Caesar's Sword: The Complete Campaigns

by David Pilling

  I could guess what was coming next, and braced myself. “Six thousand men are all I can spare. I cannot go north myself until Osimo has fallen, so a trusted subaltern will have to lead them against the Franks.”

  “I thought you wanted me for an envoy, sir,” I said weakly.

  “So I do, Coel, so I do. But this present crisis must be dealt with first. Push back the Franks, and Rome will heap you with honours. I will make sure of that. The Emperor will reward you with a triumph in Constantinople, as he rewarded me after the conquest of Africa.”

  I was tempted to say the Romans would be honouring a corpse, but it would have done me no good. Through my own caution and unwillingness to stand up to the general, I had earned his absolute trust. Now he was relying on me to defeat a massive invasion of Frankish warriors, led by one of the most ruthless barbarian kings of the age.

  Just how ruthless, I was about to discover.

  13.

  My little army marched north into Liguria, towards the region of the Po where the vast Frankish horde was said to be massing. Belisarius was aware of my friendship with his secretary, and sent Procopius with me.

  “He said I am a lucky talisman,” said Procopius, “for the Roman army has never tasted defeat while I was present.”

  “It must be down to your skill at arms,” I said drily. I had watched my friend practising with the spatha before we marched from Osimo, and narrowly avoid cutting his own foot off.

  “You have never seen me fight in earnest,” he retorted, shaking his skinny fist, “just wait. The Franks shall flee before me like fire, and Theodebert will beg for mercy before my flashing blade.”

  Procopius strived to keep up my spirits as we neared the town of Pavia. Our scouts had reported the presence of our cavalry near the town, as well as a squadron of Goths. Romans and Goths were watching the Franks on the other side of the river.

  It was difficult to predict Theodobert’s intentions. He had crossed the Alps in response to his kinsman Vitiges’ pleas for aid, but he was a greedy, self-serving warlord, always with an eye to his own profit. His army was big enough to crush all of us – Goths, Burgundians, Romans – and seize Italy for himself.

  We were still some miles from Pavia when his motives became clear. A troop of horsemen came flying down the highway in wild disorder, straight towards our vanguard.

  “They are ours,” I said bleakly, shading my eyes to make out their banners, “Huns, I think. Looks like they have taken a beating.”

  I counted eleven riders. A few horses with empty saddles trailed behind them. The fugitives had no way of going around us, and so ploughed to a halt in a storm of dust and confusion.

  “Well?” I demanded when their shame-faced captain trotted forward. His helmet was gone, his mail hauberk smeared with blood, and his eyes had a familiar haunted quality: those of a man who had plunged into Hell, and barely escaped with skin and soul intact.

  He cleared his throat, and saluted. “The Franks have crossed the river, sir,” he croaked, “they fell upon us without warning. We tried to make a stand, but there were too many...they attacked the Goths as well, and drove them back towards Ravenna.”

  Procopius gave a low whistle. “So Theodobert has betrayed his ally. What faithless scum these barbarians are. But then, why not? He has enough men to defeat all of us.”

  “What of their numbers?” I asked, trying to suppress the rising tide of panic in my breast, “is the Frankish host as big as they say?”

  The captain ran a shuddering hand over his face. “Yes, sir. Like a plague of locusts, covering the land as far as the eye can see. Nothing but banners, and hordes of barbarian warriors, filling the air with their accursed chanting…”

  He was clearly a broken man, and I dismissed him to the rear with what remained of his command. I beckoned at Procopius to ride a little way forward with me, out of the hearing of my subalterns.

  “What should I do?” I hissed, “I can’t offer battle against such a horde. What do you know of this Theodobert? Is he a better soldier than Vitiges?”

  Procopius nodded grimly. “A better soldier, and a shrewder and greater man in all respects. He won’t be fooled by our paltry war-tricks, as we fooled Vitiges at Rimini. Theodobert is a wolf, and will tear our throats out if we let him.”

  He glanced at the barren fields beside the highway. They were untilled, the peasants who usually worked the land either dead or driven off. No crops grew on the parched soil, where there should have been a ripe yield of golden corn.

