‘Whatever fears you had Antonina, let them rest.’
Up came the face, with damp eyes. ‘I feared only for your person. You were surrounded in Italy by many who would be jealous of what position you could be elevated to. And then there is the sea itself, never still and always dangerous.’
That she was deliberately avoiding the real reason he had to expect, which annoyed Flavius. Surely for once she could be truthful and say she needed him and his protection. In amongst all his speculations on the voyage – and they had ranged far and wide – what to do about his errant wife had barely surfaced. Had he become so immune to her endemic underhandedness as to just take it as part of the life he had to live?
‘I sent word to the palace as soon as I heard your galley had been sighted.’
‘Then I best make my way there.’
The response was swift. ‘Is it not better to wait? Is not best to let Justinian summon you rather than appear too ardent to kneel at his feet.’
‘I don’t kneel at his feet,’ Flavius replied with real anger. ‘Others may give way to Persian follies, not me!’
To accompany that rebuke he hauled Antonina to her feet to see confusion in her expression, which was part a frown yet mixed with uncertainty: she probably wanted to chide him but was cautious of doing so.
‘If you go to the palace I shall not accompany you.’
‘Because you don’t want to or you cannot?’
The old Antonina emerged then, her eyes flashing. ‘Do you need to be so deliberately cruel?’
‘I wasn’t aware of being so, but it is obvious that with Theodora dead you are no longer such a welcome visitor to the parts of the palace she once occupied. Which makes me wonder where you have been laying your head.’
‘At our villa, where else?’
‘Then go back there, Antonina.’
‘You will come there?’
‘Of course. Where else would I go?’
It came as no surprise that Justinian kept him waiting. For all the peremptory nature of his command to return, he would still be conscious of his rank; emperors did not inconvenience themselves for anyone. That accepted, the time he took to send for Flavius rankled, so it was a far from benign comes sacri stabuli who, having gone through many more layers of bodyguards and Excubitors than had ever previously protected Justinian, was ushered into his presence.
At least there was daylight; the drapes were open, albeit there were two broad-shouldered guards outside to ensure no one could cast a spear into the room and kill him. He looked better than the last time Flavius had clapped eyes on him, fuller of face and body, though he had never been large. The two men appraised each other for several seconds before Justinian spoke.
‘You have gone grey, Count Belisarius.’
‘Who would not in your service, Excellency?’
‘Are you going to make things difficult?’
‘I am obliged to ask what things.’
‘Do you know how few people are ever allowed to sit in my presence, Flavius?’
‘And I am supposed to grovel for being allowed to occasionally do so?’
Flavius knew he was pushing and perhaps too hard. As Justinian slowly shook his head, as if he was being faced by something preposterous, Flavius could not help but examine the motives for his own contrariness, almost as if he wished to cause discord between them. If this was his aim, he failed, given Justinian smiled, his head canting in that familiar way as he did so.
‘It is refreshing, if exasperating, Flavius that you do not change.’
‘For which I have always hoped, too often in vain, that you would respect me.’
‘Does it not show respect that I want you by my side?’
Flavius was about to ask for what, but that would have bordered on the foolish. He had reasoned over the weeks of travel that with Theodora gone Justinian might lack a trustworthy companion, for whatever had been her fantasies and intrigues she had been his faithful helpmeet and there was a need for a replacement. Justinian had more or less stated by what he had just said that was what he desired.
Was the prospect one to savour for a man who had never been at home in the imperial palace? Flavius thought not but he also knew that if commanded to fulfil such a role he had no choice but to obey.
‘Would it displease you if I said I am a soldier and I would be happier employed as such?’
The reply was coldly pragmatic. ‘What I need takes precedence over any desires you may have.’
‘You know I am no good at,’ Flavius waved, unable to think of the right words, ‘what goes on within these walls.’
‘Never fear, Flavius. I have rediscovered since my sad loss that I still am.’
What transpired felt at first like some kind of limbo. He was accommodated in the imperial palace, given a set of apartments close to those of Justinian, and it was made plain to all who counselled him that Flavius Belisarius was amongst their number and important, a fact driven home by the number of private conversations he had with the Emperor as well as the fact that he and Antonina would accompany Justinian twice daily to pray at the Church of the Holy Apostles where Theodora was buried.
From his wife, now happily back in the palace too, he heard of the death of the Empress, caused by a mammary malignancy, which she had kept hidden for some time until it could no longer be kept from view. Justinian had been distraught at the loss and that was emphasised by the way, when he spoke alone with Flavius and a difficulty was aired, he was often to say what his late wife would have done.
She had been heavily involved in religious arguments and it was in an act of faithfulness – apparently he had sworn at her deathbed – that Justinian put much effort into seeking an accommodation between the Monophysites of Asia Minor and Eygpt and the European proponents of Chalcedon. It was not a circumstance to make Flavius happy: he was used in this as an honest broker between what he knew to be a pair of irreconcilable positions.
‘They will never agree, Autokrator.’
The use of that Greek term of address, employed by everyone else close to the Emperor now, had been a small concession of Flavius and the first time he had employed it Justinian had given him an odd look, until he got the underlying meaning that his comes had finally accepted his role as a courtier.
Naturally his elevation to such a position caused resentment among men who saw him as a rival and as Flavius set his mind to understanding how the structures of power operated in the empire his appreciation of the burden Justinian carried grew. It had never been a mystery to him that the polity was too large for one man to govern, yet the complexity, once he began to get a grip on it, staggered him.
His first lesson was in rank. It was easy to assume that certain titles meant a man was more powerful than those of lesser station, yet that was untrue. In a system that had been based on clientism since the days of the Republic, it soon became apparent that a title meant little; it was to whom you were attached, either a superior or a whole host of inferiors, that granted power and there was one very obvious fact: Flavius Belisarius was sadly lacking in such support.
Many sought to ensnare him and that was tempting, more to Antonina than to her husband, and she would comment frequently upon the opportunities. It was, of course for her a subject to which she was committed and he was not: money. Corruption was rife but it seemed to trouble his emperor little.
‘It does not concern you that men line their own purses at great cost to the empire?’
Justinian sighed, as if the subject was one of which he was weary. ‘The better ones fetch in more than they steal and in my place you soon learn that many attempts have been made to find another system of governance and most have proved disastrous.’