Hero of Rome

by Douglas Jackson

  He took a deep breath and scanned the slope again, but could still find no apparent sign of organization or leadership. The first Britons halted a quarter of a mile north of the river, not through fear but through confusion and suspicion. He knew what they were seeing and he could understand the reaction. They would have expected the veterans to defend the city or to retreat, with their loved ones and their possessions, along the Londinium road. Instead, they were confronted by this tiny force, like a sickly lamb staked out to trap a marauding wolf, and they wondered where the net was.

  ‘Primus Pilus!’

  Falco trotted from his position in the centre of the line to where Valerius stood on the left. ‘Sir.’ He saluted. The militia commander’s face was the colour of week-old ash but his eyes held a glint of iron and his features were set and determined.

  ‘March the First cohort forward to within forty paces of the bridge and keep the others in station.’

  He had formed his force into three strengthened cohorts of just over six hundred men each. Now those cohorts marched in lines two hundred legionaries wide and three deep, one behind the other, towards the bridge and he strode at their side. The gap between each cohort was ten paces. It was the standard deep defensive formation of the legion, if on a smaller scale. It had advantages and disadvantages, but his choice of battlefield suited it as long as conditions didn’t change.

  The short advance brought a concerted growl from the mass across the river, but still there was no general movement.

  The bridge was the key. And the river.

  The bridge stood less than a spear’s throw to his front now with the road from Colonia to Venta curving from the left over the meadow towards it, then continuing across to disappear among the massed ranks on the north bank. It was a sturdy structure, built of oak, seven or eight paces in width and surfaced with thick planking. A wooden rail had been added at waist height on each side to prevent the unwary from falling into the water ten feet below.

  He walked forward until he could study the river, keeping a wary eye for any enemy spearmen close enough to do him harm. It wasn’t wide – he could toss a stone across it without any great effort – but it was deep and here, and for as far as he could see, the banks were steep and overgrown with trees and thorn bushes, making them an obstacle even if the water itself could be crossed. The line of flotsam told him the spate level of the past two days was falling, but it was still too deep and the current too fast for a fording to be attempted with any likelihood of success. Of course, it could be done, especially to the west where the river narrowed, but it would take time. That was why he had given her the bridge.

  ‘Look!’ Falco pointed to the ridge, where a line of chariots flanked by horsemen cut their way diagonally through the crowd. They came at a steady trot, taking no account of those who stood in their way, and gradually word spread of their progress and the cheering began. Fifty thousand voices rose in acclamation. Swords, spears and fists clashed against wooden shields with a crash to rival a thunderstorm, and a hundred of the Britons’ animal-headed horns joined the clamour. She was here.

  The leading chariot burst clear of the mass of warriors and reined to a halt opposite Valerius, quickly followed by the others. It was too far away to be certain, but the Roman had an impression of hair the colour of burnished copper and a long skirt of azurite blue. She waited, allowing the cheering to build, and, standing in front of the pathetically thin ranks of the leading cohort, Valerius sensed her scrutiny. He remembered the day below Venta’s walls and the impression of power she had given. He sensed she was studying him now and for some reason he tensed as if he were trying to stop her from stealing his soul. Minutes passed and the feeling of being dissected from within grew almost unbearable. His legs told him to walk away and he turned, to find Falco at his side.

  ‘I don’t think they will want to talk.’ The wine merchant was forced to shout to be heard above the noise.

  Valerius almost laughed. Before a battle the Celtic champions were always willing to challenge a rival leader, but he agreed it was unlikely to happen today. ‘A pity,’ he said. ‘I could have used the exercise and it would have eaten up a little more time. How are the men?’

  ‘Nervous, but not afraid. They wish it would begin.’

  Valerius looked across the river, to where the British leaders were holding some kind of discussion. ‘It will be soon enough.’

