(South east coast of Britannia)
Fronto’s world was an explosion of baffling sensory input as he burst through the water’s surface and heaved in a deep breath. His ears had filled with water and, though he was aware of the din going on around him, it was all buried beneath a sloshing sound that made him feel dangerously unbalanced. His eyes stung with the brine and all he could see were occasional flashes of red or silver ahead of him as he continually blinked, trying to bring his sight back into line.
Slowly his eyes adjusted and he was aware of dozens and dozens of men around him, only their heads and shoulders above the waves, heaving towards the beach, their swords and shields held aloft as high as possible to prevent too much drag.
There was a wet pop and one of his ears suddenly cleared, shocking him with the sheer scale of the noise that suddenly assailed his eardrum.
“What are you doing?” called a voice. Fronto looked around in confusion to see Carbo addressing a legionary who was turning slowly in confusion.
“Looking for my standard, sir!”
“Don’t be bloody stupid. Just get to the beach and form up with anyone you can find, even if they’re not from the Tenth!”
As the man turned and struggled back towards the beach, Carbo took the time to give him a clout on the back of his helmet for his idiocy.
A mass of helmeted shapes were ploughing toward the beach. Fronto frowned as his brain told him he should be remembering something — something urgent.
“Shit!” he dropped into the water again as the arrow hissed past him and disappeared with a splash. But as he rose from the surface once more, he realised that the arrow had been a single pot-luck shot and not part of an organised attack.
“Why aren’t the archers shooting us?”
“Hello sir” Carbo said, grinning as he turned.
“I said: why aren’t they shooting us anymore?”
In response, the centurion cupped his hand to his ear dramatically. Fronto frowned, but after a moment, he heard the twang of the ballista on board Caesar’s trireme. Ahead, there were screams on the beach.
“Ah… got you.”
Another dramatic ear cup at the other side, and Fronto smiled as he heard the thud of the catapult on Cicero’s trireme release its heavy stone burden. A second later, on the beach, one of the chariots suddenly spun upwards, the terrified horses still attached as the stone smashed the vehicle into the air, the warrior aboard dead before he fell back to the sand, crushed and broken.
“This can’t hold. Let’s get to the beach before they decide to do something clever.”
Carbo turned away and made for the sand, the water level now just above his waist.
On the beach, something was already happening, though. The chariots had drawn up in two lines to the rear at both ends of the long beach while the cavalry, so very reminiscent of the Gallic horsemen of Caesar’s, drew up facing the sea.
“Looks like we’re about to have company.”
Even above the sloshing of the waves, the shouts of men and the din of ship-borne artillery, Fronto could hear the drumming thunder as the cavalry started to move, then picked up the pace, charging toward the invading force.
Another random pot-shot arrow appeared from nowhere and glanced off Fronto’s crest-holder with a clang, disappearing into the water in a cloud of severed red horse-hair.
Heaving a sigh of relief, the legate concentrated once more on what was happening across the open expanse of beaching waves. A wall of horseflesh, hair, skin and bronze approached as the massed ranks of the tribal riders raced across the sand and into the shallows. The barbarians, aware now of the dangers of the artillery, had kept the noble and easily-targeted chariots out of ballista reach, as well as the archers and the bulk of their warriors. But the cavalry had the speed to reach the Roman forces in the water with the minimal risk of being taken out by artillery. Moreover, their advantage in the water was clear, and the Roman artillery would cease fire at close quarters for fear of hitting their own people.
Fronto watched with growing dismay as the native cavalry ploughed into the water, splitting into groups and making for any legionary or small number of them who had become separated and looked like easy pickings. Even as he struggled towards the nearest such group, the ballista on Caesar’s ship fired one last time, smashing into one of the horses and throwing both it and its rider back into the shallow surf; it then fell silent.
Two legionaries and an optio were swiftly surrounded by half a dozen horsemen, their long swords rising and falling as they battered at the three men, jostling to maintain a position where they could reach. The Romans had moved back to back and their shields were raised to take the blows but their strength was ebbing fast with the sheer effort of fighting in waist deep water.
Snarling imprecations, Fronto laboured towards them, his sword slipping from its sheath beneath the water. The three men would not last long surrounded by cavalrymen with the advantage of both height and numbers.
The silent, oppressive void of the submarine world closed over him again as he slipped on a rock, his bad knee giving way and plunging him down into the salty, choking sea. Desperation grasped him and he let go of the shield he’d been gripping to free him a little from the weight and bulk. Despite the salty discomfort, his eyes remained open and he looked up to see his discarded shield bob to the surface, creating an oblong shadow above him.
A memory of muttered conversations with an angry Varus over too many drinks to be truly healthy flashed into his head as he looked up from his submarine world, and his face split into a hard smile.
He knew how to turn the tables.
Bursting from the surface with the renewed vigour that comes with certainty of purpose, Fronto began to push and fight his way through the water toward the fracas. One of the legionaries had already taken a sword blow from the horsemen and his shield was being split into kindling with the repeated hammering as he desperately clung onto life, failing to find an opportunity to use his gladius.
