Rome's Executioner (13 page)

Vespasian and his comrades paused a mile from the Roman lines on the crest of a hill, stripped of trees by the besieging army to build the siege wall, and looked down upon the bustling hive of activity that was a siege in progress. A two-mile-long horseshoe-shaped wooden wall, with each end abutting the river, enclosed the castle and a fortified settlement that had grown up next to it, in the lee of the other ridge to its west; between these hundreds of horses milled aimlessly.

Three gates had been built into the siege wall, close together, at its central point; behind each stood a massive, newly constructed, wheeled siege tower, thirty feet wide at their base, tapering to ten feet at their summit. Each had a long ramp attached to their top levels; the ramps had been hauled vertical by pulley systems in readiness for the slow, manhandled journey across no-man’s-land which would end with them crashing down upon the walls of their objective and disgorging hundreds of assault troops from the bellies of the towers.

Behind the Roman lines, set back just far enough to be able to shoot over the wall when the order to attack came, dozens of stone-throwing onagers and bolt-shooting ballistae were being assembled. They, along with the Cretan auxiliary archers advancing with the towers, would provide the covering fire, peppering the walls of the fortress – just within range over four hundred paces away – with lethal missiles in an effort to prevent the Getic bowmen from causing too many Roman casualties.

In amongst all the siege apparatus scurried thousands of legionaries working as carpenters on the towers, as navvies levelling the ground for the artillery pieces, as smiths in the mobile forges, hammering out iron bolts to feed the hungry ballistae, or as masons chipping away at chunks of rock, rounding them off so that they would fit snugly into the slings of the onagers. The sound of their ceaseless labour blended with the shouts of their officers in a cacophony so loud that it was plainly audible from where Vespasian and his group sat on their horses.

‘Ain’t that just typical of the army,’ Magnus said with a wry grin. ‘They’ve got the whole of Moesia to run about in but they decide to cram as many people as possible into one small corner.’

‘But I don’t think that they’ll be here that much longer,’ Sabinus observed. ‘To my eye they look to be almost ready. Pomponius’ guess was right, they’ll be going in tomorrow.’

‘We’d better get on with it, then,’ Vespasian said, kicking his horse forward. ‘We need to find Faustus in amongst all that.’

Faustus was easier to find than expected. The first cohort was stationed at the middle gate, putting the finishing touches to the huge siege tower parked a few paces behind it. The din of scores of legionaries working wood with hammers, saws and chisels, constructing the staircases and staging platforms in the bowels of the tower, was intense but not quite loud enough to drown a familiar voice.

‘It just has to be fit for purpose, not a fucking work of art; you’re not going to live in it with your sweethearts, no, you lucky sods are going to fight from it. Now get a move on. If the Fifth Macedonica finish their tower before we do I’ll lose ten denarii to their primus pilus and I’ll be forced to send every tenth one of you back home to your mothers without any balls.’

The noise of construction intensified as Faustus stepped out of one of the tower’s entrances, brushing sawdust off his shoulder.

‘Centurion Faustus,’ Vespasian called as he dismounted.

Faustus looked up and immediately snapped a rigid salute. ‘Tribune Vespasian,’ he said, grinning all over his face, ‘and Magnus, you old dog, have you come to join our little war? Thracia must be very boring if you’ve been forced to travel all this way to see a bit of action.’

‘Thracia is indeed boring,’ Vespasian replied, clasping the centurion’s heavily muscled forearm, ‘but we haven’t come to help you enjoy your war, we’ve got a little battle of our own to fight before you go killing every Geta that you can find. This is my brother Sabinus and this’ – he indicated Artebudz and the Thracians – ‘is our army.’

‘Ah, now let me guess, you’re on the hunt for that weasel-faced priest. I won’t ask why but I assume that you want to find him before Poppaeus does; in which case you’ll have to get him tonight as it’s an open secret here that we attack tomorrow night.’

‘Very astute, Faustus. Now we need your help to get some Getic clothes and a boat.’

Faustus looked hesitant. ‘Poppaeus has started to make things very difficult for me since his return; I can turn a blind eye to what you’re up to but as to—’

He was interrupted by a shout from the centurion of the century stationed on the walkway along the wall. ‘Incoming! About five hundred of them. Get down, lads.
Pila
ready.’

His men up on the walkway immediately crouched down, hefting their spears into a throwing position.

‘Shields,’ Faustus shouted, ‘then get yourselves under the wall.’