  As he said the words, he saw a spear raised above the lead chariot and a ripple ran through the barbarian ranks like the wind rustling through a field of ripening corn. A moment later the first of the champions appeared, big men in the prime of life, naked to the waist and of proud bearing, with their hair limed and spiked to make them seem taller. They carried long swords or iron-tipped spears and their oval shields were brightly painted with the emblems of their tribes or their clan. They were the elite of their people, bred to war and eager for the fight. For years they had been forced to accept the bitter taste of subjugation and a place at the plough or in the field, but their elders, men who had last fought the Romans on the Tamesa, had kept the old traditions alive. Trained in secret in the lonely places their conquerors never visited, they had honed their skills and worked their muscles. Waiting for the day. Now the day had come.

  Valerius and Falco re-joined the militia, the wine merchant taking his place behind the front rank of the lead cohort and Valerius continuing to the rear, from where he would conduct the battle. As he passed through the ranks he had a word of encouragement for every man he knew and many he didn’t and they smiled momentarily before their faces resumed the mask of grim concentration that marked a battle-ready legionary.

  He remembered the first time he had seen these men, on the day he had inspected them on this very field. He and Lunaris had laughed at their ancient weapons and worn uniforms, their pot bellies and the scrawny arms that looked as if they could barely carry a spear let alone throw it. The faces ran through his mind: old Marcus Saecularis, the sheep farmer, in the centre of the front rank, with the horsehair of his crested helmet announcing his rank to any enemy; Didius, scratching his nose distractedly at the head of his century, who would lend money to any man as long as the rate of return was high enough, but whose last act before donning his armour had been to annul each and every debt; bearded Octavian, named for an emperor, who had stood in the line against Lunaris and his legionaries and had taught them a lesson in humility. And Corvinus, who had never struck him as a coward, but whose position with the fourth century of the Second cohort was left unfilled. Where was he now, when his comrades were about to…

  ‘They’re coming!’

  Strange that the pulsating crash of sword against shield had calmed him to the point where he could watch without emotion the British champions sprint in a great surging crowd towards the bridge. Thousands of them across a front of almost a mile, each racing to be first to reach the Romans on the far side of that narrow barrier. As they advanced and the mass of warriors began to take on individual identity, he felt his heartbeat increase and his breathing deepen.

  ‘Spears,’ he roared. Each man had two of the iron-pointed pila embedded in the soft grass at his side and a further pair in reserve in the space between the cohorts. Now they chose one and hefted it in their right fists, balancing the weapon for the cast.

  The first of the champions were still a hundred paces from the bridge. Good. They would be the fastest, the strongest and the bravest. He saw that many of them had thrown away their shields in their eagerness and their momentum was taking them ahead of their rivals. He counted down in his head. Ten seconds at most until they reached the bridge, then two more heartbeats and…

  ‘Ready!’

  Bare feet thundering on wooden planking. Two, one. Now!

  ‘Throw!’

  Four hundred javelins hissed through the still air for a flight that lasted a split second. The hands that held the spears might be wrinkled and the arms might have lost the awesome power of a quarter of a century before,
but they could still throw and at forty paces the target was unmissable. More than two hundred warriors had crowded on to the bridge, eager to be the first to strike a blow against the Romans. Instead, they were the first to die. Heavy spears capable of punching through light armour slammed the champions in the forefront of the attack back against those behind as they took the points in chest, belly or throat. Valerius had known some of the precious weapons would be wasted, but he had to be certain. The entire bridge must be covered in that first cast. Falco had snorted disdainfully and pledged his fortune on it and the wine merchant was as good as his word. Only a handful of the men on the wooden planking survived the rain of spears and most of those were wounded or disabled. The others were pinned by one, two or even three of the weighted pila. Already, two hundred bodies writhed and groaned and stained the boards of the narrow bridge with their blood. But behind them came thousands more.

  ‘Ready!’ Valerius was well pleased with the result of the first throw. Every warrior now attempting to cross would be impeded by the bodies of the men who had preceded them. He waited until the first of the second surge of warriors stepped on to the dirt of the south bank.

  ‘Throw!’

