Marius' Mules IX: Pax Gallica

by Turney, S. J. A.

  Something there was wrong. Fronto’s head tilted to one side as he listened and thought it through. What was wrong with that sound. Something unexpected.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ Terpulo asked, his hand straying unconsciously to the pommel of the decorative sword hilt at his side.

  ‘What? Sort of…’

  ‘The tuba.’

  Fronto blinked. The tuba.

  But the cavalry were n’t in camp, and the tuba was a horse signal.

  ‘Sound the alert,’ Fronto barked. ‘Quickly. Fall the men in.’

  As Terpulo ran off , shouting to the signifers and musicians, Fronto turned back to peer across the bridge, his own hand gripping his sword hilt as he watched the battle begin. The Preciani suddenly began to scramble around, grabbing weapons and jamming helmets on heads in a desperate panic , hurrying this way and that in a disorganised rabble as their nobles and leaders shouted conflicting orders and then began to argue with one another.

  And in the midst of this chaos, the tuba calls were no longer muted as Galronus’ horsemen burst from the treeline on the far bank like a flood of equine muscle, pouring onto the grassy slope and ploughing into the first few of the Preciani who had managed to assemble themselves in small groups. Two men had managed to get long spears braced in the ground and impaled a charging horse, the rider being hurled from his saddle to the ground with an almost certainly fatal crunch. But that victory was a small lone thing in a world of pain for the unprepared natives. The cavalry raced through the panicked defenders, swords sweeping wide and low, spears thrusting and stabbing.

  The Preciani fell in their dozens just in the initial strike, leaving open a path into the enemy camp, which had no form of physical defence.

  Behind Fronto, he could hear the centuries falling into position , the centurions’ whistles shrilly blowing in the wet morning air, the jingling of four score mail shirts, bronze apron straps and sword fittings ringing out across the camp. He turned. Two of the centuries were already formed, others still falling in.

  ‘ Engage as soon as you’re formed,’ he bellowed. ‘We need to support the cavalry!’

  It came as no surprise to see that one of the two units that had formed so swiftly and efficiently was the First under Atenos. He had been the training officer for the Tenth for years an d their primus p ilus since then, after all. The other was that of the ageing centurion Arruntius and, if anything – and Fronto was ill prepared to admit it – they had formed slightly faster than the men under Atenos , and they looked sharper.

  The two centurions blew the three shrill blasts on their whistles, the standards dipped forward for a moment, and the units moved out, even as a third was beginning to form. Fronto drew his blade and was unsurprised to see, as he scrambled down the earth bank to the gate, Masgava and Aurelius closing on him. The latter was limping badly and in serious danger of falling in a heap, but somehow seemed to be keeping pace with the huge Numidian.

  Fronto was determined to be part of the attack. Arruntius was old enough to have drunk with Fronto’s own father to his birth , and the very idea of standing at the back while the old man led an army from the front was unthinkable. Fortunately, Fronto had been at the gate, and so was well ahead of the two centuries. He burst out into the open past two startled legionaries, and Masgava and Aurelius were suddenly with him.

  ‘Stay here!’ he bellowed.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Masgava,’ Fronto shouted as he started to jog toward the bridge, ‘you’re my adjutant. You should be commanding back there. And Aurelius? Your leg will go any moment.’

  In answer both men simply looked at him defiantly, and Aurelius actually started to run faster, the limp giving him a strange loping motion that put Fronto in mind of those African deer they occasionally showed off in bestiaries in Rome. Disobedience should be dealt with, Fronto knew. In his years as a legate, he had only suffered this kind of attitude from those he respected utterly. The problem was that very thing applied to both these men. Aurelius was his bodyguard and took the job very seriously, and Masgava had fulfilled that same role for years, even bringing Fronto back from the edge once or twice. Both men had been with him through some of the worst episodes of his life, and he could no more discipline them for their care than he could his own family.

