by Jack Ludlow
‘Petrus?’
‘We are back to that?’
Aware that he was either causing discomfort or sailing very close to the wind, probably both, Flavius spoke with some haste. ‘He is committed to you.’
‘He is committed to himself.’
‘Do they not complement each other?’ That got a grunt. ‘He served you well previously and he would do so again if you will allow him.’
‘A period in the wilderness will do him no harm, it might even temper his behaviour, especially in the matter of his social life.’
Justin did not have to say where that objection came from but it did confirm to him that the Empress was putting her stamp on the way in which things were run.
‘He fears for you.’ The look that got obliged that he add something. ‘And he has said so.’
‘Let him fear for himself for I am not beyond behaving in a manner he would approve of.’
Flavius took that for what it was, an empty gesture; Justin would never threaten or harm his own blood. ‘Can you test him, give him a chance to show you what he can do to ease your burden, to take the weight off your shoulders?’
‘They are broad enough.’
By the tone of that response Flavius knew that to plead more would achieve nothing. He had done his best and adding more might risk his own standing with a man he had come close to loving.
‘I hope you will bless me as we set out on campaign.’
‘I will bless you, Flavius, even as I will miss you. Petrus does not know what he has in his advocate.’
It was often the case that when trouble began to brew the cause was hidden from the people destined to deal with it. Messengers had come from Constantinople warning of the need for extra preparedness so the frontier army knew that the Sassanids were stirring, not that they were entirely unaware. Lacauris, the magister militum per Orientem, had his own informants, mostly traders who criss-crossed the borders and no doubt gave similar service to the Kavadh or his satrap in Nisibis regarding the Romans.
Discussion of such matters did not filter down to the rank of tribunos; they were given orders to march and could do no more than obey. Once more the pillars that marked the boundary of the empire set the point beyond which Lacauris had no desire they should go, which was military folly to more than Flavius, granting as it did their potential enemy the time to choose when to act. It was the general opinion that, if they were not to cross into Sassanid territory, it would have been better to stay at Dara and invite an attack on ground they could easily protect.
The Roman army were encamped on an open plain severely lacking in the kind of features required for a defensive battle. There were few hills and no river on which they could secure one flank. Added to that they were facing the rising sun, which meant any attack at dawn would come with the sun at the Sassanid rear and be blinding to the Romans. If Flavius chafed at having no part in the higher decision-making, he was at least sure the cavalry he commanded would behave well for he had trained them rigorously.
As a military force, mounted soldiers had several inherent problems as well as certain advantages. In the latter case they could move from one point in a battle to another quickly, and if so desired visibly, thus disrupting enemy plans. In addition they could be sent in as shock troops to break up an attack. The problem lay in the truth that once released into the fight they became impossible to control and were usually lost as a continuing fighting force, so a wise general husbanded his horsemen until he knew they could be effective.
There was a certain stateliness to the way the Sassanid army deployed; it was done without haste, a great cloud of dust, as if they were rehearsing to fight rather than preparing to engage in one, this based on the certain knowledge that the Romans would not advance into their territory, for if they had determined to do so it would have happened already. As usual messages were exchanged, the Sassanids inviting their foes to quit the field and admit the battle lost before it had even begun, and in addition demanding promises that Constantinople pay high sums for their folly.
Lacauris might hold the office of magister militum but it had long been a tradition in imperial armies to split the command between two generals on what was seen as the sound reason of nullifying the kind of risk that had been inherent when emperors personally led their forces. One strong-headed leader could lose more than a battle, he could risk the empire, but in addition to that there was the knowledge that a too successful fighting man could become a threat.
The history of Rome was replete, from the days of Julius Caesar onwards, of men who had finished a successful campaign only to turn on those on whose behalf they had been fighting in a bid for personal power. To protect against both, control was split, which meant that any tactics employed had to be agreed upon as a wise course of action.
Thus Lacauris had to consult with his co-commander, Restines, as to how to draw up his forces and that took time. Eventually the army deployed with the mass of infantry in the centre, the archers behind them and the cavalry, Flavius included, holding the right wing. The left was allotted to the forces once led by Vitalian and at the front of that body stood the Gautoi foederati. If they had arrived in Mesopotamia and relished the winter they were less comfortable now in late spring rapidly turning to hot summer, and Vigilius, who commanded them, had arranged for great urns of water to be added to their baggage train so they could use it to cool themselves as well as quench what seemed a permanent thirst.
Perozes, the Sassanid general, had greater numbers but not in such strength as to easily overwhelm the Roman position, so he sent forward his centre to engage and fix the Roman infantry. If the battlefield was devoid of hills it was not without rising ground and Flavius was sat on a mound that had a view of the way matters were developing. It was his impression that the enemy were not pressing evenly along their whole front; the greater pressure seemed to be on the point at which the infantry adjoined the foederati.
It was testament to the ability of Vigilius that he sensed this and began to reinforce his own right until obviously commanded to cease the manoeuvre and return to his original formation, at which point Perozes released the weapon most feared by the Romans, his horse archers. These men, Armenian mercenaries, rode short and agile ponies and operated as a fast-moving mobile force.
