The Eternal Empire

by Geoff Fabron

Chapter Fifteen

  8th August 1920

  Constantinople

  Gregory Nicerites had always been self assured and confident, but he felt quite uneasy as he made his way through the narrow back streets of the capital. The note that he had received from Marcus Metellus that morning had invited him to a meeting at a tavern deep in the most unsavoury quarter of the city. It included directions and a time - eight o'clock that night - but gave no reason for the invitation.

  Upon entering the tavern, his unease turned to severe misgivings. It was dark and smelt of stale wine and beer, and the clientele were a shifty, unkempt looking bunch. Gregory felt very conspicuous in his clean and expensive clothes, a feeling enhanced by the silent stares that he was receiving from the people at the tables nearby. He had the distinct impression that he was being ‘valued’ in the manner a butcher appraises livestock.

  A huge figure wearing a clean white apron came towards Gregory.

  "You Gregory Nicerites?" Attila asked.

  Gregory nodded slowly, still keeping his eyes on the men seated at the tables around him.

  Attila noticed that Gregory was uneasy and threw his patrons a snarling look. They turned away and quickly found something to talk about. He gave Gregory a toothsome grin and showed him into a small room at the back of the tavern where Marcus and Magnus Lepidus were waiting. Marcus greeted Gregory and introduced his friend and colleague from the assembly.

  "Thank you for coming," said Marcus, "I know that it's a bit mysterious but we wanted to talk to you privately."

  "What is this place?" asked Gregory as they sat down around a plain wooden table containing plates of food, some glasses and a couple of jugs of wine.

  "It's called Attila's place, he's the big fellow who showed you in," replied Magnus busily pouring wine for everyone. "Good food, cheap wine and total discretion. Even the peregrini don't come in here. Not if they want to leave in one piece that is."

  They drank each other’s health and passed a few pleasantries before Marcus got down to the purpose of the meeting.

  "The assembly is very concerned about what is happening. The Empire is at war but we, the elected representatives of the people are being kept in the dark. All the news is censored and Exanzenus has refused to allow anybody except his supporters’ access to the council of war meetings.

  Gregory nodded in agreement. Exanzenus was behaving more and more like a dictator every day. By using the Emperors power to rule by decree he had effectively neutered the constitutional processes and could bypass the assembly and senate.

  "How do you think that I can help you?" asked Gregory guardedly.

  Marcus and Magnus exchanged a knowing look. Magnus answered.

  "As one of the most senior officials in the civil bureaucracy you know what is really going on. You probably know more than the Emperor himself!"

  Gregory nodded again. The Emperor was spending more and more time in his private chambers 'consoling' his mistress on the death of her husband. He waited to hear what else they had to say. This time it was Marcus who spoke.

  "We would like you to tell us what is really happening. All we get is lies, platitudes and pompous statements."

  Gregory raised his eyebrows at that, but did not look shocked. "What you are asking me to do could be construed as treason." Especially by Exanzenus, he thought to himself.

  "We're not enemies of the state, we are the elected representatives of the people of the Empire" repeated Magnus emphatically, "despite what Exanzenus may think. We have a right to know!"

  "What will you do with the information that you would get from me?" said Gregory.

  "We will make sure that it can't be traced back to you," said Marcus quickly, anticipating a possible stumbling block. "We will obtain corroboration from other sources first."

  "Then why use me?" reasoned Gregory. "If you can get the information elsewhere, why involve me at all?"

  "Because you can give us the whole picture," explained Magnus, "it could take us days to collate the different pieces of information that we receive from around the Empire. Even then we could never be sure how accurate it is."

  Marcus took up the argument. "We need relevant information which can be used to attack Exanzenus in the assembly and the senate. If we can show him to be incompetent or to be mismanaging the war, then we may be able to get enough votes to impeach him and detach some of his supporters."

  Gregory helped himself to some of the sweetmeats on the plate and ate while he thought. He had hardly touched his wine, unlike Magnus who was refilling his glass for the third time.

  "All right," he swallowed his last mouthful, "I'll provide you with a regular briefing, but just you two. Nobody else. The fewer people involved the better."

  Marcus and Magnus looked pleased, and quickly agreed to Gregory's condition.

  "When shall we have the first meeting?" Asked Magnus.

  "How about now," replied Gregory. "We are all here and the military situation is much worse than portrayed by the official news. The Saxons have crossed the Rhine at several points and have already breached the Trajan line. The legions in Germania, weakened by the dispatch of a third of their combat troops to Britannia, are barely holding their own. All the battleships of the Classis Britannica have either been sunk or crippled and the Saxon Navy has cut Britannia off from Gaul."

  Gregory paused to take his first mouthful of wine, which was not as bad as he expected, allowing Marcus and Magnus, who were taking notes, to catch up.

  "On the Danube," Gregory resumed as he put his glass down, "the Ottomans are making warlike noises and Constantine Monomachus, the governor of Moesia has arrived in the capital to see Exanzenus. He has heard that his legions are going to be sent to fight the Saxons and has demanded that they stay where they are to defend his province against the Turks."

