Triumph

Dedicated to the

‘Famiglia Bruschini’

Paul and Mark have fed me well

for over 35 years at

Pasta Brown.

The next generation:

Harry, Anthony, Natalie and Georgia,

I know, will keep up the tradition.

T
he state of the world looked promising for the Roman Emperor Justinian in the Year of Our Lord 536. Sicily was Goth free and wholly pacified, while Sardinia and Corsica were firmly in the right hands. If there were continuing rumblings of discontent in the reconquered provinces of North Africa that was a region requiring to be pacified rather than fought for. Victory had also just been achieved over the Ostrogoths in Illyricum, securing the Adriatic coast all the way north to the River Timavo, the border with Italy proper.

The reconquest of the remainder of the Western Roman Empire was now deemed to be possible, this being an ambition Justinian had long harboured, one he had craved even before his elevation to the purple. Waiting in Sicily, Constantinople’s most successful military commander and the
magister militum per Orientem.
Flavius Belisarius, was instructed to cross the Straits of Messina and begin the conquest of the mainland.

The army he commanded seemed far too small for such an undertaking, many less than that he had led when he defeated the Vandals of North Africa, yet the message from Justinian was blunt. With trouble an ever-present danger on the eastern border with Persia there were no more troops to be had: the man he trusted to lead his
invading army must make do with what he possessed.

To Flavius Belisarius numbers mattered less than experience added to discipline, and those he led had those qualities in abundance. The bulk of his forces had fought under him for many years now, some since his days as an untried commander on the Persian frontier. In addition he could deploy six thousand men from the imperial army under the patrician general Constantinus, who would act as his second in command.

That body included a large force of German
foederati
, fighters from beyond the Danube and the Rhine who lived for combat and would be used as shock troops. Constantinus also brought to the army substantial contingents of other mercenaries; Isaurian infantry as well as Hun and Moorish cavalry, but the backbone of the host Flavius ordered aboard the ships that would carry them to Italy proper lay in his own
comitatus
, personal troops attached to their general and fiercely loyal to his person, consisting mainly of heavy cavalry. These were soldiers he had personally raised and trained who could be deployed as mounted archers as well as spearmen.

The unfortified port of Rhegium, his first objective, observed from the deck of his command galley, looked somnolent rather than a city under imminent threat. To the north, directly opposite Messina, his army, under the watchful eye of his
domesticus
, Solomon, was disembarking across a pebble beach that made such an enterprise slow, uncomfortable and at risk from enemy interference. Yet from what he had seen sailing south it was going to be carried out unopposed.

The only road to and from the capital of Calabria was coastal and visible; Ebrimuth, the nobleman in command of the Goths, who must have had orders to oppose any landing, showed no sign of moving his troops to give battle, this in a situation where he could not be in ignorance of the movements of an enemy fleet large enough to
transport some twelve thousand men as well as their horses. The coast of Sicily was visible to the naked eye.

The faint possibility existed that Ebrimuth was moving to a confrontation out of sight, yet that would mean a march along goat trails, through the mountains that stood at the back of Rhegium, which would be exhausting to the men he led. Still, the prospect had to be guarded against and patrols had been sent out to cover the paths out of the mountains that led to his landing beach and that, Flavius now reasoned, was where he needed to be.

The order given, the calls roared out and the oars of the galley dipped as the great mainsail holding them steady was raised: the wind that had brought them swiftly south was not there to make the return. As the vessel began to move Flavius kept looking at the port city he needed to capture. The reports he had told of a force too large to be left at his rear even if in its composition and numbers it was very inferior to his own. He was deep in contemplation of the ramifications of this when the voice from the lookout sounded an alert.

‘Boat setting out from the harbour and there are armed men aboard. Goths, by their armour.’

‘Size?’ demanded the sailing master; he also had the job of controlling the fighting if his vessel was drawn into battle.

‘Small, ten oars.’

‘General?’

‘I am not a sailor,’ Flavius responded after a pause. ‘It falls to you to decide what threat they pose.’

