Authors: Jack Ludlow
‘Time to use your elbows, young sir,’ he growled.
The street that formed the approach to the fortress had become increasingly crowded, turning to a pushing and shoving throng, which did not diminish as they flowed out onto the old parade ground that lay before the gates. Streams of fleeing citizenry, coming from several directions, were melding into one heaving mass, each person seeking advantage so that the sound of disputes rose to a crescendo as men and women jostled to get themselves and their possessions to safety.
Even if his voice could have carried, it would have been useless for Flavius to try to shout out and state that panic was unnecessary, to say the Sklaveni were not on their heels and the garrison, soon to be joined by the men retained by the local landowners to protect their own property, had set out to impede any advance on Dorostorum. The mood had taken hold and could not be controlled and what was before them now was getting dangerous: a melee in which to stumble risked being trampled.
‘Let us hold back, Ohannes,’ Flavius croaked.
‘Your charges won’t wait, Master Flavius, better you draw that sword on your hip and force your way through by a bit of belabouring or we will lose them.’
The noise of the crowd made it equally impossible for Flavius to impose a check on the servants who, already wracked with anxiety, had picked up on the general air of alarm. Pushing forward despite his rasping command to halt they became mingled with the terrified citizenry. He had stopped, while Ohannes, by his side and hearing his order, had done likewise. There they stood, watching as matters ahead of them descended into chaos, the crowd around them shoving to get by, while by the double gate itself it was clear people were being crushed.
‘This should have been done with more calm.’
‘Easy to say, young sir, hard to manage when terror takes hold.’
‘It is enough for me, I have done my duty as requested.’ Those words being met with an expression of enquiry, Flavius added, ‘The servants are either on their way to safety or in a place where, even if it is dangerous, I cannot aid them.’
The look he got from the taller man clearly begged a question, which he answered with a puffed-out chest. There was a sense that in declining the requests of his school friends he had diminished himself, something circumstances now allowed him to redress.
‘I intend to ride to join my father.’
‘Which will be against the expressed wish of that very man, if I know his mind.’
‘It is my hope he will applaud my willingness to stand by his side.’
‘More likely he’ll tan your hide.’
‘Not if I prove my worth, which I am determined to do. Take these keys and look after them. I will see you Ohannes, when I have helped to rout the barbarians.’
‘You will see me by your side, young sir, for I fear to face your father for what you propose if I do not accompany you.’
‘Can you ride?’
The implication of the question was obvious; Flavius would go to join his sire on horseback and the thought of doing likewise, judging by the furrowed brow, was not a welcome one to Ohannes, albeit the old mercenary replied in a firm voice. ‘I can hold my seat if it’s not at the gallop, though I would not care for jumping of any kind.’
‘You will not consent to my going alone?’ That got a very firm shake of the head, accompanied by a glare of determination. ‘Then let us find you a mount.’
Ohannes did not enquire as to where such a thing might be found;
a citizenry fleeing on foot would have left what horses they owned in their stalls, but he clearly felt the need to point out a possible transgression. ‘We will be required to steal it.’
‘Borrow,’ Flavius croaked happily. ‘And what cur would deny those set to protect them the use of their mounts?’
The retracing of steps was done through streets thinning of people until they were actually deserted, though no doubt the dishonest elements of the citizenry would be busy pilfering where they could. Without telling the older man why, he went by the houses of both Asticus and Philaretus only to find them securely locked and abandoned, and while there was disappointment in that there was also a bit of pleasure to be had, for he would render them jealous when later they were told of his exploits.
Stables were easier to enter than any of the houses, and as he suspected, many had been left unsecured. Folk running for safety had done so without much care and on foot, abandoning their animals, including their goats, pigs, donkeys and horses. Flavius having his own mount, the task was to find something suitable for Ohannes, the kind of cuddy on which a non-rider could keep his seat, for the old man was adamant anything skittish would likely throw him off.
They visited several before finding a comfortable-looking mare, one that was calm enough to give them no more than a lazy glance on entry and a creature that made no attempt to avoid their attention as they got her bridled and saddled. The reluctance of Ohannes to actually mount was clear; on the way back to the Belisarius villa he was content to stay on foot and lead the animal.
