LEGION

by William Altimari

  Wives nursing their young sat with their men around the fires and the cooking pots. Though enraptured by their heroes, the women looked fearful. To the dark forests beyond the Rhenus, tales had carried of the ruthless Romans. Men who would march to the ends of the earth to crush even the dying whisper of defiance.

  Barovistus saw Orgestes sitting alone by a fire and staring into the flames. He dismounted and approached the former war chief.

  “Walk with me.”

  Orgestes rose, and they passed beyond the young men and into the darkness.

  “I wish I could teach them to march,” Barovistus said. “Or to form a fighting line and obey me on the battlefield.”

  Orgestes said nothing.

  “But they’ll be great warriors.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “You won’t fight in this battle.”

  Orgestes stopped and turned to confront him.

  “Not with your leg,” Barovistus went on. “You’d die in an instant.”

  Orgestes remained silent.

  “But there’s another reason. If I’m killed, you must lead them. They’ll follow no one else but you.”

  Orgestes drifted away from the chief.

  “Well?” Barovistus said.

  Orgestes looked back at him. “What are your orders if you’re killed.”

  “Take no captives. I want a Roman head hung from every tree. All must die.”

  “And the Sequani?”

  “Kill any men who resist. Barter the rest. Our men can use the women for their pleasure and then trade them, too. The children they can barter or burn.”

  “Children?” Orgestes said in horror.

  “Sequani rats.”

  “Pray Mars isn’t listening to you now.”

  “Mars?”

  “Pray he doesn’t shout what you say into the ear of that silver-haired centurion. The one who destroyed Racovir and maimed our men. The one who tore the tongue from Trogus.”

  “Why should I care?”

  “You invite that Roman’s rage. You’re mad. You should fear it.”

  “I fear nothing,” he said with a laugh.

  “You’re the greatest fool on earth.”

  The half-moon dropped cold light across the Gallic countryside. A sentry line of Sequani horsemen peered into the distance.

  Soldiers with weapons and full armor trenched with that controlled silence unique to the army of Rome. A century drawn from each cohort drove pickaxes and shovels into the earth. Torches lined the empty artery that would soon connect the stream with the battlefield to the west.

  Rufio rode along the ditch into the woods that concealed its origin at the edge of the water.

  Crus was digging with the rest of the men. Like a man lashed by a demon, he wielded his pick furiously. The sound of the horse caused him to look up. His face glistened with sweat in the torchlight.

  Crus smiled as Rufio dismounted. “Look at our progress. We should be finished by mid-morning. I never knew men could work so fast.”

  “Hetorix and his armorers are making our lilies. We’ll plant them tomorrow.”

  “How long do you think it’ll be before the Suebi get here?”

  “I sent Adiatorix ahead to scout. He’s a better judge of the speed of the Germans than we are. He just returned. We’ll be able to smell them by tomorrow evening.”

  Crus leaned on his pick. “What happens when they see the trench? What if they try to fill it in?”

  “We’re going to scatter the dirt. And they don’t have the tools to do anything about it anyway. If they want to turn our flank, they have to cross.”

  Crus picked up his flask from the ground and took a drink and splashed some water onto his face.

  “Have you ever felt more alive than now?” Rufio asked with a smile.

  “Never.”

  40 FORTUNE FAVORS THE VALIANT.

  Terence

  ______

  The marching camp is not like the fort at all. True, it resembles it and is laid out in the same fashion, but it crackles with a repressed energy that is almost maddening.

  Yet I still fail to find that bonding of warriors that had lived so long in my fantasies. These soldiers are, if anything, even quieter here than at the fort. At least about matters pertaining to battle. When they speak, it is about women or families or famous dice games where they won fortunes. I hear no tales of past heroics, though there must have been many. Not once have I heard anyone mention the Suebi. Is it because they fear them? Possibly. How could they not fear those barbarians? Yet I believe it is something different. A truth more subtle and oblique, and yet at the same time open and obvious. I think if I asked them why they do not speak of the Germans, they would ask me what would be the point of it. These men have a job to do and will do it the way they have been trained to do it. As Probus once said to me, why howl or whine—that is for dogs, not men. I believe it is this offhandedness, this nonchalance—even detachment—that is one of their most compelling traits. Certainly it is their most ominous.

