We emerged on a high ridge, overlooking a broad expanse of grassy plain. The plain was entirely ringed by mountains, a hollow crown of jagged white peaks, thrusting like colossal daggers into the peerless blue sky.
It was a glorious sight, and at another time I might have enjoyed the view. Instead my eye was drawn to the north-west, where Narses had drawn up his army.
I am a Briton at heart, of the old blood of British princes, but did not serve all those years in the Roman army for nothing. After the long, weary months of captivity, and the degrading company of thieves, the sight of the eagle stirred something dormant in my soul.
“He has arranged them well,” I said, the first and only time I paid a compliment to Narses, “Belisarius could have done no better.”
Narses had indeed done well. The little chess-master was something of a soldier after all, and possessed a martial spirit under the soft powdered flesh and opulent trappings of the courtier.
He had taken up a defensive position, securing what little high ground existed, on the north-west edge of the plain. A mile or so to his east was the little village of Taginae, which gave the region its name. The village was deserted, for the prudent inhabitants had fled into the mountains until all was quiet again.
In the centre of the Roman army, massed in a single dense phalanx of infantry, were the foederati troops, Huns and Heruls and Lombards and the levies from Thrace and Illyria. They numbered some ten to fifteen thousand men, presenting a long, unbreakable wall of shields.
My spirits rose at the sight of the forest of banners and streamers, garishly painted with the crude symbols of the various tribes in Roman service: the wolf and the fox, stag’s heads with spreading antlers, swooping hawks and snarling bears.
On the flanks of the infantry, protected by lines of stakes and hastily-dug ditches, Narses had placed his archers. Isaurians mostly, mixed with a few Sassanids and Thracian slingers. The Roman battle-line resembled a crescent, with the archers on the wings inclining slightly towards the infantry in the centre.
“It’s a trap,” said Asbad, who had also been studying the Roman formation, “if the Goths attack the Romans in the centre, they will be shot to bits by the archers on the flanks. This Narses is a shrewd devil.”
I agreed, and smiled as I imagined the eunuch sitting in his pavilion, thoughtfully planning the deployment of his army with chess pieces representing the various units.
My heart clenched as I saw what lay in wait behind the archers. Narses had also stationed his cavalry on the wings, squadrons of lancers and horse-archers, including the elite bucelarii. Somewhere among them, assuming he had survived the long march from Salona, was my son.
It was agonising, knowing he was so close, but unable to go to him. “Stay where you are, old man,” snapped Asbad, noting my anxiety, “dare to give away our position, and I’ll put my sword through your heart.”
My contempt for Asbad instantly soured to hatred, and I swore a silent oath he would not live out the day. I am in the habit of keeping my oaths.
For long hours we waited, listening to the distant throb of drums. Narses kept his men in position, but allowed them to rest and eat their rations, so they would be in prime fettle when the Goths appeared.
Asbad grew increasingly impatient. “Where in Hades are our scouts?” he fumed, “for that matter, where is Totila? Has the famed warrior king turned craven at last, and chosen to hide behind the walls of Rome?”
We didn’t know it then, but his second band of scouts had been caught and massacred by a troop of Gothic outriders. Their bodies lay cooling a few miles to the south, a fitting end for such villains.
The noonday sun was just starting to dip when Totila finally arrived. His vanguard poured through the mountain passes from the south, thousands of lancers in shining mail, followed by disciplined squadrons of infantry. The Gothic spearmen wore no mail but relied on the protection of large, rectangular wooden shields, with archers and slingers on their flanks.
Totila had mustered all the troops he could in haste, but it soon became clear he was outnumbered. I expected his cavalry to deploy on the flanks of his army, but instead five hundred lancers of the vanguard clapped in their spurs and charged straight at the Romans.
It was insane, the most desperate gamble I had ever witnessed on a battlefield. “What are they doing?” I exclaimed, “five hundred men against thirty thousand? They will be slaughtered.”
“Good,” remarked Asbad, rubbing his hands, “let the killing began. The horses those lancers ride are worth a small fortune.”
