He looked across the room crowded with uniforms and saw Otto, dressed in a blue tunic and looked fresh, considering the fatigue he had so recently suffered. There was a bruise on the line of the blond fuzz where his hair was beginning to grow back on his shaved head. He smiled and nodded a greeting.
“This is Principal Decurion Otto Longius of The Second Lucan Legion, sir,” he told the general.
“And what is his social status?”
“By decree of the Emperor, your father, he is a Roman Citizen and enrolled in the Equestrian Order.”
“You are the son of Emperor Augustus?” the astonished Otto blurted out.
Drusus smiled. “A stepson but he is a good and kind father to me.”
“I’m sorry that I did not know that. Please send him my kind remembrances when you next write, sir.”
“I’m sure that will please him.” Drusus replied dryly.
“If the Emperor can recall who you are!” a peevish voice called from the side of the room.
Many of the officers laughed.
“Since he wrote to me when I had returned to camp and sent me a box of figs from his own orchard, I believe he might,” Otto answered sharply.
“Have a care gentlemen, this young man has the favour of our Emperor who would not wish him to be mocked,” Drusus said with a smile on his face but an edge to his voice which brought instant silence. “Let us turn to the matter in hand. Bring in the prisoner!”
With clashing arms and stamping boots, the decanus who had robbed and struck Otto down was brought in between two Praetorian Guards. One of them laid Otto’s belt, dagger and purse on the edge of the general’s desk together with four silver arms rings.
“Is this your property?”
“Yes sir.”
“What do you expect to find in this purse?”
“My knight’s gold ring engraved with my initials on the inside, a marble finger mounted in gold and a few coins of little value.”
The items were all there.
“You have offered violence to a Knight of Rome, stolen the emblem of his rank and other property. Do you have anything to say?” Drusus asked the prisoner whose face was the colour of cheese.
In spite of his obvious fear, he straightened and squared his shoulders. “It is true. I have nothing else to say.”
“Then I have no choice but to pronounce your death sentence,” the general told him.
“May I speak, sir?” Otto intervened and received permission. “I was in a dirty and poor condition when I arrived as was my horse. It does not surprise me that this man did not believe me when I told him who I was. I feel no anger towards him on that account. But by keeping me in the stockade overnight, he has delayed my mission. I find that criminal. However, he is a soldier and a decanus so I ask that he is granted the mercy of a soldier’s death.”
“Will you be my second?” the prisoner asked Otto.
“With the general’s permission,” Otto told him.
“Outside now and get it over with,” Drusus said brusquely.
The guards, the prisoner and Otto bowed and marched out.
“That decanus is an impressive young man. No wonder the emperor raised him to his present position,” said the general, voicing his thoughts aloud and then turned his attention to Aldermar. “The background to this, prefect, is that he has managed to escape from his legion camp and ride to us seeking help. He tells us they are besieged by around fifteen thousand Marcomanni.”
Someone gave Aldermar a sheet of parchment and a piece of charcoal. He drew a rough map of The Second Lucan camp and its surroundings. The officers began to discuss the situation and possible responses.
Around the back of the Praetorium, the decanus stood stripped to his tunic. He was resigned and grateful to Otto. Without his intervention, death would have come both agonizingly and slowly; either under the lash of the scourge or by crucifixion. Cold steel was infinitely preferable. One of the praetorians handed Otto a sword which he put into the prisoner’s hand. He placed the tip of the blade under the ribs on the left of his belly, tilted so that is would enter at an upward angle. He nodded to Otto who wrapped his hands around the pommel as well. They looked into each other’s eyes.
“Go, knowing I wish you peace on the other side,” Otto murmured.
“I am sorry, sir,” the decanus replied, but whether for his crime or for his death sentence he did not say.
He smiled and pushed forward as both men slid the sword up into his heart. His head tilted forward, his legs went from under him and he fell, dead.
“We’ll take over now sir,” one of the guards advised.
