Authors: Jack Ludlow
‘I have no notion to end up as a barbarian slave.’
‘Better that than hanging on a cross to be pecked at by carrion,’ Ohannes growled.
‘How do we get out of the villa unseen?’
That got a reassuring chuckle. ‘Same way as every servant your papa ever employed, who wanted a wet or a woman without him knowing.’
Flavius was sent to fetch that which he had left under the tree, with Ohannes, now fully armed, on hand to take them from him and help him back across the sill, the oilskin pouch containing the roll of letters joining the others Flavius carried in his canvas sack. He was led along a corridor to the very end of the servants’ quarters, the increasingly foul odour a sure indication they were heading for their privy.
It was a windowless enclosure, which accounted for the strength of the smell, but it had a low hatch by which the night soil could be removed of a morning to be taken to the general midden that served as fertiliser for the kitchen garden. They went through that hatch on hands and knees, emerging into moonlight so strong that it had Ohannes insist they wait.
‘I have no notion of the numbers that priest has set to watch or where they are. In this light a man can see a good distance, and picking up movement is easy. We need a bit of cloud.’
‘What do we do if we’re seen?’
‘We kill, young sir, for there be no choice, in silence if we can manage but without if not.’
‘Then we will truly be outside the law.’
‘The law, sad to say, died with your papa. The only justice left is what Senuthius decides and Blastos carries out.’
The moon was strong and high, the light of it great enough to wash out the stars, which threw everything into sharp relief. Flavius leant his back against the wall of the building and dropped his head,
suddenly overcome with a feeling of weariness. If a sense of terror and excitement had animated him it was ebbing fast, to be replaced with creeping despair.
‘We must be here when that commission arrives, Ohannes.’
Since that got a grunt, it was not possible to know if he agreed or thought him mad. Nor was there time to ask; as soon as a large cloud began to obscure the moon they had to move, using the rapidly fading silver lining to guide them before it disappeared completely, plunging the whole area into Stygian darkness.
What aided them was knowledge; this was home to both and Flavius, especially, knew it like the back of his hand. The faintest outline of a tree branch or the smell of a pungent plant was enough to tell him exactly where he was. That got them to the outer wall and a gnarled and ancient olive tree, a spot where the youngster knew they could climb, just as he knew that one outer bough went towards that enclosing wall, albeit the limb had been cut and sealed within so as to avoid an easy point of entry for intruders.
With a field of wheat on the other side, Flavius cast his spear and shield over the wall then donned his helmet, finally setting his canvas bag on his back where it would not interfere with his efforts to climb. Even with a less than fully useful arm, those ancient and twisted branches gave him enough purchase to haul himself up; the problem of Ohannes’s painful and inflexible knees posed more of a difficulty, which meant the youngster was required to lodge himself for support, then with one hand help the old man up from one crooked resting place to another.
The next predicament, once they had reached the height they needed, pressured Flavius; to crawl along that truncated bough one-handed was to risk falling off so, with a quick prayer and a
welcome sliver of cloud-edge light, he stood up, balanced himself, then skipped along the branch to straddle the outer villa wall.
That flash of moonlight had aided him but it had also allowed one of the bishop’s servants to see his silhouette, judging by the shout of alarm that came from the main part of the house. Ohannes, not trusting to his balance, was inching his way along that same length of wood by bestriding it, pushing with his hands, in one of which he had his spear, able to move only a couple of inches at a time, cursing as he did so the limbs that would not behave as he wished they should and once did.
‘Hurry, Ohannes,’ Flavius called, as more shouting came from the villa itself.
‘As if I ain’t doing the best I can!’
The light of half a dozen torches appeared, Flavius quick to calculate the distance between them and the house, set against how much time they had. Though Ohannes was looking away from those waving lights he could tell by the accompanying noise that they had a difficulty.
‘Get going, Flavius,’ Ohannes called, ‘I will seek to hold them at bay.’
‘Never. Pass me that spear.’
