Arthur Britannicus

by Paul Bannister

  A rabble of tattooed and painted savages was not what was waiting for the landing party. Before the port of Lympne came in sight the Romans saw the gleam of metal and heard the blare of brass trumpets. As if they were rising out of the ground, a broad line of leather-helmeted, shield-bearing troops tramped towards them, up a small rise. They rose into sight, revealed as not one rank, but five, and not one file, but 40. Then another phalanx of similar size and order came over the brow of another green hill to the Romans’ right.

  Heslus was no coward, but he felt a frisson of fear at the nape of his neck. He knew his soldiers were experienced, but they had never met troops trained and disciplined in the Roman way. The irony didn’t escape him. His soldiers were going to face foreign troops who used Roman tactics, and did it better. The British colonials were more Roman than his own men. He knew he was viewing Nemesis, the fate that had been ordained for him at birth, and he knew that the spinners who created the thread of his life were about to snip it short.

  Coolly, suppressing panic with an almost physical effort, he began issuing orders. The Romans halted, shuffled into close order, dropped their marching packs and stepped forward into line of battle. Heslus looked through the driving rain for any scrap of terrain that might give advantage. At the moment, the numbers were about even, but he knew the Britons would be bringing up more troops. He’d be fighting a defensive battle until Constantius could arrive, and he was probably going to be more than four hours away, as he would have had to contend for longer with the Channel storm. Minerva herself only knew where he’d come ashore.

  Heslus scanned the landscape. To the Romans’ left was a small wooded ravine. At 300 paces distant, it might be attainable, and it could provide some flank protection for his formation. The tribune turned his men towards it. The oncoming Britons tramped forward, knocking shields together and overlapping the edge of the shield of the next soldier. He would protect his comrade’s side with his shield and be protected in turn by his neighbour. All the while the two British phalanxes were heading steadily towards the invaders in a pincer that would fatally squeeze the Roman ranks.

  “Third Gallica!” the tribune’s voice was a bellow as he addressed the invaders. “Stay steady, pay attention to your centurions. We will hold this British rabble here until the general brings us more force, then we’ll cut them down and continue on our way. It will be just a short wait. You’ll have a healthy night in the open air instead of in some fleapit tavern with poxed-up whores!” Heslus heard not even a single snigger at his joke. The men, he realized, were frightened. This was outside their experience. For most, it was a view of their first and maybe of their last war hedge brought against them by enemies, and the two moving ramparts of elm, leather and bronze were closing from opposite sides. A spatter of arrows came from the Romans’ left, and the shuffling legionaries slung their big shields on that side, for protection. Stay steady, Heslus thought, the ravine and wood is only another 100 paces or so. He was looking to his right, assessing how much time before the first of those Britons would be in bowshot and he could expect to be under real fire.

  Ahead of him, without warning, the trees seemed to flicker in the rain and their leaves trembled. Half of his first rank, still stepping out towards the cover of the trees, were thrown back by an unseen hand, a slashing storm; arrows. Men were on their knees, choking and gasping in bloody gouts. Others were tugging at arrow shafts that protruded from their thighs, necks and bellies. They had been marching with shields slung on their left, a cover against missiles from the closer British formation that menaced them there, and they had walked into a concealed battery of enemy archers. A second volley smashed into the struggling column, then the archers were stepping out of the fringe of the trees and nocking for another salvo of triple-bladed death.

  Heslus’ mind reeled at the suddenness of the action. Minutes before, he was marching in an empty land, now, he was beset on three sides and he knew his force was doomed. Better go down fighting. The testudo, he thought; form the armoured turtle of shields above and around his panicked column that would let it survive the arrow storm. He opened his mouth to bellow the command; it never came. An arrow smashed through his front teeth and tongue and into the roof of his mouth. Heslus, scion of a patrician family that claimed descent from Gaius Julius himself, expensively educated and beautifully mannered, died choking on a piece of smelted iron fastened to an arm’s length of poplar. Worse, he died knowing failure, unable to form up his men.

  His last thoughts were of his duty. As his life flowed away, his dying mind told him his voice could have saved his command from the irresistible oncoming shield walls. He registered the first screams at the impacts of the battering bronze shield bosses that struck down the fragmenting ranks of Romans, and sank into oblivion before he could feel the impacts of the down-stabbing spears and swords that hacked into his unflinching body.

  In the castle at Dover, Carausius heard the horseman’s report. He himself would speak to the handful of prisoners salvaged from the bloodied wreck of the Roman landing party, to see what he could learn of Maximian’s plans and troop dispositions. This was obviously a probing party, or was it? Surely, Maximian wasn’t mad enough to try a beach landing in these conditions? The Romans were heading towards Lympne, maybe that was their idea, but with so few troops? Well, the coastline was alerted, the beacons saw to that, and he could only await reports as his response troops were moving into position. There would be more, and soon, he knew. Maximian would not come unless he came with overwhelming force. Even with Carausius’ best preparations, the Romans would be almost unstoppable. He thought bitterly of the disciplined skills with which 10,000 legionaries of the XIV Gemini, outnumbered twenty to one, had destroyed the rebel Boadicea’s wild British warriors. He stirred uneasily. He was relying on a surprise weapon from the old queen’s day. Would it work? Or would he witness his own troops being butchered, as were hers? Carausius physically shook himself like a dog shedding water. He had military problems to face, and pessimism and superstition were timewasting luxuries.

