The War at the Edge of the World (16 page)

‘Assembly ready, centurion,’ Timotheus cried. Forty-six men stood drawn up in the last glow of the cooking fires, with the remaining ten still on watch around the walls. Castus strode forward and turned to face them, planting his feet firmly, hands clasped behind his back. He tried not to see them as an assembly of ghosts, of lost spirits, but the winged Victory figures painted on their shields appeared more substantial than the men themselves.

‘Brothers,’ he called, his voice low and steady, ‘things do not look good. Two of our men are missing, along with one of the scouts, and two scouts are dead. The Domini Marcellinus and Strabo have either been killed or have fallen into the hands of the enemy. The Picts, for some reason of their own, have turned against us and will probably attempt an assault very soon.’

He waited a moment to let the words sink in. It was better that these things should be said out loud, before the contagion of unspoken fear could eat away at them.

‘Some of you will be thinking we should pull out now, before the enemy muster against us. But that’s a bad idea. Before we got two miles down the road the Picts would be all around us. Besides, we were sent here to protect the envoy, and we’re not leaving while there’s still a chance he’s alive. The enemy outnumber us, but we’re trained soldiers, well armed and equipped, while they’re a spear-chucking rabble. We’ve got a strong defensive position here, and we can hold out as long as necessary. They hope, the Picts, that we’ll break and run. They hope they can intimidate us with their numbers and their noise. But if we stick close together and hold these walls, we’ll stand up to anything they can throw against us.

‘An hour ago, I ordered the three remaining scouts to ride for Bremenium with a message for the commander there about what’s happened. Any relief force could take days to arrive, but if we can hold off the enemy for only a day or two they’ll realise our strength and we can negotiate with honour. They give us the prisoners back. We march out of here and go home.’

He let the stress fall on the last word. No need to raise false hopes; they all knew how steeply the odds were stacked against them. But it was something, at least, to believe in.

‘Meanwhile, we’ve got work to do. Our current perimeter is too long to hold effectively – we need to shorten it. I want the wall to the south broken down and the stones carried back to make a new line
here
.’ He swept his arm forward and back. ‘Have the mules brought up into the enclosure and secured. Then six men fully armed to go with the slaves down to the stream with all the canteens and water containers. Fill as much water as you can carry. Two sections at a time can fall out and rest. Sleep if you can. The others will remain under arms at the defences. Optio, set the fatigues.
Dismissed!
’

As the assembly broke up, Castus went to the east wall and found Caccumattus sheltering there, staring out across the valley into the darkness. He had been surprised that the unimpressive little interpreter had not already made a run for it.

‘Will they attack tonight?’ he asked in a low whisper.

Caccumattus sucked his teeth, and then shrugged. ‘No, I think. Picti no to fighting in night. Too much dark – only evil gods to see them!’

‘Oh. Well, that’s some comfort, I suppose.’

He would be prepared even so. It was still possible that the interpreter had stayed in the camp to deceive them into relaxing their guard. Distant horn cries came from across the valley, and the scattered fires had coalesced into one large blaze. A funeral pyre, perhaps? Impossible to tell at this distance.

A light rain was falling, but the night was warm. Castus watched the men building the new wall, and after a while fell to hefting stones himself, glad of the physical labour. The water party returned from the stream, and then the camp settled into a tensed quiet, every man wrapped in his cloak, gazing warily out into the night. Above them was the thin arc of the new rising moon.

‘You see them? Down there to the right, in the long grass… There’s another – he just moved.’

Castus followed the optio’s pointing finger, but could see nothing at first. It was not yet dawn, but the light had increased to a damp greyness, and the surrounding plain and the slopes of the hills looked like heaped fog. His eyes smarted after eight hours staring at nothing.

‘There! See, he moved again!’

This time Castus caught the movement: a man lying flat on the slope with a cape pulled across his head and body. Once he’d seen one he quickly spotted more: the hillside below the fort was covered in creeping cloaked men, edging closer now and again, crawling on their bellies.

‘Think they might try and rush us?’ Timotheus said. He appeared very young in the half-light, his cheeks covered with a downy beard, but his eyes were hard and sunken deep.

