Vengeance

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Justinus had to tell Petrus what had happened and how it had come about, even if he did so with a lack of enthusiasm, certain that his nephew would object to bringing Flavius Belisarius into the palace. His reluctance extended to another truth, the knowledge that he had come to rely on his sister’s son as a means of finding his way through the labyrinth of imperial politics. In the field Justinus, fighting the enemy, was a master of his craft, not least because it was easy to see who your opponent was: in his present post, outside his actual duties, he often felt uncertain.

Open recognition of friend or foe did not exist in the great palace of the richest and most extensive empire in the world, a building in which an invitation to dinner could result in a painful poisoned death, where a smile could be a prelude to betrayal or a firm embrace the act that preceded the secret knife. It was not easy to admit that, being just a simple soldier loyal to his polity, and a man who saw his word once given as binding, he lacked the gifts needed to ensure his own security and continued employment.

Being a natural intriguer, Petrus seemed to thrive in this cesspool for he enjoyed the game. With no official function other than to act as secretary to Justinus, he had ample time to observe the behaviour of others, as well as the aptitude to cultivate even people he saw as potential enemies. He was adept at evaluating motives even if they were hidden by men skilled in subterfuge and he could manoeuvre for an advantage that his uncle did not even know existed or was beneficial.

‘Here? In the palace?’

‘Out of sight, in one of the punishment cells to keep his presence a secret.’

Petrus wanted to tell his uncle then that there were no secrets in this building, which was as much a palace of gossip as it was the seat of imperial governance, but there was no point. He had felt a clutch at his heart on hearing that Flavius was alive and that it was he who had daubed a message on the walls; a moment when he saw the angel of death hovering over his body and it had taken all his guile to keep hidden from his uncle the terror that assailed him. Thankfully, having delivered his lightning bolt, Justinus seemed lost in thought, which gave Petrus time to control his breathing and begin to think matters through.

‘Who saw him?’ he demanded.

‘The two guards at the gate, and the man they sent with the message. All three have been spoken to and issued with dire warnings.’

‘The gaoler?’

‘Knows nothing, I took his keys without explanation.’

‘No one else?’

Justinus bridled slightly at that third peremptory query, in what, it seemed to him, was turning into an interrogation. ‘Are you aiming for the post of imperial inquisitor?’

‘Forgive me,’ Petrus responded, knowing it was necessary to be less aggressive. ‘If I feel the need to advise you I would not like to make an error through ignorance.’

‘He’s a fine-looking youth, Petrus,’ Justinus said wistfully, diverting his own anger and a potential point of dispute. ‘Even shabbily dressed you can see his father in him.’

‘Am I permitted to a how did he survive, how did he get here?’

‘No idea,’ came the sighed response. ‘But he is the son of Decimus, for certain.’

‘You are sure?’

‘He mentioned the letters, said they were safe.’

Those documents had been a concern Petrus had carried in silence, never mentioning it as a factor he and his uncle should be anxious about. That correspondence in the wrong hands could not do other than create difficulties, how much so being uncertain. Once Petrus was apprised of the death of Decimus, his elliptical enquiries directed at anyone who might know of the matter appeared fruitless.

They had produced nothing to indicate the scheme to curb the activities of Senuthius Vicinus had become known to anyone outside those already within the circle of knowledge, yet there was a residual disquiet that someone had found out something and acted upon it. That was in the past; Petrus knew he had now to deal with the present.

‘Fine-looking he might be, but his method of contacting you lacks a degree of subtlety.’

Justinus did not miss the tone of deep irony but he did think Petrus had missed an important additional cause for disquiet.

‘Not just me, everyone in the city can come and gaze upon his handiwork. Pentheus Vicinus already has and, according to those who observed his reaction, he nearly had an apoplexy.’

That being far from good news, indeed it had deep ramifications, there was a pause before Petrus responded. ‘What do you intend, Uncle?’

