Emperor (8 page)

XIII

Vespasian found his brother in the dark. The two of them met on horseback in a pocket of forest, close enough to the river for them to hear its murmur. They were alone save for their immediate staff officers, and a few burly legionaries as guards.

And, all around them in the blackness, more than ten thousand men were crossing the water.

‘It’s good fortune it’s so dark,’ Sabinus whispered to his brother.

‘Yes.’ So it was, though it was no accident that the night was moonless; the campaign’s planning had taken the lunar phases into account. ‘But I’m getting the feeling that even had we attempted the crossing in broad daylight the Britons might still not have spotted us.’

‘It’s hard to credit, isn’t it? Wouldn’t you post at least a few spies? It’s not as if we’ve tried to conceal ourselves.’

Vespasian shrugged, his armour rustling as its banded plates scraped. ‘I have a feeling these barbarians think it dishonourable to sneak around in the dark.’

‘And it is more honourable to waste your life needlessly? Well, by this time tomorrow many of them will be able to debate the point with their gods. Come. Let’s see how the crossing is going.’

They turned their horses’ heads. A staff officer on foot led Vespasian’s horse down the track cut out by the scouts earlier, and Sabinus’s followed.

Flavius Sabinus, a few years older than Vespasian, had gone ahead of his brother into the army. His progress had been slower, and at one point Sabinus had actually served as staff officer to Vespasian. It had been a situation fraught with problems of rivalry, even though the brothers had always got along well. Thanks to Vespasian’s links with Narcissus, though, Sabinus had now been elevated to an equal rank with his brother, and headed a legion of his own on this British adventure. And, as Vespasian had always known he would, Sabinus was proving effective in the field.

Certainly everything had gone well so far. The British had done nothing but sit on the bank opposite the marching camp, waiting for the Romans to hurl themselves on their rusty iron swords. Aulus Plautius’s cold calculations concerning the minds of the British leaders seemed to be working out like a Greek mathematician’s theorem, Vespasian thought–a simile he must remember for Narcissus and his letters to Claudius.

Meanwhile all eight of Plautius’s cohorts of Batavians had slipped across the river, downstream of the marching camp. The Batavians were among the most useful of auxiliary troops, Vespasian had always thought, for they were specially trained to swim across even major rivers in full battle gear.

And, after shaking themselves dry like dogs, the Batavians had fallen on the rear of the British lines. Their purpose was to disable the British chariots.

The chariots had surprised Caesar when he had come across them a century before. They were terrifyingly fast, and would bear down on you with their occupants screaming and hurling their javelins. Even the noise of their wheels was enough to panic men and horses alike. The enemy could use the chariots as a weapon in themselves, and as a way to deliver his best troops to where they would be most effective. For Caesar the chariots were a nightmare from legends of the Trojan wars, and he had had trouble countering these fluid and mobile forces with his stolid legionaries. Even his cavalry had been put under threat.

But after Caesar’s day other histories had been dusted off. It turned out that chariot-fighting had once been quite prevalent across much of northern Gaul and Germany, but it had died out in those lands centuries back. For all its mobility a chariot was vulnerable to toppling or breaking down, and its passengers spent more time riding around than in engaging the enemy. The outcome of a battle lay, as it always did, in the slow grind of infantry work. In this way as so many others, it seemed to Vespasian, the Britons on their island were out of step with developments on the continent–even with the practices of their barbarian neighbours, never mind the Romans.

That said, a chariot assault could be a distraction in the course of a battle. So, it was decided, the best way to deal with the threat was to eliminate it before the engagement even started. Hence the Batavians had been sent over to sort it out, which they had done most effectively.

Now it was the turn of the main body of the force to cross.

Vespasian emerged from the cover of the trees close to the river bank, at the place the scouts had picked out in the daylight. By starlight he could see the river’s dappling surface–and a silhouetted line of men working their way down the bank, into the water, and, following a rope laid out by the scouts, wading all the way to the far side. The men had bundles tied to their heads and shoulders, and they whispered to each other as they strode through the silvery water. Like everything the Roman army did, even this cautious mass wading was planned and executed meticulously.

A soldier approached him, grinning, his bare legs muddy. ‘Good evening, sir.’

‘Marcus Allius, is that you? I’d recognise the stink of those feet even in the pitch dark.’

‘Half of us are over already.’

‘Good work. And no catastrophes?’

‘Oh, I had to make the crossing twice myself before they’d go near the water.’ Vespasian saw that Allius had his hob-nailed sandals slung around his neck, and he wore his new helmet, a design ordered by Claudius himself, based on a barbarian model from Germany, with a plate that offered better protection for the neck at the back.

