(South-east Britannia)
Lucius Fabius, centurion of the third century, first cohort of the Seventh legion, gestured at a chattering legionary with his vine stick.
‘I’m watching you, Statilius. Shut your trap and concentrate on your job. We need to be back in the camp by nightfall and you are without a doubt, the laziest, slowest, most pointless dullard I’ve ever seen don a tunic. How in Hades you manage to get it on the right way round every morning is beyond me. You must have helpful tent-mates.’
The legionary flushed and the half dozen men scything the wheat awkwardly with their swords laughed.
‘And the rest of you shower of shit are little better. Shut up and work.’
Turning his back on the labouring soldiers, the centurion spotted his colleague and old friend, Tullus Furius striding through the unevenly cut stubble, staff jammed under his arm and a look of irritation on his face.
‘We’ll never make it back to camp before dark with this lot. We might as well make the decision now. Do we leave some of the harvest, hope it survives the night well and come back in the morning, or keep working into the dark and hope we find our way back without too much trouble?’
‘I say we keep working. It’s only three miles and pretty much a straight line. We can – Legionary Macrobius, if I see you put that sword down or take that helmet off, you will be emptying latrines with your remaining hand for the next month, while I use the other as a back-scratcher. You got that?’
The legionary saluted, almost concussing himself with the hilt of his gladius. Furius rolled his eyes as he turned back to his companion.
‘This legion is a shambles. At least if Caesar had left it as he found it, they’d have been a proper unit, and not just a patchwork collection of misfits. Half the bloody centurions don’t seem to have a clue. Did you know that Lutorius has half of his men loading the grain into the wagons without wearing their armour or helmets? The prat’s even got their swords lying in a heap while they work. I swear I had to clench my fists to prevent myself beating the idiot.’
‘Similar story all round. Look at the amount of tunics you can see without armour. Pompey would have had half of them strung up by now. This army’s soft.’
‘This legion’s soft. Since the beach escapade I’ve been keeping an eye on Fronto’s Tenth. They’re actually pretty well organised and drilled. And Brutus’ Eighth when we were back in Gaul were in top condition. It’s just this legion, mate. I tell you, by next spring I’m going to have the top spot – be primus pilus – and I’ll spend the winter kicking this shower of shit into shape.’
‘With any luck we’ll both be able to move up and sort this lot out. Fronto’s a good enough lad, but he’s still a bit lax and disorganised. It irks me that his legion should be so much better than ours.’
‘Here’s to that. And to the Seventh being the best in the army by next spring.’
The pair fell silent, taking in the scene around them. Existing rations had run out in the morning, after breaking their fast, and replenishing the stocks had been the first priority of the day. Early in the day, the Seventh had split into four groups of fifteen centuries apiece who had left the camp all with the same assignment: Find food. It did not matter what it was – animal, wheat, vegetables. So long as it would go in a pot or bake loaves, it was required. It had taken only two hours for the first section to come across a nicely hidden wide bowl of a valley, surrounded by woodland and filled with ripening white-gold wheat waiting for the harvest, which would be due at any time.
Lutorius, the primus pilus of the legion and the senior centurion of their party had almost rubbed his hands with glee at the sight of enough grain to keep the two legions for the best part of a month. Another hour of searching the tracks that radiated into the woods had turned up the farms that cultivated the area, which supplied them with plenty of commandeered carts along with what could have been termed ‘nags’ if the speaker were being kind, as well as a few mangy oxen.
Now, after four hours of cutting, binding, stacking and loading, the carts were laden with towering piles of wheat. The sun was already hovering over the tops of the trees in its ever swiftening descent to evening, and though much of the wheat had been harvested, still almost a quarter of the fields remained intact.
The two centurions’ gaze both fell on Lutorius, standing among a collection of sheaves, snapping out orders. Each of the four legion vexillations had its nominal command. Cicero and one of the tribunes had taken their group north, the senior tribune Terrasidius and one of the others had taken a group south. The three remaining junior tribunes had gone northwest – and were probably hopelessly lost, given the general abilities of their kind – while Lutorius had brought his command southwest.
‘Who’s going to persuade ‘blue eyes’ to stay after dark?’
‘I’ll do it. You’ve been pissing him off all day, so he won’t listen to you.’
Furius nodded and Fabius turned to make his way over to the primus pilus, just in time to see an arrow whip out from the woodland that surrounded the golden field-bowl, smashing into Lutorius’ eye and driving into his brain, killing him instantly.
