Caesar's Sword: The Complete Campaigns

by David Pilling

  The priest at the sanatorium kept the pain at bay by dosing me with alcohol and poppy juice. His potent medicine kept me in a semi-delirious state for days on end, during which time I suffered terrifying hallucinations. Gradually he lessened the dose, and the devils faded from view.

  Relief washed over me as I found that I could bend the arm without too much pain, save a dull ache that throbbed up and down the limb, and flex my fingers.

  Belisarius smiled. “Good,” he said, “the arm will be weak for a while, but nothing is broken beyond repair. Open your mouth.”

  I obeyed without question, wincing as pain stabbed through my jaw. Leo, may his soul baste in fire in the lowest circle of Hell, had dislocated it with his knee.

  Belisarius tilted my face towards the light. “You have lost four teeth,” he said, “I saw them on sale outside the gates of the Hippodrome, the day after your triumph. You are something of a hero among the people, Britannicus Minor.”

  I winced again. Britannicus Minor was Theodora’s mocking pet name for me, bestowed when I was a youth training to be a charioteer in the Hippodrome, and she a common dancer and prostitute. I hated it, but the name became popular when I started racing in the arena.

  My mind was still clouded with the lingering effect of opium, and it hurt to form words. “A dead hero, sir,” I mumbled, “if I stay in the city.”

  Belisarius’ long face was naturally suited to looking grave. He nodded somberly and lowered his bony rump onto the stool beside my bed.

  “My guards have already slain two of Theodora’s assassins,” he said, “they grow bolder every day. One of them posed as a seller of rare herbs and medicines. He might have passed through if my men hadn’t insisted on searching his basket and found the knife. Sooner or later they will abandon stratagems and resort to force. The Empress has only stayed her hand this long for fear of public disgrace. Her husband disapproves of her actions, and has asked her to abandon this ridiculous feud against you.”

  It seemed incredible that I, a mere ex-charioteer and not very distinguished soldier, should have incurred the wrath of the most powerful woman on earth. But then I knew Theodora of old. For all her outward majesty, she was a vengeful, petty-minded soul, and not one to forgive a slight.

  She was also forceful and possessed of a mighty strength of will, far more so than her affable, pleasure-loving husband. Justinian might upbraid her in public, but in private she would work on him until he either went mad or yielded to her desires.

  “Fortunately, an easy answer presents itself,” Belisarius went on, “our victory in North Africa has given the Emperor a taste for conquest. Italy is next.”

  I could scarcely believe my ears. The African campaign had been a desperate gamble, and might easily have ended in the total destruction of the Roman army.

  Thanks to the favour of God, and the skill of Belisarius, a most unlikely triumph had been achieved. The barbarian Vandals were destroyed in two great battles, their mad king taken prisoner, and the old Roman province returned to imperial rule.

  My harrowing experiences on that campaign are burned into my memory. I had fought at Ad Decimum, witnessed the slaughter of the Vandal nation at Tricamarum, and shivered my way through months of siege on Mount Papua. Somehow I survived the ordeal with a reasonably whole skin, though I used up most of my life’s supply of good fortune in doing so.

  “Madness,” I croaked, reaching for the jug of watered wine, “Italy was lost a hundred years ago, and cannot be regained. Caesar should be content with what he has.”

  Belisarius frowned in disapproval. I noticed the deep lines at the corners of his eyes, and the prominent tendons in his slender neck. We were of an age, both in our middle thirties, but he looked twenty years older.

  “It is not for us to question the will of the Emperor,” he said severely, “only to do his bidding. This new campaign has come at a good time for you. I shall commission you as an officer in my guards, and take you to Italy with me.”

  I gaped at him, wondering if the damned priest had drugged my wine.

  “It is your only chance,” he went on, “my guards cannot protect you forever. It is only by the grace of God that you have evaded Theodora’s assassins for so long. You must come with me on this campaign, or die.”

  Belisarius was risking much on my behalf. I was aware that little love existed between him and Theodora, though his wife, Antonina, enjoyed the Empress’s confidence.

