Triumph (17 page)

That it would not remain a secret was obvious, there were too many people now involved and Flavius had to assume his own inferior commanders would have picked up more than just rumours, though nothing had been said in his presence. Antonina, if she had found out, would be as indiscreet as always and she was perfectly capable, it seemed, of ascribing to him motives the opposite of those he displayed.

Then there was Procopius, clearly unhappy; relations between the two had palpably soured in the month since the occupation of the Goth capital. There were no more private conversations and certainly no discussion of policy. Now everything was done in a way that spoke of estrangement; formal and being businesslike it was also impossible to fault.

Flavius had known that matters were far from peaceful on the eastern frontier long before Cabasilis arrived. The so-called Endless Peace which had been concluded between Justinian and King Kavadh, the late ruler of the Sassanid Empire, was always fragile, having been bought, Justinian paying the princely sum of eleven thousand pounds in gold to keep him within the borders of his own empire, more being supplied annually.

That it had held for eight years was remarkable; Kavadh had agreed to peace many times, only to break it when he needed to bleed Constantinople for funds to pacify the many tribes that formed his fractious subjects. He ruled over communities that were forever fighting each other or seeking to combine to bring him down. If the tribes were
not rebelling the Sassanid nobles were conspiring, and they had in the past been too powerful an entity for their king to tame.

With Kavadh gone his son Khusrow had proved to be a more astute ruler. He made better use of the Byzantine gold, employing it to bolster his positon, most tellingly to break the power of those high nobles who led large bodies of soldiers and could thus, in alliance with tribal leaders, threaten his position.

Khusrow had also re-formed the Sassanid army so that it was no longer under the control of numerous satraps but the king himself, and more formidable for it, and he had once more begun to ravage the domains of the Eastern Empire. He would be back next year when the rivers were flowing fast enough to water thousands of horses and the fields full of ripening crops with which to feed an invading army.

‘Cabasilis, does he not know that another year here will see matters settled for good?’

That was a foolish question, born out of frustration, to put to a mere messenger and it got the only possible reply. ‘I can only convey his instructions,
Magister
, and they were plain.’

‘I ask you to leave us, Cabasilis. Solomon, my
domesticus
will provide you with food and wine, and feel free to use the baths.’

‘My instructions were to see you board the vessel in which I came and to sail home immediately.’

Flavius laughed at the absurdity – it was typical of the man he knew to issue such a command without any thought to the ramifications. Flavius could not just leave as if he was going for a stroll, there were still responsibilities to exercise. He had to make sure that everything was in place and that his successor had a proper grasp of that which needed to be done.

The Goth treasure would go with him, ensuring a welcome in Constantinople, for riches delivered to an emperor always partly fed
down to the citizens as well as the victorious soldiers. Added to that, after a successful five-year campaign, he would be leaving without the results of his efforts: chests of gifts and coffers full of what was his just due in rewards. And then there was Antonina and their combined retinue of servants.

‘Leave immediately, without gathering my possessions? Surely not even

Justinian would have me arrive back in his city naked and a beggar?’ The messenger was young and even if very well connected he was in the presence of the conqueror of Italy. It would be impolitic to argue so he did as he was bid and left the chamber. A sign from Flavius had his guards and attendants do likewise.

‘I am minded to send for Justinian and ask him to delay this move.’

‘Are you seeking my advice,
Magister
?’

There was no mistaking the coldness of the tone, which brought Flavius no pleasure and he responded with deliberate calm. ‘I am.’

‘And if I no longer feel qualified to provide it?’

‘I have offended you, I know, Procopius, but our association is one of many years’ duration, I hope prolonged enough to allow that you fulfil a function I have always found of value. Justinian has presented me with a dilemma and I am at a loss to be sure of how to respond.’

‘Since you trumpet your loyalty to the empire and he rules it you do not have a choice. He commands, you obey.’

‘So we go back to the east and leave the final act here to another?’

‘We,
Magister
?’ The slow shake of the head preceded the blow. ‘I fear there is much to do still in Italy that I feel required to oversee. It is also true that you might prefer to depend on another to carry out those functions which you have entrusted to me in the past.’

If Flavius was at a loss as to how to respond he was never going to plead, nor would he refer to what had remained unspoken: what Procopius would have gained if he had taken the Goth crown and the
imperial title of Western Emperor. His secretary was ambitious, which was fitting, and if they had never discussed where his association with Flavius might lead, it had never been much of a mystery.

