The bridge drew Hadrian for its craft and its beauty and because it was so dangerous. Longinus was dead, that much was certain for the news had arrived from several sources, not least an angry letter dictated by Decebalus in which he demanded the return of Sosius. The king did not choose to state his reasons, but when pressed the envoy admitted that he blamed the freedman for the death of his chief hostage and hinted at murder. Sosius had fled, escaping his pursuers, but where he was and whether or not he still lived was anyone’s guess, although Hadrian was confident that such a resourceful man would escape. Piso was alive, as far as they knew, and if Hadrian half regretted that, he was glad about the other hostages for they were decent enough men and might prove useful. So might Piso, and an idea was slowly taking shape with regard to the tribune. He would need Sosius, if the man could be found.
Hadrian had been right about the Dacians and their plans. Although they had harried the men fleeing from Sarmizegethusa and attacked most of the garrisons in lowland Dacia and those beyond the Danube, their main attack had been aimed at Dobreta and the bridge. Yet Ferox had stopped them, the gods alone knew how, and somehow he had held the fort against a great army. At least that was the latest news, admittedly days old. The centurion may even have been too successful, for if the Dacian army was stopped by the fort and never drove towards the Danube then in hindsight it might not seem to have posed a threat.
Lucius Herennius Saturninus, legatus Augusti of Moesia Superior, was a crusty old man, set in his ways and almost as suspicious of clever men as Trajan himself, but Hadrian’s reports had convinced him at last of the real threat to the bridge. Once convinced he had acted, and was busy now gathering more soldiers and riding further and faster than you would expect for a man of his age and considerable belly. He had put Hadrian in charge here, with orders worded to grant him considerable licence, while protecting Saturninus if anything went wrong.
Hadrian was almost ready, but the crucial word was almost. He had more than two thousand men from his own legion, formed into four strong cohorts, and another fifteen hundred legionaries from the other vexillations. Not all were in the best shape for campaigning after years of dull routine or building work, but even a few days in the field ought to rub off the edges. There was the bulk of three cohorts of auxiliary infantry already there, all equitata and one composed of archers. Two more, both infantry, were due to arrive within the next day or two. He also had most of an ala milliaria of cavalry and parts of two ordinary alae, as well as some irregulars, including a band of Numidians who were a nuisance in peacetime and a true blessing in any war.
That would give him a field force of six thousand men, a quarter mounted, even if he left a thousand at Dobreta and he was sorely tempted to cut the garrison to half that. Scouts reported that most of the Roxolani were far to the east, feasting and celebrating after their annihilation of the convoy. The bait had worked, and men who knew the clans well said that it would be a month or more before any chose to take the war path again. Perhaps a few score would join the Dacian army, but it was unlikely to be more and that should give him a clear advantage in cavalry. Still, he would be outnumbered by two or even three to one, so care would be needed. Roman armies had faced such odds often enough over the centuries, even here on the Danube, and they were not daunting in themselves as long as the commander knew what he was doing. Hadrian had no doubts about his own ability and was itching to be off, imagining in his mind arriving at Piroboridava having routed the enemy and hearing the cheers of the ragged garrison still clinging on to their battered ramparts.
The problem was food, as it always seemed to be in war, not so much possessing it as moving it. He had thousands of men, but only a few hundred mules, for none of the detachments had been prepared for a campaign, so lacked their own baggage trains. Again and again he ran through the figures, the weight of a daily ration for man and beast, in relation to the capacity of a pack mule. There were ox carts, but not enough of them, and taking the dumb plodding beasts along would slow him down for little substantial gain. A pair of mules or horses pulled more weight than they could carry and went far faster than oxen, so he had decided to change the teams around, only to find that there were no suitable harnesses in store. The fabricae were set to making them, which meant more time waiting. Saturninus might return any day and decide to take direct charge of the relief expedition or worse still might forbid it, reckoning that the fort must have fallen by now.