  "Are they sending troops from the Danube?" interjected Magnus.

  "The war council has drawn up plans to send four of the eight legions based along the Danube to Gaul, two of which would come from Moesia. There have been demonstrations in Moesia and the provincial assembly has 'instructed the governor to prevent the transfer of troops at all costs'. The memories of Turkish incursions and atrocities are burnt into the collective memory of people in the border areas. "

  "Sounds ominous," Marcus commented.

  Gregory helped himself to a few pieces of grilled meat and washed it down with some more wine. He was actually enjoying this. For once he had an audience who wanted to know what was really going on instead of being told what they wanted to hear.

  "Our best troops, the army of Asia Minor," continued Gregory, "have been ordered to remain on the defensive in case either the Arabs or the Turks make a move towards Constantinople. The main fleet has been sent to the eastern Mediterranean for the same reason. In other words they are not going to send any ships to Britannia to break the Saxon blockade there."

  "The latest piece of news concerns our ‘punitive’ attack on Palestine from Egypt in response the border skirmish recently. It will be a few days before anything official will be published. They'll need that long to get a reasonable story put together for the papers."

  "Why is that?" asked Marcus.

  "Because it's an unmitigated disaster, that's why."

  8th August 1920

  Mediterranean Coast, Palestine, Arabian Caliphate

  The initial move across the border into the Sinai had gone smoothly. The few Arab troops that were along the frontier had either fled or surrendered at the approach of the imperial force. The army had then split into four columns of two to three thousand men each and advanced across the Sinai peninsula towards Gaza. For three days the columns only saw an occasional Arab scout in the distance. They also came across abandoned settlements which they systematically destroyed. On the fourth day groups of horsemen appearing from the dunes or wadi's ambushed the rear of each column. The attacks had not been pressed home and were easily beaten off but with each attack the column became more strung out.

&
nbsp; At dusk that day, the first major assault occurred. The rear of the second column was overwhelmed by thousands of Arabs attacking on horse, camel and foot. By the time that units from the front of the column had been deployed to drive them off, most of the food, fuel, water and spare ammunition had been taken or destroyed.

  The next day the four columns began to disintegrate under the constant harassment. General Ducas, who was with the first column, was urged to combine the columns and to withdraw back to Egypt along the coastal road where the imperial fleet could support them if necessary, but he had stubbornly refused, confident that he could deal with any number of Arab horsemen. The attacks grew more persistent. Contact between the columns was lost and movement slowed to a snail’s pace.

  The fourth and most southerly column received its first major attack at noon on the fifth day, but because they had been expecting it they beat it off without difficulty. The column commander had been killed in the battle and John Bryennius, being the most senior tribune left, had taken over command. After reorganising the column into a hollow square formation with the remaining supplies and heavy equipment in the centre, he ordered his force to head north to try and link up with the other columns.

  They found remnants of the third column an hour before sunset, scattered in small groups in a rocky depression, fighting for their lives against hordes of Arab warriors closing in for the kill. Bryennius ordered his remaining cavalry and armoured vehicles to charge the Arabs. The sudden arrival of imperial troops in their rear forced them to break off their attack and to scatter.

  The two columns united and camped together on the site of the battle, and the next morning, after hastily burying the dead, Bryennius, who was still the ranking officer present, ordered the artillery to be abandoned. The wounded were loaded into the remaining vehicles and the combined force, now less than two thousand men strong continued their march to the coast.

  The harassment and sniping continued as they made their way across the hot, dusty barren waste of the Sinai desert but they were not attacked that day. Late that afternoon when they came across the burnt out vehicles and decaying bodies of the second column they realised why.

  The carnage was spread over a large area and indicated a complete breakdown in discipline amongst the imperial troops, many of whom had been cut down from behind as they had tried to flee. Only in one place had there been any sign of organised resistance, where over fifty bodies were found clustered around a group of motor carriages.

  Bryennius covered his face with a cloth to reduce the stench and waved the flies away from his face as he picked his way through the bodies, some of which had been mutilated. A senior centurion, his second in command called Bryennius over to a group of bodies in the centre.

  "It's the legate and the aquilifer sir," he said, his face pale despite the sun.

  "The Eagle," Bryennius said softly. He saw the anger and the shame reflected in the eyes of the centurion. Since Philip III had reintroduced the traditional symbol of the legion, no Eagle had been lost to the enemy. Until now.

  Bryennius conducted a burial service for the legate and for those who had died with him. The troops arranged according to their cohorts had gathered around the grave. Despite the threat of attack, he carried out the full service, even down to the singing of a hymn and the expenditure of some of their remaining ammunition for a salute.

  In retrospect the capture of the Eagle was probably what had saved Bryennius and his men as well as the survivors of the first column which they had met up with on the coast late the following day. Flushed with their success and their trophy the Arab warriors had spent the day celebrating and parading the captured standard through the towns and villages in southern Palestine. By the time that they had decided to return to the attack, the Romans were safely on board ships of the Classis Mediterranean and on their way to Alexandria.

