All the while they had been watching, those trumpets had continued to blow and the rising sun, now illuminating the battlements, began to flash off the metal with blinding streaks of light. Tzitas had the right of it, the great gates had swung open and from within them came a body of men on foot, all in startlingly white robes: closer to they saw the broad purple stripes with which they were edged.
‘A delegation from the senate,’ cried Helias.
‘What use is that?’ Flavius enquired only to be utterly ignored, which piqued him enough, after several seconds of total silence, to add, ‘Suit yourself!’
Did they not know, these ignorant rusticae that the senate mattered not a scrape on a wax tablet since the time of Augustus and had lost even more power since? It might talk, it rarely even met to do that now, but it did not decide: only the emperor had that right.
Horns began to play to their rear and from that direction came the pounding of hooves, soon to reveal the mounted foederati, led in person by Vitalian. He had them fan out before their own encampment with the general at the centre, under his personal banner, an attendant rushing forward with his helmet, that quickly donned, which had his companions looking to Flavius to explain, which he did, feeling his standing restored.
‘A precaution,’ Flavius replied in what was in honesty a guess. ‘He fears a surprise sortie by cavalry.’
‘Gates are being closed again.’
‘You have good eyes Tzitas.’
That got a rare smile from a fellow not accustomed to praise. ‘Have to.’
Vitalian had been joined by his tribunes, all now mounted and clad in their armour, Vigilius included, and they lined up just to his rear looking straight ahead at the approaching embassy, for that was all it could be, given there was not a weapon in sight. Nor were these senators in any rush, walking forward at no great pace as suited their dignity, their servants trailing them bearing trays piled with food.
Vitalian dismounted too and walked forward, lifting off his helmet and picking out the man who led the arrow-shaped delegation. When he was a few cubits distant he threw wide his arms, that replicated by their general, a man he clearly knew, and they came together to engage in a tight embrace, before they thrust apart to stand, arms on each other’s shoulders, deep in what was obviously friendly conversation.
‘Christ be praised,’ cried Helias, ‘I think we have won. Happen they’ll make you emperor after all, Baccuda.’
‘Oh, to be a fly buzzing round that exchange,’ Flavius said, thinking that if Helias was right, he would be within the city by the time the sun went down and once there he would somehow contrive to find his father’s old companion.
‘Try it,’ Helias suggested, ‘they might do us all a service and swat you.’
Flavius glowered as he observed Vitalian take the lead senator’s arm and walk him back towards his own tent, the line of his soldiers melting away to create a path through which all could proceed. The horsemen had been stood down and returned to their lines, likewise the tribunes had dismounted, their mounts led away by grooms, and they now trailed their general as he led the whole into his tent.
Forbas, sensing that any talks would take an age, began to bellow orders that would see his men once more on the training field, but to engage in mock battle when it was clear their leader was talking, as well as knowing that whatever was concluded would affect them all, was purgatory. If that was true of the majority, it was doubly so for Flavius. As time went by, the sanguine hope for a resolution faded somewhat, to be replaced by growing doubt; if they were negotiating and taking so long about it that did not hint at agreement.
The youngster so wanted to be in that tent; growing up in the home of a man in command, he had been privy to, if not everything that happened, a great deal of what went on. As a child he had wandered into meetings to be greeted by his indulgent father and have his chin chucked by those with whom he was in discussion. Older, and certainly in the last few years, he had been able to listen to such exchanges and understand what was being decided, for only very rarely had his father shut the door on them.
Irritated at the time, he realised now that he had been allowed to hear things of no consequence. When the door was closed Decimus must have been in conversation with those he wished to witness against Senuthius, or perhaps laboriously penning his letters to Constantinople, neither of which he wanted to share.
The flagellum carried by Forbas hit him a stinging blow across the shoulder, followed by a meaningful look and a command to concentrate on what was happening; the centurion did not need to ask where the youngster’s mind was. It was within that tent and in his head Flavius was engaging in any number of imaginary conversations, ones in which his sagacity naturally triumphed.
‘You’re not a general, Flavius, nor yet a tribune. You are a decanus, so for the love of Christ behave like one. Now let us get properly formed and we will start again.’
Flavius looked at those he led; expecting sympathy he could not comprehend why they seemed pleased to see him a victim of Forbas’s whip, a notion which troubled him for a while, until everyone was distracted by the senatorial delegation emerging from Vitalian’s great tent to return to the city.
Curiosity was now at fever pitch; had the talking failed to achieve what everyone now hoped for: a way that would see their aims satisfied, allowing them to return home? For the gloss of soldiering, the excitement that had animated nearly every man when they left their homes, had been rubbed off by experience.
It was an aid to deep curiosity that officers had servants, and like that breed they, with few exceptions, were the kind to adopt a superior and knowing air so that they could draw flattery, or even some kind of gift, before they revealed what they knew. The senior officers would go on the morrow to meet and negotiate in person with Emperor Anastasius, but General Vitalian had declined to join them.
No great imagination was needed to discern why; the emperor was not to be trusted and once inside the city their commander and the champion of their cause might never get out again. As dawn broke Flavius was up and watching, his hopes riding on the half-dozen officers he saw depart, dressed in finery that he had not seen before, clothing fit for an imperial audience.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The delegation from Vitalian would be met by a mounted escort and brought along the Triumphal Way, no doubt an object of much curiosity to a crowd of citizens. Justinus had been ordered to parade the entire excubitor corps in order to greet the delegation, which meant his soldiers had spent hours in special preparation and all were inspected before they were deployed, not only lining the avenue that led from the Triumphal Way to the palace gates and the portico of the entrance that also served as that for the imperial senate house; inside the building they were spaced along the corridors, their breastplates freshly oiled and polished, the plumed-ridge helmets gleaming, especially the silver decorations that marked them out as bodyguards to the emperor.
The even more gorgeously accoutred officers were there at intervals, and thanks to the duties they had been obliged to undertake to ensure their sections were up to the mark, none were bleary-eyed from a night of debauchery. Their commander had taken station on the portico steps and was there to greet the rebels, as was Pentheus Vicinus. The very obvious fact of Vitalian’s non-presence was already known, which had caused Petrus to praise the general’s wisdom for not, as he put it, ‘Laying his head in the lion’s cage, with a beefsteak for a helmet.’
Anastasius was likewise dressed for the occasion, the sparkling jewel-studded imperial diadem upon his brow, the garments he wore purple, the devices upon them traced out in heavy and awesome amounts of gold thread. His throne, of worked precious metals surmounted by imperial eagles, sat on a raised dais, as did he until the embassy from Vitalian entered the audience chamber, at which point he stood and stiffly descended the steps to greet his visitors in a show of friendship and seeming humility, that answered by deep bows.