Scourge of Rome

XXI

A man must prove himself every day if he is to be the right kind of man. Paternus’s words and the reproachful stares, imagined or otherwise, of the Emesans he’d led into the watery trap had cut Valerius to the bone. Until he managed to petition Titus he was still an outcast, an enemy of Rome. The only way to recover his fortunes was in the armour of a Roman soldier on the field of battle. If he was no longer capable of leading men, what would he be? Just another piece of scarred flotsam drifting from citadel to citadel in this vast eastern dustbowl. A mercenary offering his sword to whatever petty king would pay him the price of a meal and give him a roof over his head, until the inevitable day when a blade ended his misery and his shame. An image of his father flicked into his mind; liquid, sensitive eyes belying the stern features and straight-backed rectitude of a proud but penniless patrician. What was it he had said? You are your family’s future, Valerius. Only you can restore our name. What is a family without honour or reputation? Well, he’d restored the family’s honour by his exploits in Britannia, but it had been lost once more in the festering cauldron of intrigue, backstabbing and betrayal that had eventually brought Vespasian the purple. Now he must do it all again.

‘Let me lead the attack on Gamala,’ he had urged Lepidus. ‘I will fight as a common soldier if needs be.’

But Lepidus insisted that if Valerius was going to fight it would be as a tribune. ‘Acting and unpaid,’ he added caustically, and only if the primus pilus, the centurion commanding the First cohort, agreed to take him. By good fortune, Valerius had served with Claudius Albinus on Corbulo’s last Armenian campaign and the leather-faced veteran knew him by reputation.

‘I’ll take along another sword if the hand that holds it knows how to use it,’ he spat, his narrow eyes flicking to Valerius’s wooden fist. ‘Even if it’s the wrong hand. If you’re wounded don’t expect anybody to come looking for you – the foxes can have your guts for all these men care. If you get killed that’s your lookout. Nobody here will mourn you. But,’ his face came close enough for Valerius to smell the wine he’d drunk that morning. ‘Make a mistake and one of my men dies because of it and I’ll personally throw you from the top of that cliff.’

It wasn’t much of a welcome, but Albinus didn’t object when Valerius collected a set of plate armour from his precious stores. No question of using Sohaemus’s gaudy ceremonial breastplate and helmet, but he remembered the shield was already decorated with the Tenth’s symbols of the bull and the war galley. As he readied himself by the light of the oil lamp Serpentius appeared already dressed for battle, with a long sword and his little Scythian throwing axes at his belt. Of course, he’d been a fool to think he could hide the truth from the Spaniard.

‘If you love me as a friend,’ Valerius met the accusing stare, ‘you will go back to the tent. This is something I have to do alone.’

Serpentius’s teeth showed as he was about to protest this madness, but the stone cold certainty in Valerius’s eyes kept the words stillborn. With a disgusted shake of the head, he turned and walked away into the darkness.

‘Close up there,’ a voice hissed. ‘Oh, sorry, sir. Didn’t realize it was you.’

Despite the tension and the agony in his legs, Valerius smiled as the decurio disappeared into the silver curtain of mist that cloaked the mountain path. Ahead and to his rear the elite First cohort of the Tenth trudged silently to bring Rome’s justice to Gamala. Valerius felt a sense of belonging he hadn’t experienced since the deadly night fight outside Cremona, when only a man’s bond with his comrades kept the fear at bay. They’d been climbing since long before dawn, their hobnailed sandals carefully wrapped in cloth to mask any noise and for better footing on the slippery black rock. It was a blessing when the darkness lifted and they found themselves still hidden from their enemies by the all-enveloping fog. The veteran legionaries hugged the cliff face as if it was a treasured friend, always wary of the long drop that fell away to their right.

They toiled upwards with shoulders hunched and eyes fixed on the ground ahead as if they were marching into a storm. Men counted their steps in their heads, trying to keep their spacing while searching for the crevice or boulder that might trip them – and betray them. Somewhere far above their enemies listened for the slightest chink of metal that would announce a Roman attack. Valerius knew the Judaeans were there, because every few moments a pebble would clatter down the rock face. He couldn’t be sure whether it was accidental or deliberate, but it was certain evidence of the enemy’s presence. It didn’t take a military genius to work out that they would have stockpiled something much larger and more lethal than pebbles up there, ready to shower down on any legionary using the narrow path.

Valerius marched with the leading century. In the gloom behind him almost eight hundred comrades wound their way upwards, every man tensed for the sudden rush and clatter of stone that would carry him into the torrent below. The shields on their left arms might save them from smaller rocks, but a large boulder would smash the three layers of oak as if the scutum were a child’s toy.