All around the legionaries dropped their tools, grabbed their shields and ran for safety in the lee of the wall.

‘Get your men and horses to the wall, sir, you’ll be safe enough there. The stinking horse-botherers do this once an hour or so, trying to set fire to one of the towers; it seems that it’s our turn again, although I wish they’d pick on the Fifth Macedonica more often as I’m desperate to win a bet.’

Shrill, ululating war cries filled the air and the sound of hundreds of hooves pounding the earth drew closer as Vespasian and his comrades reached the wall. Moments later came the sharp hiss of multitudes of flaming arrows streaking over it, leaving trails of thin smoke in their wake; they thumped into the tower with a seemingly never-ending staccato beat. The sudden impact caused a lot of the burning rags attached to the arrows to come off and fall, like flaming rain, to the ground, but more than a few remained intact and the tower started to burn in dozens of places.

A century waiting with a pump and water-filled buckets beneath the tower reacted immediately to douse the flames on the lower parts of the tower; but further up, out of reach of their efforts, the fire started to spread as another huge volley of fire arrows careered in, augmenting the damage already done.

‘Get that fucking pump working properly, you come-stains; that fire is not sacred to Mithras, it’s the sort that needs to be put out,’ Faustus hollered, waving his vine cane threateningly at the group of legionaries desperately pushing and pulling the see-saw pump handle up and down in an effort to get the device up to a high enough pressure to reach the top of the tower. The threat of their primus pilus bearing down on them in all his wrath worked wonders for the pumping legionaries and the stream of water from the nozzle of the hose, held by two men, burst into a jet that reached up to the flames beyond the range of their bucket-wielding comrades.

A new threat came flying over the wall; the Getae had got close enough to hurl the resin-soaked torches some of their number carried to light their comrades’ arrows. Dozens thundered on to the tower, scraping flaming resin down its side that carried on burning despite the water being flung at it. The firefighters renewed their efforts as, from above, Vespasian heard the centurion shout the order to release pila at the now in-range Getae. The war cries from the other side of the wall turned into screams as eighty pila slammed into what Vespasian imagined would be by now a tightly bunched body of cavalry. A scream from above him caused him to look up as a legionary came tumbling, head first, off the walkway to fall at his feet. Even if the arrow embedded in his jaw had not killed him, the fall on to his head certainly had; his necked lolled at an unnatural angle, indicating a severe break. Young but lifeless eyes stared up at Vespasian; the lad could not have been more than seventeen.

‘Poor bugger,’ Magnus said from beside him. ‘He just learnt the hard way that you don’t stick around to see whether you’ve hit anything once you’ve chucked your
pilum
.’

Vespasian nodded in rueful agreement as another volley of pila was ordered above. This time the Getae were ready for it and another couple of legionaries, with arrows protruding from their necks or faces, crashed to the ground accompanied by a roar of triumph from the other side of the wall.

‘That’s it, they’re going,’ the centurion above shouted.

‘And about fucking time too. Artillery!’ Faustus roared.

The crews of the ballistae and onagers stationed with the first cohort rushed out from the wall and began to frantically load their weapons.

‘Two hundred paces; two fifty,’ the centurion on the wall called down. He was waiting for the enemy to be far enough away for the missiles not to overshoot them because of the trajectory they needed to use to clear the wall. ‘Now!’ he yelled, flinging himself down so as not to have his head taken off.

Fifteen assorted artillery pieces released simultaneously with a loud rasp of metal grating on wood followed by sharp cracks from the wooden arms of the machines slamming into the restraining beams as they released their projectiles.

Faustus came strolling up to Vespasian as the volley flew over the wall. ‘We hardly ever hit any of them with the artillery, I just consider it to be good manners to send a few bolts and rocks after them as they go,’ he said grinning, ‘and besides, it’s good fun.’

‘And good practice for the crews,’ Sabinus observed. ‘They had their weapons loaded very quickly. I’m impressed.’

‘Well, don’t tell them, it’ll go to their heads and they’ll slow down.’

‘I won’t, my brother in light.’

Faustus raised his eyebrows. ‘So you heard my slightly profane reference to our Lord Mithras, brother? I’m sure he will forgive it, but, to make certain he does I will do my utmost to help a fellow believer. A boat and clothes you say; not a problem.’

