Vengeance

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It was impossible to stay out of sight forever; once within the confines of the empire they were in a land of settlement and cultivation, where forests had been cleared centuries before and where the peasantry tilled long-ploughed land either for themselves or as tenants of someone wealthy. Having made good progress in the dark, not without the odd scrape from a wayward thorn, or an ankle risked from some hole in the ground, they stopped at the forest edge to eat and let the dawn come up, this so they could observe what lay ahead.

‘I wish to stay away from the established paths as long as we can,’ Dardanies said, addressing Ohannes, his manner suggesting that to include his main charge would be a waste of breath. ‘Once we reach the road south it is to be hoped it will be busy enough for us to pass unnoticed.’

‘Not easy,’ Flavius responded with some force and obvious pique. ‘No farmer will bless you for crossing his fields.’

‘Good way to get seen too,’ the old soldier added, as Dardanies produced a look of doubt. ‘And if they see us as a threat they are bound to raise some kind of unease outside their own land.’

‘How far before we get beyond you being recognised?’

‘Several leagues, I occasionally rode round with my father when he visited the outlying settlements.’

‘Me too,’ Ohannes said.

That had Dardanies looking to the sky, as if seeking a divine answer to an intractable problem. Here he was in a province where to be discovered might, after the recent raid, end up with him being flayed alive and he was in the company of two people who stood a chance of being recognised all over the district. Flavius was still wearing the garment he had donned to search the riverbank for his canvas sack and the Sklaveni referred to it now.

‘Pull up that cowl and keep it well forward over your head, look at the ground as you walk. If anyone talks to us, let me answer.’ Then he produced a knife and moved closer to Ohannes. ‘That long hair of yours is too obvious, best we cut it off.’

‘Been better to have done it afore we set out.’

‘Which I would have if I had thought on it, but I didn’t.’

Even with a knife sharp enough to fillet a fish, such a thing could not be carried out with anything approaching neatness, so Ohannes ended up looking like a badly shorn sheep, with bits sticking up in some places and near bald patches in others. Added to the lack of shaving for several days, it made him look older, though Flavius thought that an opinion to keep to himself. He knew from past experience such comments were unwelcome, his late maternal grandfather a prime example, he having been proud of his bearing. Vanity did not diminish with age.

‘How long before you have a beard?’

Ohannes felt his stubble. ‘Four or five more days.’

Then Dardanies looked at Flavius, leaning closer. ‘Be a couple of years for you, though I do spy a touch of fluff.’

‘How’s the shoulder?’ Ohannes asked, before the offended youth could respond.

Flavius swung an arm, and if he winced, the pain was nothing like as bad as it had been, saying it was better before posing a question to Dardanies. ‘How far south do you go, assuming we can pass out of the orbit of Senuthius?’

‘Somewhere between here and Marcianopolis, it has been left to me to decide.’

‘So you could leave now?’

‘I could but I won’t, and besides, if I arrived home too soon …’

‘You might be punished?’

‘I do not do this for fear of punishment.’

‘Then why?’

‘You would not understand.’

‘You could try me.’

That got a shake of the head so firm there seemed little point in pursuing the question. The grey dawn light went as the sun rose, to allow the trio to see much further across the ground they would need to traverse, split as it was by hedgerows. There were already people out and about, at this time of year, women and small children seeing to livestock or picking vegetables close to their dwellings, men further out in the swaying wheat, which they were beginning to harvest.

Flavius pointed out a high-framed hay cart, empty now, and a distant line of scythed men, some twenty in number, tramping forward in a bent-over row, their implements cutting at the stalks, before turning to walk upright and away for a goodly distance, the classic way of using their blades while also saving their backs.

‘We cannot avoid being spotted by them,’ he contended. ‘Whoever is taking the sheaves onto the cart can see any unusual movement for half a league.’

‘They will be youngsters, boys and girls.’

‘With eyes like hawks as well as voices to tell men armed with scythes what they have seen.’

Ohannes spoke next, there being no need to say that a man with such a cutting blade would be a dangerous foe on his own; in numbers they could be deadly. ‘We could wait here till the day’s work is done and move when the sun goes down.’

‘Best to get away from here, and you would say that too if you knew who these fields belonged to.’

‘I do know,’ Flavius replied, ‘just as I know that over those hills you can see to the west of us, the ones lined with vines, lies the villa of Senuthius Vicinus.’

‘Who might venture out to see how the harvest is progressing.’

‘Never!’ Ohannes snorted. ‘If he wanted to know he would send a lackey.’

‘Who will be on a horse, able to set off a swift hue and cry,’ Dardanies insisted. ‘I say we cannot stay within the boundaries of any land he owns and the sooner we are clear of anywhere where his writ has a presence the better and, since it is to me the task has been given to get you to where you will be safe, it is my decision that we gather up our things and go now.’

‘So you can get back to your own people as soon as possible?’

‘Yes, Flavius Belisarius, and if I am stuck with you, never ever suspect that it gives me pleasure to be so.’

