‘Yes, it is. But how did—’
‘It’s obvious. They’ve given the safer of two loyal generals, men who can be relied on not to start the civil war all over again, four legions, and ordered him to make sure that the provinces on the periphery of our revolt can’t be infected with this dangerous disease of freedom from their tyranny. So Gallus gets four legions and a frontier to make safe. And the other, the bolder of the two, with a reputation for pushing his luck to its limits, they’ve given one extremely dangerous legion, perfectly capable of fighting their way out of any trouble Cerialis’s bullishness might drop them into. They’ll march fast and hit harder than a bolt thrower, if we allow them to dictate the terms of this campaign. They do have auxiliary support, I presume?’
Classicus opened his tablet.
‘A legatus by the name of Sextilius Felix with a legion’s worth of various infantry cohorts. And something called the Ala Singularium, under the command of your nephew Briganticus.’
‘Briganticus.’ Kivilaz nodded slowly. ‘I ought to have known that he’d manage to crawl between the spectators’ legs and involve himself in this fight.’
‘There is bad blood between the two of you?’
Hramn strode forward, glowering at the mention of his cousin’s name.
‘There is bad blood between Julius Briganticus and every other member of my family. He has sworn to kill my uncle for the perceived crime of bringing about the death of his adopted father Paulus, and I have sworn an oath to Magusanus to kill him first, if our paths cross on the field of battle. In appointing him to lead this Ala Singularium, the Romans must hope that his lust for revenge on my uncle will decapitate our tribe and leave us leaderless. The next time I see my cousin I will take the greatest of pleasure in sending him to join my uncle Paulus.’
Classicus nodded his head in respect for the sentiment.
‘I have no doubt that you will defend your prince to the death, Prefect Hramn.’ He turned back to Kivilaz. ‘It seems to me that our respective rebellions against the empire are far from doomed, as long as we act together and bring our combined strength to confront their advance into the Gallic empire.’
The Batavi pursed his lips, thinking for a moment.
‘I agree. With only one legion Cerialis will be forced to fight a war of movement, because he will lack the strength to hold any position against our combined strength. And knowing the man as I do, my expectation is that he will try to fight in the manner of a latter-day Julius Caesar, marching hard and striking where he believes his enemy will least expect the blow to land. It is in his perennial need to take risks, to gamble everything on one roll of the dice that we will find his weakness, and when the time comes we will catch him out, pin down his one legion and destroy it as completely as we tore the Old Camp legions to shreds. And my expectation is that he will move upon the Treveri first, to remove their threat to his rear when he advances north.’
He nodded, pointing to a spot on the map that lay unfurled on the table between them.
‘You and I, Julius Classicus, must march our forces to the south and east, and join with Tutor’s Treveri to form an army of the Germans and the Gauls, which a single legion will never be able to resist, auxiliaries or no auxiliaries. Send word to Tutor to avoid battle with the Romans at any cost. Let the enemy entertain themselves with petty revenge upon the Treveri people, and once we have our strength concentrated into one army we will make them pay for their acts of destruction a hundred times over. I’ll have a road of crosses erected all the way to the Alps and put whatever’s left of the Twenty-first Legion on them one man at a time. Hramn, have your cohorts ready to march at first light. If Cerialis can be depended upon to act in his usual headstrong manner the Romans may well be about to thrust their heads into the perfect trap.’
The Winter Camp, Germania Superior, May AD 70
‘We have news from Sextilius Felix, gentlemen, and unlike his last dispatch it’s good news. Tell them your message, Tribune.’
Cerialis looked around the room at his officers with an expression they had come to know all too well in their short time serving under his command, a look that usually presaged his making swift and occasionally slightly reckless decisions. Their legatus augusti, it had soon become evident, was a man who saw what it was he wanted and moved to take it swiftly and without stopping to consider the potential consequences of failure.
