RETRIBUTION

by Anthony Riches

  Antonius was unable to conceal the smile that pulled at the corners of his mouth. The two sadly depleted legion remnants had marched in from the south the previous evening, and had been ordered to camp alongside the Twenty-first on the flat ground on the western side of the river from the Treveri capital, a location that Cerialis had deliberately chosen to interpose the Mosella between the vengeful legionaries and the terrified inhabitants of the city. Digging themselves a marching camp alongside that which had been constructed the day before by the weary men who had conquered the Treveri army and captured their war leader, the new arrivals had very much kept themselves to themselves, evidently in fear of reprisals from their neighbours. Cerialis was speaking again, his face a mask of disapproval.

  ‘You men of the First Legion, you have a history of doing this sort of thing! Formed by no less a man than the Divine Julius, you were illustrious in the service of Augustus at Philippi and in Sicily and earned the right to bear his name, but later proved so undisciplined that it was stripped from your title. Again, when the Divine Augustus died you were severely criticised for rebellion by no less a man than Germanicus. And here you are again, guilty not only of mutinying against and murdering not one but two legati augusti, but further to that, of voluntarily taking an oath of allegiance to the Gauls, a subject people of the empire you swore to defend! And you men of the Sixteenth Legion are little better, even if this is the first instance of mutiny in your hitherto illustrious history. Your lion emblem was gifted to you by the young Octavian, before he became our Augustus, and for many years you have brought great pride and fame to that badge, but with these acts of infamy you have relinquished your right to that pride and instead assumed a position of shame and opprobrium.’

  ‘Opprobrium? More like treachery.’

  Cerialis flicked a glance at the seething centurion, and Legatus Longus raised an eyebrow which, Antonius noted, Pugno completely ignored, continuing to stare daggers at the sullen, nervous legionaries.

  ‘By rights, as First Spear Pugno has rather forcefully pointed out, I would be entirely justified in having every last one of you crucified, as an example to others who might be tempted to follow your lead. But these are challenging times, and such circumstances call for flexibility.’

  ‘Flexible like their fucking loyalty.’

  Ignoring the furious Pugno, Cerialis continued in a magisterial tone.

  ‘And indeed, under normal circumstances, it would be my sworn duty as the emperor’s legatus to have you all punished to the fullest extent of my powers. Your legions would be disbanded, and you yourselves dismissed from the army in disgrace, without pay, and with your burial club contributions forfeit to the state. I might also have you decimated before discharge, as a reminder to the survivors as to the price that is always paid by deserters, one man in ten beaten to death by his comrades with their bare hands. But these are not ordinary times. Your crime of mutiny I shall punish with a sentence that is for the time being suspended until the end of this war. What that sentence will turn out to be will depend purely on your performance between this day and that. Fight hard, and make your emperor proud, and we may be able to forget all about this unfortunate episode. The First and Sixteenth Legions might yet be allowed to rejoin the army of Germania as equals, their crimes expunged from the records, free to parade their eagles and standards alongside all other legions, and with their heads held high. Fail to impress me, men of the First and Sixteenth Legions, and I may well decide to carry out a sentence that carries every ounce of my authority to punish you. Observe the Twenty-first Legion as they stand before you, bloodied in more battles in the last year than either of your legions has seen in the last fifty. Consider their example! Bloodied but victorious at the first battle of Cremona! On the losing side at the second battle but unbowed to the end! And victorious at Rigodulum despite having to attack up a hill into the teeth of a spirited Treveri defence! Make them your exemplar, men of the First and Sixteenth Legions, and all can still be forgiven!’

  ‘And when he eventually realises what a crock of shit you are, you’ll all be disbanded and given a good fucking kicking. I look forward to that day with an anticipation so keen you could carve the ears off a corpse with it.’

  Cerialis smiled beneficently at the outburst, and Antonius realised that, if not a pre-agreed act, Pugno’s grim comments were at least a useful and chilling counterpoint to the general’s offer of potential clemency.

