Clash of Iron

by Angus Watson

  These lies were so persuasive and pervasive that they’d become the truth, even for people who’d been there and seen the reality. It was all a massive self-delusion. In reflective moments, usually after a few mugs of wine, Ragnall saw that the Romans, himself included, didn’t question their own despicable behaviour; they simply forgot about it. Their actions were horrific and the justifications for them the most appalling hypocrisy. But the next day Ragnall would forget that he’d thought like that and get on with the business of supporting Caesar in his amazing adventures.

  Journeying along in Caesar’s charismatic wake, he was happier than he’d ever been. When, every now and then, Drustan’s or perhaps his mother’s voice whispered from the Otherworld to ask him what in Danu’s name he thought he was doing, then he invited them to kindly bugger off. His family and his tutor had done nothing more for him than die and leave him alone. Caesar had given him fineries, comfort and a fascinating life. Ragnall owed him everything.

  General and proconsul Caius Julius Caesar began the meeting with a description of the previous day’s battle. He commended everyone’s skill and bravery, but said that the main cause of the victory was he himself riding to the front line, dismounting and sending his horse galloping away so that he couldn’t retreat, then fighting in the front line with the legionaries.

  “Thus I proved,” said Caesar, “my unshakeable faith in the Roman soldier. I had no concern for my safety because, with a stout legionary at each shoulder, I did not consider myself to be in danger. The men saw my courage, drew from it, and won a famous victory.”

  Like many of his lies, there was some truth in it. Caesar had in fact dismounted, sent his horse away and walked along the Roman front line, encouraging the legionaries and asking several of them about their families – he was preternaturally good at remembering his legionaries’ names and personal details – but he’d done it while the Helvetians were still a good mile away. As the enemy had advanced, Caesar had walked back to a position several hundred paces beyond the range of any Helvetian projectile. Before that, in case the Helvetians had launched a rush of cavalry while Caesar was bolstering the troops, Ragnall had been nearby with a spare horse.

  The centurions nodded and commended Caesar on his bravery.

  “But the mighty Romans cannot yet rest,” Caesar continued. “The Helvetian scourge is defeated, but our Gaulish allies have been plagued with yet another insidious invader, and have asked for our aid. So, my friends and countrymen, it is with sadness that I tell you that we must travel further from the bosom of our homeland to face a new threat! However, with ready joy I await to hear your resolve. We march immediately, to repulse an innumerable force of Germans under the tyrant king Ariovistus.”

  While the centurions cheered, Caesar leapt off the platform, rolled up his bedding, tucked it under an arm, took another bite of his bread roll and marched from the clearing. Behind him, the centurions all said what a marvellous, honest man he was.

  Chapter 6

  Atlas and Carden blocked the road, weapons ready. Chamanca stood on the verge, sling swinging. The Roman slowed his horse to a stop.

  “Hello!” he said. “What can I do for you?” He was a wide-eyed, eager-faced young man with a malice-free smile. Straw-coloured hair grew from a centre spot and flowed regularly down into an even fringe, so that it looked like he was sporting a newly made, inverted wicker bowl on his head. He did not seem at all troubled to be halted by three heavily armed barbarians.

  “Where is the Roman army going?” asked Atlas.

  “North-east, to a town called Vesontio – that’s what we’re calling it. I think the locals call it Wesontius or something like that?” The scout nodded to himself.

  “Why?”

  “There’s a German king, Ariovistus. He’s crossed the Renus with thousands and thousands, and invaded a Gaulish tribe’s land. The Sequani, those are the Gauls. They’ve asked us to remove the Germans, so that’s what we’re off to do!”

  “Why Vesontio? Ariovistus is nowhere near Vesontio,” said Atlas.

  “Lots of supplies in Vesontio, it’s said to be very easy to defend, and it’s the Sequani capital. I guess Caesar wants to plan or debate or whatever it is they do with the Sequani leaders. Oh yes, and they say that Ariovistus is headed for Vesontio. We’ve got to get there before him. That’s the point, that’s why we’re in a hurry.”

