Flame of the West

by David Pilling

  He twisted in the saddle and pointed south, towards the ancient highway beyond Rimini. “They cannot be more than a day’s march away. Good hunting.”

  John didn’t move. He had six lancers at his back, all of them fully armed, their faces hidden under mail coifs. Only their eyes peered out of the holes under their corrugated helmets, narrowed and hostile.

  “Well, commander,” said Hildiger after a pause, “you heard me. Order your men to move out.”

  Silence flowed a little longer, and then John raised his lance. The men on the walls immediately notched arrows to their bows.

  “I like Rimini,” said John, “the sea air does me good. I think I shall stay. You, however, must leave. Inform Belisarius that I will hold the city against the Goths.”

  He had paled a little, and his voice shook, but he was resolute. I had thought him vain and arrogant, but never suspected he might be capable of mutiny.

  Nor had Hildiger. The veteran officer went white, and seemed to swell with rage. “My God, what’s this?” he yelled, “you refuse a direct order?”

  “I do,” John replied, more calmly this time, “Rimini is mine. I took it, with the blood and sweat of my men. It is only right I should defend it.”

  Hildiger gaped at him. “Yours? What do you think you are, some petty barbarian warlord? Rimini is an imperial city, not an independent fiefdom, and you are an officer in the service of Rome!”

  “Rome, yes, but not General Belisarius. I follow a different chief.”

  Hildiger reached for his sword. I saw the archers draw back their bowstrings, ready to shoot him down.

  “No, sir,” I cried, leaning over to lay my hand on his sword-arm, “draw, and his men will kill you, I am sure of it.”

  The other man ground his teeth, but let his hand fall way. “You shall answer for this,” he snarled at John, “I shall see you stand before a military tribunal. As for those archers, every one of them shall hang for daring to threaten an officer.”

  John looked complacent now, secure in the knowledge we were powerless to challenge him. “Who knows?” he said with a smile, “perhaps you shall be the ones to stand trial. The game has just begun, my friends. Now, I must beg you to depart, before my patience runs dry.”

  Hildiger was the sort of man who preferred to die rather than show his back, but there was no sense in waiting to be murdered. We had just a small group of lancers for an escort, having left most of our men camped outside the city, so as not to alarm the citizens.

  “He has two thousand men inside the citadel,” growled Hildiger as we turned and slowly rode away, “we have just fifteen hundred, and no siege equipment.”

  “With respect, sir,” I replied, “we dare not try and prise him out by force. The Goths will be here soon. How Vitiges would laugh if he witnessed Romans fighting Romans!”

  We cantered over the huge, five-arched stone bridge spanning the Marecchia River. Hildiger paused when we were halfway across and gestured at the inscription sculpted on the inner section of the parapet.

  “The Tiberius Bridge,” he said, “work started on its construction during the reign of Augustus, and was completed under his successor. The Empire was united then, supremely powerful, and capable of great works. Now look at us. A hotchpotch of degenerates and mercenaries, squabbling over the crumbs of Italy.”

  It was unlike Hildiger to be so philosophical, but something about John’s unexpected betrayal had shaken him.

  He turned to look back at the rising walls of the fortress, and the imperial flag fluttering over the gatehouse.

  “Damn him,” he muttered, “what is he up to? I can see no reason for this treachery. It will mean the end of his career. Maybe his life.”

  “He said he serves a different chief,” I reminded him, “I think I can guess who he meant. Narses.”

  Hildiger mulled this over. “It makes sense,” he said, “I seem to recall John and Narses were friends in Constantinople, though a man like Narses has no real friends, only allies. Perhaps they are hatching some conspiracy together.”

  “To discredit Belisarius,” I suggested, “or at any rate, hamper his conquest of Italy. The Emperor has always envied and distrusted Belisarius, and Narses is the Emperor’s creature.”

  Hildiger urged his horse on, and I followed him to the opposite bank. He said nothing more until we passed through the gates of the city. John, I noticed, had pulled most of his soldiers back to the fortress, leaving the city walls lightly defended.