Closing on them, Fronto grinned, aware that they hadn’t seen him. At a distance of perhaps ten feet, he took a deep breath and plunged beneath the surface, scrambling along in a half-crawl, half-swim in just over three feet of water.
A shadow fell across his strange, ethereal world just as he saw the injured legionary succumb to another blow and drop beneath the waves, clouds of dirty brown indicating the horrible extent of his wounds as the blood bloomed out of his chest and tainted the water.
There was plenty more of that to come.
Crouching, Fronto used the combination of his bunched muscles and the hard pebbled seabed to launch himself through the surface and straight into the horse’s underbelly. Germanic tactics. It was horrible — a dirty way to fight a war — but needs must when Caesar drives…
His gladius plunged into the horse’s gut and ripped this way and that. Urgently, Fronto ducked to one side to avoid the writhing of the agonised animal.
The beast screamed and tried to leap, the Celtic rider suddenly bucking from the saddle and being thrown into the water. It would have been nice to finish the bastard off, but that could come later. With gritted teeth, Fronto plunged beneath the surface, through the glowing slick of horse’s blood and sought out the next equine shadow that blotted out the sun.
Quickly, efficiently, and with a rising distaste, Fronto located another of the Celtic riders and, aware that the swinging swords and danger of battle was taking place just above the surface, concluded he was better off remaining hidden. Closing his eyes and sending a mental apology to the poor beast, Fronto lifted his hand to just below the water’s surface and drove his gladius into the horse’s upper leg, feeling it grate off the central bone as it pushed through and out the other side.
The horse crumpled on its bad leg and Fronto barely managed to push himself out of the way as the beast collapsed into the water almost on top of him, slipping sideways. He felt the tug as the sword was almost wrenched from his grasp with the movement and it was only through a superhuman effort that he managed to maintain his grip on the hilt as it tore free of the leg.
Half-swimming backwards, he watched with sick fascination as the rider, tipped unceremoniously from his blanket seat by the screaming horse, found himself suddenly beneath both the waves and his crippled mount, pinned to the pebbles as the horse thrashed, grinding him to a pulp.
Turning from the grisly scene, Fronto moved along to the next horse, repeating the unpleasant ‘gutting’ tactic of the Germanic warriors, ducking back into the water as the slick of the beast’s blood drenched him from above.
Moving out away from all the action for a moment’s breather, he stood again, aware that the quantity of blood churning in the water was now making it almost impossible to see and that he was in as much danger of bumping into the beleaguered soldiers as he was of finding another horse to deal with.
Two of the beasts that he’d attacked were dying already, thrashing in the water, part bleeding out and part drowning, while another was desperately trying to reach the ‘safety’ of the beach, a constant rain of blood falling from its undercarriage to the surface of the sea. Of their unfortunate riders he could see no sign, though the pair of legionaries who had recently been fighting to preserve their own skins had now taken the initiative and were battering native warriors down into the surf with their shields as their swords rose and fell in rhythmic butchery; likely the fate of the men Fronto had unhorsed.
The legionaries had no time to thank him for the relief, though. Two of the riders who’d been attacking them had wheeled their mounts and pounded away through the waist deep water in search of easier targets, while the last rider, now unhorsed, floundered in the waves, trying to fight off the revenging legionaries. The fight was far from over.
The small pockets of combat had begun to spread and increase, melding together to form one great half-submerged melee, stretching from the very edge of the water, where Petrosidius fought like a man possessed, to the waist deep area, where the last men from the two Gallic vessels struggled to catch up. Two ships’ worth? Where was everyone else?
Horses screamed as the legionaries attacked them viciously, unable to reach their riders. Soldiers hacked and battered with sword and shield, sloshing this way and that, taking advantage of the blood-tinted sea to drop beneath the surface and disappear whenever danger loomed, rising out of the water like some avenging spirit once the trouble had passed and moving on to the next likely target.
A quick glance around the beach revealed a sickening truth: the number of legionaries committed in the water was barely enough to hold their own against the native cavalry. If the rest of the horde decided to brave the artillery and move into the fray, all would be lost. Frowning, Fronto peered past the two nearest ships, their high-sided Gallic hulls rising majestically from the water. To his dismay, he could see soldiers lining the rails of the two triremes. Caesar had held back the men of the Tenth on his ship, and Cicero had done the same with the Seventh on his.
Unbelievable: both officers so stubborn, even in these circumstances! Despite Fronto’s leading of two centuries from the Tenth, the general had clearly put out the call to hold the rest of the legion back, expecting the Seventh to carry out his initial orders. Cicero, equally, had either refused to commit his men, or possibly had found it impossible to force his reticent officers to lead them into the fight. Either way, the entire struggle for the beach was being carried out by two centuries from each legion.
Insane!
His wandering gaze took in the numerous scuffles in the water and settled on a musician with a wolf-pelt over his helmet, struggling to free himself from the bronze hoop of a bent ‘cornu’ horn in which he had somehow become tangled as a Briton rider bore down on him, bloodied long-sword raised and ready to land the blow. He was almost on the unfortunate soldier.
