Honour Read Free

ended up on the western side of those imperial markers, spread out to make it appear as though that was where they had died, the Romans being in receipt of a proper burial.
    Eyes were cast anxiously to the east but no one appeared; thankfully, it seemed Narses was too occupied to check on the tale he had been fed. In the fading light the last act was an examination of the true place of slaughter. The field was soaked with blood, as would be the place where he had fought himself, so a silent prayer for rain was not amiss, nor a hope that there was insect and scavenging life enough to remove such traces.
    The number of vultures now circling was in the dozens and as the sky took on a dark-blue tint to the west, Flavius had his men remount their somewhat recovered horses and, with the booty they had recovered, set off to rejoin the main body.
     
    The operation, a sweep across a defined area of the borderlands completed, Narses led his men back towards the great fortress of Dara, still a place of masons and engineers skilled in constructing defence works formidable enough to hold off anything Sassanid Persia could send their way. It sat above on a trio of hills that gave a commanding view of the surrounding plains. Within the walls lay several wells,which fed huge cisterns so the water supply was secure and could not be cut off. The storerooms were so large that food and fodder for a two-year siege was stockpiled and maintained, time enough for the empire to mount an operation of relief should Dara be invested.
    Flavius Belisarius oversaw the weary mounts handed over to the grooms who would care for them. The men were sent to their barrack rooms, those with wounds diverted to the place where they could receive treatment. He next ensured his men would be fed and the food he saw delivered to the tables at which they would consume it, he having tasted it to ensure it was edible.
    Satisfied that his duties were complete he made for the officers’ quarters where he could strip off his armour, breastplate and greaves, as well as clothing made filthy by a week of campaigning, and enter the baths where he could wash and be afforded a massage. He was on the stone slab, with the hands of the masseur kneading out his aches and pains, when one of his fellow junior officers came by to deliver a message. In his absence an order had come from Constantinople calling him back to the capital.
    ‘A personal order and one that brooks no delay, from no less than the
comes excubitorum
himself. Our general was so impressed he nearly sent out messengers to fetch you back.’
    ‘Have you not heard?’ came a voice from another stone table. ‘Flavius is a hero who can fly and so swiftly that his enemies are rendered unable to move by the sight of him above their heads.’
    A third voice responded with faux wonder. ‘So that’s why they let themselves be slaughtered within the bounds of empire.’
    There were those amongst the officers garrisoning Dara who resented his connections within the imperial palace, influence that had got him his present posting at such a young age. Men were boundto be jealous in a world where such links provided the route to promotion and wealth. The allusion to the recent fight and that last remark indicated Narses had chosen to accept the story rather than believe it, no doubt to cover his own back as the overall commander. Yet he had seen it as sensible also to let his doubts be known to others.
    It was a febrile world in which he lived, but that was a fact known to him for many years now. The next question was obvious. Why did Justinus,
comes Excubitorum
and one of the most powerful men in Constantinople, in command of the body that guarded the person of the Emperor Anastasius, want him back in the capital?

C HAPTER T WO
    T here was a great deal about the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire for Flavius Belisarius to dislike; the sheer teeming mass of humanity was easy to resent as his horse sought to push its way