(Beachhead on the coast of Britannia)
The ships looked distinctly unseaworthy to Fronto. He sat on a folding campaign stool on the beach under the shelter of a large leather awning watching the relentless driving rain batter the sea, the pebbles, the ships and everything in sight — which was not a great distance in these conditions. The sky was a leaden grey and the weather had not let up for more than an hour at a time in the three days since the battle had ended.
Kicking a pebble down the beach in irritation, he realised he was brooding on his actions in that conflict yet again, in spite of himself.
In the aftermath of the fight, Fronto’s reputation seemed quickly to have reached almost legendary status. Every time he heard the story of his frenzy the tale grew in magnificence and by rights he should probably be deified by now. Gradually, pieces of the struggle had returned to him, and the medicus had confirmed, much to his relief, that he’d received a blow to the head during the fight that was the most likely cause of his fragmentary memories of the attack rather than a simple complete loss of control and wit.
Still, despite Atenos and Carbo swearing to try and suppress the tale, it had exploded, and the legate had the sneaking, though unprovable, feeling that the two centurions may well be at the heart of its speedy spread.
By the end of that first day, he’d taken to closeting himself away, and by the afternoon of the second he’d been forced to go in search of new places to hide from people. If anyone had ever suggested that he might spend days hiding from people who wanted to buy him a drink, Fronto would have laughed in their face, but that time had somehow come.
In the end, this cold and blustery location was one of the few where he was almost guaranteed peace. Due to the value of the ships, the fortified beachhead was under constant guard, and only those with business here were allowed through the gate, meaning that the only soldiers the legate stood any chance of bumping into on the beach were sailors, engineers or other officers, all of whom had their own business to attend to.
It was not the most comfortable of places, though. The shelter had been erected days ago for the duty officer and his staff to oversee the repair and loading of the ships and, while it held off the rain from above, it did not keep the ground below dry or prevent the biting winds from along the beach or off the sea from whipping at him.
Irritably, he pulled the cloak tighter around him, shivering into the damp, cold wool.
Soon.
Soon, they would return to Gaul, and then the legions could be settled into winter quarters if Caesar meant to continue this madness, or settled if not.
Despite his earlier concerns, the legate would have to admit now that he was almost past caring about Caesar’s motivations and future plans. This constant search for a new war was fraying him round the edges, and every place the army moved seemed to be less inviting and less worthwhile than the one before. All he wanted to do now was get back to Rome and to Puteoli; to see Balbus, Faleria, Lucilia.
With a sigh and another sickened glance around at the rain falling like rods from a lead sky, he took a swig of the wine in his clay beaker and huddled tighter still.
“Wishing yourself thirty miles south, legate?”
Glancing up in surprise, Fronto was relieved to see the hard, bristly face of Fabius looking down at him from beneath the awning. Furius appeared at the other side. Without further comment or requesting permission, the two centurions unfolded camp stools and sat to either side. Fabius produced two cups from his sodden cloak and a small jar of watered wine, while Furius withdrew a bowl of steaming stew that he must have carried extremely carefully to avoid spilling it down his front.
“You need this. You’ve been on this beach for two hours now without warmth or food. If you’re trying to make yourself ill, you’re going about it the right way.”
Fronto eyed the bowl of warm, appetising food uncertainly for a moment and then accepted it with a nod and took a mouthful, blowing round the hot meat to cool his mouth. Strange how things turn out, he thought to himself. Never, since that journey from Ostia, could he have imagined himself actually grateful to see the two former Pompeian officers, let alone for them to be trying to look after him.
“Actually I’m wishing myself several hundred miles south. I know you two are new to this campaign, but I’m starting to get quite sick of it, myself.” He cocked his head curiously. “You two got no pithy remarks about my conduct the other day? No one else seems able to stay quiet.”
Fabius shrugged. “You lost it. You were damn lucky not to be cut down. I’ve seen legionaries do it when they’ve been pushed far enough to snap. We keep our men drilled under the harshest conditions to inure them to anything so their breaking point is considerably higher than most, but when it does happen, it endangers every man near them. If you’d been one of my men, legate, I’d have put you down myself.”
