Battle for Rome

by Ian Ross

  ‘Our blessed emperor is resting,’ the priest declared. He spoke as if to address the whole gathering of men around the pavilion. ‘But his mind is at peace.’

  ‘I must speak to him. The enemy is preparing for battle.’

  ‘He knows!’ Hosius said, and smiled. ‘Almighty God has sent him a powerful vision. A promise of victory!’

  Still smiling, the priest walked away towards his own tent with his head held high, the gathering of officers parting nervously before him.

  ‘Ten years ago we were feeding the likes of him to the beasts,’ the guard muttered from the side of his mouth. ‘Now look at him.’

  *

  There was no more sleep that night. In the darkness the centurions roused their men and had them prepare their weapons and armour. A party of scouts went out along the river, and returned an hour later with the confirmation of Castus’s report: the full enemy force was in the process of crossing the river and taking up a position to block the road.

  It was still dark when the tribunes and senior officers assembled in the large tent beside the imperial pavilion. Lamps burned, casting weary faces into harsh shadow, but there was a tense aggressive energy in the air, every man charged with the certainty of coming battle. Castus knew many of them: Leontius of VIII Augusta, the tribunes of the Divitenses, the Minervia and Primigenia legions, and Hierocles, the commander of the Protectores. Hrodomarus of the Bucinobantes stood proudly in scarlet and gold, a younger and much slimmer version of his father King Hrocus. But many were new men, and many were missing: Vitalis of course, also Florius Baudio, who had been killed on the advance through the Apennines just short of Spoletium, and several more. The campaign had already reaped a harvest of the commanders, and the fiercest battle was yet to come.

  Together they listened as Evander explained the situation, and gave the orders for the march and deployment. The troops would leave camp in battle array, leaving all the wagons and the siege train behind them. Only a thin screen of cavalry would cover the advance; the men must be ready to fight at any moment. Evander told them the order of battle, and the watchwords they would use to identify themselves in the darkness. He reminded them to check that all their troops wore the feathered helmet crests: there could be no mistakes, no confusion once the action commenced.

  Every man nodded, many of them scratching notes on tablets. Standing to one side of the group, Castus committed everything he had heard to memory. It was simple enough: no clever tactics, no complex manoeuvres. Evander’s plan was to hit the enemy with one massive frontal assault, and it was a plan that suited Castus perfectly.

  A breath of night air entered the packed tent as the flap opened, and then the gathered officers were looking back, shifting aside to form a lane. Castus craned his neck to look over the other men’s heads, and saw the emperor marching between them, two Protectores and a group of civilian officials and eunuchs at his heels.

  Constantine stepped up beside Evander and turned to address the gathering. As one, the officers threw up their hands and cried out the salute.

  ‘Fellow soldiers,’ the emperor said, his voice hoarse but strong. ‘One final battle lies between us and victory. Tomorrow we lift the yoke of tyranny from the city of Rome, and restore the ancient splendour and liberty of the city of our ancestors.’

  Something in the emperor’s manner seemed changed, Castus thought. He remembered speaking to Constantine before the battle at Verona, and noticing his fear. He was not afraid now, but seemed possessed of a strange, glazed calm, the sort of invulnerable aura that drunkards could assume, but totally sober, totally cold and clear.

  ‘I have received a message, a sign,’ Constantine went on, sweeping the assembly with a fervent gaze. ‘A sign from the Greatest God. Many of you here were with me in Gaul, three years ago, and witnessed with me the celestial vision of light.’

  Castus found himself nodding, holding his breath. He remembered the moment well, although he had not seen anything very clearly at the time: it had been a vision of the sun god, so men had said. The mighty Sol Invictus, in his guise of Apollo.

  ‘Brothers,’ the emperor said. ‘The truth of that vision has been revealed to me in a dream.’ His brow was creased, and he dabbed at his face with his fingers for a moment, as if stunned. ‘Before we enter battle, our front-rank troops must mark upon their shields the saving sign of the Greatest God. With this sign, the divinity will deliver us certain victory.’

