Enemy of Rome (20 page)

Tension, frustration, fear and anxiety, that was the world of the men in the reserve formations. Not for them the snarling, bitter, animalistic fight for survival of the front line, stabbing at the darkened faces beyond the big
scuta
and only knowing the enemy by the power of his shield and the quickness of his blade. They must stand and be thankful that, for the moment, they weren’t the ones emitting the screams that announced success and failure alike. In the darkness, a man’s only notion of personal victory came in the unique feel of a sword trapped in living flesh, or the shriek as the point found eye or throat. Yet even that meant little. When one opponent fell away he’d be replaced by another, and the deadly game of blindfold combat would begin again. A soldier could only fight on, knowing that in time his arms would tire, his blade slow and his shield falter. Eventually his defeat would be signalled by the glint of a
gladius
point, a moment of bowel-draining terror, a searing flash of agony as cold iron sliced through cringing flesh – and the scent of his own blood.

‘I need a man here.’

‘Close the gaps. Get forward there. Quick now.’

The orders rang out in the dark, the centurions urging their reserves forward. Valerius imagined the blood-soaked, mutilated men crawling towards him with their jaws hacked off, their throats slashed or their eyes jabbed out. Even a fine helmet, with its protective cheek pieces and low brow, didn’t entirely protect an armoured man’s face. They’d come with their fingers chopped off, perhaps even the sword hand, because a swordsman must risk exposing his hand. He winced, remembering the moment of exquisite agony and a right hand lost in the ashes of some burned-out British villa. The smell of the blood was tangible now, along with the sewer stink of pierced intestines. Darkness seemed to have made his nose more sensitive, as if it were trying to make amends for his lack of sight.

‘I need men here.’ The centurion’s voice, shriller now, the need more urgent. Valerius’s head whipped round and he tried to gauge from which flank it had come. Should he act? No. They held. For now the Seventh Galbiana was still the effective fighting unit that Marcus Antonius Primus had forged. Valerius must trust centurions he barely knew to make the right judgements. Men like Brocchus, a man of no honour and little integrity, would win this battle or lose it. All he could do was support them. A new clatter of javelins landing among the front rank. More screams and more shouts for reserves. Did that mean that whoever was commanding the enemy had brought up his own reserve cohorts? No, not yet. The battle couldn’t be more than a few moments old.

A rustle in the darkness and he felt the men of his bodyguard stiffen.

‘Tolosa.’

He relaxed at the whispered password. Serpentius. The Spaniard rode out of the darkness. Valerius made out a struggling figure held against his horse’s flank by the collar of his tunic, choking as if he was on the end of a rope. A legionary’s shield lay across the former gladiator’s saddle. ‘He says he’s from the Fifteenth, but I wouldn’t know.’ He dropped the squirming man and brought the shield close so Valerius recognized the symbol on its face, a jagged star around the boss.

‘The wheel of Fortuna. He’s telling the truth. What else does he have to tell us?’

Serpentius leapt from his mount and dragged the cowering legionary to his feet, a wicked curved knife appearing in his hand with the blade at the soldier’s throat. ‘I’m only going to ask once, friend. Who’s in command?’

Valerius heard the pitiless menace in Serpentius’s voice and almost felt sorry for his prisoner. The man swallowed. ‘My legate is the honourable Munius Lupercus. Fabius Fabullus of Fifth Alaudae commands the army of Vitellius.’

‘Not Valens?’ Valerius asked.

‘No, lord. Some men wanted to wait at Hostilia for Valens, but General Fabullus insisted we march for Cremona. They say we covered a hundred miles in three days. I know we did thirty this day past. The men are exhausted. They just want this over.’

‘What word of Vitellius?’

The legionary’s face turned sombre and he shrugged.

‘Very well.’ Valerius turned to his bodyguard. ‘Take him to the rear.’

When the prisoner was gone Serpentius remounted. Valerius beckoned him close. ‘How did it seem to you?’

‘From what I heard we’re holding them. At least in the centre.’ The Spaniard shrugged. ‘As for the rest …’

Valerius nodded. No Valens, but Fabius Fabullus was an unknown quantity. He had driven his men hard from Hostilia to Cremona, but was he too eager for battle? The one-handed Roman felt like a blind man groping his way along a cliff path. He could hear the wind and the waves, but what good was that if there was nothing but fresh air where his foot was about to fall? Five thousand lives depended on his next decision and all he had was his intuition. He called to Ferox.

