Flame of the West

by David Pilling

“Your duty is not to die,” Procopius argued, but I refused to listen. Leaving him behind in Fiesole, I led out my six thousand men, with trumpets playing and banners flying, to seek the enemy.

  What I found was a desert, littered with rotting corpses and the gaunt shades of the living. We encountered some Frankish soldiers a few miles north of Fiesole, though they could hardly be described as soldiers anymore: rather, a band of wandering ghouls with sunken eyes and swollen bellies, their minds gone, reduced to the most basic urges.

  They took little notice of us, but fell like a pack of snarling dogs on some desiccated weeds growing by the roadside. One man managed to pull a fistful of weeds from the ground, and tried to make off with the booty, but was seized and dragged down by two of his comrades. They throttled him, and tore out his eyes, and turned on each other even as he jerked in his death-throes.

  It seemed a kindness to kill them, and I ordered a troop of my horse-archers to shoot them down. When the Franks were dead, lying riddled with arrows, we marched on, leaving their corpses to bake and blacken in the pitiless heat.

  I saw worse horrors, the further we advanced into Liguria, and the memories haunt me still. The Frankish host was disintegrating, murdered by the all-consuming famine. The remains of their broken, starving battalions strewn like so much human rubbish about the countryside.

  The ghastly aspect of the dead was surpassed by the living, the little groups of survivors we encountered, their skin grey and lifeless and clinging to their bones. It was easy to identify those who had turned cannibal and survived by feasting on the flesh of former comrades. These men had a wild and fearful look, their hollow eyes shining with maniac fury, even as their hands swung listlessly by their sides.

  We caught one such group of monsters in the act of devouring a corpse. They offered no resistance, but ran howling into the wilderness, their lips and fingers dripping with blood. Sickened, I ordered no pursuit, but had the half-eaten remnant of their comrade given a decent burial.

  What was left of Theodobert’s army crawled back across the Po and encamped on the northern bank. They devoured the last of their oxen, and drew water from the river, only to be hit by fresh disaster: the summer heat carried fever with it, and disease swept through the Frankish camp, carrying away a third of their number.

  In this enfeebled state, the Franks were in no condition to refuse Belisarius’ terms, which I delivered to King Theodobert in my capacity as envoy.

  The Frankish camp stank of death. I rode through it with a cloth soaked in vinegar and fragrant spices pressed to my face. Emaciated, haggard-faced men were digging pits to bury their comrades. Neat rows of bodies covered in white sheets lay beside them, ready to be pushed in.

  There were no horses. As Belisarius said, the Franks had little in the way of cavalry, and those beasts they did bring over the Alps had long since vanished down the throats of their starving warriors.

  Theodobert received me in faded barbarian splendour. He sat before his tent in a high-backed wooden chair set on a bearskin rug. His surviving nobles and hearth-guards stood either side of the chair. Tall, well-made men, with long auburn beards and moustaches. I had last seen their like in Paris, when I fled there with my mother after Camlann.

  I ran my eye over their armour and weapons, noting their long swords and double-edged axes, glittering mail, fine cloaks and elaborately decorated helms. I also noted the sullen, wasted look of the men under the gear, and the rank stench of sickness and death that hovered over all this martial display like a poisonous cloud.

  The king was a youngish man, of medium height and slender build. His hair and beard were yellow, with a touch of grey, and he wore a slender golden circlet over a furrowed brow. Only the ice in his grey eyes hinted at the cruelty and ruthlessness that defined his character.

  “Lord king,” I said, bowing slightly, “I am Coel ap Amhar ap Arthur, envoy of General Belisarius. I bring you greetings from him, and a message.”

  Theodobert raked me with his eyes, and stretched out one yellow, claw-like hand.

  “There is no letter, lord king. The general bade me repeat his message to you.”

  “Am I not worth a letter, then?” said Theodobert in a hoarse growl, “is the King of the Franks not worth the price of wax and parchment?”

  I said nothing, not wishing to anger him. My escort consisted of a mere twenty lancers, and our lives rested in his hands.

  He made an impatient gesture. “Repeat your master’s words, then.”

