Blood and Steel

Chapter 19

The West

The Province of Hispania Tarraconensis, the Southern Slopes of the Pyrenees,

The Day before the Ides of March, AD238

In the morning there was fog. A perfect stillness to the shrouded trees. Close up, a drop of water hung on every leaf and branch. Somewhere, out of sight, a songbird sang.

Decius lay on his stomach behind a pine tree, raised on his elbows. The brigands would come soon. He had seen their campfires down the trail last night before the fog descended. They would take their plunder through this pass up to the mountains.

He had nothing but contempt for the mountain tribes. Two centuries since submitting to Rome, they could still barely talk Latin. No better than barbarians, they were the antithesis of Romanitas. Armed, violent and unbiddable, they thought their inaccessibility and their wanderings put them beyond the law. They only came down from the heights to drive their sheep to winter pasture or to raid. Shepherds or brigands, they were one and the same.

Even now the kinsmen of these robbers were grazing their flocks in the meadows of the Iberus and the Sicoris, down around Ilerda and Caesaraugusta. Without these spies, traitors to the imperium posing as innocent drovers, the raiders would not know where to strike. But there was no honour among thieves. A shepherd had been arrested for murder. Brought before Decius in the governor’s court, the man had not denied the killing, but had sought to save his life by betraying his own. Decius looked at him now, trussed up close at hand. His fate was still uncertain. Promises made to his sort were not binding. Decius might execute him yet.

There had been no time to spare. Decius had only had the 1st Cohort Gallica Equitata with him in Caesaraugusta. Of its mounted contingent, sixty were with the standards. It had been two days’ hard ride to this desolate place, by Urbs Victrix and Labitulosa, then turning off the road and scrambling along goat tracks, through the timber from one upland valley to another. They had left the horses in a wooded hollow off to the west, made a corral by tying ropes around the trees. No sooner were they in position the previous evening than the scouts had returned warning of the approach of the bandits.

The fog was lifting from the upper slopes. As it receded, depth returned to the view, and with it the first hints of colour. Decius shifted uncomfortably. He was cold, stiff, and his stomach hurt. Now he could make out the other thirty spread across the incline. Like him, they lay in cover, swaddled in dull blankets, their helmets wrapped in rags. The rest of the soldiers on the far side of the path were still invisible, but he knew they were there.

They had taken their rations before dawn; no fires; hard tack and cold bacon, the wine from their canteens sour on their guts. He had ordered them relieve themselves at a distance. The scent of unwashed men might give them away, without the reek of shit. He had stumbled through the darkness, checking every man was in the place assigned the night before.

Some men, the brave as well as cowards, always found the waiting hard. Decius, tight with expectation, was not one of them. This was what it meant to be a Roman governor. Not lolling on silken cushions, composing artful poetry, or listening to elaborate oratory in marble halls, but lying rough, weapons in hand, ready to fight. This was his inheritance. He was from the northern lands up towards the Danube, where antique Roman virtus still lived. Generations had passed since his ancestors had migrated from Italy. Every one of them had faced the barbarians. The North bred hard men. None more so than the Emperor Maximinus. There was a man who knew how to fight, knew what it was to be a true Roman.

The sun was a pale white disk. He could make out the opposite slope, tendrils of mist drifting through the trees, but below the pass was still partly obscured. The first noises came to him, disembodied through the fog. A clink of metal, the clop of a hoof, guttural voices; the brigands were coming.

Decius touched a fallen pinecone, the rough bark of the tree. Not long now.

They came up through the haze. Dozens of them, huddled in hooded cloaks against the clammy chill of the morning. They drove mules and packhorses, bulky with sacks. Confident in their territory, they kept no order, had no scouts out.

Decius waited. Let the vanguard pass. Strike the centre of the column, like cutting a snake in half. Come down on them out of the mist, like Hannibal at Lake Trasimene.

Through the dark trunks of the trees, he watched the first of them trudge below him, move off to his right up the track.

Not yet.

More came out of the gloom. Still more. They were strung out. No end to them in sight. At least fifty so far. Some clustered around a big man wearing a helmet with a gaudy scarlet crest. The prisoner had spoken of a bandit leader; Corocotta, the beast of the mountains. The chief and his intimates passed a wineskin from hand to hand.

