(Border of Treveri amp; Ubii lands close to the Rhine amp; Moselle Rivers)
Varus and his turma of cavalry raced up the gentle incline across open swathes of grass between the forested low hills that covered the landscape here, hiding fertile valleys and the ruined shells of small, peaceful settlements that had fallen victim to the Germanic invaders.
The small force had paused at one, despite the urgency of their mission, to confirm their worst fears. Varus very much wished he hadn’t entered the hut and seen what the Tencteri raiders had done to the Belgic farmer and his wife and daughters, almost certainly both before and after their deaths. Since that first encounter, they had warily avoided stopping at any of the other two dozen villages and isolated farmsteads they had passed.
Half an hour they had been riding now, the last ten minutes of which they had followed the unmistakable trail left by Piso’s cavalry wing, some five thousand men and mounts.
Across the low saddle they rode, almost three dozen men pounding the earth in their haste to reach the vanguard as fast as possible. Crossing easily into a wide, shallow depression surrounded by forested hillocks and ridges, they espied a deeper and narrower valley across to the west, flattening where it met the river to the east.
Full of milling horsemen.
Piso’s cavalry had come to a halt in the valley. Their direction of travel so far, following the northeasterly course set by the general, would lead them directly over the highest hills ahead, with the deepest, most tangled forests. Since clearly the army could not pass that way, the cavalry commander had paused, sending scout units out to locate the best route, whether it be along the MosellaRiver or further up the valley. Varus nodded as he slowed his mount at the crest. He’d have done exactly the same. Of the force of five thousand cavalry, perhaps three thousand remained in the centre of the wide valley, the rest split into units of three hundred, each under its own officers, dispersed around the valley, probing each low saddle or side valley for the best route onwards.
At least they were intact. Nothing untoward had befallen them.
“Sir!”
Varus turned to the man who’d addressed him, a regular cavalryman, holding his shield and reins in one hand, while jabbing his spear out toward the valley.
“Hmm?”
“I saw movement on the hill opposite. Above the tree line.”
Varus didn’t even bother to look. His men were good. The first turma in his command was made up of veterans, each of whom had served since the first push against the Helvetii, and many even in Hispania before that. Each man in this small unit knew Gaul backwards and inside out now. Each one of them was as alert and trustworthy as a soldier could be. If Afranius said there was movement, then there was movement.
And the Roman forces in the valley were scattered over more than a mile of open land in small groups.
“Form up!” Varus bellowed, already kicking his bay mare into activity and urging her down the slope into the wide depression.
By the time he’d picked up to a canter and then a gallop, the turma had formed on him and kept to a tight knot as they descended toward the large force of auxiliary cavalry — Gauls, Belgae, Aquitanians, and the occasional Roman officer amid the spread-out mass.
By the time they were half way down the valley side, Piso and his officers had spotted them, a standard bearer gesturing in their direction with his silver wolf standard, other men pointing and many horses turning to face them.
Varus’ gaze took them all in, and then rose above them, tracking across the fields and past the burned shell of a small farm, to the tree line opposite, from which shapes were now detaching. Enemy cavalry; lightly armed and clothed men — a number of them naked he assumed from the fleshy tint — were leaving the shadows of the wood and pouring down the hillsides toward the large force.
A quick glance showed the same thing happening up and down the valley. There were not a vast number of enemy riders, but they had been well positioned in groups, each small force falling upon one section of the separated Roman cavalry.
Finally, Piso’s men had noted the enemy coming at them and horns rang out with half a dozen contradictory orders. Varus cringed at the cacophony. He was watching a potential disaster. Piso was a new commander and, for all his vaunted abilities, he was as yet unused to leading a force like this in such a campaign. Many of his men had served together before, but the mixing in of the former forces of Galronus had destroyed a lot of the units’ cohesion from the previous year, and the result was chaos.
As the enemy appeared, some of the more mixed or greener units panicked, turning and racing for the river or up the inland valley, abandoning their comrades. Others tried to form a small defensive shape but, with only a month or so to practice together so far, they were less than successful as often as not.
Piso’s standard bearer was waving his silver wolf, directing the units while, Piso having calmed the conflicting orders, had his own musician blow the recall on his horn, summoning all the distributed units to his side. Still, the mass of cavalry at the centre were only just beginning to realise the danger they were in. Varus kicked his mount in urgency as the small Roman turma reached the valley bottom and raced past a few groups of allied horsemen milling about in confusion.
Piso waved him over.
A few hundred yards down the valley, the first casualties occurred. A group of three hundred men — one of the few who had managed to form into a solid square with spears at the ready, began to succumb to a hail of small stones that rained down on them from the trees.
“They’re using slings!” Varus exclaimed as he finally reached Piso in the press. “I thought they supposedly consider missiles a dishonourable way to fight?”