  “All right,” said Atlas, stepping to one side and nodding to Carden to do the same, “on your way.”

  “Atlas…” said Chamanca, eyeing the young man’s neck.

  Atlas gave her a dark look.

  “Fine,” she said.

  “Thanks! Bye!” said the scout. He kicked his horse and was gone.

  “Sorry, Chamanca,” said Atlas, “I think—”

  “Don’t worry, I know.” Part of her wanted to be sucking at the surprisingly forthcoming scout’s neck, but part of her was glad that Atlas had let him go. They’d seen so much death in the last few days that even her blood lust had been diluted.

  “What’s going on?” asked Carden, who still hadn’t picked up a word of Latin.

  “He said the Romans are riding for Vesontio to head off a large force of Germans led by Ariovistus.” explained Atlas. “He must have meant Wesont, a big Gaulish town, and Ariovistus is the German king Hari the Fister. The Sequani that he mentioned are the Skawney, a Gaulish tribe, and the Renus is the River Renos. It is true that Hari the Fister’s tribes have settled on large swathes of Skawney land, and that the Skawney are far from happy about it, so it is possible that the Skawney asked the Romans for help. But I doubt it. About a dozen years ago the Skawney asked for Fister’s help against another tribe. He crossed the Renos and defeated the Skawney’s enemies, then didn’t go home. I am sure that the Skawney won’t make exactly the same mistake with the Romans. More likely the Skawney don’t know Caesar is coming, and the Romans intend to take the land that the Germans have conquered, and all the Gaulish land in between here and there. If they control the land west of the Renos, the river will be a barrier between them and the Germans, and the Gauls will provide all the resources they’ll need to invade Britain.”

  “Why is he called the Fister?” Carden asked with a chuckle.

  “It’s a bastardisation of a family name from a German tribe,” Atlas replied.

  “It’s not because he—” Carden beamed with puerile joy.

  “No, it’s not.”

  “So what do we do?” asked Chamanca.

  “We go to Wesont. We talk to their leaders and help them to prepare a welcome for the Romans.”

  “What was it like, living in Rome for all those years?” Carden asked Atlas as they walked along the road.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I’ll tell you about the Romans in Iberia if you like,” Chamanca said.

  “Please do!” Carden ducked around Atlas so that he was walking next to the Iberian.

  “I had an aunt who lived in Salduey. The town’s leaders made a pact with the Romans and opened their gates to a legion. The Romans killed the leaders first, then all the men. Then they lined up the women—”

  As they marched through the fine summer day, Chamanca told tales of Roman depravations in Iberia. She had plenty to tell.

  They arrived at Wesont on foot, four days later. They’d exchanged the horses they’d travelled south on with the Helvans for food, and now every animal in Gaul capable of bearing a burden, it seemed, was being used to flee the advancing Roman army. There was not a one to be bought or stolen. So they’d had to walk, carrying their supplies. Atlas, by his surliness, was weary and footsore. Chamanca had enjoyed the exercise. The heat had been a little unpleasant for the first two days, but cool weather had rolled down from the north with drifts of thin, refreshing rain. Chamanca had thought it was refreshing, anyway, but the two men seemed even less happy than in the heat, and had almost come to blows when Carden had mocked Atlas about the way his locks of knotted, curly hair had shortened and fa
ttened in the wet air.

  The town of Wesont occupied a freakishly well-fortified position. A fifty-pace-wide river running north-east to south-west hit a hill, swung north then flowed in a wide loop, almost completing a circle before bouncing off the other side of the same hill and reverting to its south-westerly course. The result was a thousand-paces-diameter circle of land about nine-tenths encircled by low cliffs and the river, joined to the surrounding land only by the hill, which formed an isthmus about five hundred paces wide. Across this neck of land was a high, man-made earth bank, topped with a broad palisade. The only way in was a large gate, flanked by two stout towers. The gate stood open.

