Vespasian: Tribune of Rome (33 page)

The dancing stopped and the Thracians broke into a low chant that began to rise in volume until it drowned the screamed pleas of the prisoner. Two men took up positions behind him. The chant reached a crescendo and then suddenly stopped. Two rhomphaiai scythed through the air. The Thessalian’s legs dropped to the ground, but the man remained upright, screaming, stretched by the ropes, like ghastly washing on a line. Blood poured from his wounds in a pathetic imitation of the limbs he had just lost. With another sweep of flashing iron his arms were severed; they flew through the air on the end of the ropes spraying blood in macabre arcs. His limbless trunk crashed to the floor onto his severed legs. Two more warriors approached the tormented man and lifted the blood-spurting hulk in the air. Still alive but limbless, the Thessalian stared in catatonic shock at his erstwhile comrades, just a hundred paces away. Another flash and his head fell to the floor.

The Thracians charged.

‘Shields up!’ bellowed Corbulo.

Vespasian felt the shield of the man behind him push over his head and connect at a right angle with the top of his own, leaving a
small curved viewing slit. Inside the wooden box men’s breath became laboured as they fought back the rising panic induced by close confinement in stressful circumstances. The smell of sweat, fear and urine filled Vespasian’s nostrils as they flared, sucking in lungful after lungful of hot air. Time seemed to slow as, in his mind, he recounted the training moves that Sabinus had put him through against the practice post at home, so far away. Calm washed through him. He was ready to fight. He was not going to die. Whatever fate awaited him it was not a death at the hands of a pack of savages. He gripped hard on his pilum. The first javelin punched into his shield. The muscles in his left forearm bulged with the strain of holding the shield firm. All around him sharp cracks filled the air as javelin after javelin thumped down on the Roman line. Men grunted through gritted teeth with the strain of supporting their shields against the barrage. Here and there a scream. Then it was over.

‘Shields down!’

Vespasian quickly leant forward and broke off the four-foot-long projectile still embedded in his shield. He became aware of hissing shafts passing overhead; their archers had opened fire from the other bank.

‘Pila ready!’

He gripped his pilum at the top of the shaft just behind the lead ball, and extended his arm back, putting his weight on his right foot.

‘Release pila!’

Vespasian threw his right arm forward with all his strength, hurling the heavy weapon at the mass of bodies charging towards him. He had no time to look at his handiwork. He reached immediately for his gladius and swept it from its sheath. He felt the shield behind him press into his back. He braced for impact. The screams of the Thracian wounded filled the air. Men went down, tripping others behind them, who were in turn trampled in the stampede to reach the Roman line.

Crouching behind the shield wall he was aware of a blur of metal bearing down on him. He pushed his shield up and forward. The blade of a rhomphaia ricocheted off the rim and an instant later its wielder smashed into the boss, cracking ribs and punching the air from his lungs. Vespasian’s left arm jarred with the impact, but held. With most of his weight on his left leg he thrust his blade through the gap between his and Magnus’ shields. He felt it penetrate soft flesh. He rolled his wrist sharply right then left, shredding the bowels of his screaming opponent, then he withdrew the blade and stabbed again as another took his place.

Next to him Magnus was punching his sword back and forth, ducking under murderous swipes of hissing iron, yelling his defiance with every swear word at his command as the bodies piled up in front of him.

To the right and left the Thracians tried to get round the flanks of the centuries but were brought down in droves by the fifty archers on the north bank.

The line was holding.

‘Rear rank to the ropes!’ yelled Corbulo as he felt the pressure ease on the shield wall.

Vespasian felt the weight pushing against his back lessen as the rear man of his file made his bid for safety.

‘Now push, you sons of whores,’ Corbulo roared. ‘Push those bastards back to hell.’

With a monumental effort the legionaries shoved their shields forward and heaved the enemy back. They stepped over the first of the bodies in front of them, the second-rank men stabbing the fallen again. Many a soldier had lost his life to a wounded opponent plunging a knife up into his groin as he straddled him. As the Roman line moved forward the Thracians compacted, their rear ranks still pushing forward whilst their front ranks were pushed back. The result was chaos as the Roman blades stabbed into the
tightly compressed unarmoured flesh. Some of the dead remained upright, their heads lolling bizarrely as they were pinioned between shield bosses and their comrades behind; others slipped to the ground exposing new targets for blood-covered legionary swords.

