Betrayal: The Centurions I

by Riches, Anthony

  Labeo nodded his understanding.

  ‘And who will command, Legatus?’

  The general considered the question for a moment.

  ‘It must be a legion officer, and it must be a man I can trust both to follow my orders to the letter and act with the necessary aggression. It can’t be any of Legatus Lupercus’s officers, since not only are they going to be busy enough getting their men moving, but none of them apart from the legatus himself has any combat experience.’

  He turned and looked at the hulking man standing behind him.

  ‘And it will need to be someone with sufficient experience of war and martial vigour to ensure that the auxiliary cohorts do as instructed. In short, Centurion Aquillius, given your previous legion’s extensive war record against the Dacians and Roxolani, it must be you.’

  Praetorium Agrippina, August AD 69

  ‘You’re sure this will work?’

  Solon turned slowly to face Brinno, leaning closer to his tribal chief to whisper in his ear.

  ‘If you manage not to alert the Romans with your shouting, Brinno, then yes, I am sure that this will work. Remember that a man’s voice will carry twice as far in fog as on a clear night.’

  The younger man stared at him for a moment, then spoke again with his voice lowered to a whisper. They were nestled in a dip in the ground less than a hundred paces from the Roman fort that guarded the lowest reaches of the Rhenus before it joined the sea, a wooden walled encampment that usually housed a cohort of five hundred auxiliaries but was now manned by little more than a hundred men of one of the few remaining cohorts on the frontier between Batavodurum.

  ‘You are not a centurion in their army now, Solon, with an inexhaustible supply of men to be tapped if you should lose a few of your soldiers. Every man waiting in that wood is precious to the tribe, a son, or a father, needed by their dependants. So are you sure that we can do this without half of them being killed by the ironclads?’

  Solon opened his mouth to reply, but a faint rustle from the grass in front of them caught both men’s attention and stiffened their bodies, both readying themselves to leap to their feet and either fight or run. A soft whistle, barely audible, reached their ears, and both of them relaxed, sinking back onto the ground as a man crawled out of the mist.

  ‘It is done?’

  The newcomer, another former soldier whom Solon had chosen for his steady demeanour, nodded in reply to his question.

  ‘I poured it onto the gate timbers, and the wall to either side of the southern gate.’

  ‘And there was no sign of the Romans being alarmed, or just more alert than usual?’

  A shake of the head.

  ‘No. The men on the wall were talking about which of the women in the village they would like to fuck, and about home.’

  The older man turned back to his prince.

  ‘It will work, Brinno, because I know these men, or at least their like. The Romans recruit men from across the river, dress them in their iron armour and expect them to think and act like legionaries. But these men are not like the men of the legions, or our own. They are not warriors. They still think like the men of their tribes do, like cattle thieves rather than soldiers. They should have listening patrols out looking for an enemy approaching in the darkness. There should be lilies, pits of spiked sticks, dug into the ground around the fort to tear into the feet of the unwary, and stakes dug into the ground beneath the walls to impale an attacker in the darkness. Instead, there is only a wooden box with some frightened soldiers inside who would rather be at home, and most of whose comrades have gone to war. They see no threat, and thereby make their defeat a hundred times more likely.’

  Another man whistled and crawled into their hiding place, confirming that he too had managed to empty his jar of pitch onto the fort’s western wall, and that he too had not been seen by sentries who might as well have been asleep at their posts.

  ‘The fools cannot believe that there is any threat, not even after Rome’s failed attempts to conscript the Batavi into their legions. They believe that because the Cananefates and the Batavi have been allies of Rome for the last hundred years this can never change. They are about to learn that this is a mistaken belief, and to learn this lesson the hard way.’

  Brinno regarded his military leader levelly.

  ‘And you, Solon. After so long in their service, can you do this?’

  ‘You asked me that once before, if you remember?’

  ‘I did. But that was when you were fresh from their service, and all I was asking you to do was train our young men in readiness to serve in the cohorts of the Batavi, and drill our men in the use of weapons in order to make them capable of seeing off raids across the river. Now I am asking you to lead our men against Rome.’

  The older man shrugged eloquently.

  ‘And I can do this. Not because of this story of the priestess in the tower who has seen our victory. Not because I am disgusted with the way that Rome has treated our allies, and will soon enough attempt the same cruelty with ourselves. But because, Brinno, the men of our tribe have raised you on the war shield and declared that you will be our king, when the Romans have been removed from our land. So now, with your permission, lord, I will lead our men to their first victory over Rome.’

  Brinno nodded with a smile, extending an arm towards the fort, a dark outline in the darkness and mist.

  ‘Very well.’

  Solon backed away until he was sure that he would be invisible from the fort, with Brinno close behind him, leaving the other two men to watch the fort for any signs of alarm.

  ‘Will they smell the pitch?’

  Solon considered his king’s question, answering with a fierce grin.

  ‘I think not. Not until it’s alight, that is.’

  Making their way through a stand of trees, they found the space behind them thick with men, each of whom was armed with a spear and a small shield, and carrying a torch to be lit when the time was right. Brinno stepped out before them, calling for them to gather close round him.

