Vespasian: Tribune of Rome (29 page)

‘How did you learn to cook so well?’

‘If you haven’t got a woman to cook for you then you need to learn, otherwise you end up living on shit.’ Magnus shovelled in a mouthful with his wooden spoon. ‘Most of the young lads here will be half-decent cooks by the time they finish their service. Unless of course they decide to drag a woman around with them; but that’s generally a pain in the arse on campaign, as they tend to moan all the time. It’s fine if you’re stationed in a permanent camp where you can build her a nice little shack outside the walls, somewhere where she can have all her creature comforts and where you can go for a bit of afternoon delight, if you take my meaning?’

‘I do indeed,’ Vespasian replied, feeling the need for some delight himself. Any further thoughts in that direction were halted by the sound of a bucina.

‘That’s “All officers to the command tent”, you’d better go, sir. I’ll keep this warm for you.’

Vespasian handed Magnus his bowl and mumbling his thanks trudged wearily off to the commander’s tent, the
praetorium
, at the centre of the camp, on the Via Principalis, the road that divided the camp into two.

‘Good evening, gentlemen,’ Corbulo said, looking around the gathering. Present, in the dim lamplight, were the Roman prefects of the two auxiliary Gallic cavalry units, twelve centurions, six from each cohort, including Centurion Faustus who, as the most senior centurion, was acting as prefect of the camp. Vespasian and Marcus Cornelius Gallus, the other newly arrived military tribune, made up the rest of the group.

‘I trust that you have eaten well and feel refreshed, because we have a long night ahead of us.’

There was a small murmuring of assent, but most had, like Vespasian, been halfway through their meals when the summons had come.

‘There is a high probability of an attack on the column either tonight or in the course of the next couple of days. Our Caeletaean guides have been less than helpful and we cannot afford to trust them. I have placed them under arrest with orders for their execution should an attack materialise. This means that we have to find our way to Poppaeus’ camp unaided. Neither Centurion Faustus nor I travelled this way last year on our way back to Genua, as we went directly from Moesia before Poppaeus moved his legions into Thracia. I would appreciate anyone with previous experience of Thracia to make themselves known.’

‘Sir!’ One of the centurions from the second cohort stepped forward.

‘Centurion Aetius, you may speak.’

‘Sir! I served with the Fifth Macedonica under Publius Vellaeus five years ago when the Odrysae revolted, the last time we had to
sort out a Thracian mess. We came in from Moesia, just as Poppaeus has done, and cut them to pieces outside the walls of Philippopolis. We passed through Bessapara on our way through. I got to know the country quite well as we stayed for nearly a year, mopping up. They’re a nasty, vicious people, although Marcus Fabius, optio of the
princeps posterior
century of the second cohort, would beg to differ; he had a woman here five years ago, he even speaks the lingo.’

‘Excellent, thank you, Aetius. What would you recommend we do?’

‘Between twenty and thirty miles north of here we should hit the Harpessus River; it’s not too wide but it’s fast flowing at this time of year with snow melt from the mountains, but it’s still just shallow enough to ford. Once we’re across we could follow it east to the Hebrus River; we could then follow that northwest to Philippopolis and on to Bessapara. It’s a longer route, but without trustworthy guides to take us directly there through the mountains it would be safer.’

Corbulo weighed up this information, trying to reconcile arriving later with the possibility of not arriving at all, and liking neither of the outcomes drew the briefing to a close.

‘Thank you, gentlemen. I will make my decision in the morning. In the meantime have your men sleep in shifts, I want half the centuries to be stood to arms throughout the night. As I said, it will be a long night. Good evening.’

‘Thank you, Magnus,’ Vespasian said, taking his still warm bowl of stew and sitting back down.

‘What did the arsehole have to say? A lot of hot air, I suppose.’ Magnus laughed uproariously at his own joke.

‘Well, he actually admitted to not knowing how to get—’ Vespasian was cut off by the sound of weapons clashing and shouts and screams from the direction of main gate on other side
of the camp. They grabbed their swords and rushed towards the commotion, weaving through the confusion of two cohorts of nervous raw recruits being formed up, in darkness, in front of their lines by the barking centurions and their optiones. Cooking pots were kicked over and men tripped on tent pegs and guy ropes as the centuries whose turn it had been to rest rushed to get their pila from the neat weapon stacks whilst simultaneously pulling on their helmets and buckling their swords and
lorica segmentata
– iron-plate armour constructed in strips – that had been discarded for the night.

