The two galleys responsible for the ramming freed themselves and set off to find new prey. It was easy for them – the barges were sitting targets, and the warships assigned to their defence could protect only a few, so their enemies threw themselves on the ships lacking protection.
And his was one of them.
He had only just realised this when he noticed that the prows of the two enemy triremes were pointed toward his ship. The captain ordered the oarsmen to pull harder and move them out of the way, and the helmsman to turn the bow towards the enemy boats to offer their rams a smaller target, but the two triremes began swinging outwards, preparing a converging manoeuvre, and there was no way of avoiding at least one of them ramming them in the side.
Gaius turned his gaze back to the flagship, and saw that it had veered towards Brindisi. More than half of the transport fleet was still in front of it, and its manoeuvre had broken up the convoy. What was happening was all too clear now.
Domitius Calvinus had decided to cut his losses and take home all the ships that were not yet within range of the enemy triremes. Sacrificing all those who were already at the mercy of Murcus.
Including him.
*
And so here he was, back in Macedonia and about to take part in a great and decisive battle between his commander and his rival, Ortwin said to himself while he cut yet another bundle of canes to clear the way for the engineers in charge of building the road through the swamp. Six years ago at Pharsalus he had been one of the protagonists in one of the greatest internecine battles – between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great – and had believed that the victory of the future dictator would end the civil wars. But then there were the campaigns in Africa and Spain, the great battles of Thapsus and Munda, which gave only the illusion of renewed stability to the city state. When Caesar died it had all started again, and the war of Modena had begun. And now there was this battle looming at Philippi: there, where it had all started.
And he, Ortwin, had profited not at all from all those Romans slaughtering one another: at Pharsalus he had been Caesar’s chief bodyguard, but now, at Philippi, he was just one of Octavian’s lackeys and in no way indispensable. He knew that was what Veleda, who was by his side and busy, like him, cutting down canes, thought. And whilst at Pharsalus the supreme commander had given him decision making autonomy and a subordinate command, he was now forced to endure the company and authority of an individual as unpleasant as Popillius Laenas, nominally his equal in the sect but superior to him in the field thanks to his rank of centurion.
A fact of which Laenas never tired of reminding him.
The officer, as always, was barking insults at them. “Come on you barbarians, get a move on! It takes more than knowing how to fight to be like a Roman soldier – you have to know how to build too! And seeing how uncivilised you lot are, you’ll never manage it, so we might as well use you as labourers! Come, get those canes piled up on the wall.” He enjoyed humiliating them. But not only them: he tormented anyone under his command, from foot soldiers to optiones. With his superiors, on the other hand, from centurions to tribunes, Laenas was fawning. Caesar would not have put up with him, Ortwin said to himself, but Octavian was more pragmatic and valued people more for what they could offer than for their human qualities.
“He’s the newest member of the sect and yet he treats you like a slave,” whispered Veleda.
Ortwin shrugged, playing it down. “He’s just another arrogant centurion. Do you know how many of them I’ve had to deal with since the days of Caesar?”
“But he is not just a centurion,” she replied, “he is a follower of the sect – and he does not respect you.”
“But he is useful to the sect, and therefore even if he is slow witted we will all put up with him. Even me.”
“You’re just repeating Octavian’s words. You don’t really believe that…”
“Stop your grunting, you two!” shouted Laenas. “There’ll be time for that tonight in your grimy lair! Get to work. And I’ll tell you what, to give you animals a sense of responsibility, I’m moving you to the final stretch of the road over there, under the enemy camp. That way maybe you’ll work a bit harder. You too, stump face – hurry up!” He turned to the legionaries in the front line. “Go to the rear, you lot. You’re changing places with the barbarians!”
Ortwin had promised himself that he wouldn’t react, but the offensive reference to Veleda’s impairment angered him. He walked towards the centurion with great strides until they were face to face, removed the cloth covering his missing eye to make his appearance even more brutal than it already was, and hissed, “I’m used to much worse than this, Laenas, and I can put up with the rantings and insults even of one like you. But speak disrespectfully of my wife again and they will be forced to expel me from the sect for having sliced one of its members open from his balls to the top of his head.” He said it in a calm, flat tone, with the assurance of those who have seen it all.
For the first time, Laenas looked worried. The centurion looked away and instinctively stepped back, intimidated by his attitude. Ortwin was certain: all you needed to do with people like that was raise your voice. And if he had not done so until then it was because he feared the reaction of Octavian, who probably considered a one-eyed barbarian the most expendable of the members of the sect, in spite of all that Ortwin had done for him so far. Caesar had treated him very differently, but they were in no position to pick and choose: the dictator’s young heir was all that Ortwin and Veleda had, after all.
