Swords Around the Throne

by Ian Ross

  But the following dawn brought a sight to gladden the heart. Bright sun, a breeze driving off the last of the river mist that rose from the damp turf, and, all around, the field army of the emperor mustered for a new campaign. Thousands of leather tents in regular rows, horse lines and entrenchments, the shout of the sentries, the call of the trumpets from the command enclosure. Here, Castus knew, was the antidote to his foul mood. Here, and in the warfare to come.

  By mid-morning the troops were assembled on the broad, level field beyond the camp ground. The British detachments had been the last to arrive at the muster, and joined similar detachments from each of the Rhine legions: I Minervia and XXX Ulpia Victrix, VIII Augusta and XXII Primigenia, I Martia and I Flavia Gallicana. Together they fielded almost five thousand heavy infantry, brigaded together with the irregular numeri of auxilia: the Batavi and Mattiaci, Frisiavones and Menapii, the Tungrian and Nervian archers. With the cavalry troopers of Equites Promoti, Mauri, Dalmati and Primo Sagittarii, the army mustered over ten thousand strong.

  In the breeze the draco banners streamed against the clean-washed sky. From his position in the ranks with his men, Castus gazed along the lines of brightly painted shields, the glinting and glimmering of mail and scale armour, burnished helmets, honed spearheads. Trumpets rang out the imperial salute, and the assembled troops began throwing up their arms and cheering in acclamation. Castus cheered with them, feeling the lingering remorse and anxiety punching out of him with every breath.

  ‘Imperator Augustus! Imperator Augustus! Imperator Augustus!’

  The emperor rode onto the muster ground at the head of his mounted bodyguard of Comites and Equites Scutarii, followed by his senior officers and the officials of the imperial household. Castus had not seen Constantine for nearly two years, ever since the strange and intoxicating days in Eboracum when the emperor had first been acclaimed by the troops after his father’s death. Back then, it had been hard to think of him as more than the tribune he had been. Now, Castus thought, Constantine looked in every way an emperor.

  He rode slowly, on a powerful grey warhorse. His cuirass was gilded, glowing in the sun, and his purple cloak was woven with gold. A soldier rode behind him carrying his helmet, gold set with gemstones and decked with peacock-feather plumes. Constantine sat stiff in the saddle, barely moving his head to acknowledge the cheers as he rode between the ranks of his troops. His face looked flushed, raw-boned, his eyes deep-set.

  Castus stared at the emperor as he passed, almost willing him to turn and see him there in the ranks. He remembered a previous meeting, back in the basilica of the headquarters in Eboracum. Constantine had recognised him then; would he know him again? Impossible, surely. But, even knowing all that he did about the murky background to the imperial accession, Castus was struck with a sense of awe. Emperors, he had been taught to believe, were like gods on earth. And Constantine had certainly come to appear like a god.

  The imperial party reached the tribunal at the heart of the muster ground. Castus peered over the heads of his men, but could see little of the rituals that followed. Smoke rose from the altars, together with sounds of discordant trumpeting to deter evil spirits as the pig, sheep and bull were sacrificed to the gods of Rome. The omens were proclaimed as favourable, and then the standards were carried forward to the altar, to be anointed with the blood of the victims.

  As he watched, craning his neck, Castus picked out another figure among the imperial party. A very large man, powerfully built, but ageing. He stood to one side, bare-headed, with a white and gold cloak drawn around him. His features were heavy, and he wore a thick dark beard, greying around the jowls. Castus had never seen him before, but he appeared somehow familiar. He noticed the way that the men around him, even the high officials, appeared to defer to him, or perhaps draw back from him slightly. A nimbus of stern authority surrounded him.

  Now the emperor’s voice rolled out across the muster ground. The breeze stole away the words, but the troops did not need to hear them – they would learn soon enough what was expected of them. When the address was done the cheering commenced once more, and the last cries were still ringing across the churned turf as the imperial party mounted up and rode back towards the comforts of the city.

