Arminius

by Robert Fabbri

  On the evening of the second day, as we were halfway between the Albis and Visurgis rivers, skirting to the north of the Harzland, the sight that I had been looking for came into view: Vulferam and a small party of Cheruscian auxiliary cavalrymen galloped out of the north making for the command post between the first two legions where Varus rode. I immediately sped forward to join them although I had no need to hear what they had to say as it was I who had put the words into their mouths.

  ‘What is it, sir?’ I asked Varus as I pulled my horse up next to him.

  Vulferam and his comrades had withdrawn to a respectful distance, their message delivered.

  Varus chewed on his bottom lip before replying. ‘It seems that the Ampsivarii to the north have taken this opportunity to rebel against us and murder all the tax-farmers and merchants in their tribal lands.’ He pointed to Vulferam. ‘Do you know this man, Arminius?’

  I replied that I did and that he was an uncle of mine, my mother’s brother, and my senior decurion and he could be trusted.

  ‘I should divert north and deal with it on the way back; it can’t be more than four or five days out of the way and the weather’s set fair for at least that.’

  And now I had him. ‘Let me go with my ala; we can be there in half the time and if it’s just a localised revolt then I’ll have sufficient men to quell it.’

  Varus looked at me, assessing me. ‘A chance to prove your loyalty, Arminius; very well, go. But if it’s too much for one ala, send me word; I don’t want to march west with this smouldering behind my back. Fire tends to catch if it’s left unattended.’

  ‘Don’t worry, sir; I won’t be afraid to send for help if it’s got out of hand. But I’m sure that we’ll be able to manage; you can trust me.’

  Varus nodded. ‘I know I can.’ Then he added with a grin: ‘With my life.’

  ‘Yes, sir; with your life.’ I saluted him for the last time, spun my mount about and, signalling to Vulferam and his comrades to follow me, sped back down the column to collect my ala. After sending out messengers, recalling the patrol that had been sent up ahead, I led my men into the north. It was now a matter of timing: I had to wait until Varus had crossed the Visurgis and reached the southern limits of the Teutoburg Wald. Then I would send my distress message and then I would know whether he was as big a trusting fool as I thought he was. Then I would see if he would bring three legions into dense country to come to the aid of the man who had saved his life and help put down a fictitious rebellion.

  Then I would see if he would come of his own volition to the killing ground.

  CHAPTER X

  ‘Will he come?’ my father asked as I rode, the following day, with Vulferam and his men into the skull-lined Grove of Donar, in the south of the Teutoburg Wald.

  Dismounting, I ignored the question as the answer would only be speculation; my father did not press the point as he too realised that it was a foolish thing to ask. ‘Are all the tribes here?’

  ‘The Chatti were the last to arrive two days ago.’ He pointed to freshly severed heads hanging from the branches of many of the sacred grove’s trees. ‘The appropriate sacrifices have been made and the priestesses have declared the time auspicious for our enterprise.’

  I hid my relief at that news; it went some way to relieving my growing concern about the magnitude of the killing that had to occur. ‘Then we shall take counsel with the kings and sub-chieftains at dusk this evening.’ I turned back to Vulferam. ‘Have messengers sent to all the tribes: I shall hold a council of war here, by this grove, at the setting of the sun.’

  To the west the sun sank behind the hills of the Teutoburg Wald, casting the valleys and ravines into gloom. Great fires had been lit in and around the Grove of Donar, washing the underside of the overhanging branches with flickering, golden light and casting ghastly shadows on the grisly fruit that hung from them. I’d had tables set up in a square, around one of the fires, in order that no man, least of all me, may say that he sat at its head; all must be seen to be given equal honour if this fragile alliance was to be kept together. Adgandestrius still managed to find that his dignity had been slighted because the bench that he and his followers were sitting on seemed to be lower than the rest of them, but after I had swapped mine for his there could be no more argument and the council could begin.

