The Last Roman: Honour Part 24

'It tells him you're aware of the dangers, and who knows, he may stay her vitriol because he needs you. He is the only one who can stop Theodora, and from what you say that might be necessary.'

It had to be done, Flavius knew it as well as Procopius, but there was the timing to add to the reluctance. The suggestion that Justinian might, as had his uncle of old, take a walk on the greensward with Flavius in company was not met with instant approval; the nephew was neither a lover of the outdoors or much in the way of physical exercise, which in truth he scarcely needed, given his frantic way of pacing the palace corridors. As usual, they walked past men exercising with weapons, but whereas Justin had shown interest his nephew eschewed none and nor was he fooled into thinking that this was just a friendly stroll.

'So, Flavius, now that you have me where no one can overhear what we say ...?'

'I need the answer to certain questions and only you possess them.'

'Need? I have ceased to be accustomed to that.'

There was a degree of annoyance in the imperial tone. Justinian had grown into his role; any nerves he had displayed, albeit in private, after his elevation or during the Nika riots had evaporated now. He was not open to his subjects demanding anything, never mind his inner thoughts.

'Then I am going to encroach on our past a.s.sociation to seek answers.'

'And I will use that past a.s.sociation to warn you to show some care.'

He would know what was coming: Justinian was not a fool, but it was clear the first query threw him. 'My triumph, which is rapidly becoming a sham.'

'Imperial dignity,' was the reply, a slow response and one that was as evasive as it was unsatisfactory.

'Yours, Highness, or that of your wife?' Getting no immediate reply Flavius continued. 'What was her reaction when those messengers came from Carthage to tell you I was preparing to rebel?'

Looking at him Flavius was sure he was going to deny that any such message had come to him, but it was an exchanged look and a flinty-eyed one from Flavius that told His Imperial Highness that would not wash.

'It troubled me, it was bound to.'

'Me?'

'I spend my whole life now having people declare to me how virtuous they are and not one of them is telling the truth.'

'And I do not count as an exception?'

'Yes, Flavius, you do.'

'Then why-'

Justinian cut across him. 'If I am counselled to show caution I would be a fool to refuse to take heed. When someone reminds you that it was Brutus who helped murder Julius Caesar then you will know that no ruler can ever think himself secure.'

'Theodora thinks I mean to topple you?'

'She will not cease to fear that the possibility exists and the oddity is, Flavius, that it is your upright nature that she fears most.'

'That makes little sense.'

'It does to her. You cannot rule without making enemies and we have made many and that does not begin to count the greedy. In addition to that we both have a bloodline despised by most of these with whom you share the Senate, Theodora especially.'

'Mine is not much better.'

That point was ignored. 'Who would those people turn to when they seek to overthrow the person they conveniently call a tyrant other than the man of shining virtue? Who would the mob proclaim in the Hippodrome if not the most successful general this empire has produced in decades, the paragon who is draped in glory?'

'I cannot help what people think.'

'Then apply that to my wife and take comfort from this. If she fears you, then you are far from alone.'

'Fears me enough to ensure I can be no threat?'

'I will protect you, Flavius, but there are occasions where I must bend with the wind she creates. I rule but she does so as my consort and we are, in all respects, partners.'

There was a terrible temptation to ask Justinian if he too felt threatened by Theodora homicidal female companions were not unknown but that would be a step too far, indeed it was next made plain to him that he had already overstepped the bounds of whatever friendship existed between them, an admonition delivered in a tone that left Flavius in no doubt Justinian meant the words he employed.

'This subject will never be raised again, for if it is, what you rely on for your freedom to speak will be forfeit. Do not ever seek to have me choose between a subject, which is what you are, and my wife, who is Empress and not just in name.'

'Would it help if I said I have faith you will keep your word?'

'Given it is all you have it better be so.'

Justinian spun away to walk back to the palace. Flavius could not help but notice how canted was that head of his, exaggerated by the gold circlet that was his everyday crown. Clearly he was deep in thought and it was far from idle to speculate what they might be.

If the triumph was bogus to the man celebrating it, the crowds that lined the Triumphal Way took it seriously. Even before that there was a surge of well-wishers by the Golden Gate, those who lived outside the city walls, in the farms and villages that supplied much of the capital's food, who had come to partake in the celebrations. Naturally there were the usual opportunistic vendors selling everything from false Vandal trinkets to Belisarius dolls.

