Honour

CHAPTER NINE

It was two months before Vitalian’s men were deployed on the Persian frontier, eight weeks in which the first two were spent outside of the walls of Constantinople. If allowed to enter it was in small groups and that applied even to the officers, so it was some time before Flavius was able to return hospitality to Vigilius. Not that he had him to himself; his colleagues in the Excubitor officers’ quarters were keen to quiz this guest who had campaigned for nearly three years in a less than perfect army.

More impressive was the way Justin treated the one-time rebel commander; Vitalian was raised to senatorial rank and granted a pension, his sons Bouzes and Coutzes promised favour and advancement in the offices of empire. For those who attended the meeting of the imperial council it must have been strange to find him not only present but listened to when he spoke, often to disagree with the Emperor, a way of behaviour most reckoned by long experience to be hazardous. They voiced their disagreements elsewhere and in private.

Vitalian’s army was fed and paid as would be any unit of the imperial army, in this case the only difference being that it was prompt in delivery for it was overseen by Justin personally and not left to officials who seemed to behave, when it came to paying soldiers, as if they were disbursing their own money. The Emperor wanted no trouble from disgruntled foederati outside his walls.

‘So you are to come with us, Flavius?’ Vigilius asked.

‘I am.’

‘And we are now of like rank?’

‘Does that cause resentment?’

‘Not with me but I daresay there are those who see how young you are and wonder how you can achieve the title of tribunos so quickly.’

‘Precocious ability,’ Flavius responded, though with enough of a grin to ensure it was not to be taken seriously.

‘Our newly elevated ruler obviously has great faith in you?’

‘Why do you never call him Emperor? I have heard you use every other possible word to refer to Justin but not that.’ It was the fact that Vigilius blushed and was plainly uncomfortable that made Flavius press the point. ‘Is it that you think him unfitted to the office?’

‘There must be many who do.’

‘Must?’

‘Where has he come from, Flavius? And is it fitting that a man who cannot read or write should rule over men who are trained in the arts of composition and rhetoric?’

‘Arts which they employ to confuse.’

‘These are matters that are beyond me.’

Sensing a desire not to get embroiled in a discussion that must, by definition, be insulting to his host, Vigilius changed the subject and began to talk about possible trouble on the frontier. If he was aware that he left Flavius feeling uncomfortable it did not show; perhaps his patrician upbringing had provided him with a carapace of protection against discomfiture.

‘The Gautoi will not react well to the heat.’

‘We are past high summer now and by the time we reach the border we may face rain and even snow so they are more likely to be at home than you or I.’

‘No fighting for a time, then?’

‘Not unless the Sassanids change their ways.’

The subject that Vigilius was keen to avoid was one Flavius took up with Petrus later the same day. The patrician class had never really supported even Anastasius, who had come to his eminence through the bedchamber of his predecessor’s widow, but they were probably even less enamoured of Justin. What worried the nephew was the increasingly open way those who held positions at the palace were making their disdain known.

‘A situation I could end within a day if he would allow me to.’

‘He will take you back into his confidence soon I am sure.’

‘Don’t patronise me, Flavius,’ Petrus spat back.

‘I didn’t mean it that way. If your uncle is foundering he cannot but be aware of it and who can he trust except you to remedy that?’

‘Perhaps he will elevate Vitalian,’ was the equally jaundiced response. ‘From what I am told he allows that stoat much licence.’

There was no point in even seeking to refute that description or to say that Justin probably reposed more trust in the views of a fellow soldier than he did in men who had risen to prominence through the known to be corrupt imperial bureaucracy, a body he had been unhappily observing for years.

‘He certainly trusts you now more than he does me.’

‘For which I do not accept any blame. And can I say that I was not pleased to be some cog in your scheming, either.’

‘Could I have trusted you to stay silent?’

‘You will never know, Petrus, because you never tried.’

‘You’re too like my uncle.’

‘Thank you for that. If it is a fault to you it is a compliment to me.’

Flavius was afforded another private audience with Justin before he departed for Asia Minor and one in which, given he had a licence to speak granted to few, he decided to plead the case of Petrus, not because he had forgiven him but because if Justin was having difficulty then his nephew was, even as a habitual intriguer, the person he could most rely on.

‘Not an opinion my wife would share.’

Tempted to respond by pointing out that pillow politics were a bad idea, Flavius asked instead how the lady was adjusting to being the Empress Euphemia.

‘She never took to living in the palace before, as you know, but she seems content now that we occupy the imperial apartments and no one dare look down their nose at her.’

‘Apartments within which she proffers to you political advice?’

‘Careful, young man! That is not a territory to stray into.’

Flavius did not know Euphemia well but he was aware she was strong of mind, a person not afraid to express her opinions and she would be doing that to her spouse regardless of his new eminence. She was also deeply religious, with a particular fondness for the saint whose name she had adopted. Her lack of regard for her nephew sprang from a deep and genuine piety; Petrus appeared too cynical for her, a man who used religion rather than adhering to it.