  “Close that gate and, with a few hundred troops, you could defend this place against anything,” said Carden.

  “You could,” said Chamanca, “but where are we going to find a few hundred troops?”

  For the last two days the fields and villages they’d passed had been near-deserted. Approaching what should have been a busy market town, there were few people about. The gate was guarded only by a young woman, sitting on a chair by a gatepost, looking at them appraisingly and fearlessly.

  She was pale-skinned with a small mouth, broad, pink-tinged cheeks and large, dark eyes, framed by a shoulder-length helm of healthily shiny hair, black as the underside of a black dog. She wore a fine green cotton dress, well-made sandals that criss-crossed up trim ankles and the curve of her calves, and she had a slender, intricate silver toque around her pale, graceful, biteable neck.

  “What’s the news, kiddo?” said Atlas as they approached. It was unusually slangy language for the Kushite and when they’d spotted her, his steps had become so much springier that he’d almost pranced up to the gate. Clearly he found the woman attractive. That didn’t surprise Chamanca. Despite his erudite demeanour, Atlas was an avid shagger of a variety of women. Chamanca had enjoyed more than one bout with him when neither of them had had anyone better to do. She’d been meaning to again on this trip, but Carden had a strange knack of getting in the way.

  What surprised her was that he’d shown that he was keen on this woman. She had never before seen Atlas’ reserve drop like that. Either something weird was going on as a result of their long march, or Branwin the goddess of love had whacked Atlas with her magic bone when he’d laid his eyes on Wesont’s gate maiden.

  “The news is that you should move on.” Her voice was level and assured. “There’s nothing here any more. The druids have shrieked that the Romans are coming and there’s nothing we can do about it, and messengers have confirmed their wailings. Half the town have fled, half the town are preparing to fill their purses with the invader’s coins and half the town are drunk.”

  “That’s three halves,” said Atlas.

  “I’m in the drunk half so my calculations are probably off.”

  “You don’t seem—”

  “I’m not. It was a joke.” The woman was deadpan.

  Atlas laughed for the first time in a couple of days, far more than the jest required. Carden laughed along. Chamanca had noticed that he often laughed because other people were laughing. It made her impatient. “What else can you tell us about the town? Does anyone intend to defend it?” she asked.

  The woman explained the situation further. She was Kapiana, daughter of Kaplax, who was one of the Skawney leaders. The Skawney, she said, were ruled by an ever-changing committee, voted in and maintained by a system so complicated that it made love look simple. The only thing they needed to know about the committee was that they were a cluster of crooks, and every decision that they made was great for them but disastrous for Wesont and the rest of the Skawney.

  For example, they’d asked Hari the Fister across the Rhine for help that they didn’t need against another tribe. He’d crossed the river with more Germans than you could shake a sausage at and stayed, taking half of their land. Refugees from Skawney’s eastern lands had fled the Germans and clogged the once elegant town of Wesont. The committee, having caused the refugees’ plight, first took advantage of them, then, when they’d stripped them of their treasure and possessions, persecuted them. To create reasons to chuck them out of the city, they’d made begging illegal and installed a curfew that was impossible to keep for people who were living on the streets. The current situation was that many innocent people had been exiled, some had been killed, and those who remained were living in the shittiest accommodation, knocked together with whatever materials came to hand.

  Now the committee had asked the Romans to get rid of Fister, which was indubitably going to prove an even worse mistake for the people and an even more lucrative windfall for the rulers.

  “Why did they not learn from the German occupation?” asked Atlas.

  “Oh, they learnt plenty. They found out that the people suffer under an invasion, but the committee grow rich. While others starve, they can buy expensive trinkets for their daughters.” Kapiana tapped her silver toque.

  “Will you show us to this committee, please? They can’t know what the Romans will do. We have to tell them. The Germans occupy only the east of your land. The Romans will take all of it. They will kill many of you and enslave the rest.”

