Siege of Rome (19 page)

   A lesser man might have lost his head completely. Belisarius wheeled around, his face ashen, and addressed his officers.

  
“You, sirs! Why are you standing there like a pack of lost sheep? Bessas, your cohort will form the left flank. Constantine, the right. I will lead my guards in the centre. Move!”

  
He was going to attack. It seemed insane, but what else could we do, save wait to be slaughtered?

   I barely had time to think. Bessas roared us into line, forming up
in a single column on the left, while Belisarius arranged his guards. My horse neighed and tossed her head, and I soothed her with a trembling hand, gulping and breathing fast as I observed the approach of the Goths.

  
Some two to three thousand had crossed by now, and were thundering towards us in a wild, all-out charge. Their red and black banners streamed in the wind, while the sound of their deep-throated war-yells rolled like thunder across the plain.

   To oppose that rapidly advancing horror
was to embrace death. Another few seconds, and I might have shied away, my courage stretched and snapped beyond endurance, but the sound of the trumpets called me to my duty.

   “Charge, charge, charge!” howled Bessas, kic
king his own bay into life. His cohort surged after him, straight at the solid wall of iron and horseflesh flowing towards us.

  
Then I heard it, another cry leaping from thousands of Gothic throats and rippling around the field like a forest fire:
  
That is Belisarius! Kill the bay! Kill the bay!

  
Our general’s fame had worked against him. His golden armour and white-faced bay were famous across the known world, and he made no attempt to hide himself, galloping at the head of his guards, his lance aimed at the heart of the Gothic line.

   Then we were among them.
I found myself guarding against two Goths at once, taking their blows on my shield. The half-healed cut on my right shoulder burst. Warm blood flowed down my arm as I struggled to hold my beaten and dented shield upright.

   One of the Goths was young, with just a frizz of blonde hair on his chin and upper lip, and too eager. I leaned back in the saddle, his spatha slashed inches past m
y face, and darted forward to stab at his throat. Caledfwlch’s blade slid easily in and out of his flesh, and he jerked and tumbled away, blood gushing down his breastplate.

   The second Go
th tried to beat me down with sheer strength. He almost succeeded. Chips flew from the ragged edges of my shield as his sword scraped and banged against it. I let him blow himself out, and then gave him the point, missing his eye but smashing in several of his teeth.

   “Guard the general! Guard the general!”

   Bessas’ voice, rising above the clash of weapons and the wild howls of the Goths. A gap appeared to my right among the waves of horsemen. I briefly glimpsed Belisarius, locked in a duel with an enormous Gothic chieftain over twice his size.

   The combat seemed unequal, but
Belisarius’ sword was the quicker, and whipped out the chieftain’s throat. His opponent had no sooner fallen than his Guards clustered around him, raising and interlocking their shields to form an impenetrable wall around their master.

   Bessas had led his
troop to join the wall, and was bawling at the rest of his command to fall in line. Belisarius had to be protected. If he fell, our cause was lost.

   I shouted at my men to obey
. We attached ourselves to the left flank, and more men flowed in behind us, until a ring of wood and metal was presented to the Goths. I gritted my teeth, gasping at the pain of my re-opened wound and the impact of spears and javelins thudding against my tattered shield.

  
After a time the Goths gave back, and it was safe to lower my shield and take stock. They were retreating towards the river, leaving a great number of dead and wounded scattered across the plain.

  
Constantine had charged to the rescue, hitting them in flank and rolling them up while they tried to break our line. I saw Belisarius, untouched despite the best efforts of the enemy, raise his sword and order another charge.

   “Drive them to the river!” he shouted, “drown these beasts in the
Tiber, and give their souls to Hades!”

   I was sweating, bleeding, panic-struck, my heart threatening to burst out of my chest. Another charge into this inexhaustible horde of devils was beyond me, but we did it, spurring forward and pursuing the fugitives, coming up with them even as they tried to re-form on the banks of the river.

   I washed Caledfwlch in Gothic blood, until I was red to the shoulders and could barely see for a film of sweat and dirt and gore. We butchered them like pigs, but still more stormed across the Milvian Bridge, including a squadron of spearmen on foot, many thousands strong.

   A good part of our command was scattered or slain, and we had no hope of resisting the
Gothic infantry. Their ring-mail shined like mirrors in the cold winter sun, and the sight of their long-axes sent a shudder through me, awakening bad memories of the desperate fight for the walls at Naples.

   Belisarius signaled the retreat, but the Flaminian Gate was still closed against us. In desperation, he led us onto a rising patch of ground, about midway between the river and the city. There he arranged us into a sort of human fortress, with half our remaining soldiers dismounted and forming a hollow circle of shields, while the remainder waited inside, resting their horses and preparing to sally forth when Belisarius gave the order.   

   A third of my men were dead, and the survivors every bit as bloody and exhausted as their chief. I stood, leaning on a borrowed spear for support, blinking away blood and sweat from my eyes as fresh waves of Goths charged towards our miserably slender battle-line.

   Kill Belisarius! Kill Belisarius!

  
“What about the rest of us, you bastards!” I shouted back, a moment of grim humour in the face of disaster. I am still rather proud of it, considering death was about to stretch out his bony hand and snuff out my candle.

   It was then I witnessed the noblest and most heroic act of the war. A young officer named Valentinian – I learned later that he was a great friend of Photius – suddenly broke out of our line and galloped straight at the advancing spears.

   His mare foundered, unwilling to hurl herself on the points, but he vaulted from the saddle and vanished among the throng. The disciplined, stately Gothic advance stumbled to a halt as men in the forward ranks turned to strike at Valentinian, who had leaped to his feet. He struck left and right with his sword, mowing down Goths like ripe corn, careless of the forest of spears that stabbed and thrust at him.