  Without conscious decision, all three men slowed very slightly as they approached the bridge to allow the two centuries of men that had flooded from the gate to catch up . Across the river, one of the Preciani leaders had cut through the chaos with his shouted orders and had sent a small force to hold the bridge while they attempted to deal with the cavalry who had fallen on them so unexpectedly and with deadly consequences. Surprise had made a great deal of difference, but the fact remained that the cavalry numbered less than three hundred against several thousand Aquitanian warriors, and even now the Preciani were beginning to pull themselves together, ordering their ranks against the mounted enemy. Galronus’ impressive manoeuvre would be utterly wasted unless the infantry used the time to cross the river and get stuck in.

  Fronto figured the enemy closing on the bridge to number perhaps two hundred, with one or two archers and slingers in the ranks. Nothing ordered or planned like the previous day. This was pure desperate reaction and nothing more.

  ‘Cuneus,’ bellowed c enturion Arruntius from somewhere just to Fronto’s left. ‘Five man wedge on me!’

  Suddenly he was next to Fronto, and the legate was astonished at the speed with which the old , blue veined legs pumped.

  ‘Scuse me, sir,’ the ageing centurion said with no hint of a smile as he pulled past Fronto with the lead elements of his century, moving at a fast run. At his order the wedge formed, and Front o found himself among the centurion’s men suddenly. With the ma d grin of the hopelessly combative, Fronto held his sword upright so as not to in advertently injure his comrades and slid into position in the wedge, directly behind Arruntius, forming the heart of the wedge. Masgava and Aurelius were still with him at his shoulders and the century poured onto the timbers of the bridge at full pelt, hurtling toward the assembling force.

  The wood creaked and thundered beneath hundreds of booted feet as over a hundred legionaries and officers poured across the bridge toward the wide-eyed Preciani. A few arrows and stones were loosed, but the missile troops were not in strong positions, and had simply fallen in among the warriors, sending out a shot when they suddenly saw an opening. It would be far from enough to deter the advancing century. A few stones and shafts rattled off the shields at the front of the wedge and something sliced through the plume of Fronto’s helmet sending a flurry of red horsehair strands wafting through the air.

  The wedge of men hit the Preciani at the far end of the bridge like a runaway cart racing downhill. No two hundred men born into the world would have been able to hold back the momentum of Arruntius’ century, and Fronto could hear the frustrated roars of Atenos somewhere behind him, complaining and demanding that his fellow centurion leave someone for him to kill.

  Fronto’s world became a small thi ng in the confines of the fight: the bodies of his comrades all around and the desperate snarling and slashing of those enemies ahead, the stink of sweat and fear, of blood and mud and urine . As the enemy were forced back and apart by the wedge, so the fight opened up. Arruntius, killing with an almost mechanical accuracy that astounded even Fronto , carved his way through the Preciani into the open, where he turned and began to flank them The century had cut the enemy force in two, and now they wheeled , free of the confine s of the brid g e, both left and right and began to butcher without mercy. Fronto found himself facing a burly bearded warrior with an old notched iron sword and panicked eyes, h is sword raised above the press and ready to slam downwards. With a deft flick of his blade, Fronto stabbed out into the space under the raised arm and felt the tip of the gladius slide through the soft flesh of the armpit. The man was big enough that Fronto had to stretch on his toes to find the angle to drive the blade dee
per where it didn’t simply scrape on bone, but suddenly the gladius sank deep and carved through the man’s innards, robbing him of life in moments.

  Barely had he managed to pull the blade back out of the falling warrior at such a difficult angle when another man was there. Fronto stabbed out and felt his sword cut through mail and leather, smashing into the side of the shirt the man wore and scattering tiny iron links . He had to lean to one side in the press of men to avoid being carved by the man’s retort, and felt a flash of irritation when Aurelius’ blade calmly lanced out and slammed into the warrior’s neck. As the man fell away, Fronto flashed an angry glance toward his friend, just in time to see Aurelius’ leg give way at a crucial moment. The former legionary started to collapse and a Preciani warrior, filled with glee, spotted his chance, chopping downwards with an axe at the falling Roman.

  Fronto leapt forward, throwing his sword out and all his weight into it. The falling axe caught his beautiful gladius and clanked along the blade until it hit the hilt, where it left a deep dent across the face of one of the gods embossed in the orichalcum. The parry had not been enough to stop the momentum of the falling axe, but it had deflecte d it and as the heavy weapon slid past Fronto’s sword, it sla mmed into the turf a hair’s breadth from Aurelius’ elbow, where the man was already struggling to push himself back upright.