Ohannes held it out at full arm’s length as Flavius raised himself up to stand on the wall, grabbing the shaft to turn and raise it for throwing. There was no precise aim, just as a target a clutch of torches, getting closer and closer, into the middle of which he cast it with all the force he could muster, less than full he being so precariously balanced. It was sufficient; a high-pitched scream rent the night air but more telling was the way those flaring centres of light stopped, wavered and then retreated with haste. Only one torch
was left where that spear had made contact and it was on the ground.
‘If I have not killed someone, Ohannes,’ he hissed, as he helped the old man make the gap between bough and wall, ‘I have wounded them badly.’
‘Care not for him, care for us, for those fellows who have run away are set to fetch help. So let us get down from here and away.’
T
he wheat, if not yet ready to harvest, was grown to near-full height, tall enough to make finding the thrown spear difficult, which had Ohannes fuming that it should be abandoned, an injunction ignored. To be without that and his shield, especially now that the older man’s weapon was beyond use, would leave them both at risk. The next difficulty was soon apparent as they made their way through the stalks; a black moonlit line of crushed corn stalks that marked their passage.
‘If we cannot avoid it, we must use it, Master Flavius, by heading south but away from the villa, which is the way we would be expected to go. At the field’s edge we will double back behind the hedgerows.’
The sense of that was immediate; they would leave a clear trail then no sign of their progress at all for, in any field where the planting ran up against a high hedge, the seed would have failed to take so they
could move without leaving a trace. There was only one question; did they have time? It was with a heavy sucking sound that Ohannes responded; if marching was purgatory to a man his age then running was hell.
‘Them servants have to get to the bishop’s palace, then they have to rouse him out. Blastos, God rot him, is no more a fighting man than those he left to keep an eye on you, so he will need to get out his bodyguards and that will take time, even more to alert that sod Senuthius. It’s him we have to fear.’
‘The bishop’s men will have dogs to aid them,’ the youngster added with a sudden chill to his spirits.
The Scythian responded with a hissed curse, which told Flavius that he shared the apprehension such a factor produced. Copying Senuthius, Blastos had a deer- and bear-hunting pack, big ferocious beasts, and the house they had just departed had any number of articles that would give the dogs a scent, bedding being the most obvious. The notion of being tracked down by such creatures was enough to make his heart pound; blood up they might drag a human down as they would any other living creature.
Ohannes had to stop to get his breath, which allowed Flavius to look back over the field. The sky was clear once more, the moonlight so strong he could even pick out the movement of the corn tops waving in the breeze. A brief flash of orange made him look back to the villa, a blink of torchlight to indicate that one of the men Blastos had left was in the top branches of that olive tree. Never mind the line of their progress; perhaps those same eyes could make out the immobile silhouettes of their fleeing quarry.
‘I think it best to keep going in the same direction until it clouds over, Ohannes, if I can see the walls …’
The old man was bent over, puffing. ‘A pause, Master Flavius, till I can get my wind again.’
‘Not master now, Ohannes,’ came the gloomy reply, as Flavius hitched up his satchel. ‘I am in possession of nothing more than I carry.’
‘Much more of this,’ Ohannes wheezed, ‘and it may be you will need to carry me.’
‘Which means we must move at a pace that will not see you crippled.’
Still wheezing the old man responded. ‘Before we move at all we must seek to put any dogs off.’
‘How?’
‘By leaving them a smell so strong they will be confused. Time to get your pecker out, Master Flavius, and do as I do, create a circle of piss.’
Was it nerves that made it near impossible to comply? Whatever, it seemed to affect Ohannes less, for he sprayed his urine around with seeming abandon, shaming the dribbling of Flavius who had trouble obeying the other instruction, which was to avoid wetting his sandals, since that would leave a trace for dogs to follow.
As soon as the light faded they moved, this time at a walking crouch, easier for Flavius than Ohannes, but less tiring than jogging, the only impediment the odd overgrown bramble stalk that, having outgrown the hedgerow and invisible to the eye, caught their garments on its spikes. On the north side of the wheat fields it was well-maintained woodland and once in that both men could move freely and at a suitable pace as long as there was moonlight, keeping an eye on the position of that orb to guide their way to the very road they had traversed on horseback two days previously.
