The Avenger

by Tony Roberts

  The funeral was a spectacle in itself and most of the city turned out to see off the woman who had been the strength behind Justinian, a woman feared yes, but respected also, particularly by the Blues who turned out in great numbers. The funeral procession passed along the Mese where Casca stood watching before he turned to go. He was somewhat surprised to see two spear wielding imperial guards standing there, preventing him from moving. A third man appeared, an officer who looked like a typical effete fop, one of the privileged few who was born into a high position and used others to carry out their wishes.

  Casca could have knocked him over with a flick of his little finger but the two humorless characters with him looked different and, besides, Casca had no weapon on him, having left it at his house.

  “You are requested to come with me,” the fop imperiously demanded with a lisp. Casca found he hated the guy on the spot. He was the type you felt like hitting just for being there. He’d seen the type before many times, in Rome, Milan, Ravenna and all the so-called ‘civilized’ centers of Empires where the degenerates gathered. This mincing fool probably thought hard work was having to undress himself. Wondering what in the name of Mithras was in store for him he allowed himself to be led off towards the familiar sight of the palace. They passed through countless doors, antechambers and a phalanx of officials and attendants, straight to a large chamber where a familiar figure was waiting for him with a predatory smile on his face: Narses!

  “You still alive, you old fake?” Casca greeted him.

  Narses assumed a haughty look. “I thought you had gone from us after the plague so I informed the Emperor and Empress about you. They ordered your execution if you ever returned to Constantinople, but over the past few years other things have occupied their minds as you may well have guessed. However, you were spotted today watching the funeral and I realized you had never left the city, so I ordered your arrest.”

  Casca stood there not believing what he was hearing. “So what charge have I been found guilty of?”

  “Practicing evil magic, for one. Something which the devout Emperor won’t put up with. It won’t be hard for me to convince him that you have made a pact with the devil.”

  “Oh, come on, Narses! Rasheed in Persia tried that one and I got burned for it. I thought your sect had banned such persecutions.”

  Narses smiled even more, his teeth showing. “The Brotherhood and I are no longer on speaking terms. I have been ousted from their Inner Circle and from what I understand am no longer with any influence. I’m just an independent member within the Imperial palace. As you may have guessed we no longer have our headquarters here as it was getting too risky. After Janus died and they lost most of their members here they took the Holy of Holies out across the Bosphorus and vanished. They are in Asia somewhere but I don’t deem it necessary to tell you exactly where. There is no trace of us at all in this city.”

  “So you’re telling me I have no foundation in accusing you of being a member of the Brotherhood as there is no evidence?”

  “That is correct,” the eunuch agreed.

  Casca sneered. “You’ve been blocked from becoming Elder by the very sect you gave up so much for. I’m surprised you still have any loyalty to those fools who have taken your life’s work from you.” The Roman laughed, in spite of his predicament. “It must feel like a kick in the balls except you have none.”

  Narses glared at his captive. “If that was meant to be funny, I fail to see the humor.”

  “So I’m to be burned, am I?”

  “No,” the eunuch shook his head, “probably blinded, exiled or imprisoned. Take your choice.”

  “How about freedom, you wrinkled old fart?” Casca snarled, fed up with the whole thing.

  “Losing your temper won’t help, you know,” Narses gently chided him. “In the meantime before Justinian regains his judgment you will remain a prisoner in our deepest dungeon. I bid you farewell, Longinus, until your sentence.” Narses indicated to the two guards to take him away.

  Now Casca wasn’t the sort to let this happen to him and Narses really should have known better, but perhaps complacency and old age had combined to rid him of judgment. Before either of the two guards could react Casca had chopped the first across the windpipe, crushing the larynx. While the unfortunate guard was sinking to the floor, blood filling his throat, the second had raised his spear to stab the Roman but Casca was ready, pivoting on one heel and driving his other foot into the second guard’s midriff, knocking him to the floor, winded.