I thought a Gothic captain had chosen to disobey orders and launch a wild, suicidal charge against the Romans. In reality they were acting on the orders of their king.
On the left of the Roman position was a small hill, guarded by a detachment of spearmen. If the Goths could seize the hill and hold it, they would be able to turn the Roman flank.
The lancers swung to the right, galloping out of range of the Roman archers, and charged up the flanks of the hill. Even on our lofty height we could hear their war-cries, and the ominous thunder of hoofs as they surged in for the kill.
“Hold!” I shouted, gripping my reins until my knuckles turned white, willing the little band of spearmen to close up and repel the Gothic onslaught. They were Isaurians, the toughest infantry in Roman service, a stubborn race of peasants and hill farmers. I remembered the Isaurians I once led, and how I had cursed and flogged them before they showed me a little grudging respect.
Such men do not break, not easily. Their shield-wall vanished under the impetus of the Gothic charge, and for a moment all was waving banners and stabbing spears and flashing blades, rising and falling amid a sea of bodies.
A trumpet sounded, somewhere to the north, cutting through the din of battle. On the summit of the hill, above the heaving throng, I glimpsed a lone horseman.
My heart died inside me, and rose again from the ashes. The horseman was Arthur. It was impossible to see his face from such a distance, but his sword flamed into being when he ripped it from the scabbard. Caesar’s sword, burning like a silver candle in his grip: Caledfwlch, the Hard Hitter, the Red Death, the Flame of the West.
I yelled in wordless, spluttering excitement, fairly bouncing up and down in my saddle, and drawing baffled glances from the Masterless Men. A few of them already thought I was touched in the head, and this only confirmed it.
A line of riders appeared at Arthur’s side. Heruls, his men, light horse armed with spears and shields. They couldn’t stand against heavy Gothic lancers in a straight fight, but Arthur was a born soldier, with the blood of warrior princes coursing through his veins. He led them down the hill in a lance-shaped formation, with himself as the tip, aiming for the exposed enemy flank.
The Gothic charge had foundered on the Isaurian shields. They rode in baffled circles around the stubborn ring of spears, hurling axes and broken lances at Isaurian faces in an effort to smash gaps in the line.
Arthur chose his moment to perfection. He and his men plunged into the Goths like a blade into exposed flesh. In a second the Gothic lancers were reduced to a struggling mass of rearing beasts and panicking men, spilling back down the hill in hopeless confusion. Arthur’s riders made dog meat of them, slashing riders from their saddles left and right, while the Isaurian spearmen broke formation and joined in the slaughter, dragging down and butchering as many Goths as they could catch.
I could not restrain a whoop of joy as the Goths fled in total disorder back to their own lines. Sensibly, Arthur did not pursue, but wheeled his men about and led them back to the hill, with the blood-sated Isaurians jogging in pursuit.
“That your boy, was it?” asked Asbad, who had watched the brief fight in silence, “he’s quite the cavalryman. I never saw better. Sure his mother wasn’t a horse?”
He grinned, and a few of his men snickered. I bit my tongue, wincing as I drew blood, and repelled the urge to draw my sword and chop his craven head off. My time would come.
Having failed in
his bold effort to seize the hill, Totila resorted to delaying tactics. His army, when fully deployed across the southern expanse of the plain, was barely two-thirds the size of the Roman host. More Goths were marching up from the Flaminian road, and Totila needed to delay the battle until they arrived to bolster his slender lines.
First he tried negotiation, sending envoys under a flag of truce to drip lying offers of peace into Narses’ ear. The eunuch scornfully rejected them all, but made his own offer in return, claiming he would spare the lives of Totila’s warriors if the King surrendered and delivered himself up as a captive. Totila, unsurprisingly, failed to respond.
He switched tactics, sending the pick of his warriors into the space between the armies to make challenges of single combat. Some of these were accepted, and the Masterless Men amused themselves by laying bets on the winners.
I vividly recall one such duel. Totila sent out a truly gigantic warrior, one of the biggest men I ever saw, and this giant rode back forth before the Roman lines, bellowing out his challenge.
