Caesar's Sword: The Complete Campaigns

by David Pilling

  Besides the Huns, Belisarius had also given us a scout, a native of Rome, to guide our way. We had no lanterns, for that would have alerted the Gothic pickets, but our guide seemed able to find his way in the dark.

  I recall he somewhat resembled a sniffer hound, being short and bow-legged, and with a raddled, jowly, somewhat collapsed face. He said little, and responded to Procopius’s frantically whispered questions with curt grunts.

  Procopius was understandably frightened, even though he had some experience in this kind of secret work. The Goths and their allies were all around us, and it seemed an impossible task to pick a safe path through their teeming lines.

  The guide led us half a mile beyond the gate, and then abruptly swung south, straight towards the fortified Gothic camp established to keep watch over the Appian Way. Beyond the camp lay the dark mass of the broken aqueducts that Vitiges had ordered repaired and filled with soldiers.

  “Be ready to ride,” was all the guide would say. Procopius gave up trying to get anything more out of him, and the eight of us followed in silence.

  The walls of Rome were to our right, illuminated by the glow of torches and braziers on the walls. I wondered if the more sharp-eyed of our sentries might see us, and prayed fervently they wouldn’t call out a challenge or raise the alarm, thinking we were a band of Goths trying to sneak into the city.

  At any moment I dreaded encountering some of the mounted scouts that scoured the countryside around Rome. It was unlikely that any would be abroad at such an hour, but my fears multiplied as we plodded over the flat, open ground west of Rome. The darkness was our friend, but still I perspired freely, imagining a sudden shower of arrows and javelins, followed by hordes of Gothic pony-soldiers.

  Incredibly, our little Italian guide led us safely through the enemy outposts. He knew the lay of the land intimately, and led us on clever detours, using whatever scraps of cover were available and steering clear of the scattered watch-fires.

  I like to think we moved swiftly and silently, like ghosts, and we did make all speed, but were also aided by the Gothic habit of drinking themselves into a stupor. Confident after their recent victory, convinced that the Romans would not dare attempt another sally, their rough discipline had almost fallen away completely. We crept past groups of bearded soldiers singing in loud, drunken voices and downing cup after cup of their glutinous ale, when they should have been keeping watch.

  We passed almost directly under the timber stockade of their camp. The sentries must have been blind, or every bit as drunk as their comrades, and we crept past unchallenged.

  “The barbarians have grown complacent,” whispered Procopius, “Belisarius might ride out now, and slaughter them as they lie swine-drunk beside their fires.”

  Then we came to the aqueducts. The Goths had walled up the lower arches where they met, between the Latin and Appian Ways, and stationed the majority of their garrison there. Our guide took us west, until our feet were treading the smooth, ancient flagstones of the Appian Way. In their arrogance the Goths had thought to place few pickets here, so far from Rome and deep inside their own lines.

  Only once did we encounter danger. A single watch-fire burned under the crumbling ruins of an arch at the extreme western end of one of the aqueducts, warming the bones of a trio of Gothic spearmen.

  They were huddled up miserably against the cold, and seemed indifferent to anything except staying close to the guttering fire. We tried to pass by too quickly, and one of them tipped up his helmet and called out a challenge.

  Procopius had studied the Gothic tongue, and barked a response. The Goth didn’t seem satisfied. He rose to a sitting position, peering at us suspiciously as he clutched his spear.

  “Mount,” hissed our guide. I already had one leg hooked over the saddle, and within seconds we were forcing our horses into a gallop along the highway. We kept them at a fast pace until the rugged silhouette of the aqueducts were a distant line on the horizon. There was no pursuit: either the sentry failed to raise the alarm, or his superiors failed to heed him.

  Naples was almost two days’ ride away. We covered a portion of the distance that night, and rested at dawn, sinking to sleep inside a little grove just as the sun broke cover in the east.

  We were inside the borders of Campania, and practically clear of danger, for the Goths had concentrated their forces around Rome and in the north of Italy. Thanks to the earlier conquests of Belisarius, Campania was imperial territory, and would remain so unless Rome fell and Vitiges could push his armies south.

