Fire and Sword

by Harry Sidebottom

  True, they had lived as they wished, and they had met their deaths well. Gordian the Son struck down on the field of battle, opposing the forces of the tyrant. Gordian the Father by his own hand, the decision his own. The world was wrong to see the rope as womanish. Everywhere you looked, you found an end to your suffering. See that short, shrivelled, bare tree? Freedom hung from its branches. What was the path to freedom? Any vein in your body.

  Life was a journey. Unlike any other, it could not be curtailed. No life was too short, if it had been well lived. Menophilus knew he should not rail against what could not be changed. Instead he should be grateful for the time he had been granted with his friends. But the pain of their loss cut like a knife.

  The shadows were lengthening. Dusk had fallen down at the waterside. Torches sawed in the breeze, as men continued to labour in the gloom.

  Menophilus had gathered some useful intelligence. It was carefully noted in his writing tablet. From the bull on their standard, he had learnt that the men on the near bank were from the 10th Legion Gemina, which was based at Vindobona in Pannonia Superior. Evidently they had been ferried over a few at a time by the one little rowing boat. There were not yet many of them on the Aquileian side of the Aesontius. From their demeanour, they were relaxed and confident. They knew that the rebels had no regular army to bring against them in the field. No attack was expected. On the far side of the water, the prefabricated materials of the pontoon bridge, and the proficiency of their assembly indicated that it belonged to the imperial siege train. Another twenty-four hours should see its completion.

  What he had discovered was not enough. He needed to know what other troops accompanied the 10th Legion, or, at least, form some idea of their numbers. He would wait. The night might provide more answers.

  Darkness fell, and the wind picked up. It had shifted into the south-west. From that direction it often brought rain in these regions. A downpour would further swell the river, hamper the bridge-building. A difficult business manoeuvring the barges in a strong current, and there was the danger of debris swept downriver. If it rained heavily, the pontoon might not be ready for a couple of days. Menophilus committed that to memory; it was too dark to write.

  Clouds, harbingers of a storm, scudded across the moon. The wind soughed through the foliage, creaking branches together. The woods were alive with the scuttling and the choked-off cries of nocturnal predator and prey.

  Down by the river, streamers of sparks were pulled into the air from the campfires of the enemy. Across the Aesontius the trees were dense, and the riverbank high. Most of the fires were over the crest of the slope. No way of gauging their number from the glow in the sky. Something bolder was demanded.

  Menophilus outlined his plan to Barbius. In the ambient light, the youth’s eyes were white and round with fear.

  ‘Watch my back,’ Menophilus said. ‘Leave everything to me.’ He affected an assurance he did not feel. Stoic training helped.

  Menophilus got up, and stretched, working the numbness out of his limbs. When he felt ready, he patted the young man on the shoulder, and set off. Barbius followed close; being left alone possibly seeming the worse of two evils.

  They went down crabwise, peering at the ground. With each step, Menophilus first put down just a little of his weight on the side of his foot, feeling for twigs which might snap, stones which could turn, before transferring the whole onto the sole of his boot. Often he paused to listen. Staring through the trees, taking care not to look at the fires glowing between the tree trunks, he tried to ascertain their position.

  An owl glided overhead on silent, pale wings.

  Menophilus remained still for a time after its passing, before resuming his painstaking descent, angling a little downstream.

  In a wood at night, fear in your heart, time and distance lost all exactitude. For eternity the river remained as far as ever, then they were standing on its brink. They retreated a few paces uphill. Each pressed hard against a willow, trying to merge into their shapes, as if hoping to effect some unlikely metamorphosis.

  Menophilus could smell the fish in the river, the mud and decayed leaves along its bank. He schooled himself to patience. A brief sojourn in an alien land.

  Someone was approaching through the trees. In the dark, Menophilus gazed to the side of the figure, the better to see.

  The soldier passed by closer than a child could throw a stone. He went down and stood on the riverbank, fumbled with his belt and trousers.

  Softly humming a tune – an old marching song – Menophilus stepped out from behind the tree trunk. He made no attempt to be quiet as he walked down.