  Vast stretches of the Italian countryside were equally afflicted, the natural rhythms of the seasons disrupted by the ravages of war. As a result, thousands of peasants were condemned to starve, or else swell the numbers of beggars in the towns.

  “We can’t fight the Franks,” Procopius said softly, “but we don’t need to. Nature can fight them for us.”

  I took his meaning. The Frankish host was enormous, and would have to live off the land. Thanks to the poor harvest, there was precious little for them to take. In time, hunger and famine would achieve what our swords could not.

  I ordered the retreat, back towards the nearest Roman garrison at Fiesole, a fortified hilltop town inside Tuscany. The walls were strong and well-maintained, and I counted on being able to hold the place against a siege.

  There we awaited the onset of the Franks. Liguria was now laid open to them, and they devastated the region with typical barbarian savagery, carrying fire and slaughter to all corners.

  Uraias abandoned the province, fleeing back to his uncle at Ravenna with his remaining troops. Exulting in his conquest, Theodobert picked Liguria clean, though he found little to please him in the burned and blackened ruins of Milan.

  The summer of that year was unforgiving. A heat haze settled over the land. Nothing grew, and such scanty crops as had been planted withered and died in the fields. The dreaded but inevitable spectre of famine stalked the countryside, bringing starvation and the bloody flux to the country folk.

  “The Franks will also be suffering,” said Procopois as we stood together on the walls of Fiesole one evening, watching the sun dip below the hills, “Theodobert will have to break up his army, or lose it.”

  I sent out riders to observe the enemy, and they brought back encouraging reports. The Franks were indeed suffering. Desperate for food, they had stormed and ransacked every settlement they could find, butchering the inhabitants and – if some of the more lurid accounts were to be credited – occasionally eating them.

  The news brought me little joy. Belisarius had entrusted me with the task of driving the Franks from Italy, but instead I had taken refuge behind high walls, and abandoned the people I was supposed to be protecting.

  “There is nothing you can do for them,” Procopius assured me when I voiced my guilt, “even if you had somehow defeated the Franks, you cannot fight famine. Whether by starvation or the blade, the people of Liguria and Tuscany are doomed to perish.”

  He was a hard-headed man, practically devoid of compassion, but I was forged of softer metal. Finally, when I could bear the shame no longer, and was haunted by the screams of dying Italians in my dreams, I gave the order to march out.

  “I will do my duty,” I said firmly, “and meet the Franks in the field, as I should have done weeks ago.”

  “Your duty is not to die,” Procopius argued, but I refused to listen. Leaving him behind in Fiesole, I led out my six thousand men, with trumpets playing and banners flying, to seek the enemy.

  What I found was a desert, littered with rotting corpses and the gaunt shades of the living. We encountered some Frankish soldiers a few miles north of Fiesole, though they could hardly be described as soldiers anymore: rather, a band of wandering ghouls with sunken eyes and swollen bellies, their minds gone, reduced to the most basic urges.

  They took little notice of us, but fell like a pack of snarling dogs on some desiccated weeds growing by the roadside. One man managed to pull a fistful of weeds from the ground, and tried to ma
ke off with the booty, but was seized and dragged down by two of his comrades. They throttled him, and tore out his eyes, and turned on each other even as he jerked in his death-throes.

  It seemed a kindness to kill them, and I ordered a troop of my horse-archers to shoot them down. When the Franks were dead, lying riddled with arrows, we marched on, leaving their corpses to bake and blacken in the pitiless heat.

  I saw worse horrors, the further we advanced into Liguria, and the memories haunt me still. The Frankish host was disintegrating, murdered by the all-consuming famine, and the remains of their broken, starving battalions strewn like so much human rubbish about the countryside.

  The ghastly aspect of the dead was surpassed by the living, the little groups of survivors we encountered, their skin grey and lifeless and clinging to their bones. It was easy to identify those who had turned cannibal and survived by feasting on the flesh of former comrades: these men had a wild and fearful look, their hollow eyes shining with maniac fury, even as their hands swung listlessly by their sides.

