Jack Ludlow: Vengeance

Ohannes tried for a certain level of normality, though there was a forced quality to his actions; he must have the physician look at his shoulder, fortunately not as badly damaged as at first feared, though a sling was advised. Flavius had to eat, to bathe and to be presentable for the callers who came to proffer their condolences, as well as the widows and offspring of his father’s dead soldiers, who were wondering how they would be able to keep body and soul together now that the stipend they were supposed to receive through imperial service – it was often late or absent – was no more.

Nothing was harder than maintaining a decent composure in shared grief, to which was added his ignorance of what reassurances he could with honesty provide. Even with his fellow pupils, especially his closest friends, a mask of acceptance must be maintained. There were duties to perform: word had to be despatched by a trusted messenger, one of the older servants, to Illyria, to his mother, who had gone to the place where he had been born to visit relatives of what, on her side, was a significant and extended family. How would she cope with the news?

The chest over which he had so recently spilt blood, with the bright, fresh cuts of the axe a stark reminder of how close he too had come to death, had to be unlocked and the contents examined. He had quickly found and read his father’s last testament, which made him well up again as he saw the names of his brothers listed above his own, each to be given equal shares of what was a constrained inheritance, but only what remained upon the death of their mother.

The document included within it not only his wishes for his posterity, small gifts to certain religious institutions who would be asked to pray for his soul, a stone to be carved in Latin and placed on a wall outside the city with his full name, his title and a list of his battles, but also such mundane instructions as to which slaves should be in receipt of manumission. It was the accepted way to reward long service upon death and it would be another manifestation of his father’s desire to be seen as nothing less than a proper citizen of the empire.

Flavius was familiar with most of the contents of a chest in which he had occasionally been allowed to rummage as a child: silver tableware and decorated goblets that were laid out on special occasions, one brightly polished silver salver held up in his hand to show him the now dark, yellow-tinged bruises under both his eyes, framing his swollen nose.

There was jewellery too, the property of his mother, and a mass of saved communications from both parents relating to friends and relatives, as well as the official despatches between the court and the centurion, too many demands for overdue money which had him look into the smaller chest containing the funds his father had control of, no great amount of coin, that went with the office he held.

He came across only one object on which he had never before set eyes, a tightly sealed and tied oilskin pouch. Unravelled with one hand and his teeth, it revealed a set of rolled-up papers, once opened contained a series of letters. A quick perusal showed they were copies of those sent to, as well as replies from, Constantinople. The former were in an inelegant hand he knew belonged to his father; the replies were properly composed and laid out with a fine hand, and given the elaborate broken seal, they appeared official.

That his father had written any letters was unusual for he was not fully gifted in the art, having been taught late in life by his spouse. Normally when communicating with palace officials he had used a trained scribe, a fellow well versed in flowery hyperbole, who knew how to set out communications in an acceptable manner, which required not only that the subject be presented clearly and properly but had the added requirement that certain people be addressed with a degree of flattery alien to a mere soldier.

The very first missive sent by his father was dated less than a year past and it was to an old friend. Decimus Belisarius had, in his youth, been a boon companion of Flavius Justinus after whom he named his fourth son. It was an oft-repeated tale of how he, Justinus and two other companions had fled an Ostrogoth invasion of Illyria to arrive in Constantinople without money and with little food, their minds full of dreams of riches, which would surely come the way of such a deserving set of hearty fellows.

The truth, if it was sobering at the time, became a humorous tale in later life and one oft referred to. The streets of the imperial capital were not paved with easily gathered gold, nor were the citizens, be they high or low, in any way impressed by these ragged, illiterate individuals from a far-flung province who spoke an incomprehensible tongue between themselves, a bit of rough Latin, and barely knew ten words of decent Greek.

It was fortunate that the empire always required soldiers, for they would have starved had it not. It was a world to which they took with a whole heart and varying success, given two of the original four had died in battle. Flavius Justinus had fared the best; through his own exploits and not a little luck he had risen to high imperial rank, that being common knowledge in the Belisarius household.

The beautifully executed reply to his first letter told Decimus that Justinus had been elevated yet again to the post of comes excubitorum . That was certainly a piece of news that had never been disseminated, strange given that the exploits of Justinus and the parental association had been the object of some pride. As Count of the Excubitor he was commander of the Imperial Palace Guard, which made him the most trusted military officer in the capital.

Flavius was slow to realise why his father had written his part of the correspondence, but he got the point the further on he read: these communications concerned a matter he had wished to keep to himself and perhaps even from his own relatives. Flavius could recall no mention of it and if his brothers had known they had been as silent as their sire. Had his mother knowledge of it, for they shared everything as a couple? There was, at present, no way to find out.

Laid out in date order, it was the next copy of a parental letter that revealed his father’s reticence and need for secrecy. First he reminded Justinus that he had served the empire as a faithful soldier, campaigning in every theatre of war from Illyria to the Persian frontier, putting down local insurrections, seeing off barbarian incursions as well as fighting the enemies of the empire. If the position he had achieved as commander of an under-strength unit in a far-flung outpost was not so very elevated, he wished to assure his old companion that his reputation for probity was as important to him now as it had ever been.

He referred to the present disordered state of the whole Diocese of Thrace brought on by the imperial religious decrees, being open that his conscience would be troubled if he were called upon to take part in any uprising designed to restore the Chalcedonian dogma. General Vitalian, camped with the rump of an army north of Marcianopolis, was insisting upon a reversal of the imperial policy, he being a one-time commander of both men and a man Decimus still admired. More on that dispute and the potential ramifications followed but it was of little interest to the youth.

The real crux of the communication was to point out his local difficulties: that the depredations of the leading citizen with whom he had to deal, aided by the local bishop, were undermining all his attempts to keep order in his area of responsibility. More importantly they stood against his endeavours to broker peace with the Sklaveni tribal elders and there was much written outlining his efforts in that regard, as well as a roll of those with whom he had dealt.