They found the family stable open, which had Flavius looking sheepish, for though it had not been stated to him, it had been his responsibility to secure the property and, assuming some servant
would lock these gates without being asked, in that he had failed. It mattered not, since it seemed nothing was untoward, allowing him to breathe a sigh of relief.
That did not last: having only just begun preparing the youngster’s stallion, they heard a crashing sound from the main house, followed immediately by another, an indication that someone unwelcome might be within the walls. Ohannes’s silent gesture that the youngster should stay still and let him investigate was ignored; Flavius, sword out, was dogging his heels as the Scythian slipped in through the kitchens and headed for the family quarters.
The centurion Decimus Belisarius could not go into battle with the family valuables or his military treasury, but as had already been established, a soldier had been left behind to guard both. They found his body in the main hallway, leather helmet split open and blood oozing from his raggedly cut throat. His unused sword was still in his hand, while from within the nearby room that Flavius’s father used as his bureau came the sounds of both cursing and crashing as the men who had done the killing sought to smash their way into the huge padlocked chest that held everything the centurion considered precious.
‘
Y
ou must stay here,’ Ohannes insisted in a hushed whisper as he picked up the sword from the murdered guard.
The reply was just as hushed, but terse. ‘This is my house.’
‘Then go fetch help.’
‘From where?’ Flavius said, making for the open doorway until a strong flat hand hit his chest, stopping him dead, but doing nothing to dent his determination. ‘There’s no one about and my father is half a league away.’
‘Then stay behind me,’ Ohannes hissed as another set of curses and thuds came through the open doorway.
So great was the noise that the pair, swords at the ready, eased unseen through the doorway, until Flavius, possibly through nerves, certainly through a lack of experience, allowed his weapon point to touch the stone of the wall and send out a metallic warning. The men intent on robbery spun round, one holding the axe with which
he had placed several deep woodcuts around a lock set in stout oak. The other villain had a short spear and somewhere on their person both must have had knives.
Killers already, they knew they were confronting death and it was inevitable that faced with an old man with greying hair, bony and scarred from many a battle, set against a young and fresh-faced youth, they should make Flavius their prime target. The spear point was aimed at his breastplate within a blink, the hand holding it drawing back to thrust, the youngster too rooted to the spot to react properly. Ohannes saved him by rushing forward and closing with the spearman before he could cast his weapon, a thrust-out and fully extended sword taking the surprised thief in the upper part of his chest.
That exposed Ohannes to a blow from a now raised axe and he was badly placed to avoid the swing of it, while Flavius was not close enough to counter what was bound to be fatal, so when he threw his sword it was in panic rather than any real hope. Mere luck had it spin point forward to take the axeman in the face, cutting his nose and cheek deeply and imposing enough of a check on his swing to allow Ohannes the time to extract his blade from the spear carrier. That did not entirely save him, for the axe had been raised again, ready to come down at a speed that would split the old man’s skull.
Flavius had followed up his weapon and, charging past Ohannes, he hit the axeman’s legs just below the hips with every ounce of his weight. This was enough to drive his body back onto the chest, over which he collapsed, the swinging blade missing the old man by a whisker. Sword now freed, Ohannes was swift to employ it once more on his opponent, a man wounded but still dangerous. The blade sliced down on his neck as the spearman
thrust out awkwardly with the fore part of his weapon to parry the blow.
Not that Flavius saw much more than movement in the corner of his eye; the axe that had threatened the Scythian was now about to be employed on him and all the youngster could do was thrust up his own arm to try and ward it off. He soon found out that while he was able to impede the speed of the blow, an adult had the kind of strength he could not match. His head was down and he was sure he was going to die when the sword swished past his crown with such energy that he felt the wind of it on his flesh; he also heard the arm bone break.
‘Your sword,’ Ohannes yelled. ‘Get the damn sword and finish him off.’
That command had to be executed by a very rapid scrabbling on hands and knees. Once the hilt was in his hand Flavius made to stand up, only to find he lacked the time to do so. Added to that he was, once more, fighting one to one, Ohannes being involved in a to-and-fro wrestling match with his wounded opponent. The axeman might be twice injured, but he was still able to threaten Flavius, having transferred the axe to his good hand. The inability of his adversary to swing with real potency saved his young victim, the arc of the left arm being wide enough to avoid by Flavius throwing his body sideways.