  We drank three full horns of ale in a toast to our gods, our forefathers and our women and then I stood and looked around the bearded faces glowing in the firelight; all of them, young and old, had looks of barely concealed expectation, like children on the eve of the winter solstice. Even Adgandestrius looked eager.

  I welcomed each in turn. ‘I would know our strength; I will go around the table and ask each tribe how many warriors they have brought into the Wald. Please do not exaggerate the numbers; it’s enough that you are here, it doesn’t matter whether you have brought more or fewer men than your neighbour.’

  Siegimeri spoke first, claiming eight thousand Cherusci and earning a disbelieving look from Adgandestrius as he stated that he had arrived with five thousand and then tried to claim that five thousand Chatti would be a match for eight thousand Cherusci. I gripped my father’s shoulder, restraining him as he tried to stand and rebut the assertion, which would have led, as day follows night, to a fight.

  ‘We will get nowhere if we constantly bicker and try to goad each other and outdo one another with boasts,’ I said in as calm and quiet a voice as could be heard over the crackle of the fire in our midst. ‘Thank you for your five thousand, Adgandestrius, may they fight well.’

  ‘They will fight like gods of war.’

  ‘I’m sure they will, when and if you let them,’ I pointed out truthfully, silencing the arrogant king of the Chatti.

  The other four kings gave their strengths and I tallied the entire total at a little over thirty thousand warriors. ‘And with my four hundred and eighty cavalry and the three thousand two hundred auxiliaries in the four Germanic cohorts we can claim a muster of just shy of thirty-five thousand. That, my friends, should be enough if we can get them all into action at the same time.’ I paused and looked at each king in turn. ‘But to do that you must have faith in our victory; you must believe that, when the auxiliaries turn on the column along with my father’s eight thousand Cherusci, we will prevail and the column will be cut into three. If you don’t give your tribes the order to charge at that point then we risk losing everything that we have gained and Varus will have a chance to regroup and build a defensive position that we will be unable to shift him from. Retribution will follow and we will never be trusted by Rome again. Germania will be lost and the west will be forever Latin. That is something that our children’s children’s children will curse us for; and trust me when I say that they will not be cursing us in our tongue but, rather, the tongue of our enemy.’

  There was silence around the table as my bleak words were digested; perhaps I had exaggerated for added effect but no man could accuse me of having done so, for fear of being charged himself with underestimating the threat to our culture. Gradually, low conversations sprung up as the various kings took counsel with their followers; we of the Cherusci sat in silence as our path was clear: we would be leading the attack.

  Eventually Engilram of the Bructeri stood and thumped the board with his fist and soon all eyes were turned upon him. ‘The Bructeri will not stand by while the Cherusci fight; we will join with the first attack and I shall personally lead my warriors and be the first of my tribe to draw Roman blood.’ His thanes cheered the old king as he sat back down while the rest of the company scowled and muttered amongst themselves until Adgandestrius stood and pointed a finger at me. ‘You trust this whelp’s leadership, Engilram? Would you risk your people’s lives in a—’

  ‘Enough!’ I shouted with such force that I shocked even myself. ‘Do not try to influence another man’s decision, Adgandestrius; the Bructeri will fight alongside the Cherusci, so let that be. You have said that you will wait to see how the day goes bef
ore deciding whether to commit the Chatti or to slip away in order to avoid Rome’s wrath if we look to be unsuccessful. I am pleased that you are at least here; let us leave it at that.’ I slowly got to my feet and lowered my voice. ‘Let each man here do what he deems best for the folk in his care; but let none try to foist their opinions on another. Let us have peace between us.’ There was a smattering of mumbled agreement from around the table. ‘My scouts tell me that Varus is now directly to the south of the Teutoburg Wald so tomorrow I will send messages to him begging his assistance in the north. Not to arouse his suspicions I shall ask only for him to send a legion and then, my friends, we shall see if he brings everything.’

  Adgandestrius spat in disgust. ‘He can’t even guarantee that we will be in a position to ambush Varus.’

