Finally, linking arms, he led Flavius up the remaining steps and through the portal of the imperial palace, passing Theodora who gave the hero of the moment a look from her black and steady eyes that would have frozen Lucifer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The maps of Italy and Sicily were laid out on the great table round which Justinian, Flavius and a whole clutch of senior officers were gathered, while the Emperor explained to them what had been happening in that huge peninsula and how he intended that it should be brought back to be once more part of his empire. If the rest did not know it, Flavius did; this was a long-held dream and a personal quest.
‘The death of Athalaric merely brings forward a plan long in my mind. He would have never made a king, anyway.’
His mother had tried to keep him out of the clutches of her nobles. She had wanted a Roman education for Athalaric and would have sent him to Constantinople if she had been allowed, but those around her were too powerful to ignore and they wanted the eight-year-old boy to have an education and upbringing fit for an Ostrogoth king.
Forced to surrender him into their clutches, Amalasuintha could only watch as, over the next eight years, he was debauched by men who hoped, when he reached his majority and took his rightful place, to control him. Introduced early to wine he became addicted and his death had occurred after what had been described to Justinian as an epic drinking bout.
‘Probably choked on his own vomit. It matters not, Amalasuintha is utterly weakened by it and there is a fight going on amongst the powerful to seize the vacant throne.’
‘She will have appealed to you for aid, Highness?’
‘She has, Narses,’ Justinian replied, his grin wolfish, ‘which demonstrates how weak she is, given my demand that she cede Lilybaeum was refused. Anyway I have had reports of the Goths taking Roman property by force which they would never have dared to do under Theodoric so that indicates a breakdown in order, with nobles acting to suit their own needs.’
It was common knowledge that one of the thieving culprits was an unsavoury character called Theodahad, who was a cousin to Athalaric and had a strong claim to the throne, which he might have taken if he had not been so unpopular. Utterly unscrupulous he had offered Justinian all his Italian lands for a sum in gold as well as residence in Constantinople. This was a bargain the Emperor would have accepted if his machinations had not been uncovered and Theodahad forced by Amalasuintha to confess and make restitution of his stolen property. He was now telling Justinian that he was no longer bound to his aunt in any way and was at his service.
‘Remarkable woman, Amalasuintha,’ Flavius opined. ‘To lord it over the Ostrogoths.’
‘Remarkable women are not as rare as you might think. Anyway there were three main rivals to take away her power-’
‘Were, Highness?’
‘She had them killed.’
‘Risky.’
‘I offered her a home here if she failed.’
Which was as good as saying she had not acted without Justinian knowing full well what was about to happen. But that was an aside as far as the Emperor was concerned. The woman had more problems than that, for she was plagued by aggressive neighbours to the north, the Franks and the Burgundians, who were encroaching on the Ostrogoth possessions and now she was in dispute with Constantinople over the old Vandal fief in Sicily. Justinian had demanded it, she had refused. At one time she might have had the Vandals as allies; that was now gone.
Only Flavius of the present generals knew the latest intelligence from Italy, imparted to him before this meeting. Amalasuintha was no more. She had tried to come to an arrangement with Theodahad by offering him the throne as long as she could continue to rule, the proposition being surrounded by oaths of a nature that would damn for eternity the man who broke them. At the same time Justinian was treating with her to come east and receive large estates in the hope that she would hand him Italy. Caught between the two she had been taken by Theodahad and if it was others who did the foul deed, he did nothing to save her.
‘They’re an untrustworthy lot, Flavius,’ had been the Justinian opinion. ‘I was treating with Theodahad too for the same thing not long ago, and what does he do? Imprisons his aunt then stands by when she is murdered.’
‘They could teach us a thing or two, certainly.’
The jest was taken well; Justinian reckoned he was being complimented on his own deviousness. He did not know that it was never meant as praise.
‘My envoy declared war.’
‘Does he have that right?’
‘No, but he had only anticipated what I would have done. Italy is in turmoil and is as ripe as a ready-to-fall apple. What we need now, Flavius, is a plan to make that happen, and as luck would have it we are not threatened anywhere else and you are here after your success in North Africa. God, I would suggest, is with us.’
That was a point he made to all the commanders assembled, passing on the moves he had made to act in alliance with the Franks, who had claims on the north of Italy. If they acted, and he had sent them a fortune in gold as encouragement, it would split the Ostrogoth defence.
‘Do they not compete with us?’
The question was posed by Peranias, another senior officer in the imperial army, but one without much in the way of active service to his name; Flavius suspected powerful relatives.
‘In time they will, but I have laid claim only to what was ours. Rome certainly, Ravenna given Theodoric made it his capital. Everything south of course.’
‘Sicily will have to be secured first,’ Flavius ventured. ‘It would be madness to seek to take the mainland with that at our back, but I observed few Gothic troops on the island when we passed through it.’
Narses spoke after Flavius. ‘And I would suggest a strong force on the Adriatic coast to keep them worried about a second invasion. That further splits their forces.’
That received general agreement; the first task was to get an army ashore and any diversions would aid that. The talk went on for an age, tactics were discussed as well as the overall strategy, obstacles identified mainly in fortified cities that would have to be subdued or bypassed. It ended on a note of high confidence, not least from the Emperor himself.
‘There’s a degree of hubris there, don’t you think, Flavius Belisarius?’
Posed after Justinian had left, that got Peranias a bland look; no nod, no agreement or disagreement. That was the kind of remark which, from a placeman like this fellow, could be an opening gambit in what would become treachery. Flavius had decided the only way to deal with people like this fellow was not to respond, given he could not know to whom any reply would be repeated and there was at least one person who would, he was sure, set traps for him.
The idea of no other threats was illusory; an imperial messenger brought news that a Gothic army had landed on the Dalmatian coast and there defeated the forces under the son of Mundus and their young leader killed. By the time Flavius was making ready to depart for Sicily, news came that Mundus himself, a man so feared his name was enough to keep the province at peace, had also been slain in a second battle but that the Gothic army had been defeated. It did not bode well for future operations and changed the nature of the orders Flavius was given.
‘Touch at Sicily and seek out how the population feels. If there seems to be resistance to us retaking the island you can sail on with no loss of face to Carthage, claiming that as your destination all along.’
And that he did, again securing sole command and leading his fleet to a landing near Catania on the east coast, his main worry the lack of force he had at his disposal, which was nothing like that with which he had beaten the Vandals. He had with him, too, Photius, his stepson, now that age at which he, Flavius, had first soldiered. A winning and willing aide it was a pleasure to have him along, especially as at the first sign of a threat the good folk of Catania promptly surrendered their city to him, which had Photius declaring that war was easy.