FIELDS OF MARS

by S. J. A. Turney

  There was a touch of bitterness in the man’s words, and Fronto realised that the legates had probably been senators, or were expecting to be so when they laid down their commands.

  ‘Lucius Afranius is loyal to Pompey, but he is also a true Roman and has intimated to his fellow officers a number of times that war against other Romans does not sit comfortably in his heart. If you can offer us reasonable terms on behalf of the proconsul, we will see that the general accepts them. Then there will be no seditio. Marcus Petreius is more determined to prevent Caesar gaining a foothold in Hispania, though I believe him to be deluded, for the proconsul clearly already has that. Petreius will deny it to the end, but he will have no choice but to capitulate when his fellow general and his officers all favour terms.’

  Fronto nodded. ‘The general’s terms are these: Each legion is to renounce their oath to Pompey and take a new one to Caesar. Their tribunes, prefects and legates are to step down from command and return to Rome or to their homes and be replaced by new officers, though they will go with honour for their years of service and take their servants, slaves and all goods with them. The legions will return to their garrisons with their standards intact and no further action will be taken. A new governor will be installed in Tarraco by the decree of the senate. Both your generals will be faced with a choice. If they willingly lay down their arms and surrender, they will be permitted to leave Hispania with their personal retinues, but without any military force at their command. They may return to Rome or their estates if they are willing to submit to the senate’s rule and to renounce their allegiance to Pompey. If they are unwilling to do so, they may flee to Pompey’s side, but Italia and the west will be closed to them and their estates will be impounded by the senate as enemies of Rome.’

  There was silence as he finished, while the assembled officers took all this in. The terms were generally very favourable, if not for the senior commanders.

  ‘And what offer will Caesar make to those who are willing to swear a new oath to him?’

  Fronto frowned. The general had not covered such an eventuality. His thoughts drifted back to the various commanders across Italy he had seen granted clemency by the general. Almost certainly, Caesar would be willing to extend the same offers here. Before he could open his mouth, a voice piped up beside him.

  ‘You have heard the general’s terms,’ Salvius Cursor snapped. ‘You will step down and retire to your homes, or no terms will be granted, and the legions of the proconsul will irrigate this hill with the lifeblood of Pompeians.’

  Fronto turned and tried not to stare in disbelief at his tribune. The moron!

  Closing his eyes, he turned back to the assembled officers and opened them again. Their expressions had all hardened. Oh well done, arsehole.

  ‘Your terms are understood, the legate said bitterly.’

  Fronto took a breath. He could override his tribune and suggest that Caesar might be open to negotiation, but the damage had already been done. If he about-turned now, he would look weak and indecisive, and the officers here would not trust him anyway because of Salvius’ words.

  ‘Consider the options and speak to your generals,’ Fronto said loudly. ‘When you are ready to talk, send ambassadors.’

  He turned his back on the men. With Salvius’ ultimatum, the atmosphere had changed entirely, and he no longer felt like an embassy to an ally, but more of a lone wolf in the den of another pack. Taking a deep breath, he walked out, with the others at his heel. As they emerged into the sunlight, Fronto checked they were out of earshot of enemy officers and leaned close to Salvius.

  ‘If you ever get the urge to set your own terms in the middle of my negotiations again, bite your tongue very, very hard, or I will have it torn from your head and nailed to the standard of the Eleventh.’

  Salvius Cursor simply sneered, and Fronto fought his temper as they began the descent toward the gate. Trying not to pay too much attention to the all-pervading odour of sweat and latrines, Fronto found himself listening to the sounds of life in the camp as they walked, and it was because of that he picked up some sort of commotion in the distance. Shouts of alarm. What was it? Surely Caesar’s men couldn’t be attacking? The general knew they were here and even on his worst day Antonius wouldn’t launch an assault while their own men were inside.

  Pounding feet.

  Fronto turned to see a familiar figure running down the slope behind them – the broad stripe tribune Bucco. The man was waving at him.

  ‘Run,’ the tribune shouted between heavy breaths.

