Vengeance

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Flavius travelled faster than any official would have been required to do, almost as fast as an imperial messenger, but he had a mission, and the Via Gemina provided the means to move with alacrity; a constant ability to change his horse, taking one from a mansio stable to replace the one that he left behind and a willingness to suffer the aches of constantly being mounted. This brought him to the main foederati encampment in only seven days and on arrival he rode in through the gates in some style, unlike his previous encounter and, being on a horse and dressed as he was, albeit he was stopped, it was with respect.

The camp was nothing like as crowded as he recalled, hardly a surprise since many of those who had flocked to Vitalian’s banner in the cause of Chalcedon had gone off to their homes, or, in many of the cases he had heard, to a life where a roof over the head was seen as the lot of the more fortunate. When he asked to speak to Vitalian himself he was treated as an honoured messenger, disarmed and escorted to the timber-and-thatch structure that was part of his headquarters.

The general was entertaining his officers probably, to Flavius’s thinking, dining them on the proceeds of what had been gifted to him by Anastasius, when this messenger was brought in to see him and it was obvious to the youngster that most present were drunk, especially the leaders of the Gautoi mercenaries. With, they assumed, no enemy on the horizon that was not untoward; the message they received from Flavius made it less so, telling as it did the truth, not convenient lies. There would be no concessions to Chalcedon, instead the very reverse and with an army on the way under Hypatius intent on crushing them.

‘Who sends you to say this?’ demanded Diomedes, Vitalian’s second in command.

‘A friend.’

A very slurred voice shouted out in bad Latin, ‘Damn you, remove your helmet when you address our general!’

As he lifted his helmet from his head, simultaneously looking along the tables, he spied his late tribune Vigilius and noted the expression of disbelief on his face when he recognised this messenger.

‘Who is this friend?’

Flavius had no idea it was Diomedes who had made the demand, yet it was one, regardless, that left Flavius in a quandary; Petrus had made no mention of who he should say had sent him yet surely there was only one name that would convince those he was addressing that he was genuine, which, looking at the glowering suspicion to which he was being subjected, no one currently believed. Yet he had been sworn to secrecy, the two being incompatible.

‘I refuse to say, but he is a high official and one who knows and has fought alongside the man who commands you.’

That set off a cacophony of noise, some agreement, most derision, as well of cries of, ‘Name him!’

‘Why would anyone of rank send you?’

The soft voice first confused Flavius until he realised it had come from Vitalian; how could a man with a stentorian voice enough to address an army have such a quiet mode of expression in private? But what to say?

‘General, I know this man.’ All eyes turned to Vigilius, who had spoken out loudly, the question hanging in the air. ‘He was recently a decanus in my brigade.’

‘Dressed as an excubitor officer?’ someone said and uproar broke out, everyone talking at once and not, in a lot of cases, with much sense.

‘If I may be permitted to explain how this came about,’ Flavius shouted, trying and failing to make his voice heard.

Silence was only restored when Vitalian stood to command it and even then it was not immediate, but finally he could speak. ‘Hold, my friends, there are deep currents here and I am not sure with my brain a bit addled by wine I can see it straight.’

‘Chuck him in the latrine,’ one voice shouted to much raucous laughter.

‘Who will treat him as his guest tonight?’ Vitalian called. ‘For someone must. If he is dressed as he is then he is entitled to that courtesy.’

‘And if he lies?’ asked Diomedes.

‘Then he has no right to retain his head.’

‘I will share my hut with him.’

All eyes turned to Vigilius again, now standing, some mouthing ‘fool’, others too far gone in drink to see him properly.

‘You forgo, then,’ Vitalian responded, ‘the rest of the night’s revels.’

‘I accept that as forfeit.’

‘Then take this fellow, but be warned, Tribune, should he not be here to talk with me in the morning, when I might be able to assess the truth of what he is saying, your head is as much at risk as his own.’

The pair of Gautoi sentinels who had escorted him into the building were there to march him out, Vigilius needing to hurry to catch them, and having caught up he did not speak, merely directing the guards to his hut.

