— lightly armed, whose only protection was a wicker shield — would fare better. And so it proved. Constricted by the narrow gorge, they were unable to bring their overwhelming numbers to bear. Pushed forward by the momentum of those behind, the foremost ranks perished on the pikes to form a growing heap of dead, over which the living were forced to clamber. As the Persian advance began to stall, the two Roman leaders sprung the surprise they had prepared in advance.
Concealed till this moment in a side canyon, and now alerted by signals from soldiers posted on the edge of the defile, a detachment of Roman cavalry swept into the ravine and smashed into the Persians’ undefended rear. Taken unawares, with no time or opportunity to take up a defensive position, the Persian foot-soldiers fell like corn before the scythe, cut down by lethal swipes from the horsemen’s
In disbelief, Tamshapur watched his army disintegrate around him. Screaming imprecations and threats of dire punishment for desertion (the mildest being live burial), he urged his captains to restore order. In vain the officers — from a caste fanatically adherent to a rigid code of loyalty and honour — threatened and pleaded; they were unable to stop the rot. Sensing that the right moment had arrived, Roderic and Victor called off the cavalry, allowing the Persians, now reduced to a huddled, fleeing mob, to escape from the death-trap that the canyon had become. His reputation in tatters, Tamshapur began the withdrawal of his mauled and demoralized force back beyond the Euphrates. East Rome could breathe again; the Diocese of Oriens was safe.
Feeling distinctly awkward and intimidated by the splendour of his surroundings, Roderic entered the vast colonnaded reception hall in Constantinople’s Great Palace, and made his way towards the elderly figure swathed in purple, who sat enthroned at the far end of the chamber.
‘Majesty — your humble servant is honoured to obey your summons,’ mumbled Roderic, clumsily dropping to one knee and bowing his head. Despite his rank, this was the first time that Roderic had been in the imperial presence, and he was uncomfortably aware that his ignorance of court ritual could be causing him to commit gaffes regarding etiquette. Too late, he recalled with a hot flush of shame, that the correct form of address was ‘Serenity’, not ‘Majesty’.
‘“Well done, thou good and faithful servant,” as Saint Mathew says,’ declared Anastasius, a smile lighting up his mild and kindly features. He waved the other to a nearby chair — an unheard-of honour, Roderic sensed, complying. ‘We are greatly in your debt,’ the emperor went on. ‘Thanks to your courage and initiative, a great danger threatening the safety of our realm has been avoided. It is only fitting you should be suitably rewarded. Accordingly, we hereby appoint you
Commander of the imperial guards and a senator to boot! Roderic’s brain whirled. At a stroke his status and circumstances had been transformed. From being a middle-ranking general who had often struggled to make ends meet, he was now holder of the army’s most prestigious post, with a seat in the august assembly of those who, in theory at least, made the Empire’s laws. And with these honours came wealth. Now, he could at last fulfil the promise he had made his sister in Dardania. He would send for Uprauda — his nephew and her son — and provide the boy with the finest education that Constantinople had to offer.
* AD 496 (See Notes.)
* Three-pronged spikes, one of which would always point upwards.
ONE
The coward calls himself cautious
‘Baptiso te in Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti,’ quavered the priest — an ancient Goth, dipping the week-old infant in the font then making the sign of the cross upon its forehead. Then, as a special favour granted only to a very few parents (who, through gifts or service to the church given over many years, had earned the privilege), he proceeded to inscribe the child’s names and date of birth in the church’s Bible — its greatest treasure. This was a precious copy of the Holy Book translated into the Gothic tongue by Ulfilas, the missionary who had brought the Word of God to his own people, the Goths, nearly a century and a half before. Though originally Arians,* those Goths who had settled in the Roman Empire had been compelled by an edict of Emperor Theodosius to adopt the Catholic faith — the Empire’s official creed. Hence the Service of Baptism had been carried out according to the rites of Rome.
‘Uprauda Ystock,’ the cleric wrote in one of the blank vellum pages at the end of the book, his arthritic fingers guiding the pen with difficulty, ‘natus pridie Kalendas Septembris Trocundo et Severino consulibus.’**
‘At last, Bigleniza, we have a son,’ the child’s father, Valaris Ystock, declared proudly to his wife when the couple had returned with their baby to their home. This was a thatched hut in the village of Tauresium, a scatter of mean dwellings in a clearing hemmed in by dark woods. ‘A son who will work our plot when I grow too old to manage it alone.’
‘There will be other sons for that, my dear,’ murmured Bigleniza, gazing adoringly at her sleeping infant. ‘For this, our firstborn, life holds other ends than tilling the soil.’
Bigleniza, a strong-willed woman of some education, was, so she claimed, partly of ancient Thracian stock, with links to the same family that had produced Spartacus. Valaris — a Goth and former field slave belonging to a wealthy Roman — had been granted his manumission, plus a sum sufficient to buy a peasant holding, after bravely rescuing his master’s wife and child from a house fire. An ill-matched couple, many thought, unaware of the strong bond of love and mutual regard that united the pair.
Beyond the confines of Dardania, impinging not at all upon the lives of its inhabitants, the tides of history rolled on: Julius Nepos, the last claimant to the West’s imperial throne, died, finally legitimizing the German Odovacar as king of Italy; between East Rome and Persia, a current truce was ratified, and held, precariously; the Visigoths, soon to be challenged by the Franks, secured their hold in Gaul and Spain; within the Empire, a formidable leader, Theoderic, united the two great branches of the Ostrogoths, then, as vicegerent of Emperor Zeno, led them into Italy, there to depose and murder Odovacar; Zeno died (interred alive by accident according to the rumours, his cries within the tomb ignored on account of his being a hated Isaurian), to be succeeded by the elderly Anastasius; in Africa, the harsh barbarity of Vandal rule began to soften, as a hot climate and Roman luxury slowly sapped the original tough fibre of the conquerors.
Meanwhile, Uprauda grew into a tall, strong lad, strikingly good-looking, with large grey eyes and golden curling hair (‘my beautiful angel,’ Bigleniza never tired of saying), quietly self-contained, but pleasant and polite to all. Though chafing against the grinding monotony of peasant life, Uprauda proved a dutiful son, helping his parents on their little plot, at first minding the livestock, then, as soon as he could manage implements, joining his father in the back-breaking labour of raising crops of wheat and millet. It broke Bigleniza’s heart to see her boy trudge back at sunset from the fields, his hands all cracked and blistered from the plough or scythe. True to her original vow, despite the fact that she bore no further sons, she remained unwavering in her resolve that Uprauda’s life should follow a more fulfilling path. ‘If nurtured, upright stock* will make its way,’ she affirmed. To this end, she maintained contact (via letters carried by obliging travellers or traders en route to Constantinople) with her brother Roderic, a rising soldier based frequently in the imperial capital, entreating him to help provide the boy with a sound education, with a view to entering a career — in the civil service or perhaps the army.
‘Flamin’ heat,’ grumbled Crispus, as the squad marched in open order along the narrow roadway, hewn out of the mountainside by Trajan’s engineers four centuries before. Crispus was one of the
