The King's Cavalry (3 page)

III - Sarmatians

Cragus Grabelius was anxious. As commander of the British cavalry, it was his duty to see that his emperor had the men and mounts he needed, but a Roman invasion under the late General Chlorus, had wrecked the breeding programme he had so carefully established in southern Britannia, and the Romans had captured many fine battle-trained steeds, too.

Although Arthur and a consortium of Gallic, Germanic and Iberian allies had later defeated the Romans in Gaul, in a battle when Grabelius himself had sustained near-fatal wounds, the Britons had not recovered any of their precious war horses.

Grabelius was telling the story to Arthur’s aide, Androcles. “We wanted to build a cavalry force as quickly as possible,” he said, “so we hit on the idea of recruiting some of the Sarmatian auxiliaries, ex-cavalrymen who had been stationed in northern Britannia, with the
Ala
Sarmatarum
.

“Two centuries ago, the old Roman army brought more than 5,000 horse soldiers from the Steppes and Caspian Sea to man the Wall and its hinterland. The remnants of them, about 500, were still up there around Ribchester, when the last legions pulled out. Almost all the retired cavalrymen stayed on with their British wives and families. They’ve been stationed there for so long as a close-knit
, ethnic unit, they’re more at home in Britain than back on the Vistula. They still practically live on horseback, and sleep in waggons, you know. They are not all young men any more, but they know horses and they make an ideal core group for training recruits and their mounts.”

As he was speaking, Bishop Candless’ bodyguard captain came into the pavilion. A tattooed Pict called Bilic, son of Mors, he was known as Shaftkiller for a legendary day when, his boar spear broken, he had killed a giant wild pig with the shaft alone. Bilic had coolly stood his ground when it charged, then had lanced the beast through its eye. He nodded to Androcles. “I’ve seen those Sarmatians,” he said. “Savage little bastards with flattened skulls. They squash them between boards to shape their heads. Cut themselves in the face a
lot, too, to mourn their dead with blood, not tears.

“They’re fine horsemen and deadly archers. They use stirrups to stand on, gives them a steady firing platform, and they can kill at 200 paces or more. They’ve been sent by the gods to train our recruits and when we put them on big mounts, we’ll have the best horse soldiers in the world.”

Grabelius continued his report. Years before, with those cavalry instructors recruited, Arthur had turned his attention to obtaining the best horses for his troops and had sent his tribune to Frisia to obtain a pair of stallions from the region’s prized and jealously-guarded stock of heavy horses. Grabelius had secretly bought the beasts and spirited them back to Britannia, where they were employed in a breeding programme.

“You can start to train a two
year old horse, and by the time he’s four or five years old he’s at his full strength, capable of carrying his own armour and his rider. The Romans called them ‘
cataphractarii
,
’
meaning ‘protected,’ and a five year old Frisian trained and armoured, is a proper war horse,” Grabelius explained. “He’s good until he’s about 17 or 18 years old, and a few squadrons of these big fellows is a mighty weapon because not only does he thunder in carrying a lancer with a bloody great, long spear levelled to stick you, but the beast also is taught to kick and slash with his hooves and even to bite and smash at you with his metal-covered head.

“As few as 20 or so of these four-footed monsters can crush an infantry formation into submission, opening up the ranks for our own foot soldiers to finish off the opponents.”

Androcles nodded. “So where do you get these big horses?” he asked. “The couple I saw were twice the size of the Fell ponies the Britons use.”

“Well, that’s the thing,” said Grabelius. “They aren’t just anywhere. The Frisians and Jutes have the best horses, though there were some from Persia, Nisean breeds they were, that I saw. Their riders said they had a gait like sitting in a chair, very comfortable, and they were big imposing bastards. But really, the Frisian horses are about our best source.

“We had to smuggle the first pair out, but since the alliances Arthur’s made, we have full access to the big herds. We were breeding them with local horses and Exmoor ponies in Britain, not bad stock some of those Fell ponies, very hardy, but we want more size as well as strength and endurance in our foals. Speed isn’t of much concern really, because in battle you basically close with the enemy ranks and hack at them. Very few horses will charge unhesitating into a spear wall.

“That’s why the Sarmatians have such great long lances – to reach past the enemy pike wall. But at the end of it, these big chargers are like those elephants Hannibal had. They’re good for scaring people into breaking ranks and running away. In fact, they’re better than the elephants. Those monsters needed to be goaded or drunk before they’d would attack, but then it was any human, even their own soldiers, who became the targets. They reckon more elephants were killed by their own handlers than by the enemy. The mahouts kept a hammer and spike handy to knock into their monster’s brain if it went berserk and started on our troops. Bit wasteful, really, you don’t get that with a horse.”