“Over here!” Fronto bellowed to the endangered musician, waving his sword arm. The man turned and began to wade desperately towards him, the sodden wolf fur half obscuring his vision, the horn almost comically constricting him. The legate’s brow furrowed in concentration even as he began to move to intercept. With his shield gone he would stand about as much chance against the horseman as the entangled musician did if he tried to wade out and take him in a fair fight.
Luckily fair fighting to Fronto was a luxury, rather than a necessity.
Hoping he would have clear enough vision, Fronto took a deep breath and dropped beneath the surface of the water again. The salty brine had taken on the distinctive tinny tang of blood and Fronto could taste it even on his closed lips as he opened his eyes and looked up.
The water was stained dark pink and currents of blood flowed through it sickeningly, creating darker patches here and there, but he could just make out the shapes of clouds above — it would be good enough. Praying to Fortuna that his sense of direction had held, he half-swam, half-waded onwards toward the struggling cornicen, making sure to keep his head beneath the surface.
The musician was easy enough to spot as he passed by. The man pushed his way wearily and desperately through the deepening water towards where Fronto had been. Even through the murk of blood, Fronto could see the panic on the soldier’s face as he tried to find the officer who’d shouted him.
And then he was past and the horse and rider were almost on him. Fronto watched the powerful equine legs pound though the water, stirring sand and pebbles into the already gloomy mix. Judging the time to be right, he stood.
Gaius Figulus, cornicen for the second century of the first cohort in the Seventh legion lost his footing and it was then that he knew it was all over. The native horseman chasing him down had been gaining on him as he ran and the officer that had called him had somehow vanished. Panic had gripped him then. He was not a man prone to excessive fear, and he was certainly no coward, but the simple knowledge that he was out of chances had finally fought its way into his beleaguered mind and unmanned him.
After landing in the water, following centurion Furius despite the shouted orders to the contrary, he had drawn his sword, his cornu over the other shoulder and held tight in his grip — to lose his cornu would be to suffer beatings from his centurion later, as well as a substantial loss of pay.
In a matter of moments he’d found himself in a melee, surrounded by two enemy horsemen. With no shield, he’d managed to repeatedly block their powerful, hammering sword blows with only his gladius for a hundred speedy heartbeats. He’d even eventually managed to stab one of the horses so that the rider pulled back and retreated. Unfortunately, his cornu had taken half a dozen heavy sword blows and, at some point as he’d ducked a swipe, it had bobbed on the water and managed to slip over his head and shoulder and now pinned his left arm to his side, the slightly buckled metal digging painfully into his neck. He’d have no trouble untangling himself given the opportunity, but for the fact that the remaining rider was still swinging at him, and finally a heavy blow that landed broke several fingers on his sword hand and weakened his wrist, his gladius tumbling away into the water, lost.
Miraculously, another legionary had appeared and distracted the rider long enough for him to flee the scene, struggling with the horn, trying to lift it off himself as he retreated. But he’d failed, his hands trapped and bloodied, and the horseman had come after him.
And then the officer had called.
And then disappeared.
Figulus made one last effort to try and haul the cornu off him, but his left arm was hopelessly pinned in the circle of bronze, while his right hand throbbed painfully with broken blackened fingers and was too weak to help.
Turning, he observed his doom thundering through the water, bearing down on him.
And then something unexpected happened.
A figure rose from the water like the very embodiment of Neptune, armour glinting silver with a faint sheen of watery crimson, face a contorted grimace of anger, fingers of its left hand grasping, reaching, a gladius glittering in the right.
Figulus boggled as the free hand grasped the passing rider’s ankle, almost hauling the apparition out of the water, but allowing the other arm to come round in a powerful swing that hacked deep into the Briton’s shin.
The cavalryman screamed and, the tip of the gladius having pricked the horse’s side enough to draw blood, the mount also bellowed and reared up, mid-run. The rider recovered his wits quickly enough, somehow managing to hold on to the horse’s reins, but he had lost control of his steed and the beast bolted through the surf back toward the beach. Figulus stared at the officer in the expensive, if dented, helmet and muscle-shaped beaten bronze cuirass, his horsehair crest bedraggled and sagging slightly.
“I… Uh.”
The officer turned his gaze on Figulus and the cornicen took a tiny involuntary step back at the sheer anger in the man’s face. The officer clearly seemed to have momentarily forgotten he was there in the thrill of battle.
“You. Can you still play that thing?”
“I think so sir. It’s a bit bent and it might not sound quite right, though.”
“Don’t care” the officer said flatly as he waded through the water and began to help him remove the misshapen horn from around his neck and arm. “Do you know all the army’s calls?”
“I think so, sir.”
“Right then. Sound the advance for both legions.”
Figulus nodded and reached his lips towards the mouthpiece, his good hand gripping the curve.
“And the command call for all ships to beach.”
“Sir? That order can only be given by the general or his staff.”
