by Jack Ludlow
‘Which made you suspicious?’
‘It wasn’t you asking an’ it should have been.’
‘So Pharas came to me to ask if that was what you were seeking. It immediately struck me that anyone asking was not doing so for you, because I would have known of it.’
‘I am at a loss to know how you worked out that messengers would be sent to Constantinople damning and accusing me.’
‘It is sometimes necessary to think like a thief to catch one, is it not? The same applies to conspiracies. Now we have come this far I doubt I need to explain.’
‘No,’ Flavius replied, looking at the two downcast prisoners. The food seemed to have done little for their spirit. ‘So you were on your way to blacken my name?’
One nodded, the other looked at his feet.
‘Who is it I have treated so badly that they see the need for me to die so that they can prosper?’ The tone, one of obvious regret, made the fellow who had been looking at his feet lift his head to stare with bloodshot eyes at Flavius Belisarius, making him repeat himself.
‘Who?’ When no reply came it was he who was almost pleading. ‘It would ease my soul to know.’
‘They refuse to say,’ Pharas barked, ‘but they will.’
‘Perhaps they don’t know.’
‘General—’
Flavius held up a hand to stop Procopius talking and it had the desired effect. His mind was elsewhere, going back in time, several years to the elevation of Justin to the diadem.
‘Conspiracy, yes?’
‘A damnable clever one.’
‘If it is that, then one fact that would be kept close is who these men were acting on behalf of. It shames me to say I once became involved in something of a similar nature, a deep plot and one that succeeded.’
The disbelief on the face of Procopius was not mirrored by that from Pharas. ‘You can fool an enemy on a battlefield, General, can’t see no reason why you would not off one.’
‘The plot was not mine but that of Justinian.’
Procopius obviously felt free to comment on that. ‘At least that makes sense.’
Flavius stood up and went to the nearest prisoner, gently lifting the head of the man who did not want to look him in the eye. ‘Do you know who would have benefited from this intrigue?’
The head shook slowly and the question was put to his companion, the result the same.
‘You do not have to believe them,’ Pharas insisted.
‘If they said a name I would doubt it to be the true one.’ He produced a wry smile. ‘I have been well trained, you see.’
‘This plot of Justinian’s?’ Procopius asked.
‘Another time, perhaps,’ came the reply, as he went back to the first man to whom he had spoken. ‘Was it just you two?’
No answer, not even a head shake, and that brought from Flavius a sigh. The second fellow was now looking at him, and in his eyes as far as Flavius was concerned lay an honest answer. He could not, in his weakened state, consider the notion had been arrived at by sheer deduction.
‘Procopius, we need a list of vessels that have sailed for Constantinople in the last few days.’ He was looking at the two victims again, one after the other and their bodily reactions were telling, not least their heads being dropped once more to avoid eye contact. ‘Also, initiate a poll of middle-ranking officers, tribunes, and where they are, discreetly. Find out who is not where he is supposed to be. These two are of that rank, what’s left of their clothing.’
‘You think there were more?’ Flavius nodded at the question, so Procopius added, ‘Because it’s what you would do?’
The smile now had no warmth in it at all. It was more that of a man cursing some error. ‘Let us just say it is what my tutor in scheming would do.’
Pharas was quick to interject. ‘We could rack them some more.’
‘Why, when they have told you all they know?’
‘Have they?’
‘By their silence they have.’
‘And what shall we do with them?’
The look was harder now. ‘Given they care nothing for their lives you may as well kill them. You would expect me, knowing me as you do, to let them go. But that will only see them murdered by others for their own security.’
Now the bloodshot eyes were pleading and Flavius knew why. They might not know the name of the ultimate beneficiary of their mission but someone of lesser standing, maybe more than one, had suborned them to act for that person and under torture they had not revealed their names. Released, such men would suspect they had talked and might give evidence against them, the refusal to do so condemned them now. The pair were dead as soon as they were apprehended trying to board ship.
‘Justinian will not believe them, so I have nothing to fear.’
‘That may not be true.’
‘In as much as he trusts anyone, Procopius, he reposes that in me.’
‘I was not thinking of the Emperor,’ Procopius said in a soft and somewhat sad tone. ‘But Theodora.’
‘She has influence, but how much? Enough to turn him against the person who aided him to the purple?’
‘I would speak with you alone, General.’
About to say it was not necessary Flavius saw the look in the eyes of Procopius and it was a wounded one, almost like a man on the verge of tears. So he nodded, which had Pharas ask what he was to do with the prisoners.
Flavius came close to reply, his voice a low hiss and with no attempt to stifle his anger. ‘I want their heads on pikes. Set them up outside the baths reserved for tribunes and above. Let the bastards who conspired know that if I find them that will be their fate too.’
The clanking of chains accompanied the departure of the Heruls and the prisoners, with Flavius staring at his secretary, who looked now like someone who had wished he had not spoken. But he had no choice and the look he was getting made that obvious.
‘This obviously has something to do with the Empress?’ A nod. ‘So what is it?’
‘As you know, General, your wife writes to the Lady Theodora as often it seems to me as you send a despatch to Justinian.’
