The Blood Road (Legionary 7): Legionary, no. 7

by Gordon Doherty

  ‘Not even tracks?’ he asked the decurion.

  The stubble-jawed rider’s eyes switched around, thinking of the land they had just surveyed. ‘There are many tracks – most likely worn during the Goths’ time camped here, bringing grain and fodder in from the countryside towns. But maybe to the south, the markings were stronger, more recent.’

  ‘Aye,’ said another rider, scooping his helm off by the noseguard and pushing fingers through his sweat-damp hair, ‘those tracks are littered with animal dung too. I’d say that’s the way they went, taking their herds with them.’

  ‘Then we must follow,’ Dignus said, climbing onto his silver mare’s saddle again.

  For twelve days they rode and searched. The tracks led them ever southwards and into the Rhodope foothills. On the thirteenth day, they saw it: a murky cloud of smog on the horizon, moving southwards, away from the envoy.

  ‘It’s them. The Goths,’ a scout confirmed.

  ‘Where are they going?’ Dignus whispered to himself.

  ‘Riders approaching,’ the stubbled decurion barked.

  Dignus drew in his reins, seeing a blur of Gothic riders speeding away from the main Gothic body, coming back north, towards them, dust churning up in their wake. The party was the same size as the Scutarii detachment – one hundred strong. They rode with leather helms, some bare-headed, others in red leather armour and some draped with ringmail. ‘Raise the white banner,’ he said calmly. Perhaps he could hand over the scroll and gifts here and be done with it?

  He peered at the leader of the approaching detachment. A Gothic nobleman of some sort, wearing bronze scales and a green cape. With his lumpy, flat head, he had the look of a toad, Dignus thought with a jolt of humour. He wiped the smile from his face and settled on the saddle, making sure his back was straight and his demeanour correct for an envoy. But, he realised with a rising sense of angst, they were not slowing and approaching as they should to receive a diplomacy party. They yelled their horses on and continued to approach at a gallop.

  ‘Wave the standard,’ Dignus hissed at the decurion holding the white banner of peace.

  The stubble-jawed man hurriedly swiped the pole to and fro, but the Goths sped ever closer. Only a few hundred paces separated them now. Dignus fumbled nervously in his bag and brought out the scroll and the gem box.

  ‘Hail, Gothic friends. We come to offer you gifts and seek a chance to speak wi-’

  ‘See? The first outriders of the storm!’ the toadlike Goth screamed, cutting him off. ‘Snapping at our heels, aiming to slay us as we flee. Riders of Judda, charge! Kill them!’

  From nowhere, two more wedges of riders burst into view from the hills either side of Dignus and the Scutarii. One led by another noble with a chin-tied beard and a winged helm, the third leaderless but crazed. The three parties levelled their spears and heeled their horses into a renewed surge. The Scutarii men all around Dignus panicked, pulling out their swords clumsily, the horses rearing as they shifted to each threat in turn, blinded by fear. The toadlike Goth speared through one rider, leading his wedge through many more. Dignus’ mare stepped back, whinnying, throwing him from the saddle. He landed on his shoulder heavily and rolled over on the ground, the gem box falling open and the trinkets scattering. He clutched onto his shoulder with one hand and with the other clasped the scroll – the true treasure – for dear life. A forest of thrashing horse legs sped past him in every direction, hot blood showered down upon him and bodies – Roman bodies – fell. He saw the stubble-chinned decurion land right next to him, face gawping, skull cleaved with a hand axe. Dignus backed away from the awful sight horrified. The hot splutter of a horse right behind him had him scrabbling round to see the wing-helmed Goth peering down at him.

  ‘I bring a message from Emperor Theodosius himself. An offer of peace,’ he wailed, holding up the scroll.

  ‘It is as the informant said it would be, Winguric,’ said the toadlike one to the wing-helmed other, leaning from the saddle and snatching the scroll. ‘False peace while they build a trap.’

  Dignus shot the toadlike one a look. ‘There is no trap – it is a sincere offer!’

  ‘Best be sure it cannot play tricks with Iudex Fritigern’s mind,’ said Winguric with a grin.

  Judda grinned in reply, taking a torch from one of his riders and setting light to the scroll.