Piso nodded, wheeling his horse.
“Doesn’t stop them using them. Just the noble warriors won’t touch them — they leave them to peasants. Half the damn forces in the valley haven’t heard the recall, Varus!”
The senior commander nodded.
“I’ll get them rounded up. You martial the main force here.” His eyes rose to take in the forces pouring from the hillsides. “There aren’t many of them, really. Not more than a thousand, I reckon. They’re only a danger while we’re spread out. In a centralised force we can take them.”
Piso smiled and began to bellow orders to his standard bearer and musician, who called out individual unit commands, drawing the main force together to stand in open ground.
Varus returned to his turma and gestured for his three decurions to step out front.
“Take eight men apiece and ride to each of the forces in the valley who seem to be having trouble. Get them pulled back and rallying on Piso’s standard. Afranius and Callus, you head up the valley, one on each side. Petro, you head toward the river on this side. I’ll take the spare men and follow on the far side of the valley. As soon as you run out of men to herd, get back here, and try not to engage the enemy in the meantime. We’ll crush them here.”
Petro frowned.
“What if there are too many of them sir?”
“There aren’t. We outnumber them about four to one and they won’t have infantry. This is a running ambush, so they’ll want to be able to get out quickly too.”
“What about the slingers?”
“Peasants. They don’t consider them warriors; they’ll probably leave them to die. They certainly won’t come down from the trees.”
Without waiting for further questions, Varus called out two men from each of the Decurions’ commands and drew them together before heading off across the valley.
Not far away, three groups of horsemen had managed to join together to form a consolidated force of almost a thousand men and were in a good defensive formation, having pulled themselves far enough back from the forest’s edge to be out of the range of the hidden slingers.
The large unit had formed up close to a small cluster of charred and blackened farm buildings, the animals stolen and butchered by the Germanic invaders, the occupants slain and left in a pile in the farmyard, with a large dog impaled on a spear standing like some grisly banner above the corpse-heap.
Sickened, Varus moved past the farm and tried to spot the officers in the large group. Some five hundred enemy cavalry were descending the slope towards them, though they had slowed from a charge and were advancing with a menacing slowness. Even though they faced odds of two to one, the Germanic riders grinned their rictus war masks. Their blood boiled now with the urge to kill.
In the ordered ranks of Gallic cavalry, Varus could just see a dragon-head standard with a coloured streamer tapering from behind. Even as he watched, that dragon head dipped and then circled, the air filling the conical taper and whistling through it with a shudder-inducing scream. Suddenly it dipped again, signalling an advance. Even as he and his six companions closed on the ordered mass, the ranks began to step forward, spears lowered.
“Belay that order!” Varus bellowed. A number of men turned in their saddles in surprise, and frowned. Even the non-Latin-speaking Gallic auxiliaries had had certain commands and a few choice phrases drilled into them, in order to serve under Roman officers. Many of them clearly understood what he’d said, though no man paused. To break formation would be unthinkable for most of them.
Biting his tongue, Varus raced along the side of the unit, repeating his order, until he could see the commanders. Three Gallic nobles conferred together as they moved slowly forward, their status only marked out, to Varus’ eye, by the quality of their armour and helms and the gold that adorned them. In his own allied cavalry unit, he’d assigned Roman mail shirts and green cloaks to the officers, as well as green feathers for their helms, so that he could easily identify them. But Piso was Aquitanian and was bred to the culture. Spotting their commanders would be a simple thing for him.
Taking a deep breath, he broke out into the open space between the two slowly advancing forces. Any moment now, the Germanic force would break into a charge. They were not, reputedly, a people to move carefully and slowly into battle. Only the fact that their prey had consolidated into a large, well-ordered unit seemed to have thrown them and made their advance a cautious one.
“Who’s in charge here?”
All three noblemen turned at his voice. “Commander Varus?”
“Break off your attack and rally to Piso.”
“Are you sure, sir? We’ve got them at two-to-one here.”
Varus nodded. “And if we get everyone back to Piso we’ll have them at five-to-one. Better odds. Now pull back.”
Commands were issued in the complex language of the Gauls and the dragon standard dipped and waved again, howling its horrible cry. In good order, the nine hundred men turned their mounts and rode away toward Piso’s banner. The enemy cavalry seemed to take it as a move of cowardice and jeered as they picked up the pace, pursuing the retreating Gauls. Varus watched them for only a moment as he and his half dozen riders reached open space at the valley centre again, and then ignored them, concentrating on where to head next. The large unit was well-ordered and well-commanded and would easily regroup with Piso. The pursuing enemy would break off early rather than face the whole mass together.
His eyes ranged around the valley. Two groups of three hundred at the far side of the valley were already making for Piso’s standard, Germanic aggressors shouting insults at their retreating backs as they followed them cautiously.
Varus frowned.
