‘If it pleases Your Highness, since I know Vitalian, I am happy to convey such an invitation to him.’
‘He might not take benevolently to that,’ Probus cried, as he saw his policy being swept to one side. ‘He might send us back your head.’
‘If my head is forfeit in the service of my emperor,’ Vicinus responded, in a sententious tone, ‘then so be it.’
Anastasius raised a hand palm out to command silence and then gave his consent. ‘An offer I cannot do other than accept, Senator.’
‘Too pat, far too pat,’ said Petrus. ‘It has the stink of being arranged beforehand.’
He moved alongside Justinus who replied with a sigh. ‘I do not have your nose for subterfuge, nephew, but no rat would have trouble smelling this.’
The details took little time; it was agreed that the senator would take an invitation to the rebellious general and his senior officers to attend, under a safe conduct, upon their emperor, where it was hoped common ground could be found that would still the need for any conflict.
‘He will kill him,’ Petrus said, ‘he has to.’
‘I fear he might ask that I do the deed.’
‘You would decline?’ Justinus emphatically nodded his head, but Petrus had a solution handy. ‘One of your officers would I am sure oblige, in fact I may know the very fellow.’
‘One of your drinking and whoring companions?’
‘Who else?’
Which told the uncle that if he had hoped to shame his nephew for both his way of living as well as his tranquil attitude to assassination, he had singularly failed.
The spirit that had animated the host and carried them all the way from Moesia had begun to wilt; faced with such a barrier as the Walls of Theodoric, what had seemed both divine in inspiration and attainable by sheer faith evaporated. It soon became evident that to achieve their stated goal was going to be neither easy nor rapid, a fact bound to dent the fortitude of those who had seen the task as being over long before the spring planting.
Flavius did not set out to be an extra-knowledgeable naysayer, but he was too wedded to logic and too well read in the history of siege warfare to do other than point out to his own group and anyone else prepared to listen the very palpable difficulties, which, if it had not infected the lower ranks, he suspected would command the thinking of those who led them.
‘They will know that even if we had enough men to close off every gate, you still need to have a fleet of ships to blockade the port and keep food from getting into the city.’
‘What about attacking the walls?’
Helias asked this in a hoarse voice, his mood grumpy. He seemed to have slept little or drunk too much, having gone off in search of entertainment the previous night, and was now struggling to eat his breakfast of bread and figs.
Those wishing to take advantage of a new source of custom had wasted no time in setting out their stalls between the walls and the camp and all must have come from within the city, which turned some minds to a quick raid that would get them inside the gates. Flavius was damp on that too; he suspected the guards would not be slack: anyone exiting would be allowed out by no more than a small postern, easily secured by one soldier, and would probably have to, on re-entry, use a password of some kind.
‘To attack the walls you need siege engines,’ said Flavius, replying to not only Helias, but also to a committed group of listeners. ‘Ballista and the like, and even then what kind of rocks would you have to fire to breach those structures? They are four cubits thick.’
‘There has to be a way, surely,’ insisted another fellow of no name; he came from a separate group. ‘Or why have we come all this way?’
‘You make it sound a waste of time,’ added Tzitas.
‘There are only two ways to get into Constantinople,’ Flavius replied, unaware that he was sounding smug, ‘that is, short of a miracle.’
That had them all crossing themselves, as though by doing so they could bring one on. Flavius was halfway to telling him that from what he had read miracles rarely came along when they were required. He did not because he was not prepared to admit he could read and even more reluctant to list what those histories had contained.
‘Possibly you can undermine the walls by tunnelling underneath them.’
Helias snorted derisively, before noisily coughing up some phlegm. ‘You, maybe, me never, I like to see the sun.’
‘How far out would you begin?’ asked Tzitas.
‘Beyond a cast spear,’ another soldier called Conon said, which was surprising, given he rarely spoke.
‘More than that,’ Flavius insisted. ‘You have to begin digging where it cannot be seen.’
‘That would take forever.’
‘It would, and the defenders will not just let it happen. Even if they cannot see it they will know.’
‘How?’ demanded a chorus.
‘Don’t think all those folk Helias went to see last night are honest traders.’
Helias cut in, with an angry growl, ‘Rogues and cheats, that’s what they are!’
‘You should have kept to our tent,’ Tzitas crowed, ‘serves you right.’
‘Like our leader?’
Flavius had no interest in what Helias had got up to the previous night or how much he felt he had been dunned and nor was he going to respond to his jibe; so someone had blabbed about him and Apollonia, hardly surprising since it seemed you could not take two steps in an army camp without someone gossiping. He was lost in his imaginings of sieges and battles and relating his opinions with the eagerness of his age, which carried with it a lack of sensitivity.
‘The other way is starvation, a siege that stops any food getting in, even better if we can cut off their water.’
‘But you just said that needs ships …’
‘I did, Tzitas.’
‘So knowing we lack those, how does our general hope to do what you say is not possible?’
Flavius was so lost in his enthusiasms he did not pick up that his way of talking to them was beginning to grate. Now his voice had that quality that implied to his listeners that only a fool would not be able to deduce the truth.
‘By stirring up the population of the city, of course! There must be many within the walls that are Chalcedonians. My father was always harking on about how prone the people of the city were to riot, and what better cause could there be than the one we are fighting for?’
The sun, which had created a golden sky, rose from behind the city of Constantinople, silhouetting in sharp relief the many spires and also warming their bodies. Unaware of how he was beginning to bore his audience, Flavius began to explain what he knew of the Blues and Greens and how much trouble they could cause. He did not get far, interrupted as he was by a set of blaring trumpets, the sound coming from the same direction as the shining sun, making it impossible to see anything.
Much to his annoyance all his unit stood and walked forward, shading their eyes, and they were not alone; it looked as if the whole host had reacted in a similar fashion, and looking along the line, once he too had joined them, Flavius could see Forbas and Vigilius acting with the same curiosity as every man they led, only the tribune had a servant strapping on his breastplate.
‘What does this say?’ asked dim Baccuda.
‘It’s a call for you to take up the diadem,’ Helias joked, coughing and spitting again. ‘You from today are to be emperor.’
‘Me?’
‘Does anyone have the wisdom to deserve it more?’
The half-suppressed laughter was enough to let the numbskull see he was being practised on, which made him glower and brought to mind for Flavius the character of Thersites from the Iliad, so ugly did that make him appear. Tempted to say so, he thought better; this lot would know nothing of Homer.
‘I’m sure that gate before us is opening,’ called Tzitas, well in advance of the others.