‘I am here to bring you back into the Roman fold. It would not serve to reduce a Caesar to the ranks. However, you will appreciate the perils of a split command. Pansa and I will give joint orders to the eight legions. You will be praefectus of two legions in the vanguard. You will march under our orders, in good formation, until you have met the enemy.’ His voice hardened subtly then. ‘You will give no orders of your own, not against Mark Antony. Your men have a history of independent thinking and I cannot afford to indulge their taste for it.’
Being first into the line of battle was an honourable position, but Octavian could not help the suspicion that the older man would be happy to see him fall. Even so, it was as much as he had hoped. There had never been a chance that the consuls would leave him in charge of half the army they commanded.
‘Very well,’ Octavian said. ‘And after the battle is won?’
Hirtius laughed. He had not yet touched his food, but he sipped his wine again, sucking it over his tongue with a hissing sound.
‘I appreciate your confidence, Caesar! Very well, when the battle is won, we will have order restored. Pansa and I will return to Rome, of course, with the legions. I do not doubt you will be honoured in some way by the Senate. They will give you your Lex Curiata, and if you are a man of sense, you will stand for election as senator in the new year. I imagine you will have a long and successful career. Between you and me, I would enjoy seeing a little younger blood in the Senate.’
Octavian smiled tightly in response, forcing himself to eat a few mouthfuls. The consul was working to be charming, but Octavian could see the hardness in him, the personification of Roman authority. He reminded himself that the consuls had denied him everything when they thought he was powerless. Four legions had bought him a place at the table, but they were not true allies.
‘I will consider it, Consul …’ he said. Octavian saw Hirtius frown and decided he was offering too little resistance and making the man suspicious. ‘Although you will appreciate how difficult it is for me to imagine sitting at peace with men like the Liberatores.’
‘Ah, I understand your reluctance, Caesar. The name says it all. Yet we are practical men, are we not? I would not waste my youth railing against enemies beyond my reach.’
Hirtius sensed the sentiment was not echoed in the cold-eyed young man across from him. The meeting had gone better than he had hoped and he struggled to find something else to smooth over the moment of ill-feeling.
‘If I have learned anything, Caesar, it is that nothing is certain in politics. Enemies become friends and vice versa, over time. Those who sit around this table are proof enough of that. However, it is also true that men rise and fall. Who knows where we shall find ourselves in a few years? It may be that when enough time has passed, once powerful men will find their stars have set and others are on the rise.’
He snapped his mouth shut then, rather than make promises he could not possibly keep. He had intended to raise a little hope in the young Roman. Hirtius had lived long enough to know that a brief and careless mention of promotion would keep some men working for years without reward. Yet words were just wind until they were written down and sealed. He was pleased to see Octavian’s expression ease and Hirtius raised a cup of the Falernian in a toast, the gesture quickly copied around the table.
‘To victory, gentlemen.’
‘To victory,’ Octavian repeated with the rest. He had learned a great deal over the previous months and no trace of his thoughts showed on his face. Yet it was strange to drink a toast with dead men.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Mark Antony shivered in a wind which came straight from the mountains looming over him. The cloak that had seemed so thick in the south felt threadbare, no matter how he wrapped and folded it. He could see his own breath and the ground itself was covered in a constant dusting of frost. Even his horse was shod with leather on each hoof to protect its feet.
From first light, he had set men to constructing catapults and scorpion bows, assembling the massive weapons of wood and iron from the train of carts he had brought with him. The cold made injuries unavoidable and he already had two men with crushed fingers being tended by healers.
His sons, Antyllus and Paulus, were in the thick of it, of course, tolerated by the legionaries as they ran and carried tools and nails, hardly feeling the cold at all. Mark Antony had been tempted to have Fulvia and Claudia round them up before they got themselves hurt, but the instinct had been forgotten in the face of a thousand other tasks. They had made good time on the coastal road north, arriving a week after him and with his wife exhausted and irritable. It would suit her to have them run free for a day.
