Lest Darkness Fall (22 page)

            Now, Optaris was an able
fighter. But the sword-play of his age was entirely with the edge. Nobody had
ever worked a simple stop thrust on him. So it was no fault of his that in his
effort to get within cutting distance of Padway he spitted himself neatly on
the outthrust blade. His own slash faltered and ended against one of the oaks,
The Goth gasped, tried to breathe, and his thick legs slowly sagged. He fell,
pulling the sword out of his body. His hands clawed at the dirt, and a great
river of blood ran from his mouth.

            When Thiudahad and Hermann
came up they found Padway vomiting quietly against a tree trunk. He barely
heard their congratulations.

            He was reacting to his first
homicide with a combination of humane revulsion and buck fever. He was too
sensible to blame himself much, but he was still no mere thoughtless adventurer
to take a killing lightly. To save Thiudahad's worthless neck, he had killed
one who was probably a better man, who had a legitimate grudge against the
ex-king, and who had never harmed Padway. If he could only have talked to
Optaris, or have wounded him slightly ... But that was water over the dam; the
man was as dead as one of John the Egyptian's customers. The living presented a
more immediate problem.

            He said to Thiudahad:
"We'd better disguise you. If you're recognized, Wittigis will send
another of your friends around to call. Better take that beard off first. It's
too bad you already have your hair cut short, Roman style."

            "Maybe," said
Hermann, "could cut him off nose. Then nobody recognize."

            "Oh!" cried
Thiudahad, clutching the member indicated. "Oh, dear me! You wouldn't really
disfigure me that way, most excellent, most noble Martinus?"

            "Not if you behave
yourself, my lord. And your clothes are entirely too fancy. Hermann, could I
trust you to go into Narnia and buy an Italian peasant's Sunday-go-to-church
outfit?"

            "
Ja, ja
, you
give me
silubr
. I go."

            "What?" squeaked
Thiudahad. "I will not get myself up in such an absurd costume! A prince
of the Amalings has his dignity —"

            Padway looked at him
narrowly and felt the edge of Hermann's sword. He said silkily: "Then, my
lord, you
do
prefer the loss of your nose? No? I thought not. Give
Hermann a couple of solidi. We'll make a prosperous farmer of you. How are you
on Umbrian dialect?"

-

            LIUDERIS OSKARS SON,
commander of the garrison of the city of Rome, looked out of his office window
gloomily at the gray September skies. The world had been turning upside down
too often for this simple, loyal soul. First Thiudahad is deposed and Wittigis
elected king. Then Wittigis, by some mysterious process, convinces himself and
the other Gothic leaders that the way to deal with the redoubtable Belisarius
is to run off to Ravenna, leaving an inadequate garrison in Rome. And now it
transpires that the citizens are becoming dissatisfied; worse, that his troops
are afraid to try to hold the city against the Greeks; worse yet, that Pope
Silverius, blandly violating his oaths to Wittigis on the ground that the king
is a heretic, has been corresponding with Belisarius with the object of
arranging a bloodless surrender of the city.

            But all these shocks were
mild compared to that which he got when the two callers announced by his
orderly turned out to be Martin Padway and ex-King Thiudahad, whom he
recognized immediately despite his clean-shaven state. He simply sat, stared,
and blew out his whiskers. "You!" he said. "You!"

            "Yes, us," said
Padway mildly. "You know Thiudahad, King of the Ostrogoths and Italians, I
believe. And you know me. I'm the king's new quaestor, by the way." (That
meant he was a: combination of secretary, legal draftsman, and ghost writer.)

            "But... but we have
another king! You two are supposed to have prices on your heads or
something."

            "Oh, that," smiled
Padway negligently. "The Royal Council was a little hasty in its action as
we hope to show them in time. We'll explain —"

            "But where have you
been? And how did you escape from my camp? And what are you doing here?"

            "One thing at a time,
please, excellent Liuderis. First, we've been up at Florence collecting a few
supplies for the campaign. Second —"

            "What campaign?"

            "— second, I have ways
of getting out of camps denied to ordinary men. Third, we're here to lead your
troops against the Greeks and destroy them."

            "You are mad, both of
you! I shall have you locked up until —"

            "Now, now, wait until
you hear us. Do you know of my ... ah ... little gifts for seeing the future
results of men's actions?"

            "Unh, I
have
heard things. But if you think you can seduce me away from my duty by some wild
tale —"

            "Exactly, my dear sir.
The king will tell you how I foresaw Optaris' unfortunate attempt on his life,
and how I used my knowledge to thwart Optaris' plans. If you insist, I can
produce more evidence.

            "For instance, I can
tell you that you'll get no help from Ravenna. That Belisarius will march up
the Latin Way in November. That the Pope will persuade your garrison to march
away before they arrive. And that you will remain at your post, and be captured
and sent to Constantinople."

            Liuderis gauped. "Are
you in league with Satanas? Or perhaps you are the Devil himself? I have not
told a soul of my determination to stay if my garrison leaves, and yet you know
of it."