Allius had served with Vespasian for years. Now he was a decurion in the first cohort of Vespasian’s own legion–the largest cohort, no less than eight hundred men. Allius was a good, solid, unimaginative man, the backbone of any army. Vespasian had heard he had been the first Roman soldier to step ashore when the invasion had begun–he had even been the first to kill a Briton, even if it had only been an idiot boy who had come wandering out of the dark. Because of this Allius had acquired a certain iconic status of his own, which was why Vespasian had assigned him to this crossing, as a good-luck token.

Now Allius said, ‘The men are grumbling, sir.’

‘Legionaries always grumble. The leeches in the river will probably put up a tougher fight than those
Brittunculi
.’

It was a weak joke that won Vespasian a laugh from some of the men lining up for their crossing. But he thought he heard a note of concern. After all they were far from home, they had crossed the Ocean, and now they faced a barbarian horde that had fought Caesar himself to a standstill. Legionaries were not cowards, but they were superstitious.

Vespasian dismounted and walked up to the line. ‘We’re surviving, are we, lads?’

A mumble of assent. ‘Seen worse, sir.’ That was about as much enthusiasm as you’d get from a legionary.

‘You.’ Vespasian pointed at random at a man. ‘What are your orders for tomorrow?’

‘In the morning the Britons will realise we’re here on their bank. We’re to hold our ground until legate Geta has assembled his legion.’

‘All right. But you’re outnumbered, and will remain so even when Geta joins you. What do you think about that?’ Some uncomfortable shrugs. ‘You saw all that posturing by the river. Listen to me. First, even if some huge barbarian savage came at you with a club like a tree trunk, he could not defeat you. Why? Because you aren’t alone. Your comrades likewise can’t be defeated because they have you at their side.

‘And then there is the question of the names. Do you know what these names of theirs mean–Catuvellaunian, Cassivellaunus? That
vellau
means good, the best, perfect. So Cassivellaunus called himself “the perfect man”. The Catuvellaunians are “the best warriors”.’ He grinned. ‘If they really were so perfect, would they need to tell themselves? You have no need of pompous names. You are citizens of Rome and the finest soldiers in history. Just remember that.’

That won him a whispered cheer.

Vespasian returned to his horse. ‘I thought that went well,’ he said to Sabinus. ‘I’ve always believed humour is the best antidote to fear.’

‘Maybe,’ his brother said to him as they rode away. ‘It’s just a shame you don’t have any good jokes.’

XIV

It had been a bad night for the Catuvellaunian forces. Many of them had been discouraged by the Batavians’ assault on the chariots and their horses, and the night had been disturbed by the screams of hamstrung and disembowelled animals.

Then, as the light had gathered, they were disconcerted to see the Roman forces drawn up on the western side of the river–
this
side, the British side. Nobody had had the slightest inkling that the Romans had made the crossing in the dark. Indeed, nobody was even sure how they had done so. But here they were, in the grey dawn.

The Romans were drawn up in the units of a few hundred men each that Nectovelin called ‘cohorts’, orderly rectangles scattered on high points of the gently undulating ground. They looked like toy blocks thrown down by some immense child, Cunedda thought. By contrast the British were just a single undifferentiated mass, with the warriors roughly drawn up in a line, their families and baggage at the back.

And, before a spear was thrown or a sword raised, the British were already melting away. The princes’ coalition had always been an uneasy one.

The morning wore on.

Cunedda, restless, asked Nectovelin, ‘Why don’t the Romans attack?’

‘They are waiting for us to charge,’ Nectovelin said. ‘And we will, if we are fools. If we are wise, we wait.’

‘How long? All day?’

‘If necessary, and all night, and another day. This is our country, remember. Let them sit here and starve.’

Cunedda said, ‘But this waiting is hard. Even I long to start swinging my sword.’

Nectovelin grimaced. ‘That’s the British way. You draw up your army to face the other fellow’s horde. After a lot of screaming and insulting and arse-showing, you might have a minor punch-up. Sometimes you’ll just send in a champion or two to fight on behalf of the rest. Then, when honour is satisfied, you go home to your farm.’

‘But that’s not the Roman way.’

‘Oh, no. The Romans believe in finishing what they start.’

‘Can we win today, Nectovelin?’

‘Of course we can. There are more of us than them, aren’t there? And they are a long way from home. But it’s out of our hands, Cunedda. It’s up to the princes. I don’t doubt their courage. Let’s see if either of them has half the wisdom of their father.’

So the two forces faced each other, the disciplined Roman cohorts eerily calm and silent, the braying British mob facing them. As the heat gathered and the last of the morning mist burned off, Cunedda grew hot, thirsty, weary from standing, irritable from the discomfort of his heavy armour. He longed for this to be over one way or another-he longed for something to happen, anything–and it seemed to him that the tension was gathering to breaking point.