  “I think I can trust you, Coel,” he said as we jogged back towards camp, “so I shall speak treason in your hearing. Justinian is an idiot. Belisarius is the greatest living Roman general, the greatest since Aetius, and unshakeably loyal. If he had been properly supported, with money and men and provisions, Italy would already be under our heel. We might be contemplating the invasion of Germania by now, or the recovery of Gaul. Instead Justinian chooses to undermine him, and sends rats to chew at the lion’s mane.”

  Your homeland might yet be saved.

  Belisarius’ words sounded even more hollow now. The re-conquest of Italy was far from complete, and already the shadows of treachery and civil war loomed over the Roman cause.

  10.

  Having failed to persuade John the Sanguinary to give up Rimini, we returned to Rome via the mountain passes, avoiding the Gothic host as it streamed up the Via Flaminia.

  As Hildiger predicted, Vitiges could not afford to leave Rimini in Roman hands, and laid siege to the city. The King of the Goths took personal command of the siege, perhaps to restore his tarnished military reputation in the eyes of his countrymen. He sent half of his army on to Ravenna, where his energetic Queen, Matasuntha, was refortifying the city walls.

  Belisarius had not sat idle at Rome. Unaware of the presence of Narses in Italy, he marched north on what he hoped would be a final push, to break the back of Gothic resistance.

  For once, he persuaded his wife to remain behind out of danger, and left her in Rome, where she continued her flagrant affair with Theodosius. Somehow Belisarius remained ignorant of her betrayal, or pretended to, though it swiftly became the scandal of the age.

  At first all went well for him. Awed by the terror of his name, the cities of Tudertia and Clusium surrendered as soon as his banners appeared outside their gates. The whole of the central Italian mainland was now in his grasp, and the Goths were in full retreat, abandoning their outposts and pulling back north, to try and regroup in the face of Belisarius’ remorseless advance.

  We found Belisarius at Clusium, where he had halted to plan the next stage of the campaign. He made the basilica in the centre of the city his headquarters, and was busy poring over maps when we arrived, weary and soiled from the road.

  “Coel,” he snapped, frowning when he saw me, “what are you doing here? Your orders were to stay in Rimini and hold it against Vitiges.”

  “Christ’s death,” he exclaimed before I could speak, throwing down the roll of parchment he had been studying, “has the city fallen?”

  “No, sir,” I replied, saluting, “Rimini is still in our hands. John refused to give it up.”

  “We tried to remind him of his duty, sir,” put in Hildiger, “and he threatened to shoot us down. The majority of his troops were inside the fortress. We had no means of forcing him to relinquish it.”

  I thought Belisarius would explode with anger, but instead a great weariness came over him. He sighed, and blew out his sallow cheeks, and pinched the bridge of his nose. This was not the first time he had been failed by a subordinate, but outright refusal to obey orders was something new.

  “Is it mutiny, then?” he asked quietly, “has John betrayed Rome, and offered his sword to Vitiges?”

  “No, sir,” replied Hildiger, “at least, I don’t think so. He claims to still serve the Empire, but not you.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Hildiger looked meaningfully at me. He didn’t care to tell the full story, and so loaded the responsibility (and
the risk) onto my shoulders.

  I cleared my throat, which was dry as dust from long hours of riding without pause.

  “Sir, Narses has arrived in Italy with seven thousand men. He landed at Ancona and made camp outside the city. I – we – suspect that he and John the Sanguinary are in league together.”

  Belisarius was no stranger to court intrigues and sudden vicissitudes of fortune, but this took him aback. His long, pale features turned an alarming shade of grey, and for a moment he swayed on his feet, like a tree buffeted by storms.

  Procopius hastened forward with a chair. Like a man in a dream, Belisarius slowly lowered himself into it. Outside, the bells of the smaller churches and basilicas inside the city started to toll, summoning the faithful to prayer.

  “Betrayed,” he muttered, clawing weakly at a map of central Italy, “the Emperor has betrayed me. In the very moment of victory, when I have the Goths on the run, he sends the eunuch to slide a knife into my back.”

