Warrior of Rome III

by Harry Sidebottom

  ‘Titus went to them,’ said Malchus. ‘He is bringing them to us.’

  ‘I do not see him,’ said Ahala.

  Malchus looked beseechingly at Ahala. The latter shook his angular head. There was nothing to do. The two who first hailed a failed pretender had nowhere to run.

  Sunlight flashed on the advancing blades.

  The centurion flung up his right hand.

  The legionaries halted. Five, six paces away. They were panting. They were tired, but they were ready to kill – they had that wildness about them.

  ‘Dominus.’ The centurion saluted. He was not young. The impressive array of awards on his armour rattled as his chest heaved. ‘Dominus, Sampsigeramus has declared himself emperor. He has ordered the palace fortified. He is leading troops to sieze the temple of Elagabalus.’

  There had been no acclamation, no proskynesis, but the centurion had called Ballista Dominus. As emperor or as prefect? The thing hung in the balance. But clearly he would rather lead his men on the orders of Ballista than the priest-king of Emesa.

  ‘Do you know how many men he has with him, Centurion?’ Ballista’s voice was calm, competent.

  ‘No idea, Dominus. There has been fighting. Sampsigeramus’s men attacked some of those who would not take the sacramentum to him.’

  ‘Does he have Romans as well as Emesenes?’

  ‘We saw some from Legio III Gallica, some auxiliaries as well.’

  It was not a huge surprise. Legio III Gallica had been the local legion for a long time. It had supported other pretenders – Heliogabalus, Iotapianus, Uranius Antoninus – from the royal house of Emesa.

  ‘Have any of the Emesene troops refused to acknowledge him?’

  ‘Not that I know, Dominus.’

  The Actium trick, thought Ballista, we will have to try that. Octavian, the first Augustus, had declared war not on Mark Antony but on Cleopatra. Turn a civil war into a foreign one. Any Romans on the other side have been so corrupted by decadent foreign ways, just like Antony, they have ceased to count as Romans.

  ‘Men coming, Dominus,’ said Ahala.

  These soldiers were marching without undue haste. They were from a regular auxiliary unit, Dacian spearmen, about eighty of them. They stopped as one and saluted smartly. With the hope of a donative, they moved as if on a parade ground.

  ‘Ave Imperator Caesar Marcus Clodius Ballista.’

  Their centurion introduced himself and announced that imperial regalia must be found: the diadem and purple cloak, the sacred fire, the wreaths of oak and laurel. And lictors, there must be the right number of lictors carrying the fasces.

  Ballista thanked him, but said finding him some arms and armour was more pressing. This went down well with all the milites present. Ballista sent a couple of legionaries to Hippothous at the rented house for his equipment, and another one to the Palmyra Gate to talk to Castricius. He had been going to send one to check the gaol when he remembered that Sampsigeramus had fortified the palace.

  Now Ballista had about a hundred and twenty men with him. He knew more were prepared to fight Sampsigeramus, were already fighting him. Time for a speech while they got his armour, then off to try the luck of war at the temple of Elagabalus.

  ‘Commilitiones’ – Ballista’s voice was used to reaching the rear ranks – ‘The tryant is dead! I killed him with my bare hands – these hands.’ He paused while they cheered. ‘I had no thought except to free the army and the Res Publica from his foul actions, the filthy actions that degraded us all. When the soldiers hailed me emperor, I could not have been more surprised. I have no desire for the high office. I would walk away now, but the situation does not allow it. The Res Publica is in deadly danger again. The tyrant may be dead, but his teacher in tyranny – or should we say his husband? – is alive. Sampsigeramus, this cinaedus, this sniggering little easterner, is not only alive, but he has the audacity to claim the purple! These arrogant orientals never learn. We all know what happened to his kinsman Heliogabalus – dragged through the streets by a hook, then stuffed into a sewer.’

  ‘The hook, the hook … drag him, drag him.’

  Ballista waved his arm for silence. The chanting stopped as if performed by a well-trained chorus.

  ‘And who supports him? A bunch of easterners like himself.’

