The Blood Road (Legionary 7): Legionary, no. 7

by Gordon Doherty

  By late afternoon, they were well on their way along the peninsula road that led towards Constantinople. Here, they passed rubble and timber bastions set up along the way – like dams and breakwaters erected in expectation of a flood, layering the narrowing cape with bands of steel. Fritigern had brought his masses to Constantinople once before: he was turned away then – repelled not by steely legions, but by the sight of the city’s defences – but no Roman wanted to ever again see such a horde draw so close to their sacred and ancient city, thus the peninsula had been decked out with these barricades and beacon towers. Silvery helms poked out from behind each redoubt, the centuries assigned there at first alarmed to see approaching men then relieved to realise it was in fact allies.

  ‘Tribunus Pavo,’ some men barked in salute as they went. Pavo offered them soldierly, stern looks. Some seemed to stare at him for just a fraction too long. He felt his skin creep with growing suspicion. The Speculatores could be anywhere, anyone. Seize me, then, he thought. Drag me to your emperor. He will have no chains that can hold me… not when his neck is within my reach.

  Then he realised why the legionaries were staring – not at him, but at the man he was escorting.

  He looked over his shoulder to see Athanaric the Goth. Before the rendezvous, Pavo had never before laid eyes on the legendary king, but other legionaries had described him in hushed and fearful voices: towering and lean with jet-black hair, his face chiselled, his eyes blazing fire and his heart sculpted from night-black stone – a ruthless and cunning warrior king. Yet Pavo saw just a shell of a man, ravaged by time. He must only be forty summers or so, Pavo reckoned, but the recent years had not been kind: he was shrivelled, his back hunched and his fingers bent like claws and riddled with bony growths. His wart-pocked face sagged like a half-melted candle, eyes dripping with rheum and his mane was now just a few dark threads, scraped over a scalp riddled with inflammations, his beard the same, the straggly wisps tumbling down the dull sheen of his steel breastplate, studded with decorative bronze rondels. Devastated by age, or perhaps by the years hiding out in the barren heights of the Carpates Mountains while the Huns ran rampant around his lost lands below. Pavo’s mind spun with memories: the snare in the faraway Kingdom of Bosporus and the wranglings that helped lead to the outbreak of the Gothic War – this man had had a grubby hand in both affairs. Yet whatever he had been in the past, he was now but a husk, the fire within snuffed out. There was almost a benign sadness about the man that stroked Pavo’s heart like a feather, teasing out a droplet of pity.

  Seven Gothic guardsmen walked alongside Athanaric as an escort. They wore visored helms, long blonde hair loose and flowing, with oiled beards. They sported dark-green, leather vests for armour, and carried spears, longswords and bows as weapons. He saw the eyes of one change then: from hard jewels to wide, moon-like orbs. A few others murmured and pointed.

  Pavo turned his head forwards again: the eastern horizon had changed from soft, rolling hills to a wondrous swell of marble and gold: Constantinople, wrapped in a vast, unbroken curtain wall of silvery ashlar blocks running north to south, punctuated by colossal turrets, cordoning off the tip of the peninsula. The hills within rose like a gentle sea, bursting with glinting domes and monuments, pristine white travertine and marble architraves and vivid red roofs, pillars and columns pointing to the sky like the fingers of gods. Bright banners fluttered all along the walls and the late sun winked on the speartips and armour of the patrolling wall guards. The cobalt waters north and south of the peninsula glittered like silver-threaded sheets. The Classis Moesica fleet – once the master of the Danubius – lay moored in the Golden Horn to the north while a swathe of trading cogs and fishing skiffs dotted the waters of the Propontis to the south. The city was everything now: the capital, the home of Emperor Theodosius, the home of the army too – the majority of what legions remained were now holed up here in an attempt to bolster and rejuvenate them for the time when the Western Army came to help assault the Goths.

  ‘I have heard of these wonders, but I did not believe they could exist.’ Athanaric croaked from just behind. ‘I heard tales of Fritigern’s masses coming here, and the sight of the city being enough to turn him and his horde away like kicked dogs. I laughed when I heard the tale – drunk and fat in my fortified hide in the Carpates, I laughed. What a fool! I thought of him. Now I know that I am the fool, for ever believing that I could have taken this place.’

