25th of Quintilis - Ilerda
Fronto was starting to think about sleeping in his full kit, since it seemed that every time he bedded down for the night, someone woke him and made him leave his tent. Now, as the legionary Felix had sent hovered outside, Fronto hurriedly fastened his belt, threw his cloak about his shoulders and pinned it, and slipped into his boots, giving them a quick tie and then emerging into the sultry Hispanic night beneath a blanket of black, studded with glittering silver stars.
‘Come on, then.’
With the legionary escort, he hurried across to the command tent, which was already rumbling with the conversation of officers, a gold glow peeking out around the door. Rubbing his eyes and stretching, the legate of the Eleventh nodded to the Praetorian guards to either side and then entered. Many of the officers were already gathered, and a weary looking cavalryman stood by the general’s table. Caesar looked untouched by sleep, which was nothing new.
Over only a short wait, others arrived and took their position. Once everyone was present, and Antonius ran a quick head count and nodded to Caesar, the general stepped forward to the table and leaned on it with balled fists.
‘Before we proceed further, gentlemen, I am going to let Figulus here repeat the account he delivered to me a little over half an hour ago. Figulus?’
The cavalry soldier stepped forward and rolled his shoulders.
‘The enemy are all-but gone.’
There was a general murmur of disbelief and derision among the officers, but a single glare from Caesar, and Antonius’ clearing of throat, soon put a stop to it and Figulus continued.
‘From the camp’s vantage point, very little has changed, I can see. The cook fires still burn and the men are still on the walls. But I can assure you, sirs, that the bulk of the army of Petreius and Afranius have quit Ilerda. The cavalry have been keeping the two legions across the river penned in their new fort since we crossed, though there was little we could do to actually harm them. They have solid defences and a good working Roman knowledge of contra equitas tactics. But we harry them and keep them hungry, preventing forage, and we’ve watched them.’
He sighed and stretched. The man was paying little of the due deference one would expect in the presence of senior officers, but then Fronto had seldom seen a man look so weary and dishevelled. The rider had been in the saddle for days with precious little rest.
‘Our scouts caught sight of the sneaky bastards a couple of hours ago. They had opened up a small postern facing the river, unobserved by the various pickets and outriders. The legionaries were leaving in a small but steady trickle, crossing the bridge quietly and joining their mates in the new fort. In fairness, Prefect Galronus had questioned why the camp had needed to be so big if it was just a bridgehead. We managed to catch one of their scouts and a bit of judicious slapping revealed that they’ve been doing that for three nights. Only a small rear guard remains in the camp to grant you the illusion of full defence. Even before I was sent back here with the warning, the enemy legions in the bridge camp were preparing to leave. Almost certainly they’re on the move by now.’
Caesar nodded to him, and he stepped back.
‘So there you have it, gentlemen. Petreius and Afranius are cleverer than we thought. Faced with growing odds against them and a lack of supplies, they decided to quit and move west to more friendly territory. They have set up a pontoon crossing of the Iberus which they can destroy afterwards and effectively cut off any pursuit. They have a system of depots in place from Ilerda to the crossing, which means they likely have sufficient supplies to see themselves to safety no matter what we’ve done to them. They have made a solid defence of the far side of their stone bridge and moved the bulk of their men out to it under our very noses. Now they are leaving that fort, with only a minimal rear guard left to slow us. If they reach that pontoon bridge, then this campaign has failed. And if this campaign fails, then the knock on effect will be disastrous. If we are bogged down here in an endless fight with Pompey’s men, then Pompey himself is at leisure to return to Italia and regain control, at which point we will be in a worse position than we were in Ravenna at the start of all this.’
‘No pressure, then,’ said Fabius, earning himself a glare from the general.
‘We are left in somewhat dire straits, gentlemen. We need to stop them, but we simply do not have the time.’
‘Can the cavalry not stop them once they leave the fort and are on the move?’ Plancus mused.
