Vengeance (20 page)

As promised, he went to visit Ohannes, to find him aching as much from felling timber as he would have done from marching, only in different places, a fact he made plain to Flavius in no uncertain terms. When the youngster led him away from his part of the camp he followed, producing a litany of moans to let it be laid down, and no dispute about it, that he was a fighter not a saw man.

Flavius spotted a little copse of trees, an area outside the lines of campfires, seemingly deserted, and indicated that was where they should go to talk.

‘I have seen enough wood for a lifetime this very day.’

‘Oblige me, Ohannes.’

Which he reluctantly did. They stopped on the edge, where there was enough starlight with which to see each other, and when Flavius issued an apology, that engendered another litany of complaint, which he had to stop quite brusquely.

‘My friend, it was done for a purpose, so please be quiet and let me explain.’ That got a grunt and a far from happy one. ‘What chance do you think you would have of getting away from here as a member of our
contubernium
?’

‘Get away from here?’

‘You have a sharp mind, old friend, so I ask you to think on what
might have been my motives for arranging your present posting − one, I might add, I had to pay a bribe to secure.’

The wait for an answer was long, evidence that Ohannes was thinking it through. ‘Do I sense it was not just to get me out from under your feet?’

‘You are halfway to the truth.’

‘Not much good when only you know the other half.’

‘I have a task I would like you to perform, though I cannot command it and would not even if I had the right.’ Ohannes did not respond, leading to an extended silence that forced Flavius to continue. ‘I want you to leave Vitalian’s army.’

‘To which there would be a purpose?’

‘I must go on to Constantinople and I have no idea, even if I can succeed in what I need to do, how long that will take and, while I am engaged in that, how my mother will act if I do not go to her and there is no message to say why.’

‘Which you could have asked for before you had me shifted.’

‘But …’

Ohannes came out with a definite chortle, as he hit on the conclusion. ‘Had I left prior it would have been desertion, for which I could have been strung up if caught and you would have felt the hurt of a proper lash. This way I can go and you are not at risk.’

‘Forgive me if I misled you.’

Not the truth, really; Flavius had worried that a man who could not stop referring to him as ‘master’ might, if included in his thinking, say something to render it impossible; better Ohannes only find out now why he had chosen to act so.

‘You’re a sly one and no mistake, Master Flavius.’

Was that admiration or astonishment? Hard to tell.

‘If you go missing from the
forestarii
it will not rebound on me, and added to that it has to be easier to go missing from a forest than a march on the Via Gemina. I want you to slip away and go to my mother to tell her in what I am engaged.’

‘If the folk you seek are inside Constantinople, which I take leave to suggest they will be—’

‘Then,’ Flavius cut across him, ‘I must find a way to get within the walls and I hope I am with a body of men who might achieve that.’

‘And if they don’t?’

Flavius ignored that and produced a small slip of parchment, on the obverse of which was one of his father’s roughly composed letters to Justinus. ‘I have written down the place where her family villa is located.’

‘Which I cannot read.’

‘But which I will tell so you can recall it – the writing is to show anyone local who can aid you. I have done a drawing of the way from the Via Egnatia to her family farm as well.’ Flavius pressed a purse into the hand of Ohannes, the one Dardanies had returned to him. ‘With this you can rest in the post houses and be fed. I ask only that you do not tax yourself; proceed at a pace that suits your bones, but make your destination.’

‘And what am I to say?’

‘Stay where you are until I come for you.’

‘Will she take such a message from me?’

‘My father trusted you, Ohannes, and I have as much faith in you as I have in God. Go, if you can, to my mother and stay with her, protect her. A snake like Senuthius will not rest if he thinks she has the means to bring him down, any more than he will be content until he is sure that I am dead.’

‘And if I do not succeed?’

‘Lap of God, Ohannes, is it not? How many times have you told me to trust in that?’

‘Seems I will miss a battle.’

Flavius put his arms around Ohannes then, as much to hide his emotions as to demonstrate an affection which had deepened so much that love was not too strong a word to explain it.

‘I will fight for both of us.’

The clutch from the old soldier was just as tight and his voice was as cracked as that of Flavius had ever been these last months. ‘Then I pity those you face.’

‘We cannot be seen together again, Ohannes, it will smack of—’

‘No, I understand.’

‘Choose your moment with care, friend.’

The laugh was hearty, intended to reassure. ‘No need, this lot can’t see the wood for the trees.’

‘Till we meet again, then.’

The clasp then was the same as he had exchanged with his school friends, a grab of each other’s arm in a tight and truly Roman grip.

