Two men.
Alaric, a Goth, driven to avenge for his father's murder and reclaim his stolen birthright.
Promotus, a Roman general, shamed by his failure to protect the emperor from an attempt on the his life sought to regain his standing in the emperor...
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Chapter Twelve
General Flavius Promotus was a powerful man. Even the tunic, knotted and pinned at his shoulder,could not hide the bunched muscles beneath the heavy wool. Thick pillars of sinew from his sloped shoulders to his head, rippled beneath the skin of his neck as he walked. He moved through then arrow alleyway like a siege engine, the rough gravel crunching beneath his feet.
The narrow street dropped steeply from his home to intersect with the Callis Proponti, the road that ran parallel to the docks and warehouses along the quays atPortus Sophia. One side of the Callis Proponti, columnated and fortified along the harbor, loomed five feet above the peaked roofs of the warehouses on the quay below them. On the other side a palisade of building fronts; windows above doors and patio's. Between was trapped the heavy smell of fish that hung over the odor of garbage, offal and human excrement that bobbed beside the quays,swept into the harbor by the sewers.
Behind Promotus his two sons,Caius and Flavius the Lesser, both in their early manhood, took long strides to match their father's pace. Six bodyguards, as due his dignity, were hand selected lictors, paid by Promotus. All were ex-gladiators, trained to fight with the short,curved daggers in the Thracian style. Two walked before Promotus,the others followed a step behind the sons.
The harbor was built to accept both the long grain ships from Egypt that stocked the granaries just west of the quays, and the imperial double-masted triremes used bythe emperor and his court. The gated entrance down to the wharf of Portus Sophia from Callis Proponti was less than a quarter mile from Porta Portus, the southwest gate into the imperial palace. As close as the gate was to the harbor, and the presence of sentries standing in pairs on the crenelated walls overlooking the harbor, the side streets that branched uphill from the Callis Proponti were narrow and unsafe at night. Ruffians and thieves waited for an unwary passer-by or a drunken sailor. The only safe place after dark was behind your doors or in the ale houses and wine shops where green capped thugs maintained the peace with fists and clubs.
The nine men climbed the steeproad toward the Porta portus. The gate was massive and as welldesigned for defense as the great stone gates of the city's outerwalls. Except for imperial passengers, only cargo brought into thepalace or materials leaving to be loaded on ships used that gate.
Empty as they may seen just before the sun rose, the streets were never without the slinking cats and the white winged sea gulls. The birds cawed and piped, swooping between the buildings where wisps of night still hid under eves andin alley ways, not yet chased from the city by the sun. Promotus liked using the Porta portus because it was less than three quarters of a mile from his urban villa overlooking the harbor and the bluewaters of the Propontus that spread out beyond the defensive towers along the sea wall.
It was just before the calling of first hour on the Ides of August and the sun still hid behind the hills on the eastern side of the Bosphorus. The screeching of the gulls was shrill in Promotus's ears. Were they extraordinarily sharp this morning or was it the chilly air, that carried the calls more clearly?
