Marine 2: A Very Unusual Roman (The Agent of time)

by Tanya Allan

  “Poles? How thick?” I asked.

  He held up his finger and thumb as a circle.

  “Damn! Longbows.”

  “What?”

  “And the slaves?”

  “They were as you said; big young men.”

  I nodded. So, here was the connection, and why the previous agent was killed. Still, I now had the necessary intelligence that could be auctioned. If only I could have got on the ship before it sailed. However, I hadn’t, but even if I had, I’m not sure what I could have done about it. At least they were none the wiser, and believed they were in the clear.

  The answer was to put in place a countermeasure so their weapon would be less than effective.

  “What is this longbow?” Gaius asked.

  “You have archers?”

  “Yes.”

  “How effective are they?”

  “That depends. They need to be quite close, and certainly any man who is not locked in with his shield is vulnerable. Cavalry are particularly open to being hit, but they can cover the distance quickly, so the archers have to be protected by infantry.”

  “But as a strategic asset, how would you rate archers?”

  “Not that high. They need to be mobile to keep in range of the enemy, and if the direction should shift, they’re next to useless.”

  “How about if the bow’s range and power was magnified by a factor of five?”

  “That would be interesting, but I doubt you could produce that.”

  “Then you need to be convinced. Come on,” I said, leading him out of the camp.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To find a Yew tree.”

  “A what?” said a bemused Gaius, as he ran to catch up with me.

  It was easier said than done. There were extensive forests here, but finding a decent Yew tree was hard. But I was successful within the hour. There was a grove of them, and I was able to cut several lengths. Gaius sat on a fallen log at watched me with a frown on his face.

  My boosted mind told me that in the good old days, a skilled bowyer could make a decent bow in a few hours. It took me longer than that.

  In the end, I had a bow that was around the same length as I was high, plus I had cut several arrow shafts that were each around a metre long.

  “What are you doing?”

  “One of the simpler longbow designs is known as the self bow, by definition made from a single piece of wood. Traditional English longbows are self bows made from yew wood. The bow-stave is cut from the radius of the tree so that sapwood (on the outside of the tree) becomes the back and forms about one third of the total thickness; the remaining two thirds or so is heartwood (50/50 is about the maximum sapwood/heartwood ratio generally used). Yew sapwood is good only in tension, while the heartwood is good in compression.”

  “Traditional English? What are you talking about; what is English?”

  “Ah, sorry, foot in mouth again. This weapon was made here, in these islands, but not yet.”

  “Not yet? Just what are you blethering about?”

  “Gaius, listen to me. You wanted to know what I am, well, I’m a...” I struggled to think how I could explain what I really was.

  “Look, didn’t Caesar Augustus found the Cohortes Urbanae in Rome?”

  “What of it?”

  “What is their role?”

  “To keep the peace and prevent crimes. There was a political motive to counter-balance the influence of the Praetorian Guard.”

  “Okay, forget the last bit; well, what I do is like the Urban Cohort. Only my jurisdiction is rather more widespread.”

  “You mean you work for the Emperor?”

  “No; I don’t.”

  “Then, for whom do you work?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  He sat there, regarding me with a slight smile.

  “Try me.”

  “If you could travel anywhere in the world, instantly; where would you go?”

  He said nothing for a moment.

  “Home,” he eventually said.

  “Which is where?”

  “South of Italy, near the smoky mountain – Vesuvius.”

  “Was your family affected by the eruption back, twenty years ago?”

  He frowned.

  “How did you know of this?”

  “Were they?”

  “No, they were too far to the north.”

  “Good, but Pompeii and Herculaneum weren’t so fortunate. They were covered by the pyroclastic flow. Indeed, they won’t be fully discovered for many centuries.”]

  His frown was even deeper.

  “How....?”

  I held up a hand.

  “Right, that’s where you would go, if you could. Now, say you had the ability to go forward and backwards in time. When would you visit, if you could?”

  “When?”

  “Yes, what period in history would you like to see for yourself?”

  “That’s a tricky question; there are so many. I’d like to see what happened to Julius Caesar in the senate that day he was assassinated. I’d also like to see the truth about this Jewish God-man.”

  “Fine, now say you could go back and prevent Julius from being killed. What would it do to the future?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Say you went back, laid in wait and saved Julius Caesar’s life. How different would the future after that moment be?”

  “Ah, I now see what you’re getting at. It would be very different, wouldn’t it?”

  I smiled.

  “I knew you were intelligent. Okay, then let me tell you the truth. As odd as it might sound, I am like one of the Cohortes Urbanae, but my organisation is more the Cohortes Tempore. My job is to travel through time to points of potential danger and prevent any change from happening. For example, if you managed to go back to the time of Julius’ death, then someone like me would be there to stop you illegally altering time. I’m here to prevent something almost as bad from happening.”