  Where were the Romans coming ashore? It was vital he knew, to concentrate his reserves and catch them as they came onto the beach, before they gained a decent foothold. He turned to the sorceress Guinevia, who had been recording orders for the garrisons in London and Eboracum. “What do you think Maximian is doing?” he asked, frustrated. She stared at him oddly, and a small vapour cloud formed unnoticed above their heads. Suddenly, clairvoyantly, it was all outlined in his mind, so sharp and detailed that it was palpably the truth; he knew. He was absolutely certain that he knew the future. The Romans intended first to seize the lesser port of Lympne, to use it to disembark an initial landing of the first waves of troops. With that established beach head, they’d march overland on a broad front to Dover, sweeping aside the thin screen of cavalry that would oppose them, to surprise and destroy his fleet in harbour. That accomplished, they could use the port’s facilities and the river wharfs for the swift disembarkations of more and more troops, with a quick turnaround of the invasion vessels to ferry more reinforcements from Bononia. With Dover in their hands, they would establish an unassailable strongpoint from which they could crush the Britons at leisure.

  Those unexpected squalls had saved him as they deflected that first landing party from its target. That means, Carausius reasoned as he enjoyed the psychic clarity induced by the sorceress, that they’d been swept just a critical little way off course, down the strait. Everything was clear to him and his years of sailing the strait caused him to flash on the thoughts: ‘Chances are they wouldn’t try to weather Dungeness with all that offshore rip and the turbulence of the undersea ridge there. They’d have opted to run ashore where they could. Chances also are they’d have planned to arrive in two or more waves because Lympne isn’t big enough to handle them all at once.’ If the weather abates, he thought, and his experience in these waters told him that it soon would, they’d be able to get everyone ashore on the shingle beaches on the east side of
Dungeness.

  He was as certain as he breathed that Maximian would do that. “He won’t want to split his forces and risk having us destroy them one piece at a time,” Carausius murmured. He calmed his racing thoughts. He should expect that the Romans were about to land the first part of their force, probably in the big bay east of Dungeness. They would not dare to land the second part in darkness. Anyway, the tide would be wrong for that. It was clear to him: the first troops would hack their way ashore to establish a beach head, the second would have to wait, or stand out to sea and come ashore on the beach on the next tide, in daylight tomorrow. That should give them enough legionaries to grab Lympne despite the troops the Britons could scramble together at short notice, and then the Romans could land their heavy stuff like the artillery and siege equipment, plus livestock like the cavalry horses and transport mules at a proper harbour.

  It was all clear to Carausius, and equally clear to him was what he could do to stop the invaders. He turned to the flame-haired Welsh earl Cuneglasus, a fine warrior who had earned his kingdom of Powys with his own strong sword arm and command of his wild chariot squadrons. “Use your influence with these prickly princelings,” he told him. “Get the jarls and barons in here, as many of them as you can round up, as quickly as you can. I want a gathering within the hour. Don’t let them waste time squabbling about who defers to whom, or who sits where, and send messengers to get word out to the others up the coast. Send for the prefects and tribunes, too. Every officer here, half an hour.” His eye fell on Guinevia and he thought of their small son, who was presumably in his wicker crib with an attendant nurse. ‘Take Milo away from the coast. It won’t be safe here. Be ready to travel.” Guinevia smiled gently and shook her head. “We shall be safe,” she said calmly. “And, Caros, my place is with you.” Already though, Carausius was not listening. His mind was churning with the situation at hand since he had seen the future so clearly. He turned to a tribune. “Get the fleet on full readiness, prepare the log booms to block the harbour here and across the Thames river, but don’t put them in place until we know they’re definitely coming. We’ll deny them Dover and Londinium with just a few big trees in the right place and a few hundred men on the shore. But first, get a boom in place at Lympne, too. I want that port shut down, now. Don’t wait until you see the enemy, implement that order at once. And you,” he gestured at his cavalry commander, “stay with me. I have something urgent for you.”

  XXXIII. Lympne

  Constantius Chlorus, meanwhile, was waist-deep in surging surf. The first wave of troopships was grinding ashore on a desolate bank of shingle that was barely east of a low promontory. That projection stuck out into the narrows and seemed to have created some truly foul currents and violent wave action out there. Good thing they’d not had to sail through that, he thought. The shipmasters had been obviously alarmed at the sight and had vehemently warned him against trying. They’d turned for the shore and run up the shingle, but the general’s own ship had grounded short of the shore on an outer bank and he and his troops had to wade ashore through deeper water. He was losing his footing and, armoured as he was, in serious danger when an attentive ensign caught Chlorus by the tie cords of his crimson officer’s cloak and half-dragged him to the shallows. Damned saltwater, everything will chafe and itch for days, the general thought. He struggled up the shingly beach and took the tribune’s salute crossly, two red spots marking his pale face.

