Vengeance

CHAPTER SEVEN

Having turned to give instructions, ordering that the requisite men be gathered from his outlying farms, Senuthius allowed Bishop Gregory time to think – really the first since he had arrived, so passionate had been the mood of his host – a short break in which the bishop could begin to calculate the outcome of what was being proposed, so that once the senator was done and the domesticus had departed, he could point up some possible difficulties.

‘It will ill serve our cause if we leave the Belisarius boy a gibbering wreck.’

Senuthius could not resist the barbed response. ‘Perhaps we should hand him over to you to do as you wish.’

‘Tempting,’ the bishop replied calmly, deliberately declining to rise to the slur, while being sure that the storm of abuse had subsided and he could address Senuthius as an equal. ‘But that will not serve either.’

That got him a questioning look; traduce him as he might, and often did, Senuthius knew that the cleric had a devious mind, added to a peasant cunning which came from his low birth and impoverished childhood. He also knew that the memory of that straitened past was both the spark that animated the ambition of the priest as well as the cause of his anxieties; having ascended so far in the only institution, outside soldiering, that permitted such an elevation, he had a deep fear of loss.

‘Whatever has happened in Constantinople it would be unwise to heighten the risks, which the broken body of the centurion’s son must most certainly do.’

‘If they hear of it, Blastos,’ Senuthius barked. ‘Remember, there is no swine sending grievances any more.’

‘If Flavius is alive …’ The bishop paused and spread his hands; he had no need to elaborate on that. Even with his tongue cut out and his eyes gouged the boy could write. ‘But to just kill him might be worse, and since we are unaware of the nature of what we face, it may make matters more difficult.’

‘While you are busy creating difficulties, I hope your mind is working on a solution.’

‘Why would I need to, when your outstanding genius has already provided one?’

Senuthius brightened at that: he loved flattery and in Blastos he had a man well versed in the art of sycophancy.

‘If we brand the boy as a heretic and so inflame the righteous against him, how could anyone be expected to prevent, say, a crucifixion?’

‘He must speak before that!’

‘Perhaps he will do so to avoid such a fate and you will have no need to take hot irons to his flesh to get him to talk. I will promise him the protection of the Church if he confides the whereabouts of what was sent to his father from the capital.’

‘And when he has divulged what he knows?’

The cross was once more in the priestly hand, as if by holding it he could be absolved of any sin he might commit. ‘Try as I might, I cannot protect him from the anger of those who would burn any heretic they could find …’

‘Perfect.’

‘And then,’ Blastos added, ‘I can write to the patriarch, who knows me to be a loyal Monophysite, and tell him I have found and contained a dangerous spread of something much worse than Chalcedonian heresy, that I have uncovered pagan worship, which being on the border with barbarians, we must most assiduously guard against. I am sure such a thing will please him.’

‘Don’t go seeking higher elevation, Bishop Gregory,’ Senuthius said in a piping voice, the eyebrows lowered over a penetrating gaze.

‘Would I desert you after all you have done for me and my church?’

That got a nod, even if the man giving it was unconvinced; Senuthius had paid to repair damage done to the basilica of Dorostorum by an earthquake, one that had occurred decades before and rendered the city a diocese that was not one to which many men of the cloth aspired. Far from rich, and in a ramshackle condition, Blastos, lacking influence to get a prized appointment, had taken it as the bishopric he could get, rather than the kind for which he craved, a see in which money flowed easily into his coffers without the need for underhand appropriation.

‘Be assured I will do more, much more,’ Senuthius responded.

This statement was at total odds with his thoughts, those being that even an ally can be a danger. Was he reposing too much trust and therefore his fate into the hands of this man? Since arriving, Blastos had held under one arm the ledger of the imperial centurion and this he now held out to Senuthius, who took it and ran an eye practised in figures over the columns.

‘The monies left over?’

‘In my saddlebag, which if you wish, you can send someone to fetch.’

‘No need, you may keep it,’ the senator replied, holding the book open and out. ‘But this I will have my scribes go over and they will make some changes, even compose a complete new set of accounts. Let us ensure that, if examined, Decimus Belisarius is seen to be nothing but a liar and a thief, seeking to lay the blame for his own crimes at the door of others.’