‘To bring him into the palace proper, to hear his tale and to do something to make amends for our failure to protect his family.’

‘Did we fail?’

‘Decimus is dead, is he not, and three of his boys with him? Flavius said they died bravely, but through treachery, which I find easier to believe than what we were told, which was a pack of lies.’

The fact that they were dead and that perfidy was involved only underlined to Petrus how naive his uncle was being. Could he not see the logical conclusion to be drawn from the words he had just employed? That somehow, someone, and he could only guess it to be Pentheus Vicinus, had got wind of what the comes excubitorum was up to. Not the detail, unless it was Anastasius who let slip their shared secret. They had done everything in their power to keep their intentions secure, yet enough had emerged to frustrate their intentions in a quite bloody fashion.

Someone would gossip about this Flavius, if not this day, then at some time very soon. How could Justinus keep him in the palace without the presence of a strange youth being remarked upon? If it were, Pentheus, an experienced courtier steeped in the arts of conspiracy, would deduce that it might be a threat to him. For a man who had already acted as he had that would be enough and there could only be one outcome.

How far would the senator go? Would he seek to undermine Justinus with the emperor, or would he reckon that, with his reputation for probity, such an attempt would only expose his intentions? It had ever been Petrus’s way to seek to put himself in the shoes of others and he did so now, knowing that for Pentheus to feel utterly secure the death of Flavius, identified or not, would ill suffice and for a very good reason: the senator was a man who lived well beyond his discernible means.

He owned several farms, it was true, and they produced abundant crops, but not enough to support the aims of a person who wanted to be a power at the imperial court, where the disbursement of gold was a necessity if you wished to avoid being seen as of no account. It was not hard to deduce where such monies came from.

Pentheus had to be in receipt of monies from his criminal cousin in Moesia and it was those that gave him the power to bribe, the funds to lavishly entertain and the means to present himself as a man of wealth. It return, he shielded the criminal activities that had been regularly reported by Decimus Belisarius.

He would act now as he had done previously, not out of family loyalty, but for personal necessity and the best way to protect what he would be desperate to hang on to was to close off all the avenues that might threaten him. One death might give him satisfaction; three, if they could be carried out discreetly, would seal off the problem completely.

‘I cannot dissuade you from the course you have set us upon, Uncle?’ Petrus asked, even if he knew the answer.

‘I gave my word.’

Petrus nearly broke his commandment then and spoke openly, to ask to be allowed to act as he saw fit to protect all three of them from what they might face. But it was bitten back; the less his uncle knew the better. Once made aware of his actions he would want to be consulted on every gambit and move which, if it did not kill off his intentions, would at the very least impose a check on the freedom Petrus needed to manoeuvre.

‘So be it.’

That got him a hard look. ‘I had expected you to object more than you have.’

‘There is no point, you have made a decision and I know, if you have given your word, you will hold to it. It is what makes you who you are.’

‘What do I say to the emperor?’

‘Nothing! In time perhaps, but not now.’

Justinus came for Flavius after the guards had been set for the night, having brought him a cloak to hide his grime-streaked and paint-spattered clothing, telling him he must abandon his spear. He then led him through seemingly endless silent corridors, lit by flaming sconces under which stood rigid-to-attention guards, who only moved to salute their commander as he hurried by. Officially Justinus had a suite of rooms, one of which was an unused bedchamber – he preferred his barren cell – and attached to that was a bathing chamber, now ready filled with hot water.

‘Take off your clothing and wash, Flavius, for you stink of the gutter. I have had an excubitor tunic laid out for you as well as suitable undergarments, and when you are clean and dressed, we can talk.’

The youngster divested himself of the cloak, which revealed the gold chain and medallion given to him that morning, immediately removed and returned.

‘I will await you in the other room.’

‘Which other room?’ Flavius asked, for they had passed through several.

‘Follow your nose.’

