Masters of Rome (10 page)

Vespasian shivered; his breath steamed in the cold night air as he stood, watching rank upon rank of shadowy figures emerging from the camp's gates. Even though the men had been given orders to muffle their equipment, tying rags around their scabbards and hobnailed sandals, there was still the occasional metallic clank or jangle that made Vespasian look nervously towards the dark shadow that was the fortified hill. The many fires within the settlement had all died down, leaving just a few trails of smoke rising as darker smudges in a sky that was almost completely devoid of light.

‘It's a nice night for it,' a voice whispered behind him.

Vespasian turned to see the dim outline of his friend. ‘What are you doing here, Magnus?'

‘I haven't had a decent fight for a couple of years so I thought that I'd come and join in this one.'

‘Then you're mad, risking your life when you could be in bed.'

‘Not as mad as them in the fort; if there are really as few as we think then it's only a matter of time before we get in and they get dead. I don't understand them; they actually goaded us into attacking them by killing the scouts in front of us.'

‘Yes, they know that they can expect no quarter now.'

‘So why do it, then? They could have just held out for a few days and then negotiated their surrender once honour had been satisfied. It's almost as if they want us to kill them.'

‘There is something strange about their behaviour; I can't quite put my finger on it.' He told Magnus of Hormus' theory about the lamp lighting itself.

‘A warning, eh? Well, I suppose it's possible. The question is: what's the mistake that you're making? Is it about attacking this place in general? Or about attacking it at night? Or is it something completely different, like something to do with Sabinus, for example?'

‘I don't know; but something is nagging me.'

The uneasy feeling continued to gnaw at Vespasian as he advanced with the first cohort to the base of the hill below the northeastern gate a hundred uphill paces away. He waited in the dark, running through the events of the last couple of days in his mind, as the other cohorts moved silently into position: Valens with the second away to his left below the southwestern gate, and Maximus with two Gallic auxiliary cohorts and the Hamians filling the ground between them. From the fort there came no sound; but the relief that Vespasian felt at still being in the position to surprise the defenders was tempered by his inability to exactly place his cause for concern. Unable to discuss the matter further with Magnus, standing next to him, owing to his order of complete silence, he was obliged to wait in fretful contemplation of the puzzle until he heard Valens' signal telling him that the furthest cohort was in place.

A thrice-repeated series of owl hoots echoed through the night; it was the sign that Vespasian had been waiting for. He nodded to Tatius who raised his arm and slowly brought it down; the signal was repeated by his brother centurions and the first cohort, with scaling ladders at the ready, moved off at the double up the slope.

The assault had begun.

Struggling to keep their footing in the near-total darkness, the men of the legion's élite cohort increased their speed as they passed through the gap in the outermost ditch; it was now imperative to get their ladders up and men onto the palisade before too many of the defenders were roused from their slumber. Vespasian kept pace with them, with Magnus wheezing at his side, as they ascended in virtual silence; he kept his eyes fixed on the dim outline of the defences but no movement was evident nor were any cries of alarm raised. He pressed on, his heart pounding, as the cohort filed through the gaps in the next couple of ditches, and still the alarm had not been raised within the fort. Then he remembered the urgency with which the three prisoners had been shouting before their execution.

Shit
.

He swerved away from the cohort and stopped dead.

‘What is it?' Magnus puffed, pulling up next to him.

‘There's no one in there! That's what Cogidubnus' men were trying to warn us about before they were executed; they weren't pleading for their lives, they were shouting at us.'

‘What about the men who killed them?'

‘They are the only ones inside; enough men to light all those fires to make it look as if there's a whole war band in there. They've sacrificed themselves to draw us into the trap; the threat's from the north. I've got to get back. Find Tatius, and tell him to form the cohort up on the slope facing north as soon as he can.'

‘Will he take an order from me?'

‘He'd better or we could all end up dead.' Vespasian pushed his way back against the oncoming surge of legionaries until he reached the optio of the sixth century of the first cohort in his position at the rear of his men. ‘Optio, get a message to Valens to
forget the assault and to have the second cohort take up position outside the southern gate, facing west; he'll get reinforcements and fresh orders soon.'

