Mallovendatz understood what I was offering. ‘It would be the Marsi’s honour to make the first of those attacks.’
‘And it would be my pleasure to watch you do so.’
And so the first day proceeded as the sun descended into the west, unseen behind clouds laden with rain and battered by wind, with each tribe making an attack at some point of the column and always being rebuffed. The casualties trailed behind the line of march, covered in slops of mud, the wounded tribesmen were taken to shelter and the legionaries despatched with various degrees of mercy depending on the number of comrades the warrior wielding the knife had lost in the day. On we went, Varus sending out cavalry sorties, using the two Gallic cavalry alae that had remained loyal to him, trying to catch our infantry unsupported, picking off a few here and there but never doing us enough damage for me to become concerned.
Night fell and the rain did not lessen, nor did Varus ease up on his men; they remained in column, unable to build a camp in such wooded conditions, edging blindly on as there was very little point in staying still. In the complete darkness of the night we could not see enough to mount any meaningful attacks, so we contented ourselves with hurling missiles and shooting arrows into what we thought was their formation. The occasional cry of pain gave us heart but the exercise was not so much to kill the odd legionary but more to keep every one of them on his guard, shields up and wary as fatigue began to eat away at their morale.
Our warriors were rested by rota, but whether they managed to get much rest in the sodden conditions I doubt. However, by the time the sun turned the night sky into dark grey our men were eager to throw themselves again at the column.
And in they went in the wake of javelin volleys hurled over their heads timed to strike the column moments before the charges hit home. The legionaries struggled to keep order on muddied ground that had already been churned by the passing of thousands of hobnailed military sandals. Pain and death was dealt out to the men encased in their iron armour and hiding behind their semi-cylindrical shields, but always they gave back as much as they got, and no matter where we struck we could not force a split in the column. For they had distributed the baggage train evenly within it and the legionaries marched in four files on either side of it so there were no natural gaps. Cohort segued onto cohort and legion melded into legion so that the formation had become one long shielded line of heavily armoured men; and not just men, but the best soldiers in the world. We had to break them up, but how?
As the second day came to a close and the Romans finally broke out from under the eaves of the trees and into some more open country within the Wald, cultivated to a certain extent and rich with pasture, I knew that this night they would be able, despite the continuing rain, to construct a camp of some sort. I decided to summon the kings and their thanes for it was time to take counsel together.
‘They have started to build their camp on some land cleared for grazing, a couple of miles from here,’ my father told the assembled kings and thanes, sitting on logs around a fire pit over which two spitted boars roasted. A leather awning had been rigged over us with a hole for the smoke to escape. All bar the Chatti had fought and we were now committed. Below us the path of the legions was illumined by the blaze of many oil-fuelled pyres on which our dead were consumed; their light danced on the stripped and dripping corpses of a couple of thousand legionaries marking the legions’ passing and attesting to the very real damage we had inflicted that day and the previous one. ‘The Nineteenth Legion has formed up facing us with the two loyal auxiliary cavalry ala, one on either flank, whilst the other two legions do the construction. We’re trying to disrupt the work as far as possible but the fatigue parties are well protected. They’ll have their perimeter secure by nightfall.’
There was a general disappointed mumbling but no one looked accusingly at me. The aroma of the sizzling meat wafted around the circle reminding us of our hunger.
I shrugged. ‘We can’t stop them from hiding in their camp but we can prevent them from sleeping too much in it; we’ll launch a fire attack at the fourth hour of the night.’
‘Why not as soon as it’s dark?’ Engilram asked. ‘That would stop them getting any rest whatsoever.’
‘Because I need a pause in order to get a messenger through the lines to Varus.’ This statement was greeted with complete bemusement from all present but I did nothing to clarify what I was about. ‘Engilram, you know the Wald better than any of us here; if Varus keeps travelling towards the supposed revolt in the lands of the Ampsivarii, will he pass a place where we could pen him in and kill him?’