Despite his reservations about the motives of Justinian, Procopius knew that the Emperor reposed a certain faith in the man he served. Not enough, he would maintain, to imperil his position or even slap down his wife but sufficient, barring some terrible failure, to ensure that his favourite general would always hold lucrative and powerful commands and the concomitant of that was a position of importance would likewise fall to his secretary-cum-legal advisor.

How far that could lead was again never openly alluded to, but surely at some point Flavius Belisarius would move on from being a field commander to some great office in the imperial bureaucracy, despite the malice of Theodora. Again Procopius would rise with him, yet such an elevation always lay on the edge of a cliff; close to the actual seat of power it was possible to fall much more rapidly, so it never held the true promise of security.

There was little doubt now that Procopius had engineered the offer of the Goth crown. That, to him, solved all the possible future problems he could envisage. No longer a mere legate of Justinian, Flavius would treat with him as an equal and perhaps even threaten his diadem and behind that would sit his trusted factotum, free to dream that one day he himself might even hold the highest office of state, not just in Ravenna, but in Constantinople.

‘If I cannot feed your ambitions, Procopius,’ Flavius concluded sadly, ‘I can only assert my allegiance. Oblige me by calling Vitalius to my presence, so I can begin the handover of my command. I hope you serve him as well as you have served me.’

I
t was not a single vessel that set sail for the east but a substantial flotilla, carrying Flavius, Antonina and also the general’s
comitatus
, his personal fighting retinue who went wherever he was active, their care delegated to Solomon. To ease his mind and temper, his wife had been accommodated with her retinue of servants on a vessel of her own, while Theodosius and his coffers had been allotted a separate galley to keep them apart.

Cabasilis he kept close partly to probe for any hint that his recall had to do with the offer of Goth kingship, not that he had any fear of the consequences, his conscience being clear. Yet he had enemies in Constantinople, rivals for military position, like Narses. Then there were the relatives and associates of the executed Constantinus. Such voices would seek to dismiss any claims to probity.

On balance he had to accept the reasons given for his recall were true. With Justinian preoccupied with what was happening in Italy, Khusrow would be well aware that the troops and commanders needed to stop his depredations simply did not exist in Asia Minor. He had cut through great swathes of territory, almost unopposed, to invest several cities, this at a time when envoys from Constantinople were present and negotiating with him.

It was also obvious that Khusrow was fired by a high level of greed rather than a desire to take and hold ground. Cities invested had been obliged to buy their way out of being sacked with a levy of several hundreds of pounds of gold. Those places that refused and Khusrow did assault provided him with hordes of slaves he was eager to ransom. Not that Khusrow was satisfied; a demand had been sent to Justinian seeking more gold as a bribe not to repeat his success.

There did not seem, either, to be any intelligence of what he planned to do next year, a question to which Flavius would have loved an answer. Cabasilis had neither information nor an opinion, which left Flavius, for the first time in many years, with nothing to plan for; he was in the dark and would remain so until he heard from Justinian.

It was a strange feeling to be unoccupied; there were no commands to issue, nothing to reconnoitre, no despatches to be sent to inferiors. He was thus reduced to the level of a sightseer, walking the deck and observing the shore from which fleets rarely parted the sight of even in summer. At this time of year, with the possibility of equinoxal tempests, the sailing master kept a sharp eye on the clouds and the sea state, ever ready to run for one of the many sheltering bays that dotted the coastline of Greece.

Introspection had previously been held at bay by the daily requirement for activity. Now, on a slow and broken voyage, Flavius had the freedom to assess his actions and if he had previously thought about the battles fought prior to this watery interlude, and his competence as a commander, he had never done so with so much absorption.

The balance was in his favour, of course; he was leaving behind a well-beaten enemy but that did not stop critical analysis of the mistakes he knew he had made. In this Procopius came constantly to mind, he being ever ready to find excuses for any setback suffered by his master, always able to find a scapegoat on which to pin the blame.

The loss outside the walls of Rome Flavius saw as his worst defeat and the excuse Procopius conjured up then would not hold in a mind bent on honest and critical examination. He had not been driven to it by more ambitious minds bent on glory or a quick result: even if he had been persuaded and allowed his own judgement to be compromised, even if blame could be attached to the broken infantry and their incompetent commanders, there was no question as to ultimate responsibility.