“Good.”
“I suspect there’s a little more pressure on you than on the average soldier, though?” Furius hazarded. “Carbo’s a little concerned.”
Fronto turned a sour, angry look on the centurion. “What’s that shiny pink bastard been saying now?”
“Oh nothing like that, legate. He still worries that there will be attempts on your life, and yet you take every opportunity that comes along to stay outside his protection. He’s trying to keep you intact. It’s one of the jobs of the chief centurion. He thinks you’re stuck in a turbulent position, between Labienus’ liberal dissidents and Caesar’s die-hard supporters, too. He seems to think that somehow you’re a bit of both. I’m not sure I disagree.”
“It’s so gratifying to know how much people discuss me when I’m not there.”
“Take it as a complement, Fronto. Your men value you too highly to risk you. That’s an uncommon thing for a legate.”
The three men lapsed into a silence that was instantly filled with the insistent hiss of heavy rain on the shale of the beach.
“Well the season is almost over” Fabius finally said with a sigh and took a swig of his wine.
“If we don’t sail soon” Fronto muttered, eyeing the ships, “the weather will trap us on this shithole island for the winter. Don’t know about you but I really don’t fancy that.”
Furius nodded, but with a smile. “Of course, you weren’t there this morning. It’s been decided. We sail the day after tomorrow on the first tide. We’ve taken all the hostages from the local tribes that Caesar realistically feels we can safely fit aboard the ships, even with the four ships we’ve ‘obtained’ from the Cantiaci. There’s enough impounded goods and loot that every soldier’s going to board his ship weighing twice what he did when we arrived. I hope the vessels can take it. He’s even planning to take the new Atrebate cavalry back with us.”
“It’s been a lucrative campaign” Fronto sighed bitterly.
“And that’s bad? The men don’t think so.”
“If it’s lucrative enough it’ll just push the general into trying something similar as soon as the seasons grant the opportunity. Where will he go next, d’you think? Back here? Back to Germania? Maybe off past Illyricum and into the wilds of the Pannonii? Conquest breeds conquest.”
He sagged in the chair and spooned some of the hot stew into his mouth, talking between chews. “It’s not that which is driving me mad, though. It’s the damn politics. If it was just the army campaigning for the senate and the Republic I’d be happy with it, but you just can’t separate the politics from the army these days. After all that business with Sulla, Marius and Sertorius, I really thought that the Republic would settle under the guidance of men like Caesar, Pompey and Crassus, but if anything it just gets worse.”
“That’s why men like us serve in the army, legate, rather than trying to serve in Rome. Better to be given a sword and pointed at a barbarian than to get involved.”
“But we are involved, Fabius” Fronto snapped, spitting meaty juice onto the pebbles. “In the early days, when we marched out against the Helvetii, I could easily tell myself that Caesar was campaigning for the good of the Republic. And then the Belgae revolted, and then the coastal tribes and others. And we put them down, because they’d revolted against us. It needed doing. You see? There was a reason for everything — until now! Germania, even. I could just about delude myself that our little jaunt across the river was a necessity.”
“But this?” he swept a hand angrily around at the beach. “This is a publicity stunt, pure and simple. This is his way of saying to Pompey and Crassus: ‘I’m better than you and stronger than you and more important than you’. And saying it to Rome, too. To strengthen his support among the mob, along with the added loot that will help him maintain a stranglehold on the weaker senators and raise new troops, despite the injunctions against him doing just that.”
“Legate, that’s very dangerous talk. You sound like certain other officers who…”
“But they’re right! Don’t you see that? I’ve argued against it, but they’re right. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying Caesar’s anything unusual in that. Crassus is doing exactly the same thing. Rumour has it that he’s going to invade Parthia. Do you think he’s spending all that money raising new legions and disappearing into an endless desert for the good of Rome? No! He’s trying to beat Caesar at his own game: popularity and loot. And Pompey? Well he’s just sitting in Rome, tugging strings and building webs and trying to undermine them both.”
