Gods & Emperors (Legionary 5)

by Gordon Doherty

  There was Traianus, the grey-haired, hook-nosed and sun-burnished Magister Militum – Master of the Army – who had coordinated as best he could the armies of Thracia since the outbreak of the Gothic wars. Traianus was a man with a patchy reputation. Some said he had only won battles or avoided defeat thanks to secondary forces arriving to save his skin, much as had happened at Ad Salices.

  Then there was Saturninus, the slight and mild-mannered Magister Equitum – Master of Cavalry – with sleek, dark locks that hung to his shoulders. This one had tried his damnedest to hold the five Haemus Mountain passes during the winter just past. A deep-thinking and enigmatic leader – naturally cautious but not lacking in courage.

  Lastly, there was Victor, also ranked as Magister Equitum, and the only one Pavo had not previously met. This man was a tall, whip-thin Sarmatian, probably in his thirties. He was a handsome fellow, with fair hair swept back without a parting. People spoke of Victor as a leader who loathed field battles and much preferred to assault enemy walls – something he had excelled at in Persia. This trio would be Valens’ key men when the Praesental Army and the remnant of the Thracian legions set out to tackle the Goths.

  ‘Mithras,’ Sura muttered by his side, ducking back from one leaping, tight-trousered dancer. ‘They’re practically thrusting it in my face!’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be over soon,’ Quadratus butted in. ‘We’re here to talk, not to watch these prancing daisies,’ he said with a sagely look before ungraciously sinking his teeth into a pheasant leg acquired from a passing slave with a food tray. ‘Ooh, look - they have barley ale!’

  Pavo saw the barrel from which cups of foaming drink was being dispensed - one of Valens’ highly-criticised tastes that had stayed with him since his upbringing in Pannonia.

  ‘Keep off the ale,’ Zosimus muttered after appraising Quadratus’ impromptu meal. ‘Meat and ale means farting.’

  Quadratus’ head swung round, his face twisted in an accusatory scowl, meat juices dripping from his moustache and spotting on his clean tunic. ‘Eh?’ he muttered through a full mouth, then touched a hand to his belly. ‘That’s unfair; I’ve got a delicate constitu-’

  ‘You’re a filthy bastard,’ Zosimus cut him off. ‘Anyway, this nonsense is almost done,’ he flicked a finger towards the marble plinth. Valens had risen from his seat and was beckoning his consistorium towards the entrance of the Magnaura.

  Inside the basilica was a grand planning room with cool marble floors, white-plastered walls painted with vivid images of griffins, goats, serpents and satyrs, capped with a domed ceiling. The centrepiece was a map table bearing a yellowing paper outline of the empire. Valens stood at one side of the table, the three men of his consistorium beside him. At the other side of the table, the forty or so tribuni of the Praesental legions that had arrived in the city that morning and those of the Thracian legions who had long awaited them looked on. In Tribunus’ Gallus’ absence, the four men of the XI Claudia filed into place. Valens had already begun his address to the men by the time Pavo found a spot that allowed him to see the map table.

  ‘Three times I have faced the Goths. Three times I should have seized victory. Three times I have been thwarted,’ Valens insisted with none of the meekness that had afflicted his speech at the Hippodrome earlier. ‘First, they fled from my forces. Next, they melted into the Carpates Mountains. Finally, Terra Mater herself mocked me, swelling the waters of the Danubius until the river broke its banks, flooding the northern hinterland and blocking my army’s path when I had the Gothic armies within my grasp. Never did they best me, yet still the people howl Valens the Failure!’ he shot an accusatory finger out behind him towards the room’s western wall, as if to indict the populace of the city who had humiliated him in the arena.

  The fire in the emperor’s voice heartened Pavo at first, but then he noticed how Valens’ words were loose, almost slurred. When a slave refilled the emperor’s empty wine cup, Pavo guessed it was not an entirely natural confidence.

  ‘And they dare to call me a heretic?’ Valens threw up his hands. ‘That Fritigern and his Goths follow Arius’ gospel makes me wonder if I have more in common with that fierce Iudex than with my own subjects. Last year I decreed that the Christian temples were open to all worshippers, Arian or otherwise, yet still they call me… the heretic. And my reward for lowering taxes across the diocese? Hurled, rotten food.’