The man was rendered nervous by that response; the finest general the empire possessed, the Victor of Carthage and a man reckoned to be a close personal companion of the Emperor, was leaving a decision to him and to be wrong did not bear thinking about. He went to the side and raised a hand to shield his eyes, not only from the sun but
also the glare reflected off the sea and it was quite a while before he gave his opinion.

‘If they seek to board us I can’t see them succeeding with such numbers.’

At a nod from Flavius the master had the oars raised on one side, which brought the galley round in a wide arc, all sticks dipped once more close with the mainland shore. More commands had half of them withdrawn while the rowers who abandoned their sticks quickly equipped themselves as fighters, donning armour and eventually lining up on deck, some with bows and others bearing spears.

Flavius could see the figure on the opposite prow now, standing in a way that sought to display boldness, a gleaming war helmet on his head and a white decorated cloak whipping in the breeze, while behind him stood a file of warriors also with spears, which had him call for a shield of his own. Low numbers could mean many things and one of them might be an attempt on his life from a man ready to die to achieve it. The Goths would know by the standard on the mast who was on the enemy vessel. He might also surmise that to remove the head of an army was to atrophy its limbs and render it ineffective.

‘Take station behind me, Father.’

Photius, his stepson, said this with a gravity way beyond his years, stepping forward to cover Flavius with his body and shield.

‘If we stand side by side how will they know which of us is the desirable target?’

About to protest the boy hesitated, then smiled, aware that he was being treated to a jest; how could anyone see Flavius Belisarius, who had stature and presence to spare, a man in his prime, set against a very obvious youth hardly old enough to have a beard.

‘It could it be Ebrimuth,
magister
?’ said Procopius quietly. Flavius answered his secretary, now stood behind him, with a nod, which
prompted a firm opinion. ‘He cannot be coming to issue a threat, can he?’

‘Is what you are suggesting not too much to hope for?’

‘Rhegium has no walls, for all we know he has fewer troops than we were led to expect and with a father-in-law like Theodahad, Ebrimuth cannot feel utterly secure.’

‘King Theodahad might be marching south with a powerful Goth army as we speak, so this may be a ploy.’

Procopius brushed that aside. ‘It’s a long way from Ravenna,
magister
, over two hundred leagues. If Ebrimuth is going to parley he best be prepared to have it last for many weeks.’

As ever, the pace of matters at sea allowed much time to think, especially as on a distinct swell, the smaller craft was making slow progress. After long consideration and with the putative enemy now in plain sight, Flavius requested that the master heave to and prepare to receive an honoured guest. Thus most of the oars disappeared, only those right fore and aft still in the water to hold the ship steady.

The armed men were rearranged in a fashion more fit for an inspection than fighting, while the gangway in the side of the galley was removed, the ladder that permitted entry from a much lower deck dropped into position.

‘Hail, Flavius Belisarius,
magister
of Byzantium, from
Kindin
Ebrimuth.’

The cry from the prow, given in guttural Latin from a senior Goth noble by his title, was accompanied by a Roman chest-beating salute, this as the spears of his escort shot forward on extended arms, signifying no sign of aggression from the military commander and governor of Rhegium.

Much as Flavius disliked being referred to as a Byzantine, he had to acknowledge that even within his own ranks it had now become
common currency. To him the name smacked too much of Greece and, like his father before him, he was proud to be called a Roman, seeing in that polity and its achievements a set of values to which he could adhere.

Greeks, who massively made up the largest contingent in the imperial heartlands had, to his mind, few values at all, which in more temperate moments he would acknowledge as unfair; Romans and their Italian allies had been just as corrupt and febrile long before they ceased to hold a majority in the empire, a fact to bear in mind now he was landed on their shore.

‘Do you come to parley for terms?’ he demanded.

‘I come to talk.’

If the two statements sounded as if they meant the same thing it was clear they did not, at least to the Goth, which intrigued Flavius. ‘Then I bid you come aboard,
Kindin
.’