The air suddenly filled with the thrum of arrows as men screamed and fell all around the clearing. Even as Furius turned to address the cornicen standing close by with his horn on his arm, Fabius bellowed ‘Shields! To arms!’
‘Cornicen: Sound the alarm!’
The musician put the horn to his lips, but all that came out of his mouth was a gobbet of blood as a thrown spear suddenly burst through his neck. His eyes went wide and he clutched at the crimson spear head sticking a foot from his front before toppling over forward, making a bubbling noise. Furius cursed.
‘Testudo! Form testudos!’
The field was alive now with desperate legionaries. Furius and Fabius’ two centuries were already falling into formation, their shields coming up to form the missile-proof tortoise. The two centurions jogged across to their men, well aware that most of the centuries in the clearing were doomed, having dropped their shields and weapons and some even their armour while they worked. Men were being scythed down like the wheat they had been harvesting.
‘Get to the centre! Collect your gear and get out of missile range!’
It was all he could really do, and he hoped the other soldiers’ centurions would follow the lead and try to protect their commands. In the meantime, he and Fabius moved outside missile range, behind their centuries.
‘Prepare yourselves for the next move!’
They did not have long to wait. Having lost, at Fabius’ estimation, some two hundred men just to an initial volley, the remaining legionaries had pulled back to the centre of the clearing, out of the reach of the arrows and spears, where many were hurriedly arming themselves and jamming on helmets. Only half of them wore their mail shirts, though, and a number were missing shields. Furius and Fabius shook their heads in disbelief as their two centuries, the only two in the Seventh to be fully equipped and fighting fit, backed up to join their comrades.
‘Drop testudo. Form a defensive circle!’ Furius shouted. ‘Everyone! Form a circle. Three lines deep, those with armour and shields on the outer line!’
Warriors were now beginning to step out of the woods, spears, axes and swords raised, some with shields or helmets, even some with mail shirts. Many of them were decorated with blue designs, and their hair was spiked long and white with dried mud. It hardly came as a surprise to note that the legion was completely surrounded, though it was with some dismay that the centurions recognised the shape and sound of both cavalry and chariots thundering down the numerous pathways and tracks into the wide bowl-shaped clearing.
They were trapped.
Having secured their prey and being wary of the shieldwall that had caused so much havoc at the beach, the native warriors advanced slowly, moving cautiously out into the open.
‘Why didn’t they just keep peppering us with arrows?’ shouted an optio nearby. Furius ground his teeth angrily. The men were nervous enough without officers giving them extra reasons to panic.
‘Because, shit-streak, they’ve got us where they want us now. Their ‘noble’ warriors want a chance to carve us up themselves. It’s only noble to a Celt if they can look into your eyes when you die.’
Fabius forced a grin. ‘But that’s not going to happen. We’re going to give these native piss stains something to think about. For Rome!’ he bellowed and started to smack his gladius blade against the shield edge of the man next to him, lacking one himself.
The battle cry had the desired effect, building the courage of the trapped men rapidly, and the crash of swords on shield rims slowly rose to a deafening crescendo.
Fabius was focusing on the warriors opposite him who blocked the track that led back toward the camp where the Tenth would be busy cutting timber and constructing buildings and palisades around the new annexe for the storehouses.
‘Silence!’ he bellowed, as he squinted at the mass of warriors. A slow, grim smile spread across his face. In the wide, grassy, rutted track, stood one of the carts of wheat, already fully laden. Two legionaries were waving from the top of the cart, as yet unseen by the Briton army that lay between them and their fellow legionaries.
‘Get to camp’ Fabius bellowed. ‘Go. Get help!’
For a moment, he worried that the cart was too far away for the men to hear, despite the fact that the legion had silenced immediately at his call, stilling their swords. He watched anxiously as the two figures apparently conferred. Taking the risk, Fabius waved his arms away, gesturing for them to leave.
One or two of the natives seemed to catch on to what the centurion was saying and turned, spotting the cart several hundred paces down the track and shouting to their friends. To Fabius’ relief, the cart suddenly lurched and started to move, the two men on top almost falling with the sudden jerk.
