Vengeance (9 page)

‘Look.’

The crest of the hills that overlooked the river was dotted with tiny spots of light, numerous torches too far off to be seen as flaring, while faint on the air was the sound of the pack of dogs, which produced a sobering conclusion. Cloud cover and deep woodland would halt them but it would not hinder the pursuit of these men, let alone their beasts. Only when the sky cleared again and in open country could they move on at a pace sufficient to stave off capture. To escape would be a miracle, for they could not outrun the dogs once they were left free to take the chase on their own.

‘Take off your armour.’

‘Why?’

‘Do as I ask,’ Ohannes growled, working at the straps of his own. ‘Perhaps if we leave them here they will think we swam for it.’

‘Only a fool would do that.’

‘Or a man desperate to escape and with no other choice.’

Loath to part with a possession he prized, Flavius did as he was asked, fingering, once his breastplate and back protector were off, the shaped leather as well as the gilded metal decorations mounted on the front. The design was Roman in origin, the same as would have been worn by an imperial tribune in ancient times and elaborate enough to cause envy amongst his peers. The smell of warm leather was strong, that mixed with the sweat coming from his own body.

‘My father gifted me this.’

‘Then he will look down and see the sense of what we are doing with it.’

‘No mere centurion for you Flavius, was what he said as he gave it to me.’ There was a distinct catch in his throat as he bent down to pick up his spear.

‘We are going to have to wade along the riverbank and hope it is not too cold or deep enough to drown us.’ Sensing rather than seeing doubt, Ohannes was quick to add, ‘We can’t hope to outrun them and no stretch of pebbles is going to put them off for long. We need deeper water.’

‘But they know the direction in which we are going.’

‘With luck they will reckon we have tried to swim the river or at least to get to one of them boats out fishing. Whatever, if we stay in the water they will have to cast around a long way for the dogs to scent any spoor.’

‘And when we come ashore again?’

‘We will be dripping so much there will be nothing to pick up and that, if we can fool them, will oblige the sods to wait for sunrise. Time, Master Flavius, is our only friend.’

While he was willing to acknowledge the truth of that, the youngster’s mind was more on the canvas sack he was carrying, as well as its contents, the writing on which would scarce survive immersion in water, even those in the oilskin pouch. As for his father’s testament, that would be rendered pulp. The thought of hiding them foundered on the time it would need to dig a deep hole and one well enough hidden to avoid detection – again dogs with his spoor on their snouts would easily root out anything he had held close.

He moved back into the woods, the sound of a cursing Ohannes
in his ears as he sought out a tree that he might again be able to recognise, blessed by the outline of what appeared to be an ancient oak, wide at the base, climbable if not easily so and in full leaf judging by the sound of the wind rustling its foliage. A soft call to a less than contented companion got him a leg up to one of the lower branches where he again found further progress impeded by the pain from his left shoulder.

That had to be ignored and up he went until he felt sure whatever he left here would not be visible from the ground. With a silent prayer he put his lips to the sack then tied the loops he had used to carry it tightly round a branch before tucking the body into the joint of the main trunk. Getting down was easier and Ohannes was there to aid his final descent. The thought of slicing the oak with a couple of sword cuts, so he could find it easily again, had to be discarded; if he could see them so could others but the location had to be marked in some way or he might never again find it.

Flavius fetched half a dozen pebbles from the riverbank and, by the tree, arranged them in a small mound, fiddling until an impatient Ohannes dragged him once more to the edge, he wading into the silver, rippling water, hissing his worry, given he was taller.

‘Keep your head above the water, Master Flavius, we can’t have you drown.’

‘Ohannes, I can swim.’

‘Good, and I hope it is enough to save me from going under, if God is with us.’

‘Hard to believe after what has happened that God has any time for a Belisarius.’

‘Well cursing him won’t do us much good,’ Ohannes barked, his
voice holding a catch of breath as the river water came up above his groin.

Flavius, realising that his backplate would float and before he followed the Scythian, picked it up and threw it out onto the river, far enough to hope it would drift downstream and still be visible; to his mind leaving it on the bank would only tell the pursuit that they had been on this spot and fix their chase. Then, carrying his breastplate he waded in with his spear above his head, following Ohannes into water that was icy cold, barely warmed by the sun and still with some of the glacier melt or underground springs from which it and its tributaries emanated many hundreds of leagues to the west and north.