Otto walked away without a backward glance. He was not allowed to return to the meeting and cooled his heels in the anteroom for half an hour before he was summoned. At attention in front of General Drusus’ desk once more, he waited with some apprehension for the council of war’s decision.
“Decurion Longius, tell me how you managed to leave your legion’s camp undetected.” Drusus demanded.
Otto described his successful ruse.
“That was your idea?”
“Yes sir, it was.”
“And how long did to take you to reach us?”
“I left in the late afternoon, as I reported and arrived here on the fifth day,”
“A remarkable feat of horsemanship. I take it you were unopposed?”
“No sir, two Marcomanni warriors tried to stop me. I killed them both. These silver arm-rings are my spoils.”
Drusus shook his head as if unable to take in anymore.
“You have heard, gentlemen? I believe that this confirms our decision in respect of this officer.” He addressed Otto directly. “For the rest of today you will liaise with Prefect Aldermar amongst others. They will want every piece of useful information you can give them. Tomorrow at first light, a force of twelve hundred mixed Roman and Auxiliary cavalry will ride to the relief of The Second Lucan. You will be with them. Arms and equipment in keeping with your rank will be provided. The Second Lucan were over-supplied in cavalry but in hindsight, that unfailing source of wisdom, we should not have restricted them to a single turma. An ala of one hundred and twenty cavalry will remain at your camp once order has been restored. They will need a commander. In spite of your youth, the feeling of this officers’ conference is that they are in agreement with my decision. You are hereby promoted to Prefect of Cavalry. What is the current salary?...”
“Thirteen thousand one hundred and fifty denarii, sir,” a secretary advised.
“I take it you heard that? Off you go then Prefect Longius.”
Otto bowed again and began to walk towards the door.
“Prefect,” the general called. “I will pass along your good wishes to the Emperor. He will be interested to know we have met.”
Otto spent two hours with the other cavalry officers. He added detail to Aldermar’s drawing, showing the diagonal wall at the north-east corner and Boxer’s canal. The steep eastern slope with its tree-stumps was their greatest concern. They would have preferred to engage from that direction but both Aldermar and Otto insisted that this was impossible. Eventually it was decided that one group would charge between the wagons and the Rhine while a larger group rode across the enemy front to join them on their western flank. From there, they would have room to manoeuvre as a combined force over the abandoned farmland.
“I told the legate to march out when he heard every horn in the relief force sound the order to mount up in unison,” Otto explained.
Because he knew the layout of the area from personal experience, Aldermar had been given tactical command. He shook his head.
“That alone won’t do. We shall need to get a message into the camp.”
“Very well,” Otto said. “If I go on ahead…”
“Out of the question,” the general’s Master of Horse who was overseeing the meeting told him. “You are a prefect of cavalry now, not a mounted spy.”
“We have men so skilled in moving through e
nemy lines we call them ghosts. We can get a message over the wall. It will be useful if you write it with me. We shall speak of this later,” Aldermar told him.
Otto received a rapturous greeting from Passer at the forge.
“How tall you’ve grown.” Otto said. “And are you happy with the choice you made?”
“Oh yes sir, that I am.”
Martellus was his usual amiable, plain-spoken self.
“Djinn is up to the return journey. You won’t be hammering him into the ground like you did on the way up, I take it?” he asked reproachfully.
“I know, I know, Uncle Martellus. I ran or walked beside him as far as I could but my strength gave out on the last day. I even threw away my weapons and armour to save him the weight.”
“I’m giving you a flask of liniment to rub on his legs every evening and morning, I’ll make it two and you can do the same.”
They kitted him out from quartermaster’s stores and contributions from well-disposed officers under the watchful eye of the Master of Horse. Aldermar had told him what Otto had done to earn the Emperor’s favour Once he knew the details, the most senior officer in the army’s cavalry took a personal interest.
“We do not have a cuirass for you, it must be chainmail for the moment…”
“I prefer a mail shirt, sir,” Otto told him.
