'Plenty of time,' said Ballista reassuringly. He looked across the ever-diminishing no-man's-land. The steel visors and the mail hangings that covered all the face below the eyes made the clibanarii appear entirely inhuman.
Demetrius tried again. He got half up and stuck, wriggling. Then he started to slip again. 'Try again,' said Ballista. The clibanarii were close now. The northerner was struck by the cold, hard beauty of one steel visor which was sculpted like a human face. It reminded him of the horseman in the alley at Antioch. Here was a whole army of horsemen that wanted to kill him.
In a flurry of hooves and kicked-up dust, Maximus reined in. With typical economy of movement, he swung his right leg over his horse's neck and dropped to the ground like a cat. Gripping him by the scruff of the neck and his belt, he threw the Greek boy up into the saddle. In the twinkling of an eye, Maximus had remounted his own horse as it started to run. A heartbeat later all three were on their way.
They squeezed through the small gap in the line of legionaries and pulled up. Their horses stood, flanks heaving. They heard the big red shields of Legio IIII Scythica slam together. They heard the levelling of the spears of the legionaries. No cavalry on earth would charge into a formed line of close-order infantry. They were safe.
XI
Maximus stepped out of the dark shadow of the tent. The moon was big and bright — but often it is easy to follow a man without him being aware of it. A lot depends on the environment. An army camp is a good place: rows of tents, horse lines, piles of forage; at any hour, men wandering, some of them drunk. More depends on the followed man not thinking about being followed.
They were down near the river by now. The baggage boats, moored three deep, clanked together as the current tugged at them. Up ahead at the palisade, Maximus heard a sentry call the watchword — disciplina — then came the response — gloria. He waited for a short time, then followed. The call, disciplina; the response, gloria; and he was outside.
Outside, it was all different. Quiet and empty. The great plain ran away moon-washed and open for two or three miles until it met the twinkling lights of the Persian campfires. To Maximus' right was the river, its waters black and oily. Along the riverbank the undergrowth had been cut back for about fifty paces from the palisade. After that was a stand of trees, poplars with reeds fringing the waterline. The bright moonlight made the shadow under the trees very black.
Maximus walked quietly to the trees. He stopped just inside the gloom, letting his eyes adjust. He stilled his breathing. At first it was very quiet, but then he started to hear the normal night noises, the rustles and squeaks that marked the life and death of some small animals. Slowly, watching where he put his feet, watching for signs of the man, he moved deeper into the wood. He had gone no distance when he saw him — down by the water, motionless, sitting with his back to the trunk of a tree. Stepping ever so softly, Maximus began to circle around him, to put himself between the Sassanid camp and the man.
'Stop prancing about and come and sit down,' said Ballista.
Maximus jumped slightly then looked all around once, very carefully, and did as he was asked. He felt more than slightly foolish.
They sat in silence for a time, seeing the river flow past, hearing the whispering of the reeds.
'I have been thinking, sure, what would be sending the renowned Dux Ripae wandering alone in the dead of the night?' Maximus kept his eyes on the river. 'Certain, it would be another nocturnal visitation by the late and completely unlamented emperor Gaius Iulius Verus Maximinus Thrax.'
Maximus watched his dominus and friend stifle a move to look around, to check that no one was listening. Apart from Ballista, only three people — his wife Julia, his body servant Calgacus, and Maximus himself — knew that from time to time the Dux Ripae suffered the terrifying appearance in his sleeping quarters of the long-dead emperor known and hated as Maximinus the Thracian — the emperor who died long ago because a sixteen-year-old Ballista, having taken the sacramentum, the military oath to protect him, had instead assassinated him in his tent.
'No, thank the gods below, I have not seen that big bastard since the night before the fall of Arete.'
They sat quiet again. Maximus was sure his friend was thinking back to that summer day all those years ago before the walls of Aquileia, thinking about the mutineers falling on the dead emperor, desecrating the corpse, denying it burial so that the daemon of Maximinus Thrax was condemned to walk the earth for ever in eternal misery, to walk the earth haunting the man who had killed him. Wordlessly, the Hibernian took a piece of air-dried beef from a pouch on his belt and passed it over. Ballista took it and began to chew.
