Читать книгу Fire and Sword - Harry Sidebottom - Страница 12

Northern Italy

The Aesontius River, Two Days before the Kalends of April, AD238

If they went on, any scout or spy concealed in the farm would see them. Menophilus had halted his small column well back from the treeline. They would wait and watch. There were about three hours of daylight left. This close to the enemy, unnecessary risks were to be avoided. Quietly, he told his men to dismount, take the weight from the backs of their horses.

The farm was still in the spring sunshine; red tiles and whitewashed walls, black holes where the doors and shutters had been removed. Big, round wine barrels, all empty. No animals, not even a chicken pecking in the dirt. No smoke from the chimneys. No sign of life. Menophilus thought of his home, and hoped war never came to distant Apulia.

A small unpaved road ran to the farm from the south, then turned north-east and disappeared into the timber. Menophilus had avoided it, instead leading his ten men laboriously up through the woods that bordered the river. The going had been soft, progress slow, and the horses were tired. The rest would do them good.

A movement in the yard. A figure walked from the barn and went into the house. Although the distance was too great to make out the individual with certainty, he had the bearing of a soldier. It could not be otherwise. All civilians had been forcibly evacuated on Menophilus’ orders. Despite the destruction of the bridge, at least a part of the army of Maximinus had got across the Aesontius.

The hostile piquet was not an insurmountable complication. They could not be much more than half a mile from the site of the demolished bridge. Menophilus gave the Optio the watchwords – Decus et Tutamen – and his instructions. Two of the most reliable men were to lie up and observe the farm. The junior officer and the rest of the troopers were to lead all the horses back to a clearing; the one with a tree that had been hit by lightning. Let the horses graze, but they were to remain saddled, their riders with them, ready to move out. Menophilus and the guide would continue the reconnaissance on foot. If they had not returned by dawn tomorrow, the Optio was to withdraw the way they had come. When he got back to Aquileia, he was to inform Crispinus that the Senator had sole command of the defence of the town.

Menophilus thought about Crispinus. In Rome his initial impression of his fellow member of the Board of Twenty had not been completely positive. It had been difficult to see beyond the long beard, with its philosophical pretentions, and the ponderous, over-dignified ways of moving and talking. Although Crispinus had much experience of command, political necessity rather than military expertise had saddled Menophilus with him as joint commander of Aquileia. Yet as the two men had prepared to defend the city against Maximinus in the name of the Gordiani, a certain respect had grown between them. If Menophilus fell, Aquileia would remain in safe hands.

The thud of hooves was deadened by the leafmould under the trees, but no body of cavalry moved silently. The breeze was from the north, and Menophilus doubted that the creak of leather and the clink of metal fittings, the occasional whicker of a horse, would carry.

When there was just the sound of the gentle wind in the trees, he gave his attention to the way ahead. The farm stretched towards the Aesontius: the house, then the yard with the massive wine barrels, the barn and some sheds, a tiny meadow, and a steep track cut down through the trees to the river. There was no cover to cross the track, but the incline and the outbuildings might obscure the view from the dwelling to the riverbank.

Menophilus checked that his guide was ready. Marcus Barbius smiled, tight-lipped. The youth had every right to be nervous. It would have been better to have a soldier. But none of the men of the 1st Cohort Ulpia Galatarum, the only troops in Aquileia, knew the country. The young equestrian’s family owned these lands. In more peaceful times, the farm was occupied by one of their tenants.

The two of them graded down through beech trees and elms until they were among the willows by the stream. The Aesontius was running high and fast, its green waters foaming white where they surged over submerged banks of shingle.

When they reached the path, Menophilus crouched and peered around the trunk of a tree. From down here, only the red roof of the farmhouse was visible over the barn. Of course, if men were stationed in the outbuildings, they would have an uninterrupted view down to the river. The nearest shed was no more than fifty paces distant.

Menophilus stood. ‘We will walk across. They may assume we are two of them.’

Barbius did not speak, but looked dubious.

‘If we run, it will arouse suspicion.’

Barbius still said nothing. He appeared little reassured. Perhaps fear had robbed the youth of speech.

Both of them were wearing tunic, trousers, and boots, and had sword and dagger, one on each hip. They looked like off-duty soldiers. To move quietly, before leaving, Menophilus had removed the memento mori – a silver skeleton – and the other ornaments from his equipment. Now he took the long strap of his belt, and twirled the metal end, as was the habit of soldiers at their ease.