With a roar, a sizeable group from the army of Celts raced after the cart and Fabius watched tensely as the vehicle built up speed slowly. They would never make it. Why didn’t…
Even as the notion occurred to him, it seemed to have struck the men on the cart, who were hurling the sheaves of wheat from the vehicle to lose some weight and give it an extra turn of speed. The warriors closed on them, regardless, and the two desperate legionaries began to actually hurl the sheaves at the pursuers themselves, knocking aside the nearest of them.
Fabius’ gut soured as a thrown spear caught one of the cart-riders dead centre in the chest, impaling him and throwing him from the bouncing vehicle. The scene was becoming difficult to make out now, the retreating cart and pursuers shrinking with distance, but he was fairly certain he saw the vehicle continue to bounce off down the track as the warriors came to a tired halt, pushing and shoving each other as they tried to assign the blame for letting some legionaries escape.
Fabius nodded to himself.
‘That’s it lads. Help will be coming soon enough. We’ve just got to hold them for a bit.’
Even as he said it, he wondered how many of the other officers and men of the Seventh realised that the ‘bit’ he was talking about would in all likelihood be an hour. It would take probably quarter of an hour for the cart to reach camp – at even a dangerous speed. It would take the same again for the Tenth to come to their aid, even at a run. And there would be at least that of getting the army ready in between, calling back the workers from the woods and so on. It was distinctly possible that this vexillation of the Seventh legion would be corpses picked over by crows by the time the Tenth came to relieve them.
But it was a chance; a hope. Moreover, it was something for the men to believe in; to cling on to.
‘Every man that makes it out today will go down in my book and when we get back to Gaul, you’ll all get a bonus, an extra acetum ration, and a week off duties in rotation.’
From somewhere to the right, out of sight, he heard Furius’ raised voice. ‘Any man who distinguishes himself in the next hour earns himself ‘immune’ status!’
There was a roar of approval from the men of the Seventh and Fabius grinned. A dead man’s boots had just given his friend a field promotion and made him effective primus pilus and commander of the vexillation. And that made Fabius the second centurion of the legion.
‘Alright men. I’ve just had a ‘blood promotion’ and I’m bollocksed if I’m going to die now and give it up straight away. Lock shields and ready yourself to kill as many of these blue-skinned goat-humpers you can. Any man who kills more of them than me gets an amphora of good wine.’
Another roar of approval from the men was almost drowned out by the matching roar of the Britons who burst into a charge.
‘Come on, then. Time to die!’
* * * * *
Fronto stood on the raised parapet of the camp’s wall next to the west gate, watching the men of the first to fourth cohorts gradually widening the killing ground around the camp by reducing the treeline into the distance. They were bringing back an almost constant supply of good heavy, solid timber that had had the bark and any extraneous branches or nubs removed and had often also been cut down to rough planks. Behind him, in the main camp and in the new supplies annexe, the men of the Seventh to Tenth cohorts were busy planing the new timber and trimming it to shape, carrying it around the camp and using it to continue the construction of the buildings.
While the legions did not expect to be staying here longer than another month at the most – even the general had been insistent that this punitive campaign had to be complete before the dangers of winter crossings were upon them – the construction of timber buildings had been considered not only preferable, but even necessary.
Many of the men’s tents had become rickety and leaky. Normally, these would be patched and repaired, or even replaced from the supply train. Such was not possible with the ocean between them, and a good timber building would keep the inclement weather away from the men and give them the blessed opportunity to dry out and warm up overnight.
Trying not to swear, Fronto felt yet another spot of rain ‘plip’ onto his forehead. What was it with this island? How could the druids hold this place sacred? Were they part duck? Italia was hardly free from storms, but at least the place had the decency to give its population a break in between, and when the storms came they were often noteworthy.
But this place? This place was the physical incarnation of a bad mood. Not a single day since they had struck the beach had passed without at least a short shower to remind them that they were outsiders. Some days it never stopped raining from one dawn watch to the next. Most often it came in fits and starts, just giving the ground enough time to almost dry and deceptively clear away enough clouds to look hopeful. Then, as soon as you stepped outside, the next drizzle would begin. It was as though the Gods of Britannia were urinating on them from a great height. That was it, too: it was not proper rain. Not like the torrents they’d had at the Rhenus, or the thunderstorms of Gaul or Hispania. Most of the time it was just a depressing, gentle, insistent, cloak-soaking drizzle.
It was the most disheartening climate he’d ever spent time in. For the first day or two, he’d revelled in how green and fresh everything was. But that was before he became truly aware of the price for the lush greenery. What he couldn’t understand is how it didn’t all drown!
