EMPIRE OF SHADES

by Gordon Doherty

  ‘And he knocked me over in the dust then fled anyway, throwing away his arms and his status as a soldier before bolting to take refuge in the southern towns with his men.’ Saturninus swirled his wine cup but did not drink from it. ‘I failed.’

  ‘We failed that day too,’ Pavo said. ‘I suffer from the memories, but not from guilt, and it should be the same for you. Let the white-livered Batavians suffer the guilt, sir.’ Pavo poured another cup of wine, drinking half in a great, untasting gulp.

  Sura drained his own wine cup and asked Saturninus: ‘You have taken refuge in this city since the battle?’

  Saturninus looked up, blinking tears from his eyes. ‘When the reserve fled, my fellow generals Victor and Richomeres turned their mounts for the west, yelling to me that the East was doomed. They urged me to come with them, to seek refuge in the western lands. But I could not. All I could think of was to circle the area near the battle, hoping, praying that it was not real. At some point in the smoke and the failing light, in the sea of running, screaming men, I must have drifted away from them and from the dying embers of the fray. And so I found myself alone, riding aimlessly. I rode for days and nights, stopping only to let my horse drink, eat and sleep. I ate nothing, knew no rest for a time. I lived for three moons after that in the hills. The Goths rampaged along the flats in every direction I looked. I was sure in that time that they had toppled Adrianople’s walls, Constantinople too. I thought the world had come to an end… as the Son of God predicted,’ with a shaking hand he drew from the neck of his tattered brown tunic a small necklace with a Christian Chi-Rho upon it, kissing it and mouthing a word of prayer. ‘Three moons is a long time to live with only guilt as a companion.’ He gazed through Pavo and Sura as he said this, rocking on the bench, more tears building and quivering on his lower eyelids.

  ‘Guilt is not for you to bear, sir,’ Pavo reiterated. He considered his next words carefully, looking to see who was nearby. ‘One man more than any other is to blame for what happened that day.’

  Saturninus looked up, intrigued.

  ‘The Army of the West was to rendezvous with the Army of the East long before it ever came to battle. That rendezvous never happened. Have you ever asked yourself why?’ Pavo said.

  Saturninus’ face lengthened. ‘The western legions were held up. They did all they could. They-’

  Pavo slammed a fist onto the tabletop. ‘They reached the East in good time. They chose to wait. They deserted us just as much as any man of the Batavian ranks.’

  ‘You blame the Western Army?’ Saturninus asked.

  Pavo looked to Sura then back to Saturninus. ‘I blame the man who had them delay. I blame Grati-’

  Saturninus’ face grew aghast and he drew the edge of a flattened hand across his neck for silence. ‘Have you lost your mind? The Western Emperor’s agents now permeate the East. They poured from the West with him like… like shades – creeping across the land. Every ear listens, every eye watches.’

  ‘You know of Gratian’s Speculatores? Then you know what he himself is capable of,’ Sura said.

  ‘I… I have heard rumours,’ Saturninus gazed at his Chi-Rho. ‘They say the order came from Gratian’s court,’ he whispered.

  ‘The… order?’ Pavo whispered in reply.

  ‘The directive that went to Julius, Magister Militum of Asia Minor, in the autumn.’

  Pavo and Sura shared another uncertain look.

  ‘You have not heard?’

  ‘We have been isolated in the Rhodope heights since autumn,’ Pavo said.

  Saturninus’ eyes grew sad and distant. ‘Julius was lost, they say, without an emperor or a commander of any sort. Some say he received a message at last, and carried out the orders within to the letter. He travelled around the cities of Asia Minor and called out the legionaries and workers of those lands – but only the ones of Gothic stock. It started at Chalcedon.’

  Pavo thought of the Goths he had captured last year, before the summer battle: men he had convinced to surrender, promising a better life serving the empire as soldiers. He recalled the name of one: Colias, wise and noble. Colias and his warband had set down their weapons and accepted the terms offered by Pavo and the firebrand general, Bastianus. Icy claws raked Pavo’s back as he remembered that Colias and his men had been shipped to Chalcedon… ‘What happened to them?’ he asked, braced.

  Saturninus’ expression lengthened. ‘Imperial archers and slingers rose around them, pelted them like beggars. They say their bodies were left to rot where they fell,’ Saturninus finished. ‘The Butcher of Chalcedon, they call Julius now.’