Afterwards Vespasian would remember little of the following short period of time; his mind had switched off and his instincts and body took control. He heard no distinct sounds, just a constant roaring that his brain soon blocked out as one more distraction. All he would recall was the exhilaration he felt at the mechanical thrusting, grinding and retrieving of his sword as the Roman line, which he was an intrinsic part of, pushed forward, destroying all before it. He killed again and again with ease; he killed so that he and his comrades could remain alive.

Suddenly a shock wave swept through the Thracian line from right to left. Another threat had slammed into it from the east.

‘Mauricius!’ Corbulo shouted. ‘The gods be praised.’

With the unlooked-for arrival of their Gallic auxiliaries the legionaries’ hearts soared. These young men who had woken up in the morning as unblooded rookies now had the confidence of a unit of hardened killers. They set about their work with renewed vigour, blades flashing, shields punching, slaying everything in their path, pushing their opponents slowly back up the hill, whilst their Gallic allies rolled up the left flank, slashing down on their enemies with their long cavalry swords.

From behind them a massive cheer erupted from the second cohort. They pointed to the sky. Above, the ominous flock of rooks that had so disconcerted them that morning was heading back east, pursued by the two eagles. For a moment everyone paused and looked up as the chasing birds swooped down on their prey, plucking two out of the air with their claws. They rose back up, shrieking as they went, and released their victims in a flurry of feathers on to the mêlée below.

The Thracians turned and fled. The cavalry started to pursue them.

‘Hold!’ Corbulo cried. ‘Let them run. Mauricius, cover our withdrawal. And don’t ever turn up late again!’ Corbulo smiled with relief at the cavalry prefect, who grinned in return and then started to marshal his eighty or so remaining troopers; they too had had a hard day of it.

Vespasian sucked in a deep breath and then bellowed a victory cheer with his comrades.

‘That was more of a fight than we used to get in the Urban Cohort,’ Magnus puffed at his side.

‘That was the sort of fight that I could get to enjoy,’ Vespasian replied. His round face was flushed with excitement and blood. ‘If that is how a newly trained cohort fights then we may well have the gods on our side.’

‘The gods be buggered, it was—’

Corbulo’s shouting cut Magnus off.

‘Second century’s to cross next. First century’s to form up to their front.’

The light was starting to fade as the men of the second century waded out into the river with Corbulo and their centurion and optio all bellowing at them to get a move on.

A grim-faced Faustus reported to Vespasian, who stood with Magnus looking up the hill. Beyond the heaps of bodies in the pale light the Thracians were still there and had again started their pre-charge ritual.

‘That’s all the wounded taken care of, sir, twelve in total plus seven dead outright.’

‘Thank you, centurion. Have the men collect their packs.’

‘Sir!’

‘First century to the ropes; Vespasian, Faustus, take a rope each,’
Corbulo ordered as the last of the second century struck out into the river. ‘And, Mauricius, start crossing upstream of us, it will help ease the current.’

As the cavalry splashed in past the legionaries, a roar went up from the Thracians. For the third time in the day they started to tear back down the hill.

Panic spread through the legionaries; to have achieved so much in the past few hours only to be caught so close to safety seemed to be against the will of the gods. They started to push and shove to try to get on to a rope.

‘Easy lads, easy!’ Faustus roared at the downstream station, cuffing a few round the ears. ‘Don’t lose your discipline now.’

Vespasian looked behind; the Thracians were halfway to them, and there were still at least fifteen men to get on each rope.

‘When I give the order, cut the ropes,’ Corbulo shouted.

The men pulled themselves out into the river; arrows flew over their heads from the archer support on the north bank. With the Thracians fifty paces away it was apparent that they would not all make it.

‘Cut the ropes!’

Vespasian realised that Corbulo was right; it was more important to deny the Thracians the means of crossing than to save the last ten or so men, including himself. So much for fate; it was to be a death at the hands of these savages after all. He knew his duty was to the greater good and not to himself. He slashed down with his sword on the hemp rope; it parted, swinging its passengers out into the current. He then turned to face the enemy. They had stopped ten paces from them.

