Caesar's Sword (I): The Red Death Read online

  Chapter 12

  I was held in a barracks-hut for two days, while the world outside continued to descend into chaos. The Hunnish mercenaries appointed to guard me were brawny, bow-legged savages from somewhere east of the Volga River. Expert horsemen, they wore stinking skins over their lamellar armour, and carried swords and axes. They spoke no Greek, and I had to glean news from the serving-man who brought me my meals.

  “The Emperor tried to bargain with the rebels,” he informed me on the evening of the first day, “he agreed to dismiss some of his more hated ministers, and went out to the Hippodrome to swear an oath, with the Gospels in his hand, that he would rule more wisely in future.”

  “Did it work?” I asked through a mouthful of the coarse bread he had brought me. The servant shook his head.

  “No,” he said sadly, “the treacherous vermin jeered and threw stones, and Caesar’s guards had to rush him back to the palace.”

  This was disquieting, but worse was soon to follow. The next morning he returned with breakfast and news that Hypatius had been declared Emperor.

  “The rebels seized him and his brothers,” the servant explained, “and dragged them from their houses to the Forum of Constantine. Senator Hypatius begged them not to make a traitor of him, but they ignored his entreaties, and the tears of his wife, and crowned him with a collar of gold. His name now echoes through the streets.”

  “What of Justinian?”

  He shrugged. “Caesar has summoned a council, though few remain to attend it. Most of the senators have fled to the western bank of the Bosphorus, along with their families and servants. The palace is like a tomb. There is talk that the Emperor plans to abandon the city by boat, and flee to Nicomedia or some other safe refuge.”

  He sat on the narrow camp bed opposite mine and watched me eat. I had little stomach for the food, but forced it down anyway, thinking I would soon need all the strength I could muster.

  “Oh, and the palace guard have thrown in their lot with the rebels,” added this bearer of happy tidings, “some of them, anyway. The others are wavering between the two camps. General Belisarius ordered them to open the Chalke Gate and join him in a sortie, but they refused. If the rebels tried to storm the palace now, there wouldn’t be many to stop them.”

  We sat in gloomy silence for a while longer, while I swallowed the last of my meal and listened to the distant sound of rioting in the city.

  “If the capital falls,” I said, “then the Roman state is doomed. The provinces will have to govern themselves, and the Empire will split into dozens of little factions. There will be rival Emperors, and endless civil wars until the Sassanids or some other enemy swallow us up.”

  My gloomy forebodings were interrupted by Mundus. The big German lumbered into the hut, an imposing figure in scale armour, greaves, gauntlets and a plumed ridge-helmet with cheek-guards. A small round shield was strapped to his left arm, and in his right hand he carried a fearsome battle-axe.

  “You,” he barked, pointing his axe at me, “child of Albion, who claims to be so loyal to Caesar. Are you ready to prove that loyalty?”

  I brushed the crumbs from my tunic and stood up. “I am, lord,” I replied.

  “Good. Follow me. What about you, little man?”

  “Oh, no,” the servant replied, holding up his hands, “my job is to serve men, not to fight them. But my prayers shall go with you both.”

  I ran after Mundus and his Huns as they tramped across the parade ground. It was raining, and a strong wind whipped at their heavy furs. The barracks were virtually deserted, save for a few slovenly palace guards in half-armour.

  “Hail Caesar!” one of them shouted as we passed.

  “Ah, but which one?” riposted one of his fellows. He and the others fell about laughing.

  Mundus didn’t even break step. “Drunken bastards,” I heard him growl. The Excubitors were indeed drunk. They had ransacked the palace cellars, and empty jugs and amphoras were carelessly littered about.

  The servant had claimed there were hardly any loyal troops left in the palace. He was mistaken, for Belisarius had two hundred of his Veterans – soldiers who had performed well against the Sassanids and now served as his personal guard – quartered inside the grounds, while Mundus had managed to scrape together an equal number of Huns.

  These troops were drawn up in a wide pavilion in the southern quarter of the palace. Belisarius was present. Like Mundus, he wore full armour, and exchanged grave salutes with the German as we approached.

