‘We do seem to have stopped them. In fact …’ Antonius gestured to the Batavi ranks facing them. ‘If you’ll allow me?’
‘Do go on, First Spear, I’m all for my officers acting on their initiative.’
Antonius turned back to the legion century.
‘Century! On the command to withdraw, century will take five paces to the rear … Withdraw!’
Stepping smartly back, the legionaries allowed the weight of the dead Batavi front rankers to slide off their shields, depositing dozens of dead and dying men onto the bridge’s surface. The Hamians had taken a vicious toll of the warriors who had so eagerly packed onto the bridge in the expectation of a swift victory, and the continuing rain of iron from both sides of the crossing and the houses behind it was continuing to thin their numbers.
‘Should we take the offensive, do you think?’
Antonius nodded.
‘Exactly my own thought, Legatus Augusti. Century! On the command, the century will advance one pace at a time! Kill anyone that’s not dead and make sure of the corpses, just in case any of them are playing dead! Century, one pace … Advance!’
Stepping forward, the legionaries lunged with their swords, putting those men not yet dead out of their agony.
‘One pace … Advance!’
Cerialis walked slowly alongside him as the century paced forward across the bridge, driving the tattered remnants of the enemy attack before them with archers pressing up close behind to punish those men who still stood against their counter-attack.
‘How did these barbarians manage to penetrate our camp so deeply?’ He raised a hand. ‘No, don’t spoil it for me, let me guess. They came through the Sixteenth and First Legions’ lines, didn’t they?’
‘I’m afraid it does look that way, Legatus Augusti.’
The senior officer nodded grimly. ‘I was afraid that would prove to be the case when I allowed them back into the army. What’s happening now?’
The Batavi, having already been forced onto the defensive by the withering rain of iron that was still beating down on them, had abruptly started retreating, pulling away from the bridge in an ordered formation that was marching back through the cowed deserter legions’ section of the camp, the men facing their century huddling into their shields as they backed away. Cerialis watched their retreat with a knowing expression.
‘We won’t be able to stop them. Which means that Civilis will get most of his men away to fight another day and with nothing much worse than a badly bloodied nose. And doubtless the Germans and Gauls will have managed to disengage too, once they realise that their gamble has failed. It really does seem as if you saved the day, First Spear, and probably my skin with it. I owe you a life, it seems.’
8
Treveri territory, May AD 70
‘He didn’t even see it coming. One moment he was alive, the next he was with your ancestors. Take some consolation from that.’
Lataz was silent for what seemed like an eternity to his officer, wiping a tear from his face before replying to Alcaeus’s softly spoken words of comfort.
‘Thank you, Centurion.’ He sniffed, wiping his nose and gesturing to the small cairn of rocks that his family had built over his son’s grave to enable them to find it again if the chance to give him a more fitting funeral came to pass. ‘I know he died the way he would have wanted to, with a sword in his hands, but that makes it no easier to bury a son. And when we march home – if we ever march home – I’m the one who’ll have to explain to my woman that her boy died with a Roman spear through him because I couldn’t prevent him from running wild.’ He shook his head, wiping his face again, then straightened his back and looked at the officer with a harder set to his face, pushing his raw grief to a place where he could deal with it in quieter moments. ‘The attack failed?’
Alcaeus nodded.
‘It did. We blew through the traitor legions as if they weren’t there, once the cohorts got inside the fortress, and the leading centuries reached the bridge easily enough, but some clever bastard on the other side had enough archers at his back to shred them as they tried to cross it. We lost over three hundred men, first trying to force the bridge and then fighting our way back out the way we’d come in, and even that was a close thing. Half the Twenty-first Legion came after us while the rest of them held off the other tribes like they could have done it with a hand tied behind them. So much for the knock-out punch to take the Romans out of the war.’ He looked about him. ‘Where’s your other son?’
Frijaz, standing close to his brother with the stunned look of a man not yet reconciled with the events of the night, pointed out into the forest.
