EMPIRE OF SHADES

by Gordon Doherty

  Chapter 2

  The next day, the legion marched through the wintry valleys. They traversed the high pass then came to a forked track – the rightmost tine leading south towards the lowlands of Macedonia and the coastal city of Thessalonica, the left tine drawing north, towards Thracia’s flatlands. Here, Pavo drew Sura aside. Mounted on mares and swaddled in thick woollen cloaks, focale scarves and padded felt caps, they watched as the Claudia legion filed past.

  ‘We will follow on soon,’ Pavo called to them.

  ‘Claim a good spot for our tents in the Thessalonica camp,’ Sura added.

  Libo, leading the legion in their stead, called back: ‘Will do, after I’ve been to the brothel. It’s been a fair few months, after all.’

  ‘You took out most of your frustrations on your pillow,’ Opis contested.

  Laughter drowned out Libo’s angered retort, and the cohorts faded into the wintry white of the southern road. Alone, Pavo and Sura headed north. The driving blizzard seemed stronger than the previous day and even Pavo was soon doubting the wisdom of his decision.

  ‘The well-stocked taverns and hot baths at Thessalonica – bit too warm and comfortable for your tastes?’ Sura yelled over the screaming winds.

  ‘We’ll get there soon enough,’ Pavo chuckled, teeth chattering, ‘once we’ve done this.’ He weighed the small purse of folles in his rapidly-numbing hand once again. It was enough to fortify his convictions.

  They rode on through fetlock-deep snow for the rest of the day, making a crude camp in a cave by a frozen tarn. They defrosted bread over a welcome fire, ate it with fatty, salted mutton and washed it down with fire-warmed water and wine. The following day they awoke to the sound of jagged shouts and foreign marching songs. Both lay on their bellies within the cave, watching as Reiks’ Ortwin and his six thousand strong army thundered past nearby, heading southwards into the mountains.

  ‘If we had delayed for just another day…’ Sura said.

  Pavo kept his eyes on them as he pulled on his boots and cloak hurriedly. ‘But we didn’t. And while Ortwin’s lot are roving around the mountains, our way north is clear. Come on.’

  They rode until late afternoon, when they saw the ghostly outline of the city that had haunted each of their dreams since the summer. Adrianople, grey and ethereal in the storm, dead centre of a vast stretch of flatland at the confluence of the Tonsus and Hebrus rivers. The snow-cloaked city’s immense limestone walls and towers bore thin cracks and dark streaks – telltale signs of the Goths’ attempt to take the walls with their crude siege equipment after the disastrous battle. Just a morning’s march north of here lay that field of bones, but despite it all, the city itself had stood strong as one of the few islands of Roman control.

  They crossed the frozen River Hebrus, cantered up to the city’s colossal eastern gate and called to the blue-faced sentries high up there. ‘Men at the gates.’

  ‘Stand back!’ one blue-faced and wool-swaddled sentry snarled over the high parapet, startled.

  Pavo and Sura looked at one another, then did as they were bid.

  The small hatch gates opened and a pack of ten legionaries spilled out, switching their spears this way and that into the snowstorm, faces grim with ire and fear. ‘In,’ their stumpy-toothed leader ordered after a while, eyes still combing the white countryside behind the pair. As they moved in through the gatehouse and out of the buffeting snow, the man explained: ‘Can’t be too careful. After the disaster in the summer, a group of seven imperial soldiers turned up at the gates, pleading to be let in. Candidati, no less.’

  Pavo cocked his head in surprise. He was sure most of Valens’ personal bodyguards had fallen in the battle.

  ‘They came inside then set upon our gate garrison. Two of them tried to hold the gates open and a pack of Goths with whom they had made a deal sprang from the riverbanks and tried to rush in.’ The stumpy-toothed soldier grinned. ‘But we got the gates closed in time… and we dealt with the treacherous candidati.’

  Pavo was about to ask how, when he saw the man’s gaze drift to the broad street just beyond the shelter of the gatehouse. Lining the way were seven stakes topped with grinning, snow-coated skulls.

  Rufina dragged the comb through little Lupia’s knotted hair while the girl played with a set of polished stones. She hummed a gentle tune as the fire crackled, filling their small home with warmth while the snow outside fell silently. They had both enjoyed a hearty meal of bread and whitefish, but had paid for it with the last of their coins. It had been a cruel winter that showed no signs of abating.