  With each cast another few hundred joined the corpses on the bridge floor until a literal wall of dead and dying obstructed the attack. In their fury, those who came behind frantically bundled the bodies of brothers, friends, comrades and rivals over the barriers and into the river in an attempt to clear a path. They clawed their way forward snarling like attack dogs, only to die in their turn.

  ‘Second cohort, to the front.’ In a carefully choreographed movement the cohort behind stepped forward to take the place of those who had exhausted their supply of spears.

  ‘Ready!’

  ‘Throw!’

  ‘Ready!’

  ‘Throw!’

  ‘Third cohort, to the front.’

  ‘Ready!’

  ‘Throw!’

  It could not last. He knew it could not last.

  Inch by inch, the Britons edged their way across the barrier of their dead. They were the invincibles, but even invincibles would use a shield if it was the only way to survive this slaughter. As the veterans’ arms tired, the volleys of spears became more ragged, allowing still more to cross. A dozen turned into a hundred, and a hundred into two. Soon, Valerius knew, unless he stopped them, hundreds would turn into thousands.

  ‘Shields up. Draw your gladii. Form line. Forward!’

  It took time, too much time. The respite from the spears had given another four or five hundred a chance to cross and still more were crowding behind them, hampered but not halted by the dead and dying.

  Now the cohorts deployed in single line, each six hundred strong, and as they marched towards the bridge he saw with relief that they still overlapped the British bridgehead, but only just. Where were Bela’s cavalrymen?

  He matched step with the outer man of the Second cohort and turned to grin encouragement. It was one of the younger soldiers from the Londinium garrison. He tried to remember his name, but couldn’t, only that he should have been back in barracks baking bread for his century. The boy grinned back and in the same instant his right eye exploded like an over-ripe plum and he dropped to the ground as if he were a sack of river sand.

  Shit! Valerius looked up to see where the missile had come from, but a howl announced that the Britons who had survived the bridge were halfway across the open ground and about to fall on the front rank of the Roman battle line. So far, the veterans’ casualties had been light.

  Now there was dying to be done as well as killing.

  XXXIV

  They died well.

  The gladii hacked down the first shock of the British attack, and the second, but for every Celt who fell another ten rushed forward to take his place. By now only the mound of corpses and the narrowness of the bridge limited the numbers reaching the near bank. A crack like the sound of a giant axe signalled that the side rails of the structure had given way, throwing dozens to their deaths in the swollen river. Even so, thousands had already crossed and the veterans were only just holding them. Something whirred past Valerius’s head, reminding him of the fate of the young legionary. The Britons had no formal units of archers, but many skilled hunters swelled the ranks of that great mass and now they lined the bushes of the far bank, picking their targets with bow or sling. The centurions’ steady cry of ‘Close the gaps’ rang with increasing regularity as the veterans dropped. Three burly Celts pulled Octavian bodily from the Roman formation and hacked him to pieces. Didius took a spear point in the throat and went to his gods without a murmur of complaint. For now, the casualties in the First cohort could be replaced by the men in the second line, but the old soldiers were beginning to tire and the pressure was so great he couldn’t gamble on resting a single man. He stepped on a body and looked down to see the baker from Londinium staring up at him with his single eye. It was the first indication that the line was moving back.

  Where was Bela?

  The sound of a horn gave him his answer and with relief he stepped out of the line and ran back to the higher ground where the cavalry had formed up. Not Bela, but Matykas, the trooper from the bridge who had advised him to take his little army away. The man must have been in the saddle for more than forty-eight hours, and he led only half the horsemen Valerius had expected.

  ‘Your commander?’

  The Thracian lifted his head and Valerius saw that only his spirit kept him upright. ‘Dead.’

  ‘And the rest?’ There must have been a hint of unintended accusation in his words because the man’s eyes flared momentarily.

  ‘Dead too. No one ran, tribune. All fell. You put too much faith in the river.’

  Valerius fought off a wave of despair. Another mistake. ‘How many crossed?’ he asked.

