Even as they rode, putting pressure on the tired horses with the extra riders, Varus watched the barbarians sweep forward and realised what they’d done.
As the Germanic warriors reached some hundred yards distant from the Gallic spear tips, they vaulted smoothly from their moving horses like athletic dancers on a Greek vase, landing lightly and already running, their heavy swords in one hand and their now free hands going to their belt to withdraw their horse-gutting knives.
The slaughter was going to be appalling. The barbarians had driven the Roman cavalry to withdraw into their tight ranks. It was a standard tactic against enemy cavalry, but once the enemy warriors got in among the press of men, they could merrily move about gutting anything above them and the Gauls would hardly have room to plunge down with a spear or swing a sword within their own massed ranks.
Piso clearly didn’t know what to do, and Varus felt for the man. What could a commander do against such a strange tactic, and Piso hadn’t seen it happen yet; had no idea what was to come. He was simply stunned by the strangeness of cavalry dismounting and running at him. Ridiculously, the cavalry would have been better off in a traditional Gallic grouping, rather than the ordered ranks of Roman organisation that would turn the lines into a slaughterhouse.
In a desperate move, the Aquitanian chieftain shouted an order in Gaulish and then Latin, which was relayed by the man with the horn and by the dipping and waving of the silvered wolf standard.
The front ranks of Piso’s cavalry charged, their spears lowered and ready to thrust, or raised overhand, ready to throw. Shields were gripped tight. Shafts were launched almost instantly, as soon as the front rank broke; the enemy had already got too close to make any sort of charge effective. The cast spears came down haphazardly, only one or two finding a useful target, their throwers already drawing their long blades ready to swing from horseback.
But the Germanic warriors had no intention of meeting the charge.
As the Romano-Gallic cavalry reached them, the enemy warriors hurled themselves to one side, rolling and coming up running, or ducking beneath swings. A few met the spear points or blades of Piso’s men, but far more slipped between the charging horses, more lithe than any hairy barbarian had any right to be. And suddenly Piso was faced with perhaps eight hundred warriors closing on his ranks of horse from three sides, his charges foundering as the riders tried to turn their mounts to follow the attackers back to their own lines.
Varus was closing on the chaos as he watched the true horror and carnage unfold.
Just as he’d predicted, as soon as the enemy managed to get into the tight mass of horses in the Gallic lines, their work became the simple, brutal job of slaughtermen. It was not a fight — it was a massacre; and he’d been wrong about the numbers. In fifteen or twenty minutes, the eight hundred or so remaining enemy warriors could gut the entire Gallic force, finishing off the stricken riders at their leisure.
Something had to be done.
Turning to Afranius, riding the horse next to him, Varus pointed and raised his voice to be heard over the approaching din.
“We need to get them out of here. Get to the standard bearer and musician and have them sound the call. We’ll form a wedge to push through.”
Afranius nodded and turned, relaying the orders to the other men of Varus’ small band, just as they reached the press of men. The scene was horrendous. The turf had lost every blade of grass, churned to mud that sucked at hooves and feet, coloured a rusty red by the gallons of blood that had been mixed in.
Horses bucked and thrashed, their flailing hooves breaking the legs of others and smashing the skulls of men who floundered in the mud trying to pull themselves upright. Screaming Gauls lay trapped under convulsing horses. And among it all — the stamping and thrashing legs, the screaming and bucking — moved the enemy warriors like some sort of crimson demons, coated to the waist in blood, seemingly uncaring whether they lived or died.
Varus and his men pushed into the mass, the commander jumping from the back of the horse he had shared and gripping his sword in his good arm. As he landed a jolt ran up his body, forcing him to clench his teeth as the agony from his shattered arm roared like white fire up to his brain. Around him, the extra riders who had hitched a lift across the valley dropped from horseback and ran alongside, swords at the ready. The small force of dismounted men stayed in close support of the horsemen, preventing the underhanded Germanic tactics from destroying their small attack with their gruesome tactic.