The old king stoked his beard, his eyes glinting in the firelight, as he mentally went over the geography of the great forest that he had known all his life. ‘There is a place on the edge of the Teutoburg Wald,’ he said eventually. ‘It’s a pass that would suit our purpose very well. Just over a day’s march from here, to the northwest, there’s a huge area of marshland; there’s a track that passes between its western side and a range of hills. A lot of the land between the marsh and the hills has been cleared for agriculture in a strip about half a mile wide that narrows. If Varus were to move in that direction, it would be the obvious way to go as it leads out of the Wald to more open countryside beyond. At one point the hills come very close to the marsh, so that there is little more than a hundred paces of open ground.’
I saw immediately what he was getting at. ‘Easy to block off, you mean?’
‘Yes. The whole area is about a mile long; it’s called the Teutoburg Pass and it’s overlooked by a hill that we call the Chalk Giant in our dialect.’
‘Kalk Riese?’
‘Exactly. It’s wooded but has hardly any undergrowth so it’s very easy to move through but at the same time it provides cover. At its summit the trees have been cleared for pasture; we could easily have every warrior we have with us concealed on that hill waiting for Varus. But how could we guarantee that he would travel in that direction when the obvious thing for him to do is stay safely behind the walls of his camp, send messengers out and wait for relief?’
‘Not if he thinks that the whole of northern Germania is in revolt and today’s attack was a coordinated attempt at stopping him from coming to my aid in crushing it.’
My father smiled slow and with pride in his eyes as he looked at me. ‘Of course, Erminatz, that is deep thinking and worthy of my son: make him believe that the leaders of the revolt want him to stay in his camp and wait for help and he’ll be minded to do the exact opposite. But how to get him to consider that?’
I looked at Vulferam, seated next to him. ‘Would you be willing to act as a false messenger and slip into the Roman camp after dark?’
‘If it was not for you I would still be fighting on the sand of the arena, Erminatz; or, more likely, dead. I can deny you nothing.’
There was much nodding of heads, hooming and rumbles of approval at that sentiment.
‘Thank you,’ I said, hoping that I was not sending the man to a very unpleasant death. ‘At the second hour of the night, slip into the Roman camp; demand to see Varus, saying that you’ve come with a message from me. He’ll recognise you and, with luck, believe you when you tell him that I’m tied down fighting overwhelming odds and desperately need his assistance if the revolt is not to spread. Tell him that the attack on him today was an attempt to stop him coming to my aid and that the rebels plan either to destroy him or to keep him penned up in his camp for as long as possible in the hope of raising the whole of the north against Rome.’
‘Why will he believe me?’
‘Because you will also warn him that the rebels plan to attack the camp at the fourth hour of the night.’
Vulferam gave a broken-toothed smile. ‘Which you will and that will convince him that I am loyal to Rome.’
‘Exactly.’ My mind again went back to the night of the fire when Lucius and I freed him. ‘He won’t notice that you’re wrong because he will think that you are fighting the mutual threat.’
<
br /> ‘But it’ll also mean that he’s ready for our attack,’ Adgandestrius said, clearly disgusted. ‘And we’ll lose more men than we would if it was a surprise.’
‘I didn’t think you were going to lose any men seeing as you still haven’t committed to the fight; but you’re right: those that have committed their warriors will most likely lose more men than they would have otherwise. But I consider that a fair exchange for Varus believing Vulferam and deciding to move off tomorrow, out into the open and towards the Kalk Riese Hill. My friends, do I have your agreement?’
‘The Marsi will play their part,’ Mallovendatz stated; his thanes, to either side of him, growled their agreement into their beards, not concealing their pleasure at their king deciding to fight. One by one all the other kings assented and Adgandestrius was left isolated as Vulferam was sent on his way.
All that I could do as we assembled the warriors for the night attack was pray to Loki, the god of cunning and deceit, that Varus would believe Vulferam. I was told later by one of the slaves to whom I’m dictating this that he .
‘Wait,’ Thumelicatz interrupted, ‘that was you was it not, Aius?’