Next to the gate, which was open and swinging in the wind, a wagonload of animal fodder was on fire. By its light Vespasian could make out half a dozen bodies strewn across on the ground. Corbulo was already there, screaming at a young legionary who was doing his best to stand to attention, despite the blood streaming down his face from a sword cut above his right eye.

‘What the fuck were you doing just letting them through? Why didn’t you block the gate, you useless sack of shit? I’ll have your head for this. What’s your name?’

The legionary opened his mouth and then fainted at his commanding officer’s feet. Corbulo aimed a kick at the unfortunate man’s stomach and instantly regretted it as his sandalled foot connected with iron-plate armour, half shearing off his big toenail.

‘Tribune Vespasian,’ he shouted, resisting with every fibre of his being the urge to grab his injured foot and hop around like some actor in a bad comedy. ‘Secure the gate. I want a century formed up in front of it.’

‘What happened, sir?’

‘Those fox-fucking sons of Gorgons managed to kill their guards, steal some horses and break through the gate, that’s what’s happened. It’s a fucking shambles and I’m going to have
the balls off whoever was in charge. Now get that gate shut, and that fire put out.’

Thinking it best not to point out that it was Corbulo who was in charge, Vespasian ran off to do as he’d been ordered, with Magnus in tow, leaving his commanding officer bawling at Tribune Gallus to order the cavalry prefects have their men mount up.

The fire had been extinguished and calm had returned. Both cohorts were formed up in the sixty-foot gaps between the tent lines and the palisade on either side of the camp. Leaving the gate secured shut and a century, under Centurion Faustus, in front of it, Vespasian turned to examine the bodies on the ground. Pulling the corpse of a fresh-faced legionary off his assailant he heard a low intake of breath.

‘Sir, over here!’

‘Well, what is it?’ Corbulo growled. He had more or less recovered his composure.

‘This Thracian is still alive.’ Vespasian turned over the foulsmelling body of one of their erstwhile guides. Blood seeped from a deep wound on his left shoulder that had almost severed his arm but he was still breathing.

‘Now, that is the first bit of good news I’ve had today.’

Tribune Marcus Gallus came puffing back to report. ‘Sir, they’re saddling up as fast as they can.’

‘They’d better be. I want those cocksuckers caught.’

‘They’ll be well away by now,’ Vespasian said, ‘and they know the terrain, there’s not a hope in Hades of catching them.’

Corbulo looked at Vespasian as if he was about to explode at the impertinence of this stocky little upstart, then pulled himself together as the truth of the statement sank in.

‘I expect you’re right,’ he conceded bitterly. ‘I’ll just have them patrol around the camp, it would be pointless to put good men, or
even Gauls, in harm’s way now, we may well be needing them soon. Now, have this prisoner seen to; I want him well enough for questioning within the hour, and get Optio Fabius to translate.’

Vespasian, Gallus, Optio Fabius and the two guards snapped to attention as Corbulo entered the praetorium. The wounded Thracian lay moaning on the ground, too weak with loss of blood to warrant tying up. His wound had been sealed with pitch and roughly bound so the bleeding had stopped; it would not save his life, but it would buy them enough time to interrogate him.

‘Fabius, ask him where they were running off to,’ Corbulo ordered, ‘and whether there are any more of them tracking us out in the hills.’

The optio knelt down next to the prisoner and said a few short sentences in the oddly singsong language of the Thracians.

The prisoner opened his eyes, seemingly in surprise, looked at Fabius for a moment as if registering who he was, and then spat directly into his face.

‘Urgh! You filthy bastard!’ Fabius punched the man on the mouth, splitting open both his lips.

‘That’s enough, optio, I’ll say when he’s to be hurt,’ Corbulo barked. ‘I want him alive for as long as possible. Now ask him again.’

This time Fabius spoke more forcefully, taking care to keep out of spitting range. The Thracian stayed quiet; a grim smile formed on this swollen, bloody mouth and he turned his head away.

Vespasian could see the futility of the exercise; the man knew he was going to die and therefore had nothing to gain by talking; in fact, the more he resisted the higher the likelihood was of his tormentors losing their patience and putting him out of his misery.

‘I’m getting fed up with this,’ Corbulo hissed, placing his left foot on the man’s wounded shoulder. ‘Now, then, you little cunt, talk to me.’ He pressed down hard on the freshly sealed wound.
The prisoner let out a guttural scream and blood started to seep through the dressing. ‘Well, you filthy savage, where the fuck were you off to?’

