Pavo whipped his head back in disgust as a stench of burning flesh clawed at his face and the screaming of the animal slowed and stopped. Sura wretched beside him and Felix growled in disgust.
‘As a little twist,’ Balamber continued, ‘I will be rewarding you with precious metal, not if you cooperate, but if you fail to!’
The crowd roared and Balamber stood, reaching down to an urn by his throne. He grappled at something and lifted it up by black strands attached to it. Pavo blinked as he tried to put a shape to the glistening ball of metal and hair dangling there. Then it spun around and a grotesque meld of eyeball and cooled bronze hung out of what was once an eye socket.
‘Apsikal displeased me, and now his head is an ornament. Now you will talk, or your heads will form a new set of ornaments for my throne room when we take your precious empire from you!’
Pavo felt his stomach weaken as he watched Sura being wrenched forward, his head tilted to one side and the ladle held over his ear. A pair of filthy hands grappled with Pavo’s jaw and twisted his neck, forcing him to watch the spectacle. Beside him, Felix stifled a roar of frustration as he too received the same treatment.
‘See, Pavo – that’s going to happen to you, too! I’m going to enjoy this,’ Festus roared from the sidelines.
‘Now talk, or feel my wrath!’ Balamber cried. The crowd roared on his every word.
Pavo felt his vision close in. Then Sura thumped forward onto the ground - unconscious from fear. The crowd began to jeer in disgust.
‘Enough,’ Balamber roared over them. ‘It seems that these Romans don’t have the heart to die like men. Yet they have not talked!’
‘Die!’ Roared the crowd in unison.
Pavo winched open one eye just enough to examine Balamber’s face; the Hun leader stroked his beard, eyes darting from the cauldron to the three of them. A wicked grin split his face and he raised his hand and pointed a bony finger right at Pavo.
‘Let this one taste the precious metal…’
Pavo’s heart thumped in terror and the crowd erupted in cheers as his head was wrenched back and his mouth prised open. A grinning Hun lifted the growing ladle to Pavo’s mouth and the stinging heat of the liquid metal singed the hair in his nose. His limbs trembled and terror raced in his blood and Pavo desperately sought the words of the soldier’s prayer to Mithras.
Then a shout came from the harbour walls.
‘Fire!’
Balamber dropped his hand, his mouth falling open as he turned to the disturbance. Two Hun warriors tumbled forward into the square. ‘One of the ships of the fleet has been set alight – we must hurry or they will all catch!’ Panic rippled around the watching thousands, and the jeers for death stopped.
‘To the dock!’ Balamber cried, sweeping his hands at his people as if they were toy soldiers. ‘Keep the wall guard full strength though – this smells of treachery to me!’
Pavo fell forward, panting in disbelief. He shot a glance up at Felix, whose face was wrinkled in befuddlement as smoke billowed from the harbour.
Balamber strode over to Pavo, Felix and the prone form of Sura. He leaned in next to them, the reek of animal blood wafted from his teeth as he whispered, ‘You will die and die horribly – but only once you have talked!’ He stood tall again. ‘Guards, take them back to the cells!’
Three I Dacia legionaries bundled them forward. Pavo caught flitting glimpses of the dock and the fleet through each passing alleyway; an angry black smoke snaked up around the masts and an orangey glare tinged the air above the decks. His head spun – he was sure they had doused their fire arrows.
‘Stop!’ A voice grunted.
Pavo’s blood curdled in his veins. That voice. He looked up slowly, and their eyes met. Spurius. The contorted spasm of anger that was his face hadn’t changed a bit.
‘Hand them over to us,’ Spurius barked, motioning to the two I Dacia legionaries by his side. ‘We’re taking them to the cells – you lot are needed at the docks!’
‘Lucky us!’ Sura gasped.
The legionaries grappling them looked at each other.
‘What are you waiting for? Get moving!’ Spurius roared.