‘They will certainly slow them a little,’ put in Varus, a man more than familiar with the capabilities of the cavalry. ‘But no, they number perhaps a third as many bodies as the army they face, and the enemy know how to deal with cavalry. At best they will be able to harry them and irritate, pick off scouts and wagons, create trouble for them. They will cause casualties, but to actually fully commit against them would be more or less suicide.’
Plancus nodded his understanding.
‘What about the legions who’ve been crossing the bridge to the north, General?’ Fabius said. ‘There must be two legions assembled there by now.’
‘There are,’ the general answered with a nod. ‘But they’re a few miles further away. They can catch up and commit, but even in conjunction with the cavalry they would be facing insurmountable odds. The only way we can hope to stop them reaching that bridge is by fielding a force against them strong enough to make them turn and face us. We need to get most, if not all, of our men against them and before they can reach the Iberus.’
‘Can you not now take the stone bridge?’ Mamurra mused. ‘If only a small rear guard remains in the camp, they must be inadequate to protect the bridge. And if the enemy have used it, then why not us?’
‘A good thought,’ Caesar conceded, ‘which had occurred to me, but there are three problems with it. Firstly, although it is a wider and stronger bridge than our ones upstream, it still acts as a funnel and it will take our men quite some time to cross it. Also, though we know they have left a rear guard, we cannot be certain what it entails. I doubt Petreius has entrusted his back to a force inadequate to protect it. If our men move across the saddle toward that bridge, I suspect we will find burning tree trunks rolled down on us and the like. Walking into the unknown could be carnage. And there is every chance that the enemy have slighted the bridge as they left, anyway. While we’ve had no intelligence to that effect, it is what I would do, so I have to assume the same of them. A few well-placed blows to weaken the bridge and then the first attempt to cross sends half a cohort of men to their death. No, the bridge is too risky a proposition.’
The room fell quiet again.
Fronto had been listening to the debate with growing irritation, and almost jumped when he realised Salvius Cursor had moved around the room and was now standing at his side. The tribune leaned close, his voice a sibilant whisper.
‘I know what you’re thinking, Fronto.’
‘You do?’
‘And you’re right. For once, I damn well agree with you. Make them see it. The general listens to you.’
Fronto turned, half expecting to see some sly expression on the tribune’s face, this being a move in one of his games, though there was nothing but earnestness in his expression. That worried Fronto more than any opposition from the man. If Salvius agreed with him, then there was a good chance that what he was thinking was criminally insane. But it had the single advantage of being the only option.
‘Come with me,’ Fronto said, loudly, and turned and walked from the tent.
There was a series of surprised murmurs in the room, and Fronto was already striding down the Via Principalis of the camp with Salvius Cursor at his heel before the first of the officers emerged from the tent.
‘Fronto, stop being so theatrical,’ shouted Antonius, though there was humour in his voice as he and Caesar hurried down the road after the legate. By the time they reached the equisio, Fronto had grabbed a horse from the corral and mounted, not bothering with a saddle. Salvius joined him and they rode out through the camp gate.
By the time they reached the site of the ford, three miles upstream, the rest of the officers were on horseback and catching up. Fronto approached the ford quickly, the water glittering in the moonlight, silver sparkles on a bed of black. He swallowed. It looked a lot deeper and faster now than it had in his head.
Four cohorts of men were encamped next to the ford, with pickets out, but no proper defences – the workforce who were strengthening the ford. As the bemused staff officers reined in behind them, Fronto slid from his horse, Salvius right behind him, and stomped down to the eight man tent party who stood watch over the ford.
‘You,’ he shouted to one of them.’ Strip to your tunic and belt.’
The man, shocked, stood unmoving for a moment, then realised who it was who had given him an order and, with the help of his mate, unfastened his helmet and sword, dropped his shield and then peeled off the mail shirt. At Fronto’s gesture, he stood back. To the general amusement of the gathered officers, Fronto crouched, tipped the shield face down and piled the rest of the soldier’s gear onto it. Bracing himself – it took little these days to remind Fronto that he was no longer a young man – he lifted the shield, the burden dreadful, the large curved board supporting a weight in iron and steel and bronze and leather. Grunting, and wondering whether he was being brave and foolhardy or just plain old and foolish, he hefted the shield and slowly, trying not to look too much as though he was struggling, lifted it above his head. Parts of his body issued alarming creaks.