  Sabinus’s huge goatskin tent now held the ten most experienced soldiers in Gaul. Around a large table commandeered from the Sequani stood the senior centurion of each cohort of the Twenty-fifth Legion. Though what remained of the First Cohort had been left with its centurions to garrison the fort, Rufio had insisted to Sabinus that Bruttius Macer, its senior surviving centurion, join them on the battle line.

  Surrounded by his tribunes, Sabinus leaned over a quickly drawn map. Cups of acetum and loaves of bread had been spread around the table, and lamps had been set along the edge of the map. They flickered now as the night wind rippled the tent flaps.

  Diocles stood off to the side in the half-light.

  “The day after tomorrow, the world will change for all of us,” Sabinus said. “Early in the day—when the sun is in our eyes—the Suebi will offer battle. We will take it.”

  Diocles was surprised to see that even here all the centurions wore their mail loricas and their sword and dagger belts, as if they expected the Germans to storm the tent at any moment. Sabinus’s bronze muscle breastplate gleamed in the lamplight. Nothing was left to chance.

  “We’ll fight here.” Sabinus thrust his dagger through the map and into the table. “Between the ridge and the flooded ditch.” He looked at Crus.

  “It’ll be finished by the third hour tomorrow,” the tribune said. “It can be flooded any time after Hetorix and his men finish planting their lilies.”

  “Three cohorts in the first line, three in the second, three in reserve.” Sabinus looked to Macer. “I want you on the left wing. You know how crucial that is.”

  “Yes, Sabinus.”

  “You in the middle to hold the line,” Sabinus said to Probus.

  “Yes, commander.”

  “And you.” Sabinus gazed across at Rufio. “What shall we do with you?”

  The other centurions laughed. They knew there was only one place for him—that part of the line that led the battle and dominated its flow.

  “Let’s see. ” Sabinus screwed up his face as if he were straining to think. “How about the right wing?”

  Rufio smiled and touched the hilt of his sword.

  Sabinus gestured and Rufio joined him on the other side of the map.

  The muscles of Rufio’s forearms stood out sharply as he leaned with the heels of his hands against the table edge and stared with a typical Rufian squint at the map before him. Only so masculine a man would dare wear a woman’s torque on his wrist. It glittered now as the wavering lamplights danced along its contours.

  “There are two mistakes we cannot make against the Suebi,” Rufio began. “The first is to underestimate them. They’re big and very strong. A blow from one is like the kick of a horse. Even more important is the ugly fact that they live to inflict death on their enemies. Love for the heat of battle is a boiling cauldron at their core. It never cools. The Gauls at their most barbaric are Athenian philosophers compared to the Germans. No people—none—takes greater p
leasure in the simple act of killing other human beings.”

  Rufio paused and took a sip of acetum.

  “The second mistake is to overestimate them. They have no discipline. Training is unknown. They’re like drunken gamblers—hideous and reckless when they’re winning and prone to stumble and panic when they’re losing. Remember, to beat them it’s not necessary to destroy them—we cannot do that anyway, we have too few men. We don’t need to annihilate them. We have to break them—shatter their will. Then—and only then—will the poets write of a Roman victory.”

  Diocles saw Macer and Probus nod in silent agreement.

  “Ten thousand Suebi warriors,” Rufio said. “Crashing into a line of three stationary cohorts. Who feels comfortable with that?”

  It was an awkward question. Obviously no one did.

  “Probus?” Rufio said.

  “I’ve dealt with worse.”

  “That was not the question.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  Rufio looked at Macer.

  “Nor do I,” the centurion said.

  Diocles watched, fascinated. He knew Rufio hated war councils. Why was he asking for advice?