  Hrodulf of the Chauci hit the table. ‘No, he can’t, Adgandestrius, but at least he will give us a chance to; so let us be grateful for that and pray to the gods of this land that Varus’ Roman arrogance brings him blundering into this forest. The Chauci will fight alongside Erminatz as well.’

  With that third tribe promising to join the beginning of the ambush my hopes of success rose. ‘Thank you, Hrodulf; may the Thunderer hold his hands over you and your folk.’ I sat back down and took a deep breath for we were about to reach the point of no return. ‘The messenger will leave at midday tomorrow, which should mean that, if he comes with all three legions, then he should be around this point in three days’ time. Three days, my friends, three days more in which to live as slaves.’

  Adgandestrius went to add something to that sentence but my look made him think again and then keep his mouth shut. However, I could guess what he would have said and he would have been right: or three days more to live at all.

  Egino told me after the event that Varus did not hesitate when he received my first message; he halted the column and began deploying a new order of march to traverse the Teutoburg Wald, despite protests from the few remaining Roman officers present. However, he would not be dissuaded and, I’m sorry to say, cited my friendship as his primary reason for taking the whole column through the forest. I’m sorry because, however just the cause, it is demeaning to trick someone by using a false friendship. Nevertheless, he turned north but not just with the legions and auxiliary cohorts: the fool brought the entire baggage train along with all the camp-followers; a massive encumbrance at the best of times travelling along a straight and well-made road, but in hilly terrain thick with trees and undergrowth the carts and the women would slow the column down to under ten miles a day. Not only that but also the slow-moving train would stretch the column from what was already nearly three miles long to almost four, thus thinning it and making it far more likely that I would be able to achieve the two breaks in it that would enable us to destroy the force bit by bit.

  And so I sent messages to the four auxiliary prefects who had, good to their word, persuaded Varus of the value of having them scout to the east and west of the advance: they were to keep me informed of the route that Varus was taking whilst Engilram, Hrodulf and I manoeuvred our warriors into a position on either side of a heavily wooded vale that seemed to be directly in the Romans’ path. There we waited, receiving reports every few hours or so of the rate of progress of the slow-moving column. Quite sensibly, rather than lose formation and therefore cohesion, Varus had sent out pioneers before him to cut a wide path through the trees, felling many in the way so the column could march straight through in close formation. This, however, was a lengthy process and he was forced to stop for two hours in every three as the men ahead sweated with axes and saws making a way wide enough to take an eight-man-broad column.

  It took them two days to reach the site that I had chosen for the attack and all the while I had been sending more urgent messages, urging him to make haste. But finally, on a day of thunder and rain, the fourth to last of the month the Romans call September, the first cavalry scouts appeared through the downpour and behind them, in the distance, could be heard the axe blows and saw cuts of the pioneers. Varus had, of his own volition, brought his army to the killing ground.

  ‘Hold it there, Tiburtius,’ Thumelicatz interrupted, ‘and perhaps you can give my guests an insight into what it was like in the column on your slow progress through the Wald; as the Eagle-bearer of the Nineteenth Legion you would have been towards the rear.’

  The old slave looked at his master, his rheumy eyes blinking quickly a couple of times before laying down the scroll and then looking into the middle distance, recalling a time long gone and long forgotten.

  All were silent in the tent as they waited for the old man to trawl through deeply buried memories, sifting out the ones that his master had ordered him to recollect.

  ‘We didn’t trust the general’s judgement,’ Tiburtius began, his voice gaining confidence with every word. ‘Of course we had to go to help suppress the revolt, no one could fault him for that but anyone with the slightest military knowledge could see that ploughing through rolling terrain, which was more forested than it was cultivated, with the baggage train in tow was, at best, foolish. My legion was to the rear of the column, just in front of the rearguard.’ He suppressed a smile that crept over his face as recalled his legion. ‘We had waited in the order of march, outside the previous night’s camp, for two hours that morning as the head of the column moved off before we could even take one pace forward. The lads were nervous, they knew enough about the forests of Germania to be afraid of the spirits that dwell in them and no one wanted to stay for a moment longer than necessary in that haunted place. To add to their sense of unease a lot of the most senior officers weren’t present having been given leave to return to Rome for the winter.’ He shook his head regretfully. ‘I think that was one of the major factors that contributed to the disaster.’