  The soldier half turned; a stream of piss arcing in front.

  ‘Ave,’ Menophilus said.

  ‘Ave,’ the soldier grunted, and returned to concentrate his aim into the water.

  Menophilus unsheathed the blade, and had it at his throat in one movement.

  ‘No noise.’

  ‘Please, no. Please, do not kill me.’ The soldier spoke quietly, fighting his terror.

  ‘Death is your last concern.’

  ‘Please …’

  ‘Answer my questions. No one will know. It will be as if this never happened.’

  ‘Anything …’

  Menophilus was aware of Barbius nearby, but hanging back.

  ‘What other troops are with the 10th Legion?’

  The soldier hesitated.

  Menophilus let the edge of the blade slide over the soft flesh.

  Any resolve broken, the man started to talk. ‘Detachments of all the other three Pannonian Legions; about four thousand swords.’

  ‘Who commands?’

  ‘Flavius Vopiscus.’

  ‘Where are Maximinus and the rest of the field army?’

  ‘Still on the far side of the Alps.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At Emona.’ For his life, the soldier would volunteer anything he knew. ‘They will not march until they get word the pontoon is ready. Supplies are short. Better the forces are separate.’

  Menophilus calculated distances, rates of march. If the bridge was finished tomorrow or the day after, another day for a messenger to ride post-haste to Emona, perhaps four more days for the main force …

  The blow took him unawares. He doubled up, clasping his stomach.

  The soldier was off, crashing through the undergrowth, clutching up his trousers.

  Menophilus dragged air into his chest, tried to get enough to shout at Barbius to stop the soldier.

  The young equestrian was rooted, like some autochthonous warrior half-emerged from the soil.

  ‘Enemy in sight! Spies!’ the soldier was yelling as he ran.

  Menophilus got his breath. Too late. He straightened up, hissed at Barbius: ‘Run!’

  Barbius was off like a hare.

  Menophilus, sword still in his right hand, gathered up the scabbard in his left, and set off after.

  Roots clutched at his feet. Branches whipped his face. The hot sting of blood on his cheek. A searing pain in his chest.

  Barbius was in front, a little higher up the bank.

  They fled south.

  From behind came the ring of a trumpet sounding the alarm, the bark of orders.

  Menophilus burst out onto the track. No time to look up at the farm. Too busy watching his feet. Barbius already gone into the trees beyond.

  Once Menophilus stumbled, almost fell. When he looked up, there were two soldiers ahead off to the right, indistinct in the gloom. The men watching the farm? No, there were too many, four or five.

  ‘This way!’

  Menophilus angled away from the soldiers.

  Barbius ran straight towards them.

  ‘This way, you fool.’

  A sword cut from nowhere. Menophilus blocked awkwardly. The hilt slipped from his grip. He grabbed the wrist of his assailant’s sword arm. The man had him by the throat. They wrestled, boots stamping for purchase. An ungainly, macabre bout.

  Slammed ba
ck against a tree, Menophilus’ fingers closed on the dagger in his belt. He tugged it free, punched it into the man’s flank.

  The soldier went down, cursing, hands plucking at the embedded blade. Not dead yet, but no further threat.

  Menophilus was free. Unarmed, but free.

  Through the wood, he could see Barbius. The youth was ringed by soldiers.

  Menophilus scrabbled across the forest floor, hunting his sword.

  Barbius had dropped his blade, was sinking to his knees, begging.

  The metal pommel, the worn leather back in Menophilus’ hand. He looked across at Barbius. Five to one; no hope in those odds. Menophilus stood, irresolute. The life of the youth, his own life, weighed against the cause.

  Barbius’ eyes were bright with terror. He stretched out his hands in supplication. It did him no good. A soldier hacked down at his head.

  Menophilus turned, and ran.

  A lightning-blasted tree, shimmering white.

  ‘Decus,’ came the challenge.

  ‘Tutamen,’ Menophilus gasped the response.

  Strong hands helped him into the clearing. Most of the troopers were in the saddle. The Optio gave him a leg up.

  ‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’ The junior officer was good.

  ‘Aquileia,’ Menophilus said. ‘Not the way we came. Due west, across the open countryside.’

  Once clear of the treeline, there was no imminent danger. The enemy had no horsemen. They went at a canter, skirting orchards, clattering between the pruned-back lines of vines and the huge, round empty barrels. It was near dawn. The stars fading.

  Barbius was dead. Menophilus would have to tell his father. There were practicalities to consider. The father had charge of the walls of Aquileia.

  The youth was dead, because Menophilus had abandoned him. Another thing on his conscience, another repulsive stain on his soul. There were more than enough already. Gordian had ordered him to kill Vitalianus, the Praetorian Prefect. He had gone so much further. On his own initiative he had murdered Sabinus, the art-loving Prefect of the City; he had beaten his brains out with the leg of a chair. No one had instructed him to release the barbarian hostages, to send Cniva the Goth and Abanchus the Sarmatian to unleash their tribesmen on the Roman provinces along the Danube. All in the name of freedom, in the name of a cause. Freedom bought at the price of innocent blood. A cause left leaderless by the death of his friends.

  He had to believe it was worthwhile. Maximinus was a tyrant. Mad, vicious, beyond redemption, it was Menophilus’ duty – as a Stoic, as a man – to tear him from the throne, to free the Res Publica. Perhaps Vitalianus and Sabinus had not been irredeemable, but they had supported the tyrant. They had to die. The warriors of Cniva and Abanchus would draw troops away from the army of the tyrant, make possible the overthrow of Maximinus. Duty was a hard taskmaster, war a terrible teacher.

  As they neared Aquileia, the sun came up. Menophilus wondered where his duty lay now. His friends were dead. The Senate would elect a new Emperor from among the Board of Twenty. Doubtless, on receipt of that news, some members of the Twenty would abandon their posts, and ride for Rome. Menophilus would not. He would remain, defend Aquileia to the last, do his duty. Remain like a headland against which the waves would break; he would stand firm, until the storm subsided, or he was overthrown and found release.

  CHAPTER 3

  Northern Italy

  The Julian Alps, The Day before the Kalends of April, AD238

  Timesitheus stumbled on the uneven surface of the track. The long loop of chain dragged the heavy manacles down on his grazed, bloodied wrists, but that was as nothing to the pain in his damaged hand. It was eleven days since he had been captured and for the last three of them he had been herded along this mountain path towards Maximinus, like a beast or a runaway slave being returned to a vengeful master.

  The mission should not have ended in this way. The Board of Twenty had instructed Timesitheus to report on the defensibility of the Alpine Passes, and attempt to win the locals over to the cause of the Gordiani. There had been no intention that he should expose himself to danger. The presence of an old enemy in these mountains had changed everything. It was an ancient enmity, its causes almost lost in time, but still strong, very strong. Timesitheus had let personal hatred override his rational mind. He prided himself on his rationality. His life should not have ended that way.

  At first, after he had killed Domitius, the tyrant’s Prefect of Camp, he had thought he would get away. In the inn, he had not been dismayed; not when he had found the gladiator, his one follower, had disappeared into the night, deserting him, not even when he had been disarmed and shackled by the soldiers. He was a Hellene, trained in rhetoric. Next to no one could resist the powers of persuasion wielded by such a man, certainly not a handful of simple, leaderless soldiers. He had money and influence, and greed and vanity were strong passions among the ill-educated. For days, in the remote mansio, he had talked, low and earnest, to Maximinus’ four legionaries. He had mustered every conceivable argument and inducement. They should not be deceived by appearances. Of course, he was not alone. The roads through the mountains were held by troops loyal to the Gordiani. The soldiers were cut off. If, against all odds, they succeeded in reaching Maximinus, the cause of the Thracian was doomed anyway. Better to go south by easy stages. The Gordiani would welcome those who came over, reward handsomely the men who brought to safety a high-ranking official such as himself. The saviours of the Prefect of the Grain Supply would experience the full range of imperial benefaction; not just wealth, but rapid promotion and social advancement. They would all wear the gold rings of the equestrian order before a month had passed. And they should think of their families. The 2nd Legion’s base in the Alban Hills was but twelve miles from Rome. If they chose the wrong side in the civil war, what would happen to their wives and children? Who would protect them?

