Knight of Rome Part I

by Malcolm Davies

  “Your orders, sir,” Lentus barked.

  Lucius felt a moment of panic. Up to now it had been a sort of parade, not real, but these men were looking to him to lead them. His mind went blank. The missile troops were not at attention in dressed ranks. They were not the elite Cretan archers and Balearic slingers the army favoured. They were ordinary soldiers who had gained a reputation for being useful with a bow or a sling, largely as a result of their skill in hunting for the pot to supplement standard rations. Titus Attius had pulled them out of different centuries for this operation. They had lost their accustomed chain of command; their centurions and optios were back in camp. Longius made his first command decision. He looked at the uneasy mob carrying bows and slings and called out.

  “Who amongst you is the best archer?”

  They looked at each other and shuffled before one man was pushed forward. He was in his late twenties, a hardened professional; tall, gaunt and weather-beaten. He looked up at Longius and saluted.

  “Your name?”

  “Marcus Corvo, tribune.”

  “Very well Marcus Corvo, you now lead the archers and slingers. Keep alert to receive and carry out the orders that I or the other officers will give you. Choose the best of the slingers for your second and give his name to the centurions. My first order is that you get your men into proper ranks and straighten up.”

  Corvo saluted, performed a smart about turn and began to shout at his troops.

  “You heard the officer. Pick your arses off the floor and try pretending you’re soldiers.”

  Lucius relaxed. The men were going to do what he told them to; something he had not quite believed until Corvo gave him the proof. He looked down at Centurion Lentus.

  “The track leads more or less north and that is our line of march. We shall stay on it and make the best time until an hour before sundown when we shall veer off to the east to make camp. Send the scouts ahead and tell them to keep a good look out. Even this close to the river there might be trouble. Let the column advance, centurion.”

  Lentus saluted and jogged back to his position, stopping for a brief word of explanation to the other officers. Lucius heard shouted orders and then the men hefted their shields and javelins and began to move off. The going underfoot was comfortable at first. The earth track had grassed over during the summer and a carpet of fallen pine needles and the first autumn leaves on top made it springy under the men’s boots. At the end of the first hour, it came on to rain. Fat, cold drops plunged down from the dirty yellow clouds glimpsed now and then through the tree canopy. The archers immediately unstrung their bows and coiled the strings. Wet, they would stretch when the bow was drawn and it would be impossible to shoot with any force. To keep the coils dry, they shoved them inside their subarmalis, the padded shirt they wore under their chain mail armour. Lucius had been moving up and down the column and saw what they were doing. Although he mentally commended their foresight, the fact that over twenty of his force were no longer combat effective gave him food for thought.

  After a further half an hour, the ground began to soak up the rainwater and soften. It was not so bad for the men at the front of the column, their boots barely broke the surface but the men who came after churned it even more as they passed until the mules and missile troop bringing up the rear were struggling in ankle deep mud. It was an object lesson in why the marching season ended when it did. Two hundred odd men and a few animals had cut the path into oozing furrows. If a legion had passed that way, the last men would be in it to the knees. Still, they kept up a good pace and were well clear of the river when the scouts judged sunset was approaching and led them off to the east looking for a place to bivouac.

  They found a clearing made by two massive oaks that had crashed down in the same storm during the previous winter. Lucius ordered one third of the infantry to form a picket line and two of the scouts to ride around its perimeter. “Fast and hard” the legate had said so the men had not carried their entrenching tools to make a fortified temporary camp. Instead they would rely on sentries to give them warning of any attack and sleep in full armour with their weapons within reach. In spite of the rain they soon had small fires lit.. Although rotten with fungus underneath, many of the branches of the fallen oaks had stayed clear of the ground and had dried out so that they could be snapped off. These fed the fires and burned well once the surface moisture the rain had left on them boiled off.

  Most of the legionaries were old hands and soon made lean-to shelters of pine branches with enough greenery on them to keep off the worst of the rain. Breeches, socks and the scarves they wore to stop their armour chafing at the neck were propped up on sticks steaming dry in front of the fires. Rations were served out from the mules’ packsaddles. Under leaking canopies, the men chewed on cold bacon and stale bread washed down with watered, vinegary wine. They laughed or grumbled according to their individual natures but overall, they were not unhappy. They expected no better and had endured much worse.

  The guard was changed after the first two hours and then every four hours. In the middle of the night, the rain ceased. At dawn, the last of the watches was replaced long enough for them to eat and warm up before they moved off, wending their way ever northward through the monotony of the dank, tree-filled landscape. They rested at noon. Lucius called in his centurions, their optios and Corvo.

  “My orders are to march north from the river for a full day, which we have now accomplished, noon to noon. From now on our mission is aggressive. We are to destroy any German settlement we come across. There will be no prisoners taken and no loot. At the end of the third day, we are to return to base but there will be no violence shown to anyone when we are once more within a day’s march of home. Is that understood?

  He looked around, and everyone nodded.

