Valerius nodded.
By now they were down to the last few pairs. Felix sighed as the penultimate rider in the near team came forward. They had a lead of almost half the length of the field that increased with every stride of the mount approaching the finish. ‘Go,’ Marius shouted.
The look on Gellius Pudens’s plump features matched any man in the unit’s for determination, but neither his temperament nor his physique fitted him for the saddle. He nudged his mount into a walk that gradually increased to something approaching a trot. Where others rode in a direct line, Gellius’s course wavered as his mare responded to the shaking of his well-padded knees. He held his sword as if he intended to use it to stir soup, and when he struck at the post the edge of his blade chipped a splinter from his shield. As he tried to adjust, he lost his balance and rolled from his saddle to an ironic cheer from the opposing team and groans from his own.
The final two competitors were veterans, but the near team’s rider had to watch in disgust as his opponent swept from one end of the course to the other, made his cut and returned while Gellius was still struggling to get back in the saddle. Eventually, the fat man gave up and led his horse back to the start line. Valerius heard the muttered curses as he approached his comrades. ‘Our friend won’t be popular tonight.’
Felix smiled. ‘It’s just as well he’s a good cook.’
‘Why not rest the horses for an hour and let him feed the men? I’d like to join them, if I may?’
‘It would be our pleasure, legate.’
‘And I have a request. If nothing else it’ll give them a bit of entertainment.’
The first thing Valerius noticed was that the men ate in distinct groups, with little or no conversation between them. In any legionary unit it was usual for tentmates from the same contubernium to mess together, but most would indulge in banter and insult.
‘Is it always like this?’ he asked Felix.
‘Yes, they stick to their units. I’ve tried to encourage them to mix, but all they do is fight.’
They approached the group that included the five Pannonians. The men started to get to their feet, but Valerius motioned them to stay where they were. He sat beside a tall, slim cavalryman with close-cropped sandy hair and the distinctive sidelock hanging by his right ear. The trooper had serious grey eyes and handsome, regular features, marred only by the white pucker of an old scar on his right cheek.
‘You rode well today, trooper, but I’m willing to bet this is the first time you’ve visited Italia.’
‘Then you would lose your money, lord.’ The cavalryman’s Latin had a distinct accent, but he spoke it well, with a solemn gravity. ‘I came here eight years ago with the First Pannonian Horse as part of the vexillation Legate Rusticus sent to support Emperor Vitellius against the renegade Otho. When Titus Flavius Vespasianus declared for the purple he believed our loyalty suspect and posted us to the Rhenus frontier for a year before we returned to Britannia.’
‘I’m interested in how you and your comrades came to be part of my bodyguard.’
‘We are volunteers, lord,’ the trooper said with a hint of a smile. ‘When our legate granted us Roman citizenship, he honoured us with a place in the legion’s regular cavalry. Sadly, his cavalry commander felt differently and considered us uncouth barbarians. Given the choice of volunteering or becoming stable hands, we chose the former.’
Valerius returned the smile. ‘I’m glad you did. But I’m surprised they encouraged you to leave. You must have carried out a feat of great valour for your commander to grant immediate citizenship.’
A shadow fell over the Pannonian’s eyes. ‘You are familiar with what happened on the Rhenus during the late war, lord?’
‘The Batavian revolt?’ Batavian auxiliaries under the command of their tribal leader had risen against Vitellius, but the rebellion had swollen into a full-scale war for overlordship of the Batavian lands west of the Rhenus. Vespasian’s forces eventually defeated the rebels, but not before they’d proved Rome’s legions weren’t invincible.
‘Yes, lord. Enemies and betrayal on every side. Whole legions mutinying or fleeing without orders. The Batavians surrounded our camp, with more arriving every day. The commander ordered my squadron to lead the breakout. We five are all who survived.’
Valerius nodded his understanding. He’d been in enough last stands to know the combination of Fortuna’s favour and fighting skill it must have taken for these men to get out alive. ‘What is your name, trooper?’
‘They call me Shabolz.’
‘I will remember you, Shabolz.’ Here at least was one man on whom he could depend.