  Dignus clawed at his own face in horror as the ashes swirled from the burning document. ‘No! You do not realise what you are doing. That scroll is the final chance. Without it, a great battle will befall us. Many will die and-’

  Winguric flicked up his spear and caught it overhand, then lanced down into Dignus’ shoulder. The tip drove deep down through his chest and into his belly. Dignus vomited blood, his eyes rolling in their sockets. He remained there, kneeling, head lolling forward in death.

  ‘Then battle it must be,’ Winguric hissed triumphantly.

  Chapter 4

  The month of May was the hottest most of the Western legionaries had ever experienced. Here in the Eastern Diocese of Dacia, it seemed dryer and fiercer than any Roman or Gaulish summer, with the few brooks running either side of the Via Militaris little more than trickles. Ever since they had departed their camp near Naissus and the churning river that fed the city with cool, churning torrents of fresh water, most men had been cursing their lack of foresight in not packing an extra water skin or two.

  They marched in great silvery blocks, twenty-five thousand strong, stretching for miles. They mopped at their sweat-slick necks and lashed dry tongues across cracked lips, eyes like slits as they peered sourly into the sun and the sea of golden plains, green hills… and the shaded woods that lay ahead – tantalising and menacing at once. Even the road itself was close to being a hindrance. The perfectly serried flat flagstones of the western provinces were nowhere to be seen. Instead, broken flags pocked the road, sunken pits where the stones were missing and thick sprouts of grass and weeds shooting from between the cracks, almost disguising the highway in places.

  ‘This is why the East teeters on the edge of disaster,’ said Gratian, his words like silk – cleanly cut by a fine education. He swayed on his mount breezily, his body encased in a black robe, a bronze cuirass – carefully scraped and scuffed to make it look well-used – and a gold-threaded, black cape, his pale skin and blue eyes shaded under his immaculately swept fringe of golden locks. His face was set in a look of pure poise and assurance, like one many times older than his twenty-two years. ‘Weak rulers like my Uncle Valens. Feeble armies like those put to shame at Adrianople. Men shy to put their backs to the duties of empire,’ he gestured to the wild mass of wheat shimmering in the early summer heat, ‘to even tend the fields that might feed them.’

  The bearded, bronze-helmed Heruli guardsmen towing his personal supply wagon like mules were impassive, their rugged faces beaded with sweat as they took every rough and uneven step. Not one of the six yoked men wore weapons or shield, and the rest of the unit – now greatly reduced to just a few hundred men – marched not as chosen imperial protectors but as a rearguard, somewhere miles back behind the mule train, their armour and weapons stained with dust and shit.

  Lanzo, the red-moustachioed Tribunus of this once-mighty and famous legion, was one of the six yoked ones. The pole ground into his long-ago numbed shoulders, and he knew that his only reward at the end of the day would be a night of agony as the feeling returned and deprived him of sleep. But he prided himself on his loyalty, despite everything. For years he had served Gratian’s father, and for the first few years after the boy-emperor’s ascension, things had been good too – Lanzo attending strategy discussions, he and his men being granted prestigious postings at the Imperial Palace in Treverorum and being honoured with central positions in battle. But then the ignominy had crept in, when they had caught the emperor’s eye. He peered sourly at them, marching in a box-formation around the emperor’s horse.

  Alani warriors, draped in green gowns, flowing fair hair swishing in their wa
ke, copper rings dangling from their ears. These outlanders were now Emperor Gratian’s chosen guardsmen. What stung most of all was the torques they wore around their necks – thick, precious bands, awarded by Emperor Gratian for simple acts. One of the Alani had brought the emperor a jug of pleasant wine and it had pleased the young leader so much he had given him a thick golden torque. Lanzo touched the fingers of one hand to the battered, bronze torque he wore. He had been awarded the piece by Gratian’s father, for fighting his way almost single-handedly through a band of Lentienses tribesmen in a morass ambush to save the then-emperor. Hard won. Valued like life itself. That was how it was supposed to be. The Emperor of the West was akin to the chosen chieftains of his tribal homelands. I will show the emperor, the chosen one, that my men and I are the true champions of his armies. We will have our honour restored, he avowed.

