Sons of Taranis (20 page)

VARUS glanced around at the men of the Ninth hurrying between the farmstead’s huts, gathering armfuls of dry hay and other animal fodder. Most of the legionaries were spending more time than they realistically should inside the huts, and throwing their loads into the cart with wild abandon rather than stacking it carefully before rushing for another building. He could hardly blame them. The rain was near torrential, the ground churned into a thick quagmire of mud and animal dung through which the men slopped and squelched, all the while getting colder and wetter, watching their armour and weapons getting soaked and knowing that even after the foraging was done with and they were safe back in camp, the work had only just begun, with hours of cleaning and polishing ahead to prevent rust. Still, he ought to intervene. It was, after all, the fodder for the cavalry they were gathering.

Two days had passed since the fort’s completion, and the army sat behind its defences, seething in the rain and watching the Bellovaci and their allies across the swamp sullenly brooding. There would still be two days before Trebonius arrived with the other legions, at the best estimate, and while the army was managing to subsist on the meagre supplies it had brought with it, augmented by forage brought in by raiding parties, more supplies were always needed, especially with such a large relief force marching to join them. The foragers of the four legions had been out every hour the gods sent gathering firewood, barrels of water, supplies of grain, vegetables and animals whenever possible and now, finally, animal fodder. For throughout the continual foraging, the auxiliary cavalry had been out protecting the parties and using up what little supplies they had in the process.

Every farm and village for more than fifteen miles in any direction had been stripped of its stores, and the legions had been forced to become ever more daring, skirting the swamps that surrounded the enemy and moving many miles beyond them into uncertain territory to find the scarce foodstuffs needed to supply an army in the grip of winter.

Today, luckily, the army had discovered a healthy cache of food in the form of a large farmstead hidden in a depression in the woods and kept secret by geography. As with almost everywhere in this benighted land the farmers had gone, joining the enemy civilians secure in the deep forest, and had taken with them whatever they could carry, along with all their animal stocks. Yet even then, what had had to be left behind was worth more than gold to the hungry and poorly-supplied Roman force: a cart that would have to be pulled by cavalry mounts, sheds full of stored hay, grain, veg and more.

Varus watched the men throw another armful of hay into the cart, strands and chaff flying loose even in the rain. He really ought to shout at them. They were wasting forage and space, and would pay for their sloppiness later. But shouting at them was the job of their centurions, who were in one of the huts, and he just didn’t have the energy. For while the forage parties had been drawn in rotas from the four legions and their cavalry escort had been drawn in a similar fashion from the various native levy tribes, Varus and his small cadre of regular cavalry and officers had spent most of their waking hours out on patrol with the groups. It was not that the native officers couldn’t be trusted, but they had a tendency to run a little wild and to overextend without a Roman officer to remind them of their orders. Regular cavalry officers played the important role of a mediary between the native commanders and the legionary centurions they were protecting.

Today was the turn of the Remi. There was a large group of Lingone cavalry as well, somewhere off to the north with men from the Eighth, but here at this perfect little find the steadfast and long-serving Remi protected the Ninth.

Varus lifted his gaze from the men rushing back and forth with sodden fodder and his eyes played across the water-logged fields to the edge of the woods. The wide, shallow vale was in principle surrounded by forest, but in truth, while both side slopes were thickly wooded, the head of the valley was only thinly dotted with trees and large rock formations, a small river tumbling down to cut through the flat and feed the farm. And downstream the trees closed in again, but left a space some hundred paces wide on each side of the water. A greensward that looked inviting even in the miserable weather.

The Remi had separated into groups, small detachments of thirty men in very Roman formations, each set in position watching an area of surrounding woodland for trouble. Varus had to chuckle. If there was any doubt that the Gallic peoples would one day fully integrate with Rome, he would point the doubter to the Remi auxiliaries who had, over the course of eight years of war under the eagle, adopted Roman formations, training, ranks, and even to some extent equipment. If things kept going the way they were, in half a decade it would be impossible to distinguish between the Remi riders and the Roman regulars.

Perhaps half the Remi contingent that had come out today were split into these small native thirty-man turmae, and the other half remained in a solid force downstream, watching that greensward, knowing as they did that if an enemy came in force, they would have to come along that valley. Unlike the legionaries, who had downed shields and were running independently about their work, the Remi sat astride their horses, still in tight formation down there at the valley end, ready for action.

He understood. For the legions, this was just the latest in a long list of engagements in Gaul. There was nothing special about this conflict. But the Remi, for all their experience with Caesar’s army, were of the Belgae. These lands were ancestral Belgae lands, and the Bellovaci were their neighbours. Remi civilians were as much at risk from this enemy rising as the Romans or the Suessiones who had been the rising’s initial target. To the Remi, this was personal, and they were prepared for the fight. Even
eager
for it. To that end, the Remi force here was led by not one of their nobles, but two. One – a
prince
of their tribe, no less – officially commanded, though he deferred to the experience of the older commander who accompanied him in the manner of a cavalry general. And both were sitting with that formation, watching for the enemy.
Hoping
for the enemy, Varus suspected.

‘Nearly finished here, sir,’ announced one of his decurions, trotting over from the sixty-man regular formation Varus had brought. The commander looked back at the men and noted that most were now sheltering from the rain, awaiting the command to form up when their centurions emerged, while odd figures still scurried back and forth, loading the last few things they could find that might be of use.

‘Good. Don’t know about you, but I’m sick of being wet through.’

His gaze swept back to the end of the valley and the Remi force gathered there. He frowned.

‘Is that what I think it is?’