Why were the enemy being so cautious? It seemed so unlike the Germanic tribes of which he’d heard.
There was only one group of men left on this side of the valley and it took a good minute for Varus to spot them. A single turma of thirty men had been separated from a unit and were beleaguered by twice their number of enemy horsemen pressing in on them.
Again, his mind raced. Sixty or so Germanics advancing slowly on half that number of Gauls, their pace menacing. What was going on?
Waving to his men, Varus rose to a canter, bearing down on the unit. The enemy was not pressing for a fight. Why were they advancing slowly and not charging?
The answer struck him in a series of flashing images from around the valley. They were being herded. The enemy was not allowing them to regroup at Piso’s standard, they were actively herding them there. But why? They would be outnumbered five-to-one. What possible benefit could that be to them?
But something was going wrong here. The turma of Gauls were backing up to yet another small burned out farm building which, along with the fence and irrigation ditch, would hamper them and prevent them retreating any further. The retreating Gauls trapped, the enemy would have no option but to attack. Varus gestured to the men with him as he broke into a gallop.
“We’ve got less than a minute before those barbarians have no choice but to smash our lads. Come on. Let’s break the attack.”
The seven men hurtled through the lush grass of the meadow, towards the shell of the charred wooden building, on the far side on which he could just see the Gauls in good order, unable to retreat any further, preparing to meet the inevitable charge.
“Let’s put the shits up them” Varus grinned as he urged every ounce of speed out of his fast-wearying mount. Across the field he raced, the other six close behind. The fence — a stout construction some four feet high, constructed of rough-sawn timber and treated against the weather, was too much of an obstacle to the Gauls, who had retreated there at a walk.
Not for galloping horsemen, though. With a single command, augmented by rein-and-knee activity, Varus urged his steed into a jump, clearing the fence easily and coming down on the far side, releasing his reins to draw the long cavalry sword as he did so.
The trapped Gauls first became aware of their allies’ arrival reflected in the faces of the enemy, who stared in mixed surprise and confusion at the small party of red and silver heavily-armed cavalry leaping the fence into the fray.
Perfectly-trained, Varus’ regular cavalrymen cast their spears almost the instant their hooves touched the turf on the far side of the fence, three of the six missiles flying true and plunging into the advancing Germanic riders and their steeds. Two horses collapsed, screaming, thrashing and foaming, snapped spear shafts protruding from them. The third impaled a rider, who toppled from his mount, the beast trotting away.
The blows drove the enemy into the almost expected rage. The Germanic warriors, not a people to flee a fight, felt the final uncontrollable surge of blood into their brains and roared, leaping from their horses and running forward, brandishing their weapons and shields or, more often, two weapons.
Varus almost pulled up in surprise. Why had they dismounted? What in Juno’s name were they doing?
Off to the right, the Gallic cavalry had realised what was happening and the thirty men, with their decurions leading them, broke into a run, levelling their spears at the invaders and trying to join up with Varus’ men in a line.
And then everything exploded into chaos.
Perhaps half a dozen of the dismounted enemy fell victim to the levelled spears in the initial flurry, and Varus learned the hard way the reason for the strange tactic of leaving their horses behind and running into battle.
Three men made directly for him, likely seeing him as the man to kill for the most glory, his kit marking him out as a senior officer. Even as he tried to imagine what they hoped to achieve, Varus had already fallen into the rhythmic actions of the Roman cavalryman, his sword swooping out and low and shearing off half the man’s head at the bridge of the nose, pulping both eyes and sending a hairy cap of bone sailing through the air as the rest of the body slumped to the ground, brain matter falling out to mingle with the soil.
Even as the blow was made, his left arm had reacted to a sign of danger out of the corner of his eye, slamming down his shield so that he broke a reaching arm with the bronze rim.
The third attacker had disappeared. In the sudden flurry, Varus turned this way and that. Now, riders and their dismounted opponents were locked in individual combat all across the field. The body of his sword victim lay to his right, and a man on his left howled as he clung to an arm that was bent impossibly out of shape.
No sign of the third man, though.
Suddenly, Varus’ world turned upside down. The third warrior, who had made himself small with a crouch, had ducked amazingly between the front legs of Varus’ horse and had then reached up with a wide, sharp knife and jammed it into the horse’s soft underside, driving it deep and raking it this way and that.
The horse screamed in impossible pain at the gruesome task being performed on its belly, and bucked. The man, his work done, took the opportunity to step out and away before the beast came back down, with Varus tumbling away from the stricken mount.
The commander hit the ground heavily, making his best attempt to roll and come up into a crouch as training dictated, but realising that something was wrong. It took a moment of utter confusion to realise that his horse’s flailing hoof had caught his helmet a glancing blow and, as he reached up to unfasten the strap and let the painful, dented helm fall to the ground, releasing his throbbing head, he also became aware that only one of his arms had obeyed his brain.
