EMPIRE OF SHADES

by Gordon Doherty

  With a cough, the final member of Gratian’s retinue made his presence known. A fellow in loam-coloured robes. Ambrosius, the Bishop of Mediolanum, wore a close-cut beard, his wispy nutbrown hair scraped back across his head. At first, Ambrosius had offended Gratian, failing to laugh at one of his tales during a banquet. And so the man had come dangerously close to a fate like that of Theodosius’ father. Indeed, Gratian had even primed the axeman in his dungeons at Treverorum. But during a subsequent audience with Ambrosius, words had been shared that Gratian had not expected. Words that were like a cool, wet rag on an angry wound. Words that relieved him of something fiery and hot, deep within… that burning, stinging chain of thought that always seemed to follow in the days after he had offed an opponent. The Christian God would not forgive him for his actions in this life, he had always believed. But Ambrosius had impressed upon him a golden truth: that a penitent man could be forgiven for his sins. And penitent he had been, after having a protesting senator skinned alive in the dungeons. Remorseful in the extreme, he was, after drowning the slave girl who had brought him unwanted news. Contrite indeed, he had been after having an irksome advisor’s eyes put out with glowing copper rods – indeed, he had prayed for an hour to make things right on that occasion. But there was one sin he had yet to repent for: engineering the demise of the Eastern Army at Adrianople. Maybe today might serve as penance enough, he thought – put an end to the plague-like dream of the grim moor and that odd, watching creature.

  ‘Come,’ he said, beckoning them. ‘It is time to put right what went wrong on the day my dear Uncle Valens perished. It is time to grant the East an emperor once more.’

  An obedient one, this time, he enthused inwardly, looking sideways at Theodosius as they walked.

  Pavo and Sura hitched their weary horses at Sirmium’s eastern gatehouse, passed through the thick masses flooding into the city and inched along the crammed streets. Sura, suffering something of a raw backside from the relentless ride through Thracia, Dacia and into this eastern edge of Pannonia, was quick to ire.

  ‘Get out of my way, you fat bastard!’ he raged as a man the height and width of a small watchtower waddled drunkenly across his path again, blocking the packed, narrow lane entirely.

  The giant suddenly seemed to sober up, swinging round to glower down at Sura with eyes ablaze. ‘What did you call me?’ he growled as he raised a coiled fist the size of Sura’s head.

  ‘Easy, easy,’ Pavo said, stepping between the pair. The giant scowled at Pavo for a tense moment, the press of people nearby making a modicum of space in expectation of a fight. ‘Look at him,’ he jabbed a thumb towards Sura, ‘he’s pathetic. Last time he got into a fight the other fellow passed out from laughing.’

  The giant’s face grew wide with a grin then he threw his head back and roared long and loud. The rest of the crowd, deprived of their fight, instead enjoyed a good laugh at Sura too. With a dismissive ruffle of Sura’s hair, the giant shook his head and waddled on ahead.

  Pavo felt Sura’s fiery stare burning on the side of his face. ‘We are not here as soldiers. We can’t make a scene.’

  ‘I could have had that big bastard,’ Sura seethed, expertly resetting his messed-up locks. ‘One punch,’ he insisted, swinging his fist through the air in an uppercut, then plunging his hand down to his imaginary fallen victim. ‘Shove my hand down his throat and rip his bloody lungs out, I would,’ he added, lowering his voice and ducking a little as the giant, now some way ahead, looked back briefly.

  ‘Really,’ Pavo replied flatly.

  ‘Yes, really,’ Sura fumed. ‘There was a wrestling tournament in Adrianople once. I twisted man after man into knots. Star Wrestler of Adrianople, they called me. They’d chant my name after every victory. Hah!’ a fond, distant smile spread across his face, then it gained a slightly wicked edge, and his tongue poked out from one corner of his mouth, ‘and the women were only too happy to reward their champion, if you get my meaning.’ His bright expression melted into a look of regret. ‘Things were great until they pitched me against a vain senator’s son, told me I could win, but not to harm him too badly as he was getting married the next month. I was leaping around him, smacking him to the ground, twisting him and doing all my moves… when I accidentally stood on his cock,’ he shrugged apologetically. ‘The lad was a bit dim, you see: he stood up quickly in fright and, er, his cock stayed where it was.’

