Knight of Rome Part I

by Malcolm Davies

  Since he had rejoined his troops, Lucius had spent his time marching up and down in a frenzy of suspense. It took all his disciplined resolve to stop running up to Lentus when he saw him approaching at the head of his men.

  “Centurion Lentus reporting, Tribune Longius,” he said with a flourished salute, copied by Corvo who stood slightly behind him.

  “Make your report, centurion,” Lucius replied.

  “Objective achieved without any casualties. We have accounted for eight Germans and their livestock sir. In accordance with your orders, we did not fire their dwellings.”

  “All went according to plan, then?” Lucius inquired.

  “Nearly, sir; they set two big hounds on us. They nearly got poor Corvo but the lads dealt with them.”

  “A narrow escape then, Corvo,” the tribune remarked.

  “Funny how fast you can move with a couple of damn big dogs snapping at you, sir.

  “I hope I don’t have to find out,” Lucius replied and turned to Lentus again, “And the bodies?”

  “Put ‘em all in the house along with the livestock after we’d cut their throats, left ‘em all in one big heap. Then we just shut the place up. Oh, and the optio wrote “Second Lucan” on the door with charcoal and drew an eagle on it; very good at drawing that optio is. There will be no doubt that it was us, sir.”

  “Thanks to you both; pass on my congratulations to the men on a job well done.”

  They marched out until the scouts reported a good place for an overnight camp. It was beside a small lake with a narrow river running into it. Beside a sandy beach, a rickety jetty like an old man’s skinny, bent finger ran a few yards out into the lake There were two tumbledown wooden buildings beside it. Smoke curled out of a hole in the roof of one but there was no sign of any inhabitants. They were all gone along with their boats if they had any, their nets, traps and fish-spears.

  “Must have seen or heard us coming,” remarked the optio who drew so well.

  No-one bothered to answer him; it was so obvious it had not needed saying,

  The second hut was full of racks of smoked fish. They pulled it down to use for firewood and cooked up a fish stew for all. There was a mild holiday mood among the men. With the lake at their back, they needed to post less sentries overnight and the fish had been a welcome change of diet. Lucius commandeered the remaining hut for his quarters. A soldier was detailed to help him off with his armour, which he would sleep without since they were reasonably secure. The temporary orderly looked disapprovingly at the weather- tarnished metal helmet, cuirass and back plate.

  “Looking a bit grubby, sir,” he said. “I could polish it up if you like; have it ready for you first thing.”

  Lentus passed him as he squatted under his rudimentary shelter using a mixture of spit and olive oil on a piece of doeskin to brighten up the armour.

  “Got a new job, brown-nosing the tribune, have you?” one of his comrades said.

  “Bugger off; he’s not a bad lad for an officer is Boxer,” he replied, turning the helmet in the firelight to admire the shine.

  “Thought he was called Tribune Longius,” another soldier remarked.

  “He is,” the first one said, “but a lot of the lads call him boxer. Seen that nose of his? All over his face, poor sod.”

  They all laughed.

  “Here, give us a go,” a newcomer said, picking up the back plate.

  Lentus smiled and went on his way without comment.

  In the morning, Lucius mounted his horse wearing newly gleaming armour. The legionaries had even untangled and combed through the crest on his helmet. They surreptitiously admired their handiwork.

  The lake and the river feeding it ran roughly north. The trees were more widely spaced near the riverbank, so the column could march six abreast as one combined unit. Orders were shouted and the lines shuffled off, swinging into a steady rhythm once the leading men had got up to speed. They marched cheerfully deeper into Upper Germany, knowing that tomorrow they would turn for home.