To divest himself of his clothes, in which he seemed to have been living for a lifetime, was bliss on its own; to then step down into a hot bath was akin to paradise, though he did question the smell of powerful unguents that had been added to the water. He would stink of them when finished and such perfumery was counted as unmanly in Dorostorum. Pleasure outweighed concern, for there was a sponge with which to wash, a pumice stone with which to scour his skin and the whole made him feel both alert and secure.

Towelled dry he used the combs provided to dress hair that badly needed the attention of the barber slave that had administered to the Belisarius family. That made him think of those he had left behind, the same bleating sheep he had taken that day his father died to the safety of the citadel. Had they paid a price for his flight? Why had he not seen fit to think on the well-being of the family slaves up till now?

He came out and did indeed follow his nose, to enter a candlelit chamber, hung with huge tapestries of mythical scenes, somewhat pagan to his taste, plus a table laden with food and silver flagons of wine. Justinus was present and so was another younger man, sat sprawled in a curule chair, introduced to him as the elusive Flavius Petrus Sabbatius.

‘We call him Petrus,’ Justinus said, ‘there are so many of your name in the family it distinguishes him, that is if anything ever could.’

‘How can I fault such an introduction, Uncle?’

Petrus tried to hide that the slight barb stung him, Justinus being prone to the very occasional remark that was designed to remind him of his place. That he employed such a tactic now was telling: perhaps he was seeking to bolster his esteem in the presence of this youngster, a youth of good height and muscular, handsome of face and looking so fresh with his reddened skin and damp black hair that the man observing him felt a faint flash of envy.

‘Petrus is my right hand and I depend upon him,’ Justinus added, seeking by a kindly look to make up for his earlier remark. ‘You may trust him as you trust me.’

Flavius was examining Petrus with the same acuity as he was under; the fact that the nephew was sprawled in the chair made it hard to judge his figure, but it looked to be thin and stringy. The hair was red in the candlelight and the head was canted at an angle that hinted at scepticism, as if he doubted what was standing before him.

‘Eat, Flavius, then I will ask you to recount what happened to your family.’

‘You were not told?’

‘We were told they were dead, you too, and I admit to my shame I never enquired after your mother.’ The news she was safe in Illyria seemed to mightily relieve Justinus; he actually acted as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. ‘That is good, though her grief must be acute.’

Obviously they had been fed the same false tale as Flavius had heard from Forbas and he said so, before launching into a description of both the truth of the encounter as well as his adventures since that fateful day. Both men let him speak, very rarely interrupting, this done more by Petrus than Justinus, he seeming to need to be absolutely clear of what was being recounted.

‘In order to come to Constantinople I joined with General Vitalian.’

If he had been sprawling throughout, that made Petrus shift and his voice, hitherto relaxed and quite often languid, was suddenly snappy. ‘You marched with Vitalian?’

‘As a decanus, which goes far to tell us what a less than perfect host he commanded. It was not the finest, yet it achieved its goal.’

Petrus coughed and sat fully upright. He then began to question Flavius about that host, of what it consisted and why so many had flocked to the Vitalian banner. He was treated to all the reasons religious and mercenary, to which he listened with more avid attention than he had shown hitherto.

‘But really,’ Flavius insisted, feeling he was being drawn away from his reason for being here, ‘I did not come to describe to you his motives or that of his forces.’

‘You want justice,’ came the slightly acerbic response, ‘which you saw fit to paint on half the walls of the city.’

It was easy to let the exaggeration pass. ‘I do, and it would please me if you could now tell me if such a thing is possible.’

‘I said in time,’ Justinus replied. ‘And we will not deceive you, it could be some time.’

Now it was his turn to explain, to tell in more detail of how the rising of Vitalian had led to the recall of Petrus as well as to add that if the mission on which Petrus had been engaged was ever to be reconvened, then there were considerations of politics which must intrude. These of necessity being complex.

‘I am not master of that, Flavius.’

‘Is there anything I can do?’

