“If I never see you again after tomorrow, take this.” He slid the torque from his wrist. “Take it to my sister in Rome. Tell her . . . tell her I’ve been forgiven. And that’s the symbol. She’ll understand.”
Diocles held it tightly.
Rufio turned away and stroked the neck of his horse as the moon reappeared and cast its cool light on the man and his beloved stallion.
“One thing more—a promise from you.”
“Anything.” Diocles watched him staring off into the blackness.
“If I’m killed, search the battlefield for my body. Retrieve my ring and place it in Flavia’s hand.”
Diocles swallowed to try to clear the lump from his throat. “I will,” he said, grateful that the darkness obscured the tears in his eyes. “But why not give it to me now?”
“No.” Without another word he reined his horse about and rode back to camp.
46 BRAVERY IS OF MORE VALUE THAN NUMBERS.
Vegetius
______
Two hours before dawn, Rufio emerged from his tent and studied the sky. As soon as he had awakened, he had sensed a change in the weather. Not a single star could be seen.
He could feel the heaviness in the air, and the wind smelled like wet earth. Rain was an enemy for which he had no counter.
A crisp breeze from the north fluttered his hair as he walked down the tent line. Valerius and Metellus were already awake and in full armor. They had several fires going, and the smell of hot porridge drifted toward him.
Rufio gazed at them with an affection they could not see in the darkness. What comfort he took from these two men. Sometimes Fortuna did indeed smile.
Soon the nine cohorts would assemble, Sabinus would address them, and the sacrificial chickens would be opened and the auspices taken. They would be favorable. Rufio was certain Sabinus had no intention of allowing otherwise.
And then the soldiers of the Twenty-fifth Legion would march to face their foe. The cool gusts from the north were just damp air, but to Rufio they smelled like wind blowing across the turbulent blackness of Acheron.
Diocles wanted to see Rufio one more time. He gulped breakfast with his tent group and hurried in the gray dawn to Rufio’s tent.
It was not to be. The Egyptian Cerberus blocked the way. No three-headed hound could have been more tenacious than Neko. He stood at the entrance to Rufio’s tent and held his master’s helmet. A long and wispy crest of red horsehair adorned it now.
Though not permitted to enter, Diocles was allowed to peek inside.
Rufio was down on one knee in the middle of the tent. A white cloth covered his head, and his mail lorica and sword and dagger glittered in the lamplight. Bronze greaves sheathed his lower legs.
He knelt with head lowered. On a table beside him, a lamp burned and next to it stood a small red porphyry statue of Victoria, wings at rest. The flickering eerie light caused her to seem to move and gesture toward him. Perhaps it was no illusion. Perhaps she was bestowing on him her blessing or speaking to him the wisdom only she could give.
Diocles lowered the tent flap.
“You love him,” Neko said. “Though he frightens you, you love him more than any man you have ever known. In a way you cannot describe. Possibly even comprehend. He touches you with a mysterious spirit that makes you yearn inside.” Neko smiled. “Why do you cry? He would not want that. Go now. Leave this man to his solitary duty.”
Diocles turned away. He walked back to his century, and the camp around him disappeared. He was all alone in the world.
The men were assembling, and Valerius was inspecting everyone, veteran and new man alike. Metellus was pulling the wolf skin over his helmet. The silver boar standard on its long pole was stuck in the earth beside him, and his small round shield lay next to it.
Diocles stood apart from them and pulled on his mail lorica and buckled his weapons belts. When he had finished he was about to wish Valerius and Metellus luck, but suddenly he felt uneasy. In what he knew was an odd descent into irrationality, he decided that if he said something that even hinted of farewell, he would never again see them alive. While they were busy with their men, he slipped away.
He left the fort and passed the mounted men in the picket line beyond the ditch. He waved to them as he went by.
The battlefield was as serene as a Roman garden. Soon its soft green face would wince beneath the feet of thousands of men. The ditch on the left wing was still dry, but he could see activity on the hill to the right and he headed that way.
