Читать книгу Fire and Sword - Harry Sidebottom - Страница 17

Northern Italy

The Aesontius River, Four Days before the Nones of April, AD238

Menophilus was back at the bridge over the Aesontius, gazing down at the Pons Sonti from almost the same place. But the circumstances were different. Last time it had been night, now it was day. Then he had ten men, now four hundred. Then he had been hunted, now he was the hunter. The gods had looked graciously on his endeavours.

It did not do to tempt fate. If the day went well, if he survived, he would make an offering. Nothing extravagant, not an empty show of ostentatious wealth, but give the gods something he valued. The small, silver memento mori of a skeleton would serve. He had worn it on his belt for years, thought it brought him luck. He would dedicate it in the Temple of Belenus in Aquileia. Menophilus smiled. Once he had thought he was on the path to Stoic wisdom, now he accepted that he had not advanced a step. Far from a sage, he was still a fool mired in superstition.

If the gods had not had a hand, a strange combination of efficiency and negligence on the part of his enemy had given Menophilus this opportunity. With the competence of years in the field, Flavius Vopiscus had built the pontoon bridge, got the siege train across the river, and marched off towards his objective. All had been accomplished with alacrity, yet, displaying a carelessness that could only have come from an utter contempt for those ranged against him, Maximinus’ general had not thought it necessary to bring any cavalry. It had made the task of Menophilus’ scouts simple. Operating in pairs – one from the 1st Cohort, and a local volunteer – they had kept their distance. Menophilus had no wish to disturb the complacency of Vopiscus. All he needed to know was the whereabouts of Vopiscus’ main force.

The four thousand or so Pannonian legionaries that comprised the advance guard of the imperial army were camped, along with the wagons carrying the disassembled siege engines, ten miles to the west on the Via Gemina, about six miles north-east of Aquileia. Informed of that, Menophilus’ strategy had been obvious. A night march from the city, east along the Via Flavia to reach the river, and then follow the stream north. Get behind Vopiscus, approach the bridge without his knowledge. The farm had been a worry. Half a mile from the site of the Pons Sonti, when Menophilus had been here before, it had contained an enemy piquet. They could warn the garrison of the bridge. Extraordinarily – yet more evidence of lax overconfidence – the guard had been withdrawn from the farm. The house, barn, sheds, and huge wine barrels were all empty. Now Menophilus’ auxiliaries were resting in the farmstead, eating cold rations as an early midday meal, waiting for his signal.

Menophilus himself was back in the woods, lying, wrapped in a dark cloak, among the beech trees and elms, under whose boughs young Barbius had been hacked to death. He pushed the thought away. Guilt served no purpose. What could not be changed was an irrelevance. The youth’s father would not see it, but death was nothing. It was a release.

The river was even higher than before. Its waters surging through the roots of the willows on its banks, breaking white over the remains of the piers of the demolished stone bridge, tugging with immeasurable force at the pontoons of its replacement. The little rowing boat had gone; perhaps, if carelessly moored, it might have been swept downstream by the force of the current.

Waiting was the hardest part of battle. Menophilus did not fear death. What was life but standing in the breech, awaiting the barbed arrow? Nothing was certain in war – one should never take the favour of the gods for granted – but he had few doubts about the outcome of the day. Below him less than a hundred men of the 10th Legion Gemina still guarded the nearer, western end of the bridge. There were more enemy troops at the far end; among the trees, their numbers could not be gauged, but there was no reason to think them any greater. Menophilus outnumbered the foe, by two to one, or more. Surprise was on his side. Wait for the right moment, when the legionaries were at their most unready, a sudden charge, seize the bridge, and sever the cables securing the pontoons. The river would do the rest. Vopiscus, the advance guard and the siege train, would be isolated on the Aquileian side of the Aesontius. Maximinus and the main army left stranded on the other. It would not win the war, but it would delay and frustrate the enemy.

The eight men who would wield the axes and cut the bridge were volunteers. Menophilus had consulted an engineer, a sardonic individual called Patricius. Part the cables holding together the two central pontoons, and the river in spate would tear the rest of the structure apart in moments. The volunteers had been promised great rewards, comparable to those first over the walls in the storming of a city. Their names were all listed, as were those of their dependants. In the myth Horatius, the bridge demolished behind him, had swum the Tiber in full armour. Today, Patricius assured him, many, perhaps all of the men with axes would be claimed by the Aesontius.

