Flame of the West

by David Pilling

  “No-one starves in Rome,” I said, looking at him with distaste, “Belisarius has made sure of that. I think you were greedy for gold, but lack the stomach for treachery.”

  He continued to whine and whimper, like a kicked dog, until I was sick of the sight and sound (and smell) of him. I would have preferred to throw him out into the street, but it seemed his colleague Gaius still intended to go through with the plan. Belisarius had to be alerted.

  I took the man by the arm and half-led, half-dragged him through the streets to the general’s house. After speaking with the Veterans on the door, who recognised me, I was permitted an audience with their chief.

  Belisarius sat and listened in grim silence to Cassius, who made an even more abject display of himself. When he was done, and his words had died away in a gruesome mess of tears and snot, Belisarius continued to sit in silence.

  I recognised the signs, and feared for Cassius. Some men rant and rave when they lose their temper, but Belisarius was at his most dangerous like this, quiet and pensive.

  He was out of all patience, having spent several days wrangling with Gothic ambassadors who offered him nothing and expected gratitude in return. Besides which, he despised spies and traitors, and they tended to rouse him to uncharacteristic acts of cruelty.

  “Take this man,” he said, turning to the captain of his guard, “he will lead you to his accomplice, a man named Gaius. Arrest Gaius and bring him to me.”

  Cassius was spared punishment, for which he was pathetically grateful, and the force of the general’s wrath fell on his hapless colleague.

  Gaius was arrested at his house and brought before Belisarius. He was given no opportunity to explain himself. His nose was slit, his ears were sliced off, and his trembling, mutilated form bound and gagged and mounted on an ass, which Belisarius ordered driven out of Rome.

  The beast and her luckless burden found their way to the Gothic camp and the pavilion of King Vitiges, who beheld the bleeding ruin of his last hope with despair.

  Belisarius now regarded the fragile truce as broken, and immediately despatched orders to John the Sanguinary, commanding him to invade Picenum. John proved to be a greater soldier than I could have imagined. He led his cavalry on a swift and brilliant campaign, massacring the Gothic troops in the region and laying siege to the cities of Urbino and Osimo.

  Like all our captains, John also had an eye to his own profit, and mercilessly pillaged the countryside we had supposedly come to liberate. At last, with the land behind him thick with corpses and rank with the stench of fire and death, he arrived before the gates of Rimini, only a day’s ride from the Gothic capital at Ravenna.

  In spite of John’s merciless plundering, the natives rallied to his banner, swelling the numbers of his little army. Alarmed by the size of the Roman host, the Gothic garrison of Rimini panicked, abandoning the city and fleeing with all haste for the safety of the capital.

  At this point, King Vitiges finally lost his nerve. All his efforts to retake Rome had come to nothing, his capital was threatened by our troops, and his army weakened by famine and desertions. Out-thought and outmanoeuvred by his rival Belisarius, sick at heart from all his defeats and disappointments, he reluctantly gave orders for a general retreat.

  After over a year of hard fighting, the Eternal City was once again part of the Empire.

  6.

  On the morning of the twenty-first of March in the year of Our Lord Five Hundred and Thirty-Eight, one year and nine days after the siege of Rome began, I was shaken awake in my dingy quarters by an excited cavalry subaltern.

  “Sir, sir!” he yelled in my ear, disturbing my pleasant dream of silken whores and honeyed wine, “you must wake up, sir, and come with me at once! All officers are summoned to muster by the Flaminian Gate!”

  I tumbled out of bed, muttering darkly under my breath, and allowed the subaltern to help me dress and arm in the semi-darkness. He was a native of Spoleto, one of the eager young volunteers who had flocked to join our army as soon as it set foot on the Italian mainland. He served as my trumpeter in the detachment of cavalry John the Sanguinary had given me command of, and wore me out with his spirit and enthusiasm.

  It was early in the morning, far too early for civilised men to be up and active. I could hear the sound of distant trumpets ringing through the city.

