by R. W. Peake
Ignoring the underlying current, Porcinus turned his attention to more immediate matters.
“Did your boys find anything? Alive, I mean?”
Urso shook his head, and in this Porcinus was sure that his regretful expression wasn’t feigned.
“Just bodies.”
Despite expecting this, Porcinus still felt a sense of disappointment. During this exchange, the men of both Porcinus’ Century and that of Urso’s had joined with Corvinus’ men, each of them in their own way strongly affected by what they saw. It was one of the few times in Porcinus’ experience that the sight of a Legionary retching and vomiting up the contents of his breakfast wasn’t the immediate cause of merciless teasing and taunting by his comrades. Each of them seemed to understand that they were seeing something that would haunt their dreams for the rest of their collective lives. Recognizing how it would look to have his men milling about in the forum, no matter what the cause when the command group arrived, Porcinus gave the appropriate orders to get men back to what needed to be done, as little as it may have been. Nothing really left to do but clean up the mess, he thought bitterly.
Urso’s suggestion had proven to be a smart one, because not only did Drusus and his officers see the carnage in the forum of Veldidena, the young commander ordered that the entire army march past the bodies, in order to see for themselves the barbarity of this enemy. Porcinus wasn’t sure if the young nobleman had thought this through for himself, if it had been suggested to him by a more experienced man like Quirinus, or it was just a happy accident, but the result was the same; the complaining about the futility of trying to catch these Rhaeti, which had been steadily growing, became much less pronounced. That didn’t mean the men still weren’t frustrated, as Ovidius was opining that very night in Porcinus’ tent, but Porcinus was fairly sure that seeing the results of the Rhaeti butchery would quell the men’s normal proclivity to grumble.
“We’re marching drag tomorrow, so remind the men to have their neckerchiefs loose enough that they can pull them up if it gets dusty,” Porcinus told Ovidius, who nodded his agreement.
“So, do you think we’re ever going to catch any of these bastards? I mean, again?” Ovidius asked Porcinus, who only answered with a shrug.
“Well, I think between what happened when we caught that one band at Sebatum, and what they’re doing to the settlers, they’re going to keep running and hope we give up.”
Even as he said it, Porcinus knew it was a ludicrous statement, and he was affirmed in that view by Ovidius, who dismissed the idea with a snorting laugh.
“As if that would happen,” his Optio retorted.
Porcinus couldn’t suppress a laugh himself, and just shrugged.
“Well, it was a thought.”
“Any news about the other thing?”
The moment the question came, Porcinus understood that this had been the real purpose behind Ovidius’ visit to his tent that night. He also knew that it wasn’t just a case of Ovidius being nosy; he was being pestered by the rankers, who were just as interested as the Centurions of the 8th Legion as to who would be named as their permanent Primus Pilus.
“No,” Porcinus sighed. “Nothing yet, other than Volusenus is doing his best to run the Legion and show Drusus he’s the best choice.”
“Drusus?” Ovidius regarded Porcinus with a cocked eyebrow, his skepticism unmistakable. “What does Drusus have to do with this? He’s too young to make a decision like that. I’m sure Quirinus is going to be the one who Augustus is going to listen to, not Drusus.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Porcinus replied, but without any real conviction.
In fact, if he had been pressed, he couldn’t have given any solid arguments supporting his reasoning; it was a feeling, nothing more, that young Drusus was figuring prominently in the Princeps’ plans for Rome and her future.
After moving north from Sebatum, following the Rhaeti to Veldidena, the trail went cold, resulting in several frustrating days spent in a camp erected a short distance to the west of Veldidena, along the Aenus River. Despite appearances, however, Rome and her armies weren’t sitting idly, waiting for something to happen. While Drusus had his cavalry ala scouring the rugged country to the north and west, word arrived by courier that Drusus’ brother, Tiberius, in command of the other two Legions, was now approaching from the north, through Cisalpine Gaul. Finally, it appeared that the Rhaeti would run out of room to maneuver, and would be brought to ground. On the fourth day in camp, Lysander came hurrying back from the praetorium with news that a courier had arrived while the Thracian was delivering the daily report.
“I had already delivered the report, but I decided that you’d want to know what the courier was about,” Lysander told Porcinus, the slave still slightly out of breath from his run.
