by Tony Roberts
Hadramon gave him a brief outline of what was expected. “If you do well after a month or two we put you in the first race in Adrianople which is where we try out our new racers, or where those too old for the capital tend to end up in their last few years. If you win there then we’ll fit you in one of the lesser races in the Hippodrome and so on until we think you can take on Manius.”
Casca wanted a crack at him, because beating Manius would get him noticed by the Emperor and that was what he was after. Once inside the imperial circles he could get at Narses easier which was his intention.
Hadramon then wanted to know more about Casca - where had he come from, what his experiences were and so on. Casca kept the story simple, stating that he was from Illyricum hence his proficiency with Latin, and he had been involved in fighting against the Goths before finding his way to Constantinople. He had managed to get most of his brief story out when two very drunken members of the Greens came over, hair flowing, ale dripping everywhere, and began poking fun at the Blue trainer, having recognized him at last. Hadramon tried to ignore the drunken ranting but the two men were not going to be ignored and began jabbing him and threatening him with castration, whereupon Casca thought to himself, that's enough, these two assholes have had their fun, now it's my turn.
Standing up he seized hold of the nearest one’s hair and rammed his head into the table top, breaking off one of the table legs with the force. While his companion was reacting to this attack Casca sank a meaty fist into his gut and the long haired drunk sank to the floor, clutching his midriff. There was absolute silence in the inn and Casca took his companion by the arm, pulling him to his feet. “It’s time to leave, I think.” He drew his sword, waving for the patrons to clear a pathway to the door, which they did, not wanting to tangle with this strongman.
Once outside Hadramon thanked his new friend. Casca shrugged it off, having been in plenty of tavern fights before, many much more violent than that back there. As the elder man set off for home, he got a promise from Casca that he would turn up the next day for his first lesson. Casca journeyed home in the dark, seeing only a few people who were themselves hurrying home, and he arrived at the inn a tired man. He was surprised to find a letter from Sicarus awaiting him which informed him they were being sent to Italy to support Belisarius.
The last news from there was that the imperial forces were approaching Naples which was defended by a Gothic garrison and was refusing to surrender. Casca sighed, knowing he would have to forgo going with his sword friend, at least for the time being. He would drop off a message to Sicarus on his way to Hadramon in the morning.
* * *
Narses was upset. His trusted captain Miklos had been murdered in his own home and his three bodyguards slain mercilessly. He sat in his quarters in the camp and pondered on this apparent motiveless killing. There had been no items stolen either from the house or from the bodies of the slain, so robbery was not the intention of those who had carried out the deed, therefore it had to be personal against Miklos: the dead guards were not important so they would only have been killed to get them out of the way. Narses wondered who would have a grudge against the dead officer, and after a little thinking remembered that Miklos had been one of the two captains sent by him on orders from Gregory to kill the family and servants of Sicarus and kidnap the family of the Beast Longinus. The other officer, Aeolius, had vanished after taking the ransom note to the Beast in Africa, and Longinus had turned up in Constantinople shortly thereafter lusting for blood, pursuing Gregory out of the city to who knows where. Both had been gone for over a year, Gregory presumed dead, Longinus once again away from the eyes of the Brotherhood. The other suspect must then be Sicarus the mercenary who was still in the city; although it was likely he would be sent to Italy shortly to help that imperial lackey Belisarius. Narses made a decision: he had a contact in the mercenary company and he would be questioned as to recent activities by Sicarus, particularly over the last few days.
He went over to a chest in the corner of his quarters and opened it, pulling out a robe of brown homespun wool which he rolled up and placed in a sack. Clutching it tight to his chest he emerged into the open and made his way past the sentries to his horse which had been groomed and readied for him to ride. There was an escort of men, all waiting on horseback, and no sooner had Narses settled in the saddle then they were off. They rode out of the Valley of Olives and over the crest of the ridge en route for the city for a midnight appointment in the cisterns - the latest meeting of the Brotherhood.
The guards allowed them access as they recognized Narses and the group rode unchallenged to the entrance of the cisterns, leaving the horses with two members who were part of the Brotherhood assigned to make sure no one other than members of their society were allowed access. Putting on their brown robes Narses and his escort descended the torch-lit passages until they arrived at the meeting chamber where many were already present, arranged in a huge circle around the central dais where the Elder would stand, and it was here too that the Holy of Holies, the Spear of Longinus, stood.
Narses took up his place in the front row as one of the Inner Circle, head concealed by his hood so that his identity was hidden from the others present, as were the others who knelt alongside and behind him. He knew one or two, of course, and each of the Inner Circle knew the Elder as he was their cell leader. Narses was known to his thirteen cell members but, apart from his soldiers, to no-one else; which was how they operated just in case one of their organization was caught and interrogated. He could only reveal the names of his cell which was how they had managed to survive through the dark times of Christian persecution, but now they were growing stronger, and it wouldn't be long before they could control the Empire, given a killing or two in the right place at the right time. Already Narses had been given the task at removing Justinian when the word was given, and his position as commander of the imperial bodyguard gave him easy access to the Emperor; besides, he was regarded as a friend by Justinian and Theodora and was therefore trusted.