  ‘Two days from now,’ the tribune Jovianus announced, ‘our emperor will complete the bridge of boats across the Rhine and lead his field army against the Bructeri, the last of the Frankish tribes to remain in defiance of Rome. The intention is not only to punish them for daring to raid our provinces but to demonstrate the power of Roman arms to strike deeply into their lands, and break their power utterly.’

  Twelve men sat before him on folding stools; others stood at the rear of the tent: centurions, and some of the commanders of the auxilia units. Castus was glad to see there was no sign of Urbicus or the other Second Legion men. Jovianus was standing, his staff clasped behind his back. He looked well bathed, his hair freshly dressed, and he wore a clean white tunic embellished with silver.

  ‘The barbarians will not be surprised at our coming,’ he went on. ‘They have expected Roman vengeance for over a year now, and their scouts are watching from the eastern bank of the river. They will already have seen the preparations for the bridge of boats, and will be assembling to resist us and ambush our vanguard troops as they cross. But what will surprise them is the speed and strength of our attack – they are always accustomed to flee at the first onslaught, and take shelter in their tangled forests, but, like a bolt of lightning, we will outpace them and destroy them!’

  The tribune paused to allow his audience to digest what he had said. He clearly had aspirations, Castus reflected, to higher command – his style of speech suggested it. Through the open tent-flap came the late-afternoon sun and the sounds of camp life: men laughing as they gathered wood or cleaned weapons and equipment; lowing cattle; the distant neighing of horses from the cavalry lines. The familiar scent of the cooking fires too. Castus stared at the leather wall of the tent, as if he might be able to see through it. His empty stomach grunted and roiled.

  ‘To secure the bridgehead, therefore,’ Jovianus went on, ‘five hundred men of the Sixth Victrix and First Flavia Gallicana Legions, together with detachments of the Batavi and Mattiaci auxilia, will cross the river in small boats tomorrow night, three miles downstream. You will then make your way back southwards to the bridging area, and drive off any enemy force that you meet.’

  A stir of muffled comments passed between the assembled officers. Castus saw the scepticism in their faces. They were veteran soldiers, and knew all too well the hazards of a river crossing, a march and an assault by night. Jovianus twitched his jaw, waiting for silence, then broke in, raising his voice slightly.

  ‘The task will not be easy! Absolute discipline must be observed. The crossing must be accomplished in total silence, to avoid alerting the barbarian scouts to our stratagem. Once on the far bank of the river, the boat parties must assemble, maintain formation, and reach the enemy positions before dawn. Keep the river directly to your right and you will not stray. The night should be clear, so you will have the stars to guide you.’

  ‘And the moon to guide the Frankish scouts to us,’ Valens whispered. Jovianus paused a moment, as if daring anyone else to comment, then went on.

  ‘Your men will be lightly equipped, without armour, to move fast and silently. In order to sow confusion and terror among the barbarians, each century will move as a separate unit. In this way, you will attack the enemy at many points simultaneously, and make them believe that the entire Roman army has beset them. When all enemy forces have been routed from the far side of the river, you will signal using trumpets, then the engineers will complete the construction of the bridge and the army will commence crossing at first light.’

  Jovianus squared his shoulders, rocked back on his heels and inhaled through his nose, obviously very pleased with the plan. As if, Castus thought, he had devised it himself. Perhaps he had?

  ‘Remember!’ the tribu
ne declared. ‘The success of our assault depends on you, and your men. Our emperor is depending on you. Do not give the barbarians a chance to escape your swords, or to maintain their position on the river. Strike fast, with discipline and accuracy, like true Roman soldiers, and with the aid of the gods you will prevail!’

  The river appeared peaceful that evening, the broad expanse of water like burnished iron in the last of the sun. Like a well-forged sword blade, Castus thought as he watched the surface swirled and patterned by the deep, muscular currents beneath. The far bank was hazy, trees and thick undergrowth, no sign of human life at all. And in the distance wooded hills ranged across the horizon, smoky green and purple in the coming dusk.