For a long while none cared to step forward and accept. He spat in contempt of Roman cowardice, and was about to turn his horse, when an officer broke away from Narses’ bodyguard and galloped into the open.
I could not see the officer clearly – they were tiny, doll-like figures at this distance – but he was dwarfed by his opponent.
“Four siliqua on the giant,” offered the man next to me, producing a handful of silver coin and weighing it in his hand.
“Done,” I said, and we shook hands. It may seem a foolish wager, but size is not all. I didn’t have the money anyway.
The two warriors rode to midway between the armies, and there faced each other. Cheers and shouts burst from Roman and Gothic throats as they clapped in their spurs and charged together.
At the last moment, the Roman officer swerved sideways, avoiding the other’s lance, and rammed his spear under the giant’s ribs.
It ran clean through that enormous body and burst out of his spine. The Goth stiffened in the saddle, and for a few seconds kept his seat as his horse slowed to a canter. Then, to catcalls from the Romans and groans from the Goths, he slowly toppled over and collapsed to earth like a falling tree.
“Four siliqua,” I said, grinning as my beaten opponent threw his money at my face.
Still the Gothic reinforcements had not arrived. Narses might have advanced against the inferior numbers of the enemy, but he lacked the dash and fire of Belisarius.
“In chess,” I could hear his piping voice in my head, “one does not simply throw all one’s pieces forward in an all-out assault.”
Totila resorted to an extraordinary piece of theatre. He rode out alone from his army, clad from head to toe in golden armour that outshone the sun, and mounted on a huge white stallion. Bound to his shoulders was a cloak made of some rich purple stuff. It streamed behind him as he cantered towards our infantry.
A kind of awed silence fell across the Masterless Men. I had no reason to love Totila, but was struck dumb by his valour. It was like something from Greek legend – a king in golden armour, riding forth to attack an enemy host single-handed.
The King of the Goths had no intention of throwing away his life. When he came to the midway point, near where his giant was struck down, he suddenly reined in his stallion.
He uttered a piercing cry of defiance and tossed his lance high into the air. Then he caught it, whirled it above his head, and started to make his horse prance in circles, as I had seen performers do in the Hippodrome.
“Is he a king, or a circus act?” growled Asbad.
It didn’t end there. Mocking applause broke from the Roman ranks as Totila continued to toss and catch his spear, throw himself backwards in the saddle before suddenly regaining his seat, and make his horse spin and dance.
He performed for the best part of an hour, an impressive feat for a man covered in armour. When he was done, he gave a last shrill cry and spurred his sweating horse back to the Gothic lines, to a storm of cheers from his adoring troops.
I heard later, from one of Narses’ bodyguards, that the eunuch made the following remark:
“Very impressive. Is it my turn now?”
His officers laughed, but Totila had succeeded in delaying the battle. His long-awaited two thousand auxiliaries had finally emerged from the mountains, somewhat disordered from their forced march, and joined his infantry in the centre.
The Goths were still in a grim position. To me, it seemed obvious Totila had to withdraw. He could have holed up behind the walls of Rome, as Belisarius did when confronted with overwhelming numbers, and dared Narses to prise him out.
The Goths, however, only respected a monarch who displayed strength and daring on the battlefield. A tactical retreat was not in their belligerent nature. Like the Vandals, they remained to the last a warlike people.
Totila willingly embraced his doom. He ordered his cavalry forward, eight thousand or so lancers with horse-archers on the flanks, and formed them into five big squadrons. It was an awesome sight, hundreds of steel riders forming into lines across the plain, banners flapping overhead.
In a vain bid to intimidate the Romans, Totila had his infantry yell war-songs and beat incessantly on their drums.
“Noise won’t break the Roman wall,” I said confidently, “and nor will those horsemen. Run away, you foolish barbarians! You don’t stand a chance.”
The cavalry started to move, rolling forward at a slow trot. Totila had put himself in the central squadron. His royal standard, displaying two crossed golden axes against a red field, was clearly visible. He had put off his golden ceremonial armour for a standard helmet and cuirasse, but wore royal robes of purple and gold, and a scarf embroidered with precious stones wound about his neck.
