‘The candidati take orders from the emperor and the emperor only!’
Emperor Valens was standing in the palace doorway, flanked by ten candidati, his face wrinkled with doubt. ‘What is the meaning of this? Who are these men?’ He whipped his purple toga clear of his feet as he moved down the steps and his face fell. ‘Bishop Evagrius? What business have you on palace grounds? Why do you have an armed escort?’ As he spoke, a twenty of candidati rounded on the urban guards and disarmed them. Then Valens pushed his line of ten candidati apart, his eyes falling on the bedraggled trio of Tarquitius, Pavo and Sura.
‘I remember you – Senator Tarquitius, isn’t it?’ Valens spoke quietly, eyeing the bedraggled, bleeding and sweating Tarquitius.
‘Well, technically…I was, my m…magnificent emperor,’ Tarquitius gushed. ‘I truly do not deserve to be in your presence, and I offer you my most sincere gratitude...’
‘Enough!’ Valens barked. ‘Give me answers, what is going on here?’
Pavo longed to unburden himself with the whole sorry tale, but he remembered Gallus’ words; you must only speak to the emperor and nobody else.
‘Assassins, Emperor,’ Evagrius barked.
‘No!’ Pavo and Sura gasped in unison.
‘They murdered many of your gate guards.’ Evagrius continued in an even, matter-of-fact tone.
‘He’s lying!’ Pavo roared.
Tarquitius’ mouth opened and then, with a glance at the bishop, closed again.
Pavo held the emperor’s gaze. For once, his nerves were stilled and his heart steady. ‘Emperor, we request a private audience with you.’
At this Evagrius roared with a rasping laughter, then his face snapped back to a pointed rage. ‘Do not hesitate, Emperor. They mean to end your reign. Slay them!’
A trio of candidati moved their sword points to hover by each of Pavo, Sura and Tarquitius’ jugulars, and then looked to their master for the order.
Valens eyed the kneeling three with an austere distaste. ‘You come to my palace, the heart of the empire, like this!’ He muttered, his nose wrinkled as he stared at each of them in turn. ‘You reek of treachery!’
Pavo’s spirit plunged into blackness. It was to end here.
‘Execute them, but imprison the senator,’ then he hesitated, ‘but take them outside, slice off their heads in the Augusteum – a fine lesson to any who would dare follow their example.’ With that, the emperor turned to ascend the steps back into the palace.
Pavo’s ribs cracked as the candidati hauled him up. He caught the resignation in Sura’s eyes. Then he thought of Father – the legionary, the hero. Now his son was to die as a traitor. The XI Claudia was doomed and Gallus and the rest were dead. ‘I’m sorry, Gallus,’ he rasped up to the darkening sky as the candidati butted him forward, blinking back tears. Then he stopped abruptly as the candidati on either side of him suddenly halted to stand bolt upright. He blinked. Valens now stood in front of him, cobalt eyes piercing.
‘Gallus?’ Valens spoke in a murmur, his eyes searching.
Pavo fixed his gaze on the emperor’s eyes.
‘The centurion of the XI Claudia?’
Pavo’s lips trembled. He felt the bishop’s eyes rake his features. ‘No. He’s now acting tribunus. Nerva has been slain.’
Valens’ face tightened, his lips almost white. He looked to the bishop, then to the senator. A moment of stillness passed, before he spoke, his voice ice cool. ‘Senator, bishop…and you two,’ he pointed to Pavo and Sura, ‘come to my strategy room.’
The candidati surrounded them, glowering.
