Battle for Rome

by Ian Ross

  ‘The city over there,’ Diogenes said. ‘Absurd to think that we are a hostile army, intent on taking the place by force.’ They were sitting on folding stools on the grassy meadow that ran down from the camp fortifications to the riverside. Much cooler there than in the stifling confines of the tent, and the slight breeze from the water seemed to keep the insects at bay. For a moment Castus considered reminding his secretary of the correct form of address in the army, but let it drop. There were only two sentries standing nearby, and they were not listening. Besides, he thought, it was true. It hardly felt as though they were at war.

  He would not have had it that way himself. When he looked to his right, along the curve of the riverbank, he could see the walls of the bridgehead. Just above them, inside the perimeter, rose the arcaded façade of the city theatre, the ranks of seats dug into the hillside facing the water. It looked as if the defending troops were using it as an arms depot now. One swift strike, Castus thought, and they could capture the bridgehead, storm across the bridges and take the city from the rear. It could be done – with a few thousand more men it could be done with ease. He had suggested it to Prefect Leontius, with as much respect and deference as he could manage. Leontius had been firm: they would sit tight, maintain the blockade, wait for the city’s surrender.

  Castus stood up, idly smacking his fist into his palm. He had never been inclined to delay, to long strategic thinking. These long summer days of siege were becoming a frustrating ordeal.

  Narrowing his eyes, he looked across the river. The buildings of the city came right to the water’s edge in places, unconfined by walls. The curve of houses and quays was only a long bowshot away – during the first days after their encirclement of the defences, archers had lined the banks and conducted a lengthy, and mostly fruitless, duel of arrows. Now the defenders no longer bothered to shoot at them. Instead boys leaped off the stone embankments, laughing and shouting, to swim upriver against the strong current and climb the bridge piers. Sometimes groups of civilians came down as well, to stare across the loop of the river at their besiegers. They seemed curious rather than afraid.

  A few citizens of Verona had even swum across the river, escaping the city by night to join their families in the surrounding countryside. Prefect Leontius had posted sentries all along the banks to apprehend them and bring them to him for questioning. Castus never knew whether he learned anything from them. Some of the more enterprising and athletic young women of the city had taken to swimming the river too, to prostitute themselves to the soldiers. Castus imagined them swimming back afterwards, coins clasped between their teeth.

  It did seem absurd, he thought, despite his loyalty to the army and the emperor. A Roman army besieging a Roman city in the heartland of Italy. At least with both banks of the river under their control the army had managed to throw a bridge of boats across, downstream from the city and anchored with heavy cables. Now the men camped on the east bank had their tents and baggage, and even a few ballistae to lob shots at the bridgehead fortifications.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Diogenes in a distant musing tone, ‘I could use this as an illustration of certain points I shall make in my treatise? Surely such disharmony offends the gods, I mean – if humanity learned to work together towards a common end—’

  ‘Time you got back to working towards a common end,’ Castus said firmly. Diogenes blinked, raised his stylus in brief salute, then went back to his tablets.

  ‘So… eighteen pigs, dominus, twelve cows and eight hundred modii of grain brought in by the foragers these last two days. We’re down to the last reserves of oil; we have hardtack and bread for seven more days…’

  Castus yawned heavily, feeling the muscles around his scar stretch tight. He had not shaved for several days, and his jaw felt coarse with stubble. He had hoped that a beard might hide his scar, but the hair did not grow around the torn flesh. He knew it was vanity, a strange and unfamiliar urge. Once again he thought of Sabina, of his son, both of them surely now living in the house in Mediolanum… Several times he had caught himself thinking about a life beyond the army. A domestic life, as a husband and a father. He could see his son grow, raise him properly, as he had never been raised himself. His rank as a former tribune and Protector would guarantee a secure upbringing for the boy at least… But, no, he thought. It was a fantasy: his wife consorted with another man, and his future held nothing but confrontation. A familiar anger massed at the back of his head, a black frustrated rage that had no outlet, no ease.

