Arminius

by Robert Fabbri

  ‘The cornua rumbled and the arse-widener roared; we stamped forward with our left feet and pulled our right arms back and then, with another roared command, we hurled our pila. Without looking at the results of our handiwork we hefted our second missile into our throwing hands and before four heartbeats had passed they were hurtling at a lower trajectory at the screaming hatred just twenty paces away and we already had our swords drawn. It’s a lovely sight, a pilum volley hitting home; scores of the bastards went down, blood spraying and slopping as faces were pulped and chests were skewered. They came down in scores, they did, and each one would trip at least one of the arseholes behind him. But casualties have never stopped a barbarian charge in my experience. “Brace yourselves, you worthless cunts!” the arse-widener bellowed encouragingly. “Your playmates have arrived. Shoulders down!”

  ‘It’s easy: weight on the left foot, left shoulder hard on the back of your shield, the top of which is just at eye height, and you feel the shield of the man behind press against your back adding to your weight along with all the other lads in your file. Bearded, long-haired and tattooed, they were a hideous sight as they closed. And then, crash, no more time for thought; they hit you at full pelt and it’s then about timing. Up and forward went our front rank shields, punching the shield bosses onto their chests and blocking the downward slashes of swords or the overarm thrusts of spears with the rims; an instant later you ram your blade through the gap, pray for flesh, and it was there. Right and left I twisted my wrist, just as I had been shown on my first day of training. Blood sprayed up my arm and I pulled it back, feeling the suction of the wound pulling on my blade as, next to me, Sextus began to howl like an unnatural thing as he slammed with his shield and punched with his sword. All along our line we heaved and grunted, hardly ever looking over our rims, as a spear thrust could be the last thing you ever see, working our blades and bosses and not giving a fuck about anything other than keeping our formation for we knew that a solid wall of Roman heavy infantry supported by the weight of the seven ranks behind is the safest place to be in a battle – unless you’re sitting on a horse directing matters from the rear, that is.

  ‘Now, I was just one soldier in a century somewhere towards the centre of our line so I have no idea what happened, but within the time it takes to fuck a couple of whores, the whole hairy bunch of them were running away leaving the ground carpeted with as many dead and dying as you could wave a sword at. I ain’t ever seen so many after such a comparatively brief ruckus; thousands of them there were, with hundreds more trying to crawl away. On the flanks, the Gallic auxiliaries were following up the rout, enjoying their favourite pastime of sticking Germans, whilst the cavalry swirled around their flanks hefting javelin after javelin into them bringing more down in droves. A lovely sight it was, that’s for sure.

  ‘“Don’t you fucking dare move, pig-swill,” the arse-widener suggested, the wild grin on his face and the magnitude of his roar indicating that he was thoroughly enjoying himself, “until I tell you to!”

  ‘But he was wasting his breath as none of us fancied chasing the bastards, let the auxiliaries do that, we reasoned, and we were happy to watch them do so. For about an hour we stood there, reeking of piss and shit, pleased to be doing nothing. And then the blow-boys started up, but it weren’t the cornicerns, it was the buccinators; we were on the march. Gradually the army peeled away and carried on westwards „.’

  ‘And my father watched it go, unable to do anything to stop it,’ Thumelicatz said. ‘Covered in blood that was more Germanic than Latin, he watched you go as Inguiomer lay on the ground next to him slowly bleeding out through the gaping rent in his belly. I remember this passage almost word for word. “As I watched the legions leave the field, one by one, I looked down at the man who had, through pride, squandered our chance of victory and could not bring myself to blame him as he lay dying: he had acted in the correct way to the Germanic manner of thinking and, however much I hated Rome, that day had shown me just how much Rome had influenced my thinking, how much I was a part of them despite myself. I turned to my father who held his brother’s hand. ‘We’ve let them escape now and there is no way that we can stop them; so now they’ll be back next spring and more of our people will have to die.’ My father shrugged, tears trickled into his beard. ‘Let them come and then perhaps we will do it your way.’ But that would not happen as I knew, watching the rearguard disappear into the west, that we would never be given the opportunity to harry a Roman army on the march again; it was over unless a miracle occurred. But a miracle did occur in the form of a woman on a bridge.”’

  The street-fighter frowned. ‘You mean the elder Agrippina, Germanicus’ wife?’

  ‘Not me, but my father, yes,’ Thumelicatz replied, ‘and he was right. What happened when you reached the Rhenus?’

  ‘Well, we was knackered; five days since the battle and not a sign of the savages but we were only too happy to go as fast as we could; even the arse-widener seemed content with our progress. The evening of the fifth day we came to the bridge that we’d built to cross the river and on it, at its eastern end, stood a woman. As we got closer we saw it was Agrippina and as we began to cross the rumour flew down the column that the prefect of Castra Vetera had panicked when he had heard that we were under attack as we made our way west along the Road of the Long Bridges and assumed that we would be defeated and that Germania Inferior would be over-run unless he demolished the bridge. But Agrippina refused to let him and stood on it for days holding her newborn daughter of the same name in her arms; as we paraded past her we cheered her for she had saved us from being marooned on the other side, becoming easy prey as we tried to board whatever ships that could be sent to pick us up. How we loved her for what she did.’