Finally, he settled it in place and, though his arm muscles screamed at the weight, it was better with them raised and locked than it had been actually lifting the thing. He could remember less than a decade ago in Cremona, just before Caesar had taken them north into Gaul, lifting this weight and more and barely breaking a sweat. Gods, but he’d become old in Gaul.
‘Fronto, don’t be an arse,’ Antonius grinned from the turf above the ford.
‘Fronto, the water is too deep,’ Fabius added, echoing Mamurra’s words as the old engineer nodded his agreement.
‘If it’s too deep, then it just means you’re too short,’ Fronto snapped, and turned, walking into the river.
It was all he could do not to shout out in shock as the freezing cold water closed on his ankles. It was like sloshing into ice. He shivered and stepped forward again. To his dismay his leg sank in almost to the knee at the second step, and he almost lost his balance, teetering on the submerged log surface. Slowly righting himself, he moved on. Fortunately that was the steepest drop for a while, and he slogged through the numbing cold of the Sicoris until he was twenty paces out from the bank. There, he stopped and turned, intending to grin to the watchers and confirm how easy it was.
His face remained immobile. The officers on the bank were watching, full of concern. Three soldiers had stripped down to their underwear, preparing to dive in and swim to his rescue. The only one who seem to have any kind of confidence was Salvius, who, fully clothed, had followed him into the water and was four paces behind.
‘Bear in mind,’ Fronto shouted, ‘that after this cold bath, I shall want a warm one!’
There was no laughter at his comment. Just more concern.
Turning once more, Fronto moved on. Another five paces and the river bed dropped away again, the water sliding up his tunic and touching his nethers, making him wince and wonder if it was possible to pee through a frozen prick.
On he moved. He could no longer feel his feet. It was like lifting appendages encased in lead blocks. The water was providing more and more resistance the further out he moved, and he could feel the current trying to pull him down toward Ilerda and beyond, to the great River Iberus.
Again, somewhere around a third of the way across, the water rose once more and he found himself submerged to the waist. The going was becoming incredibly slow now and required every ounce of effort he could muster to heave his way through the constant, battering torrent. Still he slogged on, aware of Salvius Cursor just a heartbeat or two behind him. If there was one thing he was not prepared to do, it was fail in front of the tribune.
He found the end of the new work rather suddenly as his foot left the heavy timber boles and sank into sludge. For just a moment, he was almost gone downstream. He tipped to the side, his other leg flailing in the water and then slapping down into the soft river bed. Even as he swayed and the weight on the shield above his head threatened to send him under, the soft bed gave a little under his feet and his head vanished beneath the surface.
He panicked, then fought the panic, then panicked some more, but a moment later managed to free a leg and took a step forward, his other foot coming up. One found a rock and managed to steady him as his face emerged from the water and he coughed wildly. The water tasted of silt. And worse. He heaved in several deep cleansing breaths and took another pace forward, the water lapping at his chin, the shield still miraculously dry and held over his head. It was odd how you could trick your body into forgetting its woes by introducing it to new ones. The pain in his arms holding up the shield had been forgotten with the cold of the water, and now that had been consigned to history with the terror of the depth and sinking beneath the surface. Sadly, he couldn’t imagine what new horror waited to make him forget that problem. Perhaps there was a pike in the water the size of a horse? That would do it…
Though it was febrile imagining, the sudden thought of what living terrors a river could hold made him push on with fresh force. He glanced over his shoulder. Salvius was still there, and he could see the other officers at the riverbank beyond. He was over half way across the Sicoris.
Determination flooded through him at the realisation and he ploughed on through the pulling torrent, struggling, finding the few hard footings he could and fighting every foot of the way. He fervently wished he could touch and kiss the small figure of Fortuna that hung on the thong around his neck, but both hands were occupied with the heavy load on the shield.