Menophilus watched the grey-green water rushing past, inexorable and carrying all manner of flotsam. His eyes rested on a branch, a drowned cat, another branch; always changing, always the same. When he had been here before, his duty had seemed clear. The Gordiani were dead. His post was at Aquileia. Who the Senate placed upon the throne was none of his concern. He would remain at Aquileia, defend it to the best of his ability, defend it to the last. Now he was not so sure. Had grief warped his judgement? Maecia Faustina and the boy Junius Balbus remained in Rome. Young Gordian had never been close to his sister or nephew, but they were his blood. With a new regime, the relatives of the old rulers were at risk. The house of the Gordiani was wealthy, its stored-up treasures might provoke the cupidity of any new Emperor. Should Menophilus have left the defence of Aquileia to his colleague Crispinus? Should he have gone to Rome to safeguard the Domus Rostrata and its inhabitants, to protect a widow and her child?

What of the pitiful remnants of the familia that had escaped from the disaster in Africa? With old Valens the Chamberlain had come Gordian’s concubine, Parthenope. She was pregnant. If Parthenope had not been a slave, and if the child she carried was a boy, he would have been heir to the throne. For a Stoic, freedom and slavery were not defined by the laws. Inside every individual was a spark of the divine Logos. If his soul was servile, the King of Persia was a slave, while, if such was his nature, the lowest slave in chains could be a King. Outside Rome, in the Villa Praenestina, there were already many slaves fathered by the younger Gordian. Somehow this unborn child was different. Menophilus had dined and laughed with Parthenope. It did not seem right that his friend’s posthumous child should live in servitude.

Down by the river, smoke was curling up from the cook fires. The legionaries were beginning to mill about, starting to prepare food. Only ten of them still stood to arms, a few yards out in the road. It was time.

Menophilus turned to Flavius Adiutor, the Prefect of the 1st Cohort.

‘Bring up your men. The show should begin.’

With heightened senses, Menophilus tracked the departure of Adiutor; the chink of his armour, the snap of each twig, the suck of mud at his boots. It had rained very hard in the night, but the blustery wind from the south-west had blown away the clouds. The sun shone from a ceramic blue sky, dappling the road where the trees overhung. Yet if the wind remained set, it would bring more storms.

No body of troops ever moved in silence. You could order them to muffle their arms, wrap their boots in rags, but it was almost impossible to convince them of the necessity of removing the good luck charms from their belts. What was the point of silence, if it might occasion your death? Menophilus was in no position to judge them. He heard the jingle of ornaments of Adiutor’s men before the tramp of their feet. Eyes never leaving the legionaries down by the bridge, he could not help grinning at his own prescience. The customary levity of meal times – the shouts and songs, the clatter of utensils – would mask the sound of the approaching auxiliaries. The timing was perfect, and his men were fed, the enemy hungry. An empty belly sapped a man’s courage.

Menophilus warned himself against taking pride in his foresight. Do not tempt the gods. Worldly success was worthless.

Slipping back through the wood, Menophilus waited for the auxiliaries around the bend in the road, out of sight from the bridge. They came into view. Five Centuries, steel helmets, mailcoats, weather-beaten faces above oval shields; these were hard men, veterans transferred from the East by Maximinus for his northern wars. Now they would fight against the Thracian. All men were bound to fate, like a dog to a cart.

They halted, and Menophilus went through the plan once again with Adiutor and the Centurions. One Century was to remain here, as a reserve. The others were to go down to the river. Around the corner, it was less than a hundred paces to the Aesontius. They should charge at a jog, maintain silence, keep their order, shout their war cry just before contact, chase the guards away. Two Centuries were to stay on this western bank, no unnecessary killing, accept the surrender and disarm any legionaries who had not fled. The leading two Centuries were to follow those who escaped across the bridge, drive off the troops at the far end, then return. They should leave behind just two Contubernia on the eastern side. Twenty men should suffice – the walkway of the pontoon was no more than eight paces wide. Menophilus would send in the men who would cut the bridge. When it was about to give, the two Contubernia would be recalled.