Added to that was the thought as to how it might have ended in disaster, with his forces locked out of the city by the refusal of the Romans to open the gates. In talking with Witigis, whom he had treated with honour, Flavius had found out why, when they had the Byzantine forces at their complete mercy, the Goths had not attacked.

‘The crowds of men on the walls, thousands of them.’

‘And?’ Flavius had enquired, confused.

‘We feared a trap and with good cause, given the number of times you sprang one on us.’

‘But those lining the walls were not fighters.’

‘They looked as if they might be to me and those who I looked to for counsel. We concluded that once engaged we would be so locked into battle as to prevent any safe withdrawal, and once those men emerged we could be overwhelmed.’

‘I am told I am lucky,’ Flavius sighed. ‘Perhaps, after what you have told me, Witigis, there is truth in that.’

‘It gives me no joy to say to you, Flavius Belisarius, that it takes more than luck to win on the field of battle.’

‘You were a worthy opponent,’ was the reply, a fitting one and true, given to a man with whom he had become less of an enemy.

‘Not worthy enough.’

At night, as the galley ploughed through the Mediterranean swell, the wind whistling in the rigging and, when that fell away, the row master’s mallet beating out a slow tattoo, Flavius was too often subject to the recurring nightmare that had plagued him since the day his family had perished, their deaths played out in an ever-shifting vision of blood, pleading and his own uselessness.

Added to that there was the parlous state of his marriage. He was torn between believing Antonina to be innocent of infidelity and the wild imagining of her in that very act, neither of which gave him any indication of what to do about it. In other dreams they lived in harmonious bliss, but they always morphed into scenes of murderous rage in which she lay hacked to pieces while the cohorts of Satan tore at his flesh in retribution.

If dawn was welcome, after weeks of travel, so was the sight of the spires of Constantinople, never before a vista to provide much pleasure. The main fleet was ordered to proceed to Galatea while the command galley altered course and headed for the private imperial dock.

On his return from the Vandal war the imperial couple had been on the quayside to greet their victorious commander; nothing of that sort was to be afforded to Flavius now, even if he had with him a valuable treasure, one admittedly not of the size he had brought from North Africa, the fruits of two centuries of theft from the old Roman provinces of Gaul and Hispania. The Goths had plundered but none had done so as successfully as the Vandals, whose mere name had become a byword for pointless destruction.

He had transferred Antonina to his vessel in expectation and both had dressed as if to be received by Justinian and Theodora. Long before the galley tied up it was clear from the absence of activity on the quayside that there was no such greeting awaiting them. Instead
there was a second messenger of no higher calibre than Cabasilis with instructions that Flavius was to proceed immediately to Justinian’s audience chamber, while his wife was requested to attend on the Empress in her apartments.

Never one for display and neither willing to respond to a clear insult, Flavius felt keenly the need to send to his emperor a message that he, if only on behalf of the men he had led to victory as well as the offer he had refused, was entitled to more. Sending Antonina ahead, then arranging for the Goth treasure to be taken to the imperial treasury, he changed into a simple set of clothing, one more suited to a general on campaign than the courtier Justinian would expect.

Walking the seemingly endless corridors of the palace he was reminded of the sheer number of functionaries necessary to run such a dispersed patrimony. That took no account of the thousands of servants and the guards of the Regiment of the Excubitors, placed at intervals to protect against any possibility of an attempt on the lives of their rulers. Having served in that unit as a young officer, Flavius could not avoid sly inspections to ensure they had maintained the standards he thought necessary to the imperial bodyguard

As usual there were the high officials making their way from one set of chambers to another, attended by fawning inferiors, their arms full of scrolls. Such men, catching sight of him, were quick to arrange their features in a form of greeting but there was no friendliness in the looks Flavius received; this was not a building in which to indulge in such luxuries.

On entering the audience chamber he was further discomfited by the fact that the place was full of those men gathered to advise the Emperor, which sent to him the message that he was to be treated as just one of their number and not, as he had become accustomed to in previous meetings, as a privileged companion allowed private audience.