  “Coel,” he said, with the warm smile that lulled you into thinking he was your best friend, “come to join us for the last dance?”

  I nodded, though some of my courage drained away as I looked at his men. Every one of them looked tough and well-armed, but they were pathetically few.

  “Lord,” I said hesitantly, “there are thousands of rebels on the streets. Do you mean to fight them all?”

  “I mean to strike at their heart,” he replied, beckoning to one of his aides, “victory is best achieved by the bringing of power to a point, not by sheer numbers alone. A few trained and disciplined men can easily overcome many times their number of disorganised peasants.”

  His words sounded eerily familiar, and in my head I once again heard my mother describing how Arthur had won his wars.

  The aide carried a spatha, a helmet and a small round shield. At a signal from Belisarius, he offered the gear to me.

  “I know you were taught to ride in the arena,” said the general, watching me as I took the long, heavy blade and weighed it in my hand, “were you trained to fight as well?”

  “A little, if only with wooden practice swords,” I replied, “but I understand the principle. You thrust the sharp end into another man’s flesh, and try and prevent him returning the favour.”

  Belisarius gave a short, sharp bark of laughter. “The art of war, neatly summarised!” he cried, “take your place with my men. You have been a charioteer. Now you will be a soldier.”

  I donned the helmet and shield and joined the end of the front rank of Veterans. The nearest soldier, a grizzled brute with a great scar running from his church to his jaw, gave me a reassuring wink.

  The general clapped his hands and planted himself in front of his men.

  “Remember Dara, lads?” he boomed, “and how we drove those Persian desert-rats before us? They outnumbered us twenty to one, and still we licked them. My God, I pity the poor bastards who have to face you lot in battle! Every one of you is worth ten, no, twenty of any enemy I care to name! Isn’t that so?”

  The Veterans roared and stamped their feet in response. I was amazed at Belisarius’s cheerfulness and good humour in the face of apparently hopeless odds, and how his men reacted to him.

  He turned to Mundus. “Will these fragrant savages follow you?” he asked, jerking his thumb at the Huns.

  Mundus nodded his shaggy head. “To the gates of Hades,” he said confidently, “I whip them like dogs, and like dogs they love me.”

  “I require you merely to lead them to the gates at the rear of the Hippodrome. Take up position there while I approach the front. Your task is to block the retreat of the rebels when I drive them towards you. Understand?”

  “Yes, general. None shall pass, I promise you.”

  From my place at the end of the front rank of Veterans, I listened to this exchange with bemusement. They sounded like a couple of madmen. To try and storm the rebel headquarters at the Hippodrome with four hundred men seemed the very limit of insanity.

  It was too late to escape now. Belisarius gave the order for the gates to be opened, and led his Veterans at a jog down a stone walkway wide enough for two men abreast. I had little choice but to jog with them, for Mundus and his Huns were bringing up the rear. I was unused to bearing arms, and felt heavy and ridiculous in my borrowed armour. The sword was different. Practice weapons aside, it was the first sword I had held since the loss of Caledfwlch, and a comforting weight in my hand.

  The
walkway ran straight down the hill, and opened via an unguarded postern gate onto a narrow side-street. Belisarius led us along it and down a connecting alley. The stench of fire and death drifted on the wind, and the alley opened suddenly onto the Augustaion, with the Chalke Gate to our left and the burned-out shell of the Church of Hagia Sophia to our right.

  Some tents had been set up in the plaza, which was otherwise choked with random heaps of plunder and burning rubbish. A few rioters were sitting on upturned barrels outside the tents, or sprawled on the ground, drinking and playing at dice. They sprang up at the sight of the soldiers pouring out of the alley, and ran away in all directions when they saw who led them.

  The Veterans spread out behind Belisarius. I found myself just behind him, struggling to keep pace with his long-legged stride. We carried on to the Mese and the imposing landmark of the Milion. Here our company divided, with Mundus taking his Huns to circle the Hippodrome while we approached the Black Gate.

