The Pillars of Rome

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The image of that eagle drawn in the sand returned to Aulus soon enough, though not to haunt him. The battle was over with few casualties and the enemy, judging by the bodies at the bottom of the wooden wall, had suffered badly. Aulus was surprised, himself, at the feeling of inner peace; he felt like a traveller who had come to a safe haven, after a difficult, dangerous journey. His fate was in the hands of the gods now and that one fact seemed to release him from all his cares and there was no time, before he called his men together, in which to review his life, to examine his soul. He would meet his destiny without that luxury, simply because there was too much to do.

‘They’ll come again during darkness, if only to keep us awake.’

Aulus paused because he disliked the words forming in his mind and was reluctant to use them, never having been comfortable with character assassination, especially with a member of his own class. Not that his opinion of their titular commander was a secret and these men had served under Vegetius for years, so any implied criticism of the governor would barely affect the deep contempt in which his soldiers already held the man.

‘I don’t think we can anticipate any help. For reasons I don’t yet know, Vegetius Flaminus has not sent the troops I requested.’ There was a grumbling in the ranks at that. He saw Cholon making his way amongst the men, doling out the remaining food. That alone would tell them part of what he intended, but not all. ‘If we stay here we will die, and to no purpose, but to get away, in one piece, will be damned hard unless we can inflict some kind of check on the enemy. We have to achieve two things. The first is to make them think we’re more numerous than we actually are and the second is to give them such a bloody nose, during one of their attacks, that they’ll draw off until daylight.’

The men listened eagerly as Aulus explained his plan. They knew it was desperate, just as he did himself, yet they all accepted the fiction that success would save them. No one articulated the truth that they would not all get away; there would be casualties and even if they were alive they would have to be left behind, but the thought was present and that sent a shiver through the ranks. Those who had not seen the atrocities inflicted on Trebonius and his men had certainly heard about them.

‘Once we’re done, successful or not, those still fit and garbed are to immediately dump their armour. Everyone to take food, water and a single weapon, then head north. Stay together on the road until daylight. As soon as you can see enough to obscure your trail, split up into smaller parties and head inland. Make your way back to the legions as best you can.’

Aulus gave the orders that would split the men into two equal groups, then called on Cholon. Taking him by the arm, he hauled his servant out of earshot.

‘I want you out of here.’ He could see his servant start to protest in the glare from the flickering fire. ‘You’re no soldier, Cholon. Therefore, you are useless in a fight.’

‘I am still your body slave,’ replied the Greek.

‘Do you realise that I cannot leave here?’

‘I suspected as much, master.’

‘Yet you still want to stay?’

‘When they tell stories of the death of Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus, perhaps they will mention that his faithful Greek body slave…’

Aulus cut in. ‘You will be freed in my will.’

Cholon swallowed hard, paused for a moment, then took up exactly where he left off. ‘…his faithful Greek body slave stayed true to his master. Perhaps, in legend, I will become a hero too.’

‘Are you so sure that I will become a hero?’

There was a slight catch in Cholon’s voice as he replied. ‘You are now, and you always have been to me.’

‘We’re not so very different, we Greeks and Romans,’ said Aulus softly. ‘All we crave is the good opinion of posterity.’

Cholon would have loved the right to proffer one distinction. How very different things would have been if they had both been Greek. Aulus, less the upright Roman, would, in a Hellenistic society, have allowed the affection they felt for each other some expression. He had watched this man, whom he loved, suffer, just as he himself had suffered, seeing his love ignored. But at least Aulus had been kind to him, unlike his Claudia, whose coldness after the birth of that child had wounded Aulus cruelly. If only he had turned to Cholon then, he would have found all the solace he required. The Greek slave sighed inwardly. It was not to be.

‘There is something I want you very much to do. It’s important, and you are the only person I can entrust to carry it out.’

Cholon had known Aulus too long to be fooled. Whatever task his master had thought up, it had just this very second germinated in his mind, even if he did try to make it sound as though he had been thinking it all along.

‘Some of these men will die, either here, or before they get back to Salonae. I feel responsible for that. I want you to copy the regimental roll and note the names of all those who don’t return.’

His servant cut in. ‘That assumes I shall survive.’

A hard note crept into Aulus’s voice but Cholon was not fooled by that either. His master would have to order him to leave and he was cranking himself up to it.