The officer’s expression suggested heavily that a lot of Figulus’ future rode on the next minute and he swallowed nervously, observing the officer’s dented, stained armour, his grizzled features and the very plain, utilitarian blade in his hand, slightly nicked from extended use. He could be one of the staff, if he was one who didn’t pander to appearance, or care what his peers thought.
Then he caught the officer’s eyes again and reached for the mouthpiece of the horn, blowing the call for the ships to beach as though his life depended on it.
Fronto patted the young musician condescendingly on the head as the last few notes rang out across the beach, his hand sinking into the saturated wolf fur. As he’d hoped, the other musicians across the ships had picked up and echoed the call, assuming the order had come from the nearby command trireme.
Grinning, the legate could only picture Caesar’s face as he stomped around the trireme’s deck, demanding to know who had given the order. But already every remaining ship was moving gracefully through the water toward the beach, the men on their decks straining, ready to leap into the fray.
Even by the time Fronto had turned away and started taking stock of the situation, the first men of the Tenth and Seventh were dropping into the water, sloshing forward to help their comrades. The sleek, speedy Roman triremes had taken just half a minute to move far enough forward to beach and deposit their troops, the men plunging into water that was only two feet deep, still holding their shields and swords ready, and running straight for any of the enemy they could see.
The attack had finally begun in earnest, despite the reticence and stupidity of the senior officers.
In response to this new threat, several discordant cacophonic blasts issued from the rear of the beach and the innumerable infantry of the native horde began to race towards the water to join the fray.
Fronto peered around to see where he could be best used and selected a knot of small fights in the shallows where the Celtic horsemen seemed to be getting the best of the legionaries. He sloshed through the water, grateful when the glistening pink frothy surface passed his midriff and lapped around his thighs as he neared land.
“Marcus!”
Glancing over his shoulder, Fronto grinned at the sight of Galronus heaving his way through the water to catch up, his long Celtic cavalry blade unsheathed in his hand, no shield visible.
“Decided to join in then?”
“Contrary to common Roman belief, we Belgae are surprisingly adaptable” he grinned. “I can fight, piss, and even sleep without a horse between my knees.”
“We need to force them back on to the beach where we can form up into lines. Then we’ve got ‘em”
Galronus nodded and grinned as he caught sight of Petrosidius, only ankle deep in the water’s edge, mercilessly beating a cringing, disarmed native to death with the gleaming silver eagle of the Tenth.
“I fear the general would have a fit if he saw your standard bearer doing that.”
“So long as he doesn’t break the bloody thing. He’s not the carefullest of men.”
Fronto baulked for a moment as he bumped into something soft and malleable and glanced down to see a bloodied, sightless eye staring up at him from a smashed head. The sea was becoming a sight to sicken even the hardiest of soldiers.
Accustomed to fighting on land, Fronto was used to the unpleasant aftermath of battle: the slick of blood and organs that covered every inch of the field; the bodies lying in gruesome, twisted positions, sometimes four deep.
The pieces of head and limb that you couldn’t avoid treading on.
The stench.
What he wasn’t used to, and was wholly unprepared for, was that such an action fought in waist deep water resulted in the same carnage, except that there it flowed around you as you walked, occasionally bumping into you. A hand here; half a head there.
If he’d had anything to bring up, he’d have done it as he surveyed the scene.
Galronus seemed to be judiciously ignoring the grisly sea, the tidal currents dragging floating detritus back out from the areas of more intense battle in the shallows.
Closing on the knot of more intense fighting, Fronto yelled at the top of his voice to be heard over the din. “The horses! Take out the horses!”
The focus of the struggling men changed as they began to attack the steeds while using their shields to protect themselves from the constant hammering blows from above. Pausing, he once more took stock of the situation, the water’s surface now tickling the back of his knees. The enemy warriors had only partially committed to the attack. A fresh volley of fire from the ships had strafed the screaming, advancing horde and many had drawn up short at the sudden threat and run back to their comrades beyond the beach.
Others, however, had made it to the sea, where the ballistae wouldn’t fire for fear of hitting their own, and had joined the horsemen in the desperate struggle to prevent the Romans reaching solid land. But the numbers were tilted in the favour of the invaders now and every moment saw fresh legionaries arriving from the ships that had been at the rear of the fleet against a diminishing number of natives.
“Come on, let’s finish this.”
Galronus grinned by his side and the two men sloshed through the knee-deep water, racing toward a small group of howling, half-naked men wielding spears.
Galronus found himself running lightly, almost enjoying himself as he left the last lapping wave and crunched onto fine gravel. He barely paused in his run to pull back his heavy long sword to his right and bring it round in a wide swing that took the leg clean off the nearest Briton. The man’s screaming turned from that of rage to that of agony as he fell to the shingle in two separate pieces.
This was what every Remi son was born for.
Life was the gift. Battle was the method. Blood was the price.
