Honour (4 page)

‘Why does he not seek it for himself, then?’

‘Why do you ask?’ Petrus demanded, just before enlightenment dawned. ‘You have no idea of who Amantius is?’

‘No.’

‘He is the Emperor’s chief eunuch, which bars him from the purple since he cannot breed. So he has chosen someone he considers worthwhile, yet a person he can manipulate.’

‘For what?’

‘It’s not wealth, for he has that in abundance.’

‘Power, then?’

‘Let us say he faithfully serves a man for whom he has little true regard and he is not alone in that.’

Petrus kept talking as they made their way through the endless corridors to the central section that contained the imperial apartments as well as those of Justinus, all the while denigrating Anastasius and his policies, the worst of which was religious in nature.

‘And what about the madness of that, how much trouble has the old goat caused there?’

Those words dragged Flavius back to the events of three years previously, a time when his life had looked settled and his future a vision easy and untroubling. A single event had changed that as his father, in command of an understrength force guarding the Danube border, had been tempted into a battle he could not win, one in which the odds had been set against him by a treacherous local magnate who should have been his support. Those thoughts were swept away as Petrus grabbed his arm again to spin him round, his eyes boring in, his look deadly serious.

‘You must trust me in this, Flavius, you must believe me when I say I do it for the safety of all of us. I am not playing a game, I am
playing with our lives. Will you go tonight and carry out what I have arranged?’

‘Give me one good reason why I should.’

‘I saved your life, Flavius, and got you revenge for your family, is that not reason enough?’

‘When?’

The explanation, the way revenge had been facilitated on the man who had betrayed his father, was swift and had Flavius dropping his head, brought on partly by amazement, but just as much by his own blindness at not seeing what Petrus had set out to do and what a cunning weave he had made. If it was a conspiracy it had been clever, and more tellingly, it had been successful or he would not be talking now.

‘If you owe me your life, it is not a favour I would ever call in. But I do need your help and there is no one else I can turn to. That is why you were recalled.’

‘I will do that which you ask,’ Flavius replied after a lengthy pause, ‘and no more.’

‘No more is required.’

‘I will need aid from the men of my unit.’

‘As long as they have no idea what will be in the chests that is not a difficulty.’

The cart he borrowed belonged to the Excubitors, the four men he fetched along were under his command and they showed a pleasing lack of curiosity about the task, as soldiers often do, accustomed as they are to the whims of their officers. He left them outside until he had spoken with Amantius, who disappeared before they entered the villa. The first pair took one handle each of a chest, not large, so the sheer weight surprised them and led to an exchanged look of wonder.
This had Flavius, who had not anticipated what should have been obvious, reaching for a quick excuse.

‘It’s being taken to the imperial treasury via the apartments of the
comes
.’

‘Detour would be nice, Your Honour,’ joked one.

‘Don’t tempt me,’ Flavius replied.

This too was taken as a jest, just as the grave manner of delivery was taken as contrived. He meant it, though not in the way these soldiers thought: he was inclined to drop the whole lot in the Propontis and Petrus and his conspiracies be damned. His mood was no better at the other end, even more so when the chests were delivered to the apartments of Justinus, timed to be after he had retired to the single-door cell and hard cot on which he slept.

‘Don’t be gloomy, Flavius,’ Petrus crowed when he discerned his mood. ‘Believe me, when this is over you will heartily thank me.’

T
he heat of the city, in the grip of high and continuing summer temperatures, was enough to permeate the thick walls of the palace; even the marble flooring seemed to be too warm. Was it that which contributed to the increased air of disquiet or was what Flavius observed being given greater definition because of what he had become a party to? If the name of the man Amantius wished to elevate was unknown that did nothing to allay suspicion, quite the reverse. Now he was looking at everyone he passed, seeking by whatever senses he possessed to discern if they were the chosen one.

Matters were not aided by the manner in which Anastasius hung onto mortality, helped by teams of physicians who feared to lose their heads if he died while they were in attendance. Others put it down to tenacity, while the ill-disposed, and they were legion, subscribed to the view that the old goat feared the retribution he might face from an angry redeemer, for if the Emperor had been fired by religious zeal, it had been at the price of much conflict with half of his subjects.

No words were ever more true than that one man’s heresy was another’s route to salvation. In a previous imperial reign, after much
dissension, matters on dogma had appeared to have been settled. The Emperor called into being a Great Council in the city of Chalcedon, where the dispute about the divine nature of God and the Holy Trinity had been disputed.

After what seemed like endless argument on arcane points and endless biblical references it had been agreed that Jesus could be both a man and a god, this flying in the face of those who believed that position both impossible and heretical. The seeming acceptance of the conclusion of Chalcedon by those in opposition was just that; soon they were once more pressing for their dogma to be elevated to imperial policy.

Anastasius had backed them, insisting on adherence to the more mystical and Eastern position. The bishops of Asia Minor and Egypt, known as the Monophysites, had captured the imperial soul and in his passion for their cause Anastasius had cracked down on the proponents of the settlement of Chalcedon, removing divines from their diocese and replacing them with men who shared his doctrinal beliefs. The result had been rebellion on a massive scale in the Imperial Themes to the west and north of Constantinople, led by a general called Vitalian who had three times invested a capital city too formidable to actually capture.

