Rome’s Fallen Eagle

by Robert Fabbri

  Keeping in good formation, the two turmae hit the disorganised Germans in unison, cracking their shield bosses, with explosive force, up into faces whilst thrusting low with their long cavalry spathae at fleshy groins and bellies, harvesting the slimy grey contents within. In a couple of places a wall had been formed and these warriors fought back with the ferocity of desperate men, jabbing their long spears over the shield rims at their onrushing foe with such strength that, with the momentum of the charge, their tips cracked through the chain mail, to lodge half a thumb’s length in a few screaming Batavians’ chests; not deep enough to kill outright but painful enough to incapacitate whilst a killing blow was administered.

  Vespasian pressed his left leg forward onto the back of his shield giving it further support; he rammed it against the flat wooden shield of a young warrior snarling at him with bared teeth as he slashed downwards with his long sword. Magnus, on Vespasian’s right shoulder, punched his shield up taking the blow on the iron rim with a cloud of sparks. Vespasian ducked involuntarily and in doing so saw his opponent’s left foot exposed; with a fleet, brutal motion he sent the tip of his spatha crunching through the unprotected bones and on into the earth beneath. With a high, piercing scream the young Chaucian staggered back pulling his skewered foot away; Vespasian heaved his shoulder into his shield with enough force to send his unbalanced opponent tumbling onto his back. Taking a quick pace forward, he kicked the grounded man’s shield away to reveal his groin and slid his blood-slick sword between the legs; he held his wrist firm as the German juddered violently in agony and then ground it left then right as the warrior’s shrieks intensified. With a spray of crimson he yanked his weapon back out and moved forward on to the next man as the Batavian behind him punched his sword down into the writhing warrior’s throat, stilling his cries and severing the cord of his life.

  Vespasian cracked his sword against a shield ahead as Magnus and Sabinus, one to either side, drew forward to stand shoulder to shoulder with him, sweating and blood-spattered, roaring their defiance with inarticulate bellows. Suddenly a shockwave rippled through the whole melee; Paetus’ turmae had struck the Germans in the rear. It was now just a matter of time. The Batavians pressed their advantage as the dwindling Chauci retaliated with ever-diminishing force until the last one slid to the churned ground with brains spilling out of what was left of his skull.

  ‘Halt and re-form!’ Paetus cried as the two opposing Batavian forces met either side of a ridge of mainly German dead and moaning wounded. The decurions bawled their wide-eyed, panting men back and into lines before they could do their own comrades any harm whilst under the influence of the rush of combat.

  Vespasian sucked in cool air as he tried to steady his heartbeat and calm himself after the short but ferocious clash, feeling relief at having not lapsed into the mindless battle-frenzy. ‘We should get searching,’ he puffed to Thumelicus whose sword arm was streaked with blood.

  The German nodded and barked at his five men to follow him as he turned towards the grove.

  ‘Have the men ready to move out as soon as we come back,’ Vespasian ordered Paetus as he, Sabinus and Magnus followed.

  The grove consisted of about two dozen trees of such a variety of types that Vespasian realised that it must have been planted by man many years ago. He found Thumelicus by the stone altar at its dark centre between an ancient holly and a venerable yew.

  ‘There’s no sign of the Eagle here,’ the German said, puzzled. He kicked at the mossy, frozen ground but it was solid and showed no signs of recent disturbance.

  ‘What about in the surrounding trees?’ Sabinus asked.

  After a futile search Thumelicus shook his head. ‘It’s not here.’

  ‘But you said it would be,’ Vespasian almost shouted in his frustration.

  ‘That doesn’t mean it has to be; perhaps they moved it deeper into their lands.’

  ‘Then why were they guarding this grove?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Perhaps they just wanted us to think it was here,’ Magnus suggested. ‘After all, fifty or so men aren’t going to stop determined people getting the Eagle, but it would be enough to convince people to look in the wrong place.’

  Vespasian frowned. ‘So where could they have hidden it?’

  ‘I don’t know, perhaps we should ask one of their wounded.’

  ‘They won’t talk no matter what you threaten them with,’ Thumelicus stated.