Decimus Junius had not been idle, despite the shock he must have felt at seeing four legions marching into the fields around his fortresses. Mark Antony had surrounded and disarmed two thousand legionaries three days before, forcing the remainder of Junius’ forces to abandon them and run. The captured men were under guard at the permanent camp of Taurinorum, huddled in misery, though warmer than he was.
Mark Antony was not yet certain where Decimus Junius had placed himself in the chain of forts, but some guiding hand had withdrawn most of the remaining soldiers into the largest one, a massive wooden structure that squatted over the entrance to the pass. There were two other strongholds further away, but they could be broken or starved at leisure. Beyond the pass and the main fort lay Gaul, with all its wealth and vast green land. It seemed almost a dream while icy air bit at his exposed skin, but Mark Antony wanted at least one route to Gaul open and unopposed.
He did not intend to cross the mountains, not that year. Decimus Junius had been given a rich plum here in the north for his part in the assassination. Away from the peculiar climate of the mountains, it was rich land, producing vast quantities of grain and meat for Roman cities. If Mark Antony could secure it for himself, he would have both wealth and power over the Senate, no matter how they raged at him. In just a few years, when his sons had grown, he would have restored his position. He let the thought cheer him as the wind increased and his face went completely numb. One of his Brundisium legates was standing by for orders, the man’s nose and cheeks pink with cold.
‘Send a demand for surrender to the fort,’ Mark Antony said. ‘At least we might confirm if Decimus Junius is inside. If they don’t respond, wait for my signal and then smash the thing down around his ears.’
The legate saluted and hurried back to the waiting catapult teams, pleased to be moving. Mark Antony turned his horse, viewing the waiting legions with a stern eye. They were ready to rush in once the gates were broken and he found no fault with them. There had been no hint of disloyalty facing this particular enemy. He recalled that Caesar had once warned him never to give an order the legions would not obey. There was insight there, but he did not enjoy it. He knew there would be times when he sent his men against enemies they did not approve of and he could not risk them failing, as Buccio and Liburnius had failed. As the wind moaned past him from the mountains, Mark Antony licked his chapped lips and wondered how he could restore their discipline to unthinking obedience.
No formal response came from the fortress, not that he had really expected one. Mark Antony waited as the pale sun moved behind clouds in the sky. By then the chill had numbed him so deeply that he could not feel his hands or feet.
‘Enough of this,’ he said to a cornicen, his teeth chattering. ‘Blow two short notes.’
The sound rang out and the response came quickly. Small rocks launched from torsion weapons, driven by twisted ropes of horsehair three times the thickness of a man’s leg. Mark Antony could hear the teams roar as they beat the larger catapult to the first shot, but when it launched, the echoing thump of the beam silenced them. Twenty thousand men watched the huge stone fly on a shallow arc, soaring towards the fortress gates. With no resistance from within, they had been able to take their time placing the weapons. All the shots flew true, hitting the central gate one after the other. There was an ex
plosion of splinters and dust and Mark Antony knew from the cheering that a gap had appeared in the defences. He squinted through the biting wind, his vision far better over distance than it was reading messages. The torsion weapons were wound once again by the teams, the only ones warm that morning on the plain. The catapult too began to come up, drawn peg by peg against the massive strength of the beam itself and great iron spars that bent like a bow. Mark Antony gripped his cloak tighter around his throat, twitching the folds of red cloth with his free hand so it covered his thighs and part of the horse’s flank. The animal snorted at the contact and he patted it, waiting.
He sensed movement out of the corner of his eye even as the heavy machines punched rocks into the air once more. His men shouted in excitement, but his own pleasure turned to bitter worry as he saw one of his riders come galloping across the white plain. Mark Antony had them out in two rings, ten and twenty miles from his position. He was not surprised to see the man panting after such a ride.
‘Legions sighted, Consul,’ the rider said.