Chapter 68
Gallus spat a curdled lump of blood and phlegm into the gore-coated battlement. His lungs rattled as he clasped his hands to his knees and sank back against the wall as thick, black smoke snaked across his face from the smouldering remains of the catapults in the courtyard, below. The Huns had withdrawn with the sun, leaving behind a shattered trickle of legionaries still standing amongst a carpet of dead. Less than two hundred men remained; not nearly enough to man the walls against the next wave of attack. Outside the fort, Horsa led a detachment of legionaries through the field of corpses – four deep in places, warrior and horse limbs entangled like weeds – in the grizzly task of collecting spears and arrows to bolster their own scant supply. Throughout the day the Huns had swamped the battlements twice; somehow, Gallus thought, somehow his men had dug in and managed to repel them. But to what end? The fort had been stripped back to what it was when the XI Claudia had found it – all traps used and all heavy weaponry shattered. The Hun retreat for the night served as little more than a taunt.
‘They should’ve just come and bloody well finished us,’ Zosimus growled, smashing his shield boss into a crippled ballista. The soldier’s face was black with dirt and smoke.
‘Easy, soldier. They’ll not get our blood cheaply tomorrow – they’ll have to die in their thousands to see a drop of it.’ Gallus slapped his flayed and stinging hand on Zosimus’ shoulder.
‘Don’t worry, sir, they’ll be feeling my sword all right,’ Zosimus nodded firmly.
Avitus and Quadratus hobbled over to stand beside them. These men were his limbs in the legion. They had stepped in strongly where Felix had served. It meant that those left alive had the benefit of facing an organised end the following day.
The bobbing torches down on the valley floor, below, still stretched impossibly like an infinite colony of fireflies. They had taken down maybe six thousand of their number, more than ten for every one of the XI Claudia fallen. Commendable but meaningless at the same time. The treacherous I Dacia had taken their share of the damage too, Wulfric barking them forward throughout the day while remaining back out of catapult range. Gallus balled his fists and gritted his teeth; if the man was as bold as he made out back in Durostorum, then he would be on the front line, dying with his men. But no, the I Dacia, while backed with the resources only afforded to a comitatenses legion, lacked the cohesion and spirit of the long-standing XI Claudia. He shook his head – pride was of little value now.
He turned, startled, as the tap-tapping of hammers on wood rang out; the legionaries had finished their rations – salted beef and biscuit – and were now busying themselves around the shattered artillery.
‘What’s this?’ Gallus called out. ‘I ordered you to fall out – we need fresh men for tomorrow.’
One filthy faced, gaunt trooper stepped forward, hammer and nails in his hands. ‘Beg your forgiveness, sir, but we want to work on the fort – there’s plenty of time for rest.’
Avitus leant in to his centurion’s ear. ‘They’ve got a point, sir – nobody will sleep tonight anyway. Let ‘em make tomorrow count?’
Gallus sighed – his body ached and his mind spun – rest could wait a while longer. ‘Go for it, soldier. Good on you, men, save a spot for me!’ He pushed off the battlement, his legs groaning under the strain, blistered soles roaring in protest. ‘Are my optios game for this, too?’
All three nodded with a grin, but Avitus added; ‘I have an idea sir – might buy us some time?’
Gallus, Quadratus and Zosimus all looked to the little optio.
‘We’re fixing the artillery – but we don’t have enough men to work the devices, let alone man the walls – the fort is too big.’
‘You call that an idea?’ Zosimus grunted.
‘Bear with me. If we can fix the catapults, then we can use them to make the fort smaller!’
‘What - knock the walls down? Have you been on the sauce?’ Quadratus spluttered.
‘Aye, why don’t we open the gates as well?’ Zosimus chuckled dryly.
Avitus turned to Gallus, exasperated. ‘Sir, you remember when we were in Dacia. That Gothic cavalry charge was coming right at us…’
‘…But they wouldn’t charge our spear line,’ Gallus’ eyes glinted, ‘because they won’t run onto a blade!’
‘Exactly, sir. And that lot out there, they’ve hoisted cartloads of missiles in here at us,’
Avitus waved a hand across the carpet of bent arrowheads, spears and I Dacia plumbatae, ‘So rather than sitting, waiting on them to swamp the walls tomorrow, how’s about we take the initiative. We can bring the side walls down into a steep pile of rubble and embed every bit of sharp iron we’ve got into it – their mounts won’t come near it. And it’ll take them Mithras knows how long to have what infantry they’ve got left to pick through it – at least longer than it would take for them to walk up to an undefended side wall with a ladder.’