  ‘When papa comes home,’ Lupia said, lifting a stone on top of the pile to complete a sparkling pyramid, ‘I will show him this. He will be very impressed. It is surely bigger than any of the walls he builds when he is away.’

  When papa comes home, Rufina smiled sadly, leaning forward to kiss her daughter’s head. Nothing had changed for the little girl, she realised. Life had always been like this for her. Her legionary father, Rufina’s husband, would be at home for a month of leave, then absent for the rest of the year. He hadn’t been back since the summer. But this time it was different. This time Rufina knew he wasn’t coming back. Nobody had confirmed Zosimus’ fate, but she knew well that so many had fallen in the battle a few hours north of the city. In the chaos that had reigned ever since, the bodies of the fallen had never been tended to and still they lay out there. With no funeral purse she could neither grieve nor afford to feed her girl for much longer.

  ‘When he comes back,’ Lupia mused, ‘I will take him to the river and I will catch him a fish like the one we ate tonight.’

  Rufina’s heart almost split, her girl’s words conjuring the image of the day Zosimus – always most at ease in the company of men – took Lupia to the banks of the Hebrus and showed her how to rig up a simple rod. Little fishing had occurred that day, much chasing and play taking place instead. Rufina put the comb down and wrapped her arms around Lupia, drawing her close. It was the only way she could muffle the sob that escaped her lips.

  ‘Mother, what’s wrong?’ Lupia said.

  ‘Lupia, papa is… papa is…’ she choked.

  Just then, a familiar sound from outside saw Lupia’s neck lengthening, eyes growing wide with hope, fixed on the door.

  Crunch-crunch.

  Rufina’s blood slowed. Military boots. At once, her mind’s eye conjured the image of her hulking husband, the giant with the gentlest of hearts. She imagined his broken nose bending as he smiled, his thick stubble brushing her cheek as he took her into an embrace.

  A hand rapped on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ she said, gulping back her emotions, knowing it could not be who she wanted it to be.

  The door creaked open. There stood a legionary, uplit by the eerie, pale light reflected from the snow, the grey blizzard swirling around him. ‘Numerius Vitellius Pavo,’ the legionary said. ‘May I enter?’

  Rufina beckoned him inside. He came in, shutting out the storm, and sat by the fire, pulling off his snow-coated woollen cap and ruffling his short, black hair.

  Rufina eyed him: dark, hawk-like and lean; young but with age in his eyes – the extra years soldiers seemed to carry. ‘Pavo… you were one of his comrades, weren’t you?’ she realised.

  Pavo met her eye and gave a half-nod. ‘One of his closest.’

  Lupia’s neck lengthened again, and she stared at Pavo in the brazen way only children can. ‘You are friends with papa and Uncle Quara… er, Quadar… Quadratus?’

  Pavo’s lips played with a smile. ‘They meant everything to me.’

  Rufina wondered if her daughter had picked up on Pavo’s use of the past tense, and held her a little more tenderly in case she had. The young soldier seemed to realise that the girl didn’t know. He let a considered silence pass, then took Lupia’s hand. ‘Your papa was a hero,’ he said. ‘Do you know how much he helped me and the other men in my legion?’

  Lupia cocked her head to one side. ‘Helping other people? He al
ways told me it was what made a person good. When will he be home again?’

  Pavo seemed to choke in search of a reply.

  ‘He is coming home… isn’t he?’ Lupia continued. ‘Or is he… one of them?’

  Rufina looked Pavo in the eye, confused, seeing Pavo was too. ‘One of who, darling?’ she asked her daughter.

  ‘The ones who live in here,’ she reached over and tapped Pavo’s breastbone. ‘Papa said many of his friends were there now.’ Her face crumpled. ‘He said that one day he might become one of them, but if he did, I was to remember that he would always be in here,’ she tapped her own breastbone.

  Rufina squeezed her tight.

  ‘He lived true to his word,’ Pavo said. ‘He put my life and those of others before his and… he will live on in here, forever.’ He touched his own breastbone and little Lupia’s.

  Realisation dawned. Lupia’s face crumpled and she turned to bury her head in Rufina’s chest, sobbing.

  I’m sorry, Pavo mouthed.

  ‘No,’ Rufina said, reaching out to clasp Pavo’s hand. ‘I wish I had your courage. In the months since the battle I have been unable to do what you just did.’