With his left hand, he took Barbius by the elbow, and propelled him out across the path.

Let us be men.

One step, two, three. The strap-end thrumming. Let us be men. Not looking up at the farm. At every step, the fear of an outcry, or the terrible whistle of an arrow. Five steps, six.

Eight paces, and they were back in cover.

Menophilus dropped to the ground. Heart hammering, he crawled back to the edge of the path.

Once again, he gazed up from behind the bough of a tree.

Nothing moved. Utter stillness.

He watched for some time. From this point on, the piquet at their backs, escape would be infinitely more difficult.

At length, somewhat satisfied, heart beating more normally, he wriggled backwards to where Barbius waited.

They went cautiously up the bank, flitting from tree to tree through the dappled shadows.

Ahead was a blaze of light where the road meandered through the woods.

Again, Menophilus stopped, took cover, and watched and waited.

The backroad was grey, dusty, and empty. A pair of swallows low over it, banking and swooping. A sign of bad weather to come.

Telling Barbius to watch both directions, Menophilus walked out onto the byway, studied it. The distinct marks of military hobnailed boots. No impressions of hooves or hipposandals. The surface was powdery, not tramped down. Only a few of the enemy had gone up to the farm, all of them on foot.

Returning to the shade, Menophilus and Barbius went through the trees parallel to the road.

Soon the road joined a grander, paved version of itself. The Via Gemina was the main route from Aquileia to the Julian Alps, and on to Emona and the Danubian frontier. When war did not threaten, there would be many travellers. Today it was deserted. There were no guards at the junction.

A final rise, and the Via Gemina dipped down to the Aesontius. The river here was very broad. Usually shallow, now it was swollen with spring melt from the mountains. All that remained of the central sections of the Pons Sonti were the stubs of piers, the water breaking around them, tugging at their loosened stones. On the far bank was the beginning of a pontoon bridge. The first two barges were in place. A large body of soldiers was manhandling the next down the bank. Around them was the bustle of disciplined activity. Gangs of men braked wagons down the descent, and laboured to unload huge cables and innumerable planks.

Below Menophilus, at the foot of the slope, a small rowing boat was moored to the near bank. Here all was quiet. A detachment of troops, no more than a hundred, lounged in the shade. An officer had a detail of ten men standing in the road, about fifty paces from their resting companions. Menophilus cast about, and found a tangle of undergrowth from which to observe.

The shadows lengthened, and across the river the work went on. On the near bank, the soldiers passed around wineskins. From time to time, individuals wandered a little downstream to relieve themselves. Menophilus unhinged a writing block, and made occasional, cryptic notes.

It was in moments of inactivity that his grief threatened to unman him. What was the point of this reconnaissance? Of any of it? The risk and the striving; all for what? His friends were dead. Gordian the Father and Gordian the Son, both dead. Of course, he had known they were mortal. Death was inevitable. Friends were like figs; they did not keep.

Philosophy was a thin and inadequate consolation. If they were his friends, they would not want him in misery. But they were beyond that. They had escaped. The life of man was but a moment, his senses a dim rushlight, his body prey to disease, his soul an unquiet eddy, his fortune dark; a brief sojourn in an alien land.

True, they had lived as they wished, and they had met their deaths well. Gordian the Son struck down on the field of battle, opposing the forces of the tyrant. Gordian the Father by his own hand, the decision his own. The world was wrong to see the rope as womanish. Everywhere you looked, you found an end to your suffering. See that short, shrivelled, bare tree? Freedom hung from its branches. What was the path to freedom? Any vein in your body.

Life was a journey. Unlike any other, it could not be curtailed. No life was too short, if it had been well lived. Menophilus knew he should not rail against what could not be changed. Instead he should be grateful for the time he had been granted with his friends. But the pain of their loss cut like a knife.

The shadows were lengthening. Dusk had fallen down at the waterside. Torches sawed in the breeze, as men continued to labour in the gloom.

Menophilus had gathered some useful intelligence. It was carefully noted in his writing tablet. From the bull on their standard, he had learnt that the men on the near bank were from the 10th Legion Gemina, which was based at Vindobona in Pannonia Superior. Evidently they had been ferried over a few at a time by the one little rowing boat. There were not yet many of them on the Aquileian side of the Aesontius. From their demeanour, they were relaxed and confident. They knew that the rebels had no regular army to bring against them in the field. No attack was expected. On the far side of the water, the prefabricated materials of the pontoon bridge, and the proficiency of their assembly indicated that it belonged to the imperial siege train. Another twenty-four hours should see its completion.