The man in front stopped without warning and Valerius stumbled to avoid a collision. He thanked the gods for the chance to rest his legs and drag air into his tortured lungs after the long climb; then came the niggle of fear. Why had they stopped? Had Albinus met some obstacle? Josephus had assured Lepidus the rebels couldn’t block the path because they’d be exposed to archers on the far side of the gorge. Instead, they’d defend the ground where it broadened out as it reached the plateau. Valerius remembered the strained, shadowy faces in the lamplight as the Judaean described what they’d face. Gamala lay on a rocky spur overlooking the Sea of Galilee, the great freshwater lake to the west. The outcrop was in the shape of a camel’s back, with a distinct hump in the centre and steep sides. Buildings covered most of the area, running right to the cliff edge.

‘There is only one way to take Gamala,’ Josephus insisted. ‘From the north-east. The city is defended on that side by a wall, but the ground is flat enough to deploy your artillery and troops. The problem will be getting them there.’

When Vespasian besieged the city three years earlier he’d sent Titus and his Fifteenth legion far into the mountains in a hook that brought them to Gamala’s rear. They’d set up camp, swept the rebels off the plateau and opened the track up for the Fifth legion to join them. With his forces in place Vespasian battered the walls to dust, allowing his troops to swarm through the streets. The campaign lasted weeks, but Lepidus didn’t have weeks. He needed a quick victory so he could join Titus at Jerusalem. Jerusalem: the name was on every man’s lips. The greatest prize in all Judaea. All they needed to do was storm the walls and the legionaries of the Tenth would be as rich as any man could wish to be. But first they must take Gamala.

‘Once we control the plateau, we’ll move the heavy artillery into place immediately,’ Lepidus had told them. It would mean hauling massive baulks of timber over terrain barely fit for a mountain goat, but the men of the Tenth were hardened by years of training. ‘As soon as the machines are fixed we’ll start on the walls. I want them ranged before dark, so we can continue all through the night. The onagri and scorpiones to be sited and ready by daylight. Any questions?’

‘Begging the legate’s pardon,’ Albinus’s long service and experience entitled him to speak when another man would stay silent, ‘but the Emperor took three weeks to make a dent in those walls, with four times as many ballistae. It may be asking a lot to do it in three days.’

Lepidus’s eyes shifted almost imperceptibly to Josephus.

The column resumed its advance and Valerius dashed the sweat from his eyes and tried to manoeuvre the big shield into a more comfortable position. His left hand tightened on the borrowed gladius, testing the unfamiliar grip. Three to one was the ratio a commander wanted to achieve when he deployed his men for a siege. Three attackers for every defender. Today, the odds would be around equal, but Lepidus assured his legionaries that what the Tenth lacked in quantity they made up for in quality. The Judaeans in Gamala were the dregs of the rebel cause: old men and boys, the leavings of Vespasian’s great cleansing of Galilee. It was the kind of thing every commander told his troops before an attack, but the fierce answering grins told Valerius these men believed it.

He felt the ground rising beneath his feet and again the man in front of him stopped abruptly. Seconds later a whispered watchword passed down the line from one man to the next. ‘Noricum.’

One of the few auxiliary units Titus had managed to retain was a contingent of mountain troops from the high Alps. Twenty of them were assigned to the first century. Valerius heard a soft shuffling sound as two men close behind him began to climb the sheer slope to his right. Small, wiry men with a grip strong enough to crack a walnut in their clenched fists, they wore soft leather shoes so they could feel every fault in the rock. Their weapons of choice were a curved knife strapped to their chest, and the sling. Silent killers. They would be needed today.

The only evidence a dozen Judaean defenders had died on the height above was a single small stone that rattled down the slope. Before the pebble stopped rolling the man in front was on the move again and he was moving fast. Valerius picked up the pace to keep station and he could hear the soldier behind panting at his shoulder. They turned a corner in the path and it funnelled upwards, widening out until several men could run abreast. He saw four or five bodies sprawled behind a makeshift barrier of rocks thrown down by the legionaries in the van. At last the ground levelled and the century flowed out to deploy in two lines, automatically shuffling right to make way for their comrades in the next formation.

Valerius moved to the left of the line, where he could use his sword to best advantage. With the fog beginning to break up the final century of the First cohort moved into position and the men of the Second poured from the path into the narrow gap behind. Centurions muttered at the men to be silent and curb their impatience. Albinus looked from the wispy balls of fog to the sun and back, waiting for his moment. Valerius saw him stiffen like a hunting dog on the scent. Where there’d been nothing but grey, dark shadows appeared that swiftly transformed into individual human figures.