Health and great joy, to you, Decius thought.

There were four captives with Corocotta, young women, stumbling in tattered clothes. They would have had a bad time of it over the last nights.

Decius clambered to his feet, shrugged off his blanket. Around him, without orders, the soldiers did the same, like antediluvian beasts emerging from the hillside. Decius nodded to the trumpeter. The soldier took a couple of deep breaths, put the instrument to his lips, and blew one loud, clear note.

A babble of voices from down on the track.

The trumpet call was repeated from the far slope.

The tribesmen had stopped. They pushed back their cloaks, fumbled for weapons, heads turning desperately this way and that. The pack animals skittered and milled, boring into each other, barging the men.

‘Throw!’

The soldiers took two or three steps, delicate, almost mincing down the slope. Their right arms snapped forward, and thirty javelins whistled away. A couple of heartbeats later, their steel tips rained down onto the pass. Some thumped into leaf mould, clattered off stones, but several punched deep into flesh. Men and animals screamed.

Decius picked up his shield, hefted it, and drew his sword.

Another flight shot down from the far slope. The brigands wheeled, trying to shield themselves from every direction. A mule bolted back down the path, bowling men out of its way.

‘Charge!’

The trumpeter blew again, the sound booming through the trees.

The troopers were off, bounding down the hill like hunting dogs. Decius took it slower. Most were younger than him, and he wanted to get to the bottom on his feet. Looking across, he saw the rest of his men surging down.

The moment’s inattention almost cost him. His boot stubbed on a root. No chance of stopping, regaining his balance. Momentum gathering, he ran faster and faster to keep from falling.

On the path, a brigand stood in his way. Shield first, Decius ran into him at full speed. The tribesman crashed backwards to the ground. Another slashed at Decius from the right. A wild, untutored blow, Decius stepped back from its arc. Meeting no resistance, the bandit staggered forward to impale himself on Decius’ sword.

The downed man was getting up, another coming up behind him.

Decius retrieved his blade, using his left knee to push the dying brigand away.

His two opponents fanned out, looking to come at him from either side.

Shaping as if to go for the man on his left, Decius sidestepped, and lunged at the other. The bandit blocked. Decius pressed his attack. Two, three round cuts towards the head. The clangour of steel. The rasp of his own breath. Driving him back, allowing him no chance to counter. All the time, listening for the other, trying to glimpse him out of the corner of his eye. Half waiting for the searing pain that would tell him his vigilance had failed.

A quick footfall, and a flash of movement. Decius whirled, dropped to his right knee, and swung, all in one fluid motion. The edge of the heavy sword sheered the left leg of the brigand down near the ankle. Amazingly he did not fall, but hopped, then stood, teetering, looking stupidly at the severed extremity and the exsanguinating stump.

Still on his knee, Decius twisted, hauled his sword around and up behind him. The tribesman chopped down with both hands, like a woodsman splitting logs. The impact forced Decius’ blade almost back into his face, thrusting pain through his contorted shoulders.

Taking a few short steps backwards, the brigand raised his sword to strike again.

Decius scrabbled to his feet, got his shield and sword up.

The man who had lost a foot was still standing, stunned, as if unable to comprehend the enormity of his wound.

The sound of boots on the track, boots with hobnails. Soldiers converging.

The uninjured barbarian let his sword drop, got to his knees, raised his open hands in supplication. A soldier ran him through. Another cut down the one standing on one leg.

Decius glanced all around. There was no immediate threat. Pushing the point of his long Spatha into the ground, he bent over, leaning on the pommel. His heart was thumping, his breath ragged. Mastering himself, he straightened, took in the situation.

Men slumped in the dirt, Romans and brigands intermingled. A pack animal standing, seemingly oblivious to the javelin protruding from its flank. Blood pooling and running down the track, as if after an imperial hecatomb. Bandits throwing away their weapons, trying to surrender. A Decurion yelling at the troopers not to kill them all. The sounds of combat from up the path. A knot of the enemy blocking the pass, the leader with the bright plume in their midst. The nearest soldiers falling back from them. Decius had to take charge. Success was almost within his grasp.

‘Secure the prisoners,’ he shouted at the Decurion. ‘You,’ he gestured at five or six troopers around him, ‘with me.’