  “Alternatives?” Rufio said.

  Probus shook his head. “There are none.”

  “There are always alternatives,” Macer said. “We can charge them first.”

  “And expose our flanks?” Probus asked. “That’s suicide.”

  “No,” Macer said. “Time our charge so we meet them at just the right moment between the flooded ditch and the ridge. Carry one pilum only. We won’t have time to throw a second.”

  “Can we do that?” Sabinus asked in surprise.

  “It’s worth the risk,” Macer said. “We have the finest men on earth. They can do anything.”

  “That’s asking for a great deal,” Rufio said. “Precise timing. No hesitation. Iron nerve. I’m new here—are you that confident in these troops?”

  “Yes,” Macer said with a touch of defiance. “I am.”

  Probus scratched the stubble on his chin. “That would be something. We would write history here.”

  “Besides,” Macer went on, “thousands of pounds of smelly German muscle and bone smashing into us so early in the morning—we’d vomit our breakfast. The battlefield would get very messy—too slippery to fight on.”

  Titinius and Crus laughed, and Sabinus looked around at his men.

  They all nodded their assent.

  “Then it’s settled,” the commander said. “We await the pleasure of no barbarians. Especially those that don’t bathe. We hit them first.”

  Deep-throated murmurs of approval filled the tent.

  Diocles, though, was watching Rufio. You silver fox. You decided all this beforehand.

  A barely perceptible smile pulled at the centurion’s lips as he reached down for his cup. He had not asked for the impossible—he had gotten his men to plead for the privilege of doing it.

  41 WHEN THEY HAD SEEN BODIES CHOPPED TO PIECES WITH THE SPANISH SWORD . . . THEY REALIZED IN A GENERAL PANIC WITH WHAT WEAPONS, AND WHAT MEN, THEY HAD TO FIGHT.

  Livy

  ______

  Neko told me Rufio had risen long before dawn. Neko had to prepare his meal very early because Rufio and Probus and Macer were meeting with the other centurions to plan the coming battle. I could kick myself for missing that. Yet I do not dare ask Rufio what transpired. He is so preoccupied with hundreds of details that I am certain if I interrupted him now, he would turn on me with the glare of Medusa.

  I decided to stroll through the camp to get a feel for the mood of the men.

  It was a cool morning, and I wrapped myself in my heavy cloak. Only a few clouds streaked the sky, but a cold breeze was blowing in from the west.

  The men at their cooking fires were more talkative than usual. They seemed to be more excited now that the battle was near—and more nervous. I doubt there was a single one who underestimated the frightening reality they called the Furor Teutonicus. While I walked along the rows of leather tents—as straight and perfect as the barracks blocks in the fort—I noticed a peculiar fact. Every veteran soldier sitting at a fire and having his meal had several younger soldiers around him. Youth generally seeks out youth, but not today. The younger men had been drawn to the experienced soldiers like tender shoots pulled toward the sun. Yet they did not pester the veterans with questions. Mostly they sat near them without speaking and simply drew comfort from their presence.

  The veterans were fascinating to watch. A growing tension was tightening their lips and the corners of their eyes. Some ate their meal in silence, but I suspected from their expressions that they were reflecting inwardly and imagining things I dared not imagine. Others were instructing some of the younger soldiers on the proper grip of a sword or how to angle the wrist.

  These were hard men—it showed in every crease of their faces. But could they be anything else and survive? This is where the brutal drilling paid back its bounty. The shouting, the thrashings, the threats of savage punishments—all now more valuable than bushels of silver. The scraped knuckles and bruised legs, the sword arms battered and bloody from badly aimed thrusting and accidentally banging into one’s own shield—treasured wounds that toughened more than flesh.

