The Eternal Empire (43 page)

My point exactly, thought Cornelius and
was about to say so when Marcellus Comnenus intervened.

"Cornelius Petronius does make a
good point Alexius," he said. "I think that you should get some more
information. The attack is only scheduled for the ninth and I am sure that you
can spare a few aircraft for a reconnaissance mission."

The chief of staff nodded his agreement
and Cornelius sat down satisfied for the present. At least this army commander
appeared to be interested in what he had to say.

8th
August 1920

Constantinople

Gregory Nicerites had always been self
assured and confident, but he felt quite uneasy as he made his way through the
narrow back streets of the capital. The note that he had received from Marcus
Metellus that morning had invited him to a meeting at a tavern deep in the most
unsavoury quarter of the city. It included directions and a time - eight o'clock
that night - but gave no reason for the invitation.

Upon entering the tavern, his unease
turned to severe misgivings. It was dark and smelt of stale wine and beer, and
the clientele were a shifty, unkempt looking bunch. Gregory felt very
conspicuous in his clean and expensive clothes, a feeling enhanced by the
silent stares that he was receiving from the people at the tables nearby. He
had the distinct impression that he was being ‘valued’ in the manner a butcher
appraises livestock.

A huge figure wearing a clean white
apron came towards Gregory.

"You Gregory Nicerites?"
Attila asked.

Gregory nodded slowly, still keeping
his eyes on the men seated at the tables around him.

Attila noticed that Gregory was uneasy
and threw his patrons a snarling look. They turned away and quickly found
something to talk about. He gave Gregory a toothsome grin and showed him into a
small room at the back of the tavern where Marcus and Magnus Lepidus were
waiting. Marcus greeted Gregory and introduced his friend and colleague from
the assembly.

"Thank you for coming," said
Marcus, "I know that it's a bit mysterious but we wanted to talk to you
privately."

"What is this place?" asked
Gregory as they sat down around a plain wooden table containing plates of food,
some glasses and a couple of jugs of wine.

"It's called Attila's place, he's
the big fellow who showed you in," replied Magnus busily pouring wine for
everyone. "Good food, cheap wine and total discretion. Even the peregrini
don't come in here. Not if they want to leave in one piece that is."

They drank each other’s health and
passed a few pleasantries before Marcus got down to the purpose of the meeting.

"The assembly is very concerned
about what is happening. The Empire is at war but we, the elected representatives
of the people are being kept in the dark. All the news is censored and
Exanzenus has refused to allow anybody except his supporters’ access to the
council of war meetings.

Gregory nodded in agreement. Exanzenus
was behaving more and more like a dictator every day. By using the Emperors
power to rule by decree he had effectively neutered the constitutional
processes and could bypass the assembly and senate.

"How do you think that I can help
you?" asked Gregory guardedly.

Marcus and Magnus exchanged a knowing
look. Magnus answered.

"As one of the most senior
officials in the civil bureaucracy you know what is really going on. You
probably know more than the Emperor himself!"

Gregory nodded again. The Emperor was
spending more and more time in his private chambers 'consoling' his mistress on
the death of her husband. He waited to hear what else they had to say. This
time it was Marcus who spoke.

"We would like you to tell us what
is really happening. All we get is lies, platitudes and pompous statements."

Gregory raised his eyebrows at that,
but did not look shocked. "What you are asking me to do could be construed
as treason." Especially by Exanzenus, he thought to himself.

"We're not enemies of the state,
we are the elected representatives of the people of the Empire" repeated
Magnus emphatically, "despite what Exanzenus may think. We have a right to
know!"

"What will you do with the
information that you would get from me?" said Gregory.

"We will make sure that it can't
be traced back to you," said Marcus quickly, anticipating a possible
stumbling block. "We will obtain corroboration from other sources
first."

"Then why use me?" reasoned
Gregory. "If you can get the information elsewhere, why involve me at
all?"

"Because you can give us the whole
picture," explained Magnus, "it could take us days to collate the
different pieces of information that we receive from around the Empire. Even
then we could never be sure how accurate it is."

Marcus took up the argument. "We
need relevant information which can be used to attack Exanzenus in the assembly
and the senate. If we can show him to be incompetent or to be mismanaging the
war, then we may be able to get enough votes to impeach him and detach some of
his supporters."

Gregory helped himself to some of the
sweetmeats on the plate and ate while he thought. He had hardly touched his
wine, unlike Magnus who was refilling his glass for the third time.

"All right," he swallowed his
last mouthful, "I'll provide you with a regular briefing, but just you two.
Nobody else. The fewer people involved the better."

Marcus and Magnus looked pleased, and
quickly agreed to Gregory's condition.

"When shall we have the first
meeting?" Asked Magnus.

"How about now," replied
Gregory. "We are all here  and the military situation is much worse than
portrayed by the official news. The Saxons have crossed the Rhine at several
points and have already breached the Trajan line. The legions in Germania,
weakened by the dispatch of a third of their combat troops to Britannia, are
barely holding their own. All the battleships of the Classis Britannica have
either been sunk or crippled and the Saxon Navy has cut Britannia off from
Gaul."

Gregory paused to take his first
mouthful of wine, which was not as bad as he expected, allowing Marcus and
Magnus, who were taking notes, to catch up.