There would be some, especially the druids, who would condemn or chastise him for this: for running with an army of Rome and bringing blood and death to fellow tribesmen — fellow worshippers of Belenus. But the history of the Belgae was a history of tribal warfare — of brother against brother. Had not the Belgae fought amongst themselves for centuries before the coming of Rome? And now, simply because a new force had entered the arena, the secretive druids expected the tribes to band together against Rome? To deny a thousand years of warfare and enmity?
Galronus shook his head to discard the thought and the subject entire as a screaming, moustached face beneath a shock of spiked white hair rose up in front of him. The projected spittle of the warrior’s yelled invective had hardly touched his cheek before the blood spatter joined it. Galronus paused for only a moment to heave his sword back out of the man’s neck and push him to the ground with his foot, leaving him shaking out his life spasmodically on the pebbles.
The thing was that Galronus had fought with the legions for more than two years now, and in those long months he had not once visited his tribe. Truth be told, he rarely thought of them. Oh, he knew of them, for he had sent and received word these past two winters while they endured the bitter wet cold and he sheltered in warm, cosy Rome. They had thrived, despite the supposed loss of their freedoms. He had heard that they had begun to re-road the oppidum of his birth with flag stones and drainage ditches after the Roman fashion. He could only imagine the relief the children and women would feel not having to slop through six inches of muck as they left their house.
The druids had abandoned them, of course. Most of the strange, powerful cult had crossed the water to the believed safety of Britannia and their sacred isle of Ynis Mon, while others had stayed in Gaul, but retreated from the open world to carry out their own little hate campaigns against Rome.
Galronus was not stupid. Far from it. He would never delude himself and suggest that the Belgic tribes were anything other than subjects of Rome now, or that he was still a chief of the Remi, for all that he held the title. He was now an officer of Rome. He had learned their language to the extent that people were often unaware of his origins. He had taken a liking to their wine, though not watered as they would drink it — a habit he shared with Fronto. He liked their chariot racing and their taverns. He liked their culture — apart from the dreadful theatre. He liked…
He liked Faleria.
A quick glance to one side confirmed that Fronto was still beside him, fighting with all the fury and strength of a battle-crazed Remi warrior, with the energy and agility of a man half his age. With the certainty and sureness of a man whose life is panning out exactly as he had planned it.
With the blessings of Sucellus and Nantosuelta, Galronus would bind hands with Faleria this year and the man fighting furiously by his side would become his brother.
He grinned and casually beheaded a yelling youth with a sharp spear but absolutely no ability to use it.
Strange, really. He was suddenly aware for the first time that he appeared to be thinking in Latin, with all its idioms and intricacies. When had that started?
He was so blood-tied to the inhabitants of this island that he shared not only Gods, names and culture, but even language. Despite the oddities of their regional dialects, if he concentrated, he could follow three quarters of all the shouting going on around him. The swords that were being raised against him bore so much more resemblance to his own than did the short stabbing weapons of the legions. He could very easily discard his Roman-style helmet and slip among the Britons and they would not even know him for an enemy.
But Rome was the future. Better to embrace the future than to fight it and disappear without trace, such as the Aduatuci, executed or enslaved entire after Caesar’s conquest.
Again, Galronus shook his head and pushed the thoughts aside. Such reflection was best saved for the dark of the night after battle’s end.
“Galronus!” yelled an insistent voice.
Looking around in surprise, the Remi officer realised that the Roman forces had stopped advancing, cornu and buccina calls going out to mass the troops, standards waving, circling and dipping, whistles blowing, centurions’ voices carrying across it all. In his reverie, Galronus had not stopped with the rest and was standing in a strange twenty-yard no-man’s-land between the assembling legions and the expectant Britons who had drawn back up the beach. Fronto was desperately beckoning him.
“Get back here before one of their archers decides to stick you!”
With a smile, Galronus nodded and, turning, jogged back to the ranks of his new, uniformed, steel-armoured brothers.
Fronto took the opportunity to step out of the line and look along the assembled forces with a sense of immense satisfaction. Despite the debacle that had been the landing, the beachhead had been successfully established and the Britons had been forced to withdraw far enough to allow room to form up properly.
It didn’t do to look back into the surf, as he’d quickly discovered. The swirling red tint from the blood had quickly diffused and disappeared with fresh waves, but the shapes of men and horses still stood proud of the water — ugly mounds that were an equally ugly testament to the brutality of the assault. The men didn’t bother him so much, but the horses…
He’d half expected the Britons to keep retreating in view of the army now forming up opposite them but, to the credit of their courage, they had merely rearranged their forces, the remaining cavalry formed up at the rear, archers nowhere to be seen, infantry in a huge mass at the centre and the leaders in their chariots off to both sides.
If Fronto craned his neck, Cicero could just be seen newly-arrived and bustling around at the rear of the formed-up Seventh. That man would get the benefit of Fronto’s personal and celebrated selection of curses later, when the entire army wasn’t listening, though there was also the coming confrontation with Caesar that would likely be much the same, only in the other direction. Although the general could have no proof that it was Fronto who had defied him and ordered the advance and disembarkation, he would suspect, and he knew for a fact that Fronto had been one of the first over the side with two centuries of the Tenth in further contradiction of orders.
