Flame of the West (6 page)

   “Sir,” I saluted again and withdrew, grateful t
o be spared anything more than a tongue-lashing. Bessas was a fearsome disciplinarian, and made no distinction between officers and men when doling out field punishments.

  
Our army was sallying out in force, leaving scarcely a man behind to defend the city. Belisarius, who was already outside at the head of the vanguard, meant to pursue the Goths and catch them before they could withdraw across the Milvian Bridge.

   Lucius returned with comme
ndable speed, mounted and leading my horse. My men cantered behind him. They were a motley, undisciplined crew, though full of youthful zeal, and I was hard-put to restrain them from pushing ahead of the infantry.

  
We finally emerged from the gate as part of the rearguard, and I looked for the detachment of Hunnish cavalry on the left wing. 

   There was no left wing.
Belisarius had decided to seize the initiative and order a general advance instead of waiting for his army to lumber into position. With every passing moment, more Goths were escaping across the bridge onto the Tuscan side of the river.

  
Trumpets squalled across the plain, and a massed roar burst from the leading squadrons of cavalry as they surged into a gallop.

  
I saw Belisarius’ banner to the fore, rippling at the head of his Veterans. As Lucius had said, the sky was on fire, the reddish pink of dawn obscured by twisting pillars of smoke and leaping tongues of orange flame. The Goths had set light to their camp – tents, stockades, wagons, towers and all, hoping that the conflagration would shield their retreat.

   Belisarius cared nothing for fire.
His cavalry raced in pursuit, leaping the deserted entrenchments and charging through the wall of smoke. They disappeared from view, though the sound of fighting and killing could be heard beyond.

   “Charge!” I shouted, d
rawing Caledfwlch. Lucius sounded the order, and we galloped forward in the wake of the forward squadrons, determined to be in at the death.

  
The siege had been long and bloody, with no quarter given on either side. Hatred of the Goths spurred on my men, especially the natives, raised on tales of their ancestors and the lost glory of the Western Empire. Here was a chance to throw off the shameful yoke of their barbarian conquerors and reclaim their city.

  
We careered around a line of burning wagons, and burst through the veil of smoke into a scene of bloodshed. Thousands of Gothic auxiliaries were stampeding towards the bridge, but the foremost of our cavalry had caught them in the open.

   The Goths
were trying to turn, to form line of battle against our heavy lancers and horse-archers, but everywhere their discipline was failing. I saw Gothic officers, brave men, dismount and rally around their standards, resolved to die fighting rather than show their backs to the enemy.

  
Some managed to collect enough men to form a semblance of a shield-wall. Our horse-archers rode around them in circles, shooting the hapless Goths down from afar, swiftly eroding their ragged lines until nothing remained but a few wounded survivors and great piles of arrow-riddled corpses.

  
Belisarius allowed them no respite. His Veterans had ploughed into the rear of a detachment of spearmen, spearing and trampling half their number and sending the rest fleeing in bloody rout.

   My men were eager to join the hunt, but I was careful to restrain them. They were light cavalry, armed with shields and spears, and would come to grief if I threw them against the Gothic shields.
I had enough experience of war to know that light cavalry are best used as skirmishers on the battlefield, harrying the enemy flanks and hunting down fugitives.

   I looked around, and spied a unit of Gothic javelin-men breaking away from the fighting and fleeing along the bank of the
Tiber. Some followed the course of the river, others threw away their helms and shields and plunged into the water, hoping to swim across to the opposite bank.

  
“Ride them down!” I shouted, straining my voice to be heard above the din, “drown them in the river! Kill them!”

   I steered my horse to the south, skirting the edges of the battle, followed by Lucius and my standard bearer. A good number of my command followed, though others peeled away to loot the dead and dying.

   The Goths tried to run, but my men spread out to herd them down the steep slope towards the river. There, in the shallows, we butchered them at will. Some few offered desperate resistance, others begged for life, falling on their knees in the water and screaming like frightened children.

   “No mercy!” I bawled, my sword-arm red to the elbow with barbarian blood, “slay them all!”

   I am not a cruel man, but this was war. The Goths still held a massive advantage in numbers, and it was imperative we killed as many as possible. Even now, with half his army in full flight, Vitiges might rally the remainder and overwhelm us.

  
From the river, I had an unrivalled view of what happened next. Vitiges could be forgiven for thinking he had suffered enough disasters, but God was not on his side.

  
The King had escaped to the Tuscan side of the river, and there tried to regroup his battered host and launch a counter-attack. His best troops rallied around the royal banner, and stormed back across the Milvian Bridge to aid their comrades being cut to pieces on the other side.

  
At the same time the wavering Gothic infantry broke under our relentless assaults. Abandoning their standards, they flooded towards the narrow stone bridge. Our triumphant cavalry rode among them, hacking and stabbing, carpeting the ground with bodies. 

   Before the siege began, Belisarius had constructed a gigantic wooden tower at the eastern end of the river, to guard against the enemy attempting a crossing. The Goths had seized the tower
and held it ever since, but now panic seized the garrison. They quit their posts, running down the steps outside the tower or leaping from the parapet into the fast-flowing waters of the Tiber.

  
Many drowned, or were shot down as they tried to swim to safety. Soon the river was full of floating corpses, gently swirling in circles as they were washed downstream.

   I watched, my nostrils filled with the heady stench of blood and death, as the runaways from one side of the river collided with reinforcements from the other. The bridge was too narrow to bear them al
l, and hundreds of Goths were pitched howling into the Tiber.