  Silence reigned, then Pavo said: ‘and do you believe the rumours? About the origin of Julius’ orders?’

  ‘I choose not to believe such a dark truth,’ Saturninus said. ‘I choose instead to look to our new leader. Theodosius will offer redemption.’

  A great cheer rose from nearby revellers who had seemingly been talking about the same thing. Pavo scowled over at them.

  ‘You do not rejoice like them?’ Saturninus said.

  Pavo felt nothing. ‘I’ll rejoice when I see my homeland free of war.’ I’ll rejoice when justice is done, he seethed inwardly.

  Sura leaned forward now. ‘The messenger that told us about Theodosius, he didn’t say when the new emperor would be raised.’

  ‘Fifteen days from now,’ Saturninus said. ‘Theodosius will be crowned at Sirmium.’

  Sirmium. Pavo thought of the vast, walled metropolis a good two weeks’ ride northwest of here. He had heard much of the place: the Mother of Cities, they called it. ‘Why Sirmium?’ It seemed a fair question. After all, the city lay near the border between the Eastern and Western Empires. ‘Is Constantinople not a more fitting location?’

  ‘It is. Theodosius wanted to arrange the ceremony at Constantinople or with the scraps of his army at Thessalonica, but he was overruled. Sirmium was deemed a safer venue.’

  Pavo cocked his head fractionally as if to tease out the information. ‘Theodosius is in Thessalonica right now. He cannot use the Via Militaris to reach Sirmium – Fritigern’s winter camp sits by the side of that road like a raised axe. He will have to take a ship around his own lands or trek another route through the hills and roughs – like a trespasser! What fool advised him to take the crown at Sirmium?’

  Saturninus smiled lop-sidedly. ‘Not advised… ordered. Ordered by Emperor Gratian. Crowning Theodosius at Sirmium means Gratian need risk only a safe trip along the river in his hexareme.’

  Pavo’s blood seemed to halt in his veins. ‘Gratian will crown Theodosius?’ Gratian will be in Sirmium? Any rumour he had heard of the Western Emperor’s whereabouts suggested he was gone, far back to the heart of his western realm.

  He shot up to his feet, beckoning Sura with him.

  ‘Tribunus?’ Saturninus frowned.

  ‘Fare well, sir,’ Pavo said. ‘Do not dwell on what happened last summer on that bloody day. Think only of the future. Things can be made right again if good men like you stay strong. If we choose to do the right thing when the time comes…’

  That night, Pavo and Sura rented a pair of hay beds in the back rooms of the tavern. Pavo slept fitfully and woke feeling barely rested. He ate a swift breakfast of porridge then dressed in a white, long-sleeved tunic, decorated with a long vertical purple arrow on each breast, and thick woollen trousers that tucked snugly into his now-dry leather boots. He pressed spare wheat grain and soured wine bought at the nearby morning market into his goatskin pack, ignoring the repeated questions of Sura – not long awake and still red-eyed from the previous night’s wine.

  ‘Sirmium? We were not summoned to Sirmium. We were ordered to fall back to Thessalonica,’ Sura persisted nonetheless.

  ‘Sirmium is two weeks’ ride away, Sura,’ Pavo muttered. ‘We can make it there in time for the coronation.’

  ‘Oh, just trot past Fritigern’s winter camp, shall we?’ Sura scoffed.

  ‘The area around the camp in the Trimontium region is
like a Gothic homeland, I hear,’ Pavo muttered. ‘But we can skirt it, ride through the hills. The Goths might chase down a legion or a patrol, but two riders? No, we can do it.’

  Sura pulled a wry grin and wagged a finger. ‘See, this is where it becomes uncomfortable: I would follow you off the edge of a cliff, Pavo… sir, and I’ll go with you to Sirmium. But at least tell me why.’

  ‘You know why,’ Pavo said, halting, looking up. He gestured at the grievous burn on Sura’s neck, peeking from his tunic collar. The wound had come at the blazing farmhouse after the Battle of Adrianople, when Dexion’s deception had been revealed.

  ‘Dexion is dead, Pavo,’ Sura replied flatly, gently stroking the wound.

  ‘Thanks to Mithras, he is.’

