Flame of the West (20 page)

  
I was deceived. God, as I have said, allows the blood of Arthur no rest.

  
In the deep winter of the year five hundred and fifty, in the twenty-third year of Justinian’s reign, Flavia was brought to bed of another child.

   I had advised
them not to try again. Flavia was weakened by the previous tragedy, and I feared her insides were damaged.

   Arthur would not listen to me, and
Flavia meekly obeyed her husband’s wishes. He was determined to have a son, to carry on the unbroken blood-line of British princes.

   “Before God, I regret I ever told you of your ancestry,” I said bitterly, “
I would rather see your wife alive, and happy, than risk her for the sake of our family. The line of kings was broken long ago, Arthur. Even your great-grandsire never laid claim to a crown.”

  
He proved stubborn, and I wondered if Elene’s shade was working through him, exacting her long-delayed vengeance on me.

   If so, she got her wish.
Flavia endured another excruciating labour, and produced another stillborn child. To twist the knife in Arthur’s wound, the child was another daughter.

   This time, there was nothing the Greek physician and midwives we had hired could do to save
Flavia. She would not stop bleeding, and died in the small hours of the morning, without seeing the pathetic fragment of dead flesh she had brought into the world.

24.

My son was a changed man after the death of his wife. For three days and nights after the funeral he kept to his room, refusing to eat or drink or speak to anyone. When he emerged, drawn and haggard and with a world of pain in his eyes, the bright youth I had known was quite gone.

   I was surprised by the depth of his grief, since he never seemed to care overmuch for Flavia in life.
Like his mother, Arthur possessed depths and twists to his character I was incapable of divining.

   With nothing left to keep him in
Constantinople, he revived his ambition to join the army. “You cannot persuade me otherwise this time,” he said as he broke his three-day fast, “I need to get away from this city and all its ghosts.”

   There was iron resolution in his voice, and I lacked the will to fight him. Flavia’s death, and the loss of my second grandchild,
had opened fresh wounds in my battered soul.

   “
You must do whatever you think is right,” I replied, “whatever your decision, you have my blessing.”

   After he had forced down a morsel of bread, he went to the fireplace and took down Caledfwlch. T
he sword had hung there for many years. I had not touched it since. Nor had anyone save the servant tasked with polishing the blade and keeping it sharp.

  
“It has a weight to it,” he said, running his hand gently along the blade.

   “The weight of souls,” I replied, “of blood and death. Caledfwlch has ushered hundreds of men into the next world.”

   I looked at the thing with distaste, and a twinge of fear. Once precious to me, my grandsire’s sword was now a reminder of past terrors and disappointments. I was still plagued with dreams of slaughter, half-buried memories of the battles I had witnessed in Africa and
Italy.

   “All those dead men,” I said, “and for what? Belisarius may as well have stayed at home and grown cabbages. All his
victories and conquests have crumbled away like a hollow pile of sand.”

   “That is the truth of war
, my son. Men march away, and not all of them come back. They leave nothing but shallow graves, mourning widows and fatherless children.”

   Arthur held Caledfwlch up to the light streaming in through a latticed window. “A grave for
Constantine,” he said, “a grave for Aurelius; a grave for Uther. All the world’s wonder, no grave for Arthur!”
   He was reciting a snatch of verse I had taught him, long ago. I got it from some of the Germanic mercenaries in the Roman army, who in turn heard it from their kin in Britain. Arthur, the enemy of their race, who had piled up heaps of their slain at Mount Badon, was now one of their heroes. All the world, it seemed, was embracing the tales of my famous ancestor.

  
“I care not where they bury me,” my son said, with more than a trace of bitterness, “let me rot on some distant battlefield. The ravens can pick at my bones. As for my wife and children, they have gone before.”

   “But I have not,” I said quie
tly. 

   For the first and perhaps only time, I managed to inspire a little pity in him. He returned
Caledfwlch to its hook and caught me in a fierce embrace.

   “I
will make you proud, father,” he whispered. I wanted to reply that he already had, but the breath was crushed from my lungs.

   Arthur took to trainin
g with the citizen levies, who drilled regularly on the plains outside the city walls. I was unsurprised to hear he excelled at every form of weapons exercise, as well as horsemanship, and drew praise from the tough veterans who oversaw the drill.

   Meanwhile the Emperor was
seized by a rare burst of energy and competence. He shook off his mourning for Theodora, put aside his wrangling theologians, and took measures to reverse the catastrophe in Italy.

   Still, nothing on earth c
ould persuade him to restore Belisarius to rank and favour. The general was detained in Constantinople, a free man but constantly under the shadow of imperial displeasure, spared from destruction only thanks to his wife, who exerted a strange influence over Justinian.

  
Having put aside his only great general, Justinian cast about for someone to replace him. First he chose his nephew Germanus, then changed his mind in favour of Liberius, a decrepit civilian with no military experience, then to an Armenian named Artaban, then back to Germanus.

   “Vacillating ninny,” sneered Procopius, who had returned to
Constantinople with his master, “he will end up appointing his horse as commander-in-chief. A dumb beast can scarce be a worse choice than Liberius.”

  
Eventually Justinian settled on his nephew, and sent him to Sicily with a fleet. Germanus had a mixed reputation, having fought well against the rebels in North Africa, but fled before the fury of the Sassanids when they descended on Antioch. Justinian had succeeded in marrying him off to Matasontha, the ex-Queen of the Goths, so he also enjoyed some popularity among her people.

