Caesar's Sword: The Complete Campaigns

by David Pilling

  “Enough of politics,” he added, stretching out his hand, “may I be the first to offer you my belated congratulations, Coel. You are a father.”

  I stared at his hand, and at the grinning imp’s face above it. It was tempting, sorely tempting, to draw Caledfwlch and cleave his face in half, but his guards would have butchered me on the spot. I had to live, to hunt down Elene and wring the truth from her.

  Without waiting for permission to leave, I stumbled out of the pavilion, past his startled guards. They might have barred my way, but Narses’ voice squealed from inside:

  “Ah, let him go!”

  9.

  I rode back to Hildiger in a daze, and reported the arrival of Narses.

  “Politics,” said Hildiger with a grimace, “we have not yet won this war, and already the politicians are moving in, like carrion birds on a carcase. So he told you the Emperor distrusts Belisarius, did he? Presumably he sent Narses to act as a counter-weight to the general’s ambitions in Italy.”

  I listened distractedly, my mind weighed down with personal matters. The progress of the war was no longer important to me. All that mattered was getting inside Ravenna, and finding Elene. Finding my son.

  She had lied to me, all those years ago, in the dungeons under the Great Palace in Constantinople. I had been on trial for my life, falsely accused of conspiring to overthrow the Emperor. Elene came to visit me, in the darkness of my prison, and begged me to plead guilty to save the life of her son and husband.

  According to Narses, her husband was a figment of her imagination, invented to manipulate me. Her son, though…he would be about sixteen by now, and had never known his real father. Had Elene never told him about me? Worse, had she poisoned his mind against me, teaching him to hate and despise the man she once loved?

  The man she tried to kill, under the ruins of the aqueduct outside Naples. Elene was a traitor, a double agent and a murderess. Like Theodora and Antonina, she had started life as nothing, a mere dancer and prostitute in the Hippodrome, and tried to claw her way out of the gutter.

  Unlike them, she had failed, and now cowered behind the walls of Ravenna, waiting for the end. Once the city fell, Vitiges would not be able to protect her. He would be shipped back to Constantinople, to be paraded as a trophy through the streets, before facing execution or lifelong imprisonment.

  I almost felt sorry for her. At least she loved Arthur – she must have done, to keep him by her side for so long – though I could only shudder at the thought of his upbringing, and what kind of man he had grown into.

  Hildiger’s harsh voice snapped me out of my reverie. “Coel,” he barked, “pay attention, man. What does Narses intend to do? Did he divulge his plans?”

  I shook my head. “No, sir. He told me very little.”

  In truth, I had neglected to ask, so desperate was I to get out of the pavilion, but Narses would never have revealed his intentions anyway. He had fed me just enough information as suited his purpose.

  The eunuch never said anything without a reason, and in this case he meant to turn me against Belisarius. I was supposed to feel grateful to him, for informing me I had a son, and of Elene’s whereabouts.

  If Narses had a fault in his dark designs, he tended to over-elaborate. I felt no gratitude, and indeed felt little at all save confusion. I was a simple man, of no great virtue and distinction, and easy prey for those who wished to manipulate me. They shifted me about like a pawn on a chessboard, a useful but disposable tool.

  Hildiger rubbed his chin and gazed down at the encampment. “Well, seven thousand extra Roman troops in Italy cannot do our cause any harm,” he said, “let’s see how many men we can screw out of Narses. Then we press on to Rimini.”

  Narses proved accommodating, and gave Hildiger five hundred infantry. Our combined force marched north from Ancona – none too soon, in my view – and advanced on Rimini. Hildiger copied Belisarius’ strategy, hugging the coast and sending out scouts to guard our left flank and explore the land ahead.

  Rimini was an important city, a vital trade port as well as a link between the north and south of the Italian peninsula, and suitably grand. Julius Caesar had made a famous speech to his legions in the Forum of Rimini before marching on Rome, and his successors had adorned the city with arches, bridges and a fine amphitheatre.