From that moment instinct driven by terror took over. Those same pupils with whom he studied in the classroom, the sons of his father’s officers and senior rankers, as well as the offspring of some of the moneyed citizenry of the city, all undertook military training, albeit with wooden swords and blunted spears. For all the lack of threat in the weapons used, the intent by their instructors was that
they would be taught as if they were real, so each one carried a leather crop that was used to painfully chastise any youngster who made a false move or employed their arms so badly as to leave themselves uncovered.
Now on his knees Flavius realised that to seek to rise would be to leave himself utterly exposed: time would not permit it so, gaining as much balance as a split second permitted, he thrust out hard, sending the point of his sword right into the gonads of his attacker, propelling with all his might to seek to get to the stomach. The scream that his assault produced was horrible but that had to be ignored; he was required to use his other hand, fully extended, to catch hold of the arm holding the axe, this while he sought to withdraw his weapon from what was bone-free flesh.
The knee that took him in the face might have been the act of a desperate man but it was effective; Flavius recoiled, immediately aware of the taste of blood in his mouth. Thrown onto his back he might have died at the hands of a fellow who was himself fatally wounded had he not kicked out frantically to put him off balance. One hurriedly placed boot caught the man below the knee and checked him, and this gave the youngster the time he needed to swing his sword low and hard at a bare ankle. He did so with such force that the blade went right through the back to the bone.
One leg gone and already off balance his assailant collapsed, which allowed Flavius to spring up from his static position and deliver the killer blow insisted upon by those who had trained him, albeit he had never employed it for real: a cut to the soft join of the head and neck, a swipe that produced a fount of misty blood as his sword edge severed the main artery. Ohannes, up against a much younger man, had survived because of the first wound he had inflicted, which had
sapped the strength of the fellow he was fighting, but he must have had to go at it hard to still be engaged.
That contest ceased when his adversary finally lost the grip on his spear, leaving it in the hand of a fellow who knew how to use it. Ohannes spun it round so the point was aimed at the man’s face, to then draw it back and plunge it into the exposed gorge below a head thrown back as the victim sought to avoid what was coming. The gurgling that followed from both ruptured throats was the only sound that could now be heard: no words came from either Flavius or Ohannes, both sucking in much-needed air.
After a lengthy pause, in which silence took over, Ohannes kicked at the now comatose bodies to ensure they were dead. That established, the two unlikely victors looked at each other with wonder for several seconds before the old man grinned and spoke, his breath heavy and panting.
‘God in heaven, I had forgotten the joy of a damn good fight.’
‘It would be better to thank God for the good fortune we have just enjoyed. We were lucky!’
Flavius croaked that response as he wiped the blood from under what was an obviously broken nose, aware that he was shaking badly in reaction to what he knew now to be a fear suppressed by the need to act. Then he sunk to his knees and his shoulders began to heave as he felt tears well up in his eyes while at the same time he wondered why his mouth was entirely devoid of saliva. There was soon a hand on his back, patting as softly as the spoken words.
‘Wait till your papa hears of this, eh? He will not be minded to leave you behind from his battles in future, I’ll wager. Now come, it is time to wash that blood from your face and those tears
from your eyes.’ The tone was firmer, intended to lift his spirits as Ohannes added, ‘You are, Flavius Belisarius, no pretend soldier now.’
It was common knowledge that Flavius was stubborn; it was the way of late children to be so for he was overindulged. With three sons already, the youngest five years his senior, the oldest seven, his parents had seen him as a gift from heaven, a late indicator of their continued regard for each other, and when conceived, a genuine surprise. He had come into the world from the loins of a man well past his prime and through the womb of a matron held to be too old to survive such a conception. If the arrival had been noisy from both mother and child, it had been achieved with surprising ease.
Named after an old companion of his father, he seemed to combine within himself all the best traits of both sides of his family: bonny as an infant and attractive as a growing boy, scamp enough to get into all the usual scrapes but with the charm to avoid too serious chastisement for his frequent transgressions.
Flavius was good at his schoolwork, which he took from his mother, and showed natural grace as he grew both in physique and his combative manner, traits shared by his brothers and inherited from their soldier father. Only recently had puberty begun to put some of his features out of balance, giving him a head a mite too big for his body as well as a small eruption of spots that went with the passage to full maturity.
