Swords Around the Throne

by Ian Ross

  Glancing to one side and then the other, Castus saw Maximian’s soldiers gathered at the ramparts of the walls and towers, their armour shining and their banners bright. They crowded the battlements, formidable in number.

  Probinus had approached to within bowshot of the walls, and drawn to a halt.

  ‘Maximian!’ he cried, raising himself in the saddle. ‘In the name of the emperor Constantine Augustus I call on you to open the gates of this city and surrender yourself to the Sacred Clemency!’

  All eyes turned, just briefly, to Maximian. The golden figure remained motionless, only the feathers of his helmet crest stirring slightly.

  ‘Maximian!’ the prefect called out again. ‘I beg you, cease this impious rebellion! Spare the lives of your soldiers and supporters... Spare this city from the violence of assault! In the name of the emperor I promise that you and your people will be treated with respect and forgiveness!’

  ‘Emperor?’ Maximian shouted. His voice boomed out from the walls. ‘There is no emperor here but me! I am supreme ruler, and eternal Augustus. I, who stood beside the mighty Diocletian at the head of the Roman state!’

  ‘In the name of Constantine Augustus,’ the prefect called out as his horse champed and tossed its mane, ‘I beg you to reconsider your actions. This rebellion is unbecoming to you, who have won such glory in the past! You have been honoured and given wealth and high status – what more do you desire? You have been seduced by the lying words of traitors...’ He broke off, raising his hand to his face as if he were wiping away tears.

  ‘Who talks to me of treachery?’ Maximian cried. ‘You, Probinus? I raised you myself, promoted you – and this is your gratitude? Half the men standing with me now gave their oath to Constantine! Some of his most loyal officers, even his Protectores. All have now returned to their true allegiance!’

  Castus winced at the rush of shame twisting through him. When he opened his eyes, Probinus was staring directly at him. Worse, the emperor Constantine was staring up at him as well. It was a trick of the light, he thought... but, no, that was why they had been brought here, he and Brinno and Sallustius. Maximian wanted everyone to see that he had broken the oaths of Constantine’s own closest bodyguards.

  Maximian stepped up onto the wall, standing between the merlons of the rampart so every man in the opposing army could see him clearly. A single archer, Castus thought, a single ballista and all of this could end now...

  ‘If Constantine wants to talk to me he can come and do it!’ Maximian shouted, raising his fist and jutting his black beard. ‘Let him prostrate himself in the dust and beg for my forgiveness! He calls himself an emperor? He dares to oppose me? He is not even a man!’

  Probinus stared up at the golden figure poised above him. The purple banners stirred slightly, wrapping around their poles.

  ‘Two years,’ Maximian shouted, loud enough that every man on the wall could hear him, loud enough that his voice would carry to the front ranks of the opposing army. ‘Two years since that man married my daughter! And she is still a virgin!’

  A sound of several thousand men drawing breath at once. Castus swallowed hard, feeling his guts clench. A yelp of laughter came from one of the soldiers on the ramparts.

  ‘How can he be an emperor,’ Maximian called, jutting out his finger to point at his son-in-law, ‘if he cannot even fuck his own wife like a man?’

  Probinus was already turning his horse. The men around Constantine were beginning to turn as well, but the emperor himself remained still, staring up at the figure standing on the ramparts. His face looked hard and white with fury. Then he tugged sharply on the reins and galloped back towards his own lines. The mocking jeers of Maximian’s soldiers followed him as he retreated.

  ‘Well,’ Sallustius muttered under his breath, ‘that went excellently!’

  Another dawn. Three days and three nights had passed since the conference at the gate, and the noose had steadily tightened around the city of Massilia. Now, Castus knew, they would see the first assault against the walls. Standing at the parapet of the third tower north of the Rome Gate, he stared eastwards at the dark horizon. The sky above was washed with delicate colour, and the morning star was clear and bright. Lucifer, the light-bringer, herald of the sun.

