The Last of the Romans

by Derek Birks

  “I’m no Frank,” grumbled Germanus.

  “All you lot look the same to me,” said the guard.

  “We’ve been released now,” replied Varta, moving closer, as he clapped the belligerent Germanus on the back. “So, we’re all on the same side.”

  Taking no chances, both guards raised their spears.

  “Steady, fellow!” cried Varta, his bare chest almost at the point of the spear. “We’re not trying to cause offence!”

  He smiled and, though the guard did not return his smile, he lowered his weapon a fraction.

  Still smiling, Varta made a sudden lunge, seizing the spear just below the blade and pulled hard on it, to swing the guard around into his comrade, with whom Germanus was already grappling. In a few moments, both guards lay disarmed and out cold.

  “Varta?” Ambrosius called softly from the other side of the rampart.

  Peering over the edge of the rampart, Varta squinted down at him in the darkness.

  “You made enough noise,” complained Ambrosius.

  “You want to stay in that cage a bit longer, Dux?” enquired Varta.

  “Just get the damned door open!”

  Clambering down onto the top of the cage, Varta cut the leather ties that held shut a small opening in the top. Then he reached down to clasp Ambrosius by the arm and pulled his leader out and up onto the rampart.

  For the first time, Ambrosius grinned at him. “Thanks, old friend… but are the men at the gate? Shouldn’t I be hearing the clamour of fighting by now from the gatehouse, or the courtyard? Shouldn’t the Franks at least be inside the fort by now?”

  Varta and Germanus exchanged a glance, knowing he was right. The simplest of plans, thought Varta…

  “You’d better get down there and see what’s gone wrong,” ordered Ambrosius. “We’re hardly dressed for combat, but take what you can from these two. I’ll fetch my family and bring them down to you.”

  They watched him snatch up a spatha from one of the fallen guards and hurry along towards the far end of the rampart.

  “Do you think he knows where he’s going?” asked Germanus.

  “He ought to,” said Varta, leading them off back the way they had come. “I doubt much has changed since he lived here!”

  When they returned to the courtyard below, they came to an abrupt halt. At first, all seemed as it should be: several guards lay on the cobbles before the gate - which stood wide open – and beside it, his comrades waited.

  “Where are the Franks?” asked Varta when he joined them. “The gates are open, so where are the sodding Franks?”

  “Oh, they’re out there,” replied Xallas. “They’re sitting on their arses about fifty feet from the gate.”

  “What? Why?” hissed Germanus. “Why would they do that?”

  After a long silence, Varta gave voice to what each of them already knew.

  “Because,” he said, with a heavy sigh, “their commander, that cunning, little bastard, Childeric, is waiting for the Roman guards to kill most of us before he saunters in to slaughter them. He doesn’t want a share of the victory; he wants all of it… and he wants every Roman dead – including us.”

  “Clodoris won’t allow that!” argued Germanus.

  “But Clodoris isn’t here, is he?” Varta pointed out. “And, though he’s bound to keep his word to Dux, it might suit him rather better if Childeric does not…”

  “What do you mean?” asked Germanus. “We’re not their enemy!”

  “But that’s just it: for a lot of these Franks, we are the enemy: men paid by Rome and in the service of Rome – and we’re in their way…”

  “But we’re trying to leave!” protested Xallas.

  “So what do we do?” asked Rocca.

  “We’ll have to give that little shit no choice – force him to come in now!” said Varta.

  “I’m a simple man,” grumbled Xallas. “Just tell me what to do, Varta, and I’ll do it!”

  “God’s hammer! It’ll be starting to get light soon,” muttered Varta.

  “So?” said Xallas.

  Grim-faced, Varta told them: “You want something to do? Well, go and close those gates!”

  “But Marco and the others will be shut out,” murmured Xallas.

  “You’re not actually going to close the gate, Xallas; just make it look as if you are,” explained Varta. “We need the breach to happen now - before a few more of the garrison wander along to relieve their comrades, find an open gate and only us to argue with!”