  He stared at me with a dead-pan expression.

  “Not a goddess, then?”

  “No.”

  He nodded, frowning slightly.

  “Can you prove this?”

  “Ask me a question.”

  “When does Emperor Trajan die?”

  “He rules for nineteen years.”

  “How does he die?”

  “Edema.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Pooling of the intestinal fluids; often associated with cardiac problems and liver failure.”

  He nodded, looking grave.

  “Who succeeds?”

  “Hadrian.”

  “You’re joking?”

  I shook my head.

  “What happens to the Roman Empire?”

  “Like all empires, it will decline and fall.”

  “When?”

  “Not for a while. Not in your lifetime.”

  He laughed without humour.

  “This is fantastic. You are from the future, or the past?”

  “This body belongs here. It is not possible for the human body to travel through time, but my agency can transfer the mind into a body made in the relevant time period.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  “The future.”

  “How long?”

  “Two thousand years.”

  He laughed again, shaking his head.

  “I think I preferred thinking you to be a goddess.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “So, going back to my previous question; for whom do you work?”

  “I suppose I work for the man in charge of the Cohortes Tempore.”

  “Who’s to say he’s on the right side?”

  “Ah, there are checks and balances. It was explained to me, but I’m afraid even I found it rather complicated.”

  “So, what’s your case here?”

  “You know of Dacia?”

  “I do, it’s at the eastern side of the empire. What abou
t it?”

  “There is an uprising soon. Trajan squashes it, but if these weapons and those trained to use them reach the area in any numbers, the legions will lose and the Dacians will defeat the emperor and sweep towards Rome. This is to be prevented.”

  “This bow is that dangerous?”

  By this time, I had completed one boy. I had affixed the iron heads to some of the shafts, and was putting the flights in place.

  “Do you know any archers?”

  “Not personally, but I’m sure we can find some. How many do you want?”

  “One will do.”

  Three hours later, a bemused single archer reported to Gaius’ tent. I was with him. The man saw me and immediately smirked. No doubt the rumours of my beating the local champion were circulating, but the soldiers were more ready to think of sex.

  “You can shoot that thing?” I asked, nodding at the bow he held in his hand.

  He nodded in that self-assured way a professional considers his own craft.

  “May I see your bow?” I asked.

  The man glanced at Gaius first and then handed it over.

  It was a recurve, composite bow. In other words, it was made from several different raw materials. The Romans used archers as a more mobile force that the English archers. The longbow was too big and cumbersome to be used in such a fashion, but it was more effective from the static positions.

  The main advantage of composite bows over self-bows (made from a single piece of wood) is their combination of smaller size with high power. They are, therefore, more convenient than self bows when the archer is mobile, as from horseback, or from a chariot. Almost all composite bows are also recurve bows as the shape curves away from the archer; this design gives higher draw-weight in the early stages of the archer's draw, storing somewhat more total energy for a given final draw-weight. It would be possible to make a wooden bow that has the same shape, length and draw-weight as a traditional composite bow, but it could not store the energy, and would break before full draw.

  The disadvantages of the composite bows were simple. Constructing composite bows requires much more time and a greater variety of materials than self-bows, and the animal glue used can lose strength in humid conditions and be quickly ruined by submersion or rain; the 6th-century Byzantine military manual, the Strategikon, advised the cavalry of the Byzantine army, many of whom were armed with composite bows, to keep their bows in leather cases to keep them dry. Crafting a composite bow may take a week's work, excluding drying time (months) and gathering materials, while a self bow can be made in a day and dried in a week. Peoples living in humid or rainy regions historically have favoured self-bows, while those living in dry or arid regions have favoured composite bows.

  “Okay, let’s see how good you are,” I said, picking up my newly strung bow and a handful of arrows.

  We left the camp and went to an open meadow. One of the legionaries came as I had requested. He was wearing full armour and was carrying his shield.

  I stopped the legionary and told him to wait, and then we walked past him and continued.

  “When you are at the extent of your range stop and face that man,” I told the archer.

  He looked towards the lone legionary and nodded. We kept walking for perhaps two hundred metres.

  He stopped, gauging the distance.

  “Here?” I asked.

  He tested the wind.

  “Yes, no further.”

  I waved at the legionary. He wedged his shield into the ground, bracing it with his pilum behind it. He placed his helmet on top, and retreated to the left for a good twenty paces.

  “Give it your best shot,” I said.

  To give him his due, he was good. The arrow hit the shield in the centre toward the top. The shield wobbled but remained standing. The arrow penetrated perhaps one inch.

  “Again!” I said.

  The next shot was accurate, but bounced off a strengthened boss on the shield.

  Gaius looked at me.

  “What’s wrong with that?” he asked.

  “Come,” I said to the archer.

  Together we marched back another two hundred paces.

  The shield looked tiny from here.

  “Care to try again?” I said.