Hopefully this would just be a short shower again and he would not have to give the order to down tools and get inside. It was not that the men couldn't work in the rain, but morale was already low enough on this side of the ocean, and making the soldiers plane wood in the pouring rain would hardly give it a welcome boost.
‘Work proceeds apace.’
Fronto turned in a mixture of surprise and gloom. Caesar’s voice was very familiar and unwelcome; he’d managed to spend many days in a row now without exchanging a single word with the general. Ever since the man had launched into him concerning his perceived insubordination, Fronto had been harbouring a deep-felt grudge and avoiding the risk of pushing the beak-nosed old bastard’s face through the back of his head.
Fronto forced a smile that barely reached his face.
‘We’ll have the food and cloth stores complete by the end of the day, if we work through twilight. If it’s straight down to the Tenth, two more days will see good timber accommodation for everyone. If the Seventh are done with their forays and can join in tomorrow, we should all be under a solid roof by tomorrow night.’
‘Good.’
The two men fell silent and Fronto still resisted glancing at his commander. He could feel him though; feel the eyes boring into the side of his head; hear the click of the general’s knuckles as his hands rubbed and gripped one another behind his back. He’d been with Caesar long enough now to know every sign and every mood. The general was uncomfortable. Good. So he should be.
‘Marcus?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Let us not stay on such terms. I am aware you’ve been avoiding me. I may have gone beyond the pale in dressing you down the way I did in front of your peers.’
Fronto’s jawline hardened. ‘You think I care about it being in front of the others? You know me better than that, Caesar. You shouldn’t have done it at all. I was fractionally late for a non-time sensitive meeting.’
‘I know, and…’
‘And,’ Fronto snapped, rounding on him with flashing eyes, ‘you should bear in mind that for four years in Gaul and before that in Spain and Rome I have supported you when others you relied on turned against you. You know damn well that the only times I have ever stood in opposition to you is when you were wrong, plain and simple. I know the world thinks you’re infallible, but you and I know that no man is infallible. You were in a bad mood, plain and simple, and you took it out on me, because you knew I’d take it, when it might break others.’
Caesar sighed and smiled weakly.
‘I’d had another episode.’
‘What?’
‘You know exactly what I’m talking about, Marcus. I thought I was done with it. I’d not had trouble since Saturnalia, when I’d given a huge offering to Venus to try and stop it for good. All year I’d been clear and happy. And now: twice since we crossed the sea. Twice! The first time, I failed to clamp on the leather in time and took a piece out of the corner of my tongue.’
Fronto’s brow lowered and his nostrils flared.
‘You have my sympathy, Caesar, but only children take it out on other people when they’re sick. And as you’ve pointed out before, you’re hardly a child. Neither of us is.’
‘Can we not draw a line beneath this, Marcus? I’ve admitted I was in error. I offered not an excuse, but an explanation. I need my good officers around me.’
The legate took a deep breath and fought back every curse and argument that rose to mind, of which there were many. ‘I would like to think so, but I’m starting to become concerned with your judgement, Caesar.’
‘How so?’
‘Clodius?’ Fronto raised an eyebrow in challenge, turning to face the woods again.
‘Clodius is just a tool.’
‘He certainly is. A great big, throbbing one. But I cannot condone you using him for any reason. Were I you, that man would be caught in the eddies and reeds at the side of the Tiber, fat faced and blue. Feeding the fishes, which would be about the most useful and positive thing he’s ever done.’
‘Clodius’ usefulness will come to an end soon, and I’m convinced that so will he soon after. Can you not be satisfied with that?’
‘Not really, no. And your re-formation of the Seventh using only people you don’t trust has shattered what was a veteran legion with pride and ability and turned it into a mess. If they can pull their pride out of the gutter – which will be partially served by shifting Cicero the hell out of there – then they could train back up into a good legion, given time. But it was a waste.’
‘I had to be sure of where my opposition were.’
‘They’re everywhere. And the more you use thugs and villains to further your political goals, the more enemies you’ll create.’
He frowned. ‘What was that look about?’
‘I beg your pardon, Fronto?’
‘That look. I know that look. That’s the guilty recollection of something I won’t like and that you’re not telling me. In my book of ‘Caesar’s facial tells’ that’s in my top ten warning signs. What is it?’