  I patted Caledfwlch as we rode under the Arch of Augustus, an impressive stone gateway erected by the first Emperor. Caesar had never carried my sword into Rimini: he had lost it years before, leaving it buried in the skull of Nennius, a British prince, during his abortive invasion of Britain.

  “See, your property is in safe hands,” I whispered as I rode past a giant statue of Caesar in full military regalia, carved in white marble. A chill stole over me, and for a moment I thought the great man’s shade was present, gazing at me in stern disapproval.

  John the Sanguinary rode out to meet us under the main gate of the fortress. He wore full armour, and the battlements above his head were lined with bowmen. They gazed down at us with stern, unfriendly faces, more like enemies than fellow Romans.

  “Still alive then, Briton,” said John, curling his lip at me after exchanging lukewarm greetings with Hildiger, “has Belisarius relinquished his command to you yet?”

  He spoke with heavy sarcasm, contempt dripping from every word, but I kept my composure. I wasn’t about to be lured into an argument by this vain little puppy. He was drenched in perfume, as usual, and stank like a bed of rotting flowers.

  “Belisarius commands you to quit Rimini,” said Hildiger, “and hand over the fortress to Coel. He will hold it, now, until the general comes up with the main army from Rome.”

  John adjusted his sword-belt slightly, and moistened his lips. I could sense the tension in him, under his languid manner, and looked up at the archers on the walls. Something was wrong.

  “We avoided the Gothic army on our way here,” Hildiger went on, as though nothing was amiss, “they are marching up the Via Flaminia, heading in this direction. Vitiges will probably move on to the safety of Ravenna, but leave a portion of his army to besiege Rimini. He cannot afford to leave the city in our hands. Your orders are to take your cavalry and harry his flanks, pick off stragglers and the like. Do anything to slow his advance.”

  He twisted in the saddle and pointed south, towards the ancient highway beyond Rimini. “They cannot be more than a day’s march away. Good hunting.”

  John didn’t move. He had six lancers at his back, all of them fully armed, their faces hidden under mail coifs. Only their eyes peered out of the holes under their corrugated helmets, narrowed and hostile.

  “Well, commander,” said Hildiger after a pause, “you heard me. Order your men to move out.”

  Silence flowed a little longer, and then John raised his lance. The men on the walls immediately notched arrows to their short bows.

  “I like Rimini,” said John, “the sea air does me good. I think I shall stay. You, however, must leave. Inform Belisarius that I will hold the city against the Goths.”

  He had paled a little, and his voice shook, but he was resolute. I had thought him vain and arrogant, but never suspected he might be capable of mutiny.

  Nor had Hildiger. The veteran officer went white, and seemed to swell with rage. “My God, what’s this?” he yelled, “have you run mad, John? You refuse a direct order?”

  “I do,” John replied, more calmly this time, “Rimini is mine. I took it, with the blood and sweat of my men. It is only right I should defend it.”

  Hildiger gaped at him. “Yours? What do you think you are, some petty barbarian warlord? Rimini is an imperial city, not an independent fiefdom, and you are an officer in the service of Rome!”

  “Rome, yes, but not General Belisarius. I follow a different chief.”

  Hildiger reached for his sword, and I saw the archers draw back their bowstrings, ready to shoot. “No, sir,” I cried, leaning over to lay my hand on his sword-arm, “draw on him, and his men will kill you, I
am sure of it.”

  The other man ground his teeth, but let his hand fall way from the sword. “You shall answer for this,” he snarled at John, “I shall see you stand before a military tribunal. As for those archers, every one of them shall hang for daring to threaten a Roman officer.”

  John looked complacent now, secure in the knowledge we were powerless to challenge him. “Who knows?” he said with a smile, “perhaps you shall be the ones to stand trial. The game has just begun, my friends. Now, I must beg you to depart, before my patience runs dry.”

  Hildiger was the sort of man who preferred to die rather than show his back, but there was no sense in waiting to be murdered. We had just a small group of lancers for an escort, having left most of our men camped outside the city, so as not to alarm the citizens.

  “He has two thousand men inside the citadel,” growled Hildiger as we turned and slowly rode away, “we have just fifteen hundred, and no siege equipment.”

