EMPIRE OF SHADES

by Gordon Doherty

  Pavo nodded briskly. ‘Trupo, you have the legion. Pulcher, Libo, Sura: leave behind everything but your swords, then… with me,’ he hissed.

  They peeled ahead, speeding through tall grass towards the rocky passage, and soon the rest of the relief column fell out of sight behind them.

  ‘I definitely caught a whiff of horse… and not a Scutarii horse,’ Libo, leading, whispered over his shoulder.

  ‘Libo, do you sniff horses as a pastime?’ Sura asked warily.

  Libo did not answer, which Pavo, Sura and Pulcher took as a yes. Then the one-eyed scent-hound slowed, a hand rising to slow the other three as they crunched onto scree-littered ground, the narrow, jagged creek lit by pale moonlight and their footsteps echoing between the sheer stony walls.

  When they were a good five hundred paces or so inside the creek, Libo swung round, pressing a finger to his lips, his good eye owl-like, the fake one gazing crazily skywards. Do you hear that? he mouthed.

  Hear what? Sura shrugged.

  Silence. Crickets. Captive breaths…. then a torch sparked to life on their left. The tall silhouette holding it stepped from the corridor-side towards them, levelling a spear. The four leapt to fighting stance, facing the figure, hands going for spatha hilts. But another torch blinked into being on their right, then another behind them. A heartbeat later and a ring of more than a dozen torchmen surrounded them in a maw of spears.

  ‘Goths? Mithras!’ Pulcher choked as he swung in every direction to see the torchlight revealing the faces of barbarian spearmen.

  The four backed together in a hopeless defence.

  ‘They’re not moving,’ Sura panted, eyes flicking across the silent assailants.

  ‘Come on then you dog-ugly bastards!’ Libo spat through clenched teeth. ‘Are you a warband or a litter of kittens?’

  Pavo noticed the Goths’ fine red leather vests, embroidered capes and engraved iron helms, steel visors ringing their eyes. And one carried a spear bearing a dark blue banner emblazoned with a fierce hawk. ‘This is no warband. They are Royal Guardsmen.’

  ‘Royal-’ Sura started then stopped, just as the ring parted like doors. A bulky shadow entered the noose, a figure that moved as if it was carrying a world on its blue-cloaked shoulders. When it came before the four, a torch threw light up across the face: weary eyes, bagged and red-veined, jaw hugged by a grey beard, a grey mane threaded with red strands hanging round his shoulders.

  Fritigern came almost nose to nose with Pavo, heedless of the part-drawn spatha. The torches crackled, Pavo gazed into the Gothic Iudex’s eyes. This was the man at the head of the mass migration into Roman lands, the man who had presided over all the chaos since.

  The Gothic Iudex flicked a finger gently. Well-versed, his Royal Guardsmen fell upon Sura, Libo and Pulcher, denuding them of their weapons and pinning them to the ground. An unseen hand snatched away Pavo’s sword too, stealing his breath at the same time.

  ‘How many come this way?’ Fritigern demanded.

  ‘We are alone,’ Pavo said.

  Fritigern sighed. ‘Then what happened to the three legions and the wing of riders my warband spotted and passed close to last night – heading this way, they said?’ He finished and looked up to receive a nod of confirmation from a thirteenth guard crouching on an outcrop that gave a view of the foothills and the approaching Roman column.

  Pavo’s head sank. ‘Why did you ask me if you already knew?’

  ‘To gauge you: now I know you are a liar and a bad judge of character – for you thought me a fool.’

  Pavo held his ferocious glare. ‘I lied because it was the only hope for my comrades back there.’ He eyed the remainder of the rocky corridor ahead now with contempt, sure the dark heights were packed with Gothic bowmen, the nooks and ambush points flush with waiting spearmen. ‘And I have faced you often enough to know that you are no fool.’

  Fritigern’s eyes tapered a little. Silence reigned, then: ‘I remember you.’

  Pavo almost flinched at the apparent non-sequitur, more surprising than a sudden blade to the guts.

  ‘Walk with me, legionary,’ Fritigern said, turning away, not waiting for an answer.

  A spear haft dunted Pavo in the back, sending him stumbling in Fritigern’s wake.

  Every part of him sure they were as good as dead, but he walked on and level with Fritigern, further into the rocky pass.

  ‘It was at Durostorum,’ Fritigern said. ‘During that bleak winter when we crossed the river. When we were still in treaty with the emperor. You were at the talks.’

