Caesar's Sword: The Complete Campaigns

by David Pilling

  Elene also featured in my prayers. “Let her be dead when I find her,” I pleaded, “do not make me face her, lord. Forgive my sins, and spare me that.”

  Ideally, I would have liked to sink Caledfwlch into the traitress’s heart, or hand her over to Belisarius for justice. Arthur, however, might hate me for bringing about the death of his mother. If he was indeed my son, I wanted his love. Only my long-dead mother had ever truly loved me, and I was sick of being alone in the world.

  Vitiges had one last trick to play. Before we marched on Ravenna, he had despatched two of his nobles on a ship for Constantinople. There they prostrated themselves before Justinian, and made a desperate series of threats and promises.

  “Know, Caesar,” they warned, “we have sent envoys to Nurshivan, dread King of the Sassanids, and he has agreed to invade Roman territory if you do not agree to peaceful terms with our master. To smooth the path to peace, King Vitiges offers to give up the southern part of Italy to your dominion, as well as the greater portion of his private treasury at Ravenna.”

  The Emperor should have laughed in their faces, but he feared the power of Nurshivan, poised just across our poorly-defended eastern borders with almost a million warriors thirsting for battle. He also feared and envied Belisarius, though the general had never done anything but carry out his wishes, and suspected him of secretly desiring the Italian crown.

  In spite of all the Roman blood and gold that had been spilled in Italy, Justinian agreed to a shameful treaty. Vitiges was to be left the title of King, a portion of his treasures, and all the provinces north of the Po. The rest of Italy, already won by the valour and skill of Belisarius, would once again be part of the Roman Empire.

  The treaty was concluded without the knowledge of Belisarius, and with the connivance of Narses, who had never ceased to plot and scheme against his rival. The Gothic envoys sailed back to Ravenna with the glorious news for their sovereign, while a Roman ship carried an imperial ambassador to Belisarius, with orders for him to lift the siege.

  I was not present when the ambassador laid the treaty before Belisarius, but Procopius was, and told me what passed.

  “He sat rigid in his chair,” the secretary informed me, “and a shadow passed across his face. I have seen that shadow before, on the faces of dying men. For a moment I thought he had suffered a seizure. He did not move or speak until I ordered his guards to usher the ambassador out of the pavilion.”

  “What then?” I asked.

  “He called for wine and started to drink. You know how he can drink when he sets his mind to it. Three flagons of sweet red nectar vanished down his gullet before he spoke again. He wildly cursed the Emperor, and the Empire, and the day he, Belisarius, had been born to serve the two-faced eagle of Rome. Then he fell off his chair, and I helped his attendants to get him into bed.”

  Belisarius did not emerge until late in the afternoon when, ashen-faced and trembling, he summoned a council of his senior officers to discuss the treaty.

  Or, rather, to deny it. “The King of the Goths has offered to send Justinian a portion of his treasure,” he said, “but I will carry Vitiges to Constantinople in chains, and present his person and all his treasure before the imperial throne. There will be no peace with the Goths except on my terms.”

  To my horror and astonishment, every one of his senior men betrayed him. None would agree to carry on the siege against the wishes of the Emperor, and each submitted in writing his reasons for accepting the proposed treaty. Even the likes of Bessas and Hildiger, the old war-horses, failed to support their chief.

  “Traitors,” he spat, “you, who have followed my banner and eaten my bread and taken my pay, now set me at nothing. To hell with you all. I am still commander-in-chief of Caesar’s armies in Italy, and I say there will be no peace. Unless one of you wishes to challenge my authority?”

  He stared at each men in turn, but none dared meet his gaze. Having cowed his officers, he packed the imperial ambassador back aboard his ship, and informed the Goths that the siege would continue.

  Vitiges had learned to fear his enemy, and placed no faith in the treaty unless it came with the signature and oath of Belisarius. Naturally, the general refused to give either, and laid before the Goths a simple choice: surrender, or starve.

  At the height of this bitter stalemate, I was ushered into the general’s presence at dead of night, escorted by two of his Veterans.

  Belisarius was alone inside his pavilion. A fire burned in a brazier on a tripod before his chair, and he was staring into the burning red coals, his pale hands folded on his lap.