  Narses saw he was going to be torn to pieces unless he got his ass out of there yesterday so he turned and fled for the other exit while the raging Casca finished off his helpless men. The second guard was killed by having his own weapon driven into his rib cage and he was left there with the spear sticking up like some gruesome flagpole. The other guard had by then choked on his own blood and lay next to him so Casca grabbed his spear, turned, hastily sighted at Narses’ back and let fly. Luckily for the eunuch the projectile flashed past his head and buried itself into the wall next to the door he was heading for. With a shriek he vanished, bolting through the doorway like a rabbit down a hole. Casca cursed and turned for the other door, knowing the alarm would be raised any moment and he would be trapped if he stayed.

  Running down the passage he saw a flight of stairs so he took them, bounding up two at a time, finding himself on a landing together with two astonished courtly ladies. Pausing only to blow a kiss at them he ran through one of the three doors he saw, past a speechless servant carrying bedding and up another flight of steps to a deserted corridor. “Shit, this place goes on forever.” He decided to find out where he was and wrenched open the first door, only to see a pair of male buttocks rising and falling over a spread-eagled woman. “Oh, shit,” he muttered and went on down the passage, leaving the door wide open for the next person who came along to see it in all its glory. The next room was thankfully deserted but smelt like a brothel, and running to the curtained windows he managed to trip over a cat which sent him crashing to the floor and the cat went mewling in the other direction like an arrow from a bow. Casca ended up against a dressing table which shook violently, upsetting an open bowl of perfume which cascaded over his head, drenching his hair and face in a pungent aroma.

  “For fuck’s SAKE!” he screamed, wiping the drops from his stinging eyes. Staggering to his feet he tore the curtains aside and saw he was looking at a courtyard on the south side of the palace. “What I need right now is a bath,” he muttered and opened the windows, aware of the shouting from the floor below. “Dammit, arses, cats, damned perfume, what next?” he grumbled, climbing out through the window and reaching the balcony in one stride. Looking down he saw there was no way he could get down without breaking his legs so he went back and looked around for something to use to help him get down. There was a large bed with voluminous blankets so he pulled the top one off, quickly rolled it into a long length, ran out to the balcony, tied one end to the rail and threw the rest over the side. From the corridor came an anguished shout: “what is this fucking animal doing out here?” followed by a thump, a sharp high pitched squeal, followed by the sight of the cat racing past the open door, mewling horribly.

  Casca climbed over the rail and looked back to see a large man stamp into the room, dressed only in his trousers. “Did you open that fucking door?” he demanded, pointing at Casca. “Can’t a man fuck in privacy anymore?”

  Casca grinned rakishly, giving the angry man a very obscene gesture before sliding down the improvised rope, jumping down the last ten feet or so, rolling over to absorb the shock of landing. Above him he was berated angrily but he cared little, only wishing himself away from there. The palace was in fact not one building but a collection of many, linked by covered corridors or gardens with entangled vines forming a roof. He ran along these, dodging the occasional statue and making his way north towards the large buildings standing at the exit next to the Chalke Gate which led out of the palace grounds into the
city.

  The Baths of Zeuxippus were within the palace grounds just at this point so he dodged quickly out of sight and made his way to the entrance where a couple of guards were walking on duty, bored expressions on their faces. He waited until they had turned the other way before slipping into the building, making his way to the changing rooms and a good hiding place.

  He stripped and made his way to the bathing room, an immense chamber of marble and mosaics, decorated with ornate columns, and sank gratefully into the warm waters, nodding to a couple of elderly male bathers who were sat on one of the many stone benches that stood against the walls of the chamber. He stayed there for a while, completely immersing himself in the waters, washing off the perfume as he didn’t want to be accosted by any of the catamites that lived or worked in the palace.

  By the time he got out, had a stint in the caldarium, dried himself off, and dressed, it was late afternoon and the sun was going down. The search for him had passed, nobody having thought of looking for him in the Baths, and it had been assumed he had escaped over the wall since the last anyone had seen of him was the angry man who had watched him run off towards the walls until lost from view.