  Snarling at the damage to his favourite sword, Fronto swiftly stabbed out into the axeman’s face, ignoring the resistance of bone and the horrifying noises as the man screamed, then yanking it back out. Spinning, Fronto looked for another target, but they had beaten the defence force at the bridge, and already the other centuries of the legion were pouring across the bridge and running at the chaotic, panicked Preciani. The enemy were dithering, unsure of which force to fight, many breaking ranks and fleeing for the town or the treeline. Fronto almost laughed when he saw Arruntius storming after a fleeing warrior, bellowing for the man to stand still, the centurion ’ s arms and legs sheeted with blood.

  The legate’s arm was throbbing where he had taken the jarring axe blow, and he reached out with his other hand to help Aurelius to his feet. Masgava appeared from nearby, oddly free of gore apart from around the mouth. Fronto opened his mouth to enquire about that, but quickly thought better of it and nodded at the man instead. When Masgava grinned, the white teeth in his midnight face swam in a lake of blood. Whoever the Numidian’s victim had been, Fronto pitied him.

  The thought suddenly struck Fronto that the invincibility he had felt yesterday when they were deliberately trying not to kill him seemed to be absent today. But then today was different. He’d been in the press of men, and most of his distinctive red plume had been sheared off on the approach. Likely they had not realised it was him.

  As Aurelius straightened on his trembling leg, the three men watched the legion at work . While there was still fighting going on, the battle was clearly already over. What Preciani were still standing were being scythed down with professional skill by the veterans, and those who were fleeing the scene were being chased by the less restrained legionaries and a number of Galronus’ cavalry.

  ‘Legate?’

  He turned to see the gore-caked figure of Arruntius stomping toward him, wiping the blade of his sword on a rag. Atenos appeared from the press and made to join the small group too .

  ‘Centurion,’ Fronto smiled., ‘that was very impressive.’

  ‘Legate,’ Arruntius said with a face of fury, ‘if you truly want to get your privates hacked off with the grunts, resign your command, pick up a legionary shield and dig the shitters with the rest of them, and I’ll happily let you in my wedge. Until then you are an officer and your place is directing us, not supporting us.’

  ‘ Always in the thick of it, the l egate,’ Atenos laughed as he joined them.

  Arruntius’ face went through several expressions, including grudging admiration, but settled on irritated with a shade of concern.

  ‘Sir, the centurionate has a near sixty percent casualty rate in any campaign, because we lead from the front and by example. And we get paid well to do it. But when a centurion falls, there are fifty nine more in the legion who can step into his job, and sixty optios waiting for promotion. Yet there is only one man in the whole damned legion who knows the campaign and its goals and with the experience of planning expeditions and battles. Who’s going to step into your posh boots when you get yourself gutted by a random warrior just because you like to play soldier.’

  Fronto stared at the centurion in the face of the outburst. Like the disobedience of Aurelius and Masgava, he was well within his rights to discipline Arruntius for speaking to him like that, but the centurion was correct . The Tenth might be used to their idiosyncratic commander after years of experience, but these men were not. Narrowing his eyes, he nodded and reached down to his own belt for his rag to clean his blade.

  ‘I appreciate your position and your candour, Arruntius. And in many ways you are correct. But I am no senate-appointed politician. I am a veteran like you. I’ve drawn blood on every battlefield from Britannia to Hispania, and when battle calls I answer. Simple as that. I shall make sure not to confuse your own formations during battle, but never expect to see me standing on the tribunal at the rear and watching the fight.’

  Arruntius watched him for some time, his eyes appraising, and finally he stuck out his hand. Fronto shook it tersely and the pair nodded at each other. Once the elderly centurion had turned and gone to shout at his men, Fronto heard a stifled guffaw and turned to see Aurelius grinning.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘I just realised that Arruntius is basically you in twenty years’ time.’