  Pavo’s eyes darted and it came back to him: a draughty, candlelit meeting hall, with Gallus and Fritigern in discussion, he and Sura standing back to observe. He thought of the others in the room that night: the treacherous Ambassador Salvian, the baleful Goth, Ivo, the feckless Comes Lupicinus, the brothers lost – Zosimus, Quadratus, Felix, Avitus… and Gallus. ‘They’re all dead. Everyone in that room. Everyone except you, me and my Primus Pilus,’ Pavo said quietly. ‘And now my newfound comrades and I will perish? As so many did at Ad Salices, at Adrianople and at the Scupi Ridge.’

  ‘Your emperor had every chance to prevent what happened at the Scupi Ridge, legionary,’ Fritigern spat.

  ‘You fell upon us like wolves in the night,’ Pavo raged.

  Now Fritigern’s brow wrinkled. ‘Only because you marched to war to confront us. Had you listened to my emissary then it might not have come to slaughter.’

  ‘Emissary? There was no emissary,’ Pavo said, wondering if this was a trick.

  ‘Aye, there was. Early in the month of March, I sent my cousin to Thessalonica. I offered your emperor the chance of talks.’

  Pavo’s eyes rolled, his heart plummeting. ‘The emperor was ill. Your man would have been received by Julius.’

  Fritigern’s top lip rose in disgust. ‘The Butcher has my cousin captive?’

  Pavo opened his eyes slowly, offering Fritigern a sullen look. ‘Your cousin is dead by his hand, surely. But so is he.’

  Fritigern stared upwards momentarily, a sadness crossing his face. ‘I didn’t cross the river as a conqueror,’ Fritigern said. ‘Nor did Emperor Valens bring us across as broken subjects. Valens was flawed, but he almost had it,’ he smiled the driest, most mirthless of smiles, pinching the air between thumb and forefinger. ‘He had in place a deal that was to see us live as one, as allies. Our faith was to be our bond – the Arian rites our common prayers. Can you imagine this world, this land, now, had it been as we both wished?’

  Pavo closed his eyes, emotion sweeping over him. He saw the corpse-strewn, vulture-clouded hill near Adrianople suddenly clear and golden-green again… a pleasant Thracian hill and no more. The broken Fortress of Novae was once more whole again, the riverbanks thickly patrolled, overflowing grain wagons rolling to and fro. His mind’s eye conjured images of Gothic people working imperial farmlands peaceably, contentedly. And the idea dug deeper roots into his heart. He felt in his hand the warm clasp of Felicia’s. By his side, he sensed the great men who had fallen in these last years, alive again. An owl hooted, scattering the reverie.

  ‘Now?’ Fritigern continued, the steel returning to his features and his voice. ‘Now our peoples are locked in hatred, the ties of faith sliced by the new Emperor of the East’s edicts and all the while his orators boom and thunder about slaughtering the barbarian.’

  ‘Emperor Theodosius told the people what they wanted to hear. He knows this war will have no true victor,’ Pavo mused.

  ‘No, yet there will be no lack of vanquished,’ Fritigern chuckled coldly. ‘My kin and yours. Do you know that I sought peace, right up to the end? At the battlefield north of Adrianople, I did everything I could to bring Valens to talks and I knew he was like-minded.’

  Pavo shook his head slowly, his heart plunging again. ‘Talks or otherwise, that day was doomed to end in a massacre. The Greuthingi riders who spilled over the horizon and turned the day for you, they were in collusion with imperial agents. Agents of
Emperor Gratian. They had been bought with some promise of riches or titles to ensure battle would take place.’

  It was hard to tell in the pale moonlight, but Fritigern’s face seemed to lose a few shades of colour. ‘Alatheus and Saphrax,’ he said quietly to himself. ‘And now I understand their eagerness to take to the Western lands. The promises went unfulfilled, I can only presume, and so they do as they always do and make for war. And Roman Emperors, playing with the fates of imperial armies as if they were dice, that is no surprise.’ Fritigern halted in his step. ‘But there is something I don’t understand. Now you march through these mountains: they will take you to the western reaches of Dacia. You do not march to tackle my armies, do you? You are headed towards Pannonia to pitch against the Black Horde… to aid Emperor Gratian and his legions, despite his contempt for the East?’

