by Alex Gough
But the guide pointed ahead and cupped his hand to his ear. Silus did likewise. It was amazing what a difference that simple manoeuvre made to the clearness of sound, cutting out the rustle of the wind in the trees and the birdsong. He heard voices, which Odo’s youthful hearing had picked out even over Silus’ chatter and their marching feet.
Silus indicated the trees, and they darted off the road and dived behind a fallen trunk a score of yards from the road. They sat with their backs to the trunk, listening intently as the voices grew nearer. There were maybe two or three main speakers doing the talking, but that meant nothing regarding their overall numbers. Instead, Silus tried to work out the number of people from the footfalls. He estimated somewhere between four and six in total, but he couldn’t risk a look to confirm. The early spring foliage was too sparse and the tree density too low to provide good cover. Only the tree trunk kept them concealed.
The voices approached their closest point, and Silus kept everything still, breathing through his open mouth to avoid any stertorous noise from his previously broken nose. It had healed somewhat wonky, and was wont to whistle when he breathed in deeply, much to Atius’ amusement.
He should have been able to hear their chatter and their footsteps receding into the distance now, but then he realised that the voices were getting no quieter and the noise of boot on stony road had stopped. There were a few comments and some laughs. Silus looked questioningly at Odo. Odo put his hand to his groin, miming, and Silus frowned, then sighed silently as he understood.
Two of the Germans left the road and walked a short distance into the woods. Carefully, Silus moved his hand onto the hilt of his sword. He tensed, preparing to spring to battle, readying himself to let out a disorienting roar to confuse the enemy and help him take full advantage of the surprise.
But the Germans stopped, each picking a tree around a dozen feet from the fallen trunk. He heard the patter of two streams of liquid hitting the leaf litter, and the two Germans continued to chat as they urinated.
They had surely been drinking, he thought, given how long they pissed for. But after what seemed like an eternity, the flow stopped, and they walked away. Once they had rejoined their comrades, the whole party traipsed off.
Silus risked a peek over the tree trunk once he had gauged they had gone a reasonable distance. There were five of them, two carrying a deer slung upside-down from a pole. A small hunting party. None were looking back, and he watched them disappear around the corner and out of sight before he let himself relax.
‘Well done,’ he said to Odo. ‘You have sharp ears.’ He got up stiffly, and held out a hand, but Odo just sprang to his feet with a grin.
‘Thanks, old man,’ he said.
Silus sneered, then grinned back.
‘Let’s move on.’
His light mood quickly evaporated. The trees on either side of the road grew denser, and Silus’ feelings of anxiety and dread mounted. He peered into the dark undergrowth, his mind making patterns from branches and rocks to form images of wolves and bears, barbarian warriors, even demons and other evil spirits leering out at him. Every rustle from the branches, every sudden movement of a bird or rodent in the loam made him start, then shake himself.
Even Odo became withdrawn, his mouth no longer set in a perpetual smile, but a tight line.
‘We’re right in the depths of the Teutoburg forest now,’ said Odo.
‘I figured. You know what happened here, I guess?’
Odo looked grim, a strange, almost comical expression on his young face. ‘Many tribes say it was a great victory. The Chatti, the Cherusci, the Bructeri, even some of my own tribe. Mostly younger members.’
‘You don’t see it as a victory?’
Odo spat. ‘It was a betrayal. Arminius had sworn loyalty to Varus. He had been made a Roman citizen, an equestrian. He even served in the Roman army in Illyria. Then he turned on them, secretly, shamelessly. Slaughtered his comrades who he had drunk with, eaten with, fought with. He was a man with no honour.’
Silus looked at him in surprise. The light-hearted young man had hidden depths.
‘You take an oath seriously,’ said Silus.
Now it was Odo’s turn to look taken aback. ‘Doesn’t every man of worth? Don’t you?’
Silus thought of oaths he had made that he had failed to keep.
‘Of course. But sometimes, life gets… complicated.’
