Vengeance

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Flavius handed in equipment he had been issued, plain breastplate and greaves, and recovered his own, placing the roll of letters that had never left proximity to his skin inside the sacking. He then watched the host of Vitalian march away with something of a sinking feeling, realising if it was not as acute as that which he had felt on returning to his empty family home, the emotion was similar, as if some part of his being had become detached from the whole.

In part it was what they left too, a field scarred by their presence, the grass where they had walked, marched and exercised bare and brown, with green patches where tents had been pitched added to the slashed black trenches of too many latrines. Long before the last soldier had upped and left, the traders who had set up their stalls had dismantled their ramshackle constructs, before heading back to a city that now had open if still well-guarded gates, they too leaving behind them the blot and filth of their presence.

Having been camped near the sea, the gate by which Flavius chose to enter was in itself astounding at a distance and even more so close to. His father had described the fabled Golden Gate and fired his youthful imagination with talk of his youngest son being granted a triumph, this being the route used by a victorious general when he entered the city. The notion had been scoffed at by Atticus, his brother correct when he insisted that things like triumphs were never granted now, emperors being too jealous to grant honours to military men who might become excessively popular.

The Golden Gate was set back from the main walls and protected by a pair of towers topped by twin statues of winged victory. There were three entrances, the two smaller openings allowing people to enter through one and exit through the other. The centre gate was the one that a new emperor would ride through in procession and in his mind’s eye Flavius could conjure up the figure dressed in purple robes, a glorious diadem on his head, stood on an eight-horse chariot driven by a slave, traversing the whole of the Triumphal Way to the Great Palace that would be his residence.

If Vitalian had been a threat, no single person, even armed with a spear, was seen as such. He approached under the watchful eyes of the guards from one of the city regiments, in highly polished breastplates over red tunics, atop the battlements. Flavius passed their gaze without trouble and he was likewise looked over by men in different clothing, chain vests over green tunics whom he took to be city prefects. No one sought to impede him and he passed without hindrance, and beyond that gate the vista opened out into a great wide thoroughfare, colonnaded on each side with shaded walks lined with shops, and into the distance stretched a panorama that had him thinking he had come across one of the Seven Great Wonders.

No description of a city like Constantinople, however comprehensive, could prepare a person for the entering of it and Flavius was no exception; compared to Dorostorum the buildings were larger and more magnificently decorated, with bas-reliefs and statuary. In trying to calculate the dimensions of the Triumphal Way, marked out as some thirty paces, it was hard to be precise. His measurement could take no account of how hard it was just to cross, it being crowded with both horse-drawn traffic and humans who seemed to have no notion to give way to one another, let alone some bumpkin now dressed in rough country clothing. Nor did they do any more than disdain his apologies as he bumped into them.

Later he would say to others that it was never a good notion to look like a stranger in the capital city, to walk along, head back, to gaze at every sight that took your wondering and astounded eye. The slight tug at his belt destroyed his daydreaming in an instant and he shot a hand out to grab that of the urchin who had just sliced through the tie on his purse with a tiny but obviously sharp knife and was seeking to run off.

The thief was not one to give up easily; he swung the knife in a vicious arc seeking to stab the hand that held him, forcing Flavius to likewise swerve abruptly, which sent the sacking-covered breastplate swinging round to his side, that partially impeding the swipe he aimed at the fingers holding the knife, this while he pulled hard to put the brat off balance.

The combination saved him but the pause was only temporary as he realised the little toad who had tried to rob him was shouting that he was the victim of a thief, this as he tried to stab his so-called assailant in the chest. This was no time for finer feelings; using his free hand Flavius thumped him round the ear with a buffet that would have felled an adult, yet still the little swine would not drop the purse.

A crowd had begun to gather and it was obviously confused, from the little Flavius could truly make out, as to who was victim and who was felon. Another swing of that blade ended with the second wrist being held, which got the new arrival to the city a hard kick in the shins, one he had to counter by using his own boot. That took the urchin’s legs and allowed Flavius to spin him and cross his arms so that he was holding him back against his chest.

Having not gotten far from the gates the hullabaloo had alerted the city prefects and two of them came bustling through a crowd that had done no more than spectate and comment, in a situation which, in Dorostorum, they might have stepped in to clout the obvious thief as well as disarm him. As it was, Flavius felt a very strong hand on his own collar, followed by a command to let the little fellow go, vaguely noting the strong accent of the city, so very different from his own.

The boy began to moan as soon as he was released, to be immediately grabbed by one of the prefects, a fellow who also had a twang to his voice, a sort of lazy drawl as he demanded to know what was going on.

‘He dropped his knife, Your Honour,’ the urchin cried.

He then began to weep copious tears, either from the pain Flavius had inflicted or a sheer aptitude for drama, the streaks running down a filthy puckish face that at another time Flavius might have seen as lively. Looking down, there it was, right at Flavius’s feet.

‘He tried to nab my purse, cut through the tie as easy as you like.’