'It could have gone worse yesterday.' Maximus received no reply, but continued anyway. 'Admittedly, your man Glabrio got about fifty of his own men killed and your Equites Singulares lost nearly as many rescuing the stupid bastard, but it could have been a lot worse. And it is good that Niger's wound is not serious — your young aristocrat might not have been able to even start his foolishness if the very first arrow had not taken the commander of Equites I Parthi in the arm.' He passed over some more dried beef and smiled. 'It was a fine stroke ordering officers to give up their spare horses to remount those troopers who had been dismounted — fine indeed.'
'Mmm,' grunted Ballista.
'And our young patrician has behaved well enough today. All day the reptiles were at it — galloping up like madmen, letting fly a few arrows, and running off again, and never a move from our handsome young nobleman.'
'Do you think he hired the assassin?' Ballista asked.
'Ah, but I doubt it. More likely would be one of the Macrianus boys, or even those Borani, who think so highly of you.' Actually, Maximus thought it quite probably was Acilius Glabrio but, like many in the army, he mistrusted what would happen if things came to a head between the big northerner and the Roman aristocrat.
They sat in silence some more. The smell of mud and decaying reeds was strong down by the water.
At length it was Maximus who spoke again. 'The letters — it must be something in the letters that is preying on your mind.' Early that afternoon, just as the army had begun to erect its marching camp, a small despatch boat had pulled in from Zeugma in the north. There had been no letters for Maximus, there never were — the few who might have wanted to send word to him could not write. With no pang of jealousy, the Hibernian had watched Ballista take charge of two bundles of post, one sealed with an eagle in imperial purple, the other with an Eros winding a piece of artillery.
'No,' replied Ballista. 'I have no objection to carrying out the instructions of Valerian Augustus, Pius, Felix, Pontifex Maximus, and ordering everyone in the army to sacrifice to the natural gods.' He held up a hand and cut off Maximus before he could speak. 'Of course,' continued Ballista, 'it is aimed at the Christians. Anyone who will not sacrifice is to be sent off to some unpleasant designated place of internal exile, and if when there they continue to hold assemblies or enter the places known as cemeteries, they are to be executed. Now who except the followers of the crucified god call a necropolis a cemetery?'
'That is not what I meant. I was…' Again Maximus was cut off.
'I doubt we have many Christians with us here in the army. What little I know about them suggests that military life would not be to their taste. Worshipping the standards every morning and all the other official sacrifices, to Queen Juno a cow, to the Divine Hadrian an Ox and all that — I believe a hard-line Christian could not be persuaded to do any of it. And there is the pacifism — their god has told them never to kill.'
'Bollocks, that cannot be true.'
'Well, I listened to one of them in Antioch — he was holding forth in that street known as the Jawbone, they seem to be thick as flies round there — and that seemed to be what he was on about, Thou shalt not kill.'
'Thou shalt not kill, my arse. That is a recipe for a religion with no future.' Maximus was glad Ballista was talking, even if quite deliberately avoiding what was both
ering him.
'Even so, I think I will delay implementing the order until it is over with the Sassanid reptiles, one way or another. You never know, if directly ordered to sacrifice to the natural gods, some closet Christian soldiers might suddenly rediscover their principles. Have you noticed how it is with men who are given to bothering the gods — their principles come and go? And what about the arrogance of the bloody Romans? Their gods are just the natural ones.'
'It has to be said, they are a lot closer to the sort of gods you and I worshipped when we were young, a bloody sight closer than a criminal on a cross,' said Maximus.
'Well, Woden the Allfather did let himself hang on a tree in agony for nine days.'
'Actually, I was really talking about the other letter. The one from your wife.'
Ballista grinned, his teeth white in the gloom, but said nothing.
'Everything all right at home? The boy is all right?'
'Isangrim is fine.'