‘They are the oldest of friends, are they not, and have much that unites them.’
‘I fear that it is you that does that.’
‘Me?’ Given Procopius did not immediately respond made Flavius deeply curious until the coin dropped. ‘I am mentioned in these letters, a fact I find hardly surprising.’
‘Would it surprise you to know that you are the main subject?’
‘In what way?’
‘Your lady wife writes to Theodora to report on you.’
‘How do you know?’ Flavius demanded, but it was close to futile: there was only one answer. ‘You have read them!’
‘I did so in order to protect you.’
‘Against what!’
‘The malice of Theodora. She does not trust you, General, even if Justinian does. If anything, she is jealous of your close association.’ The ‘why would that be?’ was in the look he was getting, so Procopius added, ‘The Empress is jealous of you.’
Flavius was thinking about the way he had been embraced before his wedding and how cool she had become afterwards and that had him asking a question he would have dearly liked to have left fallow.
‘These letters Antonina writes.’
‘Report every word you say regarding the imperial couple, not least the insults.’
About to protest he never insulted them, Flavius had to bite his tongue. In a sense that was the truth, but he did complain about things and make sometimes silly jokes at their expense, especially Justinian and his foibles, when in bed with Antonina, who seemed to often raise the subject and who was much amused by his sallies.
It was not hard to imagine how these would be perceived in a written account. If Justinian could be sensitive then that applied tenfold to his wife, who was ever on the outlook for a slight.
‘Every letter.’
Flavius knew he should shout at the ma
n, tell him he had no right to open private letters and that he was misreading that which he had sneakily perused, no doubt fuelled by his own jealousies. Procopius was talking of the woman to whom he was married, a person who deserved his loyalty. Yet …!
‘Explain everything, leave nothing out.’
Now Procopius was definitely close to tears. The deep nod was as much seeking to disguise his discomfort as to acknowledge the truth of what he was saying, for he must know that part of the mental world his employer had built for himself he had just forced him to collapse. Yet even he could not see matters as Flavius could. Procopius had just told him he was married to a spy and that it might have been the intention that she fulfil that role from the day they had met.
If it had felt bad before he knew, it was much worse after. Right now he was going to have to go and spend time with Antonina and he had no idea how he was going to cope.
‘I made copies of some of the letters.’
‘Bring them to me in the morning.’
The look of relief on the face of Procopius was obvious and it made Flavius want to slap him. He was clearly thinking that in his long tussle with Antonina he had emerged the winner. It was a stony face that passed the secretary and there was no bidding of goodnight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Flavius did not go directly to the apartments he shared with Antonina, he went to walk the battlements of the citadel that overlooked the packed harbour of Carthage. This was normally a view that brought a certain amount of contentment, it being busy by day and the place where the locals, and he assumed his soldiers, took their ease by night, just as they and he had done in the dockside taverns of Constantinople.
There were no thoughts of that nature now; his mind was in turmoil and that allowed his imagination to go in so many directions it was hard to control. It seemed he was reprising every conversation he had ever had with his wife from the day they met, and not just talk; he was thrown back to the dinners arranged by Theodora. Had they been deliberately thrown together, had their whole relationship been engineered by the woman Antonina was writing to about him?
From time to time he castigated himself as an ingrate; he had only the word of Procopius that such reflections were required but his secretary had not lacked confidence in his assertions and had mentioned the copies he had made. Then he was calling upon himself to wait! How could he know they were genuine? Antonina was always hinting that Procopius carried a torch for him, so was this whole thing being got up by jealousy?
It was dark now, the stars winking to match the oil lamps that illuminated the occupied ships’ cabins as well as the signs and doorways of the watering holes that lined the quays. How he longed to go there, to drink wine and think, maybe even to talk of things not to do with his responsibilities as a proconsul or his marriage, but that was clearly impossible.
As soon as he moved he would be surrounded by a section of armed soldiers from his comitatus. Everywhere he went outside these walls he was guarded, on the very good grounds that it was unsafe not to be in a city where no amount of peaceful intention would satisfy everyone. The thought could not be avoided: perhaps the greater threat to his being was within. Aware that he could not walk the parapet forever, that Antonina would be waiting to dine, he reluctantly made his way to their public apartments.
The noise alerted him to the presence of others and at first he felt a flash of anger that his wife arranged entertainments without ever bothering to consult him. How many times had he had to go back to the place where he oversaw the running of the province because his own audience chamber was full of her guests and he needed peace to work?
That anger abated; tonight what was happening would suit him for he dreaded a private conversation. Flavius held himself to be no good at subterfuge and in moments of self-regard, quickly beaten down as showing too much conceit, he was proud of his honesty. If he had to lie sometimes he took no pleasure in it and he was a soldier, occasionally finding it necessary to deceive his inferior commanders in order to ensure he beat his enemies. Tonight he would require the skills of Justinian to avoid an indulgence in recrimination.
‘Husband, wherever have you been?’ Antonina cried as he entered. ‘I have sent the food back to the kitchens three times.’