A glance at his other arm showed a gleam of sharp white amid the crimson mess that was his forearm.
A landing his old riding tutor would have beaten him for. Appalling!
His brain was starting to swim with the pain-killing euphoria of battle — often the only thing that saved a soldier’s life when badly wounded and in a sticky situation.
He was suddenly aware that the barbarian who had gutted his horse from underneath was now approaching him, blade held forward, coated to the waist in the slick of horse’s blood that had sluiced down over him. Varus felt a terrible rage infecting his mind though, unlike these crazed barbarians, he knew battle-rage for the double edged gift it was and his sheer will channelled it into a hard, cold urge to make this man pay for the death of his lovely mare.
No sword. He’d lost both sword and shield during the fall. The shield, of course, would have been what broke his arm as he landed. He should have let it go. But the sword he’d simply dropped.
A quick glance and he could see his expensive, carved and etched cavalry blade lying in the blood-soaked grass some ten feet away. Too far.
The barbarian was on him. The blade flashed out, quick as a snake striking: once… twice… thrice.
On the third lunge, Varus stepped calmly forward into the blow, coming alongside the man’s arm, and brought his elbow down on the man’s wrist, numbing the barbarian’s joint with a blow that sent waves up Varus’ own arm. The barbarian’s horse-gutting knife fell to the grass and the man stared in surprise at this Roman who’d appeared on the verge of death and totally helpless and unarmed a moment ago.
With a growl, Varus’ good arm reached out and grasped the barbarian by the throat, his grip squeezing instantly with all the strength of a man who has spent twenty years using that fist to cling on to the reins of a startled mount or swing a heavy sword from horseback.
The man’s gristle, cartilage, muscle, bone and soft tissue crunched and ground into a pulp in Varus’ tightening grip. His eyes bulged and his face turned purple and then grey, his head flopping at an angle, indicating that he’d kicked his last and that the jerks Varus could feel were those that came in death.
Calmly, with steely eyes, Varus let go and the dead thing dropped to the ground before him.
“That’s for Hyrpina. I raised her from a foal.”
Turning slowly, he took in the situation. Despite the loss of a number of horses due to the unpleasant tactic of the enemy, the Gauls and Romans were winning out. Few of the enemy remained and at a shout they disengaged and ran to their beasts. One of the decurions called an order to chase them down, but it went unheeded in the chaos. No one had the urge or the energy to follow.
As Varus watched, the Germanic warriors remounted in a smooth jump and, gathering the reins of the unmanned beasts, left the scene with every horse they had brought. Varus looked at the remaining twenty-odd men. He’d lost two Romans and about fifteen Gauls.
With a cry of the sheerest agony, he yanked loose his neck scarf and pushed his broken arm into it, forming a temporary sling. His eyes streamed with the pain and he had to bite down on his lip with every movement that rubbed the raw wound on the rusty-coloured wool. With a wince and held breath, he retrieved his fallen sword and gestured with it.
“Mount up and move — two to a horse if you have to. Let’s get back to Piso.”
As one of the Roman riders closed, he reached down and helped haul Varus onto the back of his steed, trying not to jostle his bad arm in the process.
Perhaps Fronto and his bleak mood had been right about today.
Piso had done a sterling job of consolidating the Gallic forces as they converged on his wolf standard. Each bolstering unit of three hundred horses and riders had joined the massed ranks, sitting in ordered rows, the front lines with their spears levelled and ready, the rest with the tips raised safely.
Varus watched as he hurtled across the grass with his small battered unit, twenty two men sharing only fifteen horses. The Germanic tactics had been brutal and horribly effective. What it said about tribes that were supposed to hold the honour of individual combat in the highest esteem, he couldn’t say. It was apparently dishonourable to fire an arrow at an enemy, or sling a stone, but to gut his horse from under him and then pick off the downed rider seemed perfectly acceptable.
The ranks of near five thousand horsemen were drawn up in their alae of three hundreds, with only a little manoeuvring room between the units. Piso had carefully withdrawn from his original position to the most open area of fields with no fences or ruined buildings to hamper his cavalry. It was a sensible, safe tactic.
The Germanic attackers had abandoned their missile troops somewhere above the tree line, where the sling-wielding peasants were probably already running for their tribes’ camps. Now, the barbarian horsemen had drawn up in groups to three sides of the Roman forces.
Varus’ initial estimate had been roughly accurate. There couldn’t be more than a thousand of them. And they’d herded the Roman forces back into a group at the centre, but left open a side for the cavalry to escape?
Clearly they did not expect to crush the overwhelming superior forces, then. So what? Frighten them? Do enough damage to make Caesar stop and consider their offer? Anything was possible with these crazed people.
Even as they rode, putting pressure on the tired horses with the extra riders, Varus watched the barbarians sweep forward and realised what they’d done.