  “With respect, sir,” I replied, “we dare not try and prise him out by force. The Goths will be here soon. How Vitiges would laugh if he witnessed Romans fighting Romans!”

  We cantered over the huge, five-arched stone bridge spanning the Marecchia River. Hildiger paused when we were halfway across, and gestured at the inscription sculpted on the inner section of the parapet.

  “The Tiberius Bridge,” he said, “work started on its construction during the reign of Augustus, and was completed under his successor, Tiberius. The Empire was united then, supremely powerful, and capable of great works. Now look at us. A hotchpotch of degenerates and mercenaries, squabbling over the crumbs of Italy.”

  It was unlike Hildiger to be so philosophical, but something about John’s unexpected betrayal had shaken him.

  He turned to look back at the rising walls of the fortress, and the imperial flag fluttering over the gatehouse. “Damn him,” he muttered, “what is he up to? I can see no reason for this treachery. It will mean the end of his career. Maybe his life.”

  “He said he serves a different chief,” I reminded him, “I think I can guess who he meant. Narses.”

  Hildiger mulled this over, stroking his beard. “It makes sense,” he said, “I seem to recall John and Narses were friends in Constantinople, though a man like Narses has no real friends, only allies. Perhaps they are hatching some conspiracy together.”

  “To discredit Belisarius,” I suggested, “or at any rate, hamper his conquest of Italy. The Emperor has always envied and distrusted Belisarius, and Narses is the Emperor’s creature.”

  Hildiger urged his horse on, and I followed him to the opposite bank. He said nothing more until we passed through the gates of the city. John, I noticed, had pulled most of his soldiers back to the fortress, leaving the city walls but lightly defended.

  “I think I can trust you, Coel,” he said as we jogged back towards camp, “so I shall speak treason in your hearing. Justinian is an idiot. Belisarius is the greatest living Roman general, the greatest since Aetius, and unshakeably loyal. If he had been properly supported, with money and men and provisions, Italy would already be under our heel. We might be contemplating the invasion of Germania by now, or the recovery of Gaul! Instead Justinian chooses to undermine him, and send rats to chew at the lion’s mane.”

  Your homeland might yet be saved.

  Belisarius’ words sounded even more hollow now. The re-conquest of Italy was far from complete, and already the shadows of treachery and civil war loomed over the Roman cause.

  10.

  Having failed to persuade John the Sanguinary to give up Rimini, we returned to Rome via the mountain passed, avoiding the Gothic host as it streamed up the Via Flaminia.

  As Hildiger predicted, Vitiges could not afford to leave Rimini in Roman hands, and laid siege to the city. The King of the Goths took personal command of the siege, perhaps to restore his tarnished military reputation in the eyes of his countrymen. He sent half of his army on to Ravenna, where his energetic Queen, Matasuntha, was refortifying the city walls.

  Belisarius had not sat idle at Rome. Unaware of the presence of Narses in Italy, he marched north on what he hoped would be a final push, to break the back of Gothic resistance.

  For once, he persuaded his wife to remain behind out of danger, and left her in Rome, where she continued her flagrant affair with Theodosius. Somehow Belisarius remained ignorant of her betrayal, or pretended to, though it swiftly became the scandal of the age.

  At first all went well for him. Awed by the terror of his name, the cities of Tudertia and Clusium surrendered as soon as his banners appeared outside their gates. The whole of the central Italian mainland was now in his grasp, and the Goths were in full retreat, abandoning their outposts and pulling back north, to try and regroup in the face of Belisarius’ relentless advance.

  We found Belisarius at Clusium, where he had halted to plan the next stage of the campaign. He had made the basilica in the centre of the city his headquarters, and was busy poring over maps and barking orders to subordinates when we arrived, weary and soiled from the road.

  “Coel,” he snapped, frowning when he saw me, “what are you doing here? Your orders were to stay in Rimini and hold the place against Vitiges.”

  “Christ’s death,” he exclaimed, throwing down the roll of parchment he had been studying, “has the city already fallen? Did John fail to hold it?”

  “No, sir,” I replied, saluting, “Rimini is still in our hands. John refused to give it up.”