Bishop Candless saw the two soldiers talking and came across to speak with them. A former Pict warrior himself, he still carried some of the blue tattoo markings of his Dunpelder tribe and had a number of impressive scars to bear witness to the days when he and his clansmen had raced from the heather to battle their enemies.

“We’re talking horses,
Bishop,” Grabelius said affably. “Not your line of country, really, eh?” Candless shook his head.

“Great hay-munching beasts,” he growled. “Good for roasting, though.” The soldiers laughed. The Pict was respected, they’d witnessed him in his exotic alligator-hide breastplate and iron helmet, hacking and thrusting in the shield wall.

“We could use that alligator hide thing of yours to protect them,” said Androcles, slyly.

“I suppose you could,” the cleric agreed. “It’s light enough and tough enough. What do you use?”

Grabelius ticked off the options on his fingers: “Uncured oxhide, in bands sewn onto a leather backing like a skirt is good, it can take most blows, it’s light enough, it flexes and it can cover down to the beast’s knees. Or you can use it like
segmentata
,” he said, referring to the lobster-like carapace of metal hoops held by straps. For themselves, most infantrymen preferred the hooped protection to the much-heavier chainmail, although lately some had started using lighter mail, saying that the segmentata trapped their flesh, was uncomfortable and expensive.

“I’ve even seen horn-scale armour on a Persian horse,” added Grabelius, “but that was a horse archer, not one who’d actually be slashing and hacking at an opponent.”

Before the conversation could become a technical argument about the relative virtues of light and heavy cavalry, Candless changed the subject. “Arthur,” he said, “seems not inclined to visit Rome?” The tribunes exchanged glances.

“I think he intends to go,” said Grabelius cautiously. “How are your plans developing?”

Candless shrugged. “I shall be taking the Holy nails to the Empress Helena. She has been to Jerusalem to find the True Cross and it is right and just that she should see the nails, too.”

The two tribunes took this to mean that Candless planned some ruse to gain validation for his fake relics. “Very wise,” said Androcles.

He knew that in Jerusalem, Queen Helena, mother of Constantine, had met a man called Cyriacus, who took her to where the relics were buried. Several miracles were performed which authenticated the find, and she had met with the city’s Christian leaders to display the holy relics and discuss their future. After a long period of tolerance, when the Hebrews lived in their own country, had their own temple and enjoyed political power even under Roman rule, the Jews were now being regarded with hostility, had lost their central religious institution and were even banned as residents of the new Roman city.

“They are not like us, highness,” a Christian deacon explained to the visiting queen. “They have their own religious communities and clergy. We Christians who were once Jews have seen this and we distance ourselves from them. We have the true faith and they stubbornly refuse it.”

The queen was disturbed at this information. “Will the holy relics be safe in Jerusalem?” she asked. “Will there be factional war?” She was disturbed by the thousand year prophecies of Zachariah, who had foretold the destruction of Jerusalem, and she was resolved to remove as many relics as she could for safekeeping. It was not so easy, however. The pontiff insisted that the Cross be kept in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City. Helena wished to take it all away. Compromise was reached.

Helena used her influence and her gold, got the
nails and some shards of the Cross and bore them away in triumph. One of Zachariah’s prophecies was in her mind: on the day of destruction, the prophet said: “That which is upon the bridle of the horse shall be holy to the Lord.”

This Helena understood to mean that her son
, the emperor, would be protected by having some of the iron of the Holy nails formed into the bridle of his mount. It would fulfill the ancient prophecy, and it would ensure her son’s wellbeing. For added safety, she had some iron from one of the nine-inch spikes inserted into his helmet, too.

Candless and others interpreted the prophecy differently. They felt it simply meant that the lavish golden ornaments that adorned the emperor’s bridle should be handed over to the church, but he never mentioned that when he saw the queen.

IV
- Quirinus

Word came by courier from the Rhine that Quirinus had pulled off a masterly coup, and I was delighted. I settled to read his report. My tribune had followed orders with care, had landed his small force of horse copers and a couple of dozen lancers discreetly, a distance along the coast from Forum Hadriani, unnoticed by the Romans loyal to Maxentius and within an easy few days’ march of the Frisian lands where he should make contact with the horse traders and breeders who had the herds we needed.

I had sent word ahead of his mission to King Stelamann, one of the vassal kings the Romans had installed to hold the frontier. He was a ruler I met when I had travelled to create a federation against the legions. Our union had been successful and we had driven the Romans from Gaul after the great battle at Alesia. Now, the king could help me again, and should be eager to do so to maintain our alliance, as I had promised help if he and his kingdom come under threat.

Quirinus was to make his way to Stelamann’s citadel at Vallis on the River Meuse to meet guides who could take him safely through the tribal lands to the horse breeders. Quirinus’ lancers would be enough to deter bandits and to protect the gold I needed to send with him for the horses purchase.