  
Weighed down by their armour, many swiftly sank from view. Others tried to struggle out of their heavy mail hauberks before they were dragged under. I almost pitied the wretches as they floundered helplessly in the water. Some of our men dismounted and enjoyed great sport on the riverbank, shooting arrows and casting spears, until the Tiber was choked with human wreckage. 

   The Goths on the Tuscan side of the river were powerless to help their comrades
. I saw the royal standard start to move away from the field, and briefly glimpsed Vitiges himself under it, a stocky, compact figure mounted on a chestnut mare. His guards closed up around him as he left the field.

  
“Roma Victor!”

   The ancient war-cry echoed and re-echoed across the field. The Goths were beaten, and the victory
of Belisarius was complete.

7.

I expected Belisarius to unleash his cavalry and send us in pursuit of the retreating Goths. Instead, ever cautious, he despatched a mere thousand horse under a captain named Hildiger, with orders to shadow the Goths and obtain reinforcements from our garrison stationed at the seaport of Ancona.

  
Belisarius was right to be careful. A wounded beast is dangerous. The Goths still outnumbered us, even after losing half their army at the Milvian Bridge.

  
Vitiges fled north, to his capital at Ravenna, and covered his retreat by leaving men to guard certain towns and fortresses. Four thousand at Auximum, two thousand at Urbino, and another three thousand scattered among smaller places.

   Belisarius despatched me with Hildiger to track the Goths. Hildiger was a
capable and experienced officer of mixed Germanic ancestry, and I was to act as his second-in-command.   

   “Another promotion,” said Procopius, who was present in the general’s pavilion
, “though an unofficial one.
Pro tem
, as it were. Continue to do well, and you might find yourself in charge of an army.”

   “In which case, God help the Empire,” I replied. Procopius snorted with laughter, but Belisarius was  not amused.

   “I have no time for false modesty,” he said sharply, “we have a war to win. I need officers who are not only loyal and obedient, but confident in their own abilities. Am I right to place my faith in you, Coel?”

   “Yes, sir,” I replied stiffly. What else could I say? Privately, I suspected him of favouring me for political rather than military reasons,
and had not forgotten his words during our last meeting.

  
Your homeland may yet be saved.

  
I thought it cruel of him to encourage my dreams, and to make vague promises he had no means of fulfilling. Belisarius had always been honest and generous in my dealings with him. This was out of character. For the moment, all I could do was accept the promotions he foisted on me, and follow his orders.

   “
From Ancona, you will march with all speed to Rimini,” he said, tracing the route with his index finger along a map of central Italy, “avoid the Goths at all costs. Under no circumstances are you to engage them, is that clear?”

   “Yes, sir,” said Hidilger, “when we reach
Rimini, what then?”

  
Rimini was the city on the shores of the Adriatic, just a day’s march south from Ravenna. John the Sanguinary had taken the place after a brief siege, and now held it with his two thousand cavalry.

   “
Order John to depart,” Belisarius went on, “and use his cavalry to harry the flanks of the Gothic army as they advance towards Ravenna. The soldiers from Ancona will garrison the place. Once this is done, you will return to Rome.”
   “Coel,” he added, looking up at me, “I want you to stay at Rimini, as captain of the garrison. The Goths will do their utmost to retake it. Hold it for me, until I march to your relief.”

  
I tried not to display any sign of nerves. “Yes, sir.”

  
“The general favours you,” remarked Hidilger afterwards, as we sat our horses on the Tuscan side of the Tiber and watched our men file across the Milvian Bridge.

  
It was the morning after the battle, and the river was still choked with bodies. The air was rank with the putrid stench of death and the buzzing of millions of flies.

   Hidilger prodded me in the chest. He was a typically thickset German officer, big and blonde and heavy-jawed, and brooked no nonsense.

   “If Belisarius rates a man’s ability, then I respect his judgment,” he grunted, “but get no ideas above your station, you hear? You are my subaltern. Contradict me in front of the men, question my decisions and orders, and I’ll take you apart with my fists. Got that?”

  
“Of course, sir,” I replied.

  
In truth, I knew how to handle men like Hildiger. I had served under Mundus, an even bigger and more intimidating German and a far greater soldier, and done well enough.

  
We advanced north as Belisarius instructed, following the Flaminian road, and avoided the Goths by swinging east to force a passage through the mountains.

  
These were guarded by the fortress of Petra Pertusa, but we gave its walls a wide berth and made our way through narrow, rocky defiles, guided by maps and a native shepherd Hildiger had bribed with a handful of silver.

  
Vitiges was either blind to our presence, or too much in a hurry to reach the safety of Ravenna to care overmuch. A mere thousand horse presented little threat to his army, and he made no attempt to prevent us reaching the sea-port of Ancona.

   My relief at laying eyes on the city was tempered by the sight of the military camp spread out on the landward side of its walls.
At first I thought another Gothic army had landed in Italy, and was seized by despair, but then I saw the Roman banners fluttering among the neat lines of tents.

   “
More reinforcements from Constantinople,” said Hildiger, “they must be. Strange. Belisarius made no mention of their arrival.”

   Mystified, he ordered me to ride down to the camp and seek an audience with the
ir commander. I obeyed, taking six men for an escort.

  
In fine old Roman style, the camp was surrounded by a ditch and a stockade. I was hailed by the sentinels on the gate. They were Heruls, and I merely had to display the faded tattoos on my right arm to gain their approval.