The Thracian looked up at the young Roman officer standing over him, his eyes narrowed in hatred, and, lifting his head, shouted loudly and bitterly at him in his strange tongue. After a few sentences the effort proved too much for the man’s heart and, with a strangled gasp, his head fell back to stare with lifeless eyes at the seething Corbulo.

‘Shit! Well, Fabius, what did he say?’ Corbulo growled.

‘I don’t rightly know, sir,’ the confused-looking optio replied.

‘What do you mean you don’t rightly know? You speak that hideous language, do you not?’

‘I do, sir, but I speak the language of the Odrysae and the Bessi and the other tribes of the north and west.’

‘Well, this man is from the Caeletae. Isn’t that the same?’

‘That’s just it, sir, it is, with just a few differences, but this man was speaking in a dialect that I have never heard before.’

‘But it stated in my orders that our guides were from the Caeletae. If you’re sure he isn’t then where are our real guides and where does he come from?’

‘My guess is that he comes from the eastern part of the country, beyond the Hebrus River.’

‘Impossible, the tribes in the east are loyal to Rome,’ Corbulo spluttered.

‘They were when you left, sir,’ Vespasian said quietly, ‘but what if that is not still the case?’

Corbulo’s face sank as he digested the implications of this possibility. ‘That would mean that we could have one or more of the tribes across the river in rebellion, and if we move east to the Hebrus we risk marching right into them, and if we go northwest we’ll have them on our heels.’

‘Exactly,’ Vespasian said with a grim smile, ‘and to withdraw back to Macedonia would be to directly disobey our orders. I think that the decision has been made for you, sir.’

Corbulo looked at his new tribune and realised that he was right: they had no choice but to press on directly to Poppaeus’ camp in the northwest, without guides; and all the while they would be looking over their shoulders hoping not to see the dust of a Thracian war band approaching their unblooded new recruits from the rear.

‘Oh, shit,’ he whispered.

T
HOSE LEGIONARIES WHO
had been lucky enough to get some sleep were woken before dawn. The men ate a frugal breakfast of dry bread, cheese and olives, before packing their kit bags and attaching them to their T-bar poles. As the sun appeared over the horizon, illuminating the high wispy clouds from underneath with a deep red glow, the
bucinatores
sounded the signal to strike camp. Two hundred tents came down almost as one and were strapped, by the camp servants, on to the mules that carried the baggage of each
contubernium
, a unit of eight men. To increase their speed Corbulo had given orders that the two larger oxen-driven carts were to be disabled and left behind. As much as possible of their cargos of replacement weapons, clothing, sacks of grain and other supplies was loaded on to the spare cavalry mounts and the smaller, mule-driven carts that carried each century’s reserve rations, as well as its centurion’s tent and other heavier baggage; the rest was destroyed. The oxen would be brought along as meat on the hoof; unencumbered by their heavy carts they wouldn’t be a drag on the speed of the column.

The mist that had clung to the steep slopes of the Rhodope foothills above them had almost completely burnt off by the end of the first hour of the day, when the light cavalry scouts, who had been sent out in the pre-dawn half-light, returned. They reported nothing moving in the vicinity and were despatched again to spring any ambushes and to keep a constant vigil throughout the
march for any enemy intent on harrying or attacking the vulnerable column.

Corbulo gave the order for the column to move out. The
cornicen
blew a deep rumbling call on his
cornu
, a G-shaped instrument made of silver and horn, which curled from his mouth under his right arm and then around to the wide bell, facing forward, above his head. The standard-bearers –
signiferi
– dipped their phalerae-strewn poles to signal ‘Advance’. The day’s march had begun.

Four turmae, of thirty men each, of the auxiliary Gallic cavalry led the way followed by Vespasian, with Magnus trying to be as inconspicuous as possible at his side, leading the first cohort. Next rode Tribune Gallus in front of the second cohort. Following them were the engineers and then the medical orderlies with carts on which lay those too sick or wounded to march. Then came the baggage – thirty spare cavalry mounts, two hundred pack-mules of the
contubernia
, each led by a camp servant, twenty-four carts, one for each century of infantry and each turma of cavalry plus an additional one each for the light cavalry, the foot archers, the engineers and finally one for the officers. Bringing up the rear were the last four turmae of Gallic cavalry. The column was two-thirds of a mile long.