A Flame in Byzantium

"You should curse me," Vlamos said with feeling.



"What would be the point of that?" Belisarius asked. "Take what you must take and leave me. I would like to spend some time alone with my family." He nodded to Antonina and his brother.



"Of course," said Captain Vlamos, and barked a command at his men. "We must post a guard at your door, so that we may know who comes here, how often, and when."



"Certainly," said Belisarius, already turning away from the soldiers. "Come into the private reception room, Lysandros; we must talk."



Lysandros set his jaw and glared at his older brother. "I have little to say to you, Belisarius."



"But I have a great deal to say to you," said Belisarius, his face darkened with sorrow. "When I have done, you may say what you like."



"And what of me?" demanded Antonina, who had contained herself as long as she could and was now filled with indignant fury.



"Let me have a short time with Lysandros, my delight. You and I have many hours to spend together; Lysandros returns to Nicaea in the morning, and who knows when we will speak face to face again?" He watched the door of his house as Captain Vlamos and the Guard soldiers left. "Anus, Simones, one of you close that, will you?"



Arius busied himself with the door; Simones went to Antonina. "Great lady, would you want a cup of honied wine?"



"I would want a cup of hemlock and gall," she said in a hate-thickened voice. "I want poison and acid and instruments of torture to exact vengeance."



"My niece," said her aunt in a small, distressed voice.



"To think that this could happen!" Antonina burst out, and then began to weep in great, angry sobs, refusing to be comforted. "I am going to my quarters," she informed the air, shrugging off the ineffective consolation of her aunt.



"Your wife is overwrought," observed Lysandros as Belisarius closed the door.



"She is also in despair, and I am the cause of it," Belisarius said.



"You are the cause of misfortune for all of us," Lysandros accused him. "You ought to have thought of that before you embarked on your schemes."



Belisarius looked steadily at his brother. Lysandros was eight years his junior, and had had a different father; the two brothers had little in common except the blood of their mother. "I had no schemes, except those aimed at running Totila's army out of Italy. Believe that or not as you wish. It is the truth."



"Then why does the Emperor confine you in this way? Why are you relieved of command and your personal guard? What sort of innocent do you think I am, brother?" Lysandros put his hands on his hips, which were already growing ample.



"I don't think you are innocent, or foolish, or any similar thing," Belisarius said carefully. "But I hope that you have some faith in me yet, for our mother's sake if no other."



Lysandros laughed and the sound was mirthless. "Then you are the one who is foolish. How could you have let this happen? I have already been told that I can no longer sell my horses to the army because of you. That accounts for more than half my earnings, and I am to lose it because you could not act in time to preserve your rank." He turned so quickly that he overset a brazier.



As the iron tripod clattered to the floor, Belisarius went to right it. "I am the Emperor's General, Lysandros. That is all I am."



"You mean you are not a husband and a brother? You're just a General?" He hurled his words like clubs and took a perverse satisfaction when they struck.



"I am all those things," Belisarius said quietly as he steadied the brazier. "And it seems I have failed at all of them."



Lysandros snorted. "Penitent, too. Doubtless I should tell you now that you are forgiven for all the misfortune you have brought down on everyone. But I am not deceived by your ways, brother. You aspired to the purple and you failed to grasp it for yourself, and now you are taking refuge in contrition. No one accepts this false front you show to the world. All the world knows you are guilty of treason and we are amazed that our Emperor should show you the clemency he does. If I were in Justinian's position, I would see you flayed on the steps of Hagia Sophia, and would hang your skin from the palace gates."



Belisarius listened to this without interruption; only the quickening of his breath revealed his feelings. "Is that the lot?"



"How can you face me? How can you face your wife, who has been your staunchest ally at court for all the years you were in foreign lands?" He slammed his fist into his open hand. "By all the Saints in the calendar, if I were she, I would despise you."



"You despise me enough for you both," said Belisarius. "You may speak of yourself to me, but you are not to say anything for Antonina." He read astonishment and guilt in his brother's face. "You have traded on our relationship for years, and now you are about to lose that which I made possible. You are entitled to disappointment, even anger, but you are not permitted to drag my wife into this dispute."



"Belisarius—" Lysandros blustered.



"No, you have had your opportunity, and now I will have mine. I have had to listen to more accusations and calumnies in the last two months than I have heard in all my previous years, and you now will have to hear me out." He hooked a thumb into his belt. "You think—because it is the current myth bruited about the court—that I was on the verge of rebelling against the Emperor, and it was only the swift action of the Censor that prevented me from attacking Justinian. That is not and never was the truth. I have never aspired to the purple, as you claim. I have had all that I could deal with in fighting to reclaim the old Roman Empire for Justinian. I was satisfied to be the first General of the Emperor, and I was content to follow his orders to the best of my abilities and to the extent that my men and supplies made possible. I was and am now loyal to the Emperor. I am not a traitor. If I must live this way in order to satisfy the Emperor of that, then I am content to do it, and pray only that I will have the chance to show that everything I have said is true."



"And the spies will tell the Censor," jeered Lysandros.



"If there are spies they can tell whom they wish. It is the truth. Understand that, Lysandros, if you understand nothing else." He turned on his heel and went to the door. "If there is nothing else, I will leave you. I am sorry that you must suffer because of me, but you chose to prosper through our relationship, and so it haunts you now."



"Wait, Belisarius," Lysandros called less certainly.



"Why? So that you can revile me more?" For the first time there was anguish in his voice.



"I… If what you've told me is true," Lysandros said to his brother's back, "then I grieve for you, for you have truly been destroyed by your own honor."



"But you think otherwise," Belisarius said, and left the room. He stood in the hallway for a moment, his emotions in turmoil. This was worse than walking over a battlefield after a victory and seeing the ruined, broken men whose lives purchased it. He ground his teeth together, wishing that he trusted himself to get drunk and end the pain for a few hours.



Simones stood a little farther down the hall, and he hesitated before speaking. "Master, your wife… your wife desires your company."



"In a moment," said Belisarius, not confident he could remain calm with her.



"She is eager for you," Simones informed him.



"In a moment," he repeated. He indicated the door behind him. "My brother is about to depart. I pray you, give him escort."



This was not what Simones hoped for, but he made a reverence. "At once."



"See that he has an appropriate gift. Something suitable. I suppose a dozen brass cups will do." He rubbed his chin, and wished he had the excuse of shaving to postpone what he knew would be a harrowing time with Antonina. He gave a sour smile, that he who had fought armies in Italy and Greece and Africa should falter at an hour with his wife. With that thought to goad him, he went to Antonina's private quarters.



"My husband," Antonina said when Belisarius had made his reverence to her. "My husband, what has happened to us?"



"I wish I knew," he said, thinking how beautiful she was, and how much it hurt him to see her so distressed. He went and wrapped his arms around her, saying softly, "The only comfort I can find in this is that I can be with you, beloved."



She pushed against his embrace. "What is the matter with you? Have you lost all your mettle?"



He strove to hold her, needing her nearness to assuage the other losses he had been forced to accept. "Antonina, please."



"Do not beg me, my husband. I am your wife, and yours by rights. For the Lord of Hosts, take something, if it is only me. You are without any steel." She broke away from him. "How dare Justinian do this to you? How dare he forget all you have done to advance him? If Theodora were still alive, this could never have happened." She dashed her hand over her face as if to banish her furious tears.



"I have asked myself that, Antonina, and I have no answer." He watched her, an ache like a festering wound burning in him. "Antonina."