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water on the table beside me, wrung it out and replaced it on my forehead.
    ‘My scouts report no activity east or west of the Euphrates,’ said Byrd.
    I smiled to myself. He commanded fifty hand-picked scouts that were the eyes and ears of Dura’s army. Mostly ragged-looking Agraci, they were a law unto themselves, riding hither and thither at their own beck and call. Their refusal to obey anyone save Byrd and me drove Domitus to distraction and he was forever complaining about their appearance or non-appearance when they decided to take themselves off at a moment’s notice. But for all their shortcomings I reckoned them to be the finest group of scouts in the Parthian Empire. And to date they had always provided me with accurate information regarding an enemy’s whereabouts and strength, and the army had never been surprised on campaign. This made Byrd and his fifty scouts priceless and that is why I never interfered with their peculiar ways. Every month a payment of gold was sent from Dura’s treasury to Byrd at Palmyra to pay him and his scouts. The amount was generous, which was a bone of contention with Rsan, but I reckoned it money well spent for it provided me with information concerning what was happening beyond Dura’s borders.
    ‘I’m glad that your men are collecting intelligence, Byrd,’ I told him, ‘but the caravans also convey gossip concerning what is going on east of the Euphrates.’
    He reached into his robes and held out his hand to me, a gold coin between his fingers.
    ‘What’s this?’
    ‘From Gerrha,’ he replied.
    ‘Gerrha?’
    The name was vaguely familiar but I could not place it. I took the coin. It was newly minted and on one side bore the head of Simurgel, the bird-god symbol of Persis. I placed the towel on the table and sat up as I turned the coin in my hand.
    ‘This is the currency of the Kingdom of Persis,’ I said.
    Byrd nodded. ‘Lord Yasser recently escorted a caravan carrying incense from Gerrha.’
    Yasser was one of Haytham’s warlords who commanded a large stretch of territory in the southern Agraci lands. Byrd told me that Gerrha was the capital of the Kingdom of Dilmun, a domain in eastern Arabia, and Gerrha itself was a large port that traded in goods coming from east of the Indus. Its boats transported incense and spices throughout the Persian Gulf and also into Parthia via the Tigris and Euphrates.
    ‘Yasser imposed a tax on the caravan and then escorted it north toward Petra,’ said Byrd.
    I laughed. ‘He is a merchant now rather than a warlord.’
    Byrd nodded.
    ‘Yasser must be getting soft,’ I remarked.
    ‘Haytham himself visited Kingdom of Dilmun and proposed trade treaty based on the one he has with Dura. You have changed him, Pacorus.’
    I felt immensely proud and smug at that moment. Perhaps future generations would view me as the Parthian who tamed the Agraci, not with bows but with words.
    ‘Thing is,’ continued Byrd, ‘Yasser talked to the camel drivers and they told him that many of Narses’ agents in Gerrha hiring boats with gold.’
    ‘Boats?’
    Byrd nodded.
    ‘Perhaps Narses wishes Persis to become a great trading kingdom,’ I suggested. ‘Why else does he need boats?’
    Byrd had no answer to my question but I was secretly pleased that Narses was occupying himself with affairs within his own kingdom, and presumably his newly acquired kingdom of Sakastan.
    The next few days were a happy time as I hunted with Gafarn, Diana, Nergal and Praxima, taking with me the saker falcon named Najya that had been a present from Haytham. Gafarn, my former slave, now my adopted brother and a prince of Hatra, was in high spirits as he basked in the love of his wife, the former kitchen slave from Capua who had escaped from the gladiatorial school with Spartacus. I had hope that they would bring the young son of Spartacus with them to Dura but he had been left behind at Hatra.
    ‘Your mother dotes on him,’ Gafarn said to me as we rode back to