This the boy did, a line of faces at the battlements that seemed to have no idea what was coming; hardly surprising, few did. The boats full of archers were now being rigged with lines, split to both sides so as to keep them even. That done Flavius gave the men on the windlass the order to haul, and slowly, one by one, the boats were raised till they were as near to the top of the mast as they could go.
‘Choose your targets, no arrows to be wasted.’
It was hard to see from the deck but from aloft the masts were much higher than the sea wall defences, which were lower than the landward wall. The archers were firing down on Goths who had nothing with which to defend themselves for they had no archery with which to reply. The protection they relied upon was gone and the threat of what would follow was obvious. A seaward assault in which they dare not man their parapet.
‘Photius. Take one of the other boats and offer the garrison terms. They may leave without their weapons and we will transport them to Italy. They have till the morning to decide.’
With that he called to the archers to desist.
The positive reply came back as required; the man leading the garrison knew he could not withstand the tactic which had been employed against him. A ship was arranged and the Goths marched out of their own watergate as the Romans marched in, the man Flavius was leaving in command given one order to be carried out straight away.
‘Get the masons working, I want those seaward walls up to the height of a Goliath.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Flavius had no time to hang around and watch those walls being built; he selected two of the fastest ships available, one to be sent off to Constantinople with a demand for gold. In the other, along with a hundred of his comitatus, he sailed for Carthage, a journey so short it allowed him limited time to assess what he would face on arrival.
Solomon had made certain dispositions before he departed; Theodorus was to hold the capital until aid arrived and a messenger was sent to Numidia and the far west with orders to seek to seduce as many mutineers as possible in these areas by bribes and promises, the aim to starve the rebellion of men because Flavius knew the most important factor was going to be numbers.
As yet he had no idea who he would face as an opponent or what kind of force he would lead, but it took no great imagination to work out that as well as disaffected imperial soldiers, any rebellion would bring out from the hedgerows those Vandals who had not accepted his amnesty and remained in hiding, while many more would revert to their previous allegiance: they might not get their own kings back but the notion of being free of the Roman yoke would be attractive.
The recently defeated Moors might help, but there was some hope that the wounds Solomon had so recently inflicted upon them went so deep they would still be licking them and in no condition to interfere. Reassuring was the fact that no senior officer seemed to have defected, which meant that when it came to command there was a fair chance the man who led the mutiny would lack knowledge, though it had to be accepted that some people took to command naturally.
The good fortune that had always attended his actions favoured Flavius once more. As soon as he sailed into harbour and his figure, standing in the prow, was recognised — his banner might be seen as a sham — the spirits of those holding the city rose and such a lift in their mood was essential. The day before, the leader of the revolt, a fellow called Stotzas and elected to the role by acclamation, had brought his forces, reckoned to be some eight thousand strong, to the walls of Carthage and demanded it be surrendered to him.
Theodorus had rejected that and to buy time sent a representative to treat for terms; it was an indication of the depth of feeling such mutinies generated that the poor fellow was killed and his crucified body set up below the walls for the inhabitants to see and ponder on, the message plain: this will be your fate if you resist.
‘How has he mustered so many cavalry, Theodorus? His numbers well exceed what he could raise by just mutiny.’
‘Vandals.’
‘Even with those.’
‘It includes men we sent to the east as mercenaries.’
Seeing his leader confused he explained they had taken over the ships transporting them and headed back home in time to join Stotzas.
‘And he has recruited slaves, promising them freedom.’
‘Foolish.’
It was not the notion of freeing such people that animated that response from Flavius: slaves would be too fickle to easily command and in a battle could be a hindrance rather than an aid; trained infantry were bad enough, slaves would be a rabble. He led the way up on to the walls to gaze over the mass of campfires that seemed to stretch forever, and his orders were simple. To gather every available man capable of fighting within the city and promise them great rewards to serve under his banner.
‘We will not match them, Flavius Belisarius,’ Solomon ventured.
‘We don’t need to, we only have to beat them.’
Said with confidence and an ironic smile it was designed to bolster what was a desperate cause and the same was true of what followed.
‘My banner on the battlements so it can be seen at dawn, and get the news to this Stotzas somehow that I am here and back in command.’
The effect of that surprised even Flavius. At dawn, either because of the standard flapping on the walls or the information of his arrival, the rebel army quickly began to decamp and head south, for his mere presence promised them a battle they had hoped to avoid. Stotzas had clearly expected the gates of Carthage to open because it was indefensible but with Belisarius defiantly there he could have no idea how many troops the general had with him and how many more were on their way.
Even less expected was that they would be immediately pursued by Flavius who knew he had a mental advantage; they were afraid of him but that would diminish with time and distance. The knowledge that he was on their tail would sow doubt into their whole endeavour for the common soldier was a fretful beast; how could they fight and defeat the empire’s most successful military leader?
Moving faster than the cumbersome rebels he caught them outside the city of Membresa where they had camped. The place was unwalled and therefore offered no defensive advantage, so Flavius did likewise. With only two thousand effectives Flavius was massively outnumbered and his campfires sent that message to his enemies; he would need that famous good luck and more to achieve a victory, perhaps even to survive.
Dawn broke with dust in the air, caused by a strong wind coming off the Mediterranean. The sand was not blinding but it must indicate to any commander with a brain that it would put him at a disadvantage when it came to an exchange of missiles: archery, spears, or even slingshot. Those Belisarius deployed would have added range against his firing into the wind and it was obvious this was noticed and acted upon.
With the River Bagradas on his flank, Stotzas sought to turn that into his backstop, angling his forces so that the wind would blow south across both fronts, which would not only nullify any advantage but would force Belisarius to likewise manoeuvre, given his inferior numbers. It might even oblige him to withdraw.
But Stotzas was no great leader, he had been a member of the guard of General Martinus, now holding Numidia. He was seeking to control a ragtag force that lacked either good training or internal discipline. Given those drawbacks and his greater numbers he should have taken what regular troops he had and could have relied upon to create a body of troops that could defend movements that would render him vulnerable.
What he got was confusion: mounted Vandals mixed with the imperial mutineers, on foot and horsed who, as a body, had little cohesion in themselves, being from all over the empire and now very likely led by strangers. In amongst that were what Flavius had already estimated as a ball and chain in battle: the mass of slaves to whom a simple command was so easy to misunderstand and enough to cause muddle.