The young tribune's teeth flashed in a grin. 'Yes, sir.'
'Good.' Cerialis knotted the kerchief round his neck and replaced his helmet. 'Then you'll enjoy this.'
Ecenomolios parted the screen of bracken as gently as he would have done to watch a deer drink at a pool. The Romans were coming sweet as a partridge to a snare: half one of their precious Eagles, the Corieltauvian messenger had said, and three hundred horse. He could see the leader clearly, a big man armoured and crested like a gilded bird. That would be Cerialis, the legate: full of himself as a dog with two tails, the Corieltauvian had told him, and as ready to bite. Behind him was the legion's Eagle, wings spread wide. Ecenomolios knew enough of Roman custom to understand its value. The loss of an Eagle would mean more to Rome than the loss of a battle. Also, it would prove to the tribes that the Wolves could be beaten.
Ecenomolios smiled to himself as his fingers closed round the hilt of his sword, stroking the worn leather. The sword had been his father's, and his father's father's, and when he set his ear to its blade he could hear it whispering of the heads it had taken.
‘Today you will take more heads,’ he told it softly. ‘Better: today you will take an Eagle.’
He looked back at the column. Its solid line was dividing, the cavalry moving ahead and opening a space between itself and the infantry. Ecenomolios's smile widened. A divided army was a weakened army. The Corieltauvian could have added stupidity to the legate's failings.
He waited until the last of the cavalry had long disappeared over the rise and, far to the right, the tail-end of the infantry column had passed what would be the edge of his hidden right wing. Cerialis, now, would be a good mile off, and the cavalry with him. It was time to spring the trap.
Ecenomolios rose to his feet with a yell. A heartbeat later, the woods on either side of the road erupted and twenty thousand Icenian warriors were pouring across the clear stretch of ground between the forest and the now isolated legion, swamping it.
The sound of bugles and the deeper, harsher braying of the British war-horns wrenched Cerialis round in his saddle. For a moment the sheer impossibility of the attack numbed him.
‘Jupiter!’ he whispered. ‘Sweet holy Jupiter!’
It needed all his training to stave off the freezing panic and bring his mind back to cool rationality. His tactics were clear. The hundred yards' stretch between ditch and trees had been stripped of vegetation for just such an eventuality, and it would have allowed the infantry precious time to adopt what defensive measures they could. Also, it would give the cavalry the space they needed to regroup, sweep up the wings and attack the enemy's unguarded flank and rear.
If they were unguarded...
With the thought, the panic flooded back.
The cavalry. Three hundred horse. Three hundred bloody horse, half the legion's strength, that's all we have! If the beggars have attacked in force with cavalry support of their own we won't need just tactics, we'll need a miracle...
He shook his head to clear it. He had no option. Back there his legion was dying already...
'Bugler!' he snapped. 'Cavalry to the wings, wide order! Stay with me!'
He set his horse at the ditch as the man blew the first notes. The sudden thunder of hooves was deafening. Obedient to the signal, the cavalry were moving, peeling away from the road on either side. They wheeled in a long curve and halted with parade-ground exactness, two lines deep, a spear's length between horses, poised and waiting for the next command.
Thank the gods at least for army discipline, Cerialis thought, calmer now. If the infantry had kept their heads and held the defensive line of the ditch at the road's edge they might win through yet.
The aquilifer had followed with the Eagle. He sat his horse waiting, the bugler beside him, his dour, competent face impassive beneath the snarling wolf-mask that covered his helmet. That was something else to be grateful for. Cerialis felt the cold sweat break out down his spine at the thought of the legion's Eagle in enemy hands. To lose an Eagle was the ultimate disgrace, the one unforgivable crime a general could commit. He had acted, he knew, with incredible – culpable – stupidity, but the Eagle at least was safe. It must remain so at all costs. Without its Eagle the legion was dead.
So, militarily and politically, was its legate.
'Stay close, Centurion!' he said to the aquilifer. 'Bugler! Sound the advance!'
The line of cavalry swept back up the road towards the beleaguered legion.
. . .