‘To me, to me,’ Corbulo shouted from the middle station, where he stood next to two terrified-looking young legionaries. Vespasian ran to his side with Magnus and the two men that had been left at his station. Faustus and three others joined them.

‘Right, lads,’ Corbulo said grimly, ‘we’ll sell our lives dearly.’ He charged. The others followed. They swept into the Thracians slashing and stabbing, but received no counter-strikes, just blows from the wooden handles of rhomphaiai. As he went down and blackness enveloped him Vespasian realised that this time the Thracians had not come to kill. That would come later.

V
ESPASIAN CAME TO
. It was dark. He felt a sticky substance in his eye and went to rub it away but found his hands firmly tied behind his back. Then he remembered the blow to his head that had felled him. Blood, he thought, blood from the wound.

His throat was dry and his head ached; in fact, his whole body ached. He groaned as his consciousness cleared and the pain started to register.

‘Welcome back, sir, although I don’t think that you’ll be very pleased to be here. I certainly ain’t.’

Vespasian turned his head. Next to him was Magnus.

‘Where are we?’ It was a stupid question; he already knew the answer.

‘Guests of the Thracians; and after what we did to them not very welcome ones, I should imagine.’

Vespasian’s eyes started to clear. All around small orange glows started to come into focus: campfires. In their light he could see huddled figures sleeping on the ground. His eyes gradually got used to the light. Closer to him, in the gloom, he saw a mesh of poles; he looked above him, the same, they were in a wooden cage. There were two others in there with them. He squinted and made out the uniforms of Corbulo and Faustus, both still out cold.

‘Where are the others?’ he asked, wondering about the remaining legionaries.

‘I don’t know. I only came to a short time before you, I haven’t
had time to have a wander round and suss out the accommodation arrangements.’

Vespasian smiled; Magnus had not lost his humour.

‘Get some rest, sir, there’s nothing we can do at the moment. The ropes are well tied; I’ve been trying to loosen them but have only managed to rip the skin off my wrists. We’ll have to wait until our hosts untie them for us, then we’ll need our wits about us.’

Vespasian knew Magnus was right – if they were untied he would need to be fresh and alert. He closed his eyes and fell into an uneasy sleep.

At dawn the camp stirred. Vespasian woke to find a Thracian in the cage giving sheep’s milk to his fellow captives. He waited his turn and when it came sucked the warm liquid in gratefully, overcoming the disgust that most Romans felt for milk in its natural form. He felt it filling his stomach and realised that he hadn’t eaten since the midday break the day before.

‘If they’re bothering to feed us they can’t be planning on killing us immediately,’ Corbulo observed. His hair was matted with dried blood and his right eye swollen and dark blue.

‘We kill you when we ready,’ the Thracian growled in broken Latin as he secured the cage’s gate.

‘What charming hosts,’ Magnus muttered. The Thracian glared at him and then walked off, leaving three others, armed with spears, to guard them.

‘Tell your man not to antagonise them, Tribune,’ Corbulo hissed. ‘If we’re to keep our strength for an escape, we would do well to avoid a beating.’

Vespasian looked at Magnus who nodded and gave a half-smile.

‘The men must be exhausted,’ Faustus said, looking over Vespasian’s shoulder. Vespasian swivelled round. Half a mile away, on the north bank of the river, the first and second cohorts stood
formed up, with the cavalry on either flank. The baggage was corralled a little way behind them.

‘Good man, Gallus, he didn’t panic,’ Corbulo said. ‘The Thracians won’t dare to cross now, they’ll have to withdraw unless they want to sit here and live off roots and berries.’

‘And with our archers keeping them away from the river they’ll run out of water in a day or so,’ Faustus pointed out.

On the slope leading down to the river parties of Thracians moved around collecting their dead, piling them up in a huge mound laced with wood. The Romans were left to rot in the sun.

‘Bastards!’ Faustus spat. ‘Leaving our lads like that. It’s bad enough them not having a coin to pay the ferryman.’