EMPIRE OF SHADES

by Gordon Doherty

  His hand moved to the rear of his shield instinctively, for a plumbatae. An opening salvo of the lead-weighted darts might turn the odds in the favour of the Claudia. But his hand traced the empty clips where they should have been. His, like those of the rest, had been spent in this hard winter and the few remaining had been given to Sura’s lot. There would be little in the way of manoeuvre or tactics now, he realised, levelling his sword. This would be feral.

  With a boom of shoulder-backed shields coming together, the two Roman groups hammered into the Gothic band like a wolf’s jaws snapping at an enraged bear. Pavo thrust his spatha into the ribs of one man, coming nose to nose with the foe, snarling as he ripped the sword free, blood showering him and the air around him. Guts sprayed him from one side and the blade of a broken sword hurtled through the air overhead as he drove step after step into the Gothic swell. In the midst of it all, he saw Sura and his two centuries locked in the frenzy of battle. A spear tore across Sura’s cheek. Hearing his closest comrade’s pained cries drove Pavo on, stoking the fire within.

  But the Goths were bold: they surged back at the Roman pincers, stabbing, hacking. Pavo felt his own step retreating under their press, heard screams now of his own men. The flat of a Gothic longsword clanged against the cheekguard of his helm, snapping his head to one side and affording him a view of poor Flaccus: a Gothic spear rammed through the mail on the man’s chest then the holder lifted him proud of the battle like a skewered fish. Flaccus thrashed, coughing gout after gout of blood across Pavo and the others nearby. The fellow’s eyes bulged, searching the Roman faces for one that would tell him everything was well, that this was not the end. At the last, his eyes met Pavo’s.

  Where is my justice, sir? he mouthed.

  ‘Sir, they’re harder bastards than we thought!’ another hoarse voice rasped. Centurion Libo, wild-haired and with an even wilder wooden eye, was streaked with battle-filth as he came to press against Pavo’s left shoulder, his rotten teeth clenched in a battle-rictus.

  ‘Hold them, damn you,’ Pavo snarled in reply to Libo and the rest of his legion. ‘Drive them back, onto Sura’s spears!’

  The snowfall picked up into a stinging blizzard and the Gothic cry only grew louder with it. Pavo suddenly saw every mistake he had made: to gamble on an ambush making the difference when the Goths had more men; to commit to battle when his legionaries were poorly-equipped and had eaten meagrely for days while these Goths had grown fat on stolen sheep; to expect so much of callow recruits. A giant Goth came at him, swinging his longsword in diagonal slashes, over and over, each blow battering Pavo’s shield, shreds of timber flying off with every strike. The century line with Pavo sagged and seemed set to buckle when, from the far side, a strange lance leapt into the air, thrown by Opis: the Claudia’s eagle standard. It arced through the biting snow and plunged into the midst of the Goths. There was a momentary hiatus when the barbarians were as stunned as their Roman foes. The Gothic warrior who caught it grinned toothily.

  Then: ‘For the legion,’ Opis howled from the far side. ‘Save the standard!’

  For the Goths, it was like the moment when a man turns from a sheltered alley into a stiff wind. The legionaries, charged with the sight of their sacred banner disappearing into the mass of battle, found new spirit, fresh voice and strength.

  ‘Right, that’s mine!’ Libo snarled, hacking the hand from the giant sword-swishing Goth, then using him like a ladder of sorts, thrusting up from the stumbling warrior’s bent knee then leaping from his shoulder and over into the swell of Goths, a knot of others plunging in after him. The rest, moments ago retreating, surged back against the Gothic band. Pavo saw one take on a man twice his height: despite his hubris, the legionary was doomed. Pavo rushed forth and thrust his forehead into the Goth’s face, the fin of his helm piercing the foe’s forehead with a pop. Dark blood pumped from the mortal wound. The legionaries swarmed over the Goths now. Pavo elbowed one man then ripped through the neck of another before swinging to block and slice the next. The driving snow mixed with hot blood-mizzle and the screams competed with the shrill gale. Finally, he saw the standard, unclaimed, on the red snow before him. He thrust out a hand to seize it, only for several other hands to do likewise. Bracing, levelling his sword at the others, he suddenly saw them for who they were: Libo, now masked in blood; Opis, panting; Centurion Trupo, ruddy and shaking; the towering, rangy Centurion Cornix; and Sura, dripping with gore but unharmed apart from the cut across his cheek.