  “Very good; now, we cannot keep on in this stretched formation but neither will I split our forces. We will proceed on a broad front in three groups, each within hailing distance of the other. It is essential that no group moves too far ahead or lags behind. Unless attacked, no-one engages without informing me first. A scout will be assigned to the head of each group ready to act as a runner. The mules and such food and equipment as we have will be protected by your men, Corvo. I march with you and one scout assigned to me. Centurion Lentus, I suggest you decide on how to organise the men along the lines I have indicated, any questions?”

  “Not a question as such, sir but I’d like to point something out.”

  “Go ahead,” Lucius said.

  “Going to be a lot slower, covering the ground this way, sir.”

  “You’re right of course but we will be advancing on a broader front which will make up for it to some extent. Is that all? Well, get on with it then.”

  Lentus and the other officers spent the next quarter of an hour shouting and pulling men into line. Each group was made up of fifty infantrymen marching ten abreast, in a file five men deep and fifty yards distant from the next formation. Eight spare soldiers had been sent back to the tribune to act as close support for the archers and slingers in case of a direct attack on them. Bows were now restrung and at the ready, the slingers had unwrapped their leather slings from around their waists and held them at the ready. Each of them carried a pouch of army-issue lead bullets which could kill a man a hundred feet away with a strike to the head, even if he was wearing a metal helmet. The centurions’ whistles shrieked and the new formation moved off.

  Lentus had been correct; it was slower but there was little undergrowth between the trees to impede them. It was hardest for the men in the front who had to negotiate around fallen trees and such brambles and bracken as managed to find enough light to grow under the dense branches, so they were rotated in the usual Roman way. The second rank took the place of the first, then after a while the third replaced the second until each man had taken his turn in sharing the lead of his formation. The scouts ranged in front, constantly returning to report to the centurions and optios. They helped them to keep thei
r relative distances and a reasonable straight line. They spoke almost no Latin but knew the key words necessary to advise the officers, even if they could not put them into a complete sentence.

  After two hours during which five miles had been covered, a runner dashed back from the head of the formation and stopped to pant out a message. Lentus had ordered a general halt and requested that the tribune joined him to give his assessment of the situation. Lucius ordered the soldier to catch his breath and then follow on. He cantered his horse the two hundred yards to where Lentus stood waiting with a dismounted scout beside him. The centurion saluted then indicated the scout with a jerk of his thumb.

  “This one reckons there’s a farmstead or small settlement about half a mile out to the west of our present position, sir.”

  Lucius unhooked his legs from the saddle horns and jumped down. He looked at the scout and then at Lentus.

  “Can you trust him?”

  Lentus shrugged.

  “Wouldn’t be the first of ‘em to change sides once he was over the river; but Prefect Aldermar would have given us his most reliable.”

  “Even so, best have a look ourselves, eh?”

  Lentus frowned.

  “No need for you to go along, sir.”

  “I’m not committing my men unless I know what they’re getting into, centurion.”

  “With all due respect, Tribune Longius, it is not usual for a commanding officer to go on a hazardous reconnaissance mission.”

  “Your recommendation is noted. Send your optio along the line and have all the men rally to this point and stand-to. Someone fetch me Corvo, he might be useful. And get one of the lads to help me out of this,” Lucius said, tapping his cuirass.

  He was greatly relieved to have an excuse to take off his ornate breastplate and the steel back plate he had worn since they had left on the mission. His subarmalis was covered in oiled brown leather to help it stay waterproof. It was ideal as an outer garment for slipping through the forest. Corvo arrived and was told to leave his bow. On foot, Lucius, Corvo and Lentus, who had removed his distinctive centurion’s helmet, followed the scout off to their left. He urged them to silence with a finger to his lips. They walked in single file for twenty minutes and then the German dropped into a crouch, moving cautiously. Finally, he indicated they should all get down and they crawled for a few yards. He gently separated a tuft of yellowed grass, peered through it and grinned wolfishly. He motioned for the others to move up beside him and look for themselves.

  They were at the edge of a roughly circular clearing perhaps one hundred yards across. Near the centre was a low, thatched house made of pine logs and behind it stood a barn. The barn was also thatched and had no doors, just a simple gate across the only visible entrance. Crude fences had been erected close to the buildings to pen half a dozen cattle and two horses and keep them from straying. A faint haze of greyish wood smoke filtered through the thatch of the house roof and drifted away on the cold breeze. As they watched, a red-headed man with a wooden pitchfork over one shoulder walked from behind the barn towards the house. He propped up the fork beside the door and went in with a glance over his shoulder in their direction. They all shrank further down into their cover but did not look again. He had seen nothing.

  “Let’s get back a few paces,” Lucius whispered and then felt stupid; he could not possibly have been overheard unless he had shouted at the top of his voice.

  Ten yards from the edge of the clearing under the trees, they squatted behind the broad trunk of an oak.

  “This is it then,” Lucius said, trying to sound calm and sure the others could hear the hammering of his heart. “Lentus, what do you think?”

