Saviour of Rome [Gaius Valerius Verrens 7]

by Douglas Jackson

  Valerius crouched behind the bole of a pine tree and looked down towards the road. A half troop of Parthian auxiliary cavalry rode by in a dusty field just below, their spear points glittering in the sunlight. A hazy cloud marked more horsemen on the far side of the valley. As he watched, the head of the column came into sight. Melanius had called the First and Second cohorts of the Sixth to Asturica to provide a show of strength as he began his bid for power. The legion’s involvement would have the twin effect of giving the operation a false legitimacy while simultaneously cowing any potential opposition.

  Serpentius, gladiator trained to identify a weakness at a hundred paces, recognized it immediately. His eyes glittered like a hawk marking its prey. ‘See how Melanius, Severus, Piso and Harpocration all ride with the vanguard of Parthians,’ he pointed out. ‘The First cohort is two hundred paces and more behind, and the Second further back still. Then a smaller rearguard of more Parthians. Poor march discipline?’ He aimed the question at Valerius.

  Valerius nodded. They’d witnessed it often in the early days of a long march. The excitement and hectic discipline natural when setting out was quickly replaced by lethargy, which in turn was magnified by the knowledge the formation was still in secure territory. It was never easy to maintain formation between infantry and cavalry, but doubly so with inexperienced soldiers. Melanius’s legionary cohorts, for all their long service, were garrison troops, who’d seldom left the fort for the past three years.

  ‘Proculus likely feels he has nothing to fear until he’s beyond Legio,’ the one-handed Roman suggested. ‘There is no force in Asturia that would pose a threat to two cohorts of legionary infantry. He’s allowed the First cohort to drop back so it doesn’t have to eat the dust of the vanguard. Melanius is the only one with the wit to see the danger, but I’d guess he doesn’t care to get involved in military matters. Piso is sensitive about his status as an officer of the Sixth. Melanius won’t do anything that might undermine his position.’ He studied the column again, wiping sweat from his eyes. ‘But what of it? Proculus is right. Even with the element of surprise our few hundred farmers would be slaughtered before the legionaries were properly warmed up.’

  Tito bridled at the insult to his countrymen, but Serpentius cuffed him on the arm. ‘Listen to someone who knows what he’s talking about and learn from him. Their order of march is a weakness, but we’re not strong enough to take advantage of it.’

  ‘Then what’s the point of us even being here?’ Tito demanded.

  ‘Because,’ Valerius suddenly understood what Serpentius envisaged, ‘circumstances change and possibilities arise …’

  ‘But you have to be in a position to take advantage of those possibilities.’

  ‘And you have an idea?’

  Tito looked at them as if they were mad, but his father only grinned.

  ‘I have an idea.’

  XLV

  ‘This is where I stopped the gold convoy on the night Petronius died. I don’t see why it shouldn’t work again.’

  They stood where the bank shelved towards the ford across the river. Valerius noted the narrow defile on the far side and the rocks that would protect the defenders. The road cut through a flat plain to reach this point, with two hundred or so paces of dusty earth, tufts of dried yellow grass and prickly shrubs separating the valley walls. They’d coaxed their horses down the rocky slope that formed the north side of the valley. To the south a gradual rise led to a long whaleback hill covered in stunted green pines. Experience told him that with a little effort they might make Melanius pause here – but stop him?

  ‘We don’t want to stop him.’ Serpentius read his mind. ‘Remember? We want to cut off the head of the snake.’ He pointed back up the road. ‘They come up the track and the Parthian scouts see spears glinting among those rocks. Not enough to frighten them, but sufficient to make them hesitate. Some will have been here with the gold convoy. My men were brave fools who allowed themselves to be lured from their position and were slaughtered. The hook-noses will be confident they can do the same.’

  Valerius saw it right away. ‘So they won’t wait for the legionaries to come up and do the job.’

  Serpentius shook his head. ‘Harpocration will want any glory for himself.’

  ‘They’ll leave men to guard Melanius and the rest.’

