Vengeance (7 page)

If he was telling the bishop things they had discussed before, Senuthius was in reality talking to himself and not without a dose of his habitual self-pity, based on the notion that the malice of lesser creatures would ever see his actions in the wrong light.

For all his strength and prominence locally and his ability to buy gubernatorial silence in what was a distant and little regarded corner of the empire, Senuthius knew that he operated too often outside the laws to feel entirely secure, hence his ongoing feud with the man who had the task of enforcing imperial edicts. If he had seen Centurion Belisarius as an irritant, the man had, until recently, been no more than a flea to his great beast and one moreover without influence where it truly mattered.

If that had changed, due to the shifting nature of power in the imperial palace, as related to him by the same relative who had hitherto nullified any complaints against him, it could leave him exposed. The emperor was a man to be swayed by the last voice that had his ear, and in many ways that had been an asset in the past: the people who had counselled him, when contacted by his cousin, were easily won over either by conviction or bribery. The former came from the feeling that as long as the border was kept secure at low cost, how peace was maintained seemed of little account, the latter requiring neither explanation nor principles!

What had hitherto been simple had grown more complex and the
foremost cause was religion, or to be precise the interpretation of dogma, and that was fuelling a division that had existed since anyone could remember, made really serious by the action of Anastasius in promulgating the supremacy of the Monophysite position. If rumour came slowly to the borders of the empire, those that had recently emerged were worrying indeed.

The only substantial force of soldiers in the Diocese of Thrace, indeed between Dorostorum and the capital, barbarian foederati, were under the command of a general called Vitalian and he was threatening revolt to overturn the imperial edict. If that came to pass, the first city to feel the brunt of insurrection would be Marcianopolis and the
magister militum
, Conatus, a serious part of the Vicinian network of support.

But it was in Constantinople that such things really mattered and there too they had taken a less than encouraging turn. Conflict at court between the soldiers of empire, who had to fight its battles, set against civilian courtiers who had as their prime concern the costs of doing so, was endemic. Military campaigns against powerful enemies required the hiring and feeding of mercenaries, the empire having centuries ago lost the ability to man its forces with its own citizens. The preferred method of the palace officials, seen as a cheaper one, was to buy peace in ingots of gold where a threat could be considered serious; outside that parameter, as on the northern border at Dorostorum, trouble was ignored.

The military had acquired increased influence recently, thanks to their victories in the recent war with the Persians, and in the febrile politics of the Byzantine Court that had brought several of the commanders into positions of increased weight. If the conflict had ended, there was an uneasy peace on the eastern border and a
major fort being constructed at Dara, meaning the soldiers, being still needed, constituted a substantial body of power.

Fighting men being no more upright than their civilian counterparts, the senator’s cousin had assiduously sought to find out whom he could bribe and whom he could either sideline or diminish by the kind of base rumour that swirled around such a shifting polity. Yet the admission was open: there were those who might be beyond such attempts, and a further concern came from the fact that the centurion Belisarius, having served so long and in so many campaigns, could have a bond with some of these soldiers that might be unbreakable by any means.

This was then fuelled by the rumours of secret communications. Uncertainty created anxiety and with good reason; to fall from favour in the empire was not just to lose land, wealth and power – it just as often meant a loss of your very life and if not that, a public blinding that would leave the victim a begging imbecile with nothing but a gutter in which to exist.

The thought of such a fate, added to the notion of his children being rendered destitute, so terrified Senuthius that Blastos was subjected to a stream of sorrowful self-indulgence as his host went from listing what he saw as his virtues, through a paean to his qualities, followed by a lament as to what he would forfeit.

The bishop had been subjected to such tirades before and so he knew what was coming; Senuthius was working himself up to a pitch in which he could justify whatever action he deemed necessary to protect himself. It had been the same when the hint first came of some kind of unknown imperial communication with the centurion, culminating in the only safe course of action, which was to eliminate that part of the threat within his reach.

The voice went from whining through to firm resolve and then rose as it had on previous occasions to a solution. Senuthius always started quietly until anger began to take over, to go through growling then protestation before rising to what was a spitting crescendo of bile. He would not be brought down, would not see everything for which he had striven eaten up by imperial wolves on the word of a man like Belisarius, consumed with nothing but malice and jealousy for his position.

