The Last Roman: Vengeance

by Jack Ludlow

  ‘We might be taken?’

  ‘Which means that for us these letters are lost and so is any use they might be to the tribe.’

  ‘What was that monk saying?’

  ‘That the crimes of your bishop are greater than the crimes of your senator, for he has sinned against God and his holy vows.’

  ‘You don’t agree,’ Flavius said, ‘I can sense it by your tone.’

  ‘Senuthius is a greater threat to us than Blastos, who is in truth no threat at all. But men steeped in religion only see things as eternal. Yet it is he who advised they be retained by us and in that he is right.’

  His mind working furiously, Flavius could think of no way to counter this and it was beyond maddening. If he had not formulated any definite plan, even before they had crossed the river, it had been his intention to somehow be present when the people sent from Constantinople arrived in Dorostorum, ready to provide his father’s evidence and encourage those who had intimated they might stand witness to step forward and do so.

  Primarily he needed to be there to see the downfall of the man responsible for the death of his family. In his imagination he had pictured himself as the person who, hammer in hand, nailed Senuthius to the stake at which he would be burnt, able to see the terror of the forthcoming conflagration in his eyes. In his mind now he could almost hear the flames licking the spitting lard from that oversized body but even more vital than the satisfaction of that, he would have fulfilled his father’s mission and sent to hell his enemy.

  Such dreaming had survived being captured, strengthened by the decision of the Sklaveni tribal elders: he would get back to the southern bank with their aid, and yes he would head south. But he had then envisaged a point at which he would be free to act to his own dictates and if the means had been vague his intention had been definite. Added to that he needed to tell to the commission the truth of what had happened to his father and brothers and how they had been deliberately sacrificed.

  ‘Would it be possible to have them copied?’

  The pause was long before Dardanies replied. ‘I will ask.’

  Another clash, more waving of arms and then Dardanies was back again. ‘No, but it has been agreed that should you return to Dorostorum in a position to make use of them, and they are still unknown to our enemies, then they will be given over to you.’

  ‘Take it, Master Flavius,’ Ohannes said forcibly, as he saw the youngster was set to once again protest, effectively silencing Flavius, who looked far from pleased.

  Dardanies spoke quickly. ‘Now it is time to eat, for we cross the river tonight and we need to be well away from the southern bank come daylight.’

  ‘Are you going to eat too?’

  ‘I am, and at the same time I must say goodbye to those who will miss my presence.’

  ‘Children?’

  A nod, then a grimace. ‘It would be mocking the gods to say to them that I fear to die saving the life of a Roman.’

  Flavius puffed out his chest. ‘It might be that it is I who will save you.’

  There was a terrible feeling of remembrance when Dardanies replied and he did so while exiting the hut doorway, using precisely the same words as those employed by the armed and ready to fight brother Cassius. ‘You’re too young.’

  When he returned Dardanies brought with him a sack of food of the kind that would be of use on a journey; dried and smoked meat as well as three skins containing rough wine, enough for several days. He also brought the money he had removed, giving the purses back to Flavius.

  ‘We will need to buy food, not that it will last with three mouths to feed.’

  ‘Take one,’ the youngster responded, touching a face now washed. ‘It cannot always fall to me to buy things, especially if my face can be recognised.’

  ‘Those black eyes will fade in time.’

  ‘The sooner the better,’ was the opinion of Ohannes.

  ‘Recall how they came about, friend.’

  ‘Friend?’ the Scythian remarked.

  ‘What else could you be?’ Flavius responded, his voice cracking and not from his age. ‘There is no Belisarius house now, so what need of a domesticus?’

  ‘There will be again, take my word on it.’

  ‘You can see into the future, Ohannes?’

  For the first time Flavius saw the older man cross himself. ‘If my prayers are answered.’

  ‘The monk has returned with me,’ Dardanies said, indicating the open doorway. ‘He wishes to bless our journey.’