  ‘What about the prospect of a nasty time in that wicker man back at the first clearing? That might—’

  ‘Of course!’ Vespasian exclaimed, turning to Magnus. ‘You’re right. They were trying to draw attention away from where they had hidden it by guarding the wrong grove. It’s in the first grove; we checked everywhere but we didn’t look inside the wicker man – gods, who’d go near such an unnerving thing? And it seemed to be empty because light was shining through it. But how come it was swinging when there was no wind? Because they had just finished hanging it up when we arrived! We must have just missed them. It’s in there.’

  Sabinus smacked himself on the back of the head. ‘Of course, how stupid. I almost said that would be a good place to hide it as a joke.’

  ‘Would that have been funny?’ Thumelicus asked.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘I thought not. We should go.’

  ‘We’re looking in the wrong place,’ Vespasian called to Paetus as he followed Thumelicus out of the grove. ‘We need to hurry.’

  ‘What about my wounded?’

  Vespasian did not reply; he knew that Paetus would know what to do with those too severely hurt to be carried fast.

  Thumelicus led them southwest along the side of the triangle they had not yet travelled. Despite the exertion of the previous hour Vespasian did not feel weary but, rather, invigorated by the prospect of finding the Eagle. The raucous sounds of battle growing ever closer, away to his right, gave even more urgency to the final sprint; he knew that as soon as the Romans broke the Germans the wood would be filled with not only defeated fugitives but also with Gabinius’ troops hunting the same trophy.

  After a lung-tearing run of almost a mile they entered the first clearing from the opposite side. The wicker man was still visible hanging over the altar at the centre of the four oaks that made up the small grove. Thumelicus ran over to it and stopped, looking up at the chilling artefact.

  ‘Can you see it?’ Vespasian asked, stopping next to him.

  ‘No, I can’t make out anything inside it; we need to get it down.’

  ‘We should be very careful.’

  Thumelicus looked at Vespasian with a pained expression. ‘Do you really think that I don’t know what sort of traps could be protecting this?’ He turned to his five men and spoke to them in German; they immediately began to hoist the lightest of their number up on to the lowest branch in the grove using their clasped hands as steps. ‘Move away from the altar,’ Thumelicus advised Vespasian, Sabinus and Magnus.

  They stepped back, looking up nervously as the leaves above them started to rustle and the wicker man began to twist and sway as the man ascended higher. Thumelicus glanced at the swinging man and shouted what sounded to be a warning; the pace of the climb slowed and the wicker man’s movement lessened.

  A cry of alarm followed by the creaking of straining ropes caused Thumelicus to jump back. ‘Get down!’

  Vespasian threw himself to the ground as the strained creaking grew; two huge logs, sharpened to points at either end, swung down from the treetops, lengthways, arcing through the clearing so that at their lowest point they were chest high, passing just either side of the altar. The creaking rose in tone and volume as the logs swung through to their zenith, straining at the hemp ropes, pausing for a heartbeat at the extreme of their pendulum, before reversing direction.

  As they flashed back through the clearing Vespasian saw that they were not independent but, rather, joined by a thin iron blade at their centre that passed between the top of
the altar and the feet of the wicker man. ‘That was designed to slice in half anyone who tried to take the man down.’

  ‘Nice lot, these Germans,’ Magnus growled as the logs swung back through with lessening force.

  ‘And you think you Romans are nicer because you crucify people or throw them to the wild beasts?’ Thumelicus asked, getting to his feet.

  ‘Another fair point.’

  As the swinging slowed, Thumelicus ordered his men to still the logs and then sever the ropes; they did so cautiously, stepping back quickly as they cut each one and looking nervously up at the trees, but no more traps sprang from the heights.

  Thumelicus shouted to his man above, who replied briefly. ‘He can’t see any more ropes up there other than the one supporting the wicker man,’ Thumelicus informed Vespasian, ‘we should be safe to approach it.’ He climbed onto the altar and stood up so that his head was knee-height to the wicker man. ‘They’re made so that they can open, for obvious reasons,’ he said examining the thick wickerwork. ‘This one opens along either side; we’ll have to get it down.’ He drew his sword and stood on tiptoe; the end of the blade just reached the rope. He started to saw; two of his men came to stand either side of the altar to catch the wicker man as it fell. The rope thrummed as the sharp edge worked its way through it. Vespasian glanced up to see what it was attached to that made it hang dead centre between all four trees but they were too tall and a thin mist still clung to their dark, upper reaches.