He climbed the slope and when he reached the summit he was surprised to see that the men and their Scorpions were already set at the edge of the trees. The bolt catapults pointed down toward the right wing, and piles of their terrible stingers lay on the ground beside them.
Adiatorix, too, was here with his horsemen. They stood next to their mounts and peered from the ridge in all directions for any threat to the Romans.
Diocles crossed the wooded hill and emerged from the trees at the eastern edge.
“It cannot be,” he heard himself say. He pulled his cloak more tightly around him.
The Germans were already approaching from the east. At this distance they did not even look like men. A roiling black mass rolled toward the Romans. It reminded him of a huge mat of seaweed drifting in on the tide. Their families followed, faint shouts of encouragement carrying on the wind.
At that moment Diocles knew he would never see any of his friends again.
“Don’t despair,” said someone behind him.
Adiatorix stood there with folded arms and a look of confidence that was baffling.
“It’s not numbers that matter,” the chief said. “It’s spirit. It’s will.”
“I know,” Diocles answered, and was surprised that his voice was barely above a whisper.
“This is not an undefended village. This is a battleground—and yours are brave men.”
“Will you stand beside me today?”
“We’ll watch the battle together. I’m forbidden to leave the hill, and Rufio told me you are forbidden to die.”
Diocles turned away and stared at the German horde.
“Do you believe in an afterlife, chief?”
Adiatorix hesitated. “I’m unsure.”
“So am I. But I think Rufio does. I hope he’s right.”
“At this moment he’s concerned more with this life than the one that follows.”
“His goddess won’t desert him, will she?” His voice was almost plaintive.
But Adiatorix had nothing else to say.
“Here they come!” shouted one of the Romans.
Diocles hurried past Adiatorix to the western edge of the hill.
Again he felt the lump in his throat, but this time with pride. They were magnificent. The nine cohorts had taken the field and now approached the battleground from about a half-mile off. Because the battlefield was so close, they were not marching in the usual column but had already fanned out. Colorful shields, bronze helmets, mail loricas. In three ranks they marched, three cohorts in a rank. Yet it was not what he had expected. The checker pattern he had read about in the histories—the quincunx, like the five staggered spots on dice—was not there. Instead of the cohorts in the second rank lining up behind the open spaces between the three cohorts of the first, the second rank marched directly behind the men in front. Likewise, the men in the third rank of cohorts lined up with the men in the second. The result was that two great roads ran from front to back straight through the Roman formation. It looked shockingly vulnerable to a pair of wedges—the despised pigs’ heads—hurling themselves at the twin openings in the line. What would prevent the Suebi from racing all the way to the back and enveloping the entire legion?
“I’ve never seen that,” Adiatorix said when he came up beside him.
“I have faith in Rufio,” Diocles answered, the words coming unbidden from some inner depths.
“You would have made a great Roman,” he said as he slapped his
hand down onto Diocles’ mailed shoulder.
“I am a Roman.”
Already the roars and yells of the Suebi were growing louder, as they sought to embolden each other and themselves.
But the Italians scorned this hallowed way of the warrior. They marched in silence. Moving forward, they seemed to be a soundless projection of the dark mind of Mars. Neither their anxiety nor their fear caused them to break this discipline of silence. A few simple shouts would have eased so much tension, but they bent human fear to Roman will.
And Diocles had no doubt that the Suebi, with all their noisy bluster, would look upon the muteness of their foe with terror.
47 IN THE TAIL IS THE POISON.
Roman saying
______
“Let the first man on the right scrape his shoulder on the ridge”—so Rufio had told Sabinus, and Rufio was that man. The Second Cohort marched on the right wing of the first rank of three cohorts. Rufio’s First Century held the First Cohort’s right flank, and Rufio himself headed the file farthest to the right. Like all centurions, he led from the front.
Each cohort marched six ranks deep on the approach and about eighty files across, though few cohorts boasted full strength. At the right corner of each century strode the centurion. The optio followed at the back, to keep order and push forward—physically if necessary—any lagging warriors.