He continued his inspection of the camp. Sullen silence and eyes that avoided contact. Not everyone was as pleased with their posting as the Pannonians. At least two expressions of bovine stupidity. One man studied him as if he expected to be noticed. That face again. Where had he seen it before?
Valerius approached the little circle of men from the Ninth. Florus the thief made to stand up, but Julius Crescens put a hand on his arm and he remained seated with the rest. Gellius Pudens knelt by a pot simmering on the central fire and a mouthwatering scent hung over the camp. He filled a plate and rose to join the group from the Second Adiutrix. As he walked past, Crescens stretched out a foot to trip him and he stumbled, spilling his food.
‘Do you no harm to miss a meal, fat boy,’ his tormentor sneered. ‘Especially this pigswill.’
Felix would have reacted, but Valerius shook his head and addressed Crescens himself. ‘You don’t like the rations, trooper?’
‘He’s trying to poison us with his weeds.’ Crescens looked to his comrades for support, but they were all concentrating on their plates.
Valerius went to the pot. It contained a simple meat stew of good fatty pork, but Pudens had added herbs he must have collected from the fields. Felix handed him a spoon and he tasted the stew, which was a step above the standard legionary rations he’d eaten.
‘Seems fair enough. Crescens, isn’t it?’ The man studied him with wary eyes. ‘You impressed me at the sword exercise, Crescens. A proper cavalryman. How much service do you have?’
Crescens pushed himself to his feet. ‘Five years.’ He didn’t hide the bitterness in his voice. ‘Trooper, third squadron, Ninth legionary cavalry, based at Lindum, which is where I’d like to be now.’
Valerius ignored the muttered complaint and raised his voice so he was addressing all the men. ‘You did well today, but I don’t expect to be ambushed by many wooden posts when we get to Britannia.’ Smiles, and a few of them laughed. ‘Your decurion assures me you know how to manoeuvre, to charge, wheel and countercharge, but what will happen when you face a man sword against sword in the saddle? That is the test of the true cavalryman.’ He nodded to Marius. ‘Break out a pair of practice swords.’
Marius marched off to a tent and returned with two identical wooden swords. Replica cavalry spathae in every way, but cut from planks of oak.
Valerius accepted one and hefted it in his left hand. Shabolz rose from his position with a wry smile, but Valerius tossed the sword to Julius Crescens, who caught it with a puzzled frown.
‘Let’s see just how good you really are, trooper.’
Now the frown turned to incredulity. ‘You?’
‘That’s right, Crescens. You have no objection to fighting a superior officer, I’m sure.’ Valerius shrugged off his toga and stepped out of its folds in his short tunic. He heard the collective intake of breath as the watching men noticed the wooden fist that replaced his right hand. ‘When we’re out there it’s just man against man.’
‘Man against half a man.’ Crescens grinned at his companions.
Valerius took the second sword and called for his mount. When Felix led the horse to Valerius he carried a mail shirt across his arm. ‘You’ll need armour, legate?’
Valerius considered for a moment before shaking his head. ‘I haven’t worn mail for years. Better to have more freedom of movement, I thi
nk. And no shield for obvious reasons, but I’ll take a helm.’
‘Are you sure this is sensible, lord?’ Felix’s voice dropped to a whisper as he helped Valerius into the saddle. ‘Crescens may be a troublemaker, but he’s a fine horseman and dangerous with a sword.’
‘That’s something we’ll find out, decurion.’ Valerius looked around at the ring of faces, eyes bright with anticipation. Crescens might not be popular, but he doubted any of them would be averse to seeing a patrician dumped on his backside with blood dripping from a nasty scalp wound. It hadn’t only been years since he’d worn chain armour, but since he’d fought on horseback. He still practised for an hour with a sword every morning and all his horses were cavalry trained to react to touches of knee or thigh, but he was no longer the veteran cavalryman of Corbulo’s Armenian campaign. What he did know was that if these men were to protect his family for what might be three or four years he needed their loyalty, and if you wanted to gain a man’s loyalty, first you must win his respect. The one thing in his favour was that when he’d fought the Parthians he’d been in a true battle, fighting for his life. In the five years Crescens had been a cavalryman the Ninth Hispana had been on garrison duty at Lindum. That meant patrols and the occasional punishment raid, but the only men he’d have fought on horseback would be those of his own unit. He’d never faced a killer. Valerius remembered the advice of Marcus, the lanista, on the day he’d first met the gladiator Serpentius. Don’t fight like a one-handed man, or a two-handed man. Fight like a killer.
