Winter was fierce and unrelenting. Blizzards and deathly cold winds held sway for months. I spent the start of the year locked in my planning chambers – glowing in the merciful heat of a well-stocked fire. I grew weary of the map that dominated these discussions: a yellowing, huge map, unfurled on the planning table and held in place by two silver weights in the form of resting lions. Upon it were dozens of carved wooden legionary figurines. Each piece resembled a regiment, and to a passing eye, it might have resembled a mighty army, but in truth, it was not big enough – not even close.
The regions of Gaul, Hispania and Britannia sported just a few figurines each, because the vast majority of them were engaged elsewhere. Many were dotted along the jagged line that demarcated my southern borders – locked there in case my rivals thought to march into my realm. Just as many again were strewn along my eastern frontier – at the River Rhenus where the many still-hostile tribes of the cursed Frankish federation had spent all winter probing and prodding, eager to break into my lands and renew the slaughter and pillage. But as the month of March drew to a close I started to believe we might just have survived the winter threat from the Franks. I longed for spring to come – a chance to ramp up trade, swell my coffers and perhaps recruit new legions. I was a fool for allowing myself to think of the new season… for winter was not over yet.
As I trudged from the planning room one night, I stopped by Crispus’ room, finding him asleep there, Fausta cradling him and slumbering too. I kissed them both on the head and crept to my own sleeping chamber. I think I must have fallen asleep but a moment after lying down in that warm comfort. It was a deep, dreamless sleep that nourished my tired mind. Until I was awoken by the clatter of boots, echoing into my chamber.
Never wake a soldier abruptly, Batius once told me, and now I understood why. I fell from my bed, landing in a crouch, grabbing and unsheathing the dagger I kept nearby in one fluid motion. The two feather-helmed Cornuti flanked a single, panting messenger, swaddled in a thick cape and spattered with semi-frozen mud from what must have been a hasty ride.
I rose and sheathed my dagger, noticing the Cornuti pair gulping slightly at my reaction, then I flicked my head, indicating that the messenger should speak.
‘The gods have forsaken us, Domine,’ he gasped, falling to his knees on the marble floor. ‘A winter bridge has sprouted across the Rhenus – a frozen crossing.’
Instantly, my blood was awash with ice and fire. ‘Where?’
The messenger’s eyes answered before he spoke. ‘At the forsaken gap, Domine.’
For a moment, I longed to suddenly awake from this nightmarish moment. I had endured foul dreams of this very news. My mind swiftly conjured an image of that damned map. The ‘forsaken gap’ was the stretch of the Rhenus frontier – over fifty miles – where no legion was stationed. It was a narrow but ferocious section of the river with tumultuous rapids. Due to our manpower shortage, I had taken the calculated risk of leaving that area undefended – employing just a few messenger scouts like this man before me to monitor the banks. Now, all I could see was an unchecked flood of Frankish tribesmen pouring across it, spilling into my realm.
‘Summon Batius and Krocus,’ I said, throwing on a thick woollen tunic, trousers and cloak. As I helped to saddle Celeritas in the chilly grounds of the palace stables, I turned my mind to exactly how I was going to tackle this threat. I needed men. I could not strip Treverorum of its garrison – not with the ever-present strife in those streets – yet I could not ride to the great river with just my two officers.
When Batius and Krocus arrived, offering each other no more than a grudging flick of the head in greeting, I consulted them. Baleful but vital, they had been present in every planning session.
‘The Primigenia are more than two days’ march away, in western Gaul,’ Batius muttered. ‘Every other legion—’ he started, then stopped and shook his head, extending his arms, palms upturned.
‘My men move swiftly, Domine,’ Krocus added, then slumped, ‘but they are at least seven days away, at the southern forts, watching Italia.’
Not quite the close-to-hand Comitatus I had envisaged, reprimanding myself for letting the bulk of the Regii be drawn to the ever-threatened borders.
‘There is one other option,’ Batius muttered grudgingly.
I looked at him, my eyes shrinking to slits. ‘They are not ready, surely?’
‘Yet they are the only force we can call upon,’ he reasoned.
With a stiff sigh and a puff of icy breath, I climbed into my saddle. ‘Very well.’
So, Batius, Krocus and I set off northwards, accompanied by the twelve Regii still stationed at Treverorum. We rode at haste, knuckles and faces turning blue with the chill gale. Batius and Krocus wore scowls befitting both the cold and the presence of each other. The wind howled relentlessly, furring the tall grass ahead. The land was still streaked with the white veins of remnant winter snow, and the night sky was starless, as if threatening one last blizzard like the many that had battered my realm for months.