  ‘Of course you did,’ Thumelicatz agreed. ‘But imagine what effect that love of the Rhenus legions for the wife of a general, who was already seen as a dangerous rival, affected the mind of the Emperor brooding in Rome. Imagine the jealousy and fear it inspired when it came to the ears of Tiberius.’

  CHAPTER XVI

  ‘IT WAS THE end of Roman ambitions east of the Rhenus,’ Thumelicatz asserted in answer to his rhetorical question.

  ‘But we came back the following year,’ the street-fighter pointed out, once again draining his cup, ‘and defeated Arminius twice.’

  ‘But did you? Did you really?’

  ‘I know we did; I was there and I left a good many of my mates lying on the banks of the Visurgis.’

  Thumelicatz pushed the flagon of beer across the table. ‘I don’t question that; my point is that what seemed like a victory to you and Germanicus was in fact the final factor that created the miracle my father had prayed for.’

  The elder brother scoffed. ‘A miracle born out of his defeat! I find that unlikely.’

  ‘And yet it was so; read from just before the meeting of the brothers, Tiburtius.’

  The former aquilifer cleared his throat as he unrolled the last remaining scroll on the desk.

  Chlodochar, my younger brother, had returned with Germanicus’ army the year after the Battle of the Long Bridges; the thought of it made me feel sick: my own blood fighting on the side of our foes. And yet, he was not the first of my family to betray the Fatherland: Segestes, my father’s cousin, had done far worse to me personally in that he had handed over my pregnant wife to the enemy, and she had since given birth to a son that she had named Thumelicatz – a good Germanic name. But despite his grievous treachery, Segestes’ offence seemed nothing in comparison to actually being prepared to bear arms against one’s own tribe. There was no doubt that Chlodochar was prepared to do that and that’s what revolted me even though since my last meeting with him in Rome before my return to Germania I had always known I would face him across the battlefield. However, regardless of this, when Germanicus’ army sailed down the Amisia and then marched east to the Visurgis, once again offering us battle, I felt it my duty to talk to the renegade.

  We waited for the
m on the eastern side, on a flood-plain sacred to the Goddess Idis. I stood on the bank and watched the cohorts arrive; behind me were twenty-five thousand warriors from three tribes with the will to fight in the open; a will that I was again unable to counter with cogent argument and so, therefore, had to bow to. My hope was to tempt Germanicus into a crossing and hit him as he did so; but I knew the chances of this would be small as he was far too canny a commander to allow himself to be attacked during such a sensitive manoeuvre. Soon I saw his command tent being erected and I shouted across to the centurion commanding a century of archers lining the bank, asking if Germanicus himself was there. He asked me my name and when he heard the answer he immediately despatched a messenger; it was not long until I saw a familiar figure striding towards the west bank.

  ‘Do you still persist in your treachery, Arminius?’ Germanicus shouted across the fifty paces of river that separated us.

  I laughed at his Roman arrogance and, to my surprise, he shared my amusement.

  ‘I know you think me to be a stupid and bull-headed Roman who doesn’t understand your true motivation, Arminius; but you’re wrong. I understand you entirely and know that you consider yourself a Germanic patriot and not a traitor to Rome; isn’t that so, Erminatz?’

  The use of my Germanic name startled me but I was interested by his admission that not everything should be seen through Roman eyes. ‘That’s what I always have been although I was forced to bury it deep within whilst I remained, nominally at least, in Rome’s service.’

  ‘And when you had the chance to leave, shall we say, that service, you took it. And, I will admit, Erminatz, you took it well: three legions destroyed and the greatest military force in the West humiliated. We taught you well, or, rather, my late brother-in-law, Lucius, did; he was always one for the grand gesture and what a grand gesture the Teutoburg Wald was. Even if I kill every one of you tomorrow or the next day, which I fully intend to do, I will never wipe out the memory of it nor get close to avenging it fully, such was its magnitude. I salute you, Erminatz, and wish you to know that if there were a way that I could conclude a friendly treaty with you I would. But Tiberius would never allow it. There will be no peace until you are dead. However, you will be pleased to hear that Tiberius has refused an offer by a person unnamed to poison you, stating that that is not the Roman way of dealing with our enemies and I fully applaud that sentiment. You will die by the blade, Erminatz, and it will be soon and hopefully wielded by my hand; only then can we make an honourable peace. I wish you well in what remains of your life.’

  As he turned to go, I shouted after him, ‘Before we meet on the field, Germanicus, I would be grateful if I could speak with my brother – if he is with you, of course.’

  Germanicus looked over his shoulder. ‘He’s here, he never leaves my side like the true friend he has always been. He’s risen in rank since you last saw him; he is now a prefect commanding an auxiliary cohort, a Germanic cohort.’