  A clopping of hooves sounded, and two armoured officers trotted up the column, slowing to walk level with the emperor alongside the Alani box-screen. Lanzo peered up at them: Merobaudes the giant Frankish Magister Militum, high commander of the Western Army, saddled on a bay stallion. His chest was encased in plain iron. Strands of thin, brown hair hung across his fire-scarred face. Beside him rode his subordinate, Comes Arbogastes – of Frankish-Roman origins also. A useful general but a shadow of Merobaudes in every respect. He wore a shabby vest of scale, and his twin copper-coloured braids hung down across his chest. The wig was a fine one, but with an amusing backstory: the whole thing was in fact the scalp and mane of a Frankish warrior’s wife, shrunk and shaped to fit the bald warrior’s head.

  ‘Domine,’ Merobaudes said in a voice as low as distant thunder. ‘We should strike the march here for the day. Those woods ahead pinch the road and it would be unsafe to traverse that path as the light begins to fade.’

  Gratian’s head swung to the big general, his face hanging in a strange way – as if waiting on a wind to lift it or let it fall. ‘It is barely mid-afternoon, General,’ he said flatly. ‘I have waited long enough to be the saviour of the East,’ he said, his voice rising a little so all nearby would hear. ‘Every hour on the road counts. We will be well through those woods come dusk.’

  ‘We may be,’ said Merobaudes, ‘but the men to the rear of the column will not.’

  Lanzo averted his eyes from the embarrassing standoff that followed, but he could almost feel the crackling tension in the air. Merobaudes despised Gratian and Gratian Merobaudes, yet both knew they needed each other: the young emperor could not lead the Western Army as Merobaudes could, and the Frankish general could only stay alive and clear of Gratian’s torturers by continuing to serve him, and hoping that one day, a more noble emperor might take the throne.

  ‘Very well. If the march is too much for you, then make camp,’ Gratian said with a dismissive swipe of the hand and a derisive laugh. ‘I want my tent on that hummock, up there,’ he added.

  Horns blared and the Army of the West spilled from the ramshackle military road onto the golden flats to the right, where a stream meandered north to south. The ground and brook would be large enough to house and water the army, but the low hills to the south, cupping the area, seemed to trap and intensify the heat to tortuous levels. Lanzo towed the emperor’s supply-wagon over to the base of the hummock, where he muttered gruffly to his five fellow Heruli to set down the yokes. But a screech from Gratian changed that.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘The journey for the day is over, Domine,’ Lanzo said, confused, craning to look up at the mounted emperor. ‘My men are thirsty as dogs.’

  Gratian peered down at him like a gull. ‘And my dogs are hungry,’ he said. A dull baritone growl of Gratian’s hunting hounds sounded from some way back. The noise alone was enough to silence Lanzo.

  ‘You will stay where you are until camp is ready, Lanzo,’ Gratian said. ‘Yokes on your shoulders, and not a droplet of water.’

  Lanzo felt his brain throb with thirst and a spike of anger. His numb shoulder was wet with blood too – the skin rubbed away. All around him, the Western legionaries were already busy marking out the camp, but all taking the opportunity to guzzle on their water skins, many filling them up again at the winding stream. It would be hours before the camp was complete. He let his passions cool and took a deep breath. ‘Yes, Domine,’ he said, taking up the yoke again.

  I will do anything to show my loyalty, to do what is right for the empire.

  As darkness closed in, the flatland south of the road became a sea of torch and firelight, the countless goatskin tents like the peaks of gentle waves. Gentle chatter and the clank of cooking utensils sounded, along with the occasional brusque shout from sentries changing watch. From the hummock, a mournful, baritone song seeped from the Western Emperor’s tent.

  Inside the pavilion, priests chanted the cantillating verse – the leader singing one baritone line then the rest reciting it. They would stop every so often to kiss one another on the cheek.

  Gratian sat on a padded couch at one end, his imperial diadem sloped at a lazy angle as he sipped wine from a gem-lipped cup. A pair of Alani flanked the couch, clutching spears across their chests. Gratian sipped and sighed, toying with the fang-ring on his index finger. ‘Theodosius did what?’