There was a moment then, so convincing was this childish play-acting, when Flavius saw himself being had up as a criminal, a split second when he could imagine being dragged off in chains to be incarcerated in a deep cell with water dripping off the walls. He was brought back to reality and the sun creating shadows by laughter, this from both the city prefects, one of whom responded.

‘You got to hand it to the little turd, he does magic a story so easily.’

‘You know him?’ Flavius asked.

‘Surely do.’

‘But it was him, Your Honour, honest,’ cried the boy wriggling to get free and failing.

‘Goes by the name of Ivo and a right menace he is.’ The prefect leant over to look the urchin in the eye. ‘Picked the wrong mark this time, didn’t you, Ivo? Fellow with a sword too, which you are lucky he did not get loose or we’d be picking your head off the paving stones.’

The other prefect spoke from behind him. ‘I will accompany you to the office of the urban prefect, young sir, where you can swear against the boy. See him in the mines, if I’m not mistaken.’

‘And not afore time,’ the one holding Ivo added, handing Flavius his purse. ‘By your mode of speech you’re a stranger to the city I suspect?’

Flavius was about to say yes and, he had been part of Vitalian’s army, but he stopped himself and merely nodded.

‘Then have a care, lad; for every honest citizen in our capital, there’s a wrong ’un to match them and if you don’t keep your wits about you then you’re meat for villainy. It’s lucky you was on the Triumphal Way, which is patrolled. Had you been in an alley you would have been in real trouble.’

‘Do I have to accompany you? I have business to attend to at the imperial palace.’

First the eyebrows went up a good two fingers, then the man before him looked up and down and what he saw did not fit with what he had heard said. Then he smiled, the way a person does when they are favouring an imbecile.

‘With the emperor, no doubt?’

‘No, with his count of the excubitors.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

The amused look evaporated and he shook Ivo, who wailed. ‘Well, that will have to wait a while, for if you do not come and swear that this little sod tried to lift your purse, which we cannot do for we did not see it, then how are we to have this complaint filed?’

It was amazing to Flavius the way the crowd that had gathered to witness the event obviously had no intention of hanging around to be a witness against Ivo; they dispersed as soon as the prefect mentioned the need for someone to swear.

Flavius looked at Ivo, the tears, which had now dried up, leaving clear lines on his grubby cheeks. ‘The mines you say?’

‘Too much of a mite for the galleys, though maybe he will grow into them if he lives long enough.’

‘And that will be for life?’

‘A short one, such labour kills you young.’

‘Do you have a mother, Ivo?’ A shake of the head. ‘A father?’ Negative again.

‘He lives in the gutters, young fellow, can you not see that by the filth on him?’

He sensed Ivo had sniffed his reluctance, which turned the malevolent look to which he had hitherto been subjected to one of soulful supplication, that in a blink of an eye, making him think this little toad should be with a troupe of performers, so quick were his wits. Flavius reasoned that if he went along and swore against this mite, who was stunted in his growth, Ivo would die as a slave and not long into the future. He knew little of mines but they were places of toil deadly to grown men.

‘Is there not a place where such children can be cared for?’

‘Six feet of good earth is best,’ said the prefect, ‘but saving that there is an order of St Basil monks who take in urchins and bring them back to God, though not without someone gifts them the means.’

‘Then let us go there, for I cannot swear as you ask me to. I could not, as a Christian, condemn this boy to the life you promise for him.’

‘You are from the country,’ came a voice from behind and it was not a compliment. ‘Have to be.’

‘I have been foolish, as you say, leaving myself exposed by my behaviour.’

Ivo had a gleam in his eye now, one that indicated to Flavius that if he was taken in by monks, he would not be with them for long. But that was not his concern – he was thinking that his need for divine aid was great and how could he ask for mercy on his aim if he was to deny it to another soul? It was also, he had good reason to believe, what his mother would have done, for she always took the side of the poor against authority and that had sometimes included her own husband.

‘Soft in the head, are you?’

‘Naw,’ said the second prefect, ‘a fellow like this can’t keep waiting the Count of the Excubitors.’

Flavius let the sarcasm pass without comment. ‘I would be obliged if you would guide me to these monks of St Basil.’

‘Not likely,’ came the response, as he was less than gently handed Ivo, forced to take his collar. ‘This turd knows the way, let him direct you.’

Both prefects departed, leaving a passive boy in Flavius’s hand. There was a second after he let him go in which Ivo had no idea what to do; it did not last. He made a dash for it but not before he had a last attempt at swiping the purse.

Flavius continued on his way, still wrapped in wonder at the sights, passing through the various forums built by successive emperors, all of them described to him by his father; the Forum of Arcadius, then of Bovis and on to the great open space where the road split in two, overseen by a tetrapylon. Next came the great Forum of Theodoric, he of the mighty walls, rectangular instead of round, and last that of the man after whom the city was named and the first forum built. It was the Forum of Constantine, where sat, square and imposing, with its Doric columns, one of the city’s senate houses.

