Pavo laughed once, thinking of Thessalonica and the grubby crescent of turves that surrounded the place. His mind turned to their route to get there: as a cohort, they could speed to Thessalonica in a moon or less. With this tribe in tow, it would be much slower. ‘By the end of October, I would hope.’
‘And you will explain to this Theodosius that I am rightfully Arimer’s heir?’
‘Even if you were not, Eriulf, I expect he will merely be glad of your forces coming to his call before Fritigern advances.’
Eriulf glanced back down the column. ‘We lost hundreds at the elders’ coup, and hundreds more at the riverbank to the Huns. Barely five thousand fighting men remain. You tell me that only a few legions await us at Thessalonica. How can this be enough?’
Pavo looked him in the eye. ‘I saw your men fight. At the vital moment on the riverbank, they reacted, formed the defensive square and stood strong in the face of the steppe riders. I hold more stock in that than in a simple head-count. It is the same with the legions,’ he said, thinking of the VIII Gemina and others at the Thessalonica camp.
Eriulf seemed to be taking everything in carefully. ‘And you say that wily, surly bastard Modares is one of your generals,’ he said with a wry chuckle. ‘We’ll need his ilk… for Fritigern’s greatest weapon lies up here,’ he tapped his temple.
‘We will find a way,’ Pavo reassured him. ‘But think of the good things: when we reach Thessalonica, each of your people will be granted homes within the city to keep warm in, and in times to come, lands to farm. Those orchards and meadows you dreamt of can become real. Broken castles like Novae and Durostorum can become whole again and men like yours can garrison them. Your soldiers will be trained in the legionary ways and equipped with Roman steel. I know from what I have seen they will make fine legions.’
Eriulf’s lips played with a smile. ‘Things will work out well. I sense it.’
They came to the walled town of Nicopolis – perched on the confluence of two rivers, and one of the few islands of imperial authority that had ridden out the Gothic War. There, a Roman governor and an elderly Christianised Goth by the name of Ulfilla held sway, the former managing the thin populace to gather grain, timber and ore to keep the town in good order, and the old Goth preaching Arian gospel to the masses every evening.
They spent a welcome seven nights there in billets within the town and in a camp outside the walls. By day Pavo and his men put their backs into repairing the town’s broken thermae, and in the evenings most of the ranks enjoyed long, wine-fuelled evenings soaking their weary muscles in the vaulted bathhouse. Pavo instead spent most nights with Runa: sometimes to make love, sometimes merely to talk and to eat together. He told her everything: about his life as a slave, about Father, about Felicia, about Gallus, about his travels across the world. One evening when he was waiting for her, he sat by the edge of a fountain, sipping water. He watched as young Stichus and Scapula chatted. Concerned at just how close the pair were becoming, Pavo edged close enough to hear the conversation.
‘Slavery has broken me,’ Stichus said sadly. ‘Even when I stand with my Claudia comrades, my face set hard like a shield… inside, my past still haunts me like my nightmares.’
Pavo’s heart sagged, the boy’s words could have been his own from his early days in the legion.
Stichus swirled his wine cup, nearly drained. ‘My sister, she was with me during my first years as a slave. I was running errands and saving coins to try to buy her freedom. Then, just a moon before I had enough, they took her away. How can I let a single day pass without asking myself how things might have turned out? Had I worked harder, managed to gain coins sooner, had I listened more carefully to Senator Fabillus’ waffle about trading some of his slaves... but she is gone.’
‘What might have been?’ Scapula snorted in amusement. ‘The eternal question! The game men play with themselves, torment themselves with.’
Stichus’ nose wrinkled. ‘You mock me?’
Scapula planted a hand on the boy-legionary’s shoulder. A strangely warm gesture. ‘Let me tell you a story: About a boy,’ the agent said. ‘I think you already know his name...’
Stichus’ eyes darted. ‘Kaeso?’ he said warily. ‘The… the boy from your… nightmares? You told me never to mention him.’