The volunteers with axes fell in behind Menophilus, at the side of the road. The officers returned to their stations. No trumpet calls or bellowed orders – these troops knew their business – just a nod from Adiutor, and they set off.

Menophilus moved through the trees parallel to the column to find a point of vantage. The forlorn hope hefted their axes, and followed him. It was best not to think about them.

The leading auxiliaries were around the bend, clattering twenty or more paces down the incline, before the alarm was raised.

Enemy in sight! Many voices were shouting at once.

The ten legionaries in the piquet raised their shields, shuffled together, all the time yelling for support, and glancing over their shoulders. Their companions ran here and there to snatch up their weapons. They were getting in each other’s way, cursing and shouting, stumbling and tripping over cooking pots and all the other impedimenta of a camp in uproar.

Watching from above, Menophilus did not let himself smile. Never tempt fate.

Ulpia Galatarum! Menophilus’ men shouted as one.

When the war cry of the auxiliary Cohort rang out, the legionaries broke. Taken unawares, in complete disorder, faced by an avalanche of steel, they could not be blamed. Some ran into the woods on either side. More dropped their arms, held out their hands in supplication. Yet the majority turned and rushed to the bridge. There they jostled and fought to get onto the pontoon, and then, casting shields into the water, they ran pell-mell across.

The two designated Centuries of auxiliaries were hard on their heels.

With more warning, the legionaries at the far end of the bridge had time to form up, shoulder to shoulder, shields overlapping, blocking the walkway. But it was their own tent-mates who crashed into them, hauling their shields aside, desperate to get away. Like a badly made dam, the shieldwall held for a moment, then collapsed under the pressure. On the eastern side of the Aesontius, figures vanished up the bank, into the woodland. Resistance was at an end.

Going down to the bridge, Menophilus and the volunteers waited for the troops to stream back across. Adiutor was everywhere, roaring commands, rounding up prisoners, restoring order. The operation could not have gone better: a bloodless battle, a victory without tears.

Walking out onto the now empty bridge, Menophilus’ boots sounded hollow on the planks. A few feet below those thin boards, he could sense the rush of the river. The pontoon seemed a fragile, impertinent thing in the face of such power. Reaching the centre, he took stock. The post of twenty auxiliaries at the eastern end, Adiutor getting the remainder, and the thirty or so prisoners, under control on the western bank. All was in hand, but there was no reason to delay.

As Menophilus turned to the waiting men a cloud darkened the sun.

‘Cut the cable holding the anchor of this barge.’

The men did not move. They were staring at the sky.

‘There is no time to waste.’

The nearest soldier dropped his axe, raised his arms to the heavens. Another sank to his knees. They all began to shout; incoherent, terrified prayers.

It was getting darker; more like night than day.

Menophilus looked up. The sun was vanishing. Not a cloud, but an eclipse.

If the sun falls, it brings desolation to men! The soldiers were wailing and sobbing like women. Desolation and death!

‘It is nothing,’ Menophilus called, ‘an eclipse, a shadow.’

Lost in dread, the men ignored him.

‘It is not a portent. It is just the moon passing between the earth and the sun.’

Pray to the gods, pray for the return of the sun!

Menophilus took off his cloak, held it in front of the eyes of the nearest soldier. ‘Is this alarming? Is this a terrible omen?’

He whisked the cloak away. The man stared at him, open-mouthed, not speaking.

‘What is the difference, except the eclipse is caused by something bigger than my cloak?’

In the murk, the soldiers stopped weeping. They stood, trembling like frightened animals.

‘You are soldiers of Rome, not irrational barbarians, or effete easterners. Master yourselves, remember you are men, recover your discipline.’

His words were greeted by an uncertain silence. Not all men were amenable to reason.

‘The gods control the cosmos.’ Which was true in a sense. ‘When we return safe to Aquileia, we will sacrifice an ox to Helios, the sun god, another to the god of the river. See, the moon is passing from the face of the sun, the light returning.’

With the daylight, the men’s courage returned. Some looked shamefaced, but others were still evidently shaken. Hard labour and the very real dangers of the river in spate would take their minds off the eclipse.