They were no more disciplined than any other mounted troops but they did not have to be: their task was to so harass enemy formations by stinging attacks with flights of arrows that they began to lose their cohesion. That was what began to happen to the foederati, who were assailed not just from their front but on their flank, which left any man holding a protective shield in doubt as to from where the threat was coming.
Now the pressure on the right of centre began to tell for the Sassanids as some of their spearmen began to break into a gap that had appeared on the left of the Roman infantry, which led to an order that half the cavalry should move across the rear of the army to shore up that flank and if possible drive into the enemy infantry and break up their assault. Flavius being part of that deployment felt the surge that comes to any young man at the prospect of actual battle.
The problem was the movement was visible to the enemy and Perozes moved his own cavalry to mitigate the threat. By the time Flavius and his compatriots were able to deploy they found themselves facing their own kind, and to drive into the flank of the enemy infantry would expose their own left to a counter-assault, while to merely charge might drive back the enemy but it would deprive the Romans of one of their major assets.
That was when the Armenian horse archers reappeared, their quivers replenished and their ponies still eager to run. Facing them were the drawn-up and static Roman cavalry, which presented a wonderful target to disrupt, especially since many of their arrows wounded unbarded horses, not men who had shields and mail armour. Those struck naturally became hard to control, some bending to their knees while others reared up and began to run amok, with their riders more intent on maintaining their seat than their fighting positions
.
‘We should charge them,’ Flavius said.
This was addressed to no one in particular, for he could sense that to stand and just receive this assault was the worst of two evils and if it continued the Roman cavalry would lose all cohesion and be rendered ineffective. Lacauris and Restines must have realised the same and they moved their archers to back up the foederati who, furious at being so stung, were ordered to advance at an angle which would press in on the flank of the enemy infantry, the very tactic that Vigilius had been forced to abandon.
Suddenly the horse archers, quivers empty again, were gone and with much shouting and the occasional slaughter of a screeching horse the Roman cavalry got into some form of fighting order again, just in time to advance and block the mounted Sassanids who had begun to advance on the foederati flank.
Diomedes, the man in command of this portion of the mounted Roman forces, made no attempt to impose order and it was with some difficulty that Flavius avoided his own three-hundred-strong command from joining in the melee of a general charge. This was what he had trained for and his aim was simple: to keep his men in some kind of order so that when they made contact with the enemy they did so as a body and with maximum impact.
In this objective he was only partially successful but at least he fared better than his fellow tribunes, many of whom seemed to behave as though the wild yells they were uttering as they urged their men on would be enough to destroy their opponents. It was as well the Sassanid cavalry commander had as little control as the Romans, the result being that when the forces met it was usually one on one. Only the group led by Flavius had any great impact and he knew it to be marginal for they were far from the formation he had sought to create.
What he did have was a core of his troopers who had fully imbibed his ideas and they formed a phalanx of cavalry that drove into the enemy with great effect, each man able to protect at least one of his fellows and, should the lead horseman be held up – it was not always their commander – to drive forward and break the logjam. In the end it was too effective as Flavius found he had led his core right through the enemy, which left them in danger of being isolated.
It was necessary to wheel and fight his way back to rejoin his own side, now breaking off the fight on blown horses and with many wounded to retire over a field littered with dead or dying men and horses. The horns were blowing furiously from both sides of the battlefield as an action which had reached stalemate was discontinued, both sides later arranging a truce so that their casualties could be collected.
That night, around blazing fires, Flavius Belisarius listened to much boastful talk of the deeds his fellows had performed and what they would do on the morrow when the fight was resumed. If they were truthful in that they were disappointed – for Lacauris had decided that it was better to talk than fight and once they had commenced a parley, no doubt on instructions from Constantinople, it was decided that it was better to pay a bounty in talents of gold to Kavadh for peace rather than to engage in all-out war.
Flavius, along with the rest of the Roman army, retired once more to Dara to what was, in essence, boring garrison duty.
CHAPTER TEN
Flavius only found out why the border had flared up into that desultory campaign on his return to the capital: he also found Petrus once more acting as a close advisor to Justin in a relationship with as many strains as agreements. The star of Euphemia had waned and his had risen as Justin found the task of ruling the empire, especially the greedy and fractious bureaucracy, increasingly difficult; as Petrus pointed out, with his uncle being subjected to all sorts of obfuscation and downright intrigue in pursuit of personal gain, his pious wife was ill-equipped to deal with it and had been for some time.
‘But most of all he needed sound advice to respond to the offer from Kavadh, for it was clear some of his other advisors had been bribed by the Sassanids to favour it.’
‘An offer of what?’
‘Eternal peace.’
‘How many times has Rome been offered that, Petrus!’
‘Scoff if you will but it may be this time he meant it. Kavadh does not easily hold his throne, you know, and he came by it by deposing another. He had lots of enemies, some very powerful, as well as allies to keep loyal.’
‘Both of whom he pays off with the gold we gift him.’