  ‘And now I shall leave you all to work out how you’re going to come together to increase the army’s strength, and provide the empire with a salutary example of repentance, which I can hopefully reward with a full pardon in due course. First Spear?’

  Turning on his heel to face his commander, Pugno saluted punctiliously, then turned back to stare pitilessly at the waiting legionaries, barking a command at his own officers.

  ‘The Twenty-first Legion is dismissed to light duties! The First and Sixteenth Legions will remain paraded while I brief your senior centurions as to my intentions. Twenty-first Legion – dismissed!’

  He signalled to Antonius to remain with him, waiting in silence as his own men marched off parade, the legion spontaneously breaking into their battle hymn as a gesture of contempt for the pathetic remnants of two once-proud legions waiting to hear their fate.

  ‘Walk with me, Centurion Antonius.’

  Striding forward with Antonius at his shoulder he halted twenty paces from the waiting legions and bellowed an order that was heard up and down their line.

  ‘All officers, to me!’

  Waiting until the thirty odd centurions had gathered around him, he looked around at their faces, some anxious, some beaten down, some chin-jutting and defiant.

  ‘We should start with a clear understanding of our relative positions in life. You, all of you, every last one of you, no matter how pissed off you might be with your lot right now, have sunk as low as you can go without actually being nailed up and left to gasp out your last breaths while the crows compete for a chance to peck out your eyes. And if it were left to me you’d already be on those crosses. You swore an oath to serve Galba, and then you broke it.’ He raised a hand. ‘I know. You’re going to say that we all broke it, you, the Fifth and the Fifteenth at the Old Camp, the Fourth and the Twenty-second at the Winter Camp, all of us. And you’d be wrong, so don’t waste your fucking breath. The Twenty-first didn’t swear to obey Vitellius until after the news that Otho had murdered Galba and made himself emperor. We swore to Vitellius as Galba’s avengers, but you swore to him in the hope of a nice, fat donative, didn’t you? So you took another oath, this time to serve Vitellius, who whilst he might have been a useless bastard at least wasn’t guilty of the crime of murdering an emperor. And then, when it all got a bit too tough for you delicate flowers, you broke that oath as well. And you murdered not just one legatus augusti, but two! Two Roman gentlemen killed like dogs, Flaccus in Novaesium at Saturnalia, and Vocula in camp nearby not much more than a month later!’

  He looked around at the men surrounding him again, silently daring any of them to defy him.

  ‘Does not one of you want to argue with me? Tell me that it wasn’t you that killed Vocula, but a deserter from your ranks, no longer part of the legion that raised him? No?’ He nodded slowly, his face hard. ‘Good choice, because any man that tries that particular line of horseshit on me will find out the hard way what it’s like to receive thirty lashes with the scourge. I’m authorised to carry out whatever punishment I feel necessary to put you useless bastards back into fighting condition, and trust me, anyone who fails to admit that you all stood around and watched while your own man Longinus took his iron to an army commander will qualify for an immediate scourging that will leave him broken for the rest of his life. Because my colleague Antonius stood among you and watched it happen too, although in his case he’s sworn to have revenge on his legatus’s killer. So, ladies, here’s how it is.’

  The two legions’ senior officers tensed, preparing themselves to
receive his verdict.

  ‘From this moment onward, you will be considered to be under the command of the Twenty-first. You will no longer be treated as legions in your own right, but as over-strength cohorts attached to my legion, under my command and utterly subject to my whim. You first spears are now cohort commanders, and you will follow my orders in battle, form part of my line, and generally do whatever the fuck I tell you. Got that?’

  The two men in question nodded silently, aware they were both very much on their last chance.

  ‘Oh, and your men may be wondering about their pay? After all, you’ve not seen a hint of coin since the donative that Antonius here tells me triggered the murder of Hordeonius Flaccus, have you? Well I’m happy to tell you that any gold they might be hoping for has been written off the pay books as the penalty for their betrayal of the empire. Your status as of now is purely probationary, which means that all pay and privileges are suspended until such time as you prove yourselves capable of fighting for the empire. You want to get paid, you fight! I’d imagine there’ll be a fight along soon enough.’