The legionaries scuttled off and Spurius stepped round to wrench Pavo forward. Felix and Sura cursed as his two helpers grabbed them. They were bundled roughly along the main street and then sharply into a narrow alley between two dilapidated Roman style tenements, dim and shielded from the pandemonium nearby.
Sura fell to his knees and spat at Spurius’ feet. ‘I should’ve known. Festus is a traitor but at least he obeys his new Hun master. Go on, stick a dagger in our throats then – but you’ll be the ones who end up getting liquid metal in your head when your master, Balamber, finds out.’ His voice bounced off the alley walls and up and over the buildings.
Pavo winced as Spurius lurched forward and swept his fist into Sura’s jaw. With a crack of bone, his friend’s head fell forward and he was silent.
‘Any more loudmouths?’ Spurius hissed.
‘What are you playing at?’ Pavo spoke, eyeing the face of his old tormentor. Spurius wore a look of agitation, sweat drenched his v-shaped brow, trickling over his nose, and his eyes darted again and again to the alley mouth.
‘No time to explain.’ Spurius whipped his spatha free with a rasp of iron and hoisted it aloft. ‘Stay still,’ he croaked before bringing it hammering down.
Pavo clenched his eyes and waited on the iron to split his skull. The pain would be short lived, and then blackness would overcome him. He felt his arms being jolted forwards at the shoulders and a thunk of iron cutting iron. Blinking, he looked to his wrists to see the severed chain of his manacle swinging. Felix and Sura had been freed likewise. He looked up at Spurius, mouth agape.
‘No time - I mean it! Come with me.’ Spurius wafted his hand and stalked towards the mouth of the alley. He leant out, then ducked back and hugged the wall as a crowd of Huns tumbled past, laden with buckets and urns. Then with another quick glance both ways, he flipped his hand again to wave them forward.
Pavo went first, stopping just short of the shaven-headed hulk of a man he had strived to stay well away from until now. Suddenly, Spurius was off across the flagstoned main street and he dived into the opposite alley – between two more crumbling Roman tenements patched up with mud and roofed with rotting thatch. Pavo had a look both ways, ducking back as another ten of the I Dacia raced past. Then he, too, scudded across the road. ‘What now?’ He panted to Spurius as he pushed his back against the cold stone wall, the reek of smoke from the docks stinging his eyes.
‘Give me a foot up,’ Spurius whispered, jabbing a stumpy finger upwards.
Above them was a drop in the roof of the tenement where the mortar had crumbled, leaving a v-shaped hole just a few feet above them. Pavo cupped his hands, just as the rest of their party stumbled into the alley. Spurius wasted not a second, springing up from Pavo’s hands and clutching at the wall’s edge. Despite his considerable bulk, he managed to squirm up and over. The thud of his hobnailed boots on timber from within the building caused them all to start. Then Spurius poked his head over.
‘What are you waiting for? Move!’
Pavo caught Felix and Sura’s suspicious looks and then shrugged his shoulders. ‘You got any other ideas?’ Felix shook his head, then stepped forward and cupped his hands, nodding to Pavo in distaste.
Soon the six of them were up and inside the exposed attic of the tenement, creeping along the dry and rotting timber floorboards, squatting and rising to keep their eyes just above the dilapidated brickwork. The building was empty, but they all held their breath as they watched squads of hundreds racing back and forth to the docks, where now they could see the nearest trireme – black underneath the curtain of orange flame that enveloped it.
‘Not a bad job, even if I do say so myself?’ Spurius mused.
‘You what? I want some answers – what in Hades is going on here?’ Pavo hissed.
‘Time for that later,
suffice to know I’m on your side, now you see that boat?’ Spurius extended a sausage-like digit to the bireme at the far end, bobbing innocently far from the blaze. ‘Well that’s our route out of here.’
‘We’ve been here,’ Felix hissed, poking his head in between the two. ‘Six men cannot pilot a bireme – think again.’