  ‘How wide, do you reckon?’

  ‘Over two stades,’ Valens said. ‘Maybe near three. You could swim it, but I wouldn’t recommend it. That current’s slow, but it’s strong.’

  They were on the riverbank, a meadow of long grass running down to the trees and high thick reeds at the water’s edge. Valens bent to rub at the ears of his dog. He had found the lean grey creature in Bagacum and it had followed him from the town and all along the route of the march. Castus was wary of it: the animal looked mangy and half-wild, and he distrusted dogs.

  Out in the middle of the river, a hulk of floating timber cruised slowly downstream – an entire tree, it looked like, mostly submerged, rotted black. Not something to run into at night, Castus thought, in a small boat.

  ‘What do you know about the Bructeri?’ he asked. Valens had served in one of the Rhine legions before his promotion. His friend squatted beside his dog, chewing on an apple and squinting across at the barbarian shore.

  ‘They’re Franks,’ he said. ‘Most Franks live further downstream, in the marshes and the plains, but the Bructeri live in the hills and river valleys. Fiercest of them all, so I’ve heard. Their priests can work magic. They sacrifice their prisoners to dark gods, eat some of them... Keen archers, and they use poison on their arrows...’

  Castus glanced at him. It was often impossible to know whether Valens was joking or not. ‘We’ll find out about that soon enough,’ he said quietly.

  To his right, along the riverbank, Castus could see the muddy scar of the bridge-building operation. Engineers from the Eighth and Twenty-Second Legions had already driven tall wooden pilings into the bank and the shallows, and a mass of heavy flat-bottomed barges was drawn up along the shore and the slope that descended to the water. More barges would be moored upstream, and when the moment came they would be floated down with the current, each anchored and firmly secured as it arrived in position, then the timber trestles for the roadway laid across them. Castus had heard that the entire operation could be completed in half a day. He hoped he would be around to see it.

  There was artillery there too, each heavy ballista mounted on a platform and aimed across the river at the point the bridge would reach on the far shore. Were there really barbarian scouts across there now? Was that silent and placid-looking woodland teeming with hostile warriors, just waiting to attack the first men across the bridge? Strange to think so. Nobody in the Roman camp had seen anything moving on the far side of the river at all.

  A flight of geese flew slowly across the surface of the water, silently, vanishing into the dusk.

  ‘Who was the older man at the parade this morning?’ Castus asked. ‘Standing with the emperor and his party. He had a beard, red face.’

  ‘You don’t know?’ Valens said with a sideways smile. He took a big bite of his apple, chewed and swallowed.

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘That, my remarkably solid-headed friend, is the man whose image you saluted for thirteen years!’

  Castus blinked slowly, then looked back at the river. Of the four emperors who had ruled the Roman world when he had first become a soldier, he had seen three in the flesh: Diocletian and Galerius on the Danube and the Persian campaign, and Constantius in Britain. Only one was a stranger to him.

  ‘That was Maximian?’

  ‘Indeed it was. Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximianus, the Man like Hercules, formerly supreme Augustus of the western empire. Nowadays father-in-law of our own supreme Augustus, Constantine.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘He was commander-in-chief when I served with the First Minervia,’ Valens said with a shrug. ‘Still, it took me a while to recognise him. He looks so... old now. But it must take it out of a man, being driven away by your own son, having to go begging for shelter from your son-in-law...’ His friend had a crafty look, Castus thought. Some knowledge he wanted to share.

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘His son is Maxentius, the usurper who’s seized Rome,’ Valens said. ‘So Maxentius calls the old man out of retirement to help him run things – plus there’s an army advancing on the city, and he hopes having his father at his side’ll swing the enemy troops to his cause. It worked well enough – Maxentius saw off two expeditions against him, first by Flavius Severus and then by Galerius, and got his sister wedded to Constantine in a marriage pact.’