  “Coel,” he murmured without looking up, “are you ready to do your duty?”

  I saluted. “Always, sir.”

  “Good. You have never failed me. You, and Procopius. I rate your loyalty even higher than his.”

  I was nervous without the comforting presence of Procopius, who seemed to exert a calming influence on his master.

  Belisarius picked up his sword, which lay unsheathed on the floor, and used it to poke the coals. “I am sick, Coel,” he said wearily, “sick in mind and body.”

  I studied him carefully. He always looked ill, over-strained by work and responsibility, but I saw no sign of any serious malady.

  “Rome has made me sick. All my life I have laboured in her service, toiling from one end of the Empire to another. Stamping out fires, shoring up our crumbling ramparts. But for me, Rome might have long since toppled into the abyss.”

  He spoke without a trace of arrogance. It was perfectly true: without Belisarius, the eastern borders of the empire might have long since been overrun. It was he who drove back the Sassanids; who saved Justinian’s throne by putting down the Nika riots; who destroyed the Vandal nation and re-conquered North Africa; who rolled back the tide of barbarians in Italy and defended the Eternal City against a colossal horde of Goths.

  “You are owed much, sir,” I ventured.

  He lifted his left hand, as though he meant to scratch his cheek, and then lowered it. “Yes. Owed much. Few men get what they are owed in this life. They get what they earn. What they take.”

  His hand came up again, and curled into a fist. “Come here,” he ordered.

  I stepped closer to his chair. “I said I would use you as an envoy,” he said, “and now your time has come. You will carry no more precious message than this. Again, as when I despatched you to the camp of Theodobert, there will be nothing in writing. Listen, and take note.”

  “Thanks to the recent fire in Ravenna, deliberately started by the servants of Queen Matasontha, the Goths are starving. They begged me to accept the Emperor’s treaty, but I refused. Nothing will induce me to accept it. I will never betray the memory of my soldiers. Not the officers, that pack of treacherous ingrates, but the rank and file, who have fought and died for me and left their bones in Italian soil.”

  He slowly turned his head and looked directly at me. “Not for Rome,” he hissed, “but me. Their general.”

  He suddenly changed tack. “Do you remember what I said to you, Coel? That your homeland might yet be saved?”

  “Yes, sir,” I replied, startled by the question, “I remember it well.”

  “I meant every word. For months now, I have been considering the future. Where has all my loyalty, all my sacrifice, brought me? To the edge of ruin. The Emperor doesn’t trust me. He hates and envies me, and sends his disgusting favourites to undermine my efforts on his behalf.”

  He leaned forward in his chair and stared deeper into the spitting coals. “God has made my decision for me. Two nights ago I received a messenger from inside Ravenna. Not from Matasontha, but Vitiges. He has agreed to abdicate and surrender his capital to me.”

  My jaw dropped at this wonderful, unexpected piece of news, but Belisarius was not done.

  “Mark that, Coel. They have surrendered, not to Rome, but to me.”

  “Sir,” I said, “you are Rome. Rome’s greatest living general.”

  “No. Not any l
onger. I am done with Rome, as she is done with me. Vitiges and his council have agreed to surrender Ravenna, and the whole of Italy, on one condition.”

  His eyes bored into mine. “They have offered me the crown of Italy, and to resurrect the title of Western Emperor. I will be crowned in Ravenna as King of the Goths and Emperor of the West.”

  “Think of it, Coel. I have spent all my career fighting barbarians. Now I shall unite all the barbarian tribes of the West under my banner. Combined with my army and fleet, we shall be unstoppable. I shall march on Constantinople, hurl Justinian and his whore of a wife from the thrones they have disgraced for so long, and purge the court of vipers like Narses and John the Sanguinary. That done, the crowns of East and West shall be united in my person, and the scattered fragments of the Roman Empire re-forged anew.”

