Jack Ludlow - Vengeance

The tension easily penetrated the walls of a schoolroom only just beginning the functioning day: running footsteps, occasional raised voices, followed by a full-throated shout of the kind that hinted at major alarm. This made life awkward for the pupils seeking to concentrate on the subject of mathematics, never one to hold the mind of a group of boys on the cusp of manhood, youngsters who hankered to be outdoors playing games or doing military training, rather than ingesting the other three pillars of imperial education: Latin, Greek, and rhetoric.

The sounds of commotion made it seem necessary for everyone in the class to make contact with the others, and in this they were as one – not always the case. As in any group of a dozen adolescents there were as many rivalries as friendships and even the odd relationship founded on jealousy or deep antagonism, not least by an interest in the opposite sex that had gone from indifference, though interest, to the start of rivalry. These were all now set aside by intense inquisitiveness added to an opportunity for exchanged whispers and excessive shuffling.

Rendered impatient by the distraction displayed by his pupils he might be, but their teacher was too kindly a soul to inflict what others might have imposed on an inattentive classroom: Beppolenus was not one to wield a vine sapling, and besides, he could not be other than inquisitive himself. He might well be fearful for he was a timid soul, noted for a vivid imagination that saw danger in mere shadows.

Not that it was unusual to be rendered fretful living on the very edge of the Eastern Roman Empire. It was a region subject to unremitting threats from barbarians, made doubly insecure by the instability presently disturbing the whole Diocese of Thrace, the causes being the onerous taxation decreed by an avaricious emperor and the imperial decision to endorse a dogma so at odds with the strongly held beliefs of the local population that insurrection was in the air.

It was from the north that danger was more often anticipated: the River Danube, which formed the border, was not visible from the windows of the Belisarius villa but beyond that, from the upper floor on a clear and crystal day, the hills that hemmed the lands of the barbarian Sklaveni were clear to the eye, dark green and forbidding, rising in time to the distant mountains that held their caps of snow even into the height of summer.

Behind the Sklaveni and beyond those mountains stood a more serious threat, the nomadic Huns and Alans, tribes many times more numerous and as much a menace to the people who bordered the empire as they were to those on the southern bank of the river. Although these more distant barbarians had not recently caused trouble it was within living memory what had come from that quarter on the last occasion they had mounted a serious incursion: death, mutilation and wholesale destruction only alleviated when, sated by the wealth they had plundered, they withdrew in the face of an approaching Roman army.

Schoolroom order had barely been restored when a loud military bellow caused Beppolenus to look anxiously towards the stout oak door that did little to muffle the sound. His pupils naturally threw their teacher another surreptitious glance to see how he would react, none more curious than Flavius Belisarius, the son of the house. If there were some kind of emergency it would involve his father, who commanded the under-strength cohort that was all that was available in these times for border security in what had, in the distant past, been a proper legionary outpost.

A new sound overrode that from within the walls, this time coming in through the open casements overlooking the street, a cacophony of alarm – horns mixed with the babble of men and women on the move, punctured by the wailing of fractious infants. A ripple of whispers crossed the room to report that the citizens, many bearing bundles, were hurrying towards the old citadel of Dorostorum which, though it was in less than perfect repair, offered better protection from a marauding horde than the indifferently repaired walls of the city.

No regional uprising could be the cause of such abandonment of homes and most of their possessions; there had to be a barbarian raid and a serious one to produce general panic, which had Flavius wondering at how such an incursion could have been mounted without any prior warning from those who, by habit or instruction, were best placed to advise of approaching danger.

The possibility of such an event was a subject often speculated upon by him and his fellow pupils, friends and rivals alike, as well as the way they would, with their yet to be appreciated fighting abilities, help their seniors to counter it. They knew themselves to be heroes in the making and were prone to vocal frustration that, given no forays of any magnitude had happened for years, the chance to show their martial prowess seemed destined never to arrive. Had it done so now?

Flavius, an avid student of anything military, put himself in the place of the barbarians to speculate on how they would have made the crossing in a way that achieved surprise. They must have sealed the northern bank of the Danube long enough to keep hidden their preparations, the gathering of boats plus men in numbers. Had they made their crossing in darkness? The previous night had been one of heavy cloud that had obscured the moon, which would allow them to move in serious numbers without discovery.

Or had they then launched those boats way upstream in broad daylight, to avoid any sight of their presence being reported by the farmers who tilled the southern flood plain? The meandering current would carry them slowly downstream and it would take little in the way of steering to make an unobserved landfall at the right time and at a suitable place.

Such imaginings were rudely interrupted as the schoolroom door was thrown open in a way that made the teacher cower in foreboding, the gap filled by the imposing frame of Cassius, Flavius’s eldest brother, dressed in breastplate and greaves, sword at his side, his helmet under his arm, the sight of him immediately followed by a peremptory command.

‘Pack up your lesson tablets and make for the citadel.’

The sibling reply, a rasping one, was addressed to a man already turning away. ‘Do they not go to their families first?’

Cassius swung round, the look on his face one of mild impatience. In his voice there was just a hint of weariness at being questioned by a much-loved younger brother, who was also capable of being, at times, a sore trial.

‘Their families, if they have any sense, they will find already within the walls.’ He chucked over a set of large keys, swiftly caught. ‘Now you, Flavius, go to where the servants are gathering in the atrium and do what your father requires of you. Take them to safety.’

‘It is serious then?’

‘We shall need every man we can muster to put a check on what we face. A messenger has already gone to seek support from the forces camped north of Marcianopolis in case we cannot.’

‘Can I not fight alongside you?’

‘You’re too young,’ Cassius snapped, as those he reckoned wiser heads were already pushing past him, their teacher well to the fore.

‘Not by much.’

The response was delivered over a departing shoulder. ‘By enough.’

Soon there were only three pupils left in the room, Flavius and his two closest companions, Asticus and Philaretus. Both matched him in age and attitude, if not in height, boys eager to know what their friend would do: obey his brother’s command or flout parental authority, a pattern of behaviour to which age was making them all particularly prone? There was no doubt that Flavius was tempted but he could not meet what was their clear hope.