Flavius had been allowed at least to partly dress in proper old Roman armour, a gleaming leather breastplate decorated with gold symbols, the white cloak that denoted his rank, and in his hand the fasces enclosing an axe that had once been the symbol of proconsular praetorian power since the Republic. The huge gates, hitherto closed, were opened to the sound of the imperial trumpets and the roar of approbation came bursting out from several thousand throats.

'Every shout a dagger in Theodora's vitals,' he murmured to himself before he crossed himself and stepped out. 'Cheer yourself with that, Flavius.'

To walk through these gates on such an occasion was a pinnacle dreamt of by his father, and not just him. Even if triumphs had long been appropriated by pagan G.o.d-emperors for their own aggrandis.e.m.e.nt no mere mortal would be allowed to share their glory it had stayed the dream of military men down the centuries and now, even if it was in a diminished form, he was taking what was his due.

Flavius had no illusions; this was as much a show for Justinian as it was for him. The crowd would applaud General Belisarius and shout acclaim, throwing flowers in his path so deep they would carpet the cobblestones. They would jeer and spit at the chained and shuffling Vandals, including Gelimer who came behind. The soldiers, even in such a small number, would bring back the noise of approbation, but it was the treasure the crowd really wanted to see and what they would talk about when the ceremonies were complete.

The carts, escorted by Excubitors, had been piled in such a way that every object of value was visible; the jewelled crucifixes of gold and silver so large half a dozen men would struggle to carry them, open chests of coins, with a fellow by them to dip in a hand and let the glistening objects fall back to rest on the heaped-up pile with that dull clunk only precious metal makes.

Every artefact of value, all the Vandal loot was on display, but last would come the relics, held out by black-clad monks and named as they walked, which would bring genuflection and much pious crossing as those observing thought of their sins and looked to the bones of saints and martyrs to absolve them.

The Triumphal Way ran for a full league and to traverse such a distance on foot and slowly, while acknowledging the cheers, took time. The milion monument came in to view, the obelisk from which all imperial distances were measured, as well as the high wall of the Hippodrome, and behind the edge of the Senate House there rose up the beautiful dome of the still scaffolding-enclosed St Sophia.

Behind the milion the imperial party awaited him and Flavius could not but wonder at the first time he had seen this view and the trickery he had used to get an audience with the man who had become his mentor: Justinus, the then comes Excubitorum, a high official who had no idea he wished to see him or even that he existed.

Now he was coming to face his emperor and to be acclaimed as consul for the year of Our Lord 535, a pinnacle of achievement he could never have dreamt of. There was no other image to fill his mind than that of his father, and he hoped that from the celestial paradise in which his soul must now reside he was looking down with pride on his youngest son.

It was the duty of Flavius to make his way up the steps to kneel before Justinian and there to offer to him the treasure he had brought and the captives he had taken. It was a mark of tremendous respect that the Emperor left his throne and came halfway to meet him and to embrace his general, this to a roar from the crowd that had followed to fill the s.p.a.ce before the palace, greater than any so far raised. The crowd did not hear, Theodora who had not moved did not hear and nor did Antonina beside her, the whisper from Justinian as he put his lips to the Belisarius ear.

'You have no need to bend the knee to me, Flavius, and if I spoke harshly to you previously, never forget that I do hold you as a friend whom I sometimes cannot put before my duty.'

'Highness,' was all Flavius could say, given, a.s.sailed as he was by memories, he was choking back tears.

'If my uncle could have been here to see this, his pride would be as great as is mine.'

Pushing Flavius to one side Justinian publicly hailed him and p.r.o.nounced him Consul, the highest office in the land after the imperial t.i.tles, albeit more of a fiction of power than the real article. Then he listed the crimes of Gelimer the defiance of his imperial will, the murder of his own brother, even if he was absent. The Vandal usurper had the wisdom to take these accusations and the haranguing from the crowd head bowed: he was, after all, not going to be ritually strangled, but was, as promised by Flavius, to depart for a life of comfort in a s.p.a.cious villa in Galatea.

A monk already primed brought to Justinian the casket containing the bones of St Sebastian, to be held up for veneration before the Emperor announced that in the spirit which these relics were held, they would be returned to Rome, the place from where they had been stolen. That did depress Gelimer.