As the Germanic warriors reached some hundred yards distant from the Gallic spear tips, they vaulted smoothly from their moving horses like athletic dancers on a Greek vase, landing lightly and already running, their heavy swords in one hand and their now free hands going to their belt to withdraw their horse-gutting knives.
The slaughter was going to be appalling. The barbarians had driven the Roman cavalry to withdraw into their tight ranks. It was a standard tactic against enemy cavalry, but once the enemy warriors got in among the press of men, they could merrily move about gutting anything above them and the Gauls would hardly have room to plunge down with a spear or swing a sword within their own massed ranks.
Piso clearly didn’t know what to do, and Varus felt for the man. What could a commander do against such a strange tactic, and Piso hadn’t seen it happen yet; had no idea what was to come. He was simply stunned by the strangeness of cavalry dismounting and running at him. Ridiculously, the cavalry would have been better off in a traditional Gallic grouping, rather than the ordered ranks of Roman organisation that would turn the lines into a slaughterhouse.
In a desperate move, the Aquitanian chieftain shouted an order in Gaulish and then Latin, which was relayed by the man with the horn and by the dipping and waving of the silvered wolf standard.
The front ranks of Piso’s cavalry charged, their spears lowered and ready to thrust, or raised overhand, ready to throw. Shields were gripped tight. Shafts were launched almost instantly, as soon as the front rank broke; the enemy had already got too close to make any sort of charge effective. The cast spears came down haphazardly, only one or two finding a useful target, their throwers already drawing their long blades ready to swing from horseback.
But the Germanic warriors had no intention of meeting the charge.
As the Romano-Gallic cavalry reached them, the enemy warriors hurled themselves to one side, rolling and coming up running, or ducking beneath swings. A few met the spear points or blades of Piso’s men, but far more slipped between the charging horses, more lithe than any hairy barbarian had any right to be. And suddenly Piso was faced with perhaps eight hundred warriors closing on his ranks of horse from three sides, his charges foundering as the riders tried to turn their mounts to follow the attackers back to their own lines.
Varus was closing on the chaos as he watched the true horror and carnage unfold.
Just as he’d predicted, as soon as the enemy managed to get into the tight mass of horses in the Gallic lines, their work became the simple, brutal job of slaughtermen. It was not a fight — it was a massacre; and he’d been wrong about the numbers. In fifteen or twenty minutes, the eight hundred or so remaining enemy warriors could gut the entire Gallic force, finishing off the stricken riders at their leisure.
Something had to be done.
Turning to Afranius, riding the horse next to him, Varus pointed and raised his voice to be heard over the approaching din.
“We need to get them out of here. Get to the standard bearer and musician and have them sound the call. We’ll form a wedge to push through.”
Afranius nodded and turned, relaying the orders to the other men of Varus’ small band, just as they reached the press of men. The scene was horrendous. The turf had lost every blade of grass, churned to mud that sucked at hooves and feet, coloured a rusty red by the gallons of blood that had been mixed in.
Horses bucked and thrashed, their flailing hooves breaking the legs of others and smashing the skulls of men who floundered in the mud trying to pull themselves upright. Screaming Gauls lay trapped under convulsing horses. And among it all — the stamping and thrashing legs, the screaming and bucking — moved the enemy warriors like some sort of crimson demons, coated to the waist in blood, seemingly uncaring whether they lived or died.
Varus and his men pushed into the mass, the commander jumping from the back of the horse he had shared and gripping his sword in his good arm. As he landed a jolt ran up his body, forcing him to clench his teeth as the agony from his shattered arm roared like white fire up to his brain. Around him, the extra riders who had hitched a lift across the valley dropped from horseback and ran alongside, swords at the ready. The small force of dismounted men stayed in close support of the horsemen, preventing the underhanded Germanic tactics from destroying their small attack with their gruesome tactic.
Here and there in the press, as Varus and his dismounted men clambered over bodies both wounded and dead, beast and man, they found one of the enemy warriors gouging a fallen Gaul or shredding a horse’s belly to stop it rising again. Individually, in a straight fight, these barbarians were no match for Varus’ regulars and fell like wheat before their blades.
But it was slow going.
Clambering across a horse whose blood had run so dry that it lay helpless and heaving ragged final breaths, Varus paused to take stock of the situation. Despite the apparent carnage, a great number of Gallic cavalry remained intact, pressed in the tight formation and unable to do anything about the swathe of destruction moving slowly and inexorably their way.
The standard wavered in an unpredictable manner, clearly random while its bearer fought off one of the enemy, rather than in the regular motions of a command being given. Since the standard would likely denote the position of the commanders too, that suggested that the enemy warriors had cut a line through the cavalry directly toward Piso, where they were currently embroiled. If the commander and his signallers went down, there would be precious little chance of pulling anyone out of this mess.
