by R. W. Peake
“What if it’s a trap?”
That stopped him, and he turned in his saddle, a concerned expression on his face.
“What are you talking about?”
“What if the Bastarnae and the Moesians are working together?”
“What makes you think that?”
“Thirty years of experience,” I replied, but not unpleasantly. “It happened in Gaul more than once, where tribes worked together. Have you noticed that the Bastarnae line of march has drawn us deeper into Moesia? That might be an accident, but then again, it might not. Have we heard from our scouts? Have they made it back across the river?”
Crassus looked troubled, exchanging a glance with Macrinus.
“As a matter of fact, no. Silva just sent a man back to tell me that the Bastarnae have gathered enough boats but they haven't crossed yet. His report says that they're just camped on this side of the river, not moving.”
“So we’re essentially between two numerically superior forces, and we don’t even have a river to protect us from one of them.”
Crassus did not hesitate a moment, calling for a mounted trooper, who I assumed had been the man sent by Silva, the cavalry commander. While waiting for the rider to reach his side, Crassus took a wax tablet from an aide.
Using his stylus, he scrawled a quick note before pressing his signet into the wax.
Handing the tablet to the rider, he said, “Take this to Siscia quickly. Take a spare horse so that you can switch mounts. Tell Tribune Claudius that I expect him to be marching by daylight after he's received this order. Now go!”
The man did not hesitate, saluting as he wheeled his horse, going off in search of a spare mount. Crassus turned back to me, thanking me for bringing up the possibility, which I just shrugged off.
“I’m just doing my duty. And I don’t know that they are working together.”
“But I don’t want to find out the hard way,” Crassus agreed. “Regardless, these Moesians are closer than the Bastarnae, so if they are working together, they'll miss their chance. We're going to tackle the Moesians first, and hopefully they'll be finished before the Bastarnae show up.”
With that, he issued the orders to turn the Legion around, form up in battle formation, then march back up the ridgeline that was between the 8th and the forest that the Moesians would be passing through. The Moesians had undoubtedly been alerted that something was amiss, with the return of a riderless horse and the disappearance of one other scout, yet that actually worked in our favor. If this Runo was even a somewhat competent commander, the disappearance of his scouts would slow his advance while he sent out either a larger scouting party, or a detachment of his infantry into the woods. Meanwhile, the 8th made the necessary movements to array themselves and I found myself with the rest of the Evocati and the command staff, waiting while Crassus cantered about making sure that things were going as he wanted. After a moment, I felt eyes burning a hole in my back, turning to see Scribonius glaring at me. Sighing, I nudged Ocelus to walk over to my best friend, who said nothing, just continued to stare at me.
“What?” I finally snapped, despite knowing exactly why he was upset.
“You know what,” he said, his tone quiet, but I could hear the seething anger just underneath. “You killed that boy, Titus, after I had given him my word.’
“You didn’t break your word,” I insisted, the mulishness in me coming back to the surface.
A part of me knew that if I just apologized and admitted what I had done was wrong, things would be fine between us, but I was not in the mood to apologize or make peace in any way.
“Oh, I don’t give a brass obol about that, and you know it,” Scribonius snapped, his face turning red with anger. “There was no need to kill that boy. Don’t you have enough blood on your hands to last you ten lifetimes?” He took a deep breath, clearly struggling to compose himself. “It’s just that I’ve never seen you kill when it wasn’t necessary, and killing that boy wasn’t necessary.”
I only shrugged, refusing to look at him, knowing that every word he spoke was true. Then he said something that only Sextus Scribonius could have said to me without being run through.
“Killing that boy won’t bring Miriam back,” he said quietly. “No matter how many people you kill, you'll still feel that loss.”
I glared at him, yet I could not find any words to say. My silence must have encouraged him to continue, although I wished he hadn’t.
“I know you’ve turned your back on the gods, but know that I pray every night to them, on your behalf.”
“Don’t,” I interrupted him, my voice harsh. “I piss on the gods, every one of them. I don’t want my name in your mouth when you beg the gods for favors.”
He just looked at me sadly, shaking his head as he heaved a great sigh, looking at the men of the 8th, who had moved into position.
“Well, it looks like they’re ready to move,” he said, turning away from me to trot after the Legion, which was now marching up the hill.
I opened my mouth to call out to him, to say something, but no words came and I sat there for several moments before I followed.
Crassus positioned the first line just below the crest of the hill, yet with enough room for the second line to be on the same side. We would be hampered by the lack of cavalry, especially if the scout had been correct in his numbers, but Crassus called the Evocati together and, placing me in charge, ordered us to remain behind the Legion on the crest so we could move to a danger point if needed. Before he could leave, I called him to the side, somewhat embarrassed about what I had to tell him.
“General, I have a problem.” I pointed to the sword at my side. “This blade is too short to fight from horseback, and I believe that the same goes for Scribonius and Balbus.”
Our first day on the march, I recalled that I had noticed that the Evocati who had this status for a while all carried the spatha, the longer cavalry sword, but truth be told I had not thought much about it. Now I knew why they did so, and I was chagrined to admit to Crassus that I had not thought to change weapons.