‘It was, master; I was in the praetorium when Vulferam was shown into Varus’ presence.’
‘Well? Speak.’
Aius bowed his head in acknowledgement of his master’s will. ‘Vulferam greeted Varus as if he were so relieved at finally finding him. “General,” Vulferam said, his breath laboured as if he had just undergone great exertion, “thank the gods of our two lands that I’ve found you. Arminius sent me to beg urgently that you come to his aid; the Ampsivarii have risen and the Frisii will join them if they are not soon crushed.”
‘I remember Varus looking at him oddly, as if he could not quite understand what he was seeing and hearing. “How did you get in here? We’re surrounded by Germani.” “I know, they’re trying to prevent you from moving forward. But I am Germanic; nobody stopped me slipping through the enemy’s lines, and anyway they’re busy forming up for an attack. It looks like they’re going to try a fire attack in the next hour or so.”
‘That caused the general to issue a stream of orders sending cohorts to man the ramparts and to have others standing by in reserve should there be a breach. Once he had done this he took Vulferam aside and questioned him closely as to the situation in the north and exactly where he could find Arminius; it was then that his fate was sealed.
‘Vulferam said: “When I left him he was falling back in the face of a huge war band that was threatening to overwhelm him; thankfully they were mostly infantry so Arminius could outpace them. He’s northwest of here, on the edge of the Teutoburg Wald at the northern end of a large area of marshland. He said that he would wait there for you for four days and if you didn’t come then he would try his best to deal with the rebels with the resources that he had.”
‘Varus was full of concern. “How long ago was this?”
‘Vulferam replied: “That was dawn this morning; I rode hard to get here. You could be there in two days, general; it’s not too late if you leave tomorrow.”
‘“And I could have the rebellion quashed by the end of the month.” Varus thought for a few moments and then gave the answer that destroyed three legions. “Very well, ride back, to him and tell him I’ll be there in two days’ time despite all the efforts the rebels are making to stop me.”
‘Vulferam bowed and left as I carried on supervising the fatigue party that was polishing the birds and the other standards in their sacred place in the praetorium.’
Thumelicatz turned to his guests. ‘So it was not stupidity that led Varus on, it was loyalty and honour. Loyalty to his supposed friend, my father and the honour of Rome which was in his hands as the Governor of Germania Magna. Read on, Aius, from the night attack.’
It took the Eagle-bearer a few moments to pull himself out from the memories that he had just been ordered to share and it was with moisture in his eyes that he tore himself away from the image of the sacred standard that he had lost.
Fire is a double-edged weapon: whilst its destructive power is immense and its ability to instil the very real terror of an agonised death into even the most stout-hearted enemy is undeniable, it also has the major disadvantage of giving away the position of the men wielding it. With the benefit of prior warning an enemy may wreak havoc upon a fire attack; but we pressed ahead with it anyway. We had to. For two reasons: firstly Varus had to see Vulferam as truthful and reliable, and secondly it was the obvious way for us to attack a fortified camp seeing as we did not have the engines or the ability with which to conduct a siege.
And so our men perished by the score as we pelted across the open ground to the ditch and breastwork surrounding the Roman camp, carrying blazing torches, pitch-soaked faggots and skins of oil. With surprise not the issue we roared the battle cries of our forefathers and invoked the protection of our gods and the love of our women as fire-arrows left trails above our heads and then thwacked into the camp’s wooden palisade. Ballista bolts, unseen in the dark, hissed past to disintegrate heads and to thump, hollow and wet, into chests heaving with exertion, picking warriors up, screaming, to slam into the men behind, coupling them with bloodied iron and leaving them writhing together on the ground.