“Your preferences are neither here nor there. A Roman cavalry prefect wears a cuirass. Perhaps you did not fully take in the general’s words. You are a regular army officer commanding Roman cavalrymen now, no longer an auxiliary. I have a red cloak for you that I have no use for, it is not overly threadbare…”
Mounted on Djinn who was curvetting and showing off, his coat shining, his mane and tail combed through and flowing free, Otto was presented to his new command.
“Greet your new prefect the equestrian Otto Longius,” the Master of Horse thundered to make his voice heard to the one hundred and twenty mounted men lined up in front of him. They took one look and saw an enormous young man who clearly was not a native Roman. They were. Lips pursed. Side-long glances of disapproval were passed between comrades. “Your prefect was raised to the Equestrian Order by Emperor Augustus himself in recognition of his gallantry when saving the life of his legate in battle. Prefect Longius rode here alone from the camp of The Second Lucan to request reinforcements, killing two renowned Marcomanni chieftains single-handed on the way. Respect him. Deserve him..”
“I don’t think they were renowned chieftains, sir,” Otto said as the two of them rode away.
“Do you know who they were?”
“One of them was called Audo of the Bright Axe…”
“There you are then; famous chap, old Audo. Listen to me now, your men will not be happy that their officer is not a Roman born and bred. But if you are good enough for our Emperor, you are good enough for me and most certainly for the likes of them. They’ll soon come around after you’ve been in battle together.”
Fifteen-hundred horses were assembled in the drizzle of the next dawn. If twelve hundred were riding to war, they needed packhorses with food and spare equipment, saddle-makers to make running repairs, scouts on light, fast mounts and all the support necessary to bring them to battle in good order. Wearing the uniform of a Roman officer, Otto rode at the head of his men for the first time.
The horns called, the flags caught the breeze and the column walked past the saluting rostrum and out though the gate. They fell into the standard routine of trotting for half an hour, cantering for half an hour and walking at the head of their mounts for a quarter of an hour in rotation. To Otto, it seemed they were travelling at a snail’s pace but the miles were disappearing under their hooves at a steady rate and, more importantly, one they could keep up almost indefinitely. It was a relief for Otto to be sleeping beside bivouac fires, secure behind a picket line and no longer, cold, hungry and alone in the wilderness.
While Otto was sleeping among his new comrades to the north, the night was disturbed at The Second Lucan camp. The sounds of axes thumping into wood, picks striking the ground and ripping, tearing noises were heard on the eastern slope above Boxer’s breastwork. The night was black, a faint drizzle fell and nothing could be seen from the camp. Fire-arrows were loosed to try to illuminate what was going on. They flared briefly in the wet vegetation, revealing a few of the enemy busy on the slope before they were stamped out. After an hour or so, the Romans began to hear heavy objects bring rolled down towards the ditch. They flung torches over. On the lower slope and in the ditch they could see the tree-stumps, chopped through and ragged, lying uprooted.
“The bastards are clearing the hillside,” a sentry said.
“Looks like it. We’ll see more by morning,” his optio told him and reported the new development to Lucius who was officer of the watch.
He was still in conversation with the optio when a cry of alarm went up from the Porta Principalis Sinistra.
“What is it?” demanded Lucius when he arrived, breathless on the walkway over the gate.
“I can hear oxen, listen, sir!” a legionary told him.
They both stared out into the impenetrable gloom to the west. The could hear animals lowing and more, the squeak of wheels and water splashing in Boxer’s canal.
“Think they’re going to try that stunt with the burning wagon again, sir?”
“I don’t know. Send for First Spear Centurion Attius and sound the general alarm.”
After the clamour and turmoil of the troops tumbling out of their billets and standing-to, there was silence. Time passed. No wagon loaded with brushwood hurtled towards them. Torch after torch was thrown from the walls; nothing, no-one.