  Pavo glanced at Sura once, twice and again. ‘Sura, are you telling me you ripped a man’s cock off?’

  Sura’s face wrinkled now as if perplexed by his own tale. ‘I’m not sure that was the point of the story but… but anyway, forget all that: if we’re here as civilians, then why do you have this?’ he patted under one of Pavo’s arms furtively.

  Pavo stifled the curse that rose to his lips. ‘Why don’t you bloody well just show it to the guards?’ he hissed under his breath, eyes shooting up to the lines of bearded, bronze-helmed Heruli legionaries posted on the street corners and on the rooftops to oversee any trouble spots in the crowd. These men – Gratian’s guard regiment – stood in a stance of authority, feet wide apart, spears clutched, watching the passing masses below, the red and white ring pattern on their shields like a demonic third eye.

  Nobody had been allowed to enter the city armed, but Pavo had managed it, slapping a mule’s rump to create a distraction just before he was about to be searched. But now he felt the cold Heruli eyes upon him, sure they could see the spatha blade concealed in the shoulder baldric under his cloak. One glance, one shout… and he knew what would happen. Gallus had imparted only a fraction of detail on what happened to Gratian’s enemies, and that was enough. His step grew clumsy and his heart rapped on his ribs as they spilled from the lane, under a ceremonial arch and into Sirmium’s Great Forum. It was like rising from underwater, the strangulated echoes of the lane suddenly freed to mix with the many noises in the vast square. Smooth, towering statues of gods and emperors past rose high above the crowds. Colonnades edged the space, and an aqueduct picked along the western end towards a cistern by the palace entrance. The din of many thousands of voices crashed around like the swell of an ocean. Wine sploshed carelessly from cups and skins. The aroma of spiced meat mixed with the stench of unwashed bodies.

  ‘Pavo, I have a dreadful feeling,’ Sura said cricking his neck one way and then the other as they pushed and barged closer to the high stone dais connected to the royal palace by a thin marble viaduct, ‘the kind of feeling I think others must get when I come up with a rotten plan.’

  Pavo said nothing.

  ‘You said you wanted to look him in the eye,’ Sura pressed, looking up at the dais, as yet unoccupied. ‘But that’s only part of it, isn’t it?’ he made eyes at the concealed spatha again.

  Pavo remained silent.

  ‘Well at least you’ll not be able to do anything stupid from here,’ Sura muttered, again eyeing the dais – a safe distance away from and above any hot-headed swordsmen. More, a palisade-like rectangle of Heruli lined the base of the platform and four more stood atop it, one at each corner. ‘One move and you’d have a hundred spears in both of us.’

  ‘Look, I only smuggled the sword in for insurance,’ Pavo lied. But Sura was right, he realised: one suspicious move towards the emperor and he and Sura would likely be cut down brutally. So this is something I must do alone, he realised. He looked around, seeing a wine vendor under an arch of the aqueduct. ‘We’re tired and weary. Perhaps a cup of hot wine might help?’

  ‘Hmm,’ Sura said as he saw the steam rising from the vendor’s cauldron. ‘I need something to take the saddle-sting out of my arse. Right, stay here and promise me you’ll do nothing before I return.’

  Pavo nodded once, unable to speak, his throat thickening. As Sura pushed away towards the vendor, he mouthed: Goodbye, old friend. I hope you understand what I am about to do.

  When he turned back towards the dais and the palace, six flashes of bronze caught the winter sunlight as the cornua on the roo
ftops were tilted towards the sky and the musicians emptied their lungs into the horns. The triumphant paean poured across the thousands of heads, threaded by the boom of drums as a bright storm of petals rained down upon the square.

  ‘Behold, the great rhetorician, Themistius!’ an announcer cried as a fleshy, pallium-clad orator shuffled along the viaduct from the palace and onto the dais. His skin was painted pure white, beads of sweat stealing from the strip of unpainted skin below his hairline.

  ‘Citizens of the Empire,’ Themistius cried in a throaty and well-practiced manner, rolling the r in empire and throwing out one hand dramatically as he paced along the edges of the dais, the other hand clasped to his lapel. ‘Our sacred and ancient lands have been ravaged by fear and folly in this last year. The fear of the dreaded Goths.’