‘Out there in the trees somewhere. He blames himself.’
Alcaeus shrugged.
‘That’s inevitable. I still blame myself for Banon’s death at Gelduba, and in reality that was all down to Hramn’s lack of any caution. Take your brother to join the cohort, and I will bring his son back. This is a time for harsh truths best not told by a father.’
He walked deeper into the trees, finding the young soldier sitting on the trunk of a fallen oak with his sword across his knees, its blade black with dried blood.
‘You need to clean that iron before it starts to rust.’
Egilhard looked up at him wet-eyed.
‘Sigu is dead. Because I couldn’t control my need to be the hero my brother followed me into a fight he could never win.’
Alcaeus nodded.
‘True. Your example was too great for him not to follow, but it was also impossible for him to live up to. A man like you only comes along once or perhaps twice in every generation, and the rest of us must either bask in your reflected glory or, if we seek to meet the same standards, face the risk that in reaching for that height we may fall.’ He took a seat beside his chosen man, looking out into the forest’s gloom. ‘We must march from here quickly, because once the Romans have restored order to their camp they will come after us brimming with the urge to take revenge. Which means that you must do your mourning later, in the quiet moments of the night.’
Egilhard looked round at him.
‘I do not know if I can go on.’
The wolf-priest pondered the desolation in his voice for a moment before replying.
‘When Banon died I considered withdrawing into myself in the same way you are now. I pondered walking away into a forest like this one, knowing that had I chosen to do so then no one would have seen me. I would simply have vanished from the cohorts without a trace, no longer responsible for the lives of so many men, freed of the burden I willingly took on when I put that wolf’s head on my helmet.’
‘But you didn’t.’
‘No. Although that’s not my point. I’m not telling you that you should stay and fight because I did. We all make our own decisions in this life, Achilles, and no man could ever accuse you of having lacked courage over the last year. My point is that if I had walked away I know beyond certainty that the feeling of relief at abandoning my burden would all too soon have become a misery of guilt. My burden is mine, and not to be relinquished to any other man in any way other than my death. If I had walked away I am sure that I would have died by my own hand very soon after.’
‘And you think I might kill myself?’
The centurion shrugged.
‘I cannot say. This is my story, not yours. But abandoning your burden will not bring Sigu back.’
He fell silent, and after a moment Egilhard drew breath to speak, but as he did so Alcaeus raised a hand to forestall him.
‘There is something that I have debated sharing with you, Chosen Man, and always resisted until now. But now, I think, it is time for you to understand that your destiny is not yours alone.’ He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts. ‘When I sleep, Achilles, I see visions of what will come to pass. I always have, from my earliest memories. At first I saw inconsequential events, things of no import, but they showed me that I had the power, a gift from the gods, to see the future in smal
l slices. They are imperfect visions, as dreams usually are, never clear enough that I have any ability to influence the fate they depict, but the things I see almost invariably come to pass in some form.’
He raised a hand before the soldier could speak.
‘I know, it sounds unlikely. And believe me, I would forsake this gift in a heartbeat if given the choice. I saw the events that resulted in my friend Banon’s death, and the catastrophe at Gelduba, but without any of the detail necessary to realise what would come about on that bloody battlefield, or to take the steps that would have saved his life and those of so many other good men. I am a seer without purpose, it seems, doomed to recognise my dreams only as their reality rolls over me. I have cursed this gift, and wished it gone from my mind more times than you can imagine. But …’
Egilhard waited while the wolf-priest pondered his next words.