‘You read too much into nothing, Marcus.’ Caesar gave him an easy smile. You said, that day at the meeting, that your delay was unavoidable. I never asked why, and you don’t usually bother with an excuse, so it must have been important.’
‘It was, but I’m not sure whether discussing it here or now is a good idea.’ Fronto narrowed his eyes at the attempt to deflect the subject.
‘If it’s important, Fronto, then it’s important. Tell me.’
‘The murders.’
‘Yes?’
‘All of them. Pinarius, Tetricus, Pleuratus, and an attempt on me. I have reasonable suspicions as to the culprits now.’
Caesar rolled his shoulders, his cloak falling back down behind him. Several more spots of rain fell.
‘I believe that your suspicions were centred on two centurions from the Seventh?’
‘You’re apparently well informed, Caesar. And yes, for a time, I was sure Furius and Fabius were behind them. But I am now more or less convinced that they’re innocent of the attacks.’
‘Really?’ The general tapped his lip, an upward curl of humour twisting one side of his mouth in a manner that really annoyed Fronto.
‘Yes. I haven’t the proof yet, but I suspect the tribunes Menenius and Hortius of the Fourteenth.’
Caesar burst into a short, explosive laugh. ‘I think you must have been eating the strange fungi from the forest. Neither of those men could effectively swat a fly.’
‘Nevertheless, it was them. I’m fairly sure.’
‘And their motive?’
‘Removing your supporters: your courier, your nephew, me and Tetricus – two of your more loyal officers. And Tetricus threatened the pair of them once in a briefing, so there’s an additional motive.’
‘Menenius is a client of mine, who owes me a great deal. He is hardly likely to be troubling me. He would be ‘biting the hand that feeds him’ so to speak. And Hortius? Hortius is in a similar situation. He’s expecting a position as an aedile next year, which he can only get with my support. No, Marcus; the two would have too much to lose by kicking my legs out from under me. You should look elsewhere for your pro-Pompeian traitors.’
The legate continued to stare ahead, though his eyes flicked to Caesar again and he just caught another flash of that look. There was definitely something going on here that Caesar knew about and was keeping to himself.
‘What on earth is that commotion?’
Fronto glanced across at Caesar’s exclamation and then followed his gaze to see that a number of the men of the Tenth had downed tools and were running toward a cart that was hurtling out from the woodland path to the west.
‘Looks like a grain cart. One of Cicero’s I wonder?’ the general mused.
‘Looks like trouble, more like.’
Without waiting for further information, Fronto turned around and spotted the nearest centurion.
‘Have your cornicen call the duty cohorts to order. Get ‘em lined up before the ramparts. We’re about to need them.’
As the centurion ran off, shouting for his musician and standard bearer, Fronto turned back to the approaching cart. It was now bouncing across the short, well-trodden grass beyond the multitude of stumps, only a hundred paces from the camp. Already a number of Caesar’s praetorian cavalry officers had fallen in behind him from where they had been lurking at a respectful distance.
The general stepped down the slope, with Fronto at his shoulder and passed through the gate toward the cart, which slewed to a halt some thirty feet from the rampart. Two men slid down from it. The driver looked harried and panicked, while the man who had been clinging to the top of the load was clutching a wound in his side and staggered as his feet hit the ground.
‘It would appear that you were correct, Fronto. Trouble it is.’
‘Sir!’ The legionary driver, wearing just his tunic, unarmed and unarmoured apart from the gladius at his waist, came to a sudden halt and saluted, his wounded mate attempting the same a few paces back, but failing as he slumped to the ground.
‘Report, man.’
‘Natives, sir. Thousands of ‘em. They came out of the trees…’
‘Where?’ Fronto said, holding his gaze.
‘About three miles west. It’s on main paths. I can take you.’
‘Are the men still… it wasn’t a massacre?’
‘No sir. When we left they was in a circle, holdin’ ‘em back. But they won’t last long, sir. They’re outnumbered.’
Fronto glanced across at Caesar, who nodded.
‘Then get ready for a run. You can take me and two cohorts back there, fast as we can.’
The man saluted wearily and the legate turned to his general.
‘Can you-?’ Fronto began, but Caesar was already shooing him. ‘Go, Marcus. I’ll bring the other cohorts as soon as we can get them armed up.’ He turned to one of his cavalrymen. ‘Have this wounded soldier taken to a medic, and put out the call for the first, the second and the Seventh to Tenth cohorts to down tools, retrieve their kit and form up. The third and fourth can remain to garrison the camp under Brutus and Volusenus.’