  “General Belisarius advises you to put aside your ambitions of conquering Italy, or else risk the imperial displeasure. It would surely be wiser to maintain the tranquil and undisputed enjoyment of your hereditary lands, than to endanger their possession in the vain hope of extending their limits. Withdraw, then, back over the mountains into Frankia, and Belisarius will not hinder or pursue your retreat.”

  I spoke with some confidence, knowing the Franks were in dire straits. In other circumstances the fierce and treacherous Theodobert might have thrown the general’s words back in my teeth, or had my head returned to him on a platter, but he dared not offer any insult now.

  He didn’t even consult with his nobles before responding. “I accept,” he said, with all the grace and good humour of a man suffering from some terrible internal pain, “my people shall quit this hellish, Godforsaken land, and leave Belisarius and Vitiges to quarrel over its bones.”

  I gave silent thanks to God. The last major threat to the Roman cause in Italy had been repelled, and I could turn my thoughts to Ravenna.

  And Arthur.

  14.

  The final march on Ravenna was preceded by the fall of Osimo, the last major Gothic stronghold in central Italy. Belisarius almost lost his life under the walls, when a sharp-eyed Gothic archer spotted him and loosed an arrow, but one of his bodyguards threw himself in front of the general. The arrow transfixed the guard’s hand, which had to be amputated to save his life.

  Enraged by the attempt on his life, and the loss of a good fighting man, Belisarius gave one of his rare displays of ruthlessness.

  Osimo was well-supplied with water via an ancient cistern, and his engineers had been unable to destroy the solid architecture or divert the stream.

  “If we cannot deprive the Goths of water, then let us taint it,” he said, and gave orders for the corpses of dead soldiers to be thrown into the water supply, along with poisonous herbs and powdered lime.

  Soon the Goths began to sicken and die. Terrified by the fate of their comrades, and the fury of Belisarius, the survivors quickly offered their surrender.

  All our available forces were now concentrated on Ravenna. This city, the strongest in Italy, seemed to be impregnable. Surrounded by high walls, strong ramparts and impassable marshes, it had been chosen by Augustus as the principal station for the imperial fleet.

  By this time the sea was slowly receding from the Italian peninsula, and the sandbanks near Classe (the harbour built by Augustus) were every day left dry and exposed by the ebbing of the tide. Procopius, who made detailed sketches of the city from a safe vantage point, also noted orchards growing near the harbour.

  The city was still accessible by sea, and the Gothic fleet patrolled the Adriatic coastline to guard against any attempt at blockade.

  “Well, Coel, what do you think of it?” asked Procopius when our army arrived before its walls, “Ravenna, home of the latter-day Western Emperors. A jewel of the West. Greater, perhaps, than Rome herself.”

  I ran my eye over the city’s fearsome defences, the double line of walls and strong gates and high towers. Hundreds of steel helmets glinted along the extensive ramparts. Vitiges had withdrawn most of his army inside the walls, abandoning the rest of Italy to the Romans.

  “I think,” I replied, “that it will be a bastard of a place to take. There must be fifty or sixty thousand Goths in there, cooped up like rats, with their backs to the sea. Belisarius cannot hope to take the place by storm.”

  I squared my shoulde
rs, and sighed. “That means another long siege. Perhaps the longest yet. We could sit outside Ravenna for years.”

  Narses finished his latest sketch, a map of the outer defences worked in charcoal on vellum, and inspected it critically before responding. “That’s no good to you, is it? You need to get inside, as soon as possible, and find your son.”

  “If he exists,” I said bluntly, “Narses may have lied to try and turn me against Belisarius.”

  “Who can say? Narses is a born liar, but occasionally speaks the truth to serve his own crooked ends.”

  He rose from his stool. “I have no intention of growing old here, waiting for Vitiges to surrender or be murdered by one of his generals. Nor, I suspect, does Belisarius.”

  Procopius knew the general’s mind, better than any. Belisarius was indeed determined to crack open Ravenna’s defences and bring the war to an end. He was still in secret correspondence with Matasontha, Vitiges’ treacherous wife, though he did not use me as an envoy at this stage.