  Movement to his right caught his eye, and Castus turned to see three men passing through the camp gates. All three wore dirt-spattered tunics, and each carried a yoke across his shoulders, a brimming pail of ordure slung on both ends. The leader – Trocundus – noticed Castus watching him and pulled himself up straight, sneering. The other two disgraced legionaries could not meet his eye, but Castus felt their hostility. He forced himself to continue watching them, tracking them as they passed along the camp perimeter and down towards the riverbank below the city, until they vanished into the distant haze.

  *

  The road east from the bridgehead ran along a low causeway, lined on either side with tall cypresses, not yet cut down for firewood or construction material. Four centuries of Castus’s legion were stationed there on night watch, guarding the approaches to the city across the plain from the direction of Aquileia and Concordia. Castus made sure to inspect the troops at regular intervals: there was a screen of cavalry scouts further to the east, and in the warmth of the night it was too easy for the men to grow careless. Several times he had caught sentries half-asleep at their positions.

  ‘Where’s your centurion?’ he asked one group of men as they clambered hastily to their feet. They glanced around, peering along the darkened road and between the trees. Attalus’s century, Castus remembered. He had seen nothing of Attalus for days.

  ‘He was here a moment ago, tribune,’ one of the soldiers said.

  Castus grunted and moved on, glancing back to check the men were still on their feet, looking attentive. Across the road he doubled back through the avenue of cypresses. A fire smoked in the darkness, and he saw the shapes of men gathered around it, their voices low and carrying in the heavy night air. Not for the first time, Castus wondered whether the men talked about him around their fires and in their tents. It would not be unusual if they did, and for a moment he considered creeping closer, trying to catch what this group were saying. He thought better of it – it was not his business what the soldiers thought or believed. His only concern was keeping up a proper watch on the road: somewhere out to the east there were strong enemy garrisons, but there had been no sign or word of an advance, no attempt to relieve the besieged city.

  Moving away from the road, and the glow of the fires, Castus pushed his way through the dry scrub below the causeway and stared eastwards into the night. The plain stretched away, empty under the crescent moon. No movement on the flat horizon, only the black pillars of cypresses and the low mounds of wooded copses growing around isolated farms to break the horizontals of dark land and black sky. Nevertheless, as he stared he felt a tight sensation at the nape of his neck, the familiar intuition of danger. He glanced around – nothing. A pair of crickets away in the bushes to his right was rasping loudly, and the air was thick and still.

  There was a pressure in his bladder, and he took a few more steps to a thicket of bushes, unlaced his breeches and pissed into the shadows. He grinned to himself; perhaps that was all that was causing his unease? But then, as he tied his breeches again and straightened his tunic, his senses flared. A shout of warning came from the darkness away to his left, and he turned.

  A shape leaped from the bushes, swinging a blow, and Castus threw his head forward and felt the rush of air over his back. Crouched low, he spun on his heel, his hand already at the grip of his sword. There were three of them – no, four – closing fast around him.

  Brambles caught at his feet and he stumbled, just in time to evade the se
cond swinging blow. They had clubs, he realised, or axe handles. Confusion still gripped him; he was acting on instinct alone, ripping his sword free of its scabbard and whirling the blade at the second attacker. A clumsy strike, but it was enough to send the man dancing back to trip and sprawl in the bushes.

  Castus grabbed breath, the stunned numbness in his head fading, cold clarity rushing in. He was surrounded and outnumbered. The fourth man was hanging back, and the fallen one had not yet scrambled to his feet.

  Yelling, Castus wheeled his blade, the honed steel whining through the air. His attackers were dressed in short army capes, their faces covered by scarves. Keep moving. Keep clear of them. He was circling sideways, sword drawn back to stab at the next man who got within his reach, but the ground was treacherous underfoot, tangled scrub and tree roots, and in the darkness he was aware only of the cloaked shapes pressing forward at him again. He saw the cold glint of a javelin head, the shaft drawn back to throw. He stabbed, the point of his blade catching in the woollen folds of a cloak and ripping free. Then he felt the ground snatch at his feet again, and he tripped and fell to one knee.