   “Germanus
will fail,” Procopius said confidently, “Totila will give him a good thrashing, and he will run back to uncle with his tail between his legs.”

   “I want to join the army bound
for Sicily,” Arthur announced. Procopius, who was fond of my son, stared at him in horror.

   “Don’t be so damned stupid,” he rasped, “
you may as well fall on that old sword now and save yourself the trouble. Germanus won’t achieve a thing.”

   In the event, Germanus died, of a fever he picked up in
Sicily. Plunged back into the depths of grief by this unexpected loss, Justinian was driven to extremity, and chose for his general an ageing, deceitful, twisted little half-man.

   “Narses!” Procopius informed us, almost choking on his mirth, “he is going to send Narses to rescue
Italy! Now may God help Rome, for the Emperor has failed her.”

25
.

I was appalled by the Emperor’s decision, and tried to forbid Arthur from joining the army. Any campaign led by Narses, I argued, could only end in total disaster.

   “He is a crippled eunuch, a greasy, shamelessly corrupt courtier, a master of wiles and treachery and every foul trick,” I said forcefully, “the little bastard can’t even ride, with his twisted legs, but has to be carried everywhere in a litter! A fine leader, to take a Roman army into the field! Are we to rely on the Goths laughing themselves to death when they set eyes on him?”
   Arthur was unmoved. He was twenty-six years old now, in the prime of youth and manhood, and this was his time.

  
“You can forbid me nothing, father,” he said calmly, “though I honour you for your love and concern. I will go to Italy, with or without your blessing or permission.”  

   I am not a demonstrative man, but his icy stubbornness drove me into a
rage. I raged and cursed, and broke furniture, and threatened to have him clapped in irons if he refused to listen to reason.

   Arthur
waited patiently for the storm to blow itself out. I may as well have expended my wrath on a statue, for all the effect I had on him.

  
For a moment I despaired, but then an idea struck me. “Very well,” I said, when I had control of myself again, “if you go, I go.”

   Arthur was rarely taken aback, but I was gratified to see him blink. “What? You mean to join the army again? Father, you are too old.”

   “And,” he added, poking me in the belly, “too fat. Fine living has been the ruin of you.”

   Insolent whelp. If he wasn’t quite so big, I would have taken my belt to him.

   “I would never re-enlist,” I said, thinking myself very cunning, “but the army will need horses. Lots of horses. No doubt a good part of our stock will be requisitioned. I mean to take them myself, and see the poor beasts are not ill-used. We paid good money for them, after all.”

   He looked at me incredulously. “Y
ou, who once commanded Roman troops in the field, mean to follow the army as a horse-trader?”

   “Why not?” I shrugged, “or a quartermaster, maybe. Even a cook.
An army marches on its stomach.”

   “Not for long, if exposed to your culinary skills,” he retorted, but there was nothing he could say or do to stop me. We had reached an impasse, and had to make the best of it. 

   Since Arthur was set on joining the army, I tried to secure a good berth for him. I still had some influence with certain high-ranking officers, old comrades from the wars, and exerted it to get him into the cavalry.

   This presented little difficulty. Arthur was the very image of a promising young officer, and rode as well as anyone. He was appointed a centenar, in command of a hundred Herulian horsemen. This was my choice. I knew the Heruls well, their customs and fighting style, from my time in their camp.

   “They are a
rough lot, with some strange beliefs you must never try to change or interfere with,” I advised my son, “above all, they respect courage and horsemanship. Lead from the front, try not to fall off your horse, and you should deal very well with them.”

   The preparations for the campaign were encouraging, and revealed the extent of Justinian’s perfidy towards Belisarius. Narses, having witnessed the general’s fate in
Italy, refused to accept the command unless given adequate supplies of men and money.

  
Justinian refused his favourite nothing. He emptied the imperial coffers to please him, raising levies from Thrace and Illyria, six thousand Lombard mercenaries hired from their King, Alboin, and three thousand Herulian cavalry. To these were added further auxiliaries, hired at Narses’ personal expense, and even a detachment of Sassanids, refugees who had deserted Nurshivan and fled into imperial territory to escape his wrath.

   In all, the army amounted to no less than thirty thousand men, twice the size of anything Beli
sarius was ever entrusted with. With such a host at his command, he might have achieved his dream of re-conquering the entire Western Empire, and raised the name of his Emperor to deathless heights of glory. But Justinian was not the man to realise such ambitions. The brief moment passed, and I believe the empire will never recover its old power and prestige.

   Narses surprised me. Twelve years had passed since he briefly led a small Roman army in
Italy. Since then he had done no soldiering (unless playing chess counts) and showed no obvious interest in reviving his military career.

   Now, handed a fresh opportunity by Justinian, he threw himself into the task with a skill and energy I
would have thought beyond him. Perhaps he had spent his time devouring the histories of old wars, but his conduct of the early stages of the campaign could not be faulted.

   The Goths controlled the seas off the east coast of
Italy, so there was no chance of launching another seaborne invasion. Instead Narses ordered the army to march to Salona, an ancient city on the Dalmatian coast, and from there to the head of the Adriatic Gulf. It was a long march, but meant the army could invade Gothic territory from the north, avoiding their fleet.

   During all the bustle and preparations for war, Narses found time to send me a brief note. It arrived at
my house, carried by an insouciant Egyptian slave, as I was making my final arrangements for departure:

  
I knew you would serve me at the last.

Congratulations on the appointment of your son. I will observe his progress with great interest.