  Standing, Flavius picked up his leather armour and in the lantern light the decoration on the breastplate flashed, which got him a hard look from Dardanies, returned in good measure by the youngster. If it was a silent exchange it was to make a clear point: such an article was like a beacon by which, never mind his face and the blemishes that still disfigured it, he could be recognised. Stubbornly, Flavius was saying that to him it was vital he take it.

  ‘I know where we will find some sacking in which to wrap it and keep it hidden.’

  The trio filed out to find the monk waiting outside and at a sign both Flavius and Ohannes fell to their knees, the Sklaveni remaining apart and upright. The monk mumbled prayers over the pair and again a flash of memory assailed Flavius. Gregory Blastos had been the last person to do this and it was an unwelcome image to conjure up when seeking divine intervention on what was found to be a journey full of hazard.

  With much effort he pushed that out of his mind and tried to concentrate on the faces of his father and brothers, so that his prayers should be for their souls and not just for his survival, though he quickly remembered to include Ohannes. Should he also do the same for Dardanies, who clearly did not believe in a Christian god? It seemed churlish not to do so; one day he might see the light of revelation.

  The route they took to the shore was different to that by which they had come to the hut and when they got to the riverbank there was a boat waiting with two other men beside it. Obviously they would row them across and come back, which would obviate the need to leave a strange craft on the southern bank or hidden in the trees, where it risked being discovered and setting off a search.

  ‘Do they know who I am?’ Flavius asked.

  ‘They will guess, but they are my brothers, so will say nothing for fear that I might come to harm.’

  ‘You are lucky to have brothers.’

  ‘Not all the time,’ Dardanies replied. If he picked up the catch in the throat from Flavius he ignored it, too busy looking up to the sky, now growing increasingly dark as the last of the light faded on the western horizon and the stars that littered the sky began to glow. ‘Sometimes brothers are a trial.’

  ‘Never enough to wish to be without them.’

  ‘Time to go and no more talking till we are well into the woods. There is some sacking and rope in the boat, wrap up that armour good and tight.’

  They pushed the boat into the river and clambered in, the brothers of Dardanies taking the oars and plying them with strong and effective strokes. Flavius, as he bound what had come to be his prized possession, making a sling by which he could loop it over his back, sought to catch their eyes, there being enough reflected light off the water to make their faces visible. They made a point of avoiding looking at him; it was as if to do so was to bring down on them and their brother some kind of curse.

  The crossing was near to direct and was obviously to a place previously selected, the boat eventually grounding on one of those pebble strands that had been so useful to both he and Ohannes when they had been running from the dogs. Once out, Flavius and the Scythian stood while Dardanies embraced his brothers, then he reached into the boat and produced two swords with sheaths and belts, these quickly tied around their waists, that followed by two spears, all wordlessly handed over, Flavius being sure he saw a shake of the head from one brother, to say that arming he and Ohannes was unwise.

  At a gesture they set off, each with a food sack over their shoulders, straight into the seeming darkness of
the woods, yet it was not as Flavius first thought a foolish move. The canopy above their heads was quite sparse and so let in, if not light, a view of the mass of stars and, hard on the heels of Dardanies, he knew the Sklaveni was following a route, one that he and his kind had taken before. He gave the impression of having passed along this way often, which had Flavius wondering how many times the Sklaveni had come across the river to use this very path, prior to a lightning foray of the kind that had been commonplace. If he was dying to ask he could not, both for the sake of silence and the notion that it would be an unwise question to pose. Better not to comment, just to remember.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It was impossible to stay out of sight forever; once within the confines of the empire they were in a land of settlement and cultivation, where forests had been cleared centuries before and where the peasantry tilled long-ploughed land either for themselves or as tenants of someone wealthy. Having made good progress in the dark, not without the odd scrape from a wayward thorn, or an ankle risked from some hole in the ground, they stopped at the forest edge to eat and let the dawn come up, this so they could observe what lay ahead.