‘You know how to report!’ Mark Antony snapped.
The young rider looked stricken, but he collected himself quickly.
‘Discens Petronius reporting, Consul!’
‘Report,’ Mark Antony went on, glowering at him.
‘Legions sighted, Consul, marching north. A large force, with auxiliaries and extraordinarii.’
Mark Antony tapped his fingers on the saddle horn, considering his choices.
‘Very well, Discens Petronius,’ he said. ‘Return to your position.’
He watched the young man ride away, his mind whirling like the frost the wind kept flinging against his skin. It could only be Octavian. All the plans Mark Antony had made were collapsing into dust. He could not hold the north for a single winter, not against a force at least equal to his own. That was if his men would fight at all, once they learned who they faced.
He paused for a moment, reflecting. His hand came up and patted his chest, where a crumpled letter lay in a pocket. He’d read it many times, in disbelief and dread. With a muttered curse, he realised his choices had narrowed to just one. No matter what else happened, he had to open the pass to Gaul. He looked up, his eyes as cold as the mountains as he stared at the fortress in his way.
Mark Antony raised his arm and dropped it, the signal for which his legions had been waiting. They surged forward, heading to the broken gates past catapult teams who lounged on their weapons, their work done.
As they poured in, he heard the first clashes and screams echoing back from the hills above. He looked to his left, though the wind made him narrow his eyes to slits. Somewhere out there, a young Roman held Mark Antony’s future in his hands. He looked across the fort, to where the pass wandered up through the mountains before disappearing into the whiteness above.
‘Mars protect me,’ he murmured. Every instinct told him that fleeing would see him destroyed. Gnaeus Pompey had run the length of the world, but Caesar still caught him. Mark Antony knew he could send the auxiliaries and camp followers through the pass and win them time to get clear. At least his wife and children would be safe for a while longer.
‘Julius protect me,’ he whispered into the wind. ‘If you can see me now, old friend, I could use a little help.’
Octavian seethed as he rode, matching the pace of the legions. With so many men around him, he could not speak to Agrippa or Maecenas, but simply had to carry out the orders he had been given. Hirtius had placed him on the left wing, in the first of two lines of four legions. Legates Silva and Liburnius rode with him, the fairest choice he could make, while Buccio and Paulinius held station in the second line. Yet the formation ignored their superior numbers. The consuls had made the sort of Roman hammer that had failed so spectacularly against Hannibal three hundred years before. Octavian looked right to where the consuls rode in splendid cloaks and armour in the third rank. He could see them as distant spots of white and red, their lictors mounted to keep up with them. It was also the sort of deep formation that showed little trust in the men they commanded, which would hardly be lost on veteran legions. Those in the front ranks would feel their colleagues breathing down their necks the whole way, with everything that implied.
Octavian made a tunnel with his hands to focus his vision far away, an old scout trick. Through the moving circle he could see the mountains and Mark Antony’s legions like busy ants at their foot. They were forming lines as well, though less deep, so they could command a wider stretch of ground. Octavian glanced at the cornicen, but he could not give orders. Hirtius and Pansa were in command and the consuls had made themselves very clear. Octavian’s formal rank of praefectus was just an empty honour, at least for that battle. Octavian clenched his teeth until they ached.
The legions tramped on and as the sun reached the noon point, they were less than a mile from the ranks waiting for them. Octavian could see the remains of a fort across the pass, reduced to broken beams and rubble by thousands of willing hands. He had studied the maps Hirtius and Pansa carried and he knew the pass led through to southern Gaul, where the summer was still warm. When he was close enough to make out individual figures, he spotted a trail of carts winding into the mountains, away from the plain. Once more, he looked right to where Hirtius and Pansa sat in their ornate armour. It was possible they wanted Mark Antony to keep an escape route open, but if so, they had not shared it with their subordinates.