  The others in the room shuffled and looked around nervously. Traianus, Saturninus and Victor seemed well-versed in disguising any such reactions.

  ‘But to the business of the day,’ Valens sighed and rested his palms on the edge of the map table. ‘My network of forts along the Danubius is gone,’ he said with an iron tone, sweeping a finger along the lower stretches of the river. ‘The armies of Thracia are all but obliterated, I hear. The comitatenses legions of the Thracian field forces and the limitanei legions from the borders – broken?’

  Pavo checked the instinctive urge to counter this. The XI Claudia and others were anything but broken. He thought of the ranks back in those cramped barracks. Give us our chance. Lead us out into Thracia and we’ll show you.

  ‘Respectfully, Domine, the armies of Thracia have been working hard in these last months,’ Traianus interjected.

  Saturninus nodded in agreement. ‘The V Macedonica are ready to swell your forces and,’ the softly-spoken officer looked around the room and caught the eye of Pavo and his comrades, ‘the XI Claudia have worked hard to replenish their ranks too.’

  Valens’ eyes brightened just a fraction at this. It was probably the first piece of good news he had heard in some time, Pavo realised. ‘Excellent,’ he said quietly, perhaps regretting his initial outburst. ‘For we will need every scrap of manpower we can muster. Already I have summoned the retired veterans who live within the city – they will form another regiment to complement us further – and ordered a swift conscription of the young men of these parts,’ he added, picking up wooden legionary pieces from an old pine box and placing them on the map, one by one, in and around Constantinople. Thirty two pieces all in, Pavo counted. ‘Now, my exploratores have been riding throughout Thracia since January. Those… those who have not been caught and cut down by the Goths… report that Fritigern’s forces are scattered,’ he said, inflecting the statement as a question and looking around his men.

  ‘Scattered? Well, the horde has been broken down and each piece widely distributed,’ Traianus reasoned, ‘carefully and strategically positioned.’

  Saturninus stepped forward and dotted a finger around the map, as if evenly marking every tract of countryside across Thracia. ‘He has split his Thervingi spearmen into multiple, small and swift warbands – each roughly a thousand strong. He has done this for four reasons: to reduce the chances of starvation that might come if the horde remained clustered together; to deny us the opportunity to engage him in a decisive field battle; to shackle every inch of Thracia outwith the walled cities and towns – which he knows he cannot take by siege; and to reduce the chances of revolt within his forces – there have been rumours of tribal divisions within the ranks, but they have held together for over a year now. The warbands patrol the hills and plains like sharks in the ocean, seizing any wagons we try to send between our settlements. The smaller towns with poor defences or none at all have taken to paying them tributes of coin and precious metal to spare their lives and homes.’

  ‘How many spears can he gather, if he was to bring the horde together?’ Valens asked, his voice tight.

  ‘More than one hundred thousand have flocked to the Gothic Alliance. At least forty thousand of them are warriors,’ Traianus replied, almost guiltily. ‘Thirty thousand foot and ten thousand horse, by our best estimates.’

  A chorus of murmuring broke out until Valens cast a fiery eye around the gathered men, silencing them. ‘While the warbands roam, the Iudex himself does have something of a base, does he not?’

  ‘Yes, Domine,’ Saturninus said, then reached over to pluck a fi
gurine from the box. ‘If I may?’ He lifted a small wooden piece – this time depicting a bearded, long-haired warrior bearing spear and shield. He placed it on the map in the heart of Thracia, just south of the Haemus Mountains, inside a tight bend in the River Tonsus. ‘The imperial garrison at Kabyle fled their posts last year and the population were quick to follow – seeking refuge within Adrianople. Fritigern has taken that abandoned low-walled town as his own. He organises the movements of his many warbands from there.’

  ‘Could we take it back?’ Victor suggested. ‘Capture Fritigern… cut off the snake’s head, if you will. Those walls are surely not as tall as some of those I have toppled in Persia.’ His eyes almost glowed with anticipation as he spoke.