‘Send an aide to check the reserve line. I need to know if it’s time to feed in another cohort from the squares.’

The guard tensed again as a legionary loomed out of the darkness calling the watchword and dumped something on the ground nearby. ‘What’s that?’ Valerius demanded.

‘You asked for shields,’ Serpentius pointed out. ‘So they’re bringing you shields.’

‘Of course.’ Valerius remembered now. Why had he wanted shields? He had no idea. Still, things seemed to be going remarkably well … Even as the thought formed he froze in the saddle at a great howl from his right flank.

‘What …’

‘Flank attack.’ Claudius Ferox’s voice betrayed his fear.

Valerius reacted instantly. ‘Take the Ninth and Tenth cohorts and do what you can to stop them. Send a runner once you have an idea of their strength.’

Ferox galloped to the reserves, already shouting orders, and Valerius spent the next long nerve-grating moments in a turmoil of frustration before the runner returned.

‘Tribune Ferox reports that he is facing an entire new legion and begs for further reinforcements.’

‘Which legion?’

‘Fifth Alaudae, lord.’

Valerius closed his eyes. Otho’s bane at Bedriacum, and now they were coming for him.

Valerius sensed the balance of the contest changing.

The front ranks of Seventh Galbiana were under pressure, but they were holding. From the right, where the First and Ferox’s two reserve cohorts were struggling to hold what might be the entire Fifth legion, he could almost feel the panic amidst the cacophony of a battle being fought to the death. A sense of enormous pressure accompanied it, as if in the darkness a great physical mass was pressing against his legion’s flank. In the past few moments he’d been informed the enemy had taken at least two cohort standards. The next order would be crucial, not just for the Seventh, but for the battle and Titus Flavius Vespasian’s bid for the purple.

Only one aide remained, the others missing, sucked into the shadowy maelstrom around them; dead, wounded or just lost in the darkness. ‘Find General Primus and tell him we are sore pressed on two fronts. Beg him to send reinforcements,’ he instructed the soldier, the youngest of the legion’s tribunes. ‘Serpentius?’ He muttered a curse as he realized the Spaniard had disappeared, and rode to where the last of his reserves waited. A single cohort held by the iron discipline of their trade as their comrades fought and died out there in the darkness. Atilius would be at its centre with the legion’s eagle standard, his face a stony mask of resolve beneath the bear’s yellow-toothed hood. Valerius hesitated, searching the clamour for a sign that would save him from giving the order. The desperate cries of men struggling for their lives told him that if he didn’t use the last of his reserves now he might not get another chance. He would not lose another eagle? The words of less than an hour earlier sounded hollow in his ears. What a vain, comical boast it had proved; nothing less than an invitation to the gods to prove him false. Sometimes an eagle must be risked. If he did not risk the eagle, he would certainly lose his legion and Primus his battle. So he’d risk the eagle, and if it was lost, make sure he didn’t live to suffer the terrible emptiness that followed, and the pain worse than defeat.

‘
Aquilifer
,’ he shouted, ‘to me.’ The standard-bearer marched from the centre of the cohort with the flickering torches of his bodyguard creating a circle of light that revealed his burden to every man.

Valerius dismounted and met the soldier’s eyes. ‘You know what you must do?’ he said quietly. ‘Our comrades are pressed hard and they are wavering. They fight for their lives, but sometimes a man needs something more important to fight for.’ He saw the white flash of Atilius’s teeth and the glint as he raised the eagle standard a little higher. ‘Eighth cohort?’ Close to five hundred men came to attention at the shout. ‘I know you hoped your services wouldn’t be needed tonight,’ he heard a laugh from the ranks that raised his spirits, ‘but our enemy has decided otherwise. They have honoured the Seventh with the attentions of not one but two legions, and who can blame them? Your tentmates in the Ninth and Tenth cohorts are the anvil that holds them. The Eighth will be the hammer that destroys them.’

Serpentius appeared from the darkness on foot. ‘You were right.’ His voice was just loud enough for Valerius to hear. ‘They flanked us. We have one chance. Ferox and his two cohorts are holding firm and as long as they keep their attention we might be able to surprise them. But we have to be quick.’