Immediately before daybreak there is a short period when the eye becomes uncertain. The brain is unable to decide if there is enough light to distinguish whether there is shape, motion and colour to be seen. That is when they heard the buzzing of giant bees below them, a rhythmic thrumming and then a clank as the first grapnel hook struck the parapet and bit home. Others followed almost instantly, ten, twenty; some caught the parapet, some the top edge of the gate, others missed and fell to the ground. The flames of the thrown torches showed warriors racing back towards Boxer’s Canal. The sentries hurled javelins but none found their targets in the dim light. Men grabbed up the axes left behind the parapet for the purpose and leaned out to slash through the ropes attached to the grapnel hooks. The axes rebounded with metallic clangs. There were no ropes. They were attached to lengths of chain.
A tremendous yell accompanied by snapping whips and bellowing oxen was followed by a movement in the walkway under their feet, like a wave passing over. The timbers groaned. A plank in the gate split its full length. The walkway moved again, this time, swaying outwards.
“Get off!” Lucius shouted and dashed to the side with the guard party.
With popping and cracking sounds and a final rending crash, the entire length of the parapet and one leaf of the gate fell to the ground. The locking bar jammed and the second leaf was ripped off its hinges, tottered and toppled over. With a roar, Marcomanni warriors threw down their hurdles to cross the Canal and launch their furious onslaught.
Attius had anticipated an assault. He had his men in his favoured three rank open box formation but he had learned after the enemy’s first incursion. His right and left flanks were five men deep to prevent them cutting their way through between the end of his ranks and the camp walls.
The Marcomanni had learned as well. They checked their run twenty paces out and threw their spears in a volley. They did not aim at the line of shields facing them but upwards so that the second and third Roman ranks were caught in a plunging fire. Fifteen men fell. It was enough. When the full force of the charge hit them, the front rank could not hold their position without the support of the fallen men behind them. The line bowed inwards, crumpled and broke. The yelling warriors were among them on all sides, hacking with axes and thrusting with lances. Attius yelled his orders and a second cohort stepped forw
ard behind the melee, linking up with his left and right flanks. The legionaries of the broken ranks were forced to fight for their lives without their comrades being able to intervene for fear of cutting their own men down. The experienced and the lucky filtered through to the sides and reformed.
By now it was almost full light. The Marcomanni chieftain saw the Roman reformed defensive line. He lifted the horn he carried and blew a long, wailing note. His warriors turned as a man and ran back the way they had come A few were brought down with javelins as they retreated. In the distance, two teams of oxen lumbered across the ground still dragging pieces of gate and palisade on stout cables behind them. As they raced away, the enemy spread out wide across what had been the cornfields. Corvo decided not to waste artillery ammunition on doubtful individual targets.
The engagement cost the lives of forty Romans and one hundred Marcomanni. The figures were troubling. Previously, the enemy casualties had been much higher in proportion.
“This Helmund has a fine tactical grasp of the situation. I believe he will come at us in smaller numbers, inflict as many casualties as he can and then withdraw once he sees we are gaining the upper hand. He intends to cut our numbers down little by little. We can do nothing but oppose him tooth and nail. Boxer, can you make me a new gate?” Quadratus asked, his calm manner as unruffled as ever although his eyes seemed a little more sunken and his face thinner with each day that passed as the strain of command told on him.
“No sir. It will have to be another breastwork. I can use the wagon we took off them as the base but I need to fill it with ballast and we must keep all the stones we have for ammunition.”
“Take the tiles off the barrack roofs.” Titus Attius told him.
“Do you intend for the men to sleep in their tents, Titus?” the legate asked.
“Nowhere to pitch them sir. We need to be able to move freely across the parade ground and Via Praetoria day or night without tripping over guy-ropes. No, I propose to divide the day up into four six -hour watches. Half the men on duty, half off. We won’t need to take the roofs off all the barrack blocks. Soldiers’ personal possessions can be labelled and placed in the custody of the priests.”
Knight of Rome Part II Page 15