“That was good thinking, Lysander,” Porcinus agreed, secretly amused at the Thracian’s not-so-subtle attempt to win some sort of favor from his master.
Regardless of the motive, Porcinus was indeed grateful. It was yet another lesson he had learned from his father, the wealth of information that could be gathered from those in the lowest places in the Roman army pecking order.
Clearly pleased by the praise, Lysander continued, “The courier was from one of the ala. They’ve picked up sign of the band we were trailing. They’ve joined up with another band, and Decurion Camillus estimates that the two groups total more than two thousand warriors.”
Lysander stopped, and Porcinus assumed he was catching his breath, but after a moment, the slave still remained silent.
“Is that all, Lysander? Did the courier not give any idea where they were headed?” Porcinus’ tone was gentle, but Lysander’s face still flushed.
“Oh, er…yes, master. I’m sorry,” he replied. “But, yes, it appears that they’re now heading northwest. Apparently, the reason we lost their trail is because they followed the Aenus up into the mountains…”
“Yes, I know that.” Porcinus’ patience was beginning to wear thin. “That’s why we’ve been sitting here, because we lost their trail.”
“Yes, master. Sorry.” Lysander’s face, which had returned to its normal coloring, darkened again. “But the reason we lost the trail is because there’s a very narrow pass that leads over those mountains into the country on the other side. According to what I heard the courier say, the trail is literally in the shadow of those peaks we can see off to the west and is very hard to find. He said that Camillus suspected this to be the case, but personally, I just think they got lucky and stumbled on it. You know how those cavalrymen like to exaggerate…”
“Lysander.” Porcinus’ tone was quiet, but his slave knew his Pilus Prior well enough to know that this was when he was close to losing his temper which, while rare, wasn’t something that Lysander was willing to endure.
“Yes, master. A thousand apologies. But the point is that this trail is passable only to cavalry, or lightly armed men on foot. There’s no way that the army and all its wagons can negotiate it.”
“So we’re going to have to find another way around,” Porcinus finished, but Lysander shook his head.
“No, we did have to, but Camillus has already found a way. It will add a day to the pursuit, but now that he’s found the Rhaeti, he promised our Legate that he wouldn’t lose sight of them again. The courier knows the alternate route.”
Even as Lysander was finishing, there was a blast from the bucina, the horn used to relay commands within a camp. The series of notes that sounded now summoned all the senior Centurions to the praetorium.
As Porcinus rose and grabbed his vitus, which no self-respecting Centurion ever left his tent without, he told Lysander, “Go alert the Centurions to get the men ready to break camp. I have a feeling our young commander isn’t going to want to wait until morning to get going.”
Before he exited the tent, Porcinus stopped and looked over his shoulder.
“And, Lysander, thank you for warning me. The Fourth is going to be the fi
rst Cohort ready because of you. I won’t forget that.”
He didn’t wait for an answer, but Lysander’s smile was enough.
Just as Porcinus had predicted, Drusus had called all the Pili Priores to give the order to break camp, immediately and without the usual work of filling in the ditches and burning the towers that was standard procedure.
“We’re already going to lose a day by taking the long way around. I don’t want to delay any more than we must,” was how he explained it to the Centurions.