Valerius ordered the eagle’s guards to extinguish their torches, but keep them ready in case of need. With the six close-ranked centuries on their heels he and Serpentius led the way across the uneven farmland; first north, then west. They found themselves in an almost uncanny peace between battles. If Valerius had calculated correctly, their parent legion, the Seventh, lay a hundred paces to their left front, fighting for its very existence. The Thirteenth were the same distance away on the right, apparently holding their own. The gap between should have been held by one of the Thirteenth’s auxiliary cohorts, but they’d either been forced back or joined in the fight. Serpentius stopped and Valerius’s order to halt was passed back in an urgent whisper. ‘Thirty paces,’ the Spaniard whispered. Valerius could make nothing of what was ahead thanks to the chaos of sound that filled the darkness, but he trusted the freedman’s instincts. If he was right, they would be on the left flank of the legion that had punched into the Seventh, if not … But battles weren’t won by ifs.

Valerius turned back to the ranks of legionaries, praying that none of the centuries had lost contact during the heart-pounding dash. ‘They don’t know you’re here.’ He spoke loud enough for the closest century to hear, aware of the risk but reckoning it worth taking. ‘So hit them fast and hit them hard. One cast and we will come screaming from the night like the
daemones
of Erebus. Form cohort wedge, let your eagle be your rallying point. Your watchword is Tolosa, the reply is Juva. Just get in amongst them and kill everything that isn’t screaming it at you. Slaughter the bastards.’

He advanced another five paces to be certain. ‘Now!’

The right arms that drew back had been straining for action all night and now the frustration of hours of inactivity was released in a single burst of energy. The
pila
curved into the darkness in an unerring arc, six feet of iron-tipped ash, with a weighted pyramid point designed to penetrate shields and chain armour. In daylight, a legionary facing a
pila
attack raised his big curve-edge
scutum
to protect himself. If it stuck, the missile might encumber him for the rest of the fight, but his odds of escaping injury were good. At night, in a surprise flank attack, it was different. The first the men of Legio V Alaudae knew of the danger was when ears long attuned to danger detected a soft rushing sound behind the raucous symphony of battle. A heartbeat later, the heavy javelins punched into helmet, neck and shoulder. Even protected by a stout iron helm and
lorica segmentata
plate armour, a direct hit would instantly stun the wearer, if the impact didn’t break bone or find the fatal, fleshy gap between helmet and armour. Before they recovered, the shocked legionaries found themselves the target of an unseen armoured battering ram that slammed into their unprotected left. The Boar’s Head. Valerius had first seen it used in Boudicca’s last battle when General Suetonius Paulinus had crushed an army of seventy thousand rebels to dust between his arrow-shaped wedges. Valerius had used it himself, to smash the Vitellian line, when Juva had taken the eagle of the Twenty-first Rapax.

A cohort wedge consisted of a ‘point’ of a single century, formed eight men wide and ten deep, followed by two further centuries, and finally three more, to complete the arrowhead. Valerius was at the very heart of the formation in the gap between the second and third centuries, with Serpentius, Atilius and the eagle’s eight-man guard. He’d considered a mass charge into the enemy’s unsuspecting flank that would have caused instant and widespread confusion, but that wasn’t the legions’ way. Instead, the Boar’s Head lanced into the attacking enemy formations and broke the assault’s momentum. He might be charging as many as five thousand men with fewer than five hundred. The greater cohesion of the men in the wedge would keep them in the fight for longer, rather than wasting them in bloody single combat. Despite the odds, Valerius could feel the battle joy growing inside, that insane confusion of invincibility and power, speed and strength. Yet at his very core was the same emptiness he’d felt as he’d approached the executioner. With the gods’ aid they would survive, but only if Primus hurried to reinforce the Seventh Galbiana – and there was no guarantee he would.

The legionaries of the Eighth cohort had practised the manoeuvre a thousand times, and the six centuries drew swords and charged the moment they hurled their spears. Valerius, their precious eagle and his little pocket of men were carried with them. He felt the lurch as the shields of the first century smashed into the flank of the Seventh’s attackers, the momentary hesitation and the cries of confusion and pain. Then the man-weight of the wedge carried it deep into a formation whose entire being was focused on its front. It pierced the unguarded flank like a knife blade entering a living body, plunging ever deeper. But it would not last. Inevitably, it must be slowed by the mass ahead until it was finally forced to a halt. Valerius didn’t hesitate.