  ‘Then why do I see hatred in your eyes, still?’

  ‘Because it’s not over,’ Pavo snapped, standing tall, slinging his leather pack over his shoulders. ‘I want to look him in the face – the man who rules the West, who could have saved the Army of the East last summer… who chose instead to ensure its destruction,’ he finished, brushing past Sura, stepping outside into the perishing cold.

  Chapter 3

  As January rolled on, all eyes turned upon wondrous Sirmium. Lodged in a meander of the River Savus like a marble pearl, its frosty wards of red-tiled roofs shimmered in the winter sun, the bronze statuettes ablaze under an untarnished sky. Wagons rolled in a never-ending train from the northern, western and eastern roads. The docks grew crowded with arriving ships – military liburnians and triremes, trade cogs and noblemen’s private boats. By far the largest vessel there was the towering, six-decked hexareme, festooned with the blood-red banners of the Western court. Beside it rested a simple galley, unadorned bar a small banner near the mast, striped in the faded purple of the Eastern court.

  By the nineteenth day of the month, the streets were awash with crowds, breaths puffing, shouts and songs rising and falling over the constant buzz of excited voices, all of them converging on the city forum. On the balconies of the imperial mint, on the roofs of the shield fabrica and on the balconies above the colonnade lining the forum, women held baskets of winter petals, ready to toss down upon the masses. Men posted along the roofs of the palace – a cascading manor of polished marble higher than any other building in the city – held cornua, taking deep breaths, just waiting on the signal that the coronation ceremony was to begin.

  In the imperial chambers on the fifth and top floor of the palace, high above the hubbub, Emperor Gratian strolled to and fro, a body slave walking with him, puffing him with powder and perfume and setting a purple cloak upon his shoulders.

  ‘Domine, may I suggest a different outfit?’ the slave said, once more appraising the garb under his purple cloak with disbelieving eyes.

  Gratian shot him an iron look that was answer enough and the slave backed away, head dipped. He swept the purple cloak around him like a shroud, veiling the garments worn underneath, and stepped over to the window. Halting there, he tugged a diaphanous curtain aside with the small iron fang protruding from one of his rings then gazed down his nose through the thick, pale-green glass to study the masses below. Many faces down there gawped up in awe, knowing their emperor… their master, was inside the high chambers. His gaze drew in to behold his own reflection on the glass, and he instinctively squared his jaw and hardened his expression. Too many made the mistake of assuming the Emperor of the West was a mere boy – his pale blue eyes, flawless skin, golden locks and expression of equanimity put most at ease in his company… for a time. His eyes turned to the worn tip of the ring-fang. From the depths of memory, he heard the agonised screams of the men who had, at his command, placed this ring on their fingers and pulled out their own throat veins. The price of disobedience, he mused, his lips rising just a fraction.

  But his reverie was stolen away by an altogether different memory: of the dream that had been plaguing him ever since the summer. Every night, sleep took him to a bleak moor with a sullen sky. Barren, cold and deserted… apart from a shapeless, dark figure faraway on the horizon. The thing just stood there, staring back at him. Unmoving and so far away… yet it radiated threat. Whatever it was, it harboured thoughts of harming him, he was sure. And over that moor echoed the words of the haggard crone who had come to him not long after news of Valens’ demise had spread. She had somehow infiltrated his base at the Fort of Mars, gotten by his side, and taunted him with Delphic words that hinted of ill-fortune:

  ‘I will have many years of glory… yes?’ he had asked her.

  ‘Oh yes,’ the crone had replied at last, tilting her head to one side as if trying to judge a scant portion of food optimistically, ‘you will have… years.’

  Gratian stared into space now, irked by the memory.

  ‘Before the ceremony, we should discuss affairs, Majesty,’ a thick voice spoke from behind him.

  A spike of fright shot through him as his thoughts scattered. With a sigh of feigned boredom, Gratian turned to the tall, slender man who was soon to be his eastern counterpart. Theodosius beheld him with large, haunted eyes, lips pinched like a man who regretted something he had just said, his rangy frame draped in the white folds of a silk robe. Will you be an obedient dog? Gratian thought, tracing a fingertip over the fang.