Flavius could not return to his tent without again visiting the area set aside for the camp followers and, of course, Apollonia. From that first tender touch of fingers he had moved her on to a holding of hands, able to ease her away from whatever duties she was required to perform in order to walk with him.

Yet her reserve made any attempt to take matters further difficult. Only in later life would Flavius come to see how selfish had been his actions, for if he had been asked he would have denied the truth,
that he was fixated on only one goal, natural for his age, but utterly lacking in consideration for the consequences.

They ended up in the same woods in which he had talked to Ohannes and that led to a first out-of-sight kiss, followed by hands eager to explore and a diminishing resistance that they should. If what followed was a great deal of inexperienced fumbling there was a moment of which Flavius had dreamt too many times without realising the pleasure to be felt.

How soft it was, warm and so welcoming; the immediate tingle he felt and the sensation of flesh against his flesh and pubic hair entwined when he thrust forward made what followed seem the most natural and beautiful thing in creation. To add to this was the way Apollonia seemed to take equal enjoyment and employ matching physicality to their encounter, even her gasping and increasingly recurrent cries adding to their mutual pleasure, which had they timed it, would not have seen many grains of sand filter through the neck of glass.

Sated they lay together, letting their breathing subside as Flavius let himself be subsumed by his sense of wonder, until discretion demanded, after more tender kisses, he take Apollonia back from where he had fetched her. Did those who looked at them guess what had taken place? Certainly the harpies had a glint in their eye but no act of either let them have a hint, their parting acted out in such a chaste manner.

It was only when walking back to his tent with a real spring in his step – he had climbed a mountain this night, killed a lion single-handedly with a spear, swam the Inland Sea and conquered the Medusa as well as the Minotaur of legend, in short he had become a man – that Flavius realised that one thing his father had sought to advise him of had not happened.

Decimus had counselled a son sprouting spots and fluff on his chin of what was to come to him in time and of his family’s hopes, the first night with a new bride and the accepted pain he would inflict, which had to be borne and would lead to many a happier repeat. Why had Apollonia not cried out in pain? Why had she been so forthcoming in her responses? Who had penetrated where he had been so thrilled to go before him?

It could have been anyone, Timon, a companion of her years, some other soldier, but if it was enough to raise a question, did he care? With his thinking fixated upon more of what he had just enjoyed, he put aside any consideration of how Apollonia had been deflowered and by whom.

W
hat was heading their way was no mystery to anyone in the imperial palace; the emperor knew from his advisers that the forces of Vitalian were close and would be without the walls of the city in a day, two at the most. The composition of his army and the numbers were likewise acknowledged, including the old-fashioned way it had been structured, not seen as a reason for any concern, quite the reverse; such things as centuries were thought of as not fit for the requirements of up-to-date battle. The only unknown was what Anastasius intended to do to counter it.

In terms of fighting strength, Vitalian had the numbers but Anastasius had the quality. To protect his person he had several four-hundred-men-strong
numeri
in his palace guard, commanded by Justinus, a man he trusted. To secure the city and its walls there were twenty more, formed into two
numerus
brigades and commanded by tribunes that would each man one of the seven
landward gates, the three others set to protect the long sea defences that ran along the Bosphorus to the Golden Horn.

Justinus, carrying out his daily ritual of reportage, was able to say that according to the
praefectus urbanus
the populace seemed sanguine and not in the least restive; there was no evidence, even if many of them were strong for Chalcedon, of any move to support, by untimely rioting and threats to the imperial person, the aims of Vitalian.

Justinus had naturally been asked for a private opinion on what should be done to counter the rebellion. Unable to say what he really thought, that the imperial religious policy was misguided, he stuck to matters purely military. The number of troops in the capital he insisted, not including those he commanded, which numbered five full divisions, could hold the walls. How to counter Vitalian? As far as anyone knew he lacked any kind of shipping so the units allotted to the defence of the sea wall were spare. They should be sent out to disrupt his progress, retreating in front of him, though stopping to present occasional battle, so as to break the spirit of what must be a hastily assembled host.

That delivered, Justinus could not help but wonder from what other sources the emperor was receiving advice; his own had been acknowledged and from subsequent imperial reactions he assumed had been ignored. Anastasius was gifted with any number of people to tell him what he should do and by reputation he listened to them all. One was his wife and then there were his personal valets or his barber and the thirty courtiers who formed the
silentiarius
, tasked to ensure that no untoward noise disturbed the imperial repose.

Petrus Sabbatius, who was busy writing out orders for his uncle,
came out with a sneering aside when this was relayed to him. ‘I would not be surprised to find the man employed to sponge his arse after an evacuation is his most important counsellor.’

