Viper of the North

Chapter 13

The beetling walls of Antioch shimmered in the late morning sunshine, merging into the terracotta infinity of Syria. Stood on the battlements, Emperor Valens sighed. Under his snow-white fringe, his sharp blue eyes examined the land to the east. Trade caravans speckled the sandy paths leading from the city to the banks of the River Orontes. His gaze passed along the precious waterway that spliced the land, its surface dotted with cogs and imperial galleys, drifting lazily to their destinations. Then his eyes narrowed on the hazy line where sand met sky and remained there for some time.

Reassured by the emptiness of the horizon, he turned to stroll along the battlements. While the centre of the city was abuzz with the usual activity of market day, the legionaries manning the walls were silent and pensive. They knew what lay beyond the horizon, in the eastern deserts. Each of them wore the lightest of linen tunics under their scale vests, skin glistening with sweat in the temperate climate, saluting promptly as he passed.

Wintering in the east would be a pleasant affair, he mused, breathing the warm air in through his nostrils, but for the looming threat of Shapur’s seemingly infinite, well equipped and well-drilled armies. The Persian King’s advances into Roman Armenia had drawn the empire’s every resource to the eastern frontiers: grain, artillery, craftsmen and most importantly every available comitatenses legion either side of Constantinople. And he, as emperor, had neither seen the capital nor set foot west of Constantinople since the summer, and it looked certain that he would not see it for several summers more. He paused, gazing out to the east once more. Come on, mighty Shapur, make your move. Break me or break against me, before my empire crumbles behind me!

Every night so far he had wakened while all else was still, troubled by the imminent danger he had left behind in the distant Danubian borderlands. Due to the empty imperial coffers, the Moesian fleet had been effectively decommissioned, now numbering a token set of just eight biremes patrolling the river while the rest lay rotting in a pontoon bridge near Durostorum. Added to that the already poorly equipped border legions had been forced to forgo their yearly resupply of armour, arms and clothing. And their numbers had never been fully replenished since the erosive mission to the Kingdom of Bosporus. The great western river itself now presented more of a barrier to the Goths than the Roman defences did. All it would take was for one concerted push.

Despite the heat, he felt a shiver dance across his skin.

Then footsteps thudded up the stone steps behind him, shaking him from his memories. He spun to see a sweating, emaciated man hobbling up towards him. Like birds of prey, two white-robed candidati, Valens’ loyal bodyguards, sprinted nimbly to shield their emperor, clutching their sword hilts. But, on seeing the sorry state of the man — his hands and thighs bleeding from a long journey on horseback most probably — Valens raised a hand, and the candidati relaxed just a fraction.

‘Quintus Livius Ennius of the Cursus Publicus,’ the exhausted man panted, saluting, then he slumped to one knee and held out a scroll with a wax seal. ‘Emperor, I have sailed and rode for two weeks and have not stopped for rest in the last three days. This message comes from. . ’ his voice trailed off nervously.

‘Speak!’ Valens demanded.

The man looked up, his face taut with fear and awe. ‘This message comes from the west, from Comes Lupicinus in Moesia. The Danubian hinterland around Durostorum and the XI Claudia fort has been breached.’

Valens pushed past his candidati, dipping to his knees as dread gripped him. He grabbed the man by the shoulders. ‘What? How?’ He tore the scroll from the man’s grasp, the wax seal crumbling as he unfurled it. His eyes flitted to the crux of the message.

. . and now the majority of the Gothic tribes have united and marched upon the empire under Fritigern’s banner, ascribing the arrival of the Huns as the catalyst. Fritigern claims he still observes our truce, and offers his men as foederati in exchange for food and sanctuary. But the grain supplies are almost gone, and the limitanei ranks all along the river are equally depleted. It is only a matter of time before the Goths’ hunger turns to anger. Emperor, I implore you to provide sanction for emergency grain supplies to be delivered to the Danubian frontier. And, as a matter of equal urgency, I beseech you to send legionary support to Moesia. .