Justin too was religious but without being so fervent as to be blinded. He came across as one who trusted God to see into men’s souls and make his decisions as to the rightness of their beliefs, hence his pardoning of Vitalian, not to mention the way he had embraced him, and not only physically. Was he too trusting? Did he, Flavius, have the right to pronounce upon such a matter? If Justin had become like a surrogate father to him it was his real parent that counted now. Decimus Belisarius had been adamant that a true Roman never wavered from the need to speak truth to the powerful.

‘It must be confusing to go from comes Excubitorum to where you are now, Highness.’

‘Such formality, Flavius, when we are alone?’

‘Would it trouble you to know that I have concern for you, for the burden you carry?’

Justin favoured him with an avuncular smile. ‘If you have a worry, Flavius, make it that you survive another bout with the Sassanid.’

‘I would not presume to advise you-’

‘But you are about to,’ came the sharp interruption.

‘Petrus?’

‘We are back to that?’

Aware that he was either causing discomfort or sailing very close to the wind, probably both, Flavius spoke with some haste. ‘He is committed to you.’

‘He is committed to himself.’

‘Do they not complement each other?’ That got a grunt. ‘He served you well previously and he would do so again if you will allow him.’

‘A period in the wilderness will do him no harm, it might even temper his behaviour, especially in the matter of his social life.’

Justin did not have to say where that objection came from but it did confirm to him that the Empress was putting her stamp on the way in which things were run.

‘He fears for you.’ The look that got obliged that he add something. ‘And he has said so.’

‘Let him fear for himself for I am not beyond behaving in a manner he would approve of.’

Flavius took that for what it was, an empty gesture; Justin would never threaten or harm his own blood. ‘Can you test him, give him a chance to show you what he can do to ease your burden, to take the weight off your shoulders?’

‘They are broad enough.’

By the tone of that response Flavius knew that to plead more would achieve nothing. He had done his best and adding more might risk his own standing with a man he had come close to loving.

‘I hope you will bless me as we set out on campaign.’

‘I will bless you, Flavius, even as I will miss you. Petrus does not know what he has in his advocate.’

It was often the case that when trouble began to brew the cause was hidden from the people destined to deal with it. Messengers had come from Constantinople warning of the need for extra preparedness so the frontier army knew that the Sassanids were stirring, not that they were entirely unaware. Lacauris, the magister militum per Orientem, had his own informants, mostly traders who criss-crossed the borders and no doubt gave similar service to the Kavadh or his satrap in Nisibis regarding the Romans.

Discussion of such matters did not filter down to the rank of tribunos; they were given orders to march and could do no more than obey. Once more the pillars that marked the boundary of the empire set the point beyond which Lacauris had no desire they should go, which was military folly to more than Flavius, granting as it did their potential enemy the time to choose when to act. It was the general opinion that, if they were not to cross into Sassanid territory, it would have been better to stay at Dara and invite an attack on ground they could easily protect.

The Roman army were encamped on an open plain severely lacking in the kind of features required for a defensive battle. There were few hills and no river on which they could secure one flank. Added to that they were facing the rising sun, which meant any attack at dawn would come with the sun at the Sassanid rear and be blinding to the Romans. If Flavius chafed at having no part in the higher decision-making, he was at least sure the cavalry he commanded would behave well for he had trained them rigorously.

As a military force, mounted soldiers had several inherent problems as well as certain advantages. In the latter case they could move from one point in a battle to another quickly, and if so desired visibly, thus disrupting enemy plans. In addition they could be sent in as shock troops to break up an attack. The problem lay in the truth that once released into the fight they became impossible to control and were usually lost as a continuing fighting force, so a wise general husbanded his horsemen until he knew they could be effective.

There was a certain stateliness to the way the Sassanid army deployed; it was done without haste, a great cloud of dust, as if they were rehearsing to fight rather than preparing to engage in one, this based on the certain knowledge that the Romans would not advance into their territory, for if they had determined to do so it would have happened already. As usual messages were exchanged, the Sassanids inviting their foes to quit the field and admit the battle lost before it had even begun, and in addition demanding promises that Constantinople pay high sums for their folly.

Lacauris might hold the office of magister militum but it had long been a tradition in imperial armies to split the command between two generals on what was seen as the sound reason of nullifying the kind of risk that had been inherent when emperors personally led their forces. One strong-headed leader could lose more than a battle, he could risk the empire, but in addition to that there was the knowledge that a too successful fighting man could become a threat.

The history of Rome was replete, from the days of Julius Caesar onwards, of men who had finished a successful campaign only to turn on those on whose behalf they had been fighting in a bid for personal power. To protect against both, control was split, which meant that any tactics employed had to be agreed upon as a wise course of action.