Turning, the general was about to offer a word of encouragement to Fronto, but the Tenth’s legate was already moving across the grass bellowing commands to the assembling men, pausing only to collect an unattended shield from the ground where its owner had left it and would rue his action later when his centurion found him unequipped.
The general watched him go and shook his head. While an ambush of the foraging troops was never a good thing, at least it had finally brought the opposition out into the open and provided a timely interruption from Fronto’s probing and uncomfortable questions.
* * * * *
Fronto blinked away tears of pain and willed the gap in the trees that opened out into the clearing and signalled the end of their journey nearer. He was, he knew, still fitter than most men his age, and many of the soldiers – carrying much the same load and a great deal younger – were struggling at least as much as he. The rushing of the blood pounding in his ears and the hot rasp of the heaving breaths racing in and out of his lungs were not the main issue though, for all their discomfort. Three times in three miles he had been forced to drop out of the run and rub his knee, turning his leg and re-tying the supportive wrap he’d used on the advice of Florus the capsarius. Each time he’d had to put in that much extra effort to regain his place in the force that charged to the relief of the Seventh.
He tried to guess how many wounds he’d taken in one form or another throughout his life of service, but could only take a stab at two-to-three dozen. And of everything that had happened, it seemed only fitting of Fortuna’s strange sense of humour that the one thing that could trouble him in battle was the result of an unfortunate and purely random twisted knee. Florus had told him that if he rested it properly for a few weeks it would strengthen, which had simply led to an argument in semantics over the meaning of the word ‘rest’.
The sounds of desperate fighting issuing from the clearing were welcome, for all the horror they indicated. At least they stated clearly that the Seventh were still there and had not been wiped out.
Panting with the effort, the legate pushed out to the front, putting on an extra turn of speed, the energy for which he seemed to pull in out of the very desperation in the air. A moment later, he was running alongside Carbo, who had proved time and again that his strength and fitness really did belie his less than svelte shape. The centurion was more pink faced than usual, but ran with a steady, enduring gait, the breaths coming out measured and rhythmically.
The forest path was clearly used by local farmers with their carts and oxen, wide enough to admit a wagon with plenty of room to spare on either side. It was enough to permit a column of legionaries eight men wide without the danger of entanglements, and the two cohorts of the Tenth ran in perfect formation, in the manner drilled into them over the years by first Priscus and then Carbo.
Ahead, the path opened into the huge clearing and though Fronto could see little for certain, he had the impression of wide, golden fields of grain trampled by screaming men. His view was somewhat impeded by the chariots and the cavalry. It appeared – at least from this angle – as though the Britons had blocked the exits from the clearing with their cavalry and empty chariots while the bulk of their force, on foot, including the chiefs and nobles from the vehicles, had charged the Roman circle, trying to batter them into submission.
‘Chariots’ Fronto barked out between heaving breaths.
‘We’ll take them down first’ Carbo acknowledged, apparently – and irritatingly – not even short of breath.
‘And… cavalry.’
‘We’ll try, but they’ll be too fast and manoeuvrable for us, I fear. So long as we can cut a path through to the main force we’ll be fine.’
‘Surprise?’
‘Unlikely. Even over the noise, these hairies at the back will hear us coming. The Tenth are a fearsome force, but we’re hardly subtle.’
Fronto smiled at the wide grin on the centurion’s ruddy face. He knew for a fact that Carbo actively encouraged the making of noise and the use of war cries in the Tenth to put the fear of Hades into whoever they faced. As often as not it worked.
‘I just wish we had time to deploy and surround them. We could wipe them out’ Carbo sighed.
‘Carbo… there are several… thousand of them. There’s less… than a thousand of us! Surround them?’
‘You know what I mean, sir. I hate to think of them escaping again.’
Another couple of spots of rain pattered off the rim of Fronto’s helmet, reminding him that yet another rainstorm was imminent, the clouds darkening by the moment. Reaching up, he fondled the bow-legged fishwife amulet at his neck and hoped it was not insulting to Fortuna, praying that the full extent of the rain held off for another hour or so. A battle in the pouring rain was high up on Fronto’s list of hateful things. Letting go of the figurine, he dropped his hand to his side and drew his gladius, steadying his grip on the heavy shield he’d borrowed.