            Padway smiled. "No such
luck, excellent Liuderis. Just an ordinary flesh-and-blood man who happens to
have a few special gifts. Moreover, Wittigis will eventually lose his war,
though only after years of destructive fighting. That is, all these things will
happen unless you change your plans."

            It took an hour of talk to
wear Liuderis down to the point where he asked: "Well, what plans for
operations against the Greeks did you have in mind?"

            Padway replied: "We
know they'll come by the Latin Way, so there's no point in leaving Terracina
garrisoned. And we know about when they'll come. Counting the Terracina
garrison, about how many men could you collect by the end of next month?"

            Liuderis blew out his
whiskers and thought. "If I called in the men from Formia — six thousand,
perhaps seven, About half and half archers and lancers. That is, assuming that
King Wittigis did not hear of it and interfere. But news travels slowly."

            "If I could show you
how you'd have a pretty good chance against the Greeks, would you lead them
out?"

            "I do not know. I
should have to think. Perhaps. If as you say our king — excuse me, noble
Thiudahad, I mean the other king — is bound to be defeated, it might be worth
taking a chance on. What would you do?"

            "Belisarius has about
ten thousand men," replied Padway. "He'll leave two thousand to
garrison Naples and other southern towns. He'll still out-number us a little. I
notice that your brave Wittigis ran off when he had twenty thousand
available."

            Liuderis shrugged and looked
embarrassed. "It is true, that was not a wise move. But he expects many
thousands more from Gaul and Dalmatia."

            "Have your men had any
practice at night attacks?" asked Padway.

            "Night attacks? You
mean to assault the enemy at
night
? No. I never heard of such a
proceeding. Battles are always fought in the daytime. A night attack does not
sound very practical to me. How would you keep control of your men?"

            "That's just the point.
Nobody ever heard of the Goths making a night attack, so it ought to have some
chance of success. But it'll require special training. First, you'll have to
throw out patrols on the roads leading north, to turn back people who might
carry the news to Ravenna. And I need a couple of good catapult engineers. I
don't want to depend entirely on the books in the libraries for my artillery.
If none of your troops knows anything about catapults, we ought to be able to
dredge up a Roman or two who does. And you might appoint me to your staff — you
don't have staffs? Then it's time you started — at a reasonable salary —"

-

            Padway lay on a hilltop near
Fregellae and watched the Imperialists through a telescope. He was surprised
that Belisarius, as the foremost soldier in his age, hadn't thrown scouts out
farther, but, then this was 536. His advance party consisted of a few hundred
mounted Huns and Moors, who galloped about, pushing up side roads a few hundred
yards and racing back. Then came two thousand of the famous cataphracti or
cuirassiers, trotting in orderly formation. The low, cold sun glittered on the
scales of their armor. Their standard was a blown-up leather serpent writhing
from the top of a long pole, like a balloon from Macy's Thanksgiving Day
parade.

            These were the best and
certainly the most versatile soldiers in the world, and everybody was afraid of
them. Padway, watching their cloaks and scarves flutter behind them, didn't
feel too confident himself. Then came three thousand Isaurian archers marching
afoot, and finally two thousand more cuirassiers.

            Liuderis, at Padway's elbow,
said: "That is some sort of signal. Ja, I believe they are going to camp
there. How did you know they would pick that spot, Martinus?"

            "Simple. You remember
that little device I had on the wheel of that wagon? That measures distance. I
measured the distances along the road. Knowing their normal day's march and the
point they started from, the rest was easy."

            "Tsk, tsk, wonderful.
How do you think of all those things?" Liuderis' big, trustful eyes
reminded Padway of those of a St. Bernard. "Shall I have the engineers set
up Brunhilde now?"

            "Not yet. When the sun
sets we'll measure the distance to the camp."

            "How will you do that
without being seen?"

            "I'll show you when the
time comes. Meanwhile make sure that the boys keep quiet and out of
sight."

            Liuderis frowned. "They
will not like having to eat a cold supper. If we do not watch them, somebody
will surely start a fire."

            Padway sighed. He'd had
plenty of sad experience with the temperamental and undisciplined Goths. One
minute they were as excited as small boys over the plans of Mysterious
Martinus, as they called him; the next day they were growling on the edge of
mutiny about the enforcement of some petty regulation. Since Padway felt that
it wouldn't do for him to order them around directly, poor Liuderis had to take
it.

            The Byzantines set up their
camp with orderly promptitude. Those, Padway thought, were real soldiers. You
could accomplish something with men like that to command. It would be a long
time before the Goths attained such a smooth perfection of movement. The Goths
were still obsessed with childish, slam-bang ideas of warfare.

            Witness the grumbling that
had greeted Padway's requisition of a squad for engineers. Running catapults
was a sissy job, inconsistent with knightly honor. And well-born lancers fight
on foot like a lot or serfs? Perish the thought! Padway had seduced them away
from their beloved horses by an ingenious method: He, or rather Liuderis at his
suggestion, formed a company of pikemen, loudly announcing that only the best
men would be admitted, and that furthermore candidates would be made to pay for
admission. Padway explained that there was no type of troop wherein morale and
discipline were as vital as in heavy infantry, because one man flinching from a
cavalry charge might break the line of spears and let the enemy in.