Siege of Rome (9 page)

   They soon got it. The three men on the
dais lost the last shreds of their dignity as their clothes were cut away, and their ankles bound as well as their wrists. Helpless, the first of them was pulled over to the winch, and one end of the rope tied about his neck.

  
My mind refused to believe what I was about to witness. The cruelties and debaucheries of the imperial court in Constantinople were nothing compared to this. Even Theodora would baulk at it.

  
As a final indignity, and an aid to the obscenity about to follow, the suffering man’s fundament was slit open with a knife, and some kind of paste slapped onto the wound. As he screamed and wept for mercy, for Jesus, for his mother, six strong men seized hold of the other end of the rope and hauled him into the air.

   They might have held him there, suspended by his neck, until he was strangled, but
that was not the aim. The cross-bar of the winch overhung all three of the iron stakes, and he was lowered down onto the first.

  
I screwed my eyes shut and held onto the bars for support as his scream split the night sky. The agony that poor wretch suffered was unimaginable, and yet it would soon be my turn.

   It has been many years since I gave up earthly vanities. God and Abbot Gildas have no use for them, and so I have no hesitation in recording that I wept. Wept like a frightened child,
in stark terror for the unspeakable death that I was doomed to suffer. What mirthless, random Fate had brought me to this pass, after so many vicissitudes of fortune? Could I, the last prince of the old royal blood of Coel Hen, really be destined to die such a vile and humiliating death, thousands of miles from my homeland?

  
The man impaled on the stake screamed and screamed, even as those devils laughed and capered in delight at his sufferings. I could not bear to watch or hear, and retreated to the furthest wall of the prison, clapping my hands over my ears.

  
I feared my sanity might crack under the strain. The screams redoubled as another of the poor wretches was hoisted to his doom, though at least their cries of torment were partially drowned by the excited shrieks and laughter of the crowd.

  
A shadow fell over me. I looked up and saw the silhouette of the round-shouldered chieftain. He was leaning against the bars of the prison door, regarding me with narrowed eyes. Two larger men stood behind him, holding torches.

   “This one is next,” he said, “
open the door.”

   His words were death. I stood up, looking around in vain for some kind of weapon, anything, while the jailer fumbled with his keys. The floor was worn smooth and bare of anything save straw.

   The door creaked open, whining on its rusted hinges. I dropped into a crouch. At the very least, I could spring on the chieftain and snap his neck with my bare hands – a trick the Heruli taught me – before his men dragged me off him.

  
I was about to leap, but hesitated as he produced Caledfwlch. “See, Roman,” he taunted, holding it up before me, “I thought you might like to look upon your precious sword once more.”

   “Here,” he added, and suddenly his voice sounded quite different, “take a closer look.”

   To my astonishment, he tossed Caledwlch at my feet. Then he straightened from his stooped, round-shouldered stance, tore away the scarf and wisp of false beard from his face, and there stood no sneering African chieftain at all, but Procopius.

  
“Close your mouth, Coel,” he snapped, “and pick up the sword. We have no time to waste on explanations.”

   I bit back my
questions and snatched up Caledfwlch. Belisarius claimed he felt nothing when he handled the blade, but then he had no hereditary right to it. I felt renewed as soon as my hand closed around the hilt.

  
Procopius’ guards stepped into the cell. They shrugged back their hoods, and I could have laughed with delight as I recognized the brutish faces of the Huns who had guarded me during the voyage to Sicily. One of them grinned and ducked his oversized head at me, while his comrade seized the terrified jailer and twisted his neck, like a farmer strangling a goose.

   “We have horses waiting, just outside,” said Procopius, “step quickly, before those clods outside realise what is afoot.”

   He moved briskly to the door, beckoning at me to follow. I feared we would be spotted, but all the attention of the crowd was fixed on the two men writhing on the stakes. I averted my eyes from the grisly spectacle as we hurried down the street, but then I remembered the third man on the dais, waiting his turn for execution.

   “
We have to get him out,” I hissed, seizing Procopius’ arm and jabbing my sword at the dais, “he is a Roman, like us. We can’t leave him to be butchered by these savages.”

  
“Don’t be an idiot,” replied Procopius, brushing me off, but the Huns grunted in agreement. The secretary was not a soldier, and failed to understand that one didn’t simply leave a comrade to his fate.

   Understanding soon dawned, though, when he looked at our faces. “
For God’s sake,” he muttered, and threw up his hands, “very well. But don’t expect any peace in the afterlife if all goes awry.”

  
There were four horses tethered to a rail outside a wine-shop at the end of the street. Mine was a pure white desert pony, a high-spirited beast, and must have cost Procopius a fair amount of silver. I climbed aboard her, feeling like a soldier again instead of the sniveling, broken wreck I had been just moments before.

  
Now some of the more alert souls in the square had noticed that one of the cells was empty, and the inmate flown. A few rushed down the street, yelling indignantly and waving torches.

   They
froze at the sight of us. I heeled my pony into life and urged her towards them, snarling in anticipation of drawing blood. I wanted to pay these barbarians back for the fright they had given me.

   Procopius and the Huns galloped close behind me. The citizens scattered out of our path and vanished down a side-alley. Then we were into the square. Scores of pale faces turned to greet us
. I bellowed a war-cry, ducked low over my pony’s neck and thrust Caledfwlch at the nearest body.

   The blade ripped through muscle and flesh with satisfying ease
, drenching my sword-hand in blood up to the wrist. My victim jerked as I tore Caledfwlch free, and dropped to the ground like a doll with its strings cut.

   Most of the citizens had panicked and were fleeing in all directions. The bravest – or drunkest – showed some fight, and one swung a hatchet at my pony’s head. I drew back savagely on the reins, snapping her head back, and
one of the Huns flung a spear through the man’s body.