  “I’ll take you to the committee if you like, but, at best, it will be a waste of time. At worst, and most likely, it will be fatal. They do tend to kill strangers who bring them unwelcome advice. And you won’t tell them anything new. They know exactly what the Romans will do. Do you think we don’t know about Iberia? About toga-wearing Gaul? About Illyricum? About the massacre of the Helvans at Suconna River? You underestimate the selfishness of the Gauls if you think for a moment that our rulers give the tiniest of craps about any of that. They themselves will thrive, and that’s all that matters. If the Romans torture and kill the little people, who cares?”

  “You seem to,” said Atlas.

  “Do I? Well, there you go. But I can’t do anything.”

  “I have a plan to slow the Romans down. Perhaps even to send them home. Will you help us?” The Kushite put a hand on her shoulder.

  Kapiana looked uncertain.

  “It will be fun,” said Chamanca.

  For the first time since they’d met her, Kapiana smiled. “All right then.”

  Chapter 7

  Thirty-five thousand Romans marched one hundred and twenty miles north to Vesontio in five days. A hundred and twenty miles further from Rome, Ragnall told himself, and a hundred and twenty miles closer to Britain.

  So confident was Caesar of the terror caused by his treatment of the Helvetians that they travelled in normal marching order, rather than a more ambush-ready formation. Ragnall rode in the senior staff retinue, happy to be on horseback. With the official position of Caesar’s advisor, he was given a free rein, literally, so he amused himself on the journey by riding up and down the line and checking that everyone was in their correct places. Of course they were – they were Romans – but it still impressed him. Doing what you were told the whole time was a completely alien concept where he was from.

  The marching order was the same for any large, multi-legion Roman army. Auxiliary cavalry scouted ahead and patrolled the flanks of the mass of marching men, led by the approximately four thousand eight hundred legionaries of one ready-armed, baggage-free legion. If tens of thousands of angry barbarians came screaming out of the trees, this lead legion was meant to bear the brunt, so it was chosen the night before by the drawing of straws. The soldiers saw luck and the gods as more reasonable arbiters than the taking of turns. Riding past, Ragnall thought the advance guard seemed much more relaxed than usual, as if Caesar’s nonchalance had trickled down to the ranks. It was fascinating, he thought, to see how much the army was an extension of Caesar. Of course there was banter, bragging and jokes at the general’s expense, but overall they were like trusting children. Which made sense – he was like a father, in that his whims could lead them to fortune and glory or misery and death.

  Within the advance legion, as within every legion, the four thousand eig
ht hundred soldiers were split into ever smaller command groups. Ten cohorts of four hundred and eighty were each segregated into three maniples of one hundred and sixty. Within each maniple were two centuries of eighty men, and within each century were ten contuberniums of eight. The titles were old. “Century” meant a hundred but it contained only eighty, and the leader of each contubernium was called a decanus, which meant leader of ten, although he only commanded eight. Reforms had changed the numbers, but not the names.

  These variously sized units could be commanded and manoeuvred in a vast array of combinations, giving the Roman army impressive fluidity on a battlefield. Ragnall had also seen that these team divisions engendered fierce, sometimes violent but ultimately useful levels of competition. Most legionaries strove to be the best in their contubernium. Each contubernium sought to be the best in the century, but they were also proud of their century as whole, then their maniple, cohort and legion. In Britain, it had been all about the prowess of individual warriors, then the army as a whole. The Romans’ multi-levelled teamwork was vastly more effective.

  After the single legion advance guard came the surveyors. At the end of each day’s travel the surveyors would find a flatish, well-watered spot and lay out markers for the legionaries to chop down trees, assemble tents and build a rectangular defence of ditch, bank and palisade with a gate on each of the four sides. In a perfect world, the camp would slope gently in the direction of the enemy, but simply finding an area of habitable land large enough was often as well as they could do.