  Fronto frowned, his eyes widening as he realised the cause of the man’s urgent cry. At the crest of the hill, a man in a senior officer’s uniform, armoured to the teeth and with sword in hand, had reined in to look around, a group of heavily armoured horsemen cresting the hill at his back.

  The man wore a general’s ribbon, and while it could as easily be Afranius as Petreius, somehow Fronto knew that it wasn’t.

  Petreius spotted the Caesarian ambassadors on the grassy slope and with a shout to his horsemen, kicked his steed into a dangerous pace, charging down the hill toward them.

  ‘Go, sir,’ Felix shouted, waving toward the gate. Fronto turned. It was touch and go whether they would reach their horses in time as it was. ‘Don’t be so bloody noble.’

  He tugged at the centurion’s chain shirt as Felix was busy calling his men to stop. A bodyguard of eight men and a centurion. Not the standard bearer, of course. He was already running for the horses. No soldier willingly let his standard fall into enemy hands, and any man who held this position was a dead man. Petreius rode with a score of men, all ready for war. Felix had eight.

  ‘Contra equitas!’ he bellowed.

  The eight men formed into two rows of four in good order. The front men knelt and braced behind a shield wall, their pila held out forward between the cracks. The second stood behind them, resting a slanting line of shields atop the lower wall and angling forth their own pila. It was a gamble. Horses did not willingly charge a hedge of spears, but a row of four men was not quite the same level of defence.

  ‘Felix!’ shouted Fronto urgently, but the centurion was paying him no heed, pressed into the rear of the formation, adding the weight of his own shoulder to the brace. Fronto glanced around. Salvius Cursor was making for the horses, the standard bearer close behind. The tribune had drawn his sword and wrapped his cloak around his left hand as a makeshift shield.

  Fronto was torn. The very idea of leaving Felix was appalling, but the notion of being ridden down beneath the hooves of Petreius’ horse was no more appealing. With a last regretful glance at the centurion, he turned and ran, ripping his own sword from his scabbard and following Salvius’ lead with his cloak.

  Petreius was not the first to reach the hasty formation of legionaries. One of his men rode straight at them, but his horse had other ideas. As he closed, the beast veered to the side and reared, throwing him from the horned saddle. The man was good, one of the general’s bodyguard, and he hit the ground well, rolling and holding his sword out of the way to prevent injury. He came to the end of his roll and rose to his feet already moving with the momentum. Fronto caught the incident out of the corner of his eye as they ran.

  Another man came rolling past the formation, his horse having done exactly the same. This guard was less agile in his fall, but with shouts of agony and shaking out a pained arm, he rose and staggered on. Fronto glanced ahead again. They were closing on the gateway. The soldiers there were dithering, apparently unsure whether they were supposed to be helping their general or letting the ambassadors leave. Salvius was already nearly at the gate.

  Something made Fronto turn before it happened.

  One of the riders’ horses was made of bolder stuff. The beast hit the nine-man defensive formation like a boulder striking a stick sculpture. Men were thrown in every direction, exploding outwards. Three unfortunates were simply crushed beneath the horse, but the others were not faring much better. He saw one dispatched w
ith a sword slash to the back, broken chain links and blood flying through the air.

  Felix was down on one knee at the side, in front of a legionary tent, struggling to hold off a rider who was chopping repeatedly at him.

  Fronto, his heart in his throat, turned and ran on. Salvius and the standard bearer were making for the centre of the gate.

  ‘The horses!’ Fronto shouted.

  ‘Fuck the horses,’ the tribune yelled back as his feet pounded into the gateway. Three men seemed to have decided that their senior commander was the one to support and were drawing swords and running for Salvius as others carried stakes ready to seal off the gateway.

  Fronto’s gaze tore away from them and to the twelve horses tied to the post near the gate. Third from the end was Bucephalus, the magnificent black beast he had inherited eight years ago from Longinus. Not even for a moment did he consider the possibility of leaving the animal.