Fight like a killer.
He felt the heat rising inside him at the prospect, but attempted to still it. The most dangerous men on the battlefield weren’t the berserkers who charged you with blood in their eye, they were controlled, calculating and cold-blooded. The thought made him smile, a savage rictus that would have surprised him if he’d seen it. It had been five years since he’d experienced this sense of anticipation. Was it wrong to feel such joy at the prospect of violence?
He looked to where Florus was helping Crescens on to his horse. The cavalryman wore full armour and carried a shield in his left hand. He was grinning and boasting to his friends, but when their eyes met Valerius saw something that cheered him further. Doubt.
Until the prefect commanding Ninth Hispana’s cavalry volunteered him for the legatus iuridicus’s escort things had come easily to Julius Crescens. His father had been a legionary in the Ninth and it seemed only natural that his son should follow him. But young Julius had an affinity with horses and a gift for riding and he didn’t plan on marching the length and breadth of Britannia. Instead, he applied to join the hundred and twenty strong cavalry unit that provided the legate’s couriers and carried out scouting and patrol duties. A man could lose himself polishing brass or oiling leather; it helped pass the time. Other people could be persuaded to muck out the stables in return for a favour or the promise of one (seldom fulfilled). He had a way of impressing his officers without doing anything to justify it, and he cultivated friendships with comrades who mattered and ignored those who didn’t. Women liked him until they realized he was as free with their possessions as with their persons. Lindum wasn’t too bad, once you got used to the damp, and the service was far from onerous. Then he’d made the mistake. He’d underestimated the influence of a man he’d tried to blackmail and the trooper had gone to his decurion. An investigation led to further probing that uncovered his other activities: the gambling ring he encouraged and the oddly weighted dice; the women smuggled into the stables and rented out to whoever could pay. The not so subtle hint that he might want to volunteer with Florus and the rest instead of marching behind an eagle with the loss of two years’ seniority was impossible to ignore.
There hadn’t really been any choice.
Now he was here on this patch of dusty ground about to face a crippled old lawyer who seemed to think he was some kind of warrior. Well, he was about to find out differently. Crescens couldn’t afford to hurt him too much, but a few strikes here and there would put him in his place.
And yet a few things about this situation made him uneasy. Fighting without armour and a shield spoke of either confidence or stupidity, and the old man didn’t look stupid. Then there was the wooden hand. For the first time it dawned on Julius Crescens that he faced a left-handed swordsman and his mind struggled with the complications generated by that imponderable. It opened the right side to the lightning attack Crescens had trained for these five years past, but where would the defensive stroke come from? But Crescens carried a stout wooden shield and wore chain armour. What did he have to fear? The old man couldn’t hurt him. Make it quick, then. Best to keep complications to a minimum.
Valerius trotted to the far side of the field, choosing to make his opponent fight with the sun on his face. A small advantage, but sometimes small advantages could be the difference between winning and losing. He might have ordered Crescens to fight without his shield, but that would have been a sign of weakness, just as the watching men would think the lack of a right hand a weakness. He would prove them wrong.
His purpose was not to hurt his opponent, but to make a point. They looked upon him as a toothless old bureaucrat. But he was Gaius Valerius Verrens, Hero of Rome and holder of the Corona Aurea. Julius Crescens was about to discover that.
Marius marched to the centre of the field, and in an echo of Vespasian at the chariot race held out his hand with a piece of cloth between his fingers. Beyond him, the men of the escort watched eagerly. Valerius urged his horse into motion as the cloth fluttered to the ground.