We reached a stretch of frost-speckled heathland at dawn. These once bleak fallow lands were now a patchwork of gold and green winter crops, with a few early risers already at work on them. A sea of timber huts and a few newly constructed stone villas hemmed one edge of this tract of farmland. The gentle clucking of hens and the lowing of cattle were at odds with the storm of worries in my mind.
As we slowed to a canter and then a walk, I heard a shout, heralding our arrival. A moment later, a clutch of figures emerged from one of the villas. Hisarnis of the Bructeri and his bodyguards walked towards us. I hadn’t visited this settlement since bringing him and his people here in December, and I had left their bedding in to my subordinates. Those obsequious individuals had given me the usual honey-coated updates that might have mollified a weaker emperor. Yet I had had little time to even think about it; the best I had been able do was to send Batius to observe affairs here – back in February.
‘Tell me again how they are progressing?’ I said to him under my breath so Hisarnis – still a good way away – would not hear.
Batius stroked his anvil jaw and tilted his head this way and that. ‘The families – I’d say they have taken to imperial life with ease. Those crop fields are the work of a contented lot.’
The word absent from the end of his sentence pealed like a bell in my head. ‘But?’
One edge of his lips lifted a little in amusement. ‘But… the fighting men: they’re finding it a little harder to adapt. Roman military training is proving to be something of a challenge.’
‘How so?’ I replied, giving him a sideways look.
‘Formations – not too bad. Ambulatum exercises are pretty good – they know how to spring an ambush and work a flanking manoeuvre. And armatura sessions with sword, javelin and shield are actually quite encouraging too. But you know as well as I do – is any army just men, armour and weapons?’ he said, arching an eyebrow.
I let a short, barking laugh escape my lips. ‘No more than a tavern is just bricks and mortar.’
The big man nodded. ‘That’s just it. They lack spirit and camaraderie. When I was here last month we issued them with their Roman tunics. But apparently they were too itchy, and that’s all I heard all day – grumbling and scratch-scratch-scratch. They spent the day plodding about with their faces tripping them. And there’s some sort of infighting going on among them – some of them are refusing to take part in the training at all. I’m not sure what to make of that. One of the buggers lost an eye in some sort of scuffle.’
I sighed. ‘Barbarian tribes pressing from the east. The Herdsman and his innumerable legions poised to the south-east. Maxentius…’ I paused, a needling heat spreading across my chest ‘…lodged in the southern half of my realm… with armies that dwarf mine and have none of the tribes to contend with.’ I chuckled mirthlessly. ‘And then we have… itchy tunics. Is there no limit to my concerns?’
The question was left unanswered as we drew up next to Hisarnis. The aged Bructeri chieftain had dispensed with his plaid and now donned an off-white tunic and thick, brown cloak. He had even trimmed his braided beard short, to little more than stubble – were it not for his flowing, hoary locks, he might even have passed as an old Roman landholder. I also noticed how he walked with the aid of a cane, nursing some leg injury.
‘Domine,’ he said with a half-bow. It was a warm greeting that was reflected in his eyes and melted the chilly tension. A flock of women and youngsters began to assemble behind him, gawping up at me and my small escort.
I nodded in reply, then cast my eyes over the settlement behind him. Closer, I could see some of the structures more clearly. One squat, timber hall bore a Chi-Rho above the door. A temple of sorts, I reckoned. I noticed that some of his people loitered near this building, faces wrinkled, some muttering curses at those entering and leaving. These ones were quick to turn their sour gazes upon me and upon the back of their chieftain too. An understanding of what was going on here – the unrest Batius had described – began to form. Was this place a microcosm of the strife in Treverorum and so many other cities across my lands – a battle of faiths, fuelled by hunger and poverty? I rid myself of that perpetual, nagging problem and returned my thoughts to this one, reverting my eyes to Hisarnis. ‘As part of the treaty that saw you and your people settled here, you agreed to provide me with men.’
The warmth in Hisarnis’ eyes faded just a fraction. ‘The Bructeri will march as part of your Comitatus, Domine.’ I noticed the lines on his brow deepen. ‘I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I can assure you that come autumn, they will be ready.’
So the troubles within this tribe were on Hisarnis’ mind too, I realised. ‘Autumn, we agreed,’ I sighed, ‘but events dictate that I will need them sooner.’