   Now the dais rose before me.
Constantine stood on the edge, stripped naked and looking almost comical as he shuffled feverishly from side to side, trying to loosen the bonds on his ankles.

   His bulging eyes were fixed on me.
I couldn’t shout at him to jump – his weight would have flattened my pony – so I slid from the saddle and ran up the steps to the platform.

   I averted my eyes from the poor wretches
impaled on the stakes, and ran to my comrade. He trembled as I sawed at the bindings on his wrists and ankles.

   “Hurry, brother,” he cried, “before the barbarians find their courage.”

   I glanced down at the square. One of the Huns had seized hold of my pony’s bridle, to prevent her bolting, while his comrade was single-handedly holding back the mob.

   He wielded
two curved swords, both red with blood, and clashed them both against his armoured chest, screaming like a madman and glaring at the citizens, daring them to fight him. They cowered and declined the challenge, as any sane man would. The Huns are the fiercest warriors alive, matched only by the Sarmatians, and I often had cause to thank God they were on my side.

  
Procopius gestured impatiently at me. “Move!” he shouted. He had a long dagger in his hand, though I always found it difficult to imagine him wielding anything more deadly than a stylus.

  The bonds parted, and Constantine gasped as the blood flowed back into his numbed limbs. There was a spear lying against the base of the winch, abandoned by the cowardly executioners when they fled. He grabbed it and performed an act of mercy, stabbing it through the hearts of the men dying by inches on the stakes.

  
I seized his arm and led him down the steps. “Here,” cried Procopius, “my horse is big enough to carry two.”

  
He helped Constantine to mount, while I returned to my own horse, nodding in thanks to the Hun who held his bridle.

   Seeing us on the verge of escape, the mob surged forward. The Hun who stood in their way snarled and made his h
orse rear onto her haunches. Her flailing hoofs made them hesitate, but then a youth ran forward and thrust his torch at the horse’s face. She screamed and twisted away from the flame, spilling her rider and crashing onto her flank.

   The Hun was a big man, but lithe as an acrobat, and rolled to h
is feet with extraordinary grace. Three men attacked him at once, baying like dogs. His swords moved in a blur, and one of the men toppled to the ground, blood pumping from the stump of his neck. His neatly severed head bounced and rolled away. The Hun disemboweled the second man, slashed the throat of the third, and was then overwhelmed by a sea of enraged bodies.

  
“Come away,” said Procopius, “he cannot be saved.”

   The remaining Hun
was of a different opinion. Instead of obeying his master, he spurred his horse into the howling mob as they hacked and stabbed at his comrade. 

   My courage was exhausted, and I had no intention of joining the Huns in death. I caught one last glimpse of them standing back-to-back, singing their death-songs as they
fought with desperate fury.

  
I raised Caledfwlch in salute to their heroism, and wheeled my pony to follow Procopius out of the city.

8.

No pursuit followed us during the fifty-mile dash from Membresa to
Carthage. Either the people of the city lacked horsemen, or their spirit had been knocked out of them by the bloody last stand of the Huns.

   This was fortunate, for
Procopius’ horse could not carry two men at the gallop over a long distance. For most of the way we rode at an easy canter. To me our progress was nightmarishly slow, and I cast anxious glances over my shoulder, expecting to see the dark shapes of riders on the horizon.

  
We rode through the night, and the morning sun was already high in the sky by the time we arrived within sight of Carthage. I was drooping with fatigue, and could scarcely keep my eyes open to take in the blessed sight of the city’s ancient walls.

  
Constantine was in an even more pitiful state. Snatched from the jaws of a hideous death, obliged to ride naked over fifty miles of rough ground, he was overcome as we rode through the city gates, and slid quietly from the saddle.

   The guards on the gate recognized
him, and helped us to scrape the fallen man off the cobbles and carefully lift him onto a stretcher fetched from the guardroom. Their captain was full of tender concern for a fellow soldier, and went puce when I told him what had passed at Membresa.

   “Those filthy, dung-ball savages,” he exclaimed, shaking his fist in the vague direction of the city, “if I was Belisarius, I would lead the garrison out in force again and crucify every living thing in Membresa, down to the last babe in arms.
”

   “Is the general still in
Carthage?” asked Procopius.

   “No. He sailed yesterday for
Sicily. Word reached here of some mutiny in the garrison at Syracuse. He left Hildiger and Theodore in charge until Solomon returns.”

   Hildiger and Theodore were two of
Belisarius’ subordinates. The general must have withdrawn immediately to Carthage after his victory at Membresa, which meant the rebellion in North Africa was not quite extinguished.

  
“It seems Belisarius is doomed to spend his days rushing from one crisis to another, stamping out fires wherever they spring up,” said Procopius as our comrade was carried to the palace, “I had hoped to find him here.”

   I was so tired I could barely stand, but full of questions. He forestalled them by placing a finger to my lips.

   “Peace,” he said with a rare gleam of kindness, “you look ready to collapse, and I prefer not to trouble the captain for another stretcher. Go to the barracks and sleep. I will tell you all on the voyage back to Sicily.”

  
There was no question of returning to Sicily. We were both sworn to serve Belisarius, and Rome, and had no further purpose in Africa. I was only too glad to leave that benighted continent behind me for the second time.

  
After I had slept a full day, washed, eaten and felt something like a man again, I was summoned by Procopius to his private quarters on the upper floors of the palace. Naturally, his quarters were of the best, and had a balcony overlooking the harbour and the Gulf of Tunis. A slave admitted me, and I found Procopius drinking wine in the company of Constantine.