Scapula’s face remained set, gazing into the space before him. ‘He came from a wealthy family, rich by the virtue of their olive plantations. He did as he fancied, flitting through his youth without a trouble. Silks, toys, fine foods, entertainment: all his at a clap of the hands. A pampered wastrel he was. He wanted for nothing. Nothing. The price of such luxury? All he had to do was ensure the family estate’s gates were barred each night. His one task in life. Over time he became ever-more arrogant and complacent, taking all he had for granted. One night the whelp neglected his duty, gorged himself on pheasant and fell asleep, leaving the gates unlocked.’ Scapula laughed and the sound was like the skirl of a winter breeze. ‘And that very night, his parents were put to death. Neither their freedom nor their riches could save them from the killers who stole in past the estate sentries, through those unbarred gates.’
Stichus shuddered. ‘Killed… by bandits?’
Scapula turned to behold Stichus with a glacial look. ‘Oh no… by the Western Emperor’s… best men,’ he purred.
Killed by you and your brethren! Pavo screamed within. He noticed Stichus’ eyes flick to the staring-eye ring on Scapula’s finger. Stichus, like most of the fledgling Claudia ranks, had been told that Scapula was merely an ambassador of sorts. It had been Libo’s idea – to save burdening them with the bitter truth. But it seemed the rumours of his true identity had spread.
‘Condemned to death,’ Scapula continued, ‘for certain… crimes which offended the state.’
Pavo felt his skin crawl, suddenly even more wary for Stichus and his choice of friends. What wretched maze of lies was Scapula leading him into?’
‘They were executed before Kaeso’s eyes. Next,’ Scapula said, ‘the killers turned their attentions to Kaeso’s younger brother, looped a thin metal cord around his neck.’
‘They strangled him?’ Stichus asked cagily.
Scapula did not answer. Instead he made a loop with an imaginary cord, holding the ‘ends’. Pavo’s blood ran cold too as the agent’s demeanour darkened and he drew his hands together in that invisible-garrotte motion men had witnessed him making at the Gothic plateau, his face stretched taut with malice. The sight had Stichus drawing a hand over his mouth.
‘And Kaeso, was he killed?’ Stichus croaked through his fingers when Scapula at last relaxed.
‘Oh yes, he died that night,’ Scapula said, chuckling cruelly as he looked up to the moon, ‘and all because he did not bar the gates.’ A tense silence followed, then the speculator poured Stichus a cup of wine from his skin. ‘So drink and turn your mind from what might have been. Men grow mad on such thoughts.’
Pavo watched as the speculator patted Stichus on the back once more, then rose and swaggered off into Nicopolis’ dark alleys. At that moment he decided they should linger in this city no more. The sooner they made it back to Thessalonica, the sooner they might shake off Gratian’s agent.
When the column set off again the next day, they headed on through the heights of the Haemus Mountains and down into the plains of Beroea, crossing the River Hebrus in September to join the Via Egnatia, running southwest around the base of the Rhodope range. By the tail-end of October their journey drew to an end as they came within sight of the twin tors of Mount Cissus and Mount Olympus, the bay of Thessalonica lying between.
‘Walls of grass?’ Eriulf gasped now, eyeing the hazy port-city in the fading light.
Pavo could only shrug. The rampart that ringed Thessalonica’s land walls had been tripled in height since they had been away – no doubt a measure triggered by news of Fritigern’s approach – and the muddy brown sides were now green with grass. The ditch before it like a deep scar in the land. It was crude b
ut imposing, almost as high as Thessalonica’s walls themselves. ‘Dangerous times and desperate measures,’ Pavo replied. ‘But now our journey is over we can-’
His words were drowned out by the wail of a buccina, then another and another. A call of alarm. Pavo’s skin crept. He and Sura shared a knowing glance. Enemy forces sighted?
Libo barged forward, spear clasped firmly. ‘Fritigern’s forces are near? How can it be? Not until the coming spring, that rider said.’ As his helmetless head switched across Thessalonica’s hinterland, the Gothic braid in his hair swung to and fro.
Now Pavo realised, perceiving his column as the sentries of Thessalonica would have: a rabble of Goths with just a small knot of Roman soldiers at their head. Even then, the legionaries bore the stains of so long in foreign lands: shields mud-brown and filthy, Sura with his overgrown blonde hair tied in a topknot, Pavo’s hair too now hanging to his cheeks and draped on his neck, his chin thick with bristles. And many of the Claudia men wore Gothic trousers and cloaks in addition to their imperial mail and helms. To a fearful eye they must look exactly like the plundering Goths of Fritigern – clad in pieces of stolen Roman garb.
