Siege of Rome (26 page)

   “Loose!”

   A rushing sound, like thousands of birds taking to the air at once, briefly drowned out the thunder of hoofs and the frantic hammering of my pulse.

   The front rank of Gothic horsemen seemed to falter, their beasts twisting and rearing and screaming and plunging back onto their haunches. Their yelling riders were thrown, or shot from the saddle, and fell under the churning hoofs of the riders in the second line.

   “Loose!”

   A second flight of arrows, darkening the skies, and a third, and a fourth, pouring like hail into the Gothics, mowing down riders and horses and throwing their ranks into desperate confusion.

   “At them!” screamed one of my Is
aurians, “kill them all! Just kill them!”

   He would have broken ranks and rushed forward, taking others with him, but I seized his shoulder and dragged him back into line.

   “Stand your ground, fool!” I hissed into his ear, “or I’ll have your skin flayed off your back and made into a sword-belt!”

   He grinned at my threat, which wasn’t quite the reaction I wanted, but
at least he obeyed, and the line held firm.

   Our trumpets sounded from the walls, signaling the retreat.
Belisarius had no intention of trying to rescue the battle now. He merely aimed to withdraw in good order and get the remnants of the army back inside Rome.

  
Executing a fighting retreat is one of the most difficult manoeuvres, especially with darkness falling and terror pounding through your veins, the screams of dying men and beasts sounding in your ears, the stench of death curdling in your nostrils, and you’re so frightened and deafened you can barely think or hear or speak.

  
My Isaurians were up to the task. I barked at them to keep the line straight as they withdrew, spears presented to the enemy, but they would have easily done so without me. Step by step, calmly and unhurriedly, they moved back towards the Salarian Gate. Our retreat was covered by the archers, who continued to shoot until the Goths, sickened by the casualties they had suffered, turned and fell back.

   They left a great pile of wreckage on the field, human and animal, wounded beasts thrashing and screaming
in their death-throes, men trying to crawl back to their own lines, or simply flopping down to die. Isaurian mountain men are superb archers, as good as any Huns or Scythians, and not to be despised as mere infantry.

   We got back inside, along with the rest of the infantry and surviving cavalry, and the gates slammed shut before the Goths could regroup and pursue.

   Procopius left our fire just before midnight, having exhausted his fund of stories. Most of my Isaurians had taken themselves to bed, weary but not dispirited by the defeat, for none of them had died. Our cavalry had suffered, true, but so had the Goths, and Rome was still secure.

  
I sat up late with a few men around the flickering embers of the fire, brooding over the conduct of the Romans. If not for their arrogant stupidity, we would not have lost so many men in a futile and pointless sally, and Belisarius’ record would not bear the stain of a defeat, only the second he had ever suffered in the field.

  
The hour was extremely late, and I was drowsing alone over a final cup of wine, when I heard a commotion. I looked up, blinking in the sudden harsh glow of torch-light, and saw Photius sneering down at me.

   He was
as luminously handsome as ever, and his breastplate polished to a shine that hurt the eyes. He held a spatha in his right hand, and leveled the keen blade at my throat.

   A dozen guardsmen stood behind him, tall and forbidding in their cloaks and crested helms. I glanced at their grim faces, silhouetted by the light of the torches they held, and my heart fell.

   “Coel the Briton,” said Photius in a gloating voice, “you are under arrest.”

20.

The plot my enemies had hatched against me was a squalid one. Frustrated in their efforts to have me murdered, they changed their strategy, and tried to have me disgraced and condemned to death on a false charge of theft.

   You might wonder why, as I did, that
Photius’ mother did not simply kill me when I lay for three days and nights in her power. I mulled over this as Photius and his men escorted me through the streets towards Belisarius’ house on the Pincian Hill.

   They had taken Caledfwlch – I thought it folly to try and fight so many, knowing that Photius would cheerfully allow his men to kill me for resisting arrest – and snapped heavy manacles on my wrists. I was used to this sort of treatment, having been exposed to it in
Constantinople, and tried to keep my mind clear.

   “You are a great fool, Photius,” I said to the tall, manly figure striding at the head of our little procession, “your mother is using you as a weapon. Why do you do it? There is no private quarrel between us.”

   He stopped, and I almost ran into him as he turned on his heel and glared at me with pure hatred in his eyes, teeth clenched, nostrils flared like a war-horse about to charge into battle.

   “
You may as well hold your tongue,” he rasped, “for I will not listen to the lies that flow from it. I know well how you tried to ravish my lady mother in Carthage, and how she only slipped from your grasp thanks to the grace of God and the aid of a servant. Will you pretend that you are innocent, or have forgotten the incident, you rank barbarian dog? That you did not defile her flesh with your filthy hands?”

   So that was it. I had suspected something of the kind.
This Photius had inherited a share of Antonina’s beauty, but not much of her brains, and had allowed himself to be manipulated into believing a clumsy lie. 

   “Your mother,” I said, holding his gaze, “is a liar. Her servant invited me to the palace in
Carthage on a false pretext. Antonina tried to seduce me there, to discredit me in the eyes of Belisarius. I refused her. No doubt she has spun you a very different tale, but mine is the truth.”

   He gave a wordless cry and backhanded me across the face, cutting the skin with the
large silver ring on his middle finger. I was rocked back on my heels, but saved from falling by the guardsmen holding my arms.

   “S
he warned me you would try and talk your way out of it,” he hissed, shoving his face close to mine, so close I could smell the odour of wine and spices on his breath, “but we have no secrets, my mother and I.”

   I could have laughed at that. Antonina was a sly and subtle creature, a snake in lovely human form, and harboured more secrets in her breast than this bone-headed youth could possibly imagine.
However, there seemed little point in provoking him further, so I held back.