Gallus nodded. ‘And we only have the front wall left to defend. Just like the rocky pass on the way up here.’
Avitus nodded briskly, shooting a frown at the unconvinced figures of Zosimus and Quadratus. ‘We can fashion caltrops out of any spears or arrow heads that are too mangled and sprinkle them on the rubble, just to be sure – it’ll cut them to ribbons.’
Zosimus and Quadratus looked at each other, wrinkling their brows.
‘Avitus is right; it’ll buy us time, albeit a precious sliver of the stuff.’ Gallus patted their shoulders and then nodded to the legionaries who busied themselves around the fort, ‘if nothing else let’s do it for them.’
As the three shuffled down the stairs to the courtyard, Gallus took another look over the wall to the foot of the hillside, grimacing at the storm that would smash them tomorrow. His momentary optimism evaporated.
Chapter 69
Pavo felt like a rodent in the ornate and cavernous room, Sura sat to his left, while Tarquitius and Evagrius flanked them and a ring of fifteen stony faced candidati ringed the four, leaving only a gap to the emperor, sitting behind his map table. The tall open shutters allowed a cool night breeze to waft in, but the darkness only reminded him of how long they had been away from the legion – more than two full days, plenty of time for the Huns to have crushed the XI Claudia twice over.
Valens burned his intense gaze onto the map, his hands forming a triangle under his chin. The emperor had remained straight-faced throughout Tarquitius’ report, his arching brows giving him the appearance of a man who never quite believed anything he was told. Why, Pavo cursed inside, why had Tarquitius omitted the bit about the bishop from his story? The holy man, sitting right here next to him, smiling? Tarquitius had pulled on his tunic sleeve halfway up the marble staircase and hissed in his ear; ‘Your suspicions about Evagrius – not a word, for the greater good!’ He eyed his old tormentor – soaked in perspiration and looking an entirely wrong shade of green.
Valens finally broke the silence with a heavy sigh. ‘My worst fears have been realised.’
Pavo sensed the bishop and Tarquitius brace slightly in their chairs.
‘The Danubius frontier has been stripped bare. Without the XI Claudia there to patrol it, we were relying on the quick response time of the I Dacia to protect us until the Claudia returned, triumphant, from Bosporus,’ he snorted, his upper lip shrivelled in distaste. ‘Yet now I find that the expensively constructed I Dacia have betrayed the empire?’ Valens curled his fist into a ball and hammered it down on the map.
Another lengthy silence ensued. Pavo felt his brow dampen and his mouth dry out. Every moment is precious. Before he could check himself, he felt the words tumbling from his throat. ‘Emperor, we promised Gallus, we promised the legion. We must return to them.’
Valens screwed his eyes tight and burned his glare into Pavo’s skin. ‘Do not test me any more than you already have, boy!’ The candidati touched their scabbards in warning.
Pavo’s spirit sunk again.
Valens scoured the map one more time. ‘But our borders are wide open, by God.’ His eyes keened on the small diamond shaped peninsula of Bosporus. ‘If this force, these Huns, descend on us in our current state…God help us.’ He lifted his hands and clapped them twice.
An aide rushed through the door to be by his side. ‘Emperor?’
Valens eyed each of the four as he spoke. ‘Rouse Tribunus Vitus. It is time to utilise our insurance policy.’
‘Tribunus Vitus. Insurance?’ Evagrius spoke, his voice soft. He sounded every inch the harmless snow-white mopped old man. ‘Emperor, if we could discuss this terrible misunderstanding; we were informed that these two were assassins…’
‘Enough!’ Valens cut him short. ‘The comitatenses of Asia and Greece have been on standby for some time. They have been mobilised under Tribunus Vitus, and will be ready to embark for Bosporus before dawn.’
Evagrius leaned forward, his eyes now narrowed and his face creased. ‘When was this order given?’ The bishop snapped.