  “We’ve sent scouts out already, lord,” said the officer. “We seem to be at the arse end of nowhere. That way, north, is what looks like a big marsh, but this shingle seems to go northeast and inland. It’s good footing, which could allow us to make decent progress once we get everyone landed.” The general frowned.

  “Get on with it,” he snapped. “Get everyone ashore, it’ll take hours. Set up for the night. We’re here until dawn anyway; we’re not going stumbling off into a bog.” He gave his cloak to his servant. “Get that thing dried out, and get me another one,” he ordered. “I’m soaked.”

  Even in the soft half-light of a summer’s dusk, the British cavalry troop sent from Dover did not make an impressive sight. The ponies, shaggy moorland creatures, were so small their riders’ dangling feet almost touched the ground, and behind each saddle was slung a pair of big nets untidily stuffed with forage, all of it adding to an unmilitary appearance. The riders themselves wore an assortment of armour and equipment: leather helmets with a stitched ridge, leather-reinforced trews to protect their thighs from chafing on the sheepskin horse blankets that covered their steeds’ backs, small round targs as shields and breastplates of boiled leather. The most military things about them were the long lances they carried, but the overall effect was hardly parade order, as each rider led two or three mules. Those beasts of burden were loaded with leather bags full of some metallic cargo that clinked occasionally as the animals trotted.

  Their appearance may have been unimpressive, but the cavalry was highly trained and efficient, and their commander had taken careful note of his emperor’s orders, which were to locate but not engage the enemy, to remain unseen if possible, to scout the ground for a specified set of conditions and to dispose of the contents of the leather sacks in a particular manner.

  The commander, a diligent man, saw to it that his equestrians carried out those orders scrupulously, discreetly and well. His silent scouts, their accoutrements tied with scraps of linen to prevent metal clashing on metal, went unobserved as they spotted the Romans encamped on the shingle, where they were readying for the next morning’s arrival of more troops. They reported the sighting, the cavalry commander issued some quiet directions, and he and his squadron did what they were ordered to do without being detected. The entire squadron faded away into the darkness after making certain identifying marks with small cairns of piled rocks on the shoreline.

  High tide came just before first light, and Maximian ordered his two fleets launched from the coast of Gaul for Lympne, trusting that the port had been seized by now. The first fleet, under Maximian’s own command, set out from Itius Portus. The larger ships left the harbour in a steady procession and the smaller troop barges were manhandled down the shelving sandy beach into the now-calming waves. As the emperor sailed, he sent couriers south to inform his admirals. They and the larger transports from Bononia would carry the cavalry and heavier gear like the siege equipment, nail kegs, bridge-building materials and catapults. They’d delay their departures to allow Maximian time to disembark his troops and clear the harbour to receive the cavalry and heavy gear, for they too were headed for Lympne.

  Maximian was barely clear of the shore when the bireme was sighted. “Finally,” he grumbled to an aide. “Where has that bloody messenger been?” Shortly, the oared vessel pulled close alongside and the courier from Constantius made his report. The fleet had been blown off course and landed about ten miles down the coast from Lympne. The courier ship had spent the night battling wind and tide to bring the news, and the messenger did not know if the port had been seized. Perhaps the other bireme courier ship would have more news, lord. Maximian tugged at his beard. “We may well not have the port,” he told his officers. “We’ll go there first to investigate. Send a couple of ships northwest to contact Constantius and find out his situation. It may be we’ll have to land these troops on the beach and march back to Lympne to seize the place. It’s a nuisance, but it can be done.”

  He sent the bireme back into Bononia to apprise his officers there of the change. The cavalry and the siege train would have to follow later than planned. He’d get word to them when to leave, but it might mean the delay of a day or so. He shrugged. He could cope without the cavalry and there would be no call yet for siege engines. As he turned to watch the messengers depart, a plume of smoke caught his eye. He looked at the headland of Gris Nez, where an obvious signal fire was blazing, and swore. Eastwards, beyond the headland another and then another matching blaze and attendant smoke plume answered. Westwards, three more signals told the Brit
ish across the narrows that the Roman fleet was on the water.

  The heavy boom of tree trunks chained end to end was stretched across the mouth of the harbour at Lympne and the Britons had fortified the breakwater with ballistae and archers against any possible landing to remove it. In the Thames at Tilbury, grunting sailors were grumbling at Car the Bear’s demands as they hauled another floating barrier of chained logs to where it could be deployed across the river in the matter of a quarter hour. The long line of signal towers stretched along the banks of the estuary would give plenty of warning of the Romans’ approach. At Dover, the British fleet was putting out into the Narrow Sea and a troop of marines was already floating the port’s vast boom into place as the last of the flotilla moved towards the strait. Britain was closing its sea gates, and the wooden walls of its defences were being sailed out to meet the invaders.