  Matykas shrugged. It didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered. He groaned and straightened. ‘Your orders?’

  Every Thracian bled from at least one wound. Their spears were splintered or gone and the coats of their worn-out cavalry mounts were flecked with foam. How could he ask any more of these men? ‘I need you to take pressure off the flanks.’

  The troop commander frowned and looked across the seething horde in front of the bridge as if for a few seconds he’d forgotten the battle existed. Eventually, he nodded and gave the order in his own language.

  Valerius saw the reluctance in the men’s faces, and the decurion snapped another spate of words. Then he looked down at the Roman. ‘I told them that tonight we ride with the stars.’

  ‘I hope it is true.’

  The trooper replaced his helmet and tightened the chin strap. ‘I hope so too.’

  When they were gone, Valerius took a moment to survey the battle from his slightly elevated position. He was by the north gate with the bridge two hundred paces away to his right front. By now it was impossible to count the Britons who had crossed. Several thousand pressed the thinning wall of Falco’s legionary veterans and thousands more streamed away to east and west, keener to be among the first to Colonia’s spoils than to die on the point of a gladius. The Roman line curved like a hunting bow now and was edging inevitably back towards him with its outer wings threatened, three, four, five Celts hammering at each Roman shield. He watched the Thracian cavalry formation split and ride in a wide half-circle that brought the horses of the two depleted squadrons smashing into the British flanks at the same instant. For a moment a flash of bright metal showed as the long cavalry swords smashed down on exposed British skulls, but it couldn’t last and the next time he looked they were gone; a hundred lives snuffed out like the flame of an oil lamp.

  But those lives had not been wasted. A momentary confusion in the Celtic throng allowed Falco to restore his line and gave Valerius time to run to the militia commander’s side.

  ‘We have only one chance,’ he shouted to make himself heard above the clash of iron against iron. ‘There are too many now. We must form testudo and fight our wa
y to the temple.’

  Falco turned to him and Valerius saw that though he breathed like an overworked ox his right arm was bloody to the elbow and his eyes shone bright with the elixir of battle that made a man think he was immortal. The lined face was set in a feral snarl and he shrugged off Valerius’s hand as if it were a stranger’s and turned to go back to the line.

  ‘Testudo,’ Valerius shouted again. ‘We have to form testudo.’

  For a moment comprehension appeared on the tired features and Falco looked around at the diminishing band of his veterans. Valerius recognized the moment of decision. The little wine merchant sucked in his belly beneath the battered chain mail and came to attention.

  ‘I fear that this is an order I must disobey, tribune,’ he said. ‘We pensioners have walked as far as we can today. We will stay where we stand and give you as much time as we can buy with our lives. Gather your beardless children and take them where they can do more good.’

  ‘No,’ Valerius shouted desperately as his friend turned away.

  Falco looked over his shoulder and said very deliberately: ‘Get them out, Valerius. Hurry. You only have minutes. I can give you no longer than that.’

  He wanted to stay and die with them, but there was still another battle to fight and Lunaris would need his help. ‘Londinium vexillation! Form testudo, on me.’

  The response was automatic and immediate, the shell of the tortoise coming together over and around him. Perhaps a hundred and thirty of them were left, all of them breathing hard and many of them bloodied or limping.

  Before he joined the front rank of the formation he took a last look about him. The veterans could barely hold their shields now and any man’s sword arm would tire after forty minutes of hard fighting, but Falco’s militia battled on. The Britons had pushed the flanks back until what had been a line was now a small pocket of hacking, grunting, blood-soaked survivors. At the south end of the pocket one opening remained, like the neck of an amphora, but rapidly shrinking. Twenty feet away from him, Falco formed a small squad of a dozen wounded and exhausted men in the mouth of the opening. Valerius heard him shout for one final effort, and as he took his place at the front of the testudo the old wine merchant caught his eye and with a last salute led his men in a desperate charge that forced the opening back a few precious feet.