If we marched onto the open plain, away from the protection of the ditch and our archers on the walls, the Gothic cavalry could easily encircle our flanks and rear, while their infantry engaged us head-on. We risked being swamped, trapped and crushed inside the closing steel jaws of the enemy.
For hours the fight raged back and forth, while the sun slowly dipped in the sky and I silently pleaded for Belisarius to change his mind and order a withdrawal.
I witnessed some extraordinary sights during the course of the fighting. Cutilas, the Thracian officer whom Belisarius had entrusted with part of the cavalry, plunged alone into the midst of a howling band of Gothic lancers, and was struck in the head by a javelin. He cut his way out, felling Goths like ripe wheat, and rode back to our lines with the javelin still embedded in his skull, waving back and forth like some bizarre appendage. Our physicians later managed to extract it, but the wound turned bad and he died a few days later.
Another man named Arzes, one of Belisarius’ Guards and a slight acquaintance of mine, also suffered a terrible wound. His men rescued him from the press, threw him over the back of a horse and escorted him back to the city for medical attention.
Our ranks parted to let them through, and I whistled between my teeth when I saw the Gothic arrow imbedded between his nose and right eye. An unusually skilled physician later managed to draw the arrow out and save Arzes’s eye, by making an incision at the back of his neck and ripping the triple-pronged barb out through the hole. A grisly procedure, and one I was glad not to witness.
On the western side of the city, beyond my sight and hearing, our troops under Valerian and Martinus initially performed wonders. Their cavalry fell on the Gothic camps and threw them into confusion, slaughtering hundreds of their warriors and retreating in good order when reinforcements came storming up. Meantime the Roman citizen levies and their Moorish auxiliaries stayed quiet and motionless in the rear, where they could be most effective simply by looking formidable.
Procopius witnessed the battle on the Plains of Nero from the safety of the walls, and later that evening gave me a full account of the disaster that ensued.
“You may blame the Romans,” he said, “for acting like fools instead of cowards. I think I preferred the latter. Seeing the Goths west of the river being thrown into disorder and routed by our cavalry, they abandoned all notions of discipline and poured forward, ignoring the shouts of their captains.”
He paused to take a sip of wine and stare bleakly into our camp-fire. “Like all soldiers with the minimum of training, they forgot about the enemy and started to plunder the camps. The Goths, under Vitiges, rallied and counter-attacked. Our cavalry tried to stop them, but were engulfed and smashed to pieces. You should have seen Vitiges, Coel. He was like some pagan god of war, huge and terrible in his winged helm, his eyes flashing fire and brimstone. His sword was lightning in his hand, striking one man down after the other – stab-stab-stab! Alaric himself could have scarcely looked more terrible.”
“If you have finished glorifying the enemy, what happened then?” I asked impatiently. Some of my Isaurians were seated in a circle around the fire and leaning forward intently, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, to catch his words. They loved stories, and Procopius loved an audience, so the two were well suited.
“The Romans broke and fled,” he said with a shrug, slightly nettled by my directness, “and were pursued all the way back to Rome. Hundreds died before they reached the safety of the gates. There will be a great many widows and orphans weeping over their lost menfolk tonight. Our surviving cavalry would have been destroyed to a man, if not for the arrival of Bochas.”
Bochas was one of the officers Belisarius had placed in command of his cavalry. When news of the unfolding disaster in the Plains of Nero reached the general, he had recalled as many men as he could from the fighting beside the Tiber and sent them to relieve Valerius and Martinus.
The collapse of our army on the Plains of Nero, precipitated by the ill-timed charge of the Romans, occurred at the same time as Belisarius’ attack to the north started to falter. The Goths had poured more men into the battle, replacing their earlier losses, and after hours of fighting our cavalry were tiring and running short of arrows.
Belisarius was not fool enough, thank God, to commit his infantry to try and rescue the situation. We remained at our posts, watching our horse-archers fight with the utmost skill and bravery. Time and again, they charged into endless clouds of arrows, before wheeling, retreating, splitting up and reforming for another assault.