‘Yes, Legatus Augusti. My report from Legatus Felix is as follows.’ The young officer who had been sent back to the army by the vanguard’s commander, the redoubtable Sextilius Felix, licked his lips nervously, opening his message tablet to read the dispatch with which he had been entrusted. He had ridden into the Winter Camp fortress an hour before accompanied by Julius Briganticus and a squadron of his Ala Singularium, a clear indication of the Romans’ uncertain control of the land west of the fortress, across which hostile Gauls had so recently roamed unchecked by its terrified garrison. ‘Quintus Petillius Cerialis, greetings. I send you news of a victory, and an opportunity to deal with our enemy of the Treveri tribe if we act decisively.’
He paused, and Cerialis’s officers studied their commander with fleeting glances, nobody wanting to catch the eye of a man so clearly being pushed to go on the offensive by an officer who was, at least in terms of the army’s hierarchy, his deputy, but if he was discomforted by the tone of Felix’s message he was showing no sign of it.
‘Continue, Tribune.’
‘Err …’ Quailing under his superiors’ combined and hawklike concentration, the young officer found his place and started reading again. ‘The previously reported loss of my advance guard cohort to an ambush, incurred while scouting aggressively in the march north to the Winter Camp has been gloriously and decisively avenged …’
‘There’s that word “decisively” again. He’s laying it on with a spade.’
Antonius nodded fractionally in response to Pugno’s whisper, drawing a brief stare from their legatus. He had quickly established himself as a leader among the Blood Drinkers, and Pugno had come both to value his no-nonsense attitude and admire his unbending focus on revenge for his legatus’s death, and the two men were frequently to be found together, much to Longus’s amusement.
‘The Treveri leader Tutor sought to block my progress at the river Nava, fortifying the town of Bingium and destroying the bridge across the river, but in his treachery he has in turn found himself betrayed. His allies the Triboci, Vangiones and Caeracates have deserted him, terrified of our revenge, and the traitor legions have sworn allegiance to Vespasianus and withdrawn to the west, awaiting our army’s arrival.’
‘This is factual, Tribune, and not assumption?’
Briganticus answered Cerialis’s question before the tribune could speak.
‘Fact, Legatus Augusti. Recognising my cavalry wing’s unique composition and ability, Legatus Felix sent me forward to scout the ground to the west and north of Tutor’s position, and I found the Fifth and Sixteenth Legions marching along the banks of the Mosella, away from Tutor’s army. They are in no mood to fight for the Gauls, now they realise that they have chosen the side that’s likely to lose, and while they are still fearful of Rome’s punishment, their men could be brought back into your army, I expect.’
Pugno shifted minutely, an expression of discomfort in a man Antonius knew did not suffer the usual tics and fidgeting that affected most soldiers.
‘If we could tolerate the treacherous bastards’ stink.’
Cerialis nodded thoughtfully.
‘I see. And what of this defensive position on the Nava?’
Briganticus waved a dismissive hand, his lip curled in contempt.
‘Swept away. We found a ford close by to Bingium and Sextilius Felix’s cohorts were across it like a swarm of angry wasps. They broke the Trevirans soon enough, and Tutor ran like the Gallic coward he is.’
‘I see.’ Cerialis thought for a moment. ‘Which explains my colleague’s call for decisive action. He and I have already agr
eed that we are quite unable to advance any further up the Rhenus than the confluence of the Rhenus and the Mosella, not with the Treviran army intact in our rear. Beaten or not, I cannot expose our line of supply in such a foolhardy way while my colleague Gallus and his legions are tied up dealing with the Lingones to the south, and not yet in a position to safeguard our advance north. No gentlemen, the Treviran army must be broken, and their people bent back to the empire’s will, before we can deal with the Batavians. And that means conquering their capital.’ He pointed to the map. ‘Augusta Trevorum must be occupied, and quickly, before Classicus and Civilis can rejoin the fight. Civilis surely won’t continue his apparent quest to subjugate the tribes of northern Gaul once he realises that we’re over the mountains and coming for him.’