A flurry of whispers and gasps rang out from the crowd. ‘Sooner?’ Hisarnis said.
‘Today,’ I clarified.
Now the gasps rang out loud and clear.
Hisarnis’ head darted to those behind him, as if he was unsettled by the sound. He returned his gaze to me at last. ‘Domine, I…’
‘I would not ask this of you were the situation not… pressing.’ I gave him a look as I said this, a look I hoped would transcend words and convince him this was no showy display of my power – some deliberate violation of the treaty terms to put him in his place. When at last he nodded, I released the captive breath in my lungs and felt the tension ease once more.
‘Domine, while I have almost two thousand men of fighting age, less than half of them are…’ he hesitated, glancing over his shoulder towards the shack with the Christian icon ‘…ready.’
‘Give me what you can – that is all I ask,’ I replied.
As the dawn sun rose and the morning began in earnest, I watched two cohorts’ worth of Bructeri forming up before me. They had been issued oval Roman shields, painted gold with a scarlet, winged victory in the centre. Most heads were crowned with the simple oval ridge-helms bolstered by iron rivets and nose and cheek guards I had commissioned for them. Some wore their old, tribal furs under imperial-issue mail shirts. A few of them had even donned those wretched itchy tunics under their armour. Some still sported long, braided hair and shaggy beards or moustaches.
I rode across their front, eyeing each of them. To my relief, I noticed none of the baleful glares worn by those lurking within the dirt streets of the settlement. ‘I hear you have worked hard since you came here: marching and duelling as well as any of my legions.’ I thought it best to steer clear of the mixed reports Batius had given me – for now at least. I scanned the nine hundred or so faces, wondering as to the wisdom of what I was about to do. ‘Now, I call upon you to march with me, and march at haste. For at the great river, I need you to stand with me, to protect this realm. My country, your country… our country.’
Silence. I doubted myself for that instant. But men of the tribes are raised on the need for war, and these fellows had been starved of it since entering the empire. So the silence was brief, shattering as they exploded in a roar of agreement, gruff and guttural.
As they hoisted their packs and weapons, Batius spoke to me in a whisper. ‘Nine hundred? That is not enough. If the tribes come for the forsaken gap as I expect, that is not nearly enough.’
‘I agree entirely,’ I said flatly. I felt his uncomprehending stare on the side of my face as I watched the Bructeri assembling into a legionary marching line. ‘And that is why we must make a stop along the way, at Mogontiacum.’
Batius’ face creased further. ‘Mogontiacum? Domine, the garrison there is threadbare. A century of men and no more – you cannot strip them from the city.’
‘It is not Mogontiacum’s soldiers I need, Batius,’ I mused, gazing east.
*
Three days of marching followed, feet crunching through the snow and ice that clung to the land. The two Bructeri ‘cohorts’ marched well. We swept by Mogontiacum, stopping not for shelter or rest, but merely to requisition what I needed. With a perplexed frown, Batius watched the train of mules the city governor sent out for us. ‘Mules?’ he said, scratching his stubbled jaw. Conversely, Krocus’s face lit up in understanding and he took great delight in glorying over Batius’ bewilderment.
We moved on at haste. By late afternoon on the third day we came to a patch of white-coated flatland that led us to the Rhenus and the forsaken gap: the river was narrow here – about a hundred paces from west bank to east. The thrashing waters tussled and threw up columns of spray that caught the sunlight in a medley of iridescent haloes. A fierce river, but not fierce enough to break the sparkling ice bridge winter had cast across it. The winter ford, stubborn and mocking, straddled the waterway like a good marching road – maybe seventy paces wide. There were no signs of boot or hoof prints in the frost or earth on this side of the ford, I realised. Good, we had triumphed in the race to get here before the enemy on the other side, it seemed.
I slid from my saddle and strode towards the waterline, Batius and Krocus either side of me. There, I looked to the far banks, shrouded in a forest of frost-speckled pines. Three squat and bare peaks stood proud of these thick woods, each capped with remnant snow that sparkled like white flame in the dying light, the lofty breeze up there blowing a mist of ice particles across the orange sky. But it was the woods that I feared. I gazed into the darkness of the treeline, my mind showing me an army of shadows within.
‘We have not a heartbeat to lose,’ I realised.
And then I heard the faintest but most marrow-chilling howl from somewhere over there. A wolf-like call. The call of a tribesman.
‘Domine, perhaps it is time for the mules?’ Krocus said.
Batius shot him a foul look. ‘What?’
But I had no time to discuss the matter. ‘Bring the mules forward.’