  Dusk of the second days’ ride brought us within sight of the walls of Naples again, and the blue sparking waters of the bay.

  Procopius was the first to spur his horse onto a ridge overlooking the city. He reined in and shaded his eyes, looking out to sea, and gave an excited yelp.

  “Coel!” he shouted, beckoning at me. I rode up to join him, and looked down at the glorious spread of the city, white walls shining in the late afternoon sun, and the broad waters of the ocean beyond.

  The sea was full of ships, bobbing at anchor in the bay. Transports, galleys and dromons, all with imperial flags fluttering from their mast-heads.

  Every ship was packed with soldiers. The Emperor had not forgotten us after all, and sent thousands of troops to our aid.

  Book Three: Caesar’s Sword:

  Flame of the West

  David Pilling

  FLAME OF THE WEST (I)

  1.

  Abbaye de Rhuys, Brittany, 570 AD

  No father should have to bear the loss of his son. Of all the cruelties and hardships God has seen fit to heap upon my head, this was the worst.

  Abbot Gildas, who knows something of my history, sometimes asks to join me in praying for the soul of Arthur. He does not know I pray for my son’s wellbeing, not his soul.

  I last set eyes on him almost twenty years ago, near the banks of the Po in northern Italy. If I shut my eyes, I can picture him clearly: a tall, proud, soldierly figure, with his mother’s wiry frame and the flaming red hair of his royal British ancestors. He rode as well as any Scythian or Hunnish horse-archer, and Caledfwlch gleamed in his hand.

  “Go!” I screamed, pointing my spear west, towards the distant border of Liguria, “go now, or bear a father’s curse!”

  Arthur might have disobeyed, for he was ever a strong-willed brute, but he carried a sacred charge. The sword, once wielded by his famous namesake at Mount Badon and the slaughter of Camlann, could not fall into the hands of our enemies. I had made him swear an oath to that effect, and taught him to keep his oaths.

  Our eyes met for the last time. His were green, so much like his mother’s, and blazing with fury. It was against his proud nature to turn and run, but there was no help for it.

  The thunder of hoofs echoed in my ears. I twisted my neck and saw the dark shapes of horsemen thundering towards us across the plain to the south. A dozen of them at least, Frankish lancers in gleaming chain mail and white cloaks.

  They had been pursuing us for two days, remorseless as hounds after a couple of fleeing deer. I had employed every trick I knew to evade them, but the Frankish captain was no fool, and saw through all my deceptions.

  I glanced back at Arthur, and relief washed through me as I saw him riding away at a canter, towards the west. We had fled with remounts, and ridden the first pair of horses to exhaustion, but his fresh mount would carry him over the border to safety.

  He urged his horse up to the crest of a little ridge, and there halted and wheeled her about. For a moment his superb cavalry figure was silhouetted against a backdrop of rolling hills and the light of the rising sun, Caledfwlch raised high in salute. The length of the blade rippled with a silvery light, as it had done in the caves on the shore of Amorica, so many years before. Caledfwlch, the Hard Hitter, the Red Death, the Flame of the West.

  “Virtus et fortitudo!” I heard him roar: courage and strength, the battle-cry he had adopted for himself, and used to inspire his men at the Battle of T
aginae. My eyes misted as I recalled the first time Arthur heard it, chanted by a phalanx of Isaurian spearmen marching on parade along the Mese in Constantinople. Arthur shivered in excitement as he stood beside me, watching the soldiers go past.

  Then he was gone, vanished behind the ridge, and the light of Caledfwlch snuffed out.

  I dragged my horse around to face the Franks. They were coming on at the charge, their triumphant war-shouts tearing through the still air. It was Caledfwlch they wanted, not me, but I would die rather than let them slay my son and deliver my grandsire’s sword into the hands of a greedy barbarian chieftain.

  Blinking away tears, I urged my horse straight at the Franks, aiming for their captain. He was a typically burly officer, his auburn hair twisted into pigtails, face partially hidden behind the nose-guard and hinged cheek-pieces of an elaborate golden helm.

