‘You heard?’ Flavius asked as Photius and Solomon entered his chamber, moments after Constantinus had stormed out; the concerned look on the young man’s face made it an unnecessary question.
‘Every word, and how could I not? It is unlike you to shout so, even at an ordinary soldier.’
‘I don’t think I shouted. Spoke firmly, yes.’
‘I would reckon Witigis heard you,’ Solomon said.
‘As long as Constantinus heard is all that counts.’ Flavius paused, then, looking pensive, asked Photius a question he would normally have put to Procopius. ‘You think me overharsh?’
‘Would it wound you, Father, if I said to you that you are rarely harsh enough?’
‘Soldiers, especially senior officers, can be touchy.’
There was no humour in what was said next; Photius was deadly serious. ‘I was not talking of soldiers.’
Having no desire to talk about his wife, for the second time that night Flavius had cause to raise his voice, which forced Solomon to turn away in order not to be seen smiling.
‘Personal matters can wait. Right now I have to find a way to hold onto this city until reinforcements arrive.’
There was more to fret about than a shortage of fighters; the latest Goth tactics had shut down much of the supply to the city and dearth was a precursor to disease as people sought to supplement their diets with foods best left alone, like rotten wheat and vegetables, rats, cats and certain birds. There was also the problem of water now there was a severe shortage of wine.
Never a wise source with which to slake human thirst, when the level of the Tiber fell, as it was bound to do in the summer months, it was increasingly contaminated with human and animal filth, making it foul to drink. But drink it the Romans did, for that same unbearable heat that caused the river to slow acted on people too; they drank and fell ill and despite his best efforts, Flavius knew that his soldiers were no wiser than the citizens.
Once a pestilence took hold it spread like an out-of-control fire. Many of his men died, even more became so weak as to be utterly ineffective. Matters were reaching a crisis, and for the first time Flavius had to consider the need for a plan to abandon Rome. That was before Mundus, the man who had led the escort for Procopius, reported back to his commander that in his journey south and the return there had been not a sign of a Goth, apart from a few parties out foraging, men who had fled at the sight of such a large body of troops.
‘There was nothing to trouble us so I undertook a little detour or two.’ Seeing the eyebrows begin to rise Mundus was quick to add, ‘Without ever taking a risk.’
‘So no patrols?’ Flavius asked, when Mundus had finished.
‘Nary a one. I swept by two of the Goth camps as well as that fort Witigis had built between Antium and Ostia and there was nothing. They are remaining close to their tents and I could have set up camp myself and stayed for the night on the territory they claim to possess.’
Chin on chest, Flavius was set to thinking. He had occupied enough temporary encampments in his own campaigns to know that what might start out adequate would, over time, be rendered unpleasant. Latrines and middens had to be placed further and further off from where the men laid their heads. Also, living in tents through the kind of weather that had existed over the year of siege was far from ideal, steaming summer heat being just as much a trial as wind, rain and the cold of winter.
Was Witigis having trouble keeping up the spirits of his men? Did he not dare to seek to send them out on patrols on the grounds they might decline? If the army and citizens in Rome were falling sick while housed in buildings that fully protected them from the elements, how much more would the Goths be suffering?
‘This I must see for myself.’
The ride lasted over three days and took Flavius right round the perimeter that Witigis had set up round the city. In each case what Mundus had told him was correct. The Goths were confining themselves to their camps, allowing him to evolve a strategy to make what was disagreeable positively offensive.
The strong patrols he sent out, several at a time, reversed matters, even if in doing so he risked the entire security of his army; losses in any great scale would be disastrous. Yet the Goths stayed supine; no longer were the Byzantines besieged in the city, now it was the Goths who were wary of leaving their camps, and since they were denied the right to easily forage for food, it was they who would begin to suffer from starvation.
‘Bring me reinforcements, Procopius,’ Flavius whispered to the empty fields to the south of the Porta Ostiensis and the road to Naples, aware of just how much he was stretching his resources. ‘Do that and we have our enemies beaten.’
‘If they stay as they are, Father, they are defeated already.’
An arm was put about the shoulders of his stepson, the young man being pulled close. ‘I fear to say such words too loudly unless God sees it as hubris.’
Procopius was feeling as if he was in the process of taking a beating, locked as he was in an argument with the wife of the man he served. Logic, to which he was dedicated, had no effect at all on the Lady Antonina. No amount of reference to the dangers she might face coming to Rome with him made even the slightest dent in her determination to be, as she put it, ‘reunited with my husband!’ and he was not able to say that was the last thing his master desired.
How comforting it would have been to contest that with the true reason for her supposed craving. It would not be for pure affection, though Antonina did demonstrate to Flavius a great deal of that when they were in company, quite able to play the loving wife while spying on behalf of Theodora as if it was of no consequence. It was also true that she saw nothing untoward in her being enamoured of Theodosius; in her world, plainly the two, affection for Flavius Belisarius as well as their adopted son, had no connection and was no sin.
‘Unless you intend to physically prevent me from getting to Rome then I suggest you say no more.’
‘I may have to adopt that course.’
The eyes narrowed and the voice became a hiss. ‘Am I competing for my husband’s affections?’
‘How can you so dishonour that man by such an unwarranted allegation?’
‘I see you do not attach dishonour to yourself, Procopius. You may fool Flavius by your behaviour but I can see into your soul and you do not deceive me. Now I need a palanquin in which to travel. Do what those in service are there for and provide one.’
‘No doubt you will be happy to see your son as well?’
‘That ingrate! I rue the day I bore him.’
She spat that response, her features screwing up to show that her one-time beauty, onto which she had held a remarkably long time, was becoming seriously eroded. The creases on her upper lip were deep now, the crow’s feet around the eyes pronounced, and her anger and spite merely exaggerated how much she had ripened. Not for the first time Procopius wondered what she thought she was doing seeking to seduce a man half her age.
‘Remember, Procopius, you serve my husband. You do not command him and you do not command me.’
His response conceded a point, in which he had no choice. ‘At least you will not lack for protection.’
Given the task of raising reinforcements for Rome, Procopius had thrown himself into it with gusto, issuing orders not only to the garrison commanders of the south to strip out every man they could spare but to the reinforcements that had been sent by Justinian and were languishing in Naples. If they showed the least resentment, the written instructions from Flavius Belisarius were waved under their nose.