'And the domina?'
'She is fine too.'
'Gods below, man, you are not thinking there is another man's mule kicking in your stall?'
Ballista laughed quietly. 'A lovely turn of phrase, but no, it is not what I was thinking.'
For a time they sat in silence again, now a more companionable, a somewhat happier silence.
It was Ballista who spoke first this time. 'It is nothing specific. I suppose I just miss them. But then, when I start missing them, wanting to be with them, I start worrying where it is I want to be with them — in the villa in Sicily or back north in the halls of my people.'
'I do not pretend to understand. You have a marble home on a beautiful island under the southern sun, and you want to go back to living in a glorified mud hut in a bleak northern forest.' Maximus shook his head in mock sadness. 'The world is full of girls and women, all shapes and sizes, almost all of them willing, some ever so grateful, and the few reluctant ones just needing to be shown what they are missing, and you stick to just the one.'
From somewhere Maximus produced a flask. He drank and passed it over.
'It is not natural, and it is not good for you. But you will probably have the better time than me.'
Ballista, drinking, made a doubting noise.
'What do I have? Apart from the fighting, just the two things. One makes me feel like dying in the mornings and the other is finished in a quarter of an hour.'
Ballista laughed. 'A quarter of an hour?'
'I have got better.'
Both men laughed. Ballista passed the flask back and said they had better get some sleep. They got to their feet and walked back under the big moon. Already, as the army snaked out of camp, Ballista could sense the coming heat of the day. Today would decide things one way or another. Ballista's mission was to raise the Sassanid siege of Circesium. Today, barring disaster, Ballista would reach Circesium. If he entered the town, the Sassanids would go away. Yet that was not enough. As soon as Ballista and his army left, the Sassanids would return and place Circesium under siege again. He had to defeat the easterners in battle. But it was difficult for an infantry-based army such as Ballista's to force a cavalry horde into battle. He had to trap them in unfavourable terrain. The only place where that might happen was before the walls of Circesium itself. The town was sited on a promontory at the junction of the Euphrates and a river called the Chaboras. The Euphrates ran north-west to south-east. The Chaboras flowed into it from the north-east. With his rear protected by the Euphrates and his right resting on the outskirts of Circesium; one all-or-nothing charge might catch the Persian cavalry in the narrow triangle of land leading up to the banks of the Chaboras.
Everything depended on timing and disciplina. Charge too soon and all the Sassanids would escape, galloping away to the north-east. If Ballista's men did not all charge as one, most of the Sassanids would escape, streaming away through the gaps between the Roman units. One united all-or-nothing charge before the walls of Circesium.
It was the best that Ballista could come up with, but he knew it was not much of a plan. And for it to have any chance of working, the army had to reach Circesium in one piece. Any break in the line, any premature charge, would be fatal. And the line was painfully thin. After the near-disaster with Acilius Glabrio, he had reinforced both the front and rear of his column with five hundred legionaries of Legio IIII Scythica. It had left only a thousand legionaries of Legio III Felix guarding the left flank. And the line was becoming ever thinner. Casualties had mounted steadily.
It was the fifteenth day of March, the ides. How could any country be so hot in the springtime? He looked at the sky. There was no breeze down on the plain but, up there, high up there, clouds moved away to the north. He watched them retreating. Big, heavy clouds, full of rain. They could have made all the difference today: a sudden downpour dampening the bowstrings of the Persians, forcing them to give up their hit-and-run tactics and fight with spear and sword at close quarters, forcing them into his hands. He had prayed to the high god of his people — Allfather, Grey Beard, Wand-Bearer, Fulfiller of Desire. Woden-born though he was, the Allfather had ignored him. The rainclouds had swept on to the north. Behind them, the sky was an empty blue. Ballista shrugged. What could one expect of a god who started wars just because the fever was in his blood and he was bored?