  He placed his elbow on the table and rested his forehead in the palm of his hand. His jaw clenched. For a moment I thought he might start weeping. An embarrassed silence fell inside the nave of the basilica. The assembled officers and subalterns studiously avoided each other’s eyes.

  “John holds Rimini,” Belisarius said slowly, staring at the table, “by now, the Goths will have laid siege. He is shut up there, and cannot get out. So we may forget him for the present. Narses is at Ancona, or was. You know nothing of his plans?”

  “No, sir,” I replied, “I briefly spoke with him, but he said nothing of importance.”

  Hildiger might have corrected me, but chose to remain silent. Belisarius looked like a man on the verge of breaking. Being informed that his Emperor – the Emperor he had served so loyally and successfully, for so many years, constantly fighting and winning against the odds – had indeed lost faith in him, and sent Narses to poison his glory, might have tipped him over the edge.

  Belisarius gathered himself. “So Narses has come to challenge me, has he?” he cried, “to frustrate my plans and feed the suspicions of the Emperor. Well, I shall go to meet him, and make him welcome in Italy. With a helmet on my head, a sword in my hand, and fifteen thousand men at my back!”

  He no longer sounded tired, and his voice rose to a shout.

  “Italy has witnessed battles between Roman armies before, and shall do so again, if Justinian’s favourite dares to stand against me. Let Narses throw in his lot with Vitiges. Let my enemies join against me. I shall chastise them all!”

  Seized with new energy, Belisarius ordered his army to break camp and marched that same day. I had never seen him driven by such anger before. He pushed his troops mercilessly, force-marching them north-east, right across the plains of central Italy. Some fifty miles lay between us and Ancona, and Belisarius was determined to snare the eunuch before he could slip away.

  The Goths, meanwhile, were left to reduce Rimini at their leisure, and make Ravenna virtually impregnable. I thought it insane that the Romans should allow their enemy such a respite, but it was ever thus: the history of the Roman Empire, and the Republic before it, is littered with destructive civil wars. Julius Caesar himself had to defeat Pompey and other rivals before he made himself dictator of Rome.

  Belisarius sent a troop of Huns ahead to look for Narses and his army. They returned with news that Narses had raised his camp at Ancona, and marched south along the coast to the town of Fermo.

  “You will have to run faster, little rabbit,” Belisarius remarked grimly, “if you mean to elude me. Fermo, is it? Does his fleet await him there?”

  No, came the reply, there were no ships in the harbour. Belisarius looked puzzled, but immediately despatched orders for the army to turn east, straight towards Fermo.

  Fifteen thousand horse and foot hurried across the countryside, bypassing numerous towns and villages and small farms. Most of the occupants fled in terror at the sight of our banners, but we left their settlements untouched. The army was well-supplied with provisions, and Belisarius kept driving us on at a furious pace.

  Fermo is a pretty little town on a hill overlooking the Adriatic coast. It lay on the junction of roads leading to several Roman towns, making it an important strategic location, and had once been the permanent home of the Fourth Legion.

  The legion no longer existed, but Fermo was still important, and commanded a spectacular view of the sea and the surrounding countryside. Narses had chosen his new headquarters well, and spotted our advance from several miles off.

  He sent a party of officers to greet us on the western road. They were all smiles and good fellowship, and greeted Belisarius like a conquering hero, smothering him with compliments on his recent victories.

  Belisarius was having none of it. “Save your flattery,” he barked, “and tell me this. Does your master hold Fermo against me?”

  Their leader looked shocked. “Against you, general? Why would you say that? He holds the town for you, and for Rome.”

  “Then he will have no objection to opening the gates, and allowing my troops into the town.”

  “None, sir. He is waiting to greet you now, and has set aside food and accommodation for your men after their long march.”

  Belisarius remained suspicious, and marched on Fermo in full military array, as though he meant to storm the place.

  However, the gates stood open, and the soldiers on the battlements cheered and blew trumpets in celebration of our arrival.