  The soldiers jeered – no matter where they came from, their primary identity was Roman soldier.

  ‘Wait,’ shouted Ballista. ‘Do not get overconfident. We have a dangerous fight on our hands. These easterners are tough – they only ever wear the thinnest silks. And they have stamina – they must have to take it up the arse all night.’

  The soldiers liked this stuff. Ballista knew it was all bollocks. But the soldiers liked this stuff.

  ‘If you come across any from Legio III Gallica, do not worry. They have been out here so long, they have gone native. They are worse than the natives – taught the locals how to suck cock. Not one of them did not start his life abandoned on a dung heap in a back street of Raphanaea or some such Syrian shithole.’

  ‘Fuck them, fuck them …’

  ‘It is time to go and pull this effeminate off the throne. Sampsigeramus is hiding in the temple of Elagabalus. The god will not help him. We will drag him out and kill him.’

  ‘Drag him, drag him … the hook, the hook.’

  ‘Remember the temple is sacrosanct. Any soldier pillaging it will suffer the harshest penalty. But the palace is not. After we have dealt with Sampsigeramus, shall we see what we can find there?’

  ‘Dives miles, dives miles.’

  ‘After I have had a look at his treasury – all the wealth taken by the avarice of Quietus’s father – a donative to the loyal troops will be announced.’

  ‘Rich soldier, rich soldier.’

  Hippothous and some other men had appeared with Ballista’s weapons and armour, his original bird-crested helmet. They helped him into it. There was still no word from Castricius about his sons and Julia, but he had to put them from his mind.

  The troops fell in, and they set off.

  On the way across town, their force was augmented by a complete ala of Dalmatian cavalrymen. They had come straight from their barracks. They had left their horses behind as unsuitable for urban fighting. They were lightly armoured and there were only about two hundred and fifty of them but, to Ballista’s tiny force, they were a hugely welcome addition.

  The great temple of Elagabalus was set in a walled precinct, however, no attempt had been made to defend the outer walls. The main gates stood untended and open.

  Perhaps Sampsigeramus did not have all that many men with him. He would have left a substantial number to hold his palace. Presumably more Emesene warriors would still be at their stations on the city walls. Ballista wondered just what Rutilus and Castricius were doing. This would be an opportune moment for Odenathus to attack.

  While his men formed up in the street, Ballista peered in through the gates. The temple on its tall podium was in the region of a hundred paces away. Halfway between the gate and the temple was the great altar. Ballista noted that its three fires were still burning. There was no other cover. The sacred grove was off to the left, level with the temple. To the right there was nothing until some service buildings beyond the temple. Something like a hundred Emesene archers were drawn up at the foot of the steps in front of the temple. There were more of them up on the pediment and roof. It was quite possible yet more might be hidden among the conifers of the sacred grove.

  Ballista had not yet seen any legionaries from III Gallica, or any Roman regulars at all, but this was going to be far from easy. One hundred paces across an open, arrow-swept yard. Ballista gave the order to attack anyway.

  Ballista got ready to go in with the first rank from Legio XVI Flavia Firma. The days when an emperor could keep well to the rear – and keep the respect of his troops – were gone. His old enemy Maximinus Thrax had set the new precedent, charging in at the head of his men. Of course, apart from his strength and
skill at arms, Maximinus Thrax had had little to recommend him as emperor. Like another barbarian very recently declared emperor, Ballista thought wryly.

  The arrows came screaming at them as they went through the gate. They hunched forward like men advancing into hail. The noise was all-encompassing: arrowheads slicing into wood, metal, leather, flesh; men muttering, praying, shouting, howling. They kept going forward.

  Ballista’s shield felt as if it were being kicked as arrows slammed into it. Three of the warheads punched through, one only an inch or so from his face. He snapped them off, kept moving. He was sweating hard.

  How far? Ballista peeped out around the edge of his shield. Allfather, they were only just coming up to the altar. The weird foreshortening as the arrows sped towards you. He ducked back, blocking out the screams, forcing his legs to keep moving.