  ‘Ten or twenty,’ Serpentius said dismissively. ‘There’s a valley, more of a gully, cut into the north side.’ Valerius looked to where the Spaniard was pointing, a barely visible cleft in the rocks. ‘If you’re coming from the west you can’t see it until you’re directly opposite. We come out of nowhere and hit them hard and fast. The question is: how quickly can the First cohort react?’

  Valerius studied the road and the scrubby ground around it and tried to imagine what he’d do in Proculus’s place. ‘Proculus will hesitate until he understands exactly what he’s up against. Once he’s seen how few we are, he’ll form line. It will take time.’ The surge of elation he felt rang clear in his voice. ‘Long enough for us to get to Melanius and Severus and slaughter them like sheep.’

  ‘What about Piso and Harpocration?’

  ‘If you’re right, Harpocration will be at the river with his men. Once Melanius is dead Piso is an irrelevance. If Proculus has any sense he’ll take back command of his men and march them straight back where they came from.’

  ‘Unless he decides to clean things up properly.’ Serpentius frowned.

  Valerius had an image of the Asturians being hunted through the hills like rabbits by the legionary veterans. ‘If it comes to that Tito and his men need to know they must retreat. They’re not here to fight professional infantry.’ He hesitated. It wasn’t too late. The offer had to be made. ‘We can always go back to our original plan and send your farmers home?’

  The Spaniard stared at him. A moment of uncertainty followed by decision. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It would be a betrayal of their courage and the people they’ve left behind to risk their lives fighting beside us. They believe if we succeed today their families will be safe from the Parthians and their children will have a better future. I hope they’re right, Valerius?’

  ‘I’ll make sure Vespasian knows what happened here, if I live. If I don’t, you take the papers to Pliny. He’ll listen to you. Melanius and his gang will lose in the end, Serpentius, but unless we can win today it will be at the cost of thousands of lives, Roman and Asturian. We’ve both seen enough blood spilled. Let us end it here.’

  ‘We’ll survive.’ Serpentius’s face broke into a wolf’s grin. ‘Hit and run. In and out before they know what’s happening. Like that day at Bedriacum with Marcus Antonius Primus’s cavalry.’

  Valerius remembered that day with less relish and he hoped this one would turn out better. ‘How long before they get here?’

  Serpentius glanced at the sun. It was close to mid-morning. ‘They don’t seem in any hurry, so four hours, maybe five.’

  ‘Then let us finish our preparations in two. The last thing we want is a stray scout stumbling on us. Who will lead the defenders?’

  ‘Tito,’ Serpentius said. It had been an awkward conversation. His son had been eager to take a more active role, but he’d seen sense in the end. ‘It needs to be an Asturian and Tito knows I’ll be more effective on horseback. I’ve given him his instructions, but I’ll speak to them before we take our positions.’

  While Valerius inspected his ‘cavalry’, Serpentius lined up the two hundred men who had answered Tito’s rallying call. Some were driven by loyalty, some saw war as an adventure, but most only wanted the opportunity to avenge loved ones butchered in Parthian raids. They waited on a gravel mound overlooking the river. The water was lower than when Serpentius had last been here, but he hoped he could turn it to their advantage.

  ‘Tito has shown you your positions.’ He raised his voice so all would hear. ‘And he has told you what you must do. What must you do?’

  ‘We are to pull back across the river when the hook-noses appro
ach, then defend our positions to the last breath.’ It was the voice of Placido, and it was accompanied by a murmur of approval.

  ‘Good,’ the Spaniard said. ‘But what he has not told you is that he has brought you here to die.’ Now there was a rumble of consternation and the men looked at each other. ‘That’s right, every last one of you bastards will die unless you do exactly what I say. Some of you will have known Buntalos and Sigilo and the others who once rode with me. This,’ he thumped his spear shaft into the gravel, ‘is where they died. Are you brave?’

  A momentary hesitation before a ragged cry of ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, Buntalos and Sigilo were brave too. Too brave. When their blood was up the hook-noses tricked them into advancing into the river. That river,’ he pointed with the spear. ‘And when they were in the river they slaughtered them. Those waters ran red with their blood. Once you are in the rocks you will not leave them. Do you understand? Tito,’ he called, ‘if anyone leaves those rocks who does he have to fear?’