When his foot suddenly found higher ground and he stepped forward, feeling his chest emerge from the water, he almost cried with relief. Then, another five paces and he was up to his waist. Now, the going was easier and, combined with his triumphant relief at being across, he slogged quickly through the remaining shallows, first his groin, then knees emerging from the water. Finally, he was out and stomping up the bank, where he gratefully lowered the shield to the ground and rubbed his aching arms.
Salvius Cursor sloshed out of the water and stood beside him.
‘Thought you were screwed for a moment.’
‘So did I.’
‘I nearly had my legateship, I reckon.’
Fronto almost laughed, presuming it to be a joke, albeit a poor one, but as he looked at Salvius the man was not smiling, and he suddenly wondered if the tribune had been serious. Trying not to think on it further, Fronto, shivering like a leaf in a breeze, waved at the distant figures on the far bank.
‘I’m not tall and I’m not young. If I can make it, so can the legions.’
There was a distant burst of cheering from the cohorts on the far bank.
‘You’re insane,’ bellowed Antonius.
‘And cold,’ replied Fronto. ‘Can you send someone over with a hot towel and a jug of wine?’
* * *
Dawn greeted struggling men and barked commands as the legions slogged across the ford. Though Fronto had been joking and had intended to find an easier way back across, Antonius had taken him at his word and over the next half hour had sent big, burly legionaries across the ford with towels, dry clothes and cloaks, food and wine, and finally two tents. Fronto had passed out to catch a last couple of hours of sleep before the day broke in a tiny encampment of twelve men, with two tents and a cook fire.
Up once more at dawn, and yawning with every other breath, Fronto had been impressed with how quickly Caesar had moved during the night. Clearly the general had not rested. He had brought the legions to the crossing, while Mamurra and Antonius had kept the cohorts here at work through the hours of darkness, hurriedly dropping what timbers they could into the deeper stretch in an attempt to help.
By the time the first man crossed – in no danger, since it was Fabius on horseback – Fronto had eaten a dry, small breakfast and was standing barefoot in fresh tunic and cloak on the turf, his boots still hanging on the tent post, drying.
As the men struggled into the water behind Fabius and began the mammoth task of crossing the Sicoris, the biggest and most stable men first, marking out the best route and any dangerous sections, Fabius reined in.
‘We’re leaving one legion behind to secure Ilerda and the enemy camp and bridge. The two legions up at the north crossing are already coming down to join us here.’ He grinned. ‘It was one of the strangest sights I’ve ever seen. Four legions lined up on the flat ground, while the centurions went down the lines and tapped anyone who was too small. All the short, stocky men were separated out and formed a temporary legion. They’re staying here with the weak and the infirm to secure the place. Any man crossing the Sicoris is the best part of six feet tall now.’
Fronto rolled his eyes. ‘Wonderful. That makes me officially the shortest person in Caesar’s army now.’
Fabius dismounted and opened his mouth to say something pithy, but Fronto shook his head. ‘I’ve got to go for a piss. Too much water and wine for me overnight.’
‘Go downstream, or you won’t be popular.’
Fronto snorted and sauntered off to a more secluded spot a hundred paces downstream toward Ilerda, where a scrubby thicket of bushes masked a dip down to the water with a small gravel beach. His heart sank as he rounded the bush and spotted Salvius Cursor busy fastening his subligaculum and straightening his tunic. He then dipped his hands in the river, upstream from his current position and, causing Fronto to frown, reached down into his belt pouch and pulled out a small unguent jar which he opened and began to apply to his hands.
It seemed odd to see a man who seemed utterly at home covered in blood and shit and filth pampering himself with balms and oils after washing in a river. Stepping back behind the bush, Fronto cleared his throat and then emerged again down to the beach. He nodded at Salvius, who continued to apply his ointment, nodding back casually.
Wondering at the strange variation in the world of men, Fronto stepped past him, pulled up his tunic and tucked it into the belt, yanked aside his subligaculum and let out an arc of steaming yellow with a sigh of blissful relief.