   “
What, then?” I asked, trying not to flinch at the feel of warm blood trickling down my cheek, “on what pretext do you arrest me? I presumed you mean to have me put on trial. Belisarius will require a full explanation.”

   He grinned,
white teeth flashing in the gloom, and turned to one of his soldiers. “This man is a thief, is that not correct?” he asked.

   “Yes
, sir,” the man replied, “we found these on his person.”

  
He reached inside the folds of his cloak and produced a pair of ceremonial daggers made of pure gold. Beautiful objects, with smooth curving hilts and leaf-shaped blades. I had never set eyes on them before, and said so.

   “Another lie,” said Photius, clucking his tongue, “are all you Britons so deceitful?
You stole these daggers from Presidius, seven days ago.”

   I had to think to match the name to a face. Then it
came to me. Presidius was an Italian nobleman, a native of Spoleto who volunteered to join our army when Constantine took that city from the Goths.

   He
was said to have fallen under the displeasure of the Gothic monarch, and had only thrown in his lot with us to avoid punishment. I knew he was unpopular, and had acquired a reputation for being proud and haughty, overbearing to the lower orders and incompetent in the field.

  
“Presidius was a rich man, once,” Photius added, “but when our men fled Spoleto he was obliged to leave most of his treasures behind, bar a few trinkets. These daggers are by far the most valuable of his possessions. And you stole them.”

  
I found it difficult to keep the contempt from my voice. “First, you try and murder me on the battlefield,” I said, “then your mother sends a pair of assassins after me. By the way, I slew the guardsman you bribed, and his body lies rotting under the ground by Naples. Now you stoop to having me framed on a false charge of petty theft. For shame, Photius. Don’t you feel the slightest bit ashamed? Does that noble exterior of yours not contain a sliver of conscience?”

   His face flooded with colour, but I carried on regardless. “If you were any sort of a man, which you’re not, you would order your men to remove the chains on my wrists. Then we could have it out, man to man, blade to blade, and let God decide the victor. Or are you afraid to fight me?”

   This was my last – my only – throw of the dice. If Photius possessed any sense of honour, which was doubtful, he could not refuse a fair challenge to trial by combat in front of his men. Whether I could beat this active young soldier, all muscle and sinew and whipcord, was another matter, but death in combat was preferable to disgrace and execution.

   Sadly, my initial judgment of his character proved correct. “Vermin such as you don’t deserve an honourable death,” he hissed, “why should I, a Roman of noble blood,
consent to cross swords with a felon?”

   He turned on his heel before I could taunt him any further, and we continued on our way to the Pincian Hill.

   I could scarcely believe that Photius meant to drag me in front of Belisarius, just hours after our army had suffered a defeat, but there was method in his eagerness. Tired and dispirited after the day’s fighting, Belisarius might be vulnerable, and sufficiently disorientated to treat the absurd charges against me seriously instead of dismissing them out of hand.

   A sound strategy, devised by someone who knew the workings of the general’s mind: Antonina, no doubt.
Only now did I realise the full breadth of her spite. Merely killing me wasn’t enough, else she might have done it while I lay helpless under her knife. I had to be exposed as a thief and a traitor, my reputation torn to shreds in public, before my body was consigned to the gallows. Only then would her desire for revenge  (and Theodora’s) be sated.

   I wondered if Presidius was part of the plot, or just a useful straw man to set up against me. When we reached
Belisarius’ house, still blazing with light despite the lateness of the hour, I saw him waiting outside with a couple of Persian bodyguards. He was a balding, pot-bellied man, greasy of countenance and character, and avoided my eyes as the guards shoved me up the steps.

  
“Whatever they paid you,” I called out to him, “will not be enough to clear the taint from your soul if you give evidence against me. You know I did not steal your daggers, Presidius.”

   He sniffed and looked away, fluttering his fat fingers.
I would get no help from that quarter. Antonina had bought his loyalty, and she had sufficient gold and silver to drown any man’s conscience.

   The hall glowed with light from rows of torches burning in sconces in the walls.
Belisarius and his captains were poring over a great pile of maps laid out on a table. Their armour was still smeared with blood and mud from the battle, and their competing voices had a faintly hysterical edge.

   Antonina had no business being present at a council of war, but a couch had been set up for her beside her husband’s chair. She lounged on it, eyes half-closed, a faint smile playing on her lips as she listened to the men argue.

   Her husband’s face resembled a death’s head. His eyes were hollow with exhaustion, skin yellow as old parchment, hand shaking as he stabbed at various points on a map of Rome. Sheer pride and strength of will were the only things holding him upright, and his voice quavered as it strained to be heard over the babble of his officers.

  
Their voices died away when Photius announced our presence by stamping his feet and raising his hand in salute. His mother’s eyes snapped open, and she sat upright on her couch. Curse the woman, but I believe she actually winked at me.

   “Photius,” said Belisarius, rubbing his bristly jaw, his tired eyes flicking between me and my captors, “what is this? Why have you brought the faithful Coel here, loaded down with chains?”

   “It gives me no joy to be here,” replied Photius, still standing stiffly to attention, “but there is one who can explain better than me.”

  
Presidius shuffled into the hall, followed by his Persian guards. They were big, striking men, with oiled and plaited beards and ornate armour, and wore curved scimitars at their hips. Hired, no doubt, with some of the tainted gold Antonina had tipped into his purse.

   “Sir,” he trilled, mopping his sweating chops with a plump hand, “it grieves me to inform you that this officer, Coel,
has brought disgrace upon himself and the honour of Roman arms. Seven nights since, as I lay asleep in my quarters, I saw him steal into my bedchamber and remove a pair of golden daggers from my chest. The daggers were virtually all that remained of my fortune, the majority of which, as you know, I had to leave behind in Spoleto.”