I'M BACK Y'ALL!
(To this thread. No promises on FWOF)
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30 September 609
Malaca
“.....it would behoove both yourself and I if you were to take your newly secured forces and restore Roman rule in the inner wilds of Tingitania; I know for certain that Volubilis and Anfus are both populated, while there are also several fortified ports along the coast of the Great Ocean that may be able to be resettled. Indeed, if you are confident enough there is a porphry factory on a series of islands where the Atlases descend to the coast and yada yada yada, conquer the coast all the way to Azania and I promise that I’ll send more money.”
Iustinianus dropped the scroll onto the table and stared intensely at the face of the messenger standing beyond it, who was anxiously shifting from foot to foot and whose eyes were a blur of motion flicking back and forth between Iustinianus’ and Dulcitius’ faces. The man’s manner was that of one who wasn’t stupid, and knew how much danger he could be in if he botched the meeting or even if the dignitary he was to speak to was in a particularly bad mood. In other words, the kind of man who wouldn’t forge a seal and a dispatch and then give it to an official face-to-face for a laugh. That, along with speaking with an African accent so strong that he hadn’t heard ‘v’ once [1], suggested that he was in fact being truthful. But still, the terms of the letter seemed so bizarre, and unprovoked at that. And while he did have the money promised in the letter, the whole thing just seemed strange.
“Dulcitius,” he said after a long pause, “Escort this men to a cell for the night. I’ll see him again tomorrow.”
His friend nodded and grabbed the man’s shoulder, awkwardly instructing him to come with him before they went out through the door out of his office. Iustinianus turned his gaze back to the paperwork that he had previously been working on, flipping through the dispatch from Carteia. The harvest was in the process of being taken in, and it looked like it would be more than enough to last them until the winter crops could be harvested in March. The praefectus wanted to use the proceeds to buy stone from some Mauri to reinforce the city’s walls. Iustinianus signed off on the approval form and lifted the next form off of the pile, only to be interrupted by another knock at the door.
“What?” he barked, irritated at being broken from his work for the second time that hour.
“We found a man wandering around the gate this morning. He’s asking to speak to you.”
“Let him in.”
The door swung open, revealing a guard with a thoroughly disgusted expression and a filthy figure with a long hair and beard and torn and badly scratched-up clothing. Iustinianus stared at the person for several seconds before he recognized his face.
“Orcivius?” he asked. “What the hell happened?”
The young man coughed pathetically, his slimy chest going almost concave with the force. “It’s a long story, sir.”
“Well, sit down,” Iustinianus said, gesturing to a stool sitting in the corner. Orcivius shambled across the room and collapsed onto the chair, coughing several times in the process. After waiting several seconds for the poor bastard to gather his breath, Iustinianus spoke again.
“So, what happened?” he asked, trying not to pressure him too much.
“Well,” Orcivius coughed, “I got to Tingis on 20 August. Delius put me into this training school thing for spies under this man named Ocella….After either a month or three weeks I can’t remember he took me out and told me to give you a false set of orders that he wasn’t going to use for his campaign against you but while I was taking them to the docks Ocella stole them from me and then Delius and his goons killed him because he was working for the Heraclii but I escaped and then got on a fishing boat but then the ship got swamped by this really big wave but I clung onto a board until I was washed ashore and then I walked back to Malaca on foot.”
“I see.” Iustinianus said. He hesitated before asking another question, knowing how exhausted Orcivius must be, but pressed on. “When did you escape?”
“Somewhere around two and a half weeks ago, sir. From what I overheard I know he was bringing up troops to Tingis and should launch in a few days. But then again, I could always be wrong.”
Iustinianus didn’t speak for several minutes, mulling the information over in his mind. There was the possibility that he had been corrupted, but no handler would just dump him out in the wilds like they would’ve had to do to get him looking like he did, it was too much of a chance to take on such an excellent strategic asset. And the fact that he mentioned the Heraclii did seem to corroborate his story with that of the messenger who had come in earlier. But then again, maybe he had intentionally let him hear so as to make the fake message seem more legitimate….He stopped. You’re overanalyzing, stop and think straight. What could Delius gain by doing this? One of two things; It could make you overconfident because you have the support of the Exarch, or it could make you overly paranoid and paralyze you. Either of things would be good for him, so like Vergitius[2] stated, they’re automatically bad for you. Ergo you do neither of those things; You campaign against him, but you do so with caution, always fighting upon your chosen ground and giving up no advantage. Yes, that’ll work.
He turned his gaze back to the corner and started to interrogate Orcivius, but before he could get more than a few words out they died in his throat as he realized that the poor man was asleep. He must’ve been absolutely exhausted after his ordeal, and he could get better information out of him when he was rested. He stood and walked over to the stool, light shaking Orcivius’ shoulder to wake him up. He opened his eyes to a small extent and Iustinianus lifted him to his feet and shuffled him to the door, which he pushed open with one of his feet. He told the guard to take Orcivius to a bed, then went back to his desk and started drafting orders to move forces about. Malaca had something like a hundred and thirty fighting men both militia and professional, but they needed only twenty to thirty to defend the walls against most assaults. That meant he could take a hundred, as a conservative estimate, including all fourty or so of his cavalry and sixty infantry. That may or may not be enough, depending on how many Delius had, but he could always bait them into pursuing his forces into the hills west of Carteia--Leontius had shown him maps of the area before--and wear them down with harassment tactics. Hell, if he could make Delius confident enough he might be able to capture or assassinate him--
There was another pounding on the door and he leapt out of his chair, swearing under his breath. He stormed across the room to the door and ripped it open, revealing a short, well-shaven man he didn’t recognize with his hand still raised to knock.
“What?” he growled.
The man’s eyes grew wide as saucers as he stared at the suddenly present magister. “You’re, uh, you’re Iustinianus Sabbatius?”
Iustinianus’ eyes narrowed, and his hand drifted to the hilt of his spatha. “Yes. Why?”
“Oh, uh, I’m-I was, rather, one of Caesarius’ staff officers. He and most of his army are dead.”
Iustinianus paused. It was the last piece of news he’d been expecting. “What do you mean he’s dead? And how much of his army?”
“Well, sir, we were marching on Malaca when we were ambushed by Vagrila and his men, and they killed most of my fellows and then I think they laid siege to Sparteriosis, sir.”
“You’re sure they were routed?”
“Yes, sir. I myself was captured and escaped, sir.”
Well, hell. He didn’t have enough men to relieve that city, let alone do that and defend Carteia. But then again, this man could also be a plant….
A guard appeared around the corner of the far end of the hallway and sprinted towards them. “Sorry, Magister, he got past me.”
He was going to go back to strategizing, and then he was going to deal with this. He looked to the guard. “Put this man under watch. I’ll deal with him later.”
With that, he turned around and walked back into his office, slamming the door shut behind him and sitting down at his desk again. He could get the carts necessary to supply his force by tomorrow, and then after that it was four days to Carteia. Of course, they probably wouldn’t go that far due to the uncertainty of the enemy’s plans; They would go to Silniana, an abandoned fortress about midway between the two cities, where they could move to defend Carteia if Delius attacked there, Malaca if Delius attacked there or even rush to defend Malaca if Caesarius or Vagrila suddenly attacked.
The interrogations of the strange man and Orcivius produced no information to alter this plan, and so at dawn on 1 October Iustinianus marched out of the western gate with the novice cavalry at their head, bound to test their mettle on the field of battle for the first time, with the fate of Roman Iberia hanging in the balance….
