Eagle in the Snow: The Classic Bestseller

by Wallace Breem

  He wiped his mouth. He said, “Will it be long? It’s the waiting that is so hard.”

  “Two hours at the most, Artorius. If you can endure that two hours, you will never be frightened again.”

  XIX

  THEY CAME AGAINST us in the early down, and only the startled cawing of the rooks, disturbed at their horrible feast, gave warning of their approach. They were more cautious now, determined to wear us down, as a wolf pack wears dawn a stag that it is hunting. Flights of arrows, a quick charge, a flight of axes, a retreat, silence, and a flight of arrows again. They circled the defences, probing for the weak spots. A sudden rush on the flanks that could only be broken by a charge of horse, a rush through the centre that even the carroballistae could barely check. Hour after hour they kept it up, and hour after hour my men stood at the palisades until they fell or were relieved. By midday Marius was dead, killed leading a desperate counter-attack against the enemy’s barricades; and Agilio had been badly wounded in the chest. In the afternoon it began to snow and they attacked again; grey, ghastly figures looming out of the swirling storm, to throw death with their two hands, or to receive it—it was all one to them. The ditches were choked with their dead and their wounded, and still they came, an endless stream of men, who breathed hatred and envy of all that we stood for. Fire arrows came sizzling out of the darkening sky, to start pools of flame that spluttered along the palisade, burst into roars of white fire when they landed on a waggon, or set a horse screaming with agony when it was hit. There was no respite, no rest of any kind. The hard, relentless pressure was maintained all day, all evening and all night, so that men who were trying to sleep could not do so, because of the sounds of the dying, the exultant cries of the enemy, and the smell of fire upon the snow.

  At midnight I held a war council in the signal tower.

  “We are out of arrows, nearly,” I said. Julius Optatus nodded, grimly. “The last issue has just been made—thirty to a man. We have issued the last javelins—fifteen to a man. The ballistae are short of missiles, and the carroballistae have about thirty bolts each. When those are gone we shall have only our bare hands.”

  No-one spoke. They stood round me in a half circle, gaunt and unsmiling; but they were with me, and I was glad.

  “Fabianus, get the waggons hitched up and put the wounded aboard. Those who can walk must drive the waggons or go with them. They are to make for Treverorum and seek shelter where they can find it. I suggest they make for the Temple district. They will be safer there than in houses where there are men and women, food and valuables. Get them out before daylight.”

  Quintus, his arm in a sling, said, “What do you want us to do, Maximus? We will do whatever you ask.”

  “In a moment,” I said. I turned to Fredegar, who had a bloody bandage about his head. In his thick furs, and with his grey beard, he looked like some fierce and indomitable bear. “This is not your fight,” I said. “Not any longer. I suggest you withdraw your men. Make terms, if you wish, or go into the hills.”

  He said, “Are you asking me to go? Or is it an order?”

  I touched his shoulder. “It is neither a request nor an order. It is just a suggestion.”

  He said, “I served Marcomir’s father and, from the day the boy threw his first spear, I stood always on his left side. I should have stood there on the day he died, but the fates willed it otherwise.” He reached for the wine jug and gulped down a great draught. Spots of wine hung on his beard like blood. “I will tell my men what you said, but I do not think they will hear me. As for myself—” He paused. He said, “I stay.”

  I looked at Quintus, who shrugged his shoulder. I turned to Aquila. “Are you sorry now that you did not kill me that day in Treverorum and elect another emperor?”

  He flashed a smile. He said, “Afterwards I was ashamed.”

  I said, “I can only repeat what I said before at Moguntiacum. If any man wishes to go, then let him go now— quickly.”

  Aquila touched the standard with his big hands. “I carried this many times through many years when it had the right to be ashamed of the soldiers who called it theirs. Now I am not ashamed. I have no wish to be a Vandal slave.”

  The door rattled in the wind, and I was reminded of the night when Stilicho came to my tent with an officer, or an order—what it was I could not remember; I was too tired. It did not matter anyway. It had all led to this—this narrow circle of existence: a dozen exhausted men, gathered in a wooden hut on a winter’s night, and planning quite calmly how best they might end their lives.

  Aquila said, “We have a thousand men under arms on foot.”