The Goths bided their time. When the sun hovered low on the horizon, and the reeking plain was bathed in red-gold light, the droning of their horns swept the field. This was the signal for fresh squadrons of Gothic and Frankish cavalry, held in reserve until now, to burst from the depleted lines of their infantry and charge our exhausted horsemen.
“Form line!” The order passed through our ranks and was taken up by each officer in turn, myself included.
The ground shook underfoot as my Isaurians formed into two lines of fifty, the last man on each flank almost rubbing shoulders with the men of the next squadron. They may have been a sullen and recalcitrant lot, but they knew their trade, and shuffled calmly into position.
As they were drilled, the front rank stood with their large round shields forming an interlocking wall, spears presented horizontally at chest height. Behind them the men of the rear rank stood with spears held upright, ready to step forward and fill any gaps in the line if we suffered casualties.
I stood behind them, just to the left of the rearmost man on the end of the line, watching in horror as the broken remains of our cavalry fled back towards the city. The Goths pursued relentlessly, spearing and chopping down the fugitives. In a moment, a few short seconds, the barbarian tide would roll over us.
“Ready!”
The order came from our captains of foot-archers. Again these were mostly Isaurians, formed up behind the lines of spearmen. A tremor passed through our army, accompanied by audible moans of fear, but the presence of the general steadied us.
“Stretch!”
Christ save us! They were less than twenty feet away now, a surging tide of galloping horses and gleaming lances and fierce, pale faces, hundreds of pairs of eyes blazing with hatred under bright steel helms.
It was death to stand firm against that charging horror. It was death to turn and run. I stood, fixed to the spot like a worm on a nail, my right hand curled tightly about Caledfwlch’s hilt, as if my little sword would be of any use now.
“Loose!”
A rushing sound, like thousands of birds taking to the air at once, briefly drowned out the thunder of hoofs and the frantic hammering of my pulse.
The front rank of Gothic horsemen seemed to falter, their beasts twisting and rearing and screaming and plunging back onto their haunches. Their yelling riders were thrown, or shot from the saddle, and fell under the churning hoofs of the riders in the second line.
“Loose!”
A second flight of arrows, darkening the skies, and a third, and a fourth, pouring like hail into the Gothics, mowing down riders and horses and throwing their ranks into desperate confusion.
“At them!” screamed one of my Isaurians, “kill them all! Just kill them!”
He would have broken ranks and rushed forward, taking others with him, but I seized his shoulder and dragged him back into line.
“Stand your ground, fool!” I hissed into his ear, “or I’ll have your skin flayed off your back and made into a sword-belt!”
He grinned at my threat, which wasn’t quite the reaction I wanted, but at least he obeyed, and the line held firm.
Our trumpets sounded from the walls, signaling the retreat. Belisarius had no intention of trying to rescue the battle now. He merely aimed to withdraw in good order and get the remnants of the army back inside Rome.
Executing a fighting retreat is one of the most difficult manoeuvres, especially with darkness falling and terror pounding
through your veins, the screams of dying men and beasts sounding in your ears, the stench of death curdling in your nostrils, and you’re so frightened and deafened you can barely think or hear or speak.
My Isaurians were up to the task. I barked at them to keep the line straight as they withdrew, spears presented to the enemy, but they would have easily done so without me. Step by step, calmly and unhurriedly, they moved back towards the Salarian Gate. Our retreat was covered by the archers, who continued to shoot until the Goths, sickened by the casualties they had suffered, turned and fell back.
They left a great pile of wreckage on the field, human and animal, wounded beasts thrashing and screaming in their death-throes, men trying to crawl back to their own lines, or simply flopping down to die. Isaurian mountain men are superb archers, as good as any Huns or Scythians, and not to be despised as mere infantry.
We got back inside, along with the rest of the infantry and surviving cavalry, and the gates slammed shut before the Goths could regroup and pursue.