  ‘No shouting, my brothers, not until we have the Roman fort alight. After that you can shout all you like. Listen to Solon now, he’s going to tell you what we’re going to do.’

  The former centurion stepped forward.

  ‘When I’ve finished speaking, light your torches. Our plan of attack is simple. We march on the fort, as quickly as we can to avoid them having time to work out what’s happening. You will recall I have told you of the small bolt throwers that the Romans call scorpions, and how these weapons can spit a bolt so hard that it will pierce through a warrior and still have enough power to kill the man behind him. So we will run out to the fort, and surround it on three sides, in silence, because if we do not threaten them they may not realise what we intend until it is too late. Centuries one to three …’

  He paused, enjoying as he always did the novelty of referring to his tribe’s militia in Roman terms. Solon no longer served Rome, but twenty-five years as a soldier had left him convinced him that Roman organisation and tactics, combined with their lavish iron weapons and armour, had been what had enabled them to conquer so much of Germany so quickly. And as he had told Brinno earlier that evening, when Cananefates courage was married to the enemy’s way of war, all of their men would be ironclad with captured war gear soon enough.

  ‘Centuries one to three will move round to the western side, four to six take the southern side, and seven to ten the east. Get as close as you can without having a spear thrown at you and then throw your torch at the fort walls. Not into the fort, they might just be ready for that, but against the walls. Some of those torches will catch light to the wooden beams and set the place alight, and we’ve poured pitch on the wood at the places where their bolt throwers should be mounted to make them impossible to use from the heat of the fire. And then …?’

  A man in the front of the press surrounding Brinno and his general spoke up.

  ‘We wait.’

  ‘Exactl
y. We back away to reduce the chance of anyone being hit by a bolt, and wait for the fire to do its work. The Romans will either burn with their fort or try to escape. And if they come out, we kill them. Do it quickly, and cleanly. No torture, no gut stabbing a man and waiting to see him bleed out, just get it over with. I catch any man disobeying that command and I’ll do the same to him. We’re not barbarians, no matter what they might think, and we’ll not behave as if we are. Remember what you’ve been taught, ironclad they may be, but you put a spear blade in here,’ he pointed to his throat, ‘or here,’ he pointed to his thighs, ‘And he’ll be dead before you can count to fifty, and good for nothing but dying a good deal before that. Now, are we ready?’

  A chorus of growled assent answered him, and he looked at Brinno, who nodded and stepped forward.

  ‘Brothers, I thought long and hard before committing us to this war. Only when it became clear to me that if we hold back from choosing a side in this fight then whichever side wins will punish us for doing so, did I agree to commit us to the support of Vespasianus. Solon has told you that we must fight like the Romans to defeat them, and as my war leader, as my …’

  He looked at Solon.

  ‘First Spear, my Lord.’

  ‘Yes, as my First Spear, he is right to lead you in this way. We will fight with honour, as he suggests, and so I command you to make only clean kills. There can be no prisoners, no wounded to be spared, and not one Roman can escape. We must finish them to the last man! And when this place is destroyed we will march east and do the same at Matilo, and again as we work our way east, killing all Romans we meet by chance upon the way, the traders and merchants who live on our wealth like ticks on a fat cow. This will be a war we can only win by terrifying Rome so much that they will leave this land and never seek to return. We must convince them that every footstep on Cananefates soil will leave only a footprint filled with the blood of the man whose boot made the mark!’

  He looked around him at men whose families had traded across the river with the tribes to the north from which the soldiers inside the fort were recruited.

  ‘I know that under different circumstances we would consider those ironclads as something close to kin, long known to us in our dealings with them and the other tribes to our north. Some of them may carry Cananefates blood.’

  He looked at his feet for a moment.

  ‘And that is a thing of sadness.’

  His voice hardened.

  ‘But necessary nonetheless. Is there any man here that cannot kill such a man?’

  He looked about his tribesmen for a long moment, but if any man present harboured such a qualm, not one of them was willing to admit to it.

  ‘Very well! Then come my brothers, let us do what no man of the Cananefates has done for a hundred years, and in doing it restore the manhood Rome stole from us all those years ago, forcing us to play the vassal to their empire! Allied with our brothers the Batavi, and with Rome’s soldiers all so very far from here, fighting one another for the right to rule their empire, this is the time when we must strike, and aim the killing blow at Rome’s rule over these lands! Come, my brothers, join me in this fight, a fight for freedom that will be remembered in the songs of our sons and grandsons, and make this day a day to remember for all time. For we go to make war! War on Rome!’

  11

  River Rhenus, August AD 69

  ‘He’s a fucking strange one, and no doubt about it.’

  The warship’s captain nodded at his helmsman’s opinion, staring forward at the silhouette of the big centurion who had come aboard the flagship the previous evening, standing in the vessel’s bow as he had done for most of the night.

  ‘I don’t think the prefect would be quite as gentle with his opinion.’