  Antonina was another who had tried to ensnare me. Belisarius was entirely in her power. To go against her, as well as braving the wrath of Theodora, could only mean he valued me far more than I deserved.

  I was in no position to refuse, even if the invasion of Italy was a suicidal venture. The ancient Roman homeland had been in the hands of barbarian Goths and Ostrogoths for over a century, ever since Alaric swept through the country and put Rome herself to the sack. The Gothic peoples were far more numerous and powerful than the Vandals, and their fighting strength could not be exhausted in a couple of pitched battles.

  An image passed through my fevered mind of Justinian plucking men from a sack and laughing insanely as he threw them into the maw of a ravenous lion.

  Belisarius read the doubts on my face. “I know,” he said, “it sounds like death. But the Emperor is no fool. You must trust in his judgment, and mine.”

  I struggled up onto my good elbow. “I have no choice,” I replied, and drained the last of the wine.

  The general patted my knee. His wintry face cracked into a grin.

  “None,” he agreed.

  2.

  While I lay in a drug-induced fog in the sanatorium, the Gothic rulers of Italy were doing their best to slaughter each other and provide Justinian with a plausible reason to declare war.

  The Goths may have been barbarians, yet another strain of the Germanic peoples that overwhelmed the Western Empire, but had quickly acquired civilized Roman habits. In terms of ruthless infighting and dirty politics, Rome had little to teach them.

  Let me try and summarise the rat’s nest of Gothic politics as best I may.

  At this time their queen, Amalasontha, was locked in a vicious power-struggle with Theodatus, nephew of the great Gothic king, Theoderic.

  Amalasontha was as proud, cruel and ambitious as any Roman Empress. Her son had died young, debauched to death after a reign of just eight years. Determined to keep her grip on power, but unable to rule alone - the Goths had a horror of being ruled by women - she proposed that she and Theodatus be crowned as joint sovereigns of Italy.

  This Theodatus was an old man, renowned, like the Emperor Claudius, for his love of learning and not much else. Amalasontha flattered herself that she had made a cunning choice. Once he was crowned, the old fool could be safely ignored, and she would be the ruler of Italy in fact if not in name.

  Alas, she miscalculated. The old fool was not so foolish as all that. Having submitted to her every condition and sworn every oath she demanded of him, Theodatus suddenly pounced and had Amalasontha’s servants massacred. The queen herself was arrested and banished to a distant island. There, in the spring of the year 535, she was strangled in her bath by one of her colleague’s assassins.

  The murder of Amalasontha gave Justinian the perfect excuse to invade. Donning a mask of outrage and indignation, he declared Theodatus a tyrant without legitimate authority, and that Italy must be liberated from his illegal rule.

  No further pretext for war was needed. The citizens of Constantinople, their pride and patriotism inflated beyond measure by the easy conquest of Africa, were eager for another taste of military glory.

  How I despised them. The fickleness, the cowardice, the sheer arrant stupidity of the Roman mob was the bane of the Empire. They had almost destroyed the city during the Nika riots, and even the bloody vengeance inflicted by Belisarius’ veterans had failed to knock some sense into them. They would cheer a man one day and tear him in pieces the next. Now, skillfully manipulated by the Emperor’s propaganda, they willi
ngly scraped together the money to help fund another war.

  Not that Justinian was short of money. The booty from the North African campaign had filled his coffers to overflowing. Some of the treasure went towards the completion of his pet project, the construction of the gigantic domed cathedral in the heart of Constantinople. The rest was poured into the effort of re-fitting the fleet and raising two new armies.

  When I was fit to walk, my guards hurried me out of the sanatorium under cover of darkness, to Belisarius’ house. I needed a stick to remain upright, and laboured along the cobbled street like an old man, panting for breath. The Huns grumbled and cursed me in their savage tongue, and in the end two of them seized my arms and half-carried me down the alleyway beside the outer wall of Belisarius’ dwelling.

  A slave admitted us via the postern gate, and led us across silent, torch-lit gardens towards an arched doorway. Lights blazed in the windows of the ground floor. The door opened onto the narrow vestibule, and beyond that lay the atrium, a large, open central court with a circular pool in the middle.