  What am I doing here? He had asked himself that too many times. What trick of fate had led him to be standing on the wrong side of the coming battle? Often he had contemplated making an escape from the city – it would have been easy enough to slip from the palace by night, or to scramble down from the wall and make a run across the no man’s land between the lines. But he had hung back, hoping somehow that he might find a way to make a difference. Nothing had presented itself, and now the dawn of the assault had come.

  Officially he was in command of this section of wall. Brinno had been stationed further to the north-west, near the Valley Gate. In truth, neither had any real authority; behind Castus on the roof of the tower were his two Praetorian minders, Glyco and Ursus, wrapped in their cloaks, stamping away the chill of morning. He was still under suspicion, his loyalties in doubt. The constant presence of the two soldiers had become familiar to Castus now, but he knew that they were growing restless in their duty. The prospect of an impending fight did not seem to excite them either.

  ‘They’ll come today, you think?’ Glyco said.

  ‘Yes,’ Castus told him. ‘They’ll come soon, while the sun’s still low in our faces. Spoil the aim of the archers.’

  And now the sun appeared, sudden on the horizon like a burning coal upon the black hills. A few moments more, and the crests of the wall ramparts were lit with orange light. Castus felt the warmth on his face.

  ‘Unconquered Sun,’ he muttered, bowing his head and touching his brow in salute. ‘Lord of Daybreak, your light between us and evil...’

  Despite his misgivings, he felt the gathering energy in his blood, the prospect of battle. Already he could hear the sound of the trumpets.

  Squinting into the low glare, Castus made out the troops beginning to muster on the dusty denuded hillside on the far side of valley. Light caught their helmets and speartips, and the glitter of their mail; their banners stirred in the warm breeze. They were forming up in attack columns; too distant for Castus to accurately guess their numbers, but it was clear that this would be the main assault. Further to the left the walls stood on a slope, the ground falling away more steeply into the valley. But the Rome Gate faced a level strip of ground where the valley opened towards the silted-up inlet of an old dock basin just outside the walls. Once across that, the attackers could either assault the gate itself or move northwards along the line of the wall and find enough level ground to prop their ladders below the rampart. The ditch, and the low rubble wall outside it, would slow them, but it looked a feeble enough defence from where Castus was standing.

  Dust rose as the attack columns moved forward and halted once more to dress their lines. He heard the massed shouts drifting across the valley, ‘Ready... Ready... READY!’ The traditional chorus, so familiar to him. He would have given anything to have been among their number now.

  ‘Let’s get down there,’ he said, motioning to the two Praetorians, then he dropped through the trapdoor into the chamber below. A section of Mauretanian archers were stationed here, under the command of an optio from the Seventh Legion. All of them straightened up as Castus came down the ladder, giving their salutes.

  ‘Dominus!’ the optio said, his Latin thick with the accent of Spain. ‘Looks like they’re really coming this time!’

  Castus could only nod. Three slot windows faced out over the valley, and two archers stood ready at each one. Beside each man lay a thick sheaf of arrows. Castus shifted one of the archers aside and peered out trough the slot. The sun was higher now, the dust had settled, and he could see the assault parties forming into testudo, their shields locked around them. At the heart of each block were the men carrying the scaling ladders; no doubt behind them were the archers and slingers who would try
and drive the defenders back from the ramparts.

  From the open door of the chamber, Castus looked down the short flight of steps to the rampart walkway. All the way to the Rome Gate men stood ready, their armour burning in the sunlight. Every few paces there were heavy baskets filled with stones and rubble gathered from the demolished buildings outside the walls. A crude weapon, but effective. Braced in the doorway, Castus surveyed the defenders. Most of the men came from VII Gemina Maximiana, one of the two Spanish legions, with a few auxilia and Praetorians among them. Some had the smooth olive complexions of recent recruits; others were scarred and sunburnt veterans of the Mauretanian war. But they looked capable, soldierly. For one guilty moment Castus felt glad that he was among the defenders and not in the assault parties who would have to face them.