  The fleet’s commander had retired to the privacy of his tiny cabin and was presumably still fuming at having been ordered to take his ships downriver in the darkness, an unorthodox if relatively low-risk course of action to skilled sailors with an intimate knowledge of the Rhenus’s twisting course. His short-lived attempt to resist the legion officer’s command to get his ships underway so late in the day, understandable in a man used to looking down on the rank of centurion from the lofty height of the equestrian class, had rapidly turned from outrage to startled submission with the drawing of the big man’s sword, coupled with the straight-faced question as to whether the naval officer was aware of the penalty that insubordination in time of war usually carried.

  The helmsman nudged the steersman standing next to him.

  ‘Come left another point, aim for the centre of the river. I’ve never seen a prefect threatened with an immediate death sentence before.’

  The captain turned his head away and grinned into the darkness.

  ‘Nor have I. Nor do I ever expect to again. And if you know what’s good for you we’ll not speak of it again, eh?’

  He paced down the raised walkway between the oarsmen’s benches.

  ‘Come on you barbarian bastards, put your backs into it! Our orders are to put the fleet alongside at Bridge Fort before dawn, not just in time for dinner tomorrow night!’

  Pacing back down to the master’s usual place on the command deck he muttered a quiet curse.

  ‘Is it me, or are these German layabouts even surlier than usual?’

  The other man shrugged.

  ‘What do you expect? Rousted from their mess at no notice to row all night against the tide for the most part? Not what most of them joined for.’

  ‘Hah!’ The captain snorted derisively. ‘What most of them joined for was the chance to earn some coin, and not to end up stuck in the same shithole village looking at the same raddled collection of their close female relatives for the rest of their lives. If the price of that’s having to pull an oar for a night at least it’ll make a change from pulling each other’s pricks. How far now?’

  The other man spat over the ship’s side into the Rhenus’s black water.

  ‘Five miles, no more.’

  His superior nodded decisively.

  ‘Right. We’d better get the marines on deck then, and get the scorpions ready for action. Sounded to me like that big bastard was expecting to be walking into some sort of trouble when he gets off, and given he doesn’t look the nervous type, I think we’ll take him at his word.’

  Fort Traiectum, August AD 69

  ‘There!’

  The men standing watch on the fort’s eastern gate were the first to see him, pointing at the distant figure marching purposefully through the fort’s vicus from the direction of the river, the masts of a good dozen warships looming out of the mist above the vicus’s riverside houses. Their watch officer strode down the wooden wall’s fighting platform and stared out at the oncoming soldier, his centurion’s crest evident even in the morning murk.

  ‘A fleet turns up and one fucking man comes ashore? What’s the point of that?’

  Turning back to look down into the fort, he barked an order at the men posted at the gate to fetch the senior centurion, who arrived with the cohort’s prefect at his side just as a hammering announced the newcomer’s arrival at the gate. Prefect and centurion looked at each other in mystification for a moment before the cohort commander nodded at his junior.

  ‘Open the gates, Centurion, and let’s see what this man has to say for himself.’

  Unbarring a small, man-sized entrance, the soldiers stepped back as a massive figure bent his head and ducked through the opening, straightening up and looking around him with sharp, alert eyes before turning back to the prefect just as he started speaking.

  ‘Greetings, Centurion. We’ve heard rumours that the Cananefates and their allies are planning some sort of revolt, so naturally we were expecting some reinforcement … But it seems that you’re alone?’

  The newcomer shook his head, reaching to the message container hanging from his belt as he spoke.

  ‘There will be no reinforcement of your outpost forts this far to the west, Prefect. To do so would
be to spread the available forces too thinly, and make what remains of our strength easier to pick off one or two centuries at a time. The legatus augusti plans to concentrate the available men instead, and offer the enemy battle in force. Your orders.’

  He handed over the message scroll, continuing to speak as the prefect unrolled it.

  ‘I am Gaius Aquillius Proculus, centurion, Eighth Augustan legion, detached to duty with the headquarters of Legatus Augusti Flaccus, commanding general of the army of Germania.’ He paused for a moment, looking about him at the expectant faces that surrounded him. ‘And I am temporarily appointed to command all auxiliary cohorts to the east of the Batavi city of Batavodurum.’

  The prefect looked up from the orders with a frown, staring at him in disbelief.

  ‘But that would make you my—’

  ‘Your superior. Yes, Prefect, it does, at least temporarily. Please read my orders. They contain your own.’

  The prefect’s eyes widened as he absorbed Flaccus’s instructions. His senior centurion, recognising that whatever trouble they were already in was about to get a good deal deeper, stared at Aquillius with hard eyes for long enough that the legion officer, even though his own gaze remained fixed on the prefect before him, felt the heat of his indignation. Without diverting his attention from the officer’s perusal of his orders, the big man spoke, his tone matter of fact and his stance relaxed.

  ‘Stare all you like, Centurion. I’d be doing the same in your place. These are troubled times indeed, when a man of my station can be placed in a position that requires him to issue orders to men of higher rank. So for as long as it takes your prefect here to read my orders you can stare, and look as pissed off as you like. But when those orders are read, and your prefect has acknowledged that, until I’m relieved of these unexpected responsibilities I am effectively his commanding officer, then I only want to hear two words from you, Centurion. Can you guess what they are?’