Flame of the West (24 page)

  
I was content to stay dead. The fleet was due to sail from Ancona up the coast to Ravenna, to wait for the arrival of the army led by Narses. I also wished to go to Ravenna, and there await my son, but not with the fleet.

   All my horses were drowned, along with the majority of the transport crews.
A horse-trader with no horses to trade is of little use, and I didn’t care to let John know I was still alive. Instead I would travel to the capital by land, alone.

   Some forty miles lay between
Ancona and Ravenna. It was a risky journey. Rome still maintained some control over the eastern coast, but lacked the soldiers to send out regular patrols. I could well meet with a Gothic raiding party, who would either split my throat or let me go free, depending on their mood. They would never suspect that I was Coel ap Amhar ap Arthur, the British warrior in Roman service who once held the Sepulchre of Hadrian against their forebears.

   First, I needed money. The sailors who rescued me from the sea had kindly given me a pair of old boots, a cloak, and enough wine and biscuit to sustain me for a couple of days.
I had not a penny to my name, and so slept rough in an alley. Fortunately the late summer weather held, so the nights were warm, and the fleet departed for Ravenna on the morning of the third day after its victory over the Goths. 

   With
John safely out of the way, I went in search of work. I eventually persuaded the landlord of a down-at-heel taverna down a narrow street in the poor quarter to hire me.

   “The pay is shit
, mind,” he said, scratching his unshaven chin as he squinted at me, “you’re a little old for a pot-boy, ain’t you?”

   “I’m clean, reliable and hard-working,” I replied brusquely, “what more do you want?”
    Nothing, was the answer, and so he set me to work. Picture, if you can, the one-time Roman general and owner of Caesar’s sword, washing pots and serving foul ale and gruesome slop to a crowd of Italian drunks!

   Come good fortune or bad, I have always made my way in this world. I sla
ved in the taverna for two months, renting a tiny garret in the cheapest hostel I could find in the poor quarter. What I lost in dignity I made up in coin, and by the end of that time had earned enough to buy a dagger and enough rations to last me to Ravenna.

   I also hired a horse, a tough, wiry little hill pony from
Campania, of the sort I wouldn’t have allowed through the gates of my stables in Constantinople. She suited my purpose, though, and I paid the black-gummed ostler’s outrageous price without quibbling. All I wanted was to get to Ravenna.

  
It was early November by the time I set out, a bad time for travelling, with icy winds sweeping in from the Adriatic and lashing the rocky coast. Careless of the weather, and the potential dangers of the road, I set out one blasted grey morning.

  
I neglected to inform the landlord of my departure. No doubt the greasy brute soon found another slave to wash his dishes and take his abuse.

  
The Flaminian road was largely deserted, and I passed just one convoy of wine-merchants taking their wares from Rimini to Ancona. Their heavily laden wagons were guarded by eight Sarmatian mercenaries. I remembered the Sarmatians who had escorted me and my mother to Constantinople: hard, brutal warriors from the broad steppes of Rus. They spared age nor sex during their blood-stained killing frenzies, and I took care to avoid their suspicious eyes.

  
Rimini, the scene of my bloodless victory over a decade previously, lay roughly midway between Ancona and Ravenna. The city was now again in Gothic hands. I was no longer in Roman service, and so planned to rest there for a night or two, safe behind its high walls, before continuing to Ravenna.

  
I spared my pony and led her on foot for most of the way, not wishing to exhaust her with the strain of carrying my bulk. Purple clouds were billowing across the sky by the time the distant lights of Rimini came in sight, a cluster of yellow pin-pricks against the gathering darkness to the north.

  
My soldier’s instincts had grown rusty with disuse. The horsemen were on me almost before I saw them, grey shapes thundering out of a little cluster of woodland east of the road.

   “Stay where y
ou are,” a man’s voice shouted, “or you’re dead.”

   I paused, one leg cocked over the pony’s saddle.
She wouldn’t be able to carry me out of danger, not from these fleet riders.

   “Steady,” I whispered, stroking her neck as she whinnied and tossed her shaggy head in fear. 

   The horsemen clattered onto the road and spread out to surround me. I meekly folded my hands and waited, while making a swift inventory of their number and quality.

   Eigh
t men. Mounted on good horses, and with a military look and discipline about them. Each carried a long spear, a dagger, and was protected by a helmet and oval shield. Light cavalry, of the sort I had once led into battle.

  
“A first-rate ambush,” I said when the dust had settled, “General Belisarius could have done no better. Though he practised his art against the enemies of Rome, not defenceless travellers.”  

   One of the riders came forward. A tall, broad-shouldered man, with the look of a lancer about him. His face under the helmet was lined and grizzled, scorc
hed by desert suns, and his eyes had a keen, knowing look. 

   “
We are neither friends or enemies of Rome,” he said, levelling his spear at my breast, “which are you?”

29
.

I judged my answer carefully, with his spear-point hovering close to my heart.

   “I
am also for neither,” I replied, “I am a deserter. Like you.”

   Those shrewd eyes narrow
ed, weighing me in the balance. Then he smiled and raised the spear.

   “
How did you know?” he asked, gesturing at his men to lower their weapons. He looked and sounded Germanic, though from which particular strand of that teeming people it was impossible to say.

   “Old soldiers know deserters when they see them,” I replied, “your men have good gear and horses, but have a slovenly, undisciplined look. You carry no flag and wear no insignia.
”

   “We might be spies.”

   “You might. If so, you are in need of training. Spies should stick to their hiding places, instead of charging out like raw recruits to accost travellers.”