‘Best take station here, one of you,’ Vigilius demanded. ‘The other to go and tell the guard commander. You, inside.’

Flavius walked in to find the interior of the hut containing the same furnishings he had before observed at a distance, and close to they looked even more valuable. He was also aware that for some reason Vigilius was feeing awkward, as if he did not quite know how to act.

‘This,’ he said finally, ‘is very strange.’

‘To me as well as you, Tribune.’

‘You were a common soldier a few weeks past, a decanus for a brief period and now you turn up dressed as the commander of a numerus in the excubitor.’

‘I doubt you would believe me if I were to tell you.’

‘You’d better try, Flavius, if that is your true name, for I put myself forward to keep you from others who would now be trying to beat out of you the truth.’

‘I am Flavius Belisarius, the son of the imperial centurion of Dorostorum,’ he began, and as he continued he was aware that his listener was struggling to believe what he was being told, for he left nothing out and if Vigilius doubted what had gone before he was doubly sceptical of how Flavius concluded.

‘If, as you say, an army is coming by sea, it would have had to be set in motion before we ever arrived outside Constantinople.’

‘It may well have been, Tribune, but that I have no knowledge of.’

‘So I am expected to believe that our emperor was lying from the very outset?’

‘It would seem so.’

‘If I was to say to you, Flavius Belisarius, if indeed it be your name, that your tale is too fanciful to be credited, what would you counter that with?’

‘Is Forbas still with you?’ A nod. ‘Then ask him!’

The centurion was not happy to be dragged from his slumbers but it was an order he could not disobey. If Vigilius had been shocked by what he was presented with, Forbas was no less afflicted, but once his astonishment had subsided, he was able to remind his tribune that he had harboured doubts about Flavius from his first encounter.

‘You said he was not quite right, do you recall?’

‘I’d forgotten.’ When Flavius raised an eyebrow, Vigilius added, ‘You were not of much account to me.’

As they had talked, even before the arrival of Forbas, the sounds from the main building had grown louder, male yelling being mingled after a while with female shrieks; the officers were enjoying themselves and now it had risen to a crescendo.

‘Dancing girls,’ Forbas explained, when the noise rose. ‘At least, that’s what they term themselves.’

‘That’s not the cry of a woman,’ Flavius said.

There was a moment of disbelief, until another cry rent the air and it was definitely male and pained. Vigilius grabbed his weapon and led an unarmed Forbas out of his hut, Flavius following, and the first thing to see was the flames of the wooden camp perimeter well alight; it was under serious assault.

‘I need a sword,’ Flavius cried.

‘Then find a dead man who has one,’ Forbas shouted, ‘as I have to.’

What followed was mayhem; the officers to a man were drunk, there were half-naked females running in all directions making life, hard already, ten times more so. The assault was coming over one side of the camp and Flavius, having found a weapon and fighting alongside he knew not who, entered into the fray without being certain it was in his interests to do so.

The first real battle for someone so steeped in fighting lore was a disappointment and in later life part of an education used to good effect. Confusion was rife; sometimes he had no idea if he was fighting someone on his own side, not that he had one, or one of the people trying to overrun the camp. It was not numbers that drove the foederati and their Roman officers back, it was a lack of cohesion, added to the surprise achieved by the enemy.

The horns that blew to sound the retreat were those which Flavius had been so recently trained to recognise and now he had some idea who was friend and who was foe, for the latter were advancing while they were retreating in a ragged line. Slashing with his picked-up sword – he had cast three found lances – he managed to form something of a line by which the falling back could avoid being a rout.

Regardless of their efforts Vitalian’s force was driven from the encampment, and when the fight petered out, all they could do was watch their huts and buildings burn and, along with that, anything not worth looting.

Dawn found them, blackened and weary, in an open field, the smoke from the fires still rising in the distance to the east, with Vitalian, as grubby as any of his men, walking through the disordered ranks seeking to lift their spirits. When he came to Flavius, who had found and joined Vigilius and Forbas, he stopped and barked at him.

