Betrayal: The Centurions I

by Riches, Anthony

  ‘I understand your suspicion, Centurion. After all, the rest of my tribe has decided to arm against Rome. My men and I will just have to convince you of our loyalty with our spears, when the time comes.’

  Aquillius stared at him for a long moment, one hand resting on the pommel of his gladius.

  ‘You told Legatus Augusti Flaccus that you had sent a messenger to the Frisian cohort’s commander, warning him of the rebel attack. And yet no such message was ever received by the prefect.’

  Labeo nodded, meeting his stare with eyes empty of any guile or evidence of deceit.

  ‘So I gather. I expect my man didn’t survive his journey across the Island to deliver my warning.’

  The Roman held the gaze a moment longer, then shook his head and turned away to look across the space between his men and the Batavi army. He had spoken privately with Flaccus after the conclusion of the conference at which he had been handed the poisoned cup of commanding the Frisian cohort’s rescue, and the planned subsequent attack on Batavodurum, his words blunt and uncompromising.

  ‘I agreed with everything you said in there, Legatus, because to do otherwise would have demeaned you in the eyes of that barbarian. But I do not agree with your plan to attack the Batavian city, not with only a cohort of Tungrians, some Ubians if you can get them up the river in time and the remnants of the Frisians. That, and of course these Batavian horsemen who would have us believe that they have turned their backs on their tribe. It would be all too easy for me to find my command trapped between this man Civilis’s barbarians and their cavalry, should Decurion Labeo’s change of allegiance prove to be only temporary.’

  Flaccus had shrugged, his eyes bright with calculation.

  ‘That will be your decision to make, Centurion Aquillius, once you are clear as to the conditions on the ground. As to Labeo and his men, you are of course empowered to take whatever measures you see fit to ensure that they remain loyal to Rome. Or, if that proves impossible, to neutralise any threat they might pose. With the responsibility I am giving you comes authority, Centurion. Absolute authority. Wield it wisely, but above all else, wield it.’

  He looked back at the Batavi prefect.

  ‘What is your assessment?’

  Labeo looked across the battlefield at his tribe’s forces.

  ‘I’d say that this fight will be finely balanced, Centurion, if my old adversary Kivilaz doesn’t have some advantage that we can’t see yet.’

  ‘An advantage?’

  The Batavi looked at his commander with a hint of exasperation.

  ‘Spare me the feigned innocence, Centurion, it doesn’t sit well with your otherwise brutal approach to everyone and everything.’

  Aquillius stared back at him levelly.

  ‘It was a question. One you’d do well to answer.’

  ‘When you’ve known Kivilaz as long as I have, you get a measure of the man. He’s not like you and I, Aquillius, he’s …’ He groped for the right word. ‘Sly? Duplicitous? Capable of saying one thing in a way that inspires complete trust in his words and then, just when you think you have his measure, doing something completely different to what you were led to expect. You should take nothing you see here for granted.’

  ‘So what am I seeing here?’ Aquillius bent to speak quietly in the Batavi’s ear. ‘Talk me through it, Decurion, and be assured I will apply the same rules to everything you say that you suggest for your countryman’s skills at misleading his listener.’

  Labeo smiled grimly back at him.

  ‘How very wise of you. And what do I see?’

  He looked at the Batavi battle line for a moment.

  ‘I see the German Bodyguard, looking a little short on their usual numbers it has to be said. I wonder why that might be?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘At their full strength they are five hundred very well trained and very highly motivated men with a grudge the size of a temple column to exercise, shamed and looking for revenge after being dismissed from the emperor’s service. At some point Kivilaz’s going to send them at your men, or quite possibly at mine, but probably not until he’s broken your army, since we both know that cavalry is at its deadliest in the pursuit. Now, what else …’

  He stared at the warriors gathered in rough ranks next to the guardsmen.

  ‘I see the Cananefates, fresh from butchering every soldier and Roman civilian they could find on the eastern side of the Island, wound up like a bolt thrower and ready to come at us like mad dogs. And I see the Batavi militia …’ He stared at his own tribe’s men for a moment. ‘Don’t be deceived by their lack of equipment, they’ve been training under the men of the Bodyguard for the last nine months. They’ll be just as dangerous as the Cananefates, but calmer and more deliberate. Better trained too. So what are your intentions?’