This made perfect sense, and Porcinus was one of those whose head nodded in agreement and approval. There was little more to be said, and the Centurions were dismissed to their duties. Despite himself, Porcinus couldn’t help feeling a little smug in the knowledge that Ovidius had already begun the process of rousing his Century, and the other Centurions the rest of the Fourth Cohort. That feeling was only intensified when the Fourth Cohort was the first to be formed up, their tents already struck and their stakes recovered, with everything packed on the Cohort mules. Normally discouraging such displays, for a number of reasons, this time, he indulged his men by allowing them to make good-natured taunts and jeers at their comrades in the other Cohorts, who took it with varying degrees of grace. Not surprising Porcinus in the least, the one man who seemed to take the fact that his own Cohort wasn’t leading the way badly was the Secundus Pilus Prior, Volusenus, who glowered at Porcinus, making no attempt to hide his anger. Which, also unsurprising to Porcinus, he took out on his own Legionaries, bashing any of them within reach with his vitus as they scrambled to take their place in the formation. As was usual, the Cohort designated to lead the march – this day, it was going to be the Fifth Cohort of the 13th – was lined up and ready to march out what had been the front gate. Because of this, the 8th, being the second Legion in the order of march, was forming up in the area of the forum, where the men occupied themselves waiting for the order to begin by watching the praetorium being taken down, the sections of which were too big to go on mules and instead packed in wagons. The praetorium of a Roman army camp was always the first thing erected and the last thing struck, without exception, and Porcinus idly wondered why this was so. Like so much of life in the army, the origins of this custom was lost to men of Porcinus’ era, going so far back that there was nobody alive who could possibly remember how it had come about. It was the same thing with the ditches, walls, towers, and stakes used for the parapet that were created and thrown up every day on the march, again almost without exception. In fact, Porcinus tried to pass the time waiting for the bucina to sound trying to think of the times on campaign where the Legions hadn’t created a camp, and the only time he could recall was in Parthia. Just the thought of that campaign, his first and still the most brutal and trying of his career, made him shiver as he thought of it. Fortunately, the call to begin the march sounded, yanking him from a place that was painful to think about. While the Parthian campaign was famous throughout the army, and any man who could say he had been part of it was given a measure of respect over and above what they might have earned on their own, for Porcinus it had been his initiation into a world that he had dreamed about ever since his adoptive father had first shown up on his family farm, arriving from the conquest of Gaul, which was all people talked about in those days. Except, like with so many things, what the young Gaius had imagined, and the harsh, brutal, and bloody reality were so different that it was hard to reconcile the two ideals in his mind. Still, it had marked the beginning of what was a promising and fruitful career in the Legions, one that he wouldn’t have traded for anything.
Because of the relatively late start, Drusus and his army didn’t cover their normal twenty-five miles, but did manage to cover almost fifteen before stopping to make camp. Where two branches of the source of the Aenus met, instead of continuing to the west, following one of them up into the mountains like the Rhaeti had done, Drusus’ army turned north, following a track that led up to a pass that, while narrow, was still wide enough for the army to traverse. It was just on the other side of that pass where the army made camp. Continuing the next day, they headed on a northwesterly course before, using a narrow valley found by their scouts, they turned to the west again. Even as they marched, mounted couriers came galloping by Porcinus and his Cohort, either heading for where the command group was located near the front of the column, or in the opposite direction, carrying messages and instructions to the detachments presumably out scouring the area for the Rhaeti. Very quickly, on the second full day of marching, word filtered down to Porcinus, through Lysander, that the enemy had been spotted, and that they appeared to be heading in the direction of a large lake.
“According to what I heard, this lake is almost entirely surrounded by mountains, except for a spot where the Rhenus leaves it at the southern end of the lake,” Lysander explained during a rest stop. “The Decurion’s report said that it appears that the band we’re following is meeting up with at least one more band.”
As it happened, Porcinus had called an impromptu meeting of his Centurions and Optios, gathering them out of earshot of the men of the Cohort, who nevertheless tried very hard to listen in, without appearing to be doing that very thing. This was such a common occurrence that it didn’t rate comment, but Porcinus had learned early on to hold these meetings even farther away than what might be considered a safe distance. Lysander’s news unsurprisingly unleashed speculation on the part of Porcinus’ Centurions about the meaning of this new piece of information. It was Corvinus who supplied the most likely reason.
“I bet they’re going to make a stand, using the lake at their back to keep from being surprised. And if what Lysander heard is correct, they’ll use that open ground, with the river on one flank and these mountains that are supposed to be there on the other.”
Even as this was immediately accepted by the others, Porcinus noted with quiet amusement Urso’s displeased expression, which he tried to hide with little success. He wanted to be the one to say that, Porcinus thought, so that the others would look at him the way they’re looking at Corvinus.
“Well, more fools them is all I can say,” scoffed Aulus Petrosidius, Urso’s Optio and, from everything Porcinus had observed, a man cut from the same cloth as his direct superior. “It doesn’t matter what kind of ground they pick, we’ll crush them!”
Although Porcinus agreed with the assessment, he didn’t care for the careless tone Petrosidius adopted, also understanding that the Optio was saying this as much to impress Urso with his eagerness to get stuck in as any other motive. The problem was that his words were at odds with his actions; from everything that Porcinus had seen and heard, Petrosidius wasn’t the most avid when it came time for the actual fighting, always hanging near the rear of his Century, and quick to volunteer for messenger duty. Not that this wasn’t technically what an Optio’s duties were, but during his years under the standard, Porcinus had witnessed that there were men who adhered to the letter of the regulations with more zeal than others. Petrosidius was one of those men, and it was because of this trait that, of all the Optios in his Century, he was last on Porcinus’ mental list as being worthy of advancement.