  “Eight hundred horse,” said Quintus.

  “Four hundred of my people,” said Fredegar proudly.

  “And I have fifteen hundred of the city,” said Artorius.

  Scudilio coughed on to the back of his hand, and I saw that there was blood on his mouth. “Five hundred auxiliaries, all told,” he spluttered.

  I turned to Artorius. “Your men fought well to-day. You have a right to be proud of them.”

  He fingered a cut above his left eye, and smiled. He had the look of a man who was at peace with himself. He said, “There is something I forgot. The Bishop sent a message. He has sent the girl away into safety.”

  “Was there anything else?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Tell Maximus I shall see him again. That was the message.”

  “In heaven, no doubt. Did the girl have any messages for us?”

  “I gave it to him,” said Artorius, drily.

  I looked at Fabianus. He was smiling. I did not ask what the message was.

  “We are almost a legion still,” I said. Quintus gave me a long, steady look. He remembered, I think, as I did too, that day I landed in Gaul, and he met me at the camp, and we had been so absurdly proud and so happy at the greatness of our command.

  “What about the Eagle?” asked Fabianus.

  “It will not fall into their hands,” I said. “That I promise you.”

  Aquila said anxiously, “You are sure?”

  “I swear it upon the sword of Agricola.”

  They went out then and I was alone with Quintus.

  I said, “We were both wrong. I would never have thought our casualties could have been so heavy, or that our supplies would have been used up so quickly. I would never have thought the barbarians could have fought the way they did these last two days.”

  “Nor I,” he said. “But you know, Maximus, they have their women and their children in their camp behind them. That makes a great difference. And they do not mind dying either; our men do. That makes a difference also.”

  The wind had dropped and, in the ghastly, grey light of the dawn, we lined the palisades with the last of our men. The bodies of horses were dragged into the gaps where the fencing had been smashed or burnt, and the dead bodies of our men were pulled clear and laid in rows inside the tents they had last occupied when alive. All the spare weapons that could be found had been collected and stuck into the ground by our feet, for ease of use. Under Aquila’s direction, small parties hurriedly crossed the ditch into the killing area to pick up whatever weapons and missiles they could find; on the flanks the cavalry were saddling up their horses, while Quintus walked along the line, checking the girths; and in the camp behind us the cooks were lighting fires and preparing the morning meal. Huddled against a carroballista I saw a man I recognised.

  “Fredbal,” I said. “What the devil are you doing here?”

  He looked up at me defiantly. “I come back,” he said. “I saw your message delivered. I done what you told me.”

  “But—”

  “They killed my woman and my children. Thirty years ago, that was. So I come back.”

  There was nothing to say. I touched him on the shoulder and smiled, and then turned away. Agilio, who was at my side, said suddenly, “I did not know you believed in devils, my emperor.”

  I laughed. “It is through living too long with christians I expect. I fi
nd myself talking as they do.”

  “My lord Bishop will make another convert yet.”

  “I doubt that very much.”

  We walked back towards the signal tower. I rubbed my cold hands together, and had a sudden absurd wish that my cloak could have been clean instead of dirty. A voice cried suddenly out of the half dark, and a figure approached and I heard the words, “Truce . . . truce . . . we want a truce . . . we would speak with you.”

  “Hold your fire,” I cried.

  Quintus cantered up. “Steady, it may be a trap.”

  The man came up to the outer ditch. “King Gunderic would speak with your general. Let him come out alone to the ditch and talk. I, his brother, will be a hostage for our good faith.”

  “Don’t go, sir,” said Agilio. “It is a trick.”

  “Has he a brother?”

  “Three,” said Fredegar. “The youngest is a wolf cub called Gaiseric. But this is the eldest by his voice.”

  “Don’t go, my Lord.”

  “Why not?” I said. “It will give us time to breathe for five minutes.”

  A gap was made in the palisade and a plank run out across the first ditch. Gunderic’s men came forward and threw a plank over the outer ditch, and then stood back.

  Quintus said, in exasperation, “If you must go, then take my shield. But be careful.”

  “Watch the flanks,” I said to Aquila. “Kill the first man who moves.”