  For a moment Valens paused, listening to the quiet sounds of the river in the reeds. It felt grubby, even vaguely disloyal, Castus thought, to be discussing the affairs of emperors like this, but he wanted to know more.

  ‘Anyway,’ Valens went on in a lower voice, ‘it didn’t take long before father and son fell out about who was the top dog in Rome. Old Maximian thought he should be senior, but the Praetorians and the senate had acclaimed Maxentius first, so when his father tried to depose the son, they supported their man instead. There was a most undignified scene, a public quarrel, and Maximian had to run for his life.’

  ‘And he came back here?’

  Valens nodded slowly. ‘Can you credit that? This is the man who used to rule half the world, reduced to a fugitive, running for favours from his daughter’s husband. He expected, I suppose, that a lot of Constantine’s older officials would owe him their loyalty. He’s still a powerful man, in Gaul at least.’

  Castus said nothing. Part of him believed that such things were none of his concern. Another part recognised that anyone could see the danger in this situation.

  ‘And what’s his role here now? Maximian’s, I mean.’

  ‘Esteemed former Augustus? Imperial advisor-in-chief? Glorious father-in-law? Who knows?’ Valens stood upright and brushed the grass from his tunic. ‘I reckon Constantine wants to keep the old man close because he doesn’t trust what he might do otherwise. Praise him, honour him, and watch him as you watch a snake.’

  Castus stiffened, as if something had brushed the nape of his neck, and for a moment he feared a presentiment, some evil prophecy creeping from the gathering darkness. He shrugged it off. It was a memory; that was all: two years ago, in Britain, he had strayed dangerously close to the intrigues of empire. Since then his life, and his loyalties, had been simple.

  ‘Don’t worry, brother,’ Valens said. He tossed the apple core out into the water. ‘These matters are not for the likes of us. Tomorrow night we cross the river and face the barbarians – like the tribune said, the purity of the battle is our business!’

  The dog whined, and Valens scrubbed his fingers under its jaw; then the two men turned back towards the camp.

  3

  A warm night, the still air damp and greasy, and the men were sweating by the time they reached the boats. They wore no body armour, only helmets and their rust-brown tunics, and their shields were fitted with leather marching-covers to hide the bright emblems. Their swordbelts, javelins and spears were wrapped with rags to muffle the clink and scrape of metal. Even so, as they slumped down on the riverbank after their four-mile march in the darkness, the noise was clear and unmistakeable. Five hundred soldiers, Castus thought to himself, are incapable of moving silently.

  The river was screened by mist, the water invisible, and there was something uncanny and forbidding in the pressure of the air. Despite the warmth, Castus could hear the teeth of some of the younger recruit
s tapping together. They were right to be nervous. The river before them was like a living presence, a black god, freighted with slow doom. And on the far side, somewhere in that motionless darkness, was the enemy.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said to the young soldier beside him, ‘it’s only a boat trip and a walk in the woods.’ He sensed the man’s nod.

  Now the mist shifted, and the boats came into view, scores of them nestled together like rafts amid the reeds. Castus remembered his orders: fifteen men should board each boat. He would lead the first party, Modestus the second, the standard-bearer Flaccus would go in the third boat and Diogenes in the fourth. There would be a steersman and a pilot – local people who knew the river and its currents – to guide them across. They had practised boarding, but what had been a simple operation on dry ground beside the tent lines now seemed a daunting prospect. Castus had imagined that the boats would be bigger, like the barges used in the pontoon bridge, or the cutters used by the river flotillas. He tried to conceal his shock as he made out the shapes of the craft that awaited them in the reeds: slender canoes, only a few feet wide, each made of a hollowed log. He felt his skin chill; surely it was the wildest folly to trust his life and the lives of his men to these flimsy sticks, out on the wide, deep expanse of the great river?

  Quelling his nerves, he motioned his men to their feet and led them down through the reeds. Watery mud rose around his boots, and when he breathed he felt the mist filling his lungs, the scent of rotting vegetation and the heavy drag of the river in the air.