‘You have money and soldiers. Use the first to bribe and the latter for battle.’
‘Stotzas?’
‘Is not a general, so if he feels he will face an army he will think of himself first.’
‘It seems wrong to bribe a mutineer.’
‘It is, but, Germanus, it is also wise. Detach Stotzas from his men if you can, kill him if you cannot and if you feel the need for support I am no more than two days away by galley.’
It was good to hear his advice being acted upon; Flavius was not sure that the news that he got was as cut and dried as the advice he gave but the thing was resolved. Stotzas had abandoned his army after his second attempt to take Carthage was rebuffed. Was it brought about by the amount of gold he received or the level of fear he felt for his hide? It mattered not; Stotzas acted as had been predicted and many of his followers returned to their duty once they were promised their pay. The rump were brought to battle and annihilated.
‘I am free to act at last, Photius, all I await now is my orders from Justinian.’
Procopius had an opinion to air and he did so. ‘Am I at liberty to point out, General, that you have many fewer soldiers at your disposal now than were sent with you to North Africa? And the situation in Italy is not as propitious as it was only months past, added to which it is a much larger task.’
‘You can point it out to me, Procopius, but I am not the one to decide.’
Flavius knew he was at the mercy of events elsewhere, in Dalmatia and Illyricum. Then there were the Franks and the Burgundians; had Justinian managed to get from them the backing he wanted? The wisdom of leaving Sicily and landing in a hostile Italy were not hard to perceive. What he did not have was the whole picture; that only existed in Constantinople and the machinations of the Emperor.
Looking at Photius, Flavius naturally thought of Antonina, delivered of a daughter whom she had named Ioannina, acceding to his request. She did not know it was in honour of Flavius’s old friend and the man he thought of as his saviour. Ohannes, his father’s elderly domesticus, had protected him and guided Flavius when the entire forces of the most powerful magnate in Moesia were ranged against him and when he was no more of an age than the boy he was sat with.
Memories flooded his mind as they often did and he could not but believe, in reflections on his life so far and the fact he had survived, that God had spared him for a purpose and perhaps that lay across the Straits of Messina. Was it his destiny, albeit for the glory of Justinian, to reconquer the old heartland of the empire of which his father Decimus had been so proud?
If it was, and in memory of him, it was fitting.
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About the Author
JACK LUDLOW is the pen-name of writer David Donachie, who was born in Edinburgh in 1944. He has always had an abiding interest in history: from the Roman Republic to medieval warfare as well as the naval history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which he has drawn on for his many historical adventure novels. David lives in Deal with his partner, the novelist Sarah Grazebrook.
By Jack Ludlow
THE LAST ROMAN SERIES
Vengeance
Honour
THE CRUSADES SERIES
Son of Blood
Soldier of Crusade
Prince of Legend
THE ROADS TO WAR SERIES
The Burning Sky
A Broken Land
A Bitter Field
THE REPUBLIC SERIES
The Sword of Revenge
The Gods of War
THE CONQUEST SERIES
Mercenaries
Warriors
Conquest
Written as David Donachie
THE JOHN PEARCE SERIES
By the Mast Divided • A Shot Rolling Ship
An Awkward Commission • A Flag of Truce
The Admirals’ Game • An Ill Wind
Blown Off Course • Enemies at Every Turn
A Sea of Troubles • A Divided Command
The Devil to Pay
Copyright
Allison & Busby Limited
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London W1T 6DW
www.allisonandbusby.com
First published in 2015.
This ebook edition first published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2015.
Copyright © 2014 by DAVID DONACHIE
(Writing as JACK LUDLOW)
The moral right of the author is hereby asserted
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–1441–4