“Fronto…” Furius hissed his warning, his eyes strafing the beach to make sure they were all out of earshot.
“It’s true, though. I know that you served with Pompey and that he’s a great general. And now you serve Caesar and he is, too. But it’s not their military prowess I’m condemning. It’s their dabbling in the control of Rome itself. This is a damn dangerous time to be a citizen, I can tell you.”
With a sigh, he ate another spoonful of stew. “It won’t bother you, I suppose. You’ve been given a sword and pointed at a barbarian. And you’re the top two centurions now in the Seventh. You effectively run the legion, so you’ll have your work cut out turning them into a proper fighting force again over the winter.”
Furius and Fabius exchanged a strange glance and the latter shrugged. “Hopefully. We’re on detached duty for a while, though, so it might have to wait. The men will need to settle into their winter quarters anyway and our training officers can get the work started.”
Fronto frowned and glanced back and forth between the two men. For a moment some of his earlier fears for the two centurions returned. They were clearly hiding something, but he knew now from experience that with these two, confrontation over anything was hardly likely to be productive.
It was another added worry, though. In a brief flash he remembered Caesar’s face as they stood talking on the rampart of the nearby camp around a fortnight ago, the general wearing a look of guilty secretiveness as he neatly evaded and parried all Fronto’s more important questions.
“This whole thing is pissing me off. All this politics.”
“Then concentrate on what’s important.”
“Getting home” Fronto said flatly, and then clenched his teeth. “And dealing with Hortius and Menenius.”
“What?” Furius said, frowning.
“The two tribunes from the Fourteenth. I’m pretty sure they’re the ones who’ve been murdering Caesar’s supporters. Your legate thinks I’m wrong. He says they’re too loyal to Caesar for that. But I’m still convinced.”
Fabius stood up and pulled his stool round so that he was sitting in front of the other two, creating an almost conspiratorial huddle.
“Then you must find a way to be sure, legate; draw them out and extract a confession. Who are the injured parties again? We are not tied to you and may be able to unearth facts that you cannot.”
Fronto pursed his lips. “Caesar’s nephew — You remember him from Ostia? He was killed at Vienna on the journey north. Pugio strike to the heart from behind. Then there was Tetricus, my tribune. Took both pugio and pilum blows at the battle in the Germanic camp, and was then finished with a gladius blow in the hospital. Pleuratus, Caesar’s personal courier. Drowned in the Rhenus, tied to a boulder. And they tried to take me out with a slingshot, too.”
“And that’s all?”
“All I know of. There may well be more. Given the number of casualties on a campaign like this there could be a dozen more deaths that have gone unnoticed.”
Fabius nodded. “Then let us pry into the matter, too. And when we return to Gaul and you confront them, you may call upon us to aid you if you wish. I can assure you that we are very capable in such a situation.”
“I’m not yet sure what I’ll do, but I’ll let you know when I decide. On the assumption we make it back across, that is.”
Across the beach, they all watched the ships bucking and diving amid the rolling waves.
“Fronto! Get over here and help me hold this thing steady!”
The legate of the Tenth, ashen faced and shaking like a leaf, wrenched his head around, peering into the driving rain, trying to identify the source of the voice. It took only a moment to recognise Brutus, grasping the steering oar of the trireme and desperately straining to hold it in position. Taking a quick glance over the side at the rhythmic rise and fall of the oars, Fronto quickly wished he hadn’t and pulled away from the rail, though his whitened fingers appeared reluctant to let go.
“Fronto!” Brutus bellowed again.
The legate looked up at the boiling black and purple sky, lit by occasional sheets of blinding white that cast the entire fleet into an eerie stark monochrome. A fresh flash of lightning temporarily blinded him and he shook his head, blinking away yellow-green blobs until he could see the huge, frightening waves rising and falling again.
“For the love of Venus, Fronto, I can’t hold it on my own!”
Another quick glance told him that Brutus was not exaggerating. The swinging steering oar was sliding sideways and despite all Brutus’ efforts, his boots’ nails were leaving score marks across the timber as he was steadily pushed away.