Decius walked up the path. No point in arriving yet more out of breath.

‘Form line.’

Half a dozen paces away, the hill-men waited.

‘Spread out. Give yourselves room to use your swords.’

The troopers shuffled across.

Decius took his place in the front.

‘Are you ready for war!’

‘Ready!’

The soldiers knew their trade. Three times the call and response, and they set off, Decius in the centre.

The bandit chief was taller than Decius, outreached him. His first blow splintered the Roman’s shield down to the grip. Decius threw it in his face. The brigand swatted it aside, and thrust again. This Corocotta was fast and strong. Doggedly Decius blocked. He sensed the troopers on either side giving ground. Cautiously, not leaving an opening, he followed.

Once more a space appeared between the combatants. Beyond, bandits were scampering up the track. They were driving the women and a few animals. A brigand was bellowing over his leader’s shoulder, urgent and incomprehensible. Corocotta stepped back. The follower took his place. Corocotta turned, and began to move away.

‘Do not let him escape,’ Decius shouted. ‘Once more, pueri. Ready? Come on, boys!’

The bandit opposite was untrained, but persistent. Decius hacked his rustic shield to pieces, wounded him three or four times. Still the hill-man fought. Decius could see the red crest vanishing up the path. He launched a volley of blows. His opponent was tiring, slowing. Decius aimed a thrust to the face, dragged his opponent’s guard up, then pulled the blow, and drove his sword deep into the chest.

When Decius went to push his man away, the barbarian tried to bite his fingers. A shove, and three sharp chops to the head ended his defiance.

The bandits were down or running. Their leader was gone.

‘Prisoners secured.’ The Decurion was at Decius’ elbow. The rags around his helmet gave him the air of a martial vagrant.

Decius had no leisure from command. ‘Put pickets out, up and down the track, up both slopes. Send twenty men to bring the horses.’

The Decurion barked out the necessary orders.

Decius walked to the side of the path, leant a hand against the black-veined trunk of a pine. The sun had burnt off the mist. Through gaps in the timber, he could see the distant peaks. He went to clean and sheath his sword. The front of his mail-shirt was clotted with blood, his forearms incarnadine. The bitter taste of disappointment in his mouth, like an old bronze coin.

‘The reckoning?’ he asked.

‘Three dead. Seven wounded, two will not live,’ the Decurion said.

‘How many captured?’

‘About twenty.’

Decius considered. ‘Separate their wounded. We do not have time to crucify them. The ones who got away might raise the hills against us. Cut their heads off, and nail them to trees. Rope the others together. The stronger will go into the arena. The weaker can hang on a cross at the scene of their outrages.’

The Decurion went to make it so. Decius remained; for the moment there was nothing to do but nurse his frustration.

A trooper approached with a strange soldier. The latter was drawn and filthy from hard travel.

The messenger saluted, and handed over his despatch.

There was something wrong with the imperial seal. Decius broke the purple wax, opened the diptych, and read.

‘How long since you left Africa?’

The messenger thought. ‘Fifteen, no fourteen days. I landed at Tarraco. They told me you were holding assizes at Caesaraugusta. I got a guide to bring me here.’

‘Have you told anyone this news?’

‘My orders were to announce it in every community through which I passed.’

‘Trooper, arrest this man.’

‘Governor, I am just a messenger.’

‘Yes, I am sorry for it, but you must be questioned. First by me, then you will be sent to the Emperor.’

‘Governor,’ he swallowed, struggling for words, ‘I am only a soldier.’

‘And as such, you know how things stand in Carthage.’

‘I sailed from Hadrumetum.’

‘How things are in Africa in general.’ Little would be gained, but it had to be done. ‘Tell all you know, and you will not be mistreated. Trooper, take him away.’

Decius rested his back against the rough bark, closed his eyes. What madness had possessed the Gordiani? No revolt in Africa had ever been successful. Fourteen days, the news would have reached Rome. Surely Vitalianus and Sabinus would have remained loyal. Decius felt a hollow fear in his chest. Etruscus, his eldest son, was in the imperial school on the Palatine, a hostage in all but name. Potens, his brother-in-law, commanded the Watch. Let nothing have happened to them. Etruscus was only twelve.