   At last, slathered in blood, Valentinian fell, and was run through as he lay squirming on the ground. His sacrifice had a great effect on the Goths, who ignored the shouts of their captains and failed to resume their advance.

   Perhaps they eyed us nervously, thinking that we were all like Valentinian, ready to fight to our last breath in defence of Rome. Thank God they could not see into my heart. I was spent, all used up, shaking with terror and fatigue, ready to lie down and welcome eternity. Another Gothic assault would have rolled over my head.

  
Belisarius acted before the spell cast by Valentinian’s sacrifice broke. “Withdraw,” I heard him say. His trumpeter sounded the weary note, and we began our retreat back to the city. The men on foot resumed their horses from the cavalry in the middle, and formed a rearguard as we retreated in good order.

   The Goths stood and watched u
s go, like thousands of statues arranged in long lines. A strange hush fell over the field.

   Our toils were not done, not yet. Twilight was sweeping in from the west, rendering everything dim and uncertain. As we passed beyond the ditch that lay outside the walls, a groan rippled down our line. The gates were still shut.

   Drums started to beat behind us. The sound of doom. How long before the Goths recovered their courage?

   “Soldiers,” said Belisarius, addressing the sentinels on the Flaminian Gate, “
for the love of God, open the gates. Do so, or bear my curse.”

   His voice sounded hollow and exhausted. Despite fighting in the front line for so many hours, he had not taken a single wound, but his golden armour was torn and dented, and liberally coated in blood. His helmet was gone, mangled in the fighting, and the light of the dying sun reflected from a sheen of perspiration on his balding scalp.

   “We dare not, sir,” replied one of the men on the gate, “if we open the gates, the Goths might force entry to the city.”

   Miserable coward!
Black rage welled up inside me. I would have started forward and hurled obscenities at him, had others not already done so.

   “Open those damned gates!” hollered Bessas, his bulky frame shaking with anger, “or I’ll have the lot of you flayed alive and fed to the dogs!

   Still the sentries prevaricated, and the sound I had dreaded reached my ears: the deep, drawn-out drone of a bull-horn. The Goths were advancing again.

  
“Constantine,” Belisarius snapped, but the young officer had anticipated his orders and was already shouting at the battered remains of his squadron to form up.

   Where they found the strength, God knows, but
Constantine led them in one of his wild, fearless charges at the Gothic lancers advancing at a trot towards the city. Surprised, for they thought us spent, they were routed after a brief and vicious melee, and scattered back towards their own lines.

  
Constantine’s men suffered severe losses, but this last success was enough to embolden the sentries on the rampart. Shame-faced, they at last opened the gates to admit us.

   Weary and dispirited, weighed down by exhaustion and grieving at our losses, we led our
plodding horses back into Rome. Night was falling, but there was no rest for Belisarius. Almost as soon as the gates were closed again, he ordered fires to be lit on the walls, to keep a watch through the night in case the Goths tried a sudden assault.

  
We had escaped, and preserved the life of our general, but there was no sense of victory. The Milvian Bridge had fallen, and now there was nothing to stop the Goths from crossing the Tiber and surrounding the city.

  
Our army was trapped, like rats in a cage.

15.

W
e scarcely had time to draw breath before a panicky rumour blew up that the Goths had broken into the city, overcoming our guards manning the gate of Saint Pancratius, on the Tuscan side of the Tiber.

   “You must fly, sir,” cried one of
Belisarius’ Guards, “there are secret ways in and out of Rome. Use them, and save yourself!”

   Belisarius scowled at the man. “I have had my fill of cowards today,” he said quietly, and called for Bessas.

   “Take thirty men and investigate this alarm,” he ordered. I quailed, praying that Bessas would not choose me. Thankfully, I and the remainder of my command were left behind. The rumour proved to be false anyway, spread by some of the more nervous citizens. 

   Once this final alarm had died down, Belisarius wearily took himself off to his quarters on the Capitol Hill, where his wife and her attendants waited to strip off his soiled armour, bathe his exhausted body and anoint his bruises with soft lotions and unguents.

   I had access to no such luxuries, but had to be content with a quick wash in a water-butt, a mouthful of bread and wine, and a dreamless sleep on a hard pallet. I saw to my men first, or the six that remained. Four had spilled their life’s blood on the field beyond the Flaminian Gate, though I did not see them die, and (to my shame) cannot recall their names or faces.

  
Next morning I woke feeling like an old man. My body was a mass of cramps and pains, and my wounded shoulder felt as though a fire had been lit inside my flesh.

   Bessas allow
ed his officers little rest. I managed to swallow some coarse rye bread and a morsel of goat’s cheese before the accursed trumpets were sounding again, summoning us to a briefing.

   He had set up a table in a cobbled square, lined with shops and galleried walkways,
and looked little the worse for wear as his surviving officers gathered around him.

   “
Brisk work yesterday,” he snapped in his businesslike way, “I see some of you were hurt. Get used to it. The Goths have us sewn up.”

   I wondered at that.
Rome was twelve miles in circumference, and even Vitiges’ massive host would struggle to surround the entire city.

  
“They are building six main camps,” he explained, “fortified in the usual way, ditches, stakes and earthen ramparts. As you know, or damn well should do, Rome has fourteen gates. Vitiges appears to be concentrating his infantry to cover seven of them. Five on the southern bank, two on the north. His cavalry is deploying to keep a watch on the remainder, so there is no escape.”