What he had discovered was not enough. He needed to know what other troops accompanied the 10th Legion, or, at least, form some idea of their numbers. He would wait. The night might provide more answers.

Darkness fell, and the wind picked up. It had shifted into the south-west. From that direction it often brought rain in these regions. A downpour would further swell the river, hamper the bridge-building. A difficult business manoeuvring the barges in a strong current, and there was the danger of debris swept downriver. If it rained heavily, the pontoon might not be ready for a couple of days. Menophilus committed that to memory; it was too dark to write.

Clouds, harbingers of a storm, scudded across the moon. The wind soughed through the foliage, creaking branches together. The woods were alive with the scuttling and the choked-off cries of nocturnal predator and prey.

Down by the river, streamers of sparks were pulled into the air from the campfires of the enemy. Across the Aesontius the trees were dense, and the riverbank high. Most of the fires were over the crest of the slope. No way of gauging their number from the glow in the sky. Something bolder was demanded.

Menophilus outlined his plan to Barbius. In the ambient light, the youth’s eyes were white and round with fear.

‘Watch my back,’ Menophilus said. ‘Leave everything to me.’ He affected an assurance he did not feel. Stoic training helped.

Menophilus got up, and stretched, working the numbness out of his limbs. When he felt ready, he patted the young man on the shoulder, and set off. Barbius followed close; being left alone possibly seeming the worse of two evils.

They went down crabwise, peering at the ground. With each step, Menophilus first put down just a little of his weight on the side of his foot, feeling for twigs which might snap, stones which could turn, before transferring the whole onto the sole of his boot. Often he paused to listen. Staring through the trees, taking care not to look at the fires glowing between the tree trunks, he tried to ascertain their position.

An owl glided overhead on silent, pale wings.

Menophilus remained still for a time after its passing, before resuming his painstaking descent, angling a little downstream.

In a wood at night, fear in your heart, time and distance lost all exactitude. For eternity the river remained as far as ever, then they were standing on its brink. They retreated a few paces uphill. Each pressed hard against a willow, trying to merge into their shapes, as if hoping to effect some unlikely metamorphosis.

Menophilus could smell the fish in the river, the mud and decayed leaves along its bank. He schooled himself to patience. A brief sojourn in an alien land.

Someone was approaching through the trees. In the dark, Menophilus gazed to the side of the figure, the better to see.

The soldier passed by closer than a child could throw a stone. He went down and stood on the riverbank, fumbled with his belt and trousers.

Softly humming a tune – an old marching song – Menophilus stepped out from behind the tree trunk. He made no attempt to be quiet as he walked down.

The soldier half turned; a stream of piss arcing in front.

‘Ave,’ Menophilus said.

‘Ave,’ the soldier grunted, and returned to concentrate his aim into the water.

Menophilus unsheathed the blade, and had it at his throat in one movement.

‘No noise.’

‘Please, no. Please, do not kill me.’ The soldier spoke quietly, fighting his terror.

‘Death is your last concern.’

‘Please …’

‘Answer my questions. No one will know. It will be as if this never happened.’

‘Anything …’

Menophilus was aware of Barbius nearby, but hanging back.

‘What other troops are with the 10th Legion?’

The soldier hesitated.

Menophilus let the edge of the blade slide over the soft flesh.

Any resolve broken, the man started to talk. ‘Detachments of all the other three Pannonian Legions; about four thousand swords.’

‘Who commands?’

‘Flavius Vopiscus.’

‘Where are Maximinus and the rest of the field army?’

‘Still on the far side of the Alps.’

‘Where?’

‘At Emona.’ For his life, the soldier would volunteer anything he knew. ‘They will not march until they get word the pontoon is ready. Supplies are short. Better the forces are separate.’

Menophilus calculated distances, rates of march. If the bridge was finished tomorrow or the day after, another day for a messenger to ride post-haste to Emona, perhaps four more days for the main force …

The blow took him unawares. He doubled up, clasping his stomach.

The soldier was off, crashing through the undergrowth, clutching up his trousers.

Menophilus dragged air into his chest, tried to get enough to shout at Barbius to stop the soldier.

