Siege of Rome

by David Pilling

  You might wonder why, as I did, that Photius’ mother did not simply kill me when I lay for three days and nights in her power. I mulled over this as Photius and his men escorted me through the streets towards Belisarius’ house on the Pincian Hill.

  They had taken Caledfwlch – I thought it folly to try and fight so many, knowing that Photius would cheerfully allow his men to kill me for resisting arrest – and snapped heavy manacles on my wrists. I was used to this sort of treatment, having been exposed to it in Constantinople, and tried to keep my mind clear.

  “You are a great fool, Photius,” I said to the tall, manly figure striding at the head of our little procession, “your mother is using you as a weapon. Why do you do it? There is no private quarrel between us.”

  He stopped, and I almost ran into him as he turned on his heel and glared at me with pure hatred in his eyes, teeth clenched, nostrils flared like a war-horse about to charge into battle.

  “You may as well hold your tongue,” he rasped, “for I will not listen to the lies that flow from it. I know well how you tried to ravish my lady mother in Carthage, and how she only slipped from your grasp thanks to the grace of God and the aid of a servant. Will you pretend that you are innocent, or have forgotten the incident, you rank barbarian dog? That you did not defile her flesh with your filthy hands?”

  So that was it. I had suspected something of the kind. This Photius had inherited a share of Antonina’s beauty, but not much of her brains, and had allowed himself to be manipulated into believing a clumsy lie.

  “Your mother,” I said, holding his gaze, “is a liar. Her servant invited me to the palace in Carthage on a false pretext. Antonina tried to seduce me there, to discredit me in the eyes of Belisarius. I refused her. No doubt she has spun you a very different tale, but mine is the truth.”

  He gave a wordless cry and backhanded me across the face, cutting the skin with the large silver ring on his middle finger. I was rocked back on my heels, but saved from falling by the guardsmen holding my arms.

  “She warned me you would try and talk your way out of it,” he hissed, shoving his face close to mine, so close I could smell the odour of wine and spices on his breath, “but we have no secrets, my mother and I.”

  I could have laughed at that. Antonina was a sly and subtle creature, a snake in lovely human form, and harboured more secrets in her breast than this bone-headed youth could possibly imagine. However, there seemed little point in provoking him further, so I held back.

  “What, then?” I asked, trying not to flinch at the feel of warm blood trickling down my cheek, “on what pretext do you arrest me? I presumed you mean to have me put on trial. Belisarius will require a full explanation.”

  He grinned, white teeth flashing in the gloom, and turned to one of his soldiers. “This man is a thief, is that not correct?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” the man replied, “we found these on his person.”

  He reached inside the folds of his cloak and produced a pair of ceremonial daggers made of pure gold. Beautiful objects, with smooth curving hilts and leaf-shaped blades. I had never set eyes on them before, and said so.

  “Another lie,” said Photius, clucking his tongue, “are all you Britons so deceitful? You stole these daggers from Presidius, seven days ago.”

  I had to think to match the name to a face. Then it came to me. Presidius was an Italian nobleman, a native of Spoleto who volunteered to join our army when Constantine took that city from the Goths.

  He was said to have fallen under the displeasure of the Gothic monarch, and had only thrown in his lot with us to avoid punishment. I knew he was unpopular, and had acquired a reputation for being proud and haughty, overbearing to the lower orders and incompetent in the field.

  “Presidius was a rich man, once,” Photius added, “but when our men fled Spoleto he was obliged to leave most of his treasures behind, bar a few trinkets. These daggers are by far the most valuable of his possessions. And you stole them.”

  I found it difficult to keep the contempt from my voice. “First, you try and murder me on the battlefield,” I said, “then your mother sends a pair of assassins after me. By the way, I slew the guardsman you bribed, and his body lies rotting under the ground by Naples. Now you stoop to having me framed on a false charge of petty theft. For shame, Photius. Don’t you feel the slightest bit ashamed? Does that noble exterior of yours not contain a sliver of conscience?”