  I shrugged because this was nothing new; the Batavians and the Ubii had always served Rome and even since Varus’ defeat the Frisii and a couple of other tribes had once again started to serve in the auxiliaries.

  ‘You may shrug, Erminatz; but this is not an auxiliary cohort recruited from the usual tribes.’ He smiled, and even at that distance I could see that it was a smile of a man about to impart an astonishing piece of knowledge. ‘Your brother commands the new Chauci cohort.’

  My surprise must have registered even at that distance.

  ‘Yes; and if they do well in the coming battle then I will allow them a prefect of their own tribe and your brother will become the prefect of the newly formed Cherusci cohort. And that will happen, Erminatz, after you are dead and the Cherusci have been defeated. But let’s not speak of that again; I shall send for your brother and he can tell you how it will be. May your gods go with you, one-time friend.’

  With that, he left me and I never saw him again. I didn’t have long to contemplate his words until my brother arrived and when he did it was his appearance that shocked me. I turned to my bodyguards and dismissed them and then requested the centurion to remove his archers so that my brother and I could talk in private; or at least as privately as one could shouting across fifty paces of river.

  Once we were alone I looked at my brother for a while, shaking my head at his disfigurement. ‘How did you lose your eye, Chlodochar?’

  Spurning his mother tongue, he replied in Latin. ‘Against the Marsi, last year; a spent slingshot crushed it.’

  I was not impressed; I continued the Cheruscian dialect. ‘So you took part in that shameful massacre, did you?’

  ‘It was justified punishment for the outrage they helped to perpetrate in the Teutoburg Wald; and seeing as you were the architect of that outrage you can consider yourself responsible for what happened to the Marsi.’

  I was not going to let myself be drawn into this specious line of argument. ‘I hope you got well rewarded for slaughtering women and children and sacrificing half of your sight.’

  But Chlodochar chose not to hear the sarcasm in my voice. ‘Apart from the fact that I am now a prefect of auxiliaries and therefore get paid very handsomely, as you would know, Arminius, I’ve the right to wear a military crown in Rome and have been awarded various other donatives, including this gold necklace from the hands of Germanicus himself.’

  I scoffed at such vanity. ‘Cheap trinkets as a poor reward for servitude, Chlodochar.’

  ‘Servitude! How can I be a slave when I command my own cohort in the greatest army known to man? Look at Rome’s power, Arminius, look how long the Emperor’s arm is that he can reach you here. Tomorrow you will die along with thousands of our tribe; but it doesn’t have to be that way. Throw yourself at the mercy of Tiberius, he may well be magnanimous; it’s Rome’s policy to always show clemency to those who surrender, as opposed to treating those who don’t with the ruthlessness they deserve. You know this to be true, Arminius; if it were not then explain why Thusnelda and your son are being treated as friends of Rome and not enemies. Why, they have even been given into my custody and live in my household.’

  ‘Then return them to me if you have any honour! It is here, in the liberty of our ancestral Fatherland, under the care of Germanic gods, that my son should be brought up, not in some renegade’s family. It is here, Chlodochar, that you should be; how long is it since you saw our mother? She grieves for you and longs for you to return so that she can face the rest of the tribe without feeling the shame of your betrayal. And what of our sister, Chlodochar, do you not think of her, ever?’

  I saw my brother pause in thought and realised that he had been away for so long that he had even forgotten that he had a sister.

  ‘Yes,’ he said as if he delved deep into the past. ‘How is Erminhild?’

  ‘She’s dead, Chlodochar! Dead these ten years past and you never bothered to find out, did you? No, you didn’t because we’re all dead to you; you’ve betrayed your kinsmen, your tribe; in fact, you have betrayed your entire race and are nothing more than a slave without honour. Chlodochar, the toad wallowing in the slime of subservience.’

  This proved too much for Chlodochar to bear and he screamed for his horse and weapons to be brought to him. Hating him more, at that moment, than I had ever hated anyone in my life before, I laughed at the futility of his gesture, seeing that there were fifty paces of river between us. ‘If you want to swim it with your mount then you’re welcome to try; but I warn you, Chlodochar, I won’t give you the privilege of single combat with me, I’ll pick you off with an arrow before you’re even halfway.’

  This infuriated him even more and he had to be dragged away by a tribune, all the while shouting threats at me.

  ‘We’ll settle it tomorrow,’ I called after him, ‘if you can cross this river in the face of an army waiting for you to scramble up the far bank.’

  And, of course, being a Roman army and being commanded by one of their greatest generals, they could and they did.
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  It was during the night that they set their plans in motion and, as I dictate them now, a few years later, I still feel admiration for Germanicus and will admit to feeling sorrow when I heard of his death, poisoned out in the East, ostensibly at the instigation of a jealous Tiberius.

  We woke to a pale dawn, damp with dew and swathed in a river mist that clung to trees and rolled on the water’s surface. The opposite bank was only intermittently visible; what could be seen through the swirling trails were a couple of cohorts of auxiliary infantry and one auxiliary cavalry ala that were forming up on the west bank.