  Thumelicus sawed harder as the strands of the rope sprang back, one by one, until there were only a couple left. He looked down at his men, checking that they were ready to catch and then worked his blade for the final cut. The rope parted; the loose end flew up into the trees and the wicker man fell, its feet landing with a crunch on the altar. The two Cherusci grabbed the legs, preventing it from toppling in any direction as a faint metallic ring sounded from above. Vespasian saw Thumelicus freeze for an instant and then turn his head up towards the noise; his eyes and mouth opened in alarm as the sun broke through the mist and two flashes of burnished iron blazed like lightning down from the canopy. ‘Donar!’ he shouted at the sky.

  With a crack a sword hit the altar, bending slightly before springing back up, vibrating with a thunderous roll and falling to the ground; a thin twine was knotted around its handle, leading up into the heights. Vespasian looked for the other only to see Thumelicus’ legs start to buckle. He raised his gaze; Thumelicus’ head was tipped back and protruding from his mouth, like some cross perched upon a hill of execution, was the hilt of the second sword. Blood flowed freely around it, trickling into Thumelicus’ beard; the blade had entered his throat at an exact perpendicular, slicing its way down through the internal organs until it came to a jarring halt on the base of the pelvis. Thumelicus’ eyes focused in disbelief at the hilt just before them, unable to comprehend how it got there. A grating gargling sound exploded from his throat and blood slopped onto the pommel and the twine attached to it; he fell against the wicker man, pushing it back off the altar. Leaving an arced trail of blood globules marking his descent, Thumelicus fell with it, crashing onto its chest as they hit the ground and then bouncing up slightly, owing to the springiness of the branches woven together. As Thumelicus thumped back down a second time the wicker man broke open; a bundle wrapped in soft leather rolled out.

  Vespasian stooped down and picked it up; it was heavy. He glanced down at Thumelicus; the light faded from his eyes but Vespasian felt that he detected a glimmer of triumph. Sabinus looked at his brother with disbelief. Vespasian raised his eyebrows and hefted the bundle over to him.

  Sabinus placed it down on the ground and pulled back the leather. ‘We’ve got it,’ he whispered as the last flap fell free to reveal a golden eagle, wings spread, neck arched, ready for the kill and holding Jupiter’s thunderbolts in its talons; the Eagle given by Augustus, more than fifty years before, to his XVII Legion.

  Sabinus looked at Vespasian and for the first time ever there was genuine fraternal emotion in his eyes. ‘Thank you, brother. I owe you my life.’

  CHAPTER XII

  FLAMES RAGED ON thatched roofs and smoke billowed up from the township, melting away the last of the haze and replacing it with a bitter-smelling pall. Remnants of the Chauci poured from the field of battle, heading for the relative safety of the woods, pursued, in good order, by six cohorts whilst the remainder sacked the town. The screams of the women within were plainly audible as outrage after outrage was committed.

  Vespasian pushed himself onwards, next to Paetus at the head of the lead turma, with Magnus and Sabinus puffing behind as they retraced their steps to the rearguard at the copse. Thumelicus’ men bore their leader on their shoulders, the sword still embedded in his stiffening body; they had been unwilling to remove it without a priest, fearing that it may be cursed. Vespasian could well believe it as he remembered Thumelicus’ words: ‘I swore to Donar the Thunderer to strike me down with a lightning bolt from above if I ever have anything to do with Rome again.’

  Splashing through the rank, contaminated stream, Vespasian glanced away to his right and then looked back in alarm at Paetus. ‘Look, they’re coming around this side now, they’re bound to see us.’

  Paetus looked up without breaking his step to see the best part of an ala of auxiliary cavalry swooping around the west side of the township in pursuit of fifty or so Chauci horsemen. ‘With luck they’re too busy to worry about us; we are Roman after all.’