Without the moon, which disappeared with frustrating regularity and plunged the woodlands in complete darkness, progress was impossible. Even when they could move they were obliged to stop and let die down the distant barking of farm dogs marking their progress, being as they were in the area that had escaped the recent battles, and that constrained them until they crested the rise that overlooked the area where the barbarians had carried out their killing.
The smell of burning was still in the air, pungent and sickly, either from gutted farmhouses or maybe even from the funeral pyre, as once more an obscured moon halted their progress, making hellish what had been so far disturbing. The sounds now were the faint ones of wild beasts, from feral cats to wild dogs and wolves tearing at rotting flesh, ghostly shapes that emerged in the resurgent moonlight, as did that upon which they were feeding.
Bishop Gregory Blastos admitted he had not seen fit to properly bury the casualties the barbarians had caused, be they the men who had fought under Decimus or those who had succumbed to the massacre before flight. So much for his claim of a communal grave: they had been given no more than a shallow trench and a covering of loose earth, easily scrabbled out by eager claws. In daylight it would be the vultures that fed here, which had the youngster talking about the worst scavenger of all, for this land, with few if any survivors, was now without the families that once tilled and tended it.
Ohannes spat loudly at the mention of the Senuthius name. ‘Word is that he will give any abandoned farms to his men. How can he do that?’
‘By falsifying the titles he can erase any presence of the previous
owners. And making his followers tenants buys the loyalty of those he favours and he also gains from their rents.’
That caused the old Scythian to issue what had to be, in his own tongue, a venomous and blasphemous curse not unlike the blasts of spleen that had been issued by Belisarius Pater at any mention of the Senuthius name. That particular bit of chicanery Flavius had read about in that cache of letters.
‘He did it before, Ohannes, with the help of the provincial governor, just before we arrived here as a family. It was the first complaint laid against him after my father took up his duties.’
There had been several big raids that year, followed by loud complaints to Constantinople demanding protection, that being the reason for the appointment of Decimus Belisarius to his post. It had, since that day, been his view that some of those loud in their pleas had got more than they bargained for when the new centurion discovered what was going on. He, in turn, got less when he came to realise he was powerless to stop such officially authorised thievery.
‘The Sklaveni took the farmers as slaves, Senuthius took their land, sure they would never return, but just in case he stole it by legal means.’
Flavius looked ahead to the wide silver glow of the River Danube, dotted with the odd glim of a lantern where some local was out night-fishing and that had him thinking of another one of his father’s grievances that could be laid at the door of Senuthius, an occasional dip into piracy, for the river was a major trade route from the interior to the Euxine Sea and beyond.
If the thieving of Senuthius was rare, it was always of a valuable cargo, for he had contacts upriver with the means to alert him to
worthwhile objectives. It was a hard crime to stop too: the imperial centurion had no ship with which to patrol the river and nor could he tie himself and his men down on the riverbank in the hope of a surprise intervention.
If he found out about what had been pirated, and sometimes he was aware he did not, it was too late to do anything. The ship and crew would be at the bottom of the river, taken out and sunk in midstream as soon as the cargo had been unloaded, to then be dispersed and sold in places beyond the reach of his authority. Given the barbarians, too, indulged in such activities it was easy for Senuthius to protest his innocence when a ship was found to be missing and accusations were laid against him.
‘Hard to get a grip on a man who coats himself with oil,’ Ohannes moaned at the mention of this further criminality. ‘Known a few of those in my time.’
‘None as slippery as Senuthius,’ Flavius responded, as he began to list for Ohannes many of his other crimes, these too culled from the letters in his canvas satchel.
Some were only alleged, yet the list was long: it seemed there was nothing to which Senuthius would not stoop in search of profit. Stockpiling grain to create scarcity and up the price that must be paid when the harvest was poor. Adulterating both the wine and olive oil used by the poor and needy on a regular basis. The outright theft of land had already been mentioned, as had raiding across the river for slaves.
But added to that was the intimidating of lesser landowners by crop burning or physical beatings if they dared to stand up to him, demanding the payment of bribes to ensure they did not suffer more than once. Any less subservient neighbours, those who would not
bend the knee, usually ended up selling him their farms rather than put up with endless harassment. He added to that downright fraud when it came to trading in any of the myriad commodities he now controlled.