  The crowd jeered.

  ‘The folly of the reckless Valens,’ he continued, tossing his arms into the air.

  The crowd howled in derision now. Pavo’s teeth ground together like rocks.

  ‘But today, the throne of the East will be empty no more. Today, our heroic Emperor Gratian, favoured by Jove, protected by Mars, avowed by the Christ, supported by the ancient and noble Senate of Rome,’ he gestured to a high balcony on the palace, from which a cluster of beaky, hoary and silk-clad senatorial types peered down on the proceedings, ‘will appoint a new steward of the eastern realm.’

  A group of four figures emerged from the palace and stepped onto the marble viaduct leading to the dais, and Sirmium shook with a cheer that drowned out everything else.

  Boom! The drums struck up a slow, ominous rhythm.

  Pavo stared.

  Boom!

  Strange faces. He heard the whispers of the crowd, and understood the scarred, long-haired giant was Merobaudes the Frank. The sandy-robed fellow was Ambrosius, Bishop of Mediolanum. And then there was Valens’ soon-to-be successor, the tall, silk-draped Theodosius, earnest of expression, almost humble. Yet none of them mattered.

  Boom!

  His eyes fell on the fourth figure: a young man – a few summers Pavo’s junior – with the most virtuous, unspoiled expression. The Master of the West, wrapped in a purple cloak. A bead of sweat stole down Pavo’s back.

  Boom!

  Gratian, so close.

  Boom!

  Pavo traced a finger over the edge of the hidden baldric, thinking of his dead loved ones.

  Boom!

  Gratian stepped clear of the others, coming to the dais’ front edge, hovering just a storey over Pavo. Sura had been right: in this crush, no man could throw a sword up there with any accuracy.

  Boom!

  So he moved his hand to his other flank, where a solitary plumbata dart was wrapped in a roll of hide and tucked in his belt. Sura knew nothing of this.

  Boom!

  Pavo carefully drew the dart from the hide roll as Gratian hailed the crowd with words of greeting. But care deserted him when he began to raise the missile, his hand shaking. In his mind’s eye he saw them all: Felicia, Gallus, Zosimus, Quadratus… Dexion even… and the many dead of Adrianople. Curse you, false emperor…

  Boom! went the drums and Pavo’s heart. I have to, he reassured himself, easing the dart up a little higher.

  Just then, Gratian extended both arms like a bird about to take flight, his face wrought with ecstasy. As he did so, the purple cloak slipped back from his body, revealing a crude, red leather jerkin and rough, woollen leggings, bound and strapped with leather. And from his belt hung a sword. A Gothic longsword.

  At just that moment, the drums fell silent, the drumstick hovering a finger’s width above the skin, the drummer in shock.

  ‘He dons the war clothes of the Goths?’ one voice in the crowd gasped. A clutch of others struck up in similar dismay. All the while, Gratian stood, arms opened, twisting gently so all could see, basking in the provocation.

  Pavo found himself frozen, the plumbata almost raised proud of the masses but not quite, his gaze not on the shameful garb, but upon the pulsing veins in Gratian’s neck, upon his unarmoured chest. He realised this was the moment, the hiatus. It had to be now. He thrust his arm up, but just as he did so, the crowd surged forward a few steps, their cries of dismay intensifying. One oaf of a man barged into Pavo’s back. Pavo stumbled forward and the plumbata fell from his grip. In the momentary chaos, he heard the missile clatter on the flagstones underfoot, heard someone yelp, saw the Heruli lining the foot of the dais looking suddenly alert, necks craned, one nudging another and pointing in roughly Pavo’s direction. One of them ducked down for a moment and rose again holding the dart – bent out of shape having been kicked forward through the crowd. Instantly, a clutch of them ploughed into the screaming masses, smacking people aside with the hafts of their spears, coming towards Pavo, their helm crests like shark fins splitting a surface of water.

  Suddenly, a hand yanked up the hood of his cloak, then dragged him back through the throngs. ‘Move,’ Sura hissed.

  They stumbled and staggered on as Gratian - unaware of the minor fracas in the crowd – continued his address to the people until, after an age, they realised they were no longer being pursued. Pavo turned back to face the dais, looking out from under his hood cagily. He saw the Heruli group in the crowd a good distance away, now looking in every direction, perplexed.