  It would have worked – Timesitheus was convinced – but for one thick-set, bearded brute. The legionary had been intransigent and aggressive from the beginning. It was he who had chained Timesitheus. Swearing at his companions, he had urged them to ignore the poisonous treason of ‘the little Greek’. He had prated about the military oath, dwelling on the binding and sacred nature of the sacramentum. Loyalty was everything in the army. Maximinus had doubled their pay. The big Thracian was one of them, a soldier, nothing like this yapping, shifty Graeculus. Finally the legionary had won the argument by recourse to violence. Each time he heard Timesitheus trying to corrupt his tent-mates, the legionary would cut off one of the Greek’s fingers. Timesitheus had seen no option but to persevere, and the hirsute soldier had carried out his threat.

  Taking a grip on his courage and every emotion, Timesitheus had battened them down. Somehow he had managed to place his left hand on the block. If he struggled, if they held him down, the damage might be worse. He had looked away, shut his eyes. He had heard the blade slicing through the air, the sickening sound as it chopped through bone and cartilage and flesh. The agony had come a moment later. To cauterize the wound, they had had to seize him, grapple him to the floor, pinion him tight. Stupid with pain, Timesitheus had watched the white-hot steel press into the severed stump of his little finger. Even as he screamed, he knew the dreadful smell would never leave him.

  The mutilation had ended all hope of persuasion. It had bound the other soldiers to the bearded ogre. Even the stupidest of them now realized that if they went over, rather than hand out rewards, Timesitheus was honour-bound to have them all killed.

  All his honeyed words and subtle threats, all his Odysseus-like cunning, had won Timesitheus nothing but a brief delay. The hairy savage – now the acknowledged leader of the soldiers – had believed the lies about the forces of the Gordiani holding the main passes. Stupid, but resourceful, he had found a local guide who, for the promise of a substantial sum of money, had agreed to lead them over the Alps to Maximinus. They would take a seldom-frequented shep
herds’ path, one traversable only on foot.

  For two days, they had trudged north, through the foothills, passing between oak, beech and juniper. This morning, they had turned east, climbing a switchback route into the mountains. Staggering along, cradling his left hand against the tug of the chains, Timesitheus had seen the deciduous trees give way to pines. The resinous smell mingled with the stench of his own charred flesh.

  These wild mountains were the haunt of a rich landowner turned brigand called Corvinus. Promising him the earth, only days before, Timesitheus had induced him to pledge his support to the Gordiani. It counted for nothing. Before he died, Domitius would have extracted from Corvinus the same promises to the other side. Safe in his fastness, the bandit chief would sit out the conflict, then emerge to claim his undeserved recompenses from the victors. To hope for rescue by Corvinus was to set to sea on a mat.

  Weak with pain and fatigue, his left hand useless, unarmed and his wrists chained, Timesitheus could see no way to effect his own escape. He should summon a Stoic fatalism. No point in railing against things which could not be changed. What did not affect the inner man was irrelevant. The torment of his hand undermined such attempts. Philosophy was not his way. Better to stare into the black eyes of fear, to force that rodent to scuttle back into the darkness. Meet his death like a man, take comfort from the things he had achieved. From relatively humble origins, he had risen high; governed provinces, advised Emperors. ‘The little Greek’ had become a potent man, feared by his enemies. He regretted being caught, but he did not regret killing Domitius. Theirs had been a considered and mature hatred, nurtured over time. Often the Prefect had expressed the desire to eat Timesitheus’ liver raw.

  ‘We will spend the night here.’ The guide pointed ahead.

  By the track was a rustic, dilapidated inn. A stopping place intended for shepherds, it had no stables, instead an empty pen for their flocks stood next to a solitary, large hut. Built out of logs, with a steep-pitched roof against the snows of winter, it promised no privacy, and little comfort.