  “What’s happening?” I demanded blearily, struggling out of my nightshirt, “have the Goths launched a sudden attack?”

  “Far from it, sir!” Lucius panted, his beardless face shining with soap and warlike ardour, “the enemy are in full retreat – they are burning their palisades and fortified camps, and streaming back towards the Milvian Bridge! Oh sir, you must come to the walls and see for yourself, it is a glorious sight. The sky is lit up with fire! We have won!”

  His excitement was infectious. I shook away the clouds of sleep and dressed hurriedly, snatching a swig of wine from the jug on my bedside table and a bit of bread for my breakfast.

  We clattered down the stairs and into the street, which was full of armed men hurrying towards the Flaminian Gate. Horns and bugles echoed through the city, summoning soldiers to their duty. The citizens were careful to stay indoors, though some of the bravest threw open their upper-storey windows and complained at the noise.

  One wretched old woman emptied the contents of her chamber-pot on us, soaking Lucius and splashing my best cloak with urine, but there was no time for recriminations.

  We hurried on, to find the square before the Flaminian Gate packed with troops. The gates were open, and columns of horse and foot were filing through it in good order to re-deploy on the wide plain beyond.

  “Go and rouse our men,” I ordered Lucius, “and fetch them here at once, mounted and ready for battle.”

  He saluted and rushed away in the direction of the Field of Mars, where my levies were billeted. Some three hundred remained under my command. As a mere centenar, I should not have been in charge of so many, but Belisarius had not appointed anyone else in my stead. Either he forgot to choose a more senior officer, or wanted me to prove my worth.

  I hurried past the squadrons of infantry, Isaurian spearmen and archers for the most part, towards a group of mounted officers. Their chief was Bessas, Belisarius’ second-in-command, a tough, capable officer with the appearance and general demeanour of a disgruntled hawk.

  “Sir,” I cried, halting at a respectful distance and ripping off a salute, “what is happening? Have the Goths quit the siege?”

  He switched his attention from the marching columns of infantry, and fastened his dark little eyes on me.

  “Ah, Britannicus,” he said, using the old name Theodora gave me in the arena, “yes, the Goths have packed it in, and we’re marching out to wave goodbye. Where the hell are your men?”

  I reddened. “On their way, sir. The call to arms took me by surprise.”

  Bessas grunted. “A good officer doesn’t wallow in bed when he hears the trumpet sound. He jumps to it, by God! Still, you’re not the only laggard in our ranks. The army is not what it was. When your men finally graces us with their presence, lead them out of Rome and take up position on the left wing, behind the Huns. When the Huns advance, you will support them. Understand?”

  “Sir,” I saluted again and withdrew, grateful to be spared anything more than a tongue-lashing. Bessas was a fearsome disciplinarian, and made no distinction between officers and men when doling out field punishments.

  Our army was sallying out in force, leaving scarcely a man behind to defend the city. Belisarius, who was already outside at the head of the vanguard, meant to pursue the Goths and catch them before they could withdraw across the Milvian Bridge.

  Lucius returned with commendable speed, mounted and leading my horse. My men cantered behind him. They were a motley, undisciplined crew, though full of youthful zeal, and I was hard-put to restrain them from pushing ahead of the infantry.

  We finally emerged from the gate as part of the rearguard, and I looked f
or the detachment of Hunnish cavalry on the left wing.

  There was no left wing. Belisarius had decided to seize the initiative and order a general advance instead of waiting for his army to lumber into position. With every passing moment, more Goths were escaping across the bridge onto the Tuscan side of the river.

  Trumpets squalled across the plain, and a massed roar burst from the leading squadrons of cavalry as they surged into a gallop.

  I saw Belisarius’ banner to the fore, rippling at the head of his Veterans. As Lucius had said, the sky was on fire, the reddish pink of dawn obscured by twisting pillars of smoke and leaping tongues of orange flame. The Goths had set light to their camp – tents, stockades, wagons, towers and all, hoping that the conflagration would shield their retreat.