  Pavo eyed the city and wished that it was truly the bastion it appeared to be. In truth, the losses of the previous year at the Battle of the Scupi Ridge had been huge. Emperor Theodosius’ hastily-prepared legions – many of them green or old and unfit – had been battered by Fritigern’s horde that bleak night. The wall garrison had since been tripled, expressly to strike fright into any malicious observer from outwith, but the barracks and the billet wards deeper inside the city housed few reserves. The streets and wards were packed not with soldiers, but with hungry and frightened countryfolk, queuing for and consuming grain faster than it could be shipped in by the Classis Moesica. Everything hinged on Gratian and his Western legions.

  Everything, Pavo mouthed, imagining the young emperor’s equanimous expression – such a fine mask for a fiend – and then saw in his mind’s eye a map of Thracia, of the Gothic horde like a beating heart and of the Western legions snaking towards it. They would pen in the Goths. They would cage all in Thracia. There would be no hiding place for any man Gratian sought… Goth or otherwise.

  ‘My nephew, Modares, has made quite a home for himself in the empire?’ Athanaric asked, scattering the swiftly-closing walls of Pavo’s thoughts.

  Pavo nodded. ‘He is General Modares, now. Magister Militum no less – Master of the Army of Thracia.’

  ‘Or what remains of it,’ Athanaric added with a single, barking laugh, rocking in his saddle.

  Pavo cast him a cold look, but the Gothic Lord did not seem to notice.

  ‘Modares was always a bold bastard,’ Athanaric continued. ‘Always thought he knew better. He and I once fought, you know,’ he fell into a low gurgling growl, his top lip twitching. ‘He escaped with his life… just.’

  Athanaric chuckled as if playing out the memory of his nephew’s near-death experience, then stared at the imperial capital again. ‘What really puzzles me is this: your emperor strives to keep Gothic packs from his walls, yet he welcomes champion wolves like Modares into his high ranks and inside his golden palaces?’

  Pavo looked up, now seeing a glint in those rheumy eyes. A fire rekindled? ‘Modares is no wolf. He fought like a lion for the empire at the Scupi Ridge and at Sirmium. He has changed much during his few years in imperial service – even adopting the emperor’s Nicene beliefs. He is a good man. There is always a place in the empire for good men. There are other Goths in the emperor’s service these days – guardsmen and high generals. Roman and Goth can work together. This war should never have happened.’

  Athanaric grunted dismissively. ‘Twelve years ago, when I was Iudex, I sat on a boat in the middle of the River Danubius. Emperor Valens sat across from me. In our anger, we agreed a treaty that served nobody: one that robbed me of trading rights with the empire, and him of my subjects to swell his armies. I have often wondered if the seeds of war were sown that day. Or perhaps it was the coming of the Huns that sparked it all. We can seek to blame many things, but we cannot change that which has come about.’

  ‘Then why are you here?’ Pavo asked. He had been told nothing other than to make sure Athanaric reached the capital, alive.

  ‘To change the course of the war,’ he said. ‘To bring it to an end.’ He stared into the ether, that flickering flame there again in his eyes. ‘To crown my old adversary Fritigern as the fool, for once and for evermore.’

  Pavo felt a chill dance up his spine. ‘Fritigern seeks peace,’ he said.

  Athanaric looked down at Pavo. ‘Does he?’ he purred through a broad smile that made him look ten years younger and twenty shades darker. The
avuncular, benign look from earlier was now entirely gone, shed like a dropped veil. ‘I find that peace is best carved with the edge of a blade.’

  At that moment the air ahead flashed with bronze. A dozen trumpeters scurried out across the top of the fortress-like towers flanking the Golden Gates – the grandest of the capital’s entrances – and a paean of Roman buccinae sailed out to meet them. All slowed instinctively, about a half-mile from the defences, when the gold-banded gates peeled open.

  Within, a white-robed figure waited on horseback, holding a labarum standard topped with a Chi-rho and draped with a purple banner. The horseman’s head glittered as the sun sparkled on his jewelled diadem. A serried rank of golden-garbed Lancearii legionaries were arrayed behind him.