It ended with him screaming imprecations on that name, one fist thumping into his other hand with increasing force as he worked himself into a frenzy that had the imperial centurion lambasted as a traitor and an ingrate, a liar and a thief, quite missing the paradox as he damned with equal vehemence his public probity. Finally red of face and perspiring, Senuthius stopped, took several deep breaths and coming close, addressed the bishop in a soft voice, though not one without a degree of tension.

‘The Belisarius villa must be torn apart, stone by stone if need be, and that brat who survived can be racked and his flesh charred until he reveals what he must know. You must go to your pulpit and damn the whole family as heretics. Use that stupid pyre the boy built as a sign of their sacrilege, Blastos. Tell your flock of the rituals carried out in secret within the walls of that house, of blood sacrifices to pagan gods and the desecration of the symbols of Christ our Saviour. We know, do we not, how they will react?’

‘You wish to engineer a riot of the faithful?’

The question was posed without passion; if the notion of what was being proposed troubled the bishop he made no mention of it, just as he had so recently acquiesced in the plan Senuthius had hatched to rid himself of the imperial centurion. Desperate times required remedies to match.

‘Led by men I will provide,’ Senuthius replied, gesturing to his
domesticus
, a witness to the entire exchange. ‘But we must ensure that, in any confusion, they and only they get within the walls.’

‘To search?’

‘To find! Let that brat wish he had died along with his father and brothers if he does not lead them to it.’

H
aving turned to give instructions, ordering that the requisite men be gathered from his outlying farms, Senuthius allowed Bishop Gregory time to think – really the first since he had arrived, so passionate had been the mood of his host – a short break in which the bishop could begin to calculate the outcome of what was being proposed, so that once the senator was done and the
domesticus
had departed, he could point up some possible difficulties.

‘It will ill serve our cause if we leave the Belisarius boy a gibbering wreck.’

Senuthius could not resist the barbed response. ‘Perhaps we should hand him over to you to do as you wish.’

‘Tempting,’ the bishop replied calmly, deliberately declining to rise to the slur, while being sure that the storm of abuse had subsided and he could address Senuthius as an equal. ‘But that will not serve either.’

That got him a questioning look; traduce him as he might, and often did, Senuthius knew that the cleric had a devious mind, added to a peasant cunning which came from his low birth and impoverished childhood. He also knew that the memory of that straitened past was both the spark that animated the ambition of the priest as well as the cause of his anxieties; having ascended so far in the only institution, outside soldiering, that permitted such an elevation, he had a deep fear of loss.

‘Whatever has happened in Constantinople it would be unwise to heighten the risks, which the broken body of the centurion’s son must most certainly do.’

‘If they hear of it, Blastos,’ Senuthius barked. ‘Remember, there is no swine sending grievances any more.’

‘If Flavius is alive …’ The bishop paused and spread his hands; he had no need to elaborate on that. Even with his tongue cut out and his eyes gouged the boy could write. ‘But to just kill him might be worse, and since we are unaware of the nature of what we face, it may make matters more difficult.’

‘While you are busy creating difficulties, I hope your mind is working on a solution.’

‘Why would I need to, when your outstanding genius has already provided one?’

Senuthius brightened at that: he loved flattery and in Blastos he had a man well versed in the art of sycophancy.

‘If we brand the boy as a heretic and so inflame the righteous against him, how could anyone be expected to prevent, say, a crucifixion?’

‘He must speak before that!’

‘Perhaps he will do so to avoid such a fate and you will have no
need to take hot irons to his flesh to get him to talk. I will promise him the protection of the Church if he confides the whereabouts of what was sent to his father from the capital.’

‘And when he has divulged what he knows?’

The cross was once more in the priestly hand, as if by holding it he could be absolved of any sin he might commit. ‘Try as I might, I cannot protect him from the anger of those who would burn any heretic they could find …’

‘Perfect.’

‘And then,’ Blastos added, ‘I can write to the patriarch, who knows me to be a loyal Monophysite, and tell him I have found and contained a dangerous spread of something much worse than Chalcedonian heresy, that I have uncovered pagan worship, which being on the border with barbarians, we must most assiduously guard against. I am sure such a thing will please him.’

‘Don’t go seeking higher elevation, Bishop Gregory,’ Senuthius said in a piping voice, the eyebrows lowered over a penetrating gaze.

‘Would I desert you after all you have done for me and my church?’