  Chapter 7

  Odila was no happier in her household than before Badurad and Otto had gone to visit the wise woman. Yes, Badurad was restored to his former self; the gloom was cleared away. He smiled, he talked, teased Saxa and walked around the camp greeting his friends. But Otto was withdrawn and self-absorbed as if the cloud from his father’s mind had blown over his. And worse, her son and his father seldom spoke to each other. But sometimes Odila thought she saw a conspiratorial look pass between them as if they shared a secret. She said nothing. Her love for her family was deep and genuine but she was the daughter, partner and mother of warriors. The traditions of her people dictated how she lived her life. If Otto had a problem, he must solve it or go to his father for advice. That was how it was. Her son was nearly a man and had already freed himself from her influence. The only woman who could ever discuss private matters with him would be his future wife.

  She sighed and shook her head. It was time to forget her troubles and get to work. Today, she and many of the other women were going to gather chestnuts. There was a grove high on the western slopes of the next valley upstream and the husks containing the shining reddish nuts inside them were beginning to fall. They would have to be brought in as soon as possible before the wild animals took them. There were twenty-seven wives and mothers in all in the party, half of them carrying babies in slings on one hip. Sixteen girls of various ages came with them along with a dozen boys under ten, and a one-armed man with his hound in case wild boar were about. They had woven baskets in wooden frames with straps on their backs. By the end of the day, they hoped they would be heavy with the bounty they were going out to forage. The cheerful body set off; the inevitable late comer rushing breathless to catch up, dragging a reluctant child by the hand. They moved upstream along the riverbank and through the neck of the escarpments on either side into the next valley past some cattle grazing on the sparse late pasture. They climbed steadily for nearly an hour, stopping to rest on the ridge before moving on through the inevitable pines. No-one knew if the chestnut grove had been planted deliberately but there were over forty well-grown trees with a carpet of bright green spiky globes spread over the ground between them. They represented a rich harvest but everything comes at a price; the needle-sharp spines would make fingers bleed before they were all gathered in.

  Odila looked back. From her elevated position, she could see the farthest half of the village over the intervening high ground. The roofs of the huts steamed in the growing warmth of a cloudless morning. The river seemed very blue from up here. A few tiny figures moved about, too far away to be recognisable. Someone tossed hay over the stock pen fence. Odila took the basket off her shoulders and bent to the day’s work.

  The scouts galloped back to the Roman column and flung themselves off their horses, gabbling in their excitement. They kept pointing upstream and shaking their lances. Lucius and the other officers gathered and tried to make sense of what they were being told. “Castra, Castra!” one of them kept shouting, using the Latin word for “camp”.

  “I think they are trying to tell us there is some sort of native settlement up ahead,” Lucius suggested.

  The scout understood something of what Lucius had said and began to nod his head in assent. He smoothed over some of the sandy earth underfoot with his boot and began to scratch in it with his lance butt. They bent over to study what was being outlined in the dirt. A wriggling line was clearly the river; beside it were some circles and stickmen with shields and spears. Lucius squatted and pointed at the crude drawing of the warriors. He held up his other hand with the fingers and thumb splayed and looked inquiringly at the scout. The German shook his head and clenched and unclenched his right hand three times.

  Lucius stood up. “I believe he is trying to tell us that there is a sizable village nearby with at least fifteen warriors, possibly more.”

  “If they have fifteen armed or half armed men, you can double that number with all the great hairy bastards th
at will come at us with an axe or a hoe,” Lentus added.

  “Halt the men where they are and get them in close order, Lentus,” the tribune told him and leapt into the saddle. He indicated that the scouts should lead him to where they had seen the German village.

  “Tribune, I must protest,” Lentus said.

  “Centurion Lentus, do you have a horse?”

  “No sir….”

  “But I do. I shall be back as soon as I can. Keep a good look out in my absence.”

  Lucius made his horse rear on its hind legs then spin before cantering off upstream, the scouts on either side of him. The horsemen soon passed out of sight. Lentus vented his irritation on his optio who accepted the dressing down philosophically then turned on the nearest legionary and shouted at him. The legionary remained silently at attention; he had no-one to take it out on.