  His face flooded with colour, but I carried on regardless. “If you were any sort of a man, which you’re not, you would order your men to remove the chains on my wrists. Then we could have it out, man to man, blade to blade, and let God decide the victor. Or are you afraid to fight me?”

  This was my last – my only – throw of the dice. If Photius possessed any sense of honour, which was doubtful, he could not refuse a fair challenge to trial by combat in front of his men. Whether I could beat this active young soldier, all muscle and sinew and whipcord, was another matter, but death in combat was preferable to disgrace and execution.

  Sadly, my initial judgment of his character proved correct. “Vermin such as you don’t deserve an honourable death,” he hissed, “why should I, a Roman of noble blood, consent to cross swords with a felon?”

  He turned on his heel before I could taunt him any further, and we continued on our way to the Pincian Hill.

  I could scarcely believe that Photius meant to drag me in front of Belisarius, just hours after our army had suffered a defeat, but there was method in his eagerness. Tired and dispirited after the day’s fighting, Belisarius might be vulnerable, and sufficiently disorientated to treat the absurd charges against me seriously instead of dismissing them out of hand.

  A sound strategy, devised by someone who knew the workings of the general’s mind: Antonina, no doubt. Only now did I realise the full breadth of her spite. Merely killing me wasn’t enough, else she might have done it while I lay helpless under her knife. I had to be exposed as a thief and a traitor, my reputation torn to shreds in public, before my body was consigned to the gallows. Only then would her desire for revenge (and Theodora’s) be sated.

  I wondered if Presidius was part of the plot, or just a useful straw man to set up against me. When we reached Belisarius’ house, still blazing with light despite the lateness of the hour, I saw him waiting outside with a couple of Persian bodyguards. He was a balding, pot-bellied man, greasy of countenance and character, and avoided my eyes as the guards shoved me up the steps.

  “Whatever they paid you,” I called out to him, “will not be enough to clear the taint from your soul if you give evidence against me. You know I did not steal your daggers, Presidius.”

  He sniffed and looked away, fluttering his fat fingers. I would get no help from that quarter. Antonina had bought his loyalty, and she had sufficient gold and silver to drown any man’s conscience.

  The hall glowed with light from rows of torches burning in sconces in the walls. Belisarius and his captains were poring over a great pile of maps laid out on a table. Their armour was still smeared with blood and mud from the battle, and their competing voices had a faintly hysterical edge.

  Antonina had no business being present at a council of war, but a couch had been set up for her beside her husband’s chair. She lounged on it, eyes half-closed, a faint smile playing on her lips as she listened to the men argue.

  Her husband’s face resembled a death’s head. His eyes were hollow with exhaustion, skin yellow as old parchment, hand shaking as he stabbed at various points on a map of Rome. Sheer pride and strength of will were the only things holding him upright, and his voice quavered as it strained to be heard over the babble of his officers.

  Their voices died away when Photius announced our presence by stamping his feet and raising his hand in salute. His mother’s eyes snapped open, and she sat upright on her couch. Curse the woman, but I believe she actually winked at me.

  “Photius,” said Belisarius, rubbing his bristly jaw, his tired eyes
flicking between me and my captors, “what is this? Why have you brought the faithful Coel here, loaded down with chains?”

  “It gives me no joy to be here,” replied Photius, still standing stiffly to attention, “but there is one who can explain better than me.”

  Presidius shuffled into the hall, followed by his Persian guards. They were big, striking men, with oiled and plaited beards and ornate armour, and wore curved scimitars at their hips. Hired, no doubt, with some of the tainted gold Antonina had tipped into his purse.

  “Sir,” he trilled, mopping his sweating chops with a plump hand, “it grieves me to inform you that this officer, Coel, has brought disgrace upon himself and the honour of Roman arms. Seven nights since, as I lay asleep in my quarters, I saw him steal into my bedchamber and remove a pair of golden daggers from my chest. The daggers were virtually all that remained of my fortune, the majority of which, as you know, I had to leave behind in Spoleto.”

  The guardsman carrying the daggers stepped forward and produced them with a flourish from inside his cloak, holding them up for all to see.

