by AM Kirkby
***
They'd marched with Felsina, with Spina, with Arretium, with Velathri. Curtun and Camars too, or at least, such of the nobility of those cities as cared to come. The whole Etruscan North against Rome. And it had worked; Rome had come to meet them, marching out towards Velzna, in the great narrow plain.
No help from Tarchna, of course. Even Tanaquil couldn't have swung that decision; the Tarquinians were pig-headed, and too rich for their own good, and thought they didn't need anybody. Traders, not soldiers; they thought everyone had a price, and gold was mightier than swords.
"This is exactly what Tarquinius didn't want," Avle said.
Master looked back at him, away from the swirling men and dust across the plain. "What is?"
"A great war. He never wanted this."
"I suppose not."
"He wanted Etruria dead before it knew it was dying. "
"What you want and what you get..."
"Are two different things. I know," Caile interrupted.
It was easy to distinguish the two armies; Rome, tight ranks, squares drawn up in regular order, as the level plain allowed the general to do; and Etruria, dispersed gatherings, cavalry wheeling, hoplite lines, charioteers drawn up at the back. Rome was playing the war as if it was a game of chequers, methodical, unimaginative; Etruria was an army of heroes, of chancers, of mavericks. Rome wouldn't know how to meet it, where to turn; that was Master's plan, keep the Romans off balance. He'd made the Roman army, damn it, he knew how to destroy it.
And what of Tanaquil, he thought? Would her spies tell her that battle was joined? Would she listen? Did she even care, any more?
And Tarquinia... He hadn't thought of Tarquinia for a long time. He couldn't afford to.
A ragged wave of chariots had hit the Roman front lines, and like a wave, receded, leaving behind it a tideline of dead, wounded, broken things. Tight turning, Master thought; that took skill. And as he thought it, the chariots turned again, back to hit the Roman breakwater of shields.
"Frontal attack," Caile said. "Stupid."
"So it is," Master said, and smiled. "Stupid as Romans."
He knew what he was waiting for. Out on the edge of the plain, little bands of footsoldiers were assembling, drifting together like wind-blown leaves clumping, or twigs caught in a mill-race. Where scattered horsemen had been riding, suddenly that paths were coming together, and small cavalry formations, perhaps a dozen men each, were gradually forming. Still the Romans were facing front, bracing for another chariot attack.
"Whose are the footsoldiers?" Avle was asking him.
"Everyone's."
"Oh, smart."
"Caile's idea."
"Men of Felsina stand next to men of Spina, or Velx, or the Cisran emigres," Caile said. "They won't run. No one will be the first to run, not in front of their rivals."
And maybe, just maybe, that elusive idea of an Etruria that was something more than a common music to which their cities danced might start to twist itself into men's minds like a tendril of smoke.
"What are they fighting for?" asked Avle. "Honour? Their honour? The honour of their cities?"
"Better ask what they're fighting against," Master said.
Caile shrugged. "A new Etruria might yet be born. Our ideas are no secret to our allies. And after all, everything is born from blood."
Everything. And nothing, Master thought.
The figures on the plain were changing again. Troops like black spiders were making for the very edges of the Roman line, where it was thin, where the last man had no overlap from a neighbour's shield to protect him. Still the Romans hadn't seen the threat; still the chariots were keeping them busy. And behind the Romans, he hoped, somewhere on the roads or in the heathland and approaching every moment, would be whatever Velx had been able to send. It was too far to see yet; he had to trust. Or hope. Trust and hope were words he didn't like, but they were all he had.
It would all look very different down there; irregularities in the ground closed down the view, a man might see no more than the four or five men around him. He might never even see the enemy who killed him, only a spear point poking through the gap between his shield and his neighbour's. Dust swirled, isolating each troop in its own cloud. He'd been there; he knew how it was. He had to hope that his instructions would be carried out; that they could be carried out.
Avle coughed. "Your chariot line is getting ragged."
"So it is."
"You're not worried?"
Master sniffed; Caile jumped in.
"I've got a blind brother today."
Avle raised an eyebrow. "I'm supposed to have seen what?"
There was a commotion a little way off, where they'd posted their sentries. A scout perhaps, or a messenger from the field; Master turned. It was Rasce, arguing with Caile's bodyguard.
"I knew Master before he could harness a horse. Don't you 'I'm sorry sir' me,"
"I'm sorry..."
"I don't care what battle he has to fight, you..."
"Rasce," Master shouted, jerking his head at the sentry, who stepped out of the way. "I have got a battle to fight, you know. It's true."
"You think I don't know? How do you think I got here? I nearly fell over the bloody Romans. And what the fuck do you think you're doing, throwing your chariots at a dug-in line of infantry like that? Didn't the General teach you anything?"
Master sighed. That was the problem with strategy; the ones that worked were the ones people hadn't seen before, which meant no one understood what you were trying to do.
"So: why are you here? It must be something important."
Rasce looked at him for a moment; one side of his mouth twitched. He held out a hand.
"He wanted you to have it," he said. Metal glinted in his palm.
Master frowned. He couldn't see what it was; twisted, rounded, clinking.
"Master," Caile said; "it's started."
This couldn't take long. He reached his hand out to Rasce, felt the bronze pieces fall into his hand. As soon as he felt it, he knew what it was, so familiar to the touch; the linked pieces of a horse bit, the cheek pieces and the chains and the flatter, longer mouthpiece. Then he saw the leaping horse decoration of the cheek pieces, and knew it at once.
"He wanted you to have it."
The General's triumph. The General's luck. Luck that the General had lent him for one day, and however good a general you were, you knew luck had a lot to do with triumph.
"For the battle?"
Rasce's face suddenly crumpled. He said again, more quietly: "He wanted you to have it."
"He's..."
Rasce nodded.
"He always asked what was happening in Rome. Always wanted to know what horses you were running this season. I think he hoped you'd come home."
And I did come home, Master thought, but in disguise, and secretly, and never saw the old man before he died.
He hadn't cried for years.
"It's starting to work," Caile shouted; and Master turned, and went to watch as his feral infantry started to worry at the ends of the Roman lines, swirling black around them, swallowing them up.
Now it begins, he thought; the Romans have to fight the chariots in front and the footsoldiers to the side, and if Velx comes up in good order, we'll hit them from behind as well.
On the horizon a cloud of dust darkened the sky. If that was Velx, he thought. If it was. They'd be late, but not too late. It wasn't crucial; but he'd lose fewer men if Velx hit the Romans hard and fast. Please gods, let the bastards put on some speed. Please gods (the gods he didn't believe in) let them get there while they could make a difference.
"That Velx?" Avle was asking, and Master grunted and nodded curtly, and felt his throat thick with tears like a winter cold.
"Looks like there's enough of them, from the dust."
Master nodded again. Caile was right; a few hundred men at the very least, he'd guess. The battle was as good as won.