  Strangely, several of the Spanish soldiers were wearing old-style cuirasses of segmented plate armour. Castus had seen a few rusting sets in a storeroom in one of the fortresses on the Danube years before, but as far as he knew all the other legions of Rome had abandoned the armour back in the days of their grandfathers. It gave the men of the Seventh an antique appearance, like figures from the frieze of a triumphal arch come to life.

  Now a stir ran through the defenders on the rampart, and when he looked to his left Castus saw the assault columns break into motion, four of them moving towards the Rome Gate and the section of wall to the north of it. They came on slow and steady, keeping to their rigid testudo formations. Their discipline was impressive. As they marched they kicked up plumes of dust, which rose into the low sun and cloaked the advance in a golden fog. Along the walls, archers strung their bows and slingers began to whip their slings in low circles.

  A cry came from somewhere near the gate, picked up and echoed all along the wall. The defenders threw up their arms, raising spears and javelins, and let out a great shout.

  ‘Maximianus Augustus! Eternal Emperor!’

  Three times they cried, then every man battered his shield rim and the noise reverberated across the valley towards the advancing enemy.

  Leaning from the door of the tower, Castus stared at the columns as they approached the wall. His throat was tight, and his breath came in short stabs. Sweat was rolling down his back. He realised that he was digging his fingertips into the stone of the wall beside him. For the first time he allowed himself to wonder what he would do if the attackers reached the ramparts. He would fight – he would have to, or die in the melee. But those advancing men were his brothers, his comrades. He could see their shields now: I Flavia Gallicana in the lead. Some of those men would have fought at his side in the riverbank battle against the Bructeri. Behind them came XXII Primigenia and I Minervia. All legions he knew, men he knew.

  And yet, when he glanced along the wall he was willing the archers to watch their aim, look for their marks, make every arrow count. Without even thinking, he had drawn his sword. The logic of battle was carrying him now, and his blood was hot and quick with anticipation.

  The advancing columns had passed the brick heaps that marked effective archery range. Down on the rampart, a centurion of the Seventh raised his stick, then let it fall. At once bows bent all along the wall, and the slingers began to whirl their slings higher. A heartbeat, held in tension, and the first volley was released.

  Arrows and shot flickered from the rampart; some fell short, but most struck the advancing shield-blocks with a loud percussive thud and rattle. The assault columns let out a great roar, amplified under the roofs of shields, and broke into a charge, trying to close the gap to the walls. Another volley of arrows – now each charging testudo bristled with black shafts. Castus was holding his breath, wide-eyed.

  An arrow flicked past his face and hit the tower wall, striking sparks off the stone. Down on the rampart below him two men dropped to the walkway, struck down by slingshot. Moving up behind the assault columns, the opposing archers and slingers had begun to return the missile barrage. Edging up from his crouch, Castus heard the strum of bows from the tower chamber behind him. Then a scream, echoing from the doorway; he glanced back and saw one of the Mauretanian archers fall sprawling with an arrow in his neck. Blood pulsed from the wound, and his heels battered the flagstone floor.

  Outside, the sudden charge of the assault columns had carried them across the open ground and almost up to the fortifications. Now they had to negotiate the low rubble wall and the deep ditch. Castus saw the front rank of the leading column falter as one of their men was hit and went down in the dust. The shields broke apart, men stumbling out of formation and cascading down the outer slope of the ditch. At once arrows were flicking between them as hundreds of archers on the rampart aimed down into the shattered testudo. Another man fell, then half a dozen in a heartbeat. The rest spilled forward, hefting their ladders overhead as they swarmed down into the gulley of the ditch and piled up towards the wall, yelling.

  A party of archers had climbed to the tower rampart and were shooting down directly into the mass of the attackers. Castus leaned from the doorway again and looked up, just as one of them was struck by a slingshot and toppled forward over the wall. The body fell, a brief dark blur trailing red.

  ‘Aim for the enemy archers and slingers!’ Castus yelled into the chamber behind him. ‘The ladder-men are below the wall, you can’t hit them – aim for the archers and slingers!’ He saw Glyco staring back at him, a smudge of blood across his forehead.