Finally, linking arms, he led Flavius up the remaining steps and through the portal of the imperial palace, pa.s.sing Theodora who gave the hero of the moment a look from her black and steady eyes that would have frozen Lucifer.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.

The maps of Italy and Sicily were laid out on the great table round which Justinian, Flavius and a whole clutch of senior officers were gathered, while the Emperor explained to them what had been happening in that huge peninsula and how he intended that it should be brought back to be once more part of his empire. If the rest did not know it, Flavius did; this was a long-held dream and a personal quest.

'The death of Athalaric merely brings forward a plan long in my mind. He would have never made a king, anyway.'

His mother had tried to keep him out of the clutches of her n.o.bles. She had wanted a Roman education for Athalaric and would have sent him to Constantinople if she had been allowed, but those around her were too powerful to ignore and they wanted the eight-year-old boy to have an education and upbringing fit for an Ostrogoth king.

Forced to surrender him into their clutches, Amalasuintha could only watch as, over the next eight years, he was debauched by men who hoped, when he reached his majority and took his rightful place, to control him. Introduced early to wine he became addicted and his death had occurred after what had been described to Justinian as an epic drinking bout.

'Probably choked on his own vomit. It matters not, Amalasuintha is utterly weakened by it and there is a fight going on amongst the powerful to seize the vacant throne.'

'She will have appealed to you for aid, Highness?'

'She has, Na.r.s.es,' Justinian replied, his grin wolfish, 'which demonstrates how weak she is, given my demand that she cede Lilybaeum was refused. Anyway I have had reports of the Goths taking Roman property by force which they would never have dared to do under Theodoric so that indicates a breakdown in order, with n.o.bles acting to suit their own needs.'

It was common knowledge that one of the thieving culprits was an unsavoury character called Theodahad, who was a cousin to Athalaric and had a strong claim to the throne, which he might have taken if he had not been so unpopular. Utterly unscrupulous he had offered Justinian all his Italian lands for a sum in gold as well as residence in Constantinople. This was a bargain the Emperor would have accepted if his machinations had not been uncovered and Theodahad forced by Amalasuintha to confess and make rest.i.tution of his stolen property. He was now telling Justinian that he was no longer bound to his aunt in any way and was at his service.

'Remarkable woman, Amalasuintha,' Flavius opined. 'To lord it over the Ostrogoths.'

'Remarkable women are not as rare as you might think. Anyway there were three main rivals to take away her power-'

'Were, Highness?'

'She had them killed.'

'Risky.'

'I offered her a home here if she failed.'

Which was as good as saying she had not acted without Justinian knowing full well what was about to happen. But that was an aside as far as the Emperor was concerned. The woman had more problems than that, for she was plagued by aggressive neighbours to the north, the Franks and the Burgundians, who were encroaching on the Ostrogoth possessions and now she was in dispute with Constantinople over the old Vandal fief in Sicily. Justinian had demanded it, she had refused. At one time she might have had the Vandals as allies; that was now gone.

Only Flavius of the present generals knew the latest intelligence from Italy, imparted to him before this meeting. Amalasuintha was no more. She had tried to come to an arrangement with Theodahad by offering him the throne as long as she could continue to rule, the proposition being surrounded by oaths of a nature that would d.a.m.n for eternity the man who broke them. At the same time Justinian was treating with her to come east and receive large estates in the hope that she would hand him Italy. Caught between the two she had been taken by Theodahad and if it was others who did the foul deed, he did nothing to save her.

'They're an untrustworthy lot, Flavius,' had been the Justinian opinion. 'I was treating with Theodahad too for the same thing not long ago, and what does he do? Imprisons his aunt then stands by when she is murdered.'

'They could teach us a thing or two, certainly.'

The jest was taken well; Justinian reckoned he was being complimented on his own deviousness. He did not know that it was never meant as praise.

'My envoy declared war.'

'Does he have that right?'

'No, but he had only antic.i.p.ated what I would have done. Italy is in turmoil and is as ripe as a ready-to-fall apple. What we need now, Flavius, is a plan to make that happen, and as luck would have it we are not threatened anywhere else and you are here after your success in North Africa. G.o.d, I would suggest, is with us.'

That was a point he made to all the commanders a.s.sembled, pa.s.sing on the moves he had made to act in alliance with the Franks, who had claims on the north of Italy. If they acted, and he had sent them a fortune in gold as encouragement, it would split the Ostrogoth defence.

'Do they not compete with us?'