For Hadrian that did not matter. It was a good story to tell if he rode into the fort just in time to save the survivors. The presence of a senator’s daughter and an equestrian lady – both still young enough to be accounted beautiful, and one with four good Roman children beside her – would make the scene all the more uplifting. Yet if he was late, routing the enemy army only to discover the charred remains of the fort and the decaying corpses of its occupants, then it was time to speak of Mars Ultor and the need for Rome’s avenging god to lead the legions on to fitting revenge on the savages who had done this. Even dead, the presence of the ladies and children could make it all far more poignant, if told well. They might even serve a purpose if they were captured alive, for the fear of their debasement, rape and torture gave the emperor even more justification for the utter destruction of Decebalus and his kingdom. Whatever happened could be made to help the emperor, and better still give him fresh esteem for Hadrian, but only if he could win a victory in battle or make the enemy retreat from him, and he could do neither unless the column was ready to move.
Hadrian turned to the tribune following three paces behind.
‘How many carts are ready to move by dawn?’
‘Tomorrow, sir?’
‘Of course, tomorrow! What did you think, at the Saturnalia?’
The tribune balked at the anger. ‘I, um, I think…’ he stammered.
‘Twenty two-wheeled carts drawn each by a pair of mules or horses,’ the centurion snapped the report, trying to shield the senior officer. ‘Twelve four-wheeled waggons with teams of four. Then twenty-seven carts carrying scorpiones and their ammunition and other equipment.’
Hadrian made up his mind. ‘Men to carry four days rations in their packs. Then empty all the artillery carts and strip them clean of anything that weighs. I want them packed with sacks of biscuit, grain and dried bacon.’
‘Sir?’
‘Do it. We carry food, only food, and men will fight with the weapons they carry.’ The power of the bolt shooters was terrifying, but Dacians were less impressed than barbarians who did not understand such things, so this time they would do without artillery support. ‘Half galearii to remain behind and senior officers may take one boy to serve them, but no more. That includes the legatus, so no one can complain that I deny others while enjoying my own comforts. Anyone disobeying will be flogged out of the camp, whatever their rank.’
The centurion’s eyes widened a little, although he said nothing.
‘When do we move, sir?’ the tribune had managed to control his stammer.
‘Form up at the start of the last watch of the night and march an hour before dawn. You’d better send a note to your wife that you will be going away for some time. There’ll be no time to spare any of us from work tonight. You, man!’ He pointed at one of the mounted soldiers. ‘Give me your horse.’ The man dismounted and Hadrian sprang into the saddle with his accustomed grace. He wished that there was time to unbuckle the girth and take the saddle off, for he felt like galloping bareback, but there was no time.
‘Hurry everyone. We go before dawn.’
‘Sir, what garrison do we leave here?’
‘Five hundred men and no more. Drawn from all the infantry in proportion. Tell them to select the oldest and least fit for marching hard and fast until we have enough.’
‘Sir?’ The centurion dared to hint at his doubts, but the legatus was not listening for he was already clattering away.
Hadrian felt the thrill before a hunt and urged the horse into a gallop, hoofs pounding on the
planks of the bridge. The cavalryman was already yards behind him, struggling to keep up. This was a moment to cherish, as doubts faded and he faced the challenge of a hard task, but one that he knew would succeed. This was the moment. All of his stars were aligned in a way he had seen only two or three times before and always at a time when his life changed drastically for the better. He did not need a professional astrologer to tell him that the next nine days were his moment and that after that the heavenly bodies would move and all become uncertain again. He must win and he must win now.
The horse raced along, and Hadrian laughed with sheer joy as the wind rushed through his hair.
