‘Take off your armour.’
‘Why?’
‘Do as I ask,’ Ohannes growled, working at the straps of his own. ‘Perhaps if we leave them here they will think we swam for it.’
‘Only a fool would do that.’
‘Or a man desperate to escape and with no other choice.’
Loath to part with a possession he prized, Flavius did as he was asked, fingering, once his breastplate and back protector were off, the shaped leather as well as the gilded metal decorations mounted on the front. The design was Roman in origin, the same as would have been worn by an imperial tribune in ancient times and elaborate enough to cause envy amongst his peers. The smell of warm leather was strong, that mixed with the sweat coming from his own body.
‘My father gifted me this.’
‘Then he will look down and see the sense of what we are doing with it.’
‘No mere centurion for you Flavius, was what he said as he gave it to me.’ There was a distinct catch in his throat as he bent down to pick up his spear.
‘We are going to have to wade along the riverbank and hope it is not too cold or deep enough to drown us.’ Sensing rather than seeing doubt, Ohannes was quick to add, ‘We can’t hope to outrun them and no stretch of pebbles is going to put them off for long. We need deeper water.’
‘But they know the direction in which we are going.’
‘With luck they will reckon we have tried to swim the river or at least to get to one of them boats out fishing. Whatever, if we stay in the water they will have to cast around a long way for the dogs to scent any spoor.’
‘And when we come ashore again?’
‘We will be dripping so much there will be nothing to pick up and that, if we can fool them, will oblige the sods to wait for sunrise. Time, Master Flavius, is our only friend.’
While he was willing to acknowledge the truth of that, the youngster’s mind was more on the canvas sack he was carrying, as well as its contents, the writing on which would scarce survive immersion in water, even those in the oilskin pouch. As for his father’s testament, that would be rendered pulp. The thought of hiding them foundered on the time it would need to dig a deep hole and one well enough hidden to avoid detection – again dogs with his spoor on their snouts would easily root out anything he had held close.
He moved back into the woods, the sound of a cursing Ohannes in his ears as he sought out a tree that he might again be able to recognise, blessed by the outline of what appeared to be an ancient oak, wide at the base, climbable if not easily so and in full leaf judging by the sound of the wind rustling its foliage. A soft call to a less than contented companion got him a leg up to one of the lower branches where he again found further progress impeded by the pain from his left shoulder.
That had to be ignored and up he went until he felt sure whatever he left here would not be visible from the ground. With a silent prayer he put his lips to the sack then tied the loops he had used to carry it tightly round a branch before tucking the body into the joint of the main trunk. Getting down was easier and Ohannes was there to aid his final descent. The thought of slicing the oak with a couple of sword cuts, so he could find it easily again, had to be discarded; if he could see them so could others but the location had to be marked in some way or he might never again find it.
Flavius fetched half a dozen pebbles from the riverbank and, by the tree, arranged them in a small mound, fiddling until an impatient Ohannes dragged him once more to the edge, he wading into the silver, rippling water, hissing his worry, given he was taller.
‘Keep your head above the water, Master Flavius, we can’t have you drown.’
‘Ohannes, I can swim.’
‘Good, and I hope it is enough to save me from going under, if God is with us.’
‘Hard to believe after what has happened that God has any time for a Belisarius.’
‘Well cursing him won’t do us much good,’ Ohannes barked, his voice holding a catch of breath as the river water came up above his groin.
Flavius, realising that his backplate would float and before he followed the Scythian, picked it up and threw it out onto the river, far enough to hope it would drift downstream and still be visible; to his mind leaving it on the bank would only tell the pursuit that they had been on this spot and fix their chase. Then, carrying his breastplate he waded in with his spear above his head, following Ohannes into water that was icy cold, barely warmed by the sun and still with some of the glacier melt or underground springs from which it and its tributaries emanated many hundreds of leagues to the west and north.
The breastplate he jammed into the tangled tree roots that stuck out of the first stretch of high bank he encountered, decorations to the fore, something that would at least be visible from the river if hidden from those on land, another indicator of where he had hidden his sack. Progress, easy to begin with, was made awkward by the way that those outcrops of ground jutted out from the bank, obliging the pair to risk deeper water, this compounded by the odd depression underfoot. Risk also came in the regular shallow little inlets, for these had to be traversed at speed and in full view of the shoreline, having made sure the men pursuing them were not within sight.
In this their use of torches became an aid; they would not move without them for fear of ambush and the glare was a sure indication of their location: likewise the noise of the dogs, still on leads, much more prominent now, was an indicator. When that baying sound rose to indicate the pack was close, Ohannes called a halt and had them take shelter under an overhang where the water came up to their necks, the trailing branches of a tree above their heads. To counter the glare of the moon reflecting off the water the Scythian grabbed some damp mud and began to smear his face, Flavius following suit.
‘We will stay here and let them pass,’ came the whispered suggestion, before he added a touch of gallows humour. ‘Try not to let those teeth of yours chatter, Master Flavius, for it will be as loud as a drumbeat to a hound.’
CHAPTER NINE
Flavius and Ohannes were never to know what saved them from capture: the fact that Bishop Gregory Blastos was asleep at the villa of Senuthius and even when roused out by a message of what had occurred, neither man reacted as they might. The corpulent senator was sure that the escapees could not get far with a pack of hounds on their tail, the bishop being less sanguine but not prepared to dispute the conclusion drawn: that the innocent did not flee, so what had happened was positive, for it told them Flavius knew what they needed to find out. It was also an act that would only increase the sense of terrible sins committed, the very thing needed to excite the populace.
‘There will be many who doubt that of which we will accuse young Belisarius – after all, the family appeared upright, even if they were minded to worship in Chalcedonian blasphemy.’
Blastos was tempted to add that so did most of those who made up his flock but he stayed silent, there being no need to remind his host that in supporting the imperial edict they were in a minority within his own diocese as well as the greater one of Thrace. Not that there was much opportunity anyway; Senuthius was thinking on his feet again and talking fast.
‘The fellow he has fled with is the same one who looked after him when he was tipped off his horse and attended the cremation, is he not? Let’s blame him for introducing Lucifer to their household and throw him to the mob for his devilish corruption. God knows by the look of him he could be a pagan shaman.’