Like Bessas, I feared that we were heading into a trap. I crouched well behind my shield, peering over the rim to look for any archers concealed among the line of soldiers waiting for us on the docks. As we drew near they clicked their heels together and held out their right arms in a military salute.
I sagged with relief. “Welcome, General Belisarius,” called out one of their officers, cupping his hands round his mouth, “we are yours to command.”
6.
Belisarius wasted no time. All through the night he worked to ready the garrison to sally out at dawn. He was consumed with nervous energy, and needed no sleep, but allowed me and the rest of his guards to snatch a few hours of rest in the barracks outside the governor’s residence.
The garrison was made up of foederati troops, most of them Herulii. When I woke, I sought out one of their officers and enquired what had passed since Solomon fled Carthage. He told me that after sacking the city, the rebels had marched out to meet their allies on the plains of Bulla, where two years previously I witnessed the Vandal host muster before the Battle of Tricamarum.
“As soon as they were gone, we ventured out and closed the gates,” said the officer, “then we raised the imperial flag on the battlements, to show that Carthage was Roman once more.”
I looked at him with contempt. “But you did nothing to protect our citizens when the rebels were running amok in the streets,” I said, “and only found your courage behind strong gates and high walls. For shame.”
He reddened, and flung up his hand. The Heruli, like all Germanic peoples, are fiercely proud, and quick to fall to blows.
I waited for the blow to fall. “Strike me,” I said calmly, “and let it be a quarrel between us. I am happy to meet you, blade to blade, on private ground of your own choosing.”
There was no-one else within earshot, otherwise he would have had no option but to accept the challenge. As it was, he confined himself to spitting at my feet, and then stalked away. Another enemy to add to the list, I thought wryly as I wiped my boot with the back of my gauntlet.
We had left our horses behind in Syracuse, but Belisarius found mounts for us in the stables of the governor’s residence. He mustered his little army on the barren ground south of the city, and harangued us just as the red orb of the morning sun rose over the hills to the east.
“Soldiers,” he cried, riding back and forth across our front rank on his bay, “our enemies are cowards, and have fled inland rather than face us like men. My scouts inform me that they have forged an alliance with the degenerate Moors, and wait for us outside the city of Membresa, some fifty miles west of here. They outnumber us four to one, and have made a private soldier named Stoza their chief. He is a Roman, like us, but has broken his fealty to God and Emperor. Are we dismayed?”
Absolutely, I thought, but along with the rest of The First Century I drew my sword and held it aloft.
“Never!” we shouted. Our voices echoed across the dusty plain, and were taken up by the garrison troops formed up behind us and on the flanks. They were all light cavalry, armed with spears and large round shields. Despite their craven behaviour during the riots, Belisarius had chosen to put his faith in them. He had no choice, since there were no other troops available: all of the neighbouring Roman garrisons had thrown in their lot with the rebels.
Belisarius led us on towards Membresa, which lay beside the banks of the River Bagrades. I had never thought to set foot on African soil again, and as we rode my mind conjured up images of what I had seen and suffered in this strange land: the mad King of the Vandals, Gelimer, cackling like a crazed old woman as he raised Caledfwlch and swore to wipe the Roman army off the face of the earth; the humiliating rout of our vanguard at Ad Decimum; the blood-soaked sands of Tricamarum, where Belisarius exterminated the last Vandal host; the hell of my captivity on Mount Papua; the weeping boils that encrusted Gelimer’s face and finally broke his will to resist. No, I had little reason to remember Africa with any fondness, and was anxious to quit the country again as soon as possible.
Belisarius knew that speed and surprise were essential to our slender chances of victory. Though we lacked remounts, he kept us at a furious pace, and our army arrived within sight of Membresa shortly after noon.
Membresa was a sprawling city, but undefended by walls, so the rebel host had taken up a strong position on a nearby hill. They were some eight thousand strong, a rag-bag of Arian heretics, Roman mutineers and Moors. Their commander, Stoza, knew his business, and had fortified his position with ditches and entrenchments.