That got a nod, even if the man giving it was unconvinced; Senuthius had paid to repair damage done to the basilica of Dorostorum by an earthquake, one that had occurred decades before and rendered the city a diocese that was not one to which many men of the cloth aspired. Far from rich, and in a ramshackle condition, Blastos, lacking influence to get a prized appointment, had taken it as the bishopric he could get, rather than the kind for which he craved, a see in which money flowed easily into his coffers without the need for underhand appropriation.

‘Be assured I will do more, much more,’ Senuthius responded.

This statement was at total odds with his thoughts, those being
that even an ally can be a danger. Was he reposing too much trust and therefore his fate into the hands of this man? Since arriving, Blastos had held under one arm the ledger of the imperial centurion and this he now held out to Senuthius, who took it and ran an eye practised in figures over the columns.

‘The monies left over?’

‘In my saddlebag, which if you wish, you can send someone to fetch.’

‘No need, you may keep it,’ the senator replied, holding the book open and out. ‘But this I will have my scribes go over and they will make some changes, even compose a complete new set of accounts. Let us ensure that, if examined, Decimus Belisarius is seen to be nothing but a liar and a thief, seeking to lay the blame for his own crimes at the door of others.’

‘It is necessary to allude to the man’s wife, who may at some time in the future be on her way here, almost certainly if her only surviving son comes to any harm.’

Senuthius did not seem to see that as a problem. ‘If her husband and her sons were heretics, how can she be anything but the same? It will be perceived that what happened in that raid was nothing but divine retribution for their family apostasy. Perhaps, once we have dealt with that which needs to be seen to, we should send to her a message that says it would be unwise to return to Dorostorum. Why would she want to anyway, just to gaze on the rotting skeleton of her youngest on a cross and perhaps face a similar fate?’

‘If we are done, Senuthius, I should return to the city.’

‘It is near dark, Bishop Gregory, stay and dine with me and together we can compose the sermon by which you are going to damn the Belisarius name.’

Flavius never knew the identity of the person who gave him warning of what was about to be visited upon his house, only that it came through the narrow slats of a shuttered window, the voice was male and it spoke heavily accented Greek. When he offered to open the shutter and light an oil lamp the suggestion was vehemently dismissed.

‘I don’t want you knowing who I am.’

Having been awakened from another set of troubling dreams he was far from being in the best frame of mind to react. ‘Then how can I trust what you say if I cannot see you?’

‘You can believe me and happen to live or think I am a liar and die.’

‘At whose hand?’

‘You know who and if he does not do the deed himself, it will be his need behind it.’

The tale told was not strictly coherent; the person giving it was breathless, either from exertion or fear of discovery, yet it did not lack for verisimilitude. If what Flavius suspected regarding the deaths of his family was true, added to his suspicions of what Bishop Gregory had been seeking, then what he was hearing made perfect sense. It also induced a degree of real terror.

‘And how do you know all this?’

‘Man has ears. Some, not many, have a sense of right and wrong.’

‘What am I supposed to do?’ Flavius demanded.

‘Flee, if you have any sense, for by this time tomorrow you will be nailed to a cross if you don’t.’

‘Flee to where?’

There was no reply, just the sound of scrabbling and heavy breath. Flavius flung open the shutters to reveal nothing but a dark and hooded shape heading away from the villa, his hissed
call to stop going unanswered. The clouds that had partially obscured the moon parted to show an eerie view of trees and bushes, as well as the roofs of other houses that lay beyond the walls of the garden. When he looked straight down he saw, lying on the ground, the outline of the ladder his messenger had used to get up to his window.

He needed to talk to Ohannes, but one of the people left behind by the bishop was, on the cleric’s instructions, sleeping across the outside of his chamber door; others, he suspected, were placed at the villa exits like the atrium and the kitchens. It had been years since the mischievous child had clambered out of that very window to avoid the parental constraints but Flavius knew well it could be done, knew that it was possible to drop down onto soft ground close to the wall, where his mother planted vegetables that required the warmth of the afternoon sun to prosper and grow. In her absence it had been tended and watered by one of the servants.

He had one leg over the sill when he paused, reprising what he had been told. If even half was true, it was obvious that whatever happened subsequently would oblige him to vacate the family home if not forever, certainly for the succeeding days. Where to go and for how long was a problem that would need to be solved, but not at this exact moment.

