Death of an Empire (50 page)

‘Ah.’ Valentinian sighed in welcome. ‘Come in, general. Come in.’ The emperor nodded to the guard. ‘You may leave us. I’m sure I’ll be safe with the
magister militum
, the hero of the Battle of the Catalaunian Plain.’ The guardsmen bowed and closed the doors with a soft thud as they left the room.

‘For privacy, Aetius,’ the emperor murmured as he secured the latch behind the departing guards. ‘I don’t want anyone to overhear what we say during this visit.’

‘How may I serve you, my lord?’ Aetius bowed his head briefly – a little too briefly.

‘Please, accept some wine. Falernian isn’t what it was, but then again, what is?’

‘Thank you, my lord, but only a clear head will permit me to serve you as I should.’

Valentinian smiled boyishly. Although his eyes were sunken from his poor sleeping habits, he seemed almost cheerful. ‘I have asked you to attend on me because I am harbouring severe doubts concerning the mental health of Petronius Maximus. Since the unfortunate suicide of his wife . . . well . . . he’s been strange.’

Valentinian paced around the room, seemingly at random, as if he was too concerned about the matter in hand to stand still. Aetius seated himself on a cushioned stool and waited politely, his face at rest. His self-possession irritated Valentinian, and frightened him as well.

‘Do you believe our friend poses a threat to the Empire?’ the emperor asked. ‘Come, you may speak honestly and freely, general, for there are no spies in these rooms.’

Aetius cleared his throat while Valentinian continued his circuitous pacing. The sound of his leather sandals on the tessellated floor was oddly soothing. ‘Well, master, Petronius is a very able man and a trained soldier. He has always been ruled by his intellect and his self-interest in the past, but the suicide of Gallica Lydia seems to have temporarily unhinged him.’ Aetius shrugged expressively as Valentinian moved towards him with slow, even strides.

‘Do you think he’s dangerous?’

Valentinian moved away once more, turning his back on the general, just when the old man’s razor-sharp instincts began to nudge his brain. Aetius forced himself to relax the involuntary tensing of his muscles.

‘Yes, master. He is very able with the sword, and can attend your court at any time he wishes. He is nobly born from a line of emperors, so the mob would accept him in the event of your untimely death. I believe Petronius is capable of murder, especially after the tragic death of his wife. He has nothing else to lose that he values. Unfortunately, desperate men are dangerous men.’

Valentinian turned and began to move towards Aetius’s left side with slow, deliberate strides. His eyes were thoughtful, almost abstracted. Stand still, you idiot, Aetius thought as Valentinian turned on his heel and started to pace away from the general, his hands gripped behind his back. The emperor paused a moment, turned and headed across the room.

‘What should I do, Aetius? Advise me! I am loath to spend the rest of my nights fearing Petronius’s blade.’ As if putting his fear into action, Valentinian turned sharply and began to retrace his steps into the corner of the room.

This fool is on edge, Aetius thought, and had to quash the desire to laugh. He’s jittery, and he’s skittering around like a nervous colt. Come out and say what you want to say like a man!

Aetius feigned deep thought as the footsteps turned and moved back across the room. You have his attention now, the general thought as he slowly began to speak the words that would ensure Petronius’s doom.

‘You must execute . . .’

This time Valentinian did not turn away. He came up to Aetius’s left shoulder and, as the general began to compose the words that would doom Petronius to the strangler’s rope, drew a narrow eating knife out of the folds of his purple toga and plunged it deep into the general’s exposed throat.

Aetius was shocked. His eyes bulged almost out of his head and his left hand rose to tear the blade from his flesh. With battle-hardened fingers, his mind numbed by complete incredulity, he plucked out the blade and sent it skittering over the floor, where it left a snail’s trail of blood in its wake.

Valentinian scuttled behind a couch as Aetius struggled to his feet. By good luck rather than any skill on his part, Valentinian had severed the great vein in Aetius’s throat. Now, released by the removal of the blade, a rich fountain of arterial blood spurted forth
while Aetius watched with goggling, disbelieving eyes.

‘What? Why have you done this thing?’ the general whispered, as a red stain soaked down the left side of his pristine white robe. ‘What have you to gain?’ He began to fall, his eyes still open and fearsomely intelligent. ‘You’ll . . . be . . .’