The question was posed by Peranias, another senior officer in the imperial army, but one without much in the way of active service to his name; Flavius suspected powerful relatives.

'In time they will, but I have laid claim only to what was ours. Rome certainly, Ravenna given Theodoric made it his capital. Everything south of course.'

'Sicily will have to be secured first,' Flavius ventured. 'It would be madness to seek to take the mainland with that at our back, but I observed few Gothic troops on the island when we pa.s.sed through it.'

Na.r.s.es spoke after Flavius. 'And I would suggest a strong force on the Adriatic coast to keep them worried about a second invasion. That further splits their forces.'

That received general agreement; the first task was to get an army ash.o.r.e and any diversions would aid that. The talk went on for an age, tactics were discussed as well as the overall strategy, obstacles identified mainly in fortified cities that would have to be subdued or bypa.s.sed. It ended on a note of high confidence, not least from the Emperor himself.

'There's a degree of hubris there, don't you think, Flavius Belisarius?'

Posed after Justinian had left, that got Peranias a bland look; no nod, no agreement or disagreement. That was the kind of remark which, from a placeman like this fellow, could be an opening gambit in what would become treachery. Flavius had decided the only way to deal with people like this fellow was not to respond, given he could not know to whom any reply would be repeated and there was at least one person who would, he was sure, set traps for him.

The idea of no other threats was illusory; an imperial messenger brought news that a Gothic army had landed on the Dalmatian coast and there defeated the forces under the son of Mundus and their young leader killed. By the time Flavius was making ready to depart for Sicily, news came that Mundus himself, a man so feared his name was enough to keep the province at peace, had also been slain in a second battle but that the Gothic army had been defeated. It did not bode well for future operations and changed the nature of the orders Flavius was given.

'Touch at Sicily and seek out how the population feels. If there seems to be resistance to us retaking the island you can sail on with no loss of face to Carthage, claiming that as your destination all along.'

And that he did, again securing sole command and leading his fleet to a landing near Catania on the east coast, his main worry the lack of force he had at his disposal, which was nothing like that with which he had beaten the Vandals. He had with him, too, Photius, his stepson, now that age at which he, Flavius, had first soldiered. A winning and willing aide it was a pleasure to have him along, especially as at the first sign of a threat the good folk of Catania promptly surrendered their city to him, which had Photius declaring that war was easy.

It seemed as if the youngster had the right of it: what followed was in effect akin to the falling of a set of gambling bones; every city on the island declared for Belisarius and Constantinople except one, Panormus, with a Gothic garrison and stout walls. The defenders were wagering the Romans lacked the force to overcome them and the truth was the man who led them agreed.

The problem he now had was altered: news had come of a mutiny in the provinces of North Africa and that, he suspected, would require his presence and that of a large part of his army. Subdue Panormus and he could claim Sicily conquered. Fail to attain that and he could not leave a force of Goths to reverse what he had just achieved; every city that had opened their gates to him would do the same to the armed garrison of Panormus.

'This, Photius, is where war becomes less simple.'

The pair were raiding round the extensive walls that went from the sea to the east then round the city to the other end of the deep bay and there were no gaps Flavius could see as well as much evidence of repair. Flavius was using the occasion to educate his young charge.

'If we attack we lack the strength to do so at enough points that we can hope to face an inferior defence by distraction elsewhere.' Flavius pointed out the towers that held up the curtain wall and helped Photius to understand that they were only a double-cast spear apart. 'So soldiers caught between them face annihilation if they use ladders, and boiling oil on their heads as they clamber. If they have archers it is suicide.'

'Do they have them, Father?'

Warmed by the respect but unable to answer Flavius spurred his horse straight for the walls and cried, 'Let's find out.'

Photius did not hesitate; he was right on the heels of the man he had for years thought of as his parent and he copied too Flavius's wild yell. The walls before them, hitherto empty, suddenly showed faces peering between the embrasures as the two came well within the range of archery. Flavius hauled hard to pull up his mount out of the range of a cast spear and sat there, the youngster at his side.

'Put your shield over your shoulders to cover your back. First sign of an arrow, pray to G.o.d and ride hard to safety.'

What they got were shouts of incomprehensible derision and even though they sat a while no one came to address or insult them in Latin, so eventually they trotted off to jeers, carrying on their inspection until the walls ended at the western sh.o.r.e, and there Flavius sat musing.