  A cheer from the men around him. Ballista looked out again. The arrow storm was still there, but less of it, and at a different angle. The archers at the foot of the steps had ceased shooting. They were fighting each other to get back through the doors of the temple. Those up on the pediment and roof still wielded their bows. There were not that many of them. Now Ballista was able to note there were no missiles coming from the sacred grove to his left.

  Hefting their shields higher, the soldiers ran forward. The withdrawal of the enemy into the temple seemed to have struck shackles off their legs. They were at the foot of the steps in moments. They set off up them. Hobnails screeching, gouging the marble. The great dark-wood doors at the top slammed shut.

  A whistling sound – above the noises of the men – unexplained, eerie. A terrible crash. The men stopped. A stunned silence, then the high screaming of men in agony.

  Something made Ballista look up. Sometimes your eyes see something so unexpected your understanding lags behind. Figures falling through the air, turning slowly. Rigid, yet unresisting. Getting faster.

  The next statue slammed into the steps a few paces away. Marble into marble. Vicious, jagged fragments flying. The white steps now veined red. Another crashed down. And another. Pandemonium.

  Ballista was cowering down. His shield had a wide rent. There was blood on his right leg. The men were running. He looked up at the pediment. Another divinity was teetering on the edge. Ballista ran too.

  Back safe behind the outer wall, Ballista called the officers to him and took stock. Not that many casualties. They had left twenty or so inside the precinct; the dead or those too hurt to crawl. About the same number had made it out but were incapacitated by injuries. Ballista ordered they be tended, as far as it was possible, where they were. He could not afford to be without the men needed to take them to doctors.

  Ballista questioned those around him on the layout of the temple precinct. It was Ahala, now binding up the flesh wound in Ballista’s right thigh, who proved extraordinarily informative. The wall was high all around the compound. There were two other gates. One at the far western end opened next to the service buildings. From there you could get into a low walled yard that butted up to the rear of the temple. There was a wicket gate to the yard and a small back door to the temple. They would almost certainly be defended, and it would be hard to force the narrow back door, but it was worth a look. The other gate was off to the left in the southern wall and led straight into the sacred grove. There was a forester’s hut just by it.

  ‘You know the layout well,’ said Ballista.

  Ahala looked embarrassed. ‘When we first came here … some of the boys told me there were sacred prostitutes in the precinct – had to take you on for their god, no matter how low the coin.’ He shrugged. ‘I was stupid enough to believe them.’

  ‘I would not worry,’ replied Ballista, ‘some years ago the same thing happened to a friend of mine.’

  The laughter was cut short. A soldier running flat out down the street from the north. ‘Men coming! Hundreds of them! Roman regulars.’

  Ballista made what dispositions he could with his limited force: a few holding the gate from the temple at their rear, the rest blocking the street. There was no middle way here. It was either very good or very bad.

  The noise built – it sounded like a lot of men. Soon such speculation was redundant. The soldiers turned the corner into full view, a solid phalanx of heavily armed men stretching as far as the eye could see. The sound of their coming bounced back off the walls. The shields at the front were those of Legio X Fretensis. Its station was the northern city wall, part of Rutilus’s command. And there, bareheaded on horseback, was Rutilus himself. No one could mistake the flaming red hair of the Praetorian Prefect appointed by Quietus. Facing him, Ballista calculated quickly: counting the standards, multiplying the numbers in each rank by those in each file – must be about five hundred. Rutilus had brought the entire vexillatio with him. Further back, there were other standards – at least two auxiliary units.

  Rutilus’s force did not break stride at the sight of Ballista’s men. Inexorably, the shields of Legio X bore down. One hundred paces. They had numbers and momentum on their side. Fifty paces. They would sweep the men facing them aside. Ballista knew being taken alive was not an option. No cell near the surface a second time. The deep dungeons and the claws.

  Rutilus yelled a command. The bucinatores sounded their instruments. With a crash, the great phalanx halted.

  In the succeeding quiet, Ballista heard a dove cooing from over in the conifer trees of the sacred grove.