  Our way was impeded by swollen corpses, discarded plunder and piles of fallen masonry. Belisarius picked his way over the detritus, his men surging in his wake like bloodthirsty hounds after their master. This part of the street was deserted, but crowds were visible at the upper end, near the gates.

  There were not quite so many as there could have been. The agents of Narses had been at work, enticing supporters of the Blues away with promises of pardon and reward from Justinian if they returned peacefully to their homes. Still, there were upwards of thirty thousand rebels gathered in and around the Hippodrome.

  Belisarius drew his sword. “Charge!” he yelled, “Nika, Nika!”

  His men took up the shout as they broke into a run. The use of the rebel war-cry proved a clever tactic, as those outside the gates showed no alarm until we burst from the smoking ruins of the street.

  The sudden appearance of armed soldiers confused and terrified the rebels. Most fled in panic, but those few who were armed and sober tried to form a battle-line to oppose us. Belisarius loped straight towards them. I followed, my fears drowned by rising waves of excitement and bloodlust.

  Belisarius knocked aside the clumsy thrust of a spear and drove his sword into the wielder’s groin. I glimpsed his victim’s face as it went white with agony, and recognised him as Victor, one of Leo’s chief cronies, a particularly arrogant charioteer who loved to bully his underlings. I had hated the man with a passion, and took the opportunity to stamp on his head as he lay squirming in his death-throes.

  A big man wearing a butcher’s apron swung his cleaver at me. I met it with my spatha, the first time I had fought with a sword in anger. The blades scraped together with an impact that jarred my arm, but I was quick enough to duck under his next blow and slash at his leg. The broad, sharpened edge cut through his woollen smock and parted the flesh beneath until it ground on bone. He howled and did his best to cut my head off as I tried to wrench the spatha free. It wouldn’t come, but shuddered and bounced in my hands while gouts of blood splashed my face and tunic.

  My problems were solved by one of the Veterans, who killed the man with a clean thrust to the heart from behind. I thanked him and struggled to wrench my spatha free. Meanwhile Belisarius and his men cut the rebels to pieces with brutal military efficiency. The survivors turned and fled back to the gates, where they joined the crush of fugitives trying to find refuge inside the arena.

  The Veterans charged, and the area around the gates became a killing ground as they butchered defenceless men and women like pigs. I hung back, shaking with reaction from the fight I had just survived. Trumpets sounded a warning inside the Hippodrome, too late, and Belisarius and his men encountered no organised resistance as they forced their way in over a thick carpet of dead and dying.

  The sight and sound of so much violent death awoke something feral inside me. I found myself bounding along in the wake of the Veterans, waving my sword and screaming my grandfather’s name.

  A man rose from the piles of bodies strewn before the gates, blood pouring from his mouth. I stabbed him in the gut and relished his inhuman shrieks as I twisted the blade with all my strength.

  “Traitors!” I spat as he died, “traitors!”

  I record this killing, and the many others I committed that day, with no sense of joy or shame. God forgive me, but the memory of what happened at the Hippodrome arouses no great emotion inside me. The Nika riots had to be suppressed, and the Empire preserved from a fatally divisive civil war. But for the courage and prompt action of a handful of men – and Theodora, though I shall come to that later – the world might look very different today.

  Belisarius allowed the rebels no respite. If any of the ringleaders had seen how scanty his numbers were, they might yet have rallied and overwhelmed his Veterans, but panic quickly spread through their ranks. They were driven like sheep across the track of the arena. Many tried to escape via the gates at the rear, only to find Mundus and two hundred grinning Huns waiting for them.

  My arm grew tired of killing as I paid off a good number of old scores. All the slights and insults I had patiently endured over the years boiled over. I went hunting for familiar faces, and chopped them down with no more mercy than a wild beast shows its prey.

  To my immense frustration, the scalp I craved most of all eluded me. Leo had escaped.

  When he saw that the spirit of the rebellion was broken, Belisarius did his best to limit the massacre of Roman citizens. To no avail - the Huns were in an ungovernable killing rage, and his Veterans in no mood to spare those who had threatened the security of the state. The floor of the arena was piled high with corpses, and the foul reek of blood and excrement and spilled entrails rose to Heaven, so that God Himself might savour the vengeance of Justinian.