  ‘I wish to stay away from the established paths as long as we can,’ Dardanies said, addressing Ohannes, his manner suggesting that to include his main charge would be a waste of breath. ‘Once we reach the road south it is to be hoped it will be busy enough for us to pass unnoticed.’

  ‘Not easy,’ Flavius responded with some force and obvious pique. ‘No farmer will bless you for crossing his fields.’

  ‘Good way to get seen too,’ the old soldier added, as Dardanies produced a look of doubt. ‘And if they see us as a threat they are bound to raise some kind of unease outside their own land.’

  ‘How far before we get beyond you being recognised?’

  ‘Several leagues, I occasionally rode round with my father when he visited the outlying settlements.’

  ‘Me too,’ Ohannes said.

  That had Dardanies looking to the sky, as if seeking a divine answer to an intractable problem. Here he was in a province where to be discovered might, after the recent raid, end up with him being flayed alive and he was in the company of two people who stood a chance of being recognised all over the district. Flavius was still wearing the garment he had donned to search the riverbank for his canvas sack and the Sklaveni referred to it now.

  ‘Pull up that cowl and keep it well forward over your head, look at the ground as you walk. If anyone talks to us, let me answer.’ Then he produced a knife and moved closer to Ohannes. ‘That long hair of yours is too obvious, best we cut it off.’

  ‘Been better to have done it afore we set out.’

  ‘Which I would have if I had thought on it, but I didn’t.’

  Even with a knife sharp enough to fillet a fish, such a thing could not be carried out with anything approaching neatness, so Ohannes ended up looking like a badly shorn sheep, with bits sticking up in some places and near bald patches in others. Added to the lack of shaving for several days, it made him look older, though Flavius thought that an opinion to keep to himself. He knew from past experience such comments were unwelcome, his late maternal grandfather a prime example, he having been proud of his bearing. Vanity did not diminish with age.

  ‘How long before you have a beard?’

  Ohannes felt his stubble. ‘Four or five more days.’

  Then Dardanies looked at Flavius, leaning closer. ‘Be a couple of years for you, though I do spy a touch of fluff.’

  ‘How’s the shoulder?’ Ohannes asked, before the offended youth could respond.

  Flavius swung an arm, and if he winced, the pain was nothing like as bad as it had been, saying it was better before posing a question to Dardanies. ‘How far south do you go, assuming we can pass out of the orbit of Senuthius?’

  ‘Somewhere between here and Marcianopolis, it has been left to me to decide.’

  ‘So you could leave now?’

  ‘I could but I won’t, and besides, if I arrived home too soon …’

  ‘You might be punished?’

  ‘I do not do this for fear of punishment.’

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘You would not understand.’

  ‘You could try me.’

  That got a shake of the head so firm there seemed little point in pursuing the question. The grey dawn light went as the sun rose, to allow the trio to see much further across the ground they would need to traverse, split as it was by hedgerows. There were already people out and about, at this time of year, women and small children seeing to livestock or picking vegetables close to their dwellings, men further out in the swaying wheat, which they were beginning to harvest.

  Flavius pointed out a high-framed hay cart, empty now, and a distant line of scythed men, some twenty in number, tramping forward in a bent-over row, their implements cutting at the stalks, before turning to walk upright and away for a goodly distance, the classic way of using their blades while also saving their backs.

  ‘We cannot avoid being spotted by them,’ he contended. ‘Whoever is taking the sheaves onto the cart can see any unusual movement for half a league.’

  ‘They will be youngsters, boys and girls.’

  ‘With eyes like hawks as well as voices to tell men armed with scythes what they have seen.’

  Ohannes spoke next, there being no need to say that a man with such a cutting blade would be a dangerous foe on his own; in numbers they could be deadly. ‘We could wait here till the day’s work is done and move when the sun goes down.’

  ‘Best to get away from here, and you would say that too if you knew who these fields belonged to.’