The German gestured to his men to follow him and moved to the front line, aware of the danger that they would face: for the last ten days the men – mainly those of Antony, but those of Octavian too – had been working in the swamp, building the road as well as the fortifications. If the tall canes had hidden their operations from the enemy for the first week, as they approached the heights occupied by Cassius’s camp their presence had become more visible, and for the last two days it had no longer been possible to conceal it at all. During the night, in fact, their enemies had hurriedly built counter-fortifications to prevent Antony’s soldiers from going any further, leaving Caesar’s murderers a wide corridor allowing free access to the sea. Moreover, since the previous day, the easternmost end of the road and the fortifications in the marshes had been subjected to a continuous rain of bolts and projectiles of all sorts which their improvised canopies and screens could only partially block.
“You’d better hope for the best now, boys.” The exhortation of the optio who commanded the retreating team confirmed his fears. The soldiers were carrying on their shoulders a legionary with an arrow in his armpit and holding up another with a mangled leg, the victim of a boulder thrown from a ballista. In Ortwin’s opinion, Octavian would not be pleased to learn that the members of the sect had been so freely exposed to danger, but it would never have crossed his mind to go and complain to his lieutenants.
He reached the place where the road ended. To the sides and in front, as well as the canes still waiting to be cut, there were mobile siege engines and screens covered with fireproof material which bristled with enemy projectiles. He estimated the distance that separated them from the slopes of the hill occupied by Cassius. It was not far, but those last few steps would cost far more time and effort than had been needed for everything that had been achieved so far.
And now, because of Laenas, it was his, Veleda and his men’s turn to pay that price.
He felt a thud followed by a vibration. An arrow had lodged in the screen in front of him. He looked at the canopy over his head and noticed that parts of it had been smashed by the boulders at his feet and that no one had dared repair it. He took a deep breath and ordered his men to move it slightly forward, thus freeing some space to extend the road at least up to the enemy’s fortifications. He decided to use the stones hurled by their opponents to give the road some consistency, and began to dig around one of them to drive it in deeper. Meanwhile, his companions brought wheelbarrows
full of earth which they emptied out next to him while others hastily shored up and compacted the edge of the road with other rocks, and further back, some auxiliaries threw bundles of canes into a dip in the road to fill it up. Ortwin imagined that a road built like that would cause many twisted ankles among the soldiers who could not always watch where they put their feet, and hoped he wouldn’t have to use it to retreat. The purpose of the construction, as Agrippa had explained, was to frighten their opponents and force them down onto the plains for battle. It was unlikely that these fortifications would ever be put to the test.
“Fortunately,” he thought, “because I doubt they would withstand an attack.”
“I hope he dies,” said Veleda, when she was next to him, gesturing behind them with her head. The reference to Laenas was clear. “In fact, one day I’ll kill him myself.”
“We will do nothing that might upset our leader,” said Ortwin, slowly and emphatically, as he continued to dig.
Then he felt another impact, and then another. The screen in front of him shuddered violently, and the sound echoed throughout the protective structure around them. Another shot, this time over their heads, preceded by an instant the fall of a boulder that almost hit Veleda. Instinctively, she jumped back and Ortwin stood up and peered around the edge of the screen to see what was happening.
And saw something he never thought he would witness.
Dozens of men, racing like lunatics towards their position, preceded by the launch of projectiles and followed by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of their fellow soldiers.
The battle had begun. But not in the sector of the battlefield the leaders had envisaged. And he and Veleda were on the front line.
XIX
Within moments, the calm that had reigned around Veleda turned into chaos. From the slope of the hill above the earthworks swarms of soldiers were hurtling down towards them, and projectiles of every type rained down onto the swamp. Around her, the legionaries and auxiliaries who were almost at the foot of the rise threw down their tools, and in some cases even their shields, and abandoned their posts in a desperate attempt to reach the rest of the army.
She stood there in shock: could their leaders have not foreseen the possibility of the troops of Caesar’s killers attacking from that side? But then she noticed that there were senior officers at the head of the enemy columns, and that they were not even organised into units – it seemed to be a spontaneous attack, with the legionaries in no particular order. Perhaps it was just a sudden attempt to stop the works to isolate the hill from the sea.
No one attempted to fight them off. Ortwin himself urged her to fall back, and together they ran along the road they had just been building, which was full of more and more fugitives as they raced towards the rear. It soon became almost impossible to advance along the embankment: people stumbled over the boulders used to hold it together, or, hit in the back by an arrow, fell, tripping up those behind them, while others elbowed their way past those in front of them and used the bodies of their fellow soldiers behind them as protection from projectiles, while others still wallowed in the mud, struggling desperately to climb out to safety and grasping at the arms and legs of their fellows to pull themselves out.
“To the fort! Run to the fort!” yelled Ortwin, grabbing her hand to try and prevent her from being overwhelmed by those more robust, heavily-armoured and crazed than her. He dragged her along, gesturing with his head to the nearest of the four forts that the soldiers had built along the road in the swamp, but a violent collision with a legionary made Veleda let go of his hand – she lost her balance and, buffeted by other fugitives, was hurled into the swamp. As she lay face down in the mud, she felt a soldier tread upon her back, and then another trample her thigh. She tried to rise but the pain of the blows and the density of the mud would not allow her. A hand grabbed her arm, and as soon as he felt herself being lifted up she instinctively reacted with her nails, scratching her aggressor’s hand.