‘Sound the advance.’ Albinus rapped out the command. A horn blared and the entire formation moved forward at the steady, implacable tread that had carried the legions from the heather-clad hills of Britannia to the sands of Africa. Droplets of dew twinkled amongst the yellowing grass and Valerius had a fleeting thought that he should have ordered the men to remove their foot cloths. Too late now. The last of the fog burned away and ahead of them across the long slope they finally saw Gamala. Between the walls and the advancing Roman line hundreds of men gaped incredulously at the newcomers. The rebels had been taken completely by surprise. They huddled in groups around newly lit cooking fires or squatted over latrine pits away from their rough shelters. For the sleep-dazed Judaeans it was as if the fog had spawned an army of ghosts. A few reached for their stacked spears, but most were utterly paralysed by the sight of the long lines of legionaries.

The closest shelters were less than two hundred paces away and in a heartbeat of inspiration Valerius knew what was going to happen. Albinus had seen it too.

Lepidus’s orders had been to pressure the Judaean rebels and push them back into Gamala, followed by an orderly but swift siege. No one envisaged this. The mist had changed everything. Albinus was faced not with an organized defence, but by a rabble of confused and frightened men in no sort of order. It was the opportunity of a lifetime and he took it.

‘Lock shields,’ the primus pilus ordered. The command was echoed by the signaller at his side and he waited until the big painted scuta came together with a wooden clatter before giving his next order. ‘Double march.’ Again the call rang out and every man increased his pace to a steady jog.

Cries of consternation and fear came from the mass of warriors to the front. Small bands of men formed where their commanders or the bravest among them tried to create a hastily put together defence. Valerius heard the sharp crack of sling shots smacking against the wooden shields and at least once a yelp when one clattered off a helmet, but the line advanced unhindered. A group of savage faces appeared in front of him and he jerked his head to the side as a spear sliced through the ranks past his ear. A moment later the shock of a body smashing into his shield checked him for a moment before his training took over. He used his arm to angle the scutum and rammed the gladius through the gap. Oh, the joy of the gladius. A lethal triangular point and a decent edge. Thrust, twist and withdraw. A shriek of agony and step over the writhing body. More cries as the little knots of defenders were simply overrun by a wall of legionary shields and left to be dealt with by the second and third lines.

In what seemed like moments they were among the shelters. Men simply stepped through the makeshift huts, kicking the branches aside and continuing their relentless march. Valerius looked up. The city wall, built not of solid stone but of mud bricks, was less than three hundred paces away and the space between seethed with a mass of running men. It was a rout.

Albinus wasn’t satisfied to slaughter the rearmost Judaeans and let the rest escape. Now there was a fierce exultation in his voice as he gave the order. ‘Sound the charge.’

A legion’s greatest strengths are discipline and cohesion. In line or cohort squares it crush the life from an enemy and pound him into the dust by a combination of sheer power and unity, the way a grinding machine crushes grain in a flour mill. But sometimes something less subtle is required, and a legionary unleashed is an elemental force as deadly as the dart from a shield-splitter. In two paces the First cohort transformed from a disciplined double wall of shields into a pack of snarling, blood-crazed wolves hurtling down on their wounded prey. The Judaeans fought each other to reach Gamala’s gate and those at the rear looked back in terror at the nemesis about to fall upon them. A few raised their shields, but most only struggled all the harder to reach sanctuary, baring their backs to an implacable, merciless enemy and sealing their doom.

The doom of their comrades, too.

A rearguard of forty or fifty brave men might have stalled the Roman attack long enough to allow the majority to escape and, perhaps, for the gates to be closed. By now it was too late. Valerius understood what the primus pilus had in mind and he had held back from the headlong charge, barking at the closest eight-man sections to stay with him. Mutinous growls greeted the command, but the men obeyed.

Then came the order he’d known would come. ‘Valerius,’ Albinus cried. ‘The gate!’

‘Form a column of fours in close formation.’ Upwards of forty legionaries automatically locked together around him in a tight spearhead and he forced himself into the centre of the third row. ‘Straight to the gate and stop for no one. The Corona Muralis and an enhanced pension for the first man into Gamala.’

A great roar went up from the legionaries in the column as they charged the cowering, cursing mass of Judaeans. Using their shield bosses to smash down any who stood in their way, they allowed the weight and momentum of the compact formation to force them through the sea of flesh. But the column’s momentum would carry it only so far. When they reached the shadow of the walls it slowed, then came to a staggering halt. Now the gladius came into its own. The lethal triangular points darted between the outer shields to cut a way through the seething mass so the men in the column advanced across a carpet of bleeding bodies. Roaring for more effort, Valerius added his weight to the men in front and they heaved their way forward step by blood-soaked step. But the compact column was not a testudo with its protective carapace of shields. It was primarily an attacking weapon, and in attacks men die. A legionary in the front row took a knife in the groin and went down with a shriek of pure horror. Without conscious thought the man behind stepped forward into the gap. As Valerius hurried to fill the vacant place in the second line he stumbled and looked down into a pair of glaring, hate-filled eyes. The Judaean lay on his back, mouth gaping in a howl and a great tear in his belly, but the killing rage was on him and he was willing his heart to pump long enough to taste more Roman blood. A blade swept up in a wicked hook that would have gelded Valerius like the man before him. In the packed formation he had no room to dodge, but somehow he managed to get his foot to the knife arm. As his enemy struggled to free himself he rammed his gladius into the screaming mouth until he felt the point crunch on bone. No time for self-congratulation. He staggered and almost fell as the legionary behind hammered into his back with a cursed demand to get a move on.