  The assault columns had broken formation now, the attackers clambering up out of the ditch in groups of three or four, holding their shields above their heads. Several of those down at the Rome Gate had pickaxes and crowbars, while others carried burning fire-pots to try and burn the gates. Javelins darted at them from the ramparts.

  Already the first of the ladders was rising towards the wall close to where Castus was standing, a knot of men below sheltering their comrades with their shields as they wrestled the wooden lattice up into position. Two more ladders swayed up only a score of paces away. Hardly had they touched the stones when the first of the attackers was scrambling up the rungs with his shield above his head. Up on the rampart walk, the defenders were dragging one of the heavy baskets of stones and rubble and lifting it to the parapet.

  Castus stared in grim fascination as the basket was manoeuvred across the ledge of the wall and began to tip. The men below were climbing fast, but not fast enough. A rush and a crash, and the weight of rubble cascaded down, knocking them screaming from the toppling ladder in a torrent of dust.

  Another ladder cracked into position against the wall, and immediately it was creaking under the weight of armoured men. The defenders on the walkway bunched and crouched; this time they were lifting a single great stone between them. It looked to Castus like a column drum. Pulling his helmet laces tighter, he leaned out over the parapet, gazing down at the men hauling themselves with savage determination up the ladder. Above them the great stone was in position, the defenders shunting it across the ledge of the wall until it tilted and fell.

  The plunging stone struck the leading man, crushing his skull and bursting his torso, then crashed straight down through the rungs of the ladder, shattering it. Broken bodies fell into the wreckage, clogging the ditch below.

  Arrows jarred off the rampart parapet, and Castus pulled his head back quickly. The archers below the wall had learned to concentrate their shots towards the tops of the ladders, driving the defenders back and giving the climbers time to scale higher. All along the rampart walk there were bodies sprawled, writhing, limbs struck with arrows, heads broken by slingshot. There were six ladders against the wall now, and the climbers were pushing higher.

  ‘Out the way,’ somebody said, and a man shoved through the tower doorway. After him came the second Praetorian, Glyco.

  ‘You just planning to watch, dominus?’ Glyco said, glancing back at Castus with a disgusted sneer. Then he jogged down the steps to the walkway after Ursus. Castus drew a deep breath, wanting to shout after them. But what could he say? His perceptio
ns seemed to have slowed, and everything around him shone with a bright glaze. The air was fogged with dust, whirling in the sunlight.

  Something was happening on the wall, a strange pause that for a moment Castus could not understand. He leaned out again, and his breath caught.

  The leading climbers had reached the tops of the ladders, but they were still a good six feet below the parapet. The ladders were too short. Castus stared, incredulous. Could they really have miscalculated the height of the walls so badly? The men at the top of each ladder were trapped by those coming up behind them, and already the defenders on the ramparts had regained the offensive, stretching out over the walls to fling stones and javelins directly down into their faces. Bodies began falling. One of the ladders tipped sideways, men cascading off it with wild screams.

  Still the climbers pushed upwards. The men at the top were struggling onto the shoulders of their comrades below and stretching their hands up to try and grab at the stone parapet. Castus could see their faces, straining and sweat-drenched. He could hear them crying out, their voices maddened, cracking. Another ladder toppled, leaving a single man still dangling on the parapet until the defenders above speared him and he fell.

  Down below, the base of the wall was boiling with men, the injured and dead tumbled together, shields discarded in the wreckage of ladders, blood flowing in streams down the dusty slope. Up above, one heaving knot of men had managed to struggle up from their ladder and scramble onto the wall parapet. A few desperate moments of combat on the walkway, push of spears and flicker of blades. Castus saw Glyco reeling back, clutching his bloodied face. One of the attackers stood up on the wall, raising his sword as if in triumph; the next moment a javelin struck him between the ribs and he toppled stiffly backwards, his mouth open in a silent scream.

  Then it was over. The last of the ladder parties had been battered away from the parapet, and the attackers that remained alive were falling back from the wall, crouched beneath their raised shields.