Vengeance (16 page)

To say Flavius was troubled was well off the mark, for he had a whole cart of worries, and not just his present preoccupations. Would his mother, once she received the news of the death of her husband and sons, do as he had asked and await his arrival, or would she rush back to the family home? He felt the need to prevent her, given the strong possibility her welcome and treatment wouldn’t be any different from that envisaged for him, though Senuthius would need to be careful how he treated her.

If his father had been less than wholly popular through the needs of his responsibilities, she had been the reverse and was held, particularly by the poor of the city, in high regard, due to her selfless consideration for their welfare. To accuse her of sorcery would surely not be believed by folk whose illnesses she had medicated and whose poverty she had worked tirelessly to relieve.

That thought checked him; who would believe that anyone in his household had indulged in pagan rites? No one with eyes to see or a brain to think, but a mob fired up by lies and fed with free wine was of a different nature. Senuthius would expend gold to damn anyone named Belisarius, and Blastos would use his office to aid him!

If that was not an immediate dilemma, it would become that once they reached Marcianopolis, where there was another
via publica
that joined that city to the main road west, the Via Egnatia, which would take him to Illyricum and in doing so impose a choice. What would his mother want him to do, seek out the imperial commission and go with them to Dorostorum or look to her security? He was looking at his own feet once more, thinking that she would insist on the former, when another pair appeared.

‘Can you spare a bite, friends?’

To avoid looking up was impossible. The man before them, with a spear in his hand, a sword at his waist and a plain leather breastplate on his chest, was clearly a one-time soldier, covered in dust, as were the trio he was addressing. With the butt of the spear shaft resting on the ground he was leaning on it in a way that indicated he was as weary as Ohannes, who was the one who replied.

‘Been on the march long, brother?’

There was a pause, as if he found the question obtrusive. ‘All the way from Axiupolis.’

It seemed the name of that city made no sense to Dardanies, but Flavius knew it lay well to the east of Dorostorum, it being the nearest fortified town in that direction, as would Ohannes. Many times his father had gone there to confer with his opposite and equally under-strength counterpart and mull over their difficulties.

‘That’s many a league,’ Flavius replied.

‘And many more to go, I think.’

‘Not as many as you have behind you, friend; Marcianopolis will be not much more than another day’s march.’

Flavius was wondering why Ohannes was growling, but he was in no position to enquire as the fellow spoke again, the expression implying he was impressed. ‘You know the road well?’

‘Well enough,’ Flavius responded. He looked around, to the sound of the old man growling even louder. ‘Are you on your own?’

‘I was with a party, but I seem to have got separated.’ He smiled, showing broken teeth. ‘Too much time spent talking to others on the path to salvation, but I can catch up with them if I have the strength to put my best foot forward.’

‘Have some bread and wine, then,’ Dardanies said.

He held out a torn piece of his own round of bread. Ohannes
immediately proffered his wine flask and the man drank from it with the requisite constraint, not consuming too much. Still chewing he wiped his sleeve across his face before speaking again.

‘Why, that is kind of you, I feel right restored.’

‘Glad to provide for a fellow Christian.’

‘And where have you come from?’

Flavius was about to reply when Ohannes spoke to cut him off. ‘What matters where we all hail from, friend? It is the cause in which we make our way that matters.’

‘True enough, brother, true enough.’ A hand went to the soft cap on his head in a sort of salute. ‘Well, I say God’s blessings upon you and I will be heading on – with luck and your kindly sustenance I will come upon my comrades.’

‘You should not have spoken so freely,’ Ohannes hissed, as soon as the man was out of earshot. ‘And happen you should not have spoken at all!’

‘In what way do you mean?’

‘What lad your age, and at best a labourer, speaks educated as you do, has knowledge of the roads of the province, as well as how far it is to Axiupolis and can tell how far we still have to go to the general’s meeting place?’

‘Any number of folk know that, and you must have gone there with my father!’

‘I take leave to say they do not,’ the old man insisted, before addressing Dardanies, sat on the other side of Flavius. ‘You heard of Axiupolis?’

That got a shake of the head and a shrugged reply from the Sklaveni. ‘What’s done is done. Can you be certain talking to that fellow is a risk of any sort?’

‘Likely not,’ Ohannes replied, though he seemed far from mollified. ‘But best not to take a chance, best to keep a tight lip.’

‘You worry too much,’ Flavius murmured, his resentment at being checked obvious.

‘Thank the Lord someone has the sense to!’

As they had sat eating the air had grown heavy, as clouds rolled in from the north-west to first cover the sun, trapping the summer heat, then to thicken and darken, which was enough to let all know they were in for a downpour, and soon the first roll of thunder came rumbling to their ears and that meant lightning. With every post house full to bursting and likely to get even busier there was scant chance of shelter.