‘You brought this on.’

‘No, General,’ Vigilius replied, pulling himself to his feet with some difficulty. ‘Flavius Belisarius fought with us. You need to talk to him and, if you will forgive my impertinence, listen too.’

What enemy they had faced the night before was nowhere to be seen and Vitalian, having heard out the man come to alert him, was firmly of the opinion that if it was Hypatius, then it could not be the main force, given the numbers Flavius had said could be anticipated.

‘If that had been the whole army this fellow claims we would all be wondering with what words we might greet St Peter. It was a raid but not a battle.’

‘A damned successful one.’

‘We have lost a fight, we have lost our camp and forfeited that which we possessed. Have we lost our spirit?’

Flavius, listening as Vitalian rallied his officers first and his men next, thought this the stuff of true generalship. He could not be less drained than anyone present but nothing in his demeanour hinted at it. Once he had finished his encouragement he called for Flavius.

‘Tell me again what you know of Hypatius.’

‘You believe him?’ Diomedes demanded, still unconvinced.

‘If I had listened to him last night we might not be sat here in this open field, without even a tent in which to confer.’

The tale was simple and what impressed Flavius was that Vitalian saw the solution as the same. With great effort he rallied his men to march back to their ruined camp, there to search the rubble for weapons and any recoverable possessions, in fact few; the furniture of Vigilius was charred and destroyed. Next, Vitalian ordered that the nearby settlement and farms be denuded of food, no quarter given, for he could achieve nothing commanding a depleted army with empty bellies. That completed – it took two days – he marched his men out and headed east, with Flavius held close by his side, not out of affection but a lack of trust.

They caught Hypatius when his main force was in extended order, marching from Odessus towards Marcianopolis along a narrow via rustica expecting no battle of any consequence, anticipating an easy victory once they found Vitalian and his disorganised and already defeated troops. But they were very much in existence, and, having taken up positions on both sides of a deep valley, they charged down on the head of the imperial columns and threw them into great disarray.

The rout inflicted on forward elements of the imperial forces was total, the middle and rear parts of the imperial army fleeing back, hoping to find the ships that had brought them from the southern shore of the Euxine. The front cadres not mown down in the initial assault were now seeking to throw themselves on the mercy of their attackers, many dying in the bloodletting that followed, as they paid in revengeful mayhem for the defeat and burning of the foederati encampment.

The Gautoi barbarians were unstoppable; not that much effort was made to impede their butchery and it was made plain to Flavius, not that he had any inclination to interfere, that to do so was as dangerous to him as it was to what they saw as their rightful victims. Soon the paving stones of the via rustica were awash with blood ankle-deep, which formed a river along the sloping valley floor, while the killers were covered from head to foot in the same gore and seemingly more drunk than he had ever seen any of their officers on wine.

Vitalian was as quick as he could be in pursuit, pressuring the enemy away from Odessus and an easy evacuation, more through their own confusion than by any hard fighting. Hypatius fell back on and barricaded himself in a small coastal town called Acris and was sure, having fortified his camp, he was safe and from there no doubt sent for his ships.

Vitalian, taking a leaf out of Hypatius’s book, launched a surprise attack at night, overran the temporary defences and utterly destroyed the imperial army as a fighting force. Once more the Gautoi were let loose with their weapons to kill as they pleased. Not many of the enemy made it onto the few ships that had managed to arrive in the harbour and those that sought safety on land were lucky if they ended up as slaves.

Both Hypatius and the newly appointed magister militum per Thracias were taken prisoner, saved from being butchered by the personal but much-diminished cohort that Vitalian kept for himself as guards, they being too valuable to just kill. The emperor’s nephew pleaded for his officers, those close to him, and they too, being high-born and fit for ransom, were spared. So it was a triumphant force that marched back towards a destroyed camp, richer now than they had been before it was looted, for they had the treasury of the imperial army as pay for their success and much labour with which to rebuild.