  Jumping up from his place of concealment, Xallas went to the gates and put his shoulder against the left hand door. Rocca ran out to help and between them they slammed one half of the wooden gates shut. A moment later a spear flew through the remaining gap and clattered across the courtyard.

  “I think we’ve got their attention,” remarked Varta, nodding in satisfaction.

  Now Childeric would have to advance on the gate, or risk losing access to the fort altogether – a disaster which he would find most difficult to explain to Clodoris.

  “As soon as we’re sure the Franks are actually coming in,” said Varta, “we’ll go for Dux and his family. Then, with luck, the Franks and the imperial guard will fight themselves into a bloody tangle! And by then, Marco will have brought up the rest of our comrades.”

  “They’re running to the gate now,” reported Xallas.

  “Thought they might be,” murmured Varta. “Come on then, lads, time to move. We don’t want to get caught between them.”

  With an impressive lack of subtlety, the Franks roared as they attacked the still-open gate. Almost at once, Varta heard warning cries from along the rampart as the Roman defenders realised they were under attack. As Varta led his comrade back up the steps to the rampart, the Franks, with another mighty roar, poured into the fort. He reckoned that the sound of the attack alone would be causing considerable alarm amongst those defending the fort. Once they realised that their gate was open and wholly undefended, they would be seized by panic.

  “Where now?” wheezed Cappa, unused to so much exertion.

  Lethal if a knife blade in the shadows was required, Cappa – unlike all the others - was not a battlefield soldier.

  “The palace!” replied Varta. “That’s where Dux has gone! So, keep up!”

  By the time the first of the Franks passed into the courtyard by the barracks, Varta and his friends were already racing towards the palace. Before they reached it, however, several of the imperial scutarii appeared. Clearly they had just been roused from their slumber by the sudden assault on the gate, for several were still donning their armour.

  Since there was no sign of Puglio, Varta tried deception.

  “We’re under attack!” he cried. “Get to the gate – the Franks are already inside the fort!”

  But the scutarii were not to be so easily fooled.

  “We don’t take our orders from shits like you,” retorted one, drawing out his spatha. “Bugger the Franks! You’re the scum we came for!”

  Varta’s face broke into a fierce grin and he growled: “Go on then: try buggering this Frank!”

  Though the scutarii were tough, they were no match for Dux’s men; but there were more than enough of them to hold the bucellarii up. Varta soon realised that getting past them was taking far too long – especially since, in a few moments, there could well be a host of Franks surging up behind them. In all the time Varta had served with Ambrosius, he could not recall being embroiled in such a ludicrous struggle: scutarii ahead of them and Franks behind, with a Roman garrison scattered around for good measure! Hours before, he saw the Franks as his allies; were they now his foes? Yet, one thing was certain: the scutarii were most definitely his enemies!

  His fighting spirit fuelled by anger and frustration, Varta battled harder to drive back the scutarii and, when two of their number were badly wounded, the rest decided to fall back. With a shout of triumph, Varta watched them retreat into the nearby streets, allowing the bucellarii to make for
the palace entrance.

  “Xallas, Germanus, watch our backs as we go in! I don’t want those bastards up our arses later. We have to move faster now – Dux is on his own and, with the scutarii on the move, he could be in trouble!”

  21

  November 454 just before dawn, in the Palace at Caracotinum

  When he burst into the palace building through its ancient doorway, Ambrosius anticipated being met by Magnus’ guards, but no-one challenged him. Passing through a vestibule, he expected to enter the colonnaded courtyard he remembered, but inside he came to a stunned halt, for it was a courtyard no longer. Instead he was standing in a large chamber with a raised dais at the far end and banners hanging upon the walls. Remembering what Lucidia had told him, he recognised the room at once as an audience hall, for he had seen such chambers in Ravenna and several other cities across the empire.

  Here, the humble folk of Caracotinum would come to pay their homage to Comes Aurelius Honorius Magnus and thus did rich men make themselves richer still. Shaking his head in disgust, Ambrosius spat on the fine mosaic floor, before turning on his heel and heading up the main stairway. Hurrying through the first-floor chambers, he searched in vain for Lucidia.