The breastplate he jammed into the tangled tree roots that stuck out of the first stretch of high bank he encountered, decorations to the fore, something that would at least be visible from the river if hidden from those on land, another indicator of where he had hidden his sack. Progress, easy to begin with, was made awkward by the way that those outcrops of ground jutted out from the bank, obliging the pair to risk deeper water, this compounded by the odd depression underfoot. Risk also came in the regular shallow little inlets, for these had to be traversed at speed and in full view of the shoreline, having made sure the men pursuing them were not within sight.

In this their use of torches became an aid; they would not move without them for fear of ambush and the glare was a sure indication of their location: likewise the noise of the dogs, still on leads, much more prominent now, was an indicator. When that baying sound rose to indicate the pack was close, Ohannes called a halt and had them take shelter under an overhang where the water came up to
their necks, the trailing branches of a tree above their heads. To counter the glare of the moon reflecting off the water the Scythian grabbed some damp mud and began to smear his face, Flavius following suit.

‘We will stay here and let them pass,’ came the whispered suggestion, before he added a touch of gallows humour. ‘Try not to let those teeth of yours chatter, Master Flavius, for it will be as loud as a drumbeat to a hound.’

F
lavius and Ohannes were never to know what saved them from capture: the fact that Bishop Gregory Blastos was asleep at the villa of Senuthius and even when roused out by a message of what had occurred, neither man reacted as they might. The corpulent senator was sure that the escapees could not get far with a pack of hounds on their tail, the bishop being less sanguine but not prepared to dispute the conclusion drawn: that the innocent did not flee, so what had happened was positive, for it told them Flavius knew what they needed to find out. It was also an act that would only increase the sense of terrible sins committed, the very thing needed to excite the populace.

‘There will be many who doubt that of which we will accuse young Belisarius – after all, the family appeared upright, even if they were minded to worship in Chalcedonian blasphemy.’

Blastos was tempted to add that so did most of those who made
up his flock but he stayed silent, there being no need to remind his host that in supporting the imperial edict they were in a minority within his own diocese as well as the greater one of Thrace. Not that there was much opportunity anyway; Senuthius was thinking on his feet again and talking fast.

‘The fellow he has fled with is the same one who looked after him when he was tipped off his horse and attended the cremation, is he not? Let’s blame him for introducing Lucifer to their household and throw him to the mob for his devilish corruption. God knows by the look of him he could be a pagan shaman.’

‘No crucifix for him, then?’ yawned Blastos.

That act set off his host, who replied after a mighty yawn of his own. ‘Why waste the timber? Let the faithful tear him limb from limb and feed what’s left to their pigs.’

‘Then I would be grateful to be allowed to go back to bed, I am weary.’

‘That slave boy I sent to you must have pleased you?’

Blastos pulled a face. ‘He stank, Senuthius. Would it be possible to bathe your gifts first?’

The fat man was already leaving the room. ‘Don’t tell me the smell of the creature stopped you.’

The second factor that aided the escape was fear; the reluctance of those set to pursue them to admit they might have failed. Someone would have to tell their master and that was bad enough, for the bishop was not shy of the whip. Worse than that, to do so meant one of their number going to the home of Senuthius and that induced terror, he not being a man to tolerate any level of failure. A lash could be a welcome punishment compared to what he might see as fitting.

As a group they had set out full of determination, a commodity that faded somewhat as time went by and both legs and minds grew weary, the same applying to animals denied the raw meat they had anticipated when taken from their kennels. Given there was no natural leader, dissension broke out as to the best avenue to follow, one dimwit even insisting that Flavius would have gone south and their whole endeavour on the riverbank, despite the spoor followed by the dogs, was false.

If Ohannes and his young companion had no real idea of the nature of the dispute, they were close enough to the hunters as they passed along the riverbank to hear what sounded like a lack of harmony. As the sound of voices faded, and it became clear that the Blastos servants were still moving away from their position, the Scythian hissed it was time to move, which they did at the slow pace such a passage through water would allow. Finally he led the way back onto dry land and broke into an immediate jog; if he and Flavius were also fatigued they had their fears to sustain their efforts.

‘Look, Master Flavius.’