Valens’ eyes swept over the rest of the letter and the estimations of the Gothic number, then hung on the signature; the scrawl was much the same as the rest of the text — not the worst he had seen but definitely not the fine, practiced handwriting of a scribe or an officer. Then he picked at the remains of the wax seal; although it bore Comes Lupicinus’ mark, it had been resealed, albeit carefully. He fixed his gaze on the rider. ‘I will ask you this only once. Know that the fate of the empire may depend on your answer.’

The rider blanched and nodded hurriedly.

‘Who gave you this letter?’

‘As I said, Comes. . ’ The rider gulped, then blinked, sucking in a deep breath. ‘Centurion Qu. . Quadratus, and Optio Avitus, Emperor.’

‘Who?’

‘Centurion Quadratus and Optio Avitus of the XI Claudia Pia Fidelis, Emperor.’

Valens snorted. ‘A centurion and an optio forged a letter from Lupicinus?’

The rider nodded. ‘They thought it was the only way to salvage the situation on the Danubius, Emperor. Comes Lupicinus is in command at the scene and he was refusing to send out a call for help, so Centurion Quadratus and Optio Avitus sent me east.’

‘Disobeying direct orders from their comes?’ Valens scowled. ‘By God and Mithras that legion has some rogues, and thank God and Mithras they do. And Lupicinus, that repellent and wayward character, brash as a lion one minute then as timid as a mouse the next? Perhaps he would have been less hazardous if I had dragged him east with me,’ he mused. Then he frowned, his mind replaying the last time he had dealt with the XI Claudia. ‘But you said Lupicinus was in charge of the Claudia?’

The rider nodded.

‘So Tribunus Gallus has fallen in battle?’ Valens recalled the tall, lean officer with the gaunt, wolf-like features who had once come to his palace.

‘No, Emperor. Tribunus Gallus was on a mission to parley with Athanaric. He should have returned by now, unless. . ’

Valens sighed. ‘If Gallus is the man I remember, then he’ll have made it back. And if he takes charge of the situation, then all is not lost. But this scroll paints a bleak picture,’ he pinged a finger on the edge of the tattered sheet of paper, ‘and time is of the essence.’ He tried to imagine the entirety of Fritigern’s people, camped on the Danubian plain by Durostorum, but found the image dissolving in his thoughts every time. The key to managing this mass migration, he realised, was in keeping Fritigern’s masses where they were. They had to remain on the plain of Durostorum until military support could be provided. But the limitanei legions in Moesia and Illyricum were threadbare, and it would be a dire struggle to keep Fritigern’s men in check as things stood, he realised. But perhaps the Gothic horde could be assuaged, albeit temporarily, with provision of grain. Yes, if the many southern towns and cities could spare just a little from their stores, then it might be enough.

‘I’ll have my scribe prepare orders to provide food for the Goths. It will be your job, Ennius, to ensure that the order is delivered to Tribunus Gallus, assuming he has returned.’

With that, he snapped his fingers and looked to his pair of candidati. ‘Get this rider as much food, wine and water as he desires, then set him up in one of the palace bedrooms, and then send my capsarius to put a salve on his riding sores.’ He turned back to Ennius, helping him from his knees. ‘You will rest and recuperate until dawn. Then I will provide you with a stallion from my stables and the scroll containing my orders. After that you must ride, faster than you have ever ridden before.’

‘Yes, Emperor,’ Ennius said.

‘And when you’ve done this, I’ll see to it that you’re promoted to chief of heralds.’

Ennius gawped. ‘Thank you, Emperor. I will ride at speed, heedless of my wounds.’

Valens watched the rider being ushered away down the steps and through the throng of market day. He wondered what he might have had to return to in the west had this Centurion Quadratus not taken it upon himself to defy orders. Not for the first time in his reign, the finest thread of chance was holding the empire together.

Now he had to plot his next move. He turned and rested his palms on the battlements, eyes scouring the sand below, searching for an answer. He visualised the campaign map that would be waiting on him back at the palace, seeing the carved wooden pieces on the eastern border that represented his campaign legions. There were over thirty comitatenses legions facing Shapur’s armies. The figure sounded impressive, but the reality was that many of those legions were well understrength and stretched along the vastness of the Orontes, the Tigris and the Armenian borders along with the twenty four permanently garrisoned limitanei legions. That meant there were scarcely enough men to rebuff any advance by Shapur, never mind mount any kind of offensive. The sun burned on his neck as a solution evaded him.

