The Last Roman: Vengeance

by Jack Ludlow

  Laughter was the least rude of the responses; several times he was told where to go and none of the proposed destinations were pleasant, most being blasphemous. One soul, when he seemed to persist by blocking his passage, looked set to fetch him a blow until an assessment of the risks changed his mind. Impatience was the common denominator with the citizens of the capital; everyone seemed to be in a hurry, obviously on some business that did not allow for courtesy to an outsider.

  In the end, as he passed the Milion stone, from which all imperial distances were measured, he was constrained to ask a blind beggar, sat in ragged clothes by the roadside, if he had any knowledge of the layout of the Great Palace, which got a rattle of his cup before any answer was forthcoming. Having proffered a coin and noisily dropped it in, that was checked for value by fingers obviously sensitive enough to tell how much had been gifted and the answers were forthcoming.

  ‘Each party has their own gate,’ he rasped. ‘Who is it you seek, young sir?’

  How does he know I’m young, Flavius was thinking? But he explained, not using the word ‘count’, but just the unit he led.

  ‘Then you want the Gate of the Excubitors, which is the entry to their barracks. That you will find by passing the baths, which surely you cannot go by without noticing, for you will smell them.’

  The cup came up again and that got the fellow another nummi from the purse, again felt for value, followed by a nod that indicated it was just reward.

  ‘I thank you, kind sir.’

  ‘Kind?’ he wheezed. ‘Sir? Where you from, the moon?’

  Flavius went on his way and the beggar began to chant his mantra, asking for alms for the love of God, the tin rattling endlessly. If he went awry once he eventually came to a gateway guarded by two men in highly decorated uniforms, breastplates with filigree silver decoration, galea helmets again picked out with silver, topped with black plumes, the whole over tunics of the same sombre hue.

  Their square shields were black too, marked out with imperial eagles and metal edged. Not an eye moved or flickered as he approached, until he got what was obviously too close, at which point one of the guards dropped his spear, thrust one foot out to steady himself and told him to halt.

  ‘My name is Flavius Belisarius and I have come to see your commander Justinus.’

  The look that got somehow told Flavius he had caused a shock, this underlined when the guard responded with a confused, ‘What!’

  The request was repeated, which led to a pause before the other guard, who had not moved, began to shake, his lips compressed and his face sort of puffed up, an indication that he was seeking to suppress his hilarity. The man who had first spoken was not amused and he barked at Flavius.

  ‘Be on your way, you witless dolt.’

  ‘I am not witless, the count was a friend to my father and if you give him my name I am sure he will see me.’

  ‘I’ll give you the toe of my boot if you don’t shove off.’

  ‘I insist—’

  He got no further; the tip of the spear was thrust forward to stop a finger width from his chest. ‘Get out of here before I fillet you.’

  Flavius had taken a step back and the guard did likewise, adopting once more the stoical pose that went with the duty.

  ‘Can I pay you to carry the message?’ he asked, his tone slightly desperate. ‘I will write my name down and if you take it to Justinus he will be grateful.’

  ‘Get on your way, you idiot. The likes of the comes does not want to talk to a bumpkin peasant.’

  ‘I am the son of the centurion Decimus Belisarius!’

  ‘You’re the son of a whore, laddie, and if you do not get those feet moving I will have you thrown into the dungeons, where the rats will no doubt enjoy you as a meal. Now move.’

  There had to be another way, Flavius reckoned, so he began to walk off, mind racing at possible avenues, the most outlandish being to break into the Great Palace and find Justinus, which was quickly abandoned as the road to a certain death. He could take station outside the requisite entrance and, like the blind beggar, use supplication with those passing in and out to get his message through, yet how would he know whom to ask?

  The bustling crowds, still paying no attention to his progress, were beginning to grate, yet it was looking along the Triumphal Way that alerted him to how steeply angled were the shadows. Night was coming and it would descend quickly, plunging the city into darkness. He had to find somewhere to lay his head and that became the most pressing need. Tomorrow was another day and surely he would find an opportunity to advance his aims.

  Constantinople was not short on wine shops, the most obvious place to gain information about somewhere to sleep – they often doubled as hostelries, even in Dorostorum. The capital being a much-visited metropolis, it took only two attempts to find the right kind of place. Flavius got a bed, but in the process he also discovered how limited were his means; the cost of a cup of wine, necessary before he could enquire for a bed, shocked him, but not as much as what he was asked for a cot in a room to be shared with three other souls, the same to be paid in advance.

  Once in the upstairs hovel, for it was not clean and stank of too much human occupation and too little vinegar used to clean it, he had to calculate how long his limited funds would last and the conclusion was not reassuring; he had little time to get to Justinus before he ran out of money and found himself sleeping in the gutter, for he had no notion that Constantinople was home to much in the way of charity.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Sleep was not easy; if the snoring of those who shared his space was bad enough, it had been hard to get to sleep in the first place, one of them having brought a whore up from the wine shop to engage in noisy and prolonged rutting, which Flavius could not help compare to his own sweet couplings with Apollonia. His nightly prayers were delivered when lying down, he being sure that to kneel by his cot would only lead to derision, added to which, aware that every time he spoke he identified himself as a stranger, he made no effort to communicate.