Ohannes wheezed this when they had covered good ground, coming to such an abrupt halt that the youngster, head down, not really looking where he was going and himself straining for breath, bumped into him.

The old man had spotted an approaching boat. One of the people who had been out night-fishing was coming in with his catch, his position very obvious by the lantern on his stern pole, there to both attract the fish and to show any other vessel on the river of his presence. The fisherman had beached his boat before they came upon him; he was tying it off and taking out his oars and his catch
when he heard the noise of their approach, wet sandals squelching on pebbles.

It never occurred to either to wonder at what kind of apparition they presented in what was still pale moonlight. They had been in the water and if they had avoided a true ducking their hair was soaked and straggling; Ohannes particularly, with his height and the slight stoop of his gait, looked like some kind of ethereal wraith. Sensing lost souls the poor fisherman let out a cry of dread and sunk to his knees, hands clasped before him.

The voice that rained down hellish curses made even Flavius wonder from where it came, so warbling and ghoulish did it sound, before he realised that Ohannes was playing the mischievous sprite in his native tongue to terrorise a fellow who would be prey to such fancies. Before they got close enough to be seen as human the man had got to his feet and fled, leaving the Scythian to quietly chuckle in a way that annoyed Flavius.

‘I have money, Ohannes,’ he said, tapping the leather pouches still tied to his belt, ‘we could have paid him for his boat.’

‘And have him boast of the gold he got all over the place, a fellow who rarely sees a copper coin from one month to the next. How long do you then think it would be until Senuthius got wind of that? And what then of the poor fellow? He would be roasted till he told the truth.’

The response was defensive. ‘It is what my father would have done.’

‘And noble as he was, he would have been wrong.’

‘You would not have dared tell him so!’

That got a bark of a laugh. ‘How little you know of real soldiers. When it comes to letting the men who lead them know they are being dense, they have their ways.’

‘My father—’

‘Never had much cause with him, God rest his soul, but that does not signify. Now we have a boat, however we have come by it, are we going to use it?’

Even if he too had concluded there was no choice, that Ohannes was right, the response was far from immediate. Flavius felt that he was being too much led, indeed pushed, and he resented it, added to which, what Ohannes had just said – the notion of his being less than wise – he thought of as diminishing.

His companion must have sensed his mood. ‘I would hate to go on my own, but go I will.’

‘The catch?’ Flavius asked, as Ohannes picked up the oars.

‘Take that as well, for even ghouls have to eat.’

There was some reassertion of balance when they were on the water, Ohannes being no oarsman, unlike his young companion who had spent many a summer’s day fishing these very waters and so found himself issuing instruction, given he was unable to row himself due to his shoulder. Despite the strictures to avoid doing so he and his friends had also passed the midpoint of the river many times to cast an eye on the northern bank, not so very different from its southern counterpart but exciting merely because it was forbidden territory.

Given the run of the Danube, added to the width and the lack of rowing competence, they drifted steadily downstream to make a landfall in a patch of woods, something accomplished just before sunrise, an added plus since they managed in the grey light of the predawn to do so unobserved. Then came another dispute: Ohannes was all for casting the boat adrift, Flavius insisting they would need it to get back across. In the end the youngster prevailed
and they dragged it far enough inshore to hide it in some bushes.

‘We can eat the fish.’

‘Only if we can cook it, young sir, and I would be unhappy about doing that afore we have found out how far off we are from company.’ There was daylight enough now to show the crestfallen look of a very weary youth. ‘But let us, now we have enough light, gather the means to light a fire.’

They set off as soon as the sun was over the horizon, for low in the sky the angle of its light allowed them to hold to a course that would bring them back to the point from which they set out. Added to that Ohannes knew how to use the terrain to guide his way and tired as he was, Flavius found himself learning some useful skills of movement.

The path of the sun lay to the south of where they were, so moss that showed on the bark of a tree indicated north, since it never saw enough sun to burn off the greenery. Likewise the mere shape of a sapling or a bush could help, for they too inclined towards the sun.

To avoid any risk of getting lost in what was quite dense woodland Ohannes left cuts low down on trunks, arrows pointing in the direction from which they had come, these disguised with earth rubbed in to take away their bright and too obvious appearance. There was game in the forest, deer and birds, obvious by the noise, and care was needed to avoid boar sows who might be raising young, for they would attack anyone and anything that threatened their piglets; at any sign of rooting the Scythian became very wary.