Procopius left our fire just before midnight, having exhausted his fund of stories. Most of my Isaurians had taken themselves to bed, weary but not dispirited by the defeat, for none of them had died. Our cavalry had suffered, true, but so had the Goths, and Rome was still secure.
I sat up late with a few men around the flickering embers of the fire, brooding over the conduct of the Romans. If not for their arrogant stupidity, we would not have lost so many men in a futile and pointless sally, and Belisarius’ record would not bear the stain of a defeat, only the second he had ever suffered in the field.
The hour was extremely late, and I was drowsing alone over a final cup of wine, when I heard a commotion. I looked up, blinking in the sudden harsh glow of torch-light, and saw Photius sneering down at me.
He was as luminously handsome as ever, and his breastplate polished to a shine that hurt the eyes. He held a spatha in his right hand, and leveled the keen blade at my throat.
A dozen guardsmen stood behind him, tall and forbidding in their cloaks and crested helms. I glanced at their grim faces, silhouetted by the light of the torches they held, and my heart fell.
“Coel the Briton,” said Photius in a gloating voice, “you are under arrest.”
20.
The plot my enemies had hatched against me was a squalid one. Frustrated in their efforts to have me murdered, they changed their strategy, and tried to have me disgraced and condemned to death on a false charge of theft.
You might wonder why, as I did, that Photius’ mother did not simply kill me when I lay for three days and nights in her power. I mulled over this as Photius and his men escorted me through the streets towards Belisarius’ house on the Pincian Hill.
They had taken Caledfwlch – I thought it folly to try and fight so many, knowing that Photius would cheerfully allow his men to kill me for resisting arrest – and snapped heavy manacles on my wrists. I was used to this sort of treatment, having been exposed to it in Constantinople, and tried to keep my mind clear.
“You are a great fool, Photius,” I said to the tall, manly figure striding at the head of our little procession, “your mother is using you as a weapon. Why do you do it? There is no private quarrel between us.”
He stopped, and I almost ran into him as he turned on his heel and glared at me with pure hatred in his eyes, teeth clenched, nostrils flared like a war-horse about to charge into battle.
“You may as well hold your tongue,” he rasped, “for I will not listen to the lies that flow from it. I know well how you tried to ravish my lady mother in Carthage, and how she only slipped from your grasp thanks to the grace of God and the aid of a servant. Will you pretend that you are innocent, or have forgotten the incident, you rank barbarian dog? That you did not defile her flesh with your filthy hands?”
So that was it. I had suspected something of the kind. This Photius had inherited a share of Antonina’s beauty, but not much of her brains, and had allowed himself to be manipulated into believing a clumsy lie.
“Your mother,” I said, holding his gaze, “is a liar. Her servant invited me to the palace in Carthage on a false pretext. Antonina tried to seduce me there, to discredit me in the eyes of Belisarius. I refused her. No doubt she has spun you a very different tale, but mine is the truth.”
He gave a wordless cry and backhanded me across the face, cutting the skin with the large silver ring on his middle finger. I was rocked back on my heels, but saved from falling by the guardsmen holding my arms.
“She warned me you would try and talk your way out of it,” he hissed, shoving his face close to mine, so close I could smell the odour of wine and spices on his breath, “but we have no secrets, my mother and I.”
I could have laughed at that. Antonina was a sly and subtle creature, a snake in lovely human form, and harboured more secrets in her breast than this bone-headed youth could possibly imagine. However, there seemed little point in provoking him further, so I held back.
“What, then?” I asked, trying not to flinch at the feel of warm blood trickling down my cheek, “on what pretext do you arrest me? I presumed you mean to have me put on trial. Belisarius will require a full explanation.”
He grinned, white teeth flashing in the gloom, and turned to one of his soldiers. “This man is a thief, is that not correct?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” the man replied, “we found these on his person.”
He reached inside the folds of his cloak and produced a pair of ceremonial daggers made of pure gold. Beautiful objects, with smooth curving hilts and leaf-shaped blades. I had never set eyes on them before, and said so.
