Arminius

by Robert Fabbri

  To my surprise, Ennius came forward with most of the rankers that accompanied him to the derision of every other Roman still breathing. As he neared me I raised my mask and spat at his feet. ‘Take him away,’ I ordered Vulferam, ‘and guard him well; he shall be the first to burn.’

  Ennius fell to his knees. ‘Arminius, for the friendship that there was once between us, spare me.’

  I refused to look him in the eye. ‘There can be no friendship with a coward such as you.’

  This, strange to relate, was greeted by some cheers from the Roman line and I felt nothing but respect for those who were about to die because they were willing to die with honour. I lifted my sword and saluted them as Ennius was dragged, pleading, away; to my surprise, many raised their weapons and saluted back.

  The time had now come to end it once and for all; down my blade flashed and from the depths of my being came the war cry of the Cherusci, echoed by my followers. The other tribes roared their own challenges as the once-powerful soldiers of Rome crouched, grim and silent, behind their last defence.

  Donar’s hammer fell; its sparks streaked across the heavy sky a couple of heartbeats before the Thunderer deafened us and we charged.

  Our sodden cloaks and hair billowed behind us as we ran, pointing our weapons at the enemy, and baying for their blood as lightning cracked again above. Javelins, retrieved from the field, came flying back at us but we were too many for them to make much impact. For every warrior punched back there were two more behind him ready to take his place knowing that our gods were showing us favour.

  The legionaries braced as we neared them, sprinting our hardest. With a strained effort I pushed off with my left foot and, punching my right foot on the top of the makeshift wall, hurled myself onto the shields of the men behind it. I crashed onto the leather-faced wood, kicking with all my might as I brought my sword clanging down onto the helmet before me, cleaving it open. The sodden, weakened shields fell apart with the weight of my attack and the warriors to either side of me piled in with the same commitment and we were over; we had used their wall against them, exploiting its height to leap down on the men cowering behind in the churned mud.

  Now there was to be no respite, now we would show no pity, now we would massacre at will. My blade blurred through the air, droplets of gore tracing its path through streaking rain, to hew through the neck of a second ranker whose scream was cut with the severing of his windpipe. Such was the intensity of our charge and such was the surprise that our daring to leap the wall had caused, that the will to resist the attack was sapped and men who just a few moments earlier had been jeering those who had surrendered for their cowardice now displayed the same weakness: they turned and ran.

  All along the line, the will of the legions was broken, as broken as the shield wall that we had hurled ourselves onto, and pandemonium ensued as the sons of All Men slew without mercy those who had tried to take their land and their freedom from them.

  And as I reaped lives, ahead of me I saw my objective: the Eagles. Still they stood aloft, presiding over the carnage. With a brutality that surpassed all my other actions in the past few days, I hacked and slashed my way towards them with my warriors about me as the deluge diluted the blood spraying over our forearms and faces. Through the last rank we sliced to see the Eagles surrounded by a guard, some two hundred strong; but that did not daunt us for we knew that soon we would be many more as the cohesion of the legions disintegrated. I did not stop but hurtled on towards the grim men who were about to offer up their lives whilst protecting the sacred symbols given to them by Augustus himself. We converged on them as, behind us, great slaughter was wrought; and then above, as if in approval of our actions, the Thunderer swung his hammer again with a prodigious crash that shook the earth beneath our feet as we raced across it. Buoyed by such a sign of divine favour we felt no fear, just joy as we crunched into the wall of shields. The deadly blades of Rome’s killing machine flashed in and out of the gaps severing the life-threads of many of those around me. But somehow I was spared, my sword, streaming with thinned blood, keeping me safe as it ate its way through the iron and flesh betwixt me and my prize. And then I saw that there were only two Eagles still standing and cursed the man who had beaten me to the honour of being the first to capture the ultimate symbol of Roman oppression. But on I worked, nonetheless, teeth now gritted, muscles protesting at every step or swing of my sword arm, closer and closer as the Eagle guard was thinned down by systematic slaughter.