He quickly glanced about to see whether anyone else could help, but every man on board had his tasks, most of them rowing or trying to hold pieces of the ship together.
He could have been on one of the big Gallic ships, but he’d decided to risk a trireme just to avoid being closeted with anyone that would either annoy him or bother him. He was regretting his decision about now, only three or four miles from their destination and yet caught in a storm the likes of which could easily dash them to pieces.
“Pissing Caesar” he snarled as he let go of the rail with some difficulty and staggered along the boards, slipping left and right with the lurching of the ship and the wet timber. “He could have left earlier and not bothered with the damn hostages.”
Brutus had his teeth gritted in the gale, pushing the steering oar with all his might. Some five feet from him, the trierarch who actually captained the ship lay sprawled against the rail, blood washing down from his head in torrents as Florus — the young capsarius from the Tenth who had treated Fronto more times than he cared to remember — busily tried to mend a too-large hole in the man’s head caused by a splintered oar that had snapped and shot upwards, catching the commander a blow on the way past.
Staggering across the deck, Fronto fell in with Brutus, grasping the steering oar and pushing it straight once more, trying not to pay too much attention to the sight of a wave that suddenly reared up higher than the ship’s rail.
“Thank you” the young legate yelled. “We were veering towards that!”
Fronto glanced off to the side, where he could make out nothing in the roiling blackness until another sudden flash lit up a rearing spur of land, menacing and pale grey in the light.
“Maybe we should! Can we not land there? Beach the ship?”
Brutus shook his head. “Rocks. Too many rocks. We wouldn’t so much beach it as sink it. We have to press on for Gesoriacum. We’re nearly there!”
Fronto reached up to brush the plastered hair from his forehead and then quickly slapped the hand back to the beam as it began to move again. Five miles might as well be fifty as far as he was concerned.
Despite missing the morning tide due to trouble loading the nervous native horses, Caesar had persevered, pushing the fleet to prepare for the evening tide. They’d managed most of the crossing in reasonable weather — driving rain had now become so commonplace as to be considered reasonable. But then, as the sailors were beginning to feel happier at the approach of the Gaulish coast, the storm had broken.
The fleet, having been fairly close throughout the journey, was now scattered by the wrath of Neptune, and no sign of any other vessel had been noted for more than half an hour now.
“We’ll be damn lucky if we hit the right bloody nation, let alone the right port!” yelled Fronto, eying the coastline with distaste.
“It’s alright, Fronto. This is the land of the Morini. I’ve done extensive charting and research, and I remember these cliffs from our first sailing. Not many more minutes and we’ll see the lights of Gesoriacum.”
“Not many more minutes and we’ll be pinned to the seabed under a hundred tons of timber” grumbled Fronto.
“Help me!”
The two men turned at the sudden panicked call, to see Florus the capsarius desperately trying to hold down the figure of the ship’s captain who was bucking and shaking.
Fronto looked back at Brutus helplessly.
“Go on. I can hold it for a minute now, but don’t be long.”
Nodding, Fronto gingerly let go of the steering oar and, once he was certain that Brutus still had it, skittered across the deck to the site of medical aid. As he dropped to wobbly knees next to the two, he felt his gorge rise and had to swallow down the bile. What looked like a simple head wound with a lot of blood through the rain and distance was considerably more unpleasant up close. A large piece of the trierarch’s skull was missing at the crown and through the white-fringed bloody hole, Fronto could clearly see the pulsing grey mass of the man’s brain, leaking blood. The bile rose again and had to be swallowed back.
“He’s a goner, Florus.”
The capsarius shook his head, pushing the captain down hard. “Not yet, sir. If you can hold him, I can get him padded and bound and covered. Men have survived worse. I removed the splinter from his brain, after all.”
This time nothing could stop the vomit as Fronto failed to prevent the image of that quick surgery surfacing. Wiping his mouth, Fronto reached down and grasped the captain’s arms, pushing him back hard to the now vomit coated deck to stop him leaping about and shaking. Florus nodded his thanks and stood, rocking this way and that with the motion of the deck as he began to rummage in his leather bag.