With a single, economical motion of his sword arm, Varus indicated to his men the wavering standard. Afranius and Petro nodded, taking his meaning, the former turning his horse and the latter clambering over a body behind him.
Like a force of avenging spirits in steel and crimson, the twenty two men hacked and stomped their way through the mess without pause or comment.
The slogging through a mire of mud, blood and entrails seemed endless — the destruction left by the Germanic warriors making every step wearying and hazardous. And then suddenly, almost unexpectedly, Varus hauled himself painfully across the stilled body of a large piebald mare to find that he had reached the scene of current fighting. The press of men and horses blocked every inch of his vision and he could no longer identify the wavering standard. Taking a deep breath, he bellowed “Piso!”
The clamour and din surrounded them, and Varus, his arm burning with pain, strained to see. “Piso? It’s Varus!”
“Varus?” came a distant, desperate voice.
And then Varus’ world turned crimson.
A dozen or more blood-soaked, crimson painted barbarians, each easily a head taller than Varus, hurtled out of the mass, hamstrung a horse as they passed, and launched at him. Varus lurched back, trying to get a swing in with his sword, but there was simply not enough room. Two blows came at him simultaneously and he managed to turn one aside at the last minute with his own blade, but only the timely intervention of an unseen soldier behind him prevented him being spitted through the face by the other.
More and more demonic, blood-slicked enemy warriors were appearing from the thong of horses now, attracted by the Latin shout. Identified by the language as officers, Varus and his men had suddenly become the prize targets in the fight, and every barbarian there wanted their heads.
In mere moments the carnage had turned their way. In a heartbeat, his twenty two men had become two thirds that number. In another heartbeat and a gaggle of screams they had dropped to a half, the throng of Germanic warriors around them never dropping in number. No matter how many they killed, fresh demons appeared from the welter of blood and legs to plug the gaps.
Varus who, in the space of ten breaths, had taken two minor slashes to his wounded shoulder and a nasty lunging knife wound in his left hip, was struggling simply to stay alive now. His men — the cream of the corps and the best Caesar’s army had to offer, fought by his side and at his back, trying with their every move to stop the blows coming at their commander as well as those striking directly at each of them.
Varus knew he was costing his own men their lives through their desire to protect him, and guilt riddled him even as he collapsed with a shriek, a fresh strike having cut the scarf/sling, allowing his broken arm to swing agonisingly loose. His vision swam with the agony and his head felt tremendously light. He was close to passing out from the pain and he knew that when he did, it would be the end of him.
Desperately, he tried to raise his sword to block a descending blow and almost turned it away, feeling the blade shear off the tip of his ear. He probably screamed, but then he was sure he’d been screaming almost nonstop for the last minute or two, so it didn’t seem to matter.
Somewhere in the depth of the pain, fug and confusion, he felt sure he’d heard his name called. Blinking away sweat, blood and grime, Varus squinted upwards. The blades had stopped coming down at him. With a genuine and unbelievable sense of relief, Varus recognised Piso swinging left and right in his saddle, slicing, hacking and carving the barbarians that a moment ago were getting ready to take his head.
Varus looked around in wonder. Maybe half a dozen of his own men remained, mostly wounded. Piso and his personal guard had arrived just in time. The standard waved silvery in the air behind the commander and Varus could see the musician, horn in his right hand, smashing the boss of his circular shield into the face of a barbarian.
“Piso!”
“Come on!” cried the other commander in reply.
Varus struggled to his feet, wincing and shaking, having to lean on his sword to steady himself. His legs failed and he slumped again. “We have to get back to the column before we lose everyone.”
Piso nodded and turned to the signallers behind him.
“The commander’s safe. Sound the retreat!”
The horn, put to the signaller’s lips, rang out with the five note call, the order confirmed by the circling of the silver wolf, high above the heads of even the mounted men.
Piso smiled.
“Been a bit of a shitty morning, all told!”
Varus shook his head with relief and then looked up just in time to see a crimson-slicked warrior burst out of the crowd, a long, broad-bladed sword in his hands. Even as Varus tried to form the warning, the man swung a wide, two-handed blow with the sword, hacking with ease through both of Piso’s mount’s front legs.
With a scream, Piso’s black steed collapsed forwards, the Aquitanian commander pitched from the saddle and thrown some five or six yards ahead, where he slumped to the ground in a heap, his mail shirt dulled with mud and blood.
Helpless, unable to stand without aid, Varus watched as Piso staggered to his feet and drew his sword, barbarians closing around him in a circle. Varus lost sight of the man behind the grey and crimson bodies apart from the occasional flash of a golden helmet or glint of a sword. Two of Varus’ men pushed past him, running to help Piso, while the other four, too seriously wounded to do much else, helped Varus up.
