Legionary: Land of the Sacred Fire (8 page)

Footsteps shook him from his thoughts. He stood rigid and readied to salute, his eyes darting to the doorway. When Valens entered, he wore an earnest, welcoming look that belied the austerity all around him. His snow-white fringe partially masked the network of frown lines on his forehead and dangled to a point just above arched eyebrows and sharp, studious blue eyes. He wore a long, purple robe and a ceremonial, muscled bronze cuirass. Flanking him were two
candidati,
the tenacious warriors who seldom left his side. They wore no armour, preferring just light and pure-white linen tunics for swiftness of movement. They carried gold-threaded spears, spathas and white shields emblazoned with a gold Chi-Rho emblem.

Valens stopped before Gallus.

‘Imperator!’ Gallus barked, throwing an arm up stiffly.

‘Tribunus Gallus,’ Valens said with a nod and a gentle smile. ‘At ease. Much has happened since last we met.’

Gallus felt pleasantly disarmed by the emperor’s familiar tone. And Valens was right, he realised, thinking of that brief spell at the palace in Constantinople over a year ago. He had dined with the emperor and a rabble of power-hungry vultures whose ambitions lay masked behind senatorial and ecclesiastical robes. The calamitous Bosporus mission had followed soon after. The months that followed saw the Danubian Limes torn apart, the XI Claudia forced to flee into southern Thracia as the Goths went on the rampage. ‘Much has happened, Emperor, and much of it regrettable.’

‘The regrets are for me to reflect upon, Tribunus. You and your men have done your utmost to protect the empire – indeed, that is why you are here,’ Valens said, then turned away and paced across the room. ‘Perhaps one day the empire will be but a distant memory. Yet the people who choose to remember it will recall the legacy of the brutish Emperor Valens.’ He spread out his arms by the open window. ‘In times of relative peace and prosperity I have embellished the cities of the empire in an effort to breathe life into those ancient settlements and hope into the hearts of their peoples. Constantinople, Alexandria, Nicomedia, Adrianople, I have cared for all these places as if they were my homes. Here in Antioch I commissioned the fine, open space of the new forum, dedicated to my departed brother,’ he pointed to the circular clearing across the river, part-hidden in the sprawl of domes and marble structures. There, a column stretched into the night sky, with a gilded statue of Valentinian perched on its tip, in muscled armour, one hand on his heart and the other holding a spatha skywards.

Gallus stared at the sight of the dead Western Emperor. His top lip twitched. Hatred built in his veins. He thought of Olivia, of Marcus. It had been under that cur’s reign that . . .

‘I spent vast sums from the imperial treasury on revitalising the Great Church of Constantine,’ Valens continued, stirring him from his dark thoughts, nodding to the largest of domes to the south-east, ‘because the people implored me that I must. And there are the baths, the arena, the gardens . . . ’ he stopped, his head dropping a little. ‘But this will be forgotten. The dark tide of war will be my legacy. Yes, I have waged wars, and bloody ones too.’ He shook his head as if stirring from some troubled memory. ‘But now the tide of war has turned against the empire, Gallus, and ferociously so.’

‘Thracia can be saved, Emperor,’ Gallus interjected. The words came from his heart.

‘From where do you draw such hope?’ Valens asked, looking over his shoulder from the window, one eyebrow arched.

These words seemed to search inside Gallus’ armour. At once, he touched a hand to his purse, feeling for the idol in there. ‘Mithras stands with the legions back in Thracia.’

‘Then let us pray he betters Wodin and the Gothic hordes,’ Valens said with a mirthless snort. ‘But the fate of Thracia must wait. For a more ferocious and wily enemy now prowls at our door. The eastern frontier is on the brink, Tribunus.’ He swung round from the window, his eyes shaded under a deep frown. ‘Persia’s gaze is upon us.’

This was it, the moment Gallus had been waiting for. The brief that had brought him and his men east. ‘Emperor?’

‘Shapur has taken control of Armenia. Ten thousand Persian riders now patrol those lands and puppet the fickle princes who once swore loyalty to Rome.’

‘And you suspect the king of kings now readies to invade the empire?’ Gallus’ eyes narrowed as he said this, his gaze flicking to the campaign map.