  ‘The battle is over, Tribunus,’ Sura panted, spitting dark blood from a cut to his lip, pushing his helm from his head and sweeping his flaxen curls back from his brow.

  Pavo, grip tight on the standard, saw that it was true. The mass of Goths had dissolved under the push for the legionary ensign. Hundreds lay dead or dying underfoot, eighty or so survivors had broken away and were now streaming to the valley’s western end. The exhausted legionaries of the XI Claudia erupted in a song of victory, cheering, laughing hysterically over the gale and some sinking to their knees to weep intensely.

  Pavo gazed around numbly, thinking of Flaccus again, seeing scores of legionaries… no, men, lying cold and still. Yet more passing into Hades under his watch, joining the end of the infinite grey army. And it had been this way for months now. This was winter’s cruel tale.

  The Claudia men waded through the snowbound Rhodopes during the afternoon, heading back towards their mountain fort. They passed along the foot of a set of lofty cliffs, engraved sometime long, long ago – before the time of the empire – with crude, giant faces, the snow resting on the stony brows and upper lips like thick, white hair, the hollows that were supposed to be eyes staring austerely down at the shivering, battle-stained procession. Later, they crossed a high, unsheltered pass; the driving blizzard was at its fiercest here, the wind roaring and blinding, pushing back on their every step. At last they descended into the lee of another valley and entered a blessedly sheltered stand of pine. Given respite from the wintry wrath, the men started to chat and strike up songs of victory.

  ‘We crushed them,’ Indus the dark-skinned Rhodian, six summers Pavo’s junior, enthused in a whisper. ‘The Gothic War will turn on moments like that.’

  The fiery-haired Durio, another youngster, replied with equal conviction: ‘We should’ve pursued the ones who ran, all the way back to Reiks Ortwin. He’d soon be running too.’

  ‘Heh,’ Indus chirped. ‘Reminds me of that song.’

  ‘Eh? Aye – the one the veterans sing sometimes. We can just change the names,’ Durio agreed.

  A ripple of anticipatory laughter rose and then Indus and Durio began in unison.

  ‘Ortwin the brave, most feared of the Goths,’

  ‘Had the Gothic whores, right up in a froth,’

  The men laughed loud now, many more joining in.

  ‘When he swaggered by, cast his eye around,’

  ‘They’d titter and swoon, and touch their mounds,’

  ‘But when the legions came, his guts fell away,’

  ‘And the Gothic whores, sighed with dismay,’

  ‘For he fled like a cat, ran away to the north,’

  ‘Sped for safety, and shat his loincloth.’

  A huge collective intake of breath, then they roared in unison: ‘Shaaat hiiis loooin-cloooth!’

  The song ended with an explosion of laughter.

  Marching at the front, Pavo stared ahead, unmoved, face like granite. Words of rebuke formed on his tongue, but he held them captive.

  ‘That was but a vanguard we faced back there,’ Sura said gravely, the words of stark truth hushed so only Pavo could hear.

  ‘I know,’ Pavo rumbled as the winter wind soughed through the pine woods. ‘Reiks Ortwin will already have heard of this… and he certainly won’t be running away. We have days before he comes,’ he shot Sura a gimlet look, ‘at best. He’ll bring the six thousand granted to him by Fritigern. They’ll sweep through these valleys and shred our fort. There is no option but to retrea
t, abandon the fort, cede these lands like all the rest.’ He toyed with his next words, trying to find a way to sweeten them, but it was in vain: ‘We cannot even hope to repel Fritigern’s lackeys. What will happen in spring when the horde entire – with ten times the number of Ortwin’s warriors – mobilise from their great winter camp by Trimontium? What hope is there?’

  A long silence followed, before Sura replied: ‘Things will change, you’ll see.’