  Treveri territory, May AD 70

  ‘You want to roll the dice now, rather than waiting for the odds to improve?’

  Tutor nodded at Kivilaz’s question, clearly not comprehending the Batavi’s evident disapproval, and turned to his Nervian colleague Classicus, his hands opened in baffled appeal.

  ‘What better time could there be? Every day that we delay brings the threat of yet more legions, from Hispania, from Britannia, from Dacia, from Italy. We need to strike now!’

  Kivilaz shook his head in irritation at the Treveri leader’s apparent obtuseness.

  ‘When the reinforcements from our brothers across the great river have arrived, that will be the time to strike. A German army will always terrify the Romans into panic and chaos under the right circumstances, whereas all you Gauls have achieved so far is to provide them with a whetstone on which to sharpen their blade. Let Cerialis luxuriate in his victory over your army, and the occupation of your city as much as he likes, the destruction of his only effective legion will settle this matter once and for all!’

  Tutor leaned across the table around which the revolt’s three leaders were standing, jabbing his finger down on the scarred wooded surface for emphasis.

  ‘The legions that have been ordered to join Cerialis’s army from across the western half of the empire are all veterans, bloodied over decades of warfare, whereas your Germans never obey their orders, but rather do exactly as their whims dictate, and can only be won over by gifts and gold. And the Romans have more gold than we do, infinitely more, so what is to stop them from bribing your Germans to depart without fighting? But if we fight them now, without delay, two of their three legions are the dregs of their army in Germany, and still bound to our service by oath. As for the fact that they routed Valentinus and his undisciplined levy at Rigodulum, that will only make them bolder and more rash. Which means that when they find themselves faced not by a Valentinus, obsessed by words and speeches and fury, but by Kivilaz and Classicus and Tutor, men who understand iron and blood, when that realisation dawns upon them they will recall the many times they have been beaten by us, and fled empty handed. And the Treveri will rise behind the Romans, for they have no more love for Rome and its legions than we do.’

  ‘You cannot—’

  Classicus shook his head and raised a hand to interject, and Kivilaz fell silent, waiting to see which way the spinning coin of their decision would land.

  ‘If there’s one thing I learned from my years fighting alongside the Romans, taking orders from the best and worst of them, it’s that a swift attack with less force than might be ideal often prevails where a more considered move with greater force can all too often fail. Cerialis, it seems, is that sort of general, always pushing on, always looking for a weak spot to exploit. A week ago he was marching his men into the Winter Camp and they were looking forward to the chance to rest for a day or two after double timing it all the way from Vindonissa. Our colleague here …’ he gestured to Tutor, ‘was unfortunate enough to have an otherwise secure position on the Nava turned after the betrayal of a deserter showed the Romans a ford, which forced him to fall back on Augusta Trevorum, but it was typical of Cerialis that he chose to follow up on that victory with everything he had, knowing that he had a chance to break the Treveri’s resistance before the rest of our force could consolidate to resist his advance. Show that man an opportunity to strike fast and he’ll take it, because he knows that he can do more with a single legion today than he might achieve with half a dozen eagles in the six weeks it will take for his reinforcements to reach him. And we must do the same.’

  The Batavi tipped his head in recognition of his comrade’s point.

  ‘Fortune can often favour those of us who know how to take a risk, nobody knows that better than the Batavi. But we also know that Cerialis is bold to the point of being rash. He lost the best part of a legion in Britannia by rushing at Boudicca’s rebels without adequate scouting, and found himself facing several times his own strength. He will do the same again, if we give him the illusion that he is free to manoeuvre in these hills.’

  Classicus nodded his acknowledgement of the point.

  ‘Yes, he did. And now he has his head and neck in a similar trap, which only needs us to close it.’