‘Domine, what is he talking about, why—’ Batius started, but the crunch of the pack animals’ hooves in the snow drowned him out. The mule-handlers took the rough sacks from the backs of the beasts, and scampered with the weighty burdens out onto the ice bridge under Krocus’ direction. They slit the bottoms of the sacks with knives, and white powder tumbled onto the mid-section of the bridge in thick piles – the men walking back and forth, all the while their eyes shooting to the foreign banks of the river and the dark forest.
‘Salt,’ Batius said, his expression falling blank, then a craggy grin rising. ‘Salt!’ He slapped his leg and roared with laughter. ‘I watched all the tricks your father pulled, but this beats any—’
He fell silent as a hiss sounded from across the river. All eyes shot that way. A single pine over there shivered, shedding its veil of frost. My body tensed. The salt-spreaders froze too. Then I heard the rapping of hooves on semi-frozen ground.
The tribes?
Batius, Krocus and I exchanged a look that only close comrades can – a tacit language learned from years together on the battlefield. It was too late to wait on the salt to do its work. I sucked in a breath to call out in alarm… to draw back the mule-handlers out on the bridge, when a slingshot spat from somewhere deep in the trees and took one poor fellow in the eye – a burst of blood erupting from the back of his head. The rest of the mule-handlers scattered off the bridge and past me in panic.
‘Together!’ I roared, beckoning the Bructeri into a line. A cool wind furred my bear pelt and searched inside my bronze scale corselet as I gazed around the modest force that collected either side of me. The nine hundred would have to do. One Bructeri warrior brought me my jewelled, golden helm – the gift from Hisarnis. Then I saw the shadows among the trees writhing, growing… innumerable. ‘Together! ’
The breath was almost pushed from my lungs as we crushed together. Batius had my right, while Hisarnis and Krocus were by my left. Just as the young warriors in line with us had been trained to in these last months, we bore our spears in the wall of shields that plugged the western end of the ice ford.
The tribesmen emerged like a mist of wraiths. And in moments the far bank was swollen with them. Thousands, maybe five of them for each of my men.
‘The Chatti,’ the Bructeri men whispered in terror. I had only heard of these deep-forest dwellers before. They were wan-skinned, some with their faces or bare chests painted white – as if borne by winter itself. Their pale golden hair was shaped into jutting peaks. They stalked forward, lithe and ready, spears levelled, glacial eyes glinting. And the eeriest thing about them was how they moved with almost no sound at all. No clamour, no songs, no curses – just a deadly, resolute rumble of feet advancing.
They halted when their leader – a broad, stocky type with a wolfskin on his head, the lifeless beast’s eyes staring and the fangs striking down his forehead – raised a hand. The chieftain then barged through to stand on the far end of the ice ford and beheld us with a disdainful, sweeping gaze. He erupted in a forced, booming laugh, seemingly unimpressed by the resistance we presented. A moment later, the innumerable warriors with him joined in, their baritone laughter shaking the air. The chieftain then took to aiming some trilling diatribe at us.
‘What is he saying?’ I grunted to Hisarnis.
‘He’s calling us motherless pigs. He says we spit in Wodin’s eye for standing with the enemy.’
I felt a breath of doubt pass over my skin. What was to stop these tribesmen, who just months ago counted the Chatti as their allies, from turning upon Batius, Krocus and I and butchering us, then joining the Chatti to raid and slaughter across Gaul?
From the corner of my eye, I caught Hisarnis’ shark-like grin. ‘But I’ve never liked him or his kin. I think I will send him to talk with Wodin today.’
I could have laughed aloud had we not been facing such grim odds. Indeed, the breaths of the other Bructeri came and went in short, snatched gasps. I glanced along the line to see their faces, taut and wan with fear at the gargantuan horde facing them. Our ranks were twelve men deep, so there was a chance – just the most tortuously narrow chance – that we might hold them back. But to what end? The Chatti would not relent even if we somehow repelled them once, twice or thrice. And we had no reinforcements to hold out for.
I spotted one of the Bructeri, whispering to himself. No, to his god. Wodin? The Christ? I did not know. But when he was finished, I noticed that the fear was lessened in him. Just like the legionary on the walls of Naissus on the night of the storm from my childhood. The memory brought a renewed streak of determination to my heart.