  Pavo glanced back over the ragtag Claudia detachment: gaunt faces, smoke and dirt-stained; some men without helms or armour – a rare commodity since the fabrica supply system had collapsed in the wake of the Adrianople defeat. Tantamount to refugees in their own lands, they were an embodiment of the Gothic crisis. ‘Thracia is in tatters, Sura. No emperor sits upon the Eastern Throne. The Senate House in Constantinople lies empty. Every general and official of note was butchered at Adrianople or chased from these lands. And as for the Eastern legions? Nobody has yet confirmed what remains of them – we are probably one of the few still in existence, hiding in these high wastes on Thracia’s southern edge like bandits. No reinforcements speed to our aid: Egypt and Syria have only enough legions to watch their own creaking borders. Meanwhile, Fritigern rules the land from his great winter camp, unopposed, underlings like Ortwin policing regions for him.’

  ‘We do have one general,’ Sura replied, his tone edged with desperation. ‘Theodosius has promised better times ahead.’

  Pavo peered moodily into the trees. ‘The Magister Militum sits tight in the south, within the walls of Thessalonica, safely distant from these troubled parts, and makes many promises. Promises are cheap, Sura. How many times have we seen this man who claims to lead the resistance against the Goths? Not once. Only one despatch since Autumn, telling us to wait for further news.’

  Just as the light was fading, they emerged from the woods into thickening snow. Ahead lay a sweeping valley lined with snow-coated broom, a craggy mountain rising from the far end. A flat-topped spur projected from the lower slopes, its edges lined with a tall wooden palisade, studded with snow-caked timber watchtowers. Shivering bubbles of orange torchlight cast the place in an eerie glow. This makeshift fort had been their shelter since the autumn.

  Pavo noticed telltale hoofprints in the snow, leading up the rugged approach to the fort.

  ‘Ours?’ Sura mused.

  Pavo shook his head, his senses sharpening. ‘No. These belong to a stallion,’ he said, eyeing the size of the prints.

  Sura’s gaze hardened on the fort. Both knew the precious turma of twelve equites housed in the fort rode smaller mares. The blizzard roared, searching under their damp, freezing garments. ‘Perhaps a messenger – a rider of the Cursus Publicus? News at last?’

  ‘Imperial messengers rarely bear good tidings,’ Pavo muttered. ‘They travel faster than arrows, and often sting more keenly.’

  They approached with care, the drop either side of the natural ramp leading up to the fort spur high enough to cripple or kill. Rectus, the legion’s thickset, lantern-jawed medicus, hailed them from the wooden gatehouse walkway, peering out into the snow flurry, his high forehead wrinkled and his receding, swept-back hair lifting and dancing in the gale. With him was Herenus, the Cretan sling-expert in charge of the legion’s funditores. The pair were flanked by two sentries, and all four cheered and slapped each other on the shoulders when they saw that it was their own approaching.

  The gates swung open. With a chorus of stamping feet, chattering teeth and relieved groans, the five tattered Claudia centuries spilled inside, immediately grateful for the lee of the palisade walls. Spared from the buffeting snow-winds, Pavo gave the order for the men to fall out. They immediately dispensed with their heavy arms and armour, some taking offered dry cloaks and blankets to replace sodden garb, and many huddled round the fires crackling near the timber barrack huts, gratefully accepting broth and bread prepared by the two centuries who had remained behind to man the fort. Rectus hobbled down from the battlements with the aid of a cane to tend to the injured few who had been carried on stretchers. Herenus came looking for Flaccus, whom he had been teaching to use the sling in recent weeks. The Cretan’s eager face fell when he saw the man was absent, then he met Pavo’s eyes and offered a consoling nod – all one could do in such a moment.

  Pavo gazed around the interior of the fort, across his three cohorts – on paper a full complement. But in reality, the First Cohort – the spine of the legion, theoretically composed of five double-strength centuries – consisted of just four centuries, and each of these with only or less than the normal strength of eighty men. The Second Cohort counted only two centuries and the Third Cohort was but a skeleton outfit of a single century. Together with Herenus’ slingers and the handful of scout riders, less than seven hundred men remained of the Claudia. Gathered like this, he realised it was time to announce the retreat from Ortwin’s warband. The men’s babbling chatter of their victory would soon be dashed. They seemed to sense he had something to say, turning to him. Just as he filled his lungs to address them, hurried footsteps shuffled over from somewhere off to his right.

  ‘Tribunus Pavo?’ an unfamiliar voice called out.

  He swung to the sound and saw a thin-faced stranger approaching from the fort’s stables. Long hair hung to his shoulders with just a few strands scraped sideways over a thinning crown. The stallion-riding messenger, Pavo realised. He braced, well-versed in grim news.