‘You must be discreet,’ Petrus cut in, ‘and never use your family name while within these walls.’

‘You mentioned a Vicinus?’ Flavius asked Justinus.

Again it was Petrus who replied, bringing home that Justinus really did rely on him. The situation was explained in full, as well as the reasoning that would prompt Pentheus Vicinus to have him killed; he did not add that the mere presence of Flavius threatened him and his uncle as well.

‘Sleep now,’ Justinus said, yawning himself. ‘We will talk more in the morning.’

‘Where, Uncle?’

‘My barren cell and my cot, Petrus, where he will be safe.’

‘And you?’

That got a firm shake of the older head; he was not going to say that as long as Flavius was safe, so was he, which impressed a nephew who got the drift; he had worried that Justinus had not thought matters through.

As he was accommodated in the same suite that served Justinus, Petrus had no distance to walk to his sleeping chamber, not that he went there to rest for he needed to think. Was it worth seeking the help of the emperor and trying to persuade him to rid himself of Pentheus? Not with Vitalian queering the field and the man in question the originator of what Anastasius saw as a successful if dishonest policy! Just as the senator had picked up hints of the correspondence between Decimus and Justinus, Petrus had picked up hints about what was to be done about the rebels and Vitalian.

As a person who walked the corridors of the palace when no other duty presented itself, and his uncle was no hard taskmaster, Petrus enjoyed the little surprises this turned up. Often he would hear part of a discreet conversation, at other times come across courtiers in deep discussion, sometimes encountering people in conclave who in public gave the impression of being mortal enemies. It was a game he played and loved, just as he judiciously sought to make connections with anyone that he thought could further his aims.

Naturally he was close to his uncle’s officers, but they were not the only troops in the capital and he never doubted that being able to tell those commanders and their inferiors outside the magic circle of intrigue that was the palace, what was being said, proposed and indeed about to be enacted made him, if not a friend, a warmly welcomed visitor. Knowledge was power and Petrus garnered it like a fish ingesting feed.

He had suspected from the day they were promulgated that the arrangements Anastasius made with Vitalian were false; the emperor might be old and increasingly feeble but he had a core of hard metal that had kept him on the throne and it was one that brooked no opposition. He had made concessions to Vitalian to get him away from the walls of Constantinople, a city that might erupt into serious riot in his support if food got scarce; indeed the populace was so febrile they might decide they were fed up with their present ruler and seek to depose him out of nothing but mischief, which had happened before.

Petrus knew he had to come up with a solution to the presence of the Belisarius boy and one that did not compromise his uncle’s sense of honour. Added to that he had to deflect Pentheus Vicinus, who must have a full knowledge of what he, Petrus, had only picked up by rumour: that an army from Asia Minor, under the command of the imperial nephew, Hypatius, was about to land on the shores of the Euxine Sea, to then march inland and destroy Vitalian.

As he sat fiddling with the bones with which he liked to gamble he began to evolve a scheme, one full of risks, but less fraught than the potentially fatal one of doing nothing. Then he again considered if he should tell Justinus of what he intended, that discarded quickly in case, by word or deed, he let slip what Petrus was about.

The next morning, secretarial tasks complete, he sent a message to Pentheus Vicinus seeking a meeting, to discuss certain matters of mutual concern – there could only be one given those flaming-red letters on the walls – knowing the senator would have to take the bait, then he went to talk with Flavius Belisarius, which he too needed to do alone, not easy since Justinus seemed to want to hold him close. Finally duty called his uncle away and Petrus made sure, in a very obvious way, that the chamber, as well as the adjoining rooms, were clear of servants.

‘Please sit, Flavius.’

Petrus sensed he was reluctant; for some reason the youngster did not fully trust him, that not being a fact to trouble him.

‘I need to talk to you on an important matter,’ he added and Flavius finally obliged. ‘I am going to say to you that it is necessary to act upon what I am going to tell you as if my uncle has no knowledge of it, even if he has.’