  Aquillius spoke without taking his eyes off the waiting tribesmen.

  ‘My intentions? I intend to kill as many of those barbarians as possible. Indeed, I intend to tear that collection of tribal idiots, snot-nosed youths and tired old men to tatters, and send the survivors home in such a state that every other man, woman and child on this Island of yours will cower in fear at the sight of us. But you were asking how I plan to do that?’

  Labeo nodded, and Aquillius waved a hand at him, as if offering the Batavi the opportunity to comment.

  ‘You tell me, Decurion. After all, you’ve probably seen more combat than almost any other man in this piss-poor pretence at an army.’

  The Batavi officer nodded.

  ‘It’s not a hard one to work out. Our infantry needs to stay exactly where it is, with the Frisians kept in place by the Tungrians to their left and the Ubians on their right. Kivilaz might try some of the usual old tricks, having his men feign a retreat after a short period of fighting to tempt the Ubians or the Tungrians to chase them, so I hope your prefects and first spears were listening when you told them not to be fooled, and to warn their men of the likelihood of such a ruse. My horsemen will be enough to keep the Bodyguard from trying to get at the flanks, because Kivilaz will have given orders not to waste their strength in open combat unless there’s no choice.’

  The Roman shrugged.

  ‘I don’t think they’ll even get to spear-throwing distance. Look behind you and tell me what you see.’

  Labeo turned and stared at the riverbank.

  ‘Warships.’

  ‘How many warships?’

  ‘Twenty-four.’

  ‘Twenty-four. And every one of them is armed with a pair of scorpions. Every scorpion can throw a bolt three hundred paces every time you can count to fifteen, and even at that distance the missile will pierce a shield and kill the man behind it, and sometimes the man behind him, if the first man is unarmoured. While the Batavi are advancing to attack, my sailors will kill at least a hundred of them in the most terrifying manner, spraying their comrades with blood and fragments of bone. Once the battle has begun they’ll pour bolts into the enemy flanks and tear the poor bastards to shreds. And if this famous mounted bodyguard comes forward they’ll focus their shooting on the horses, and then we’ll see how long the bravest and best can stand up to that sort of killing power.’

  ‘I doubt they’ll stand up to that sort of pounding for very long.’

  Labeo’s response was little more than a horrified whisper, and Aquillius turned to look at him with a pitying stare.

  ‘Still harbouring sympathies for your fellow barbarians? If you’re wondering if it’s not too late to change sides again I’ve got some bad news for you.’ He pointed to the closest ships. ‘The crews of those vessels have all got orders that override any other considerations, orders I personally delivered to every captain in the fleet last night. Under those orders, if you or any of your men act against any other unit in this army, they are to commence shooting at your horsemen, and not to stop until you’re out of range or they run out of bolts. I’m taking quite a risk just standing here next to you, knowing how light those boys can be on the trig
ger.’

  Labeo shook his head resignedly.

  ‘They won’t have cause to turn their weapons on us, Centurion. My men and I know which side we’re fighting with, and we won’t be changing sides any time soon. Perhaps when we’ve taken casualties and spilled rebel blood you’ll find it possible to trust us.’

  Aquillius regarded him steadily for a moment.

  ‘Perhaps.’

  River Rhenus, August AD 69

  ‘Cananefates, are you ready?!’

  Brinno raised his hand in response to Kivilaz’s shouted question, and his warriors roared their approval, the men in their loose formation’s front rank capering and waving their spears at the distant Romans, one or two of them waving grisly trophies of their swift and merciless triumphs over the hopelessly outnumbered Frisian soldiers who had attempted to escape the burning forts at Praetorium Agrippina and Matilo, and of the random and brutal acts of slaughter they had inflicted on those Romans unfortunate enough to have been caught on the Island when the fire of their war against the empire had been ignited at Kivilaz’s command. A few of them were clad in armour taken from the corpses of their victims, but most of the auxiliary troops had died in the flames of their forts, first overcome by the smoke as dry wooden walls and roofs went up in flames fuelled by jars of pitch and lit by burning brands, then cooked to charred, log-like corpses with their armour welded to their skin by the incandescent fury of their defences’ immolation.