  After a few minutes, he despaired of ever finding her and, abandoning all caution, shouted her name aloud. He crashed through door after door until he came to a large triclinium. Once again, the opulence of the room astonished him: such a large, formal dining room was usually the preserve of the most high-born. With its several apses and padded semi-circular couches, it must have accommodated as many as thirty diners. Small round tables bore silver platters and bowls; painted glass goblets were littered about the chamber. He gasped to see the rich hangings which adorned the walls and the mass of intricately interlocking colours that made up the stunning floor mosaic.

  A moment later, he was face to face with his father who entered from an adjacent room. Around him two slaves fussed to attach his breastplate but, seeing his son, Magnus pushed them aside and drew out his sword.

  “Is the attack on my town your doing, boy?” he snarled. “I should have known the tribune was right about you – a damned traitor to Rome! By letting in your Frankish friends, you've betrayed all true Romans!”

  “True Romans? I don’t even know what that means anymore,” murmured Ambrosius.

  “Pah! I don’t think you ever did!” declared Magnus, “But, whatever you intended, I promise you, you’ll be dead before it happens!”

  “We don't have long,” replied Ambrosius, ignoring his father’s threats. “If you surrender to me now, I can save the garrison!”

  “A few hours in that cage must have addled your mind, boy, if you think I’d surrender to you! I wouldn't give my sword to you if there were a thousand Franks inside this town!”

  “All the Franks want is the port!”

  “The Franks want it all, you fool!” was Magnus’ savage reply.

  Alerted by the pounding of footsteps along the passages outside, Ambrosius turned to the doorway and saw a fully-armed soldier - sword in hand and breastplate slick with blood.

  “Petro?” murmured Ambrosius, but his half-brother, Aurelius Honorius Petro, barely glanced in his direction.

  “We're being overrun, father!” he announced.

  “Then get back out there and lead the fight!” bellowed Magnus. “I’ve a traitor to deal with...”

  “There are too many, father… perhaps we should seek terms,” suggested Petro, the strain showing in the high pitch of his voice.

  “Terms?” Magnus took an incredulous step towards him. “You just go down into those streets and kill some more of those whoreson Franks! You hear me, boy? We’re betrayed – by your precious little brother!”

  “Petro!” cried Ambrosius. “There’s a way out of this!”

  But his brother, unable to challenge his father’s iron will, had already turned away to return to the struggle in the narrow streets.

  With the sounds of the battle below growing louder every moment, Ambrosius faced Magnus again. “You must give up the fort! Think of your daughters! I can still save-”

  Only his warrior instinct saved him from his father’s sword, snaking out at his bare torso; but, even so, he barely turned the blade aside in time.

  “You think you can take me, boy?” Magnus hurled the words at him in disgust. “Think again!”

  When the older man's weapon lunged at Ambrosius again, it came so fast that he failed to evade it a second time and it sliced against his unprotected side. Though the cut was shallow, it was enough to confirm what he had always known: Magnus would never yield the fort: not to the Franks and certainly not to his estranged son. Ambrosius had only tried to persuade his father for the sake of Petro and his sisters. But the brutal rebuff came as no surprise for a final reckoning with his father had been inevitable from the start.

  “You aren’t worthy of the rank of ‘Dux’!” roared Magnus, chopping at his son's head. “You’re a disgrace to this noble Roman family!”

  Though Ambrosius ducked in time to evade the next blow, another followed it, arrowing at his chest; that too was pursued by a wild, venom-charged slash at his shoulder. With only a flimsy loin cloth for protection, a single mistake was very likely to be the death of him. But before he could catch his breath, the room suddenly began to fill with people.

  First, Petro, with arms ever more bloodied, ushered in his elder sister, Florina; then Lucidia was propelled in by a man he had seen the previous afternoon at Magnus’ side in the courtyard – his sister’s would-be husband, Gaius, he guessed. Following in their wake, was a small group of frantic servants shepherded in by several members of the Roman garrison.