“That’s certainly true, Petrosidius,” Porcinus interjected, stopping the Optio, who was clearly warming to the subject of wading in the blood and guts of their enemy. “But we want to crush them and have as many of us as possible live to see another sunrise, neh?”
Petrosidius flushed, but whatever sharp retort he might have uttered was tempered by the knowledge that this was his Pilus Prior, and as soft as he may have been, according to Urso, at least, he was still his commanding officer.
“You’re absolutely right, Pilus Prior.” Urso came to his Optio’s rescue, not wanting Petrosidius to say something stupid. “Whatever costs us the least in lives is the best way to go about it.” Turning back to the matter being discussed, he addressed Lysander. “Did you hear anything more about this force Tiberius is supposed to be bringing? Any idea how close they are?”
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Lysander shook his head.
“No, master. I haven’t heard anything about that.”
Whatever questions or discussion this answer would have engendered was cut short by the bucina call, signaling the end of the break.
“All right, you lazy bastards! On your feet!”
Some of his Centurions might have thought Porcinus was soft, but the tone and volume that issued from him, along with the swipes of the vitus aimed at a couple of men who were a bit too leisurely for his taste, would have earned the hearty approval of his adoptive father.
As they followed a very narrow valley, a fair amount of what passed for level ground was taken up by a raging torrent, slowing the army’s progress. The country through which they were passing had a rugged beauty, with the towering peaks on either side of their line of march still covered in snow, despite the fact it was now early summer. If it hadn’t been for the difficulty of traversing such terrain, with the men reduced to a narrow front along a track that was barely wide enough for one wagon to pass through, Porcinus would have marveled at the beauty of it. It also reminded him of the worst part of the Parthian campaign, struggling across the shoulder of the huge Mount Ararat, where he had almost died when his then-close comrade, a veteran named Vulso, had slipped and fractured his skull. It had been in the midst of a howling blizzard and, over the years, Porcinus had often wondered if a similar event had happened later in his career, after he had been seasoned and endured the hardships that came with marching more than a single season, if he would have done the same thing. Such speculation was pointless, he knew; still, he couldn’t stop himself from letting his mind go in that direction. In Parthia, he hadn’t hesitated, leaving the formation to dash down the icy slope that had caused Vulso to slip and fracture his skull, but in his haste to rescue his friend, put both of them in danger. The result was that for a period of time that even now Porcinus couldn’t determine the length of, he had clung desperately to a bare rock with one hand, while clutching Vulso with the other. Because of the raging wind, none of the men trudging by heard his shouts for help. At least, that was what they all had claimed, something that Porcinus had long suspected wasn’t necessarily the case, although he didn’t begrudge anyone for worrying about their own survival at that moment. Still, by the time he summoned the strength to drag himself and Vulso back up the slope to the narrow trail, the once-vast army of Marcus Antonius had marched by, leaving the pair behind. Vulso hadn’t regained consciousness, forcing Porcinus to sling his tentmate over his shoulder and stagger along the track, with the extremely faint hope of surviving the conditions long enough to get back to the relative safety of the camp the army would make at the end of the day. Not surprisingly, at least to himself, Porcinus’ strength had finally given out, and he had collapsed, but not before hollowing out a space in the snow that provided a modicum of shelter. Very quickly, he and Vulso were covered by snow, where Porcinus lapsed into a state of semi-consciousness, only roused by the sound of approaching horses, and he somehow found the strength to stand erect, scaring both animals and riders, but enabling rescue of both him and Vulso. Although he had received no official decoration for his act; in fact, he was forced to endure one of the worst tongue-lashings of his career from his Primus Pilus, who administered it not as a Centurion but a badly frightened uncle, Porcinus’ act had won him a reputation among his comrades for extreme bravery and willingness to risk his life for a friend. Unfortunately, his efforts had been in vain; Vulso never regained consciousness and died a few days later. These were the kinds of thoughts that occupied Porcinus as he occasionally glanced up at the massive peaks above him and his men, slowly drawing to what they all hoped would be the decisive encounter with the Rhaeti.