Here and there in the press, as Varus and his dismounted men clambered over bodies both wounded and dead, beast and man, they found one of the enemy warriors gouging a fallen Gaul or shredding a horse’s belly to stop it rising again. Individually, in a straight fight, these barbarians were no match for Varus’ regulars and fell like wheat before their blades.
But it was slow going.
Clambering across a horse whose blood had run so dry that it lay helpless and heaving ragged final breaths, Varus paused to take stock of the situation. Despite the apparent carnage, a great number of Gallic cavalry remained intact, pressed in the tight formation and unable to do anything about the swathe of destruction moving slowly and inexorably their way.
The standard wavered in an unpredictable manner, clearly random while its bearer fought off one of the enemy, rather than in the regular motions of a command being given. Since the standard would likely denote the position of the commanders too, that suggested that the enemy warriors had cut a line through the cavalry directly toward Piso, where they were currently embroiled. If the commander and his signallers went down, there would be precious little chance of pulling anyone out of this mess.
With a single, economical motion of his sword arm, Varus indicated to his men the wavering standard. Afranius and Petro nodded, taking his meaning, the former turning his horse and the latter clambering over a body behind him.
Like a force of avenging spirits in steel and crimson, the twenty two men hacked and stomped their way through the mess without pause or comment.
The slogging through a mire of mud, blood and entrails seemed endless — the destruction left by the Germanic warriors making every step wearying and hazardous. And then suddenly, almost unexpectedly, Varus hauled himself painfully across the stilled body of a large piebald mare to find that he had reached the scene of current fighting. The press of men and horses blocked every inch of his vision and he could no longer identify the wavering standard. Taking a deep breath, he bellowed “Piso!”
The clamour and din surrounded them, and Varus, his arm burning with pain, strained to see. “Piso? It’s Varus!”
“Varus?” came a distant, desperate voice.
And then Varus’ world turned crimson.
A dozen or more blood-soaked, crimson painted barbarians, each easily a head taller than Varus, hurtled out of the mass, hamstrung a horse as they passed, and launched at him. Varus lurched back, trying to get a swing in with his sword, but there was simply not enough room. Two blows came at him simultaneously and he managed to turn one aside at the last minute with his own blade, but only the timely intervention of an unseen soldier behind him prevented him being spitted through the face by the other.
More and more demonic, blood-slicked enemy warriors were appearing from the thong of horses now, attracted by the Latin shout. Identified by the language as officers, Varus and his men had suddenly become the prize targets in the fight, and every barbarian there wanted their heads.
In mere moments the carnage had turned their way. In a heartbeat, his twenty two men had become two thirds that number. In another heartbeat and a gaggle of screams they had dropped to a half, the throng of Germanic warriors around them never dropping in number. No matter how many they killed, fresh demons appeared from the welter of blood and legs to plug the gaps.
Varus who, in the space of ten breaths, had taken two minor slashes to his wounded shoulder and a nasty lunging knife wound in his left hip, was struggling simply to stay alive now. His m
en — the cream of the corps and the best Caesar’s army had to offer, fought by his side and at his back, trying with their every move to stop the blows coming at their commander as well as those striking directly at each of them.
Varus knew he was costing his own men their lives through their desire to protect him, and guilt riddled him even as he collapsed with a shriek, a fresh strike having cut the scarf/sling, allowing his broken arm to swing agonisingly loose. His vision swam with the agony and his head felt tremendously light. He was close to passing out from the pain and he knew that when he did, it would be the end of him.
Desperately, he tried to raise his sword to block a descending blow and almost turned it away, feeling the blade shear off the tip of his ear. He probably screamed, but then he was sure he’d been screaming almost nonstop for the last minute or two, so it didn’t seem to matter.