Caesar’s bile was hardly new though, and he knew how to weather that storm easily enough.
In response to a demand, a shield was being passed through the ranks to the front, where the legionary behind Fronto respectfully handed it over. With satisfaction of the reassuring weight, Fronto hefted the grip, the callouses of his hand fitting harmoniously to the shape of the wood and leather. Cicero, Caesar and the other staff could stand at the back and wave their arms; he would stay here, in the front line. It was common knowledge in the army that a senior officer was as much use in the heat of combat as a knitted shield, and it was the centurionate that commanded the battle. Not so in the Tenth, and Fronto soured to think of what his men would think of him if he stood at the rear picking his nails with his knife like Cicero.
“Ready!”
Carbo’s voice cut through the general murmur and din of the assembled centuries and was repeated by the other fifty nine centurions of the Tenth and soon after by the officers of the Seventh. Across the front line, shields clacked against one another and the men planted their front feet, ready for the advance. The rattling, clanging and conversation died away to an expectant silence that was broken a moment later by the ‘musical’ instruments of the Britons, howling and wailing like a cat with its tail trapped in a door. With an exultant roar, the native army charged.
“I don’t believe it.” Carbo muttered. On the other side of the legate, Galronus grinned behind his borrowed infantry shield. “Believe it. It’s the way they fight. To attack with the blood up is noble. To sit tight and wait for an advancing enemy is cowardly in their eyes.”
“They must know they’ll never punch through this line” Fronto said quietly.
“But they will try it anyway. They would rather die hopelessly and nobly than live in the knowledge that they had not tried.”
“You mean they won’t run at all?”
“Oh they’ll run, when they’re broken. But they’ll not retreat by design.”
“Then we’d better break them.”
Carbo laughed lightly and raised his sword. “Brace!”
Along the line, the men of the Tenth hunched behind their shields, changing their stance so that, rather than preparing to march, they had all their weight ready to push forward into the wood and leather. The entire line of shields dropped slightly to cover exposed shins and heads were pulled down to leave only the eyes exposed between the metal helmet brow and the edge of the shield.
A Roman shieldwall could withstand most attacks.
Fronto was surprised as his eyes flicked across the ranks of the enemy to see that not only were the foot warriors of the native army charging forward en-masse with no formation or organisation, but the chariots at the periphery had swept forward only long enough to drop their noble passengers close enough to join the attack.
He had a mind to enquire of Galronus as to this strange tactic, but now was not the time. He counted off his heartbeats.
One… Two… Three…
Four more and the lines would meet.
Four…
“Mark your men.”
Three…
Shame we didn’t have pila, Fronto thought, imagining all the stacks of the weighted javelins that were stored on board the ships and would have to be brought out later.
Two…
A man directly opposite Fronto with a strange bronze plate strapped over his bare chest, designs inked on his arms, his hair spiked and coated with white mud, and what he probably laughingly called his teeth bared, snarled something at Fronto.
One…
“I think he likes you” laughed Galronus to his left, as all hell broke loose.
The power and voracity of the native charge took Fronto by surprise, and all along the shield wall there were curses and shouts in Latin as the legionaries of the Tenth and Seventh fought to maintain their position, their feet driving into the scattering pebbles, teeth grinding as they heaved with all their strength into the shields on their arms.
Here and there the line buckled a little, but it held.
“One” yelled Carbo, and the legion’s front line leaned back fractionally to gain a tiny fragment of room, only to smash forward with their shields half a heartbeat later. All along the line of combat, bronze shield bosses smashed into the poorly-armoured Britons, smashing bones, shattering teeth, pulverising noses and generally wrecking the momentum of their attack.
“Two” called the primus pilus, and the shields were all angled slightly, opening up gaps half a foot wide all along the front, safe in the knowledge that the shield-barge had knocked the enemy back enough to make it extremely unlikely that any of them would take advantage of the gap. Every legionary’s blade jabbed out of the line, plunging into the enemy, twisting and then withdrawing. The shields clacked back together with a monstrous din.
The majority of the front men in the Celtic army collapsed to the ground screaming and bleeding, leaving a momentary space before the next set of Britons could move in over their comrades and reach their enemy.
“Three!” barked Carbo, and the legion took two uniform steps forward over the bodies of the fallen. As the front line settled back into position and made sure their shields were locked, the second rank of men stamped down with their hobnailed boots and smashed their bronze-edged shield rims into the bodies of the wounded and dying Britons, preventing them from causing any damage within the formation.
Now, the atmosphere across the army of Britons had changed from exultant, angry excitement to desperate, uncertain urging. The men back in the press pushed their comrades forward, dying to reach their enemy, pushing between their fellows where they could. Here and there a richly-armoured noble managed to elbow his way to the front. Before Carbo could repeat the process, several legionaries along the line succumbed to the brutal attacks of the warriors, their swords or axes coming down at just the right angle to miss shields and plunge into faces beneath helmet brows or smash into mailed shoulders. Even as those legionaries collapsed, screaming, from the line, the men in the second rank stepped forward to take their place, locking their shields smoothly. Of the fallen wounded there was no time or opportunity to help. They would just have to hope they weren’t trampled to death by their fellow legionaries in the press.