  I put the shield on my right side, under my red cloak, and went forward, my sword in my left hand. Before me, Gunderic stepped out on to the bridge, and we met alone on the hard, frozen surface between the outer ditches, that forty feet we called the killing area, and over which so many Vandals had run and died. The ditches were three-quarters filled with dead, and there were dead, too, on this ground, over which we had to pick our way carefully to avoid stumbling. We met in the centre, Gunderic and I. He looked more gaunt than ever. There was a rag tied round his right arm and a long cut above his eyes, which looked to be swollen and bloodshot. He had the angry, famished look of a beast of prey that has missed its kill, and I was suddenly afraid. I could smell the danger in our meeting through the sweat of my own fear.

  He said, “You refused our offer. I shall not make it again.”

  “I did not expect you to do so.” He was a tall man, but he had to look up to me as I spoke, and this he did not like. “But I will make you an offer.” I spoke through my teeth. “Give me the wife of Marcomir living, and I will let you return across the Rhenus unharmed.”

  “She is dead.”

  “In the Roman fashion?”

  “Yes.” He spoke coldly.

  “Ah!”

  “Unharmed you say?” He glared at me, and said in a blaze of hatred, “Unharmed. You poisoned the wells—butcher. My wife and my children died; and I watched them and could do nothing.”

  I said, “I watched you of what would happen.”

  He looked at me coldly, “You are a great fighter,” he said softly. “When I am old, I shall be able to boast of how I destroyed Maximus, a Roman general, who barred my way into new lands.”

  “Will you also tell them how few men it was who barred your way, and for how long?”

  “Of course. That is what makes the story that my people will sing.” He spoke coolly now, but with respect, and I was surprised. I knew so little, really, about these people.

  “Will you also say how you were aided by the Marcomanni, the Quadi, and the Alans?”

  His teeth snapped. “We have done the hard fighting,” he said. “Their share has been small.”

  He lifted his head and looked at the sky. “The moon sets,” he said. “In a little while you will be destroyed with all your men; and your bleached bones will litter the snow. A good end for warriors, but a waste of life. Unbar the way, and you may take your men where you will. I have enough wives who weep in my camp. I do not want more.”

  I said, “Once, on a summer afternoon, I met six kings. Are they still all living, Gunderic of the Vandals? I told you when last we met, that you would walk in blood to Treverorum. You must walk in my blood, too, before you get there.”

  “Why?”

  I smiled. “If all men bar your way, as we do, then how strong will you be when you at last reach those lands of which you dream? I think you will be so weak that, in the end, you will be destroyed in your turn. You will be remembered only as a people who could kill. For yourselves, or for other people, you will make nothing that will last.”

  He snarled softly in his throat, like a dog. He said, “You are wrong. You bar my way as an enemy, but the day will come, when you are dead, that I and my people shall be the servants of Rome, calling ourselves its citizens. Does not that seem strange?”

  “Perhaps. I do not know. I shall not then care. But why should you need Rome, if you hate her so much?”

  He said, as though to a child, “There has always been a Rome. It is a great empire; it is needed; but it needs us also.”

  He stroked his beard then, and his eyes flickered sideways. He said, “Rome has been wasted on you. I would not wish—”

  “I do not think, King Gunderic—”

  At that moment the archer fired. I felt an agonising pain as the arrow drove through my cloak and shield, and into my shoulder. I went sideways with the shock, and felt two more arrows drive home into the shield as I stumbled and tried, desperately, to regain my balance.

  “Quintus!”

  Gunderic stepped back and to his left. Like a striking cat, his hand dropped to his sword. It came out with a dreadful rasping sound, a blur of light and steel, and I saw it glint high in the air as he raised it for the killing stroke.

  I moved one step forward, the sword of Agricola pointing towards his right side, my arm slightly bent as I did so. His sword came down at arm’s length as I straightened my elbow, and then fell from his hand across the rim of my shield onto my shoulder. For a moment we stood there, quite still, facing each other.

  “You should have been a Vandal,” he said, in a tired voice.

  “Three inches is enough, even for a king,” I said.

  He buckled at the knees and I caught him as he fell.