Somewhere close by came a shout in Gaulish. Varus looked round in surprise to see the signaller push his wolf standard into the hands of the musician before leaping from his horse and drawing his sword on the run. Behind him more and more of the Gallic horse guards followed.
Piso was dead before the standard bearer and the two Roman riders could reach him. Still swinging his sword desperately, he was on his knees in the mud. Most of his assailants had turned away, leaving him for dead to face the new threat, and Varus could see him clearly as the remaining three barbarians toyed with the kneeling man. Piso had taken a crippling lower back wound that had rendered his legs useless. He was covered in blossoms of crimson and gobbets of blood poured from his mouth alongside shouts of defiance in two languages.
His final swing was weary as the strength left him, one of the barbarians knocking it aside, and then the three men were on the commander, holding him up as they sawed off his head.
Varus turned away.
They never lived to treasure their grisly prize as moments later the standard bearer, two Roman cavalrymen and half a dozen of Piso’s guards reached the spot and dispatched them. But Varus couldn’t stop staring at the headless figure kneeling on the ground.
Someone’s hands grasped Varus by the chin and turned his head away.
“Commander?”
The Roman officer focused as much as he was able. The pain was so intense that he could hardly focus or think. The only image that he could see, despite having been forcibly turned away, was the headless body of Piso kneeling in the mud, covered in blood, his sword lying discarded beside him.
“Commander?”
Better focus. One of the Roman cavalrymen was holding him up and staring into his eyes.
“What?”
“Can you ride, sir?”
Varus shook his head. He could barely stand, let alone ride. The soldier conferred with someone out of Varus’ line of sight.
“We haven’t got time for a litter. I’ll throw him over the back of my horse and have to hope he survives with his arm intact.”
“Be quick. We’re in full retreat.”
The last thing Varus remembered was the heaving nausea as his world spun upside down and the shock of unspeakable pain as his arm swung to and fro from the back of the horse upon which he was unceremoniously draped. The image that burned itself into his retinas as he bounced painfully away from both battlefield and consciousness was the body of his rescuer, Piso, still miraculously kneeling in the mud.
ROME
The villa of Atia Balba Prima, like most of the houses of the wealthier families on the Palatine hill had a very austere facade, plain brick walls coated with plaster, with few apertures and even those high up.
Balbus frowned from the shadow of the apple tree.
“I still do not like this.”
Faleria, the sister of Fronto, was proving to Balbus to be every bit as headstrong and troublesome as her brother and probably more so. The well-dressed lady in her lemon-coloured stola and mustard-toned shawl smiled.
“Quintus, we are quite all right, you know. This is a social call; nothing more. Now run along and we’ll meet you back at the house in a couple of hours.”
Balbus’ gaze slipped back and forth between Faleria and his daughter Lucilia, bedecked in a midnight blue stola and looking far too adult and mature for his liking.
“I’d tell you to look after each other, but I do worry you’re each as bad. Be careful.”
Lucilia smiled and patted him on the cheek as they turned and strode across the square, passing a family of the equestrian class and an apple seller who apparently had not cottoned on to the abundance of the fruit going for free in the square. Balbus watched them until they got to the door and then turned with a nervous swallow and returned to the three litters that had brought them from the Cispian.
Faleria arched a perfect eyebrow at her companion.
“Are you really comfortable with this? I’ve met Atia. She’s shrewd and very used to being steeped in the politics of the city.”
Lucilia smiled.
“I’m fine, Faleria. Come on.”
Reaching up, she tugged the bell-pull by the featureless door. A few long moments passed before they heard the muffled flapping of sandals on marble from the far side and, after a couple of clunks and rattles, the door opened.
A short, bald man with an olive complexion and a neat, short beard squinted at them.
“Mistresses?”
Faleria allowed her most imperious expression to fall across her face, her voice matching it perfectly.
“Please inform your mistress that the ladies Faleria and Lucilia have come to pay their respects to the gracious niece of the great Caesar.”
The slave gestured to them, inviting them into the atrium, and then shuffled off. A murmur of conversation drifted back from the tablinum nearby, while the two visitors cast their glance around the room.
Close to the door stood the altar to the household and family gods, with its small statuettes and a mass of flower heads in the dipped surface, soaked in Falernian wine as an offering. A similar sight stood inside most households, though more surprising was the small altar to Venus that stood nearby with a tray of sweetmeats in the offering bowl. It was said that Caesar could trace his family line back to the Goddess herself and Atia clearly bought into the idea.
The fountain in the impluvium pool, a bronze statue of a dancing nymph, sprayed a jet into the air that tinkled down to the water with a calming splatter.
“The domina will see you now, ladies. Please follow me.”
Lucilia and Faleria smiled at the slave who had appeared from around a corner and followed him back and into the tablinum. Atia Balba Prima lounged on a golden couch while two slave girls anointed her feet and tended her toenails. Absently, she plucked a grape from the bowl next to her and popped it into her mouth.