  ‘Zosimus taught me all about courage,’ Pavo smiled sadly. ‘And he drew much of it from you both. He talked about you all the time. You were everything to him. That is why I came here – because there is so little I can do to make right what went wrong in the summer. I thought… well, I know that affairs are in turmoil all across Thracia, and I thought you might need some support so,’ he took a small purse from his goatskin pack and planted it on the table. ‘Enough folles to see you both through the winter and spring, when finally it comes. I will send more when I can.’

  Rufina made to push the purse back towards him. ‘You don’t need to do that. We are not family.’

  ‘Aye,’ Pavo said, ‘we are. You are the wife of my comrade, my brother.’

  With that, he left, stepping out into the whistling snowstorm.

  Pavo walked through Adrianople’s streets. People darted to and fro around him, holding hooded robes tight to their faces to keep out the stinging blizzard. He came to the western wards – a warren of small, smoke-blackened homes. Here he rendezvoused with Sura, who had just been to visit his ailing grandfather.

  ‘He is well enough,’ Sura said quietly. ‘The coins you gave me will pay for his room for another three months, and I’ve paid for a minder to check in on him each day.’ He affected a smile. ‘And how are Zosimus’ lot?’

  ‘Better now they have some bronze to buy food,’ Pavo said, pulling an even less-convincing smile. He had given Sura half of Gallus’ purse, the other half going to Rufina and Lupia.

  ‘This has been a grim visit, eh?’ Sura sighed, letting go of the pretence. ‘Grandfather barely recognised me, said not a word. And my brother hasn’t been to see him for over two months.’

  ‘Ah, Romulus,’ Pavo laughed dryly, thinking of Sura’s vain, egotistical sibling. ‘The biggest prick in Adrianople?’

  Sura cocked an eyebrow. ‘That was one of my claims to fame, actually. Not being a prick, I mean, but having a massiv-’

  ‘Wine,’ Pavo said, cutting him off. ‘A shit day calls for shit-loads of wine. You know the best taverns in this place. Lead the way.’

  As night fell, the blizzard eased into a gentle, silent snowfall. The taverns of Adrianople rocked with bodies, flying cups, singing men, cavorting couples and leering drunks swaying in the alleyways and sheltered nooks outside. Pavo heard in passing many folk enthusing or moaning about the spreading news of Theodosius’ imminent coronation. Soon, he and Sura entered a low, ramshackle wine house behind the city thermae.

  ‘You’ll love this place,’ Sura said, shaking the snow from his shoulders and looking around the dimly-lit red-brick vaults. ‘Warm, great food, clean, nice people… everything.’

  They edged past one long table where a bald, ruddy man had risen from the bench to stand at the end, one finger raised as if about to deliver a profound statement. The others at the table fell silent, all eyes upon the wine-fuelled chap, whose head was lolling, one eye closed and the other intently-focused on the table’s surface right in front of him.

  ‘This’ll be good,’ Pavo chuckled.

  ‘Get on with it,’ one of the man’s drunken friends demanded. ‘Say your piece.’

  The bald one latched onto this, then, taking his cue, started to fumble around in his loincloth. The onlookers’ faces fell in horror as he wrenched his manhood free of his undergarment, then leant back and began whirling it round like a rope as he delivered his one-word oration: ‘rraaaaaaaarrrrr!’ he cried, spittle flying. His massive appendage battered over cups and sent the other drinkers leaping back as if struck by a Gothic sword.

  ‘Right, you – out!’ A henchman in pay of the tavern keeper barked.

  Pavo and Sura ducked back as the ‘orator’ was hoisted unceremoniously by the scruff of his tunic, tackle still flailing wildly across the table, and hurled out into the street where he rolled over and over through the snow. One of the drinkers returned to the table, now eyeing his cup askance: ‘I think it skimmed across the surface of my wine,’ he shuddered, before taking a cautious sip, then picking something from his teeth in horror.

  ‘It’s gone downhill a bit, maybe,’ Sura remarked, then nodded towards the less packed section of the tavern. ‘I’d suggest we find a seat nearer the back.’

  They ambled on past a group of windbag-types, the kind who thought of themselves as orators but lacked the necessary wit or charm.

  ‘Theodosius will be our saviour, they say,’ one rubbery-lipped man guffawed, his chins quivering as he spoke. ‘Well, he could hardly be worse than his predecessor, could he?’ he roared, his cronies joining in.

