His other task, and here Flavius was a full supporter, was to help break the power of the patricians by bringing into the imperial bureaucracy men from more humble backgrounds yet with the talent to carry out the functions of government. If this earned him the hatred of the old ruling class it also allowed the Cappadocian to build a body of support committed to him personally. Never a shrinking violet, the man had now become intolerably self-regarding.
Flavius had to accept that his reception could be cold for another reason: habit. Occupying the imperial throne left any emperor at the mercy of advice ever leavened with flattery as to his own innate wisdom. Having occupied the position for over a dozen years now Justinian would have become accustomed to such sycophancy. Perhaps he had lost sight of what had been his abiding opinion of such courtiers, a not very elevated one prior to taking the diadem.
The men who surrounded the Emperor were politicians, still too many of them patricians, greedy for advancement in both sinecures for themselves and income and employment for their relatives. They counselled a person who enjoyed untrammelled power against any individual and as a defence against arbitrary judgement they formed self-protective cliques to temper that power.
Justinian stood abruptly. ‘Come with me.’
There being no doubt as to whom he was addressing, Flavius could again hear a sound, this time made up of sighs and grunts. Narses got a black look before he obeyed, following Justinian out of the audience chamber and tailing him to his private apartments where, once past the guards, his servants, no doubt well able to read the imperial mood, quickly left them alone.
‘You seem not to fear angering me.’
‘I admit to my guilt.’
‘And if I said I am tempted to send you to the dungeons so that you may see the folly of that?’
A swift and shallow bow of the head was appropriate; Justinian was just capricious enough to follow up on such a suggestion. ‘You have that right, Excellency, though I cannot think it would raise respect for you anywhere should you exercise it.’
‘That sounds very much like a threat.’
‘It was not intended as one.’
‘I sense an overmighty subject, one who thinks himself my equal.’
‘Since I cannot be both I will settle to be a subject.’
If it was unstated both knew what they were talking about: Ravenna.
‘Can you not see how you have diminished me by the way you have just behaved?’
‘I see that I have treated you as I have always done, honouring your office while remembering how you always welcomed that I told you the truth.’
‘Are you so sure I welcomed it?’
‘I am very sure that you should, as did your uncle.’
‘Do not quote him to me.’
‘I do so only to remind you that you once reposed the same faith in me that he did.’
‘While you have no notion of how many voices I hear that tell me such trust is misplaced.’
‘Which you have good grounds to ignore since I am standing before you.’
‘I am assailed by strident declarations that your actions in Italy, not least in the way you have lined your purse and dragged out the campaign, need serious enquiry.’
‘Narses will be behind that.’
‘He is not alone. Do not forget that Constantinus had a powerful family and you had him executed like a common thief.’
‘The memory of that affords me no pleasure but I had to act with equity for the sake of the army.’
‘I am pressed from other places, Flavius.’
The given name at last, and that had the one so blessed wondering if part of what Justinian was up to was an act. Surely he did not believe that his most faithful and successful general would divert money to his personal coffers or extend a campaign unnecessarily to add lustre to his name, those being the twin and all too common allegations made against the effective by the envious?
Exposed to a drip feed of accusation, had the Emperor reacted in public merely to display a level of displeasure that would satisfy the many Belisarius enemies, which would include not just the likes of Narses but any one of his counsellors troubled or made to feel insecure by his success?
How many had been jockeying for the command that Flavius had come to take on even if, as magister militum per Orientem it was his by right. Field generalship brought rewards of its own, but to the avaricious it also presented great opportunities for personal enrichment. If Narses and the Constantinus family had sent hares running against him, there were many who would be willing to join in the chase if only to advance their own prospects.
The spectre of Theodora could also lie at the back of this but that was, as a defence, unmentionable. Flavius might be truthful with Justinian but he knew what areas not to stray into, matters too sensitive to be alluded to and she was the primary one. If he could not comprehend the bond that united them, Flavius knew it to be so unbreakable that not even the most intimate companion could refer to its negative aspects.
‘If I am to be examined I can hardly proceed to the duty for which I have been recalled.’
Justinian had never been good at disguising a sly thought: the head canted and there was no eye contact so that Flavius, who possibly knew him too well, was given the impression of a sudden idea entering the imperial mind and what followed did not do anything to dent that impression.
‘The eastern border is paramount. I am prepared to pay Khusrow for peace, but only to a certain level, and I am also willing to protect you, Flavius, from the accusations made against you.’
This was a point at which other generals, eager for glory, might have suggested it would be better to crush Khusrow than bribe him. It being a subject often discussed between them, as it had been when Justinian’s uncle wore the purple, it was not one Flavius would advance, for it had long been held by wiser heads that to subdue and occupy the whole of Persia was a recipe for ultimate disaster.
If the Roman Empire struggled to hold onto what it already had, and could contemplate expansion back into once held provinces where the population could be counted on to provide some sort of welcome, territorial conquests in the east were too big a mouthful to chew on. Quite apart from the sheer amount of land needed to be conquered then controlled, success would bring the empire up against the formidable forces that troubled the eastern Sassanid frontier and in many senses stopped its kings from too many adventures beyond the Euphrates.
The sly thought? Justinian would not set in train an enquiry into any behaviour in Italy, but he would not kill off the notion entirely. Why give up a point of pressure that could be applied without being mentioned? If Flavius failed against Khusrow, such an accusation could be allowed to resurface in order that the Emperor could defend his own standing.
‘The sooner I am gone the better,’ Flavius said.
That got eager nodded agreement, but Justinian did not pick upon the deeper meaning in what seemed like eagerness to get back to a theatre of war. More pressing to Flavius was to get away from what he saw as a sink of iniquity and one in which being present was much more threatening than any of the many battlefields on which he had risked his life.
Soon the pair were bowed over maps, examining the various possibilities that Khusrow might engage in. The eastern border was a twisting line of over five hundred leagues, peopled by fickle tribes that were well used to taking advantage if Rome seemed to be winning over Persia and vice versa. He had several routes in which he could launch an invasion and all had to be guarded against. If Flavius was to have the top command he was in need of competent subordinates.