‘Comitatus,’ I cried, emphasising the word, underlining their status as one of these, a regiment of my closest, ‘stand with me and I will stand with you against these dogs before us – let us keep our dearest ones back in our homes safe from their poison blades. We will not yield. We will not yield! ’
The line of bearded faces above the wall of shields turned to me. I could see the spark of hope my few words had given them – enough to break the dread spell of the nearby Chatti. As one, they vented and vanquished their fear in an explosive cry, rapping their spears against their shields in a deafening refrain. Batius and I could not help but join in fervidly and the throaty song of defiance utterly trampled the laughing tribesmen across the river.
The Chatti chieftain’s face fell and he lifted his spear. He held it there, trembling with rage for what felt like an eternity… then swept it like an accusing finger across the ice ford. With a jagged cry, his army surged forward past him with a crescendo of guttural roars. Those deathly white warriors bounded like hunting cats, faces bent in frenzy, spears raised, eyes affixing their would-be victims.
‘Brace!’ I howled, my officers yelling in unison in the breath before the Chatti plunged against our lines. The impact was like the kick of a mule and the sounds of their lances battering against our shields was akin to an angry thunderstorm. Enemy spears flashed and clanged against Bructeri helms, gouging chunks from the edges of our shields and sending blood spray into the air where they found faces or gaps in the shield wall. The warrior pressing against my shield panted, teeth clenched, foul breath wafting over me. A manic, yellow-toothed grin was plastered across his white-painted face as he shoved and I shoved back. This close, neither of us could bring our spears to bear and so shove was all we could do. But while there were just eleven ranks behind me in support, there were endless Chatti warriors behind him, eager to win the battle of strength.
Soon, our line buckled into a V, bending at the centre under their weight. Were it to break, we would be done for.
‘Dig your boots and spear shafts into the earth!’ Batius screamed, leading by example. But even the big man’s efforts were in vain – his boots slipping and skidding and his spear shaft driving a rut into the earth as he was forced back.
‘We’re going to break,’ one Bructeri warrior near me quailed.
‘We cannot,’ I snarled defiantly. But already I heard wet, strangled half-screams, cut short by the tearing of iron across flesh as the Chatti hacked at our collapsing centre, warriors climbing up and over our shield wall and leaping into our ranks. Next, the frightened Bructeri fighter who had spoken crumpled from view in a puff of blood – an enemy club staving in his face. A spear sliced past my neck, nicking my skin, casting my own blood up across my lips, the coppery stink all too familiar. My paltry line of men was set to break apart like a pair of gates.
It was then that I felt a curious calm overcome me. I can only hope to explain it to men who have stood in battle, men driven to find logic amid chaos: it is a sense of acceptance – that what is meant to be will come to pass. If death was my destiny that day, then so be it.
But it was not to be.
A thick, thunderous crack split the air, far louder than the initial clash of shields just moments ago – this was more like the irate lash of a titan’s whip. It shook the land and the ground under my feet shuddered with it. It was followed swiftly by another series of seven or eight louder cracks – like the trailing and even more vicious tails of this invisible lash. My body fought on, blocking the blows of the furious warriors before me – but my eyes could not help but shoot to the spectral image that rose up behind our assailants, midway across the river: a vast, jagged shard of ice had broken from the ford and now swung up, tilting like a plate pressed down at one edge. On it, a swathe of screaming Chatti warriors skidded and slid. Hundreds of them slipped helplessly across the smooth surface and plummeted into the freezing river. A few clung to the edges of the broken ice shard, wailing, as it settled again with an almighty splash that washed across the shard and swept them under the rapids.
The salt! I realised, seeing the film of meltwater that rippled on the surface of the shard, my spirits soaring. It had worked!
Those pinning us onto the western banks suddenly found their momentum and sheer weight of number stolen away. They staggered back, eyes swinging to the remaining stretch of ford where thousands more of their comrades had frozen in fright. A moment later, another enraged groan and a sharp, decisive crack echoed across the land. This time the remainder of the ford broke apart under the weight of the huge host upon it, shattering into a thousand pieces. I caught sight of the chieftain’s confused face for but a moment before he was gone, pulled into the deadly, glacial river. Men thrashed in their thousands, fighting to survive for moments before falling still and drifting off, face-down with the current like the fragments of the ford.
The ice bridge was gone, and the lucky handful of Chatti stranded on the far banks of the river gawped over at us. The remnant on this side of the river who had almost broken our lines – suddenly bereft of their many kinsmen – lost their pluck at once.