Cerialis halted as he crested the rise. The marching column had vanished. In its place was a heaving mass of painted warriors that spread out along the line of the road and half way to the flanking trees almost as far as he could see.
Thousands. There must be thousands, tens of thousands. Sweet holy Jupiter..!
Three cohort standards were still aloft, but even as he watched one of them dipped and fell. He felt sick. There was nothing he could do. Nothing.
The legion was already gone.
His fist tightened on the reins and came down hard on his horse's neck. The animal started and shifted sideways, its ears laid back.
'Sir?'
'What?' Cerialis looked round, his mind a blank. The young tribune, Gaius Opimius, had reined in behind him.
'Do we attack, sir?' The tribune's horse – a patrician's stallion, small-headed and fine-boned – was twitching with excitement after its interrupted gallop. The same could be said of Opimius himself. He was bright-eyed and the knuckles of his right hand were white on the hilt of his sabre.
'What with?' As Cerialis watched, the two remaining standards disappeared. 'Don't be a fool.'
'But, sir, we can't just –!'
'Use your eyes, boy! There's no point. We might cut our way through but there would be no one to rescue and no way back.'
Opimius's jaw tightened with an audible snap as discipline took over. He jerked back savagely on his horse's rein. A speck of foam from the bit splashed his thigh. 'Very well,' he said. 'Then what do we do exactly, sir? Run?'
'Gods alive!' Cerialis's face had flushed, but he kept his voice calm. 'Tribune, you may be allowed the luxury of heroism, but I am not, and I won't throw lives away unnecessarily. Do you understand me?'
'Yes, sir. Perfectly.' Opimius's face was wooden. He saluted smartly, pulled his horse's head round and trotted back towards the waiting lines.
Cerialis frowned. He didn't blame Opimius: the fault was his, and no doubt he would answer for it. Well, it was done. All he could do now was save what was left of his command and send a message to Paullinus.
To Paullinus, and to the Colony. The Colony would have to take its own chances now, and he did not rate them highly.
'Opimius!' he snapped. 'Here, please! 'The tribune came forward again, his lips still set in a hard line. ‘Take ten men. You're to ride to the Colony. Tell them what's happened and that they must look to their own defence. Then London. Give Procurator Catus my compliments and ask him to send as many troops north as he can. Also to raise levies from King Cogidubnus's Regni.' He was clutching at straws and he knew it: Catus had only two auxiliary cohorts, and he would not leave London undefended. And when the troops came – if they came – it would only be to find the Colony a gutted shell. Still, the effort had to be made. And at least the emperor's crony Opimius Nerva would have a better chance of seeing his only son and heir again.
'Sir, I'd prefer to –' Opimius began.
'Do as you're bloody well told!' Cerialis wheeled his horse away. 'Bugler!' The man rode up, his face devoid of expression. That was to be expected, too, Cerialis thought grimly: it was all a general who had just lost his army deserved. 'Sound Form Wedge! Cavalry to the Eagle!'
It was, he knew, the only hope left. The Iceni were still busy with the last of the infantry, and up to now their arrival had gone unnoticed. His eyes scanned the battlefield. The line of the road led through its centre, and it was blocked by a solid-packed mass of bodies, living and dead. To go that way would be suicide
. To the north-east the press was thinner. A determined charge at the gallop in wedge formation might force a passage before the natives could rally and swamp them by sheer numbers. Once through, the road was clear back to Dercovium.
Might be clear. If there was no second Icenian army; or, worse still, a fresh force of Corieltauvi, moving south. And if the Corieltauvi had risen behind him then there might no longer be a Dercovium to return to...
So many ifs. He didn't know! He just did not know!
They had been seen: the bugler's signal to the cavalry had been answered by the hoarse booming of the native war-horns and the Icenian army was shifting like corn-heads in a gale. From the roar of fury that carried even above the noise of the battle Cerialis knew that unless he moved now, and quickly, it would be too late
'Aquilifer!'
The man took up position at his right knee, the pole of the Eagle standard set firm in its sheath against his horse's flank. Cerialis lifted his hand and with a silent prayer to whatever god would bother listening to him now brought it down in a chopping slash.