  Belisarius cared nothing for fire. His cavalry raced in pursuit, leaping the deserted entrenchments and charging through the wall of smoke. They disappeared from view, though the sound of fighting and killing could be heard beyond.

  “Charge!” I shouted, drawing Caledfwlch. Lucius sounded the order, and we galloped forward in the wake of the forward squadrons, determined to be in at the death.

  The siege had been long and bloody, with no quarter given on either side. Hatred of the Goths spurred on my men, especially the natives, raised on tales of their ancestors and the lost glory of the Western Empire. Here was a chance to throw off the shameful yoke of their barbarian conquerors and reclaim their city.

  We careered around a line of burning wagons, and burst through the veil of smoke into a scene of bloodshed. Thousands of Gothic auxiliaries were stampeding towards the bridge, but the foremost of our cavalry had caught them in the open.

  The Goths were trying to turn, to form line of battle against our heavy lancers and horse-archers, but everywhere their discipline was failing. I saw Gothic officers, brave men, dismount and rally around their standards, resolved to die fighting rather than show their backs to the enemy.

  Some managed to collect enough men to form a semblance of a shield-wall. Our horse-archers rode around them in circles, shooting the hapless Goths down from afar, swiftly eroding their ragged lines until nothing remained but a few wounded survivors and great piles of arrow-riddled corpses.

  Belisarius allowed them no respite. His Veterans had ploughed into the rear of a detachment of spearmen, spearing and trampling half their number and sending the rest fleeing in bloody rout.

  My men were eager to join the hunt, but I was careful to restrain them. They were light cavalry, armed with shields and spears, and would come to grief if I threw them against the Gothic shields. I had enough experience of war to know that light cavalry are best used as skirmishers on the battlefield, harrying the enemy flanks and hunting down fugitives.

  I looked around, and spied a unit of Gothic javelin-men breaking away from the fighting and fleeing along the bank of the Tiber. Some followed the course of the river, others threw away their helms and shields and plunged into the water, hoping to swim across to the opposite bank.

  “Ride them down!” I shouted, straining my voice to be heard above the din, “drown them in the river! Kill them!”

  I steered my horse to the south, skirting the edges of the battle, followed by Lucius and my standard bearer. A good number of my command followed, though others peeled away to loot the dead and dying.

  The Goths tried to run, but my men spread out to herd them down the steep slope towards the river. There, in the shallows, we butchered them at will. Some few offered desperate resistance, others begged for life, falling on their knees in the water and screaming like frightened children.

  “No mercy!” I bawled, my sword-arm red to the elbow with barbarian blood, “slay them all!”

  I am not a cruel man, but this was war. The Goths still held a massive advantage in numbers, and it was imperative we killed as many as possible. Even now, with half his army in full flight, Vitiges might rally the remainder and overwhelm us.

  From the river, I had an unrivalled view of what happened next. Vitiges could be forgiven for thinking he had suffered enough disasters, but God was not on his side.

  The King had escaped to the Tuscan side of the river, and there tried to regroup his battered host and launch a counter-attack. His best troops rallied around the royal banner, and stormed back across the Milvian Bridge to aid their comrades being cut to pieces on the other side.

  At the same time the wavering Gothic infantry broke under our relentless assaults. Abandoning their standards, they flooded towards the narrow stone bridge. Our triumphant cavalry rode among them, hacking and stabbing, carpeting the ground with bodies.

  Before the siege began, Belisarius had constructed a gigantic wooden tower at the eastern end of the river, to guard against the enemy attempting a crossing. The Goths had seized the tower and held it ever since, but now panic seized the garrison. They quit their posts, running down the steps outside the tower or leaping from the parapet into the fast-flowing waters of the Tiber.

  Many drowned, or were shot down as they tried to swim to safety. Soon the river was full of floating corpses, gently swirling in circles as they were washed downstream.

  I watched, my nostrils filled with the heady stench of blood and death, as the runaways from one side of the river collided with reinforcements from the other. The bridge was too narrow to bear them all, and hundreds of Goths were pitched howling into the Tiber.