  ‘That was your plan?’ Sura spat. ‘Send me for wine then slay an emperor?’

  ‘One throw,’ Pavo growled, ‘and it would have been done.’

  ‘And you would have been done, you mean,’ Sura gasped.

  ‘It wouldn’t matter, Sura,’ he pled. ‘I’d be just another soldier gone. A cheap price to pay to be rid of that demon.’

  Sura grabbed both of his biceps and shook him, hard. ‘It wouldn’t matter? Pavo, you are the only thing holding the legion together. You.’

  Pavo snorted in derision. ‘Officers fall and new ones take their place. If I die, you will lead them.’

  Sura chuckled coldly. ‘You really believe it’s that straightforward, don’t you?’

  They fell silent and watched as Gratian brought a small golden diadem, studded with emerald, pearl and sapphire, and placed it upon the kneeling Theodosius’ head. Next, he took a purple robe similar to his own and pinned it around the now standing Theodosius’ shoulders – for a moment comically having to stretch onto his toes given Theodosius’ height. At the last, two of the Heruli came forward and placed a shield on the ground. Theodosius stepped upon it and the two warriors hoisted the shield and him up and onto their shoulders. At once, the cornua and drums exploded with noise, as did the crowd – the odd garb of Gratian forgotten as they hailed the new saviour of the East. Fresh petal storms floated down and the joyous cheers went on and on.

  When the shield was lowered after a time, Theodosius spoke. ‘A black cloud hangs over the East, but I will do everything in my power to rectify matters. Fritigern and his horde make winter camp on the eastern edge of Thracia right now, but they are not masters of that land. Thracia can be recovered. In the coming days I will take ship back to Thessalonica. There I will pour every effort into righting matters: our army will be replenished and re-clothed in iron, our countryside will be recovered… and the Goths will be vanquished.’

  Every soul within Sirmium’s walls cried aloud at this. Many wept, hands extended as if desperate to grasp the new emperor’s promise and prevent it from escaping into the ether.

  Finally, Themistius the painted orator took to striding around the edge of the dais, wagging a finger as if teaching the crowd. ‘The Goths will quake,’ he boomed. ‘Our mighty new emperor will draw every able man together, our miners will bring iron for them and we will slaughter the barbarian!’

  A short while later the imperial party retreated back along the viaduct towards the palace.

  ‘Come on, Pavo,’ Sura urged him. ‘There is nothing for us here now. We should hasten to Thessalonica, to the legion. You heard Theodosius – the time to right things nears.’

  As the pair withdre
w, Pavo looked back, heartsick, knowing his chance had gone, while the rest of Sirmium burst into riotous celebrations. As the imperial party reached the end of the viaduct and slipped back inside the palace, his lips moved silently: there will be another time…

  Gratian swept back into his high chamber in the palace, laughing hard. He unclipped his purple cloak and let it fall to the ground, then scooped up a proffered cup of watered wine from a body slave.

  ‘Things went well, Domine?’ the slave asked cagily, eyeing Gratian’s Gothic garb askance.

  ‘Things went well indeed,’ Gratian sighed in contentment.

  ‘To flaunt your status is one thing, Domine,’ another, tarry and far less servile voice contended, ‘but to goad them, to dare them to speak against you… is a dangerous game.’

  Gratian swung to Merobaudes, his nostrils flaring. ‘It is my game, and none did dare to speak against me… unless you plan to?’

  Merobaudes regarded Gratian for a painful stretch, his lank, straggly hair poorly masking the malice that bent the fire-scarred side of his face. Gratian felt a swell of fear inside, but such was his confidence, it lasted only a trice. The best regiments of the Western Army were loyal to him, the Speculatores were his, the rich owed their fortunes to him, the poor owed what little they had to him. No man could truly challenge him. But when Merobaudes stepped forward, that belief began to fracture. Maybe the Frankish giant was the dark creature from his dream? When the colossus drew out a weapon, his hubris deserted him. Gratian stumbled back and made a noise like a startled gull. Instantly, a pair of Heruli lunged between their emperor and the towering Magister Militum, both spears at the latter’s throat.

  Merobaudes grinned a wicked grin and eyed the pair. ‘I bring this only to show our emperor what nearly happened out there.’