Elder Thassus stood up and waited for the assembly to become still and attentive, each member in his or her hooded brown robe, head bowed, ears cocked for each word that the Elder would utter, kneeling on the stone floor of the cistern beneath the streets of the city. “Brethren of the Brotherhood,” he began, his voice deep and sepulchral, “the Beast has claimed the life of Gregory, our late blessed brother. Cursed may the Beast’s life be, but we must learn from this experience never to involve others in our just quest to punish him. Gregory was right to punish the Beast but not two innocents, no matter that one had been taken by the Beast as his wife. We know that the child was an innocent, not of evil blood, and it seems that our Blessed Lamb made Longinus sterile when the curse was made, therefore he cannot create more of his kind, thanks to the Lord. Praise to the Blessed Lamb!”
The gathering repeated the praise, their voices echoing round the chamber in joy at the greatness and wisdom of the crucified Lord, preventing Longinus from having children. The Elder raised both his arms to gain silence before continuing. “The Beast has been lost again but we will find him as we found him before, so send out your brethren and find him. We must watch him and follow him until the glorious day our Lamb returns to us, then we will partake in the final condemnation of that spawn of Satan and cast him into the pit of hell forever.”
The gathering shouted out their agreement, cursing the very breath of Longinus, hating his very existence with each heartbeat. Some began foaming at the mouth, crying out for the Beast to be punished this very instant, beseeching their Lamb to impose the vilest of sentences on his killer. Thassus smiled behind his hood, knowing that an unarmed Longinus would be torn limb from limb if he was present here at this particular moment. The Elder gathered his thoughts for the next part of his sermon to the faithful, that of the vexing question of how to stop the Empire from reclaiming the lost territories and thereby bringing order back to the chaos that had engulfed the former Roman Empire since th
e time of Honorius and Arcadius at the turn of the fifth century. For a while the Brotherhood had done well, bringing down the western part of the Empire so that the barbarians had overrun it, but now there were disquieting changes going on such as Justinian's policy of re-conquest and the continued success of the Franks in former Gaul who looked as though they were setting up a sizable realm, gobbling up neighboring kingdoms one by one. The latest to go had been Burgundy only a year or two ago, and the Franks were now poised on the Rhine, the Alps and the Pyrenees, ready to push into the lands of the Visigoths, Ostrogoths and Saxons whenever the opportunity arose. Even now they were making aggressive overtures towards the seemingly paralyzed Ostrogothic lands.
Thassus cursed the overconfidence of the Brotherhood arm over in Italy, having wormed its way into the Gothic administration which was still largely run by Romans. Their insistence at bringing chaos where order stood had ruined the ability of the Goths to resist so that even a puny force that Belisarius commanded was able to take the whole of the southern part of Italy without trouble. He fixed his eyes on the representatives from that part of the world and when he next spoke, he was delivering his words to them in particular. “Our fascination with chaos has led us to disaster, brothers, disaster and defeat. We have failed miserably. Failed!”
The congregation moaned in despair and shame, not knowing what the failure was, but since the Elder said so, then it must be. Thassus dramatically pointed at the Spear. “The Lamb cannot return if law and order continues, and yet our mission to bring chaos to the world has blinded us, and we have contributed to the resurgence of the Empire! Our over zealousness in undermining the Goths in Italy has now ensured they cannot withstand the vain ambitions of the Anti-Christ Justinian, may his name be damned for all eternity. The Goths are so weakened that they cannot stand against Belisarius’ tiny little army, despite the fact I made it smaller by arranging for whispers to be put in the ear of the paranoid Emperor that Belisarius might overthrow him. The Goths have lost a quarter of their lands already and still will not go to battle against a mere seven and a half thousand men!” Thassus's voice dripped contempt for the Goths, poured scorn on their cowardice, yet underneath all this criticized the efforts of the Brotherhood in bringing this about.
“We must arrange for a real leader to rise in their ranks, one to face this pathetic force and defeat them. For the time being we must reverse our Gothic policy and work to destroy the Empire’s ability to take more land. We must never again create such a situation lest we fail our gentle Lamb. And you all know what punishment shall befall those who fail Him, don't you?” he shouted the last sentence. At this the brethren responded with a hail of ‘ayes’ and brought out whips from underneath their robes and proceeded to beat themselves with the metal tipped instruments, cutting into flesh deeply. All the time Thassus cried out louder and louder to them all. “Failure! We must not condone failure to our Blessed Lamb, Jesus! Blessed shall be those who serve our Lord, for they shall stand with him on the day of condemnation of the Beast and all those who espouse his ways! Blessed, blessed, blessed!” Thassus screamed the last word and collapsed foaming at the mouth to the floor, overcome with religious ecstasy.
Narses whipped himself as hard as any of the others, the pain driving him into a fanatical daze, quite unaware of the mass performance of sado-masochism going on around him in the chamber. In his pain filled state, he thought he saw a man on a cross being approached by another holding the Spear. He concentrated on the two figures and recognized the man on the cross as Justinian, and the man holding the Spear as himself. He realized he was having a vision and was being told he had to kill the Emperor. He wept in awe at this message from Jesus, whipping himself into a stupor until the whip fell from his nerveless fingers, collapsing on the floor along with many others of those present.