  He recalled the moment when he had given the order for Theodosius’ father to be arrested and beheaded. Most sons would choose a path of vengeance. But not this one: the man who would today become Emperor of the East was cut from a different cloth: meek, faithful and ever-so-malleable. Theodosius seemed grateful just to ‘turn the other cheek’.

  Theodosius coughed politely. ‘Affairs, Domine?’

  ‘Affairs on a day like this? What else can be worth discussing?’ Gratian snorted.

  ‘The matter of regiments and their numbers,’ Theodosius said calmly.

  ‘Armies,’ Gratian said. ‘You are to don the purple today yet you wish to speak of armies?’

  ‘I think only of tomorrow, as a good emperor should,’ he explained, then quickly added: ‘as you have shown me.’

  Gratian smirked, but only for a trice. ‘I have granted you part of my Pannonian Field Army. Five legions! You can have no more.’

  ‘Your five legions were a most gracious gift, Domine, but when Fritigern strikes his winter camp, the ruination of my lands will begin again in full. Your five thousand legionaries will not be enough to contain his horde of over fifty thousand.’

  ‘My legions were a loan, not a gift,’ Gratian said flatly, waiting for Theodosius to half-bow in agreement. ‘And if they are not enough then find more men.’

  ‘I have tried, Domine. But the army is threadbare across the East. Regiments cannot be withdrawn from elsewhere. New levies will take time to train.’

  Gratian studied his fingernails. An unwelcome part of owning a dog was keeping it alive. He noticed the two men guarding the door: Alani warriors, draped in vivid green, knee-length gowns, flowing hair spilling round their shoulders to their waists, copper rings dangling from their ears, necks hugged with golden torcs and spears held across their chests. These outlanders had chosen to serve him, and numbering just fifty, they served as a fine close-guard – much to the annoyance of his older Heruli regiment. The sight of these guardsmen sparked an idea. ‘Perhaps you should look to foreign mercenaries – buy yourself an army.’

  ‘The eastern treasury is already drained,’ Theodosius replied. ‘But there is still one hope. The Goths of Arimer would nearly double my forces in one swoop. They ask for no coin – just land and legitimacy.’

  Gratian frowned. ‘Arimer? The wretches who remain north of the Danubius? I sanctioned the approach to them in the autumn, did I not?’

  ‘You did. I sent Ambassador Vitalis across the Danubius in November. He despatched letters to me every week, informing me of his progress. One week the letter described how he had crossed the river itself and set foot upon barbarian soil. But then, the messages simply stopped,’ Theodosius said, his eyes troubled. ‘It’s
as if… as if he just vanished out there.’

  ‘Then let’s hope he reappears, and soon,’ Gratian chuckled testily, peeved by such unsolvable problems. ‘Or your reign will be as ignominious as your predecessor’s.’

  Theodosius sighed, shoulders slumping.

  ‘The orators are itching to get things underway, Domine,’ a robed official said gently, genuflecting as he entered the room.

  Gratian’s mask of equanimity returned. ‘Ah, yes, it is almost time, is it not?’ He swept past Theodosius and out into the hallway, where the rest of his sacrum consistorum waited. Merobaudes, Magister Militum, high commander of the Western Army, towered above all the rest. Strands of long, brown hair hung across his scarred, drawn face, obscuring any expression. This iron-vested, Frankish colossus was an ambitious one, using Gratian’s callow young stepbrother, Valentinian – nominally co-Emperor of the West – as both a pedestal and a shield.

  Within, Gratian replayed the memories of five years ago, in the days after news of his father’s death had come in: Emperor Valentinian the Great had died in a disgraceful manner, collapsing in a fit of apoplexy, foaming at the mouth, bleeding from the eyes, overcome by a mere insult from a Quadi chieftain. Most generals proclaimed Gratian as the successor. But Merobaudes, damn him, and a clutch of powerful others, raised his whelp half-brother, Valentinian – the bastard offspring of the dead emperor and the Arian bitch, Justina – at the same time. And so it had come to be: Gratian was Master of the West, undoubtedly, yet he had to grit his teeth and grant the runt, Valentinian, the southern half of his realm. Much of the army backed Valentinian’s status as co-Augustus, and Merobaudes’ guardianship of the lad. And so it was an uneasy truce Gratian endured with the Frankish brute. A complex foe, Merobaudes was. The dark dream-creature on the moor? He wondered, not for the first time.