  ‘Batavi, are you ready?!’

  The militia cohort’s twelve centuries’ response was more disciplined but no less impressive, a succession of three barked cheers at the command of their senior centurion that marked them out as trained soldiers. At the shouted command to make ready they set themselves to advance, a wall of shields held up with their spears gripped underhand, the long blades protruding by a foot or so.

  Hramn nodded approvingly.

  ‘They have learned their lessons well. Will you ask the same question of the men who trained them?’

  His prince smiled slowly.

  ‘The Guard? Your men have been ready for this moment for nine months. They were ready the moment they left Rome.’

  He turned to the trumpeter mounted alongside him.

  ‘Sound the call to advance.’

  At the horn’s mournful note the army stepped forward, the Batavi at a slow, careful pace, each man chanting the paean to help regulate the speed of their progress, the Cananefates at an easy walk, some men running ahead with spears and swords held aloft in threat, while the Bodyguard walked their horses towards the enemy in impeccable formation at their officers’ silent hand signals. Kivilaz rode forward alongside the militia, Hramn beside him, and after a moment the prince addressed a question to his companion, raising his voice to be heard over the soldiers’ chanting.

  ‘What worries you most in their army, Decurion?’

  Hramn answered swiftly.

  ‘In their army? Nothing. Their men of the Frisii will run at the first sight of blood, I’d imagine, and the other auxiliary cohorts are no better trained than our own, even if they are better equipped. And the Guard will keep the traitor horsemen from attacking us, or else tear them apart if they do. No, what really scares me is their naval artillery. We’ve both seen the damage that a legion’s scorpions can do to unarmoured men at this sort of distance.’

  Kivilaz grinned at him, and the younger man narrowed his eyes in question.

  ‘What is it that you’re not telling me, Kivilaz?’

  River Rhenus, August AD 69

  ‘Give the signal.’

  Aquillius gestured curtly to the signifier he had taken from the Tungrian cohort to act as his signaller, and the soldier raised the standard high above his bearskin-covered head and pumped it up and down three times.

  ‘Now we’ll see how well that rabble stands up to artillery, shall we?’

  With a volley of muffled thumps as their slides shot forward, the warships’ bolt throwers discharged their first shots, missiles arcing out across the battlefield to fall in steep trajectories onto the advancing rebels. Shooting at the maximum extent of their range, the majority of the shots fell short, studding the ground before the advancing Batavi with iron-fletched bolts, but more than one missile fell into the oncoming mass of troops, and men staggered and then fell with horrific wounds as the heavy iron arrows ripped through their flimsy wooden shields and sprayed blood across their comrades. Closing their ranks the rebels continued their steady advance, and Aquillius frowned at their apparent composure under the sudden onslaught.

  ‘They should be running forward, not marching, it’s the first rule of crossing ground contested by torsion artillery. Why wouldn’t this man Civilis have ordered them to—’

  Shouting from the river caught his attention, and he turned in his saddle to stare back at the ships moored along the bank to either side of his formation. The usually tidily ordered decks of his warships were suddenly boiling with violent activity, and where a moment before the weapons’ crews had been busy re-tensioning their scorpions for their next shots there was only a chaotic melee, the few uniformed men aboard the closest ships lost in a mass of bodies as more and more of the vessels’ rowers seemingly abandoned their benches and joined the fight. Labeo was the first to speak, pointing in disbelief as a marine centurion aboard the nearest ship ran an oarsman through with his gladius, and was promptly set upon by half a dozen more swinging hand spikes and bailing buckets, falling back in the face of their thrashing assault.

  ‘It’s a mutiny!’

  The centurion stared aghast at the scene for a moment and then shook his head.

  ‘I can’t spare any men, not with an attack imminent! They’ll have to sort it out themselves!’