  ‘Victory,’ Thumelicatz corrected him, although not too harshly.

  ‘Yes, master, victory, indeed. It was the lack of men of rank and experience that unsettled the lads as they waited that morning for the rear of the column to start moving. With our legate and the prefect of the camp gone back to Rome we were led by Marcellus Acilius, the thick-stripe military tribune. As you can guess he was a young man, not quite twenty, of patrician rank and no military experience who had been with the legion solely for that summer.’

  ‘About as much use as a Vestal in a cock-sucking competition,’ the street-fighter commented knowledgably.

  Tiburtius paused and then coughed out a couple of raw bouts of laughter as if he had not laughed for a very long time. ‘Exactly; even less use, actually, for he thought he knew everything there was to know about the army because his father, grandfather and every sort of forefather you could mention had served under the Eagles, so therefore with the arrogance of pampered youth he was probably worse than not having someone in command of the legion at all.’

  ‘Worse than a man short.’

  ‘Too right; that’s just what we all thought. Anyway, we entered a valley, about two-thirds of a mile wide, with slopes wooded with beech and pine and, as we did, the sky darkened and we all began to feel the oppression of the landscape. The centurions and the optios did their best to reassure the lads but you know what a superstitious bunch soldiers are, and by the time we were on the move every century had managed to spook itself; men were spitting and clutching their thumbs between their fingers to avert the evil-eye and casting long looks to the side and behind. The senior centurion – the primus pilus was back in Rome – tried to get a few songs going but it was lacklustre and they all petered out after a few verses. And then it began to rain; not much at first but enough to make us all very damp and miserable, but after an hour or so it started to fall as if all the gods above were pissing on us and then thunder cracked as if they had all farted in unison. So we tramped on sullenly; stopping every half a mile or so when the column concertinaed to a rolling halt as more trees were felled up the front or a stream was bridged. On we went treading in the shit and piss of the baggage train that slither
ed along ahead of us, occasionally passing abandoned carts, their axles snapped by tree roots sticking out of the ground, or lame mules left to fend for themselves. Looking back I suppose you could say that those mules were lucky. All day we stumbled along, struggling to keep our eight-man-wide formation whilst slipping on the deepening mud which had been churned to a glutinous mess by the passage of thousands of our comrades and all the pack animals before us. Even if the column had moved at a quicker speed we would not have been able to as our legs began to ache with every step we took in that morass, and as the sixth hour came we were exhausted. Then the first javelins hit us.’

  Thumelicatz raised a hand. ‘That’s enough, Tiburtius; you get ahead of my father’s story. Read on.’

  The old slave picked up his scroll, squinting at it in the dimming light.

  There through the trees, down in the valley, small with the distance, were the first of Varus’ men and I knew that the next hour had the potential to change history for ever. I kicked my horse to the right to where the first scouts of the auxiliary cohorts advanced in dispersed order and found Egino just behind them in front of the main body of his men. ‘Stop your men here, Egino; we’ll let the column carry on until the second cohort of the leading legion is level with you, then you’ll hit them. Send a runner back to Gernot and tell him to position himself so that he hits the second cohort of the third legion. Hrodulf and Engilram are giving the same orders to the two cohorts on the opposite hill.’

  ‘And where are your warriors?’ Egino asked, looking back up the hill to its brow fifty paces away.

  ‘Hidden just over the crest are eight thousand Cherusci and on the other side there are eight thousand Chauci and Bructeri combined. My cavalry ala is a mile ahead ready to deal with the legionary scouting cavalry. Then the Marsi and the Chatti are behind the Cherusci warriors waiting to see the outcome and the Sugambri are over there, behind the Chauci.’ I pointed to the opposite hill just over a half mile distant, praying that what I said was true and that none of the tribes had had last-moment doubts and just walked away. ‘The rain is in our favour.’