If it was known to be unsafe to shelter under a tree in such circumstances there was mutual agreement that it was better than standing out in the open and being lashed with rain. The clouds were turning black now and the thunder was regular, soon followed by the first visible flash of lightning cracking brightly across the sky.

‘Oh, for a shield,’ Ohannes called, ‘best thing going to keep your head dry.’

‘I have heard men being struck on the boss by lightning and killed,’ Flavius said, as the first drops of rain began to fall, large enough to bounce off the paving blocks from which the road was constructed.

‘Who’s to say it would not have done for them anyway.’

Dardanies had his sword out and was heading for the trees. ‘Time to build a shelter.’

Once into the woods, he began to slash at the thinner branches of the trees, soon aided by the others, who knew what he was about, just as they knew they had left it late to act. It was not long before they had a frame of sorts as well as the evergreen foliage with which
to cover it, under which they could take shelter even if they were damp by the time it was up.

They sat huddled within this as the rain beat down, much of it caught in the trees above, yet enough falling to drip through their canopy and all the while the heavens rumbled and spat. To peer out was to see bolts of heavenly fire striking the ground, while all around the noise of thunder assailed them and the wind the storm whipped up had those under cover grabbing parts of their makeshift shelter to keep it in place.

‘Those are my gods speaking,’ Dardanies said. ‘It might do you well to listen.’

‘Never did much take to anyone shouting, divine or otherwise,’ Ohannes hooted, ‘an’ who would want to bow their head to such a temper?’

Flavius thought it politic to say nothing, especially when he saw the way the Sklaveni took the old man’s jest; it was not well received. So there they sat in silence until the sounds began to fade as the storm moved on, the rain easing until it eventually stopped. They stepped out to find steam rising from the paving, water dripping from the trees and the air still heavy and damp, with grey clouds filling the sky.

Others, who had taken similar shelter, began to emerge and if they were to a man far from dry, neither were they too concerned; it was summertime in a part of the world where clothing could dry out quickly, the only concern Flavius expressed being that the delay made it unlikely they would make the military camp near Marcianopolis before darkness.

‘Though we should keep going as long as we can, even after dark.’

‘Not with all that cloud,’ Dardanies contended. ‘Won’t be able to see hand before our face when the light goes.’

All around them parties of men were settling down for the night, disappearing into the deeper woods looking for timber still dry enough to make a fire, kindling being no problem. Flints were being plied to the small mound of still-dry leaf mould that would be the first to flame, they carried on as the light faded and the road emptied.

‘Can’t go much further than this,’ Ohannes said, holding up a hand to show that it was barely visible. ‘Let’s make camp.’

I
t was not the dawn chorus of birds that woke Flavius, but the point of a knife at his throat, in a light so dim that he could not make out the face of the man holding it, even as he leant forward to whisper in his ear, telling him to stay still and say nothing. The threat that others would die in their sleep if he did not was enough to ensure silence. Two things registered: the smell of stale wine on the fellow’s breath and the fact that, having chosen to sleep quite a distance from his companions – really from the snoring of Ohannes – he had rendered himself vulnerable.

The free hand grabbed his smock and hauled him into a sitting position, before it was laid on his back to push, a signal to stand up, which he did, all the time with the cold steel pressing on his flesh. The cowl with which he had covered his head was used now as a drag to get him away from his companions, this as shadowy shapes now emerged from behind trees to surround him.

‘What do you want?’ he croaked.

‘You, Flavius Belisarius.’

It was still warm, even in the predawn, yet he felt a chill at the use of the name and that induced silence without the need to be told to maintain it. More hands were on him now, as if seeking part possession of his being as he was hustled deep into the woods, so deep that if the light was increasing it was barely doing so here.

‘Who are you?’ he asked eventually, trying a louder tone.

‘Can’t you guess?’ came the reply, likewise no longer a whisper, which was worrying for it established how far he was from any hope of rescue. ‘We were the fellows who tipped you off that horse of yours, and those two black eyes, even if they are near to faded now, were a sure sign to any with eyes to see. Not many youngsters on the road south, even fewer with such marks on their face, who can’t keep from looking up time to time.’

‘Couldn’t help showing away, either, could you?’ said another, more authoritative voice. ‘Telling me how far I had come and what was left to go in that high-born Latin of yours, as if one of your years and a
rusticus
would know of such things.’

‘You are in the employ of Vicinus?’

‘Were, but the smell of coin was stronger with Vitalian. Hankered to visit Constantinople again too, only this time to come away with something to show for it instead of an empty belly. No need now, the senator will pay handsome for you, and why bother to weary ourselves marching or fighting?’

The man reached out and detached the purse Flavius still wore on his belt, smiling as he tossed it and weighed it in his hand. ‘We even have a ready reward here, not much of one, I’ll grant, but it will pay our way in wine and food when we head back north.’