‘Nobody knows what is brewing in Shapur’s mind. But I have heard rumour and counter-rumour that he is coming under ever-increasing pressure to make a decisive move,’ Valens’ expression darkened. ‘There are many within Persian lands who resent the House of Sassan. They see no reason why their ancient houses should not rule Persia in Shapur’s stead. They will demand that Shapur moves upon our empire or they will have his head and seize his throne. The taking of Armenia serves as a dark portent. Roman Syria is in absolutely no state to deal with an incursion of any kind.’ He strode over to the campaign table, resting an oil lamp near the centre of the map. Beckoning Gallus over and gesturing to the stools beside the table, he sat and tapped the spot on the map north-west of Constantinople, where the new temporary limes had been set up in Thracia. ‘Had it not been for the Gothic migrations across the Danubius, I would not have had to divert many of my eastern legions to those lands.’ He then swept his finger across the map, almost tracing the route of the XI Claudia’s voyage, bringing it to a rest in the area just east of Antioch. Here, more than forty soldier-pieces were spread out in a line running north to south. ‘The number of pieces here is misleading. Many of these legions are little more than vexillationes, some numbering only a few hundred like your own. Barely twenty five thousand men, stretching from northern Syria, all the way down to Egypt. And nearly half of them are mere limitanei . . . ’ he looked up, fixing Gallus with his gaze. ‘I mean no offence, Tribunus. The border soldiers here barely compare with your kind – and that is exactly why I summoned you.’

Gallus smoothed at his chin with a thumb and forefinger. ‘Yet the eastern defences are sturdy, are they not? The fortifications along the
Strata Diocletiana
are legendary,’ he suggested, drawing a finger along the line on the map that ran from Armenia in the north down past Palmyra in the south. He had heard many tales of the proud network of stone forts that studded that desert road. ‘Surely – limitanei or otherwise – these legions here could bed in and man our strongholds should Shapur choose to invade?’

Valens pulled a wry smile. ‘The Strata Diocletiana has fallen into grievous disrepair. There are scarcely enough legionaries to garrison those forts, let alone funds to repair them. If Shapur turns his armies upon them, they will fall.’

Gallus frowned. Suddenly, the memory of the ballistae lining Antioch’s mountaintop eastern walls took on an air of desperation – like some final bastion. ‘And the Persians, what forces can they muster against us?’

Valens’ gaze grew distant. ‘Including the Armenian garrison, nearly one hundred thousand warriors. Perhaps a third are
paighan
– peasant infantry, many of them chained and forced to march. But the heart of the Persian army, over half, are Savaran.’

‘The Savaran?’ Gallus asked. ‘The Persian cavalry?’

Valens’ brow knitted in a frown. ‘Cavalry? Aye, perhaps you could call them that. Though the empire over I have yet to see riders so fierce.’

‘Emperor?’ Gallus asked, agitated by the sense of unease creeping back into his gut.

‘The detail we can come to later on,’ Valens waved a hand as if swatting a mayfly, ‘but you should be aware that the Sassanid rulers have changed the Persian way of war. In these last decades, they have shed the last vestiges of the old Parthian dynasty. They have fine forts, broad roads – they even model their borders on our limites. Their standing armies are as well-drilled as any legion.’ He stopped, screwing up his eyes and pinching the top of his nose as if fending off a headache. ‘Suffice to say they are a formidable foe.’

Gallus smoothed the tip of his chin. ‘Perhaps their unity – or lack of it – might be exploited? If Shapur has his enemies as you say,’ he offered.

‘A salient question, Tribunus, and one I have exhausted in these last months.’ Valens’ eyes sparkled keenly. ‘Unity is a multi-faceted concept. To a man, the Persians fight under the banner of their Zoroastrian god, Ahura Mazda, and unanimously rail against anything they see as the work of his antithesis,
Ahriman
. After that, internecine rivalries and power struggles muddy Persian politics so wickedly that few have a clear picture of how things truly stand. The spahbads who answer to Shapur control vast wings of the Savaran. They are like kings themselves, fiercely proud of their satrapies and their ancient and noble houses. And then there are the Zoroastrian Magi who walk before the armies, carrying torches that blaze with the Sacred Fire, a symbol of their faith. These men are mystical, powerful figures who control the hearts of people, armies and kings alike.’

‘It sounds like we could stoke some trouble that might keep them occupied?’ Gallus persisted.

Valens’ lips played with a smile. ‘Again, you echo my thoughts of recent times. Indeed, I have tried. Last year I sent a party of riders into The Satrapy of Elam in an attempt to bribe the spahbad and his army.’

‘Did the riders return?’ Gallus asked, sure he knew the answer already.