He looked about him with that familiar expression again, and Pugno breathed a barely audible chuckle.
‘Here comes the gamble.’
‘We must march at once, with all the force at our disposal, cross the Nava at this ford of yours, Julius Briganticus, and then head across country to the Mosella, and the road to Augusta Trevorum. And if the Trevirans want to try stopping us they’re more than welcome. Your men of the Twenty-first are eager for some action, I presume, Pontius Longus?’
The legatus nodded confidently.
‘They’re thirsty for blood, as First Spear Pugno tells me several times a day. All you’ll have to do is show them an enemy and stand back.’
‘And the other formations in this fortress?’
Antonius closed his eyes, remembering his horror on entering the Winter Camp’s gates the previous day. Longus shook his head.
‘The men of the Picentina cavalry wing are solid enough, and reputed to have killed the man who murdered Dillius Vocula when they met him on the road a few days afterwards, when they refused to join with the Gauls and marched here instead …’ Antonius held his face in stone-like immobility under Pugno’s scrutiny. ‘But the two legions that are supposed to be holding this fortress are in a dreadful state. Indeed, words fail me when I consider their condition …’ He paused, apparently searching for the right words.
‘If I might speak, Legatus?’
Longus stared at Antonius for a moment before inclining his head graciously.
‘By all means, Centurion.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Ignoring Pugno’s hiss of amazement, he stepped forward and saluted. ‘Legatus Augusti, I believe there’s nobody better qualified than I to pass judgement on the Winter Camp’s legions. I led the majority of their strength north from here under Legatus Augusti Vocula, taking much of the Fourth to reinforce the Twenty-second, and they were the only men with the guts to stand between the Batavians and victory at Gelduba. They held firm when the First and Sixteenth Legions both turned and fled for the camp, and they held the barbarians for long enough that the unexpected reinforcements from Hispania were able to take them from behind. I had hoped to still find the same obstinacy in them when we arrived here.’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘But instead I found them broken, exhausted and demoralised by recent events.’
‘This is your former legion?’ Pugno had looked on with amused contempt at the men of the Twenty-second Primigenia as they had gone through their drills alongside their fellow legionaries of the Fourth Macedonica on the Winter Camp’s parade ground the previous afternoon, then turned back to face Antonius with an incredulous expression. ‘They look more ready for butchering than for battle. You said that they were likely to have some fight in them?’
His colleague had watched sadly as the men he had marched and fought with practiced with their spears and shields in a manner barely meriting the term desultory, their raggedness and lack of energy clearly giving their new senior centurion good reason for the irascible shouts and curses that were being rained upon them.
‘They did. That’s the legion that held the line at Gelduba, when the First and Sixteenth were already running. But now …’
The Twenty-first’s senior centurion had spat over the fortress’s parapet.
‘But now they look ready for nothing better than to be broken up for reinforcements.’
Antonius had shrugged, shaking his head at the scene they were looking down on from the fortress’s walls.
‘I went to find their first spear last night and he told me what their problem is. They were forced to sit and watch while Classicus and his Gauls camped out there and demanded their surrender, threatening them with the same treatment that the Old Camp legions got if they didn’t give it up promptly. He had to execute several dozen men to keep them from mutinying and throwing the gates wide open, and even then it was a close thing. And now the Twenty-first has marched in like something out of the history books, spitting fire and pissing vinegar, and we’re looking down our noses at them with, just to add the final insult, their first cohort marching under the Twenty-first’s eagle.’
Pugno’s stare had remained as hard as before, as he looked dispassionately down at the demoralised legion parading below them.
‘Perhaps you should give up this idea of having revenge upon the Gauls and content yourself with whipping these poor bastards back into shape? I can release you from your service to the Twenty-first, if that’s what you want to do?’