  The group of three horsemen was back in little over half an hour. The tribune’s expression was serious; a deep vertical line creased his forehead. He dismounted and the officers ran to him. The legionaries edged as close as they dared to try to overhear.

  “What we have here,” Lucius explained, “is a half-moon shaped valley around two hundred paces long. It follows the river on one side and rises steeply on the other. At the head of the valley there is a break where the water flows through. I counted twenty huts but I could not see them all from my vantage point. The entrance nearest to us is half a mile away. What further information would be helpful?”

  “Are the huts arranged in any sort of pattern?” Lentus asked.

  “No, not so far as I could see.”

  “The wind is blowing in our faces, centurion,” Corvo added.

  Lentus acknowledged his comment with an appreciative nod.

  “My turn to ask a question,” said Lucius. “Is the force we will be facing strong enough to do us any real damage?”

  “They shouldn’t be too troublesome if we can hold formation. The problem is, we shall have to break ranks in order to pass around their huts and, as you’ve said, tribune, there’s no order to them.”

  Lucius turned to Corvo. “Why is the wind direction worth noting?”

  Corvo looked a little nervously at the centurions and optios before replying. He was unsure whether he was part of this council of war or not. He cleared his throat and spoke up.

  “I’ve done this a couple of times before, Tribune Longius. As Centurion Lentus says, the problem is there are no proper lanes between their dwellings and that hinders us in keeping formation. What we usually do is we set them alight as we advance. This drives the enemy out in front of us and makes sure there is no one hiding to attack us in the rear. But we can’t do that today because as soon as we fire the first few huts, the smoke and heat will blow back in our faces and we’ll be blind, sir, so to speak.”

  “Corvo has got it dead to rights sir, couldn’t have explained it better myself,” Lentus confirmed.

  Marcus Corvo blushed for the first time in many years.

  “Could we get around them through the forest?” Lucius asked.

  “Not unseen sir; a settlement this size is bound to have hunters or woodcutters out,” Lentus answered.

  Lucius put his hands behind his back and wandered over to the river. He stood staring across to the far bank for several minutes. When he returned, he had a stick in his hand. As the scout had done previously, he began to scratch on the ground with it. His map was more detailed than the first one. Lucius looked around at the faces staring down and used the stick as a pointer while he spoke.

  “Right, gentlemen, this is what we do. We advance to within fifty paces of the valley mouth. There is a steep ridge butting right up to the path at that point. We deploy eighteen infantry and six missile troops there to prevent a breakout. That will allow a triple defensive line the width of the path with the slingers and archers up on the ridge. The rest of us double time right through the village to the far end keeping close to the river. There we leave the same number of men to protect us from any stray hostiles in the upper valley. The main force now turns through ninety degrees and attacks on a broad front back the way we came; infantry in front, archers and slingers behind them using every vantage point they can to lay down fire on the opposition. We use the river to protect our flank. We can burn the huts as we go because the wind will be behind us. Fast and hard, as the legate ordered and charge right over anyone who gets in our way

  There was a muted cheer from the legionaries close enough to have overheard. Lentus spun round.

  “Shut up you lot. What do you think this is; the fucking pantomime? Optio, take the name of the next man who says a word…or grins in an insubordinate manner. Corvo, get your men to tie some bundles of dry twigs together into faggots for kindling and detail off your rear and advance men. Optios, centurion, form the men up, sort out the guard parties and let’s get going. Oh, and the lads can stroll till we’re up close. No marching in step and banging around with shields; gently does it.”

  Badurad and two friends lounged on the riverbank near the centre of the village enjoying one of the rare warm days for the time of year. They were watching one of their companions who stood naked and waist deep in the middle of the stream fishing with a spear. Each time he plunged it below the surface and brought it back with no fish flopping on the barbs, they laughed and shouted ribald comments. The fisherman’s jaws were clamped tight to stop his teeth from chattering. He had been in too long and was chilled to the bone but his pride would not let him give up.