  ‘So where were you, Aius?’ Thumelicatz asked. ‘For it was you who had disappeared; my father had not been beaten to his prize after all.’

  The slave lowered his head. ‘I tried to save the Eagle of the Seventeenth, but I failed. I had seen your father carving his way towards where we three Eagle-bearers stood and it was obvious what his intentions were. I knew that all was lost and that the reality was that we were soon to be despatched. My only thought was for the safety of my bird; my life was worthless if I couldn’t keep it from enemy hands. There was only one direction in which I stood a chance, so I pulled my bird off its pole, wrapped it in my cloak and ran towards the marsh. All around me my comrades were trying to flee, all dignity had gone but I felt I could at least restore a small fraction of it if I could get away and take the bird back across the Rhenus; if that wasn’t to be possible then I would sink it into the marsh.’

  ‘But you did neither of those things,’ Thumelicatz said, his voice betraying scorn, ‘did you, Aius?’

  ‘No, master, I did not. I tried to cross the marsh but the constant rain had made the ground glutinous; my feet were sucked under and, before I had gone more than ten paces in, I was stuck and sinking. Then from behind me I heard a shout. I froze for I knew that voice; I had heard it many times before: it was the voice of Erminatz. I turned and there he was, a thing of horror, blood splattered all over him and streaming off him in rivulets, surrounded by warriors, two of whom held the other legions’ birds. “Marcus Aius, bring me that Eagle, and I shall spare you the fire,” he shouted at me. I struggled to move forward because there was no way that I would voluntarily hand my bird over to the enemy. He saw that I was making no attempt to comply with his wishes and so sent two of his warriors after me. They knew the ways of the marsh; rather than walk they crawled. I panicked and tried to sink the Eagle in the marsh but they were on me quickly; they retrieved it and hauled me out to become Erminatz’s prisoner, and because I had not submitted I knew I was destined for the fires of their gods.’

  ‘And you, Tiburtius?’ the younger brother asked, his expression one of interest not scorn, ‘how did you survive the capture of your Eagle?’

  Thumelicatz nodded at his slave as he looked for permission to speak.

  ‘They flew at us through the rain, ripping into the first and second centuries of the Eighteenth’s first cohort that were meant to protect us; but nothing could keep us safe from the fury that finally approached after four days of grinding us down. We were lost. Aius had disappeared and as I turned to Graptus, the aquilifer of the Eighteenth, next to me, he drew his sword and, without pausing, rammed it into his own throat. His legs buckled and his fist, clamped about his bird’s pole, slid down its length as the life fled from him, taking his honour with it. The Eagle of the Eighteenth fell forward into the mud as fire seared through my thigh; I looked down to see the haft of a javelin shaking in the meat of my left leg and felt myself tip to the side as the limb collapsed. Instinctively I grabbed at the wound with both hands and then, realising what I’d done, reached back up and caught the bird’s pole. In desperation I tried to support myself with the Eagle but I reacted too late and down I went, splayed in the mud, some of it slopping into my eyes. As I wiped them clear all I could see before me were the trousers and leather boots of our enemy leaping over the bodies of my comrades and racing towards me. I struggled for my sword so that I could go the same way as Graptus and keep my honour intact but, as I attempted to get to my knees to draw it, a crack to the left side of my
head sent me to oblivion. When I woke up—’

  ‘That’s far enough,’ Thumelicatz interrupted, ‘we’ll deal with what happened when you woke up in its place.’ His smile did not reach his eyes as he turned to the Romans. ‘My father had captured the Eagles of three legions and in the next hour was to take all the rest of the legions’ standards: all the cohorts, the centuries as well as the images of the Emperor and the legions’ emblems. He also took over a thousand men prisoner including twenty-four centurions, nine tribunes, another prefect of the camp and, of course, my two slaves here. In addition to them were around three hundred women and children and fifty or so muleteers who were all that was left of the baggage train. If more than a couple of hundred managed to get through our lines or the marsh, I would be surprised. As the enemy wounded were despatched and left where they lay, we harvested the testicles of the fallen along with their chain-mail, swords and any other useful items – although not the newly introduced segmented armour that a few had been issued with as it was of no use to us. Our dead were collected along with their weapons to be borne in honour back to their wives and mothers for cleansing and burial. Soon riders began to come in from all the communities that had pleaded for Varus to leave a garrison: they had all been massacred as well as any merchant or official still on our soil. The Roman occupation of Germania Magna, in the space of four days, now consisted of a few score fugitives, or so we thought. But there was one thing that did not go to plan and we shall hear of that after Tiburtius tells us what he first heard and then saw as he regained consciousness.’