  A rustle of breath, of muttered words, passed between the gathered men. One of the imperial slaves had stepped up beside the emperor with a board, and on the board was painted in broad strokes of black ink a symbol. Castus stared at it, perplexed. From the sounds they were making, most of the other men were perplexed too.

  The greatest god, he knew, was the Unconquered Sun. His own legion carried Sol’s symbol upon their shields already: the red solar wheel. The same symbol appeared throughout the army, from standards to belt buckles, helmet crests to tunic embroidery. It was on many of the coins issued in Constantine’s name. All recognised it. But the symbol inked on the board the slave was holding was something different. Two crossed lines, with a third drawn through the middle and a curl at the top. Castus knew it from somewhere, but could not place it.

  Was it some variant on the solar wheel, perhaps? Such things could be revealed in dreams, Castus supposed. As the emperor made his departure and the gathering broke up, he noticed Aurelius Evander glancing in his direction. His expression was troubled.

  ‘It’s a Greek symbol,’ he heard somebody saying. ‘It stands for good luck.’

  ‘I’m not so sure, brother,’ somebody else said.

  But as Castus left the tent and walked out into the damp pre-dawn chill, heading for the lines of his legion, the suspicion in his heart was gathering. With a sense of dark unease, he realised that he knew what that symbol meant. He had first seen it many years before, scratched into the doorpost of a house in the north of Britain. It was nothing to do with luck. Constantine’s army would be going into battle marked with the sign of the Christians.

  Chapter XXVII

  ‘Cavalry on the heights,’ Leontius said, peering into the hazy grey dawn. ‘All of them, looks like.’

  Castus nodded. It was as he had expected. Above the line of reddish bluffs that edged the plain, the enemy horsemen had already occupied the high ground. He could just make out their streaming draco banners and unit standards between the trees that edged the escarpment. Maxentius would have his Horse Guards up there, Castus knew: two thousand scale-armoured lancers, with mounted archers and the Numidian light cavalry in support. Their intention was obvious. They would charge down from the heights in a swinging left-hook punch, aiming to crush the flank of Constantine’s army and leave his infantry trapped with their backs to the river.

  ‘Still a lot of motion up there, though,’ Leontius went on, squinting. ‘They haven’t managed to get into formation yet.’

  The two officers were on horseback, a hundred paces in advance of the Constantinian battle line. Hrodomarus of the Bucinobantes was with them; together they would be in charge of the left centre of the battle line. Behind them their troops were already assembled in vast silent blocks, waiting for the signal to advance.

  If the enemy cavalrymen on the heights were still in an unready state, Maxentius’s infantry was even less prepared. From where he was sitting, mounted high on his grey mare, Castus could see the enemy front line stretching across the plain between the bluffs and the river. They would be formed deep, sixteen ranks most likely, the best array for poorly trained troops. A second line of the same numbers behind, perhaps a third in support. Together they formed a massive phalanx, but after their river crossing the lines were in chaos: even from this distance Castus could clearly hear the scream of the trumpets and horns, the shouts of the commanders as they tried to muster their men. Only in the centre was the line strong, where the ten thousand men of the Praetorian Guard stood in formed ranks beneath their proud standards.

>   ‘Have you seen the Augustus?’ Leontius asked Castus, lowering his voice. Castus shook his head. In all the milling confusion of breaking camp and marching to the field, he had seen nothing of Constantine.

  ‘I got a glimpse of him just after first light, over on our right with the cavalry,’ Leontius went on. ‘He looked… possessed. He’s either mad or inspired by the gods, brother. I pity those poor bastards over there when he tears into them.’

  Inspired by the gods. Castus wished it were so. But if some divine spirit fired their emperor, it did not seem to be that of the ancestral gods of Rome. Raising his eyes, Castus searched for the gleam of light. But the heavens were closed: a skin of mottled grey cloud hid the sky, and only a faint radiance in the east showed where the sun had risen above the misty horizon. The distant land beyond the curve of the river was blurred, indistinct, and the air was stirred only by a slight damp breeze.

