doubtless the first-born of one of the noblest and most aristocratic families in Constantinople: a tall, handsome, slightly arrogant-looking fellow in his darkly shining black breastplate, his helmet with its dark crest cradled under his left arm. He saluted smartly. He’d be eager for battle and glory, this one, chafing at having to remain behind in the city barracks as the emperor’s personal bodyguard. Now was his chance.
‘Captain Andronicus, sir. First Commander of the Imperial Guard.’
‘Your men fit and ready?’
‘As ever, sir.’
‘They’d better be. How’s your arithmetic, man?’
‘Arithmetic, sir?’
‘You heard aright. The Theodosian Walls are around three miles in length, from the Golden Horn to the Sea of Marmara. You have a hundred and sixty of your own men, plus eighty auxiliaries.’
‘And a column of Gothic horsemen, I heard?’
‘They’re my close guard. It will be an easy calculation for you to space your men evenly along the Walls. Yes?’
Andronicus looked distant for a moment, and then grinned. ‘Three miles… some six thousand paces. Six thousand divided by two hundred and forty is… a man about every twenty-five paces.’
‘Quite so. Not a lot, is it, soldier?’
‘It’s not, sir.’
‘Your men are going to have a hot time of it.’
‘Never fear, sir. My men are as highly trained as any in the empire.’
Highly trained, yes, and an elite; but little used. Maybe that would be a good thing. They would be eager to test themselves.
‘You’ll have noticed, too, soldier, that there are three defensive walls west of this city. If we manned them all, what spacing?’
‘A man every seventy-five paces, sir. Too little.’
‘Quite so. Even manning two walls would be over-stretch. We can man only the inner wall. No chance of defence in depth this time. In other words, your men are going to have to hold their nerve like veterans, because in a few hours’ or a few days’ time, however long our enemy in his kindness and consideration allows us, a hundred thousand Huns are going to come across the moat and over the first wall, virtually unopposed but for what our artillery can do. Then they’re going to come over the second wall, still virtually unopposed. Only at the third and last wall will you have your chance to fight. A man every twenty-five yards. Does the immensity of our task impress itself upon you, Captain?’
The handsome miles gloriosus grinned again with satisfaction. ‘Can’t wait to get stuck in, sir.’
‘Your men aren’t professional archers, is that correct?’
‘They can handle a bow, sir.’
‘Very well. Now get ’em up there. I want the Guard stationed from the Marble Tower in the south, right up to St Romanus Gate. North around the Blachernae Palace down to the Charisius Gate, station your auxiliaries. The city watch will be in reserve at key points if things get desperate.’
Andronicus curled his finely chiselled lip disdainfully. Desperate indeed. The indignity of having to fight alongside those peasants, with their staves and billhooks!
‘And the Lycus Valley, and Military Gate V, sir?’
The weak point, the crunch point, where glory would be won or lost and the fate of the city decided. ‘My Gothic allies,’ said Aetius. ‘But don’t worry, soldier. We’ll all end up fighting there sooner or later, I don’t doubt.’
He turned to the other man, a squat, burly figure with a bushy, unkempt, salt-and-pepper beard. ‘And you are?’
He did not salute. ‘Tarasicodissa Rousoumbladeotes.’
Aetius grimaced. ‘Say that again and you’ll give me a headache.’
Andronicus grinned. The bearded chieftain did not.
‘And salute your commanding officer when he first addresses you,’ snapped Aetius. ‘Tarasicodissa Rousoumbladeotes. ’
He spoke the name perfectly, after one hearing. Few men had ever achieved that. Tarasicodissa Rousoumbladeotes saluted.
Aetius nodded. ‘Very well. From now on I’m calling you Zeno, so you’d better get used to it. You hear me?’
‘I hear you.’
‘You and your Isaurian tribesmen are far-famed for banditry, in your Cilician mountains.’ Zeno glowered. ‘But here you’ll have the chance to win a higher renown. Your eighty will hold the walls of the Blachernae Palace until the Huns are destroyed. Yes?’
The chieftain nodded.
‘Now move, both of you. There’s work to do.’
Despite the manning of the Walls – or perhaps because of it: the results were so visibly thin – the atmosphere in the city grew more hysterical by the hour, as the day slid into dusk. Twice a cry went up from a church or palace tower that a mighty host was approaching from the west, and twice it proved to be false. The second time, it turned out to be a great, dark cloud of rooks. Aetius sent word that any more false alarms would result in flayed backs.
There also came news that a boy had seen a vision of the Virgin on the walls, bearing a flaming sword, ready to fight alongside her beloved and faithful people for the Holy City of Byzantium.
‘Probably just bad wine,’ said Tatullus, unmoved, gazing steadfastly out into the twilight.
‘On the contrary,’ said Aetius. ‘A miracle.’ He told the messenger to spread the word.
‘Sir?’
‘Spread the word, damn you! The Virgin has been seen on the walls. Take the fellow round, give him wine to loosen his tongue, encourage the visionary in him. Find others who can corroborate his story. Move.’
Tatullus grinned into the darkness. The master-general turned everything into a weapon against the enemy, even pious delusions. Then he frowned. The rooks were coming back out of the twilight, circling again, as if unable to settle in their treetop colony.
Aetius joined him. ‘They are infected with the general panic of the city,’ said the general.
‘In the street below,’ murmured a nearby voice – it was Arapovian, characteristically not requesting permission to speak before commanding officers – ‘I saw a cat curl up and try to sleep, then leap up again with its tail straight out. And…’ He hesitated, hardly daring to impart more bad news. He had seen one city fall to the Huns, and had stood in despair amid its ruins. He did not want to see another. Not this city, too.
‘Go on, man.’
‘This afternoon I saw my cup of water shake when I stood it on the wall. I saw its surface ripple.’
Tatullus stiffened. The rooks circled and cawed. Aetius whispered, ‘Oh, no. Please God, no.’
‘I know the signs: they are common in my country. The cat, the ripples, those rooks…’
‘No.’ Aetius laid his hands flat on the top of the battlements. Suddenly these mighty walls seemed things of gossamer.
Arapovian nodded grimly. ‘There is an earthquake coming.’
17
In the night it began to rain. They could not sleep, sheltering in the lee of the walls. If Arapovian was right, they should be sheltering in the open forum. Or, irony of ironies, out beyond the city walls, on the open plain. There they would be safe from the earthquake, only to be devoured by the Huns. Damn it all, damn the rooks, and damn that sodding cat.