‘Already have,’ Spurius cut in, ‘there are forty men on that ship, ready to do anything to clear their names. They’re due to do a patrol of the coast for the next few days, but they’re well up for getting back to Constantinople. Yes, they took the gold, but like me, they had no choice; take a lump of gold in your hand or a blade of iron in your throat – which would you go for?’
‘I don’t bloody believe it…we’ve got a chance!’ Pavo gasped to Felix and Sura.
‘So all we have to do is get through the thousands of Huns out there?’ Sura sighed. ‘You chaps will be okay, but we’re a little conspicuous?’ He eyed the filthy, soaking and bloodstained tunics they wore.
‘Lads,’ Spurius whispered, clicking his fingers, ‘get the gear!’ His two colleagues scuttled over to the corner of the attic, pulling away a dusty canvas to reveal three sets of I Dacia armour. Spurius grinned. ‘Get kitted up, we’ve only got so long before people start asking the lads on the bireme questions.’
Pavo clipped on the scale vest – light in comparison to his old mail one; the comitatenses armour was leagues ahead of the limitanei armour in terms of quality – scales of iron, much lighter and offering more complete protection, and it was still silver in colour, not a hint of brown rust. And the intercisa helmets were mirror-like, such was their perfection. He tightened his sword belt; it felt good to be armed again. They tightened up their chin straps and looked each other over.
‘Bloody affront to the Claudia this is!’ Felix chuckled, cricking his neck and rubbing his hands.
Without comment, Spurius hopped over the edge of the wall and slid down to the alley again. Pavo followed suit and they edged warily through the shadows to the opening. The cry of gulls grew and tang of saltwater and black woodsmoke thickened in the air as they approached. Spurius gave them all a stony look.
‘Chins up and chests out, lads. We’ve only got one shot at this.’
Chapter 62
The fire roared, the night sky glowing orange from its light. No point in hiding now, Gallus mused wryly as he stared into the flames. Fifty more had died of their wounds since the previous day and now, as darkness fell upon them again, he looked over his tired and hungry bunch. Numbering seven hundred and eighty three, only a few hundred more than a single cohort, they had still worked like a full legion. Now the place was armed to the hilt with every form of projectile, incendiary and obstacle they could harvest from the plateau. The bushes had been stripped of berries and a precious pair of wild mountain goats had been herded inside the fort. The cistern brimmed with fresh water. They were ready in so many ways. However, Gallus sighed, he knew they could never be truly ready for what waited on them down below.
Anxiety had settled in once the fort modifications had been completed. Too much time to think was never a good thing for a legionary, Gallus knew, and he had set them to the task of piling up this fire; a reward of roast goat waited at the end of the task. He pulled the meagre scrap of goat meat from the rib he held – the sweet fatty juice running down his wrist. Starvation wouldn’t be an issue for a few days yet, but by then it would be too late; tomorrow, the Huns would climb the hill and come at the fort with all they had.
The scouts had moved expertly – like snakes in the grass – to observe the activities in the Hun command camp. Until now, the Huns had ringed the base of the hill, content to starve the XI Claudia into submission. Then, at dusk, one scout had stumbled into the fort, rasping foamy blood with every breath before he collapsed from the arrow lodged in his lung. His dying words had sent the fear of the gods around them all; some report had come into the Hun camp, not long after the curious blaze in the docks, something which stirred the dark Hun leader into a rage and to at once issue the order to prepare battle lines.
Only one thing could have stirred such a reaction, Gallus mused as he chewed down on another mouthful of goat meat. Somehow, Felix and his men must have escaped the peninsula. He lifted an eyebrow wryly as he imagined what sort of ploy the group must have conjured to pull off the impossible. But they must have been spotted, or somehow the Huns now knew about it. At least the initiative had been seized back, even if it was meaningless. For now the Huns would move in on them and they would be pulverised long before the days passed that it would take for any kind of meaningful relief force to be mustered and then to arrive.