A roll of drums brought Ballista's attention back to earth. The Sassanids were confident. Last night, for the first time, they had encamped barely a mile away. This morning, they had been up and about earlier than usual. While the dew still held the sand together, before the choking clouds of dust rose, they had come up from the south, spread out like a triumphal procession. The great line of clibanarii had taken station out in the desert to the east, spear tips flashing, standards glinting in the rising sun. Ballista had estimated the line about a thousand riders long and at least two deep: at least two thousand clibanarii. As was their way, the light horse archers had swooped and circled across the plain. It made their numbers hard to judge — maybe somewhere between five and ten thousand, maybe more. An army of between seven and twelve thousand riders, maybe more, maybe a lot more. It made little odds. Ballista had to bring them to battle today, had to get them to close quarters in the confined space before Circesium, and then sow panic in their ranks.
So far there was no sign that Pan or any other god had put fear in the hearts of the Sassanids. They looked and sounded confident. The horse archers had swept around the Roman army, enclosing it on every side except the west, where the river ran. Not far out of slingshot, they taunted the Romans, caracoling their horses, calling out insults. Now and then an individual would spur forward yelling a challenge. When no one stepped out to take it up, the Sassanid would make his mount rear, spin it round on its hind legs, and vanish back into the seething mass of horsemen.
The noise of the easterners rose up like a wall around the Roman marching column — drums, trumpets, cymbals, the yells of men and the neighing of horses. Some lines of Homer drifted into Ballista's mind. The Trojans came with cries and the din of war like wildfowl When the hoarse cries of cranes sweep on against the sky. As Ballista had ordered, the Romans trudged on in silence. It was not that he dismissed the value of noise. Only a fool who had not stood in hot battle would do that. Often you could judge the outcome before a weapon was cast by the volume and quality of the shouting. But his men were outnumbered. There was no point in getting into a contest you could not win. Sometimes an ominous, disciplined silence can also unsettle and demoralize.
… Achaea's armies Came on strong in silence, breathing combat-fury, Hearts ablaze to defend each other to the death. Ballista's mouth was dry, gritty. He took the water flask that hung on a horn of his saddle, unstoppered it, rinsed his mouth, spat then drank. He replaced the flask and, without conscious thought, ran through his pre-battle ritual: pull the dagger on his right hip half out of its scabbard and snap it back, do the same with the sword hanging on his left, finally touch the healing stone tied to scabbard of the sword.
&nbs
p; The dust was rising high and straight in the still morning air, hiding the clibanarii. But they were there, somewhere beyond the horse archers, waiting for their chance, waiting for the moment of disorder, the gap in the line, the ill-considered charge. The noise of the light cavalry was swelling to a crescendo.
'Steady, boys, here they come.'
A high, ululating cry echoed through the Persian ranks. Allfather, they sounded confident. As one, the horse archers kicked their boots into the flanks of their mounts. They gathered pace quickly, eager to cross the short killing ground where the Roman slings and foot bows outranged them. Ballista heard Roman trumpets sound. Slings whirred, bows twanged. Some Persians went down, but the vast majority raced on at a breakneck gallop. At little more than a hundred paces, they drew and released. Eastern arrows sliced into the Roman column. The sounds of the incoming missiles echoed all around Ballista. Arrows thudded into the hard-packed ground, thumped into wooden shields, clanged off metal armour, and here and there came the awful knife-into-cabbage sound of metal penetrating flesh. Men were screaming. Ballista jerked his head back as an arrow flashed by his face. At about twenty paces, the Sassanids spun round and raced away, still plying their bows over their horses' quarters.
In moments they were gone out of range. They left a few crumpled bodies, their dark blood staining their bright clothes, draining away into the sand. Ballista watched a horse struggle to its feet. One of its front legs broken, it limped after the Persians. He looked around the Roman column. It was responding well. The legionaries were closing ranks. The light infantry ran around gathering spent missiles. Camp followers helped the wounded to the baggage train. The dead were left where they had fallen. If they were lucky, their contubernales, their mess-mates, would put a coin in their mouths, close their eyes, sprinkle a little soil on them. It was not what one would hope for, but it was better than nothing.
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