‘In a manner of speaking, yes. Their heads were delivered to a fort on the Strata Diocletiana, mouths stuffed with Roman coins,’ as Valens said this, his gaze faltered. ‘The Persians will not turn upon one another for a few bags of Roman gold . . . and our coffers are all but empty in any case,’ he said dryly. ‘Subterfuge of any other kind – stoking up rivalries, instigating blood-feuds, that kind of thing – takes time, Gallus. And I fear time is running out. This year, next year at the latest, the Persian armies will fall upon these lands.’

‘Very well,’ Gallus nodded, his gut twisting further. ‘So if invasion is inevitable, and our fortifications cannot withstand such an assault, then why have you called us east, Emperor? Surely my vexillatio can offer little to change this?’

Valens shook his head slowly. ‘On the contrary, Tribunus. I know that you and your hardy men can.’ He clapped his hands and a pair of slaves hurried in with a jug of watered wine and a plate of fresh bread, figs and cheese. ‘Fill your belly and I will explain.’

Valens poured a goblet of wine and added three parts water, then swirled the concoction, gazing at the surface. ‘Fourteen years ago, an emperor died on the edge of a Persian blade.’

‘Julian,’ Gallus nodded, folding a piece of bread around a chunk of cheese and chewing upon it. He washed the mouthful down with water, forgoing wine as always. ‘I remember his reign. I was a young lad at the time. The Apostate, they called him – he had little time for Christian meekness.’ He said this with the beginnings of a dry chuckle, then remembered that Valens was a staunch Arian Christian and thought better of it.

Valens beheld him with a solemn gaze; ‘Then you will know of the man who succeeded him.’

‘Jovian,’ Gallus affirmed. ‘I remember little of his reign, other than that it was short. Very short. He was dead within a year, was he not?’

‘Jovian was a sot, Tribunus,’ Valens said, the stark words echoing around the chamber. ‘He stumbled into power and then swiftly drowned himself in wine, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. They say he died of accidental poisoning, but I heard the truth – he was found, soaked in his own vomit, surrounded by wineskins. Yet it was not wine that killed him. It was fear – a fear that he could escape only in a drunken haze. It takes a brave man to bear the burden of empire on his shoulders. The deaths of countless thousands haunting your dreams. The staring eyes of the living.’

Valens’ tone was clipped, yet his eyes betrayed a hint of glassiness. Gallus wondered if this was pity for poor Jovian, or for himself.

‘But on the day he acceded to the purple – the day after Julian had been slain, when the Roman army were pinned like wounded deer to the banks of the Tigris by the Savaran lances – Jovian found himself forced to concede a humiliating peace with Shapur. He gave away almost everything the empire had worked so hard to gain. Centuries of struggle, oceans of legionary blood, gone in a heartbeat.’ Valens leant forward, the lamplight dancing in his eyes. ‘But there is a chance, just a sliver of chance, that Jovian negotiated one thing in Rome’s favour that day. Something that, all these years later, could be the saviour of the east.’

Gallus’ spine tingled. The oil lamp on the edge of the table flickered as a cool night breeze tumbled in through the window like the breath of a shade.

‘Shapur is a ferocious adversary, but a noble one. It is thought that somehow Jovian convinced the shahanshah to agree to a lasting truce. That the lands west of the Euphrates were forever to remain unburdened by the Persian yoke.’

Gallus’ eyes widened. ‘That’s everything . . . Antioch, Beroea, Damascus, the Strata Diocletiana.’

‘Now you are beginning to understand, Tribunus?’ Valens’ earnest smile returned. ‘A perpetual peace. The border kingdoms – Armenia, Iberia and the hordes of Saracen nomads in the Syrian Desert – would support such a treaty. They would stand with us against any Persian invasion.’

‘Then we must present this treaty . . . ’

Valens held up a hand, fingers splayed. ‘Five copies of the treaty were prepared. Five scrolls. Two were given to Jovian and his retinue, three remained with Shapur. But in the flight across the Tigris, the Roman copies were lost. Indeed, much was lost; some soldiers took to wading into the river in their armour and drowned in their haste. Many arrived back in their homelands starved and dressed in filthy rags like beggars.’

Gallus nodded. ‘Then the Persian copies?’

Valens shook his head solemnly. ‘Over the years, they too have vanished. The copy held in Ctesiphon was destroyed when rioters ransacked the library. The copy in Susa, too, was lost in a great fire that ravaged the city. The third copy was sent to the Satrapy of Persis. But the camel rider disappeared on his journey there.’