The Last Roman: Vengeance

by Jack Ludlow

  He was not yet fully a man and they were armed, were bound to have experience and certainly had the muscle to defeat any attempt he made to overcome them. How could they have crept up on him so easily when he should have been safe? If he was apart from Dardanies and Ohannes the whole edge of the forest was dotted with like-minded souls sleeping off the toils of the previous day. That lifted his spirits just a little, for though he had been taken captive he was a long way from Dorostorum and the way back was on a road full of folk to whom he might be able to appeal.

  It was as if the leader, always supposing he was that, read his mind, for he spun Flavius to look him in the face, revealing himself as the fellow to whom bread and wine had been gifted the day before.

  ‘We need to stay here until the road clears, a day or two happen, so I will tell you now that we are going to remain in this forest. Your mind will be set on notions of escape, so I say put them away, for any one of us will kill you if you try.’

  ‘Hard to carry a body all the way back to Dorostorum.’

  That got a cackled laugh. ‘Your head will do.’

  ‘Best tie him up, Nepo, and lash him to a tree for he is strong for his years. If he runs he’ll be a bugger to catch.’

  ‘Had that in mind, didn’t I,’ came the abrasive reply; it was a voice that hinted at annoyance. ‘You think me as dense as you?’

  ‘Just suggesting,’ came the quick rejoinder, in a tone designed to deflect any offence that had obviously been taken.

  With a mind acute to any possibilities, Flavius registered that: the fear the man had of the one he called Nepo, added to the response from a fellow who did not worry if he offended in turn. There was something, too, in the way the others did not look at Nepo as if fearing to catch his eye and perhaps the edge of his temper. If there was any respect there was unlikely to be any love and perhaps that was something he could exploit.

  Not that such a feeling lasted; they had made a makeshift camp on the far side of the clearing, rough-framed cots similar to the one on which he had slept, and the pile of wood they had gathered and laid off the ground to keep it dry hinted at their intention to stay put for some time. There were dead birds and a couple of rabbits hanging from a branch, so they had food too, as well as the ability to set snares for more; these men, experienced at living off the land and in a forest full of game – he assumed there had to be water somewhere nearby – could stay here for an age if they felt they had to.

  Pushed against a gnarled tree, one with several growths rising from a very wide stump, his hands were hauled round to the back and lashed together on one of the thinner trunks. There was no need for such a constraint to be tight – it only had to be secure enough to make it impossible for him to untie – so at least he could still feel his fingers, for which he was grateful.

  Slowly Flavius eased himself down to the base of that sapling till he was sitting, his eyes alert as his captors went about their tasks, looking for anything that might gift him an opportunity, while fighting the waves of despair with which he was assailed, countering these with silent prayer. He had got clear of the clutches of Senuthius once; surely there would be a chance to do so again.

  Nepo was clearly the leader, established by the way he set errands for the rest, sending them to check the snares they had reset before nightfall, or to gather more wood, not hard in an age-old woodland with much decaying timber on the ground, this while he barely moved, instead helping himself to wine from a skin that went regularly to his mouth. There was no need to light a fire, it being summer; that would only be set during daylight hours in order to cook, and like he had seen done by Ohannes, it would be smothered and extinguished as soon as that task had been completed. At night it would be used to keep at bay any animal or human threats.

  Would they untie him to allow him to feed himself? And if they did could he make a run for it and hope to outdistance a spear cast at his back? What were his chances of getting hold of one of the weapons they carried, which had to be set aside to allow them to carry out the tasks set by Nepo? All of these thoughts rushed through his mind, one tumbling notion after another, the only one he was quick to discard being any appeal to clemency.

  Listening to their talk did not bring comfort, concentrating as it did, even if it was disjointed, on the rewards that Senuthius would grant them for the youngster and how they would spend it. This seemed to encompass drink and women, they being very partial to the former – Nepo was not alone in employing the wineskin, for none seemed able to pass it without helping themselves to a wet.

  When not talking of drink and carnal pleasures they indulged in much speculation, increasingly ghoulish and seemingly a source of much raucous humour, of the various tortures the senator might visit upon him, all of them severe, and how he would squeal when they were applied, the increasingly outrageous opinions causing much laughter, this listened to by Flavius in silence, though his thoughts were far from sanguine. Could he create some kind of diversion that might get him free?

  ‘How long have you been employed by the senator?’ he asked Nepo.

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘I wonder if you trust him.’

  That got another of Nepo’s barking laughs, enough to tell Flavius he was doing the same up a useless tree.

  ‘No need – when he does not pay us in hard coin he lets us loose to plunder and is handsome with his rewards when we cross the river to take Sklaveni slaves.’

  ‘Hard copper coin, I suppose?’ Flavius asked. ‘Should be gold, given his prosperity.’

  ‘Matters not the colour, as long as there is enough,’ Nepo responded, lifting the wineskin to his lips.

  ‘He robbed you during that Hun raid, did he not, if you think of the captives you might have taken? He held back the militia and you, his own fighters, just so he could see my father and my brothers dead.’

  ‘Worked, then,’ came the reply, through a sleeve wiping at wet lips. ‘As you that set them alight know.’