  Behind, the enemy were busy. Petreius was yelling something at his men about getting the standard, and pointing at the gate, but his riders were being slowed by the need to fight their way through the wounded and dying legionaries. Even nursing shattered arms, limping and unable to raise a shield, the men of the Eleventh were fighting on, buying precious time for their legate and their standard.

  Hardening his heart, Fronto ran for the horses.

  The equisio reached up to untie the beasts, but a legionary appeared from somewhere yelling something about stopping Caesar’s men. The groom dithered, uncertain what to do, and the legionary turned on the approaching legate. Perhaps he thought a man in senior uniform and with more than a touch of grey in his hair would be no trouble, but he launched an almost negligible attack on Fronto, the sword lancing out in a simple move, clearly expecting his opponent not to be competent with his own weapon.

  The legate flung his left arm out, catching the sword on the wrapped cloak and pushing it aside. His own sword swung out at head height, blade flat on. The soldier had hurried from whatever he was doing to join the fray and had not found time to locate his helmet. The sword caught him on the temple with a dull clonk and sent him spinning away to the floor. It was not that Fronto felt any urgent need to preserve enemy lives at that particular juncture, but more of a combination of a head blow being the quickest way to put the man out of the fight, and the chance that the equisio might look upon him favourably for his mercy.

  As the man thudded to the ground unconscious, Fronto reached out and unhitched Bucephalus.

  His eyes rolling, face twitching nervously, the equisio untied two more horses and proffered Fronto the reins. The legate paused for just a moment. The temptation to leave Salvius fighting for his life was almost overwhelming. Certainly life would be considerably easier without the insane tribune around. With a sigh, Fronto grasped the reins and turned Bucephalus.

  He moved with slightly greater urgency as he caught sight of the scuffle back up the hill. The legionaries were all on the floor now, Felix included, and only one was still fighting back. Even as Fronto turned, Petreius’ blade arced down and smashed into the legionary’s head, all-but splitting it in two. The horsemen were veering round him and coming on, racing for Fronto and the two other fleeing Caesarians in the gateway.

  Concentrating on his course, Fronto turned and raced for the exit. Men had put stakes in the way to close much of the gate, but they could not seal the centre, for Salvius Cursor was fighting like an enraged bear there. Of the three men who had run to stop him, one was already on the floor, moaning and clutching at a huge gash in his side that had been so powerful it had even carved through the leather subarmalis he wore. Another was fighting, but staggering, one of his legs already useless and sheeted with blood. The third man was being cagey and had yet to be wounded, but Salvius was clearly ascendant. Fronto’s gaze slid past him. The standard bearer was out of the camp and running down the hill toward freedom. A native Hispanic auxiliary at the side of the gate was busy nocking an arrow to his bow.

  ‘Salvius! Horses!’ he bellowed, and released the reins of the other two, guiding them in the direction of the tribune even as he let go. Bucephalus, he angled slightly left.

  Fronto knew how to ride a horse. On the whole he still felt more comfortable walking, but a boy did not grow up in a patrician house without learning to ride. He’d never been good with jumps, though. It was something about his timing. He was never quite right.

  He couldn’t afford to get this one wrong.

  Even as Salvius Cursor put his blade through the neck of an opponent in the gateway and turned with a roar on the cagey one, the remaining legionary broke and fled back to the side. Salvius grabbed the reins of the horse running at him and twisted, pulling himself up with the dexterity of an athlete. He couldn’t settle properly between the four horns of the saddle with the desperate move, and found himself in front of the saddle, sat forward on the shoulders of the beast, almost on its neck. To compensate for his position and the slope, he leaned back and slapped the animal on the rump with the flat of his gleaming, sticky sword. The horse raced away out of the camp, down the slope, with the tribune balanced precariously on its back.

  Fronto caught all of it only out of the corner of his eye. He prayed as he judged as best he could his position. Bucephalus had managed only five strides to build up speed, but there was no choice. He leapt. The archer raised his bow, sighting and pulling back.