Somewhere in the depth of the pain, fug and confusion, he felt sure he’d heard his name called. Blinking away sweat, blood and grime, Varus squinted upwards. The blades had stopped coming down at him. With a genuine and unbelievable sense of relief, Varus recognised Piso swinging left and right in his saddle, slicing, hacking and carving the barbarians that a moment ago were getting ready to take his head.
Varus looked around in wonder. Maybe half a dozen of his own men remained, mostly wounded. Piso and his personal guard had arrived just in time. The standard waved silvery in the air behind the commander and Varus could see the musician, horn in his right hand, smashing the boss of his circular shield into the face of a barbarian.
“Piso!”
“Come on!” cried the other commander in reply.
Varus struggled to his feet, wincing and shaking, having to lean on his sword to steady himself. His legs failed and he slumped again. “We have to get back to the column before we lose everyone.”
Piso nodded and turned to the signallers behind him.
“The commander’s safe. Sound the retreat!”
The horn, put to the signaller’s lips, rang out with the five note call, the order confirmed by the circling of the silver wolf, high above the heads of even the mounted men.
Piso smiled.
“Been a bit of a shitty morning, all told!”
Varus shook his head with relief and then looked up just in time to see a crimson-slicked warrior burst out of the crowd, a long, broad-bladed sword in his hands. Even as Varus tried to form the warning, the man swung a wide, two-handed blow with the sword, hacking with ease through both of Piso’s mount’s front legs.
With a scream, Piso’s black steed collapsed forwards, the Aquitanian commander pitched from the saddle and thrown some five or six yards ahead, where he slumped to the ground in a heap, his mail shirt dulled with mud and blood.
Helpless, unable to stand without aid, Varus watched as Piso staggered to his feet and drew his sword, barbarians closing around him in a circle. Varus lost sight of the man behind the grey and crimson bodies apart from the occasional flash of a golden helmet or glint of a sword. Two of Varus’ men pushed past him, running to help Piso, while the other four, too seriously wounded to do much else, helped Varus up.
Somewhere close by came a shout in Gaulish. Varus looked round in surprise to see the signaller push his wolf standard into the hands of the musician before leaping from his horse and drawing his sword on the run. Behind him more and more of the Gallic horse guards followed.
Piso was dead before the standard bearer and the two Roman riders could reach him. Still swinging his sword desperately, he was on his knees in the mud. Most of his assailants had turned away, leaving him for dead to face the new threat, and Varus could see him clearly as the remaining three barbarians toyed with the kneeling man. Piso had taken a crippling lower back wound that had rendered his legs useless. He was covered in blossoms of crimson and gobbets of blood poured from his mouth alongside shouts of defiance in two languages.
His final swing was weary as the strength left him, one of the barbarians knocking it aside, and then the three men were on the commander, holding him up as they sawed off his head.
Varus turned away.
They never lived to treasure their grisly prize as moments later the standard bearer, two Roman cavalrymen and half a dozen of Piso’s guards reached the spot and dispatched them. But Varus couldn’t stop staring at the headless figure kneeling on the ground.
Someone’s hands grasped Varus by the chin and turned his head away.
“Commander?”
The Roman officer focused as much as he was able. The pain was so intense that he could hardly focus or think. The only image that he could see, despite having been forcibly turned away, was the headless body of Piso kneeling in the mud, covered in blood, his sword lying discarded beside him.
“Commander?”
Better focus. One of the Roman cavalrymen was holding him up and staring into his eyes.
“What?”
“Can you ride, sir?”
Varus shook his head. He could barely stand, let alone ride. The soldier conferred with someone out of Varus’ line of sight.
“We haven’t got time for a litter. I’ll throw him over the back of my horse and have to hope he survives with his arm intact.”
“Be quick. We’re in full retreat.”
The last thing Varus remembered was the heaving nausea as his world spun upside down and the shock of unspeakable pain as his arm swung to and fro from the back of the horse upon which he was unceremoniously draped. The image that burned itself into his retinas as he bounced painfully away from both battlefield and consciousness was the body of his rescuer, Piso, still miraculously kneeling in the mud.