  ‘I do know,’ Flavius replied, ‘just as I know that over those hills you can see to the west of us, the ones lined with vines, lies the villa of Senuthius Vicinus.’

  ‘Who might venture out to see how the harvest is progressing.’

  ‘Never!’ Ohannes snorted. ‘If he wanted to know he would send a lackey.’

  ‘Who will be on a horse, able to set off a swift hue and cry,’ Dardanies insisted. ‘I say we cannot stay within the boundaries of any land he owns and the sooner we are clear of anywhere where his writ has a presence the better and, since it is to me the task has been given to get you to where you will be safe, it is my decision that we gather up our things and go now.’

  ‘So you can get back to your own people as soon as possible?’

  ‘Yes, Flavius Belisarius, and if I am stuck with you, never ever suspect that it gives me pleasure to be so.’

  When they did move they sought to mask their profiles by always having a hedgerow as a backdrop, yet to keep to that constantly was impossible, just as it was impractical to seek to get past every dwelling and the folk close to it at any distance. Spears were trailed along the ground to keep them as much of possible out of sight. Working their way through an orchard, too, brought contact with others, those tasked to trim the trees and seek out and dispose of the pests that loved to feed on them.

  They passed under one fresh-faced young girl up a ladder, so close they could see the sparkle in her eyes, or at least Ohannes and Dardanies could, for Flavius kept his head down. But he too heard the blessing she shouted down and he was made just as curious by it as the others, a loud cry taken up by those working nearby but out of sight.

  ‘What did she mean by that?’ Dardanies asked, when they were out of earshot. ‘What did all those cries mean? How could we be on our way to doing God’s work?’

  ‘I have no answer to that,’ said Flavius, lifting his cowl so he could look the Sklaveni in the eye. ‘But she told everyone in earshot that we were soldiers of Christ.’

  ‘She favoured us with a smile too,’ Ohannes responded, looking uncertain.

  ‘Well, there’s no time to ask and she’s bound to tell everyone she comes across that she has seen us, so let’s put a good stride in and get well away.’

  As they came out of the orchards it was possible to see that line of scythe-bea
ring men once more, still in the distance, as well as the hay cart now halfway to being full with the sheaves. There were a couple of lads on the top who could clearly see them for they waved, which obliged Ohannes to wave back despite an instruction not to do so from Dardanies.

  ‘Make ’em more suspicious not to respond,’ the old man insisted, which got a growl from their escort.

  It was not long before they were on a hard earth track, the route by which those hay carts would bring their wheat to the mill, a stone building just visible through a surround of high pines. Home to a great stone driven by oxen, it had to be given a wide berth; Senuthius was the owner and such a valuable resource would be operated on his behalf by someone he trusted, as well as having an armed guard, given it was a prime spot for a bit of pilfering. A sack of milled wheat was worth real money.

  ‘Trusted to cheat any freemen farmers,’ spat Ohannes when this was mentioned. ‘With a threat to their gizzard if they question the weight.’

  ‘There are few of them left, friend, just as there is nowhere else to take your ears of corn to be milled. Senuthius owns them all for leagues around and has done for years.’

  ‘How did he get so much power?’

  ‘He’s a senator and the son of a senator,’ Flavius replied, aware that his voice had ceased to occasionally squeak, to produce that unwanted whistling sound and was now, if not even in tone, at least deep in tenor. ‘He began as a rich man and has become much more so by his crimes.’

  ‘There are no rich men in the Sklaveni,’ Dardanies responded with evident pride, as they left the track to take a wide circular detour round the mill.

  This got a raspberry from Ohannes. ‘There will be plenty of folk scratching to stay alive, just as there are those who have meat on their table every day. Never met a tribal elder without a belly on him and by the look of your lot they were no different.’

  ‘That’s all you know, old man.’

  ‘An’ I do know,’ Ohannes scoffed, ‘for where do you think I was raised? In the same kind of kinship as you. There’s those that prosper and those that scratch an’ don’t you go telling me it’s something else inside the empire than out.’