Belisarius took one look at the rebel defences and shook his head.
“It won’t do,” I heard him say to Bessas, and he was right. A frontal assault against the rebels would be suicide, so he ordered the army to pitch camp near the banks of the river.
All through that long, hot spring day the rival hosts stood and stared at each other. Belisarius had placed his camp between Stoza’s men and the city, cutting off their line of supply. His hope was that the rebels would soon run short of rations, and would have to give battle or starve.
Our own rations were limited, since we had left Carthage in haste. Belisarius solved that problem by leading three hundred of his cavalry into Membresa and forcibly taking food from the citizens. He promised to pay when the rebels were defeated and North Africa once again a Roman province, which must have been scant comfort to those he stole from.
Still the rebels would not move. Night came on, and I did my shift on watch, huddled up in my cloak and field blanket as I watched the fires on the hill. If Stoza had been a bold man, he might have tried a night assault. Belisarius was not to be taken unawares, and had half his men stand to arms while the others slept. At one hour past midnight, those who slept were shaken awake and placed on guard, while their comrades sank gratefully to rest.
I was booted awake the following morning by a grinning captain. His name was John Troglita. Like Bessas, he was another Thracian of mixed blood, and a veteran of the recent wars in Africa and Mesopotamia. He would go on to achieve general rank, but I chiefly remember him for possessing the ugliest face I have ever seen, something like a cross between a debauched wolf and a plague victim.
“Up, Briton,” he snarled, jerking his thumb in the direction of the hill, “those bastards have finally decided to advance.”
I rose, bucking on my sword-belt and straining to see the enemy. A strong wind had blown up during the night, whipping dust and sand across the plain.
“Damn it,” I muttered, blinking and holding my arm before my face. The wind showed no signs of dying down, and an eerie howl rolled across the desert landscape, like a horde of distant wolves moaning their death-songs.
I glimpsed a multitude of spears and banners moving down from the hill. The rebels marched in poor order, especially the Moorish cavalry and camel-riders on the flanks, who had little notion of military discipline. Our Roman mutineers were easy to spot. Their infantry marched in column in the centre, with auxiliary cavalry guarding their flanks and rear.
Anger coursed through me as I watched them advance. The mutineers were still flying Roman standards, as though they were the loyalists and we the rebels.
The screech of bucinae called me to my duty. I scrambled aboard my horse and steered her towards the great imperial standard, where Belisarius was forming up his guards. He was already mounted and armed, and shading his eyes to observe the movements of the enemy across the dust-whipped plain. Photius was at his side.
Our garrison troops were a shade slower to form into line of battle, though Bessas and Troglita and other officers rode among them, screaming and striking at the laggards with iron-tipped truncheons. I galloped past the chaos and took my place in the front rank behind Belisarius.
My heart shivered at the sight of the grim mass of steel and flesh tramping towards us. The enemy numbered some eight to ten thousand, and my only solace was that Belisarius had faced worse odds before and triumphed.
I expected the rebels to m
arch straight on and roll over our pathetic array, but instead their forward squadrons stumbled to a halt. A smile spread across my face as I watched their officers galloping to and fro, shouting and gesticulating at each other. Seeds of confusion were sown in the rebel ranks as their infantry shuffled this way and that, colliding with their comrades. War-drums and bucinae sounded a stream of conflicting orders.
Stoza was attempting to arrange his army into one long column, so their centre could engage us while the wings wrapped around our flank and rear. It wasn’t a complex maneuver, but at least half his force was made up of ill-trained levies and skirmishers.
The effort proved disastrous. With the exception of the Roman troops, Stoza’s entire forward line collapsed into a mob of baffled and angry men. Belisarius saw the opportunity and raised his spatha as the signal to charge.