Think, man, think!

He jostled the numbers, but every act of taking any significant number of legions away from the Persian front meant leaving a glaring gap for Shapur to exploit. No, he realised, he could afford to lose only two legions, three at most — some five thousand Romans. Then the nagging doubts started as he remembered the estimate of the Gothic numbers: over ten thousand Gothic cavalry and infantry, plus the eighty thousand who followed them who were no doubt armed as well? And if Fritigern’s lot had been driven south then it would only be a matter of time before the Greuthingi Goths and others flooded to swell his ranks further. His chest tightened. Perhaps another limitanei legion could be collected from the upper Armenian borders with limited risk. Then he thought of the eastern heavy cavalry in the palace stables; the swarthy, moustachioed men who rode those fine mounts, man and beast armoured like an iron centaur. Yes, an ala of cataphractii could be spared as well, he thought. That would provide nearer nine thousand men.

Still not nearly enough.

What more could he do? The manpower simply did not exist. Then he remembered, from the ancient texts; when the Spartans had sent aid to the Syracusans in the form of just one man, a noble and valorous strategos who transformed their campaign against the Carthaginians. Suddenly, he realised what was needed.

‘To my campaign room,’ he barked, then clapped his hands. Two candidati rushed to flank him as he flitted down the steps from the battlements.

The midday sun scorched the column of legionaries, cooking their bodies inside their scale vests as they marched across the Syrian plain, the terracotta dust thrown up from the march coating their throats.

Mounted at the head of the column, Traianus’ thoughts flitted between his empty water skin and the grim memories of the skirmish back in the dunes. He rubbed at his hooked nose and then his jaw, now broad and stubbled with grey as he approached his fiftieth year. Then he looked at the blood encrusted under his fingernails and was sure he could still smell the entrails of the last of the Persian warriors he had slain. Just as when he had been a legionary, blood and slaughter ruled now that he was Magister Militum Per Orientalis, commander of all legionaries in the extreme east, answerable only to Emperor Valens himself.

Mercifully, the outline of Antioch emerged from the heat haze on the western horizon; rest and refreshment was near. When they reached the eastern gate, Traianus raised a hand in salute to the wall guard.

‘Ave!’ The sentry called out, then shouted down inside the city. ‘Open the gates!’

Traianus felt the cool shade of the gatehouse like a balm on his skin as they passed under it and into the bustle of the city. Antioch was situated just a few miles west of the volatile border between the two great empires of Rome and Persia. It was the first city that could be considered partisan, staunchly Christian, as opposed to almost every other settlement dotted across the border region — riddled with zeal, Christianity and Zoroastrianism clashing as opposing holy truths. Indeed, even the legions here had adopted the Christian God over the previously infallible Mithras. Traianus often wondered not which god to follow, but if there was such a thing at all.

He led his men across the market square, shaded by the baths and the horreum, then past the Column of Valentinian and the Great Church of Constantine. Then they entered the market swell, rich with a stench of sweat and a mixture of camel and horse dung and packed with a sea of faces gawping at their blood-spattered armour.

Then a column of sorry-looking slaves was bundled across his path in chains. Both parties halted. The bald, ageing slavemaster turned round to see what had held up his column. He looked Traianus in the eye with a scowl, then gulped in fear as he realised who he was dealing with.

Traianus cocked an eyebrow at the state of the slaves: dressed only in loincloths, their legs were more bone than muscle, their ribs seemed to be pressing tight against their skin and their faces spoke of the many years that had passed since they had last been free men. Then he noticed a faded stigma on one man’s bicep. Legio II Parthica, it read. A frown wrinkled his brow.

‘Hold on,’ he raised a hand as the slavemaster readied to whip his slaves onwards.

The slavemaster stopped, his eyes widening in fear. Around the two columns, the crowd slowed, looking on in hope of a brawl.

Traianus slipped from the saddle and grappled the slave’s arm. ‘This man was a legionary?’ He looked to the slavemaster. ‘Is he a deserter?’

The slavemaster made to reply, but the slave cut in before him;

‘Never!’

One of Traianus’ legionaries lunged forward, raising a balled fist to the slave.