XXVII
Piroboridava
The Nones of June
THEY HELD OFF one more big attack, and Ferox never understood how they had managed it, shooting away the last bolts and stones for the artillery, the last arrows for the handful of archers still on their feet, and all the stones and javelins. The Dacians gave way before the Romans, and just maybe they were almost as tired. Enica led a charge along the top of one of the ramparts, the vexillum of the goddess behind her, and the enemy gave way. Even Piso fought well, clumping along on his bandaged leg and bawling out encouragement. Yet by the end they were almost spent, with about a hundred more men dead or too injured to fight anymore. As Ferox chivvied the men to gather whatever weapons they could find and to tip the enemy corpses over the walls, the men moved like sleepwalkers, unseeing, emotionless, and if ever a man stopped for a moment his eyes shut and he passed out.
The next attack came at night, as Ferox had feared, and for the first time in many days the mist rose again in the early hours, so that the attackers were very close before they were seen and the alarm sounded. All that meant was that the enemy swarmed up and over the walls even faster than they might have done if there had been men waiting to do their feeble best in repelling them.
Ephippus was dead, but his acropolis was finished in spite of Piso’s scorn.
‘If we can’t stop them with high walls and ramparts,’ he had said many times, ‘how will low barricades help us? You cannot show fear to these people. If you do, they’ll walk all over you. That’s what Longinus let happen at Sarmizegethusa – only found his courage when it was too late, the silly old sod.’
The last stronghold was ready, even if it was no more than low barricades and the single tower joining up the praetorium, principia, hospital, a storeroom and barrack block. Ferox had wanted to move all the civilians and wounded inside days ago, along with as many of the men as could be bedded down within the compound. Piso refused, and as the days passed, he grew more and more assertive of his rights as senior officer. Fighting on the walls had invigorated him, so that he almost seemed to grow taller and bolder before their eyes.
‘If we pull back it will tell everyone – including our men – that the fight is hopeless and they will give in. For all we know a relief column is on its way. That is what we must give the men – hope! Hope that after all this we will prevail. For the few hours, or if the gods love someone here a few days, longer we might last, it is not worth snatching that hope from them.’
Vindex suggested hitting the tribune on the head again, but Ferox was too accustomed to obey and was not sure whether the tribune was right or wrong. He drove himself hard, but he was so weary that he no longer had the energy to think about such big questions. There was just the next step and the next moment, trying to do each little thing to keep them in the fight.
Shrouded in mist, the Dacians crept up to the walls, newly made ladders at the ready. They came past the stinking corpses, many with bellies burst open, and most with eyes pecked away by the carrion fowl who never left the fort these days, growing fat on the flesh of men.
Sentries were tired, slow to see and slower still to react, and so the fort fell. The west gate was opened first, and hundreds of warriors poured inside, led by Bastarnae with falxes. Ferox, having taken a rare snatch of sleep wrapped in his cloak in the courtyard of the principia, woke to screaming and shouts of triumph and to Sulpicia Lepidina shaking him awake.
‘They are coming,’ she said.
There was little he could do except make sure that the acropolis held and that all those able to reach it were let inside. There were twenty or so men who had been sleeping in the courtyard and as many more of the wounded able to fight if not required to move too much, so he shouted orders and sent them to the weak spots. Fugitives were coming in already; Sosius was one of the first to slide over the improvised wall. About half the soldiers and even more of the few families, slaves and galearii made it in time, while all the rest died, for the Dacians were in no mood to take prisoners.
Piso again came to new life. He had been at the porta praetoria and he gathered as many men as he could and led then in a knot back towards the acropolis. He had almost fifty men when he rallied them near the gate, thirty by the time he reached the junction of the roads, and sixteen were left to run in through the small gap in the barricades. They were the last big group to make it through and they had drawn many of the enemies to them, giving others a chance to escape.