I had taken part in many cavalry exercises outside the walls of Constantinople, learning to steer a horse with my knees while handling sword and shield, javelin and bow. I fought as part of a cavalry squadron at Ad Decimum, and witnessed the shattering assault of the bucelarii at Tricamarum, but Membresa was the first time I rode in a cavalry charge.
My sluggish blood quickens as I recall the excitement and urgency, the bunch and flow of my horse’s muscles under me as I spurred her into a full-hearted gallop. The shriek of the bucinae, the roar of the men around me, the dust kicked up by hundreds of hoofs, the howl of the gale sweeping across the plain.
As we thundered into a gallop the rebel line vanished, concealed behind billowing clouds of dust and sand.
Instinct and training took over. Belisarius had drilled his guards in the use of the kontos, a slender four-metre long lance, wielded in both hands for greater thrust. The heavier shields carried by our garrison troops were a needless encumbrance to men carrying such a weapon, so instead we wore small round shields strapped to our left forearms.
I held my kontos at a low angle across my horse’s neck. In this position it would outreach the weapons of the rebel infantry, and hopefully skewer any man foolish enough to hold his ground against me. Some of my comrades held their lances high, to strike and stab downwards at the enemy.
We charged blindly through the storm. The gold and silver figures of Belisarius and Photius disappeared, swallowed up inside a wall of dust. We roared in fury and drove our horses to the limit, determined not to lose sight of our beloved general for long.
The muffled yell of a trumpet sounded away to my right. Horsemen exploded into view, armed with javelins and oval shields. Stoza had thrown in his mutineer cavalry to meet our charge.
For the first time I found myself facing Romans in battle. I had no time to dwell on the irony of that, but switched my grip on the kontos, lifting it high as a horseman galloped straight at me. He hurled his javelin, but it was a poor throw. The slender dart bounced harmlessly off the boss of my shield and span away.
The impetus of his charge drove him onto my lance. I stabbed at his head, and the wickedly sharp steel tip took him in the throat and thrust out the back of his neck. I was trained for this, and gave the kontos a sharp twist, withdrawing the tip even as the mutineer fell from his saddle, blood pumping from the neat hole in his neck.
Now all our ranks were broken up, the fight dissolved into dozens of individual combats. Dust flew into my eyes. A shape hurled itself at me, screaming like a devil, and I felt something hammer against my ribs. The pain made me cry out and double over. A javelin had hit me in the side, but my fine scale armour had preserved me from worse than bruises.
My kontos was virtually useless in this sort of close fighting. I hurled it away and ripped out Caledfwlch, feeling my courage return as my fingers closed around the worn ivory grip.
Most of my comrades fought with spathas, long swords with a heavy chopping edge. Caledfwlch was a gladius, a much shorter and rather antiquated weapon, intended for stabbing rather than hacking with the edge. Many of the guards thought me vain for persisting with such a relic, but I found the shorter blade gave me an advantage at close quarters.
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, just as the shrieking wind tore away the veil of dust and sand before us. At last I could see the rebel infantry, or what was left of it. Belisarius’ wild storm-charge had smashed great holes in their ranks, sweeping away squadrons and littering the ground with broken and mutilated bodies.
Many of the ill-armed levies had fled the field, but a few stubborn mutineers and Vandals remained, formed up in isolated groups around their standards. Our cavalry swirled around them, casting spears and javelins in their faces. Belisarius’ guards were trained to use the short bow while mounted, and thumbed arrows into the helpless rebels. They would die where they stood, these men, or face the agony of crucifixion as a just punishment for those who betrayed the Roman state.
I turned my horse away, thinking to take a breath of air and some water from my pottle. Now the brief battle was all but won, there was no need to take undue risks. Our men would whittle away at the rebels until their ragged shield-walls broke and we could charge in for the final slaughter.
My horse carried me clear of the stench and din of battle, until I found a relatively quiet spot. The wind was still churning up sand-devils and blowing clouds of dust across the plain, so I felt strangely alone, shielded from the slaughter happening not more than thirty feet away.
