They got everything in place just in time; the first Sassanid attack came almost as they completed their dispositions. But with shields locked and nowhere to which they could run it was a hard defence to break and this time the Sassanids had no cataphracts in their force to make the needed breakthrough. Azarethes had only light horse, and faced with a wall of shields and protruding spears, as well as slashing swords if they got too close, the attackers were driven off a dozen times.
Being spring the heat was tolerable and there was no shortage of water. The fight went on all through the day, but what was running short was arrows as the archers sent salvo after salvo into the advancing ranks of Sassanid cavalry to break their organisation. In attack after attack the horsemen hit the shield wall piecemeal and with a lack of coordination. By twilight the arrows were exhausted, but so were the Sassanids, while the boats Solomon had organised began to arrive.
The defence was collapsed in an orderly manner, the lines shortened until Flavius, having got away the content of his waggons as well as the majority of his men, stood among the very last of his infantry. Azarethes rode forward in the gathering gloom, to raise his sword and kiss it in a form of salute. Flavius and Peter were the last to board a boat, to be carried downstream on the current of river full of spring meltwater.
If they had succeeded in extracting the infantry it had not been everyone; the field they left was dotted with many dead members of the Roman forces.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The capital city to which Flavius Belisarius returned as a partially successful general was one in turmoil and the target of the unrest was the Emperor Justinian, the cause being his well-intentioned efforts to effect some very important changes to a system that had become ossified. The law codes were stuffed full of statutes that no longer had any relevance while the treasury was not as full as it should be, meaning that to pursue his aims and prosecute a war in the east Justinian needed to get in all the taxes owed from a population well versed in avoidance, none more so than the richest patricians and merchants.
The problem the new Emperor had was not in the policies but in the people he chose to implement them. The recodification of the laws was handed to a senator called Tribunianus, famed for his knowledge of jurisprudence. Initially his reforms were greeted with approval, but slowly it began to be obvious that as the man in charge of judicial judgement too many of the cases were being decided in favour of his friends. Even less palatable was the suspicion that bribes were involved, for Tribunianus seemed to be a very much richer fellow halfway through the recodification than he had been at the outset.
Such matters tended to concern the upper reaches of Roman society but to that class the real trouble lay in taxation. The task of ensuring collection was allotted to John the Cappadocian and in that breast the population found a degree of venality that, as it went on, became increasingly intolerable: too much of what he soaked from their income was going into his coffers and not the treasury. John inflamed feelings even more by flaunting his increasing wealth in a way that was both crass and dangerous.
John had also been ordered by Justinian to cut the number in what was an exceedingly bloated bureaucracy, which meant separating men, mostly nobles, from their means of earning a living, as well as removing from them their status as imperial placemen. Given many had bribed their way to their occupation, this struck at the very heart of the class of people the empire relied on for support.
Disenfranchised men tend to foregather and these nobles were no exception; what held back the growing tide of anger was that they did not actually all combine into one group. Some gravitated towards the Blue faction, much favoured by the imperial couple, in the hope of reinstatement by ingratiation. Others joined the Greens, the party of the merchants and seen as the opposition to imperial fiscal overreach. The fact that they went their separate ways tended to hide just how serious was the discontent, given they had a habit of directing their resentments at each other.
If Flavius had heard rumours of it — no one could avoid the criticisms of John the Cappadocian for they were so loud they even reached the provinces he ran — he had no idea of the depth of feeling into which he rode into Constantinople. Unlike previous visits he came to the city at the head of the bucellarii, their armour and accoutrements shiny, they following behind their general and his personal guard unit.
The victory at Dara gave the Belisarius name lustre; the defeat at Callinicum was hailed as a miracle, given the losses were so few and he could be hailed as the man who had saved the day. His campaigns could be seen as a success; the Sassanids had made no more incursions since that last battle, it being conveniently put to one side that, his treasury now better supplied, Justinian had concluded a treaty and reinstated the payment of gold to Kavadh.
So he and his six-hundred-strong force entered the city to the cheers of the populace, or at least those not too occupied to notice. When they reached the plaza before the imperial palace Justinian was there to greet him, a signal honour. If it was noticed that Theodora was absent no one had the ill grace to make mention of it.
‘The conquering hero is home.’ Tempted to reply, one success, two failures did not a conquering hero make, Flavius merely smiled. ‘You have bloodied the nose of Kavadh.’
The answer was too soft for anyone nearby to hear. ‘While you have lined his purse, Highness.’
There was a moment then when Flavius thought he had gone too far. It was no secret between himself and Justinian that he disapproved of bribing the Sassanids to remain supine, indeed the Emperor had railed against it as an imperial nephew. But the look those words engendered, a flash of irritation, told Flavius that if he was still held in regard, the man was now well and truly at home in his imperial state and it was not for the likes of him to question policy. It was as brief as a small cloud obscuring the sun, for Justinian then smiled.
‘Few would dare challenge me so directly.’
‘You know I cannot be otherwise.’
‘Just as you should know how much I miss dispute.’ The voice rose from what it had been in that exchange to its normal level as Justinian added, with a scowl at the members of his counsel come to join him in the welcome, ‘Everyone agrees with me now, at least to my face. Behind my back they conspire to hide from me the truth of their peculations.’
‘Your lady wife is well, Highness?’
That change of subject did not go down well either: Flavius had no desire to become even tangentially involved in court politics. Or was it the way he referred to Theodora, not giving her proper title?
‘My imperial consort is in very good health.’
‘It pleases me to hear it.’
‘Come, let us retire to a place where we can converse more freely, without so many ears seeking words that might be used to divide us.’
‘My men?’
Justinian looked past him to the bucellarii lined up on parade; the point was obvious, some gesture should be made, like a close inspection, but Justinian was not to be drawn. He merely waved a dismissive hand.
‘Will be looked after by the Excubitors, I’m sure. But they will, of course, be required to depart the city and move to the Galatea barracks.’
‘My comitatus?’
‘May stay within the confines of the city.’
Linking his arm, Justinian led Flavius past the guards at the palace entrance and into the cool interior, talking away like an old acquaintance, ignoring the deep bows that attended his passing as well as those of a more lowly station who knelt as if in an act of worship. His topic was the burdens of state, which were of course something he would love to put aside, a proposition that his companion took for what it was, window dressing. Justinian loved his role and only the Grim Reaper would separate him from the exercise of power.