Drumold nodded seriously, and Balquhain seemed satisfied. Tylara concealed a grin from her brother. Sometimes Rick thought she was the only one in the army who paid attention to his lectures on tactics.
* * *
They marched in oblique order. The First Pike Regiment, a block of a thousand, was ahead and to the right. Behind and left of them was the First Archers, then the Second Pikes, his main body and two thousand strong. The Second Archers and Third Pikes, another thousand-man block, followed on the road. Rick kept the heavy cavalry force with him, just behind the First Pikes. That way he could keep an eye on them. If anyone was likely to do something stupid, it would be his armored ironheads.
The wagons and pack horses came last. They were escorted by a screen of mounted archers acting as MPs under Mason’s command. It had taken some doing to convince Drumold and his subchiefs that carrying food into the Empire would be a good idea. There’d been shouting and sulking. By now Rick was getting very good at pretending rage. He shuddered at the alternative; the army would have to break up into foraging groups every time they wanted a meal.
Tylara’s scouts fanned ahead of the column. Rick wished he could go with her, but he didn’t dare. The troops looked more like an army than a mob, but they still thought they needed his magic star weapons to protect them. They had no real confidence in themselves, and that could just be fatal.
* * *
Caius Marius Marselius, Caesar’s Prefect of the Western Marches, was annoyed. He’d hoped to avoid trouble for two more years, after which he would retire to his estates near Rome and let someone else worry about the province. He was not surprised when a local militiaman reported an invasion of hill barbarians, but he was definitely annoyed.
He was also careful. The militia officer had seen only light cavalry, but he thought there might be a larger body of barbarians behind the cavalry screen. He’d been unable to get through to find out.
That was unusual enough to make Marselius take notice. Normally these tribesmen came in like a flood, looted whatever they could, and ran. They had not thought of security. Marselius wondered if a Roman officer had defected and was now leading the barbarians. He couldn’t think of anyone, but it was possible.
“We’ll have to go into the hills and teach them a lesson,” he told his legates. “It’s been ten years since we had an expedition beyond the borders. High time.”
The senior legate looked at him curiously. Marselius smiled faintly. He knew what the man was thinking. Initiative was not encouraged in Caesar’s prefects. An outstanding officer might be contemplating rebellion. Caesar needed no generals who commanded greater respect from their legions than Caesar held.
And perhaps the legate was right. Marselius knew he was no threat to Caesar. He wanted only to retire. But would Caesar believe that?
The Empire would fall to that kind of suspicion someday. Marselius was convinced of it. When prefects were afraid to carry out their plain duty—
“Whether we follow them to the hills or not, we will want to destroy these barbarians,” he said. “Not merely defeat them, but kill so many that they will tremble at the very thought of Caesar. For this we will require the full legion. Send for the reservists, call up the local knights, and bring in the detachments from Caracorum and Malevenutum. We will strike when they are all assembled.”
“That will give the barbarians time to gather loot. Many of the landholders will be ruined, and they will protest to Rome,” the senior legate said.
“Let them. There are few patricians in the border hills. God’s breath, must I live in perpetual fear of Caesar’s wrath?”
The legate did not answer. He did not need to.
Four days later, Marselius listened to the reports with growing amazement. The barbarians had not stopped to loot the foothill country. They had marched straight into the province.
“By nightfall they will be at the villa of Patroclus Sempronius,” the scout commander reported.
“So far?” This was ruin. Sempronius was a cousin of the Empress. Worse, the considerable town of Sentinius was just beyond. Caesar would never, never forgive the prefect who allowed a Roman city to be sacked by barbarians. They would have to be stopped, and quickly.
“How many legionaries do we have?” he asked the legate.
“Three thousand, prefect.”
That would include all the regulars and a considerable number of the reservists under their local leaders. Marselius sighed with regret: he could remember when a full four thousand regulars were kept in the camps. Ten years of peace in this province had robbed it of half that number. Caesar didn’t care to keep armies larger than necessary, for fear they would rebel.
“Three thousand should be more than enough,” Marselius said.
The legate grinned agreement. “They are only barbarians. They have no armor and few horses. What can they do against our knights?”
“What indeed? Sound the trumpets. Before the True Sun sets, I want the legion between Sentinius and these tribesmen. We will attack them in the morning when two shadows show clearly.”
* * *
Rick sighed with relief when he saw Tylara return at the head of her cavalry. He still didn’t like her going out on patrols, but had to admit that she was the most effective scout commander he had.
The villa where he stood was a good example. It was large and comfortable, and she’d not only waited for the advance guard before charging the thin screen of armed retainers defending the place, she’d also kept the troops from looting and burning it. Now it could be systematically stripped of its valuables. There were over a thousand bushels of wheat in the granary, and the barns held both wagons and horses to transport it.
He went down the broad steps to meet her, and helped her down from her horse. Not that she needed help, but he found he liked being close to her.
“I have seen the legion,” she said. She spoke quietly, so that no one else heard.
“Where?”
“About thirty stadia.”
The Romans used miles, a thousand paces of a legionary, but Tylara’s people had stayed with the ancient Greek measure, about a quarter of a kilometer. “What were they doing?”