Another man beside Valerius dropped without a sound, the victim of one of the lethal Judaean slingers. A replacement stepped unhesitatingly into his place. Valerius looked up to see the ramparts crammed with men whirling slings and hurling spears into the mass below. He hauled up his shield and attempted to protect the heads of the men in the first line. Everything was a blur. Sweat coursed from his hairline into his eyes and he had only a vague notion of what occurred around him. A great cry went up from somewhere beyond the head of the column. With a thrill of fear Valerius understood that the defenders were attempting to force the gates shut against the howling mass of bodies cramming their portals. He felt the first despair of defeat.

‘The gates,’ he roared desperately. ‘We must reach the gates.’

His cry was taken up as more legionaries understood what was happening and joined the formation. Shouted orders from his rear told Valerius the Second cohort had joined the attack. Albinus would have them fighting their way into a position where they could best exploit Valerius’s attack, or, if it failed, follow it up with one of their own.

But he would not fail. ‘One more effort. Push, you bastards. We’re nearly there.’ He could feel the shadow of the wall now and he raised himself to his full height in an attempt to see what lay ahead. It almost cost him his life as a spear battered against his helmet, making his head ring and leaving him dazed. He would have dropped to be crushed beneath the feet of the men around him, but a hand reached out to grab his arm and hold him upright. He shook his head. What had he seen? Two oak-doored gateways, with a space of ten or twelve feet separating them. They were almost through the first pair, far enough at least to ensure there was no closing them now. But he could see the inner doors shutting inch by inch. If they managed to bar it … Something caught his eye above and he looked up and saw a flare of yellow that spawned a shudder of sheer terror. Fire. Of course. They weren’t fools. They would be boiling oil to pour down on the attackers.

‘Heave.’ He heard the panic in his voice as he threw himself at the man in front. ‘If they close those doors we’re all dead.’ Venus’ withered tits, it was going to be close.

A cry of triumph split the air as the defenders managed to edge the doors closer together, but it was premature. One Judaean made a final Herculean effort to reach sanctuary but found himself wedged between them, screaming as the life was crushed out of him. It was all the incentive the attackers needed. With one final heave of their shields they smashed forward and the gates burst open.

Gamala was theirs, but could they keep it?

Beyond the gate, Valerius and his men found themselves in an open courtyard faced by a wall of nervous enemies. A moment of awed silence as if neither side could imagine what had just happened.

‘Don’t just stand there.’ Valerius broke the spell. ‘Kill the bastards.’ He launched himself at the enemy in a charge filled with mindless hate and relief. One man went down under his sword and he smashed another unconscious with his shield boss before he realized that the Judaeans had fled. A flood of Roman soldiers surged past him and he knew he should follow, but he discovered he could barely move. All the energy seemed to drain from him.

A hand touched his arm. Albinus stared at him with a look of bemused admiration that didn’t belong on his weathered, shrew-like face. The primus pilus let out a long slow breath and closed his eyes and Valerius realized the man was almost as exhausted as he was. ‘By the gods,’ Albinus shook his head, ‘that was a sight to behold. Now I know why they gave you the Corona Aurea.’ He looked thoughtful for a moment, then his face broke into a grin. ‘A pity you weren’t a proper part of the legion or I might have put you up for a second.’

Valerius sheathed his gore-coated gladius and Albinus thrust a water skin at him. Around them detachments of battle-crazed legionaries cleared the walls and streets with relentless, demonic savagery. Valerius barely noticed them. He licked someone else’s blood from his lips and drank deeply. The tepid liquid tasted of mould, but nothing had ever felt sweeter as it ran down his parched throat. ‘I didn’t deserve the first,’ he said wearily. ‘But they’ll give you the Grass Crown for what you’ve done here.’

Albinus roared with laughter at the suggestion he might win the Empire’s highest military honour. ‘On the day my wrinkled balls turn square. They only give them to generals. Maybe Lepidus will award it to himself? Come,’ he said, ushering Valerius towards what had once been one of the city’s richer houses, ‘let’s see if the traitorous bastards left us any decent wine and we’ll get these off.’ He pointed to the blood-soaked bandages that still covered Valerius’s caligae. ‘Besides,’ he reflected, ‘if they’d shut those gates we’d have been well and truly fucked. Let’s just be happy we’ve cracked this particular nut without having to bother the stone-heavers. Once we’ve settled with this rabble it’ll be straight to the real prize.’

Jerusalem.