“It means Hard Cleaver, lord. The other names translate as Red Death or Grey Death. You Romans had your own name for the sword.”
“Crocea Mors,” Belisarius said softly, “Yellow Death.”
Narses sighed and kneaded his brow. “As I understand it,” he went on, slowly and deliberately, “you and your mother came to this city, many years ago, and brought this accursed pig-sticker with you. You were then sold into slavery. Your new owner took the sword with him on some mission to Carthage. He never returned.”
I replied that this was so.
Narses and Belisarius looked at each other. “It fits,” said the eunuch, “I wish it did not, but it all fits.”
He turned back to me. “I try to be a rational man. I place little faith in auguries and soothsayers, and even less in long-lost magic swords. I do, however, believe in the power of belief. And symbols. So does the King of the Vandals.”
“You may as well know that Domitius died in Carthage,” said Belisarius, “he caught a fever shortly after his arrival in Africa. No foul play was suspected at the time, but recent events shed new light on his death. Gelimer has united the Vandals behind him, from North Africa to their provinces in Tripoli and Sardinia. His panegyrists are speaking of him as a new Genseric, one who will unite the barbarian peoples and lead them to destroy the Roman Empire, once and for all.”
Genseric was the half-legendary Vandal chief who had first led his people from Spain to North Africa, sacked Rome and founded the line of Vandal kings, of whom Gelimer was the latest.
“Our ambitious little barbarian has acquired a sword,” said Narses with a bitter smile, “the sword of Caesar, so Gelimer claims, carried by great Julius when he conquered Gaul and Britain. The sword wielded by Aeneas, who fled the sack of Troy and founded Rome. The sword forged by Vulcan in the smithies of Mount Olympus.”
“The sword wielded by Arthur, who held Britain in the teeth of barbarian invasions,” put in Belisarius, “anyone who wields such a remarkable blade could rally all the nations of the world under his banner.”
They looked at me expectantly. I had nothing to say. The whole thing seemed too incredible. My birthright had somehow fallen into the hands of a power-mad Vandal warlord.
It occurred to me that the situation was partially my fault. For one terror-struck moment I wondered if Narses and Belisarius also held this opinion. I had seen what they were capable of, and knew there was little they would not do to preserve the Roman state.
“Gelimer must be defeated,” said Narses, “and Julius Caesar’s sword brought back to Constantinople for safe keeping. You, Coel, are going to help us get it.”
Chapter 14
The public announcement of the expedition to North Africa restored much of Justinian’s popularity. There is nothing so guaranteed as a war to unite people in mutual hatred of an enemy, especially if that enemy is comfortably distant.
However popular the war might have been with the rabble, it had the opposite effect on the Emperor’s financiers and generals. The financiers, led by John of Cappadocia, that sly and subtle man, complained that such a campaign would be ruinously expensive, and beggar the Empire. Their real purpose, of course, was to conceal their own corruption and incompetence, which had so depleted the imperial treasury.
With the exception of Belisarius, the generals warned that the Roman army was no longer capable of conducting overseas campaigns, especially against an enemy so numerous and well-armed as the Vandals.
These were persuasive arguments, and Justinian might have called off the expedition but for the interference of a Catholic priest. This pious meddler approached the Emperor in council and exhorted him to stand forth as a champion of Christ.
“Hark to the very words of the Lord,” the priest urged, “He said, I will march before him in battles, and make him sovereign of Africa!”
The revelation that God was on his side greatly appealed to Justinian’s famous vanity. Without further delay he ordered a fleet and an army to be gathered for this now sacred enterprise.
The preparations for the campaign required many months of labour and planning. During this time I continued to learn my trade at the camp of the Heruli. Their commander, Pharas, drilled his men relentlessly, and I spent countless hours learning to ride in step, exercising with sword and spear and casting javelins at straw targets.
If I was a handless clown, the Heruli at least appreciated my commitment, and I made some friends among them. As Narses said, they were rough and undisciplined, but brave and expert fighters. One Roman historian referred to the Heruli as a “shadowy, funereal host,” after their strategy of painting their shields and bodies black and launching sudden ambushes under cover of darkness.
“Our ancestors worshipped the wolf-god, Wodan,” said my friend Girenas, “and would draw on his power to enter a battle-frenzy. They fought naked, and while under the god’s influence were virtually impossible to kill.”
“That was before the Christians found us,” remarked his brother Girulis, “the priests told us that our old ways were sinful, and commanded us to abandon them.”
“My brother is born out of time,” laughed Girenas, giving Girulis a sly look, “he longs for the days when our people ran naked through the forests. Wodan was not like Christ. The wolf-god cared little what men did on this earth…even if they were inclined to couple with other men.”
Girulis went red in the face and dived at his brother. The table was overturned as they fell onto the rushes in a struggling, snarling heap. I sighed, picked up the scattered remains of my supper and found a quieter table to reflect on what Girenas had told me.
From his words and later enquiry I learned that the Heruli had at one time practised sodomy as a way of forging bonds between warriors. The ancient Greeks had done the same. It was a practical measure as much as anything, for an army of lovers is not easily conquered. Some isolated Heruli tribes still followed the old ways, regardless of the Christian church and her threats of sin and damnation.
After several months among the Heruli, learning their customs and manner of soldiering, I started to think of myself as one of them. I grew my hair and beard, and wore the bronze torcs and arm-rings that were presented to me as gifts. Girenas gave me a sword-belt, made of cheap metal but with each of the links skilfully fashioned into the shapes of bears, horses, wolves and stags. My gift for languages helped me to assimilate, and by the winter of that year I was reasonably fluent in their tongue.
I saw little of Belisarius during this time, unsurprisingly since he was responsible for gathering the army as well as leading it. He threw his entire being into this purpose, but money and men were limited. After a year of feverishly mustering and recruiting troops from all parts of the Empire, he had assembled an army of no more than fifteen thousand men. Of these, ten thousand were infantry of wildly varying quality. Belisarius placed his faith in the five thousand cavalry, which consisted of foederati troops and his guards, the bucelarii.
There were fifteen hundred bucelarii. They were the elite core of the army, and the proof and product of Belisarius’s genius. Raised, trained and equipped at his private expense, they were intended to be both shock troops and skirmishers.
He spared no expense on their gear. The riders were protected by mail corselets that reached to the knees and elbows, iron bucklers strapped to the upper part of their left arms, conical helmets with cheek-guards, and reinforced thigh protectors and greaves.
The general trained them to skirmish from long distance, and to launch devastating charges. To these ends they were armed with lances, Hunnish-style composite bows and spathas. For good measure they also carried five throwing darts apiece, strapped to the insides of their shields. Their horses were protected by coats made of quilted leather, thick enough to afford some protection against arrows but not cumbersome enough to slow the beasts down.