  Not being able to sneak over the now well watched walls he decided on the bold approach and strode confidently up to the Chalke Gate, that great entrance set in the ancient walls of Byzantium, built a couple of centuries ago before the new outer walls had been put up, which were a few feet from the dominating Hagia Sofia church, now complete and a monument to the building skills of the Byzantine workmen and designers, and passed through under the gaze of the impassive guards without any trouble at all. After all, they were looking for those coming the other way.

  Escaping from the palace was one thing, getting out of the city was another, for Narses had alerted the imperial guards to watch all exits, landward and seaward, and thanks to a warning by Delia’s husband who was called up to watch the Gate of St. Theodosia along the north walls where the Golden Horn stood, he delayed his departure awhile. Eventually Licinus – now calling himself Longinus - arranged for one of the smaller gates to be unlocked for five minutes at night for him to slip out unnoticed into the suburbs, sending him on his way with the news that Delia was pregnant.

  Casca congratulated the pair. Delia cried, knowing Casca was about to leave, but it was time and both realized that. He hugged the girl and shook Licinus-Longinus’ hand and professed his regrets that he would not be able to be there but Delia said she understood. Licinus escorted Casca personally to the gate and nodded at the two guards standing there. Both men turned away and walked into the nearby tower, glad of a small break.

  “Well,” Licinus said, taking a deep breath, “I wish you luck. Don’t forget to keep on coming back and checking on the family. We’ll teach all our children of you and get them to promise never to speak a word to anyone. They’ll know you by your scar, and other things we’ll pass down.”

  Casca nodded and shook the young officer’s hand. “And you take care of yourself, and of Delia.” He pressed Licinus’s fingers one last time and then Casca passed through to the outside, wondering when he would next visit the capital of the Roman or Byzantine or whatever-they-called-it Empire.

  He wandered westwards into Thrace, working from place to place, stopping for a while in Adrianople, then Philippopolis along the Hebrus River. He spent the winter acting as a tavern bouncer in the Moesian city of Serdica before continuing his wanderings north west to Naissus. He was now on the borders of Illyria and worked for a while there, protecting merchants who plied their trade to and from the Danube tribes such as the Avars, Gepids and Bulgars.

  It was the next summer that he heard of an army being assembled in Illyria by Germanus, Justinian’s brother in law, to finish off the Goths once and for all. Justinian had finally lost patience with the situation in Italy, the Goths having taken everything except Ravenna, Ancona, Otranto and Crotone, and after Belisarius had been recalled for the second time just after Theodora’s death there was nobody there to stop Totila capturing Naples, Rome and all the other cities it had taken so long to conquer. Therefore he gave Germanus thirty thousand men, unlimited funds to pay them with, including arrears for the garrison in Ravenna and a whole host of barbarians to supplement the imperial forces which obviously had been decimated following the plague.

  Germanus passed through Moesia, recruiting soldiers as he went so Casca hurried back down the road to join up, hoping to use the imperial army as a means to get safely to Italy and thence to Noricum and finally to cross the Danube into terra incognita. However he had no sooner signed up then the news broke that Germanus had died of a fever and the army was instructed to hold until a replacement arrived. After a week or so his replacement turned up and Casca was horrified to see it was Narses. However the commander would hardly take the time to visit each individual so he hid amongst his colleagues while the eunuch made plans and then continued the march north, picking up a contingent of unruly Lombards on the way. These were a Germanic people who invariably wore long beards, hence their name, and had remained behind in Germania while the other tribes had crossed into former Roman territory. They were now settled in the area immediately north of the Danube across from Pannonia and were being used by the Byzantines as auxiliaries.

  From what talk abounded Casca realized Narses was intent on finishing off the Goths once and for all and had managed to get the clearance from Justinian. At the same time a small contingent had been sent under the even older patrician Liberius to Spain to help out one of the two warring factions in a power struggle over the Visigothic kingdom. It seemed the Emperor had gone mad, sending out armies all over the Mediterranean to conquer former Roman lands.