  Bishop Ambrosius, shapeless in his loam-coloured robes, his hands clasped somewhere within, dipped forward a little every time he spoke, the light from the scented sconce on the tentpole shining through his thin, scraped-back hair and glistening on his scalp. ‘He has initiated the Ecumenical Council, Domine,’ Ambrosius said, his lips and close-cut beard moving minimally as he spoke in a gentle, placid way. Ostensibly, it was the reluctant, hesitant response of a man who regretted having to drop another in trouble.

  ‘The council I planned to oversee? After these wretched Goths have been dealt with? After I have entered Constantinople to a triumph, as a victor… as his lord?’ An Ecumenical Council was a rare and coveted forum to philosophise over God. To take part, one had to possess a truly sparkling intellect. To lead such talks was the province of the empire’s supreme leader. He had planned just how he would direct the discussion: reinforcing Ambrosius’ teachings – of how penitence could compensate for any sin. Any sin at all. He pricked the pad of this thumb with the fang-ring. A spot of blood arose on his smooth skin.

  ‘Yes,’ Ambrosius said, his voice sibilant, now like a snake shedding its skin, glad to see the other man’s troubles swell. ‘In defiance of your explicit instructions.’

  Gratian set down his wine and slapped his palms together, the loud clap startling and silencing the knot of priests, who fell silent. One of them somehow had not heard, and – with the saintliest expression – continued on to the next line of the hymn, only to then realise and curtail his warbling with an unconvincing cough and a worried look around him.

  ‘There is little we can do, Domine,’ said Merobaudes, standing near the tent flap like a shadow. ‘We are over a month away from the Goths’ camp. That matter must have all our attentions.’

  ‘There is little I can not do, General,’ Gratian growled. You would do well to remember that, you wretched hound! he added inwardly. His eyes fell upon the mother and boy sitting in the semi-gloom behind Merobaudes, huddled closer together. At once, the giant Frank bristled, his iron coat clanking, and he stepped almost imperceptibly to one side, breaking Gratian’s line of sight. It was the act of a guardian, a shield.

  Gratian leaned left to see the pair again. ‘Come, Stepbrother,’ he cooed, looking at the lad, patting one arm of the couch like a man beckoning a toddler.

  Valentinian rose from the stool by his mother’s side. He was ten now, but still slender and of no great height. But damn, he was handsome like his mother, thought Gratian, and seemed to be developing the formidable look of their father – square-jawed and with a look of extreme concentration, dark brown curls framing his pale face, a white circlet on his brow. The lad had none of their father’s presence, however, he assured himself. Caesar of Italia and Africa, Gratian’s
deputy, perhaps, but in name only. He would never be an emperor. The boy’s trainers had told Gratian of his noble ideas and of his nous in battlefield studies. More, they spoke of his extreme skill with the sword – a finer soldier than Father had been at the same age, they claimed. Yet he was meek and of few words, the boy refused to shoot even rabbits when they hunted together. And the trainers? They had been quartered and fed to the dogs.

  The boy took a step towards the couch. Merobaudes again sidestepped as if to halt him. In response, Gratian raised a languid finger and the Alani flanking him braced likewise, awaiting the emperor’s order. At this, his mother rose, placing a hand on Merobaudes’ iron shoulder. ‘Enough of these silly games,’ she trilled, worry lacing her words. She urged Valentinian on towards Gratian.

  Gratian retracted his raised finger. ‘I’m impressed, Justina,’ he purred towards the woman, who sat down again, knitting and unknitting her fingers anxiously as she watched on. ‘Your mother has learned, Stepbrother,’ Gratian said, reaching out to stroke and tuck the boy’s hair behind one ear as he sat on the arm of the couch. ‘Perhaps, in time, others will too… before it is too late.’ From the corner of his eye he saw Merobaudes trembling with anger. The lumbering Frank had taken it upon himself to protect the boy during the storm of assassinations that swept the West after Father had died. You both shield him and use him as a shield! Your blood is Frankish and foul, and you will never hold station higher than you have now. My stepbrother’s life relies upon you and you on his. It was true: without Merobaudes, Valentinian would have fallen at the hand of his assassins after Father died; without Valentinian, Merobaudes would have no recognised imperial heir to call his patron. The Frank and the other generals of the West who supported Valentinian’s place as Caesar were supportive of Gratian’s reign only as long as Valentinian was allowed his place too. That will have to change, Gratian thought. That badly-stacked tower will have to fall.