Odo turned away from him, striding ahead, and they walked in silence for some way. Silus knew Odo was disappointed in him, but didn’t know what to say to make it right. It was easy to make an oath, but sometimes circumstances beyond your control made it hard to keep it. Maybe Odo would understand that one day.
Silus was so lost in his thoughts that he nearly bumped into Odo’s back when he halted suddenly. His hand went straight to his sword.
‘What is it?’ He stepped around the young guide and looked at the stretch of road that had appeared in front of them after they had rounded a sharp corner. His hand flew to his mouth.
‘Oh no.’
Januarius 213 AD
The charging Germans hit them like a mighty wave on the shore. It would have bowled them over backwards in the first impact, and they would have been finished in an instant, if it wasn’t for the fact that the charge from behind Atius hit at the same moment. As it was, it felt like a heavy door had swung open in a strong wind, and smacked him against a wall.
With no shields, they had to brace with shoulders against the German shields, and use their swords to fend off the German weapons. Atius had considered thinning them out with a volley of arrows before the charge, but with only two bows it would have been pathetic, easily fended off by the German shields, and would have meant the Roman archers having to quickly swap weapons as the Germans charged.
The only advantage they had was the lack of space for the Germans to use their superior numbers. Back to back, the Romans fought savagely against their opponents. A spear stabbed in by a short, stocky barbarian went through the gap between Atius and Scaurus. Atius chopped down on it so its trajectory angled to the ground, so it didn’t continue through to Drustan and Memnon behind him. Then a sword thrust came towards Eustachys’ neck, and Atius deflected it with his pugio.
Scaurus caught an axe swing on his own blade, and for a moment he stood eye to eye and toe to toe with his opponent, spitting enraged abuse into the bigger German’s face. Then Scaurus brought his head forward sharply, breaking his opponent’s nose. The German staggered back. Scaurus pulled his sword arm back, thrust forward into the German’s guts, twisted and withdrew. The German fell to his knees, then forward, clutching hopelessly at his rent abdomen. But another warrior instantly filled his place.
Atius fended off another sword swing aimed at Eustachys, then brought his dagger round into his attacker’s neck. The German gurgled blood from the gash. He gripped the blade desperately, and as he fell, the knife still in him, he ripped it out of Atius’ hand.
Atius cursed, but another German was already before him, and he had to put the loss from his mind. This one, a lean youngster, was armed with a spear, and he stabbed it straight towards Atius’ face. It was a mistake born from inexperience. It was simple for Atius to duck beneath the thrust and stab his sword into the lad’s exposed middle. The boy’s eyes went wide with shock, and he slumped to his knees, mouth open. Atius kicked him in the chest so he toppled away, tripping up the next German who was scrambling to get to them, who slipped in the guts and blood that was forming a slick at their feet.
Given a moment’s respite, Atius turned to see Scaurus tackling two barbarians at once, one bearing a spear and the other a sword. He was leaking blood from a small wound on his forehead and a deeper one from somewhere beneath his mail shirt. Atius parried a sword thrust that was about to skewer Scaurus from side to side. Scaurus had no time for thanks, just used the advantage to slice halfway through the spearman’s forearm, which dangled at an unnatural angle, spurting arterial blood into the air. Atius
turned to his right just in time to see Eustachys desperately fending off a German carrying a huge club. The barbarian swung at Eustachys’ head as Atius brought his sword round, slicing into the muscles of his enemy’s thigh. It was too late. Even though Eustachys ducked, even though the German was falling, the club still smacked into the side of Eustachys’ head, and his legs crumpled beneath him like a bull at sacrifice when the priest takes the hammer to his skull.
There was a cry from behind him, and he turned to see Drustan clutching a spear buried in his chest. Memnon roared in anguish, and slashed Drustan’s slayer across the face with such force his sword buried itself halfway into the man’s head. It was an error born from anger, since his sword stuck in the bone for just a moment too long. An axe head swept down, the horrifically sharp blade taking Memnon’s arm off at the elbow. Memnon stared at the amputation in disbelief, and the expression stayed on his face as the axe swept back and beheaded him.