His report said that he had successfully reached Vallis without arousing hostile interest, and the king had agreed to send for horse traders to bring their stock to his stronghold. He also had guides waiting for Quirinus to take him to the horse
copers further afield, but cautioned that Maxentius’ men were now skirmishing wider out of their castrum at Colonia, on the Rhine.

The king felt that Quirinus’ troop was not strong enough to withstand a strong patrol, so
, to guarantee my tribune’s safety, insisted on having a troop of his own foot soldiers accompany the Britons. This, said Quirinus’ report, would slow their progress but on balance was a sensible precaution. Because the pace would be merely that of the infantry, Quirinus opted to leave the Gallic ponies behind at Vallis, for he would be returning to Bononia with a herd of heavy horses to manage and the ponies would require extra work and fodder. As they were leaving their ponies, our cavalrymen equipped themselves from the king’s armoury with infantry shields to replace the smaller cavalry targs they normally carried.

The combined force of troopers proceeded to march north along the bank of the Meuse, which was still frozen, for the spring thaw was late this year of 312. The going was easier without the mud, but the king’s prediction about the enemy proved accurate. Quirinus and the Celts were intercepted by a strong Roman mounted patrol that was several days’ ride out from Colonia.

“Fortunately, we saw them at a distance and I had time to prepare. I had considered this possibility,” Quirinus wrote, “and had devised a number of defensive strategies. One in particular was effective. I ordered the entire force to put socks on over their boots, because the hobnails pushed through the wool, which gave added traction. Then I marched them onto the ice of the frozen river.”

The Roman dragoons rode their horses out to encircle Quirinus, but he ordered his two decurions to deploy the men out of their ranks and to stand them back to back in a modified infantry square. Next, he commanded the soldiers to hack grooves in the ice at their feet and to plant the bottom edges of their big shields in them.

The men arrayed themselves shield edge to edge, and by bracing the backs of their ice-slotted shields against one foot, they created a solid defensive wall of limewood, leather and metal. Thus protected and on good footing, they braced themselves to receive the attack. As expected, the Roman horsemen trotted cautiously across the treacherous, frozen surface to break the line, but their forest pony steeds were doubly unstable on the ice and on their loose, tied-on horseshoes. The beasts jibbed and halted at the hedge of spears.

“As they closed on us, several of our men leaned out and grabbed the horses’ reins, jerking them forward. The animals had poor footing on the ice, and fell, knocking other beasts and men to the ground. Soon, the whole square, Celts and Britons, was hauling the horses to the ice, and then we killed the unseated Romans. Our men employed their gladiatorial techniques of infighting with great success,” Quirinus finished simply.

Not a Roman was taken alive, at my orders. I wanted no survivors to raise the alarm about our expedition, and Quirinus took time to dispose of the dead under the river ice and in a nearby copse, where only the ravens would find them.

The report filled me with satisfaction, and I took particular pleasure at
Quirinus’ mention of ‘gladiatorial techniques.’ I had saved my own life more than once by employing the street-fighting methods I learned as a young soldier at the gladiator school at Carnutum, on the Danube. I remembered with an inward grin how our instructor would bellow at us: “Don’t mince and tittup about like a whore on the make: hit the bastard!” As a military commander, I urged my officers to add the fighting techniques of boot, elbow and eye-gouge to their training schedules. Ironically, the farsighted centurion who long before had made us learn them had now cost his emperor some Roman lives.

I was well pleased with Quirinus’ ingenuity on the ice, and his recognition that horseshoes that are strapped to the animals’ feet are a hindrance in snow and mud, but the next bit of news made me positively laugh out loud. “We took 28 heavy horses as well as a number of secondary remounts,” Quirinus wrote. “Five of the big horses carried our own CB brands.” This stood for ‘
Classis
Britannica
,’ for ‘British Fleet,’ and had been my whimsical choice when the horse breeders asked how we would brand our steeds.

They must have been part of the plunder from Maximian’s invasion of Britain and our cavalrymen would be gladdened to hear of their recovery, and would see it as a positive omen of future success. I turned back to Quirinus’ report: “King Stelamann’s men commandeered several farm carts and they took a quantity of Roman arms and armour back to Vallis while we rode on with the guides to meet the horse breeders.”

So, the first phase was done. Quirinus mischievously guessed my reaction to all this. “I request forgiveness for ruining the troops’ socks,” he wrote, “and hope it will not be deducted from my pay.”

“Send him a message,” I commanded. “Tell him that he does not have to pay for the holes, at least.
” As soldiers’ marching socks are open at the heels and toes and were probably torn to pieces anyway, Quirinus’ pay was safe, and so were our men.