Fire and Sword. Harry Sidebottom
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,