  ‘He has you to fear, Nathair.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Serpentius ranged along the line of his men, his dark eyes filled with menace. ‘He doesn’t have to fear the pitiful Parthians. He has to fear me. I will follow any man who leaves cover and gets himself killed beyond the Gates of Hades, rip out his gut and strangle him with it. When the fighting begins and your blood is up you will experience one of two things. If you are fortunate you will feel more alive than at any other time in your life. You will think you’re quicker and better than any of your enemies, and maybe you’ll be right. If you’re unlucky you’ll have ice water running down your spine and you’ll want to piss yourself. Your spear will feel as heavy as a wagon wheel.’ He glared at them. ‘Neither of those things matters because you’ll stay in those rocks. In a defensive position a man who’s pissed himself is just as effective as a man who thinks he is invincible. The Parthians will try to frighten you. They’ll try to goad you and they’ll try to trick you, but their horses won’t be able to reach you. That means they’ll have to fight on foot. Cavalry don’t like fighting on foot, and it’s only the cavalry you’ll be fighting.’

  ‘But what about the Sixth, lord?’ Placido asked. ‘We heard there are two cohorts of legionaries.’

  Serpentius’s expression turned bleak. ‘If the legionaries start to advance across the river you withdraw into the hills where a man in armour will have trouble following. Forget about duty and honour. Your job is to get out alive. You scatter and you go home.’ Because if the Sixth advanced while Tito and his men were still in position, it meant they’d reacted more quickly than Valerius expected. It would be all over. They would have failed. And they’d most likely be dead. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘we have work to do.’

  While Serpentius was passing his instructions to the foot soldiers, Valerius used Allius as an interpreter to tell the horsemen what he expected of them. Standing beside their horses in an untidy group deep in Serpentius’s gully, they were proud, unyielding men, with heavy brows and narrow eyes made for peering into a dust storm. Downturned mouths required just a twitch to transform their disdain for the world into a sneer that would have their neighbour reaching for his knife. They were men of the blood feud and that feud could last generations. Fine horsemen, their Celtiberian forefathers had ridden beside Hannibal two centuries before, but they were not soldiers. The key was to use them to create an opening for Valerius and Serpentius to reach Melanius and Severus.

  The thought of what would happen there made Valerius pause. He would take no joy in killing either man. Melanius was a fat crook who Valerius suspected initially became involved only for the pleasure he took in manipulating people. By the time he realized what he’d got himself into there was no going back. Severus was greedy and vain and desperate to impress his beautiful wife. Neither of these was reason to kill someone, but their plotting had led to Petronius’s death. They’d unleashed Harpocration and his Parthian butchers on the innocent tribespeople of the mountains. So they would die. They’d stolen Vespasian’s gold. The Emperor was not a cruel man, but if he didn’t make an example of the men who’d robbed him, they’d spawn a thousand others. As Serpentius always said, a quick death was a good death, no matter how it came. And Serpentius had more experience of death than any man Valerius had ever known. Better for Melanius to die under Valerius’s sword than broken on a cross.

  But he couldn’t do it alone. Whether Melanius died or not would be decided by these men.

  ‘Tell them they should not attack the Parthians directly.’ Allius translated the instruction and Valerius saw instant consternation on the horsemen’s faces. ‘We will certainly outnumber the hook-nose cavalry.’ He wasn’t certain at all, but they didn’t need to know that. ‘But the Parthians are expert spearmen and there’s no point getting killed for no reason. They are to think of themselves as a swarm of bees. Irritate and threaten, but stay away from their points. Attack only from the flanks, or better still the rear. They must also have one eye for Parthian reinforcements, who could come from either the river or the rear of the column. Hopefully our task will be complete by the time they are alerted. If not they must withdraw. Not run away.’ He knew better than to question their courage. ‘Withdraw and shield the wounded or help the unhorsed. The same applies if the legionaries of the Sixth move into formation for attack.’

  A growl of sullen disapproval followed Allius’s translation. ‘They do not like this talk of withdrawal.’