Then Flavius Aetius,
magister militum
and the last of the great generals of the Western Roman Empire, died in an inglorious red pool of his own blood.

For a moment that seemed to drag out painfully, Valentinian could not believe how easily and fast the murder had been committed. Not a drop of blood marked his person, partly because he had left the knife in the wound and partly because he had run from the general the moment he had slammed the blade into Aetius’s neck. Anticlimax made his knees suddenly weak, but he had no time to reflect on what had taken place. Although their conversation had been quiet and Aetius’s death almost silent, the guards or a member of the staff could seek admittance at any moment.

Valentinian thought rapidly. No more gossip. Let Aetius appear to be a traitor because that’s exactly what he was. He threatened me, and I killed him before he had an opportunity to assassinate me. But no more rumours.

Shaking like a man with ague, Valentinian tried to still his trembling fingers. He hastily searched Aetius’s body, but the general hadn’t bothered to carry a weapon. He had never considered Valentinian to be a threat.

‘Shite!’ the emperor swore crudely. ‘Fucking son of a whore!’

With a neat economy of movement that would have surprised all the courtiers who thought they knew him, Valentinian took an unadorned knife out of a clothes chest and placed it close to Aetius’s hand. Then he cried out, loudly and in feigned terror, before sitting on the couch and waiting for the guards to batter down the door.

As the two burly guardsmen broke the latch and rushed into the room, the leader almost skidded in Aetius’s blood. He cursed as his hand was soiled. Two pairs of eyes absorbed the scene and then fixed on the pale countenance of the emperor, who was huddling on an eating couch as far as possible from the flaccid body.

‘Aetius tried to kill me!’ he wailed. ‘He missed, but my blow was true!’

His eyes took in Aetius’s body. He had no difficulty in pretending to be panic-stricken, for reaction had set in and he was shivering as though on the brink of collapse. ‘Clean up this mess!’ he ordered, his voice rising to a petulant, frightened whine. He drew his toga tightly round his body and visibly tried to gather some rags of dignity. Unfortunately, he merely looked ridiculous . . . and guilty.

Heraclius came running and saw the object of his hatred stretched out within the stinking mess of fresh blood and voided bowels that spewed over the otherwise spotless floor.

‘Master! Come away, master! Your guards will do what needs to be done. Come away, my lord, and I’ll fetch you spiced wine.’ Matching actions to words, the eunuch tugged at the emperor’s lax arm.

Somehow, Heraclius arranged his face to show nothing but horror and concern, while one of the guardsmen kneeled in the general’s blood and carefully closed the widely staring eyes. Oblivious of the blood that stained their hands and armour, the two guards then lifted the small form of Flavius Aetius as tenderly as they would a tired child, with gentleness and respect. Valentinian continued to explain Aetius’s death in a disjointed, rambling series of disconnected complaints.

Neither man believed a word that Valentinian gabbled so repeatedly. If Aetius had drawn a knife, then Valentinian would be dead. Therefore, Valentinian had killed the general by stealth.
Other than to exchange oblique, disbelieving glances, the guardsmen remained prudently mute. As they bore the body out into the colonnade, the guardsmen did not cast a glance at the Emperor of the West – or his eunuch.

So perished Flavius Aetius, and the Western Empire began to rot with him.

CHAPTER XVIII

A SPRING WITHOUT FLOWERS

Creaking and groaning with the strain, the healers’ carts crossed the last mountain and Myrddion looked down at the sloping ground that shelved away into a verdant green valley, and, beyond that, the empty blue of the sea. The sun shone a little brighter and caught the reflected light from a number of rivers that cut through the arable land. In the far distance, although invisible, Myrddion knew that the Via Aemilia ran along the coast to Ariminum before it headed inland.

‘Not too far now,’ he encouraged his tired friends. ‘I know the journey has been hard, but we’ll soon be able to rest. See? The land here is fertile. The rivers carry silt down to the lowlands and enrich the farmers with black soil and clean water.’

‘We need supplies,’ Cadoc said bluntly. ‘And the horses are very weary. Even though the grading of the road was brilliantly designed, those mountains took the strength out of them.’

