Jack Ludlow: Vengeance

‘If you decide to follow your father and join in the fight we could do so with you.’

Looking at Asticus, with his eager expression, Flavius had to shake his head. He often took the lead in their adventures and he was being asked to do the same now, as a sort of cover for what would be seen as wrongdoing even if they acquitted themselves well: just as often he got the blame if matters went awry, obliged to accept whatever came of their misdemeanours. In the background the sounds of activity within the walls were fading, meaning there was little time to make up his mind, and it was with an air of resignation that the moment arrived.

‘No, I must obey.’

‘Flavius?’ Philaretus hissed, disappointment obvious through the tone in which the name was used. ‘How long have we prayed for a moment like this, a chance to show our mettle?’

‘There’s no one else to carry out the task my father has set me, Phila, and what will happen to you if you do not do as my brother commanded?’

‘My father was not present to hear it.’

‘He will hear of it and out will come that staff of his.’

That brought forth an obstinate look and a squaring of the shoulders. ‘Which I do not fear.’

That was, if not an outright falsehood, close to one; Philaretus had a parent easily driven to anger and a level of chastisement not visited upon his friends, both of whom had seen too many times the way he sought to avoid punishment as well as the stiffness brought about by the failure to do so. The true extent became very evident when they bathed after fighting practice or bouts of wrestling, great blue and black weals all over Phila’s body.

‘If we are to go,’ Asticus said, clearly accepting Flavius’s argument, ‘we’d best move.’

‘If you insist …’

Flavius cut off the disenchantment with a quick embrace. ‘Time will grant us the chance we need.’

‘Till then,’ added Asticus, moving forward to hold out his arm, to be clasped in turn by both his companions in the prescribed Roman manner. Then they were gone.

Left on his own, Flavius went to look down at the crowd milling along the road in search of safety, which underlined to him, if his brother’s response had not already done so, that it must be a very significant attack. Raids were a regular part of life in this part of the world but they had tended towards pinpricks, incursions low in numbers and effect; a few small livestock stolen, a few bodies taken into slavery and very rarely a man killed or a woman defiled.

Four whole years had passed since anything occurred which might cause the population of the city to seek the security of the citadel; he could recall quite clearly being taken there by his mother at the time. With a mind still churning on how it had come about, as well as how it would be countered, he turned away to carry out his father’s instructions, though he resolved to go by his quarters to don his own set of armour and collect his sword. If he could not be a fighting soldier he could at least look like one.

Citizens of the region were prone to fright but that was as nothing to the fear of the slaves and servants, the fact made plain to Flavius before he ever clapped eyes on them. The sound of the wailing filled the atrium, near loud enough to drown out the clattering sound of horses’ hooves and stamping feet as their master led his men away to do battle, this overlain with the barking of the family hounds that would run ahead of them.

It did nothing to quell their anxieties that the youngest of their master’s sons should appear before them dressed in a decorated leather breastplate, with a sheathed sword at his side. Try as he might, Flavius could not command silence with the kind of tone that would have come easily to the other male members of his family. His voice was yet to fully break so his instruction came out as a croak and being that was utterly ignored.

Thankfully Ohannes, his father’s domesticus , had the ability to replicate the order and be heard to do so, which if it did not bring calm at least diminished the howling so that the young master could issue his instructions and, once heard, lead what he thought of as a flock no better than goats out of the double gates of the villa, locking them behind him.

Each of the servants, twenty in number and varying in age, had their bundle in their arms, within which would be laid their meagre possessions. Flavius could not help but wonder if there was some of the family’s property in there too, such an alarm being a perfect time to pilfer. If the barbarians made it to the Belisarius villa and sacked it, who was to say what they had taken, against what had been secreted away beforehand? If after all the barbarians did not reach the villa, any stolen object could be later replaced.

‘They would not dare,’ Ohannes snapped, when Flavius quietly suggested the possibility, added to the notion that they might be searched.

Looking up at the old man’s face, mostly the prominent nose and the jutting jaw – it was half hidden by his long greying hair – Flavius had to smile; this old soldier was too faithful to his master himself to see a lack of that in others. The notion that he should order those bundles examined was, on consideration, an instruction Flavius declined to issue and in this his years were once more against him. If it turned out he was wrong then it would be he who suffered the wrath of his family for the resentment caused; aggrieved servants, even if most of them were slaves, had many subtle ways of exacting revenge on those they served for perceived slights.

The presence of Ohannes was telling; would he not have set off at the side of his master if there had been anyone to shepherd the servants bar Flavius? True, Ohannes was past his prime and perhaps not fit enough for a hard march followed by fighting. Yet he was held in high regard by the head of the house so he might have been expected, at the very least, to be left to protect the Belisarius property, which could not be left empty. A gentle enquiry regarding that duty established the task had gone to another.

‘Would you not then be more contented riding to do battle?’

‘I have done enough of that in my time, Master Flavius, which my scars would tell you.’ That was followed by a derisive snort. ‘And what makes you think I rode? Folk like me used our feet and my bones are a mite rigid for too much of that now.’

The steps Ohannes was taking gave something of a lie to the assertion; slightly stooped by his years, he was long in the leg and his footfall was extended and seemed firm. A Scythian recruit to the armies of Byzantium, he had ended up on the Moesian border and on retirement had taken service with the man who had been his last commander. It was a position in which he clearly felt comfortable, appreciated and of some value; if Ohannes was heard to moan, and that was not uncommon, it was not about the tasks he was asked to perform. His complaints were aimed at the uselessness of the servants who also tended to the Belisarius household, at their lack of application and any sense of discipline.

‘Time to use your elbows, young sir,’ he growled.

The street that formed the approach to the fortress had become increasingly crowded, turning to a pushing and shoving throng, which did not diminish as they flowed out onto the old parade ground that lay before the gates. Streams of fleeing citizenry, coming from several directions, were melding into one heaving mass, each person seeking advantage so that the sound of disputes rose to a crescendo as men and women jostled to get themselves and their possessions to safety.

Even if his voice could have carried, it would have been useless for Flavius to try to shout out and state that panic was unnecessary, to say the Sklaveni were not on their heels and the garrison, soon to be joined by the men retained by the local landowners to protect their own property, had set out to impede any advance on Dorostorum. The mood had taken hold and could not be controlled and what was before them now was getting dangerous: a melee in which to stumble risked being trampled.