“You really think he can survive? The man’s a heap of shaking blubber.”
“You’d be surprised at the resilience of the human body, legate Fronto. I’ve seen you take a few wounds in my time.”
Fronto couldn’t help but smile at the optimism in the young man. Ever since his first action against the Helvetii three years ago on a hilltop near Bibracte — after which he had transferred into the medical service — the boy had grown confident and capable.
“Get on with it, then. I need to get back to the steering oar soon.”
Florus nodded and tipped acetum onto the wadding in his hand. Staggering across, he dropped to a crouch again and began to gently push the pad into the hole in the man’s skull. Fronto, for all his years of causing such wounds, found that he had to look away, and closed his eyes, gritting his teeth as he strained against the thrashing officer beneath him.
“Look out!” someone called from further down the deck, but Fronto couldn’t see what it was from here and just had to continue gritting his teeth and pray to Neptune and Fortuna that it wasn’t the cliffs and rocks getting too close.
“Oh, shit” yelled Brutus and this time Fronto opened his eyes and looked up, just in time to see a wall of black, glittering water looming over the side of the ship before it crashed down over the rail and across the deck, shaking the entire trireme as though it were a child’s toy in a bath tub. The sound of shearing oars was just about audible in the roar of the water and Fronto felt the captain’s body being torn from him. Desperately, he hooked his elbow round the rail and gripped the wounded officer with all his might.
It felt like hours that the wave pulled at him, for all its brevity, and when it finally released its hold on the trierarch, Fronto was so surprised that he actually fell back and let go for a second.
The flash of white light illuminated the deck for a moment and revealed a scene of chaos and devastation. The rowers were in disorder, trying to even out the remaining oars as the boat bucked back and slapped back down level to the water. Men were hauling each other back to their seats and some were even pulling each other back over the side rail. Shattered pieces of timber and oars were being washed across the ship.
Fronto’s eyes, however, were locked on where Florus had been a few moments earlier. A wad of bloodied padding plastered to an upright of the rail was the only sign that the young medic had ever existed.
“That was too close” yelled Brutus.
Fronto ignored him, painfully aware that the man he’d tried so hard to save had stopped thrashing during the wave and was now dead, as was the man who’d been so positive about healing him.
Almost blinded by the lightning flashes and the pounding rain, inured to the cold and the wet and heedless of the shaking and tipping of the deck, Fronto stood, staggered and slipped across to the side rail, collecting the bloodied wadding and staring out at the boiling, rolling sea.
For the briefest moment he fancied he saw a figure carried off by one of the waves, but it could as easily have been a trick of the light or his own vision. A voice from further down the deck called out “Man overboard!”
He wondered for a moment how the oarsman knew, but then realised they were looking over at one of the other rowers. Torn between the need to try and help and the knowledge that there was little he could do anyway, Fronto watched as the hapless, screaming sailor rose over the crest of a wave and disappeared from both sight and hearing.
Turning, he shuffled across to Brutus and the steering oar once more, grasping the end as he had a few minutes earlier.
“Even the damn Gods have turned their back on this campaign, Decimus.”
“Didn’t think you were that pious, Fronto.”
“I try not to actively defy them.”
“Well rub that bow-legged Goddess of yours, Fronto. Look.”
The legate peered off in the direction of Brutus’ pointing finger. It took him a moment to spot two flickering fires.
“That’ll be the beacons they were going to set up at Gesoriacum. They must have lit them to guide ships in through the storm. We’re nearly there; closer than I thought. A mile at most.”
Fronto gripped the beam tight, his eyes locked on the twin fires that twinkled in the darkness, intermittently vanishing as the waves reared or a particular gusting cloud obscured them. Suddenly another white flash lit the scene and Fronto finally felt relief wash over him at the regular shapes of a harbour and buildings, with the unmistakable outline of a Roman fortification on the hill behind.
Gesoriacum.
They’d made it.
The ‘Demeter’ bounced against the jetty of the Gesoriacum harbour and Fronto silently thanked every God and Goddess that rose to the surface of his mind. He’d almost swallowed his tongue in fright as Brutus steered them through the surprisingly narrow entrance to the river-mouth harbour, but the young man had proved more than equal to the task.