Most were.
“One” Carbo bellowed, and the manoeuvre began again. Shield-barge… shield-turn… gladius blow, twist, withdraw… step forward… lock shields.
It was simple; mechanical. Bred into the men of the legions through years of training and putting it into practice. Regardless of any selection of favourable ground, of legion formation, of enemy tactics or numbers, any centurion or veteran would stand by the fact that it was the simple three-stage manoeuvre of the front line that won the battle. It was those three stages that allowed Rome to conquer the world.
Fronto found himself humming a ditty, lost in the almost monotonous regularity of it, and his attention was only focussed back on the real world when someone yelled something about fleeing. Two centurions’ whistles rang out and then the entire beach echoed to shouted commands and the calls of the musicians to draw up in formation.
Peering over his shield rim, Fronto watched with weary satisfaction as the Britons broke for the treeline behind the beach, the remaining nobles mounting their chariots and hurling incomprehensible abuse at the invaders as their drivers took them away from the fight.
With a smile, Fronto felt the long scrubby grass brushing his shins and realised that the legions had pushed the enemy all the way across the beach, past the lower, pebbled part, across the sand, and finally to the grass.
And now they were running.
And if the cavalry — of whom no sign had been discerned since departure from Gesoriacum — had been here, they could chase down the fleeing warriors and deal with them. But with only thirty or so horsemen under Galronus, and their mounts still aboard the ships, such closure was merely a dream.
Hardening himself, Fronto took a deep breath. Now to face the wrath of Caesar before he got to break a few heads himself.
ROME
Lucilia took a deep breath.
“I hear him coming.”
Faleria nodded in the faint light that issued through the grille in the door at the top of the stairs and shuffled back against the wall, the blanket and pallet she had been given for comfort barely keeping away the chill of the cold stone floor.
“I wish you’d let me help.”
Faleria smiled wanly at her young friend. “You will be helping, but the first move has to be mine.” She sighed. “We’ll only get one chance at this and, I’m sorry to have to say it, but you’re too delicate and slight for it. I am — in my brother’s words when I’ve stopped him making a fool of himself — a ‘tough old bitch’. And we’ll never be more prepared. Just be ready to move.”
Lucilia shuffled nervously.
“Stop fidgeting. The smallest thing could give the whole game away. Act normally.”
That’s easy for you to say, thought Lucilia, eying the single door to the cellar room as the light disappeared, blotted out by the figure of the guard, Papirius. It would be Papirius. It was always Papirius. In the days they’d languished in this dingy pit — enough of them that she’d now lost count — only two guards had put in an appearance.
Sextius brought their breakfast in the morning — a luke-warm barley gruel that put her in mind of the muck the legions had eaten when she had lived at the Genava camp with her father. The man was a humourless ex-legionary who appeared to have been dismissed from service with six lashes for his trouble, though she’d not dared to ask why. In the days and weeks of imprisonment she could count on her fingers the number of times he had spoken to them, and even that usually monosyllabic. After breakfast the man disappeared, never to be seen again that day, though his voice occasionally issued in muffled tones from beyond the door, confirming his presence in the building.
The only other voice they had heard was Papirius. The other ex-legionary was a more genial man, given their circumstances. He it was who had taken away, cleaned and replaced the hellish slop-bucket, while Sextius seemed willing to let them wallow in their own filth. Indeed, Papirius had even cleaned the cell and replaced their bedding three or four times, though he had taken the precaution of chaining them to the wall rings each time.
Papirius it was who also brought the other two meals each day: a snack of bread, cheese and olives at noon and a warm meat stew in the evening. If it was he who prepared the meals, he could be said to be a more than passable cook.
She hardened her heart. These were their guards if not their captors. For all she saw in Papirius something familiar from her time living in the proximity of the Eighth legion, the man was still holding her against her will.
Papirius, it seemed, was overly fond of wine and therefore took the late meal shifts so that in the morning he could sleep off the skinful he inevitably had each night. It seemed likely that the man’s dismissal from the legions was connected to his drinking habits.
It was partially that habit that had decided on their timing.
It had to be the noon meal. Papirius would be the least expecting of the pair and very much the least careful. He would still be a little tired and blurred from the alcohol. At noon he was less chatty than in the evening due to his bone-weariness.
To this end, the two women had deliberately played up to Papirius throughout the long days of captivity. They had been model prisoners, never even breathing out of turn. They had cooperated, even with Sextius leering at them hungrily from time to time.
And they had waited.
And they had planned.
The map they had drawn on the wall with a sharp stone they had rubbed clear only an hour later, having committed it firmly to memory.
Lucilia had begun to wonder whether Faleria would ever be ready. For the last week she had been needling the older woman, urging her to put the plan into action, but each time the situation had apparently not been quite right.