  Pavo stopped by the end of the table, staring at the speaker.

  ‘What do you want?’ the fat-chinned man rumbled.

  ‘Don’t let me stop you – carry on,’ Pavo said flatly.

  The man smirked and let loose once more. ‘Ah… Emperor Valens. Pot-bellied, bow-legged, cross-eyed. A coward and a fool!’ More raucous laughter. When it faded, the man sneered at Pavo again. ‘You disagree, stranger?’

  ‘I do. Unlike you, I had the honour of meeting Valens. He was none of those things.’

  The fellow swatted a dismissive hand through the air. ‘Look at the city walls, what do you see? A smattering of callow youths where once there were fine legions. That is Valens’ legacy! They say he fled the field of battle, unstained, you know.’ The pompous laughter struck up again, only to be cut short by Pavo’s next words, hard and sharp as a butcher’s knife slamming down into meat.

  ‘Fled?’ Pavo snarled. ‘He could not ride, run nor walk, so grave were his injuries. I carried him from the battlefield, his body ripped open after he had fought until the day was lost.’ He took a step around the table, towards the fellow, who flinched. ‘Aye, and he died before me in a blazing farmhouse. That is why you speak to a young man at the head of the legion. That is why there are no craggy men with a decade of soldiery behind them here. Because they – all better men than you – lie dead on the frozen meadows north of this city.’ The would-be orator’s face drained of colour as Pavo leaned down to come almost level with him. ‘Dead! For their comrades, for their country.’

  Sura drew Pavo back with a hand to the shoulder, then tossed a bronze follis onto the table. ‘Buy another jug of wine,’ he told the corpulent men. ‘Drink, be merry, and forget for a time how ugly you all are.’

  They turned away, Pavo’s chest heaving with angry breaths, hearing the muted squeals of indignation behind them fading as they strode on further into the tavern. They came to a niche with an empty table, a star of recently-expelled and steaming sick on the tabletop. ‘Yep, this place just gets better and better,’ Sura remarked. From the next table, shielded from view by a half-wall topped with phallic carvings, came a strange sound – a sound of weeping.

  Pavo and Sura shot each other a look, then edged their heads
around the wall. A slight man in a brown cloak sat there alone in this dark, forgotten corner, the sight a stark contrast to the crowds celebrating news of the new emperor. The man sat with his elbows on the table, his face in his hands. His sleek, dark, shoulder-length hair hung around his face like drapes drawn for privacy. Pavo nudged Sura and the pair made to leave the fellow to his grief. But the man looked up at that moment.

  Pavo’s heart missed a beat.

  ‘I remember you,’ the man said, his wan, feminine features widening, the well-worn notch of worry between his eyebrows relaxing just a fraction.

  ‘Saturninus?’ Pavo stammered. ‘Er… sir?’ The last Pavo had seen of the man – was at the battlefield of Adrianople. Serving as Valens’ Magister Equitum – Master of Horse – he had been in charge of the Batavian reserve.

  ‘You are a centurion of the XI Claudia. One of Gallus’ men, yes?’ Saturninus said, his lips trembling upwards like a grieving man trying to embrace normality.

  Pavo let a sober silence pass before he replied. ‘I am Tribunus of the Claudia now. Gallus is dead.’

  Saturninus’ head shot back down into his palms.

  A passing slave gestured to put a jug of posca – soldier wine – on the table. Pavo nodded, then he and Sura sat. He poured three cups, proffering one to Saturninus, then drank his own in one draught. Spiced with vinegar and herbs, it was warm, greasy and sour… but damn it was an elixir at that moment.

  ‘You remember what I did, don’t you?’ Saturninus muttered.

  Pavo recalled the moment vividly: the Goths were around the Roman legions like a strangler’s hands. Comrades were falling all around him. The stink of guts, the thick wetness of blood, the sound of dying men’s screams… and then Valens had signalled for Saturninus and his Batavian reserves, the last hope of turning the day.

  ‘I remember much of that day… too much,’ Pavo said, seeing in his mind’s eye the Batavians turn and file from the field. An elite Auxilium Palatinum division – a palace legion – deserting their emperor, their white plumes untainted with blood, their green spike-bossed shields undented. And he also saw Saturninus going with them – but not as a deserter. ‘I saw you. You berated them as they went. You tussled with their leader – came down off your horse and barred his path.’