It was impossible to keep his eyes from looking skywards as he came within sight of the Hippodrome, trying to image it in the whole of its oval shape, which trended away for near a milia, as well as its tiered seats inside that could accommodate thousands. How could anything so massive be built and was there no end to human ingenuity aided by the divine hand of God? If he knew the Great Palace was at the end of the Triumphal Way that was where his memory of parental recollection ran out, which obliged him to seek to ask the citizenry how he might contact the comes excubitorum.

Laughter was the least rude of the responses; several times he was told where to go and none of the proposed destinations were pleasant, most being blasphemous. One soul, when he seemed to persist by blocking his passage, looked set to fetch him a blow until an assessment of the risks changed his mind. Impatience was the common denominator with the citizens of the capital; everyone seemed to be in a hurry, obviously on some business that did not allow for courtesy to an outsider.

In the end, as he passed the Milion stone, from which all imperial distances were measured, he was constrained to ask a blind beggar, sat in ragged clothes by the roadside, if he had any knowledge of the layout of the Great Palace, which got a rattle of his cup before any answer was forthcoming. Having proffered a coin and noisily dropped it in, that was checked for value by fingers obviously sensitive enough to tell how much had been gifted and the answers were forthcoming.

‘Each party has their own gate,’ he rasped. ‘Who is it you seek, young sir?’

How does he know I’m young, Flavius was thinking? But he explained, not using the word ‘count’, but just the unit he led.

‘Then you want the Gate of the Excubitors, which is the entry to their barracks. That you will find by passing the baths, which surely you cannot go by without noticing, for you will smell them.’

The cup came up again and that got the fellow another nummi from the purse, again felt for value, followed by a nod that indicated it was just reward.

‘I thank you, kind sir.’

‘Kind?’ he wheezed. ‘Sir? Where you from, the moon?’

Flavius went on his way and the beggar began to chant his mantra, asking for alms for the love of God, the tin rattling endlessly. If he went awry once he eventually came to a gateway guarded by two men in highly decorated uniforms, breastplates with filigree silver decoration, galea helmets again picked out with silver, topped with black plumes, the whole over tunics of the same sombre hue.

Their square shields were black too, marked out with imperial eagles and metal edged. Not an eye moved or flickered as he approached, until he got what was obviously too close, at which point one of the guards dropped his spear, thrust one foot out to steady himself and told him to halt.

‘My name is Flavius Belisarius and I have come to see your commander Justinus.’

The look that got somehow told Flavius he had caused a shock, this underlined when the guard responded with a confused, ‘What!’

The request was repeated, which led to a pause before the other guard, who had not moved, began to shake, his lips compressed and his face sort of puffed up, an indication that he was seeking to suppress his hilarity. The man who had first spoken was not amused and he barked at Flavius.

‘Be on your way, you witless dolt.’

‘I am not witless, the count was a friend to my father and if you give him my name I am sure he will see me.’

‘I’ll give you the toe of my boot if you don’t shove off.’

‘I insist-’

He got no further; the tip of the spear was thrust forward to stop a finger width from his chest. ‘Get out of here before I fillet you.’

Flavius had taken a step back and the guard did likewise, adopting once more the stoical pose that went with the duty.

‘Can I pay you to carry the message?’ he asked, his tone slightly desperate. ‘I will write my name down and if you take it to Justinus he will be grateful.’

‘Get on your way, you idiot. The likes of the comes does not want to talk to a bumpkin peasant.’

‘I am the son of the centurion Decimus Belisarius!’

‘You’re the son of a whore, laddie, and if you do not get those feet moving I will have you thrown into the dungeons, where the rats will no doubt enjoy you as a meal. Now move.’

There had to be another way, Flavius reckoned, so he began to walk off, mind racing at possible avenues, the most outlandish being to break into the Great Palace and find Justinus, which was quickly abandoned as the road to a certain death. He could take station outside the requisite entrance and, like the blind beggar, use supplication with those passing in and out to get his message through, yet how would he know whom to ask?

The bustling crowds, still paying no attention to his progress, were beginning to grate, yet it was looking along the Triumphal Way that alerted him to how steeply angled were the shadows. Night was coming and it would descend quickly, plunging the city into darkness. He had to find somewhere to lay his head and that became the most pressing need. Tomorrow was another day and surely he would find an opportunity to advance his aims.

Constantinople was not short on wine shops, the most obvious place to gain information about somewhere to sleep – they often doubled as hostelries, even in Dorostorum. The capital being a much-visited metropolis, it took only two attempts to find the right kind of place. Flavius got a bed, but in the process he also discovered how limited were his means; the cost of a cup of wine, necessary before he could enquire for a bed, shocked him, but not as much as what he was asked for a cot in a room to be shared with three other souls, the same to be paid in advance.

Once in the upstairs hovel, for it was not clean and stank of too much human occupation and too little vinegar used to clean it, he had to calculate how long his limited funds would last and the conclusion was not reassuring; he had little time to get to Justinus before he ran out of money and found himself sleeping in the gutter, for he had no notion that Constantinople was home to much in the way of charity.