There was a moment when Flavius considered appealing to their Christian principles, only to put that aside. These would be men of a stripe that Ohannes had spoken of, ex-soldiers who had taken service with Senuthius because that was where they could employ their skills in a time of peace; they had set off to join General Vitalian with nothing but plunder in mind, so what came out was an expression of his desperation.

‘My friends will search for me.’

‘Only to find your body if they get too close, boy, for Senuthius would like you alive but he will take a corpse if that’s all we can provide. Now shut up and walk.’

Which they did for some time, and in silence, until they reached and began to cross a small clearing, providing light enough for Flavius to see that he had five men – they were no longer mere shadows – to contend with, not that he had any notion of how he was going to do that. They were armed, he was not, his sword and spear now lying where he had left them, beside the rough wood frame he had made so he could sleep off the still-damp ground.

He was not yet fully a man and they were armed, were bound to have experience and certainly had the muscle to defeat any attempt he made to overcome them. How could they have crept up on him so easily when he should have been safe? If he was apart from Dardanies and Ohannes the whole edge of the forest was dotted with like-minded souls sleeping off the toils of the previous day. That lifted his spirits just a little, for though he had been taken captive he was a long way from Dorostorum and the way back was on a road full of folk to whom he might be able to appeal.

It was as if the leader, always supposing he was that, read his mind, for he spun Flavius to look him in the face, revealing himself
as the fellow to whom bread and wine had been gifted the day before.

‘We need to stay here until the road clears, a day or two happen, so I will tell you now that we are going to remain in this forest. Your mind will be set on notions of escape, so I say put them away, for any one of us will kill you if you try.’

‘Hard to carry a body all the way back to Dorostorum.’

That got a cackled laugh. ‘Your head will do.’

‘Best tie him up, Nepo, and lash him to a tree for he is strong for his years. If he runs he’ll be a bugger to catch.’

‘Had that in mind, didn’t I,’ came the abrasive reply; it was a voice that hinted at annoyance. ‘You think me as dense as you?’

‘Just suggesting,’ came the quick rejoinder, in a tone designed to deflect any offence that had obviously been taken.

With a mind acute to any possibilities, Flavius registered that: the fear the man had of the one he called Nepo, added to the response from a fellow who did not worry if he offended in turn. There was something, too, in the way the others did not look at Nepo as if fearing to catch his eye and perhaps the edge of his temper. If there was any respect there was unlikely to be any love and perhaps that was something he could exploit.

Not that such a feeling lasted; they had made a makeshift camp on the far side of the clearing, rough-framed cots similar to the one on which he had slept, and the pile of wood they had gathered and laid off the ground to keep it dry hinted at their intention to stay put for some time. There were dead birds and a couple of rabbits hanging from a branch, so they had food too, as well as the ability to set snares for more; these men, experienced at living off the land and in a forest full of game – he assumed there had to be water
somewhere nearby – could stay here for an age if they felt they had to.

Pushed against a gnarled tree, one with several growths rising from a very wide stump, his hands were hauled round to the back and lashed together on one of the thinner trunks. There was no need for such a constraint to be tight – it only had to be secure enough to make it impossible for him to untie – so at least he could still feel his fingers, for which he was grateful.

Slowly Flavius eased himself down to the base of that sapling till he was sitting, his eyes alert as his captors went about their tasks, looking for anything that might gift him an opportunity, while fighting the waves of despair with which he was assailed, countering these with silent prayer. He had got clear of the clutches of Senuthius once; surely there would be a chance to do so again.

Nepo was clearly the leader, established by the way he set errands for the rest, sending them to check the snares they had reset before nightfall, or to gather more wood, not hard in an age-old woodland with much decaying timber on the ground, this while he barely moved, instead helping himself to wine from a skin that went regularly to his mouth. There was no need to light a fire, it being summer; that would only be set during daylight hours in order to cook, and like he had seen done by Ohannes, it would be smothered and extinguished as soon as that task had been completed. At night it would be used to keep at bay any animal or human threats.

Would they untie him to allow him to feed himself? And if they did could he make a run for it and hope to outdistance a spear cast at his back? What were his chances of getting hold of one of the weapons they carried, which had to be set aside to allow them to
carry out the tasks set by Nepo? All of these thoughts rushed through his mind, one tumbling notion after another, the only one he was quick to discard being any appeal to clemency.

Listening to their talk did not bring comfort, concentrating as it did, even if it was disjointed, on the rewards that Senuthius would grant them for the youngster and how they would spend it. This seemed to encompass drink and women, they being very partial to the former – Nepo was not alone in employing the wineskin, for none seemed able to pass it without helping themselves to a wet.

When not talking of drink and carnal pleasures they indulged in much speculation, increasingly ghoulish and seemingly a source of much raucous humour, of the various tortures the senator might visit upon him, all of them severe, and how he would squeal when they were applied, the increasingly outrageous opinions causing much laughter, this listened to by Flavius in silence, though his thoughts were far from sanguine. Could he create some kind of diversion that might get him free?