It was his first attempt to take the city that had brought Flavius, marching with General Vitalian and fleeing certain death at home further north, to Constantinople and the apartments of Justinus, his late father’s old comrade, where if he had not found peace he had felt something akin to a home.

The religious dispute mirrored in many ways the fissure between the two great groups of the empire, those who clung, and they were often of barbarian stock, to the notion of Imperial Rome as it had been for centuries, set against the greater number of Greeks and Levantines who made up the majority of the population. These were people who
seemed to take more inspiration from Persia than Rome, not least in the way the Emperor was seen as divinely chosen and a certain conduit to God.

To a committed Christian this harked back to and mirrored too closely the pagan ethos of the pre-Constantine polity. The Roman-inspired also deplored and fought the way Greek modes of behaviour continually wore down on what they called the Ancient Virtues, notions of behaviour more breeched than observed but held to be a better mode of living.

Their enemies scoffed at these pretensions, seeing them for what they too often were, a hypocritical method of asserting cultural superiority when in truth the reverse was the case; if the Romans had ever had any virtues they were those of Italian peasants and farmers. Learning and sophistication came from Attica, not Italy.

Justinus, Thracian by birth, as had been the family of Flavius, sought to act as he thought a Roman should: honestly and selflessly. When it came to religion, if he kept his own counsel in public, his view in private was unequivocal. He thought his master misguided and making difficulties where none should exist; let each man worship in his own fashion and if the bishops wished to dispute on dogma let them do so without troubling the public peace.

Flavius Belisarius felt himself to be solidly Roman, an attitude inherited from his late father. The events of his death, and that of the three elder brothers who perished with him, were now long past in the life of a boy turned to manhood. Yet they were, to the person who had witnessed the act of treachery, as fresh as if they had happened the day before. This was even truer at night, when dreams turned the man who betrayed them into a Nemesis, an ogre of antiquity, some pagan fiend sent by the Fates to ruin his peace of mind.

Dining with Justinus – Petrus was off to one of his dockside dens of iniquity – the subject of how Flavius had come to the city was one bound to surface and with it the present state of the still unresolved religious divide which pitted the western half of the empire against the east and south, doing nothing to aid the cause of border protection.

‘You served with Vitalian, Justinus?’

‘Many years ago in the Isaurian revolts. He was a doughty fighter.’

‘Upright?’

‘Yes, but too inflexible sometimes. Very good with barbarians. You have to admire the way he has kept fighting, having been denied success so many times.’

‘You’d do likewise, I am sure.’

‘I am not sure it is a fight I would ever have got into.’

‘Am I allowed to ask another question?’ That got a quizzical look but also a shrug that said go ahead. ‘Who do you think will succeed Anastasius?’

‘I am tempted to leave that in the hands of Our Saviour and grateful that he is there to oversee it.’

‘I can understand your reluctance to be drawn, but you must have both hopes and reservations, it would not be human to be otherwise.’

‘Has Petrus put you up to this?’

‘No.’

‘I’m surprised, it sounds so very like the questions he plagues me with, though yours is more forthright. His tend to go halfway round the palace before I can get the point.’

‘And what do you tell him?’

‘That I will do my duty to the office I hold.’

‘It is not unknown for a succession to cause bloodshed.’

Justinus looked quite irritated then, as if he was being pressed, which
Flavius had tried hard to avoid. ‘That I will not stand by and witness.’

‘Which will involve you taking action.’

‘Change the subject, Flavius,’ Justinus growled, showing in his obvious anger a side of his character the youngster had rarely seen. ‘Or change where you dine.’

‘Forgive me.’

‘Granted,’ came the eventual reply, when the older man had contained his annoyance. ‘You met Vitalian, Petrus tells me, and he was full of praise for you.’

‘I’m not sure how he knows that, given he was not witness to it.’

‘My nephew would not find himself in strange company in a burrow of ferrets. He seems to know a great deal that he has not actually seen, which makes me wonder if he does not occasionally indulge in sorcery.’

You don’t know the half of it, Flavius thought, as he covered his mouth and half his face with his wine goblet lest that become obvious.

‘I do not say, Uncle, that you are in any particular danger, only that times are perilous and precautions are wise.’

‘Then spare me from the food your mother’s cook provides.’

Petrus acknowledged that; the person in question was a woman who had come from Thracia with his mother and no amount of bleating about the offal she served as food would dent the maternal faith in an old retainer and slave who had been with her since childhood. Yet Lupicina, wife to Justinian, who avoided the palace and the condescension she was exposed to there, also resided in the Sabbatius household and it was only fitting that her husband should visit her as often as his duties allowed. Petrus was outlining the obvious fact that such regular excursions were no secret.

‘You do not see that you have enemies.’

‘Why should I, nephew, when you see them everywhere?’

‘An escort would add to your dignity.’

‘I am going to dine with my family and my wife, your family – and come to think of it, I am curious how you have yet again got out of attendance?’