‘You might not. You might fall off your horse. If you do, get up and walk. I want you to seek out the dependants of those who fall and make sure that they are provided for. Now be so good as to fetch something to write with, so that I can give you a codicil to add to my will.’

Clodius looked up at the stars. No singing now, but he was talking to his gods nevertheless. Would he survive the night? He would be lucky to make it through the initial attack. All very well for the general to say that slopes too steep to climb were not too steep to run down, but he could break a leg if he failed to find one of the enemy to cushion his fall. A whispered command was passed along the line and Clodius pushed forward to the edge of the steep incline. The torches on the palisade cast a strong light on the area just in front of the wooden stakes, at the same time throwing the stoop itself into darkness so that the spears and helmets lining the wall were barely visible. They didn’t look like much from up here; perhaps, in the gloom, the attackers would think the wall was manned with the full Roman strength. He could not see any of the men crouched below the parapet. They were completely in shadow.

Noise travels upwards, especially in a confined space, so those attackers, coming down the gorge, gave ample notice of their approach. They would have to charge the wall but if Aulus was right it would be a half-hearted assault, designed to keep the defenders on their toes rather than to inflict any real damage. It was up to those left on the wall, if they did attack, to tempt them to a proper fight so that once committed, the men on the hills could drop behind them and hopefully kill the entire force. Clodius grasped his spear as the attackers crept forward; when they reached the circle of light they emitted a fearsome yell and rushed forward. They only made half the distance, threw a few untipped spears wildly, before immediately running back out of range. So far so good, the general had been right, they were trying to draw fire, keep the defenders awake and deplete the Roman stock of javelins. When nothing happened at all, confusion set in and they ran forward again, with still no response from those on the wall.

Would they fall for it? Would they look closely and see that the shields and spears were just that, with nothing behind them. A few minutes passed then suddenly, without any preliminary shout, a body of properly armed spearmen rushed forward. They got much closer, hurling their weapons with some accuracy before turning round and heading back quickly to join their comrades. Most of the spears missed, some flying harmlessly past, while others stuck in the wooden wall. But three or four struck their targets, and the shields and helmets, supported only by a thin piece of wood, fell clattering to the ground.

Someone had command down below. There followed a single shout as he ordered his men to take the palisade and suddenly the well-lit area was full of running, screaming men. The defenders, crouched down behind the wooden stakes, kept their places until the attackers reached the wall and started to climb. Clodius, tensed like a coiled snake, heard Aulus give the command. With his fellow legionaries he launched himself forward and leapt down the sheer side of the gorge, fighting to keep his balance as it steepened, feeling as if he was flying as his feet took what purchase they could on the near perpendicular surface. In a blur, he saw the Romans who had been hiding stand up and engage the attackers climbing the wall and saw the faces raised in panic at the sound and fury of a hundred and fifty men attacking from above. Clodius hurled his spear into one of those faces only a split second before he landed right on top of the man it had struck, his momentum carrying them both down to the ground.

The gorge was full of fighting men, with the original attackers not only cut off, but with a great number of their enemies actually in their midst. Some threw down their weapons, only to die unarmed; this was no time to give quarter. Others fought furiously, against odds that lengthened against them every minute. Clodius was on his feet now. One leg would not support him at all and he wondered if it was broken. His back was to the rocky side of the defile and he hacked and slashed at anyone who came within his reach. Time seemed to stand still and it was impossible to make any sense of the melee before him; what was happening beyond he could not see. Then a space cleared in front of him; the fight was slackening, as the enemy fell, wounded or dead. Those Romans who had dropped down into the gorge were pressing the rebels back against the wooded wall, there to die from overhead spear thrusts. The fight moved past Clodius and he tried to follow but fell flat, into the sandy, blood-soaked soil.

He hauled himself back on to his good foot and leant back on the rocks, cursing under his breath. Clodius had not even felt the sword slash across the back of his knee, but he could feel the pain now, getting steadily worse. His leg was gone; it would not support his weight and regardless of the fact that the general had not actually said it, they all knew that any one who could not walk, could not escape.

The dead, Romans and a number of their enemies, were lashed to the palisade in full legionary dress. The wounded lay on the step ready to haul themselves up when ordered. Futile in itself, any resistance they could offer would give to their departed comrades a better chance of survival. They had pulled the remaining bodies away from the base of the wooded wall and heaped them up in a pile further down the gorge. When their enemies came, they would need to clamber over their dead before they could assault the defences.