  I tried to speak, to think. Seized by this incredible new vision, I failed miserably at both. “You, Coel, are destined to rise higher yet in my favour. I can think of no-one better. When the time is right, and the lost provinces of Frankia and Germania are once again under the sway of Rome, I shall send you to your native land with Caesar’s sword at your hip, and Caesar’s armies at your back. Coel ap Amhar ap Arthur, my magister militum. You shall cross the sea to the island of Britain, drive out the Saxon pirates that infest it, and bring her back into the imperial fold!”

  15.

  I was sent into Ravenna under a flag of truce, and with a sizeable escort of Belisarius’ Veterans. Officially, I entered the city to negotiate Justinian’s proposed treaty. Unofficially, I was to inform Vitiges and his council that Belisarius accepted their offer, and was happy to betray his imperial master for the Italian crown and title of Western Emperor.

  We were met by a Gothic officer and a retinue of lancers, and led to the royal palace, where Vitiges had his headquarters.

  The palace was built by Theoderic the Great, the best of the Gothic monarchs, and made me ashamed to think of him as a barbarian. Built on the site of an old Roman palace, it was built of white stone and marble and colonnaded in the old style, a residence fit for Augustus himself.

  “A fine place, eh?” said the officer, smiling at me, “or perhaps you expected to find the King of the Goths living in a timber hut, with smoke escaping from a hole in the thatch?”

  He was young for his rank, tall and slender and red-haired, with no beard on his chin. I was amused by his conceit: the Goths had long since adopted the manners and customs of civilised folk, and come a long way from their brutish ancestors, who used to live in draughty wooden halls and gnaw their meat with bloody fingers.

  I struggled my maintain my outwardly calm appearance, suitable for an envoy of Rome, as I entered the vast, echoing halls of the palace, and trod the beautifully inlaid mosaics that decorated the floors of Theoderic’s home. I had seen palatial splendour before, and nothing here rivalled the opulent splendour of the Great Palace in Constantinople. It all passed by in a meaningless blur, and the young Gothic officer who escorted me said little.

  My mind and soul were elsewhere. Belisarius had lit new fires inside me. His vision of a new Roman Empire, forged from the shattered remains of the old, was both overwhelming and irresistible. It was also no idle daydream. Belisarius was a hero to his troops, if not the officers, and they would happily follow him to the gates of Hell. Far lesser Roman generals had won the love of their soldiers, and led successful rebellions against corrupt and incompetent emperors.

  It was rank treason, of course, and all our necks would be forfeit if the attempt failed. Justinian would show no mercy. For my part, I had no cause to love the Emperor. He had deliberately kept the army starved of adequate supplies and reinforcements, and plainly cared nothing for the lives of the soldiers he sent to re-conquer lost Roman territories and gratify his own insatiable pride and ambition.

  Nor did I fear him. He was no soldier himself, and none of his loyal generals were a match for Belisarius. When our united host marched on Constantinople, Justinian would most likely flee into exile, or throw himself on the mercy of his former servant.

  I thrilled to the prospect of seeing his foul wife, the Empress Theodora, loaded down with chains and paraded along the Mese before jeering crowds. She had once murdered a friend of mine, and done her best to serve me the same way, and I hated her more than Narses and Antonina and all the rest of my enemies put together.

  “I said, you don’t have the look of an Easterner,” remarked the Gothic officer. I blinked, and realised I hadn’t been listening.

  “My apologies,” I muttered, “I’m not from the East. I am a Briton in the service of Rome.”

  We had reached a large antechamber with a vaulted roof. A huge pair of iron doors, three times my height and inscribed with scenes of hunting and battle, stood closed before us. Two Gothic spearmen in green cloaks and twinkling mail flanked the doors, watching me with deep suspicion.

  “A Briton,” he said, “that is unusual these days. Britain has been independent from Rome for over a century.”

  I didn’t like his questioning tone, or the intense way he stared at me. “My origins are none of your concern,” I snapped, “I came here to speak to King Vitiges, not engage in idle chat with his underlings.”

  He murmured an apology, and said nothing more until the doors swung inward, dragged open by a troop of slaves.

  The doors opened onto the throne room, a rectangular hall with a high ceiling and a central avenue lined with a double row of black marble pillars. A guardsman stood before each pillar, armed with spear and shield. The avenue was decorated with another gorgeous mosaic, this one depicting a king abasing himself before Christ, and ended in a short flight of marble steps.