  ‘Then they will stay here,’ Valerius snapped. ‘Or join their friends on the far side of the river. The Romans win because they have discipline. They win because they know how to obey orders.’

  A guttural snarl from the rear of the group and Allius grinned. ‘They say they are not Romans. They will follow you, but they will only withdraw when you do.’

  Valerius saw it was as much as he would get from these hard men of the mountains. It would have to be enough. It would probably be the death of them, but he managed to match Allius’s grin.

  ‘When the time comes their horses will have to grow wings to keep up with me.’

  That brought a burst of laughter, as he’d intended, and the mood lightened. ‘They ask what we do now, lord?’

  ‘Tell them to check their equipment, sharpen their spears – and wait.’

  XLVI

  Marcus Atilius Melanius bit back a groan and tried to rearrange his vast bulk in the saddle with the least possible discomfort. Every part of him was either scraped, scratched, rubbed raw, aching or on fire. His armour, which had shone so proudly when he’d ridden through the streets of Asturica with the cheers ringing in his ears, was covered in dust and cut into his shoulders and his hips. It was impossible to find a comfortable position for his sword. His splendid helmet with the red horsehair crest seemed to have a mind of its own no matter how tight he strapped it beneath his chins. All his meticulous planning and now this.

  Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He knew the answer, of course: pride, simple foolish pride. He’d been determined to depart from Asturica a hero, and if a man wanted to be a hero he must look like a hero. At the outset a scarlet cloak had covered his ample form. It was long discarded, but sweat still poured from his brow, stinging his eyes and drenching his tunic. More streamed down his legs. It had been years since he’d done any serious riding. Why hadn’t he ordered Severus to provide a carriage? Still, perhaps it wasn’t too late.

  ‘You have a carriage, if I remember, Severus,’ he hinted. ‘A fine, well-sprung affair with a cushioned interior. We have done our preening, but we are sensible men, not peacocks driven by vanity.’ His horse tossed its head and he hauled at the reins with a muttered curse, sawing the bit across its delicate mouth. ‘We’re also not as young as we were. Too old and too senior, certainly, to spend our days eating dust. It would be no shame to take turns in the saddle and for one of us to show himself while the other rested for the rigours which are undoubtedly to come.’

  Severus, who’d been sunk in misery contemp
lating the endless days and weeks ahead, shot him a tight smile. ‘I would agree entirely, my dear Melanius, if only Calpurnia hadn’t taken the accursed thing a couple of days ago to visit her sister. I’m afraid the saddle it is unless you feel it would not be beneath us to requisition a farmer’s cart or some such until we reach Legio. I’m sure Proculus will be able to provide something in the comfort line when we reach the fortress. Shall I send someone to bring him forward?’

  Melanius groaned inwardly. ‘That won’t be necessary.’ He doubted very much whether Proculus would go out of the way to find anything that would diminish his agony. In fact, he suspected the prefect would probably revel in it. That was one reason Proculus was at the head of his First cohort instead of in the vanguard with the command party. The other was that, quite frankly, the presence of the veteran soldier made Melanius nervous. His time with the legions in Germania seemed very long ago. A process that had felt relatively simple then now appeared devilishly complex. There were so many things to remember. It was only right that Proculus, as nominal legate of the Sixth, should bear part of the burden, but Marcus Atilius Melanius commanded, and he must be seen to command. He also had to show strength in front of the likes of Severus and Piso, who were already showing signs of strain.

  Mars save him, how had it ever come to this? He’d been in Asturica Augusta five years, patiently building a network of suitable contacts and waiting for his opportunity. It had presented itself in the form of Aurelio, who rode, ever watchful, a few paces behind his right shoulder. At the time he’d been working in some vague and shadowy capacity for the department of the praefectus metallorum. Melanius suspected he’d been an enforcer who kept the mine workers and their families in their place, some employment that required a potent mix of subtlety and extreme violence. Certainly there had been a hint of menace about the man when he’d appeared unannounced at Melanius’s house. Melanius’s first instinct had been to have the cocksure peasant thrown out, but something had made him hesitate.