‘It is necessary to allude to the man’s wife, who may at some time in the future be on her way here, almost certainly if her only surviving son comes to any harm.’

Senuthius did not seem to see that as a problem. ‘If her husband and her sons were heretics, how can she be anything but the same? It will be perceived that what happened in that raid was nothing but divine retribution for their family apostasy. Perhaps, once we have dealt with that which needs to be seen to, we should send to her a message that says it would be unwise to return to Dorostorum. Why would she want to anyway, just to gaze on the rotting skeleton of her youngest on a cross and perhaps face a similar fate?’

‘If we are done, Senuthius, I should return to the city.’

‘It is near dark, Bishop Gregory, stay and dine with me and together we can compose the sermon by which you are going to damn the Belisarius name.’

Flavius never knew the identity of the person who gave him warning of what was about to be visited upon his house, only that it came through the narrow slats of a shuttered window, the voice was male and it spoke heavily accented Greek. When he offered to open the shutter and light an oil lamp the suggestion was vehemently dismissed.

‘I don’t want you knowing who I am.’

Having been awakened from another set of troubling dreams he was far from being in the best frame of mind to react. ‘Then how can I trust what you say if I cannot see you?’

‘You can believe me and happen to live or think I am a liar and die.’

‘At whose hand?’

‘You know who and if he does not do the deed himself, it will be his need behind it.’

The tale told was not strictly coherent; the person giving it was breathless, either from exertion or fear of discovery, yet it did not lack for verisimilitude. If what Flavius suspected regarding the deaths of his family was true, added to his suspicions of what Bishop Gregory had been seeking, then what he was hearing made perfect sense. It also induced a degree of real terror.

‘And how do you know all this?’

‘Man has ears. Some, not many, have a sense of right and wrong.’

‘What am I supposed to do?’ Flavius demanded.

‘Flee, if you have any sense, for by this time tomorrow you will be nailed to a cross if you don’t.’

‘Flee to where?’

There was no reply, just the sound of scrabbling and heavy breath. Flavius flung open the shutters to reveal nothing but a dark and hooded shape heading away from the villa, his hissed call to stop going unanswered. The clouds that had partially obscured the moon parted to show an eerie view of trees and bushes, as well as the roofs of other houses that lay beyond the walls of the garden. When he looked straight down he saw, lying on the ground, the outline of the ladder his messenger had used to get up to his window.

He needed to talk to Ohannes, but one of the people left behind by the bishop was, on the cleric’s instructions, sleeping across the outside of his chamber door; others, he suspected, were placed at the villa exits like the atrium and the kitchens. It had been years since the mischievous child had clambered out of that very window to avoid the parental constraints but Flavius knew well it could be done, knew that it was possible to drop down onto soft ground close to the wall, where his mother planted vegetables that required the warmth of the afternoon sun to prosper and grow. In her absence it had been tended and watered by one of the servants.

He had one leg over the sill when he paused, reprising what he had been told. If even half was true, it was obvious that whatever happened subsequently would oblige him to vacate the family home if not forever, certainly for the succeeding days. Where to go and for how long was a problem that would need to be solved, but not at this exact moment.

Going back into his room and using what moonlight filtered through the open window, Flavius dressed slowly, silently and not without pain, in his military garb, breast and backplate, knowing his sling would have to be discarded. He strapped on his sword, gathered up his shield, his spear plus his helmet and cast them out to land on the ground, taking care to spread out the places where they made contact so they did not clash and cause a noise.

Lastly he gathered everything that had been given to him by Gregory Blastos, his father’s testament, papers and most importantly the family money. The rolled-up document he loaded in a canvas satchel and put over his good shoulder, the twin sack of coins he tied tightly to his belt, and once sure there was nothing left he could safely take with him, he went back over the sill and slowly, relying on his good arm, let himself down until it was at a full stretch.

