CHAPTER X
Liuderis Oskar's 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."