‘But, and this is my point, this blessing, this curse, is seemingly an even-handed gift. I see both disaster and triumph. I saw that first battle you fought in, by the banks of the Po in Italy, and your first kill for the tribe, in the days before it came about. And of late one particular dream has been unusually vivid, as if the gods themselves are sending me a message that I cannot ignore. It is a dream that seems to combine a moment of total defeat with some measure of hope for the tribe. And I have seen you in this dream time and time again, at first only occasionally, but more and more frequently of late. I cannot tell you what it is that I have seen you do, but I have been shown the same events so many times that I have no choice but to accept that they will come about in time, and at a moment when the Batavi people’s fate hangs in the balance. If my dream is true then you are the key to that moment.’ He lowered his head to stare at the ground. ‘I have said enough, other than to tell you that I know that your story does not end in some desolate forest clearing or on the blade of your own sword. And that you must therefore move on from this place and shoulder your burden for a while longer.’
He fell silent, and after a long moment the younger man nodded slowly.
‘I will do as you wish, Centurion. Like you, I know that walking away from my father and uncle would wound them as badly as my brother’s death, and I doubt I could carry that guilt. And as to your dream … We must wait and see what comes to be. Whatever it is, I will be ready.’
Augusta Trevorum, May AD 70
‘So tell me, gentlemen, how did this near-disaster come about?’
The assembled legati and senior centurions stared back at their commander in silence, Legatus Longus fixing Pugno with a stare hard enough to keep him silent before venturing an opinion on behalf of the gathered officers.
‘It seems to me, Legatus Augusti, that the barbarians, having managed to group their forces in the hills to the west and north, decided to try for what I believe we term a “decapitation”. Killing you, they reckoned, would end this war overnight. So the Batavians infiltrated the camp, probably by swimming a few men down the river past our defences, forced the southern gate and allowed the rest of their treacherous cohorts to attack through it, straight into the First and Sixteenth Legions.’
Cerialis clenched a fist.
‘And those cowards melted away! When the time comes for me to parade them and tell them of their fate I’ll remind them of their cowardice here!’
Longus nodded.
‘We were saved, it seems, by the Twenty-first Legion’s obduracy in defence against the other tribes, by the barbarians’ own idiocy in starting to loot that part of the camp they had overrun, allowing us time to equip and come at them in ordered ranks, and by the defence of the bridge, which did such damage to the Batavians. But it also seems to me, Legatus Augusti, that we may have erred in allowing the enemy’s various factions the time to gather and make common cause of freeing Augusta Trevorum from our occupation.’
Cerialis nodded with pursed lips, clearly not entirely convinced.
‘My calculation was that if we had sought to defeat one of the rebel forces we might only have allowed another to strike us from the rear, and in country so close that we would never know of their presence until it was too late. We’re not overly blessed with cavalry with which to scout. But …’ he nodded gracefully to Longus, ‘I will allow you that Prefect Briganticus had located the enemy camp. Perhaps we should have struck sooner, and perhaps if I hadn’t been somewhat preoccupied with matters of intelligence and information I might well have ordered such an advance.’
Another awkward silence came over the room, men exchanging covert glances and more than one wry twitch of the lips. Longus fastened his gaze on Pugno again, shaking his head fractionally. Cerialis looked about him with a raised eyebrow.
‘I see. And do you all think that I deserted my duty by going into the city last night? Surely one of you has the courage to speak freely to his commander? You, Pugno, you’ve never been one to avoid the hard facts.’
Pugno stared back at Longus, who nodded with evident reluctance, but before the senior centurion could speak Antonius stepped forward.
‘If I might venture an opinion, Legatus Augusti?’
Cerialis nodded gracefully.
‘How could I refuse the request, First Spear, given that it was your quick thinking that allowed us to capitalise on the Twenty-first Legion’s obdurate defence of our camp.’
Pugno shot his subordinate a meaningful glance. He had taken Antonius aside in the aftermath of the battle, once the attackers had fled the scene of their near-triumph, his facial expression unreadable.
‘The guard centurion tells me that you threatened to kill him if he disobeyed your order not to join the fight.’ Antonius had nodded, equally straight-faced, waiting for the rejoinder to Pugno’s statement. ‘You know that we train them always to join the fight. “March to the sound of the blood-letting” is the first rule for any centurion in this legion.’