There is always an odd feeling in dropping, doubly so in the dark, for the clouds had once more cut off the moonlight, and unlike in his past escapades, he could not see where he would land. As he hung there, Flavius was assailed by a deep fear, not just that a fall of twice his own height might land him on a rock and cause him to sprain or break an ankle, but of that which awaited him even should he succeed without mishap.

The sob that came from his throat he had to suppress but he was a boy again, near to fifteen summers now, no longer pretending to be a man, as he had been before the Hun raid, and the feeling was uncomfortable. What kind of fate was it that left him to care for himself and what kind of destiny was it that put him in such imminent danger when just days before he had lived a normal life?

Flavius opened the hand that was holding on to the sill and fell to the ground, giving with his knees and mouthing a prayer to what seemed an indifferent God as he did so, for he had landed on soft ground.

Weapons, helmet and the canvas sack he left under a tree halfway between the villa and the servants’ quarters, these being set in a low building that adjoined and ran at right angles from the kitchens of the main house. No ladder was required to get in but it was necessary to maintain silence, not easy with a shutter inclined to creak, even less so when, once inside and away from that opening, very little light penetrated to aid him. That he should have only a sketchy notion of who slept where in this part of the villa was hardly surprising: he had not wandered into this area since being a curious toddler.

Flavius reasoned that, in the hierarchy of the household, Ohannes must rank quite high, which would indicate that he would be one of the few with a cell of his own in which to sleep, as well as one close to the main house. The lower the servants, be they slave or free, the more crowded was their space, so in an annex without doors, it was possible to silently pull to one side the canvas screens and listen for the breathing of more than one soul.

In the end it was the old soldier’s preference for a cooling night breeze to aid his slumbers, plus the snoring of an elder that identified him to the youngster, or more importantly, the tip of a resting spear catching the light from an open shutter.

Flavius’s hand had barely touched the shoulder when one of Ohannes’s shot out to take hold of his throat, the grip immediately so tight the boy could not speak his name, only croak and hope it made sense. He was never sure of what got him release and a chance to breathe; perhaps there was enough light to see his face. Nor did he make much sense as he gabbled in a whisper what had been told to him, which had the old man, now sitting upright as Flavius bent over him, reaching out to shake him gently and hiss that he should both slow down and sit.

Without going into detail, Flavius first told the Scythian the gist of what was contained in that oilskin pouch, hidden now in this very room, and why it was so important that it be kept secret from Blastos, before going on to the tale of his recent visitation. This was heard in near silence, the only sound being growls of outrage from Ohannes on hearing what Senuthius and Blastos intended.

Then it came to the solution proposed by the messenger that Flavius must flee, given that if he knew a commission of enquiry was coming, but had no idea exactly when, he would likely be dead before it arrived. As he talked and with eyes now adjusted to the low light, the youngster could just make out the slow nodding of the head, followed by the whispered reaction that flight should be for more than just the youngster.

‘I am not sure they will torture the slaves and servants but they might, there being no power to stop them. Me? They have seen we are close, as I was to your papa. I have no more notion to feel the hot pincers Senuthius has in store than you. We must go together.’

Flavius felt he ought to protest, to say that this old man had done enough, yet such was his relief that he would not be alone that noble sentiment died in his throat. ‘But where? I have good friends who might aid me, Philaretus and Asticus, and there were folk prepared to witness against Senuthius.’

‘No, you will only put them in danger. The only place that fat sod will struggle to lay a hand on us is over the river.’

‘Can that be safe? Romans are not much loved there.’

‘Maybe not safe, but when there are two evils it might be the lesser, since we must flee on foot. Senuthius will have mounted men out as soon as it is light, maybe even sooner. He has to reckon on us going south, which might just give us the time to get a boat and make the crossing.’

‘I have no notion to end up as a barbarian slave.’

‘Better that than hanging on a cross to be pecked at by carrion,’ Ohannes growled.

‘How do we get out of the villa unseen?’

That got a reassuring chuckle. ‘Same way as every servant your papa ever employed, who wanted a wet or a woman without him knowing.’

Flavius was sent to fetch that which he had left under the tree, with Ohannes, now fully armed, on hand to take them from him and help him back across the sill, the oilskin pouch containing the roll of letters joining the others Flavius carried in his canvas sack. He was led along a corridor to the very end of the servants’ quarters, the increasingly foul odour a sure indication they were heading for their privy.