  We caught one such group of monsters in the act of devouring a corpse. They offered no resistance, but ran howling into the wilderness, their lips and fingers dripping with blood. Sickened, I ordered no pursuit, but had the half-eaten remnant of their comrade given a decent burial.

  What was left of Theodobert’s army crawled back across the Po, and encamped on the northern bank. They devoured the last of their oxen, and drew water from the river, only to be hit by fresh disaster: the summer heat carried fever with it, and disease swept through the Frankish camp, carrying away a third of their number.

  In this enfeebled state, the Franks were in no condition to refuse Belisarius’ terms, which I delivered to King Theodobert in my capacity as envoy.

  The Frankish camp stank of death and illness. I rode through it with a cloth soaked in vinegar and fragrant spices pressed to my face. Emaciated, haggard-faced men were digging pits to bury their comrades, with neat rows of bodies covered in white sheets laid out beside them. There were no horses: as Belisarius said, the Franks had few mounted warriors, and those beasts they did bring over the Alps had long since vanished down the throats of starving warriors.

  Theodobert received me in faded barbarian splendour. He sat before his tent in a high-backed chair, placed over a bearskin rug. His surviving nobles and hearth-guards stood either side of the chair: tall, well-made men, with long auburn beards and moustaches. I had last seen their like in Paris, when I fled there with my mother after Camlann.

  I ran my eye over their armour and weapons, noting their long swords and double-edged axes, glittering mail, fine cloaks and elaborately decorated helms. I also noted the sullen, wasted look of the men under the gear, and the rank stench of sickness and death that hovered over all this martial display like a noxious cloud.

  The king was a youngish man, of medium height and slender build. His hair and beard were yellow, with a touch of grey, and he wore a slender golden circlet over a furrowed brow. Only the cold glitter in his grey eyes hinted at the cruelty and ruthlessness that defined his character.

  “Lord king,” I said, bowing slightly, “I am Coel ap Amhar ap Arthur, envoy of General Belisarius. I bring you greetings from him, and a message.”

  Theodobert raked me with his eyes, and stretched out his yellowed, claw-like hand.

  “There is no letter, lord king. The general bade me repeat his message to you.”

  “Am I not worth a letter, then?” said Theodobert in a hoarse growl, “is the King of the Franks not worth the price of wax and parchment?”

  I said nothing, not wishing to anger him. My escort consisted of a mere twenty lancers, and our lives rested in his hands.

  He made an impatient gesture. “Speak your master’s words.”

  “General Belisarius advises you to put aside your ambitions of conquering Italy, or else risk the imperial displeasure. It would surely be wiser to maintain the tranquil and undisputed enjoyment of your hereditary lands, than to endanger their possession in the vain hope of extending their limits. Withdraw, then, back over the mountains into Frankia, and Belisarius will not hinder or pursue your retreat.”

  I spoke with some confidence, knowing the Franks were in dire straits. In other circumstances the fierce and treacherous Theodobert might have thrown the general’s words back in my teeth, or had my head returned to him on a platter, but he dared not offer any insult now.

  He didn’t even consult with his nobles before responding. “I accept,” he said, with all the grace and good humour of a man suffering from some terrible internal pain, “my people shall quit this hellish, Godforsaken land, and leave Belisarius and Vitiges to quarrel over its bones.”

  I gave silent thanks to God. The last major threat to the Roman cause in Italy had been repelled, and I could turn my thoughts to Ravenna.

  And Arthur.

  14.

  The final march on Ravenna was preceded by the fall of Osimo, the last major Gothic stronghold in central Italy. Belisarius almost lost his life under the walls, when a sharp-eyed Gothic archer spotted him and loosed an arrow, but one of his bodyguards threw himself in front of the general. The arrow transfixed the brave man’s hand, which had to be amputated to save his life.

  Enraged by the attempt on his life, and the loss of a good fighting man, Belisarius gave one of his rare displays of ruthlessness. Osimo was well-supplied with water via an ancient cistern, and his engineers had been unable to destroy the solid architecture or divert the stream.