‘Opis,’ he barked at the legion’s aquilifer, who was busy digging something out of his ears. ‘For Mithras’ sake, raise the bloody standard!’
The ruby bull banner shot up and the Claudia men cheered when they saw it. Blessedly, the urgent buccinae song from the turf walls faltered like a quickly deflating pigskin. And moments later, the sentries up there were joined by hundreds more – the Second and Third Cohorts of the Claudia. They erupted in a mighty, welcoming roar. The sight was like a hot blanket around Pavo’s weary limbs.
The gates groaned open, and the sight of the military campus within greeted them as they spilled inside. The tents, banners, the training men, the martial calls and the familiar smells of cooking wheat porridge and soldier-broth lifted the hearts of each of them. Pavo turned to pick out Eriulf and Runa amongst the vast train behind him, only to hear a clamour of unrest. A wall of Flavia Felix legionaries spilled across the entrance like a silver knife, shearing the column where the Claudia’s First Cohort ended and the huge trail of Goths began.
‘They’re with us, you fools,’ he cried to the legionaries, fighting his way back to the heart of the unrest.
‘And not one of them is allowed within the camp or the city,’ said the Flavia Felix centurion who was marshalling the barrier-like line of men keeping the Goths out. ‘Orders of the Magister Militum, sir,’ Pavo followed the man’s brief glance: up there on the high turf rampart stood Julius, scowling down like a moody raven into the gateway. He raised and swished one hand in signal to the soldiers manning the gatehouse.
‘Gates!’ one of them barked. With a moan, the turf camp’s high wooden gates swung together. Pavo caught sight of Runa and Eriulf just before they slammed shut.
Throughout the rest of the day, the Goths of Arimer set up a sea of tents immediately west of Thessalonica, at the point where the turf wall met the coast. Near dusk, Pavo watched from the rampart as they went about their business solemnly, most confused and many frightened.
‘What you did was quite incredible, Tribunus,’ a familiar voice said.
‘Sir,’ Pavo replied, turning to see Modares ascending the rampart.
Modares walked past him to rest his elbows on the palisade wall and gaze down at the Gothic shore camp. ‘Repelled the Huns, I hear.’
‘At the cost of several hundred lives,’ Pavo said quietly.
Modares nodded in understanding. ‘The steppe riders are savage. That any of you made it back is a triumph. By Wodin, I pity Athanaric and any of my kinsmen who still remain over on the north of the great river.’
They walked along the earthen battlements, the chest-high palisade stakes shielding them from the darkening countryside outside. ‘Much has changed,’ he observed, seeing that inside the Thessalonica camp was now better-regimented, rectangular areas clearly marked out for each legion – neat rows of tents fronted by polished standards and freshly woven banners, and no sign of the shanty-town shelters that the batch of new recruits had used in their early days. And there was a central parade ground area edged with wagons heaped with freshly crafted armour and weapons. Fifteen legions in all.
‘Training is assigned by a rota system now,’ Modares remarked. ‘Legions work in pairs, marching down the coast in a race to the headland. Your routine has taken root,’ he said. ‘The fifteen thousand men in the camp are stronger and better for it.’
Both turned to the now-dark countryside, the moon part-hidden by the distant Rhodope Mountains. ‘When Fritigern comes, we will be ready,’ Pavo asserted. ‘We now have five thousand more men – and they will be legionaries, come the spring,’ he said, gesturing down into the makeshift Gothic camp. ‘But only if we treat them as we would other citizens. Come dawn, I will petition the emperor to allow Eriulf’s folk into the city: even a slum ward to make their homes in would be better than that scrap of dirt and sand down there.’
‘You have no hope of audience with the emperor,’ Modares said with a sigh.
Pavo turned to gaze at the high grey walls of Thessalonica. Within, the domed rotunda and shadowy high temples and arches rose proud of the rest, uplit by orange torchlight. The imperial palace hill, near the coastline, was barely visible from here. He thought of Theodosius, within.