Thus Lacauris had to consult with his co-commander, Restines, as to how to draw up his forces and that took time. Eventually the army deployed with the mass of infantry in the centre, the archers behind them and the cavalry, Flavius included, holding the right wing. The left was allotted to the forces once led by Vitalian and at the front of that body stood the Gautoi foederati. If they had arrived in Mesopotamia and relished the winter they were less comfortable now in late spring rapidly turning to hot summer, and Vigilius, who commanded them, had arranged for great urns of water to be added to their baggage train so they could use it to cool themselves as well as quench what seemed a permanent thirst.

Perozes, the Sassanid general, had greater numbers but not in such strength as to easily overwhelm the Roman position, so he sent forward his centre to engage and fix the Roman infantry. If the battlefield was devoid of hills it was not without rising ground and Flavius was sat on a mound that had a view of the way matters were developing. It was his impression that the enemy were not pressing evenly along their whole front; the greater pressure seemed to be on the point at which the infantry adjoined the foederati.

It was testament to the ability of Vigilius that he sensed this and began to reinforce his own right until obviously commanded to cease the manoeuvre and return to his original formation, at which point Perozes released the weapon most feared by the Romans, his horse archers. These men, Armenian mercenaries, rode short and agile ponies and operated as a fast-moving mobile force.

They were no more disciplined than any other mounted troops but they did not have to be: their task was to so harass enemy formations by stinging attacks with flights of arrows that they began to lose their cohesion. That was what began to happen to the foederati, who were assailed not just from their front but on their flank, which left any man holding a protective shield in doubt as to from where the threat was coming.

Now the pressure on the right of centre began to tell for the Sassanids as some of their spearmen began to break into a gap that had appeared on the left of the Roman infantry, which led to an order that half the cavalry should move across the rear of the army to shore up that flank and if possible drive into the enemy infantry and break up their assault. Flavius being part of that deployment felt the surge that comes to any young man at the prospect of actual battle.

The problem was the movement was visible to the enemy and Perozes moved his own cavalry to mitigate the threat. By the time Flavius and his compatriots were able to deploy they found themselves facing their own kind, and to drive into the flank of the enemy infantry would expose their own left to a counter-assault, while to merely charge might drive back the enemy but it would deprive the Romans of one of their major assets.

That was when the Armenian horse archers reappeared, their quivers replenished and their ponies still eager to run. Facing them were the drawn-up and static Roman cavalry, which presented a wonderful target to disrupt, especially since many of their arrows wounded unbarded horses, not men who had shields and mail armour. Those struck naturally became hard to control, some bending to their knees while others reared up and began to run amok, with their riders more intent on maintaining their seat than their fighting positions.

‘We should charge them,’ Flavius said.

This was addressed to no one in particular, for he could sense that to stand and just receive this assault was the worst of two evils and if it continued the Roman cavalry would lose all cohesion and be rendered ineffective. Lacauris and Restines must have realised the same and they moved their archers to back up the foederati who, furious at being so stung, were ordered to advance at an angle which would press in on the flank of the enemy infantry, the very tactic that Vigilius had been forced to abandon.

Suddenly the horse archers, quivers empty again, were gone and with much shouting and the occasional slaughter of a screeching horse the Roman cavalry got into some form of fighting order again, just in time to advance and block the mounted Sassanids who had begun to advance on the foederati flank.

Diomedes, the man in command of this portion of the mounted Roman forces, made no attempt to impose order and it was with some difficulty that Flavius avoided his own three-hundred-strong command from joining in the melee of a general charge. This was what he had trained for and his aim was simple: to keep his men in some kind of order so that when they made contact with the enemy they did so as a body and with maximum impact.

In this objective he was only partially successful but at least he fared better than his fellow tribunes, many of whom seemed to behave as though the wild yells they were uttering as they urged their men on would be enough to destroy their opponents. It was as well the Sassanid cavalry commander had as little control as the Romans, the result being that when the forces met it was usually one on one. Only the group led by Flavius had any great impact and he knew it to be marginal for they were far from the formation he had sought to create.

What he did have was a core of his troopers who had fully imbibed his ideas and they formed a phalanx of cavalry that drove into the enemy with great effect, each man able to protect at least one of his fellows and, should the lead horseman be held up — it was not always their commander — to drive forward and break the logjam. In the end it was too effective as Flavius found he had led his core right through the enemy, which left them in danger of being isolated.

It was necessary to wheel and fight his way back to rejoin his own side, now breaking off the fight on blown horses and with many wounded to retire over a field littered with dead or dying men and horses. The horns were blowing furiously from both sides of the battlefield as an action which had reached stalemate was discontinued, both sides later arranging a truce so that their casualties could be collected.

That night, around blazing fires, Flavius Belisarius listened to much boastful talk of the deeds his fellows had performed and what they would do on the morrow when the fight was resumed. If they were truthful in that they were disappointed — for Lacauris had decided that it was better to talk than fight and once they had commenced a parley, no doubt on instructions from Constantinople, it was decided that it was better to pay a bounty in talents of gold to Kavadh for peace rather than to engage in all-out war.

Flavius, along with the rest of the Roman army, retired once more to Dara to what was, in essence, boring garrison duty.