When they did move they sought to mask their profiles by always having a hedgerow as a backdrop, yet to keep to that constantly was impossible, just as it was impractical to seek to get past every dwelling and the folk close to it at any distance. Spears were trailed along the ground to keep them as much of possible out of sight. Working their way through an orchard, too, brought contact with others, those tasked to trim the trees and seek out and dispose of the pests that loved to feed on them.

They passed under one fresh-faced young girl up a ladder, so close they could see the sparkle in her eyes, or at least Ohannes and Dardanies could, for Flavius kept his head down. But he too heard the blessing she shouted down and he was made just as curious by it as the others, a loud cry taken up by those working nearby but out of sight.

‘What did she mean by that?’ Dardanies asked, when they were out of earshot. ‘What did all those cries mean? How could we be on our way to doing God’s work?’

‘I have no answer to that,’ said Flavius, lifting his cowl so he could look the Sklaveni in the eye. ‘But she told everyone in earshot that we were soldiers of Christ.’

‘She favoured us with a smile too,’ Ohannes responded, looking uncertain.

‘Well, there’s no time to ask and she’s bound to tell everyone she comes across that she has seen us, so let’s put a good stride in and get well away.’

As they came out of the orchards it was possible to see that line of scythe-bearing men once more, still in the distance, as well as the hay cart now halfway to being full with the sheaves. There were a couple of lads on the top who could clearly see them for they waved, which obliged Ohannes to wave back despite an instruction not to do so from Dardanies.

‘Make ’em more suspicious not to respond,’ the old man insisted, which got a growl from their escort.

It was not long before they were on a hard earth track, the route by which those hay carts would bring their wheat to the mill, a stone building just visible through a surround of high pines. Home to a great stone driven by oxen, it had to be given a wide berth; Senuthius was the owner and such a valuable resource would be operated on his behalf by someone he trusted, as well as having an armed guard, given it was a prime spot for a bit of pilfering. A sack of milled wheat was worth real money.

‘Trusted to cheat any freemen farmers,’ spat Ohannes when this was mentioned. ‘With a threat to their gizzard if they question the weight.’

‘There are few of them left, friend, just as there is nowhere else to take your ears of corn to be milled. Senuthius owns them all for leagues around and has done for years.’

‘How did he get so much power?’

‘He’s a senator and the son of a senator,’ Flavius replied, aware that his voice had ceased to occasionally squeak, to produce that unwanted whistling sound and was now, if not even in tone, at least deep in tenor. ‘He began as a rich man and has become much more so by his crimes.’

‘There are no rich men in the Sklaveni,’ Dardanies responded with evident pride, as they left the track to take a wide circular detour round the mill.

This got a raspberry from Ohannes. ‘There will be plenty of folk scratching to stay alive, just as there are those who have meat on their table every day. Never met a tribal elder without a belly on him and by the look of your lot they were no different.’

‘That’s all you know, old man.’

‘An’ I do know,’ Ohannes scoffed, ‘for where do you think I was raised? In the same kind of kinship as you. There’s those that prosper and those that scratch an’ don’t you go telling me it’s something else inside the empire than out.’

‘The Sklaveni are different.’

‘So you say, but I take leave to doubt it.’

‘One day I will show you,’ Dardanies insisted, obvious resentment in his tone.

‘You’ll have to drag me by the hair to do so,’ Ohannes hooted, ‘an’ since you have shorn me that will take a mite of doing.’

‘Look ahead,’ Flavius said quietly, which killed off what was likely to be a long argument, as well as a futile one. ‘Do they look like soldiers?’

The mill was well behind them now, easy to avoid being sighted from, thanks to those high pines, but if the trees had hidden the stone building they had also cut off any sight of what lay on the other side and that was a clutch of men, the weapons over the shoulders of some of them very obvious, one high point of what looked like a pike occasionally catching the sun. Other weapons looked to be spears and they were heading in the same direction as themselves, though not at a similar pace.

‘Maybe we should seek some cover.’

‘If we match their stride,’ Dardanies proposed, ‘we will not overtake them.’

‘If they are armed and on the senator’s land they are bound to be in his employ.’

‘And if they glance backwards,’ Flavius added, ‘what would you do then?’

‘Wait or have a look,’ Dardanies acknowledged.

He was clearly unhappy that they might have to do as Ohannes had said but there was little choice; the last thing they wanted to face was a group of fighting men employed by Senuthius when they were on land he might own. In the end he nodded.

‘Let’s find a hedge high enough to keep us hidden from this track and we will shadow them.’

Just then, one of the men up ahead skipped forward to turn and, walking backwards, relate something to his companions. In doing so he could not fail but see them, which had him pointing and speaking, the words they could not hear. The effect was to have all five of the others spin round, to stop and stare.

‘We keep walking now,’ Dardanies said, in a soft voice as if those up ahead could hear him.

‘No choice,’ Ohannes agreed.

‘Be a hard fight, two men against six.’

‘Three,’ Flavius growled.

‘I’ve seen him fight,’ Ohannes barked, before Dardanies could scoff. ‘Saved my skin too, so don’t you go reckoning on his being a dead weight. I have seen him put a spear in a man at distance too.’