  ‘What are they doing here?’ Hrodomarus demanded, leaning from beneath the massive fur cape he wore over his mail. Over to their right, ahead of the centre of the battle line, three figures in loose tunics were standing in the open ground, raising their empty hands to the clouded sky.

  ‘Christians,’ Leontius spat. Castus could see that the central figure was the white-haired Spanish bishop, Hosius. ‘They’re praying to their god, I suppose. The Augustus must have given them leave to do it.’

  ‘This is not good,’ Hrodomarus said, with a contemptuous sniff. ‘Too much already the signs on the shields!’ He gave a last dark look at the praying Christians, then turned his horse and rode back to the ranks of his warriors.

  Castus waited only a little longer. He gave a brief salute to Leontius, who returned it. There was nothing more to be said now. All knew what the next hours would bring. Tugging on the reins, he turned Dapple and walked her back towards his waiting soldiers.

  The array of Constantine’s army almost mirrored that of the enemy. The emperor himself with his main cavalry force was on the right wing, the infantry drawn up across the plain. But instead of the solid shield wall of the Maxentian troops, Constantine’s men were assembled in attack columns, each blunt-headed wedge a fortress of locked shields, auxilia and light troops positioned in the gaps between. The Second Britannica formed four of the columns. As he glanced along the lines Castus saw that every man wore the crest of feathers on his helmet, and every front-rank shield was clearly marked with the symbol that Constantine had decreed, scratched in chalk or charcoal over the brightly painted blazons. The sight, he had to admit, was impressive. He could only guess what effect it might be having on the enemy.

  He reached the left-hand edge of his legion’s formation, and as he approached Macer took several strides forward and saluted.

  ‘All ready, tribune,’ the drillmaster cried. Macer would be leading one of the attack columns, and his face was glowing with fierce pride.

  Castus returned the salute, then rode on along the formation. The men in the front ranks were all veterans. They had marched with the legion all the way from Divodurum, and most had fought on the Rhine and in Britain before that. They knew Castus, and many called out to him as he passed, or raised their spears in silent salute. Castus saw Felix, freshly shaved now but still with his look of rangy strength. Then there was Modestus, and Diogenes, recovered from the night’s exertions, standing firm and steady in the second rank. He saw the other men, recognising them, nodding a greeting here and there. No fear in their eyes, no tremors in their stance. They had marched a thousand miles, fighting all the way, and now they were poised on the brink of one final clash. Rome, the eternal city, heart of the empire and citadel of the tyrant, lay only two miles away on the far side of the Tiber. Their morale, their discipline, was iron-hard now.

  Reaching the right of the formation, Castus slipped down from the saddle and took his shield from Eumolpius. The orderly took the reins and led Dapple back through the lines. Castus flexed his right arm, warming his muscles, and the segmented bands of the manica slid together with a slight rasp.

  No time for speeches, for bold addresses. The men had all the courage they would need. Castus could feel the formation at his back almost humming with tension, every man straining for the note of the horn that would set their columns into motion. Opposite, across the misty plain, the enemy line was still milling and shifting as the Maxentian commanders struggled to get their massive, unwieldy formation into order. Already Castus could hear the yells, the reverberating rattle of spearshafts on shield rims. But there was no cohesion to it, no sense of collective intent. By comparison, the disciplined silence of Constantine’s men was all the more imposing.

  Distant trumpets wailed from away to the right. The cavalry were moving up the slope, the emperor himself leading his horsemen towards the enemy flank. Wait, Castus told himself. Wait…

  Now he heard the signal for the centre to advance, and almost at once the vast clatter of armoured men moving forward in unison rolled across the plain. All along the left wing men were edging forward, every rank shuffling up behind the one in front. At this moment, Castus knew, the only desire in a man’s heart was to close the distance before them, to bring on the moment of confrontation. To stand and wait in close formation, sweating even in the damp chill of the breeze, was a test of endurance. He felt the desire himself, and knew it well.

  Then, close and sudden, the brass yell of the trumpet. Behind him, Brocchus raised the eagle of the legion and the centurions cried out the order, and as one the men of the Second Britannia began to move. The sound of their advance was an iron pulse, gathering momentum.