He was still unconscious when his men picked him up and took him upstairs to the street level before washing his back, removing the now ripped robe and replacing it with a new one. Narses came round after the treatment and gingerly remounted, wincing at the pain his back gave him. Never mind the pain, to serve the Brotherhood was the greatest honor anyone could have, and he had done far greater things to himself than a mere whipping in the cause, such as agreeing to the removal of his testicles. Nothing was too great for the Brotherhood, praise be to Jesus and his thirteenth disciple Izram!
CHAPTER SIX
Casca had called in to see Sicarus early that morning, eager to wish him well before the mercenary company left for Italy. Both men would miss the other, Sicarus because he knew the man opposite him was a fine warrior and a now trusted friend, Casca because he had enjoyed his time in the company and he was, after all, a man of action and the coming storm in Italy would be just to his liking. Besides, he was a native of that land and it would be nice to see it again after being away from it for so long.
On his way out of the city he cast his mind back to the last time he had been in his native land. Then he had been a Roman soldier in the legion under Aetius and had helped him defeat the Hunnish horde under Attila. He had then become separated after catching and then recovering from the plague and had witnessed the turning back of the Huns by Pope Leo. After that he had gone into the wilderness after the Huns and saw the burial of Attila before turning back for the Alps, becoming entombed in a cave of ice for eighty years or so. In that time the Roman Empire had died, the last Emperor, Romulus Augustus, being deposed by his German commander Odovacar in 476 who had then taken on the mantle of King of Italy.
The Eastern Roman Emperor at that time, Zeno, had bribed the Ostrogothic king Theoderic to invade and destroy Odovacar's kingdom, which he duly did, although Zeno died before this was accomplished. The Ostrogoths had then set up their own kingdom and had been there now for around fifty years. Casca had not seen Italy for eighty five years and he felt it was getting close to the time he wanted to go back, but first he had to settle this matter with the Brotherhood here in Constantinople.
He passed out of the city through one of the great gates and crossed the great watered ditch by one of the bridges and wandered through the suburbs and farmland that supplied the city until he found the training school of Hadramon. It was basically a dirt track surrounded by a rickety wooden fence and a couple of sad looking buildings that had gone past their prime about thirty years ago. One of the buildings was the stables, no doubt about that, and the other would be the living quarters-cum-offices which was where Hadramon would most likely be found.
He made his way over to the larger building and saw three men standing by the entrance, talking idly. They were all unkempt and wore their hair long in the typical fashion of the faction members. They had dirty threadbare robes and tunics but all the same had a dangerous look about them which Casca spotted straight away. He hadn't been around for all this time for nothing, and his experiences had taught him to quickly identify the bad asses of the world.
He ambled up to the three who watched him carefully as he approached and two of them slid hands inside their robes, taking hold of weapons no doubt, thought Casca. He stopped in front of the other, a tall, muscular man with black stubble all over his cheeks and jaw, and had the look of a Greek about him. The other two were taller and lighter in coloration and were probably from Germanic stock.
“Who are you and what is your business here?” the Greek demanded arrogantly.
“I’m Rufius to see Hadramon. I’m the new charioteer.”
The three eyed him critically. Certainly here was a toughie who had been around some, judging by his scars, and he looked capable of pulling a chariot round the circuit on his own. They had been informed of a new man to replace the unfortunate killed yesterday but like all long serving employees when faced with a new recruit they couldn’t resist a prank or two. The Greek smiled which gave Casca some misgivings, for he’d learned to his cost many times before a smile like this meant trouble, and he was the one it was heading for. Aw, shit, he thought to himself, can't anything go smoothly for once?
“Welcome, Rufius. Hadramon said you were expected, and he also gave us instructions to introduce you to our training schedule straight away. Follow Gundar and Torgeth here to the stables and they will arrange for a chariot and a horse for you to practice with at once. I’ll inform Hadramon of your arrival once he has returned from seeing a sick relative.”
Casca grunted. Too convenient by half, he mused, yet he could do little than go along with the game. If they set him up for a laugh, he’d get his own back soon enough. Knowing the humor of these people it wouldn’t be too hard to guess they’d fix him up with a rogue stallion or a chariot that would fall apart underneath him - or both. He shrugged and followed the two Germans across to the stables, casting one quick look back at the Greek who was having difficulty in keeping a straight face. Thinking how satisfying it would be to wipe the smile off his face, Casca entered the stables and before his eyes could adjust to the dark, was set upon by the two, one knocking his legs out from under him, the other swiftly wrapping a rope around his arms and torso while the other kept hold of his legs, preventing him from getting up.
Casca roared in anger but was unable to fight back, and a sack was thrust over his head before he felt himself being bound to a post and left in a sitting position. Gundar and Torgeth sniggered and moved off a short distance. “That’s enough,” Casca said, his voice muffled by the sacking, “get me out of this shit and I’ll be lenient.”