Lady Atia could hardly look any more different from her uncle. Rather than being tall and lean, she was diminutive and voluptuous, her nose small and button-like, her hair lustrous and coppery, falling in carefully-curled waves to her shoulders. Her face was pale — presumably with white lead — her lips crimson and her eyes kohl-darkened.
“Noble names. The widow of the Falerii, sister of my uncle’s favourite soldier, and the daughter of the erstwhile commander of one of his legions. And keeping company together in the city. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Faleria nodded — a gesture that suggested an equality between them that surprised Lucilia.
“A social call only. As clients of your family, it seemed polite to make your acquaintance again. We met a few years ago, of course, but Lucilia is new to the circles of Rome.”
Atia smiled and a shudder ran through Lucilia. That face suddenly reminded her of nothing so much as a crocodile.
“Of course; of course. Do come and sit. I will have food and drink brought for you. Wine or fruit juice?”
Lucilia smiled nervously. “Fruit juice will be fine for me, thank you my lady.” Faleria nodded. “For me too.”
Lucilia gestured to the spare couches and snapped her fingers.
“Agorion? Play something sweet for our guests.”
A thin, ebony-skinned man in a loincloth plucked a lyre from beside a pillar and stepped to the side of the room, beginning to pick out a light melody with seeming ease.
“So you have decided to spend the summer in Rome while the men are off playing soldier with the barbarian. Very sensible, I should say. Sadly, you missed one of the great social engagements of the spring, when lady Sepunia held her orgy. It was quite a party, I can tell you. Some juicy scandal and some delicious slaves from Tingis.”
Lucilia sat gingerly on the couch to one side and raised her feet, removing her sandals. Faleria mirrored her opposite with a sigh of relief.
“Thank you, Atia. I don’t know about you, but I find litters to be less comfort than walking. The bones are shaken up with every step.”
“Indeed, though it would not do for ladies to walk so far unescorted, of course.”
“Of course.”
The opening pleasantries over, Atia turned to Lucilia with a smile.
“Your father has a villa near to Massilia, I understand, where the family resides much of the time?”
“Very true, lady Atia.”
“Do you not find yourselves overcome with the tedium? Do you not miss the spectacle of Rome?”
Lucilia shrugged.
“I have not spent a great deal of my time here, my lady. Much of my youth I lived in the provinces with father and mother. I have only ever spent short stints in the city.”
“Then we shall have to train you up in the manner of a lady of the city, my darling Lucilia. Why I shall make it my personal task to introduce you to every important face and every delight the city has to offer.”
Faleria switched off. Lucilia was handling herself well, and something that had attracted Faleria’s interest since she’d first entered nagged at her. Over the general hubbub of the house, the chattering of the lady and her slaves in this room, there had been the barely-discernible sound of male voices in deep discussion somewhere in the house. Now, as she concentrated, trying to filter out the lyre music and the inane chat, she could hear them more clearly.
Because they were becoming louder.
She realised suddenly that the sources of the noise were approaching.
With the pretence of sorting an errant coil in her hair, she draped the falling locks like a curtain, hiding her face from the door, while being able to look between the coils and strands.
Half a dozen men passed the doorway on the way to the front entrance without even a glance in at the lady who owned the building: an unthinkable breech in etiquette that it seemed odd for Atia to ignore.
Faleria squinted through the hair curtain. The men were rough thugs dressed in dirty tunics and leather, at least one bearing the mark of a former legionary on his upper arm. All were armed with knives or stout sticks.
She was peering intently when the face of Publius Clodius Pulcher appeared at the end of the small group of men, his sharp gaze snapping around to the room and Atia’s visitors. He was dressed in a toga, yet even he carried a knife. Faleria’s heart raced at the sight of the loathsome man. Here was the villain who had burned down their house and tried to kill her family.
So casually that it almost pained her, she turned her face to Atia, away from the door, her pulse thudding, hoping that the man had somehow not recognised her.
“We must away for the afternoon my lady” Clodius said pleasantly. “Business to attend to; you known how it is.”
Atia waved dismissively at him.
“Just don’t disturb my guests and I when you return.”
There was an unpleasant laugh.
“I wouldn’t dream of it. Though the lady Faleria and I are old friends, are we not?”
Faleria winced, but he clearly didn’t expect an answer as he strode out laughing lightly, following his men to the door.
“Horrible man, but he does have his uses” said Atia, apologetically.
Faleria murmured platitudes and made a small deal of the matter, turning the conversation back to Lucilia as her mind raced. Clodius leading thugs from the house of Caesar’s niece and following Cicero and other senators. One thing was certain: if Clodius was involved, those senators were far from safe.
It was time to write to Fronto.