An even more welcome sight as they’d entered was that of another of the fleet’s triremes already in the harbour and scooting lazily towards the dock on their few remaining oars.
There was no sign of life down by the docks, though Fronto could hardly blame anyone for that, given the weather. He glanced across from the rail at the sister ship that was just docking at the far side of the jetty. The ‘Fides’ looked in worse shape than their own ship, but its crew and complement of troops were moving toward the rail gratefully.
Brutus had left the steering now to one of the sailors and strode across to where Fronto stood.
“Best get everyone disembarked and get up to the headquarters to report in.”
Fronto gestured to the beacons blazing on the towers and the new ramparts around the port’s periphery, barely visible in the dark and the rain, except when lit starkly by the lightning.
“Rufus has been busy in our absence. Look at those works. Think he was bored or expecting trouble?”
“Let’s go find out.”
Fronto nodded and called to the centurions of the two centuries on board.
“Get your men formed up on the jetty. Arms and armour only. We’ll come back and unload everything else in the morning when it’s light and hopefully drier.”
The centurions saluted and Fronto looked across to where the men were now disembarking from the Fides opposite. Two more centurions were bellowing at their men who were filing off and into tent-groups.
“Come on.”
As soon as the sailors had run out a plank, Fronto hurried down to the jetty with a profound sense of relief, Brutus hot on his heels. A few steps on the stable jetty were almost enough to allow him to adjust, though he still felt as though he was swaying gently. The two centurions on the wooden jetty were unknown to him, and apparently men of the Seventh, though they saluted him and his fellow legate readily as they approached.
“Have your men in two single lines on the jetty. I’ll form the other two up the same.That way all four centuries can march together back up to the fort.”
“Yes sir. What of the cargo, sir?”
“Leave it till morning.”
“But sir, we’ve got four of the cavalry horses — one of them may have to be put out of its misery, mind — and if we leave any of the loot here, it might be pillaged by the locals.”
Fronto shook his head. “Have the ship’s officer and men lead the horses ashore when we’ve left and take them to the nearest stable. No one’s going to steal your treasure, though, centurion. Look at those ramparts. The port’s under Roman control.”
The centurion managed to remain apparently unconvinced, but saluted and went about his business.
Having made the arrangements, Fronto stepped forward a few yards, giving the four officers the space to muster their men. Brutus followed him and stood tapping his lip thoughtfully.
“Have you noticed the lack of people?”
“It’s pissing down, Brutus.”
“Yes, but even on the walls.”
“Come on. Rufus only has one legion and he’s got the port, the town, the fort and who knows what else to deal with. There’ll only be a few of them down here and they’ll be keeping out of the rain. After all, who else would have lit the beacons?”
Brutus nodded uncertainly and glanced up at the town, with smoke rising from numerous roofs. The thought of getting somewhere he could huddle by a fire in the dry was overwhelmingly attractive.
It took less than a minute to get the four centuries lined up, the men moving as fast and efficiently as possible, each one feeling the urge to reach somewhere dry, warm and stable. As soon as the four centurions confirmed that their units were ready, Fronto issued the command and the small force marched out proudly into the heart of Gesoriacum.
Across the cobbled quay they strode, towards the main thoroughfare that ran up the hill to the looming shape of the fort, almost obscured behind the clouds of smoke rising from the cosy fires of the Morini townsfolk.
A constant river of brown liquid ran from the slope of the street, across the quay and down into the harbour. The men eyed it with distaste and a certain amount of unhappiness as they moved into it, preparing to slog up the street towards their objective.
At commands from the centurions, the four lines of men doubled out, splitting into eight columns of forty — give or take the few fallen in Britannia — and they began the trudge up the slope with the two legates out front.
Brutus turned to Fronto with a nervous frown.
“Can you feel it?”
“What?”
“Something’s wrong. The hair on the back of my neck’s standing up.”
Fronto glanced around and then ahead again and felt a chill run down his spine, terminating in his coccyx and causing him to shudder.