For the first time in his life, Octavian understood the terrifying reality of facing standing legions on a flat plain. Mark Antony had been given time to assemble his scorpion bows, weapons the size of carts that could send an iron bolt right through half a dozen legionaries. Octavian had made his plans, but they took him only so far. A single spear-thrust could put an end to all his hopes.
The temperature of the air had dropped in the wind coming off the hills and he shivered as he rode with his rank. All around him, legionaries were readying the heavy spears that would land the first blow. They would not draw swords until the first three waves had been heaved into the air, but unstrapping the wooden shafts with their iron tips brought that moment closer. The pace increased unconsciously and the centurions had to bellow to hold them steady. They strained forward as they marched and still Octavian could give no orders. He leaned in his saddle, wanting the clash to come rather than suffer any longer through a tension that built with every step.
Maecenas unsheathed a spatha sword on his left, longer than the usual gladius so he could cut down from the height of a horse. The Roman noble wore a breastplate that was perfectly smooth and polished to a high gleam. When Agrippa had mocked him for the way it caught the sun, Maecenas had only smiled. The gorgeous filigree and decoration favoured by senior officers made it easier for a sword tip to snag and then punch through. Agrippa had found himself a set of lorica armour, so that he clanked as he rode. They stayed close to Octavian and both men understood their role in the fighting to come. They knew Hirtius had hamstrung him, forcing him to accept the man’s consular authority. They would protect him, above all else.
Octavian looked for Mark Antony in the lines across the plain but could not see him. The man would be back in the third rank on his right wing, just as Hirtius and Pansa had chosen. It meant Octavian would be riding straight at his position. He did not yet know what he would do if he saw Mark Antony hard-pressed. Plans and stratagems swirled in his mind, but too much depended on the actions of others and Mark Antony in particular. The man had to trust him.
Octavian clenched his fists on the hilt of his own spatha sword, taking comfort from the weight and swinging it lightly through the air to warm his shoulder. He felt strong as he tied the reins to the high saddle pommel and drew up a long shield from where it bumped along behind his leg. From four hundred and forty paces, he would guide his horse with his knees alone.
At three hundred paces or less, the legions with Mark Antony remained still. By then, both sides could read the symbols held high by signifers next to the Ro
man eagles. Octavian wondered how they would react to the sight of the Fourth Ferrata coming at them, men they had known well in Brundisium. How many of them would realise they were facing Caesar in battle? With legions bearing down on them, Mark Antony’s men had no choice but to fight. On his own, he might have halted and let them see, perhaps even sent a messenger across to demand their surrender.
Octavian looked right to see if the consuls were reacting in any way, but no new orders came down the line. He bit his lip, feeling his bladder grow tight. Mark Antony did not want his men to rush ahead of the opening to the pass. He had positioned them with a clear line of retreat. That was useful information and if Octavian had been free, he knew he would have detached a thousand to threaten a block across the pass, forcing Mark Antony to respond. Yet the consuls only came on, closing the gap step by step.
At a hundred paces, horns sounded on both sides and the scorpion bows lurched on their stands, their bolts snapping out too fast for the eye to see. They ripped into the lines of legionaries, punching down files of men who never knew what had killed them. The only response was to move in fast before the teams could reload. Octavian kicked his horse into a trot to match the sudden lurch in pace. As well as Maecenas and Agrippa, a diamond formation of heavily armoured men jogged with him, their task to protect the senior officer at the heart. His horse would mark him as a target from the first moments, but like the legates and tribunes of the eight legions, he needed the height to see. The legionaries in the ranks jogged smoothly, holding heavy spears low and ready for the first cast along a line that stretched for more than a mile.
When it came, Octavian had to struggle not to flinch. On both sides, thousands of men let out an explosive grunt as they heaved the spears up and immediately passed another from left hand to right. There were few among them who could guide the path, but they counted on speed and force over accuracy to smash an opponent’s charge even as it began. Some fell on the scorpion teams, spearing them and then plunging into the ground so that the helpless, screaming men were held upright as they died.
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