‘Where is the well?’ he asked in Latin, and when she looked confused he repeated it in Greek.
‘Right by the road, sir.’
‘I am no sir,’ he grinned, taking her hand and lifting her up, before withdrawing his sword and leading her away.
Freed from the fear of instant death, the fat fellow started to bellow at him as an interfering arse of a jumped-up nobody who might learn better if he was not careful, the litany of abuse killed off the instant Flavius spun round, though once he carried on again he could hear the father telling anyone around who would listen what he was going to do to the barely-out-of-his-soil-cloths sod who had insulted him.
‘Did you understand that I said sorry?’ They were by the well, so Flavius put in the rock used to make it sink, hooked on the leather bucket and began to lower it. ‘You have no Latin?’
All it got was a shy nod and a reply so soft it was impossible to hear.
‘I have got you into trouble, have I not?’
Another nod and this time she did speak, yet still without looking up. ‘I thank you for staying his hand, sir.’
‘It was only right,’ he said as he felt the way the water slightly checked the bucket, ‘just as it is fitting that I make amends.’
He began to pull, raising the now weighty bucket out of the well, and once it was above the rim he hauled it over to the parapet and unhooked it, retrieving the rock. ‘Why do we not take it back together?’
With each having a hand of the rope they made slow progress, actually stopping when Flavius asked her name, which he was pleased to hear was Apollonia, seeing her rosy cheeks go bright red when he added that it suited her.
‘If I tell you my name is Flavius, will you remember it?’
The ‘Yes’ was emphatic and for the first time she looked directly at him, right in the eyes, and Flavius felt a need to take an extra breath.
‘Is he your father, as he claimed it?’
‘Timon took me in, and my mama.’
‘Not blood, then. Does he treat her as badly as he seems to treat you?’
‘Worse, sir.’
‘Worse, Flavius,’ he corrected her gently, which caused her to smile, that requiring another deep inhalation.
There was no need to ask what would happen once he was out of sight. Whatever punishment this Timon had intended would be multiplied by a dozen to cover his shame at his own cowardice. Flavius allowed her to lead him to where the water was required, disappointed that there was no sign of that fat belly, but the women who had ribbed him were still around so he spoke to them, for they must know Timon.
‘A message for Timon,’ he cried out, in a voice now turning rich and deep, ‘that I will come by each night we are camped, and if I see so much as a blemish on Apollonia’s skin, I will use my sword to remove from him what he no doubt considers his jewels, in short I will make a eunuch of him, and a hand on Apollonia’s mother will earn him the same fate. Have a care to pass that on for I will not warn twice and should he think to overcome me by numbers, I am a decanus, so he will need many and armed.’
Despite the distractions to his thoughts, he knew he needed to concentrate on the problem that had brought him to tour the camp in the first place. Walking had ever aided his thinking and as he went on his way he passed the various people that supported the army by their employment, the butchers, the armourers with their lit forge, the storekeepers with their wagons of grain, peas and pulses, men who required to be rewarded in coin for what they did.
An idea began to form in his head, a possible solution that would kill two birds with one stone. It would also leave him free to act with only consideration for his own needs. By the time he got back to the tent it was a resolution, not a notion. His fire was nearly out and he needed to stoke it, the old soldier emerging from the tent as he was throwing on the logs, coming close to talk.
‘I humbly beg-’
Ohannes was not allowed to finish his whispered apology, Flavius physically stopping him by putting his fingers to his lips.
‘It matters not, old friend, and what is done is done. If the others are curious that is all they are. I have no intention of satisfying their noses and they will not ask anything of you, so it will be forgotten in a day or two.’
‘Happen,’ came the unconvinced reply.
‘More important than that, I am going to ask that you be shifted to a duty with which you can cope.’
‘I have that now.’
‘No, Ohannes, you do not. I daresay you will be sprightly in the morning but it will not last and you know it. What happens if you collapse?’
‘I won’t!’
‘And I cannot take the chance that you will. I would strap myself to the wheel rather than hand you over to Forbas for punishment, which I must do in my rank.’
‘I’ve felt the lash before.’
‘Not by my reporting you.’
Ohannes was still defiant, but now he was sounding like a petulant child. ‘I can take it.’
‘But I cannot hand it out,’ Flavius said in a weary tone, rising to tower over his still-seated friend. ‘So I either have to put you out of harm’s way or ask Forbas to find another decanus.’
‘Don’t take it amiss, Master Flavius, but if he had to promote you, there cannot be a rate of folk he thinks fit of the rank.’
Flavius grinned. ‘I don’t, which is why I want you somewhere in which you can have it easier. All you will do if you stay is show me up as useless.’
‘You’re not that an’ never will be.’
‘You can see into the future?’ Flavius joked, still grinning.
‘I knew your family, all of them. I served with your papa and watched the way your brothers grew to manhood. If there is a God in heaven, then everything they had which was to be admired is now within you.’
‘What a burden that is, now they are gone.’
‘No escaping it, is there, more’s the pity.’
‘If you have so much faith in me Ohannes, then trust me in what I am about to do, which is plead with Forbas to put you in a place where you can ride one of the carts.’
‘Not a fighter?’
‘I did not say that, did I, but you are for certain no good at marching.’ Flavius adopted a deliberately hard tone; he was resolved to act and there was no going back. ‘No more argument, I have decided and you will obey.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
‘Two days there, maybe, no more, and we will be outside Constantinople,’ said Forbas. ‘I have that on the authority of the Tribune Vigilius.’
‘Is he as rich as he looks?’
‘Richer, father a senator and was something at court till this brewed up. Seems he has retired to his estates till it all blows over.’ Which was as good a way as any of saying that he was Chalcedonian. ‘Anyway, what do you want?’
Flavius outlined his problem with Ohannes as well as the solution he had come to, which the centurion took surprisingly well.
‘As it happens I am about to break up what remains of one unit and distribute them throughout the century, too many are a man or two short.’
Sensing the enquiry Flavius was about to make Forbas just added the rate of desertions.
‘Hard to keep an eye on everyone, be better when we have a settled camp. The centuries we can watch, but the peasants are a nightmare, what with no real discipline or marching formation, and we have lost a rate of them. Caught a few and strung them up as examples, though they got a priestly blessing first. We’re not barbarians.’
‘What happened to the decanus who lost his men?’
‘What usually happens, Flavius, a bout at the wheel and no skin on his back, a lesson to all that if you lose a man, you pay the price. He lost three and bled for it.’
Flavius was thankful Forbas was not looking at him, for he went white. He was also thinking, if this is what happens with volunteers, what was it like in a proper army?