‘And you do know that if I’d allowed him to do so, Cerialis would be dead?’
The other man had nodded slowly.
‘Yes. It’s the only reason I don’t have you by the throat.’
‘That and the fact that the archers I fetched managed to kill so many Batavians that they won’t forget this day in a while?’
‘Yes. That too.’ Pugno stared at him for a moment before speaking again. ‘You’re a bloody-minded bastard, aren’t you?’
Antonius smiled.
‘And you’re not? Your entire legion lives to fight, and if there’s no enemy to hand they’re perfectly happy fighting each other. Perhaps we ought to have at each other, here and now, just so that I can really be one of you.’
Pugno had laughed delightedly.
‘There it is! That’s what made me like you the moment I set eyes on you, that couldn’t give a fuck attitude of a man who’s seen and done enough not to care what anyone thinks. You’re a Blood Drinker alright, and you’re lucky to boot.’ He had leaned closer, lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘Just as long as your luck holds, eh, Centurion?’
He stood in silence and listened as Antonius ventured out onto the thin ice of having an opinion as to his commander’s actions of the previous night.
‘It seems to me, Legatus Augusti, and to every man in the camp, that you are a man who lives to take risks. In the civil war, it is reputed, you walked out of Rome dressed as a peasant, and with a pair of bodyguards as your only defence, and walked halfway across Italy to join Vespasianus’s army. And your march from the Winter Camp to defeat the Treveri at Rigodulum will doubtless be held up as an example of decisive generalship for decades to come.’
‘But?’
‘It’s not so much a “but”, Legatus Augusti, more of an “and”.’
Cerialis laughed.
‘Oh I see. Not a but, but rather an and, is it? And there I was taking you for a … what is it that you officers of the Twenty-first call yourselves, Pugno, Blood Drinkers?’
‘Yes, Legatus Augusti.’
‘Indeed. I had you marked as a man of action, Antonius, but you apparently
also harbour political skills! Go on then, what’s this and that might be a but?’
‘It simply occurs to me, Legatus Augusti, that this urge to take risks extends beyond your military skills.’
He fell silent, knowing that he had said enough to find himself under severe punishment if Cerialis took offence at his stated opinion, but after a moment the other man laughed again, shaking his head with an amused smile.
‘Gods below, man, you are a politician! Very well, First Spear Antonius, since you make the accusation in such a delicate way, I’ll be the one to speak frankly. Yes, I have indeed struck up a relationship with a woman in the city. An influential woman, widowed recently enough to retain her beauty but not so recently as to make our friendship inappropriate. And let me say what you can’t, since the rules of both our society and the army itself forbid a man of no social standing to criticise a man of my exalted class. You, every man here and every man in the camp for that matter, you all believe that my manhood has triumphed over my common sense in delaying the continuation of our offensive, and given the enemy time to regroup and come at us under the cover of darkness. And I can understand that perception. But here’s something you don’t know. Once we’ve marched out and thrown Civilis and Classicus and their allies back to the north and east again, they will almost certainly choose to fall back on Colonia Agrippina, hoping to muster more support from its inhabitants. After all, Civilis believes that they still support him, so where better to resist our advance into the Batavian homeland? And when he makes that most predictable of moves he’s going to find out that he’s not the only man with influence in the city of the Ubii.’
Germania, May AD 70
‘You awake. Is good.’ Marius struggled to open his crusted eyes, feeling strong hands lifting him into a sitting position, his back against the trunk of a tree. ‘You rest on watchful tree. Watchful tree save you life.’
A wet piece of wool wiped at his eyes and mouth, and the Roman managed to open first one eye and then the other. It was dusk, and the fire beside which he had slept was burning close enough for him to reach out and touch. Beran lifted his cloak away from the leg that Bairaz had opened with his sword, pointing to the wound.
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