  “We tried to remind him of his duty, sir,” put in Hildiger, “and he threatened to shoot us down. The majority of his troops were inside the fortress, and we had no means of forcing him to relinquish it.”

  I thought Belisarius would explode with anger, but instead a great weariness came over him. He sighed, and blew out his sallow cheeks, and pinched the bridge of his nose. This was not the first time he had been failed by a subordinate – I have mentioned that his captains were a treacherous and quarrelsome set – but outright refusal to obey orders was something new.

  “Is it mutiny, then?” he asked quietly, “has John betrayed Rome, and offered his sword to Vitiges?”

  “No, sir,” replied Hildiger, “at least, I don’t think so. He claims to still serve the Empire, but not you.”

  “What in God’s name does he mean?”

  Hildiger looked meaningfully at me. He didn’t care to tell the full story, and so loaded the responsibility – and the risk – onto my shoulders.

  I cleared my throat, which was dry as dust from long hours of riding without rest. “Sir, Narses has arrived in Italy, at the head of seven thousand men. He landed at Ancona, and made camp outside the city. I – we – suspect that he and John the Sanguinary are in league together.”

  Belisarius was no stranger to court intrigues and sudden vicissitudes of fortune, but this took him aback. His long, pale features turned an alarming shade of grey, and for a moment he swayed on his feet, like a tree buffeted by storm winds.

  Procopius hastened forward with a chair. Belisarius slowly lowered himself into it, and gripped the arms. Outside, the bells of the smaller churches and basilicas inside the city started to toll, summoning the faithful to prayer.

  “Betrayed,” he muttered, clawing weakly at a map of central Italy, “the Emperor has betrayed me. In the very moment of victory, when I have the Goths on the run, he sends the eunuch to slide a knife into my back.”

  He placed his elbow on the table and rested his forehead in the palm of his hand. His jaw clenched. For a moment I thought he might start weeping. An embarrassed silence fell inside the nave of the basilica. The assembled officers and subalterns studiously avoided each other’s eyes.

  “John holds Rimini,” Belisarius said slowly, staring at the table, “by now, the Goths will have laid siege. He is shut up there, and cannot get out. So we may forget him for the present. Narses is at Ancona, or was. You know nothing of his plans?”

  “No, sir,” I replied, “I briefly spoke with him, but
he said nothing of importance.”

  Hildiger might have corrected me, but chose to remain silent. Belisarius looked like a man on the verge of breaking. Being informed that his Emperor – the Emperor he had served so loyally and successfully, for so many years, constantly fighting and winning against the odds – had indeed lost faith in him, and sent Narses to poison his glory, might have tipped him over the edge.

  Belisarius gathered himself, and straightened in his chair. “So Narses has come to challenge me, has he?” he cried, “to frustrate my plans and feed the suspicions of the Emperor. Well, I shall go to meet him, and make him welcome in Italy. With a helmet on my head, a sword in my hand, and fifteen thousand men at my back!”

  He no longer looked or sounded tired, and his voice rose to a shout.

  “Italy has witnessed battles between Roman armies before, and shall do so again, if Justinian’s favourite dares to stand against me. Let Narses throw in his lot with Vitiges. Let my enemies join against me. I shall chastise them all!”

  Seized with new energy, Belisarius ordered his army to break camp and marched that same day. I had never seen him driven by such anger before. He pushed his troops mercilessly, force-marching them north-east, right across the plains of central Italy. Some fifty miles lay between us and Ancona, and Belisarius was determined to snare the eunuch before he could slip away.

  The Goths, meanwhile, were left to reduce Rimini at their leisure, and make Ravenna virtually impregnable. I thought it insane that the Romans should allow their enemy such a respite, but it was ever thus: the history of the Roman Empire, and the Republic before it, is littered with destructive civil wars. Caesar himself had to defeat Pompey and other rivals before he made himself dictator of Rome.

  Belisarius sent a troop of Huns ahead to look for Narses and his army. They returned with news that Narses had raised his camp at Ancona, and marched south along the coast to the town of Fermo.