Did his eyes give him away? Was his look a glare not a smile? It was telling that he could not be sure that the muscles of his face conformed to the needs of his mind but she had turned away from questioning him to a humorous berating of her guests for their inability to take the burden of running North Africa off her poor husband’s shoulders.
‘Do not blame us, Lady, Belisarius takes too much to himself and does not permit us to ease his encumbrances.’
The words with which he replied seemed to be coming from within another head. It was Valerianus who had spoken and when thinking on the acts of those two tortured tribunes his name had arisen as a possible instigator.
‘In the time it takes me to explain what needs to be done it can be completed.’
‘He does not trust us, Lady Antonina.’
Said in jest, those words could not but jar and Flavius had to bite his tongue to avoid an angry response as well as struggle to say something appropriate. ‘What a poor general I am, keeping my troops from the trough.’
The faces swam before him, familiar all of them, officers of his comitatus, high-ranking soldiers and the bureaucrats needed to keep an army in the field and now to carry out the mundane work of administration. They looked like strangers, given he was seeking a culprit.
‘I sense by that expression it is you that needs food, Flavius,’ Antonina said, this before once more turning to her guests. ‘I have never met his like when it comes to hunger, indifferent one moment, ravenous the next. Come sit.’
Flavius did as he was bid while she ordered that the food be returned. Her hand reached out to caress the back of his and he was aware of not responding as he normally did, though gratefully Antonina did not seem to notice, she being too busy playing the hostess. This he knew was her element just as soldiering was his. Could it be that her actions, always assuming they were true, were more ingenuous than driven by wickedness?
The food helped and so did the hubbub of talk, allowing Flavius to hide behind consumption and occasional agreement with some point made, or a smile at a sally from one of her guests good enough to make others, well supplied with wine, laugh. As a place to hide, such a gathering was perfect and it had the added attraction of distraction from depressing cogitations. By the time the evening ended and those invited were taking their leave, Flavius could feel he had carried off a difficult feat reasonably well.
He had not fooled his wife who waited until the servants had cleared the main room and they were on their way to their private rooms and their bedchamber before she asked him what was amiss, a question that had the oil lamp he was carrying quiver.
‘Wrong? There is nothing wrong.’ He managed a false chuckle. ‘Except there is too much to do and no hours in the day to complete it.’
She took his arm and used it to stop him, which spun Flavius round to look her in the eye. ‘Flavius, do not seek to play with me.’
All he could do was repeat the word. ‘Play?’
Antonina slowly shook her head in the way a woman does when what she is being presented with makes no sense. ‘Something is troubling you and if our other guests did not notice, though I cannot see how they failed to, I certainly did. It was as if you were elsewhere tonight.’
‘The burdens—’
‘Please, Flavius,’ she snapped, albeit gently. ‘Allow that I know you too well for that old saw.’
‘I have extra concerns that weigh upon me.’
Her pressure on his arm was enough to move them on, and fortunately it broke eye contact. ‘And they are?’
‘Do you really want to share my worries?’
‘I cannot see they can be so different from those I have shared with you before?’
Antonina said this in a confident tone and
indeed it was true. How many times had he discussed matters that pressed on his mind, propped up on pillows of their bed while she prepared and applied her treatments? Then there were the post-coital intimacies, which strayed often into a discussion of personalities. How many times had his words and digs at Justinian been transcribed afterwards in letters to Theodora? It was as well Antonina was not looking at him as that thought occurred for his face, crumpled, would have given him away.
‘So are you going to tell me?’ she asked as her maid came forward to help her undress.
Was it the light from the oil lamps casting shadows or was he looking at her for the first time? She was still beautiful, but right now he could see lines that had not been visible to him before, the crow’s feet around the eyes, the slight slacking of the jawline, a depth of crease where her cheeks met her nose and mouth.
‘Leave us!’ he barked, startling a maid to whom he was ever considerate.
The look he got from his wife as the girl fled was not allowed to last more than a blink. Flavius had hold of her shoulders and was soon ripping at what garments were left, before he pushed her so the knees hit the edge of the bed, knocking her back. Then he was on top of her, scrabbling at his own clothing before roughly entering her.
If the coarse act of lovemaking that followed – could it be called that being so fuelled by fury – was some satisfaction to him, the gurgling laugh from beneath him was a clear indication of the pleasure his wife was taking in this unusual behaviour. Sated he rolled away, only to hear her whisper.
‘My Flavius, I enjoyed that.’
The fine cloth screen that covered the open embrasures might keep out flying insects but it did let in a bit of breeze and a modicum of light, enough to show the outline of Antonina’s face. It was so easy to allow sadness to overwhelm him at such a time and in such a place, where the only distractions to disturb his thinking seemed to be the distant sounds of guards being changed.
No matter how much he thought on the problem, no matter how many conversations he imagined having with Antonina, no solution presented itself to what was an intractable problem. Accuse her and she would deny it, he was sure. Present her with evidence and that might turn a person meeting the demands of a friend – he had to believe Theodora had applied pressure – into an antagonist and he had enough enemies right now to think it unwise to add another.