  The archer, who had lain in ambush along the edge of the ditch, was dead with six fire arrows in him. I backed across the plank, holding the dead king before me, while the Vandals roared, and arrows flickered to and fro, and a clamour of arms sounded on both sides. Across the inner ditch I withdrew behind the shields of a dozen men who had come out to help me, and was dragged to safety while a bowman fired at the plank on the outer ditch until it burst into flames.

  “Are you all right, sir?”

  “Yes,” I muttered.

  “It was a trick. I warned you.”

  “Yes.” I bit my lip. “But a good one.”

  “What about the hostage, his brother?”

  I looked at him through my pain, standing between his guards, a sword at his throat. I sank to the ground and, while an orderly attended to my damaged shoulder, which was bleeding badly now, said curiously, “How did you expect to escape?”

  He said, “You killed my brother.”

  “He tried to jump the palisade,” said Aquila.

  “Well?”

  “It was a risk. I lost.”

  “You did, indeed. You are the first Vandal to enter my camp alive.”

  “Kill him,” snarled Fredegar.

  “Send him back with his brother,” I said.

  “Kill him,” said Fredegar again.

  “Crucify him,” said Agilio angrily.

  “Be quiet, my friends. Do what I tell you, Quintus.”

  He started to protest, looked at my face, and then nodded. “Of course,” he said.

  Supported by my orderly, I walked to the palisade. “Peoples of the East, listen to me.” I cupped my hands to my mouth. “Listen to me, I say.” Slowly the noise died down and the firing ceased. “Peoples of the East: I break no truce, I keep faith with my own people and with yours. Go back t
he way you came, or your women will weep blood for their unborn sons. I will not give you the city of Treverorum, or another yard of land. This land is mine.” I paused, and then cried, more loudly still: “I am Maximus. I give you only death and the body of your king. I give you—Gunderic.”

  “Fire,” said a voice. The long arm of the ballista swung up, and there came a long, thin scream, as the two brothers, the one living and the other dead, returned to the earth and to their own kind.

  For an hour there was a lull, while they watched us from behind the rough defences they had built within flight range of our arrows. They used movable shields of rough wood, the piled bodies of horses, and sacks of straw, mixed with hard earth or snow. The sun rose, and the cold winds blew again, and they came out of the flying snow like snarling wolves, and attacked us with the same ruthless courage, the same hungry despair, the same cold hatred that they had shown before. Time and again, Quintus and Fabianus led their cavalry out. Swinging right or left handed, they would close up, steady their line, move smoothly into a canter, while Quintus shouted “Steady, steady,” at the top of his voice. Then the gallop over the last two hundred yards, the charge smashed home, the swords red with blood, and men shouting; the break up of the formation, when it was every man for himself, and you had to watch for the man with the knife under your horse’s belly, as well as the man with the axe who tried to take off your thigh; the hasty rally, while horses and men were still warm but not yet blown; and then the charge back, every yard taking you nearer and nearer to safety. Safety was the cold wind, and the sweat on your face, and your horse blowing at the ground. Safety was the silence from barbarian voices, the swinging sword, the flying axe, and the smell of blood that was everywhere.

  All day we fought; the men retiring in little groups back to the camp, to squat, exhausted on the ground and eat a hot mess of crumbled biscuit, chopped up veal and beans, with trembling fingers; and swallow wine with mouths dry with fear.

  In his second charge, Quintus lost, in two minutes, three tribunes, four decurions, fifty-seven men and thirty-nine horses. And with each charge that followed, our losses grew heavier and heavier. The cavalry, backed by Fredegar’s Franks, held the wings; and the cohorts, and the auxiliaries, held the centre. We tried to save arrows and missiles as much as possible, and volunteers would rush out during a lull to snatch the arrows from the dead, as well as the spears that littered the ground beyond the palisade, like timber in a builder’s yard. They were the only weapons that broke up the terrible rushes of maddened, angry men, who stormed the ditches, now choked and full, climbing the bodies of their own dead, as they had done at Moguntiacum, to reach us behind our thin fence. And, at the end of each fresh assault, I would ride along the crooked rank of dark faced men, black with dirt and sweat, who leaned, panting, upon their swords or their spears, and do my best to encourage them with a smile and a jest. But each time I did so the lines of men in Roman helmets grew thinner, until there were few reserves left, except those who were wounded.