For three days the legion remained in camp, replenishing its water supplies and refreshing the men’s spirits, their diet augmented by fruit and fowl.
On the third night, Rufinius returned to the contubernium’s area following an inspection of the defenses. Dentianus, Libo, and Carbo were out scouting for opportunities with baggage whores, leaving Appias alone with his thoughts.
“Put weapons in hand and spirits lift,” Rufinius commented to Appias as he walked into the light that danced from a small cooking fire.
“Earthworks and roast duck have also had a positive effect,” Appias replied, offering Rufinius some dates.
“Walls for the camp would add further reassurance, if there was suitable material at hand. And I would return to palisade sticks and baggage poles too, if lumber was available.”
“Careful, you’ll turn this slave army into a real Roman one.”
“If I had my way …” the tribune agreed and unhitched the shoulder strap from which hung his sword. “Carrying the gladius on my left side as a senior officer must – I am still not familiar with it.”
“I dare say as tribune you could wear it on your head if you so wished,” the prefect replied, his sword also worn on the left hip.
“The army does things for a reason, Appias.”
“What’s the reason for wearing the sword on this side or that?”
“I have no idea, though drawing a gladius with your right hand from a scabbard on your left hip does feel more natural.”
“Then why doesn’t every legionary, whether centurion or officer, wear his sword on the left if this is better practice?”
“Because senior officers do not carry and throw javelins.”
“As I wield a javelin and sword with my right hand both, how is carrying the sword on my left in the least helpful?”
“How many times daily are you told – ‘Appias, you think too much!’”
“I lose count, and yet my fellow legionaries never grow tired of repeating it.”
“Some observations never wear out, my friend.” Rufinius grinned as he sat on the ground by the cooking fire. “What smells good?”
Appias handed him a bowl and spoon. “Stew. Rabbit and fox. Thank Carbo for it. He has become adept with the Parthian bow. The fox was chasing the rabbit. At the moment she caught up with it and killed it, Carbo shot the fox. I’m sure there’s an omen in that.”
“I’ll ask Mena,” said Rufinius.
“You remind me … No one has seen her around here for a while.”
Both men knew which Mena Appias referred to.
Rufinius looked at Appias. “I gave my word.”
“You did … So what will you do? The men know of your feelings for the golden woman. You have a different countenance these days. Is something amiss?”
“No, nothing.”
“Say what needs saying, primor. You’re among friends.”
“You ask what I will do about her. You will know only if opportunity presents, and that will be up to the gods.”
“Might it be something like the resolution that came along for Nonus?”
Rufinius looked at Appias and spooned some stew into his mouth. “This is good,” he said, changing the subject. He was hungry. He finished it quickly and set the bowl aside. “Tell me – did your Ptolemy venture through Sogdiana?”
“No.”
“Do you know anything about this land?”
“Only what I’ve learned from the Xiongnu.
“Then tell me,” Rufinius insisted.
“The Sogdians share Parthian gods and look like Parthians, but have their own independence. For many years they paid tribute to the Xiongnu. But those days are over. The Sogdians believe they own this trading route they call the silk road. The two nations of Sogdiana and Xiongnu are not technically at war, but the survival of both is linked to ownership of the route, so a confrontation looms.”
Rufinius picked at a collection of dates and ate one. “What is the mind of our masters, the Xiongnu? You spend much time with Translator Bataar and I know you ask questions of their politics.”
Appias drew a deep breath and tried to explain the complicated situation the Xiongnu found themselves in. “I fear it is a nest of snakes. Not long ago, the Xiongnu were powerful and feared by the Han. For generations Han Emperors have been building a wall that stretches for more than a thousand miles, to keep the Xiongnu out. Can you believe it?”
“A thousand miles …” Rufinius was awed.