  I cannot say what messages passed between them, but several days after the siege began Ravenna suddenly erupted with flame.

  It was past midnight when the great fire started. The conflagration lit up the night sky and illuminated the countryside for miles around. Our soldiers, myself included, cheered the sight of Ravenna burning. Rumours flew through the camp of how it had been achieved.

  “That is no accident,” said Procopius, shivering in his night-gown, “see where the fire spreads, near the harbour? It’s all granaries and storehouses there. Our agents are destroying their supplies.”

  There seemed little doubt the fire was started deliberately, and the frantic efforts of the Goths to douse the flames proved ineffectual. All night the city blazed, warming the hearts of our men, and the grey morning skies were partially obscured by clouds of blackish smoke drifting over the harbour.

  Deprived of grain, Vitiges had no hope of withstanding a lengthy siege. Every soul in our army, down to the meanest pot-boy, knew and appreciated this, and a jubilant mood settled over the Roman camp. The last enemy outpost would soon be in our hands, and we could all go home – home at last, after almost two years of ceaseless warfare against a numerous and stubborn enemy.

  I am not a particularly devout man, but I turned to my prayers like never before, begging the Almighty to spare my son. When the city fell, as fall it must, I feared our men would run wild, and Ravenna would go the same way as Naples and Milan: given over to an orgy of freebooting, rape and general destruction. Even Belisarius, generally a strict and effective disciplinarian, had no means of controlling his soldiers once a city fell to the sack.

  Elene also featured in my prayers. “Let her be dead when I find her,” I pleaded, “do not make me face her, lord. Forgive my sins, and spare me that.”

  Ideally, I would have liked to sink Caledfwlch into the traitress’s heart, or hand her over to Belisarius for justice. Arthur, however, might hate me for bringing about the death of his mother. If he was indeed my son, I wanted his love. Only my long-dead mother had ever truly loved me, and I was sick of being alone in the world.

  Vitiges had one last trick to play. Before we marched on Ravenna, he had despatched two of his nobles on a ship for Constantinople. There they prostrated themselves before Justinian and made a desperate series of threats and promises.

  “Know, Caesar,” they warned, “we have sent envoys to Nurshivan, dread King of the Sassanids, and he has agreed to invade Roman territory if you do not agree to peaceful terms with our master. To smooth the path to peace, King Vitiges offers to give up the southern part of Italy to your dominion, as well as the greater portion of his private treasury at Ravenna.”

  The Emperor should have laughed in their faces, but he feared the power of Nurshivan, poised just across our poorly-defended eastern borders with half a million warriors thirsting for battle. He also feared and envied Belisarius, though the general had never done anything but carry out his wishes, and suspected him of secretly desiring the Italian crown.

  In spite of all the Roman blood and gold that had been spilled in Italy, Justinian agreed to a shameful treaty. Vitiges was to be left the title of King, a portion of his treasures, and all the provinces north of the Po. The rest of Italy, already won by the valour and skill of Belisarius, would once again be part of the Roman Empire.

  The treaty was concluded without the knowledge of Belisarius, and with the connivance of Narses, who had never ceased to plot against his rival. The Gothic envoys sailed back to Ravenna with the glorious news for their sovereign, while a Roman ship carried an imperial ambassador to Belisarius, with orders for him to lift the siege.

  I was not present when the ambassador laid the treaty before Belisarius, but Procopius was, and told me what passed.

  “He sat rigid in his chair,” the secretary later informed me, “and a shadow passed across his face. I have seen that shadow before, on the faces of dying men. For a moment I thought he had suffered a seizure. He did not move or speak until I ordered his guards to usher the ambassador out of the pavilion.”

  “What then?” I asked.

  “He called for wine and started to drink. You know how he can drink when he sets his mind to it. Three flagons of sweet red nectar vanished down his gullet before he spoke again. He wildly cursed the Emperor, and the Empire, and the day he, Belisarius, had been born to serve the two-faced eagle of Rome. Then he fell off his chair, and I helped his attendants to get him into bed.”