  “No point. I know I can’t.”

  “Go on; just give it your best shot.”

  He tried, with four arrows. Each was short by a good twenty or thirty paces, embedding themselves in the ground.

  I raised my longbow up with an arrow notched. I’d practised around eighty shots, so my arms were tired, but I knew what this bow was capable of.

  I launched one arrow, and had already loosed the second before the first hit the shield.

  The first arrow penetrated the shield, to almost half its length, to be followed by the second two inches lower. The shield fell backwards with the force. Had a man been holding that shield, he would now be mortally wounded.

  Both men looked in wonder at my bow, as it looked as insignificant as anything. The legionary was examining his damaged shield in the distance.

  “I’m no archer,” I said. “Think what damage this could do to the legions if in the hands of experts.”

  Gaius paid both men and then we made our way back to the camp.

  “This bow is unfinished, as it has to dry, so in the wrong hands, a few hundred of these would decimate the legions before they could get within range to strike even one blow.”

  “What can we do about it?”

  “We have to get to Rome, and onto Trajan’s staff. He will be heading out to Dacia within a few months, so time is of the essence.”

  “Why didn’t you just arrive in Dacia and stop them there?”

  “It’s complicated. One of our agents had traced the origins of the bows and the people who would be using them, but then was killed. The enemy is aware and constantly looking out for people such as me.”

  “It’s all beyond me,” he said, shaking his head. “Do you want to train your own archers?”

  “No point. What we need is an effective counter measure in case we can’t stop them soon enough.”

  “What kind of counter-measure?”

  “I’m not sure, but something to make those bloody arrows less effective against the legionaries.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Well, we had a war, some way before I was born, in which most of the nations in the world were involved in one way or another. They called it the First World War. We had generals on both sides that had started out with infantry and cavalry. Although they had progressed beyond swords and spears, and even arrows, the weapons they carried were basic by our standards, yet the generals persisted in utilising strategies and tactics that had not moved with the technology of weapons. As a result, hundreds of thousands of men were mown down and killed because of the stupidity of generals who could not think outside the box.

  “Lines of men walked in lines abreast against an enemy who were dug in with weapons that could pick them off one by one. No attempt was made to camouflage or conceal the advancing soldiers, or protect them from enemy fire. Your generals will operate in the same way. Lines of legionaries armed with the standard swords, shields and pila will face hundreds of men able to cut them down at four hundred paces.

  “How would you change your tactics to deal with a weapon such as this?” I asked, genuinely interested in how his mind would work.

  “I’d change the mode of attack. As I see it, archers with longbows like yours can mainly operate from static positions against targets that are in the open. To thwart them, one must break into small, highly mobile units, utilising natural cover and better shielding. Also, these archers are poorly armed, so a direct attack from an unexpected quarter would render them impotent against armed men at close quarters.”

  “I agree, but remember, shields are bulky and make one an obvious target. But how about this; you have chariots, yes?”

  “Yes, so?”

  “Describe a chariot to me.”
>
  “It’s a two-wheeled platform with a driver and an archer or javelin thrower pulled by two to four horses.”

  “Why pull them?”

  “What?”

  “Why not push the platform?”

  “Why?”

  “Several reasons. One, horses get scared easily, so if they are behind the platform, so then they can’t see the enemy. Also, instead of an open platform, on which both men are vulnerable, enclose it like a box, with slits from which the archer can fire without being vulnerable. Attach big blades to the front and the wheel hubs to prevent enemy infantry getting too close, and protect the horses with chain mail. They don’t have to be swift, but they can shield the infantry advancing behind them from the archers.”

  “They’d be no good in terrain such as we fought up north; too many trees and wetlands.”

  “Agreed, but that’s just one idea. I’m sure we can think of many more.”

  “Thinking of them is all very well, but our generals are like yours, stuck in the past and unable to see past the end of their noses.”

  “All of them?”

  “No, Trajan wasn’t. But he’s an Emperor now, so no doubt his brain has become befuddled with political crap by now.”

  “Then we need to persuade his golden boy Gallinas and get close enough to him to persuade him of the best things to do.”

  “Which we haven’t thought of yet,” Gaius said with a smile.

  “We’ve got to persuade Tribune Gallinas first.”

  “How?”

  “We have less than a hundred women, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we start with them. We train them as a specialist team to face archers. Do you know the kind of terrain we would face in Dacia?”

  “No, I thought you knew everything?”

  “Hmm, I know a lot, but not everything. Come on, we need to start designing stuff. Fortunately, it’s a long way to Rome.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Where London was disappointing, Ancient Rome was spectacular. Built amid the seven hills, it was a true marvel, and one I was so pleased to have seen.

  I’d never travelled to modern Rome, so had only the memories of photographs and movies to go from. One can fully understand how the Roman managed to conquer the known world if their architecture and organisation skills were anything to go by.