“How adaptable you are. First you were a Briton, then a Roman, and now a Germanic savage. You seem able to cast yourself in any mould. A man of many layers. Not so dull, perhaps.”
I swallowed, and decided to try and force the issue. “Majesty, I apologise if I ever caused you offence. It was unintended.”
She slugged down her wine. “I know what you refer to,” she said, belching and wiping the spillage from her bosom, “a certain cellar, on a certain night, during a former life. I have not forgotten. I forget nothing.”
Now her voice was hard as steel, and the mazed look had vanished from her eyes. “Nor do I forgive. I have endured many insults, Britannicus, and make it a point of honour to avenge them. Our account remains unsettled.”
Save for the body of Felix, fifteen years rotting in a shallow grave, I wanted to scream. I bit down hard on my lower lip, and dug my nails into my palms.
“I am a capricious woman, I know,” she said in a softer tone, “and have a deplorable tendency to toy with my victims. Like a cat. It would be amusing to have you consigned to the rack. To watch your life being wrung from you an inch at a time.”
“However, I am the Emperor’s consort, and must behave like one. Did you know it was I who persuaded my husband not to flee the city, during the riots? All those senators and soldiers were standing around, fouling their small-clothes in terror, and only I encouraged him to send Belisarius and Mundus out to fight. Thus the Empire was saved by a courtesan. Delicious, isn’t it?”
I assumed she was lying, but later discovered that the story was true. Theodora deserves credit for it, the first and last time she behaved in a manner befitting her station.
“An Empress must show clemency,” she said, “I am willing to forget past misdemeanours, if you agree to do something for me in return.”
“What is that, Majesty?” I asked, dreading the response.
“Spy on Belisarius for me. God knows why, but he seems to have some special regard for you. I can use that to my advantage. Get as close as you can to him during the voyage to Africa. Divine his secrets, read his private letters. Bring me back something that increases my knowledge of the man. Assuming, of course, that any of you return from this insane sortie.”
Her shameless proposal rocked me, and for a moment I struggled to speak.
“No, Majesty,” I said, striving to keep the rage out of my voice, “I will not be your spy.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. “I am offering you a chance to save yourself, Britannicus. One chance.”
“I care nothing for your offer, or your threats. I am a soldier of Rome, not a traitor.”
I was beginning to enjoy myself. Like old Julius, I had crossed the Rubicon, and the rest was up to fate. It was worth dying, I decided, just to see this appalling bitch shaken out of her complacency.
“A soldier of Rome,” she said, her nose wrinkling in disgust as she looked me up and down, “the shades of our noble ancestors must be weeping in shame.”
That was rich, coming from one who had no more noble blood in her veins than a horse. I almost said so, but restrained myself.
Theodora flowed to her feet with a dancer’s grace. “I know where you derive this courage,” she said, folding her arms, “you think you can hide behind Belisarius’s shield.”
Our eyes locked. “Kill me, Majesty, or let me go,” I replied. I took a deep breath and stood poised, ready to spring.
Perhaps she sensed the danger, or realised that I had called her bluff. Even she could not simply have a man tortured to death on a whim, especially not one favoured by Narses and Belisarius. She might have him arraigned on some trumped-up charge, but there was no time for that. Besides which, she didn’t want me blurting out her disgusting proposal in court, before the Emperor and all his justices.
Even so, the halls of Hell would freeze over before Theodora admitted that she had lost. “Dismissed,” she said, with a flick of her finger, “go away, Britannicus. Far away.”
I gave a bow, turned on my heel and marched out, painfully aware that my back was exposed.
“It won’t be far enough, I promise you,” she cried, and then the door closed behind me.
Chapter 15
The fleet finally sailed from Constantinople on a blazing hot day in June, and I remember the funeral atmosphere among the citizens gathered on the harbour to watch the last troops file aboard the transports. The Emperor and the Patriarch came in procession down to the docks — thankfully, Theodora stayed in the palace — to watch us depart. Choirs marched behind them, waving holy icons and chanting solemn Latin dirges that did nothing to lift the atmosphere.
Many of those who witnessed the fleet depart thought that it would never return. There was good reason to be pessimistic. Ahead lay a journey of over a thousand miles of ocean into enemy-controlled waters, with no possibility of relief or reinforcement. If the fleet somehow managed to fight through the Vandalic battle-fleets, the army was then faced with the task of conquering and holding an entire continent. This would have to be achieved in the teeth of resistance from King Gelimer’s armies, estimated to number some thirty to forty thousand warriors.
The task appeared impossible, and Belisarius’s commission little more than a death-warrant. However, Justinian was not a fool, and his agents had been hard at work stirring up civil discontent in the Vandal provinces of Sardinia and Tripoli. With the help of a few secretly dispatched Roman troops, they encouraged pro-Roman uprisings that succeeded in driving out the Vandal governors and garrisons.
Gelimer took the bait. He split his forces and sent his brother Zano with a large army and a fleet to recapture their lost territories. This left the coasts of North Africa undefended, and reduced the Vandal military presence on land.
Justinian’s artful diplomacy also succeeded in driving a wedge between the Vandals and the Goths that ruled Italy. Believing Rome to be their friend, the Goths even granted our fleet permission to dock in Sicily on the voyage to Africa.
All this was so much rumour and hearsay to me as the fleet set sail. The doleful sound of the choirs and the wails of the multitude slowly faded away as the first of the transports glided down the straits of the Bosphorus.
I was aboard one of the Heruli ships, and very quickly discovered that a sailor’s life did not agree with me. The fleet was barely out into the open sea before the first pangs of sickness started to gripe in my belly. By the time it anchored at Heraclea to take on board a supply of horses, I was prostrate, unable to do anything except lie groaning on deck or retch feebly over the side. Many of my comrades were also affected, for the Heruli were not a seafaring people. Our ship soon became rank with the stench of vomit and excrement. The Egyptian sailors laughed at our weakness, and wondered aloud at how such mighty warriors would cope if the Vandals attacked us at sea.
Mercifully, the fleet remained at Heraclea for five days while the horses were taken on board. This gave me time to recover a little. From there we proceeded to Abydos, where a sudden drop in the wind delayed us for another four days.
At Abydos Belisarius made clear his intention to instil some old-fashioned Roman discipline into his ragbag army. Three of the Huns got into a drunken brawl, in which one of them was killed. As I have mentioned, such incidents were by no means uncommon among the foederati troops, and most Roman commanders let them go unpunished.
Belisarius had the culprits taken to the summit of a hill above the harbour, and there, in plain view of the fleet and army below, they were beheaded. This aroused the rage and indignation of their comrades, and a full-scale mutiny was only prevented when Belisarius personally harangued the troops from the foredeck of his galley.
“Those who allow a murder to go unpunished,” he bellowed, “become accomplices to guilt and partners to infamy. The criminals were drunk, which is no defence but an aggravation of their crime. Drunkenness, even when it leads to no harm, is outside the bounds of military discipline. I will march and fight alongside no man who has the blood of a comrade on his hands. Any further such crimes will meet with the same punishment. We are an army set on conquest, not a rabble.”