Tempted to say he had more willpower than his uncle, Petrus restrained himself. Even true it would not be taken well and would only lead to the observation, also a fact, that Vigilantia, sister to Justinus, did not only overindulge her far from capable cook, she was too soft on her only son.

‘You’re adamant?’

‘I have never needed an armed escort when I moved around the city before and despite your wild theories I do not need one now.’

‘At least indulge me by taking a weapon, a sword.’

‘Very well,’ came the impatient response, ‘if it makes you feel better.’

‘I cannot persuade him that at times like the present all that is normal no longer holds.’

‘If he is at risk, who is it from?’

‘How many people, Flavius, do you think would like to get into the bedchamber of Anastasius and press a pillow over his face? How many alliances do you think are being formed to take advantage of the succession and what does time do to those as the Emperor lingers on and their secret gatherings begin to leak?’

Petrus was pulling at his hair and his head was well canted, proof that he was troubled, with Flavius reckoning he was the one most distressed by the fact that Anastasius refused to expire quickly.

‘I am not the only mind that sees the need to have the Excubitors either as allies or men who will stand aside. How, Flavius, do you ensure that?’

Getting a shrug, Petrus got all professorial. ‘No, you cannot answer for you have not thought it through, but I have. What if there was a new Count of the Excubitors, one committed to your cause? He could order the imperial guard to stand down or he could be the conduit by which they could be bribed to acclaim your candidate for emperor.’

‘And in order to do that you would need to remove Justinus?’

‘The point entirely.’

‘If you cannot persuade Justinus to take precautions, what makes you think I can?’

That surprised Petrus. ‘No one is asking you to.’

‘Then what are you asking?’

‘I want you and some of your men to follow his palanquin, at a discreet distance. I have asked and had him agree that he should take his sword so if he is attacked and an assassination is attempted he may be able to hold off his assailants until you can come to his aid.’

‘If he finds out he will crucify me.’

‘If he is killed we will all face the cross.’

Accepting that as exaggeration, Flavius nevertheless agreed; he was off duty and had no concerns about finding a quartet of his rankers to go with him. They would need some duty favours in return, though they must have wondered, albeit silently, why their officer, twenty paces ahead of them, was clad in a cloak on what was a stifling evening and why were they carrying his helmet and spear?

Nor were they alone in that; dripping sweat, Flavius sought to keep the palanquin ahead in sight, while his men were in view to his rear, not easy in streets still busy with citizenry and hawkers. The garment
had been unnecessary; Petrus insisted they must remain out of sight and in some senses that got more difficult as Justinus left the centre of the city and headed through the quieter streets that led to his brother-in-law’s villa at Blachernae.

A hilly suburb, it was far enough from the stink of the city, providing the wind was not blowing due north, to render life more agreeable for the patricians and those tradesfolk rich enough to match their style of living. With ample water from artesian wells and good soil, the large gardens were a source of neighbourly competition while the houses they surrounded vied with each other in sumptuousness.

If it replicated anything, Blachernae was very like what Rome had been in the Augustan Age on the Palatine Hill. It was generally held, by those who could only gaze in envy at such luxury, that it also mirrored the arrogance of the rich senatorial class of those times and there was just enough daylight left as they passed by them to allow for an occasional sigh of wonder from the rankers.

Everyone but Justinus was hot and bothered by the time the palanquin deposited him at the gate of the Sabbatius villa, the men who had carried him probably even more than Flavius, who quickly found a small copse of trees in which to conceal himself so he could disrobe. His men joined him in what was now, under such a canopy, near to darkness.

To a look of enquiry he responded. ‘We wait.’

‘Am I allowed to ask what it is we’re about, Your Honour?’

‘We are looking after the welfare of our general.’

‘Without him knowin’ of it.’

‘You’re asking for a right lashing, Tircas,’ hissed another soldier; in the imperial army you did not question officers.

Not long back from the east these men who had been allotted to
Flavius did not really yet know him. More than that they did not know of his past serving with Vitalian, when he had been what they were now, a common soldier. Unlike his peers, he knew what they faced and the stoicism with which they generally did so and it bothered him not at all that his actions were being questioned for he had felt that same need himself.

‘I will never use a whip to answer a question,’ Flavius insisted. ‘It must be plain to you that if we are concealed it is because Justinus does not wish to be escorted by armed men, yet there are those who fear at present he may be in danger.’

‘With the old Emperor on his last pegs?’

‘Times like these are far from normal. I hope and pray that we will return to our barracks having witnessed nothing to disturb the night.’

‘Would I be allowed, Your Honour, to see if I can find a public well? A cooling drink would not go amiss.’

‘Do so, Tircas, and do not rush. Our charge will be in that villa for some time.’

In truth Justinus emerged earlier than Flavius had reckoned – he knew nothing of the Sabbatius cook and nor did he know that the night had ended not as it should in connubial bliss but with a matrimonial row and an unexpected departure long before the palanquin was due to return. He was woken up with a sharp shake, as were the pair of his men he had allowed their turn to sleep. This time they had to dog the heels of a striding and fit older man, going mainly downhill under a sky carpeted with stars.