Bears he thought unlikely so close to the river on which there were a string of settlements, likewise wolves, and, after some time casting about, Ohannes pronounced himself satisfied that they were
far away from humanity. They returned to their landing point and lit a fire under a large tree in full leaf, for the smoke would hang in the branches and be dispersed before it topped the canopy. Part of the fisherman’s catch was gutted and cooked, then consumed by two very hungry souls, the fire doused as soon as they were finished.

‘Smell of woodsmoke carries too.’

‘I know that,’ Flavius retorted, in a less than truly civil manner.

‘Well, you will forgive me for my instructing, Master Flavius, given I have no notion of what you do know and what you don’t. All that sword and spear play you and your companions got up to might be one part of soldiering, but it is only that, and all your wrestling is nothing but sport. Most youngsters I have met and fought with needed a lot of telling about what was right and what was stupid, an’ if they failed to listen then they died.’

A hand was rubbed across a face still bearing much of the mud with which it had been previously coated. ‘Forgive me, it is weariness that makes me talk so.’

‘Then it’s time you got your head down.’ The look that got was a protest, but not a fulsome one; Flavius was near to exhaustion, as much from the strain on his emotions as his body. ‘You need sleep if you’re to think clear, though God only knows what you can do. You rest and I will stand watch.’

‘We must take turns.’

‘And we shall.’

‘Somehow I must get word to Justinus of the death of my father,’ Flavius said, through a stifled yawn, ‘as well as how he met his end. We cannot leave that to the likes of Blastos.’

‘Well, right now he will be doing what you should be – sleeping.’

Flavius Justinus had been a soldier for exactly the same number of years as Decimus Belisarius – they had enlisted together – and he was inured to the habits of his profession, high rank and regard for his abilities making no difference; he woke with the dawn and rolled immediately off his cot. If his limbs, sixty-five summers in age, now creaked it was an act still carried out in one swift movement, to be followed by a morning piss and a wash in the bowl of water left by his side overnight.

The room he occupied was barren, again as befitted the old campaigner he was. Justinus had declined a bed of comfort in one of the many beautifully furnished chambers in the imperial palace, electing instead to occupy something more akin to a hermit’s cell; to the courtiers he now mixed with it was a space both barren and ridiculous and he suspected the men he led, the excubitors, successors to the praetorians who had guarded previous emperors of Rome, thought him either foolish or a man inclined to braggadocio. In truth he liked simple things and straightforward people.

For Justinus his room had two advantages; the first was a single entrance, a stout oak door that once bolted would take a real effort to break down. The second was a window, the bars of which could be removed, which overlooked one of the canals that fed water to the imperial palace. With these attributes he felt he could sleep in peace: anyone seeking to harm him, and he was sure such creatures existed in a court full of competing factions, would have difficulty in doing so. The killing of the
comes excubitorum
was a prerequisite to the assassination of the emperor.

Making his way to the door he undid the bolts and upon opening he was met by the rigid back of one of the men who had been set to
guard it. There were four per night, each chosen from amongst his troops at random, given a token only after all the other sentinels, several dozen in number, had been set at various key points under junior officers to protect the imperial apartments, they chosen by the same method as a protection against plots.

He had known before he ever took up his present duty what were the responsibilities: to keep his master alive, the best way to achieve that being to ensure anyone seeking to harm him would struggle themselves to survive. If others thought him overcautious then he would reply that the history of the palace in which he was employed had seen enough purple blood expended as to make his precautions worthwhile.

Never a man to take anything for granted, Justinus walked the halls of the palace as the sentinels were being changed, to observe that the first act of the day was carried out with proper discipline and secondly to ensure that the officers who took up their stations were from the cadre he commanded and he knew them all; if he could not identify every ranker by face – the imperial guard was a thousand strong – he always gave the impression of doing so, in some cases, where the faces were memorable, able to greet them by name.

That done he headed for the garrison barracks to eat breakfast in the company of the rest of the corps, electing to sit at a different board and with a different hundred-man tagma each morning to thus break bread with an unfamiliar group he led, conversing with and hearing, if they were so minded, their concerns and complaints. Word soon spread that caution was unnecessary; a man could speak his mind to the Count of the Excubitor as long as he spoke with honesty.