Ecenomolios was leaning on his shield, his grin stiff under its mask of paint and blood. His father's sword was dyed red, and he could feel it purr like a contented cat. He stroked it absently. All around, as far as he could see, dead Wolves lay piled in heaps. Several of the warriors were already stripping them of their arms or hacking heads from necks to fasten to their shields.
Camulos, that had been a fight! One that the storytellers would remember for a hundred years. A thousand.
The sound of a Roman bugle and the answering boom of his own war-horns brought him back to himself. He turned. The Wolves' cavalry were streaming up from the south in a solid body, the Eagle at their head.
The Eagle...
Ecenomolios straightened, his weariness forgotten. Yelling to his guard to follow, he plunged into the press, forcing his way through the compacted mass of warriors that lay between him and the battle's edge. He knew long before he reached it that he was too late. As he watched, the wedge-shaped body of horse cut through the army's thin flank like an axe-blow, then swept on towards the safety of the open country beyond.
He stood staring after them for a long time. Then he shrugged and turned away. He was a realist. He might have lost the Eagle, but the Wolves had lost an army. And there was nothing, now, between his warriors and the Colony.
Ecenomolios pulled a handful of grass and began to clean the blood from his sword.
32
In the yard of Adaucius Montanus's house, Albilla was watching Ursina unpack the contents of the coach.
'Father says there's no real danger,' she said.
'Oh, I'm sure he's right.' Ursina was pulling at the chest in which she had packed the family plate. 'Titus always looks on the black side.' The chest shifted. 'Trinnus, take this to Montanus for me, please.'
Albilla moved aside to let the coachman through. 'But you're still leaving the villa,' she said.
'It's best to be safe.' Ursina dusted her hands on her cloak. 'And we are very isolated out there. I've told Titus time and time again in the past, but you know him; he never listens.'
'You'd have been welcome to stay with us. We've plenty of room.'
'And have Titus sharing a roof with your father? No, thank you, dear. He's difficult enough at the best of times.'
'I don't think Father would've minded.' Albilla gave a pale smile. 'And Mother would be delighted.'
'I'm sure she would,' Ursina said drily.
Albilla laughed. 'She isn't that bad, is she?'
'Of course not.' Ursina pulled a double armful of book-cylinders from the coach. 'Albilla, I'm grateful for your offer of help today, but I assumed you meant the practical variety. Here. Carry some of these.'
'Actually, I'd thought more in terms of supervising.' Albilla was still grinning.
'Disillusionment is a terrible thing in the young.'
Albilla's grin widened. She liked Ursina. Her own mother would never have said something like that with such a straight face. And Bellicia would certainly not demean herself by carrying books.
'What about the slaves?' she said. 'Can't they do it?'
'These are Titus's babies.' Ursina was resting her chin on the top of her own half of the pile. 'He won't even let Trinnus touch them. Now stop complaining, or we’ll never be finished.'
The front gate opened on to a verandah surrounding the garden. Montanus's house was small only by Albilla's standards, and since the death of his wife two years before he had occupied it alone. Apart from the kitchen, the south wing was self-contained, and there was a small room for Aper to use as a study. They carried the books there and laid them carefully on the couch.
There was a knock at the door. and Adaucius Montanus came in, shuffling between his sticks.
'Trinnus brought me your box, Ursina,' he said. 'I had him put it in the strongroom. You have everything you need otherwise?'
'Yes, thank you, Quintus.' Ursina straightened. 'We're very grateful.'
'Nonsense. I appreciate the company.' He shifted painfully. 'Titus not back yet?'
'No, but he had business over at the Residence. I expect he's been delayed. He shouldn't be long.'
'Then we'll wait dinner a while yet. You'll join us, Albilla?'
'If you don't mind. That'd be lovely.' Albilla looked sideways at Ursina. 'Business about the revolt?'
'So I'd imagine.' Ursina was putting the books into a small book-chest. Her voice was carefully neutral.
'Father says it'll be over in a day or so,' Albilla said. 'Petilius Cerialis is bringing the Ninth down from Dercovium. And the procurator's sending troops from London.'