From all sides we came and on all sides they defended. Our archers kept up volley after volley of fire-arrows, blazing across the night sky like plagues of shooting stars, but that did not keep the defenders down behind the parapet, and as we came within pilum range the weighted missiles hurtled down onto us, crunching into once-fearless faces, pinning shields to chests, bending on impact, the hafts gouging into the earth to trip the impaled warrior and send him, shrieking, tumbling down to bleed out in pain-wracked gasps for breath. But still we came on and hurled our skins of oil so that they burst upon the defences, throwing the torches after them, igniting the soaked wood and then, with the bravery of men who saw no difference between feasting with our forefathers in Walhalla or with kith and kin in this life, we scrambled down into the ditch, mostly avoiding the fire-hardened stakes, and tried to lodge the faggots at the base of the walls to add to the growing conflagration, as missiles continued to rain down upon us. Thrice we charged and thrice we fell back, leaving our dead and maimed behind us, the defences aflame and the defenders desperately dousing them with whatever nonflammable liquids they could find so that by the time we fell back for the third time, around the eighth hour of the night, the air was thick with pungent woodsmoke and urine-heavy steam; but fire burnt unrestrained within their camp even if they had managed to control the flames on the palisade.
‘Bring all the warriors back to the southern side of the camp,’ I ordered as we regrouped beneath the trees that skirted the farmland after the third and final attack. ‘Varus will be thinking about leaving soon and we wouldn’t want to prevent him.’
‘Never disturb your enemy when he’s making a mistake,’ my father said, quoting a maxim that I knew had come down the generations of Cherusci kings, ‘it’s impolite.’
I grinned, blinking the rain from my eyes, and as I did so the gates to the north of the camp opened and out galloped the advance guard of two alae of Gallic cavalry. They drew up, their shadowy forms lit by the flicker of the fires raging within the camp, to fashion a screen for the legions that began to emerge from the camp to the blare of their horns. Rank upon rank came out, silhouetted in the pre-dawn light to march to the aid of the man who watched them go; the man who was not ahead of them but behind them. And I felt moved by Varus’ loyalty and trust but not so that I suffered the pangs of pity; I just respected his honour, for all the good it would do him.
CHAPTER XII
‘ENOUGH FOR THE moment, Aius,’ Thumelicatz said, holding up a hand and casting his eye over his four guests and smiling. ‘So, Romans, here we have a fine thing: Varus’ sense of loyalty was to prove to be the death of almost all of his men. He left the relative safety of his fortified camp to march to the aid of a man he considered to be hi
s friend even though Segestes had tried to impress upon him just how mistaken he was in that assumption. Yet still he went, blinded to reality by the belief, instilled by Rome’s outrageous arrogance, that once a man has received citizenship it is inconceivable that he should ever turn his back on what is obviously the only civilisation of any worth in this Middle-Earth. With admirable motivation, Varus set out to come to the aid of the very man who had put him in such peril by conjuring a rebellion in the north; a rebellion that was all too easy for him to believe in as he well knew the extent of the enmity that bubbled beneath the surface of the newly seized province.’
‘It wasn’t just his misplaced loyalty to Arminius that made him go,’ the younger brother said, a touch of petulance in his voice. ‘In fact, I would suggest that was the secondary factor: his and Rome’s honour were both at stake as far as he was concerned. According to the false message that Vulferam had delivered, Arminius was going to wait for four days by the swamp so it wouldn’t have sounded to Varus as if he was in any imminent danger. You should be able to understand this, Thumelicus, with your experience of Rome: yes, you are right when you assert that we have such strong certainty in the Idea of Rome that we find it hard to understand why a man would wish to turn from that ideal, but what makes that concept so strong in our minds is that fusion of one’s personal and family honour with the honour of the empire itself. The two concepts are inseparable and with the possibility, fictional, granted, of the revolt spreading to the Frisii in the far north it would have seemed to Varus that Rome’s honour was being threatened and therefore, by implication, so was his and his family’s. Should he leave the rebellion unchecked and hide behind his palisade awaiting another man of noble birth to lead an expedition to extract him and his legions whilst the province disintegrated about him, his shame would have been insufferable and there would have been no option left to him other than to fall upon his sword. He had to go, whether he considered Arminius his friend or not. Each one of his officers and men would have understood why staying put was not an option.’
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