  We followed the gravel path around the pool, towards the double doors at the northern end. These were guarded by two of Belisarius’ Veterans, hard-looking men in scale armour, armed with round shields and long spears. They glanced at us suspiciously, but did nothing as the slave pushed open the doors and beckoned us through.

  Inside was a large, rectangular chamber with a high roof and a beautifully inlaid mosaic floor. It was a warm night in early spring, so there was no fire laid in the great stone hearth. Three arched and colonnaded doorways led off to other parts of the house, but all my attention was fixed on the three men seated on couches in the middle of the room.

  One of the men was Belisarius. As ever, he looked uncomfortable out of military uniform, and his loose robes and fringed mantle hung awkwardly from his tall, bony frame.

  His companion to his left was Mundus, the hulking German mercenary and magister militum of all the Roman forces in Illyria and along the Danubian frontier. I had last seen him during the Nika riots, when he led four hundred Huns to slaughter ten thousand Roman citizens. It was impossible to imagine the brute in civilian dress, and despite the heat he was decked out in his usual furs and leathers.

  The presence of these two powerful men was intimidating enough, but the third surprised and frightened me.

  “Good evening, Coel,” said Narses, his ugly face stretched into a smile, “you are fully recovered, I hope. Hardy barbarian stock, eh?”

  He was not a welcome or pleasant sight. The last time I was summoned into the presence of Narses and Belisarius, they had coerced me into accompanying the Roman expedition to North Africa, so I could help steal Caledfwlch from Gelimer, the mad King of the Vandals.

  After my return to Constantinople, Narses had rescued me from being boiled alive by Theodora’s assassins. I should have felt grateful to him for that, but he was a skilled and subtle politico, and not the sort to do anything except for his own profit. By saving me he offended and humiliated the Empress, and thus reduced her influence.

  He was dwarfish little monstrosity, hardly bigger than a child, limping his way through life on a pair of twisted legs. God had seen fit to bring Narses only half-formed into the world. His physical afflictions were offset by an agile brain and burning ambition, and he had risen high in the world through sheer force of will and intellect. Anyone who judged the dwarf on his feeble appearance did so at their peril.

  “My lords,” I said, with a stilted bow.

  The three men had been sitting in silence when we entered, and the air fairly crackled with the tension between them. Belisarius and Mundus were allies and friends, of a sort, but both distrusted Narses. For good reason: the eunuch once cheerfully informed me that anyone who trusted him was a fool, and deserved an early grave.

  For all his ugliness, Narses had acquired a certain degree of practiced charm. He rose, or rather dropped, from his seat, and patted the cushion next to his, inviting me to sit.

  “Dismissed,” growled Mundus, waving away the Huns. They stamped their feet, turned smartly and marched outside. The slave closed the doors behind them and melted into the shadows.

  “Wine for the champion of the arena,” said Narses, waddling over to the low table beside his couch, “wine for the latest hero of Rome.”

  Embarrassed, I limped over to the couch and sat, while Narses poured out a rich, red flow from an elegantly fluted silver jug. He handed me the cup and regarded me with something like affection.

  “You did splendidly in the arena,” he said, “Theodora’s face was sheer artistry for days afterwards. I have seldom seen her so enraged.”

  He sighed happily. “Bliss to behold, I assure you, though I doubt her servants would agree. Their lives have been hell, ever since you plunged your magic sword into Leo’s heart.”

  In truth Leo had fallen onto the blade, but now was not the time to quibble. “I am sorry for that,” I replied cautiously, “I never meant to cause any suffering. I have never done anything save follow my conscience.”

  Belisarius had been watching me closely. “No man who listens to his conscience can thrive for long in this city,” he said, “it is a pit of snakes. The sooner we are gone, the better.”

  Narses smiled indulgently. “Our famous general is too good for politics,” he said, winking at me, “in his world, honest men with swords defend the frontiers of the Empire, while corrupt eunuchs and former prostitutes do their best to undermine the state from within. Where is your wife tonight, Flavius?”