‘No, we’d cut them down before they got close. They’re just scouting us out.’

A dry snap came from the slope, and one of the men at the wall fell back with a grunt of pain.

‘Heads down, shields up! Cover yourselves!’ Castus shouted. ‘What in Jupiter’s name was that?’

‘Lockbow,’ Evagrius called. ‘Native hunting weapon. I saw a few of them when I was in the Wall garrison. Like a short bow mounted on a stave. You can aim and loose them when you’re lying down.’

‘Shit of Hades,’ Castus said.

A volley of snapping sounds came from the prone figures in the grass, the short arrows clattering against the wall and the raised shields or arcing overhead. The first shot had hit Culchianus in the shoulder.

‘Any of you with slings – over here now!’ Pointless to waste javelins on the skulking bowmen. Six men jogged across the enclosure, heads down, and dropped behind the wall.

‘Whenever you see one of them move, crack him!’

Almost at once the first sling whirred and snapped, sending its stone flat and true to the target. A cry from the slope, and the men along the wall cheered. Another volley of arrows, and more slingstones hurled back, then the cloaked figures were getting up and scrambling back down the slope. Castus saw one, then two, knocked down by slingstones as they ran.

Behind them, the first sun was glinting through the ragged clouds over the mountains to the east. Castus turned, kneeling, and touched his brow. He muttered a prayer under his breath, and when he raised his head he saw most of the other men doing the same. Strabo, he reminded himself, was no longer here to disapprove.

He stood up, drew his sword and held the blade levelled above his head to reflect the light of the dawn.

‘Unconquered Sun,’ he cried out in his best parade voice. ‘We devote ourselves to your glory. Send your light between us and evil, and give us victory this day!’

The shout of acclamation from the men around him was loud and sudden, spears clashing against shield rims. The long tense night was behind them, and they were drawing strength from the sun. Castus smiled as he sheathed his blade. So far, things were going well.

An hour later, the Picts began to gather on the plain and the surrounding hills. They came from the ford in massed columns, men on foot and on horseback, some riding in carts. Outside the range of javelin or slingshot they assembled in their warbands, sitting or squatting in the grass or leaning on their spears. Others appeared on the far side of the stream, where the ground rose towards their camp, many of them with light hunting javelins and the cross-shaped lockbows. The sky was heavy and grey, and a damp wind came down off the  high hills.

‘How many do you think, Evagrius?’

‘Around two thousand, centurion. At least.’

‘That’s about what I make it.’

‘Forty to one. Not bad odds!’

But now a horseman was riding slowly from the enemy mass, his spear raised and tipped with a leafy green branch. As he approached, Castus recognised the crest of orange hair, the goatlike scowl. Talorcagus, enemy of Rome.

‘Caccumattus, to me.’ The interpreter scuttled along the wall to kneel beside Castus. The Pictish chief drew closer, his horse mounting the lower slope. Another man rode behind him carrying a sack.

‘
Ruamnai!
’ the Pict shouted, punching his spear above his head. He began to call out his address, the words gnarled and ugly.

‘He say: Romani kill Picti chiefs, Ulcagnus and Vendognus,’ the interpreter said, translating rapidly. ‘Try to make chief-talk to fail. But now Talorcagus – him – he high chief. King.’

‘So I guessed.’

The Pict was still shouting, still brandishing his leafy spear.

‘He say: Picti find killers, make punish. No want fighting with Romani soldier. He say you putting down weapon, go home in peace.’

Castus spat between his teeth. No doubt those among his men who understood the native language were already circu­lating the offer.

‘Ox shit,’ he said, and grabbed Caccumattus by the arm, pulling him close. ‘You tell him this: Roman soldiers never surrender! And we didn’t come all this way just to go home without a fight, either. Tell him his people must have short memories if they’ve forgotten what the Emperor Severus did to them a hundred years ago. We want Marcellinus, Strabo and our two soldiers back,
then
we’ll think about going home.’

Caccumattus, released, stood up and called out the reply. There was something like defiance in his voice, quite unlike his wavering tone when he tried to speak Latin. Talorcagus circled his horse, and then shouted back.