‘He suffers with fever,’ Modares continued. ‘A dark fever. It seems that he spends his days in his bed muttering to himself, droning words in strange tongues. He speaks of angels, he sees lights, hears words from the Christ-God. Bishop Ancholius – a leech of a man – prays for him night and day, beseeches their god to bring him back to health. He has not eaten since the start of the month. Worse, he will see nobody else but Julius,’ he said, his face twisting to convey his feelings about the man. ‘And until he recovers, we must suffer the Butcher’s whims.’
Pavo followed his gaze to the top of one of Thessalonica’s towers. A silhouette stood up there. The gentle night breeze lifted at the figure’s dark cloak: Julius, gazing down into the Gothic annex like a wraith. ‘Is he not satisfied enough with those he slew at Chalcedon?’ He thought of the moment on the Danubius’ banks, his legionaries and Eriulf’s men standing together, fending off the Huns as one. He spotted Eriulf then, holding court with his bodyguard and a few noblemen by a fire in the shore camp.
‘Julius is a bastard,’ Modares muttered. ‘But a part of me understands his choice in this matter… if not his motivations.’
‘Sir?’
‘It is right for a general to be suspicious until he can satisfy himself otherwise,’ Modares replied, his eyes narrowing on the shore camp. Are you entirely sure about them? There was nothing you saw of them over the river that made you worry about their loyalties?’
Pavo felt an urge to instantly insist he was sure, but the words caught in his throat as he recalled the last day on the plateau and the rise of the Vesi elders. He weighed the incident in his mind, wishing to tell Modares of it but knowing that if he did, he would also have to report it to Julius. He swallowed hard and nodded. ‘They are good people,’ he said.
‘Hmm,’ Modares rumbled, turning to leave Pavo alone.
As night fell and the moon rose, Pavo left the turf camp by the hatch in the main gates then trekked round to the shore camp. A short while later, in the dark-yellow light of a Gothic tent, Runa drew a razor across his jaw and scalp, shearing off his lengthy locks, leaving him with just a short, dark crop – a cool and comfortable return to normality. But the contentment was merely skin-deep. Within, his head and heart were in turmoil.
‘Your people, they understand?’ he said as she dipped the blade in a copper bowl of warm water and returned to stroking it across his oiled scalp.
‘Right now, they are too tired to think of grousing,’ she said, carefully sweeping away the hair above his ears.
Pavo gazed down into the copper bowl, seeing his troubled hawk-like face staring back. ‘Julius m
ade a mistake,’ he concluded, then sought out Runa’s reflection in the shaving water. ‘If it were for me to decide, I would have learned from past mistakes – broken promises started this war with Fritigern, after all.’
‘Eriulf and my people think only of alliance, Pavo. We would be dead were it not for your leading us here.’
‘I promised you homes and you have been given a pen of sand and dirt,’ he grumbled, gesturing around with his hands. Beyond a gap in the tentflap, he could see the churned sand and marram grass and the trudging, dejected Goths going about the final stages of setting up their new residence. Their plight had not been ended, merely shifted several hundred miles south.
‘And what news of your emperor?’ she asked.
Pavo pulled a towel across his shorn, bristly scalp to wipe off the excess oil. ‘Stricken with fever. Were he not, I am certain he would have greeted you in person and given you a far brighter lot than this.’
‘Perhaps if he is too ill to come and greet us, we could go to him?’ Runa said.
Pavo mused over the idea. ‘Eriulf is Arimer’s son and the reiks of your people, I suppose.’
‘And I am Arimer’s daughter,’ she replied testily.
Pavo laughed the comment off, but she wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her lips to his. ‘And I am far more pleasant to speak to than my brother, am I not? I mean it: it was my father’s wish to stand before the emperor, and now it is mine.’
Pavo laughed again, then broke the loop of her arms. ‘Perhaps it would be fitting for both of you to have an audience with him. But he sees only Julius these days, it seems. In any case, that is for another time. I must go: my men have organised a trip to the wharf district taverns tonight – to celebrate our return.’
‘So you prefer the company of sweaty legionaries to mine?’ she gasped in mock-outrage.
EMPIRE OF SHADES Page 22