But Rufio had no thought of that for his century. Though Valerius brought up the rear, it was not necessary. Rufio knew his men feared their centurion’s glare of displeasure far more than they feared the Suebi.
The legionaries marched forward as silent as ghosts. Only the rattling of their equipment made these specters seem human. The battlefield was about a thousand feet away. Rufio’s keen eyes searched the distance, but the Suebi had not yet come into view.
Metellus marched beside Rufio to receive instructions for signaling. Instead of a pilum, Metellus carried the standard of the First Century.
The Romans moved swiftly, and Rufio knew if they got too close to the battlefield before the Germans appeared, he would have to call a halt. That was the moment of danger. With the cunning of wild animals, the Germans might smell the rank meat that baited the snare.
Rufio looked back over his shoulder. Sabinus rode behind the Second Cohort, the Fifth Cohort following directly to his rear. From this commanding view on the right wing, Sabinus could oversee the flow of the battle and order reserves into any breaches in the Roman line or exploit any opportunities Fortuna presented.
Rufio smiled in admiration as he looked at the young commander. Sabinus wore a scarlet cloak so he was clearly visible to all his men. Rufio knew there was no greater inspiration to a Roman soldier than the presence of his commander. And no greater drive to heroism than the commander’s approving gaze.
A select bodyguard of cavalrymen surrounded Sabinus and his tribunes. The cornicens and tubicens marched beside them. Only Titinius was missing. The youthful tribune, along with the remainder of the cavalry, had been entrusted with the safety of the ever-vulnerable left wing.
Rufio turned back to the front as a few raindrops hit his face. He cursed under his breath. He would rather have had the sun in his eyes.
“Where in the name of the gods is Crus?” Metellus said. “Do you think the Germans got him?”
Rufio thought of the day he had first seen Crus, trying to act manly in front of his men and failing. And now he was performing the manliest act of his life, out of the view of everyone.
“We have a dinner planned thirty years from now in the Alban Hills,” Rufio said with a gruffness to conceal his anxiety. “That patrician bastard had better not disappoint me.”
Metellus looked at him and smiled but said nothing.
The ditch and the hill embracing the battlefield seemed to be racing toward them, now only five hundred feet away. The drizzle was getting heavier, loudly pelting their helmets.
“Listen,” Metellus said.
Rufio’s left ear was better than his right and he turned it toward the front.
“Hoofbeats.”
A horseman shot into view, racing across the plain. A magnificent black stallion streaked toward them like a launched arrow.
“Neptune speaks!” Crus shouted to Rufio as he rode through the gap between the Second and Third Cohorts and back to Sabinus to report.
“The ditch is flooded,” Rufio said to Metellus. “Run back and find out from Crus how far away the Germans are.”
Metellus did as ordered.
The first Roman rank was only about two hundred feet from the battleground.
“About a quarter of a mile,” Metellus said when he rejoined Rufio at the front.
“We’ll have to stop. Maybe we can use it to our advantage—make them think we’re afraid. Signal Sabinus.”
Metellus turned and made three short up and down movements with the silver boar.
Sabinus saw the signal and spoke to his hornblowers. The cornicens blew three brief notes with their curved horns, and the entire legion came to a halt without another command.
This was the moment when the discipline paid off—or failed to. Nothing in all of warfare so shattered the nerves as waiting and standing immobile at the approach of a merciless enemy.
The light drizzle continued. Rufio peered through the rain and at last saw the great dark mass. Suebi shouts and jeers soon shook the air.
“We’ll charge when they’re two hundred feet from the hill and trench,” Rufio said. “By the time we reach them, they’ll be where we want them. Get ready to signal Sabinus.”
But then the Germans stopped. They stood and hurled taunts from at least a hundred feet east of where Rufio needed them to be before he charged.
“They know it’s a trap,” Metellus said.
Rufio looked to the hill. The Scorpions were well concealed.