  Belisarius screwed his eyes shut and rubbed his face, clearly struggling to comprehend this fresh and unwelcome development.

  “For God’s sake,” he muttered, “as if we did not have enough to occupy our time. Photius, could you not have waited until tomorrow before bringing this to my attention?”

  “I am sorry, sir,” Photius replied smartly, “but I felt the matter was best deal with quickly. The dishonourable and criminal conduct of this officer casts shame on us all.”

  Belisarius looked to his officers for help. Bessas and Troglita were dumbfounded, but Constantine appeared to be in the grip of a fever. He held onto the table for support, his face grey and drained of colour. I have already hinted at what an emotional and unstable man he was, ruled by his passions, and how he regarded me with something like hero-worship for rescuing him at Membresa. Now he was exposed to the sight of his idol, stripped of honour and dignity and charged with a crime abominable in its vulgarity. Theft! Any Roman officer worth his salt would open his veins before even thinking of committing such a low act.

  To do him credit, though it worked against me in this instance, Belisarius never shirked his duty. As commander-in-chief and de factor governor of Rome, he was responsible for dispensing justice, and obliged to hold a court-martial.

  He wearily ordered the table to be cleared away, and held the trial there and then, seated as chief justice with Bessas and Troglita as subordinates. A slave was sent to rouse Procopius from his bedchamber next to the general’s quarters, to act in my defence.

  The secretary came, grumbling and rubbing his eyes, and looked startled at the scene laid out before him. Just a few short hours ago, we had been sitting and prosing around a camp-fire, and now here I was on trial for my life.

  “Coel,” said Belisarius when I was brought before his chair, “this is a grave matter. Have you anything to say?”

  “Just this,” I replied, looking him square in the eye, “the charges against me are patently false. You know me, sir, and that I have never looked for private gain. I have very little in this world, but that little contents me. The notion that I would steal into another officer’s bedchamber and take his possessions is absurd.”

  Procopius loudly cleared his throat and looked to Belisarius for permission to speak. It was granted with a nod from the chair, and he turned to fix Presidius with a malicious eye.

  “Are we to believe,” he said, speaking slowly and clearly, every word dripping with sarcasm, “that Coel, a fine officer who has done nothing but distinguish himself in the service of Rome, decided to implicate himself in such a clumsy and foolish crime? And that Presidius” – here he stabbed an accusing finger at the quaking Italian – “simply lay there in bed as the thief went about his work, too frightened to challenge him or raise the alarm? Would not a soldier of Rome, even such a mediocre one as this, have made some attempt to defend his property?”

  Presidius nervously rubbed his hands, and attempted to summon up the ghost of his old arrogance.

  “My courage is not on trial here,” he squeaked, “I was somewhat mazed with drink, and the sudden appearance of the thief surprised me. He was gone almost before I could speak.”

  “Ah!” Procopius clasped his hands. “You were the worse for wine. So drunk, in fact, you neglected to lock and bar your door before retiring?”

  Presidius gave a nervous little jerk of his head, and replied this was so.

  “And you are certain the thief was Coel?” Procopius pressed, “mazed, as you put it, with drink, you were able to see him?

  “I keep a candle burning through the night,” replied the other, his voice unsteady and thick with deceit, “the light fell across Coel’s face as he ran from the room. I am certain, beyond a shred of doubt, that it was him.”

  Procopius paused for a moment, frowning and pulling at his lower lip. “Seven days,” he said at last, “you waited seven days before bringing this charge against the accused. Why wait?”

  “Rome was under threat, and every man was needed to meet the Goths in the field. I did not wish to harm our cause with an unnecessary distraction.”

  It was feeble stuff, and I could see Procopius champing at the bit to tear Presidius’s story to shreds, but now Photius intervened.

  “Consider, sirs,” he said, “Coel is a poor man, and getting on in years. Despite his fine record of service, he is still unmarried and childless, with no property and no money save his soldier’s wage. His only possession is an old sword of little value beyond the sentimental. He sees a brother officer, a lesser man than he in terms of merit and ability, but possessed of wealth in the form of two golden daggers.”