  ‘But he’s in a defensive position. And now they’ve woken up enough to dig out a ditch and raise a palisade around their camp. Surely our best strategy is to wait for him to leave the safety of his earthworks and march north, and to be ready to ambush him on the road?’

  Classicus pointed at the rough map of Augusta Trevorum and its surrounding countryside which lay across the table between them.

  ‘No. Now is the moment when his army is at its most vulnerable. My spies in the city tell me that the Twenty-first Legion is still recovering after three days speed-marching and a pitched battle, and that the two legions that have abandoned us after such a short service are no more effective than they were when I had them swear an oath of loyalty to the Gallic empire. Their scouting is limited to a few mounted patrols watching the road from the north for any sign of us advancing to do battle. Everything I hear tells me that we need to strike now, using stealth to approach their camp and our rage at their presence on our ground to batter their army to pieces.’

  Kivilaz shook his head.

  ‘They number close to six thousand legionaries, with a similar strength in auxiliaries to back them up. What can we hope to achieve by attacking them before the army I know is marching south from the German tribes joins us? Would we not be better to confront them in open countryside, where we can overrun them from all sides and catch them without a wall and a ditch to hide behind?’

  The Nervii prince pointed to the map again.

  ‘Half the answer lies there, in the map my scouts have drawn.’ He pointed to the line of field defences that ran in a semi-circle from a point a quarter of a mile north of the city’s bridge to twice that distance to its south. ‘In the daytime, with a conventional approach and a battle fought in the usual way, we are indeed likely to fail. If we allow them to play to their strengths. If they fight as an organised body of men, protected behind those defences, then even if we breach their walls those legions will only have to retreat across the river and defend the eastern bank to hold us off. Our presence would be revealed, the advantage of surprise lost and Cerialis will be able to disengage at his leisure, retreat into the Treveri hinterland and come at us from another direction. But I have something a little more subtle in mind. Something which takes advantage of our opponent’s biggest weakness.’

  ‘Which is?’

  Classicus grinned at his Batavi ally.

  ‘Come now, Kivilaz, you know Cerialis better than any of us. You know his weaknesses. Like so many other men who aspire to power, as we have both seen on more than one occasion, Quintus Petillius Cerialis is a slave to his own appetites. Some men react to achieving power by indulg
ing their stomachs, and become fatter and more indolent as their influence grows. Others are the opposite, choosing the Spartan approach to their lives and glorying in their moderation and fitness. But there is another type of man, who cannot resist the temptations of another form of self-indulgence, unable to see a handsome woman without feeling compelled to possess her and spend his restless seed in her. And this is the appetite to which your former friend Cerialis is just such a slave. He is compelled to have any woman who catches his eye, not matter what her station is, princess or whore, married or not, and he is not above using the powers of a conqueror to achieve his mastery of whoever it is that takes his fancy.’

  ‘You believe that he has fallen victim to some woman’s beauty in Augusta Trevorum?’

  ‘I know it for a fact. Trust me, no information passes from man to man with greater speed than a salacious story, especially one founded in truth. When an army’s commander chooses to lie with the recently widowed wife of a prominent citizen, making clear by inference that her willing submission is part of the terms under which the city will not be burned out, looted and sacked by the infamous Twenty-first Legion, then word spreads swiftly. Gossip is rife in Augusta Trevorum that our mutual enemy spends more time in the city than might be expected, especially during the hours of darkness, deserting his field headquarters and leaving his men effectively leaderless. And leaderless men tend to be somewhat more relaxed than those who know that their general might appear at any moment to inspect their readiness. And therein, my brother-in-arms, lies our opportunity. We will strike tonight, at the moment of maximum opportunity, with your brave cohorts on the right, the position with the most honour. The Ubii, my Nervii and the men of the Lingones will attack in the middle, straight down from the ridge and at their central gate, and your Bructeri and Tencteri allies can smash in the far left gate and add to the chaos. We will rampage into their camp from all directions and cause such chaos that the legions will be unable to resist our ferocity. And your cohorts will be accorded the mightiest prize, if you will accept the honour.’