The man stared at him in incomprehension for a moment.

‘Now!'

The optio saluted and raced off as the cohort came to a halt and ladders were thrown up the wall.

As the first men began the ascent of the palisade to either side of the gate a long booming note rumbled from a
cornu
; its call was taken up by the cornua of other cohorts. To his right, Vespasian saw the glow of the Hamians' oil-soaked portable braziers igniting; within a few moments hundreds of fire-arrows were streaking through the dark leaving trails of sparks in their wake as they disappeared over the walls into the hill-fort. No screams came from within as the Romans raised their voices into a battle roar.

Cursing the fact that he had, for silence's sake, left his legionary cavalry in the camp, Vespasian ran as he had never run before.

Almost tripping over his own feet, he hurtled back down the hill, grateful for the faint light provided by the Hamians' repeated, but wasted, volleys. After a lung-tearing final burst across the flat ground from the base of the hill, he came to the camp as the third cohort was marching out at the head of the rest of the legion.

Spotting their primus pilus, Vespasian slowed and turned, falling in next to him, catching his breath. ‘Take your men at the double and form up facing north at the base of the slope. The first cohort will arrive on your left flank and the rest of the legion will form up on you; we will be taking a defensive position, understand?'

‘What's happening, sir?'

Vespasian glanced to his right; and then he saw them coming out of the north. ‘That's what's happening. Now go!'

In the distance a dozen or so faintly luminescent, tiny figures were seemingly gliding slowly towards them; behind them was a shadow, darker even than the night. The primus pilus took one
look, bellowed an order, a cornu boomed twice and the cohort sped off with a jangling of gear and regular pounding footsteps across the dark ground. The rest of the legion streamed along behind them, orange flickers from the fires now burning up in the fort playing on their burnished iron armour and helmets.

Vespasian ran on to where the legion's cavalry detachment and his five thin-stripe tribunes were mounting, having walked their horses out of the camp. He pushed the youngest one out of the way. ‘I need this, Marcius.' Leaping into the saddle he shot a glance at the most senior of the young tribunes. ‘Blassius, now get this right: ride to Maximus and tell him to bring the Hamians and one of the Gallic cohorts to the bottom of the hill and then you take the other Gallic cohort round to the southern gate and link up with Valens and the second cohort; if he's not there get him out of the fort. Tell him that we're under attack from the north and he's to prevent any attempt to outflank us. Understood?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘If they don't try and take our flank, he's to work his way around the fort and come at the bastards from the west; I'll send the Batavians to him. Report to me when you've done that. Now ride!'

With the briefest of salutes Blassius spun his horse on its hind legs and took off.

Vespasian glanced north over the heads of the legionaries still spilling out of the camp; he shivered. The spectral forms were less than two hundred paces off, their arms raised and waving. Behind them, now dully illuminated by the blazing fires on top of the hill, ran thousands of darkling figures, stretched out to either side and fading into the night.

Vespasian turned back to his tribunes. ‘Caepio, find the other two Gallic cohorts and tell them to prevent any of the bastards coming around behind the camp, and tell Cogidubnus to bring his Britannic auxiliaries to me as soon as he can.' Without waiting for an acknowledgement he looked down at the young man he had unhorsed. ‘Find the Batavian Cavalry, Marcius, and send them after Blassius and then get yourself a horse and bring the
Gallic auxiliary cavalry to the bottom of the hill. Sergius and Vibius, you follow me.' Cruelly kicking his mount into action, he sped away with the remaining tribunes and legionary cavalry following as a howl of hatred issued from the night-shrouded host bearing down on them.

The pace of the II Augusta's deployment was now frantic as the threat closed but Vespasian sensed that it was not fast enough as he raced along the column of doubling cohorts. Reaching the front he glanced to his right: the Britons were less than a hundred paces out and their pace seemed to have increased. Ahead he could see the first cohort forming up on the slope but to the left the Hamians and the Gauls were still a quarter of a mile away. ‘Turn and face!' he bellowed at the third cohort's primus pilus.