A strange, guttural cry went up ahead and the few Briton horsemen they could see at the clearing’s entrance wheeled their mounts. The cohorts had been seen and suddenly all hell broke loose among the enemy.
‘Ready, lads!’ Carbo bellowed. ‘First five centuries punch straight through and make for the back of the infantry. Next four split off to either side and take care of the cavalry and chariots. Centurions mark your position and prepare your signals.’
Back along the running column, the officers identified their century’s number and prepared to either push forward or file off to the side. Beyond the first nine, the other centurions would appraise the situation as they reached the clearing and deploy as required.
The horsemen were now wheeling away from them again, riding off into the clearing, bellowing warnings. Clearly Carbo was right: the cavalry could easily remain out of reach unless they chose to commit – an unlikely option. The chariots were even now turning to move away from the arriving legionaries, trundling along the forest’s edge, their athletic drivers leaping about on the traces and yoke and manoeuvring the horses.
Fronto had heard enough Celtic shouting in the past four years to begin to separate the meanings by tone alone. The shouts now going up all across the clearing were not the ordered calls of warning or redeployment, but the panicked calls of men wrong-footed and in fear of their lives. Clearly they had not expected reinforcements. The legate grinned – fear was almost as powerful a weapon as the gladius.
‘Give ‘em a shout, Carbo.’
The centurion nodded. ‘For Rome!’ he bellowed. Behind him, the cry was echoed at the top of almost a thousand voices, protracted so that it was still ringing out when he shouted ‘For Caesar!’ beginning a second cry that was instantly taken up. By the time of the third cry – a standard call for the legion – the men were pre-empting him. ‘For the Tenth!’
The shouts, as intended, devolved quickly to a general din and tumult of bellowing, shouting legionaries, the noise of which was enough to almost drown out the sounds of fighting in the clearing.
One of the chariots had been unlucky enough that, as it turned, a wheel had caught on something among the stubble, and the vehicle had almost overturned. The driver was manoeuvring desperately, trying to free the wheel, when he and his chariot were completely engulfed in a river of crimson and steel.
Despite being in prime position at the front of the cohort, Fronto forewent the opportunity to negotiate the vehicle and attack the driver, recognising the very real chance that his knee would give and he would plunge embarrassingly to the ground beneath the chariot. Instead, he contented himself with a quick glance at the Briton’s unpleasant demise as one of the legionaries swarming round the vehicle lifted his shield and drove the bronze edging into the man’s chest without even stopping. As the soldier ran on, heedless, the chariot driver disappeared with a squeal below the running feet of the cohort, where he failed even to bring a weapon to bear before he was trampled to death by hundreds of hobnailed boots, smashing his face and chest and snapping his limbs.
Fronto afforded himself a quick glance around as the century raced on toward the mass of the enemy pressing on the defensive circle of Roman steel. In the manner so reminiscent of Celts everywhere their army was fighting as a thousand individuals rather than a homogenous whole. Gods help the world if these bloodthirsty lunatics ever managed to achieve discipline under a capable tactician. It would be like the sack of Rome by Brennus all over again.
Fortunately, these Britons were no tacticians.
The cavalry were already fleeing the scene, racing away down other paths into the forest. The chariots rushed away around the edge, keeping out of the reach of the pursuing cohorts while remaining close enough to be available for their masters when required.
Even the infantry, where they were involved in deep and desperate combat with the men of the Seventh, were now starting to break away at the rear and race for the safety of the trees.
The disposition of spent bodies told the story eloquently enough for Fronto. Hardly anywhere around the enormous clearing’s periphery could a native figure be seen, while in places the glassy-eyed corpses of legionaries lay so close as to be touching. The Britons had come out of the forest with a hail of spears and arrows, routing the Romans and driving them back to the centre of the clearing where they were trapped and formed a circle that had been steadily diminishing for almost an hour.
‘They’re getting away’ a legionary shouted angrily, watching a sizeable chunk of the native force peel away and race for the woodland.
‘Forget them!’ Carbo cried. ‘Concentrate on saving the Seventh!’
With the exception of the four centuries securing the clearing’s edge and driving the chariots before them, the entire force of the two cohorts bore down on the main army at the centre, paying no heed to the fleeing Britons, intent on breaking the throng pinning the Seventh down.