  Weighed down by their armour, many swiftly sank from view. Others tried to struggle out of their heavy mail hauberks before they were dragged under. I almost pitied the wretches as they floundered helplessly in the water. Some of our men dismounted and enjoyed great sport on the riverbank, shooting arrows and casting spears, until the Tiber was choked with human wreckage.

  The Goths on the Tuscan side of the river were powerless to help their comrades. I saw the royal standard start to move away from the field, and briefly glimpsed Vitiges himself under it, a stocky, compact figure mounted on a chestnut mare. His guards closed up around him as he left the field.

  “Roma Victor!”

  The ancient war-cry echoed and re-echoed across the field. The Goths were beaten, and the victory of Belisarius was complete.

  7.

  I expected Belisarius to unleash his cavalry and send us in pursuit of the retreating Goths. Instead, ever cautious, he despatched a mere thousand horse under a captain named Hildiger, with orders to shadow the Goths and obtain reinforcements from our garrison stationed at the seaport of Ancona.

  Belisarius was right to be careful. A wounded beast is dangerous. The Goths still outnumbered us, even after losing half their army at the Milvian Bridge.

  Vitiges fled north, to his capital at Ravenna, and covered his retreat by leaving men to guard certain towns and fortresses. Four thousand at Auximum, two thousand at Urbino, and another three thousand scattered among smaller places.

  Belisarius despatched me with Hildiger to track the Goths. Hildiger was a capable and experienced officer of mixed Germanic ancestry, and I was to act as his second-in-command.

  “Another promotion,” said Procopius, who was present in the general’s pavilion, “though an unofficial one. Pro tem, as it were. Continue to do well, and you might find yourself in charge of an army.”

  “In which case, God help the Empire,” I replied. Procopius snorted with laughter, but Belisarius was not amused.

  “I have no time for false modesty,” he said sharply, “we have a war to win. I need officers who are not only loyal and obedient, but confident in their own abilities. Am I right to place my faith in you, Coel?”

  “Yes, sir,” I replied stiffly. What else could I say? Privately, I suspected him of favouring me for political rather than military reasons, and had not forgotten his words during our last meeting.

  Your homeland may yet be saved.

  I thought it cruel of him to encourage my dreams, and to make vague promises he had no means of fulfilling. Belisarius had always been honest and generous in my dealings with him.
This was out of character. For the moment, all I could do was accept the promotions he foisted on me, and follow his orders.

  “From Ancona, you will march with all speed to Rimini,” he said, tracing the route with his index finger along a map of central Italy, “avoid the Goths at all costs. Under no circumstances are you to engage them, is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Hidilger, “when we reach Rimini, what then?”

  Rimini was the city on the shores of the Adriatic, just a day’s march south from Ravenna. John the Sanguinary had taken the place after a brief siege, and now held it with his two thousand cavalry.

  “Order John to depart,” Belisarius went on, “and use his cavalry to harry the flanks of the Gothic army as they advance towards Ravenna. The soldiers from Ancona will garrison the place. Once this is done, you will return to Rome.”

  “Coel,” he added, looking up at me, “I want you to stay at Rimini, as captain of the garrison. The Goths will do their utmost to retake it. Hold it for me, until I march to your relief.”

  I tried not to display any sign of nerves. “Yes, sir.”

  “The general favours you,” remarked Hidilger afterwards, as we sat our horses on the Tuscan side of the Tiber and watched our men file across the Milvian Bridge.

  It was the morning after the battle, and the river was still choked with bodies. The air was rank with the putrid stench of death and the buzzing of millions of flies.

  Hidilger prodded me in the chest. He was a typically thickset German officer, big and blonde and heavy-jawed, and brooked no nonsense.

  “If Belisarius rates a man’s ability, then I respect his judgment,” he grunted, “but get no ideas above your station, you hear? You are my subaltern. Contradict me in front of the men, question my decisions and orders, and I’ll take you apart with my fists. Got that?”

  “Of course, sir,” I replied.