That made the listener shift somewhat uncomfortably.

‘I doubt you can fathom the level of discretion that is required to hold any position in the imperial service when you are so very close to the source of that power.’

‘Your uncle mentioned it was full of what he called “currents” …’

‘And greedy sharks to gobble you up if you do not show care!’ Petrus exclaimed. ‘I hope you believe he trusts me.’

‘I suspect it was you who wrote his replies to my father.’

‘I even wrote the terms of my own commission, to avoid using the imperial scribes, yet somehow we could not keep matters as secure as we had hoped. You are bound to ask why and I cannot tell you, but Pentheus Vicinus picked up something, perhaps a sniff no more, but it would have been enough perhaps to send to Senuthius a warning. That is what it is like in this place.’

‘I am surprised an honourable man like Justinus can bear it.’

‘He does so with my aid. I am his eyes, ears and correspondent in all things, for he cannot himself read, or write. It is I who compose his orders and relate to him that which comes in writing. I want to add that apart from my very natural affection for him, distant from any ties of blood, I am wedded to him by interest in my own advancement. Without Justinus I would not be here and would not have the opportunity to seek for myself a place to occupy when he is no longer with us.’

Petrus paused to let that sink in, his gut feeling being that love as a motive would not wash; self-interest was so much more convincing and his uncle was long in years.

‘What I am about to tell you he knows the gist of, but his position of loyalty to the emperor precludes it passing his lips, so it falls to me to be the executor of his wishes. Your recent commander, Vitalian, was fed a pack of lies, or at least his senior commanders were and I will now explain what they were and why.’

Flavius listened as it was related to him; Anastasius was never going to relent of his Monophysite edict, never going to honour his commitment to keep the foederati fed and paid. No Chalcedonian bishops would be reinstated and more would be removed. The real shock he kept till last: that the architect of that policy of imperial deceit was none other than the cousin of Senuthius Vicinus.

‘And that is the way matters are conducted here in the bosom of our empire. Lastly, as of this moment, an army is about to land in the Diocese of Thrace to crush Vitalian, which presents you with a problem.’

‘How so?’ That got a shrug. ‘If Vitalian is defeated, it may clear the way for my uncle to get reconvened my mission to Dorostorum.’ A shrug full of negativity followed that. ‘But how will we manage that when Pentheus Vicinus is entrenched as the most powerful voice in the councils of empire?’

‘A problem certainly.’

‘How much loyalty, Flavius, do you harbour towards those you marched with? Do you feel it is incumbent on you, with this information in your possession, to alert them to the danger?’

Sensing the confusion that induced, he stayed silent, letting Flavius gnaw on the matter himself.

‘Will the crushing of Vitalian guarantee that your mission will take place?’ Petrus demanded, only to answer his own question. ‘No, and oddly the only person who might guarantee that is Vitalian, for if he can so pressure Anastasius that he will have to deal with him honestly, it will destroy forever any influence Pentheus has.’

‘Which will expose Senuthius?’

‘Of course!’ Petrus exclaimed, happy not to have to explain everything. ‘Then my uncle will not have any reason to hold back or anyone to stand in his way in a matter he feels honour-bound to resolve for an old comrade-in-arms, namely to provide that which you painted on the walls.’

‘Justice for Belisarius,’ Flavius murmured, for it had become to him a mantra.

‘Think on what I have said, for circumstances have put you in a position of real importance, not just to your own wishes but to the future course of the empire.’

Petrus was pleased to see the face before him pale slightly as the enormity of what this young man was faced with struck home. Time to fix in place the final nail!

‘But under no circumstances talk to Justinus about this. You have seen the precautions I took so that you and I would not be overheard. This I can do because I am familiar with the place, you are not. Think of the fate of your family and how that came about. If you are overheard discussing this you will so compromise my uncle that he too may lose his head. If that happens, any hope you have for justice will die with him.’