  “Belisarius!” I shouted as I surged in for the kill, the name of my old chief rising in my throat. I had not shouted his name in many years, and would never see or serve under him again. Despite everything, all the bitterness and disappointment he had caused me, I still honoured the man.

  The Franks spread out to encircle me. I ignored them and cast my spear at their leader. It was a good throw, and pierced his right shoulder, just above where a silver brooch held his cloak in place. The impact made him jerk in the saddle, and his horse came to grief, her legs tangling and folding up under her.

  His men screeched in rage and closed in around me. I dragged back on my reins with one hand and reached for my spatha – a poor substitute for Caledfwlch – with the other.

  A spear clanged against the shield strapped to my left arm. I bit back the pain, tore the spatha free of its leather sheath and turned to face the nearest Frank as he came plunging at me, spear raised.

  At fifty-one, my reflexes had lost their edge. I tried to lean sharply to my left to avoid the throw, but was too slow. The iron tip of his spear slammed into my breast. It split the mail, drove the breath from my body, and hurled me backwards out of the saddle.

  Red blotches flashed before my eyes. The world spun crazily. My horse bucked and shrieked in panic. I landed with a jarring thump on my back.

  I tried to rise, but a dark shadow fell over me, and flailing hoofs crunched into my ribs, my pelvis, my spine. One of the Franks had ridden his horse straight over me.

  Pain, and numbing despair. I lay curled like a worm on the end of a hook, unable to move, scarcely able to breathe. Waiting for the blow that would finish me, and usher my shade into the next world.

  It didn’t come.

  2.

  I am ahead of my tale, and must go back some thirteen years, to the coast of Naples. There, along with Procopius and a few other companions, I beheld the Roman fleet anchored in the glittering blue waters of the bay.

  We had crept out of Rome, on the orders of Belisarius, to make our way through the Gothic siege lines and hence to Campania, to try and raise reinforcements from our scattered garrisons.

  Procopius let out a cry of joy upon sighting the fleet. The troops from Constantinople were so long-delayed we had despaired of them ever arriving, and he was of the opinion that the Emperor Justinian had abandoned his army in Italy to its fate. Procopius always held a low opinion of Justinian, and those unfortunate enough to read his Secret History (as I have) will know how his dislike of the emperor eventually congealed into madness.

  He had to swallow his bile on this occasion, though, and clawed at my arm in excitement as he watched the soldiers disembarking in the harbour. They were Isaurians, tough infantry from the rugged hill country near the borders of Cilicia.

  “Look to the south,” he cried, stabbing his finger at a point further down the coast, beyond the city. I strained my eyes to see, and thought I made out a thin column of dust. Then I caught the flash of sunlight on spear-heads.

  “More reinforcements?” I said. He nodded vigorously, his oversized head wobbling on the end of its skinny neck.

  “Must be,” he replied, lifting himself awkwardly into the saddle, “let us go down and meet them.”

  I fetched my horse from where I had tethered her, and together – there were eight of us in all, including six Hunnish warriors and a native Roman who had guided us through the Gothic lines – we rode down the coast road, skirting the white walls of Naples and heading south-east, towards the dust.

  The banners of Roman cavalry soon became visible. They turned out to be a mixture of Huns and Scythians and Heruls, two thousand men in all. Having made landfall at Otranto on the southern Italian coast, they had force-marched across Campania to meet the rest of the Roman reinforcements at Naples.

  We learned as much from their commander, a nobleman named John the Sanguinary. You will gather from his name what kind of man he was. I had known many hard, bloodthirsty officers in the Roman army, such as Bessas and John Troglita and Constantine, but John the Sanguinary beat them all.

  The son of Vitalian, a treacherous general who had rebelled against the Emperor Anastasius and was finally murdered by Justinian, he lived under the shadow of his father’s accursed memory. Constantly under suspicion, constantly aware of Justinian’s displeasure, he had somehow survived to adulthood and looked to forge a career in the army.