‘Finish them!’ I snarled. My beleaguered force clustered together behind a now blood-spattered shield wall, snarling, then slowly pacing towards the marooned Chatti. A few of them screamed and charged towards us, only to be riven with a volley of thrown spiculae. Another bunch charged our right flank, but were rebuffed, many cut down without ceremony.
Then, Hisarnis stepped proud of the line and sneered at them: ‘Today, Wodin has shame enough, only for you!’ With that, he hoisted his spear, as if ready to wave the lines forward. The fearsome warrior’s actions utterly broke the last vestiges of Chatti courage.
An instant later the beaten warriors tossed down their weapons and – with a graceless din of splashing – leapt into the perishing Rhenus in order to swim to safety on the far bank. Most thrashed manfully at first but few even made it halfway before the cold seized their strength and pulled them under. The few left on these banks then fled like frightened deer, bolting north along the riverbank. I let my men see them off with another volley of spiculae.
I stepped forward through the red-streaked mush of ice, earth and blood; past torn bodies of friend and foe until I came to the river’s edge. There, I knelt on one knee, transfixed on the jagged ends of the collapsed ford. A broken bridge, an untold number of dead.
Looking back on that day, it makes me weep to think that it was not the last time I would endure such a sight.
*
We spent a night at the battle site. Under the stars, Batius, Krocus and I shared a campfire. Batius took great pleasure in accidentally dropping the injured Krocus’ share of charred mutton into the dirt, before picking it up and handing it to him with a sickly sweet apology. In return, Krocus ‘accidentally’ smeared a bloody fingerprint from his freshly dressed shoulder wound on Batius’ bread, thus claiming the soiled loaf for himself. That aside, their usual bickering was limited by fatigue.
In any case I barely noticed, for my gaze continuously returned to the now-dark trees across the river. What would become of the Chatti? The horde that had come for us today was vast, but there were seemingly limitless villages dotted out there in the bogs and dark, endless woods – surely brimming with many more young men that the heir to the drowned chieftain could muster to form a new army. Despite our fortuitous victory today, the Chatti were still very much a threat.
‘We cannot continue to fight the Franks like this. Our strategy is flawed,’ I muttered, thinking aloud. ‘We fended off the Chatti today, yet they are but one tribe. What of the Marsi? What of the Tencteri, of the Ubii, of the Mattiachi, of the Sugambri and the Chamavi? While our legions remain pinned on the Rhenus frontier fighting attritive wars, Galerius and Maxentius stockpile weapons and recruit many fresh legions. Our only hope of neutralising the Frankish problem – and swelling our numbers in time to dissuade our imperial rivals from any thoughts of invasion – is to bring more of the tribes into our ranks as we have done with the Bructeri.’
‘Fantastic,’ Batius said glibly under his breath then almost drained the wineskin before sinking his teeth into a freshly roasted joint of mutton.
‘Excellent idea.’ Krocus grinned. ‘You will send envoys into the Frankish lands, I presume? May I offer my riders to serve as escorts?’
‘I already had your men in mind.’ I nodded in agreement. ‘Having a new strategy in place might at least give me a chance to think of our foes within the empire.’
A silence passed, but I could tell Batius was mulling over whether to say something as he fidgeted. ‘Spit it out, big man.’
Batius looked up, bemused, then shrugged. ‘The threat from the Eastern Empire – it might not be what it once was. They say Galerius has grown weak with some strange illness.’
I had heard, but largely ignored, such rumours. ‘And have his vast armies been stricken too? And his mongrel of a deputy, Licinius?’ I snorted.
‘Fair point,’ Batius agreed, taking a deep gulp of a fresh wineskin to wash his food down. ‘But Maxentius certainly has enough troubles to balance with ours.’
‘Africa,’ Krocus whispered, his gaze lost in the flames. ‘They say that without its grain, every soul in Italia will starve.’
‘They will,’ I said flatly, taking Batius’ wineskin and having a long gulp for myself before handing it to the Regii leader. ‘And soon after, so will we. The crop fields of Gaul and Hispania alone will not support the many mouths demanding bread. Grain – or lack of it – is about to become our darkest enemy.’ I thought of the rich wheat and barley fields of Aegyptus and Syria in the East and stifled another sigh. ‘Illness or no illness, Galerius will be the only winner in those stakes, unless…’ I fell silent for a moment, the weight of my next words troubling me, ‘unless the West can be unified.’
Batius’ face fell as he mulled this over. ‘After all that has come to pass, do you think such a thing can be achieved,’ he asked quietly, ‘…without bloodshed?’
I gave him a look. Once more, it was that tacit language of comrades.