  He snapped his fingers. “Something breaks under the strain of envy and greed. He casts aside his honour, the honour that has brought him nothing save a couple of minor promotions and a host of old wounds, and stoops to base robbery. Presidius came to speak with me earlier this evening. Acting on his information, we arrested Coel and found the daggers on his person.”

  “Liar!” I shouted, goaded beyond measure, but his guards hauled me back. My fingers convulsed, aching to wrap around his throat.

  Belisarius didn’t know what to make of it. He might have thrown out the charge of theft as ridiculous and ill-founded, if not for the involvement of Photius. Once again, Antonina proved to be the blind spot in his judgment. For his darling wife’s sake, he had always looked on her son with affection, and struggled to believe that he would willingly participate in some crude plot against a fellow officer.

  The general drew himself up. “This affair shall be deferred until tomorrow evening,” he said, “for now, we have far more pressing matters to attend to. Until then, the daggers shall be restored to their owner, and Coel shall be confined to barracks.”

  I felt relieved at his judgment. Deferring the trial until the next day, when he was refreshed and could think clearly, was just the respite I had hoped for. Viewed in the cold and unforgiving light of day, the case against me would seem even more flimsy.

  Constantine, the fool, chose this moment to intervene. “This trial is a sham,” he declared, stepping between me and Belisarius, “and I can prove it with my own testimony.”

  “Be silent, man,” snapped Bessas, but Constantine ignored him.

  “Presidius is mistaken,” he said, “for it was not Coel who stole into his chamber and took the daggers. It was me.”

  A stunned silence fell over the hall. I stared at Constantine, and for a second wondered if he had run mad. Then the truth dawned: he was sacrificing himself on my behalf, as payment for rescuing him. He had often promised to clear the debt between us, in spite of my protests, and here was his opportunity.

  To my eternal shame, I let him do it. I opened my mouth to deny his testimony, but the words stuck in my throat. Survival was all, and my instinct for self-preservation proved stronger than my sense of honour.

  The affair was now clearly beyo
nd Belisarius. He gaped like a landed fish at Constantine, raised his hands, and lowered them again. Photius and Presidius were at a total loss – this wasn’t part of their scheme – and Antonina’s face was a mask of barely concealed fury. Seeing her so distraught went a little way to compensating for my shame.

  The game was slipping away from her, but she was not quite swept from the board. With a rustle of silks, she rose from her couch and approached Belisarius’ chair.

  “A crime has been committed,” she said, resting a pale hand, glimmering with silver rings, on her husband’s shoulder, “it is your duty to see that justice is done, and the offender punished. Whoever he may be.”

  Her eyes briefly met mine. There was no patronising mockery in them now, just sheer hatred burning like twin flames in the depths of her irises.

  For once, Belisarius resisted her will. “I make no judgments tonight,” he said, gently patting her hand, “we must have more time to consider the facts. It is a complex case, and Coel deserves a fair trial.”

  Constantine panicked. “No!” he shouted, “we will have a judgment now!”

  God help me, he drew his sword and rushed at Belisarius. The general’s instincts saved him. He threw himself sideways out of his chair – a half-second earlier, and the blade would have plunged into his heart.

  The whole incident lasted mere seconds, but is engraved on my memory in a sequence of tableaus, like friezes carved from stone. Bessas and Troglita leaped on Constantine and bore him to the ground. His sword clattered on the tiles as it was wrenched from his grip.

  Panting, but unhurt, Belisarius got to his feet, gesturing at his wife to stand back. She looked genuinely frightened, though whether from concern for his well-being, or the loss of prestige she would suffer if he died, I could not tell. Events had now spiraled beyond her control, and she was incapable of wresting back the initiative.

  Or so I thought. For assaulting a superior officer with intent to kill, Constantine had condemned himself to death. It was a split-second decision, and perhaps by doing so he hoped to absolve me completely. Certainly, the focus was now on him.