John was quick to react and lucky that the horses he needed were saddled and ready. Gates opened, he led his mounted men out to engage, using the faggots that had failed to support the tower as a swift means of crossing the ditch. As generally happened with a force moving away from a fight, the Goths evinced little stomach for the battle and paid a high price for their lack of will. Witigis sent more men forward to rescue the tower and they too, having two tasks not one, suffered heavily even if they were successful.
Days passed during which every eye in the city awoke to observe the tower as the sun rose. If it moved the attack was to be renewed – if not, the tactics of starvation would be used to retake Ariminum. It seemed plain that was the outcome and that was underlined when Witigis was seen to be sending away warriors to other duties.
John knew the time had come to communicate with Flavius Belisarius and demand that he be relieved. It did not occur to him that he had ever exceeded his orders and nor did he now feel the need to be humble. As a patrician and a man well connected in Constantinople he felt no requirement to employ excessive deference to his titular commander. The needs of the campaign were obvious to the dullest tactician. This city must be held, so let Flavius do that which was required.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Unaware of precisely what was happening at Ariminum, Belisarius could at least be sure that Rome was secure, so he left it with a small garrison and marched his main army right across Italy towards the Adriatic. While at the mountain city of Aquila he was informed that Narses the Eunuch, a commander he had known since he was a young officer and at present a steward to Justinian, had arrived on that coast with five thousand men and was camped at Firmum.
Leaving his forces to follow, Flavius made haste to meet with him in order to plan strategy only to find that the problem that had arisen with John Vitalianus was now compounded. A general in his own right as well as the Keeper of the Royal Treasury, and having with him what was in effect the Army of Illyricum, Narses could see no need, and certainly had no intention, of bowing the knee to Flavius Belisarius.
Firstly, here was a fellow he had long ago had as a subordinate. If he had been elevated since to his present position it was as much to do with personal affinities as ability, albeit Flavius was the victor of the Battle of Dara and also the man who had brought about the reconquest of North Africa, so could not be discounted or overborne.
In essence the two, militarily, were equals, which meant that whatever action was undertaken next had to be agreed between them, bringing with it all the problems of dual command: endless discussion in front of officers who obviously took the side of those to whom they were loyal.
Disagreement rose early and at the heart of the dispute was naturally John Vitalianus. He was an associate to Narses and a man who owed much of his advancement to the eunuch; in short he was a client officer and that meant a shared obligation on the part of both. Then there was a memory of Flavius being far from obedient himself, though it was never referred to openly; on the Persian frontier he had disobeyed strict instructions from Narses not to cross into Sassanid territory, only surviving censure due to a degree of devilish subterfuge, added to his high connection to Justinus, then Count of the Imperial Guard at the court of Anastasius, the emperor he succeeded.
Flavius was focused on the capture of the whole of Italy while the new arrival seemed to wish to concentrate on saving his insubordinate client in Ariminum. The time came when the two needed to make a decision because the present dispute threatened the whole operation.
‘I have here my instructions from the Emperor, Narses, which if you care to read them appoints me as sole commander of the forces on the Italian campaign.’
‘Not instructions made known to me. What may have pertained before does not necessarily apply now.’
‘I have no doubt that Justinian intended that I should hold the position he granted me, made plain here in writing and above his imperial seal.’
Narses, older by a decade and an Armenian by birth, had started life, like so many of his race, as a mercenary in the service of Constantinople. Unlike the majority, he had prospered and risen to hold many positions of authority, including important provincial governorships, before being appointed as Chamberlain to the Imperial Treasury.
If not as personally close to Justinian as Flavius he was a man on whom the Emperor relied for advice, added to which Theodora, with a sharp eye on income and expenditure, must trust him as well. He would also enjoy powerful backing within the bureaucracy that surrounded the throne, a body that even in close contact numbered hundreds. If Justinian stood at the apex of that, he was far from the complete master of it: no emperor had ever managed to be that, it being too complex for any one man to control.
Many important offices were held by eunuchs and they formed a band that looked to each other’s interests, sometimes above that of the polity they claimed to serve. Not that those deprived of the opportunity to breed were alone in their comradeship; every kind of political grouping a man could envisage was in existence and then there was the fluidity brought on by greed or personal ambition, in which loyalty to ones fellows came a poor second.
Flavius had little love for Constantinople and its endemic intrigues; for all the problems of command in the field they were simple by comparison with the tangled skein of endless conspiracy, one in which Justinian more than held his own and often surpassed his opponents. This was the reason why he could never be wholly relied upon, a point continually alluded to by Procopius. Flavius might have this letter but he could never be sure that his master would not, if it suited his purpose on any given day, repudiate it.
Narses took the parchment handed to him with great reluctance and as he read it he adopted a look that indicated that the words before him mattered little, this as Flavius tried to drive home the point. He kept his voice low in what was, to him, too public a gathering for the making of decisions.
‘The wording is quite plain, Narses, and while I do not desire to diminish you in any way, for I respect you and your achievements, I am obliged to insist that the imperial will be respected.’
The older man raised his eyes to cast them round a room that had once formed the senate of this provincial capital of Picenum. Change the armour and colourful accoutrements of the imperial officers for togas and it could have been a gathering in Republican antiquity; two factions vying for power and seeking, in the assembled faces, some clue as to the level of their support. Now, in a louder voice, he addressed the whole chamber instead of Flavius alone.
‘It says here that your actions are to be judged as being in the best interests of the state. If I were to say to you that I consider your plan to leave John Vitalianus to hold Ariminum while we attack Auximus to be less than sound, and not in the best interests of the empire, you would see why I cannot agree with you.’
Not to be outdone Flavius applied in an equally carrying voice. ‘Do you agree that our ultimate objective should be Ravenna?’
‘That does not require to be stated and nor does the fact that Ariminum is between us and the Goth capital. It is on the way to our ultimate goal. By saving it we surely advance our cause.’
‘While Auximus lays to the south and even now at our rear, strongly garrisoned, and the men there will, once we are committed to an advance northwards, be able to act to threaten us. I maintain that John can hold and that if we move with our full force on Auximus they will, once they observe our numbers, surrender quickly, removing that threat.’