  This then was what his betrayal had wrought; far from brokering a peace between Roman and Frank, as he had hoped, he had plunged the two sides into a brutal struggle for supremacy. If the younger Franks were not so determined to kill Romans, or if Magnus was not so intransigent, it might have been different. If…

  A glance at his sister Florina gave him no encouragement for her face was flushed with anger. Staring at him with undisguised contempt, but not a trace of fear, she yelled at her father. “Just kill him and be done with it!”

  “Get them all out of here, Petro!” shouted Magnus, standing off Ambrosius.

  “But where, father?” cried Petro, in alarm. “There's nowhere to go! There are Franks everywhere!”

  It only added to the confusion, when Puglio hurtled in with four of his scutarii.

  Magnus raged at his fellow officer. “You should be below, defending the town!”

  With a mirthless shake of the head, Puglio pointed at Ambrosius. “Your precious town is lost, Magnus – and all because of your own son’s treachery. So, if you don’t mind, I'll just remove the head I was promised and then we’ll take our chances down at the harbour.”

  For a moment, there was an impasse: all stood staring at each other, with weapons raised; waiting for someone else to break the spell. They might have lingered there even longer had not half a dozen Franks thundered into the room to put an abrupt end to the stalemate. Unfettered by any doubts, they leapt at the Romans, their wild spathas carving though the air.

  While the few garrison soldiers, aided by Puglio and the scutarii, attempted to beat back the Franks, Magnus - seemingly oblivious to his deadly predicament – launched another assault upon Ambrosius. Around the circling father and son, men butchered each other, while the women and servants cowered behind the bolstered couches, shrieking their terror. Silverware was slapped aside and glasses shattered, while the floor mosaic was decorated anew by splashes of blood.

  Driven back by Magnus, Ambrosius found himself for an instant next to Puglio, who was busy bludgeoning down one of the Franks.

  “You're next, Dux!” warned the tribune. “I don’t care who kills you – as long as I get that big, hairy head off your shoulders!”

  Ambrosius absorbed every detail of the intricate scene being played out around him. Surveying the chamber as if
it was a great fighting arena, he saw at once that the Franks would be no match for Puglio’s scutarii. They would put up a brave resistance but, unless they were reinforced, one by one, they would be cut down. When that was done and all distractions were removed, he would have to face his father and the scutarii alone; Puglio would no doubt be rewarded with the head he so craved.

  In another part of the room, one of the remaining Franks, a young warrior no older than Childeric, managed to fight his way to where the women waited. Knowing he was hopelessly outnumbered, he probably reckoned that he could keep the Romans at bay by holding one of the high-born women as a hostage. It was a sound idea, thought Ambrosius, for if the youth could hold out – perhaps even for a few more minutes - his Frank comrades might just arrive in time to rescue him.

  Casually disembowelling a servant who dared to stray into his path, the Frank wrapped a bloodstained arm around Lucidia’s waist and dragged her away with him. Hastening to her rescue, Lucidia’s intended, Gaius, managed to pull her roughly aside, but as she scrambled away, the speed and fire of Gaius’ youthful opponent overpowered him. Slashing his spatha across the Roman’s neck, the Frank was rewarded by a sudden, bright gush from his opponent’s torn throat.

  By the time Gaius’ lifeless fingers relinquished their grip on his sword, Ambrosius was already moving. Keeping a close eye on Puglio, he retreated before another onslaught from Magnus. As he watched Lucidia attempt to crawl away across the bloodied floor, Ambrosius saw the youth once more catch hold of her. Desperate to get to her, he turned about to batter Magnus backwards, before making a dart towards the Frank.

  “Leave her!” he roared at the youth, who was holding Lucidia before him like a shield. “Clodoris agreed my family were not to be touched!”

  When a sudden lunge from Magnus almost killed him, Ambrosius hacked back at his father, forcing him to give ground.

  “Release her!” he ordered the Frank.

  “If I do, I’m a dead man!” declared the youth. “You know that!”

  “Release her and I’ll give you your life!”

  With a shake of his head, the Frank cried: “My life’s not yours to give, Roman!”