‘No!’ Traianus barked, then lowered his voice and looked the slave in the eyes. ‘Let him speak.’

Under his hay-like, untended hair, the slave’s face was sun-darkened and lined with age, his cheeks were sunken and his lips cracked and bleeding. But his eyes screamed defiance.

‘I am Caelus Pedius Carbo of the II Parthica, first cohort, second century. I fought for my empire until the last. I shed blood on the walls of Bezabde until I could no longer stand,’ he gestured to the network of thick scar welt on his arms and thighs.

Traianus’ eyes widened. ‘You fought at Bezabde?’ The sack of the fortified city on the banks of the River Tigris had sent shockwaves around the eastern frontier, but much time had passed since that incident. ‘That was, what, more than fifteen years ago.’

Carbo looked to Traianus with glassy eyes. ‘Has it really been that long?’

Nodding, Traianus suppressed the surge of pity he felt for the man, then replied prosaically. ‘It was thought that none survived the razing of the city? I was part of the relief column that arrived there, too late.’ His mind flitted with the images of the blackened, toppled walls, the blood-slicked streets and the whimpering of the dying.

Carbo shook his head. ‘It may have been better that way. When Bezabde fell, the Persians took me along with the captured. There were hundreds of us at first. I worked in the salt mines in heat a man should never know and I was certain that I had arrived in Hades. Days turned into weeks, then months, then years and by then we lost count. My comrades weakened and fell victim to the lung disease of the mines and eventually there were less than half of us left. I started to pray that I would be next. Then one day I was bought by a Persian noble who took me to his luxurious palace. There I had the pleasure of pools and baths and silken bedding. A stark contrast to the mines. Except that he had me horsewhipped for his amusement, every day.’ He twisted to reveal the almost unbroken coating of scar tissue that was his back. His shoulder blades were crooked, as if they had been broken and healed many times. ‘Then I was sold on to a travelling trader. I have changed hands many times since then and now I find myself here, as a slave to the empire I would gladly die for.’

Traianus frowned, scanning the column of slaves. ‘Are there more survivors?’

Carbo sighed. ‘Not here. But I fear that some of my comrades still live, back in the desert salt mines.’

Traianus turned his gaze on the slavemaster. The man’s bald head glistened as he broke out in a nervous sweat. ‘Unshackle this man,’ he barked, ‘and pray to God and Mithras that you don’t cross my path again.’

The slavemaster thought about protesting until two of Traianus’ legionaries growled, part unsheathing their spathas. Quickly, the slavemaster fumbled with the shackles, then backed away from Traianus. The slave gazed down with a haunted look to the worn and callused flesh on his wrists where the iron had been clamped for so long. He did not move, even when the slavemaster rushed the rest of his column off into the throng of the market.

‘Would you serve again, soldier?’ Traianus asked Carbo.

‘Gladly,’ Carbo nodded. ‘Through all those years in the salt mines, one thing kept me and my comrades going: the promise of being reunited with our empire once more. Though I never dreamed I would be in chains when I next set foot in her sweet lands.’

‘Then you will serve again. You will be fed and tended to at the city barracks. There you will be assigned one month’s light duties and double rations, until your strength has returned.’

Carbo gazed at Traianus, realisation dawning on him that this really was happening. Then one of the legionaries nodded to him, beckoning him into the column. The watching crowds returned to their own business again and the rabble of market day erupted once more.

Traianus wondered if the man’s words were true as he climbed into the saddle again. Were there poor beggars from the II Parthica chained together in the notorious Persian salt mines? A bitter gall rose in his throat at the thought; Shapur would pay for this. If Rome could not conquer Persia with her armies, then another route would have to be sought. Emperor Valens had talked of a covert approach to infiltrating the Persian heartlands, but so far those plans lay undeveloped.

Then a voice barked over the rabble. ‘Magister Militum!’

Traianus twisted to the voice. A legionary waved at him frantically.

‘Emperor Valens requests your presence with the utmost urgency!’

The campaign room in the city palace was blessedly cool, and Traianus had slaked his thirst with a wide-brimmed cup of fruit juice. He looked on at the campaign map and the carved wooden pieces aligned along the borders. Then footsteps grew louder behind him until Emperor Valens and a pair of candidati entered the room.