  “If we cannot deprive the Goths of water, then let us taint it,” he said, and gave orders for the corpses of dead soldiers to be thrown into the water supply, along with poisonous herbs and powdered lime.

  Soon the Goths began to sicken and die. Terrified by the fate of their comrades, and the fury of Belisarius, the survivors quickly offered their surrender.

  All our available forces were now concentrated on Ravenna. This city, the strongest in Italy, seemed to be impregnable. Surrounded by high walls, strong ramparts and impassable marshes, it had been chosen by Augustus as the principal station for the imperial fleet.

  By this time the sea was slowly receding from the Italian peninsula, and the sandbanks near Classe (the harbour built by Augustus) were every day left dry and exposed by the ebbing of the tide. Procopius, who made detailed sketches of the city from a safe vantage point, also noted orchards growing near the harbour.

  The city was still accessible by sea, and the Gothic fleet patrolled the Adriatic coastline to guard against any attempt at blockade.

  “Well, Coel, what do you think of it?” asked Procopius when our army arrived before its walls, “Ravenna, home of the latter-day Western Emperors. A jewel of the West. Greater, perhaps, than Rome herself.”

  I ran my eye over the city’s fearsome defences, the double line of walls and strong gates and high towers. Hundreds of steel helmets glinted along the extensive ramparts. Vitiges had withdrawn most of his army inside the walls, abandoning the rest of Italy to the Romans.

  “I think,” I said, “that it will be a bastard of a place to take. There must be fifty or sixty thousand Goths in there, cooped up like rats, with their backs to the sea. Belisarius cannot hope to take the place by storm.”

  I squared my shoulders, and sighed. “That means another long siege. Perhaps the longest yet. We could sit outside Ravenna for years.”

  Narses finished his latest sketch, a map of the outer defences worked in charcoal on vellum, and inspected it critically before responding. “That’s no good to you, is it? You need to get inside, as soon as possible, and find your son.”

  “If he exists,” I said bluntly, “Narses may have lied to try and turn me against Belisarius.”

  “Who can say? Narses is a born liar, but occasionally speaks the truth to serve his own crooked ends.”

  He rose from the ridge he had been squatting on, and smoothed his robe. “I have no intention of growing old here, waiting for Vitiges to surrender or be murdered by one of
his generals. Nor, I suspect, does Belisarius.”

  Procopius knew the general’s mind, better than any, and his master was indeed determined to crack open Ravenna’s defences and bring the war to an end. He was still in secret correspondence with Matasontha, Vitiges’ treacherous Queen, though he did not use me as envoy at this stage.

  I cannot say what messages passed between them, but several days after the siege began Ravenna suddenly erupted with flame.

  It was past midnight when the great fire started. The conflagration lit up the night sky and illuminated the countryside for miles around. Our soldiers, myself included, cheered the sight of Ravenna burning, and rumours flew through the camp of how it had been achieved.

  “That is no accident,” said Procopius, shivering in his night-gown, “see where the fire spreads, near the harbour? It’s all granaries and storehouses there. Our agents are destroying their supplies.”

  There seemed little doubt the fire was started deliberately, and the frantic efforts of the Goths to douse the flames proved ineffectual. All night the city blazed, warming the hearts of our men, and the grey morning skies were partially obscured by clouds of blackish smoke drifting over the harbour.

  Deprived of grain, Vitiges had no hope of withstanding a lengthy siege, and had to come to terms. Every soul in our army, down to the meanest pot-boy, knew and appreciated this, and a jubilant mood settled over the Roman camp. The last enemy outpost would soon be in our hands, and we could all go home – home at last, after almost two years of ceaseless warfare against a numerous and stubborn enemy.

  I am not a particularly devout man, but I turned to my prayers like never before, begging the Almighty to spare my son. When the city fell, as fall it must, I feared our men would run wild, and Ravenna would go the same way as Naples and Milan: given over to an orgy of freebooting, rape and general destruction. Even Belisarius, generally a strict and effective disciplinarian, had no means of controlling his soldiers once a city fell to the sack.