He perked up as a legionary on the far side of the fire struck up a lilting tune on the strings of a kithara. Then his gaze fell into the fire again as he chewed on the meat. Olivia’s face danced in the flames.
‘Who are you thinking about, sir?’ Zosimus asked quietly beside him.
Gallus blinked, turning to his new optio. ‘It’s a long story, I wouldn’t know where to start,’ he sighed.
‘My little daughter’s going to be four this year,’ Zosimus continued. ‘Lupia was talking of having a family feast to celebrate. On the fields to the north of Adrianople. The sun stays bright and warm all day long there. Just the chattering of the insects. Only place I can relax these days.’ He fell silent for a moment as the fire crackled. ‘Don’t suppose I’ll be going there again.’
The bluntness of his statement caused no visible reaction, but Gallus felt an empathy with Zosimus and the other men around him. Acceptance was no bad thing, but one thing was for sure; if they were to be annihilated by this black swarm from the wilderness, they would fight with the fire of wronged men.
Chapter 63
The stolen bireme bobbed on the Pontus Euxinus, cutting a path through the darkness. Almost all of its crew of forty-six scrambled up and down the rigging like spiders, tweaking the mast so the sails could catch the best of the strong wind. Two figures were seated near the prow, panting, as they took a well-earned break.
‘They’ll kill her – make no bones about it. Cutthroats to a man. She gave me this the last time I saw her.’ Spurius shook his head, rubbing tirelessly at the bronze trinket hanging from his neck. ‘You’ll never understand what I’ve risked for you, Pavo. The Blues…if we don’t get back before…’
Pavo thought of his own mother – the empty space in his heart where she should have been. He ached, not for her, but for the pain Father must have been through in losing her. He reached forward, clamping a hand on Spurius’ shoulder; the Blues were ruthless, mindless animals – just like the Reds and the Greens. ‘I’ll do everything I can to help you. Your mother won’t be hurt, I promise you that. If you hadn’t made this move, the Claudia would be slaughtered for sure.’ He eyed the sky – still pitch. It was morning when they set off from the docks of Chersonesos and they had no accurate measure of their position or the time they had been at sea. It had felt like a long time, for sure. ‘We’re not far from Constantinople now.’
‘Less words, more action!’ Spurius snarled, shaking Pavo’s hand free, and then lurching over to the mast, where he shimmied up to the soaked rigging and started bawling at the exhausted legionaries. ‘Faster, you buggers!’
Pavo’s legs wobbled as he tried to stand – just a few more minutes, he afforded himself, slumping back down again. He touched a finger to the phalera around his neck. So different yet so similar, he mused. His thoughts whirled like the wind around him as his mind tried to settle the state of affairs. Spurius, the bullying bane of his life for months at Durostorum, had been unveiled as a victim; in masses of debt with the Blues of Constantinople and with no means of paying it off, the thugs had sworn to kill his mother if he did not complete a contract on Pavo’s head. Allied to this, it was surely only a matter of time – if it had not already happened – until the Huns realised their prisoners, and a patrol boat, had went missing. As soon as that coin dropped, Pavo shivered, the Huns would know
a relief army was a possibility and the remains of the XI Claudia would be crushed. Every instant was precious from here, yet time seemed to be dancing away from him, taunting him with catastrophic failure. He prised himself to his feet and hobbled towards the mast.
‘There she is,’ Felix cried as the faint band of orange glowed on the horizon of the night sky.
Constantinople. Pavo felt warmth and bitterness wash through his veins at once; childhood with his father and then slavery under Tarquitius.
The silhouette of the great capital emerged gradually; domes and towers became distinguishable as they approached. Then, like the beacon of imperial majesty and faith that it claimed to be, the emblem of the cross pierced the glow from the tips of the highest buildings. The capital dominated the horizon and a choir of gulls congregated around the vessel to welcome them.
Legionary Page 34