  There was a stinking privy on the ground floor and in there, when he had been alone and hoping no one was coming, he had taken his purse and jammed it in the instep of his boot. In his cot the other foot was pressed against that and he hoped he would be able to get through the night without moving and subsequently not risk being robbed. There was more than a moment of self-chastisement; was it Christian to assume his room-mates to be dishonest? Set against that was the sure knowledge of what would happen to him if he were left bereft of funds.

  When dawn came he was up and using a street trough to wash, not an activity that apparently appeared necessary to anyone else. The city was already busy and, suspecting that he would be charged more to eat in the wine shop than elsewhere, he set off to look first for a bakery, and then perhaps a shop selling cheese, another for sausages. These he found in the colonnades that lined the Triumphal Way and with his purchases sharing the sacking of his breastplate he set off for the Forum of Constantine, where there was public seating as well as a fountain with water to drink.

  Resting there, munching his breakfast, Flavius felt very alone. The population streamed by in all directions and he could have been one of the statues that lined the forum for all anyone cared. It came to him that in leaving the host of Vitalian, he was on his own for the very first time; he had no one to consult. Ohannes was on his way to Illyricum, he hoped, and those with whom he had shared a tent were marching back to Marcianopolis; if they had not necessarily been friends they had been human company. Added to that, Apollonia was with them and suddenly he ached for her presence and not just with carnal intent.

  There was no one in Constantinople to talk to, or at least the one person he wanted to address was behind the walls of the imperial palace, so might as well be on the moon. The notion of waiting to pass someone a note foundered on the element of chance involved; a common soldier might just take his money and pocket it. Could he approach anyone of standing looking as he did, with wha
t he wore, never fine, now showing the signs of weeks of marching, they would likely just brush him aside.

  He began to walk, knowing it aided his thinking and all of his perambulations were not on wide avenues; sometimes he found himself in narrow alleyways and felt it necessary to move his sword to be ready for any assault. Nothing of a solution, other than those methods already considered, presented itself. Turning a corner that led from one of the alleys to a small square, Flavius disturbed a group of youths busy painting some message on a wall. His appearance made them go rigid, until, realising he was no threat – he smiled – they carried on with their graffiti.

  Giving them a wide berth Flavius could read the message so far, which was that someone called Fronto was a dirty parasite who what? He had to stop and wait till they were finished, one of them grinning as the last word was painted on the bricks, which completed the information that Fronto was a dirty old goat who buggered little boys and should be castrated. Message complete, the group ran off down another alley.

  ‘Where to get paints,’ Flavius said out loud to himself.

  It was back to the Triumphal Way but that produced no results: a place stocking such things as oil and pigments would not be there, but if the citizens of the city were rude the shopkeepers seemed less so, especially when he sought to copy their distinctive accent so as to sound local. Whatever, he was directed to a place in some backstreets where he found the requisite workshop.

  ‘Vermillion?’ asked the skeletal creature who owned it.

  ‘As bright as you can make it, and a brush as well.’

  ‘Best tell me what it is you want to paint, for that affects the mix − need more lead and oil if it is outside, not that it will last, thank the Lord and our sun, or I would not be long in trade.’

  Flavius, looking at him, reckoned he would not be long anyway; he had a hollowed chest, a hacking cough and translucent skin, patterned with very obvious blue and protruding veins.

  ‘Which is cheaper?’

  ‘Indoor,’ came the surprised response, ‘as you would expect.’

  ‘Then make it that.’

  ‘How much do you want?’

  That flummoxed Flavius; he had no idea, in the end electing to have the smallest amount he could. The man mixed it for him in a clay pot; better that than trying to get the blend right himself and making a pig’s ear of it. Pot under his arm, the top sealed with a bit of ragged oiled animal skin and twine, his chosen brush secreted away, he made his way back to the Forum of Constantine to sit, eating more of his sausage and cheese, while contemplating his plan.

  Not having slept as much as he would have liked, it was hard, with the sun beating down, to stay awake, but on a single slab stone bench every time he started to drop off the action of his body jerked him awake. It felt like eternity till the sun dipped so that it was hidden behind the Walls of Theodoric, the sky turning from gold, to red, to copper and eventually to the first sight of starlight.

  That had Flavius up and moving, making his way towards the palace, gratified to see what he suspected must be the case, that the entrances if not the outer walls were lit by flaring torches. He had contemplated having one of those for his own purposes only to discount it as likely to attract too much attention, but he needed to be near enough to them to employ the very edge of their spilt light. By now it was dark, the sky an inky black and a mass of starlight that came to his aid; not only did it cast dark shadows but where it illuminated it was sufficient to see, if not clearly, then enough.

  The reports of the praefectus urbanus, handed in overnight and taken to Petrus, who would compose a precis of them for his uncle, made no mention of an excess of graffiti, huge red letters painted not only on the walls of the palace, but on those of the baths as well, so glaring a red they were impossible to pass by without their being remarked upon. It was not long before there was a buzz of conversational noise about what the daubing meant.