  ‘Magister Militum Theodosius sends word from his base at the southern city of Thessalonica. A vast new military campus has been established there. He has summoned the outlying… legions,’ the fellow cast an apologetic eye over the ragged band of the Claudia, ‘to gather there.’

  Murmurs of excitement split the air from the ranks.

  To gather? Pavo thought dryly. A retreat in the guise of muster.

  ‘More,’ the rider smiled in a well-practiced fashion, ‘he will soon no longer be our general… but our emperor!’

  Now the men exploded in excited chatter.

  ‘Theodosius is to be Emperor of the East?’ Pavo said quietly, thinking of the empty throne in Constantinople.

  ‘Master and saviour of these lands,’ he said with an orator’s tone that didn’t tally with the absence of conviction in his eyes.

  Pavo saw the chance to maintain his men’s morale. They did not need to know that they had lost the winter struggle to Ortwin. ‘Then we move out tomorrow,’ Pavo announced, ‘south, to Thessalonica.’

  The men cheered, slapping shoulders and bashing drinking skins together. The air of victory – false as it might be – would live on, carried on the wings of retreat.

  ‘That is not all, Tribunus,’ the messenger added quietly. The man had produced from his leather bag a small, ox-hide box. ‘Personal news for you.’

  Pavo blinked. The wintry gale screamed above the fort’s walls.

  ‘The effects of an officer who fell in the Adrianople disaster,’ the rider clarified, proffering the box.

  Pavo looked the man in the eye, not understanding.

  ‘The previous Tribunus of the Claudia,’ the rider confirmed. ‘Gallus, wasn’t it?’

  The timbers of the small shack which acted as a praetorium of sorts groaned as the night winds intensified. Strong draughts stole in between the gaps in the planks, causing the copper brazier within to gutter and throw myriad shadow-shapes on the walls. Pavo sat on a stool, his cup of broth untouched, his elbows on his knees and his chin resting upon steepled fingertips. His eyes hung on the unopened hide box sitting on his bed.

  ‘Why me, sir?’ he said, quietly. The brazier crackled and spat in reply. Gallus had always been a riddle: a tormented soul, a ferocious soldier and a man who led by example and sheer aura. Every breath of Pavo’s short spell as Tribunus of the Claudia had been modelled on that which he had learned from Gallus. Few had gotten close to the man they called the ‘Iron Tribunus’. ‘Perhaps we were closer than most,’ he mused.

  He carefully turned th
e bronze latch on the chest and it opened with a click. Inside, he found just a few items. Small, sad items that could only mean anything to their true owner. There was a wooden toy soldier. Instantly, Pavo knew this must have belonged to Marcus, Gallus’ murdered boy. The tough callus around Pavo’s heart, the kind that grew around the hearts of all legionaries – the soldier’s skin as they called it – began to soften for the first time in many months. The next item was an empty glass vial. Confused, Pavo removed the cork from it and held it to his nostrils: a last trace of a sweet floral scent escaped as a vapour. ‘And this was Olivia’s,’ he smiled, tears welling in his eyes. There was also a small bag of bronze folles, perhaps enough to feed and clothe a man for a few seasons. Finally, there was a wax tablet. Pavo opened it and tilted the surface towards the brazier light.

  The writing was simple and short. On my death, these items are to be delivered to Numerius Vitellius Pavo – a comrade, a friend… and everything I hoped little Marcus might have become.

  The tears flowed now. He snapped the tablet shut and closed the case. His head flopped forwards and he closed his eyes. In the darkness he saw the lost fallen: Gallus, big Zosimus and Quadratus, his beloved Felicia… and the bastard who had been behind their deaths.

  Dexion, his half-brother, had been the blade. Yet Pavo thought not of Dexion, but of the hand that had guided the blade. The one who had orchestrated it all – made a pact with the Goths to ensure the destruction of the Eastern Army at Adrianople. Again, the name burned in his thoughts like a brand.

  Gratian – Emperor of the West. The one man who could never be called to account for his crimes.

  ‘I am but a soldier. So what can I do?’ he pleaded with the ether. ‘So many dead, so many grieving. Mithras, tell me, what can I do to make things right?’

  The wind keened, and then the bag of coins shifted with a gentle chink. Pavo gazed at them, then understood.