Clodius, lying back with his eyes closed, rubbed the rough bandage that encased his leg. Sleep was impossible with the pain he felt, yet he knew he was in better straits than some of his fellows. Aulus had put several of the more seriously wounded out of their misery, but the cries of suffering men filled the night air, despite the orders to remain silent. There was a space beside him and he felt, rather than saw, someone fill it, the air brushing against his shoulder. He opened his eyes to find that Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus himself had sat down.

‘How long now, General?’ he asked.

‘It will be daylight in an hour. They’re sure to attack at first light.’

‘Just before’s a good time,’ said Clodius.

It was hardly customary for a ranker like him to talk thus to a senior officer but approaching death made such distinctions superfluous. Besides, this general seemed to be the most approachable of men. Aulus realised that he was sitting beside the man who had drawn that eagle in the earth. He looked at him, noting the grey in the hair and the lines on the face.

‘How long have you been in service, soldier?’

‘Seven years now, General. I was in the legions before that mind. Helped to capture this godforsaken place in the year of the Scipian consulship.’

‘Recalled?’ asked Aulus.

Clodius laughed. No point in keeping up the pretence of being Dabo now, so he informed Aulus about his background and why it had forced him back into the legions. Given a chance to moan he took it with a vengeance, though his normal bitter tone was gone. He told the general of how he had switched places with Dabo and the bargain they had struck. Clodius could not help noticing that this information seemed to distress him.

‘I sent my slave, Cholon, away with instructions to seek out your dependants. If he’s not careful, the man who’s prospered by your service stands to gain even more with your death.’

‘He wouldn’t dare,’ said Clodius, angrily, but without much conviction.

‘You have dependants, I take it?’

‘I do, General, three grown-up children. They’ve left home now, so they don’t really count, but I have a wife and an eleven-year-old boy, though he’s not my own flesh and blood.’

‘Adopted?’

‘Not proper, your honour. I found him deep in the woods one morning. Been exposed.’

‘In the woods?’ asked Aulus.

‘That’s right. Whoever left him didn’t want him found. If I hadn’t been drinkin’ the night before I’d never have come across the poor little sod in the first place.’ It was plain that Aulus could not make sense of this, so he explained. ‘When I’m a bit the worse for drink, I tend to go out into the country and sing to the gods.’ And a fat lot of good it’s done me, he thought to himself. When he spoke his tone was hard. ‘That’s how I found Aquila.’

Aulus stiffened slightly. ‘That’s the boy’s name, Aquila?’

All Clodius’s resentment vanished, hearing the general say the name; there was no point in it now. Instead he recalled the little fellow who had relished being thrown in the air, who paddled in the river like a dog and called him Papa.

‘Fine little fellow, your honour, hair like fresh straw and tall for his age. Just coming up four the last time I clapped eyes on him. I ain’t seen him in over seven years on account of that bastard Flaccus, saving your presence, but I’ve heard he’s growing tall and straight, head and shoulders above his mates. We tried to find out who he belonged to.’

Aulus’s mind drifted back to that day, so many years before, when he had placed a small bundle in a thickly wooded spot. Nothing in his life had ever been the same since then. ‘If he was left in the woods you might have been unwelcome.’

Clodius slapped the wood of the step with his hand. ‘That’s what I said but my missus wouldn’t have it. You see, your honour, he had this charm around his foot, a valuable one. My missus, Fulmina, insisted someone wanted him alive and that charm was the signal. Happen she was right. We looked, but we couldn’t find out who he belonged to. I wanted to sell that charm, it being gold, but Fulmina wouldn’t hear of it on account of her dreams. Women!’

Aulus was still thinking of the night that child was born and the events leading up to it. His silence allowed Clodius to continue. ‘Said our little foundling child was destined to be a great soldier. Fulmina, in her dreams, saw him in a triumphal chariot, with a laurel wreath round his head. You know what women are like about dreams. Any road, we stopped looking. Ask me, whoever sired him wasn’t from round my area.’

‘Which is?’

‘Near Aprilium, General.’

‘How near?’ asked Aulus sharply.

‘Half a league south, just off the Via Appia.’

‘And the boy’s how old?’

Clodius had to use his fingers to be sure. ‘Eleven, since it’s summer now. I found him in mid-Febricus, the morning after the Feast of Lupercalia.’