There were many heroes that night – and Ferox suspected a fair few whose deeds and names would never be known. Claudia Enica was in the praetorium, and he had had to hold her to stop her from running out to rally her warriors. She had bitten his arm before sleep faded, sense returned and she took charge of the far wall of the barricade. Vindex was at the rear gate with some of his Carvetii and some Brigantians and they met a much larger group of Bastarnae as they retreated. The fight was savage and swift, with half of the Britons cut down and dismembered where they lay. Vindex killed three of the enemy, until he took a bad cut to the shoulder even after the falx had shattered his shield, and a lighter cut to the leg. Ivonercus saved him, standing over his body to kill the warrior before he could strike again, and then kill another who came screaming out of the darkness. Vepoc lifted the scout onto his back, and they and five others made it to the acropolis. Maximus had similarly carried two men to safety, before a stone from a sling hit his ankle which had since swollen badly.
Some of the bravest were unlikely heroes. Privatus, the chamberlain of Sulpicia Lepidina, was away from the praetorium seeing to his owner’s horses, some of the tiny handful left alive. Hearing the noise he found a group of three wives belonging to the veterans and persuaded them to come out from where they were hiding in the rafters above the horse boxes and got them back. Achilles, Claudia Enica’s dwarf who served as both buffoon and accountant, somehow climbed onto the roof of the principia, prised off tiles and started lobbing them down at any warriors trying to attack one of the most vulnerable stretches of barricade where his mistress and some of her Brigantes stood guard. The Dacians flung javelins at him and the little man dodged. Then they brought up an archer, but even then he proved an elusive target and shaft after shaft bounced off the rooftop before he was finally hit and fell. He lived, at least for the moment, with broken legs, a broken arm and the arrow in his side, but the heavy clay tiles falling on the enemy had done a lot to keep them at bay.
There were piles of dead warriors in front of all the barricades before the Dacians gave up the attempt to overrun it and went off to rest or loot. Ferox guessed that they had seventy or so men able to fight, two or three times that many wounded, and thirty or forty civilians and others. He was not sure how to count Sosius as the freedman showed little enthusiasm for fighting for all his killer’s eyes.
Bran wept, sitting with his back pressed against the wall of the praetorium. Ferox had never seen the boy like that, and it took a while before he learned what had happened. He had been with Vindex, but had broken away from the others to search for Minura, for he knew that the queen had sent her to carry a message to the east gate. The attack there was slower, and Cunicius had hesitated before ordering his men to retreat. By that time they were surrounded, and the centurion had to lead a charge to clear a path down one of the side alleys. They broke the Dacians, but the centurion lost both le
gs below the knee to a low sweeping falx and a fresh band of warriors were coming through the now opened gate and nearly upon them. Minura told the men to flee and stood beside Cunicius as his life blood flowed away. Bran was too far away to help, but close enough to see.
‘She was like the Morrigan in her rage,’ he told Ferox. ‘Her armour gleaming like the sun, her shield a disc of fire and her sword like a bolt of lightning.’ Ferox had never thought the boy capable of such poetry. ‘I saw her behead one man and then spin to slice the arm off another coming at her from the other side. It was… beautiful. She put down seven at the very least, even when blood gushed from her own wounds. She had sworn that she would never let men take her. Never again.’
Claudia Enica had appeared and patted the boy on the shoulder. ‘She kept her word, brother,’ she said softly. ‘Our sister is gone to join all the other brothers and sisters and all the Mothers since the world began. One day our souls shall join them. We must make sure that we live to be worthy of their company.’
Bran got to his feet. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Fleeting though it be, there is vengeance to work.’
‘Tomorrow,’ Ferox said. ‘I do not think they will come again tonight.’ In truth the dawn was little more than an hour away, but as he watched the boy limp off, his left leg stiff from a wound taken several days ago, he did not envy the men who would meet him in battle.
As the sun was rising, they held a consilium in a side room of the principia.
‘Well, it is not much,’ Piso said, after Petrullus had read out a list of the men fit for action and all the other survivors. ‘What about food?’
‘Six days’ worth if we are careful,’ Sulpicia Lepidina told them. ‘Ten if we take only the bare minimum needed for life, but the wounded and sick will be dead before that time has passed.’
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