Scaurus too saw his comrade’s death, and he let out a howl of fury and despair.
‘Scaurus,’ warned Atius. ‘Stay with me.’
But the red mist had descended and taken Scaurus’ reason. He charged headlong into the mass of warriors behind Atius, thrashing his sword wildly around him. The Germans stepped back, letting him have his head, fending him off at the length of their spears, laughing at his fury and hurling mocking insults at him. Scaurus tried to close on them, but they melted away before him, coming in behind him, closing in on him like wolves around a wounded bull. They prodded him, stabbed, opened wounds. One young warrior, anxious to impress, leapt in behind Scaurus and slashed at his heel, slicing through the tendon. Scaurus whirled and his sword bit into the unfortunate boy’s neck, who went down in a gout of blood. But when Scaurus stepped forward again, his damaged foot gave way, and he pitched forward helplessly.
The wolves moved in, stabbing and thrusting, and Atius lost Scaurus to sight.
‘Roman.’
Atius turned. Wigbrand was standing in front of him, the great axe dangling from one hand as if it was no heavier than a twig. The other Germans had stopped their attack now, giving their leader space.
Wigbrand hefted the axe into his hands. ‘You have fought with honour and bravery. None of your men have disgraced themselves. Now let’s end this.’
The audience at gladiatorial games had no idea how fatiguing it was to fight for any length of time. Most people thought gladiators won because of strength and skill, but in many cases it was purely down to stamina. The last one able to stand was the one who would be able to walk home.
Atius was exhausted. The marching had tired him, the one-on-one combat with Hunfrid had drained him, and the battle had taken every last ounce of strength from him. He lifted his sword. It felt like a tree trunk now. It wavered and wobbled in his hands.
Wigbrand stepped forward and bashed it away with one sweep of his axe. It flew through the air and landed on the ground, blade bent almost double.
Atius stared death in the face, and murmured a last prayer. The axe swept round. He didn’t feel the impact before the world faded to black.
Martius 213 AD
Silus stared in horror. He couldn’t bring himself to move for what seemed an age. The world disappeared around him, so all he could see was those three bodies, nailed to the trees. It seemed like he couldn’t breathe, and he found himself gasping uncontrollably for air.
Odo put a hand on his shoulder and he jerked away from the touch. But it broke the spell. Silus took a step forward, another, not wanting to confront what was before him, but unable to look away.
Whoever had put the corpses on display had chosen three large oak trees that lined the road. Maybe they had some religious significance to the German priests or priestesses. Silus didn’t care. The bodies had been stripped of most armour and clothing, but each wore a legionary’s helmet, making them unmistakably Roman.
The scavengers had done their work. Foxes would have taken the meat from the feet and lower legs, as high up as they could reach. Carrion birds would have pecked away at all the soft parts within reach of a perching point. Flies would have laid their eggs inside body cavities, so maggots consumed the remaining tissue, before turning into new flies and repeating the process.
A large rook with a long bill regarded Silus from atop one of the helmets, refusing to move as he approached until Silus could almost touch it. Then resentfully, it flapped its wings and flew higher into the tree, from where it looked down on Silus as if he were a trespasser.
Silus looked across the three bodies. Bone, sinew, scraps of skin. Little else remained. Was one of them Atius? Swallowing hard, he forced himself to look closer.
The first one was clearly not his friend. The man was huge, and the small pieces of dried skin stretched across face and ribs were dark in colour. Oclatinius had named and described all of Atius’ party to Silus. So this had to be Memnon the Aethiopian.
There was no doubt this soldier had died fighting. The lower half of one arm was missing, only a couple of inches of the two bones below the elbow still remaining, ends sharp, showing it had been cleaved off, not removed post-mortem by animals. Moreover, the bones of the neck showed similar damage, and a spike through the centre of the skull into the tree trunk suggested that the head had been replaced on the body when it had been nailed up.