  CHAPTER XIIII

  ‘“THIS’LL STOP YOU hissing, you little viper”, was what I awoke to,’ Tiburtius said, his voice flat, devoid of emotion. ‘It was followed by a pleading wail that transformed into a spluttering gurgle; I opened my eyes to see Marcellus Acilius, the thick-stripe military tribune of my legion, naked and spewing blood as his tongue was held before him. Tears streamed from his eyes, tears of pain, rage and sorrow, as well as shame for shedding them, for all these emotions must have been going through the young lad’s head as he realised that he would never talk again in the unlikely event that he would live beyond this day. But it was obvious that he would not survive for he was an officer and they were being singled out for special treatment. The lad stared in horror at the needle and twine that had replaced his tongue, now discarded in the mud before him. His head was held back and his jaw clamped shut as his hands, bound behind his back, struggled for their freedom; but, no, he was secure. And it was as a helpless, tongueless victim that he endured the needle passing through his bottom lip and then on into the top one; the twine was pulled tight and knotted before the needle pierced again. Stitch after stitch, each one taut and precise, was applied until the lad’s mouth was sewed up as tight as a wineskin and he struggled to breathe through blood-choked nostrils. They then cut off his testicles.

  ‘It was in that condition that they took him to the fires.

  ‘Another young tribune from my legion, Caldus Caelius, in his terror as he watched his castrated colleague writhe in the flames, brought the chain that manacled his wrists down so hard upon his head that his skull cracked open and he died almost instantaneously.

  ‘It wasn’t until much later that I found out that we were on the top of the hill that they call the Chalk Giant; the very place that we are now. This clearing and the ancient oak is a sacred place in Germanic lore; they had placed all the captured standards about the oak and had built fires at intervals around the clearing’s perimeter; next to each was an altar. Priestesses, shrill and fell, shrieked invocations to the gods of this land as priests despatched victims on the slab, taking their heads to hang from the branches around the clearing’s edge and from the oak at its centre. These were the lucky ones; or, rather, the second luckiest group – the luckiest had been those who had fallen in the four days of battle. For myself I would have taken the knife on the altar had I had a choice of that or the fire. The fire was something that I had heard tell of but had never witnessed. The fire is truly dreadful. They build a wicker cage in the shape of a man and force their victim within. He is then hoist, screaming, on a pulley system until his cage is many feet above the flames, which are then stoked so that the heat builds, not enough to set fire to the wicker, which has been thoroughly soaked in water, but enough to burn the skin. The victim slowly broils, screeching in agony, begging for mercy; but there will be none for why should they be reprieved from being given to the gods in thanks for such a victory? I watched the young lad being hauled into his wicker man, no sound emitting from his sewn-up mouth other than deep growls in his throat as his nostrils bubbled with bloody mucus. Up he went and over the fire he was placed and I watched and watched as his feet slowly melted and the skin up his legs withered and charred; his, well, his …’ Tiburtius paused, shaking his head at the recollection. ‘His … just shrivelled. It was at this point that his agony was such that his desire to scream ripped his lips apart and it was with a jagged mouth that he implored Jupiter to save him.

  ‘But Jupiter was not there in that dark forest that day; nor will he ever come here. Jupiter is Rome’s god, the god of the city. Here in the north, in the forests of Germania, other gods hold sway and they show no mercy for the Southern Man who prefers ordered vineyards, orchards and fields centred round urban communities with regular markets, temples and courts with officials who’ve the power to tax and to sit in judgement. The gods of Germania don’t understand that way of life, loving, instead, their sons, the sons of All Men, who dwell in freedom in the dark woods, worshipping in groves and telling tales of the forest, glorifying that which to the Southern Man represents nothing but fear.’