The young equestrian was rooted, like some autochthonous warrior half-emerged from the soil.

‘Enemy in sight! Spies!’ the soldier was yelling as he ran.

Menophilus got his breath. Too late. He straightened up, hissed at Barbius: ‘Run!’

Barbius was off like a hare.

Menophilus, sword still in his right hand, gathered up the scabbard in his left, and set off after.

Roots clutched at his feet. Branches whipped his face. The hot sting of blood on his cheek. A searing pain in his chest.

Barbius was in front, a little higher up the bank.

They fled south.

From behind came the ring of a trumpet sounding the alarm, the bark of orders.

Menophilus burst out onto the track. No time to look up at the farm. Too busy watching his feet. Barbius already gone into the trees beyond.

Once Menophilus stumbled, almost fell. When he looked up, there were two soldiers ahead off to the right, indistinct in the gloom. The men watching the farm? No, there were too many, four or five.

‘This way!’

Menophilus angled away from the soldiers.

Barbius ran straight towards them.

‘This way, you fool.’

A sword cut from nowhere. Menophilus blocked awkwardly. The hilt slipped from his grip. He grabbed the wrist of his assailant’s sword arm. The man had him by the throat. They wrestled, boots stamping for purchase. An ungainly, macabre bout.

Slammed back against a tree, Menophilus’ fingers closed on the dagger in his belt. He tugged it free, punched it into the man’s flank.

The soldier went down, cursing, hands plucking at the embedded blade. Not dead yet, but no further threat.

Menophilus was free. Unarmed, but free.

Through the wood, he could see Barbius. The youth was ringed by soldiers.

Menophilus scrabbled across the forest floor, hunting his sword.

Barbius had dropped his blade, was sinking to his knees, begging.

The metal pommel, the worn leather back in Menophilus’ hand. He looked across at Barbius. Five to one; no hope in those odds. Menophilus stood, irresolute. The life of the youth, his own life, weighed against the cause.

Barbius’ eyes were bright with terror. He stretched out his hands in supplication. It did him no good. A soldier hacked down at his head.

Menophilus turned, and ran.

A lightning-blasted tree, shimmering white.

‘Decus,’ came the challenge.

‘Tutamen,’ Menophilus gasped the response.

Strong hands helped him into the clearing. Most of the troopers were in the saddle. The Optio gave him a leg up.

‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’ The junior officer was good.

‘Aquileia,’ Menophilus said. ‘Not the way we came. Due west, across the open countryside.’

Once clear of the treeline, there was no imminent danger. The enemy had no horsemen. They went at a canter, skirting orchards, clattering between the pruned-back lines of vines and the huge, round empty barrels. It was near dawn. The stars fading.

Barbius was dead. Menophilus would have to tell his father. There were practicalities to consider. The father had charge of the walls of Aquileia.

The youth was dead, because Menophilus had abandoned him. Another thing on his conscience, another repulsive stain on his soul. There were more than enough already. Gordian had ordered him to kill Vitalianus, the Praetorian Prefect. He had gone so much further. On his own initiative he had murdered Sabinus, the art-loving Prefect of the City; he had beaten his brains out with the leg of a chair. No one had instructed him to release the barbarian hostages, to send Cniva the Goth and Abanchus the Sarmatian to unleash their tribesmen on the Roman provinces along the Danube. All in the name of freedom, in the name of a cause. Freedom bought at the price of innocent blood. A cause left leaderless by the death of his friends.

He had to believe it was worthwhile. Maximinus was a tyrant. Mad, vicious, beyond redemption, it was Menophilus’ duty – as a Stoic, as a man – to tear him from the throne, to free the Res Publica. Perhaps Vitalianus and Sabinus had not been irredeemable, but they had supported the tyrant. They had to die. The warriors of Cniva and Abanchus would draw troops away from the army of the tyrant, make possible the overthrow of Maximinus. Duty was a hard taskmaster, war a terrible teacher.

As they neared Aquileia, the sun came up. Menophilus wondered where his duty lay now. His friends were dead. The Senate would elect a new Emperor from among the Board of Twenty. Doubtless, on receipt of that news, some members of the Twenty would abandon their posts, and ride for Rome. Menophilus would not. He would remain, defend Aquileia to the last, do his duty. Remain like a headland against which the waves would break; he would stand firm, until the storm subsided, or he was overthrown and found release.