   I was forcing myself to speak boldly, gambling it would impress him. All the while, my innards were dissolving.
Deserters or spies, these men were cut-throats, and would happily spill my blood if I uttered a word out of place.

  
One of the other riders trotted forward. “This is a waste of time,” he snarled, “let’s kill him and have done.”

   And be damned to you, I thought. “No,” said the first man, who was clearly the leader of this troop of bandits, “
he is a fellow spirit. Like us, he has deserted his flag and country, and taken to the road.”

   “What if he’s lying? We can’t afford to trust strangers.”

   My would-be killer was one of the ugliest men I had ever seen. His skin was raw and chapped, as though someone had poured boiling water on his face, possibly in an effort to improve it. Two deep-set little eyes, gleaming with malice, were set either side of a great curving dagger of a nose, under which resided a mean little mouth.

   He was clearly itching to put his spear in me, and doubtless had the blood of many innocents on his hands. Such born killers have to be dealt with, and quickly.

   His captain barked with laughter. “Trust?” he cried, “do I trust you, Gambara? Do I trust any of the Masterless Men? Not a bit of it. I sleep with one eye open, and one hand on my dagger.”

  
The one named Gambara gave back, scowling, and his captain turned back to me. “I am Asbad,” he said, “leader and master of this company of rogues. Give me your name and quality.”

  
Asbad, I thought. A Gepid name. The Gepids were an Eastern Germanic tribe, and close kin to the Goths. In common with most German tribes, they were not particular in their loyalties, and happily enlisted under the banner of whoever paid them most.

   “Coel ap Amhar ap Arthur,” I replied promptly, “a Briton, recently in the service of
Rome.”

   I thought it pointless to lie. Any brief fame I had enjoyed was long in the past. These men were all young, and would not have heard of me.

   “A Briton, eh?” said Asbad, smoothing his greasy tunic, “and what are you doing on the Flaminian Way in time of war, alone, with nothing but that little knife to protect you?”

   “I was heading to
Ravenna to see my son. He lacks his father’s wisdom, poor lad, and still follows the eagle.”  

  
Asbad smiled, and some of his men chuckled, which was pleasing to hear. With the exception of Gambara, I was winning them over.

  
“Your words have the ring of truth,” said Asbad, “so you’re either an honest man, or an accomplished liar. Either is welcome in the Masterless Men. How far can that pony carry you?”

   I gave her muzzle a pat. “
Far enough, though I would not like to push her. I am not as svelte as I once was.”

  
“Good. No more than five or six miles of discomfort lies before her tonight. Mount, Coel ap Amhar ap Arthur. Your son will have to wait.”

   I knew better than to argue.
Asbad’s friendly tone could not conceal the true nature of the man. He was a wolf, and so were his followers. Italy was full of such roving bands, the inevitable debris of a long war. Some were ex-soldiers, others merely criminals, or natives who had lost their homes and families in the bloodshed and turned to highway robbery.

   They robbed and murdered and plundered with impunity, living off the land and their fellow men, until justice caught up with them. Belisarius, who had a particular hatred of deserters, used to hang them by the dozen, and leave their bodies to swing by the roadside as a warning.

   I climbed aboard my pony and followed Asbad and his Masterless Men into the trees. They had set up a temporary camp in the heart of the wood, but Asbad wanted to move on.

   “Too close to
Rimini,” he explained, “and there has been little traffic on the road of late. Not worth the risk. We shall head inland.”

  
We rode east, in the gathering gloom, following a rough track that wound out of the woods and over the rolling hill country beyond. Far ahead, stretching in a rugged line from north to south, lay the Appenines. 

  
Even though I had fallen into the hands of thieves and cut-throats, I did not despair. I was alive, and unharmed, and Asbad appeared to have swallowed my tale of being a deserter. I suppose I was, in a way, though I had not enlisted in the Roman army. There had been enough truth in the lie to lend my words conviction.

  
Eight men was a small enough following. I entertained hopes of stealing a horse and slipping their grasp, when the time came, but these quickly turned to ash.

  
A few miles east of the Flaminian Way, we arrived at the gutted remains of a little village. It had been a peaceful place once, nestled in the crook of a fertile valley, until the Masterless Men descended from the hills with fire and sword. Most of the stone cottages were blackened wrecks. The maimed corpses of their inhabitants lay scattered about, but this was not the worst horror.

   O
ne of the cottages had been spared. There were men lounging outside it, eating a rough supper of bread and cheese. They rose to salute Asbad as we cantered down the single street, which ended in a basilica.

   The basilica was the larges
t building in the village. It puzzled me why Asbad’s men had not requisitioned it instead of one of the miserable little cottages. Though small, it was a pretty place made of pink stone, with a flat roof and a short flight of steps leading to an arched doorway.

   “They tried to take refuge in there,” said
Asbad, grinning at me, “the women and children, I mean. And the priest.”

   I stared at him, and again at the mangled corpses. They were all men. Most had died fighting, or trying to, their fists still curled around rakes and pitchforks and other makeshift weapons.

   The walls of the basilica were streaked with soot, spilling out from the narrow windows. Some dreadful urge made me dismount and walk slowly towards the steps.

   “Only one door, see?” said
Asbad, “they barred it from the inside. Stupid. No escape route. Every good soldier knows you always leave a means of escape.”

  
I mounted the steps. The nailed and timbered door had been smashed in, and its edges were burned black. I stretched out my right hand and gave it a gentle push.

  
The people inside had been dead for several days. Little remained of them, save a few blackened cinders and bits of bone and hair. The flagstones of the long nave were tainted with grease, and the still air carried a vague hint of roasting meat.