Osimo or the Moon or wherever else you wish. I intend to do as I have said with the men whom I have brought with me.'
Belisarius asked: 'And our garrison at Milan, Distinguished Chamberlain? What of them?'
Narses replied: 'They must extricate themselves as best they can just as Bloody John would have been forced to do at Rimini but for my insistence.'
Belisarius controlled his rising indignation. 'My Lord Narses,' he said gently,' you forget yourself and the truth.' Then he called to his secretary Procopius: 'Where is the document that recently came for me from the Emperor?'
Procopius found the document. It was one that Justinian had signed without Narses' knowledge, being forced to do so by Theodora. Belisarius read out in his low, even voice:
'We have today sent our Lord Chamberlain, the Distinguished Narses, to Picenum with certain of our regiments. But he shall have authority over our armies in Italy only as specifically appointed to a command by the Illustrious Belisarius, who has held and must continue to hold the supreme authority under us. It is the duty of all Imperial officers serving in the Western Empire to obey the said Belisarius implicitly, for the public good of our Empire.'
Narses' ugly face turned still uglier as he listened. When Belisarius had finished, he snatched the letter from his hands and read it over to himself, hoping to twist some meaning from it that was not there. He had a mind well-sharpened by years of petty intrigue, and it was therefore not difficult for him to find a flaw in the wording. 'There!' he cried in triumph, pointing to the last words. 'We are to obey you implicitly, but only for the public good of His Serene Majesty's Empire. Illustrious Belisarius, your military plans are thoroughly unsound, and in no way conduce to the public good. I, for one, do not feel bound by this document to obey you. And you, Distinguished John?'
Bloody John answered: 'I, too, think that to send another expedition to Milan and attack Osimo with reduced forces is a most dangerous plan, especially with Wittich stationed at Ravenna.'
Hildiger exclaimed indignantly:' While we command the sea King Wittich can be held a close prisoner at Ravenna. The only approach is by the causeways across the marshes. A thousand men could block these effectively. I stand by my Lord Belisarius.'
But Narses' party prevailed.
Then my mistress Antonina spoke angrily to Narses and said: 'Her Resplendency the Empress Theodora will give you a whipping for this day's work when you return, eunuch — if you are lucky enough to return.'
CHAPTER 17
Belisarius wrote to the Emperor, acquainting him drily with Narses' 'loyal scruples' against deferring to his military judgement; he asked for a new warrant confirming his authority as supreme commander of the Armies in Italy. My mistress Antonina wrote to Theodora at the same time, using a less diplomatic term for Narses' disgraceful behaviour. Justinian's answer was long in coming.
Meanwhile Belisarius kept his patience and even managed to persuade Narses to join him in the siege of Urbino. This city is built on a steep hill, and has only one approach on level ground, namely from the north, where the walls are raised higher in compensation. The Gothic garrison, confident in the strength of their walls and their well-stocked granaries, refused an invitation to surrender; Belisarius would have to take the city by assault or stratagem. There was no aqueduct entrance to explore, the inhabitants being supplied with water by a perpetual spring within the city; he must therefore attempt to breach the walls. With this end in view he had a cloister built, superintending the work himself. A cloister is a connected series of pent-houses on wheels, each pent-house consisting of a stout timber frame roofed with osier hurdles of the sort that shepherds use to form their sheep- cotes, the hurdles being covered with raw hides. This cloister was to be advanced against the northern stretch of the fortifications, and under its protection a large number of soldiers with picks and shovels would begin undermining the wall. Usually the posts of a cloister are eight feet high, but Belisarius added another yard to them in order to leave space for a subsidiary roof, for greater protection. The roof of a cloister is built at a steep angle so that stones bounce off harmlessly; the hides are kept constantly damp to prevent them from being set on fire. Belisarius incorporated half a dozen battering-rams in the cloister.
The walls of Urbino were very solid and the ground very rocky: which accounted for there being no fosse. Narses and Bloody John had already lost patience, Bloody John swearing that the place was impregnable — had he not made an unsuccessful attempt upon it himself on his way to Rimini when it was held only by a few men? So on the tenth night of the siege they marched their divisions away, without informing Belisarius where they were going. Narses went to hold Rimini, Bloody John to raid along the coast beyond Ravenna as a means of enriching himself: for in all that north-eastern territory of Aemilia and Venetia there were no strong fortresses to which the Goths could retreat in safety with their treasures.
Belisarius was left to press the siege of Urbino with 1,800 men. The 2,000 Goths of the garrison, aware of what had happened, laughed and jeered at him. But the cloister was soon in position, while his best archers, perched on a scaffolding behind and protected by a screen, picked off the sentries on the battlements.
Though the miners worked vigorously, by the third day they had not yet dug down to the foundations of the wall, and the rams, swung in unison, still made no noticeable impression on it. Then the Goths succeeded in pushing down a whole merlon upon the roof of the cloister. It broke through, but killed nobody, for the archers on the scaffolding gave warning in time. Belisarius reckoned that it would be two months at least before the wall collapsed, and made no secret of this to his remaining officers. Judge then of his surprise, and ours, when on the fourth day, having been strangely quiet for the two preceding days, the Goths of the garrison appeared between the embrasures of the battlements with their hands raised in token of surrender. By midday the terms had been agreed upon between Belisarius and their commander, and Urbino was ours.
What had occurred must be ascribed to plain good luck, but plain good luck was no more than Belisarius deserved at this juncture. Narses would not have agreed about this. Indeed, when the news reached him at Rimini he was so overcome with jealousy that for days he would not cat at the common mess-table, for fear that he might betray his real feelings and so seem disloyal to the Emperor. Narses, by the way, carried about with him, in a gilt shrine, a little glass image of the Virgin Mother of Jesus, which he would consult before undertaking any important step. He used to tell his officers: 'Our Lady has warned me not to listen to the plan you suggest.' Or: 'Our Lady agrees with mc that the project I have formed is a sound one.' On this occasion the Virgin had said nothing. She might well have notified him that the perpetual water supply at Urbino would suddenly fail and the garrison surrender from thirst — for then he would not have put himself in so foolish a position.
Now, in digging the usual fosse for his camp, Narses had accidentally struck a spring of water and, on Bloody John's advice, diverted it into troughs in his horse-lincs for the more convenient watering of his horses — just as Belisarius had once done at Capoudia. This diversion of the spring had an unsuspected connexion with the failure of the city's water supply. The irony of it was that Narses was really responsible for the fall of Urbino- and, moreover, never knew! By restoring the water to its former channel we were able to quench Urbino's thirst again. Nobody was admitted to the secret but myself and two of my fellow-domestics, masons by trade, who came with me to the abandoned camp and did the necessary work under my direction. We had orders to hide the spring again under a pile of rocks, for Belisarius might find it necessary to hold Urbino against enemy attack one day.
The motto 'Patience in Poverty', on the bowl of St Bartimaeus, which Justinian had given to Belisarius and Belisarius had lent to the monks, recurred to my mind. Our forces were still further reduced by the necessity of sending Martin with a thousand men to the relief of Milan. Belisarius (my mistress Antonina always at his side) undertook the siege of Orvieto with the mere 800 trained men left him, and some Italian recruits: the town lay too close to Rome to be allowed to remain in Gothic hands.
Martin was no hero. When he reached the right bank of the River Po he was afraid to cross with so small a force against Uriah's army of Burgundians and Goths — which consisted of not less than 70,000 men. Uliaris, who was with Martin, in command of a half-squadron of the Household Regiment, agreed with him that the odds were too great to face. The Governor of Milan sent a messenger to Martin — the messenger passed in disguise through