  Belisarius did not emerge until late in the afternoon. Ashen-faced and trembling, he summoned a council of his senior officers to discuss the treaty.

  Or, rather, to deny it. “The King of the Goths has offered to send Justinian a portion of his treasure,” he said, “but I will carry Vitiges to Constantinople in chains, and present his person and all his treasure before the imperial throne. There will be no peace with the Goths except on my terms.”

  To my horror and astonishment, every one of his senior men betrayed him. None would agree to carry on the siege against the wishes of the Emperor, and each submitted in writing his reasons for accepting the proposed treaty. Even the likes of Bessas and Hildiger, the old war-horses, failed to support their chief.

  “Traitors,” he spat, “you, who have followed my banner and eaten my bread and taken my pay, now set me at nothing. To hell with you all. I am still commander-in-chief of Caesar’s armies in Italy, and I say there will be no peace. Unless one of you wishes to challenge my authority?”

  He stared at each men in turn, but none dared meet his gaze. Having cowed his officers, he packed the imperial ambassador back aboard his ship, and informed the Goths that the siege would continue.

  Vitiges had learned to fear his enemy, and placed no faith in the treaty unless it came with the signature and oath of Belisarius. Naturally, the general refused to give either, and laid before the Goths a simple choice: surrender, or starve.

  At the height of this bitter stalemate, I was ushered into the general’s presence at dead of night, escorted by two of his Veterans.

  Belisarius was alone inside his pavilion. A fire burned in a brazier on a tripod before his chair, and he was staring into the burning red coals, his pale hands folded on his lap.

  “Coel,” he murmured without looking up, “are you ready to do your duty?”

  I saluted. “Always, sir.”

  “Good. You have never failed me. You, and Procopius. I rate your loyalty even higher than his.”

  I was nervous without the comforting presence of Procopius, who seemed to exert a calming influence on his master.

  Belisarius picked up his sword, which lay unsheathed on the floor, and used it to poke the coals. “I am sick, Coel,” he said wearily, “sick in mind and body.”

  I studied him carefully. He always looked ill, over-strained by work and responsibility, but I saw no sign of any serious malady.

  “Rome has made me sick. All my life I have laboured in her service, toiling from one end of the Empire to another.
Stamping out fires, shoring up our crumbling ramparts. But for me, Rome might have long since toppled into the abyss.”

  He spoke without a trace of arrogance. It was perfectly true. Without Belisarius, the eastern borders of the empire might have long since been overrun. It was he who drove back the Sassanids; who saved Justinian’s throne by putting down the Nika riots; who destroyed the Vandal nation and re-conquered North Africa; who rolled back the tide of barbarians in Italy and defended the Eternal City against a colossal horde of Goths.

  “You are owed much, sir,” I ventured.

  He lifted his left hand, as though he meant to scratch his cheek, and then lowered it. “Yes. Owed much. Few men get what they are owed in this life. They get what they earn. What they take.”

  His hand came up again, and curled into a fist. “Come here,” he ordered.

  I stepped closer to his chair. “I said I would use you as an envoy,” he said, “and now your time has come. You will carry no more precious message than this. Again, as when I despatched you to the camp of Theodobert, there will be nothing in writing. Listen, and take note.”

  “Thanks to the recent fire in Ravenna, deliberately started by the servants of Queen Matasontha, the Goths are starving. They begged me to accept the Emperor’s treaty, but I refused. Nothing will induce me to accept it. I will never betray the memory of my soldiers. Not the officers, that pack of treacherous ingrates, but the rank and file, who have fought and died for me and left their bones in Italian soil.”

  He slowly turned his head and looked directly at me. “Not for Rome,” he said with emphasis, “but me. Their general.”

  He suddenly changed tack. “Do you remember what I said to you, Coel? That your homeland might yet be saved?”

  “Yes, sir,” I replied, startled by the question, “I remember it well.”

  “I meant every word. For months now, I have been considering the future. Where has all my loyalty, all my sacrifice, brought me? To the edge of ruin. The Emperor doesn’t trust me. He hates and envies me, and sends his disgusting favourites to undermine my efforts on his behalf.”