The decurion peered into the rain and paled. ‘Enemy, sir.’

The Remi had seen them too. Half a mile, perhaps, down the greensward, an enemy force was approaching. As Varus tried to pick out more detail, he ignored the commotion among the Remi auxiliaries in between. There were quite a few of the enemy. Not a huge army, but enough to pose a threat to the Remi force facing them. And they were clearly prepared for cavalry. The force bristled with long spears. Far more than one would expect among a people who generally preferred the edge of a sword to the tip of a spear. That suggested to Varus that they had armed specifically to take on horsemen. Indeed he realised that they were honking carnyxes as they approached, smashing metal on metal and drumming on wood, making the loudest din they could achieve, the sounds echoing back and forth among the trees, hemmed in and amplified by the valley walls. Noise. Horses – even trained cavalry horses – could get very nervous around too much noise. Not the din of battle, to which they were used, but the rhythmic battering of ritual noise. Most would hold steady, but in a tight formation it only took a few horses rearing and bolting to cause chaos.

Indeed, as Varus watched, the commotion increased and three horses, riderless, raced from the rear of the formation out into the wide fields of the valley.

‘Decurion, send riders out to the pickets. Have every other group form up at the farm with us and warn the others that they will need to pull back and join us at a single call as fast as they can.’ The decurion nodded and trotted off to relay the orders to his men, and Varus waved to the two legionary officers who had finally emerged from a hut.

‘Centurion. Enemy sighted down the valley. Get your men moving with the cart and we’ll protect your back. Once we’re up the valley head slopes we’ll be safe from the bulk threat and we can retreat to camp in good order.’

The centurion saluted and began blowing his whistle, bellowing orders, but Varus’ attention had been grabbed by one of his scouts, whose ‘oh, shit’ under his breath had still been loud enough to hear. He turned back to the action and his heart fell.

‘No, no, no, no, no. What are you doing?’

The Remi were moving. And not just moving, they were rising to a charge.

‘What are they
doing
sir?’

‘They are letting pride and anger rule their heads, trooper.’

‘They’ll be in the shit when they hit those spears, sir.’

Varus nodded. ‘The Remi are nothing if not brave.’

‘Do you think they might actually win, sir?’

‘Not a hope, trooper. They’ve been goaded into a trap. Look.’

Peering down the valley, he and the soldier could now see the rest of the enemy, filtering down through the trees at the valley sides, moving to flank the Remi. It would be a slaughter. And it was too late to do anything useful about it, even though he had to try. He turned and gestured to the other decurion. The legionaries had formed up quickly and the cart was already moving for the relative safety of the valley head. The way the enemy had set up the ambush they were kitted for a fight in the open, expecting to massacre the forage party and its cavalry in the farmland. He had to hope they would break off pursuit if the party was prepared for them and already on high ground. No war leader would want to fight up the rocky slope and the various small waterfalls against a veteran Roman shieldwall. No. Once the foragers were out of the valley and up the slope they would be safe.

And the stupid, suicidal charge of the Remi would buy them the time they needed.

But he had to
try
and save them, or at least
some
of them. The leaders, if no one else. He realised with mixed relief and sadness that while at least Galronus – the Remi prince and strongest of all their horse commanders – was safe in Italia with Fronto’s family, both Prince Vertiscus, who commanded this force, and Atis, his general, were close relations of Galronus – the prince a brother, he thought?

‘Decurion, gather all the remaining Remi pickets and half the regulars and help get that cart up the valley head. We’ll be along presently.’

As the officer saluted and sent out other riders to form up the scattered Remi, Varus gestured to his musician, standard bearer and the thirty-man turma. ‘Come with me.’

Kicking his steed into life he began to race towards the action.

It was already a disaster. Even as the moments passed in a thunder of hooves and the small relief force approached the edge of the farm fields and the riverside grassland, he could see how few of the Remi might possibly make it out of that mess alive.

Damn it. How could they have let this happen? The Bellovaci had changed the whole engagement now. It was no longer a waiting game. If they were prepared to attack the foragers, the Romans would have to do something about it or become very hungry as they waited for Trebonius and his legions.

As they rode, he looked across at his musician. ‘Can you remember the Remi recall?’

It was to be hoped. There was a standing fraternal competition among the cavalry units to try and remember and mimic one another’s calls. It had begun years ago as a bet over Gallic beer, but Varus and his officers had fostered the wagers and the games, recognising the value in having such disparate groups able to recognise each other’s’ calls, despite the wide array of melodies.

The musician frowned as he jolted up and down with the horse’s gait, trying to dredge his memory. The Remi’s calls went out on a horn not dissimilar to the Roman cavalry
tuba
, and the man took a deep breath, bracing himself against the jolting of the horse, and put the tuba to his lips.

The melody of the call sounded at once both familiar and odd to Varus. He had heard the Remi calls so many times over the eight years of war, and now that he heard it again he recognised it, but it sounded somehow lighter and airier on the Roman instrument.

Without waiting for the order, the musician timed his breath with the horse’s motion, taking deep breath after deep breath and repeating the call again and again.

They were rewarded with some commotion at the rear of the Remi force. A number of men had responded to the calls and were trying to extricate themselves from the disaster. Four men fell even as they tried to turn, but a few dozen riders had managed to break free of the fight and were racing towards the Romans. Varus held up his hand to halt his men. There was nothing to be gained from riding into the fray. All they could do now was try and save as many Remi as they could. As the horses fell to a walk and then formed up carefully, he gestured to the musician. ‘Keep blowing that bloody tune until they’re all with us or dead.’