“So it is,” he remarked, then thought a moment. “No matter. I have a spare in my wagon. Go tell Crito that he's to give it to you for the duration, until we get back to a spot where you can purchase your own blade.” I thanked him, then left to find his slave, and he called out after me, “Pullus, this is just a loan, remember. I want that blade back.”
I was irritated that he would feel the need to make that comment, at least until I saw the blade.
“This is his spare?” I gasped when Crito handed it to me.
The scabbard alone must have cost a small fortune and I was tempted to refuse it, fearful that if something happened to it I would have to pay for it, but when I drew it, my hesitation vanished. I saw immediately that it was a Gallic blade like my own, though I was forced to admit that the workmanship was even better than mine, and I wondered how much this weapon cost. Reminding myself to thank Crassus, now understanding why he had said what he had, I was faced with a dilemma. I could not carry two swords at my side and while I could have put my own in my own wagon, I just could not bear to part with it. It had been my almost constant companion into battle for more than 20 years and Crito, seeing my hesitation, made a suggestion.
“Master, many men strap the scabbard to the saddle. In fact, Master Crassus has done so on many occasions.”
My immediate thought was that in all the confusion and galloping about in a battle, that the scabbard would come loose and be lost.
“Have you ever fastened a scabbard in this manner?”
He shook his head, but said, “No, but I've seen it done many times. I know I could do it in the same way.”
His manner was so certain that I decided to let him and I dismounted Ocelus to hold the reins while he worked. He used some leather thongs and when he was finished, I gave the scabbard several tugs in different directions, but it seemed very secure. Leaping back aboard Ocelus, I threw him a coin as a thank you, th
en went to find the rest of the Evocati. When I found them, I could see that Scribonius was still angry with me, while from the furtive glances between them, I surmised that he had been speaking to Balbus about what I had done. I wish I could say that I was feeling guilty about my actions, yet I did not. Truthfully, I did feel badly, but it was because Scribonius was angry with me, and I was now equally angry with him. Nevertheless, I forced myself to keep my tone professional when I told the two to go to the Legion quartermaster to draw two spatha for themselves. Balbus pointed to the one strapped to my saddle.
“I don’t suppose that it will be like that one, will it?”
I laughed at that.
“Not likely.”
“Good,” he said as they trotted off. “Because if it was, you’d never see me again.”
By the time the first Moesian scouts appeared out of the woods, the sun was hanging low in the sky. Runo had obviously stopped to send more scouts out, slowing his advance through the woods. Despite expecting it, the mounted still men pulled up short at the sight of a full Legion, waiting on the hill for them. The ridge ran for a few miles in either direction, meaning that if Runo chose to try to find a spot farther along than where we were, we would simply fall on his flank by traversing the length of the ridge. Peering up at us for several moments, the scouts wheeled their mounts to flee back into the forest. It was some time later that we could see the underbrush between the trees start to shake, followed by the appearance of the vanguard of the Moesian army. Calling it an army is being charitable; it was more of an armed mob, at least by the way they marched. Even from the distance we were at, it was clear to see that what they had going for them was in numbers alone. They came boiling out of the woods, flowing in our general direction until the front ranks came to a sudden halt still some distance away from the base of the hill.
“Where’s their cavalry?” I heard someone ask.
That was a good question, since all that was in sight at this point was the Moesian infantry. The men of the Evocati began looking in other directions, until one of them shouted. Pointing east of our position, farther down the ridgeline, we could just make out a smudge of dust, under which was a dark line that experience told us was a body of men and from the speed they were moving, we knew they had to be mounted.
“They’re trying to roll us up,” Balbus commented.
“I guess this Runo isn’t as stupid as we thought,” I grunted before telling Balbus to hurry and find Crassus with this news.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Moesian army had emerged from the forest, moving in the direction of the men of the first line. The sound of their shouting finally began reaching us, a dull roar that came washing over us in a sound I had heard so many times before it was impossible to count. Scribonius was clearly thinking the same thing.
“By the gods, to think I would have missed out on this! This never gets old!”
I looked over at him as did he at me and we exchanged a grin, our anger with each other evaporating in the excitement of the moment. Despite being outnumbered, with a sizable force of cavalry on our flank, I could see that he was as unworried as I was, which I suppose came from the habit of victory, especially against native tribes such as what faced us here. Starting in Gaul, we had always prevailed against our enemies, even when we had suffered temporary setbacks like at Gergovia. The only real defeat we had ever suffered was in Parthia, but we put that down to the mistakes made by Antonius, who had proven to be unlucky and unfit to command such an enterprise. Otherwise, we had looked over our shields at every enemy that came at us, only to see the deaths and the backs of every one of them. What I took to be the Moesian officers were all mounted, while one of them, who I was sure had to be Runo, went galloping across the front of his mob, waving his sword in exhortation. I will say that they responded, raising their own arms to shake them in our direction.