I had forgotten about Photius. He might have killed me then, but was unable to restrain himself from letting out a cry as he raced in to cut me down from behind.
My water pottle was halfway to my lips when I heard the cry. I dropped it and hurled myself out of the saddle. His spatha sliced through thin air as I crashed onto my side, painfully jarring my recently healed arm.
“Pig!” I heard Photius snarl. He galloped past and wrenched his horse around for another tilt at me. I glimpsed the young man’s face under his helmet, his handsome features contorted almost beyond recognition with berserk fury.
Some instinct made me glance to my left. Another horseman was coming at me, one of my comrades from the First, his kontos lowered at my breast.
The ground shook under my feet as he charged. Somehow my nerve held. Instead of panicking I held my ground and watched that gleaming lance-tip streak towards me. At the very last second I dived to my left.
Death missed me by inches. I hit the ground hard, staggered to my feet, spitting dirt, and turned to face where I imagined Photius was.
Too late. He was on me like an avenging angel, spatha raised to strike. I had no time to lift my little shield or ward off his blow with Caledfwlch.
His blade crashed against the side of my helmet. Searing pain filled my skull. I tasted blood in my mouth. The world vanished, replaced by darkness and flashing lights.
Then there was nothing.
7.
I must have lain unconscious for several hours. When I woke, night was slanting across the battlefield, and the thumping pain in my head was as nothing to the stench of death in my nostrils.
Happily, Photius was not half the swordsman he thought he was. His blow had sheared the side-flap from my helmet, and scored a nasty gash on my head, but failed to split the bone. It was enough to knock me out cold, and fool him into leaving me for dead, but I suffered no other damage save a headache and loss of blood.
I peeled off the crumpled shell of my helmet and struggled into a kneeling position, groaning and carefully exploring the wound on my head. The bleeding had stopped, and the right side of my skull was covered in a layer of half-dried, congealed gore.
There was no sign of our army. The freak storm had died down, and I was able to see the hundreds of bodies, men and horses, that carpeted the plain. Most of them were rebels. Belisarius had smashed Stoza’s host and moved on, either pursuing them into the deep desert or withdrawing to Carthage. I briefly felt bitter that he had left me behind, but that was naive: victory came first, and Belisarius could not afford to be sentimental.
The feeble groans of the dying echoed across the f
ield as I got to my feet. My head swam, and I swayed dangerously, like a new-born calf attempting to stand.
My hand instinctively went to my hip, searching for the reassuring touch of ivory. The scabbard was empty. Gulping in panic, I glanced down and spotted the sword lying near where I had fallen. It seemed Photius was ignorant of the legend of Caesar’s sword, and had not thought to take it.
Other voices reached my ears as I bent to pick up Caledfwlch. The moans of dying men were mingled with the shrill yelps of desert hyenas, prowling among the bodies and fighting each other for strips of carrion. Some of the vile beasts tore at the bodies of men that yet lived. I saw a few vultures flapping about, their great leathery wings lending them the appearance of witches.
Their human counterparts were at work. Some of the braver or more desperate citizens of Membresa had ventured out of the city, carrying knives and cudgels. Now the fighting was over, it was time to plunder the dead as some recompense for being robbed by Belisarius.
I had witnessed the aftermath of battles before, but never from a position of danger. If I didn’t get off the field and find somewhere to hide until dawn, I would end up with a slashed throat, and Caledfwlch would fall into peasant hands.
My wound made me sluggish. I had scarcely begun to limp away when a high-pitched, nasally voice cried out somewhere behind me:
“There is one of them! Bring him down!”
I broke into a staggering run. More voices piped up, like a flock of excited crows descending on a kill.
A number of thin, wiry figures in loose grey robes suddenly appeared before me, as though they had sprouted out of the ground. They were peasants, their seamed, leathery faces twisted into bestial snarls, gnarled hands gripping sickles and pitchforks and other makeshift weapons.
Caesar's Sword: The Complete Campaigns Page 28
