“Dear heart, they may crown a monkey if they wish,” retorted Justinian, “at least we now know their intentions. Narses, are your agents in place?”
“They are, Caesar,” said the eunuch, “I should receive their reports by this evening.”
“Then we shall retire to our quarters and wait on events. Come, Theodora.”
The royal couple departed hand-in-hand, and the remaining senators bowed as they passed. Before she left, Theodora twisted her head around and shot me a glance full of venom.
Narses and John of Cappadocia pattered away on their own dark designs, leaving me with the three soldiers. Belisarius dismissed Captain Leontius back to his post and turned to me.
“Her Highness called you a Briton,” he said, “is that true?”
I replied that it was, and briefly told him my true name and something of my origins. Belisarius listened and nodded politely, as though what I had to say was fascinating. I knew the quality of the man. He had already won a brilliant reputation for his recent campaigns against the Sassanids, but there was nothing forbidding or lofty about him. He possessed the great gift of putting people at their ease.
Mention of my grandfather made him frown. “Arthur,” he mused, snapping his fingers, “I have heard that name before.”
“My father’s people heard stories about him from the Franks,” grunted Mundus in his guttural Germanic tones, “exaggerated tales of a great British warrior capable of slaying hundreds of men single-handed, and who fought demonic pigs and giants. This man might as well claim to be descended from Mars.”
The implication that I was a liar made me forget myself. “Arthur was flesh and blood,” I said indignantly, “he revived the old imperial title of Dux Bellorum, and for over twenty years defended the province that you Romans had so spinelessly abandoned! Yes, the stories of him are exaggerated, as they are of any great hero. Do either of you really believe that Romulus and Remus were suckled by a wolf?”
“As it happens, I doubt the twins ever existed,” Belisarius said mildly. He was not in the least put out by my outburst, though Mundus was glaring at me through narrowed eyes.
I subsided, breathing hard, aware that I had overstepped the mark.
“Tacitus said the Britons were fiery,” he added, looking me up and down with amusement dancing in his deep-set eyes, “they gave our legions no end of trouble.”
“This one lacks discipline,” grunted Mundus, “I would have the hide off any of my men who spoke his mind like that.”
Belisarius didn’t seem to hear him. “You said you came from the Hippodrome. Do you work there?”
“I was, lord,” I replied, remembering to address him by a title, “I was once a charioteer for the Blues, and in recent years have worked as a trainer.”
“Why did you choose to inform on your colleagues?”
All the mildness in Belisarius’s voice had gone. He was snapping out the questions, military-style, and I felt compelled to answer quickly.
“Because I am not a traitor to the state, lord.”
“How did a man of your noble birth fall to toiling alongside commoners in the Hippodrome?”
“By degrees, lord, and through necessity. Noble blood is no guarantee of a meal and a roof over one’s head.”
“What will you do now, since you have betrayed your former employers?”
“Leave the city, lord, and go in search of an heirloom that was once in my possession.”
Belisarius stroked his moustache for a moment, considering. “No,” he said, “I think your departure must be delayed awhile. Mundus, find an empty barracks-hut for this man and keep him there. Have him guarded by a couple of your Huns. I wouldn’t trust the palace guard to defend their own mothers.”
Mundus looked surprised, but gave a shrug of his heavy shoulders. “As you wish, general,” he rumbled, and took me away.
Chapter 12
I was held in a barracks-hut for two days, while the world outside continued to descend into chaos. The Hunnish mercenaries appointed to guard me were brawny, bow-legged savages from somewhere east of the Volga River. Expert horsemen, they wore stinking skins over their lamellar armour, and carried swords and axes. They spoke no Greek, and I had to glean news from the serving-man who brought me my meals.
“The Emperor tried to bargain with the rebels,” he informed me on the evening of the first day, “he agreed to dismiss some of his more hated ministers, and went out to the Hippodrome to swear an oath, with the Gospels in his hand, that he would rule more wisely in future.”
“Did it work?” I asked through a mouthful of the coarse bread he had brought me. The servant shook his head.
“No,” he said sadly, “the treacherous vermin jeered and threw stones, and Caesar’s guards had to rush him back to the palace.”
This was disquieting, but worse was soon to follow. The next morning he returned with breakfast and news that Hypatius had been declared Emperor.
“The rebels seized him and his brothers,” the servant explained, “and dragged them from their houses to the Forum of Constantine. Senator Hypatius begged them not to make a traitor of him, but they ignored his entreaties, and the tears of his wife, and crowned him with a collar of gold. His name now echoes through the streets.”
“What of Justinian?”
He shrugged. “Caesar has summoned a council, though few remain to attend it. Most of the senators have fled to the western bank of the Bosphorus, along with their families and servants. The palace is like a tomb. There is talk that the Emperor plans to abandon the city by boat, and flee to Nicomedia or some other safe refuge.”
He sat on the narrow camp bed opposite mine and watched me eat. I had little stomach for the food, but forced it down anyway, thinking I would soon need all the strength I could muster.
“Oh, and the palace guard have thrown in their lot with the rebels,” added this bearer of happy tidings, “some of them, anyway. The others are wavering between the two camps. General Belisarius ordered them to open the Chalke Gate and join him in a sortie, but they refused. If the rebels tried to storm the palace now, there wouldn’t be many to stop them.”
We sat in gloomy silence for a while longer, while I swallowed the last of my meal and listened to the distant sound of rioting in the city.
“If the capital falls,” I said, “then the Roman state is doomed. The provinces will have to govern themselves, and the Empire will split into dozens of little factions. There will be rival Emperors, and endless civil wars until the Sassanids or some other enemy swallow us up.”
My gloomy forebodings were interrupted by Mundus. The big German lumbered into the hut, an imposing figure in scale armour, greaves, gauntlets and a plumed ridge-helmet with cheek-guards. A small round shield was strapped to his left arm, and in his right hand he carried a fearsome battle-axe.
“You,” he barked, pointing his axe at me, “child of Albion, who claims to be so loyal to Caesar. Are you ready to prove that loyalty?”
I brushed the crumbs from my tunic and stood up. “I am, lord,” I replied.
“Good. Follow me. What about you, little man?”
“Oh, no,” the servant replied, holding up his hands, “my job is to serve men, not to fight them. But my prayers shall go with you both.”
I ran after Mundus and his Huns as they tramped across the parade ground. It was raining, and a strong wind whipped at their heavy furs. The barracks were virtually deserted, save for a few slovenly palace guards in half-armour.
“Hail Caesar!” one of them shouted as we passed.
“Ah, but which one?” riposted one of his fellows. He and the others fell about laughing.
Mundus didn’t even break step. “Drunken bastards,” I heard him growl. The Excubitors were indeed drunk. They had ransacked the palace cellars, and empty jugs and amphoras were carelessly littered about.