‘Well just keep your face hidden, Belisarius,’ the Sklaveni barked. ‘If they spy you and know your face they will be ready for a fight before we get close.’

‘You mean to fight?’

‘It’s that or run and where are we going to run to?’

‘Might be able to take them by surprise,’ Ohannes suggested.

‘We’ll need to old man, if we’re to have any chance.’

‘Old I might be, but I have seen more blood than you, so pick your man and tell me who, so I can pick mine – you too, Master Flavius.’

The closing gap seemed to last a lifetime, with the men ahead standing in a very unthreatening way and awaiting their arrival. No weapons were made ready, no swords unsheathed and once close enough they could see that several of the men were smiling as if they were long-lost friends. They could also see that what they had taken to be spears were billhooks on long poles, the kind used to trim trees, not proper fighting weapons, but deadly in a close contest. The pike turned out to be a pollarding tool, a saw on a pole long enough to reach the high branches of a fruit tree.

‘This is like that girl on the ladder,’ Ohannes whispered, ‘makes no sense.’

‘It’s still dangerous,’ Dardanies insisted. ‘Hold your weapons loose till we are close enough to cast. Spears will even the odds.’

Flavius was aware of the wooden shaft in his hand, as well as the sweat of his palm upon it, which threatened to make it slippery. Added to that his mouth had gone completely dry and much as he tried to work up some saliva he could not. He had picked the fellow on the end opposite him – they were moving forward abreast and the men they were approaching were spread over the track – and his heart was beating furiously as he worked himself up to carry out something he had never yet done and that was to cast a spear at his victim when not himself feeling threatened. There was no sign that his chosen target intended him any harm.

He was back in his own home again, facing those two robbers, but wondering now if he could do what was required in cold blood, as he had done in reaction to the danger facing Ohannes. Under his breath he was murmuring, telling himself that these could be Senuthius’s men, people who at their master’s bidding would not hesitate to kill him, or indeed strip him of his skin with hot irons at the senator’s command.

‘Hail friends,’ called out the fellow in the right centre with the pollarding tool, speaking in common argot Greek. He was taller and more bulky than his companions and up close slightly better clad, his clothing a padded jerkin in good condition. ‘Do you come to join us in the cause of Jesus?’

‘We do indeed,’ Dardanies called back, revealing that he knew Greek as well as Latin, before dropping his voice. ‘Another ten paces, then we cast.’

The weapon they had supposed to be a pike was then raised, but aimed at the sky. ‘We have a long march till we join with General Vitalian, but it will be a cheerier one in company.’

‘Vitalian,’ Flavius croaked.

‘So?’

Flavius ignored the enquiry from Dardanies and called out quickly, for there was no time to explain. ‘You are joining the man who commands the foederati?’

‘What man would not, who cares about one day ascending to paradise?’

‘Keep hold of your spears,’ Flavius insisted, his voice a hiss.

‘We must act.’

‘Look at these men, do they threaten us?’ Then he called out again. ‘We are on the same purpose.’

‘Then a blessing upon you, young sir, and a tribute to your years.’

For a moment Flavius thought he had been recognised and he tugged at his cowl to make sure his face was partially hidden.

‘By your throat I know you are not yet a man but there’s not a right-thinking soul in Moesia of any age and who can fight that does not rally to the general’s banner. By the time all are assembled we will be a mighty host. It is time that old fart and skinflint Anastasius was kicked out of his palace and sent to live in Egypt amidst those heretics he is so keen on siding with.’

‘Time to decide,’ Dardanies spat.

There was even less time to explain now than hitherto, added to which he had no idea if Dardanies would even understand; how could a pagan comprehend those who advanced the Chalcedonian dogma and were prepared to rebel against a Monophysite emperor to kill off the rival creed they saw as heresy?

Did he even know that Monophysitism existed? Was he aware that this had been brewing for decades and had been a bone to be gnawed at in the Belisarius house? If there was to be an uprising in a cause in which his father believed, should he leave his post to join it? If he had never served under Vitalian he held him to be both honest and upright in his faith.

‘Just do as I say,’ Flavius insisted.

‘You’re giving orders?’ Dardanies demanded.

‘You got the right of it, Master Flavius?’

‘Yes.’

‘Certain, are you?’

‘Keep your spear down and for the love of the Lord smile.’

Ohannes hissed at Dardanies. ‘Best do as he says.’

‘You might, I won’t.’

‘Six against one, I think you may well just.’

They were within easy throwing distance now, so close they could barely miss. Yet there was still no hint of a threat from those standing before them and they were grinning. Maybe it was those looks that persuaded Dardanies, Flavius never knew. He just had a certainty that the way to get clear of any threat from Senuthius was in the company of men going south to fight for General Vitalian. That way they could, instead of skulking from hedgerow to hedgerow, walk the open road without fear.

There was only one question remaining and that would make all the difference, one that made him take a tight grip on that spear shaft again. With his other hand and holding his breath Flavius threw back the cowl to fully reveal his face. With six pairs of eyes upon it, and the same number of faces to examine, there was a gap of several seconds before he could exhale with relief; there was no exclamation, no flash of recognition in those faces. He was to them a stranger.