  ‘No, he covets the East,’ Pavo spat. ‘And as poisonous as he is, we must help him against the Black Horde,’ his words trailed off and he added the rest inwardly: lest the East remain unaided in the war with your horde!

  But Fritigern’s demeanour darkened, as if he had heard Pavo’s thoughts. ‘I have no love for Alatheus and Saphrax and no concern over their fate,’ he growled. ‘But if they are defeated, then the Western armies will be free to turn their attentions upon my people. Is it not so?’

  ‘I could lie to you, but you are no fool,’ Pavo drawled.

  ‘You are digging your own grave, legionary…’ Fritigern rumbled.

  Pavo flicked his eyes around the corridor, noticing now how the sides were bare. The heights too seemed desolate. Indeed, the only signs of life were the dozen tethered horses, nickering and pawing the ground of a section where the corridor widened just ahead. ‘I’ve had that feeling since the moment I was born… but my grave won’t be here. You have no men stationed here yet, do you? You and your retinue were too quick to get here and your warbands too slow,’ he said, realisation dawning. Fritigern’s silence was answer enough.

  The gentle rumble of the rest of the approaching Roman night column sounded then, creeping closer to the corridor mouth, having seen nor heard no signal to beware. Pavo said nothing, staring at Fritigern, whose agitation grew with every heartbeat.

  ‘It appears that you’ve walked into your own grave,’ Pavo said after a time, then looked at the tethered horses and the narrow crack in the corridor wall – a tight route leading away from this passageway. ‘Unless you choose to ride – now and swiftly.’

  Fritigern’s eyes shrank as the scraping of many nearing boots now echoed from just beyond the bend of the rocky corridor. Fritigern’s guardsmen now crept backwards step by step, away from the sound. ‘I could have you and your three men cut down and then speed away.’

  ‘And you think we would die quietly?’ Pavo said. ‘A single shout from us, and the riders in my column would speed forward, ride you down and slay you likewise.’

  The crunch of boots grew ever closer, and Fritigern’s eyes widened.

  ‘The war would not turn on my death,’ Pavo said, ‘and my column would still march on towards the West.’

  Fritigern backed away towards the horses, gesturing to his guards, then mounting his steed.

  Pavo gestured to Pulcher, Sura and Libo for silence in trade for their lives.

  Fritigern held up a finger. ‘I offer you this one mercy, Roman, because I now realise you are no fool, and because I value integrity.’ He cast his finger westwards. ‘Go, chase the Black Horde… but understand this: Alatheus and Saphrax know nothing of mercy or integrity. You will die if you face them. Most of you, if not all.’ With that, Fritigern reined his mount around, directing it towards the narrow crack in the mountains, then vanishing with his men.

  The relief column spilled into the rocky corridor. Durio, marching in the Claudia’s Second Cohort, stared hard into the gloomy passageway. Then a scratching noise sounded beside him.

  Indus, marching abreast, was digging a hand inside his loincloth. He scratched roughly, then retracted it, before giving his fingertips a furtive sniff.

  ‘You’re not cooking when we stop to eat,’ Durio scowled.

  Indus jabbed a thumb back towards the foothills. ‘It’s all that scuttling through tall grass – giving me itchy balls.’

  ‘Balls… ’ a tight voice said from behind them.

  ‘Aye, balls,’ Indus confirmed.

  ‘No – balls!’ the legionary behind reiterated. ‘Listen.’

  The fading echo of horses’ hooves rose and then fell away. Just beyond the bend in the corridor, Durio realised.

  Modares, leading the column, raised a hand. They fell into a walk, spears levelled, shields raised.

  Durio’s heart thundered as they rounded the bend.

  Thousands of captive breaths spilled free in relieved sighs as they saw Pavo and the three men who had scouted ahead, alone.

  ‘The way is clear, sir,’ Pavo assured Modares.

  ‘What was it?’ Stichus asked Libo as the centurion slotted back into place at the head of the First Century.

  Libo grinned and reported to Stichus and the rest. ‘Horses, like I said… and something much, much smellier.’

  Chapter 20

  Twenty miles south of Sirmium the baked plains were deserted and serene. Cicadas amongst the golden grass trilled incessantly as if in worship of the early August sun, blazing in an unmarked sapphire sky. A lone steep-sided hill rose stubbornly in the middle of the flatland like a sentinel. Its slopes were veined with scree paths and dotted with shrubs and stands of silvery olive trees. Quails called from the branches and a golden eagle watched from the edge of the hill’s bare, flat top.