  Saturninus hesitated, then shook his head. ‘Your reputation for felling and seizing walls is well-known, but Kabyle is no ordinary settlement. Three sides of the town are shielded by the bend in the River Tonsus, leaving just a short stretch of the walls open to a landward assault. More, the walls may be low but they are stout – many paces thick – and could withstand a storm of onager rocks for several weeks. Finally, the rocky acropolis at the heart of the town is nigh-on impregnable when well defended. The place is designed to withstand siege. If we were to engage him there, we would be snared in that place. His widespread warbands could then be summoned to fall upon our backs.’

  Valens chapped on the table in frustration. ‘There must be something of theirs we can target.’

  Saturninus sighed. ‘There are rumours of a secondary base – as well-stocked with grain and supplies as Kabyle, thus vital to the horde. All we know is it’s somewhere further north – somewhere in Moesia, but our scouts have failed to penetrate those lands.’

  ‘If we have no realistic target to attack, then what are we to do?’ an aged tribunus asked. ‘Where do we go from here?’

  Valens fixed him with an icy look, then drew it across each and every person in the room. Pavo tried not to flinch when he came under its scrutiny, but he could almost feel the emperor’s frustration. ‘First, we will reclaim the peninsula under our very feet.’ He tapped Constantinople on the map, perched on the end of the thin outcrop of land jutting from southeastern Thracia, then drew his finger the short distance westwards to the neck of the outcrop, tapping his finger again at the southern coastal city of Perinthus then drawing a rough vertical line to the northern coast as if to define a border, sealing off the peninsula. ‘Starting tomorrow, I will have my cataphracti riders drive back the Goths in the immediate vicinity of the city. The army can then base itself outside the city walls. But my riders will forge on to reclaim this small region,’ he outlined the peninsula again as he said this, ‘it is narrow enough to be sure we will not be outflanked or attacked in our rear. As soon as it is done, the rest of the army will move away from Constantinople to base itself here,’ he tapped a finger on a landmark on the southern coastline of the peninsula, within the proposed region to be reclaimed. ‘My manor at Melanthias is… dear to me. More, it has ample grounds and fine pasture and there we can then plan our next move. Vitally, a legion from the field army of Egypt is stationed there – I had them shipped there over the winter.’

  A murmur of enthusiasm broke out: at least a thousand more men to add to the army, Pavo realised.

  ‘Then, we strike out and sweep the Goths from the rest of Thracia?’ one brave legionary commander piped up: ‘If the majority of the Goths roam in small bands then we can march this army into the countryside and crush them one by one, like ants!’

  Valens shook his head. ‘Unlike the peninsula, the rest of Thracia is broad, the hills and forests almost endless. How fast could an army of our size move compared to their small warbands? They would melt away before us like morning mist, reform behind us and gnash at our flanks and rear, fall upon our supply lines, exhausting us, drawing us to wherever might suit them. We would hold any land we reconquer only as long as the boots of our army stood upon it.’

  ‘Yet the longer we let them roam and plunder, the emptier our grain silos become and the more vacuous the imperial coffers grow,’ another protested.

  ‘The coffers are no business of yours,’ Valens snapped. ‘You are here to lead your legion and lead it well. Have you or any of your men gone unfed or unpaid?’

  ‘No, Domine,’ the man said humbly.

  Valens took a moment to compose himself. ‘But your point is sound: we cannot allow the Goths to retain their current grip on the Thracian countryside. The outlying towns still held by imperial garrisons will soon face starvation if we do not deliver grain to them. The roaming warbands must be driven back and forced together. And only when Fritigern’s horde is united can we march against them with confidence that our flanks and rear are secure.’

  The aged Tribunus donned a perplexed look, scratching his bald head. ‘So we must herd the Thervingi warbands together before we can safely march further into Thracia… but we cannot herd them together without marching out there in the first place?’

  Valens smiled wryly. It was a smile that lifted only one side of his face. ‘That is a paradox that few men know how to solve. Thus, I have summoned… Bastianus,’ he said flatly.

  Gasps and groans filled the planning room. Pavo looked round in confusion.