‘He say: You not Severus. You small silly man. Soon all to die, like… I no knowing what…’

But Castus could already see the second rider opening the neck of the sack. He lifted something out, drew back his arm and threw.

Two dull thuds from the grass; two heavy round objects rolling to a halt. A low anguished groan went up from the men along the wall. Talorcagus was stripping the leaves from his spear and throwing them aside, then turning his horse back towards his assembled warriors.

‘So now we know where they got to,’ Castus said quietly. One of the severed heads lay face down, but the other had the red hair and startled grey face of the legionary Atrectus. ‘Get a cloth and jump down there, quick,’ he said to Vincentius. ‘Take Bradua with you. Wrap up the heads and bring them back – and try to handle them with respect.’ The less time the grisly message lay in clear view of the other men, the better.

The ranks of the enemy shifted, warriors bunching and gathering. Some of them knelt down in the grass with wooden bowls before them – what were they doing, Castus wondered, eating breakfast? He reminded himself that his men had eaten nothing since the night before. But now he saw the kneeling warriors scooping handfuls of paste from the bowls and smear­ing it on their arms and bare chests. The paste left a vivid blue stain on their skin, around the scar-pictures of animals.

‘What are they doing?’

‘Blue make power of animals go into warrior,’ the interpreter said. ‘Call down sky, animal power free. Make very much brave.’

‘Now I’ve seen it all,’ Evagrius muttered, and gave a nervous laugh.

The blue-painted men stood up, throwing out their chests and flexing their arms, roaring through clenched teeth. From the ranks of the other warriors came a reverberating clatter and hum: they were beating the metal balls at the base of their spears against their shields. A strange ringing noise came echo­ing back off the hills.

Castus stood up. ‘Everyone on your feet!’ he shouted. The men rose together, shields up along the line of the wall. Castus glanced at the soldiers to either side of him, their faces pale with fear but tensed, straining with the anticipation of battle.

‘Sixth Legion!’ he cried out, raising his fist. ‘Are you ready for war?’

‘
Ready
,’ the voices came back, uncertain.

‘Are you ready for war?’

Again ‘
Ready
’, stronger this time, the shouts joining in unison.

‘Are you
READY
for
WAR
?’

‘
READY!’
The last shout was loud enough to echo in the damp air. Castus could feel the energy of the men, the heat passing between them. Someone started clashing his spear against his shield rim, and the rest soon joined in. A great battering noise rolled down the slope towards the enemy horde.

A man scrambled up onto the wall: it was Vincentius, with his bandaged arm. ‘Come on then, you filthy goatfuckers!’ he screamed across the valley. Then, pulling up the hem of his mail and tunic, he jutted his hips at the enemy, sneering. ‘Come on and
kiss this
!’

Wild laughter and cheering along the wall as Vincentius dropped back down. From the far wall Timotheus was calling for silence, but Castus gestured for him to stop. Let the men shout, let them laugh, if it gave them strength.

‘Here they come!’ somebody cried. The enemy horde gave a vast collective heave and began to surge forward, warriors howling as they advanced, punching their spears towards the wall above them.

Castus stood up again, drawing his sword and holding it high. ‘
Victrix!
’ he yelled.

The men took up the cry, chanting it just they had on the drill field, drumming spears against shields. ‘
VIC
-trix!
VIC
-trix!
VIC
-trix!’

Castus wondered where the legion had won their title. Some long-forgotten war, back in the glorious ancient days. He had never bothered to ask.

Earn it now.

‘Timotheus,’ he shouted, cupping his hands to his mouth, ‘keep your men watching the eastern slope. Culchianus, make sure they don’t move round to the south. The rest of you, darts and javelins. When they get within thirty paces, stick it to them!’

But already the enemy tide was surging around the lower slopes, the painted warriors in the vanguard breaking into a run.

‘Mouth of Hades, we’re dead men now,’ a soldier said. Castus clouted him across the back of his helmet. The rush of the enemy looked unstoppable.

‘Ready darts!’ he shouted. All along the eastern wall, the men flung back their arms to throw. Iron glittered in the low sun.

One…

Two…

T
hree
… The first of the howling painted men was well within range now. Castus drew in breath, held it, and then shouted again.