“But today,” Appias continued, “the Xiongnu are fractured and far from united. Where once they were a single people and ruled their northern lands fearing no one, disunity has arisen. We will arrive in the midst of civil war. The lineage of the Chanyu has come under dispute. Whether by greed or some family dispute, three Chanyus, all brothers, claimed the right to rule – Chanyu Runzhen, Chanyu Huhanye and Chanyu Zhizhi. They all sought peaceful relations with the Han Emperor Xuan, who came to terms with the Xiongnu and then considerably reduced his army along the border.”
“And yet it came undone, for why purchase an army of legionaries otherwise?” Rufinius said, handing Appias a chunk of salted bread.
“Last year, Chanyu Zhizhi fought and killed Runzhen for the throne,” Appias said, “and named himself the Dragon King – the rightful king. Zhizhi then offered battle to Huhanye, his younger brother, in an attempt to reunify his nation. But Huhanye ran to the Han court, seeking vassal status and the protection that comes with it.”
“So now Chanyu Zhizhi – General Saikan’s king – faces annihilation from the Han Emperor?” Rufinius asked.
Appias nodded, his forehead lined with concern. “Yes, you see the heart of it. What’s more, over the years the Han have grown vastly superior to the Xiongnu in all terms that count: land, wealth and men. The only strategy left to Zhizhi to remain in power is the one he currently pursues, the one you already know of: to form alliances here and there, only to break them when needed. This has kept the nations guessing around the Xiongnu land ruled by Zhizhi, but the fear is that the Emperor Xuan and his generals are growing weary of this dance and will strike.”
“How many soldiers can the Han put in the field?”
“In times of peril, I’m told up to three hundred thousand.”
Rufinius whistled quietly. “When do the Xiongnu think this battle will happen?”
“Who can say?”
“What of General Saikan? His status is tied to Zhizhi’s,” Rufinius said. “How can we be sure his contract with us will be honored?”
“It is hard to say. The Xiongnu society is complicated. The Chanyu is the supreme ruler. Beneath him are men called the Wise Kings of the Left and Right. The Left King is the heir and the Right King is second in line to the throne. Beneath each of these are other pairs of officials called “Guli”. That’s what I think Saikan is.”
“Guli Saikan.” Rufinius finished eating and wiped his mouth with the top of his forearm.
“Perhaps in Rome he would be called a senator,” said Appias. “Beneath Saikan are various army commanders and then officers who lead men, from a thousand down to ten.”
The tribune breathed deep. “With three Chanyus, there would be many more Kings of the Left and Right.”
“Exactly. The question for us now is whether Saikan is correctly aligned. If Zhizhi falls, Saikan’s word to you and us will be meaningless.”
“Then we must do our best to see that he doesn’t fall.”
The clatter of horses drawing near caused Rufinius to reach for his gladius and rise to his feet.
It was General Saikan arriving, as if he had heard his name being called aloud. He had a spare horse in tow, so something was in the air.
“Alexandricus! Come!” The general untied the horse’s reins from his saddle and held them out to Rufinius. “There is something you must see.”
Rufinius nodded to Appias and then mounted up. “We have not spoken in a while,” said Saikan as they rode.
“The dominus has not
asked his slave to speak,” replied Rufinius without a hint of irony.
The general regarded the Roman riding beside him. Was the damage done to their relationship irreparable? All this for a woman, and a whore at that?
The party rode to a towering rock outcrop near the edge of the encampment. Saikan slipped off his horse and, with Rufinius in his wake, climbed easily to the peak overlooking the desert plain. Gathered here already were several of the general’s senior officers. All were gazing to the south and east where a faint orange light glowed below the horizon.
“Camp fires … An army comes,” said Rufinius.
“No,” Saikan replied. “That is no army.”
XXXII
Shielding his eyes from the glare of the morning sun, Rufinius rode with General Saikan in front of 500 loosely assembled mounted Xiongnu archers. Behind the archers, arranged three lines deep, stood the Tenth Cohort – all of them ramshackle enough to give the desired impression of a large, disorganized troop of bandits. Behind the Tenth Cohort, and hidden from view by a gentle crest, were the rest of the cohorts, and far behind them was the baggage train, secured by the Reserve Cohort.