Faster, faster, the tide of steel and horseflesh moved, shifting into a trot, a canter, and then a full-blown gallop. This was warfare as the poets understood it, a glorious last-ditch charge against the odds, brothers in arms, sweeping forward across a fair plain to conquer or die.
Sadly for the Goths, they were up against Narses, who possessed not an ounce of poetry or romance in his corrupt little soul. Safe behind a triple line of bodyguards, he sat on a chair mounted on a cart (he was unable to see over their heads otherwise) and calmly watched his enemies ride into the trap.
“Now,” I murmured when I judged the Goths were within range of our archers.
The summer sky was briefly darkened by a storm of arrows. I saw the front ranks of the Gothic cavalry founder, horses and men tumbling to earth, but the rest came on, galloping straight over the bodies of their comrades.
It was impossible not to admire their courage. The horse-archers were destroyed in moments, melting away under the relentless hail of arrows. The few survivors wheeled their ponies and fled, leaving hundreds dead and dying behind them and spreading a tremor of panic through the watching Gothic infantry.
The lancers thundered into the Roman infantry. I chewed my lip as our shield-wall buckled and retreated a few steps under the impact of that wild charge, but the Goths lacked the weight of numbers to break it.
A peal of trumpets rang across the field. Reserves of footmen were sent in to bolster our sagging line, while the archers poured forward to shoot into the flanks of the struggling Goths.
Narses was conducting the battle with calm skill. He had carefully planned his strategy and predicted the moves of his opponent, who was a brave man and an inspirational leader, but no great tactician.
The Goths fought with the unyielding courage of men who expected to die. Their flanks were swiftly shot to pieces, and they could make no headway against the wall of shields, but still they fought on. Time and again they rallied around their standards, swinging swords and axes until every man was shot or speared from the saddle. Their blood-slathered corpses lay in heaps, the flower of a nation’s fighting men, slaughtered by their own brave folly.
“Senseless massacre,” remarked Asbad, “Totila is not fi
t to command. A good leader leads his men to profit, not death.”
“Or glory,” said Agremond, who had no love for his chief. His hand moved slightly towards his dagger. I tensed, waiting for him to make his bid for the leadership of the Masterless Men. If he drew steel on Asbad, I was fairly certain others would follow.
Agremond’s nerve failed him at the crucial moment. Frustrated, I turned my attention back to the battle.
The Gothic squadrons were broken up, shattered beyond repair, over half their number lying stretched on the bloodied grass. A few hundred men, the best of them, fought on doggedly in isolated groups. Eighty or so formed up around the royal banner, resolved to defend it, and their king, to the last.
Asbad craned his neck, his eyes narrowing as they searched the field. “There,” he said, pointing at the distant figure of Totila, fighting like a madman alongside his remaining bodyguards, “keep him in your sight.”
The courage of most men has its limits. A few of the Goths wheeled their horses and fled, galloping back the way they had come, over ground liberally scattered with dead and dying.
This was enough to break the wavering spirit of the Gothic infantry, who had done nothing but stand and watch the methodical destruction of their comrades. The ordered lines of spearmen and archers rapidly disintegrated into a mob of fugitives, casting aside their weapons and streaming south towards the Flaminian road. I had seen a rout before, even participated in a few, and recognised the all-consuming terror that drives trained soldiers to panic and run for their lives.
Asbad had no interest in the fate of the infantry, though their discarded gear was of some value. He kept his eyes fixed on the carnage to the north, where the last of Totila’s warriors were being overwhelmed and cut down.
“There!” he shouted, jabbing his finger at the royal standard, “there is our quarry!”
The standard was moving away from the battlefield, while Totila’s few surviving guards dragged their master out of the fighting and threw him across a horse. He was badly wounded, one hand clutched to his bleeding side, and in no condition to prevent them leading him away. Otherwise he would have happily stayed to meet his end on Roman blades.
Flame of the West Page 18