‘How long have you been employed by the senator?’ he asked Nepo.

‘What’s it to you?’

‘I wonder if you trust him.’

That got another of Nepo’s barking laughs, enough to tell Flavius he was doing the same up a useless tree.

‘No need – when he does not pay us in hard coin he lets us loose to plunder and is handsome with his rewards when we cross the river to take Sklaveni slaves.’

‘Hard copper coin, I suppose?’ Flavius asked. ‘Should be gold, given his prosperity.’

‘Matters not the colour, as long as there is enough,’ Nepo responded, lifting the wineskin to his lips.

‘He robbed you during that Hun raid, did he not, if you think of the captives you might have taken? He held back the militia and you, his own fighters, just so he could see my father and my brothers dead.’

‘Worked, then,’ came the reply, through a sleeve wiping at wet lips. ‘As you that set them alight know.’

‘Does it not occur to you to ask why he would do that, sacrifice the whole imperial cohort?’

‘Why would it? Senator’s business is his and as long as he treats us right …’

‘I can tell you why. There’s an imperial commission on the way from the capital to look into his crimes – it may well be there at this very moment.’

That got him an amused look. ‘So?’

‘So maybe by the time you get me back to Dorostorum, Senuthius will be in no position to reward you for handing me in. It might be his body hanging and rotting above the city gates and not mine.’

‘Have to hope the beam holds then, won’t we, him bein’ such a weight.’

‘And if they come along too late for me and examine what you have done at his bidding, they might just take the rope to you.’

‘Enough!’ Nepo snarled, his mood of humour evaporating. ‘If you don’t stop wittering on about what can only be tall-tale telling, I’ll have you gagged.’

‘They will draw and quarter you, as well,’ Flavius shouted, his voice desperate, ‘all of you, if you harm me.’

Nepo got to his feet and turned away to shout to his companions, going about their allotted tasks, the wineskin swinging in his hand, head back and his call seemingly aimed at the higher branches of the trees.

‘Hear that lads, we are all for the butcher’s table …’

If he had intended to say more that was made impossible by the near removal of his head. The blade on the pollarding tool was serrated and as sharp as any sword, so it ripped through Nepo’s gullet as if it were an overripe pear. Flavius had barely registered the way the shaft had been employed, only seeing it at the point where the end made deadly contact.

The sounds from around the perimeter of the clearing went from loud shouts of alarm to screams, some of severe pain, one a plea for mercy, swiftly cut short. The man who stepped out from behind the tree to which he had been tied did not look at Flavius until it had all gone quiet.

‘Bassus!’ he cried, just as Dardanies appeared from the side of the clearing, then Ohannes, both with blood dripping off their swords, this while someone cut his hands free. Falling forward onto his knees – he had been straining at his bonds – he found himself looking into the dead eyes of Nepo, staring from a head that had ended up near to his feet.

‘God be praised,’ said the man who had killed him, crossing himself, this as Flavius began to weep tears of relief. ‘We must say prayers and thank him for your deliverance.’

Which the whole party did, all nine kneeling to say thanks to God, Bassus employing a deep bass voice to call on his maker and theirs. No attention was given to the souls of those departed and neither were they moved from where they had fallen, merely stripped of
their arms and any armour, which would now adorn the men Bassus led, and divested of their clothes to look for concealed valuables, Flavius’s purse being returned. When they departed, the rabbits and dead birds went with them.

The cadavers remained, food for creatures of the forest.

‘I think the Lord knows he owes you some good fortune,’ Ohannes said, as they made their way back to the highway. ‘For it needed his hand to see this done.’

Having woken to find Flavius gone, they had assumed he had just wandered off to relieve himself, the truth only dawning when he failed to return. That he was absent for any time without his weapons and his still-sacking-wrapped breastplate, as well as his bag of documents, led to a search of the nearby ground and that showed evidence to a hunting man like Dardanies of many feet having trodden down the leaf mould.

By the time they had concluded that Flavius must have been abducted – and there could be only one cause in which that would happen – the roadway was once more full of those making their way south. Amongst the throng were Bassus and his original band of five companions, they being more than willing to take part in a search for folk Ohannes informed them were rabid Monophysites, working for an evil bishop of the same persuasion.

Nepo and his companions had been careless too; following the previous day’s rain, which had dampened the forest floor even under the highest trees, they left sections of trail fresh enough to follow, although with many a break that had the searchers casting around to pick it up again. When it came to closing in, Nepo and his men made that easy: they were far from as alert as they should have been,
trusting in the security of the deep forest and thinking there was only a pair of companions with any interest in rescue, a number they could deal with. At the very last his rescuers had been able to close in the last few paces before beginning the killing without worrying overmuch about noise.