Gordon Doherty - Land of the Sacred Fire

How Jovian handled these next moments would define him as a person. A craven or a hero.

He thought of something his father had often repeated in his twilight years of drunken haze, something Jovian had never understood. Until now.

Fear and courage are brothers, warring within the soul.

One will hasten death to you; one will reap a darker toll.

Fourteen Years Later

May 377 AD

The Roman Province of Thracia

A stiff breeze carried a cool grey mizzle of rain across the deserted Thracian plain. Then a wagon appeared from the south. Laden with flax, it rocked across the soft grass, the wheels cutting into the wet soil, releasing an earthy scent. The man and girl on the driver’s berth were sodden, their hair plastered to their faces. The man drove his mounts with one eye closed to the rain and the other searching the grey up ahead for the outline of Adrianople.

‘Can you see it, Father?’ little Tacita asked.

Pontius spat the rainwater from his lips as the wagon bucked and leapt over another dip in the earth. ‘Not yet,’ he said edgily, peering into the grey, ‘not yet.’

He had been nervous about this shortcut from the start. The going was treacherous and he had lost his bearings more than once, but so long as they reached the market in Adrianople safely, his decision to avoid the main roads would prove a prudent one.

Almost as soon as he had comforted himself with this thought, the sound of hooves thudding on wet earth echoed from the surrounding grey. The breath caught in his throat as, from the mist, grey shapes emerged. Riders. Nine of them. Terror crawled across his skin as he beheld the nearest; braided golden locks knotted atop the head, blue stigmas spiralling across the face, nose wrinkled and teeth bared. A Gothic warrior. Steam billowed from the mount’s nose and churning mud flew up in its wake. The rider held aloft a longsword and let loose a roar that sent Pontius and Tacita scrambling back from the driver’s berth. Pontius wrapped an arm around his daughter to shield her, gawping as the longsword swept down for him.

But a cracking of bone rang out and the snarling rider froze, something juddering in his exposed flank. A legionary plumbata . Blood leapt from the Goth’s lips as he dropped his sword and clutched at the lead-weighted dart embedded in his ribs. His eyes rolled in his head and he toppled from the saddle, then the riderless mount hared off past the wagon. Pontius shuddered, darting glances all around. Likewise, the other eight Gothic riders coming for the wagon slowed, uncertain. Then, from the grey behind the wagon, another rumble of hooves rang out, and a lone rider galloped into view. He wore no armour but a spatha hung from his sword belt — a Roman! He was a young man; lean, dark, and shaven-headed, with an aquiline nose. His glower was black under his thick brow as he lifted another of the lead darts from his saddle. Moments later, a second rider burst into view; young too, but broader-shouldered with blonde locks and pale skin, also wearing just a tunic, sword belt and boots. The pair held the Gothic riders at bay with their glowers for a few heartbeats. But the Goths realised they still had the weight of numbers and trotted forward menacingly. At this, the two Roman riders loosed another dart each, striking down two more foes, before drawing their spathas.

‘ Equites! ’ the dark Roman rider cried out, waving his spatha to a point behind the Goths.

The six remaining Goths frowned and slowed, then looked over their shoulders. From the mizzle, a turma of thirty Roman riders emerged, clad in mail, soaked red cloaks and crowned with iron helms, spathas drawn. With a cry, the equites and the two unarmoured Roman riders rushed for the Goths. In moments it was over, one Gothic head flying from its shoulders to bounce across the sodden plain, another run through and the rest fleeing in panic.

Pontius lifted his shaking arm from his daughter, in disbelief that both were unharmed. The dark rider and his blonde comrade sidled up to the wagon, both slick with rain, chests heaving and faces stained with blood-spray.

‘Be on your way to the city, and be swift,’ the dark one said.

Pontius nodded hurriedly. ‘Aye, aye we will,’ he agreed, taking the reins with one shaking hand and turning Tacita’s gaze from the headless Gothic corpse with the other. ‘But who are you? You are not legionaries?’ he said, eyeing their dress.

‘Aye, we are legionaries. But for today we are scouts. I am Optio Numerius Vitellius Pavo of Legio XI Claudia, second cohort, first century. This my Tesserarius, Sura,’ he gestured to his blond comrade. ‘We’ve been tracking those Gothic riders for two days. Luck would have it we met with the equites on patrol just this morning; else we might not have been able to save you.’

‘Well I will make an offering to Mithras tonight,’ Pontius grinned. ‘May he be with you in all your efforts, Legionary.’

With that, he lashed the reins of his horses and the wagon moved off once again.

Pavo and Sura parted from the equites then travelled south-east for the rest of the day. When darkness fell, they camped under the shelter of a spruce thicket on a soft carpet of pine needles then rose at dawn to yet another damp day. After sharing a light breakfast of boiled eggs, bread and honey, they drank and watered their mounts at a nearby stream, readying to set off for Constantinople.

Pavo splashed the cool water over his stubbled scalp then looked over his shoulder and off to the north-west from where they had come. Through the grey cloud, he could just make out the Haemus Mountains, the peaks looming like the fangs of a predator. Moesia and Thracia, once Roman heartlands, were now riven by the Gothic War and occupied by Fritigern’s hordes. The Roman limes had been hastily withdrawn to the south of the mountains in an attempt to curb the Gothic movements. But the impoverished limitanei legions manning those new timber forts and patrolling those treacherous lands had been battered back further still in these last weeks. Indeed, he thought, touching his fingers to the dark stain on his ribs and the stinging Gothic longsword cut underneath, enemy scouts were being sighted further south with every passing week, roving ever closer to the major cities, Adrianople and Constantinople itself.

‘Take a good, long look,’ Sura said, resting an elbow on Pavo’s shoulder and gazing back with him. ‘For it will be some time before we set eyes upon these lands again.’

Pavo thought of the mission that had been hanging over the XI Claudia for these last weeks. A mission that would take them thousands of miles to the east, to the Persian frontier. He shrugged. ‘When I first joined the legion, everything about this land seemed wretched. Now it feels like I’m leaving my home behind in its hour of need.’

Sura chuckled dryly at this, patting at the legionary phalera medallion hanging on a strap around Pavo’s neck. ‘All you’ve talked of these last two weeks is about going to the Persian frontier. About him.’

Pavo shared an earnest gaze with his friend. Sura was one of the few who knew the truth behind the phalera. About Father. ‘Aye, I may fret about this place when we are gone, but nothing will stop me going east.’

Sura grinned. ‘Stubborn whoreson since the day I met you.’

They set off once more across the plains, grateful when at last they reached the paved Via Egnatia , the great highway winding west-east across Thracia. By mid-morning, the clouds and mizzle had dispersed and a languid sunshine bathed the land. Before noon, they were within sight of Constantinople.