  Without the threat of the ships’ artillery to deter them the oncoming rebels were closing the distance between them and the Roman line in a slow but inexorable human tide, and Aquillius rose up in his saddle to bellow his orders.

  ‘All cohorts! Ready … spears!’

  His men hefted their shields and raised their iron-shanked spears ready to throw, staring at the advancing Batavi with an evident combination of anticipation and fear. At thirty paces distance, just outside effective spear throw, the rebels halted at their leaders’ command, the militia dressing their ranks while continuing to chant their defiance at the Romans before them. The tribal warriors to their right were howling their own ritual challenges with the exaggerated facial expressions intended to strike fear into the opposing army, something no Roman army in Germania had seen in any man’s memory, other than picturesque demonstrations by allied forces on campaign or at major celebratory parades. Stamping from foot to foot, they stabbed out and then down with their spears, slamming their shields into the turf and then stabbing their long spear blades forward again, all the while howling their war cries as one man, their voices booming low and then soaring high, the threat all too evident even to men who had never seen the ritual performed before. They fell silent, and Aquillius took a look backwards to find the scene on the warships calmer, the fighting apparently having burned itself out, although his hurried glance failed to reveal the mutiny’s outcome beyond the unavoidable fact that bolt throwers that should have been pouring missiles into the enemy were unmanned, their threat negated by the unexpected struggle for control.

  ‘Now comes the barritus.’

  He turned back to Labeo.

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Listen and you’ll understand. Kivilaz will let them do it for a while, I’d imagine, to tempt you to come forward at him. Perhaps I should be with my cohort?’

  Aquillius nodded.

  ‘Perhaps you should.’

  The Batavi officer saluted and turned his horse away, riding back to his men who were standing where they had been ordered to await further instructions, the horsemen still seemingly untroubled by the likelihood of battle against their own people. The situation on the warships seemed to be under control, men wearing the armour and helmets of centurions d
irecting the sailors to throw bodies over the vessels’ side, presumably the detritus resulting from the short-lived mutiny. Taking a breath, he bellowed a command loudly enough to be heard over the growing noise the rebels were making.

  ‘Get those scorpions back into action!’

  More than one of the officers raised a hand in acknowledgement, and Aquillius nodded to himself in satisfaction. Once one or two of them started shooting again the remainder would follow their example quickly enough, and that would soon put Civilis’s forces onto their back feet, caught under a pitiless sleet of iron-tipped bolts that would rip holes in their formation and shatter their morale in the usual way.

  And then the rebels started making a noise unlike anything he’d heard before, a low, muttering susurration of voices, their shields if they had them pulled close to their mouths, cupped hands serving the same purpose if not, the sound slowly swelling as they increased the volume of their chant, until it was all he could do to think with the barritus’s infernal din. They fell silent for a moment, and the Roman readied himself to order his men to throw their spears as the enemy began their advance, only for them to start again, their voices swiftly building to a peak and then dying away again. The chant continued, ebbing and flowing like waves on a beach, and with a moment of insight Aquillius realised that there was a part of him willing the Germans not to stop, because when they did so it would mean the battle’s descent from shouting and posturing to the bloody mayhem he knew was inevitable. Shaking his head angrily, he looked across the ranks of his men, taking stock of their postures and apparent readiness to fight and seeing nothing to trouble him, each cohort’s prefect looking to him for their orders in readiness to do whatever it was that he determined was required.

  ‘Fuck this.’

  The decision was instant, almost instinctive, a sudden moment of realisation that to stand and wait for the Germans to complete their preparations was to hand them an advantage that might be too much for his men’s shaky morale. He took a breath, ready to roar the command that would send his cohorts forward the ten paces required to put them in spear range, ready to shower the unarmoured Batavi with sharp iron and disrupt their leisurely build up to an attack, when the first thumps of the scorpions re-engaging rang out, immediately followed by the screams of men whose bodies had been ruined by the heavy arrows’ impacts. On the verge of making another, equally instant decision not to attack, but to allow the artillery time to soften up the enemy, he started as a man staggered out of the rear of the Ubian cohort in a fine mist of blood, a metal-finned bolt protruding from his armoured back.