  ‘We may be,’ Magnus agreed, ‘but we’re Romans running in the wrong direction.’

  ‘In that case let’s stop running,’ Vespasian suggested.

  ‘Not a bad idea, brother,’ Sabinus wheezed, immediately slowing his pace.

  There were no objections to the suggestion from the exhausted Batavians who at a signal from Paetus and barked orders from the decurions slowed into a quick march, dressing their ranks into some semblance of military order.

  ‘Get Ansigar to take Thumelicus’ men’s weapons from them,’ Vespasian ordered Paetus, ‘and have a turma surround them. Explain to them it’s just for appearances’ sake until we get back to the river.’

  Paetus grinned and dropped back to find his senior decurion.

  Sabinus swapped his weighty trophy from under one arm to the other. ‘Why did you ask for that?’

  ‘You’ll see very soon,’ Vespasian replied, watching three turmae peel off from the ala and head in their direction.

  Paetus caught up with him. ‘They understood; it wasn’t a problem. I’ll deal with those chaps if that’s all right, sir; I think that I know what to say.’

  They did not have long to wait; by the time they had covered another couple of hundred paces the cavalry had cut them off and were formed up across their path. Paetus brought the Batavians to a halt and walked forward with a look of righteous indignation on his patrician face. ‘Just what do you think you are up to, decurion?’ he roared at the leading officer in the central turma. ‘How dare you block my unit’s path as if we were part of the rabble that we’ve just defeated? We did the hard work whilst you were pissing about on your horses pretending that it’s dangerous on the extreme right flank.’

  The decurion, clean-shaven and in his late twenties, looked nervously down at Paetus from under the thin rim of his cavalry helmet. ‘I’m sorry, prefect, my commander wanted me to find out what you were doing.’

  ‘None of his fucking business is what we’re doing; I suggest that he carries on occupying himself with chasing small contingents of beaten Germans around the countryside whilst proper soldiers take the body of a chieftain, whom they’ve just despatched to German Hades, back to the fleet so that we can dispose of his body a long way from here. Now move out of the way, soldier.’

  The decurion looked behind Paetus to where Thumelicus’ men stood with his body in the midst of Ansigar’s turma. ‘But you’re cavalry, sir.’

  Paetus went puce. ‘Of course we’re fucking cavalry, you idiot, but when cavalry lose their
horses because the cock-hungry sailors of the transports failed to keep up with the rest of the fleet, what happens then? They become sodding infantry, decurion, that’s what happens; now fuck off before I get cross.’

  The decurion saluted briskly. ‘My apologies, sir.’ With a quick hand signal the turmae parted to let them through. Paetus gave a bad-tempered growl; Ansigar bellowed an order and the Batavians moved forward, jeering at the mounted auxiliaries until a huge roar from Ansigar made them decide to keep their opinions to themselves.

  Vespasian breathed deeply again as he passed by the rear ranks of troopers, keeping his eyes fixed on the copse, now only half a mile distant. ‘You reminded me of your father when he was making his report to Poppaeus, our commanding officer in Thracia, Paetus.’

  Paetus smiled ruefully. ‘He used to do his centurion voice for me when I was small, it always made me laugh.’

  Vespasian patted Paetus’ shoulder, remembering with affection his long-dead friend. After they had gone a couple of hundred paces he looked over his right shoulder; the turmae were galloping east to catch up with the rest of their ala. ‘Time to run, Paetus.’ He broke into a jog and then slowly increased his pace so that the men behind him would not lose their formation. To the front of the township was a mass of bodies splayed out over the plain; walking wounded and surgeons’ stretcher parties picked their way through it back to the hospital tents by the fleet.

  They soon passed into the copse, leaving the burning township and the desolation behind, and pressed on towards the river with the rearguard falling in behind them.

  Vespasian eased the pace off, well aware that the men were exhausted and there was a long, fast row ahead of them to slip past the Roman fleet. ‘We’d do best to abandon a couple of the boats, Paetus, and fill the other two so we can row in shifts and have men to fight off an attack if we’re unlucky enough to be followed.’