Jack Ludlow: Vengeance

The horns that blew to sound the retreat were those which Flavius had been so recently trained to recognise and now he had some idea who was friend and who was foe, for the latter were advancing while they were retreating in a ragged line. Slashing with his picked-up sword – he had cast three found lances – he managed to form something of a line by which the falling back could avoid being a rout.

Regardless of their efforts Vitalian’s force was driven from the encampment, and when the fight petered out, all they could do was watch their huts and buildings burn and, along with that, anything not worth looting.

Dawn found them, blackened and weary, in an open field, the smoke from the fires still rising in the distance to the east, with Vitalian, as grubby as any of his men, walking through the disordered ranks seeking to lift their spirits. When he came to Flavius, who had found and joined Vigilius and Forbas, he stopped and barked at him.

‘You brought this on.’

‘No, General,’ Vigilius replied, pulling himself to his feet with some difficulty. ‘Flavius Belisarius fought with us. You need to talk to him and, if you will forgive my impertinence, listen too.’

What enemy they had faced the night before was nowhere to be seen and Vitalian, having heard out the man come to alert him, was firmly of the opinion that if it was Hypatius, then it could not be the main force, given the numbers Flavius had said could be anticipated.

‘If that had been the whole army this fellow claims we would all be wondering with what words we might greet St Peter. It was a raid but not a battle.’

‘A damned successful one.’

‘We have lost a fight, we have lost our camp and forfeited that which we possessed. Have we lost our spirit?’

Flavius, listening as Vitalian rallied his officers first and his men next, thought this the stuff of true generalship. He could not be less drained than anyone present but nothing in his demeanour hinted at it. Once he had finished his encouragement he called for Flavius.

‘Tell me again what you know of Hypatius.’

‘You believe him?’ Diomedes demanded, still unconvinced.

‘If I had listened to him last night we might not be sat here in this open field, without even a tent in which to confer.’

The tale was simple and what impressed Flavius was that Vitalian saw the solution as the same. With great effort he rallied his men to march back to their ruined camp, there to search the rubble for weapons and any recoverable possessions, in fact few; the furniture of Vigilius was charred and destroyed. Next, Vitalian ordered that the nearby settlement and farms be denuded of food, no quarter given, for he could achieve nothing commanding a depleted army with empty bellies. That completed – it took two days – he marched his men out and headed east, with Flavius held close by his side, not out of affection but a lack of trust.

They caught Hypatius when his main force was in extended order, marching from Odessus towards Marcianopolis along a narrow via rustica expecting no battle of any consequence, anticipating an easy victory once they found Vitalian and his disorganised and already defeated troops. But they were very much in existence, and, having taken up positions on both sides of a deep valley, they charged down on the head of the imperial columns and threw them into great disarray.

The rout inflicted on forward elements of the imperial forces was total, the middle and rear parts of the imperial army fleeing back, hoping to find the ships that had brought them from the southern shore of the Euxine. The front cadres not mown down in the initial assault were now seeking to throw themselves on the mercy of their attackers, many dying in the bloodletting that followed, as they paid in revengeful mayhem for the defeat and burning of the foederati encampment.

The Gautoi barbarians were unstoppable; not that much effort was made to impede their butchery and it was made plain to Flavius, not that he had any inclination to interfere, that to do so was as dangerous to him as it was to what they saw as their rightful victims. Soon the paving stones of the via rustica were awash with blood ankle-deep, which formed a river along the sloping valley floor, while the killers were covered from head to foot in the same gore and seemingly more drunk than he had ever seen any of their officers on wine.

Vitalian was as quick as he could be in pursuit, pressuring the enemy away from Odessus and an easy evacuation, more through their own confusion than by any hard fighting. Hypatius fell back on and barricaded himself in a small coastal town called Acris and was sure, having fortified his camp, he was safe and from there no doubt sent for his ships.

Vitalian, taking a leaf out of Hypatius’s book, launched a surprise attack at night, overran the temporary defences and utterly destroyed the imperial army as a fighting force. Once more the Gautoi were let loose with their weapons to kill as they pleased. Not many of the enemy made it onto the few ships that had managed to arrive in the harbour and those that sought safety on land were lucky if they ended up as slaves.

Both Hypatius and the newly appointed magister militum per Thracias were taken prisoner, saved from being butchered by the personal but much-diminished cohort that Vitalian kept for himself as guards, they being too valuable to just kill. The emperor’s nephew pleaded for his officers, those close to him, and they too, being high-born and fit for ransom, were spared. So it was a triumphant force that marched back towards a destroyed camp, richer now than they had been before it was looted, for they had the treasury of the imperial army as pay for their success and much labour with which to rebuild.

When they finally reached the camp, they found two officers of the excubitor with another prisoner, Pentheus Vicinus, who were seeking out Flavius Belisarius to hand him over. The tale he had to listen to seemed as fanciful as that he had related to Vigilius, for these men had been sent out of Constantinople by Petrus Sabbatius.

‘He suspected that Pentheus would try to kill you. Our task was to prevent that and we caught two bastards in the corridor leading to your quarters.’

‘They might not have been intent on killing me.’

‘They were and said so before we slit their throats, then stripped both and left them in the nearby woods to make it hard to identify them.’

‘And Pentheus?’

‘If he had turned up in person to see you assassinated, we were to bring him to you at Vitalian’s camp. Old sod put up a bit of a fight but we got him into his chariot and away past the watchman, who was sound asleep. If you look under that threadlike hair of his, you will see an impression of the butt of my sword hilt.’

‘How did Pentheus know where I would be?’

‘You’d have to ask Petrus that,’ said one, not answering in a way that hinted he would be able to provide any enlightenment if pressed. But then he added something meaningful without intending to. ‘He’s a very sly fox, that one.’

‘How sly?’ Flavius asked, seeking to mask his suspicion that there were things of which he was unaware, what Justinus called ‘currents’.

The second officer laughed, though Flavius did not take what he jested about as a joke. ‘If he follows you through a swinging door, he will come out in front.’

‘What were your orders after you delivered the senator?’

‘To return to our duties.’

Vitalian called Flavius into his presence so that the appearance of the senator could be explained, as well as his own tale, and he listened to both stories with as much scepticism as had been the case with Vigilius. He and Forbas had to be called to the general’s new tent to back up one part of the tale. Pressed on who had really sent the warning, given it had not been Pentheus, Flavius again refused to say and pleaded with Vitalian that since his advice had saved him from annihilation his reticence should be respected, that granted, though with ill grace.