On the horizon opposite, the army that Saikan said was not an army looked like a solid worm that weaved among the pools of distant false water. As Rufinius watched, the worm began to separate into segments and then into lines of camels, horses, men and wagons that stretched beyond the rim of the world.
“What is it?” inquired Rufinius.
“The wealth of the Han Empire,” Saikan replied. “Wealth that, with luck, will soon belong to the Empire of Xiongnu.”
The general glanced at Rufinius but the tribune was preoccupied. “The caravan comes to the oasis,” he said.
The general nodded. “Water is scarce.”
Rufinius strained to assess the numbers of armed men accompanying the commerce that seemed to grow moment by moment. From another quadrant of the desert, a small squadron of horses galloped toward them.
“Your men?” asked Rufinius.
“Yes. In your language, they are speculatores,” Saikan explained. “In mine, we call them ‘turshuuluud’.”
The squadron of scouts raced toward Saikan’s black banners, waving gently in the morning sunshine. The horses, snorting and stamping, came to a stop in a shroud of roiling dust. Rufinius, who by now understood much of the Xiongnu language, even if he could not speak it well, listened for their report.
“General,” said the leader of the party, “it is a caravan of over one thousand wagons, a very rich prize.”
“And their escort?” inquired Saikan.
“It is hard to be certain with all the dust, but we estimate two thousand infantry, a thousand nunánrén, a thousand cavalry, and a thousand bowmen both mounted and on foot. I can confirm that they are soldiers of Emperor Xuan’s. Unfortunately we were seen by them.”
“It’s of no consequence,” Saikan told the turshuuluud commander. Turning to Rufinius, he said, “Though they don’t know it, our forces are evenly matched.”
“Nunánrén?” Rufinius asked, the word unfamiliar to him.
“The nu is a weapon that fires arrows from the hip and is wildly inaccurate,” Saikan replied, as if something distasteful was in his mouth. “A nunánrén is a soldier who operates such a weapon. The nu is favored by the Han because it takes no skill to master. A weapon for peasant conscripts.”
Rufinius observed that two of the turshuuluud horses were riderless. “You lost men.”
“Killed by nunánrén,” the leader said and spat on the ground. “We were ambushed, Lord. They came at us from out of a dry riverbed.”
Down on the plain the Han troops began to deploy, forming black blocks of defenders across the front of the wagon lines, trailing off as far as the eye could see.
“They maneuver to fight,” observed Saikan.
Rufinius grinned. “Then the day is shaping up well, General.”
“I want the caravan captured intact. Can it be done with minimal losses?”
“To them or to us?”
“I would be most pleased if there were no prisoners to feed and water.”
Rufinius tightened the straps of his cuirass. “My men are ready.”
Saikan looked back at the caravan. “This will be a great prize for my Chanyu. There is to be no looting or burning.”
Rufinius nodded. If the legionaries broke through the Han easily, it would be difficult to stop them tearing into the caravan. It was mesmerizing – the sight of the approaching foreign army drawing itself into formations. It was clear that these Han soldiers were well ordered. Indeed, they seemed to behave not unlike a legion. That implied leadership, and organization, as well as an understanding of military tactics. Was it true? Was there another empire just like Rome’s, but bigger? Was the world so large that it could accommodate empires of such immensity and yet neither be aware of the other’s existence? Were there even more empires as yet unknown?
Something on the horizon caught the tribune’s attention. Hovering high above the enemy’s lines in several places was a strange sight. “General Saikan. Those birds flying above their cohorts …”
“Birds? No, what you see are kites, made by men. They are devices kept aloft on the breeze and used by the Han to signal maneuvers.”
Rufinius found the cleverness fascinating. Having always been stationed at the rear of a century, which was itself just a small part of a greater whole, he had never been given a tactical overview of a coming battle. Yet, to his own surprise, he found himself weighing options and plans as a tribune must. And what he thought of most of all were the lessons learned from the disastrous battle against the Parthians near Carrhae, fought on similar terrain.