  ‘Emperor Theodosius himself,’ Athanaric said, his voice like thick tar slopping in a vase. ‘What can I expect: is he as much of a stubborn whoreson as Valens was?’

  Pavo halted and eyed the distant shape of the emperor. Theodosius had told Pavo in person how gravely Gratian had wounded him, executing his father. He had almost gone as far as to tacitly consent to Pavo’s vendetta against the Western Emperor, allowing Pavo to join the expedition to the Battle of Sirmium where Gratian would be present… and vulnerable. But that had been last year. Gratian had gone unharmed. Since then, Theodosius had become unpredictable and dangerous to be around; prone to lash out whenever anyone suggested God might be displeased with his actions. Worst of all, when Pavo was being briefed about the mission to go north and rendezvous with Athanaric, Theodosius sat in the background, refusing to meet his occasional glances. It seemed the Emperor of the East no longer wished to espouse Pavo or his cause.

  ‘Expectations and Theodosius do not sit well together,’ Pavo said. ‘Go on ahead. My men and I will follow you inside.’ And they will watch your every step.

  Athanaric clicked his tongue and guided his horse onwards. The seven guardsmen with him each glanced at Pavo as they filtered along behind like a tail. Pavo stared at the back of the fallen Gothic King, and prayed he had not brought a venomous snake into the heart of the East.

  He waved the Claudia men on past him too, then gazed over his shoulder towards the setting sun. Trees, rocks, hills, wagons and men guarding the roads out there. All of them were shadows in the fiery light. Shadows… so many shadows. With a shudder, he turned to follow the others into Constantinople.

  Chapter 2

  Sura stared at the bulbous lamb’s testicle. It had been sliced in two, the gap stuffed with spinach and garum. An invisible hand seized his stomach and squeezed, hard. He looked up from the plate and around the table at the ring of grinning comrades’ faces, then at the mass of tavern-goers crowded around their table, watching eagerly and gulping at their wine. He looked up a little, to see even more people craning from their frost-speckled balconies and rooftops on the fourth hill overlooking the open-air drinking den to watch.

  For a moment, he considered writing the challenge off. But most in this city would be grateful of the meal before him. These days, every broad avenue and tight lane was lined with shanty huts and shelters, draped with awnings and lines of washing. The streets were thick with barefooted beggars, day and night. These were once the proud countryfolk of Thracia, now reduced to penury, their old homes toppled, raided or strewn with the bones of loved ones who were not fast enough to run from the Goths. Even from here, he could hear the clamour of voices from the bread market, the city silos having run short already and the next shipment of grain not due in from Thessalonica until tomorrow.

  So he flicked a glance up at the crisp blue morning sky, then inwardly recited a prayer to Mithras. He had eaten such a meal a thousand times before. Delicious, usually. This time, the reek of the garum reminded him of the most pungent marching boots. Worse, the testicle itself reminded him of...

  ‘Go on then,’ Pulcher cackled. ‘Tuck in.’

  Sura lifted the meaty mass in two hands, sniffing in feigned nonchalance, his eyes on the morsel as if it was an enemy as he moved it towards his lips. Garum and testicle-juice trickled down his fingers and arms. A surge of revulsion rose from the pit of his belly and up into his throat, which he caught with a gulp. The onlookers shook hands on bets, all eyes growing wide in expectation.

  He opened his jaws and sank his teeth into the testicle, tearing a mouthful free and munching heartily on it, offering a look of smugness to the crowd, deliberately chewing with an open mouth to show them the partially-masticated food in there. The many watchers sighed and slunk back, the bets being settled, one man dumping a small purse of coins before Sura.

  ‘Hold on,’ said Pulcher, wagging a finger to halt the exchange of winnings. ‘All of it… every last stringy morsel.’

  Sura felt his belly turn over. The purse was hastily withdrawn. He had held himself together for this one bite, but another… another would be too much. Just then, a vein popped free of the testicle.

  ‘Bleeeuuurgh!’ he kicked back from the table, chunky and stinking orange vomit fountaining over the spot where he had been sitting, spattering over the half-eaten teste and across the table, soaking the front of his tunic and bare legs.