  ‘And it is not only the Germanic people,’ Thumelicatz pointed out, ‘it’s all the people of the north, Britannia included, as you will find out if I help you to get what you’re looking for.’ The sight of the Romans looking uneasily at each other amused him, although he did not let it show; he knew, however, that he had spoken the truth. ‘But enough of the Southern Man’s fear of the forest that we northerners so love; Aius, read of his fear of the fires.’

  Aius cleared his throat as if he was trying to put off for as long as possible the reading of the next passage. Eventually he had no option but to commence.

  The joy that welled within me grew as each new sacrifice screamed in the fires and each new head was hung from a branch. The sacred oak, at the centre of the clearing, was now festooned with offerings to our gods and the fires sizzled with fat. None of the officers had met their deaths well, above the flames, pleading and screaming with no concern for their dignity; but this suited my intention for I had a mind to keep two of the prisoners for the purposes of this memoir and I needed a way to bind them to me for ever. I called for the two captured Eagle-bearers to be brought before me and enjoyed the sight of these once-proud men kneeling in the mud.

  ‘You’ve seen our fires and you know what awaits you both, don’t you?’ I said.

  They kept their eyes to the ground and did not respond.

  ‘Don’t you!’ I shouted.

  ‘I do,’ the Eagle-bearer of the Seventeenth, Marcus Aius, answered; his voice was quiet and he kept his eyes averted.

  ‘As do I,’ his comrade from the Nineteenth, Gaius Tiburtius, confirmed.

  ‘And what would you do to avoid that fate?’

  They shared a glance.

  ‘Anything, master,’ Aius said, causing me to sneer at how subservient he had become in just a matter of hours. ‘We lost our honour with our Eagles; we should have died protecting them.’

  ‘I have no interest in your motives, things of no worth. Just tell me this: if I were to give you a choice between the fires and staying alive to serve me and my family for the rest of your days, sworn never to try to escape, never to kill yourselves, which would you choose?’

  Again they shared a glance; this time it was Tiburtius who spoke: ‘We will serve you, master.’

  I looked down at them in disgust and then kicke
d each in the chest so they fell onto their backs in the mud. ‘I’ll tell you what my decision is in due course,’ I said, walking off, knowing perfectly well that I would let them live to make a record of my life and my hatred of their kind.

  ‘That is always my favourite part,’ Thusnelda commented from the shadows of the tent. ‘Watching a Roman read aloud of his humiliation at the hand of my husband warms my heart for all the pain that Rome has caused me. Things of no worth; how true. Yet, I’ve never known anyone go willingly to the fires and would not like to judge what I would do in the same position. But, be that as it may, it was at this point that I remember joining Erminatz’s story. He had seen me before, as he has mentioned, when I arrived at his father’s house with my father, the traitor Segestes.’ She paused to spit on the ground. ‘I, however, had not seen him, or if I had, I hadn’t noticed him. But victory and power are the greatest aphrodisiacs and when I arrived at this place, with my mother, in the aftermath of the battle to come and beg for my father’s life, I saw him for the first time and it jolted my heart, such was the authority that he emitted in the wake of his victory. He was walking away from two Romans whom he had just kicked to the ground and our eyes met; although I was engaged to another I knew in that moment that I must have him and him alone.

  ‘I said to my mother: “I will beg Erminatz for my father’s life; I think I can appeal to him in a different way.”

  ‘“You may well be right, child,” she answered. “Erminatz has as little love for me as he does for Segestes.”

  ‘Leaving my mother standing just inside the clearing, I approached Erminatz, my heart pounding, and stood before him with my head held high, praying that I wasn’t shaking or showing any other outward sign of crotch-wetting desire; had he asked me to, I would have lain on my back and opened my legs for him then and there amidst the fires and sacrifice. But that was not to be our first conversation. “My lord, Erminatz,” I said, holding his gaze and melting internally in the beauty of his eyes. “I come—”