Silus moved on to the next body. It was much shorter in stature than the first. Many of the long bones were nicked with sharp indents, broken or split. The skull had a wide hole in one side, from which cracks radiated. A spear thrust, probably the killing blow, Silus decided. And this one was too small to be Atius.
He looked at the next corpse. A small voice at the back of his mind told him that only three were dead. There were seven in Atius’ party – the guide, the diplomat, four legionaries, and Atius himself. If the Germans had understood the difference between the civilian and the legionaries when they placed the helmets on the skulls, then Eustachys was not one of these corpses. So this last body was one of the legionaries, the guide, or Atius.
Flies buzzed into the air as Silus approached, then settled again. A snail was making its slow way across the bridge of the nose, heading who knew where. The sternum was caved in, the ribs broken and folded into the chest cavity. There were no other injuries, nor were any necessary to have finished off this poor individual.
Silus looked into the empty eye sockets and tried to picture the man who had resided there before, looking back at him. He tried to superimpose Atius’ features on the skull, and his heart nearly stopped as his friend’s face swum into view in front of him. He blinked away the tear-blurred vision and focused again. The dead man had been tall, but not as huge as the Aethiopian. The sort of build that could have belonged to someone of Celtic origin, from Britannia or Hispania, or even German. That was no help.
There were strands of hair still clinging to the scalp, those that hadn’t been taken away by nesting birds. It was strange to think that dotted around the forest were likely a number of nests at least partially constructed from the hair of Roman soldiers. The hair was long and light in colour. That did nothing to distinguish the bodies either.
He looked over the body, the limbs, the fingers. Were they Atius’? He just couldn’t tell.
Oh, friend. Am I looking at your remains? Or are you still alive, somewhere in this barbarian land?
He had to hope, but it was so hard. Even if this wasn’t Atius’ corpse before him, what were the chances that Atius was still alive now, all this time later?
Silus stepped back, feeling the anger rising in him, till it felt like it would burst from his chest.
He let it out in a roar that startled the birds, sending them flapping into the air in a great commotion. Odo stepped forward, wearing an expression of anxiety and sympathy. Silus roared into his face, and Odo flinched, but didn’t back away.
‘Silus. You must calm yourself. You will announce our presence to the whole of Germania.’
But Silus had shouted out his anger a
nd it abruptly gave way to grief. He sank to his knees, bent forward so his forehead touched the ground, and sobbed out loud wails.
Odo waited patiently beside him until he was done. Eventually the sobbing subsided, and Silus rocked back onto his haunches, hugging his knees to his chin. It was too much. Too much loss.
‘I’m sorry for your friend, Silus, but we can’t remain here.’
Silus looked at him sharply.
‘We need to bury them.’
‘We can’t,’ said Odo. ‘It will take too long. We will be discovered.’
‘I don’t care. We need to do this.’
‘Some of their party might still be alive, am I right? Maybe even your friend? You don’t know for sure that one of these bodies is his.’
Silus looked up at the spotty young lad, who was making more sense than should have been possible for his tender years.
‘They need you,’ Odo said. ‘You are their only hope for rescue. We must find them. We must move.’
Silus hesitated. Of course he was right. But if this body was the mortal remains of his best friend, he couldn’t leave him like this. He got stiffly to his feet.
‘Help me get them down and take care of them. It will be quicker with two. I will not leave here until this is done.’
Odo looked into his eyes and saw there was no shaking him. He nodded. ‘This place is ill-omened. Please, let’s be quick.’
* * *
They left the body that could have been Atius till last. It wasn’t hard to scrape out shallow graves in the muddy, loamy forest floor beside the road, using sword hilts and branches as shovels, and the flesh-stripped corpses were much lighter than a freshly dead body. Still, Silus was sweating by the time he had finished digging the last hole.
It hadn’t helped that as they dug, they kept finding older remains. A finger bone, a belt buckle. Silus quickly realised where they were, the significance of displaying these Roman corpses in this exact place, and when he looked at Odo, he realised that the young Alamanni knew too. They carried on their task wordlessly.