  Last night I was up late reading in Rufio’s tent. Neko had told me Rufio never goes on campaign without several books. I chose Livius and came across a remarkable story that now seems all the more telling. About two hundred years ago, we were fighting Philip of Macedon. Evidently Philip was unsure of the morale of his troops, so after a small skirmish with the Romans he had the dead gathered up and laid out before his men to rouse them to the proper fury. Apparently Philip had not yet seen the corpses himself. Better that he had. The remains looked scarcely human. Long accustomed to seeing men killed by spear points, Philip’s troops recoiled in revulsion. Hacked and chopped by the Spanish sword, their countrymen lay before them like butchered beasts, unrecognizable and obscene. The troops’ morale crumbled into dust.

  Great courage it takes to be a Greek spearman, but how little that seems to me now. Marching shoulder to shoulder and carrying enormous pikes, reassured by the press of one’s comrades, shields locked—what is that compared to standing in open files with a weapon no longer than your arm and looking into the eyes of your enemy and stepping forward and cutting him down?

  Discipline is severe, but discipline never won a battle—it simply helped an army not lose one. And there is more than training, too, for training is merely technique. The aggressiveness ignited at the training stakes foments a uniquely Roman boldness in attack. This fuses with the driving spirit of Rome to incite in these men a breathtaking audacity, dynamic, irresistible, and ultimately incomprehensible.

  “We came to fight the Suebi—not watch them!”

  Adiatorix’s scowl was as fearsome as the snarl on a Roman theatrical mask.

  “I know that, Chief,” Rufio said. He pointed to the ground beside one of the cooking fires. “Sit with me.”

  The Sequani had declined tents and spent the night bedded down with their horses near the Porta Principalis Dextra, the gateway at the right edge of the camp. Morning fodder had been spread out for the animals, and now the warriors were gathered around their fires.

  “You and your men are the ones we can spare to do this,” Rufio said. “We don’t have enough men to fortify the position. The survival of the Scorpions means the survival of this legion. If the Germans turn our right wing, we’re all raven meat.”

  “Just sit there on the hill?” Adiatorix asked in disbelief. “Nothing else?”

  “Hold it to the death.”

  “It’s not the Sequani way to be still.”

  “It’s not the Roman way to die uselessly. Are the Sequani so brave they can face the Suebi, but such children they cannot follow a command?”

  Adiatorix gazed at him in exasperation. “Life was easier for me before you entered this land.”

  “I have that effect o
n everyone. Learn to endure it.”

  “Very well. We’ll protect your Scorpion shooters.”

  “No matter what happens on the battlefield, you cannot abandon the hill. Everything turns on that.”

  The three centurions stood in the middle of the proposed battleground and studied it with practiced eyes. Atop the hill, soldiers were reassembling the Scorpions at the edge of the trees and setting them in place. To the north, about fifteen hundred feet from the hill, the trench already hemmed in the killing ground. The lethal ditch angled off toward the northeast and disappeared into the woods.

  Rufio dropped to one knee and stared in the direction from which he knew the Germans would come. It would be tomorrow—he was certain. The failing moon decreed it. Even more pressing was their food supply. Like the Gauls, the Suebi could never field a large army for long. There was no word in their language for supply train. They fed off what they could carry and whatever they could forage or steal. Logistics eluded them. For the Romans, the lifeline stretched from the granaries of Egypt to the banks of the Rhenus. It was a cord more durable than steel.

  Probus climbed the hill to inspect the Scorpions while Bruttius Macer knelt beside Rufio in the middle of the field.

  “You’ll be Chief Centurion after this,” Macer said.

  “That position belongs to you. Your seniority and experience.”

  “Sabinus favors you.”

  “Then I’ll ask him to favor me by giving it to you.”

  Macer looked off to the east. “You know, I should have died with Carbo.”

  “No, Fortuna made you ill then because you were fated to be here.”

  “A few days ago I thought you were trying to usurp me.”

  “I’ve spent my life being misunderstood by others.”

  Macer placed a hand on Rufio’s right forearm in a gesture of friendship that needed no words.

  The two men knelt in silence and gazed into the distance, each trying to imagine ten thousand Suebi warriors.