When they finally reached the camp, they found two officers of the excubitor with another prisoner, Pentheus Vicinus, who were seeking out Flavius Belisarius to hand him over. The tale he had to listen to seemed as fanciful as that he had related to Vigilius, for these men had been sent out of Constantinople by Petrus Sabbatius.

‘He suspected that Pentheus would try to kill you. Our task was to prevent that and we caught two bastards in the corridor leading to your quarters.’

‘They might not have been intent on killing me.’

‘They were and said so before we slit their throats, then stripped both and left them in the nearby woods to make it hard to identify them.’

‘And Pentheus?’

‘If he had turned up in person to see you assassinated, we were to bring him to you at Vitalian’s camp. Old sod put up a bit of a fight but we got him into his chariot and away past the watchman, who was sound asleep. If you look under that threadlike hair of his, you will see an impression of the butt of my sword hilt.’

‘How did Pentheus know where I would be?’

‘You’d have to ask Petrus that,’ said one, not answering in a way that hinted he would be able to provide any enlightenment if pressed. But then he added something meaningful without intending to. ‘He’s a very sly fox, that one.’

‘How sly?’ Flavius asked, seeking to mask his suspicion that there were things of which he was unaware, what Justinus called ‘currents’.

The second officer laughed, though Flavius did not take what he jested about as a joke. ‘If he follows you through a swinging door, he will come out in front.’

‘What were your orders after you delivered the senator?’

‘To return to our duties.’

Vitalian called Flavius into his presence so that the appearance of the senator could be explained, as well as his own tale, and he listened to both stories with as much scepticism as had been the case with Vigilius. He and Forbas had to be called to the general’s new tent to back up one part of the tale. Pressed on who had really sent the warning, given it had not been Pentheus, Flavius again refused to say and pleaded with Vitalian that since his advice had saved him from annihilation his reticence should be respected, that granted, though with ill grace.

The two excubitors departed under safe conduct and the heartfelt gratitude of Vitalian. To say he was pleased ranked as understatement, for no man so hates a person as much as one who has been a friend and then betrayed him. Hypatius had been vocal in order to ingratiate himself and keep his head on his shoulders; he had laid bare the whole of the Vicinian chicanery.

Pentheus pleaded, claimed the emperor forced him to act but to no avail, and Vitalian made him grovel before throwing him into an open-to-the-elements cage where he was assailed by anyone in the camp who had filth of which they wanted to dispose.

‘So tell me, Flavius Belisarius, what it is I can gift to you that will serve as a fitting reward?’

‘Would I be correct General, in thinking that north of Marcianopolis, you represent the legal authority?’

‘I am not the magister but one is dead and his replacement is in my custody, so will do anything I tell him. But why do you ask?’

Flavius was disturbed about the way Pentheus had come to be here and concerned too that there might be a game being played in which he was nothing but a low-value gambling bone. Did he here, and with this man, have a chance to do that which he sought without relying on any sly foxes?

‘Only one thing, General. I would ask that I be given both Tribune Vigilius and Centurion Forbas to act under my instructions as well as a strong unit of soldiers and the right to command obedience and the truth. I have told you how my family, my father and brothers were betrayed and who was responsible. Let that man be obliged to pay for his transgressions and to suffer whatever punishment I decree.’

‘Why don’t you just kill him? For that you need only your own sword.’

‘To do so would sully the memory of my father. I must constitute a real enquiry, call forth those who will witness and prove to those who stood aside when they should have acted, year after year in their own regard, that justice eventually will come to those who transgress against God and their fellow citizens.’

‘Judge and executioner?’

‘No, I will ask Tribune Vigilius to act as judge.’

‘And that slug Pentheus?’

‘Do with him as you wish, he is your enemy, not mine.’

‘I will just remove his head.’

‘So be it. Do you grant my request?’

‘Have you asked those you wish to go to Dorostorum with you if they agree?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then choose the men you want, and may God go with you. I will get the new magister to compose an order conferring on you your official status. Thus you will be acting on behalf of the emperor, God rot his lying soul.’