He was, quite simply, the apple of his parents’ eye and it was not just his father and mother who were given to indulgence; two of his brothers, Cassius and Ennius, the eldest and nearest in age, were
equally ready to forgive an increasing precocity. This manifested itself in a ready tongue that was, at times, too clever by half, overly sharp and critical for his years.
Flavius made no secret of the fact that he was the clever one in the family and that severely irritated Atticus, the middle of the senior trio. Being much slower of wit than his siblings, he lacked the patience of his close brothers: he would fetch Flavius a quick clip for being cheeky when he was sure no one was looking.
When small, this had ended in tears that inevitably saw Atticus punished. That had long since ceased and in an odd way it was Atticus that set the example, for he took his chastisements without complaint and with utter indifference to any pain inflicted; the youngster had learnt like him not to cry, steeled himself to avoid any sound if he and his brother came to what were blows or a wrestling match between a pair totally unmatched in size and weight, contests in which Flavius was a constant loser even when he got close to his elder’s height.
In part his silence was for the sake of his pride, the reluctance to admit being bested. Yet added to that was the influence of one of the emperors of Rome he truly admired, a fighter as well as a philosopher, held in high regard by his father, a paragon he had studied assiduously both within the schoolroom and without, the stoic Marcus Aurelius. That was not the only reading in which he indulged; anything regarding Rome or Ancient Greece he studied with a passion, for instance Diodorus Siculus, who had written of the campaigns of Alexander.
Another favourite was the
Commentaries
of Julius Caesar and his conquest of Gaul. If the library of Dorostorum was far from comprehensive it did contain volumes of imperial history and given
the nature of the empire much of that was a story of conquest: Scipio Africanus fighting Hannibal and the final conquest of Carthage. The same story of the very province in which Flavius now lived, taken from Macedonia by the Roman legions and held against constant barbarian attempts to repel them.
There was the narrative of Mark Antony versus Octavian, of campaigns all along the Rhine and the Danube as well as the conquest of Britain by the lame Emperor Claudius. All the Belisarius sons were imbued with their father’s love of things Roman, though the last of the litter was the most affected. Steeped in his reading he held it as unmanly to show either hurt or to let his parents know that anything untoward had occurred when he and Atticus fought. Being active at robust games as well as regularly taking part in military training and wrestling bouts against his peers, there was little need to explain the appearance of sudden bruises.
That streak of stubbornness came to the fore now: Ohannes’s attempt to imply they had done enough, that the duty was now to stay and protect the house ran into a wall. Flavius, once the flow of blood from his nose had been stemmed, was even more adamant that his place was alongside his relatives on the field of battle, which left the
domesticus
in a quandary for he lacked the standing to order this youngster around.
Thus he was torn between the requirement to protect his master’s goods, set against the need to ensure that this much-favoured son, having just survived a dangerous encounter, did not now get himself into any scrape that might prove fatal. In the balance of value there was no other conclusion.
‘Then I must accompany you.’
‘I would not impose that upon you, Ohannes.’
‘You’re not laying it on me and if you knew me better, had you seen the marks on my back, you would also know that few folk have ever got me doing anything I don’t want.’
‘I could not be unhappy, after what has just taken place, to have you by my side.’
Flavius blushed then; that statement sounded and was sententious. The knowledge that such a view was shared seemed obvious by the jaundiced look the words received, added to a derisive snort.
Ohannes insisted on one last act before departing, which was to drag the bodies of the now dead thieves, as well as that of the murdered soldier left on guard, to be left at each entrance to the house; one outside the kitchen entrance, another by the gate to the stables, both relocked from the inside, the third outside the main atrium doorway, it being hoped this would give pause to anyone else thinking of robbing the place. That complete, it was an unenthusiastic old soldier, now with sword, spear and an axe in his belt, who got himself astride a less gentle mare, a mount made unsettled by the smell of so much blood.
Flavius needed to breathe deep to contain his mirth as he watched the equine struggles: having been taught to ride almost as soon as he could walk, he sat easily in his saddle, even on an energetic beast a mite oversized for a lad his age and build. His horse was a stallion to grow into, an animal that pawed at the ground and loved nothing more than to run, requiring a firm hand to keep it in check, never more than when, out on a ride, Flavius turned for home and the lure of food took hold.