It was a windowless enclosure, which accounted for the strength of the smell, but it had a low hatch by which the night soil could be removed of a morning to be taken to the general midden that served as fertiliser for the kitchen garden. They went through that hatch on hands and knees, emerging into moonlight so strong that it had Ohannes insist they wait.

‘I have no notion of the numbers that priest has set to watch or where they are. In this light a man can see a good distance, and picking up movement is easy. We need a bit of cloud.’

‘What do we do if we’re seen?’

‘We kill, young sir, for there be no choice, in silence if we can manage but without if not.’

‘Then we will truly be outside the law.’

‘The law, sad to say, died with your papa. The only justice left is what Senuthius decides and Blastos carries out.’

The moon was strong and high, the light of it great enough to wash out the stars, which threw everything into sharp relief. Flavius leant his back against the wall of the building and dropped his head, suddenly overcome with a feeling of weariness. If a sense of terror and excitement had animated him it was ebbing fast, to be replaced with creeping despair.

‘We must be here when that commission arrives, Ohannes.’

Since that got a grunt, it was not possible to know if he agreed or thought him mad. Nor was there time to ask; as soon as a large cloud began to obscure the moon they had to move, using the rapidly fading silver lining to guide them before it disappeared completely, plunging the whole area into Stygian darkness.

What aided them was knowledge; this was home to both and Flavius, especially, knew it like the back of his hand. The faintest outline of a tree branch or the smell of a pungent plant was enough to tell him exactly where he was. That got them to the outer wall and a gnarled and ancient olive tree, a spot where the youngster knew they could climb, just as he knew that one outer bough went towards that enclosing wall, albeit the limb had been cut and sealed within so as to avoid an easy point of entry for intruders.

With a field of wheat on the other side, Flavius cast his spear and shield over the wall then donned his helmet, finally setting his canvas bag on his back where it would not interfere with his efforts to climb. Even with a less than fully useful arm, those ancient and twisted branches gave him enough purchase to haul himself up; the problem of Ohannes’s painful and inflexible knees posed more of a difficulty, which meant the youngster was required to lodge himself for support, then with one hand help the old man up from one crooked resting place to another.

The next predicament, once they had reached the height they needed, pressured Flavius; to crawl along that truncated bough one-handed was to risk falling off so, with a quick prayer and a welcome sliver of cloud-edge light, he stood up, balanced himself, then skipped along the branch to straddle the outer villa wall.

That flash of moonlight had aided him but it had also allowed one of the bishop’s servants to see his silhouette, judging by the shout of alarm that came from the main part of the house. Ohannes, not trusting to his balance, was inching his way along that same length of wood by bestriding it, pushing with his hands, in one of which he had his spear, able to move only a couple of inches at a time, cursing as he did so the limbs that would not behave as he wished they should and once did.

‘Hurry, Ohannes,’ Flavius called, as more shouting came from the villa itself.

‘As if I ain’t doing the best I can!’

The light of half a dozen torches appeared, Flavius quick to calculate the distance between them and the house, set against how much time they had. Though Ohannes was looking away from those waving lights he could tell by the accompanying noise that they had a difficulty.

‘Get going, Flavius,’ Ohannes called, ‘I will seek to hold them at bay.’

‘Never. Pass me that spear.’

Ohannes held it out at full arm’s length as Flavius raised himself up to stand on the wall, grabbing the shaft to turn and raise it for throwing. There was no precise aim, just as a target a clutch of torches, getting closer and closer, into the middle of which he cast it with all the force he could muster, less than full he being so precariously balanced. It was sufficient; a high-pitched scream rent the night air but more telling was the way those flaring centres of light stopped, wavered and then retreated with haste. Only one torch was left where that spear had made contact and it was on the ground.

‘If I have not killed someone, Ohannes,’ he hissed, as he helped the old man make the gap between bough and wall, ‘I have wounded them badly.’

‘Care not for him, care for us, for those fellows who have run away are set to fetch help. So let us get down from here and away.’