Jack Ludlow: Triumph

‘Perhaps,’ Flavius replied, as he made his way out of the palace to join Solomon and the bodyguards he had managed to retain, ‘I should send you to frown at them.’

‘Don’t die,’ was her wailing cry.

She would not have heard Flavius’s reply, it being too soft. ‘We all die, God wills it so.’

A hundred-strong bucellarii consisting of some of his old comitatus , leavened by Goths and Vandals who had taken service with him, was never going to be enough to confront and stop Zabergan, so Flavius sent his most trusted men to those places in the city and surrounding countryside where old soldiers gathered, with enough in the way of rewards to tempt them from whatever life they had chosen, and by the time he had departed the city he had a force numbering some six hundred effectives.

Everyone was superbly equipped, for their general had raided the quarters of the useless units, such as the Scholae Palatinae and deprived them of their weapons, armour and horses. As a leader who had always valued experience over numbers he was not content – how could he be, facing a host of the size reputed? – yet he was lifted in spirit by the way the various contingents gelled within days into a proper formation.

The lack was in any infantry and that was impossible to address, so again using Justinian’s gold he bribed the peasantry on his way to depart their fields and hamlets and take service in what would, and this was driven home, be a case of them protecting their hearths from a marauding horde heading their way.

Watching them move up the road he was reminded of the host led by Vitalian over forty years previously, of which he had been a part. Fired by religion, that march on Constantinople had consisted of very much the same sort of people – farmers, artisans, day labourers – and they carried the same variety of weapons. Old swords and spears had been dug out, axes were more numerous and sharp enough to shave a chin. It was the other tools that amused: scythes, pitchforks and one he recalled had once probably saved his live, a long-handled pollarding tool with a serrated billhook at its end.

Solomon rode at his side, a man who, if he bore the title of domesticus and was responsible for the organisation of the life of his general, was much more useful than any mere domestic servant. First, he was brilliant at supply so that the marching army, now numbering thousands, never lacked for food or warmth. Added to that, he had proved both in North Africa and Italy to be a clever commander of men, indeed against the Vandals Flavius had stood off and let Solomon successfully complete a battle he had been the first to engage in.

Progress was attended by a great dwell of noise, this due to the enthusiasm of the peasants he had recruited who, never having been in battle, were convinced of their innate ability to beat any foe they came across. God was with them – so were their priests – and he would not let them fail against pagans.

‘How I pray that they are right,’ Flavius said, when Solomon alluded to the almost constant bursts of cheering that emanated from their rear, as well as that which animated it. ‘I hope, too, some of them make it home.’

‘We have been in some bad places together, Comes , but I can’t think of one worse than this.’

‘Do not be insulted if I say that any man who has no desire to be here has to remain.’

‘Where else would I go?’ Solomon barked, clearly irritated.

Flavius smiled to take the sting out of the exchange. ‘I don’t know about you but I could think of a hundred places.’

‘Home?’

‘Where would that be, Armenia?’

‘Where else, with a sound roof, good horses and women and all the time in the world to hunt.’

‘My father’s domesticus was an Armenian and an irascible old mentor he was. I would not be here without him having saved me on more than one occasion, but when you talk so fondly of home I fear I have none.’

Solomon knew better than to allude to the villa they had so recently departed, rarely occupied since Flavius had been accommodated in the palace and still not seen by him as a domicile for a family. He was also aware that in years of serving alongside his general he had never alluded to the past beyond his arrival in Constantinople.

‘There had to be a home once, Comes .’

‘There was – and a happy one. I had good friends, a strong family and I can even remember fondly the pedagogue whom I teased so mercilessly up until the day it was all taken from me. We are now retracing steps that I took in the aftermath. I have wondered since we set out if being on this road is taking me towards my destiny.’

‘That is a gloomy reflection.’

‘True,’ Flavius said emphatically, ‘and that is a mood that will not serve. We must act as if victory is foretold.’

‘Don’t let the priests hear you say that, they will think it blasphemous.’

It took a week of marching to get into a position that would oblige the Huns to react, Flavius having no doubt his approach would be known. He hoped Zabergan would have no idea of the composition of his army for, if he did, there could only be one result. At every stop for the night, he had lit ten times more campfires than were truly required, hoping to fool the Huns as to his numbers.

Out ahead of his forces, indeed even in front of his cavalry screen, hard by a settlement called Cherson, Flavius found the kind of battlefield he sought, a long narrow valley, not too steep-sided but heavily wooded and one that would require Zabergan to take a wide detour to avoid him.

‘Not that I think he will want to.’ This was addressed to the trio of leaders he had chosen to act with a degree of independence. There was not a general amongst them and for that Flavius was grateful. Instead of persuasion he had men who listened carefully and accepted without question that what he proposed must be followed. ‘We will be heavily outnumbered. The task is to take from our enemies the advantage they draw from that.’

Less sober were the peasant levies; if they had been full of braggadocio when setting out, a week of free food and mutual dares had raised their enthusiasm to a dangerous level and the risk from that was that they would become uncontrollable. On what he hoped would be their last night of camping, and before they were fed, Flavius had them gather so he could lecture them on what he required.

‘My fellow citizens,’ he bellowed, arms outstretched, raising a murmur of approbation, hardly surprising given these folk were more accustomed to insults from men of the Belisarius stamp. ‘Upon us rests the security of the whole state. We, and only we, stand between the barbarians and the gates of Constantinople.’

The response started as a couple of yells but ended up as a roar of bellicose defiance.

‘Do you know of me?’ he demanded when that died down. ‘I am Flavius Belisarius and I have beaten every enemy the empire has faced these last forty years. Persians, Vandals, Goths and even some Italians.’

That got a cheer; mostly Greek, these levies hated that race. Flavius then listed his victories; Dara, Carthage, Naples, Rome, Ravenna, even if most before him would never have heard the names and could certainly not place them in their narrow world.

‘But!’ Up went a hand that indicated restraint. ‘I have only been successful because I have been obeyed. No general can win a battle. Only the men he leads can achieve that. Do you before me wish to beat the Huns?’

That naturally produced an even greater roar as Flavius dropped his voice just enough to force those before him to lean forward to listen. ‘Do as I tell you, keep your eye on my standard and do not go far from it, and we will prevail. Now, I call upon you to fill your bellies, to see to your weapons and pray, for I believe it cannot be long before the Huns come to chase us away. What a fright we shall visit upon them.’