‘Then it would be a patrician,’ Justinus replied, the person designated to attend upon imperial ablutions being a much sought-after role. ‘Not that such is always a good thing, high birth does not always come with brains.’

Petrus passed him a completed Order of the Day, which the uncle wrote on using his signature stencil, his reply acid. ‘Half of them struggle to wipe their own backside.’

That got a laugh; if they were equally unimpressed by the standard of the patricians of the Roman Empire, it was ever Petrus who came up with the diminishing invective. Not that those who had risen to high office through long imperial service were much better – all were self-serving – which made the task of the ruler a balancing act.

When the common people complained that Anastasius was a weathervane on policy, they did so without knowing of the competing interests he was required to deal with. He might be an
autokrator
in Greek but few could rule in any way they wished without facing the risk of being bloodily toppled and the most fearful enemy was within the city walls, not without.

‘I dined with a good number of your officers last night, Uncle.’

‘I can imagine where.’

Petrus shrugged; he had a well-known taste for seeking entertainment in the less salubrious parts of the city and in that he had much in common with the inferior officers of Justinus. The whole
excubitorum
corps was in receipt of better pay than common soldiers of the empire, as well as better rations, but in terms of officers it had
become, under Emperor Zeno, a sinecure for those with means of their own and with money never a consideration they were liberal in their spending.

Like every port in the world, the area around the Constantinople docks was full of brothels and places of entertainment where morality was not on offer. Justinus was no prude; he had visited such taverns and coarse establishments himself but Petrus was drawn to them like a moth to a flame. Polite dinner, of which he was obliged to be a part as the son of a wealthy patrician noble, bored him rigid and so did court formality. To many an observer he was an unsuitable helpmeet to a man seen as upright but that took no account of his very telling suitability in one vital regard: the trust engendered by blood.

‘I wonder when they speak highly of you, if it is only because they are in my presence.’

‘Very likely not the case, for in all my years I have learnt to have faith in soldiers who are not afraid to tell me they are discontented, while those who remain silent and husband their grievances are not the ones on whom it is wise to turn your back.’

Training schedules were handed over for each company and the stencil was employed once more. ‘How happy you must be in the field compared to in the palace.’

‘Why?’

‘There is not a soul here on whom I would turn my back,’ Petrus replied, with some venom.

‘Not even me?’ Justinus asked, grinning.

‘That is not a question deserving of an answer. All I will say is, that if your inferiors were telling me their true feelings, I am humbled by being related to a paragon.’

‘Humility does not suit you, Petrus.’

Said humorously it was not entirely taken that way, causing the nephew to hunch his shoulders and begin to tug at his hair. Justinus knew Petrus to be by nature an intriguer, which he was not. He was not a fool and had the means to survive in the hothouse of imperial politics, but there was no notion to become deeply involved in that quicksand, with its shifting alliances and deep feuds.

Petrus loved it; he was a mine of information on everyone who mattered and a great number of those who probably counted for nothing at all. Every thought he had passed on to Justinus, who was grateful, given it saved him from expending too much energy on the subject himself. In a place where no one person seemed to trust another, these two, very different in age, outlook and personal habits, through ties of blood as well as affection, had an unbreakable bond, which if it had started as an older man educating a young aspirant, had moved on from there to a point of near equality.

‘And what do you take from all these paeans to my character?’

Petrus stopped pulling his hair and looked directly at his uncle. ‘I take it they are deeply loyal to you.’

‘Good,’ Justinus replied, having a good inkling of what lay beneath that statement. ‘Then Anastasius is safe.’

‘It is as well to add to that, Uncle,’ came the cooed response, ‘that he is also very old.’

‘As a refrain, Petrus, that is tending towards the tiresome.’

‘Forgive me for bringing it to the fore again, and I will cease to mention the emperor’s age or his declining health if I have a necessary aim to lean on. Just tell me under which one of
his
nephews you
think you will be able to survive and prosper and I will bend all my wiles to help secure his elevation.’

‘I wish you to pen me a letter, Petrus,’ Justinus said, in an abrupt change from what was an uncomfortable subject on which to speculate, for he distrusted them all. ‘It is to be one of condolence to be sent to the widow of my old comrade, Decimus Belisarius. She has lost much.’

‘Do you wish to mention you are distrustful of the report on the engagement in which he perished?’

‘Does it matter? He is dead. All his sons died too, Petrus, one of whom Decimus named after me. Four of them, is that not a tragedy?’