“They had dismounted and were pitching tents. I left five men to watch them. Two have crept close to the Roman camp. If the Romans begin to saddle their horses, they will bring word instantly.”
I may just have fallen in love with you, Rick thought. That is, if I didn’t weeks ago. He looked up at the suns. About an hour of daylight, and another three hours of dimmer but adequate light from the Firestealer.
“We’ll fight them here,” he said. “It’s as good a place as any.” There was a lake—not large, but big enough to stop heavy cavalry—five hundred meters to the south. It would do as an anchor for the right flank, and there was a game preserve, thickly wooded, a kilometer off to the left. Fifteen hundred meters was a pretty long line to hold with the number of troops he had, but it beat hell out of trying to form squares in open country.
“Pity they didn’t come last night,” Rick said. “We had a better position between those hills. But this will do fine. Let’s find your father. We’ll have to get the men into position while there’s still light.”
The preparations didn’t take long. Rick had told them over and over the importance of bivouacking in a battle position, and eventually it had sunk in. He didn’t have to adjust the fronts of the regiments at all.
The First Pikes were forward and to the left, at the edge of the woods, with a foam of armed camp followers stiffened with a few archers in the woods itself. The Second Pikes, his largest force, were two hundred meters behind and three hundred meters to the right of the First Pikes. The diagonal between was ditched, and stakes were set. Each stake was driven into the ground so that it slanted forward. They were set in a checkerboard pattern, three-foot intervals between stakes, so that the First Archers could move through the thicket. Behind them was Mason with his battle rifle.
Slightly behind and
all the way over to the lake was the Third Pike Regiment. This left a gap directly in front of the villa of nearly eight hundred meters between the right edge of the Second and the left edge of the Third. He filled that with the remaining archers, and in front of them he had the troops dig ditches, drag up wagons and brush, and dig a random pattern of small hoof-catching holes.
“I want lanes between those obstacles,” he told the engineer officer. Lanes would funnel the enemy for the archers and would also be a path for a cavalry counterattack if the moment came for one.
The engineers were a group of slaves liberated from looted farms. They’d been promised their freedom and a share of loot in exchange for their help. Rick’s offer to pay them had surprised the slaves almost as much at it surprised his own troops. Some of them had even offered to enlist, but Rick refused. During the battle, they’d be locked in their barracks. He didn’t need untrained and untrustworthy men wandering around at a crucial moment.
At dark Rick threw another screen of light cavalry forward to observe the enemy force. The other troops were allowed to fall out and make camp, leaving their weapons in place to mark their exact position on the battle line.
He rode around the encampment for an hour, stopping to talk with groups of clansmen around their watchfires. Julius Caesar had used a pickle to illustrate obscene jokes on the night before Pharsalia. How could you measure the morale value of a pickle? Rick settled for more conventional pep talk, emphasizing the surprise the Romans would get when the star weapons began knocking them off their horses.
Eventually it was done, and he could go into the villa for his own dinner. By then it was nearly midnight.
“There’s one more order,” he told a staff officer. “I’ll hold you responsible for seeing that the cooks are up at dawn. I want hot porridge for every man in the outfit before the sun’s an hour high.”
* * *
The man who until a few hours before had been master of the villa sat across the table and glowered at Rick and his officers.
“Caesar will have your head,” he blustered.
Rick examined him curiously. The man was fat, about forty Earth years in Rick’s estimation, and didn’t look any more like a Roman than a heavy cavalry brigade resembled a legion. Rick wondered which group of kidnapped expeditionaries had furnished his ancestry. That was one question it would do no good to ask.
“As Yatar wills,” Rick said. “But you’re likely to lose yours before Caesar knows of ours.”
“I am cousin to Caesar,” the man protested. “Caesar will ransom me.”
“We’ll see. At the moment I want information. How many troops will we be facing in the morning?”
“I am Spurius Patroclus Sempronius, and I do not betray Rome,” the fat man said.
“Hah!” Balquhain stood and drew his dagger. “We’ll see how he likes being sent to Caesar a piece at a time.”
Sempronius turned slightly green, but he set his lips in a tight line.
“No need,” Rick said gently. “My scouts have told me all I really need to know.” He turned back to the prisoner. “Tell me this: what keeps the slaves from revolting? There were over a hundred here.”
“Three hundred. Why should they revolt? They are well treated. And Caesar’s legions would crucify them.”
That or a variant on the theme was the answer to just about every question. Caesar’s legions kept order and Caesar’s officers collected taxes. Caesar’s freedmen ran the post office, and Caesar’s slaves kept the city sewers in repair.
“Is there no Senate?” Rick asked.
“Certainly. I am a senator of Rome.”
“Curious. When does it meet?”
“When Caesar wills it, of course.”
It turned out that Caesar willed it about once every five years. The meetings were brief and did nothing more than ratify Caesar’s decisions and perhaps vote Caesar a new accolade. Compared to the Assembly, though, the Senate was nearly omnipotent: the Assembly met precisely once in each reign, to proclaim its acceptance of whatever new Caesar the army had elected. Otherwise the citizens had no part in government and wanted none; they were happy enough if Caesar would leave them alone. In exchange they got peace and order and protection from bandits like Rick.
