Justinian

straight.’ He grinned sheepishly. ‘Tomorrow, what say we recce Islamgee and decide where to site those catapults. All right?’

‘All right,’ replied Valerian with a smile, gripping the other’s proferred hand. ‘And — welcome back.’

The great machines — till this moment mere strangely shaped and innocent-looking pieces of timber and metal transported in sections by muleback or on carts — were duly being assembled on the plain of Islamagee, facing that titanic pillar, the rock of Magdala. Carrying out the task under Valerian’s supervision was a team of engineers, who had, despite frequent squalls of driving rain, been working steadily since dawn. Behind the engineers and to one side stood a small force of Roman cavalry and native spearmen, commanded by Justinian with an Aethiopian officer as his second. This was more of a routine precaution than anything else; vastly outnumbered by the expedition’s strength, Magdala’s garrison was hardly in a position to sally forth and offer battle.

Justinian was almost happy. On coming to himself following the exchange with Valerian, he had experienced a hot flush of salutary shame which had left him feeling purged, his outlook once more positive. An image of himself, long-cherished, as a real soldier in charge of men in a combat situation, was now being realized, he told himself with quiet satisfaction. Even the weather, gusty with icy showers, was something to be relished; indifference to physical discomfort was the mark of a true soldier.

The task of creating a breach fell to the aptly named onagri — ‘kicking asses’. Each onager consisted of a long beam powered by the torsion of twisted sinews in a frame, and faced by a padded retaining bar to absorb the shock when the arm was released by a trigger mechanism. Attached to the end of the arm was a sling to carry the missile — a large ball of stone or iron. Delivered with terrific force, these projectiles were capable, by a series of repeated hits, of smashing through stout wooden gates, or, given time, reducing stone walls to rubble. The other type of artillery was the ballista — for killing men. A cord connecting two torsion-powered arms mounted in a frame was cranked back by a ratchet device. When released by a catch, it would hurl a bolt (resting in a wooden trough) whose impact could skewer several bodies at the same time, or punch through shields or armour like a nail through putty.

Though no doubt warned by their Jewish allies (to those below, distinguishable from the tribesmen by their helmets and pale faces) of the destructive potential of the Roman catapults, the Galla — jeering and catcalling from the ramparts, seemed more amused than intimidated by the operations of the engineers, as they slowly pieced the great machines together.

‘When you’re ready, ducenarius.’ Valerian nodded to the sergeant in charge of Onager Primus.

With six artillerymen bending to the winding levers, the ratchet clanked, bringing Onager Number One’s throwing arm back to its loading cradle, when a heavy iron ball was placed in the sling.

‘Jacite!’* ordered the ducenarius. The release catch was thrown and the arm flew forward, slamming against the retaining bar and sending the missile whirring through the air in an arcing trajectory. The ball struck the breastwork above the gatehouse tower, sending up a spray of stone chips. A cheer arose from the catapult crew.

‘Good shooting,’ called Valerian. ‘Fire at will.’

‘Down one,’ ordered the ducenarius; this time the crew counted one less click of the ratchet before loading. The missile smashed against the woodwork of the gate itself. As if suddenly realizing the very real threat posed by the catapults, the Galla on the battlements fell silent. Soon, all four onagri were in action, inflicting visible damage on the gate and its flanking towers, while volleys of bolts from the ballistae forced the enemy to keep their heads below the ramparts. Watching from his station, Justinian wondered just how long the entry to the fortress could sustain such unrelenting punishment.

Without warning, a sudden burst of heavy rain swept across Islamgee, instantly blotting out all vision beyond a few yards. Having found the range, however, the engineers continued their bombardment uninterrupted.

Then, as quickly as it had commenced, the rain cleared — revealing to Justinian an appalling sight. A large party of Galla (who must have descended the path from the fortress to the base of Magdala, under cover of the squall) was charging towards the catapults! Justinian stared in horror at the rapidly advancing mass of warriors — immensely tall men with pitch-black skins, and beardless faces surmounted by monstrous globes of fuzzy hair, their delicate, almost effeminate features contorted with battle frenzy, vicious-looking spears poised to strike. He opened his mouth to give the order to charge — but no sound came. He was aware that instant action was imperative, but seemed frozen in the saddle.

‘Ras!’* exclaimed his second-in-command, turning to him with a desperate expression. The urgency in the man’s cry jolted Justinian out of his immobility; turning to his men, he shouted, ‘Charge!’

The Roman cavalry, the Aethiopians racing at their side, swept down on the Galla; but too late — just — to save the engineers, who perished to a man, skewered by those terrible spears. Justinian saw Valerian go down, a reddened blade projecting a hand’s-breadth from his back. Then the horsemen were among the Galla, cutting them down with lethal swipes of their long spathae. The encounter was brief and bloody. Despite displaying ferocious courage, the Galla — incapable through temperament and tradition of presenting a defensive ring of spears against the cavalry, the only tactic that might have proved effective — fell by scores, before suddenly turning and retreating pell-mell back to the citadel.

In an agony of grief and self-recrimination, Justinian, in conjunction with the Negus and both their senior officers, now threw himself into organizing the assault. The Galla in their sortie had not had time to damage or destroy the catapults; fresh teams of engineers resumed the bombardment, and by noon the main gate had been battered down. After bitter hand-to-hand fighting, a storming-party then managed to clear the entrance long enough for a large contingent from the expedition to gain access to the fortress. As was usual in such circumstances, no quarter was shown to the defenders, who were hunted down and killed like rats.

After the fall of Magdala, the remainder of the campaign came almost as an anti-climax. Without further incident, the expedition proceeded to the coast, where waiting Roman transports conveyed it across the straits to Arabia Felix. Dhu-Nuwas and his army were duly brought to battle and decisively routed, the Himyarite leader being killed in the fighting. With Aethiopian rule and Christianity restored to the Sabaeans, the Negus and his warriors returned to Africa, and Justinian — victorious but sick in soul — sailed back with the Romans to Constantinople.

* The Blue Nile.

* Could these Gelada baboons be the origin of the legend of the ‘dog-faced men’ — a belief that stubbornly persisted throughout the Middle Ages?

* Shoot. Orders in the East Roman army were still being given in Latin.

* Lord.

PART III

RESTITUTOR ORBIS ROMANI

AD 527-540

NINE

They [Theodora and Justimian] set free from a licentiousness fit only for slaves

the women who were struggling with extreme poverty, providing them with

independent maintenance and setting virtue free*

Procopius, On Buildings, c. 550