Petrus shrugged, he being less affected by what had happened, having no personal connection to the family. When he had penned the replies to Belisarius, he had seen it as his duty to point out to his uncle that the main subject of the complaints had a powerful relative at court, a man whom it might not be politic to upset.

Justinus had waved such considerations aside; the senator and ex-consul Pentheus Vicinus, now holder of the title of
magister
praesentalis
– the palace had as many designations of rank as people – would never know how the commission had come into being, it being a secret between his
comes excubitorum
and the emperor. Petrus had felt constrained to argue that in a palace where secrets were rarely kept for long, no matter how hard they tried to keep it so originally, the truth would emerge as soon as the commission took effect and that there would be repercussions.

‘If only a half of what Decimus has accused this Senuthius Vicinus of is true,’ had been the reply of Justinus, ‘then he would be better
advised to pull a cowl over his head to hide his disgrace at sharing blood with such a villain.’

Tempted to tell his uncle he was being naïve, Petrus had kept his counsel.

On the last day of the march, Flavius had an odd feeling of freedom, added to the waking sensation of triumph, for which he chastised himself. Yet it could not be gainsaid that having only himself to be concerned about induced a feeling of relief, rapidly countered by conscience: he had to set against the emotion what he owed to Ohannes and, after him, Dardanies. Then there was Apollonia, to be looked forward to when they made their next camp.

The sun shone on the army of Vitalian, while a cool breeze came in off the sea to make pleasant what could have been sweltering and the whole host seemed in good spirits, which held until they espied what it was they would have to overcome, the walls of Constantinople being enough to chasten the most fevered pilgrim. The host was called to Mass, as they were daily, but this time to show anyone watching from the battlements that this was a pious army marching in God’s cause.

For those who had never seen the walls, and Flavius was one who had only heard of them, their size and magnitude was both astounding and sobering and that was at a distance. He knew from his father there were more defences behind these great multi-gated and turreted edifices, walls built by a string of emperors to protect an ever-expanding city that had been Roman long before Constantine named it his eastern capital.

Once they had fanned out and made camp, with no sign that anything of a warlike nature was about to occur, Flavius took the
first opportunity he could to examine them more closely, trailed by a couple of his men, who listened as he explained that what they saw before them presented, to an attacker, no more than a fraction of the problem.

These were the walls of the Emperor Theodoric, with forward battlements twenty cubits in height protecting an intervening moat overlooked by another set of even higher defences, great blocks of stone capped by arched red and smooth tiles that made getting over the very tops impossible; the only way onto the parapet behind was through the crenellations and each one would have at least one defender to hold it.

Massive square towers butted out at each great gate to create a zone of death before the heavily studded and massive oak doors, while behind them lay a narrow bottleneck entrance sealed off by a protective portcullis. Along the seaward side of the city the curtain wall was too high and continuous to be overcome from ships.

‘How do you know all this?’ asked Helias, the question accompanied by a look of suspicion.

‘My father served here and he told me.’

‘Did he tell you how to overcome them?’

Flavius produced a wry smile. ‘No, he reckoned it impossible.’

The next question, querulously posed, came from Tzitas. ‘Then how are we to manage it?’

He nearly said they should pray for an earthquake, which if strong enough would bring the walls down, or, as he had been told, forty days of rain, for if the River Lycus, which fed the teeming city, flooded, that too could undermine the foundations. Instead he invoked Joshua.

‘He succeeded at Jericho, we must do likewise here.’

Blowing horns sounded just then, and for the first time Flavius shared a genuine and fulsome laugh with these two at the coincidence. Not that there was too much time for mirth, for that was a call to assemble and had them rushing back to their lines, to find Forbas in no mood for their dallying. A training field had been prepared, as well as a raised platform from which what went on could be observed. His century was to be gifted first use, with short wooden staves to act as swords, longer ones with a blunt end to replicate spears.

‘Get your helmets and shields and let us see what use you are!’

The whole was split in two, thirty-two men each, for it was under-strength by two whole
contubernia
, and they were set the task of showing their prowess. First the centurion and his
decani
had to get their men into lines to oppose each other, which showed many had either never engaged in proper battle drill or had forgotten anything they had been taught.

Flavius’s first command was to instruct his lot to stay tight to each other, to advance or fall back as a complete unit and to always face the enemy. These were the same exercises in which he had participated in the sand-filled enclosure in Dorostorum, the same place where his father had regularly exercised his men.

If he knew what was required, it was not the case with all; too many men flew at each other with gusto and the air was loud with stick hitting stick, impressive in terms of zeal but actions that would be useless in real combat, and that was not confined to the ranks − several of the
decani
were equally inept.