Late Empire, Rick decided. The military was more like the time of Charlemagne, but the government was definitely from the Dominate period of the Roman Empire. The army kept the citizens from making trouble, the Praetorian regiments kept the rest of the army under control, and Caesar spent most of his time worrying about how to control the Praetorian guard.
Once Rick had Sempronius talking about politics, he was able to extract a little more information. The most important was that there was a town about twelve Roman miles away.
It had a granary, and the harvest had been good this year. Now all he had to do was get through the Roman legion guarding it.
* * *
Tylara turned quickly at the sound of footsteps on the roof behind her.
“I thought I told all my officers to go to bed,” Rick said.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Me neither.” He came over to the parapet to stand beside her. The flat roof of the villa gave a good view of the watchfires spread out across the estate. Edward III had used a windmill as a command post at Crécy. This villa would be better.
“Do you truly believe we can win?” Tylara asked.
“Tomorrow? Yes. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t. We’ve got more troops, and we’ve got better weapons.”
“I know you have few thunderbolts for your weapons,” she said.
“Gwen must have told you,” Rick said. Tylara nodded. “And yet you came with us, and you haven’t told your father.”
“For all my life I believed that the Empire had the best soldiers in the world,” she said. “But now we will beat them, and it will not be because of the weapons.”
“Weapons, organization—Tylara, nothing’s ever certain in war, but if I wasn’t pretty sure of the result, you wouldn’t be here.”
“How would you send me away?”
“If necessary, tied to a led horse,” Rick said.
“Do you dislike me that much?”
“You know better. You must know better,” he said. He moved closer to her. “I don’t dislike you at all.”
“But you have a woman—”
“Gwen? She’s not my woman.”
“Her child is not yours?”
“Yatar, no! What made you think that?”
“No one wanted to ask,” Tylara said. “Then—there is no one else? No one you will return to?”
He put his hands on her shoulders. “The only girl I care about is you. Didn’t you know?”
“I hoped.” She hesitated. “Rick, I will always love Lamil. My husband—”
“And never anyone else?”
“I already love someone else.”
Custom demanded a longer mourning period, but if Rick didn’t care, she didn’t. When he came to her, she did not resist.
2
He was awakened at dawn, as he’d ordered, but the cavalry screen reported no signs of movement in the Roman camp. Rick sent out another scouting force and tried to return to bed; after half an hour he knew it was no use and went out to see that the troops all had a hot breakfast. Wellington had insisted on hot meals the morning of Waterloo, and always believed the biscuit and “stirabout” had as much to do with his victory as anything else.
If the Romans attacked early, the sun would be in his archers’ eyes. There wasn’t anything he could do about that except worry.
The camp was deathly still. It wasn’t the silence of professional soldiers confident in their abilities. There were sporadic murmurs, small jokes that normally would have brought belly laughs, speculations about various women, even some attempts to cheer, but each conversation died away to silence again.
“They’re scared, Cap’n,” Mason said. “I can feel it.”
“Me too.”
&nbs
p; “It’s the waitin’,” Mason said. He squinted to the east. “Almost wish they’d come and get it over with, even if it’d be better with the sun higher.” “They’ll be here soon enough. Walk around a lot. Look mean and be sure they see your rifle.”
Mason grinned. “Won’t show ’em the bandolier, though.”
“This won’t be our only battle,” Rick warned. “Don’t shoot yourself dry.” He hesitated. “If everything comes apart, I’ll try to get Tylara out. The Romans will try to cut us off from the road back. If I can get to that first villa we sacked, I’ll wait for you there as long as I can. You do the same.”
“Right. I wouldn’t worry so much, Cap’n.”
“Don’t you worry?”
“Don’t get paid to worry. That’s what officers are for.”
The true sun was half high and the Firestealer three hands above the horizon when the scout messenger rode in. The legion was coming.
“All of them?” Rick asked. “How are they formed?”
“They are all together,” the scout reported. “They come in two large groups. The one on their left is slightly ahead of the other one.”
“And where is the lady Tylara?”
“As you commanded, she is retreating from them but keeping them in sight. She will send messengers if they divide their force.”
“Excellent,” Rick said. He turned to Drumold. “Sound the battle horns.”
The Tamaerthon hill people were obviously of Celtic origin, and Rick had expected them to have bagpipes; but either their ancestors had been from a group that didn’t use them, or the art had been lost during the centuries on Tran. Instead they employed a long, curled horn that looked something like a thin tuba. At Drumold’s wave, these sounded, and the camp followers began the rattle of drums. The pikemen and archers ran to their weapons.
Rick climbed to the roof of the villa. It would be better for morale if he were with the ranks, but he couldn’t afford courageous gestures. More than one battle had been lost because the commander didn’t know what was happening to all his forces. The staff officers he’d chosen to keep with him didn’t like being up there either, but he’d stressed the importance of communications until at least a few of them understood how vitally he’d need messengers whose orders would be obeyed.
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