Not that he participated in any criminal act himself; Senuthius always acted at one remove. He had willing lieutenants to do his bidding, the same men who had protected him from a furious Flavius, as well as too many folk who sucked up to him out of fear or merely because of his deep purse. Also plain was the simple truth and one that had frustrated Decimus above any other: the more he transgressed the more powerful Senuthius became in terms of wealth, influence and followers. Not all the citizens of worth were wholehearted in their regard for him, but they were men who looked to their own interests and could see clearly where power lay and with it their own prosperity.
These thoughts induced once more a sense of creeping despair. Swear vengeance he might for the blood of his family but there was only one power in the land that could create for him a situation in which he might kill Senuthius, something he had determined upon as he watched that funeral pyre burn. If he could not bring to the commission the truth of what had occurred, would they even find they could uphold any of what had been sent to them?
‘Ohannes, we must stop!’ The injunction was obeyed but Flavius could sense it was unwelcome. ‘If I cross the river who knows what it will lead to?’
‘Have I not already said …?’
‘Even if we remain free to act as we wish on the north bank, we will have no idea if the people my father was expecting have arrived, have no knowledge of what they will hear and no way of
putting before them the accusations that he listed.’
‘Something I will be willing to talk about when my backside is sat in a boat and we are more’n the length of a cast spear out on yonder water.’
‘Don’t you see, Ohannes …?’
The response was a furious hiss. ‘I see my flesh rotting on a cross if what you say they are about is true. I can see too that your mind might be working at ways to bring down Senuthius, Master Flavius, and that is to be expected. But think on the time your papa put into that and no result to show for it.’
‘I cannot stop you from crossing if that is what you wish …’
‘Don’t you dare take that tone with me,’ Ohannes spat. ‘You have your birth but recall your years.’
That checked Flavius completely; the Scythian had rarely spoken to him with anything but respect, yet here again was that stance he had adopted when he used his spear to threaten the stallion. The recollection of that produced near-equal irritation.
‘Am I only to be indulged when what you want marries my thinking?’
If he hoped to dent the older man’s ire he failed miserably. ‘Your papa is dead and so are your brothers, but were the centurion able to speak from beyond then he would ask that I keep you whole, and even if the words were never spoken that is what I shall do. Stay on this bank of the river and you will die, for certain, an’ me too for I will not leave your side.’
‘You do not know my thinking.’
‘Crossed over the river you can do as much thinking as you wish. Now it is fleeing that matters.’
‘We can find a place to hide on this side.’
‘With dogs on our trail?’ Prepared to be stubborn, the notion that he could was taken from Flavius by the sound of baying hounds, faint but unmistakable and carrying a long way on a still night, which allowed Ohannes to add, ‘Only thing that will keep us from them is water and as for the men handling them, lots of it.’
It was time to move at speed, and luck and good moonlight soon set them on the riverbank at a spot where an inundation created a small strand of pebbles, the water lapping it deep enough to break the spoor. That would not last long: the bank rose and protruded out into the river, the water becoming too deep through which to wade, so it was back to dry land and a patch of thick untended woodland. It did not need to be stated that such a dipping of feet would last only minutes; the dogs would be sent to both ends of the strand, so still making ground was essential.
Ohannes, even if he was wheezing again, showed no sign of wishing to do anything other than hurry along, although he had enough puff to curse when once more the moon was covered by cloud, killing what little light came through a thick overhead canopy. Forced to stand still, it occurred to Flavius that it had been an error to come to this part of the riverbank, albeit not having thought of it himself beforehand, he reckoned it would be churlish to point out to Ohannes why: they were within the area of the recent raid and the barbarians had taken every boat as they retreated.
They needed to get beyond the old watchtower that lay to the north, where there might be craft still beached, and that was going to be made difficult in what was now continuing pitch dark. Either the moon was obscured or the woods they passed through were too
dense in the overhead cover to permit any light to penetrate, obliging them to find once more the riverbank, where they sought out another small inlet with its strand of pebbles and stopped, Ohannes stooping to splash his sweating face with water, the word spat out when he stood again.