‘No.’ The response had been as blunt as Pugno had expected, having had time to get to know his colleague on the march north from Vindonissa. ‘If I were to abandon the campaign now I’d curse myself for the rest of my life for missing the chance to find the man who killed my legatus and make him pay. Let someone else restore some pride to my former legion, I serve the Twenty-first until the day this war ends and Legatus Augusti Cerialis delivers on his promise to release me in pursuit of Aemelius Longinus. No, there’s only one solution to what we see before us.’
He looked Cerialis in the eye, squaring his shoulders.
‘The Twenty-second Legion, Legatus Augusti, is a lost cause. It needs to be put under fresh leadership, to have the defeatists in its ranks dismissed in disgrace, to be given a new name, a new eagle and a new camp, somewhere as far from here as possible. There are good men in those ranks, and given the chance I know they’ll build a strong new legion for the emperor.’
‘But the rot needs to be cut out?’
‘Yes, Legatus Augusti. And for my part—’
‘That will be all, thank you, Centurion!’
Antonius blinked at Pugno’s intervention, then saluted and stepped back into his previous place at his superior’s side, keeping his gaze locked on the wall behind Cerialis’s head as the first spear hissed furiously in his ear, heedless of the staring officers.
‘Shut your fucking mouth and keep it shut!’
Cerialis shook his head in bafflement and then addressed the room afresh, and with an act of willpower Antonius forced himself to focus on the general’s words.
‘So, we can’t expect any reinforcement from the legions already camped here. No matter. They can hold the fortress, I presume?’ Longus nodded his agreement. ‘Thank the gods for that small gift. Very well, the Twenty-first Legion will march west at the earliest opportunity, will join with Sextilius Felix’s vanguard cohorts and will move to find, isolate and defeat the Trevirans as a prelude to occupying their capital. We have the chance to smash away one of the pillars of this so-called “Empire of the Gauls”, and I intend to do exactly that, and before any of the other players in their sordid little game can stop playing with whatever it is that has their attention and join forces with this man Tutor. Prepare to march, gentlemen, I want to be on the road for Augusta Trevorum as fast as you can get your men’s hobnails replaced.’
Outside the headquarters building Pugno raised a hand, his face set hard, to forestall any argument.
‘You were just about to fall on your fucking sword, weren’t you? You were going to tell a room full of men who’ve never seen combat that your former legion has gone to rat shit because of you. Weren’t you?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Shut your mouth, Centurion!
The only words I want to hear from you are “yes” and “no”.’ The hard-faced first spear stared at him for a moment. ‘That’s better. So, you were going to tell Cerialis that it’s down to you that the Twenty-second has given up on life, because you abandoned them to stay with your friend Vocula. Weren’t you?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Yes but nothing, you stupid bastard. That’s just self-pitying bullshit as far as I’m concerned.’ Antonius stared back at him in silence. ‘And the words you’re looking for are “Yes, it is”, Centurion. You followed what you believed was your duty, and from what I’ve heard, you kept Vocula alive for longer than he’d have managed without you. And every day he lived as a result of your taking a hand in the matter was another day that he kept his army in the field, preventing the Batavians and their allies from closing the Alpine passes and denying us the chance to get our legions across the mountains. Believe it or not, my legatus has told me that Cerialis believes Vocula was the one man who’s given us a fighting chance of recovering Gaul and Germania, and even if he doesn’t know it, we both know that the thanks for that should be going as much to you keeping him alive for as long as you did as to Vocula’s refusal to recognise that he was doomed to lose his life if he stayed and fought. So we’ll have no more talk about you having deserted your men, right? You did what you saw as your duty, and by my standards you did it right. You prick. And speaking of pricks …’ he grinned slyly at Antonius, who was unable to resist a faint smile himself, ‘if we want to talk about officers deserting their posts, I don’t think we have very far to look for a perfect example, do we? I suspect our beloved leader could hear a woman’s linen hitting the floor in a pitched battle, and I don’t think he can keep his sword sheathed any better than the horniest legionary in the army. We’ll just have to hope that his exploits don’t cloud his judgement, eh?’
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