  The note of a horn cut through the heavy air, high and brassy. Then another, cracked and discordant. The alarm signal. Castus heard one of the attackers gasp something to the others. I know that voice. The fourth man had already gone, melting back into the darkened scrub; now the other three were backing away, throwing down their clubs and turning to run. Castus was back on his feet and he charged them, slashing wildly; one of the cloaks ripped free and he saw the back of a dun-coloured tunic as the man fled.

  Again the horn sounded. Castus stumbled towards it, then saw another figure in the bushes ahead of him. The man who had shouted a warning.

  ‘Who’s there?’ he shouted, the scar on his jaw rippling with pain.

  ‘Tribune.’ The figure advancing towards him had his hands up. ‘Valerius Felix, tribune. I saw people moving down here…’

  ‘Gods…’ Castus dropped forward, bracing himself on his knees. Tremors were running through his body, fast and hard from his gut. For a moment he felt sick; then he straightened up, sucking in air.

  But now he could hear men shouting on the road, the clatter of shields and weapons. From somewhere through the trees came the noise of horses riding fast.

  ‘Back, quick,’ he said. He held his sword high as he began to run, keeping the blade clear of the bushes. Ten staggering strides and he was free of the scrub and pounding up the slope of the causeway with Felix close behind him.

  On the dark road between the trees, they met a confusion of panicking men.

  ‘Form up!’ Castus shouted. ‘Centurions! Form your men…!’

  Where was Attalus? He should have been in command here… And then Castus realised. The fourth man.

  A horseman appeared out of the trees to the left, blasting through the soldiers on the road like a black wind. Now there were more of them coming, a torrent of them bearing down on the disarrayed infantry, the hooves of their horses suddenly very loud on the gravel.

  ‘Hornblower!’ Castus shouted. ‘Sound prepare to repel cavalry!’

  The man was standing right next to him, and blew a deafening brass yell into Castus’s right ear. Already the riders were almost upon them, scale-armoured men with horsehair plumes, mounted on powerful horses, charging out of the night. Some of the soldiers had managed to form a rough knot of shields in the middle of the road, but the horsemen just rode around them. Castus saw one man step out, shield raised, in the path of a galloping horse; he raised his spear, but the animal was on top of him before he could throw. The hooves smashed him to the ground.

  Castus raised his sword above his head, wrapping his cape around his left arm. Hot breath behind him, the batter of hooves, and then Felix threw his arms around his chest and dragged him off his feet. Castus fell hard, trapping the smaller man beneath him, and the cavalry horse stepped over them both and cantered on down the road.

  As he raised his head, Castus saw the whipping tail of a white draco, the horseman that rode behind it glancing back at him for a moment. Then the torrent of horsemen was gone, leaving a wrack of dying men in their wake.

  *

  ‘Explain to me,’ Leontius said, pacing ferociously, ‘what in the name of Hades happened last night?’

  The prefect’s whole body appeared to be glowing with rage, his flushed face making his eyes seem unnaturally blue. Not just rage, Castus knew; the man was scared.

  ‘I’ve already had a message from across the river,’ the prefect said, flinging out a hand towards the wall of the tent. ‘The Augustus is… very disappointed in us, shall we say. Extremely disappointed. He threw a cup of wine at Evander, and Evander threw a cup of wine at me, in a manner of speaking. And now I’m throwing a cup of wine at you, tribune! And what are you going to do?’

  ‘Nothing, dominus,’ Castus said. He was standing stiffly on the matting floor of the commander’s tent. Bright sunlight from outside, the sound of voices, even birdsong. And in here, the unravelling of a disaster.

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘No, dominus. The responsibility lies entirely with me. I failed to attend sufficiently to the readiness of my men. They share no blame in this.’

  ‘So you’re entirely responsible,’ Leontius said slowly, with sober gravity, ‘for the escape of the supreme commander of the enemy forces in Italy? For letting Pompeianus break out of the city, no doubt to ride east and join his reserves at Concordia? You were supposed to be guarding the road!’