‘Ah, Traianus!’ Valens’ azure eyes were sharp as always. ‘Your return is most timely.’

‘Emperor?’ Traianus frowned, watching Valens pluck four of the pieces from the map and place them west of Constantinople, near the Danubian limes.

‘Let me waste no time with preamble,’ Valens spoke evenly. ‘The Danubian frontier is on the brink.’

Traianus frowned. ‘Athanaric’s Goths?’

Valens cocked one eyebrow. ‘Perhaps, behind it all. But it is Fritigern who has breached our borders.’

‘Fritigern? He has broken the truce?’

‘That is not clear. It appears that he comes in peace,’ Valens shook his head, ‘and I will come on to the detail in a moment.’

‘But surely if he has encroached on our borders then he is in breach of the treaty?’

Valens nodded. ‘All valid questions that I will need to answer, Traianus. But it seems that the immediate danger is of famine. Fritigern has brought with him little or no grain. If we are still to respect the truce — as we must in the first instance — then we are obliged to aid him. The rider who brought me this news will be setting off at dawn to advise the local tribunus that he can levy grain from the towns and cities far to the south of the river. It’ll be a stretch, but I’m hoping it will be enough to ensure that Fritigern and his people stay exactly where they are until I get there. If they mobilise in search of food and fall upon our towns and cities. . ’ his words trailed off as he gazed at the province of Moesia on the map, suddenly so distant. The handful of wooden pieces representing the limitanei looked desperately sparse, and the pieces Valens had moved there from the east did little to bolster their number.

He clapped his hands and a scribe rushed into the room, stopping beside Valens with a reed pen and a leaf of papyrus at the ready.

Eyeing the moved pieces, he spoke. ‘Send word to the II Armeniaca, the IV Italica, the II Isauria and the I Adiutrix. Then muster my ala of cataphractii and an ala of equites; they are to mobilise and rendezvous at Trapezus. There, the Classis Pontica will take them to Tomis. Make sure they understand that this order is given with the utmost urgency.’

With that, he turned to Traianus, affixing him with a sincere gaze. ‘These legions need the leadership of one of my best men.’

Traianus’ skin prickled, realising what was coming next.

‘And that is why you must lead them, to weed out the truth and to bring our borders back under imperial control.’

West. Traianus skin prickled. It had been twenty years since he had last set foot in those lands. A jumble of memories came to the fore.

‘Now,’ Valens continued, ‘you should also be aware of the other threat; the reason Fritigern pushed south in the first place. It is the Huns; they have moved on Gutthiuda.’

‘The dark riders?’ Traianus’ skin froze. He had heard of their trail of devastation in their inexorable advance westwards from the distant and windswept eastern steppes. But many believed they were still well north and east of the Gothic heartlands. ‘Then they have moved south with great haste, it seems?’

‘Indeed. Yet they are not the immediate danger.’ Valens tapped a finger on the campaign map. ‘In all my years, the one thing that has kept our borders safe has been the political fractures in the land of the Thervingi Goths. The rival iudexes have quarrelled and switched allegiance swiftly and often, like leaves dancing in a storm. But now, the arrival of the Huns seems to have forged them together, Traianus.’ Valens looked up. ‘That is my grave concern. It is not just Iudex Fritigern and his standing army, or some beefed-up mercenary rabble that has breached our borders. This is almost the entire Thervingi nation, mobilised as one, all the minor iudexes of eastern Gutthiuda following under Fritigern’s banner. It seems that only Athanaric’s lot have remained north of the river, holed up in the Carpates. I fear it will only be a matter of time before the outlying Gothic tribes, the Greuthingi included, flock south to join under Fritigern’s banner. If the tribes unite in such number, the empire will face an unprecedented threat.’

Traianus’ skin crawled.

‘Traianus?’ Valens asked, frowning at his magister militum’s suddenly ghostly pallor.

But Traianus heard his emperor’s words like a faraway echo, while the words of the one-eyed warrior from that distant day on the wharf rang in his head, as if the giant was hissing them into his ear right now.

This is only the beginning, you dogs. The day will come when the Viper will rise again. On that day, the tribes will be united. And on that day, Roman blood will flow like the Mother River.