Fall of Empires

Chapter 39

Antonina ran as fast as she could although she had no idea where she was running to. With Kavad's summer palace abandoned by all but slaves and concubines in the face of the advancing Roman army, its endless corridors and vast sprawling grounds were no longer controlled by guards on every corner. For the first time she could run wherever she liked and no-one cared to stop her.  

As reports of the approaching army had become ever more alarming, the trickle of desertions amongst the soldiers and courtiers had become a flood. Rumours abounded that the emperor Heraclius had raised up all the savages of the northern wastes against the new King of Persia and that he had unleashed them in a whirlwind of destruction with orders to burn and kill everything in their path. 

Antonina hoped that it was true. She did not think however that there was any greater cause to fear these barbarians than any other men. However savage these warriors might be that the emperor had sent against the Persian king, could they truly be any more terrible than the prince who had left her beaten, torn and bloodied? She doubted it. She had often woken at night in terror from dark dreams in which she found herself once again in Kavad's brutal clutches, wishing fervently that she had sought oblivion in the river when she had had the chance. Could her fate in the hands of even the most backward of barbarians really be any worse? 

At any rate, she had no intention of finding out and so Antonina ran until her lungs felt as if they would burst. On through labyrinthine corridors she hurried, passing doors hanging from their hinges and ornate rooms left ransacked by the soldiers of the garrison who had looted the palace of everything worth taking before they had fled southwards. Behind her the sounds of destruction grew louder as the Roman army broke into the palace and began tearing through it anew in search of any plunder that their Persian counterparts may have left behind. A sudden outbreak of screaming confirmed her worst fears about the soldiers' intentions.  

Turning a corner she ran straight into a young eunuch, one of Kavad's pretty boys. He had been carrying a hoard of coins that he had scooped up in the folds of his tunic and as she collided with him they were flung upwards to shower the floor with gold. He cursed her as he fell to his knees and began gathering them up. Antonina ran on towards the daylight ahead, looking back over her shoulder as the boy gave a strangled squeal and she saw him run through by a stocky, bearded soldier whose white tunic and leather cuirass were spattered with blood. She hoped that the soldier would be distracted by the fallen coins, a fortune he could hardly hope to see again in his lifetime. She sprinted out through the archway into a large garden courtyard whose walls were overgrown with crawling vines. The air was thick with the heady perfume of roses and seemed quite at odds with the terror and bloodshed that she left behind her. Still running as fast as she could, Antonina looked frantically around for a way out but there seemed to be no gates in the walls and she began to panic at the thought of finding herself trapped. 

Reaching the wall at the far end of the garden, Antonina hitched up her tunic and began to scramble upwards. The twisting branches that covered the wall allowed her an easy purchase and she soon reached the top and swung her legs up and over the wall. The drop on the other side was further than she had expected and she landed in an awkward heap amongst the scattered bones and skulls of goats.  

She looked up in alarm to see a great spotted cat, sprawling in the sunlight on the far side of the high-walled enclosure. She had heard that the king kept a menagerie of exotic creatures in the grounds of the palace. The beast raised its head and regarded her with a pair of golden eyes that seemed to look right through her. Antonina very slowly got up onto her knees and began crawling carefully along, keeping herself pressed against the wall behind her and keeping her eyes on the terrifying creature lest it should make any move towards her. She reflected that the beast had probably not been fed for many days since the abandonment of the palace had begun and that this did not bode well for her survival. For the moment it did not seem to be in a great hurry to devour her. The cat yawned, opening its jaws wide and revealing a large and very sharp set of teeth.