By whose accusations did I receive this blow?
Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, 526
‘Timotheus Trascilliseus, former royal servant, hear the sentence of Eusebius, Count of Ticinum’,* acting under orders from the king.’ The saio delivering the message looked up briefly from the warrant, his impassive blue eyes beneath the studded Spangenhelm connecting momentarily with Timothy’s. Then he continued, ‘At the first hour of the day of six Kalends September in the Year of the Consul Olybrius,† you are to be taken to the place of execution within the bounds of this prison, there to suffer death by the sword.’ His business done, the saio turned on his heel and departed; Timothy heard the key of his cell turn in the lock.
Well, at least he now knew the worst – which was a relief of sorts. He consulted the tally of the time of his imprisonment that he had scratched on the wall. In ten days! Which was worse, to have the inevitability of death confirmed, or to suffer the suspense of uncertainty about one’s fate? At least the latter allowed one still to hope. At his age, having long outlived his biblical span, death should hold no terrors for him. But the truth was that it did. Despite the Church’s assurance of an afterlife, reinforced by the vast panoply of a glittering clerical hierarchy and glorious ecclesiastical buildings, there lurked a gnawing doubt that beyond the end of life lay . . . nothingness, a terrifying oblivion where consciousness ceased for ever to exist. Life, even in the confines of this bare cell, was sweet, thought Timothy, appalled at the prospect of departing from it.
*
Roused by footsteps in the yard below the tower, Timothy rose from his straw-filled pallet and looked down from the small barred window of his cell. Into the grassed enclosure – rather grandly known as Ager Calventianus – a prisoner was being led by two warders, who proceeded to secure him by stout straps to a chair in the middle of the green. Beside the chair, long clubs protruding from their belts, stood two brutal-looking men, one of whom held a length of cord. With a start, Timothy recognized the prisoner: Boethius, whom he remembered as an adviser and close confidant of Theoderic. He recalled that the Roman had been prominent among those rumoured to be plotting with Constantinople for Italy to be reunited with the empire.
Tying the cord in a loop round the prisoner’s head, one of the executioners, inserting a stick below the ligature, began to twist and tighten it. As the cord bit deep into the prisoner’s flesh and started to compress his skull, he jerked against his bonds and cried out in agony. Horrified, Timothy watched Boethius’ eyes begin to start from their sockets, while his cries changed to a continuous high-pitched scream. With their clubs, the executioners rained violent blows on the prisoner, the thumps, like wet laundry being pounded, carrying clearly to Timothy’s ears. At last, with a horrible crunching, the victim’s skull was stove in and he slumped against the straps, released by death from further torture.
Shaking with revulsion, Timothy drew back from the window; death by the sword would at least be mercifully quick. Although liable at times to fits of violent fury, Theoderic was not a cruel or vindictive man. The only explanation for his condemning Boethius to such a dreadful fate must lie in some terrible betrayal on the Roman’s part – a betrayal clearly far more heinous than Timothy’s had been.
Awaking from a brief and troubled sleep on the morning scheduled for his execution, Timothy watched with dread as the window of his cell slowly took on definition as a pale rectangle. The key squealed in the lock and the door creaked open to reveal, flanked by two warders, a tall figure wearing Spangenhelm and military belt – not the official who, ten days ago, had announced his sentence.
‘I see I have arrived in time,’ said the saio; his voice seemed strangely familiar. ‘Good news, Herr Timothy. The warrant for your execution is revoked, and you are a free man.’
‘Saio Fridibad!’ exclaimed Timothy, recognizing him in the growing light. Relief swept through him, making him feel faint and giddy.
‘The king is dying,’ the Goth continued sadly. ‘He would make his peace with you, Herr Timothy. The end is not far off, so we must make haste. I have fresh horses waiting, if you are able to ride.’
On the previous day, as the king sat at dinner, the meal’s main dish was placed before him and the cover removed.
‘Take it away!’ shouted Theoderic, gazing in horror at the thing that confronted him with blank staring eyes, its mouth, fringed with long, sharp teeth, agape in silent accusation. ‘It is the head of Boethius!’
Bowing, the servitor removed the great fish’s head, while the king stumbled from the table and retired to his bed-chamber. Soon, in a recurrence of the aguish fever afflicting him of late, he lay trembling with cold beneath a weight of blankets.
‘If only I could take back the past,’ the king murmured brokenly to his physician, Helpidius, and his daughter, Amalasuntha, in attendance at his bedside. ‘I have cruelly wronged my two most loyal servants, Symmachus and Boethius – both dead at my command. Also Timothy, once my dearest friend, who is to die tomorrow. Their betrayal of me I brought upon myself; I see that now. Too late to save Timothy, alas. If only the cursus publicus were still working, there might have been a chance . . .’
As the king drifted into a fitful slumber, Amalasuntha set her powerful intelligence to work. How far from Ravenna was Ticinum? Two hundred miles at most. But still an impossible distance for even the swiftest and most powerful steed to cover in twelve hours, the time remaining before the Isaurian was due to die. Granted, the cursus publicus – the old imperial post service with relay stations every eight miles where fresh mounts were available – had been defunct for years; but there were towns along the Via Aemilia: Bononia, Mutina, Placentia* and others, where horses could be requisitioned. Provided the rider knew his business, at a pinch a good horse could cover twenty miles in an hour – which rate could be maintained throughout the journey, given sufficient changes of mount. She made a swift computation; there was still time – just – for Timothy to be reprieved. When her father died, which must be soon, she would assume the regency for her son, little Athalaric. Was that enough to let her act now in Theoderic’s name? Well, she would soon find out. Unthinkable to wake her dying father; this was something she must manage on her own. Sending for her secretary, for Saio Fridibad (an excellent horseman) and for Cassiodorus, the new Master of Offices, whose countersignature on the documents would reinforce her authority, she began to draft the pardon for Timothy and the requisition orders for fresh horses.
Weakened by dysentry and fever, Theoderic felt the end fast approaching. He had made his final dispensations to the Gothic chiefs and Roman magistrates who filled the chamber, entreating them to keep the laws, to love the Senate and to cultivate the friendship of the emperor. One last thing remained: to be reconciled with the friend who knelt beside his bed.
‘Forgive me, Timothy,’ he whispered, stretching out his hand.
Tears blurring his vision, Timothy took it. He felt its grip tighten, then suddenly relax. Theoderic was dead.
* Not to be confused with Eusebius the City Prefect of Rome.
† 6 a.m., 27 August 526.
* Bologna, Modena, Piacenza.