  Masgava chuckled and the pair wandered off , leaving Fronto watching the white-haired centurion. Somehow that thought was not particularly comforting.

  * * *

  ‘What’s the butcher’s bill?’ Fronto asked as Carbo strolled out of his centurions’ briefing.

  ‘We lost twenty two cavalry, and four more lost their horses. Six more of them are wounded. Low figures really, considering the shit they were in before the legion arrived to help. Sixty one dead or critically injured infantry. Including five centurions and three optios,’ he added meaningfully. Clearly Arruntius had been casting around his opinions again. ‘And eighty or so in the hospital tent for patching up. Not bad at all considering what we were up against.’

  ‘Quite. What of the enemy?’

  ‘We’ve not counted the dead yet. They’re still being gathered into piles for disposal. Estimates are of maybe three or four hundred escaping the field. We have forty seven captives, including two who seem to be nobles.’

  ‘ Good. Let me speak to them.’

  As they strode toward the enemy prisoners, who were roped together under the watchful eye of a number of legionaries, Carbo shouted for one of the native scouts to act as interpreter. Fronto came to a halt and peered down at the dejected captives.

  ‘Why have you attacked the forces of Rome?’

  Silence.

  ‘Tell me about the pit traps that caught our horses.’

  Silence.

  ‘The Preciani have no reason to war against Rome, have they?’ It was a slightly foolish question, as Fronto knew too well. Rome had all-but annexed Aquitania, and though they’d not faced war like the Gauls, they were every bit as much a conquered people. Yet he hoped that the push and his offended inflection would goad someone into an answer. It worked. As he scanned the eyes of those dejected warriors looking up at him, he could see the younger of the two nobles having trouble keeping his words in, his lips thin and tight. The other noble seemed to have noticed too, for he was giving his peer a hard, disapproving look. Fronto recognised the older one as the man from the bridge ambush yesterday.

  ‘For the mere greed of the Preciani leaders you have all pa id the highest price imaginable, ’ he baited them further.

  The young warrior stood, his hands gripped into fists, though he only rose to a stoop, for the restrai
ning rope s prevented anything further.

  ‘The king in the mountains did this to us!’ the young man snapped in surprisingly good Latin.

  The older noble suddenly leapt on the younger, other prisoners being jerked and dragged about by their mutual restraints. Even as Fronto shouted orders to restrain the man, the noble from the bridge had grabbed the younger one and pushed him to the ground. As legionaries stepped forward, their pila levelled menacingly, the older noble ignored them and grabbed the younger man’s head by the hair, dashing his face against the hard ground twice, three, four, five times. By the time legionaries reached him and pulled him off, the young man was prone, face down. His legs thrashed and twitched for a while until he lay still, dead, his brains and the remains of his face smeared across the ground.

  ‘I want that one interrogated by torturers,’ Fronto snarled, pointing at the older man.

  As legionaries unroped the prisoner and took him away, Carbo huffed. ‘You know he’ll tell us nothing. He’ll die first. I know his sort.’

  ‘Then at least he’ll die badly for that little display,’ Fronto said nastily. ‘Come on.’

  The two turned, and Fronto spotted Galronus staggering across the battlefield, carrying his saddle.

  ‘Horse alright?’

  ‘Yes,’ the Remi said, hissing at the pain in his bruised torso as he moved. ‘Some Preciani managed to slit one of the straps that holds it in place. By the end of the fight I was sliding around on the poor beast’s back like I was on ice . ’

  ‘The prisoners are too defiant – or maybe too frightened of something – to tell me what’s going on, but one of them blamed a “ king in the mountains ” , ’ Fronto said quietly. ‘What d’you think?’

  Galronus shrugged. ‘Who knows. Could be any king or chief of any of the tribes up there. The big tribes are the Begerri, the Consoranni, the Ceretes , and I suppose the Sordones, though they’re within the Roman province at the far end of the mountains. But apart from those large tribes, there are a dozen or more smaller ones, and it’s a sad tendency even among our tribes for smaller groups to take ever grander titles to make up for their lack of true numbers and strength. I cannot imagine the Aquitanii are immune to such vanity. Without more information, we’re as in the dark as we were before.’