A hundred paces away Julius Crescens glared from beneath the rim of his polished iron helmet. He held his shield in his left hand and the heavy wooden spatha in his right. The most direct point of attack for a left-handed swordsman was from Crescens’s left side. Valerius took precisely that line, automatically calculating his opponent’s possible countermoves as he rode. Crescens would be confident in his ability to fend off a blow with his shield while simultaneously wielding the back cut he’d shown so effectively earlier. Valerius must beat the shield and somehow find a telling strike on armour or helmet.
Fifty paces. Valerius held his line.
Twenty-five.
Crescens raised his sword for the backhand cut.
Valerius nudged his mount in the left flank and before Crescens could react the left-handed swordsman was approaching the black gelding’s right shoulder. Too late to swing the shield across. Instead, Crescens brought his spatha round to strike Valerius’s unprotected chest. Wooden sword or not, a direct thrust to his chest combined with the closing speed of the horses could be fatal. Crescens expected Valerius to swerve away. Instead, Valerius used the edge of his sword to flick the point aside and lashed out with the wooden fist.
If he’d struck Crescens in the face, the oak fist would have broken his jaw or pulverized his nose and smashed the bone into his brain. But the fist took the cavalryman just above the helmet rim, so the iron dome rang like a bell and the impact knocked the wits from him. Valerius half turned into Crescens’s intended blow so the other man’s sword arm brushed his shoulder instead of knocking him from the saddle.
Fight like a killer.
He heard an ironic cheer, but he was already spinning the horse in a tight wheel that brought him behind his stunned enemy. The wooden sword clattered into the back of Crescens’s helm, knocking him forward in the saddle. The cavalryman tried to protect his back with the shield, but all it did was expose his shield arm to Valerius’s relentless attack. A well-aimed cut above the elbow and the shield fell from paralysed fingers. Crescens flailed with his own sword and tried to turn into Valerius, but the older man forced his mount close so Crescens had no room for manoeuvre.
By now the battle joy filled Valerius’s head and the wooden sword hammered against Crescens’s helmet like a bludgeon. The stricken cavalryman’s world whirled and he lost the capacity to think or defend himself. With a despairing cry he toppled from the saddle out of range of his tormentor
, to slam into the hard earth with a force that knocked the breath from his body.
Valerius slid from his mount and stood over his fallen opponent. Crescens’s chest rose and fell beneath his mail in frantic, spasmodic movements. Valerius used the tip of his sword to push the fallen trooper’s helmet from his head. Crescens’s eyes were closed and blood ran from his ears and nose. Men ran towards them and Valerius waited till they were within hearing distance.
‘Some of you, perhaps most of you,’ his raised voice held a savage, post-combat harshness, ‘do not want to be here. I can understand why. You left behind sweethearts, friends and good lives at Lindum, Isca and Deva. Believe me, given the choice I’d send you back.’ He swivelled to meet the eyes of those standing in a half-circle behind him. ‘But know this. Until we reach Britannia, you are mine. You are soldiers and your orders are to protect your legate and his family. You may think it is a soft job. An easy task. But every soldier knows that if you allow your guard to drop you invite trouble. So you will act like professionals. No soft living in mansiones. We will make camp every night as if we were marching through enemy territory. We will sleep in tents.’ He saw their looks of disbelief and allowed himself a grin. ‘Yes, even me. Some of you are good. Some are barely able to stay in the saddle. That’s why your decurion and I will mix up tentmates. So the very good can help the very bad.’ The first soft murmur of dissent. A growl from the big man with the permanent scowl that could mean anything. He stared them down. ‘There will be no fighting and no trouble. Because the first man who steps out of line will find himself lying there like Trooper Crescens. Marius? Help him back to his tent. The rest of you ready your mounts. And remember. Never let your enemy get behind you. You won’t find him as merciful as I was.’
He picked up the reins of his horse and Felix fell into step beside him as they walked back to the camp.
‘You certainly know how to make an impression, lord,’ the decurion murmured.
Valerius smiled. ‘I needed the exercise.’
Glory of Rome: (Gaius Valerius Verrens 8) Page 8