  A sudden clatter of iron and spluttering of horses sounded from the north. The eagle’s head levelled, eyes fixed on the heat haze there. Like molten silver pouring from a smith’s crucible, the haze parted and an army spilled forth. With a cry, the eagle took flight, circling, watching.

  The twelve legions of the Western Army, each one thousand strong, marched south to the hill, then spilled around the base of the steep eastern face, armour flashing in the sunlight. They ascended the slope a short way then fanned out to form a wall, eight men deep, facing east. Merobaudes sat on horseback near the leftmost regiment, an unconventional move – for most generals preferred the less vulnerable right of a battle line – but one that seemed to have roused the troops’ morale. Two alae of white-armoured Armatura riders – an elite Western Scholae regiment, each five-hundred strong – trotted into place, one on each flank. Now the line was formed, resembling a great, iron belt across the hill’s base.

  Emperor Gratian rode triumphantly past the rear of the iron wall and on up the hill’s winding scree track, a thick retinue of Heruli legionaries, Alani guardsmen and wagons in tow. Armed in a muscled, bronze cuirass over a white-sleeved robe and crowned with the imperial diadem in place of a battle helm, the Western Emperor glinted like a jewel.

  ‘Today, Stepbrother,’ Gratian said to Valentinian – riding beside him – as they rounded a bend in the uphill scree path. He cast out a hand to the east, where the golden grass met the pastel blue sky. Hemming the plains in the south, the silvery-grey Dinaric Alps towered, almost ethereal in the summer haze. ‘Today I will crush the Goths as my Uncle Valens could not.’

  ‘But many will perish also,’ Valentinian said sadly.

  ‘A just cost, in God’s eyes,’ said Bishop Ambrosius riding on a pony with them. ‘The soil will be red by this evening, but our souls will be clean.’

  ‘Why do you assume we will win?’ Valentinian asked.

  Gratian’s nostrils flared. ‘We have the high ground,’ he laughed mockingly, pointing up to where they were headed and back down to the legionary wall hugging the hill’s lower slopes.

  Valentinian placed a finger over his lips in thought. ‘If the Goths have the number reported, then we should be wary of attacks upon our flanks.’

  Irked by the boy’s calm thinking, Gratian pretended he had not heard. He looked over his shoulder and down to se
e the scarred giant, Merobaudes, barking at the legionaries. ‘My general will not fail me,’ he said. He noticed Valentinian mouthing words of prayer for his big protector. Prudent, Stepbrother, but futile. He will fall today, to a Gothic axe or to my agent’s blade. His eyes drifted over the serried ranks under Merobaudes’ command. He pinpointed the Petulantes legion holding the left, and wondered which rank Scapula stood in right now. Victory over the Goths would give him fame, and offing Merobaudes would rid him of a thorn in his flesh… and open the door for ending the Valentinian ‘problem’. He sucked in a lungful of air, the sense of triumph swelling.

  They reached the flat top of the hill and wheeled their mounts round to stand at the bluff-like edge – over a stark drop the height of six men – and gaze east. Out there was… still nothing. Just the golden fields and the hazy sky.

  Gratian sniffed and eyed the horizon with contempt. Behind him, the Alani bodyguards marshalled the wagons up the last stretches of the scree path then the men aboard leapt down from the vehicles and set to work. They dragged spear-length iron bolts and timber parts down from the wagons, then began pushing pegs and hammering nails into place. Gradually, dozens of heavy-duty ballistae took shape, out of sight for any eyes down on the plains. The bolt throwers could be rolled forward to the precipice, but only when the time was right. They would ensure things went as planned, Gratian mused, seeing the triumph play out in his head: the Goths would be drawn in towards the hill, thinking their number would win the day for them. Then, he would give the order, the artillery would roll into view and spit death down upon the curs.

  An hour passed. The legions, down below, rustled and shuffled in impatience, enduring the glare of the morning sun. Many uncorked skins and drank to wet parched throats. Gratian turned to the small table a slave had set up beside his horse, bearing a bronze beaker of chilled wine, beaded with condensation. He clicked his fingers and the slave poured and gave him a cup, which he drained in moments. ‘Come on you Gothic pigs,’ he grumbled under his breath. ‘Run onto my spears, give me my glory. Show all that I am the saviour of the empire.’