He almost covered himself in his own urine as a commotion broke out upstream at the ford and, quickly pinching off the flow and dropping his tunic, Fronto stepped out into the water, his bare feet baulking once more at the chill. A man had fallen while crossing the river. Two other men had obviously dropped their own burdens and leapt to help. One of his would-be saviours was struggling to stay upright. The other had similarly slipped and followed his friend into the water. Neither of the men wore their mail shirts – that would have been stupid – but their shields and all their gear had gone, tipped into the deep or floating off downstream, and the two men were in serious danger.
It sounded like a simple thing, crossing a river without armour on. But having done it during the night, Fronto knew different. The chill of the water and the constant batter and pull of the current stole the strength and sapped the will, and the longer one fought the water, the worse it got. The first man was already barrelling downstream at pace, probably unconscious, maybe even dead. The second was half-carried, half-swimming, after him, screaming and cursing, the sound intermittently dampened as his face dipped below the surface.
Before he knew what he was doing, Fronto had run out five paces into the river and then thrown himself into the deeper torrent. Ignoring Salvius’ bellowing voice behind him, he swam hard, angling upstream to fight the current, making to intercept the two unfortunate legionaries.
It seemed to take forever, but finally he was close. He could see the man bobbing left and right as he was carried fast toward him. His heart sank as he registered the fact that the man was already dead. Regretfully, he changed his focus to the second man, who was still screaming and still dipping under the water.
Something tugged at him and Fronto turned his head in surprise to see Salvius Cursor, pounding the water and yanking at him.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Don’t be a fool, Fronto. The man’s gone.’
‘If he’s shouting, he’s alive.’
‘He’s dead. He just doesn’t know it yet. And if you try and get him to the bank, you’ll go with him.’
‘Piss off.’
Salvius let go of him and began to swim back to the bank. ‘Leave him, Fronto. Don’t be an idiot.’
Fronto watched as the panicked, shrieking man was carried past him, and then, finally robbed of the last of his strength and unable to fight it any more, disappeared beneath the water. The last Fronto saw of him was a couple of limbs flung up out of the torrent by the flow. Feeling the cold numbness now beginning to settle into his own limbs, Fronto turned and swam back to the shore.
For some horrible reason, watching the poor bastard drown had brought back a welter of unwelcome emotions and the dreadful memory of Florus, the young medic who had been swept overboard, crossing the channel on that stupid foray to Britannia six years ago. The lad had become something of a pet project of Fronto’s following their first battle against the Helvetii, and still, on the anniversary of his passing, Fronto would find time, whatever he was doing, to pour a wine libation into a spring or stream somewhere, along with a prayer that Neptune be kind to him.
Now, he was blisteringly angry. At the soldiers for dying. At Petreius and Afranius, and Pompey, for starting all of this, at himself for failing, but most of all at Salvius for distracting him and losing him a slim chance of saving the man. Oh, when he looked deep into his own heart, he couldn’t help but admit that the fallen soldier was almost certainly a goner anyway. There was only the faintest chance that Fronto could have caught him and stopped him flowing away. And as he staggered onto the gravel, he knew he had barely made it back himself, and that if he’d had to help a man on the way they’d almost certainly have both drowned. But just because Salvius was actually right didn’t take away the anger.
Salvius Cursor returned his angry glare but neither man spoke as Fronto stomped past him and back up toward his small camp where he hoped there was still a towel and some spare dry clothing.
* * *
They caught up with the enemy late the next day.
It seemed that, despite their limitations, Galronus had been thoroughly effective at slowing the enemy column as it left Ilerda. The baggage train of Petreius and Afranius’ army was relatively speedy, put together for pace and not content, relying mostly upon the depots they would pass, but the massive force had been picked at by the Caesarean cavalry throughout and had found downed trees or fallen rocks in the way – obstacles that had clearly been the work of Galronus’ outriders. They had moved slower than they had hoped.