And then, last night, Papirius had confided with a wink that he was bound for the Opiconsivia festival with its ritual chariot race and then a celebratory night of feasting and drinking with a cousin who owned a farm not far along the Via Flaminia and who had brought the last of his harvest to the city markets.
Faleria had smiled as he left and the door closed with a rattle of keys. Papirius would be less alert than usual when he arose the next morning, and their time had come.
The door at the top of the stairs opened.
Lucilia bit her lip and drew blood.
Sextius!
It hadn’t occurred to her that perhaps Papirius would have been so inebriated that his companion would have to step in and cover his shift. Damn!
“Faleria!” she hissed quietly.
“I know.”
“What do we do?”
“We go anyway.”
Sextius, his usual sour face taking on that leer at the sight of the captive women, began to move slowly down the stairs, two wooden plates balanced in his left hand, the right on the pommel of his sword.
Lucilia shuddered. Sextius was a whole different proposition to Papirius. Faleria had been planning to overwhelm the guard as he brought the food and then pin him to the floor while Lucilia tied his hands with the twine they had unthreaded from the pallet’s edge. Papirius would have tried to fight them off, but Faleria was sure she could cope, especially if he was suffering. Sextius, on the other hand, was bright and alert. He would be tough to simply overwhelm.
What was Faleria thinking? They had to abort and try another day.
“Food!” Sextius announced somewhat unnecessarily as he reached the flagged floor and strode across. Lucilia looked up hungrily. Whatever her friend had planned, she had to keep up the pretence that all was normal. Faleria sat cross-legged, hunched over, her head hanging down.
“What’s wrong with her?” Sextius glanced across at Lucilia as he slowly approached.
“I have no idea” replied the younger of the captive women, with a distinct ring of truth.
Unceremoniously, Sextius slung the two wooden platters on the floor at the foot of their pallets, the bread rolling off onto the dirty, cold stone flags. Narrowing his eyes suspiciously, the former legionary crouched in front of Faleria, though Lucilia noted how his fingers curled around the sword hilt at his side, ready to draw at a heartbeat’s notice.
“You look pale” he announced and grasped Faleria’s hair roughly with his left hand, yanking it upwards and lifting her head to see her face. His attention locked on her visage, he noticed all too late the finger coming up that jammed into his eye, her nail sharp from weeks of rough treatment.
Lucilia stared as the man’s left eye exploded with a popping noise, goo and blood spurting out over Faleria. He screamed, though his reactions were sharp even in his agony, the sword coming free of the sheath with a metallic rasp. Even as Lucilia goggled in horror, Faleria stepped up her vicious attack. As the wounded man let go of her hair, she smashed her forehead into his face. Nothing broke, but she felt the impact with dizzying pain and knew she had dealt him a stunning blow.
“Run!”
By the time Lucilia had reached the stairs and was bounding up them, Faleria was at her heel, the wounded captor’s sword in her hand. Back in the gloom of the cell, the howling of pain was now infused with cries of rage and the sounds of scuffling as Sextius struggled to his feet.
“Come on!”
The pair ran through the cellar’s door and past the small cubicle that served as a guard chamber with its little table and rickety wooden chair, out along the corridor, around two corners, past two doors, and to the stairs that led to the ground floor, up which they pounded.
Somewhere behind them issued the most animal shriek of pained rage, and the sound of hobnailed boots on stone echoed through the corridors.
“Sextius?”
Lucilia’s heart skipped a beat at the sound of Papirius’ voice ahead. Were they trapped? It mattered not how reasonable the genial ex-soldier had been. If he discovered they had escaped he would be merciless; of this she was certain.
“Sextius?” the call came again.
“Faleria!” she shouted in a panic, her courage draining away rapidly.
“He’s off to the right. We go left at the end. Just run!”
Obeying the instructions of her forthright friend, the young woman pounded along the corridor, ignoring the doors to the various rooms on either side, nearing the end, where the left turn would take her towards the street and freedom.
She almost collapsed in panic as she sped round the corner and Papirius’ hand reached out of the shadowed opening to the far side, grasping for her and tearing a rip across the shoulder of her stola as she narrowly evaded his grip.
And then she was running again. The door to the street was around the next corner and at the end of that corridor. She could see the glow of daylight at the bend. Her heart lurched again and, with a plummeting feeling of dismay, she glanced back over her shoulder as she ran.
Papirius stood in the corridor, blocking it, his sword dancing in his hand, ready to strike. Beyond him, in the gloomier reaches, Lucilia could see Faleria, an expression of grim determination on her face, raising her stolen blade. She looked up to see Lucilia watching in horror.
“Run, girl!”
Her soul crying in anguish, Lucilia turned her back on her friend and ran on, around the corner and down the short passage, bursting out through the half-open door into the bright daylight of the Subura. Behind her, now invisible in the building’s gloom, she heard the faint but distinctive ring of steel striking steel.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, she grasped her filthy, soiled stola around her and ran, barefoot, for the family home on the Cispian hill.
Clodius would pay for this.