  The killing lasted all through the night. When dawn broke, grey and timorous, the only living souls inside the Hippodrome were the gore-slathered figures of Belisarius and his troops.

  I was leaning on my sword, breathing hard and wincing at the cramp in my muscles, when a heavy hand descended on my shoulder.

  “Still alive, then,” grunted a weary but familiar voice. I glanced up to see the rugged, unlovely features of Mundus, in no way improved by a thick coating of other men’s blood.

  Belisarius was standing nearby, drawn and pale after the night’s work. Like everyone else he was covered in gore. Narses was at his side. To my surprise the delicate-looking eunuch was garbed like a soldier in helmet and breastplate, and the sword thrust into his belt was stained and notched with use.

  “I saw this one at work last night,” Mundus said to the general, slapping me on the shoulder again, “he’s a right bloody killer. A bit old for a recruit, maybe, but he could make a decent auxiliary.”

  Belisarius nodded, though his mind was clearly on other matters. “Is the rebellion over, lord?” I asked, doing my best to straighten up.

  “All bar the mopping-up,” said Narses before Belisarius could answer, “Hypatius and his brothers are in a dungeon, and their supporters have either fled the city or taken refuge. We shall soon smoke them out of their holes.”

  “The Emperor shall use mercy, I hope,” said Belisarius, though judging from his expression he knew it was a false hope. Narses snorted, and waddled away to consult with a group of officers on horseback. I noticed a couple of senators among them. They had presumably crept back into the city now the danger was passed.

  Belisarius pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes for a few seconds. He suddenly looked much older than his years – he was about my age - and utterly drained of energy.

  “Coel,” he said, glancing at me, “I also saw you at work. No-one could doubt your strength and enthusiasm, but you wield that sword like an apprentice butcher with a cleaver. How would you like to learn to use it properly? I think we can assume that your contract with the Circus is no longer valid.”

  He was offering me the chance to become a soldier. The prospect was not a displeasing one, though it meant my freedom would again be limited.

&
nbsp; “I have sworn an oath, lord,” I said, “to find and recover my birthright.”

  “I am not in the habit of forcing men to break their oaths,” he replied impatiently, “what is this birthright of yours?”

  I felt awkward telling him, but under the gaze of those shrewd eyes it was impossible to lie or dissemble. “A sword that belonged to my grandfather, lord. It is all I had to remind me of my family and homeland. I lost it many years ago. A Roman officer named Domitius stole the sword from me and took it with him to Carthage. He never returned.”

  Belisarius stared at me in silence for a moment, and then gave a dry little chuckle. “Join the ranks of my foederati, Coel son of Amhar,” he said, “and you may have a chance to find Arthur’s sword. A better chance, at any rate, than if you journeyed to North Africa on your own.”

  I little knew what he meant, but the winds of fate were once again blowing me in a direction I could not resist. There, on the blood-soaked ground of the arena, I knelt before him and was sworn into the Roman army.

  Chapter 13

  The immediate aftermath of the revolt witnessed one more spate of killing. Left to himself, the Emperor might have spared the lives of the hapless pretender Hypatius and his brothers, but Theodora persuaded him otherwise. Such clemency, she argued, would only encourage further others to conspire against the throne. In this, as in so many other things, Justinian was her obedient slave, and so all three men were strangled in their cells.

  I was enlisted into the foederati, mercenary horsemen bound by various treaties to serve in the Roman army. They served under the banners of their own tribal chiefs, but as the sole Briton I was placed among the Heruli, from a tribe in Eastern Germania. Five hundred of these warriors, along with other units, had been recalled from their outposts along the Danubian frontier after the Nika riots, to defend the city in case of another revolt.

  The Heruli were cousins to the Saxons, whom my British ancestors had been fighting for generations. I accepted the placement – I had no choice in the matter – and had to smother my disgust at being forced to train and co-exist with coarse, flaxen-haired barbarians whom I regarded as racial enemies.