  Fronto had had grand ideas of his jump being perfect and both front hooves smashing the brains out of the archer before he released. In fact, his jump had been, as always, slightly mistimed, and only the will of the goddess who clung to his neck on a thong saved the standard bearer. The very tip of one hoof clipped the extreme top end of the bow at the instant of release.

  For a horrible moment, the arrow was in flight directly underneath Bucephalus’ chest, then its speed made the difference. The missile arced out ahead, and Bucephalus landed with only slight awkwardness, and ran on, picking up speed as he fled the hill. The arrow arced high, almost on target, but fell to earth with a thud some eight feet from the running standard bearer.

  He rode on, in the wake of the standard bearer and the tribune.

  ‘For the love of Minerva, weave as you ride,’ bellowed Salvius back at him, and Fronto realised in a moment of blind panic that he was riding in a straight line, while the tribune was moving back and forth all over the place. Realising why, Fronto veered wildly to the right and almost weed as an arrow whirred past him, right where he’d been, and thudded into the turf.

  Ten heartbeats later, Salvius slowed, let go of the reins of the second horse he had somehow picked up in their mad flight, launched it in the direction of the standard bearer and with more dexterity than any man had a right to, manoeuvred himself back and plopped down between the saddle horns.

  Out of range now of chance archers, the three men paused and looked back up at the hill. Petreius and his horsemen were at the gate, raging and pointing. The chances of the general accepting Caesar’s terms had never seemed further away.

  * * *

  29th of Quintilis

  The army of Petreius and Afranius set out the next morning. In yet another unexpected move, they had apparently prepared everything in the night and left even as the first lavender strains of the coming morning began to infect the deep, dark sky.

  They moved in an unanticipated direction, too, along a narrow valley almost directly opposite Caesar’s camp. By the time the various pickets to the north-east of the enemy’s hill had become aware in the predawn that the Pompeians were leaving, there was little that could be done to stop them. The couriers carried the message around to the camp and Caesar and Fronto and the other officers were warned of their departure, but even by then most of the enemy legions had already descended the hill and were forging northwest. By the time Caesar’s forces could get round to that valley they would already be gone.

  They had left their sudis stake defences. They had left their tents and cook fires and wagons. They had left everything
but men and horses and the weapons and armour they wore, and had run.

  ‘What are they hoping to do?’ Fabius snapped irritably, still wiping the sleep from his eye.

  ‘Given the direction,’ Fronto noted, ‘they are either bound for Ilerda or Tarraco. They could, in theory, reach either, so long as they moved fast and were willing to suffer hardship.’

  He tried to speak over the lump in his throat as he sent up a silent prayer to Fortuna that they never reach Tarraco. Lucilia and the others were but miles from that city.

  ‘Tarraco will not be their destination,’ Caesar said, as though reading his mind. ‘They cannot know how strongly defended it is against them now that it is ours. And it is more than twice as far to Tarraco as to Ilerda. They have no supplies and are moving at speed. They know we will be nipping at their heels within the day. They are making for Ilerda. Though we now hold the place with one legion’s worth of men, with another legion close by at the bridges, our men will have gathered all our supplies together there. I would be willing to wager my arm on the fact that Petreius intends to return to Ilerda, defeat our garrison there and take control once more, impounding our supplies and making them his own.’

  ‘Sneaky fart bag,’ Antonius snapped.

  ‘Do not underestimate our enemy,’ Caesar reminded them. ‘We are not fighting maddened German kings now, but Roman generals with a history of military success. Petreius is only in his position because of years of intuitive command.’

  ‘So what do we do?’ Plancus asked quietly.

  ‘We do what we have been doing thus far: we pursue him, bring him to a halt and prevent him from returning to Ilerda. You saw yesterday how close they are to breaking. A little more pressure and even Petreius will not be able to prevent his army cracking like an egg. We dispatch one cohort to Octogesa to take control of the ferries there, and one to Portus Iberus to dismantle the pontoon bridge and send the ships away. That way we cut them off from here for good and prevent a repeat of this escape attempt. And now that we know the terrain and what we’re up against, we send out Galronus again to slow them and harry them, while the legions move to catch up.’