  If I had known how much trouble this man would cause me, and the Roman cause in general, I might have thrust Caledfwlch into his heart. As it was, I respectfully saluted the tall, leathery-skinned nobleman, and listened while he spoke with Procopius.

  Belisarius’ secretary was not the sort to defer to anyone, but even he seemed overawed by John’s languid, aristocratic air, and (most unusually for him) made an effort to listen instead of dominating the conversation.

  “Ye-es,” he drawled after Procopius had provided a hasty explanation of how we had escaped from Rome, “so General Belisarius is still shut up inside the city, is he? I feared as much. The general is a decent strategist, but rather inclined to be cautious.”

  I was eating my rations as he spoke, and almost choked on a bit of dried meat. Belisarius had risked his own person many times during the siege of Rome, and performed wonders in defending the city against obscene odds. This arrogant, perfumed young noble, in his rustling silks and polished lamellar armour, knew nothing of the hardships of war.

  No-one heeded my spluttering. “I have studied the approaches to Rome,” said John, shading his eyes to study the fleet bobbing at anchor in bay, “and I believe the garrison still retains control of Ostia, am I correct?”

  Ostia was the main harbour with access to Rome, about twenty miles northeast of the city.

  “Yes,” replied Procopius, “but the Goths have seized the Portus Claudii. Thus we cannot get supplies into Rome via the sea.”

  John gave a limp little flick of his gloved hand. “Then the supply wagons will travel up the Appian Way,” he said, “escorted by our cavalry. If they are attacked, the men can dismount and the wagons form into squares. A mobile fortress, yes?”

  It was an original idea, and I started to wonder if John was something of a soldier after all. Our last detachment of reinforcements had reached Rome via Ostia, and it seemed he had the same idea.

  We did not advance north immediately, but marched to Naples. I had no sooner found a billet than Procopius insisted I ride out with him, to scrape together more reinforcements.

  Knowing my duty, though resenting it, I consented to be dragged all over Campania. The secretary was seized with one of his periodic bouts of furious energy, and in the space of two or three days managed to raise some three hundred men from various occupied towns and villages.

  “Not a bad tally,” he said as we cantered back towards Naples, exhausted from our labours, “we might have levied more, but it is dangerous to strip the countryside of troops. I don’t trust the Italians. They need the presence of armed men to remind them of their loyalty to Rome.”

  “But they are Romans,” I protested, “this is the heartland of the old Western Empire. Surely they regard our arrival
as a deliverance?”

  This was a point I had never fully grasped, and Procopius smiled thinly as he explained it to me.

  “The Romans have done very well under the rule of the Gothic kings,” he said, “far better than under the latter-day Caesars. Between you and me, Coel, the later Emperors were a pack of idiots. They threw away their empire with both hands. Rome, and Italy, have prospered since Alaric deposed the last Emperor and sent his regalia to Constantinople.”

  I glanced nervously at the long line of horsemen behind us. At least a quarter of them were native troops, volunteers who had flocked to our banner.

  “It is a hard thing, to submit to foreign conquest,” I said, “even if the rule of the conquerors is beneficial.”

  I was thinking of Britain, the homeland I had not seen since childhood, and wondering who had dominion over her now. After my grandsire’s death, the land had collapsed into a patchwork of petty feuding kings and chieftains, like so many cockerels fighting over a dungheap. I knew that much, but Arthur had been dead for almost forty years.

  Perhaps another strong man had emerged from the chaos, to seize power for a time. Or perhaps the invading Saxons and their kin had overwhelmed the fragmented British kingdoms and made the land their own. Whatever the state of affairs, I had little doubt the mass of the people lived in abject misery, taxed and herded into battle by their native rulers, and slaughtered and enslaved by the invaders.

  Sometimes I entertained impossible dreams of returning to Britain at the head of an army – the Roman legions, re-formed and once again marching under their eagle banners – and rescuing my country. Restoring good government and order, expelling the barbarians, and uniting the land under a High King. I even pictured myself seated on the throne, robed in purple and cloth of gold like Justinian, Caledfwlch gleaming at my hip, and all the proud lords of Britain kneeling before me…