  Otto was on the opposite side of the settlement. The cattle had been dispersed into the upper valleys until the ice and snow arrived when they would be brought closer in but the horses and four oxen were penned behind a wooden fence near the huts. Otto had been given a colt last year. It was now coming up two years old and he was beginning to school it. He held it on a long line attached to its halter and clucked and whistled between his teeth to get it to circle him at differing paces; now a canter, now a walk. After he had finished, he was going up into the forest to bring back yet more of the seemingly endless supply of firewood everyone would need over the fast-approaching winter. His axe, little more than a hatchet on a long handle, was propped against the rudimentary gate of the enclosure.

  Over one hundred souls were going about their business around him. Women ground grain or scooped the excess foam off the yeasty liquid in the ale vats. Some men were skinning a buck hanging from a frame by its back legs; or rather, one was working at it while the others gave him helpful advice. A few boys ambushed each other with toy spears. Some girls had their heads together in a giggling group, falling silent if an adult walked within hearing of them. Old folk sat outside their huts stretching arthritic limbs to the healing warmth of the sun.

  Soon it would be time for the midday meal.

  The Romans halted two hundred paces from the settlement, hidden from it by the curve of the path and the ridge of higher ground. No orders were shouted and no whistles blown. Instructions were passed in quiet voices repeated down the lines of men. Calloused hands eased swords in their scabbards and took a firmer grip on javelins and shields. They were waved on with hand gestures and moved as silently as they could until the fifty-pace mark Lucius had talked about was reached. The rear-guard halted and took up its position. The main force went forward, missile troops nearest the river since they carried no shields, all now marching in step and accelerating into first, double time and then a fast jog as they burst into the winter camp of Badurad’s clan. They were forty paces in before they were noticed and another ten until the first shouts and screams rose up from the few shocked people who had seen them and begun to scatter, some for shelter, others to find a weapon.

  The level of noise grew as the Romans ran onwards. Badurad knew that sound and what it meant. He and his two friends sprinted for their huts and armed themselves as quickly as possible. The fisherman was too slow. He was within three floundering paces of the bank when a well-aimed javelin struck him in the chest and knocked him back i
nto the water to float gently downstream. The men absorbed in dressing the deer carcase looked up to see a wall of Romans rushing towards them. They were overwhelmed, killed with javelin thrusts and trampled by the thudding boots before they had properly risen to their feet.

  The head of the valley was reached, to the great relief of Lucius. He had been cantering his horse in the middle of his running troops, desperate to avoid barging any of them to the ground and slowing the momentum of this mad dash. The centurions and remaining optio yelled out orders and the troops deployed. The second guard took up their position and the bulk of the legionaries formed two ranks with the archers and slingers behind them, now on the side farthest from the river. Sparks were struck, the faggots lit and lobbed into the air to land on the nearest roofs. Yellowish smoke rose and thickened into rolling, choking clouds. Orange flames burst from the sun-dried bracken thatch. The screaming and shouting intensified as the first Germans ran out to die in a hail of javelins, arrows and slingshot.

  “Let the men advance Centurion Lentus!” Lucius shouted. “Keep your dressing.”

  The centurions’ whistles shrilled and the steely line of armed men began to cut through the village and its inhabitants like a band saw. They were halfway through when they met their first organised resistance.

  Badurad had assembled the surviving twelve of his warriors in a line between two of the largest huts. He was bare-headed but wore his fish-scale armour and carried his sword. Ranged alongside him were men with shields and spears; a few were partially armoured. He stared into the billowing smoke through stinging eyes and caught the first glimpse of the soldiers grinding inexorably towards him like some nightmare dragon of impenetrable scales and fiery breath.

  The Romans saw him and his men, shrugged their chainmail into a more comfortable position on their shoulders, crouched and drew swords ready to engage. A mounted officer appeared behind them.

  “Halt,” he bellowed. The legionaries held their positions. “Centurion,” he yelled, “Get Corvo to clear this rabble out of the way.”