“General, is the approaching force here to wage war?” Rufinius asked.
“Their numbers are too small. They accompany the valuable cargo, to safeguard it at all costs.”
“Are they regular soldiers, auxiliaries, or conscripts?”
“They are unlikely to be regular troops. Conscripts, probably raised for the purpose you see before you: to ward off bandits.”
“Do the Han fight in the desert often?”
“No. I am surprised to see such numbers here. Perhaps they are losing too many caravans to us and our occasional friends, the Sogdians.”
The ground sloped gently down from the Roman position toward the Han, whose lines were several miles away. At the legion’s back was the oasis with plentiful water for the men. Rufinius noted Saikan’s banners, which had begun to flap, the wind increasing. It was now blowing away from his men and toward the approaching Han.
“The battle is yours, Tribune,” said General Saikan. “You know my objectives.”
Rufinius left the general’s side and rode across the line of horse archers, judging distances to the forces of the Han, and other battle factors. Occupying the higher ground, the advantage was all his. He could see the extent of the enemy formations, but the enemy could only see the Xiongnu horse archers and the men of the Tenth. Though the apparent obstacle thus presented to the Han was – compared to its own numbers – a trifling one, it was still serious enough to make them prepare for battle. And, of course, the Han were completely unaware of the other Roman cohorts waiting over the rise.
Rufinius breathed deep. Fate had chosen a field of battle that favored his men. And the breeze at his back had stiffened even more …
The tribune galloped back to his staff, which had been joined by Saikan. He jumped down from his horse and used the blade of his pugio to scratch a plan in the dirt.
“Appias, brief the engineers. I want as much dust as they can raise across the front of the Xiongnu horsemen, here.” Rufinius quickly etched the legion’s positions in the sand and those of the approaching Han army. Then he drew a line between the two. “This will also be our main line of advance,” he said drawing an arrow. “Appias, I want that dust now.”
“Primor,” Appias replied, then leaped onto his horse and spurred it to a gallop.
/> On his battle plan, Rufinius filled in the positions of the waiting cohorts the Han knew nothing about. He then looked up at the faces of Saikan, Petronius, Magnus, and the junior tribunes. “The Han can see a small force they think they can roll right over. Let’s not disappoint them.”
*
A short while later – with the forward units of Han army still more than a mile away – around a hundred horses dragged mats across the desert sand so that a pall of impenetrable dust obscured their view of the Roman lines.
Rufinius’s orders conveyed by Cornicen Magnus had been carried out and the legion’s cohorts had deployed accordingly. The Tenth Cohort was in the center, arrayed in three lines, supported by the Seventh, Eighth and Ninth a hundred paces behind and invisible to the Han. The legion’s left flank was secured by the Fifth and Sixth, while over on the right flank, the double-sized First was bolstered by the Second, Third and Fourth Cohorts, along with Saikan’s horse archers.
With everything as it should be, Rufinius calmly completed the order. “Execute!”
Magnus trumpeted the command. The mats being dragged by the horses were immediately cut loose and the animals were brought galloping to the rear through the gaps between the cohorts. The Tenth – and only the Tenth – advanced into the murk, the legionaries holding their pila high over their shoulders, ready to hurl.
Soon the screams of battle could be heard in the clear air behind the dust cloud. The Han units had advanced faster than Saikan assured him they would. Rufinius dispatched mounted messengers to the Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Cohorts with their confirmation to advance.
The lines of these cohorts marched forward to be swallowed by the dust. Not long after, the men of the Tenth fell back behind the dust cloud after being initially smashed by the Han, and were relieved by the fresh, significant numbers sent into the fight.
Rufinius whipped his mount to action and headed for these tired legionaries of the Tenth. His sudden dash took his staff by surprise and they did their best to catch up with him.
Stopping alongside two legionaries caked in dust, sweat, and blood, Rufinius asked, “Men, what news from the lines?”
Field of Mars (The Complete Novel) Page 31