  Castus drew his sword as he marched. The head of each column, the blunt fist of every advancing wedge, was formed by locked shields; the ranks that followed held spears to strike over the backs of their comrades.

  The distance between the two armies was closing now. Castus felt the dew-damp grass swishing against his bronze greaves. He smelled the river away to his left. For the first time, or so it felt, he saw the ranks of the opposing army leap into focus: they were no longer an undifferentiated mass of men but individuals. He saw their shield blazons bright in the dull haze of morning, their helmets and the snarling faces beneath. The watery gleam of their spears. Gods, there were a lot of them… Before, when he had ridden out with Leontius, and even when he had rejoined his legion, he had felt detached from what was happening, strangely heavy in his limbs, his blood slow and thick. He had felt the pressure of a sleepless night upon him, emptying his mind. Now he felt the familiar prickling rush of fear, the sudden sensitivity in his fingers, in his face. All of his senses were acute, the world around him growing bright and vivid even through the day’s murk.

  It was madness to be advancing like this, against such a massive host. Madness to try and drive a narrow wedge into the heart of that swollen enemy phalanx, and split it as a mason split a block of stone. Castus allowed himself the thought. He allowed himself, just for a moment, to dread the enemy blades, the wall of muscle and steel that faced him. His knees were weak, and he feared he would stumble. He thought of his son, of Sabina, of everything the world held that he would miss if death took him. The thought steadied him. He would not die, not this day. Surely the gods would not allow that?

  Then he felt the energy of battle bloom inside him, like the intoxicating rush of strong wine, driving away the fright. His blood was singing in his veins; he felt the strength of his arm, the breath in his lungs, and he knew that he was grinning, the scar on his jaw pulled tight.

  One hundred paces. The trumpets sounded and the advancing columns drew to a halt. Men shuffled and jostled, tightening the formation and dressing the lines, barely needing the barks of the centurions to direct them. There were missiles dropping among them now, the enemy archers and slingers moving up to the front to pelt the head of each advancing column. Castus kept his shield up, his eyes on the wall of men ahead of him as the stones and arrows fell. The troops opposite were not the raw and frightened recruits he had seen earlier: he saw the blazons on thei
r shields, recognised the devices and knew this would be no easy fight. Legion II Parthica was one of the crack formations of the old Roman army. Every other heartbeat Castus heard the sharp thock as an arrow punched into a shield board close to where he was standing. A few anguished cries too, as missiles found their mark deeper in the formation.

  Light troops were moving up into the gaps between each attack column. To his right, Castus saw a loose horde of Mauretanian archers swarming forward, lean and muscular dark-skinned men in short sleeveless tunics. Their thick hair was elaborately bunched and coiffed, and many of them carried spare arrows stuck through it, giving them a bizarre and savage appearance; they advanced at a run, shooting in rapid flurries, dashing forward and dancing back as they rained arrows into the enemy formation.

  ‘Glad they’re on our side,’ said Brocchus, standing at Castus’s shoulder with the eagle grounded before him.

  Cheering from the right, and a rolling thunder of hooves; Castus glanced in that direction and saw the cavalry powering up the slopes onto the high ground, Constantine’s purple and gold draco standard streaming at the fore. Only a moment later the first cries of battle drifted across on the damp air, but so distant that Castus could barely distinguish them over the noise of arrows falling around him. Had the emperor’s cavalry managed to strike the enemy horse before they had formed to oppose them? So much of the battle could be decided over there on the flank.

  Warmth flooded across the side of his face, and Castus turned his head to see that the sun had burst through the low clouds to the east, spilling a sheet of silver light across the field. Castus glanced down and saw the wink of colour below the cuff of his armoured bronze sleeve: the blue bead amulet Ganna had given him, still tied to his wrist. He raised his sword hand, lightly kissing the bead. For luck, he thought. Then he lifted the sword high above his head, the new blade flashing in the sun.

  ‘Victory and Rome!’ he cried.