With the oars on the other galley shipped, a line was sent flying from one to the other, that followed by a thicker rope strong enough to bear the weight of bringing them together. Peaceful intent was underlined by the way the armed men of Ebrimuth’s vessel laid down their weapons on the deck and took a secure grip on said cable, hauling until the two vessels lay side by side, resting on hastily dropped fenders, this as chairs were brought out on which the principles could sit.

Ebrimuth came aboard alone, skipping up the ladder onto the higher deck with an agility that underlined his youth, Flavius being treated to another old-fashioned Roman salute, which gave him a moment to take in the man’s physical attributes. The Goth nobleman was barrel-chested and somewhat short in the leg, which gave his whole being an odd appearance. With his large upper body he should have been tall; with his lack of leg, and they were trunk-like, he was not.

The removal of his helmet revealed a well-scarred face, which
indicated either a hearty warrior or an unlucky fighter, for the Goths were a fractious race who were inclined to internal squabbling, unwilling to let anything seen as an insult pass, when what counted as such could be as little as a churlish sideways glance. Fighting among themselves was as endemic as doing collective battle with their borderland enemies.

They occupied the heart of the old Roman Empire and had absorbed many of its ways, yet living in harmony with each other was not one of them. Nothing proved that more than the events which had taken place since the death of Theodoric the Great, a potentate who had not only pacified and ruled his fellow and troublesome Goths, but had done so in a way that won the approval of the native Italians as well, allowing them freedom to practise their form of Catholic worship, never seeking to impose his own Arian rites.

More importantly, Theodoric had, by his lack of greed for titles, kept content more than one Eastern emperor over a long and peaceful reign, never claiming any rank not granted to him, especially not imperial status for himself, an act which would have forced a martial response from Constantinople. For decades the two halves of the old Roman patrimony had lived in harmony and that had continued, if never quite as smoothly, under his daughter Amalasuintha, mother and regent to Theodoric’s grandson and heir, the boy Athalaric.

How many times had Flavius and Justinian discussed the tortured situation in Italy over the last ten years since the death of Theodoric, always with an eye on opportunities; Amalasuintha seeking to hold at bay ambitious nobles, not least her cousin Theodahad while that same relative flirted, for his own personal gain in land and money, with Constantinople.

If Theodahad was a thorn in her flesh he was not the sole one: Amalasuintha had wanted her son educated as a Roman but the
powerful nobles who surrounded her court demanded their future king be raised a Goth and in overseeing his upbringing they had completely debauched the youngster. The death of Athalaric, a mere sixteen summers old, reputedly following on from a too heavy drinking bout, left his mother exposed.

She had married Theodahad in an attempt to shore up her position. Her reward had been for her new spouse to stand aside while she was first incarcerated and then murdered by those same jealous nobles who had corrupted her son. The question occupying Flavius’s mind now was simple: how would Ebrimuth, married to Theodahad’s daughter, feel in such a fevered polity; safe or at risk?

‘Your great reputation precedes you, Flavius Belisarius.’

The reply was as diplomatic as the Goth opening. ‘As would yours, Ebrimuth, had God granted you those opportunities he has graciously gifted to me. Shall we sit?’

The two chairs had been set facing each other in the middle of the deck and these the principles now occupied, exchanging the very necessary pleasantries that always precede the nub of a negotiation, questions of family, of children and of the health of the imperial couple, for it was well known that Justinian did not rule entirely alone but was a man who relied heavily on his wife Theodora.

‘He should get to the point,’ Photius whispered, his tone irritated. ‘It is a waste of time to indulge this barbarian.’

Procopius, standing with him and just out of earshot of the main conversation, smiled at the natural impatience of youth as Photius added to his complaint.

‘We need to fight him and annihilate him, not chatter like fishwives.’

‘And if we are not obliged to fight?’

Photius looked hard at his stepfather’s secretary who, having given the young man a quizzical but silent response, returned his gaze to the
two leaders, they having now moved on to more germane matters.

‘I know you do not lead a force enough for conquest,
magister
Belisarius. Sicily is not lacking in those who keep us informed.’