The centurion shouted the order, raising his arm in the air, a cornu rumbled and the cohort's standard rocked from side to side; the third cohort came to a standstill a hundred paces short of the first's right flank.

There was no time to fill the gap.

Along the column the deep call of the cornu was echoed and the remaining cohorts halted and turned to face the enemy as the first long-range javelins struck. The luminescent figures could now clearly be made out as matted-haired, long-robed druids whose filthy garments glowed dimly in patches with an uncanny light; in their hands they brandished writhing snakes. Next to the central druid ran a huge man in a winged helmet shouting his triumph at having caught the legion deploying: Caratacus. Caratacus, the Britannic chieftain whom no Roman had seen since his defeat at the battle of the Afon Cantiacii two years previously; since then he had struck terror into every legionary in the new province for his ruthless irregular resistance to Rome's conquest. With ambushes, lethal harrying of supply columns, patrols and outposts and pitiless usage of prisoners and collaborators, Caratacus had more Roman blood on his hands than any other Briton on this island; and now he was about to cover himself in more. Vespasian realised that Caratacus had played him all along.

Vespasian led on the one hundred and twenty men of the legion's cavalry detachment to cover the gap as the javelin shower intensified, drumming down with a rapid staccato beat onto the upturned shields of the II Augusta.

With the Britons now no more than thirty paces from contact, Vespasian reached the right flank of the first cohort who had just completed a scrambled deployment four ranks deep. He slowed his mount. ‘Turn right and form line!' The
lituus
blared and the troopers reined their horses in and around, turning from a column two abreast into a line two deep. Without waiting for the decurions to dress the line, Vespasian drew his sword, raised his arm and roared, ‘Charge!'

As one, the legion's cavalry surged forward, taking their wild-eyed, frothing mounts directly into a canter and then quickly accelerating them into a gallop, swiftly closing the distance between them and the warriors heading for the gap in the Roman line and the chance to cut it in two with fatal consequence. Missiles rained down on them, felling a dozen horses as if an invisible tripwire had been placed in their path.

‘Release!' Vespasian yelled, his voice raised an octave by the tension in his chest and belly. At a low trajectory, more than one hundred sleek javelins hissed towards the oncoming front rank of Britons, thumping into them, punching many back with arms flailing and mouths gaping with sudden agony. To either side hundreds of
pila
hurtled from the Roman ranks. The druids flung their squirming serpents with shrill curses at the legionaries as they drew their swords; they then stopped still, letting the warriors behind, led by a baying Caratacus, engulf them and take the full force of the barbed-pointed, lead-weighted weapons flitting across the gap between the two forces. Back and down many went, but the survivors dashed on for the final twenty paces, following with glee their leader who had worked the first chance in two years of annihilating one of Rome's killing machines.

Vespasian bellowed incoherently, urging his horse on as troopers drew their spathae and tensed their thighs around their mounts, bracing for impact. The joy of the warriors charging for the gap vanished and they cried in terror as the dim shapes of
horsemen thundered towards them, threatening the horrific death of infantry caught in the open by cavalry. The men in the front ranks wavered and slowed, but the weight of numbers behind them pressed them ever forward; an instant later they collided in a maelstrom of human and bestial limbs. Vespasian swept his sword horizontally, cleaving heads and raised arms as if scything ripe barley as his mount ploughed on, head raised in fright, neighing shrilly, trampling every man in its path, leaving them broken and twisted. As the cavalry crunched into the fracturing Britannic line their momentum decreased violently; the horses shied from desperately wielded spears and swords and the troopers found themselves fighting in pockets, having failed to keep formation in the desperation of their disaster-averting charge. Vespasian reared his mount, using its flailing forelegs as weapons as he punched and cut with his short infantry
gladius
at the howling warriors around him, slicing open chests and splitting faces as the troopers to either side slashed their longer cavalry spathae to greater effect; but now, with the initial drive of the charge soaked up, the infantry began to regain the advantage of numbers. Without the benefit of a shield-wall the cavalry were in danger of being overwhelmed; many were ripped from their mounts.