ROME
The villa of Atia Balba Prima, like most of the houses of the wealthier families on the Palatine hill had a very austere facade, plain brick walls coated with plaster, with few apertures and even those high up.
Balbus frowned from the shadow of the apple tree.
“I still do not like this.”
Faleria, the sister of Fronto, was proving to Balbus to be every bit as headstrong and troublesome as her brother and probably more so. The well-dressed lady in her lemon-coloured stola and mustard-toned shawl smiled.
“Quintus, we are quite all right, you know. This is a social call; nothing more. Now run along and we’ll meet you back at the house in a couple of hours.”
Balbus’ gaze slipped back and forth between Faleria and his daughter Lucilia, bedecked in a midnight blue stola and looking far too adult and mature for his liking.
“I’d tell you to look after each other, but I do worry you’re each as bad. Be careful.”
Lucilia smiled and patted him on the cheek as they turned and strode across the square, passing a family of the equestrian class and an apple seller who apparently had not cottoned on to the abundance of the fruit going for free in the square. Balbus watched them until they got to the door and then turned with a nervous swallow and returned to the three litters that had brought them from the Cispian.
Faleria arched a perfect eyebrow at her companion.
“Are you really comfortable with this? I’ve met Atia. She’s shrewd and very used to being steeped in the politics of the city.”
Lucilia smiled.
“I’m fine, Faleria. Come on.”
Reaching up, she tugged the bell-pull by the featureless door. A few long moments passed before they heard the muffled flapping of sandals on marble from the far side and, after a couple of clunks and rattles, the door opened.
A short, bald man with an olive complexion and a neat, short beard squinted at them.
“Mistresses?”
Faleria allowed her most imperious expression to fall across her face, her voice matching it perfectly.
“Please inform your mistress that the ladies Faleria and Lucilia have come to pay their respects to the gracious niece of the great Caesar.”
The slave gestured to them, inviting them into the atrium, and then shuffled off. A murmur of conversation drifted back from the tab
linum nearby, while the two visitors cast their glance around the room.
Close to the door stood the altar to the household and family gods, with its small statuettes and a mass of flower heads in the dipped surface, soaked in Falernian wine as an offering. A similar sight stood inside most households, though more surprising was the small altar to Venus that stood nearby with a tray of sweetmeats in the offering bowl. It was said that Caesar could trace his family line back to the Goddess herself and Atia clearly bought into the idea.
The fountain in the impluvium pool, a bronze statue of a dancing nymph, sprayed a jet into the air that tinkled down to the water with a calming splatter.
“The domina will see you now, ladies. Please follow me.”
Lucilia and Faleria smiled at the slave who had appeared from around a corner and followed him back and into the tablinum. Atia Balba Prima lounged on a golden couch while two slave girls anointed her feet and tended her toenails. Absently, she plucked a grape from the bowl next to her and popped it into her mouth.
Lady Atia could hardly look any more different from her uncle. Rather than being tall and lean, she was diminutive and voluptuous, her nose small and button-like, her hair lustrous and coppery, falling in carefully-curled waves to her shoulders. Her face was pale — presumably with white lead — her lips crimson and her eyes kohl-darkened.
“Noble names. The widow of the Falerii, sister of my uncle’s favourite soldier, and the daughter of the erstwhile commander of one of his legions. And keeping company together in the city. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Faleria nodded — a gesture that suggested an equality between them that surprised Lucilia.
“A social call only. As clients of your family, it seemed polite to make your acquaintance again. We met a few years ago, of course, but Lucilia is new to the circles of Rome.”
Atia smiled and a shudder ran through Lucilia. That face suddenly reminded her of nothing so much as a crocodile.
“Of course; of course. Do come and sit. I will have food and drink brought for you. Wine or fruit juice?”
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