  The onlookers leapt back with a mighty roar of delight and amusement. Now the bets changed hands the opposite way. Pulcher swaggered round to Sura’s side of the table, clapping his comrade on the back. ‘That’ll teach you to be so careless with a fellow legionary’s severed bollock,’ he leaned down to whisper in Sura’s ear, ‘bloody, stringy, severed, stinking bollock.’

  Sura swung a look of utter contempt at the big soldier, only to double-over again and retch violently, flooding the tavern floor with a renewed sea of sick. Men leapt back now as if it was plague water.

  Libo, eyes wet from laughing, covered and uncovered his wine cup as Sura’s staccato bursts of heaving and gagging continued. ‘By Mithras, I’ve missed this,’ he said.

  Rectus, standing back, covering his nose and mouth, mumbled some warning to a passing man with a tray of wine cups to be careful about slipping… just as he slipped. The drinks fountained everywhere, cups bouncing from nearby men’s heads. A few swung to find the culprit – who was now thrashing on the ground in horror in Sura’s vomit-ocean – and blamed those nearest instead. Within a heartbeat, the first punch was thrown. Teeth sprayed across the tavern, then a nose broke with a crunch. Men piled in and tumbled in grappling heaps across the tables, barmaids shrieked and the tavern keeper roared and demanded order, but to no avail. Moments later, barrels and vats of wine crashed over, the red liquid surging across the flagstones like a breaker, mixing with the vomit. ‘Call the city watch,’ the tavern keeper cried, exasperated.

  Sura, dabbing his lips with a square of cloth, looked around, somewhat bemused at the brawling, screaming men all around him, then batted Rectus, Libo and Pulcher on the shoulder. ‘We’d best be off,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’ Pulcher quizzed, somewhat primed to join the fight.

  ‘Because we are the city watch for today and tomorrow,’ Sura replied. They rose as one, dodging and ducking their way through the thrashing brawlers. ‘We’ll get our shields and helms from the Neorion barracks and come back: the sight of that’ll be enough to quieten them.’

  ‘But where’s the tribunus?’ said Opis as he hurdled a fallen man.

  Sura ducked a wildly swinging fist, skidded on a trail of wine and sick, then glanced up and around. ‘He said he was coming… told me to make sure we kept our heads down.’

  From a rooftop overlooking the open tavern Pavo watched in disbelief as his men fled from the utter chaos, having stoked it all. He tried to imagine what sort of story Sura might concoct to paint them as the innocent party, then shook the thought from his head. There were more important matters to consider. Like the eleven men who had been edging through the drinking masses towards his comrades just before the brawl erupted.

  The strangers were down there still, moving like a ship’s prow through the chaos of fists and flying men. He had seen them first on his approach to this
drinking pit. The sight of them – draped in black cloaks – had halted him at the tavern’s vine-clad wooden entrance arch: they were coming down the street from the direction of the city walls. Something told him they were heading to the tavern… like an arrow. So he had edged away, towards the set of rickety side stairs that took him up to this roof.

  Now the eleven threaded their way through the fray and came to the hideously-soiled table at which the Claudia men had been sitting. They gestured to one another angrily, heads switching around.

  Pavo crouched so only his eyes were visible above the roof’s edge, then pulled up the hood of his careworn, brown civilian tunic. A brawler backed into one of the newcomers, then swung around to shove the stranger, who flailed backwards. Another stranger stepped close to the brawler and appeared to whisper something in his ear, then stepped away. As the eleven odd men slipped out of the tavern grounds, Pavo sighed. They were just another of the city’s many gangs, he realised – looking for a drink and a fight. He watched them go, melting into the overcrowded maze of shanty huts and city avenues. When he returned his gaze to the brawler who had bumped into one of them, he saw the look on the fellow’s face: confusion, his colour changing from inebriate pink to white, to grey, and the front of his filthy tunic glistened… with blood. The hairline cut, just above the collar, had been deftly executed by one of the strangers – so much so that the victim had not even noticed it happening. The brawler crumpled into the mire of vomit and spilled wine.