“Why do they always do that?” Scribonius asked, and I turned to him in mock exasperation.
“Do you know how many times you’ve asked that question over the years?”
“It just never made any sense to me,” he said, his tone defensive. Then, seeing I was teasing him, he laughed. “It's just that it never does them any good.”
“They don’t know that,” I pointed out. “They don’t know how many men we’ve faced who've done the same thing.”
“True,” he granted. “But they’re going to find out soon enough.”
Our conversation was interrupted by a commotion when Balbus came galloping back, while two Cohorts from the rear line detached themselves to begin moving back in our direction up the ridge.
“Crassus is sending those two Cohorts down the ridgeline to the east and he wants us to take up a position in between them and the rest of the Legion,” Balbus told us.
“You heard the man,” I called out.
As a group, we went trotting over to a spot equidistant between the two Cohorts that were now forming up facing east, and the rest of the Legion. The second line had shuffled over to cover up the gaps so that there was now roughly a Cohort in the second line directly behind the gaps between the Cohorts of the front line. The men were standing ready, waiting for the Moesians to begin their advance up the hill. Runo made one more pass in front of his men, dividing them into two lines of their own, but it was more just two mobs instead of ordered lines like ours. Taking my attention away from the sight in front of me, I looked to the east, trying to gauge how far away the Moesian cavalry was, except they were still too distant to make anything out more than just a dark smudge.
“Pluto’s cock, that idiot is advancing now without waiting for his cavalry,” Balbus laughed, pointing down the hill.
Surely enough, he was right; the men of the Moesian front rank, still shouting their individual battle cries, had begun shambling towards us. I heard the Centurions of the front rank Cohorts shouting orders to their men to hoist their shields, followed by the clattering sound of the men obeying. The Moesians hit the bottom of the slope before launching into a run, giving a great shout as they did so.
“Not only are they not waiting for their cavalry, they started their attack much too soon. They’re going to be completely winded before they ever reach the front rank.”
Scribonius looked over at Balbus and me as he finished, reaching down to heft his coin purse.
“I’ll wager a hundred sesterces that our boys don’t even have to draw their swords before the attack is broken.”
Now, I knew as well as Balbus that taking that bet would be foolish, but given all that had happened between us, I thought that making what I knew to be a losing wager might make things a little smoother between us.
“I think these Moesians are tougher than that,” I countered, hefting my own purse. “I’ll take that wager.”
“Ha! Your money is as good as mine,” Scribonius hooted, clearly pleased.
I hope so, I thought, then turned my attention back to what was happening before us.
If Runo had waited for his cavalry, the outcome might have been different, but I highly doubt it. One thing is certain; if he had waited, they would have inflicted more casualties and we would have had to do more to save ourselves than we did. Scribonius, like I knew he would be, was right about the Moesian attack crumbling before our men even had to draw their swords. The combination of two volleys of javelins and the lung-searing effort of an uphill charge was more than enough to shatter the Moesians, who went streaming back down the hill, leaving a large number of bodies behind. The Moesian cavalry only got within a mile of our makeshift line of two Cohorts, then seeing their comrades on foot being repulsed, did not even try to make an assault. Helping our cause was the fact that their numbers were much smaller than the scout had told us, there being little more than a thousand men on horseback, and they followed the rest of the Moesian mob without throwing so much as a javelin in our direction. Our own losses were laughably light; no more than a dozen men had been wounded, some of them from their own comrades, whose grip on their javelin
had slipped at the last moment and their missile had gone low into the front ranks. That was the official story anyway; the truth is that this happens quite often, and more often than not, it is men settling a score over a private feud. The evidence is that these wounds are almost never fatal, most of the time hitting men in their lower extremities and almost never in the torso where the wound would most likely kill them. It is also impossible to prove that a man had the intent of wounding a comrade, and even if another man witnessed it, he would not open his mouth. This was the sort of thing that happens in a Legion that is outside even the power of the Centurions, no matter how much none of us want to admit it. Otherwise, we were unscathed, the men flushed with their easy success and clamoring to be allowed to pursue the enemy into the woods, something that Crassus wisely forbade. He pacified them with the order to go among the Moesian dead and wounded to take what they could from the bodies. The air filled with the after-battle sounds of men moaning in their last moments, followed by short, high-pitched screams when a blade was thrust into their chests. There was also laughter, with a lot of good-natured exchanges about what pieces of loot had been discovered, along with a fair number of shouted arguments when men claimed a particular prize simultaneously. All in all, it was a normal after-battle scene, which the Evocati and I sat to watch while keeping an eye out on the off chance that Runo tried another attack.
Crassus came trotting up, a wide grin on his face, returning our salutes as he said, “Well, that was easy.”
“That it was,” I agreed. “But what do we do now?”
“We’re going after them,” he replied, looking at the woods and the country beyond. “We gave them a bloody nose, but we need to teach Runo and these Moesians a lesson once and for all.”
“How far do you propose to chase them?” I asked.
“As far as it takes. As long as the Bastarnae stay where they are, or better yet, go back across the river.”