“Another lie,” said Photius, clucking his tongue, “are all you Britons so deceitful? You stole these daggers from Presidius, seven days ago.”
I had to think to match the name to a face. Then it came to me. Presidius was an Italian nobleman, a native of Spoleto who volunteered to join our army when Constantine took that city from the Goths.
He was said to have fallen under the displeasure of the Gothic monarch, and had only thrown in his lot with us to avoid punishment. I knew he was unpopular, and had acquired a reputation for being proud and haughty, overbearing to the lower orders and incompetent in the field.
“Presidius was a rich man, once,” Photius added, “but when our men fled Spoleto he was obliged to leave most of his treasures behind, bar a few trinkets. These daggers are by far the most valuable of his possessions. And you stole them.”
I found it difficult to keep the contempt from my voice. “First, you try and murder me on the battlefield,” I said, “then your mother sends a pair of assassins after me. By the way, I slew the guardsman you bribed, and his body lies rotting under the ground by Naples. Now you stoop to having me framed on a false charge of petty theft. For shame, Photius. Don’t you feel the slightest bit ashamed? Does that noble exterior of yours not contain a sliver of conscience?”
His face flooded with colour, but I carried on regardless. “If you were any sort of a man, which you’re not, you would order your men to remove the chains on my wrists. Then we could have it out, man to man, blade to blade, and let God decide the victor. Or are you afraid to fight me?”
This was my last – my only – throw of the dice. If Photius possessed any sense of honour, which was doubtful, he could not refuse a fair challenge to trial by combat in front of his men. Whether I could beat this active young soldier, all muscle and sinew and whipcord, was another matter, but death in combat was preferable to disgrace and execution.
Sadly, my initial judgment of his character proved correct. “Vermin such as you don’t deserve an honourable death,” he hissed, “why should I, a Roman of noble blood, consent to cross swords with a felon?”
He turned on his heel before I could taunt him any further, and we continued on our way to the Pincian Hill.
I could scarcely believe that Photius meant to drag me in front of Belisarius, just hours after our army had suffered a defeat, but there was method in his eage
rness. Tired and dispirited after the day’s fighting, Belisarius might be vulnerable, and sufficiently disorientated to treat the absurd charges against me seriously instead of dismissing them out of hand.
A sound strategy, devised by someone who knew the workings of the general’s mind: Antonina, no doubt. Only now did I realise the full breadth of her spite. Merely killing me wasn’t enough, else she might have done it while I lay helpless under her knife. I had to be exposed as a thief and a traitor, my reputation torn to shreds in public, before my body was consigned to the gallows. Only then would her desire for revenge (and Theodora’s) be sated.
I wondered if Presidius was part of the plot, or just a useful straw man to set up against me. When we reached Belisarius’ house, still blazing with light despite the lateness of the hour, I saw him waiting outside with a couple of Persian bodyguards. He was a balding, pot-bellied man, greasy of countenance and character, and avoided my eyes as the guards shoved me up the steps.
“Whatever they paid you,” I called out to him, “will not be enough to clear the taint from your soul if you give evidence against me. You know I did not steal your daggers, Presidius.”
He sniffed and looked away, fluttering his fat fingers. I would get no help from that quarter. Antonina had bought his loyalty, and she had sufficient gold and silver to drown any man’s conscience.
The hall glowed with light from rows of torches burning in sconces in the walls. Belisarius and his captains were poring over a great pile of maps laid out on a table. Their armour was still smeared with blood and mud from the battle, and their competing voices had a faintly hysterical edge.
Antonina had no business being present at a council of war, but a couch had been set up for her beside her husband’s chair. She lounged on it, eyes half-closed, a faint smile playing on her lips as she listened to the men argue.
Her husband’s face resembled a death’s head. His eyes were hollow with exhaustion, skin yellow as old parchment, hand shaking as he stabbed at various points on a map of Rome. Sheer pride and strength of will were the only things holding him upright, and his voice quavered as it strained to be heard over the babble of his officers.
Caesar's Sword: The Complete Campaigns Page 41