  “If there is treachery here, it is well-hidden,” said Procopius, who had managed to snatch a moment away from the general, “watch your back, Coel, and keep that old sword close by your side.”

  “I always do,” I replied.

  Our vanguard rode through the streets, with Belisarius at the head, surrounded by his Veterans. He wore his golden parade armour, making him an easy target for any archers lurking on the rooftops, but there were no assassins in Fermo.

  Narses was too subtle for that. He received Belisarius at the governor’s mansion, and invited him and his chief officers – and me – to dinner. Belisarius brusquely refused and demanded an immediate council of war instead.

  “Of course, general,” said Narses with one of his bland smiles, “whatever you wish. You are in command, after all.”

  I expected the council to be a difficult affair, with Narses blocking the designs of Belisarius at every turn, but all went smoothly. Every officer present agreed on the necessity of relieving Rimini, and deplored the folly of John the Sanguinary in refusing to give it up.

  Narses attempted to defend the actions of his friend, against those who called for his arrest and trial. “John is young and rash,” he said, “and eager to prove his worth. Too eager, perhaps. He was only recently entrusted with a major command, but he has great ability. We should not be too harsh on him.”

  “Harsh?” shouted Hildiger, “the little turd refused a direct order, and threatened to shoot me into the bargain.”

  He appealed to Belisarius, sitting at the head of the table. “Sir, are we to tolerate this sort of behaviour from mere subalterns? In the days of Trajan, he would have been flogged to death before the assembled legions. How we have fallen away in these latter days. Leniency breeds insubordination!”

  Some cried approval of this, including myself, but Belisarius looked wary. He was already out of favour with the Emperor, and might fall further from grace if he punished John as the man deserved. On the other hand, if he let him off, he risked losing the respect of loyal officers like Hildiger.

  He dealt with the issue by avoiding it. “Enough of this wrangling,” he said firmly, “our priority is the relief of Rimini. Our combined forces will march on the city and engage Vitiges without delay. I will deal with John the Sanguinary once the Goths are defeated.”

  “I am not a military man,” piped Narses, folding his hands on his little paunch, “but I can count. We have twenty-two thousand men. Even taking their recent losses into account, the Goths still outnumber us over two
to one. It seems folly to engage them in the open.”

  Belisarius regarded him with undisguised loathing. “You think I mean to charge the enemy head-on, like a bull at a gate? I daresay you would derive much amusement from that – at seeing my head mounted on a Gothic spear, eh?”

  Narses looked affronted. “Not at all. I pray for nothing but your continued success. We fight in the same cause, Flavius.”

  The tension between the two was almost palpable. Belisarius could have broken the twisted little man’s neck with ease, but Narses showed no sign of fear. He was in total control, reclining in his specially raised chair and toying with the rings sparkling on his plump fingers.

  Every other officer present remained silent, waiting for the game of wills to play itself out.

  “Have you any suggestions to make?” asked Belisarius. His words echoed in the high, vaulted roof of the council chamber, where long-dead Roman governors had once feasted until they were sick.

  Narses spread his hands. “Not really. Though it strikes me that Vitiges, for all his undoubted valour, is easily fooled. He succumbed to your every stratagem during the siege of Rome.”

  “Perhaps,” he mused, lifting his eyes to the ceiling, “he can be fooled again.”

  Belisarius eyed him narrowly before responding. “I had something of the sort in mind. Where is the fleet that carried you to Italy?”

  “Still docked at Ancona. It was a rough voyage, and the admiral needed time to repair and refit his ships.”

  “Send a message to Ancona and order the fleet to sail here immediately. We will split the army in three. One shall embark aboard the ships under the command of Hildiger, and sail back up the coast. I shall lead the main body through the Appenines towards Rimini.”

  He turned and pointed his long arm directly at me. “Coel shall lead the third detachment. These men will march along the Flaminian Way at night, carrying heaps of timber. When you arrive within sight of the Gothic camp, I want you to light fires, as many as possible. The fires will deceive Vitiges into thinking a great army is advancing on him from the south.”