"On the Danube," Gregory
resumed as he put his glass down, "the Ottomans are making warlike noises
and Constantine Monomachus, the governor of Moesia has arrived in the capital
to see Exanzenus. He has heard that his legions are going to be sent to fight
the Saxons and has demanded that they stay where they are to defend his
province against the Turks."

"Are they sending troops from the
Danube?" interjected Magnus.

"The war council has drawn up
plans to send four of the eight legions based along the Danube to Gaul, two of
which would come from Moesia. There have been demonstrations in Moesia and the
provincial assembly has 'instructed the governor to prevent the transfer of
troops at all costs'.  The memories of Turkish incursions and atrocities are
burnt into the collective memory of people in the border areas. "

"Sounds ominous," Marcus
commented.

Gregory helped himself to a few pieces
of grilled meat and washed it down with some more wine. He was actually
enjoying this. For once he had an audience who wanted to know what was really
going on instead of being told what they wanted to hear.

"Our best troops, the army of Asia
Minor," continued Gregory, "have been ordered to remain on the defensive
in case either the Arabs or the Turks make a move towards Constantinople. The
main fleet has been sent to the eastern Mediterranean for the same reason. In
other words they are not going to send any ships to Britannia to break the
Saxon blockade there."

"The latest piece of news concerns
our ‘punitive’ attack on Palestine from Egypt in response the border skirmish
recently. It will be a few days before anything official will be published.
They'll need that long to get a reasonable story put together for the
papers."

"Why is that?" asked Marcus.

"Because it's an unmitigated
disaster, that's why."

8th
August 1920

Mediterranean
Coast, Palestine, Arabian Caliphate

The initial move across the border into
the Sinai had gone smoothly. The few Arab troops that were along the frontier
had either fled or surrendered at the approach of the imperial force. The army
had then split into four columns of two to three thousand men each and advanced
across the Sinai peninsula towards Gaza. For three days the columns only saw an
occasional Arab scout in the distance. They also came across abandoned
settlements which they systematically destroyed. On the fourth day groups of
horsemen appearing from the dunes or wadi's ambushed the rear of each column.
The attacks had not been pressed home and were easily beaten off but with each
attack the column became more strung out.

At dusk that day, the first major
assault occurred. The rear of the second column was overwhelmed by thousands of
Arabs attacking on horse, camel and foot. By the time that units from the front
of the column had been deployed to drive them off, most of the food, fuel,
water and spare ammunition had been taken or destroyed.

The next day the four columns began to
disintegrate under the constant harassment. General Ducas, who was with the
first column, was urged to combine the columns and to withdraw back to Egypt
along the coastal road where the imperial fleet could support them if
necessary, but he had stubbornly refused, confident that he could deal with any
number of Arab horsemen. The attacks grew more persistent. Contact between the
columns was lost and movement slowed to a snail’s pace.

The fourth and most southerly column
received its first major attack at noon on the fifth day, but because they had
been expecting it they beat it off without difficulty. The column commander had
been killed in the battle and John Bryennius, being the most senior tribune
left, had taken over command. After reorganising the column into a hollow
square formation with the remaining supplies and heavy equipment in the centre,
he ordered his force to head north to try and link up with the other columns.

They found remnants of the third column
an hour before sunset, scattered in small groups in a rocky depression,
fighting for their lives against hordes of Arab warriors closing in for the
kill. Bryennius ordered his remaining cavalry and armoured vehicles to charge
the Arabs. The sudden arrival of imperial troops in their rear forced them to
break off their attack and to scatter.

The two columns united and camped
together on the site of the battle, and the next morning, after hastily burying
the dead, Bryennius, who was still the ranking officer present, ordered the
artillery to be abandoned. The wounded were loaded into the remaining vehicles
and the combined force, now less than two thousand men strong continued their
march to the coast.

The harassment and sniping continued as
they made their way across the hot, dusty barren waste of the Sinai desert but
they were not attacked that day. Late that afternoon when they came across the
burnt out vehicles and decaying bodies of the second column they realised why.

The carnage was spread over a large
area and indicated a complete breakdown in discipline amongst the imperial
troops, many of whom had been cut down from behind as they had tried to flee.
Only in one place had there been any sign of organised resistance, where over
fifty bodies were found clustered around a group of motor carriages.

Bryennius covered his face with a cloth
to reduce the stench and waved the flies away from his face as he picked his
way through the bodies, some of which had been mutilated. A senior centurion,
his second in command called Bryennius over to a group of bodies in the centre.

"It's the legate and the aquilifer
sir," he said, his face pale despite the sun.

"The Eagle," Bryennius said
softly. He saw the anger and the shame reflected in the eyes of the centurion.
Since Philip III had reintroduced the traditional symbol of the legion, no
Eagle had been lost to the enemy. Until now.

Bryennius conducted a burial service
for the legate and for those who had died with him. The troops arranged
according to their cohorts had gathered around the grave. Despite the threat of
attack, he carried out the full service, even down to the singing of a hymn and
the expenditure of some of their remaining ammunition for a salute.

In retrospect the capture of the Eagle
was probably what had saved Bryennius and his men as well as the survivors of
the first column which they had met up with on the coast late the following
day. Flushed with their success and their trophy the Arab warriors had spent
the day celebrating and parading the captured standard through the towns and
villages in southern Palestine. By the time that they had decided to return to
the attack, the Romans were safely on board ships of the Classis Mediterranean
and on their way to Alexandria.