Valens turned to him slowly, allowing a moment of silence to pass before replying; ‘Your emperor should not be questioned.’ Two candidati moved a step forward. Valens lifted a hand to halt them. ‘Do you think me a fool, bishop? You will be accompanying the relief force.’ Valens’ ice-cold glare curled into a menacing sneer. ‘You will be on the front line, bishop, front and centre. You will be expected to inspire our legions to victory.’ The emperor was fixed on Evagrius with a dark glare.
The bishop dropped his gaze first and slumped back in his chair with a throaty rattle.
Valens then turned to Pavo and Sura, arching one eyebrow even higher; ‘You two, you came from the wilderness outside of the empire, across the sea, infiltrated my city, then broke into my home?’
Pavo gulped his heart back down as the candidati keenly gripped their sword hilts again. He opened his mouth to speak, but his voice was gone and his tongue as dry as a dead toad.
Valens’ glare remained, but his words softened. ‘I want to flay you and exalt you at once. You are a credit to your empire, soldiers. But time is short as you say. Head immediately for the docks where you can eat, wash and then take arms once more – you are to march with the relief force.’
Chapter 70
A man-sized rock came hammering down on the front wall of the fort, renting a jagged fissure up the wall and sending the legionaries at the top flailing as the force knocked them back into the courtyard.
‘Artillery - damn them!’ Gallus spat, watching the five dark wooden hulks at the edge of the plateau. Before the orange of dawn had fully spread across the land, the Hun hordes had spilled once more over the lip of the hilltop. But upon seeing the huge rubble mounds hugging the sides of the fort spiked with caltrops, bent spears, ballista bolts and timber shards like a pair of massive porcupines – they had backed off, not taking the bait of the narrow front left open for attack. They now waited like baying, bloodthirsty hounds, tethered behind their artillery line while the I Dacia loaded the catapults one by one. The second device fired; another rock smashed into the base of the wall – just left of the first one, and the sturdy bulwark shifted inwards. ‘They’ll be in here before the sun’s fully up at this rate. That artillery needs taking down!’
‘We can’t get to them, sir,’ Avitus snarled, punching his fist into his palm. ‘We’d need our cats up on the walls to reach them. We only need a few more paces to come into range and I promise you, they’d be firewood in no time!’
‘We can’t open the gates to push the cats out, their cavalry would be on us in a heartbeat,’ Zosimus grumbled, pulling at the thick stubble carpeting his chin.
‘The speed of cavalry is your answer,’ a voice piped up from behind them. ‘Just as you suggest.’
Gallus turned to see Horsa; the Goth had cut a subdued figure since they had holed up in the fort. Spurned by his treacherous unit, he and one other rider were all that remained of the loyal foederati now. But his good eye sparkled with an inner fire and his face was firm with determination as he straightened his eyepatch.
‘We’ve got two healthy mounts; fast ones too. Get me close enough to that artillery and I can take it down.’
‘One man to take out five catapults?’ Gallus asked.
‘No, he’ll have a man on the wing,’ another voice added. Amalric strode over to stand beside Horsa.
Chapter 71
Pavo leant over the prow of the imperial flagship as it cut its way, fu
ll sail, through the waters of the Pontus Euxinus. The salt spray stung his eyes, but he could not tear himself from this unblemished view of the northern horizon. Gallus had been right to send them to the emperor and the emperor alone.
Valens had proved to be a shrewd thinker. He had played along with the bishop’s plan for the Bosporus mission, but a seemingly costly insurance policy of having two legions on standby had proved a cheap premium given the turn of events. Before dawn had broken, the fleets had set sail; Pavo and his party along with the contingent of some two thousand men from the garrison of Constantinople itself had set off from the city docks. Then before sun up they had rendezvoused with the fleets of the I Italica and the XII Fulminata. Some seven thousand legionaries had been tasked with racing to the wilderness of Bosporus to slam the gates to the empire firmly shut. Yet they were still massively outnumbered, and time ticked against them.
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