  Of the eleven thousand men who had crossed the border only three thousand had survived and returned to Egypt. General Ducas had been one of those who had lived to board a ship off the coast of Sinai, but disappeared during the trip to Alexandria. It was officially concluded that he had committed suicide by jumping overboard because of the shame of the disaster and the loss of the legions Eagle.

  Unofficially it was believed that the general had recieved some assistance to 'do the right thing'.

  9th August 1920

  Rhine Army Headquarters, Augusta Treverorum

  Silvanus Anemas put the phone down.

  "Still no news. The plane hasn't returned yet."

  "That's the third plane since yesterday," said Cornelius.

  "The one that went out this morning had an escort of Pilum fighters," added Silvanus "I'm sure that it'll return soon."

  Despite his colleagues’ attempts to allay his fears him, Cornelius still had an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had not been able to gather any additional information about the Saxon forces that had crossed at Colonia Agrippina. The planes which had been allocated for reconnaissance by the hard pressed air cohorts had not returned. In the absence of any evidence to suggest a threat from the north, the counter-attack towards Moguntiacum had begun at dawn that morning.

  "Latest reports from the front say that the Saxons are giving ground and taking heavy casualties," said a centurion who had just returned from the operations centre, "the assault force expects to be able to link up with the fifteenth Primogenia early tomorrow morning."

  Cornelius smiled politely at the news but did not feel comforted by it. The sense of foreboding remained.

  The phone on Silvanus's desk rang. He answered it immediately, listened to what the caller had to say and then returned the phone to its cradle.

  "That was the airfield," he said to Cornelius. "The reconnaissance plane has returned."

  "At last," said Cornelius. "When will the crew get here for the debriefing?"

  Silvanus stood up. "They're in no fit state to go anywhere, "he said grimly, "their plane was so shot up it crashed on landing. The pilot's dead and the navigator's in the field hospital at the airfield. None of the escort fighters returned."

  Cornelius also stood and grabbed his helmet off the table by the door. "Let's get over there now. I think that the navigator saw something that the Saxons don't want us to know about."

  Despite the doctor's protests Silvanus and Cornelius managed to get into see the navigator. His legs were a bloody mess and one side of his body was badly burnt. He was being treated by a nurse who made it abundantly clear that she disapproved of the presence of the two officers. They introduced themselves and apologised to him for bothering him, but he waved their concerns aside and insisted on speaking.

  "The sky was full of Saxon fighters," he said, struggling to control the pain. "If it weren't for our escorts we wouldn't have lasted five minutes."

  "What did you see," coaxed Cornelius gently.

  "The roads are crawling with Saxons. Landships by the hundred, cavalry by the thousand, columns of trucks and motor carriages, all heading south." He leaned over slightly and pointed towards a scorched leather case by the bed, grimacing at the pain as he moved.

  "It's all in there," he said with difficulty, "I marked everything that I saw." He slumped back against the pillows, exhausted by the exertion. The nurse then insisted that they should leave and let the navigator rest. Cornelius picked up the case as they left.

  As Silvanus guided the motor carriage out of the airfield, Cornelius opened the case and began to study the navigators’ notes and the marks he had made on his maps.

  "When we get back to the office," said Silvanus as they headed back to Augusta Treverorum, "we can analyse those papers properly."

  Cornelius quickly double checked some of the information before replying.

  "Never mind the office," he said his voice level but tense. "We're going straight to Comnenus. Half the damned Saxon army is heading straight for our rear."

  9th August 1920

  Colonia Agrippina

  The air in the
landship stank with gaseous fumes as they made their way along the main road out of Colonia Agrippina. Driver Klaus Alaric wished he was in the turret and able to stick his head out and get some fresh air.

  He had been shocked when his unit had arrived, footsore and weary at the assembly point along the Rhine and had been informed that they would shortly be at war with the Empire.

  “I hope the Romans are as surprised as we are,” Klaus had confided to the other members of his crew that night. “I don’t fancy going toe to toe with one of their ‘Bison’s’, even in a nice shiny new Mark IV.”

  “Amen to that,” agreed the gunner. “I’m not sure we could do much damage against those monsters from the front – luckily they are slow so we have a chance to get round their flank.”

  “Let’s hope our new commander has the wits to realise that,” added Klaus.

  The first week of the war had been quiet for Klaus and the rest of his unit. The infantry and artillery had led the way clearing Imperial troops out of the frontier towns and defences. The regiments of Saxon landships had been kept under cover, only moving at night once new camouflaged positions had been prepared for them by the engineers. But now they were being ordered into battle and Klaus drove his Mark IV landship forward, wiping the sweat out of his eyes as he strained to see through the narrow slits in the armour.

  ‘Commander Warken had better be keeping a good look out,’ Klaus muttered to himself as he changed gears. ‘I can see bugger all from here!’

  9th August 1920

  Imperial Army Headquarters

  General Comnenus was with the chief of staff reviewing the progress of the counter attack when Silvanus and Cornelius made their way into the army operations centre. They boldly walked straight up to the commander demanding to speak to him immediately.

  Alexius Cabasila was horrified by their breach of military etiquette and began to berate them when Comnenus intervened.