  “We’ve only seen one man but there could be more inside and that log house will take some storming, particularly if there’s only one way in and out. We’d better set fire to the thatch and finish them when they run out.”

  Lucius shook his head.

  “No fire; the smoke will warn the whole district. The others will either vanish into the forest or assemble a force against us.”

  “Then we have to surround the clearing and send a few of the lads through that door.”

  “And that is risky?” Lucius asked.

  “Always risky to be the first men in, sir,” Lentus told him.

  Lucius did not answer but stared at the leaf mould beneath his boots for a while. The others did not interrupt his silence.

  “Corvo, could you hit one of those cows with an arrow from where we first saw them.

  Corvo looked at the young tribune to see if he was joking.

  “Sir, it’s less than fifty paces; an easy shot,” the archer replied.

  “Could you deliberately wound it from that range rather than killing it?”

  “I could sir.”

  “Good man, then here’s what we are going to do. The entire column is to assemble at a convenient point two hundred paces from where we are. Ten slingers and archers supported by twenty legionaries are to make their way through the forest and take up a position behind the barn and the house. A further squad of the same number will come up to our observation point. Corvo will stand in the open and shoot one of the cows. Someone from the house will hear and come out to see what is wrong. I believe that he will run at you, Corvo but you must stand your ground. When he is close enough, one of your men will help you bring him down. Then we shall advance shouting, blowing whistles and thumping swords against shields. Anyone else in the house will take fright and run away from us right into the second group who will deal with them. Do you have anything to add, centurion?”

  “With your permission, I will lead the group with Corvo and his men. The second group will be under the orders of the other century’s optio. You, sir, should remain with the main force.” Lucius frowned but before he could object, Lentus continued. “This seems easy enough but things can always go wrong. If this does, the lads will still have you, my optio and the other centurion to lead them.”

  Lucius puffed his cheeks out and sighed deeply.

  “Very well, Lentus, I concede.”

  Three-quarters of an hour later, the dispositions had been made. The main body were still gathering but the assault units had separated and doubled up to their agreed positions. Lentus left plenty of time for the second party which had been out of his sight from the outset to make their way around behind the house and barn.

  Apart from Lentus and Corvo, standing behind a convenient tree, the other men lay on the ground as near to the forest edge as possible.

  “Off you go then, soldier,” Lentus told Corvo who took two paces forward and stood in plain view at the edge of the clearing.

  He drew his bow back until it creaked, took careful aim and released an arrow. It arced upwards then dipped to strike on of the cows through her udder. The poor beast bellowed in shock and pain, and half fell into a fencepost, snapping the arrow shaft. Another wave of pain went through her and she bellowed again, kicking up her back kegs and clumsily rushing around the enclosure in a futile attempt to escape her agony. The other animals felt her distress and panic ran through them. Within four seconds, what had been a peaceful scene of grazing cattle and horses had become a frantic, milling stampede, likely to burst through the fence rails at any moment.

  Lentus was watching from cover. Corvo stood firm as the red-haired man appeared at the house door, saw him and ducked back inside. He came back out almost immediately armed with a spear and shield, whistling shrilly as he ran towards Corvo as predicted by Lucius. What none of them had foreseen were the two huge dogs that had responded to his whistle and now streaked across the open ground towards the archer. It was one thing to put an arrow into a standing cow, quite another to hit one of the dark blurs with lolling tongues and snarling jaws that raced towards him. Lentus stood forward and shouted.

  “Fall back Corvo! On your feet men, shields up, on your fucking feet!”

  The legionaries were up in an instant; short swords drawn and shields almost touching. The fir
st dog leapt straight onto a sword point that sunk to the hilt into its chest. The second gripped the bottom of a shield and worried it until a downward thrust passed through its spine. It whimpered and lay still. The spearman had seen the Romans and tried to slow his onward charge. A second man, older and holding an axe, had joined him and was twenty paces behind. He managed to stop dead in time for a slingshot bullet to shatter his right knee. He fell sideways, screaming. The leading man was taken in the chest by two arrows and killed instantly.

  “Forward march,” Lentus yelled and repeatedly blew his whistle. The soldiers drummed the flat of their swords against their shields and advanced. As the line passed over the man with the destroyed knee, one of them leaned over without breaking step and casually killed him with a stab to the base of his throat.

  A group of six people fled the house and ran towards the back of the barn.

  “Silence!” yelled Lentus.

  A few seconds later, the sound of some faint cries came to him. They continued their unhurried, relentless march around the barn and met the other party of soldiers, standing among the bodies of an old man, two women and three children, all killed by missile fire. The optio stepped forward, came to attention and saluted.

  “That all of ‘em?” Lentus asked

  “Yes, centurion, no-one escaped.”

  “Well done, send a couple of lads to have a gander inside the house and barn.”

  Two soldiers were told to double up. As they trotted away, Lentus shouted after them.

  “Oi, take care before you stick your heads in there, still might be some monster inside itching to have your guts out. The rest of you, start collecting up the bodies. And Corvo, will you please put that poor cow out of its misery, don’t you have any heart, man?”