  ‘He’s a westerner,’ one objected.

  ‘He’s insane,’ another added.

  ‘He’s an arsehole!’ a third concluded in a hushed tone then reddened as he realised his words had been more audible than intended.

  ‘Bastianus has fought roving barbarians in Egypt, Persia and Gaul. He knows well how to combat an elusive and distributed enemy,’ Valens barked, quieting the room. ‘More, until I summoned him a month ago, he was languishing in his villa in Latium in retirement. I have heard he is ill-suited to redundancy, like a drunk man is to plain water. Indeed, he wasted not a moment before accepting my request and is right now on his way east to join us. With his help, we can herd the Gothic warbands and force Fritigern’s hand.’

  A bearded officer wore a troubled look. ‘Forgive me, Domine, but I doubt Bastianus will be our saviour. He is but one man. Perhaps he might succeed in driving Fritigern’s roaming warbands back to their master, but that simply presents us with another problem: Fritigern’s united horde numbers forty thousand men. We have only thirty thousand. Surely it is vital then that we hasten Emperor Gratian, who promises to bring with him his many legions and tip the balance of numbers? Surely he will be our saviour?’

  A sharp, collective intake of breath sounded as all eyes switched to the man who had spoken. ‘Thank you, Tribunus,’ Valens said. Never had an expression of gratitude sounded so sour. ‘Emperor Gratian has indeed gathered his Praesental Army of the West, and reports indicate that right now he is marching east. Another thirty thousand men to complement the thirty thousand we have gathered here.’

  ‘Respectfully, Domine, we have heard rumours that he has been marching east for many months. Where exactly is he, and how long will it be before his armies reach Thracia?’ a young officer asked.

  Valens smiled the driest of smiles. ‘How long, indeed. In the time it has taken to bring my own forces from Antioch, my nephew has… taken great time and care in his preparations.’

  ‘I meant no offence to your esteemed nephew, Domine,’ the young man added uncertainly.

  Valens swept a hand through the air as if dismissing the need for apology. ‘They say that despite his short reign so far, despite still sporting the down of youth on his chin, he has already achieved more than me,’ he muttered, taking another swig of wine. ‘His subjects laud him as a military hero and an appointee of God.’

  An awkward silence settled in the room as all watched Valens’ head bow again – just like it had at the Hippodrome. ‘He informs me he will be in Thracia by the next new moon,’ he said. ‘On the first day of July.’

  One month, the crowd murmured brightly amongst themselves. Pavo looked to Sura, Zosimus and Quadratus.

  ‘So we must be prepared to meet him then. Th
e city fabricae will be employed night and day to craft armour and weapons for any who need it. Each of you, ready your cohorts and sharpen your swords,’ he met every man’s eyes again. Pavo stood a little taller. ‘For soon, we march to war.’

  A boisterous chorus of cheering broke out. With a confident nod, the emperor ended the meeting and the men of the gathering began to file outside. Last to leave, Pavo saw Zosimus and Quadratus clasp each other’s shoulders as if in preparation. Sura did the same to him. He made to return the gesture as he turned away from the map table, but halted, his eyes catching on the map.

  There, a good days’ march along the Via Militaris – the ancient marching road that cut diagonally across Thracia – and beyond the small region Valens had proposed to reconquer, was a faded, black scrawl next to a dot.

  Narco, it read.

  Not a person… a place. A remote waystation by the looks of it – nothing else near it for miles.

  He thought of the faded message, the staring eye: Narco holds the truth.

  A chill passed over him. What lay out there? His mind spun in a hundred different directions until a candidatus coughed impatiently. He blinked, looking up and realising he had outstayed his welcome, then swung away to leave. From the corner of his eye, he noticed how Valens’ self-assured demeanour toppled like a dropped sail as soon as he thought the last pair of eyes had left him. Pavo pretended he hadn’t seen this and made his way towards the door with the others. He snatched one last glance back: Valens was wringing his hands, knuckles white, while talking to some portly fellow who had entered the room via an internal door. The Magister Epistularum, Pavo realised – Master of Letters and head of the imperial messenger system.