“It’s not possible.”
A distant rumble rolled toward them.
“And now a thunderstorm,” Metellus said. “What next?”
Though his face was wet from the rain, Rufio instinctively licked his lips.
“No,” he said. “That’s not thunder. It’s horsemen.”
He spun around and raised his pilum to Sabinus.
The commander shouted to his tubicens and they blew two sharp notes on their straight trumpets.
Every soldier in unison raised his pilum to shoulder height. The wait was over. Death was racing toward them.
“I knew it,” Rufio said. “This Barovistus is no amateur.”
Twin swarms of German horsemen burst into view. They veered around each flank of their own warriors and converged on the waiting Romans.
Rufio moistened his lips again and squinted, his fingers tightening around his pilum.
The Germans flew across the battlefield like a horde of raging centaurs. Every one flashed a Gallic sword.
An eerie whizzing sound sliced the air and dozens of iron bolts from the hilltop tore into the racing throng. Animals and men shrieked in pain and terror. The horses took the worst of it. Many crumpled with shattered legs and threw their riders. Some horses crashed into each other in their desperation to escape. A second Scorpion volley sheared into them. The animals screamed anew and scattered in all directions, like doomed prey lost in the streets of Hell. The men were howling, too, some nailed to their mounts by iron that had pierced a leg before sinking into their horse’s flank.
A huge German in front waved his sword and tried to snatch order from the chaos. Though bleeding from a scalp wound, he raced across the crumbling battle line to encourage by example. But a third volley drove them to the edge of madness. The horses bristled with bolts in their flanks, and some of the Germans had two or three bolts in their back or neck but were still alive. Horses and riders headed for the only line of escape—straight for the two huge gaps in the Roman line.
Rufio let them come.
At least two hundred horsemen had dashed through the funnels before the signal came. The horns sounded, the Romans
pivoted, and the pila flew.
The Suebi were shredded in the mouth of the wolf. Centurions shouted orders and the second rank of cohorts closed behind them. The third rank bored in. There was nowhere for the Suebi to turn. In minutes every German was unhorsed, the Spanish swords flashed, and not a Suebi was still on his feet. The Romans kicked aside the dead and stabbed and hacked every screaming man where he lay.
The few surviving horses galloped to safety behind the lines. The Romans wiped their swords and caught their breaths.
Centurions barked commands and the soldiers dressed ranks. A second set of orders boomed across the field. The cohorts drew up into the quincunx, sealing the gaps and forming now for what they did best.
Out on the battleground, the German leader stared at the carnage.
Rufio fixed the face in his mind.
The horsemen who had avoided the trap of Scipio gathered around their chief. He waved his sword and they rushed back the way they had come.
The first rank of cohorts was still fresh. They had merely thrown their pila and had allowed the second and third ranks to chew up the Suebi.
Now the first rank would face the Germans. Thousands of them.
Rufio tightened his grip on his shield and pulled his new sword from his scabbard. He knew that this was why he had been born.
48 DEATH IS CERTAIN, THE HOUR UNCERTAIN.
Roman saying
______
While the Suebi hesitated, waiting for their leader, Sabinus rode among his troops. The rain drummed against his breastplate and his cloak was soaked, but he felt none of it. He checked the wounded and was stunned to see only superficial injuries. The rout of the Suebi horsemen had been so thorough and their end so swift that not a single Roman had been killed. Yet he knew there were many hundred more cavalrymen to face.
He rode along the front of each cohort and congratulated his men. They cheered him as he passed, but he knew it was they who deserved the cheers. They had stood as resolutely as rooted trees before the vaunted cavalry of the German barbarians. By Jupiter, he was proud of these men! For a fleeting moment his future career shot before him, and he dismissed it as an absurdity. This day was all that could ever matter. Never before had he felt such purity of purpose, so searing a clarity of thought, as he did at this instant. And he knew he would never feel it again. Here in the driving rain in the wilderness of Gaul he felt as hot and sharp and true as a flash of lightning.
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