“Do you want to scratch out my other eye?” asked Ortwin, pulling her to her feet and even finding the strength to smile.
She shook her head, stepped back onto the road and set off again in the crowd. They were close to the first fort, but Veleda realised that it was already full of people and the entrance barred even before Ortwin pointed it out to her. They had to continue to the next one. Meanwhile, however, the enemy was approaching, and there was no guarantee that they would get there. Arrows continued to hiss through the air, though less frequently now: as their opponents grew closer, their archers were increasingly hesitant about firing.
The two Germans, followed by their men, circled the fort and continued along the embankment. The crowd was less dense, now, but they still had to fight to stay on their feet. Ortwin’s companions managed to create a cordon around Veleda, obeying an unspoken order from their leader. She saw the profile of the second fort, but the legionaries in front of them were crowding into it, and she was afraid they would have to go even further. She turned for a moment, and from the corner of her eye saw their pursuers, or at least some of them, surrounding the first fort and attacking it from all sides. The defensive wall was only a little taller than two men one above the other, and the attackers were trying to climb it by piling stones from the embankment at the base and forming into tortoises.
She saw nothing more: her companions pushed her past and onwards towards the second fort. The doors were still open, but the flow of people trying to get in made it inaccessible. Some were punching their fellow soldiers to try and get in, and even the Germans had to fight to stop themselves from being pushed back, but the crowd that thronged the door allowed them to make little progress. Veleda turned and saw that the enemy were drawing nearer. She looked back towards the door that they would never be able to enter now. They were advancing one step at a time, while their enemies were running.
They had to fight. She drew her sword before her companions who, seeing her, followed suit. Ortwin did the same: it was pointless to continue to push at the soldiers in front of them and risk getting stabbed in the back by the enemy when they reached them. They were the last in the line, and they would be the first to face the column of men arriving. And just to allow the Romans to find shelter in the fort, she said to herself. She, saving Romans – utter madness! The Germans fanned out, some on the embankment and others in the marshes, while she and Ortwin found themselves side by side in the centre of the road, and positioned themselves to face the first group of assailants, who were advancing toward them brandishing their swords.
The first swing was directed at her. Veleda raised her shield but Ortwin was faster, stopping the blow with the blade of his sword. He pushed the enemy’s sword back, opening the Roman’s guard and promptly piercing his chest with a powerful jab that ripped through the chain mail and penetrated the flesh.
Veleda gave her man an offended look. “Do you think I do not know how to take care of myself?” she shouted, before using her sword to block the lunge of another opponent. She tried to imitate Ortwin, swinging her blade to push aside the guard of the enemy, but he was strong and resisted, holding his sword hard against her shield. The woman screamed in frustration and threw another jab. The soldier blocked it with his shield, and she darted suddenly to her right, throwing herself towards the marsh. Swinging out over the edge, she stepped around her opponent just enough to flank him, then swung her blade, which fell on his shoulder with all its momentum.
Veleda fell to the ground at the very moment the shield of her enemy did the same. With the man’s arm still attached to it. Ortwin found time to issue a whistle of approval, drowned out immediately by cries of pain from his adversary, from whose chest spurted copious amounts of blood. Veleda got up, covered from head to toe in mud and blood, and was immediately faced with another opponent, whose spear missed her by a whisker. She was still unsteady on her feet, and for a moment hoped that the other warriors of her squad would help her – but each of her companions was busy with their own battles.
&nb
sp; As was Ortwin. She would have to take care of herself. The man jabbed at her again, without giving her time to recover her footing, and she fell again. The tip of the spear passed a finger’s width from her side and rammed into the ground as she tried to get up. Suddenly an idea came to her, and she threw herself onto the shaft, using her weight to force it down and lever it out of the Roman’s hand, then, rolling beneath him, she stabbed him between the legs before he could pull his sword from its scabbard. The man collapsed on top of her, but Veleda sprang out of his way and finally managed to regain her feet, ready to fight again.
But there was no enemy, for the moment. Before her, she saw other soldiers arriving from the first fort, which had fallen into their assailants’ hands. To her side, the last members of the group they had faced were falling under the blows of the Germans. She noticed that their easy victory had been propitiated by the contribution of some legionaries who, instead of entering the fort, had stayed with them to offer them assistance.
Ortwin got rid of his opponent, assessed the situation, and then turned to the fort behind him. The last soldiers were passing through the narrow gap between the half closed doors, and even those who had been helping the Germans followed suit. The group of assailants advancing was larger than the one they had just defeated, and they would have no chance this time. Ortwin motioned to Veleda and his men to follow him; there was no longer a crowd in front of the entrance, and it seemed easily accessible. They approached the door while, behind them, the enemy column swelled and swiftly closed on them.
Veleda saw Popillius Laenas peer through the doors, and let out a sigh of relief. They could count on the assistance of another member of the sect to help them, at least for the moment. She increased her pace, hearing the steps of the enemy behind her, but at that moment the centurion pushed the doors shut.
They slammed closed in the Germans’ faces.
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