  Belisarius’ jaw tightened. He clearly despised Narses, but for some unfathomable reason had invited the eunuch to his house.

  “You know very well,” he replied, with forced patience, “Antonina was summoned to the palace tonight.”

  “As she is most nights. Antonina and Theodora hatch plots together in the Empress’s private quarters, while we do the same here. Does the Emperor plot, I wonder? And if so, with whom?”

  Mundus shifted impatiently. “I came here to talk of the war,” he grunted, “not to chop words and exchange clever insults. I see no reason why we could not have met in open council during the day, instead of creeping about like a pack of thieves in the dark.”

  “He is the reason,” said Narses, pointing at me, “and that pig-sticker he carries.”

  I touched the hilt of Caledfwlch, which I had strapped on before leaving the sanatorium. Having gone to such lengths to retrieve my grandsire’s sword, I never let it out of my sight.

  “Show us the sword, Coel,” ordered Belisarius. He spoke with the voice of stern authority, and almost without thinking I drew Caledfwlch from its sheath.

  Mundus lent forward and squinted at the blade as I held it up to the light. “I see an old-fashioned gladius,” he said, “with two golden eagles stamped in the hilt.”

  “Caesar’s sword,” Narses explained, “wielded by old Julius himself, and said to have been forged by Vulcan himself in the depths of Mount Olympus. Lost in the mists of Albion for centuries, until it fell into the hands of Coel’s ancestor. Some grubby warlord or other.”

  He hesitated, snapping his fingers and pretending that he had forgotten my grandsire’s name. The eunuch loved to play-act and provoke others. Once, I might have fallen for the bait, but was too canny to snap at it now.

  “Arthur,” I said calmly, taking a long swallow of the excellent wine, “his name was Arthur.”

  “Just so,” said Narses, smiling sweetly at me, “not just any sword, but a symbol and an icon of rare power. Gelimer would have used it to unite the barbarian nations of the world under his banner and destroy the Empire. It must never fall into the wrong hands.”

  He held out his right hand, palm upwards. “Give it to me.”

  I slammed Caledfwlch back into its sheath. “Never. That is one order I cannot obey. I will die first.”

  “Coel speaks the truth,” said Belisarius, “I tried to persuade him to give it up in Carthage. He refused. The sword is part of him.”r />
  Narses responded to defeats by pretending they hadn’t happened. “I merely tested you, Coel,” he said, lowering his hand, “you are every bit as brave and honest as I feared. But you must not stay in Constantinople. Your enemies multiply.”

  He snapped his fingers, and a slave emerged from a shadowy corner, carrying a dark blue woolen cloak scarce big enough to fit a child. He draped it over Narses’ lumpen shoulders.

  “I take my leave,” said the eunuch, “thank you for your hospitality, Flavius. An excellent supper. I must return the favour sometime.”

  “I look forward to it,” Belisarius replied without a hint of sincerity. He and Mundus rose and bowed respectfully as Narses limped out of the room, followed by his slave.

  When the doors had closed, Belisarius subsided gratefully onto his couch and stretched out his long legs. All the strain and tension in the air dissolved.

  “Thank God for that,” he groaned, passing a hand over his face, “if the little swine had stayed much longer, I might have thrown him out of the window.”

  “Why did he come, anyway?” demanded Mundus, “he talked of nothing but trivialities over supper. Every time I mentioned Italy, he changed the subject.”

  Belisarius nodded at me. “Narses used our tame Briton to humiliate Theodora, but not had seen him since he was carried from the arena. I made sure of that. He wanted to know if Coel was still alive and whole, and if he could still be used. Now he knows.”

  Mundus’s little eyes raked over me. “Your enemies multiply, Briton,” he said, “Narses referred to himself. You should have given him the sword.”

  “It is mine, sir,” I said defensively, “all I have in the world. Without Caledfwlch I am nothing.”

  “Narses will take it from you, if he can,” said Belisarius, “I know that scheming little imp. He craves power, spends every waking hour thinking of ways to obtain it. With Caesar’s sword in his hand, there would be no limit to his ambition. Can you imagine him perched on the throne?”