And the combination of moving without the support of wagons and artillery, and having crossed the river en masse earlier than expected had brought Caesar up behind them much faster than they had expected. They were only a few short miles southwest of Ilerda when the two armies came into sight almost a mile apart now.
Fronto had half expected Petreius to drop his supplies and run for the bridge. Given the stakes they were all playing for now, the Pompeian commander had to realise that this was his last chance to get away without conflict at Ilerda. And being caught on the run played havoc with trying to mount an effective defence. Realistically the man had to either cut and run and hope to cross the bridge, or gird his loins and turn to face Caesar in the field.
The fact that, upon sight of Caesar’s army catching them up, conflicting calls went up among the enemy suggested that they were once more prey to disagreements between their two commanders. Likely the ones sending their men ‘ad signum’ – to the standards – were Petreius preparing to take the Caesarian bull by the horns and poll it. And the calls to double time would be Afranius, ever wishing to avoid this conflict and making for the bridge at speed. The result was that the lead elements moved off at a hurry for the pontoon bridge on the Iberus, while the baggage train and the rear elements came to a halt.
Caesar, eager to take advantage of the confusion, pressed his men onward and the legions marched at speed, but before battle could be joined the latest argument between the enemy leaders apparently resolved itself and the entire army came to a halt at a low hill half a mile from Fronto and his men. As they stomped and hoofed forward, they watched the enemy forming. Someone among them – probably not the two generals, given their unwillingness to cooperate – knew what they were doing. Even as the Caesarian force bore down on them, the carts and wagons were drawn up onto the rise, the auxilia and support with them, and the heavy legionaries were shuffled forward to take their place defending the slope.
In the time it had taken Caesar’s army to force march a quarter of a mile, the enemy had turned flight and confusion into a solid line of defence with missile support. Fronto watched Caesar, sitting astride his white mare at the fore of the army, and knew immediately what was coming. A moment later the general’s arm rose and the call went out from the First Cohort’s musicians. The army came to an abrupt halt, the only noise across the plain the jingle and clatter of weapons and armour and the huffing and stretching of men and beasts. At the call for consilium, the senior officers gathered on Caesar’s position.
Antonius huffed irritably. ‘We almost had an easy victory there.’
The general shook his head. ‘There will be no easy victory against these men. Even when the generals argue, the legions are veterans and know what to do. We are left with a decision.’
‘Not a tough one, Caesar,’ Salvius Cursor scoffed. ‘We have them pinned on a hill.’
Fronto frowned. He hadn’t invited Salvius to the officer’s meeting, and tribunes were not expected to attend. Caesar seemed not to notice, or perhaps not to care. ‘True, but the outcome of any push here is truly in the hands of the gods.’
‘They are on the defensive, General,’ Salvius pushed, ‘and they ran by night. They will be tired and in poor morale. After all, they have run away once.’
Antonius gestured to the hill. ‘They did not run away. They are seeking a more favourable location to defy us. It matters not how you see it, or even how Caesar or I see it, but that is how every man on that hill sees it. They know they’ve done the sensible thing, and there is no cowardice among them, and I daresay very little fear either.’
‘But they are tired,’ persisted the tribune. Fronto could see the flash of anger cross Caesar’s eyes and, to head off a coming tirade, he turned to Salvius. ‘So are our men. They were also up during the night. They have slogged across the dangerous ford and lost friends to the waters. They have force marched to catch up with the enemy. Their spirits might be high, but their strength is not. They need to rest, else we chance everything by throwing tired men against tired men.’
‘But…’
‘Go back to the Eleventh, Tribune, and have a rider sent to find the cavalry. Bring Galronus and his men back in.’
Salvius glared daggers at Fronto, but saluted and stomped off back toward the legion.
‘What do we do, General,’ he asked, when the tribune was gone.
Caesar sighed and stretched.
‘We do the unexpected. For now we rest the men. Let them have the afternoon and the evening.’
‘And the night,’ added Antonius.
‘Ah, no. For the night, I have plans,’ smiled the general.