  ‘Does it not occur to you to ask why he would do that, sacrifice the whole imperial cohort?’

  ‘Why would it? Senator’s business is his and as long as he treats us right …’

  ‘I can tell you why. There’s an imperial commission on the way from the capital to look into his crimes – it may well be there at this very moment.’

  That got him an amused look. ‘So?’

  ‘So maybe by the time you get me back to Dorostorum, Senuthius will be in no position to reward you for handing me in. It might be his body hanging and rotting above the city gates and not mine.’

  ‘Have to hope the beam holds then, won’t we, him bein’ such a weight.’

  ‘And if they come along too late for me and examine what you have done at his bidding, they might just take the rope to you.’

  ‘Enough!’ Nepo snarled, his mood of humour evaporating. ‘If you don’t stop wittering on about what can only be tall-tale telling, I’ll have you gagged.’

  ‘They will draw and quarter you, as well,’ Flavius shouted, his voice desperate, ‘all of you, if you harm me.’

  Nepo got to his feet and turned away to shout to his companions, going about their allotted tasks, the wineskin swinging in his hand, head back and his call seemingly aimed at the higher branches of the trees.

  ‘Hear that lads, we are all for the butcher’s table …’

  If he had intended to say more that was made impossible by the near removal of his head. The blade on the pollarding tool was serrated and as sharp as any sword, so it ripped through Nepo’s gullet as if it were an overripe pear. Flavius had barely registered the way the shaft had been employed, only seeing it at the point where the end made deadly contact.

  The sounds from around the perimeter of the clearing went from loud shouts of alarm to screams, some of severe pain, one a plea for mercy, swiftly cut short. The man who stepped out from behind the tree to which he had been tied did not look at Flavius until it had all gone quiet.

  ‘Bassus!’ he cried, just as
Dardanies appeared from the side of the clearing, then Ohannes, both with blood dripping off their swords, this while someone cut his hands free. Falling forward onto his knees – he had been straining at his bonds – he found himself looking into the dead eyes of Nepo, staring from a head that had ended up near to his feet.

  ‘God be praised,’ said the man who had killed him, crossing himself, this as Flavius began to weep tears of relief. ‘We must say prayers and thank him for your deliverance.’

  Which the whole party did, all nine kneeling to say thanks to God, Bassus employing a deep bass voice to call on his maker and theirs. No attention was given to the souls of those departed and neither were they moved from where they had fallen, merely stripped of their arms and any armour, which would now adorn the men Bassus led, and divested of their clothes to look for concealed valuables, Flavius’s purse being returned. When they departed, the rabbits and dead birds went with them.

  The cadavers remained, food for creatures of the forest.

  ‘I think the Lord knows he owes you some good fortune,’ Ohannes said, as they made their way back to the highway. ‘For it needed his hand to see this done.’

  Having woken to find Flavius gone, they had assumed he had just wandered off to relieve himself, the truth only dawning when he failed to return. That he was absent for any time without his weapons and his still-sacking-wrapped breastplate, as well as his bag of documents, led to a search of the nearby ground and that showed evidence to a hunting man like Dardanies of many feet having trodden down the leaf mould.

  By the time they had concluded that Flavius must have been abducted – and there could be only one cause in which that would happen – the roadway was once more full of those making their way south. Amongst the throng were Bassus and his original band of five companions, they being more than willing to take part in a search for folk Ohannes informed them were rabid Monophysites, working for an evil bishop of the same persuasion.

  Nepo and his companions had been careless too; following the previous day’s rain, which had dampened the forest floor even under the highest trees, they left sections of trail fresh enough to follow, although with many a break that had the searchers casting around to pick it up again. When it came to closing in, Nepo and his men made that easy: they were far from as alert as they should have been, trusting in the security of the deep forest and thinking there was only a pair of companions with any interest in rescue, a number they could deal with. At the very last his rescuers had been able to close in the last few paces before beginning the killing without worrying overmuch about noise.

  ‘I got to the back of that tree without being seen, young fellow,’ Bassus said, patting his ample stomach to indicate that the width of the multiple growths had hidden even him from view. ‘That heretic I killed was too busy with his wineskin to keep a proper watch, and the rest, well he took their eye with his bellowing.’

  ‘Heretic?’

  ‘Your companion Ohannes told me he was that and are we not on our way to put such vipers in their place? If only we could have done the same for the apostate who sent them.’

  ‘I told him of the nature of our bishop,’ Ohannes added quickly.

  ‘They will not be reasoned out of their foolishness,’ Bassus boomed, ‘and that leaves only one way to damn their creed. They are no better than pagans.’

  ‘You would kill them too?’ Flavius asked.

  ‘I would give them a chance to come to God, but if they refused his blessing, well …’

  Dardanies had the good sense to cross himself when he heard those words, though if his expression looked pious to the likes of Bassus, Flavius knew better. In time he managed to sidle over to Ohannes while also distancing himself from Bassus, the point to be made in whispers that it was dangerous for the Sklaveni to stay with them: it was time for him to depart.