The paces passed in a blur of discomfort, the sharp stubble of the field scratching Fronto’s shins and calves as he ran, keeping pace with the men of the first century, hoping he did not fall or collapse with shortness of breath.
And suddenly the old familiar battle calm fell over him. Despite the lack of a disciplined Roman shield wall – the Tenth discarding conventional tactics in favour of speed and terror-inducing fury – it was familiar and simple. As always the worries of the world – of the rightness of their campaign, of the intrigues within the army and the nobles, of his own ageing and deteriorating stamina, even of Lucilia back in that nest of vipers that was Rome – they all went away, pushed down and sealed into a casket as the immediacy of battle took over.
A warrior who had turned to flee with a couple of his friends found himself staring into the advancing visage of an ageing Roman demon with fiery eyes. Desperately he raised his axe, haft sideways. Fronto feinted with his gladius, causing the man to sweep the axe handle to the side to stop a blow that would never come. As he was overbalanced and leaning to his left, Fronto slammed into him with the large, curved shield, smashing his arm and several ribs and driving the startled barbarian back into the press of his compatriots.
Beside Fronto, a legionary helpfully put half a foot of sword into the falling Briton’s armpit before moving on to another of the fleeing men. Fronto had lost sight of Carbo, but could hear his reassuring voice denouncing the man he faced as a cross-breed of a number of unlikely animals.
The native force was now breaking up all across the rapidly widening front of legionaries, groups of men some twenty or thirty strong taking to their heels and racing for the treeline. A man who had likely arrived on a chariot suddenly pushed his way through the throng, spotting Fronto and recognising the crest and cuirass as indicative of a commander. He bellowed something that sounded as though it was probably a challenge. The warrior wore a mail shirt that looked as though it might have been of Gallic manufacture, a decorative helmet with a stylised rearing boar on the crown, a shield, oval in shape, and a sword that was probably the pride of a whole family.
The only good thing that could be said about his personal appearance, however, was that his straggly and bulky moustache at least hid half his grotesque pig-like features, though the hare-lip even marred that.
Fronto grinned at him.
‘Come on then, pretty boy.’
The man swung the sword with surprising speed, though little cunning, over his shoulder and down. Fronto neatly sidestepped, almost falling into the press of men in the attempt. The warrior made a strange surprised sound as his heavy long sword cleaved only empty air and dug deep into the body of an already fallen warrior below. Fronto shook his head in mock dismay as he stepped forward and jabbed the man in the throat with his gladius.
Too easy; just too easy.
A spray of crimson erupted from the shocked noble’s neck, spraying Fronto in the face and forcing him to look away for a moment. The warrior released his grip on the jammed sword and clutched at his throat, temporarily stemming the spray so that the blood merely ran in torrents between his fingers.
‘Sweet Venus you are an ugly bugger aren’t you?’ Fronto grinned as he knocked the dying noble aside with his shield.
‘That you, legate Fronto?’
Looking up in surprise, Fronto could just see Fabius over the heads of half a dozen natives, his helmet gone and blood streaming down his head, giving him the look of a red-painted man.
‘Got yourself in a bit of trouble, I see!’
‘Nothing we can’t handle, of course, but thanks for the timely assistance.’
Fronto laughed.
‘Looks like they’ve broken.’
Indeed, even as Fronto cut another man down, the press between the two speakers was thinning out. The attacking force at the far side of the circle had taken the opportunity to flee the field before the Roman cohorts could get to them, freeing up much of the Seventh to reform and start pushing back. Already, the number of barbarians still committed in the clearing had fallen from perhaps three thousand to four or five hundred, those now being trapped between the men of the two legions. No longer even attempting to fight, the Britons were pushing bodily through the attacking Romans, heedless of wounds, in an attempt to escape the field and melt into the woodland.
‘They’re running’ a legionary bellowed. ‘Come on!’
‘Leave them!’ Fronto shouted at him, simultaneous with Carbo’s cry of ‘Let them go!’
The field was theirs.
The remaining five hundred or so men of the Seventh were safe, and the Roman force lacked the manpower and horses to chase down the fleeing Britons. Besides, no sensible commander would ever commit to pursuing them in unfamiliar territory that the Britons would know as well as their own hand.
‘Come on’ Fronto sighed, leaning down to rub his knee as he watched a few of the fleeing men fall to careful parting strikes. ‘Let’s get this grain back to the camp and settle in. It’s about to piss down.’