Aulus’s voice was hard now. ‘You’re near the mountains, are you not?’

‘Not near, exactly, your honour, but you can see them from my place. There’s one, an extinct volcano, which has a top shaped just like a votive cup…’

Clodius stopped talking as he heard the general swear softly. It had no force in it, rather it was the curse of a man who had failed. All the eagerness was gone from his voice. ‘Yesterday, I came across you when you were drawing something in the sand?’

‘Well, I have to admit it’s upset me. As I said, when we found the lad, he had this charm on his foot. Gold it was, with the wings picked out to show the feathers.’

‘Wings?’

‘Yes, General. Did I not say? The charm was shaped like an eagle in flight. If only she’d let me sell it, I wouldn’t be here now.’ Clodius finally put some passion into his voice. ‘Damn Fulmina and her dreams.’

A great gust of air left Aulus’s lungs. He recalled Claudia, that day in the back of that wagon in Spain, and realised with a stab of despair that the truth had been there in her eyes for him to see, but he had been too stupid, or too relieved that she had survived, to see it. Like dice slowly rolling to show Venus, each act, each word, each long silence of hers fell into a pattern that represented the truth; that the child in her womb was there through desire not violation; that the infant he had tried to dispose of was alive. It was with a sense of despair that the one thing he had prized above everything, his honour, had made him a fool, such a one that the only word for it was Hubris.

‘I shouldn’t go sneering at women’s dreams, my friend,’ said Aulus sadly. ‘They have a way of coming true.’

‘They’re moving, General,’ called a voice from along the other end of the palisade. Aulus looked up. The first tinge of the false dawn lit the sky.

‘You were right, soldier,’ he said, pulling himself up. He reached down to help Clodius to his feet.

‘Could you help me lash myself to the palisade, General? I can’t fight balanced on one leg.’ Aulus took the rope and wound it round the spiked top of the defensive wall. Clodius spoke again, bitterness in his voice, moaning to the very end. ‘Don’t suppose we’ll get a proper burial either.’

‘I’ve done my best, soldier,’ his commander replied.

Clodius’s thoughts had moved on, so he failed even to register the answer. ‘General, I don’t suppose you have a spare coin on you.’

Aulus could not know that for Clodius scrounging was a lifetime’s habit. He reached into his belt and produced a gold denarii, placing it in the legionary’s hand. ‘Make sure you don’t swallow it.’

Clodius looked down at the coin, winking at him in the light from the flickering torches. His voice was low and even. ‘A piece of my own gold, at last!’

The enemy had removed their dead and in doing so had slowed their attack so, by the time they were ready, the sky was lightening to the east. They approached the palisade, stopping just out of range.

‘Gold,’ said Clodius in a louder voice to the man nearest him, holding up the coin. ‘It’s brought me nothing but trouble.’

He slipped it under his tongue just as the enemy started their charge. He wasn’t thinking about approaching death, he was wondering what his general was doing carrying a torch, now that it was getting light.

The gaps were too big, they couldn’t hold the line. The fighting was on the step now, with the wounded men at an even greater disadvantage. Aulus was bleeding from more than a dozen wounds, so there was no point in waiting any longer. He managed to stab the enemy nearest to him, creating enough of an opening, though it was hard to push his way out, with all these men intent on killing him. His mind registered the spear that gored its way into his side and the torch nearly dropped out of his hand, but he managed to hold on to it, long enough to drop it onto the oil-soaked brushwood stacked against the palisade. The flames shot up immediately from the tinder dry faggots.

‘A proper burial, soldier,’ he said.

No one heard the words since no Roman was alive to listen. Aulus died, as the flames licked around him, from dozens of sword thrusts, in his mind trying to conjure up an image of a small boy, with red-gold hair and a strange name, somehow mixed up with a prophecy he had heard when only a child himself. He saw the eagle, his destiny, drawn in the sand and his lips formed the word ‘Aquila’. But there was no breath left to say it, only the vision of that same object round Claudia’s neck, mixed with curses and another image; that of the man who had owned it originally, a man he would never now have the pleasure of killing.

Several leagues to the north Flaccus and Cholon sat quietly on their horses. The centurion was near dead with fatigue, the slave red-eyed from copious weeping. They could see, to the south of them, the smoke billowing up from the burning wall; smoke that marked the funeral pyre of Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus and his remaining legionaries.