  Separating from Bassus and his band would be impossible now and for Dardanies to remain in company was to risk his true beliefs being discovered, Flavius sure that even facing death he would not accept the Eucharist. Expecting an argument, he and Ohannes were pleased when, having got enough distance away from prying ears and stopped for what should be the last night before joining Vitalian’s host, Dardanies concurred.

  ‘Though I was tempted to stay with you all the way to Constantinople, which must be a sight to see. Perhaps one day …’

  ‘You would not believe the evidence of your own eyes if you gazed upon it,’ Ohannes replied.

  ‘How will you depart?’ Flavius asked.

  ‘Easy in such a crowd, which will grow greater the closer we get to the camp of your foederati. I will get lost among them, then slip away and do what that fellow Nepo intended, stay hidden in the woods until the road returns to normal and a man can go north without being questioned as to his faith.’

  ‘Then I should give you my thanks now.’

  ‘Mine also,’ said Ohannes.

  ‘And I should give you back your second purse.’

  ‘You may need it, so keep it.’

  Dardanies shook his head and pressed the small skin sack into the hand of Flavius. ‘You will need it more.’

  ‘You’re a good man, Dardanies, hard as you try to come across as being not so.’

  ‘The gods forbid we should meet north of the Danube – I might give you cause to change your mind.’

  ‘You still have not told us why you accepted such a task as this.’

  That got Flavius a jaundiced look. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘To me, yes.’

  As he sat on the other side of a fire, the flames caught the Sklaveni’s eyes and there was in them a sort of sadness. Given he stayed silent so did the others, for it seemed to speak would not get him to open up, quite the reverse, so they waited while he considered his response, Flavius wondering if he was considering giving one at all.

  ‘It was a punishment,’ Dardanies said finally.

  ‘For what?’ Flavius demanded, which got a glare from Ohannes, a clear indication to shut up and let the man take his own time, which he did, not speaking again for what seemed like an age, the light from the fire reddening his cheeks.

  ‘It was I who encouraged members of my tribe to join in with the Huns, I who led them across the river.’ The eyes were focused on the fire now, the expression fixed, as if the memories were unpleasant. ‘When your father got between us and the river, I thought we were doomed, thought of the family I would never see again …’

  ‘But you were not.’

  ‘I could not fathom the way the Hun leaders behaved, for they did not panic when they could see plainly they were trapped. Instead they went about their task of killing the imperial cohort as if there were no militia within ten leagues to threaten them.’

  Ohannes interjected, clearly confused. ‘If they did not panic, why did they kill those they had taken captive too?’

  The eyes lifted and looked right at Flavius. ‘The Huns were not there to take slaves, they had no need of them and they had always intended to just kill rather than capture.’

  ‘In the name of God, why?’

  Dardanies paused for a long time and when he spoke it was slowly, deliberately and with a sense of discomfiture. ‘They had been well rewarded beforehand.’

  Flavius experienced a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach as Dardanies spoke on, describing the way they had prepared for the raid and executed it, for he knew that if the Huns had been paid to undertake it there was only one person with the means and the need.

  ‘Senuthius bribed them, in many pounds of gold I suspect, to come through our lands and cross the river. The Huns knew we would be unable to prevent it without much loss of life, so they asked for passage and gave us solemn promises not to trouble any of our people. They even handed over hostages who would forfeit their lives as a sign of good faith, so it was agreed to let them pass. A troubled Rome is better for our safety than one susceptible to raid themselves.’

  ‘It seems they came only to kill my father!’

&n
bsp; ‘If I know that now, we, the Sklaveni, did not beforehand.’

  ‘When did you guess the truth?’ asked a damp-eyed Flavius.

  ‘Once back on our side of the river the Huns were eager to boast, if not to share any of the senator’s gold.’

  ‘That man is Lucifer,’ Ohannes moaned.

  ‘I asked you before if you took part in the killing of my family and I ask you again.’

  ‘And I said no, just as I told you if the opportunity had been put before me I would not have hesitated.’

  ‘What about this journey we are on?’

  ‘I found myself out of favour with the tribal elders for allying myself to the Huns, but what disturbed them more was what had happened to your father, the only man on the other bank in whom they had any trust.’ The voice hardened. ‘Not that the trust was boundless, you understand, but they believe we cannot fight Rome, that to exist alongside the empire in a sort of peace is the best for which the tribe can hope.’

  ‘You do not?’

  ‘I did not,’ he sighed, ‘maybe now I do.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  As good as his word, Dardanies disappeared the following day, with no more words exchanged, even easier than Flavius had supposed, given the increasingly crowded nature of the road on which they were travelling. If there was only one major highway, it had a large number of less well-maintained tributaries, viae rusticae, and from these volunteers were filtering in to swell the numbers.

  Abreast of another government mansio Flavius once more quizzed the man who guarded the gate, a fellow even less forthcoming than his predecessor, probably due to his irritation at the number of men begging him for either a bite of food or a drink, many of the volunteers now without any means of sustenance. Thus the bribe had to be larger, which was a waste given the response was just as negative; there was no sign of this F. Petrus Sabbatius!