  ‘Against advances from the east, dominus,’ Castus said, fighting to keep the anger from his voice. ‘We were attacked from behind, by surprise.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ Leontius said, frowning until his eyebrows almost covered the blue glare of his eyes. ‘That was an error of our scouts… Who would have guessed that Pompeianus would leave from the far side of the bridgehead and follow exactly the same path we’d used to outflank him…? Even so. This looks bad, brother.’

  It was much worse than the prefect knew, of course. Castus had mentioned nothing about being attacked by his own men moments before the enemy had ridden through their lines. Nothing about one of his own centurions apparently supporting the attack; the same centurion that was supposed to be in charge of the piquets on the road. No, he would be passing no more blame on down the ladder. Attalus he would deal with in his own time. If, that was, he had any time left…

  ‘They say there are forty thousand men camped at Concordia,’ Leontius said, rubbing his face and then fretting at his fingernails with his teeth. So it seemed his nocturnal swimmers had told him something after all, Castus guessed. ‘Apparently the tyrant’s ordered that Verona must not be allowed to fall. He plans to trap us against the walls of the city, no doubt. So we can expect Pompeianus back here soon, leading a relief army. The gods only know what we’re going to do then…’

  Leaving the tent, Castus drank in the clean fresh air and the morning sunlight. He had not slept all night, and fatigue was dulling the violent whirl of his mind. He scrubbed at the grizzled thicket of his beard: he needed to shave, and find a bath. He wanted to lie down for a very long time in a cool, shaded room.

  As he walked back towards the legion lines, Macer fell into step beside him. Castus was startled: he was so weary, he had not noticed the drillmaster’s approach.

  ‘What’s the damage?’ he said, before the other man had spoken.

  ‘Only five dead,’ Macer said through thin lips. ‘Another eleven wounded, but none badly. We didn’t pay much in blood. But our reputation took a beating, tribune. The other legions are already calling us craven. There’ve been fights.’

  ‘I don’t doubt that,’ Castus said. He would have thought the same himself.

  ‘There’s been another fatality since,’ Macer said, dropping his voice to a strained stiff whisper. ‘Scutio. One of your rapists. Found in the river at sun-up with his wrists slashed to the bone.’

  Castus remembered the name: Scutio was the man he had str
uck, back at Mediolanum. That left two of them, and Attalus.

  ‘He killed himself?’

  ‘They tried to make it look that way. Didn’t do a good job of it. You could tell from the direction of the cuts. I’d guess he had a loose mouth.’

  Castus inhaled sharply through his teeth. He stopped walking, and Macer paused beside him. ‘You know about what happened, then?’

  Macer nodded, the leather patch he wore over his injured eye twitching as he frowned. ‘If you want to do something about Attalus,’ he said, ‘I’ll support you. They may have had a grievance, but what they did went way over the line.’

  ‘Over the line?’ Castus said, biting down hard on each word. He drew himself up, closing on the drillmaster until only a hand span separated them. ‘You consider that trying to murder an officer in the dark, by creeping up behind him while he’s having a piss… is over the line? Which line are you talking about?’

  ‘Are you surprised they hate you? You took away everything they had – everything they’d gained since they joined the legions. You took their honour.’

  ‘I’m sure they were thinking of their honour when they raped that woman in Mediolanum. We all have to face the consequences of our actions, drillmaster.’

  For a moment Macer held his gaze, the anger rising in his face. Then he breathed in, tightened his lips and glanced away.

  ‘Listen to me,’ Castus growled. ‘Nobody says anything more about what happened last night. You hear the slightest word about it from anybody and you shut him up quick. I’ve just eaten shit in that tent back there to try and save the legion’s name. Now you’re going to help me pull the men together. That rider we let through last night’s coming back here with an army behind him. We’ve got a tough fight ahead of us.’

  The drillmaster nodded again, his expression unflinching.

  ‘And another thing,’ Castus added, as he turned to go. ‘From now on, you back me in everything I do or say. Everything. You’re not neutral any more. Understood?’