Jack Ludlow - Vengeance

The camp was nothing like as crowded as he recalled, hardly a surprise since many of those who had flocked to Vitalian’s banner in the cause of Chalcedon had gone off to their homes, or, in many of the cases he had heard, to a life where a roof over the head was seen as the lot of the more fortunate. When he asked to speak to Vitalian himself he was treated as an honoured messenger, disarmed and escorted to the timber-and-thatch structure that was part of his headquarters.

The general was entertaining his officers probably, to Flavius’s thinking, dining them on the proceeds of what had been gifted to him by Anastasius, when this messenger was brought in to see him and it was obvious to the youngster that most present were drunk, especially the leaders of the Gautoi mercenaries. With, they assumed, no enemy on the horizon that was not untoward; the message they received from Flavius made it less so, telling as it did the truth, not convenient lies. There would be no concessions to Chalcedon, instead the very reverse and with an army on the way under Hypatius intent on crushing them.

‘Who sends you to say this?’ demanded Diomedes, Vitalian’s second in command.

‘A friend.’

A very slurred voice shouted out in bad Latin, ‘Damn you, remove your helmet when you address our general!’

As he lifted his helmet from his head, simultaneously looking along the tables, he spied his late tribune Vigilius and noted the expression of disbelief on his face when he recognised this messenger.

‘Who is this friend?’

Flavius had no idea it was Diomedes who had made the demand, yet it was one, regardless, that left Flavius in a quandary; Petrus had made no mention of who he should say had sent him yet surely there was only one name that would convince those he was addressing that he was genuine, which, looking at the glowering suspicion to which he was being subjected, no one currently believed. Yet he had been sworn to secrecy, the two being incompatible.

‘I refuse to say, but he is a high official and one who knows and has fought alongside the man who commands you.’

That set off a cacophony of noise, some agreement, most derision, as well of cries of, ‘Name him!’

‘Why would anyone of rank send you?’

The soft voice first confused Flavius until he realised it had come from Vitalian; how could a man with a stentorian voice enough to address an army have such a quiet mode of expression in private? But what to say?

‘General, I know this man.’ All eyes turned to Vigilius, who had spoken out loudly, the question hanging in the air. ‘He was recently a decanus in my brigade.’

‘Dressed as an excubitor officer?’ someone said and uproar broke out, everyone talking at once and not, in a lot of cases, with much sense.

‘If I may be permitted to explain how this came about,’ Flavius shouted, trying and failing to make his voice heard.

Silence was only restored when Vitalian stood to command it and even then it was not immediate, but finally he could speak. ‘Hold, my friends, there are deep currents here and I am not sure with my brain a bit addled by wine I can see it straight.’

‘Chuck him in the latrine,’ one voice shouted to much raucous laughter.

‘Who will treat him as his guest tonight?’ Vitalian called. ‘For someone must. If he is dressed as he is then he is entitled to that courtesy.’

‘And if he lies?’ asked Diomedes.

‘Then he has no right to retain his head.’

‘I will share my hut with him.’

All eyes turned to Vigilius again, now standing, some mouthing ‘fool’, others too far gone in drink to see him properly.

‘You forgo, then,’ Vitalian responded, ‘the rest of the night’s revels.’

‘I accept that as forfeit.’

‘Then take this fellow, but be warned, Tribune, should he not be here to talk with me in the morning, when I might be able to assess the truth of what he is saying, your head is as much at risk as his own.’

The pair of Gautoi sentinels who had escorted him into the building were there to march him out, Vigilius needing to hurry to catch them, and having caught up he did not speak, merely directing the guards to his hut.

‘Best take station here, one of you,’ Vigilius demanded. ‘The other to go and tell the guard commander. You, inside.’

Flavius walked in to find the interior of the hut containing the same furnishings he had before observed at a distance, and close to they looked even more valuable. He was also aware that for some reason Vigilius was feeing awkward, as if he did not quite know how to act.

‘This,’ he said finally, ‘is very strange.’

‘To me as well as you, Tribune.’

‘You were a common soldier a few weeks past, a decanus for a brief period and now you turn up dressed as the commander of a numerus in the excubitor.’

‘I doubt you would believe me if I were to tell you.’

‘You’d better try, Flavius, if that is your true name, for I put myself forward to keep you from others who would now be trying to beat out of you the truth.’

‘I am Flavius Belisarius, the son of the imperial centurion of Dorostorum,’ he began, and as he continued he was aware that his listener was struggling to believe what he was being told, for he left nothing out and if Vigilius doubted what had gone before he was doubly sceptical of how Flavius concluded.

‘If, as you say, an army is coming by sea, it would have had to be set in motion before we ever arrived outside Constantinople.’

‘It may well have been, Tribune, but that I have no knowledge of.’

‘So I am expected to believe that our emperor was lying from the very outset?’

‘It would seem so.’

‘If I was to say to you, Flavius Belisarius, if indeed it be your name, that your tale is too fanciful to be credited, what would you counter that with?’

‘Is Forbas still with you?’ A nod. ‘Then ask him!’

The centurion was not happy to be dragged from his slumbers but it was an order he could not disobey. If Vigilius had been shocked by what he was presented with, Forbas was no less afflicted, but once his astonishment had subsided, he was able to remind his tribune that he had harboured doubts about Flavius from his first encounter.

‘You said he was not quite right, do you recall?’

‘I’d forgotten.’ When Flavius raised an eyebrow, Vigilius added, ‘You were not of much account to me.’

As they had talked, even before the arrival of Forbas, the sounds from the main building had grown louder, male yelling being mingled after a while with female shrieks; the officers were enjoying themselves and now it had risen to a crescendo.

‘Dancing girls,’ Forbas explained, when the noise rose. ‘At least, that’s what they term themselves.’

‘That’s not the cry of a woman,’ Flavius said.

There was a moment of disbelief, until another cry rent the air and it was definitely male and pained. Vigilius grabbed his weapon and led an unarmed Forbas out of his hut, Flavius following, and the first thing to see was the flames of the wooden camp perimeter well alight; it was under serious assault.

‘I need a sword,’ Flavius cried.

‘Then find a dead man who has one,’ Forbas shouted, ‘as I have to.’

What followed was mayhem; the officers to a man were drunk, there were half-naked females running in all directions making life, hard already, ten times more so. The assault was coming over one side of the camp and Flavius, having found a weapon and fighting alongside he knew not who, entered into the fray without being certain it was in his interests to do so.

The first real battle for someone so steeped in fighting lore was a disappointment and in later life part of an education used to good effect. Confusion was rife; sometimes he had no idea if he was fighting someone on his own side, not that he had one, or one of the people trying to overrun the camp. It was not numbers that drove the foederati and their Roman officers back, it was a lack of cohesion, added to the surprise achieved by the enemy.