers of the bath house. While that was less than surprising about an ex-slave girl, the thought that grown men could abuse such a young girl had angered her, raising the already high dislike she had for the Romans, with their apparently limitless greed for power and riches. Trading-wise, those two days in Alexandra Caucaso had also been fruitful, with Hiram, Nauca and the other merchants making good deals on precious gems and stones, including a few top-quality emeralds and rubies. Judging that the Kushan army which had passed by them was far enough ahead, Hiram had then decided that it was now time to get back on the road and go to nearby Kophen, where Hiram decided to bypass it rather than entering it, intent on gaining back some of the time spent in Alexandra Caucaso. The caravan then took the main eastward road going from Kophen to Purushapura{6}, their next destination.