'He's a good man, Cerialis.' Montanus smiled at her. 'I shouldn't worry. Your father's probably right.' He turned to 'Ursina ‘I've given orders to bring in extra braziers. This part of the house can be cold in the evenings.'
'You're spoiling us.'
'Not at all.' Montanus paused. 'Have you heard anything from Marcus, by the way?'
'One letter since Mona.' Ursina closed the lid of the book-chest. 'Marcus is no writer. And the military life seems to suit him.'
'Does it, indeed?' Montanus looked at Albilla. 'I'm surprised.' His eyes twinkled. 'When's the wedding?'
'As soon as the campaign's over.' Albilla felt her cheeks flush. Her fingers strayed to the pendant at her throat: the gold coin which she had bought for Marcus's birthday. 'The fighting's finished, of course, but the governor wants to –'
She broke off as the door opened and Aper came in.
'Ah, Titus,' Montanus said. 'You're back. Dinner'll be in about half an hour, if that's all right.'
'Fine.' Aper took off his cloak and, turning round so his back was to them, hung it carefully on one of the wall-pegs. 'Thank you.'
'Titus, what's wrong?' Ursina said quietly.
Albilla glanced at her, then at Montanus. They had both gone very still.
'A messenger's come from Cerialis.' Aper's hand brushed at the cloak, straightening its folds. 'His senior tribune. The Ninth was ambushed this side of Duroliponte and the infantry massacred.'
Albilla felt her knees begin to shake and she sat down heavily on the reading couch.
'Sweet Jupiter!' Montanus whispered.
'All of them?' Ursina looked, suddenly, old. 'The whole legion?'
Aper turned round. His face, like his voice, was devoid of expression. 'Aye,' he said. 'All he brought with him, anyway. Three thousand out of the five. They were in marching column without cavalry support, and the Iceni took them by surprise. By the time Cerialis got back there was nothing he could do. He's taken the cavalry back to Dercovium.'
'Then we're on our own,' Albilla said. To her own ears her voice seemed to come from very far away. 'There's no army coming after all.' Suddenly, she giggled.
'Albilla, stop it!' Ursina snapped.
'So, Titus.' Montanus, too, had sat down, on the stool beside the desk. 'What do we do now?'
'What we can. There are still the ve
terans, plus the auxiliaries attached to the port. And Catus's two hundred infantry arrived this morning.'
'Two hundred?' Montanus stared at him. 'Gods, man, is that all he sent? He has two full cohorts!'
'Catus has London to protect. And London's merchants.' Albilla could detect no bitterness in Aper's voice, only a weary resignation. 'He has his own priorities.'
'Yes. Well, that's true enough.' Montanus was frowning. 'I suppose we're lucky to get that many. If the damned council had had its way – ' He stopped, with a glance at Albilla. 'Well. Never mind that now. It can't be helped.'
Albilla shook her head. She felt lost. 'What about the governor?’ she said. ‘He'll send us troops when he gets the news, surely?'
The two men looked at each other without speaking.
'It'll take a messenger six days to reach Mona, dear,' Ursina said gently. 'And more than twice that again for the legions to get here, even if they set out at once. I'm sorry, but that's too long. Paullinus can't help us. Or not soon.'
'Then we're dead.' Albilla put her knuckles to her teeth and bit hard, trying to choke back the scream building up inside her. 'We're all dead.'
'Nonsense, girl!' Aper grunted. 'All it means is that we have to hold out until he gets here. They're only a pack of natives, after all.'
'That's not what you told my father!'
'Listen to me, Albilla!' Aper's hands reached out to grip her shoulders. 'We're not helpless. We've two thousand veterans in the Colony and more than half a regular infantry cohort. Aye, the rebels outnumber us but their fighting strength isn't a quarter of their size. Better, they've been lucky, and because of that they'll be overconfident. We can beat them, and we will.'
Albilla took a deep breath. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'It's just –' A sob caught at her throat. 'Don't mind me. Of course we'll win.’'
The Horse Coin Page 21