‘It works.’
‘It’s a wound dressing not a solution.’
‘My, Flavius, have you become the wit?’
‘You know I’m right.’
‘What else would you have us do? Fight Kavadh to a bloody finish and take control of lands we cannot hold? What would we then face, the same troubles he has internally and on his eastern and southern borders? It is too big a meal to swallow.’
‘Alexander not only swallowed Persia, he crossed the Indus too.’
That got a wry look from Petrus, implying it was meaningless to look back to the glories of the ancient Macedonians, that Flavius should know the truth as well as anyone. The Eastern Roman Empire lacked the resources to inflict a complete defeat on the Sassanids of Persia, indeed it was a task that had been beyond the Roman Empire at the height of its powers. All of the fighting on the eastern border had been and was, at its root, defensive and that had really been the situation for centuries. Frustrating it might be for an ambitious soldier, but it was a fact.
‘What else did that devil offer, eternal peace being so common when his coffers are bare?’
‘His son and heir, Khosrau, as hostage. The boy is coming up ten and it was suggested he would benefit from a Roman education here in Constantinople.’
That made Flavius sit up; if true it was serious, not as had been the case from what he had heard on the border and indeed before he ever got there; the Sassanids made peace for money and only for a period until they needed more.
‘We refused.’
‘We?’
‘I advised my uncle, he finally agreed.’
‘But surely if Kavadh’s heir was in Constantinople?’
‘He would not break the peace?’ Petrus asked, but it was not really a question. ‘Part of the offer was that Justin should adopt Khosrau.’
‘That confuses me.’
‘It did my uncle till I pointed out the flaw.’
‘Which is?’
‘Justin has no children. To adopt Khosrau would technically make him the imperial heir as well as the Sassanid. It was that advice that got me back into my uncle’s confidence, given most others counselling him, and I include his wife, were too stupid or too compromised with gold to see where it might lead.’
‘No one in the empire would accept a Sassanid to succeed Justin.’
‘How naïve you are, Flavius. How many of the men around my uncle secretly harbour a desire to take the diadem when he, God forbid, dies? And if they cannot have the purple for themselves then the promotion of another and a chance to be the power behind the throne will serve. Do you really think to them it matters where the candidate comes from when we have had upstart Isaurians with Zeno and now an Illyrian whom they hold to be a barbarian.’
‘From within the boundaries of empire.’
‘Do you really think that would matter?’
Flavius got no chance to respond, Petrus was off tugging at his hair as he paced back and forth, cursing the ambition of men who he would not admit to being his rivals, just as he would not admit to his own aspirations. Justin was correct when he insisted his nephew was out for his own ends; the one unknown was how he would deal with it, for being childless and, barring a second marriage to a much younger woman, something he had never shown any signs of contemplating, he would remain so.
‘How is the health of the Empress Euphemia?’ Flavius enquired, mischievously, for if he could deduce what was needed to create a succession, namely her demise prior to a new consort, it was certain Petrus could too.
‘Robust, God be praised,’ came the fulsome reply.
Petrus was obviously on the horns of a dilemma with that lady, p
art of him wanting her and any influence she might still have out of the way, the other the fear of a sudden illness carrying her off and leaving the field clear for someone to replace her. Not that he would have eschewed precautions; there was probably some young and fertile woman already listed in the Sabbatius mind to take on the role. On second thoughts, she would be young and infertile.
‘When my view finally prevailed and the suggestion was formally rebuffed, Kavadh started to assemble his army once more to counter the insult.’
‘And got his bribe again,’ Flavius sighed. ‘It should not be so easy.’
‘Perhaps, one day it will not be so.’
Looking for further explanation Flavius was left in limbo; all he had was that look on the face of the imperial nephew that hinted at plans laid that would be long in coming to fruition, that quickly masked by another more calculating.
‘Come, Flavius, we must go down to the docks and some entertainment. Back from the wilds of Mesopotamia you will be in need of comfort of a kind I hardly believe can exist out there.’
‘Don’t be so sure, Petrus,’ came the reply as Flavius stood to comply. ‘If you have not known the sweetness of an Arab concubine do not dismiss it so.’
‘You savoured some?’
‘Of course.’
‘Flavius, you’re as big a rogue as I am.’
‘Petrus, no one is as big a rogue as you.’
‘Have you met this dancing girl of his yet, the one I am told he is so very enamoured of?’
Justin and Flavius were walking together on the sward that filled the area between the imperial palace and the walls abutting the Propontis, a place where the Emperor regularly took exercise. And he was striding out, still fit even in his eighth decade of life and the fourth of his reign, with an expert eye cast at those Excubitors exercising their military skills in the open spaces between the trees, swordplay and spear work accompanied by much shouting from instructors.
The way the question was posed underlined it was an awkward one. Flavius thought for a moment to say no, not sure if an admission of the truth would lead him into deep waters. Yet on reflection he could not easily lie to this man and he doubted his denial would be believed. Justin had any number of sources of information and he might well know of any visits both he and Petrus had made to the dockside fleshpots.