Faustus turned his attention to his men. ‘What are you all looking at, you idle buggers?’ he bellowed. ‘Haven’t you ever seen a steaming siege tower before? Get back to work, the lot of you; the Fifth Macedonica didn’t stop in all the time we were under attack so jump to it and clear those bodies up.’

The reaction was instantaneous; shields and buckets were downed and the men returned to their tasks. Once he was satisfied that all was proceeding as quickly as possible he returned to Vespasian and his comrades. ‘Well, gentlemen, the Getae have solved the clothes problem. Rather than me having to get eight of the prisoners and executing them, there are probably dozens of already dead ones just beyond the gate. We’ll go and take a look when it gets dark, but first let’s find you a boat.’

‘From what I know of this sewage drain,’ Centurion Faustus said, pointing to a crude diagram of the fortress lit by a single oil lamp, ‘it’s just to the west of the keep, which means that it will open up into the main courtyard.’

‘Shit, that isn’t going to be very private,’ Magnus exclaimed. ‘It’ll be packed with Getae.’

‘Yes, two thousand or so, the rest are in the fortified settlement,’ Faustus replied. ‘However, if you go in the dead of night there’s a good chance that they’ll be asleep.’

‘A good chance you say, but not definite?’ Vespasian asked, scratching his crotch, which had been playing havoc with him since donning Getic clothes.

Faustus shrugged. ‘Who’s to say what these fuckers get up to at night, they do keep a few horses in the fortress. Anyway, if you get in, the priest will probably be found in the keep itself. According to the few auxiliaries who managed to escape when the fortress was overrun, the most comfortable rooms are halfway up, on the third floor; I would guess that the Getic commanders will commandeer them.’

‘This is getting silly,’ Sabinus observed. ‘Even if we do manage to tiptoe past all these sleeping savages, make it up three flights of stairs and find Rhoteces, we’re bound to make some noise getting hold of him. So how do we get back down and out again through all that lot? Not even the Lord Mithras could spirit us past them.’

‘You don’t go back down, but you will need our Lord Mithras’ help.’ Faustus grinned. ‘I’ll give you some rope and you can leave through the windows, it’s fifty feet down straight on to the riverbank. I’ll lend you two or three of my lads to stay in the boat and they can pick you up as you come out.’

Vespasian nodded. ‘I suppose that give us the best chance of escape, but, no offence, Faustus, I would prefer if you would give me the three lads who were transferred from the Thracian garrison to man the boat; one owes me his life, they’ll have more reason than most to hang around when it starts to get dangerous.’

With a shrug Faustus acquiesced. They were hunched around a table in a small, ill-lit hut built up against the siege wall, which Faustus used as the headquarters for the first cohort. The air inside was barely breathable owing to the stench of the disguises they had ripped from the dead Getae three hours before.

Vespasian looked at Sabinus and Magnus, who nodded reluctantly, then around at Sitalces and the rest of the Thracians crowded behind him, peering at the map. ‘Well, Sitalces, what do you think?’ he asked the huge Thracian.

‘We have a saying in Thracian: “A faint-heart never fucked a pig.”’

Vespasian joined in the general laugher. ‘I’ll remember that one. Well, gentlemen, we’ve got a Titan of a pig in front of us, let’s give it a fucking that it won’t forget.’

‘What do you think the chances of success are when you storm the place tomorrow?’ Vespasian asked Faustus as they wove their way through the crowded siege lines towards the river. They had drawn some questioning looks from the legionaries still at work in the torchlight, but the sight of their primus pilus and an escort of a heavily armed
contubernium
– a unit of eight men – led the soldiers to the assumption that it was a group of Getic deserters being taken for questioning. They had removed their weapons which, along with their regular clothes, Vespasian’s uniform, a couple of crowbars and the ropes, were in a hand-cart being pulled by Varinus and his two mates Lucius and Arruns.

‘It’ll be a hard slog but we’ll get there. The key to it is timing. We need to contain the thousand or so enemy in the fortified village so that they don’t take the towers in the rear in the half-hour that it will take to push them to the walls, or, once we’re there, burst through the siege lines and escape whilst we’re busy trying to get over the fortress’s walls. That’ll be the job for the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth cohorts, whilst we and the sixth take one tower, the third and fourth take another and two cohorts of the Fifth Macedonica take the third, leaving their other two cohorts to guard the gates. I’ll give Poppaeus his due, he does think things through and he knows how to conduct a siege, which is more than can be said for some of the twats that I’ve served under.’