“No one. Not a sentry, not a guard, not a local. There’s no one.”
“Not quite” Brutus shook his head and pointed at a house as they passed. Fronto followed his gesture and saw the shutter on a window close hurriedly, leaving only the faint glow of firelight around the edge, but not before he saw the face of a young girl glaring at him.
“I think you’re right. Trouble.”
“What do we do?”
“Nothing yet. Any move we make to ready the men is going to be seen by dozens of people and we don’t know what’s happening yet. We might make it up to the fort without trouble. Let’s not rock the boat, so to speak.”
Brutus nodded. “All the same…”
Turning to the centurion behind him as he walked, he hissed as quietly as he could “Be ready. Have your men on the alert as quietly as you can. No weapons drawn as yet.”
The centurion, clearly relieved that the two officers had also noticed the eerie emptiness, nodded and turned to pass on the word.
“What the hell’s happened here? We’ve been away, what, a month you think?”
“About that. I think Rufus might be in trouble.”
“Not just Rufus.”
“Maybe we should just get back down to the ships and head down the coast a way? At least wait until the rest of the fleet gets here?”
Fronto shook his head. “Quite apart from the fact that I don’t think they’re all that safe or seaworthy now, I’m not at all convinced what’ll happen if we turn around and start to walk away.”
Brutus nodded unhappily.
“Come on.”
Slowly they climbed the slope, the liquid mud running into boots and making the thoroughfare treacherous. They had almost reached the main crossroads when Brutus grabbed Fronto’s arm.
“Look!”
“What?” Fronto peered up the street into the pouring rain.
“The smoke.”
“It’s making it quite hard to make out the fort.”
“Fronto, it’s coming from the fort.”
“Oh shit.”
Fronto fought the rising alarm and resisted the urge to start shouting. Smoke could mean several things, even in those amounts. It could mean a larger force of men inside than the fort was designed for, sharing outdoor fires. It could mean the place had been ransacked. But it could also mean an ongoing siege. There was no way to tell without seeing it close to hand.
“We’ve got to pick up the pace.”
“You want to go there?” Brutus said incredulously.
“We’ve got to. Rufus could still be up there with his men.”
“Then let’s move.”
Fronto glanced back at the centurions behind him.
“Subtlety over, lads. Swords out. Double time to the fort.”
The officers saluted, shouting out the commands to their men, who drew their gladii with an enormous, collective rasp.
The shape of the fort was starting to resolve better now in the gloom as Fronto squinted ahead. His heart skipped a beat when he realised that the smoke was rising from the front gate, and apparently outside rather than inside.
“They haven’t fallen yet. We have to get inside!”
Without the need for a command, the four centuries put a little extra speed into their ascent.
“Fronto!”
The legate glanced across at Brutus’ shout just in time to see the opening shutters of windows all around them, silhouettes of men formed by the warm firelight within.
“Testudo!” he bellowed, dropping back several steps and grasping Brutus by the upper arm, yanking him back down the street. The legionaries raised their shields, moving into formation better than Fronto could have hoped, given the incline and the fact that they comprised men of two different legions unused to working together. Here and there were gaps that quickly closed up, while others lifted their shields to create a roof. The four centurions joined the two legates as they disappeared inside the relative protection of the ‘tortoise’ formation just as the first arrows, stones and spears started to strike.
The regular drum of the heavy rain on the shields joined the falling missiles to create an almost deafening noise.
“Piss!” shouted Fronto with feeling.
“Move forward” Brutus commanded. “We have to get to the fort.”
The testudo started to stumble up the slope under a constant hail of missiles and Fronto shared a look with his fellow legate. They were both horribly aware of the shrieks from further back down the testudo where gaps opened due to the near impossibility of holding to formation while climbing an uneven, slippery slope.
“This is going to fall apart soon” Brutus said.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about that” replied Fronto with a grim expression. “Listen.”
Above the drumming of rain and missiles and the occasional yells of wounded men, they could now hear the roar of the natives rushing them from the side streets and the slope behind.
“Bollocks.”