Going back into his room and using what moonlight filtered through the open window, Flavius dressed slowly, silently and not without pain, in his military garb, breast and backplate, knowing his sling would have to be discarded. He strapped on his sword, gathered up his shield, his spear plus his helmet and cast them out to land on the ground, taking care to spread out the places where they made contact so they did not clash and cause a noise.

Lastly he gathered everything that had been given to him by Gregory Blastos, his father’s testament, papers and most importantly the family money. The rolled-up document he loaded in a canvas satchel and put over his good shoulder, the twin sack of coins he tied tightly to his belt, and once sure there was nothing left he could safely take with him, he went back over the sill and slowly, relying on his good arm, let himself down until it was at a full stretch.

There is always an odd feeling in dropping, doubly so in the dark, for the clouds had once more cut off the moonlight, and unlike in his past escapades, he could not see where he would land. As he hung there, Flavius was assailed by a deep fear, not just that a fall of twice his own height might land him on a rock and cause him to sprain or break an ankle, but of that which awaited him even should he succeed without mishap.

The sob that came from his throat he had to suppress but he was a boy again, near to fifteen summers now, no longer pretending to be a man, as he had been before the Hun raid, and the feeling was uncomfortable. What kind of fate was it that left him to care for himself and what kind of destiny was it that put him in such imminent danger when just days before he had lived a normal life?

Flavius opened the hand that was holding on to the sill and fell to the ground, giving with his knees and mouthing a prayer to what seemed an indifferent God as he did so, for he had landed on soft ground.

Weapons, helmet and the canvas sack he left under a tree halfway between the villa and the servants’ quarters, these being set in a low building that adjoined and ran at right angles from the kitchens of the main house. No ladder was required to get in but it was necessary
to maintain silence, not easy with a shutter inclined to creak, even less so when, once inside and away from that opening, very little light penetrated to aid him. That he should have only a sketchy notion of who slept where in this part of the villa was hardly surprising: he had not wandered into this area since being a curious toddler.

Flavius reasoned that, in the hierarchy of the household, Ohannes must rank quite high, which would indicate that he would be one of the few with a cell of his own in which to sleep, as well as one close to the main house. The lower the servants, be they slave or free, the more crowded was their space, so in an annex without doors, it was possible to silently pull to one side the canvas screens and listen for the breathing of more than one soul.

In the end it was the old soldier’s preference for a cooling night breeze to aid his slumbers, plus the snoring of an elder that identified him to the youngster, or more importantly, the tip of a resting spear catching the light from an open shutter.

Flavius’s hand had barely touched the shoulder when one of Ohannes’s shot out to take hold of his throat, the grip immediately so tight the boy could not speak his name, only croak and hope it made sense. He was never sure of what got him release and a chance to breathe; perhaps there was enough light to see his face. Nor did he make much sense as he gabbled in a whisper what had been told to him, which had the old man, now sitting upright as Flavius bent over him, reaching out to shake him gently and hiss that he should both slow down and sit.

Without going into detail, Flavius first told the Scythian the gist of what was contained in that oilskin pouch, hidden now in this very room, and why it was so important that it be kept secret from Blastos, before going on to the tale of his recent visitation. This was
heard in near silence, the only sound being growls of outrage from Ohannes on hearing what Senuthius and Blastos intended.

Then it came to the solution proposed by the messenger that Flavius must flee, given that if he knew a commission of enquiry was coming, but had no idea exactly when, he would likely be dead before it arrived. As he talked and with eyes now adjusted to the low light, the youngster could just make out the slow nodding of the head, followed by the whispered reaction that flight should be for more than just the youngster.

‘I am not sure they will torture the slaves and servants but they might, there being no power to stop them. Me? They have seen we are close, as I was to your papa. I have no more notion to feel the hot pincers Senuthius has in store than you. We must go together.’

Flavius felt he ought to protest, to say that this old man had done enough, yet such was his relief that he would not be alone that noble sentiment died in his throat. ‘But where? I have good friends who might aid me, Philaretus and Asticus, and there were folk prepared to witness against Senuthius.’

‘No, you will only put them in danger. The only place that fat sod will struggle to lay a hand on us is over the river.’

‘Can that be safe? Romans are not much loved there.’

‘Maybe not safe, but when there are two evils it might be the lesser, since we must flee on foot. Senuthius will have mounted men out as soon as it is light, maybe even sooner. He has to reckon on us going south, which might just give us the time to get a boat and make the crossing.’