  The ranks of Legio X parted. Rutilus rode through and out into the space between the lines. All alone, and still bareheaded. He may have always been a faithful servant to the house of Macrianus, but he had never lacked courage.

  Ballista stepped out from his meagre ranks.

  The two men studied each other.

  Rutilus got down from his horse. He untied something, a bag of sorts, from his saddle. He opened it and pulled out a human head. He held it by the hair then let it drop into the dust. His horse skittered sideways, away from the noisome thing. Rutilus prodded the head away with the toe of his boot.

  ‘Death to all traitors,’ he said.

  The head was unrecognizable. Ballista waited, heart pounding.

  ‘That was the tyrant’s cousin and partner in vice – Cornelius Macer.’

  Ballista exhaled silently.

  Rutilus saluted. ‘Ave Imperator Caesar Marcus Clodius Ballista Augustus.’

  Behind him, Rutilus’s men took up the chant, with only the occasional ‘Dives miles’ to remind their new Caesar of his obligations.

  Rutilus had indeed brought with him all five hundred of Legio X Fretensis, as well as five hundred Armenian bowmen and five hundred dismounted Moorish cavalrymen armed with javelins.

  Once Ballista was acquainted with the full force at his disposal, he outlined his plan quickly to Rutilus and the other officers. His original force was to guard the perimeter walls to the north and west and, without taking the risk of becoming too entangled, probe the gate near the service buildings, check the rear entrance. Ballista did not want to ask too much of them. It is always difficult to get men who have once escaped out of combat to go back into it the same day. The dismounted Moors and one hundred of the Armenian archers were to break in the southern gate, secure the sacred grove and prepare to shoot at the Emesenes on the roof of the temple. The men of Legio X would go in via the main east gate and assault the doors of the temple in two units formed in testudo. The remaining four hundred Armenians would follow them and attempt to discourage the men on the roof from intervening. To get them through the temple doors, a work party was to cut down two suitable conifers from the sacred grove as battering rams.

  ‘Is it wise to chop down trees from a sacred grove?’ A low muttering of concurrence greeted Rutilus’s question. Soldiers were ever superstitious, especially when about to fight. This needed careful handling.

  ‘The god will not hold it against us. It is our enemies – it is Sampsigeramus and his accomplices who have defiled the temple of Elagabalus. They have tur
ned the god’s house into a fortress. They have thrown down the sacred images from the roof.’ Ballista raised his voice, made it ring. ‘The great god Elagabalus offers us his sacred conifers. Elagabalus, Sol Invictus, calls on us to cleanse his house. Elagabalus, the unconquered sun, calls on us to drive out and punish the impious.’

  Waiting frays the nerves. It seemed to take an eternity for the various bodies of men to get to their stations, for the huge tree trunks to be manhandled back, their branches lopped off and ends sharpened. Ballista’s leg throbbed and stiffened. He felt slightly sick with hunger. His temper was getting short.

  A messenger puffed into view. It took him a moment to spot the new emperor slumped against the wall.

  ‘Dominus, the prefect Castricius sent me. Your wife and sons passed over to the lines of Odenathus some time ago, before … before he heard that you had been acclaimed emperor.’

  Ballista leapt up. His leg almost gave way as he lunged forward. He folded the messenger in a bearhug, slapping him hard on the back, kissing his cheeks. When released, the man reeled back, quite unsettled by all this imperial affection.

  They were safe. Haddudad would make sure of it. Of course, Odenathus now had them, but they had survived – that was all that mattered.

  ‘All ready, Dominus.’

  Once more into the arrow storm. But it was different this time. The only Emesenes to be seen were on the roof of the temple. Being shot at by five hundred bowmen from two sides, they mainly kept their heads down.

  Encased in their shields like overlapping tiles, the two bodies of legionaries lumbered towards the temple. Inside each testudo, soldiers grunted and swore at the ungainly weight of the improvised battering rams.

  They passed the great altar – one of the fires had gone out – and struggled on. Overhead, the fletchings of hundreds of arrows snapped through the air. There was the occasional thump as an Emesene arrowhead hit a shield.