The downpour in the night had combined with the spring melt from the mountains to make the Aesontius rise dangerously. The barges were riding higher than allowed for by the engineers who had built the bridge. The anchor of the central one on which Menophilus stood had dragged. Its cable was now at an angle of no more than forty degrees; not enough to hold against the stream were the barge not lashed to those on either side. The others were much the same. The anchor of one, however, had caught. It was now dragging the prow of its barge down towards the surface. The pontoon was under intense stress, yet it would stand, unless something intervened. Menophilus gave the order to cut the anchor rope.

As two of the men clambered onto the prow, and prepared to wield their axes, a messenger ran back from the advance post on the enemy side of the river. There were troops moving in the woods to the east. Menophilus kept the runner with him. He could not see the enemy yet. Anyway, there was nothing to be done. The handful of men on the far bank would have to hold.

The axes bit down into the cable. It was thick, waterlogged, taut as if woven of steel. The impact of every stroke vibrated through the barge. Suddenly, like a clap of thunder, it parted. One end shot away into the river like a water snake. The other narrowly missed the legs of one of the axemen. The decking shifted under Menophilus’ feet, the barge wallowed, lurched backwards. The screech of tortured ropes and wood was loud over the roar of the river. The additional strain pulled at the cables that ran laterally from barge to barge, and up the risers to the banks.

Originally Menophilus’ plan had been to sever the bindings from the Aquileian bank. It would have been infinitely safer for those doing the cutting. Yet, Patricius had told him there was the possibility that the pontoon would swing like a hinge, and many of the barges might come to rest against the far bank. If undamaged, they would allow Maximinus’ men to quickly repair the bridge. Menophilus had taken the engineer’s advice, and made the hard decision to break the centre of the structure.

The runner was sent to recall the outpost from the far end of the bridge.

Menophilus spotted a flash of movement in the treeline on the opposite shore. The enemy had rallied fast, much faster than he had expected. There was not a moment to lose. The bridge must be destroyed before it could be retaken.

The men of the piquet ran past, boots drumming on the woodwork. Menophilus told the axemen to turn their attentions to the ropes securing the barge to its neighbour. They hefted their blades. He hesitated, trying to think of something to say. Nothing came to him. He turned, and ran after the others, towards safety.

Looking back from the bank, the scene was set out like some grand spectacle in the Flavian Amphitheatre: the dark green hills beyond, the pale line of the pontoon crossing the roiling waters of the river. There were two ropes at the prow of the barge, two at the stern. The men worked in pairs, legs braced, blades flashing in the sun.

Now there was a new audience: a Century of enemy legionaries on the far bank. Their Centurion, marked out by his bronze helmet with its jaunty transverse crest, was belabouring them with the vine stick of his office. Again and again he brought it down on their backs, trying to force them to move out onto the bridge. Enduring his blows and imprecations, they would not budge.

A crack echoed above the noise of the river. A rope at the prow of the barge whipped back, dashed one of the axemen to the decking. The rope next to it parted. Another man went down. With an awful inevitability, the pontoon began to give, bowing downstream. The men on their feet dropped their axes, started to run back towards Menophilus and safety. Two loud reports, and the ropes at the stern snapped. The bridge parted, the force of the floodwater forcing its sides apart.

The decking heaved and swayed under the feet of the running men. They staggered, reeling side to side, as if drunk. One went sprawling. Green water spumed up between the planks. Fifty paces to go. Behind them, a barge ripped free, ropes hissing murderously through the air. Then a second, and a third. Thirty paces. The men lurched, fell to their knees, scrabbled forward. Then the walkway in front of them splintered and tipped, and the whole pontoon came apart, unstitched along its entire length.

The heavy barges spun, ramming into each other, crushing everything in between. All of Menophilus’ men were gone, except two. In the chaos of wreckage, they clung to an upright barge. Their shouts could be heard above the din. The barge swung out into midstream, turned side on to the torrent. Slowly, very slowly, it tilted, and overturned. And there was no more shouting.

‘The men are ready, the prisoners secured.’ Adiutor’s voice was flat, betraying no emotion or criticism.

‘Have the men form column of march.’

‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’

Menophilus looked out at the Aesontius, at its waters as they swept the debris downstream, and he felt the relentless, remorseless pounding of guilt. It was like the river; it never stopped.