The crowd parted to allow him to approach the dais on which sat a gorgeously dressed Justinian, a sceptre in his hand and a crown of laurels on his head. In doing so he passed a clutch of officials, such as John the Cappadocian and Narses, who did not favour him with even a hint of welcome. Indeed the eunuch’s failed attempt to hide a glare was almost amusing and would have been fully so if it had not indicated to Flavius that his standing in the imperial firmament must be, regardless of his successes, somewhat open to question. The likes of Narses and John reflected the imperial mood; they never challenged it!

‘You seem a touch tardy in attendance, General Belisarius. Is it that your head has been turned by events?’

Not Flavius, nor
magister
. It was the lack of those words of respect as much as the tone that killed the half smile, as having bowed low, he raised himself to look steadily into the eyes of the man he had so faithfully served, the thought in his head inadvertent but impossible to ignore that perhaps Procopius had been right.

‘Your Excellency would not have wished me to leave the treasure I brought from Italy unattended to so I could answer your summons.’

The Emperor looked him up and down, taking in the plain smock and unadorned belt, as well as the metal-studded sandals that had made such an echoing noise on the marble flooring. ‘And you are required to dress like some common soldier in order to oversee such a task?’

‘I dress like a soldier, which is what I am and I aspire to be nothing else.’

Which was as good a way as any of telling his emperor that he was not like the other men in the chamber; who amongst them would have turned down what he had? Looking at Justinian, Flavius was struck by the changes in a man he had not seen for over five years. The reddish hair was still as untidy as uncontrollable locks could be,
but it was tinged with grey. The face, never handsome, had deep lines that had not before been present and bags under eyes that at least had the same look Flavius knew so well, ones in which there was always the impression of something hidden.

The head canted to one side, again a well-known habit, as Justinian replied, looking his general up and down as he did so. ‘You speak freely and without apology for keeping us waiting, not just from the point of landing but in the time it has taken you to obey my order to depart from Italy.’

‘Speaking freely has always been a privilege I was granted in times past.’

Narses spoke then, having come close to the throne to witness the first exchange, this as Justinian looked peaked at being so challenged. ‘It would do you well to show greater respect now, Belisarius.’

‘Just as it would behove you, Eunuch, to recall that you and I are equals and that affords you no right to make any comment on how I behave or to address me in a disrespectful manner.’

There was a sound behind Flavius then, of a sort of shuffling; in so calling Narses a eunuch he had returned the insult in full measure. The sound had to be ignored, he needed to hold the imperial eye. Justinian lifted his head to cast a look around the assembly before coming back to gaze at Flavius, who did not blink at such an examination.

Many years before, at a time when the man before him had been no more than an aide and relative to his uncle, and on many occasions since, he had sworn to be honest in their dealings, never to flatter where truth was required and never to praise actions that were questionable. They had known each other for a quarter of a century now and it was no time for that to change.

He would serve Justinian, yes, but he would never grovel to him, as would so many of the courtiers present. The other thing such
creatures might do was conspire against him for their own ends, some even to the point of potential usurpation. Given he would never stoop to such behaviour, Flavius expected to be treated differently, even if what he had turned down in Ravenna was obviously no mystery.

In the silence that followed, as the pair locked eyes, Flavius was seeking the reason for such a cold greeting. Certainly Narses, on his return, would have done all in his power to diminish him, almost certainly playing down the fighting ability of the Goths, which would simultaneously dent the reputation of the man who had been beating them for years.

Flavius suspected powerful satraps such as John the Cappadocian would be extremely jealous of his success and thus also be a man to traduce him, odd since their opinions on certain matters coincided. Not all: John had been employed by Justinian on his ascension to bring more order to both the law courts and the collection of taxes. That he lined his own pockets in the process was tolerated by the Emperor on the grounds of his own increased revenues: besides, to find another who would not be equally corrupted by the opportunities this presented was close to impossible.

His other task, and here Flavius was a full supporter, was to help break the power of the patricians by bringing into the imperial bureaucracy men from more humble backgrounds yet with the talent to carry out the functions of government. If this earned him the hatred of the old ruling class it also allowed the Cappadocian to build a body of support committed to him personally. Never a shrinking violet, the man had now become intolerably self-regarding.

Flavius had to accept that his reception could be cold for another reason: habit. Occupying the imperial throne left any emperor at the mercy of advice ever leavened with flattery as to his own innate wisdom. Having occupied the position for over a dozen years now
Justinian would have become accustomed to such sycophancy. Perhaps he had lost sight of what had been his abiding opinion of such courtiers, a not very elevated one prior to taking the diadem.