At last one man rushed forward from the British line, eyes bulging, waving a gleaming sword and howling. Cunedda had no idea who he was or why he had done this, but it was enough to break the stalemate. In a moment the noise rose to a clamorous roar, so loud Cunedda could barely think, and all around him powerful bodies surged forward with a clatter of swords on spears. Cunedda hesitated, but a shove in the back propelled him forward after the rest.

The whole of the British line hurled itself forward at once, with not a command being given.

Cunedda was swept towards the nearest patch of high ground, and the Roman cohort stationed there. But the Romans stood firm. The legionaries in the front line held their half-cylinder shields lodged in the ground so they made a fence, from behind which spears protruded, metal tips on wooden shafts. They were so still it was as if Cunedda was being pushed towards a stone wall.

And before he reached the shields, to a thin trumpet blast, Roman javelins were raised and hurled into the air.

Under a sky black with a thousand javelins the advancing British stalled. Those in the lead scrambled back and raised their shields, but those charging from behind piled into those ahead, and the mass of warriors closed up into a struggling crowd. Now Cunedda was trapped in a compressed mass, wedged so tightly he could barely breathe, and his feet were swept off the ground. He was overwhelmed by the suddenness of all this after the hours of stasis.

Then the first javelins fell. Not a pace away from Cunedda one stitched a man to the ground, where he floundered, screaming, a frothy pink fluid bubbling out of his splayed rib cage. More javelins came down, piercing heads and limbs and torsos. Battle cries were now laced with screams of pain, and the mood of the mass turned from rage and frustration to panic. But there was nowhere to go, no way to flee, or even to advance. And still the javelins fell.

With a mighty effort Cunedda managed to get his own shield raised over his head–and just as he did so a point of hardened metal pushed through splintering wood, stopping not a fraction from his right eye. He lived, he breathed. But the embedded javelin made his shield impossibly unwieldy. The javelin had bent, he found. The shaft was attached to the tip by some soft metal, and the javelin was hard even to get hold of, let alone to pull out of his shield.

As Cunedda struggled, he saw he wasn’t alone. Suddenly the ground was covered by a kind of hedge of smashed shields and protruding javelins, so entangling it was impossible to move in any direction. The javelins were
meant
to bend, he saw, even if they didn’t succeed in killing. He felt awed by the cunning. Cunedda had been part of a disorganised mob since the charge had begun; now that mob was tripping, falling, those who could still move fighting with each other for space and air.

There was a steady drumming, and Cunedda looked ahead. The Romans were at last advancing. The blank shield wall of the front rank of troops had broken into wedge formations, which were now pushing down the hill. The Romans carried short, heavy-looking swords with massive hilts that they drummed against their shields as they advanced. And in the last moment the Romans ran.

When they closed, their shields thudding into British bodies, the crowd of Britons reeled back as if suffering a massive punch. From behind their shields the Romans stabbed at the faces of their enemies and clubbed at heads and necks. The blows landed with wet, meaty sounds. Cunedda saw a face split open from brow to upper teeth, a belly slashed so that grey guts poured out onto the ground, another man whose lower jaw was all but severed and left gaping almost comically from a sliver of gristle, but he fought on. Horrors, every way he looked. And everywhere blood spurted, impossibly crimson.

The screaming became focused now, as the men of the British front rank, trapped between the Roman shields and their fellows, began to die in a mass, and the air filled with the stink of shit and piss and blood.

Cunedda had had no idea it would be like this. Numbed, he tried to move forward. He dropped his speared shield, though he knew it left him vulnerable. But he was still so jammed in he couldn’t even raise his arms.

And the Romans worked on. Cunedda could clearly see how they were leaning into their shields, pushing the British back even as they thrust with their short swords. For armoured men they moved with remarkable flexibility, bending and twisting as they did their grisly work of slicing into the mass of British flesh ahead of them. Their armour was not mail or solid plate but an arrangement of overlapping steel strips, somehow linked together so the soldiers could bend easily. The legionaries did their work efficiently, without humour or joy or even much interest.

Soon the lead Romans had pushed so far into the crowd they were no more than paces away from Cunedda, and still the grinding slaughter continued. It was going to be a squalid death, Cunedda thought, like an animal trapped in a pen before a slaughterman’s knife. The waste of it overwhelmed him, a feeling stronger even than fear. But if he must die he would strike at least one blow first. He struggled to keep his feet on ground becoming slick with blood, and he tried again to raise his sword.

Something hard and heavy smashed into the back of his head. A massive hand grasped his neck and pulled him backward. His vision swam with blood, and he knew no more.