  A few weeks later they crossed into Gothic lands ready for the final confrontation.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The Via Flaminia ran north from Rome across the Apennines to Ravenna, and the army under Narses had marched south from the former Gothic capital to confront Totila’s forces which were hastily making their way up from the south. Eventually in the height of summer the two forces came face to face near the small village of Taginae, and right from the start it was clear the Goths were outnumbered.

  Casca saw this from his position in the middle of a mass of unshaven, hairy and filthy men who formed the center of the Byzantine line at the top of a long, grassy slope that led down to the gathering Gothic army beyond the range of the Byzantine bowmen who were stood on either side of the central mass of foot soldiers. Casca flexed his muscles, sweating under the conical iron helmet perched on his shaggy head. The sun hammered down on the fidgeting six thousand barbarians Narses had hired to do the dirty work in the middle of the battlefield, and the smell of sweat and urine rose up from them. Many had relieved themselves as they stood, watching the Goths take their time in forming up, bored or finding the need to void the results of a night of drinking as they stood in a phalanx of spear and sword wielding warriors.

  Casca’s feet squelched in a urine-created muddy spot, the grass having been trampled into the moist earth under his feet. He deliberately looked away from the ground and turned his head to examine the men around him, checking their faces. Would they fight, or run? They were nearly all Lombard tribesmen, those wild Germans from north of the Alps, and Casca had integrated himself into their number, growing his beard long and letting his hair grow. On the journey from Illyria he had swapped his imperial uniform and armor for discarded Lombard clothing so appearing as one which helped him hide further from Narses. He turned to his nearest colleague and grumbled that Totila was stalling, probably waiting for reinforcements from elsewhere. His companion agreed, finishing by spitting mightily into the dirt as a reflection on what he thought of Totila’s showmanship.

  Casca turned his head to look behind and to the left to where the general was located, easily visible on horseback, his bald pate gleaming in the sun. Narses stood impassively on the slopes of a hill watching his army line up neatly, filling the entire width of the valley
the road ran along. The Goths were more widely spread but thinner in depth and their king Totila had ridden out in front of his troops, exhorting them to crush the invaders once and for all which would win them the whole peninsula and restore Gothic rule. He impressed them with a show of horsemanship, galloping up and down their ranks, turning tightly and performing acrobatics on the horse’s back.

  Casca had a good view of this from his standing position in the center with all the infantry, wondering when Totila would attack. The Byzantine army certainly wasn’t in any hurry to start things; they were more numerous, held the higher ground and were the invaders. It was up to Totila to drive them off his soil and if he waited until next week that was fine by Imperial thinking. What the Lombards would do, however, was something else. They had short tempers and shorter patience, and their grumbling and mutterings were growing. Casca knew they were itching to attack and impale a Goth or three on their spears. Having taken Imperial gold when Narses had hired them back in Illyricum, they were happy to fight for the Greeks and kill fellow Germans. Each of them, Casca included, had received some gold coins as part payment of their services, and most of the tribesmen had promptly spent it in the Italian cities they’d passed through. The taverns and whores had done a roaring trade.

  Casca shifted his weight to one foot and wiggled his right ankle, helping the blood flow. He wondered what the general thought of the situation and what he was planning. He appeared to be just sitting there watching Totila prance about, making no move whatsoever.

  Narses himself was unimpressed with the show and had only one ambition left to him, to end this war which had rumbled on for long enough. He didn’t care that Italy would be restored to the Empire by his victory for he knew that capturing territory was one thing; holding onto it was another, and both he and Justinian were getting old with perhaps only a few years left to go. Whoever took over from the aging Emperor would have a hard job holding on to a vast tract of land with hostile neighbors to north, south, east and west, particularly as Justinian had virtually bankrupted the treasury (Narses was by now the imperial treasurer) and had allowed the army to shrink to perhaps a quarter of what it had been on his accession over twenty-five years ago.