‘According to the tavern keeper at Spoletium, we can rest when we reach the coast,’ Myrddion responded almost cheerfully. He knew how the journey had weighed on them all, so that the bright enthusiasm of their departure from Rome had become lost in grinding weariness as they climbed the mountains over which the
Via Flaminia snaked. Mounted couriers leading spare horses had thundered past them throughout their journey, and initially the healers had been curious. But familiarity soon bred the belief that this frequency of communication was normal, and their attention turned to their own concerns. They all needed to sleep on pallets, rather than on the cold earth, even though the first shoots of spring were breaking through the rock-hard, partially frozen earth.

‘Well, let’s get there before my bones become permanently crooked from sitting on this seat,’ Cadoc complained. ‘I swear I’ve got splinters in my arse the size of meat skewers.’

At least Cadoc could be depended upon to provide a moment’s humour, even on the harshest of days.

The next morning, as they began the dangerous descent from the mountains, the healers’ wagons blocked most of the road as Finn and Cadoc slowed their speed almost to a snail’s pace. Tired and irritable, a courier galloped furiously up behind them, and after a brief shouting match with Cadoc over right of way, was forced to wait while the apprentices hauled the wagons aside to give him room to manoeuvre his mounts past the obstruction. Myrddion asked after the urgency of the messenger’s errand. The soldier, for so his dusty armour indicated, looked down at the healer with a hard stare of scorn and frustration.

‘I’m on the emperor’s business,’ he shouted, moving his sword aggressively in its scabbard with one hand. ‘Hurry up and move these heaps of shit so I can go.’

‘We are trying our best, sir, since we too are en route to the emperor’s court at Ravenna. We would welcome any news of General Flavius Aetius or his daughter Flavia.’

Myrddion would later wonder why he mentioned Flavia’s name, except that her face often came creeping into his mind when he was at the very edge of sleep. His conflicted feelings for the young woman were his secret shame.

‘You’re out of luck all round, man. Flavius Aetius is dead, killed by Valentinian’s own hand, and all his kin are closely watched. I’d sever all ties with that family if I were you. Now let me pass.’

By this time, the wagons had lumbered to the side of the narrow roadway, leaving just enough room for the horseman to pass in relative safety. With a nod laced with wry irony, the soldier galloped off towards distant Ravenna.

On the whole, the healers were delighted by the news. The thought that the general was waiting at Ravenna had caused everyone, especially Bridie, to fear the future. But now . . .?

‘Valentinian must have been crazed with fury,’ Cadoc murmured. ‘But whatever happened was a blessing for us. He’s got rid of Aetius – permanently.’

‘I hated Aetius, but as far as I can judge he was the only able general that Rome possessed, ample indication that the Empire is on the brink of collapse. The city will be at the mercy of the barbarians now that the only man who could have saved her has been executed. I think we should be profoundly grateful that we left Rome when we did.’

‘Aye, master,’ Finn agreed. ‘I think we’ve had a lucky escape all around.’

Three days of hard travel brought them to the sea, which glinted grey under a drizzling sky. Showers rendered life unpleasant, but not unbearable, as the patient horses moved through the landscape incuriously, their brown flanks glossy with rain. A flat metallic sea stretched out towards the horizon, where a sky the colour of wood smoke met it in thick mists.

The land through which they were now travelling glowed with the lime-green flush of new growth. Fruit trees raised branches that were newly studded with shoots of bronze and pale jade, and the farmers had weeded, tended and ploughed the chocolate earth so
that the furrows were furred with spear-points of green. The signs of new life gave the healers feelings of hope. Ravenna lay ahead and there was no longer an itch of fear lurking under Myrddion’s encouraging words. Even Bridie was glowing with health and an internal incandescence that he assumed was generated by relief.

The small town of Fanum clung to the coast with a river on one side, the sea on the other, and a road to the north that would bring them to the Via Aemilia and, eventually, Ravenna. Fishing boats gave the seascape the sheen of industry, and even the old men and women who sat on the simple wharves and mended fishing nets and wicker crab pots were rosy-cheeked and picturesque. Exhausted and hungry, the healers sought out the first inn that looked moderately clean, took their valuables from the wagons and were ushered into a single, rather grimy room with dingy, whitewashed walls, drunken shutters that hung over a narrow window and palliasses of straw packed in coarse wool piled in one corner in readiness for sleepy guests. The faint smell of urine made Myrddion’s nostrils twitch.