  The first person to whom it was reported went white, the blood draining from his features, and if he had reacted calmly matters might have rested there. But Pentheus Vicinus had the family temper as well as a sudden grip on his heart of fear and he left his house in something of a hurry to go and see for himself, that alone causing comment among his family and servants.

  That someone of his eminence should stand before the painted letters registered with the guards as damned strange. When stood down they had to go and look at what had so exercised the senator, who had been seen yelling and demanding the graffiti be removed. When later they were breakfasting they were given to asking their comrades if they knew what it meant, so that when Justinus came to join them, as he did most mornings, the word was flying around the room and was overheard as he passed.

  ‘What did you say?’

  The soldier leapt to his feet to reply, the way his commander had posed the question making that seem appropriate.

  ‘It’s everywhere, sir, bright red, painted on the palace walls and those of the baths as well.’

  ‘Anyone else seen it?’

  ‘The guards just stood down asked if any of us knew what it meant.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Asleep I should think, sir.’

  ‘You finished eating?’

  ‘I am sir.’

  ‘Then go and rouse them out. Then find my nephew and ask him to join me outside the Excubitor Gate, the guards too.’

  Justinus was moving so fast he did not see the chest-thumping salute, nor with his mind in turmoil did he hear it either. Striding through the palace and out to the gate he was trying to make sense of something that failed to add up. What was the name of his old friend doing, as reported, plastered all over the walls and demanding justice?

  The sight of the letters, roughly painted, with dripping lines running from every one, did not provide enlightenment as to the way, but it struck home. He might lack the skill to read but the name Belisarius was one he had seen many times recently, the last time as he signed the commission’s orders prepared for him by Petrus.

  ‘Uncle.’

  ‘Tell me it says what I think it does.’

  ‘Justice for Belisarius.’

  ‘Now tell me what it means?’

  ‘Unless you believe in spirits, then someone has daubed the walls with it.’

  Justinus became aware of two soldiers, wearing no armour and only their tunics, shifting nervously from foot to foot and wondering why they had been dragged from their beds, as well as in what way they had transgressed, which might give them a clue as to what punishment they could be in for. The command to rouse out and attend on the count had come with no other explanation. At a gesture they approached, with Justinus pointing a finger at the wall.

  ‘This, d’you see it done?’

  ‘No, Your Honour.’

  ‘Didn’t really notice it till one of the senators came along and started yelling blue murder.’

  ‘Which senator?’

  ‘No idea, sir.’

  ‘Had to be Vicinus,’ Petrus whispered. ‘That is a name and a demand that would rankle more with him than it does even with us.’

  ‘But what does it mean?’

  ‘It is a message, to Vicinus perhaps …’

  ‘Could be to me?’

  ‘Why to you?’

  ‘You read me the reports of what happened on the Danube.’

  ‘And I recall you chose not to believe them.’

  ‘What if this is someone trying to tell me I am right?’

  ‘It will make no difference,’ Petrus responded, gesturing for the two guards to back away out of hearing.

  ‘Of course it will.’

  ‘No, Uncle, what is done is done and even if you find those reports are false, that something dastardly has been done, what can you do about it? Decimus Belisarius alive and enquiring into his complaints had a rationale. But the one thing that cannot be in doubt is that he is dead. To risk raising how that came about is to expose yourself as having championed his cause, which will make an enemy
of a man who, thanks to his actions with regard to Vitalian, has suddenly got the ear of the emperor.’

  ‘Why do you always analyse matters in terms of intrigue?’

  ‘It keeps us alive.’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘You too, Uncle. I have never sought to advise you.’ That got a look of disbelief; Petrus never let up with his opinions. ‘But I would counsel it is unwise to rely on any popularity you might think you enjoy with Anastasius. He is as devious as an emperor must be to keep breath in his body, and not beyond sacrificing a friend if it suits his aims.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Leave it, say nothing and if it is in the praefectus report, maybe even remove it.’

  ‘Sometimes, Petrus, you go too far.’

  If Justinus had hoped to chastise his nephew, he utterly failed. ‘I will not be guided on the best way to stop you endangering yourself.’

  If it was not stated it was in his eyes; if you fall, Uncle, I fall with you.

  ‘Your Honour, there’s a young fellow at the gate who says his name is Flavius Belisarius.’

  The speed with which Justinus moved surprised the messenger, one of his excubitor rankers; their commandant was a measured man in everything he did; rarely if ever, outside the training arena, did he break sweat. Now, and for the second time this day, he was close to running, eager to get to the gate to first find out if it was truly the son of Decimus and secondly, if he was, to spirit him inside the palace − few as possible must know he was here, perhaps not even Petrus.

  There could be no doubt whatsoever he was the one who had daubed the walls; the youth’s clothing, grubby leggings and dirty smock were streaked with red paint. He had a sword, a spear resting point down and some kind of sack over his shoulder. Justinus marched up, sizing him as he went: the height, taller than Decimus, the black hair long and untidy, then there was the direct look in the eyes. The spear must have worried the men set to guard the gate for they moved to create an angle in which they could watch that weapon.