  The steps led to a dais, upon which King Vitiges sat on his throne. He sat with his chin resting on his fist, and didn’t move a muscle as the officer led me towards him.

  Vitiges’ consort, Matasontha, sat beside her husband on a smaller throne. They made a handsome pair, still young, and with the corn-gold hair and blue eyes of their folk. Vitiges was stocky and bow-legged, somewhat shorter than his wife, and both were dressed in royal splendour.

  Their brows were adorned with slender royal circlets, and they wore loose mantles of purple silk, lined with gold and fastened at the shoulder with elaborate golden brooches. Vitiges wore a belt made of silver and gold links, carved in the shapes of stags and wild boar. His sword, a broad-bladed weapon with a short blade, hung from his hip in a wool-lined sheath.

  There was a terrible sadness in the king’s eyes as he silently watched us approach the throne. This was his last act as King of the Goths, and he knew it.

  I halted at a respectful distance, and bowed before him. “Your Majesty,” I said formally, “General Belisarius sends his greetings.”

  Vitiges shifted slightly. At close quarters, he looked older than I had first thought. There was a grey pallor to his roughly handsome features, and a general air of dejection and defeat about him. He spoke with none of the royal hauteur and arrogance and expected, but like a man who knew his time was up.

  “Has he,” he began, before swallowing, closing his eyes, and trying again, “has he accepted our terms?”

  “He has, majesty. The crown of Italy, the title of Western Emperor, and the fealty of your soldiers. In return, you will be allowed to go free, and depart from Italy after swearing an oath on holy relics never to set foot in the kingdom again.”

  He nodded, and glanced at his wife. “What of my queen?”

  I turned to face Matasontha, and the breath caught in my throat. She was a rare beauty, if somewhat faded, and like Theodora relied on the artifice of cosmetics to sustain her fair looks.

  Matasontha was also Theodora’s equal in treachery, though doubtless she would claim all was done for the good of her nation. There was some justice in that: her husband’s stubborn insistence on fighting the Romans, even after so many defeats and terrible losses, had brought little good to their people.

  “Matasontha will retain a portion of he
r treasure, and also be permitted to go free,” I said, trying not to wilt under the lash of her deep blue eyes, “but will relinquish the title of Queen of the Goths. As King-Emperor of the West, Belisarius will have no other consort but his own wife, Antonina.”

  Whether Matasontha had expected more, I cannot be certain, but she suffered the loss of her royal status in dignified silence.

  Vitiges reached across to lay a comforting hand on his wife’s arm. She sat rigid, like a statue, and failed to acknowledge his touch.

  “So be it,” he sighed, “tomorrow morning, Ravenna will open her gates, and Belisarius may occupy the city. I will receive him here, in this chamber, and hand over my crown.”

  I bowed again. “There is something more,” I said after a pause, “Belisarius regards me as a trusted servant, and has granted me a favour. He insists that you fulfil it.”

  This was true. I had demanded it of the general, as the price for my betrayal of Justinian, and he agreed without hesitation.

  “Name it,” said Vitiges, looking wary.

  “There is a woman named Elene in your household. A Greek, just recently arrived in Ravenna. She has a son named Arthur.”

  For the first time, Matasontha showed signs of life. She lifted her proud head and moved her arm away from Vitiges’ hand. Elene was clearly not a name she wanted to hear.

  My cold, passionless exterior was threatening to crack. “I want Arthur,” I said forcefully, “you will hand him over to my care and custody. As for Elene, I have no interest in her. She is to leave Ravenna. Tonight. Now. I care not where she goes, but her son stays with me.”

  “You have an interest in the lad?” asked Vitiges, momentarily distracted from his own troubles.

  “Yes. I am his father.”

  According to Procopius, Elene had served Vitiges as one of his whores. If he loved her, he concealed it well, and made no effort to protect or conceal her.

  “Granted,” he said, looking sadly at his wife. Matasontha was staring straight ahead, over my shoulder. I suspect Procopius was correct: the king’s repeated infidelities had affronted her proud spirit, and caused her to betray him to his enemies.