The Field Of Swords

CHAPTER 23

Julius lay on his stomach to watch the Helvetii move across the plain. Even as he concentrated, some part of him noted the lush greenness of the land. It made the soil of Rome look poor in comparison.

Instead of the barren mountains of the south he knew, where farmers scratched a living, he saw vast rolling plains of good earth and hungered for it with all the primitive desire of a man who had worked his own crops. Gaul could feed an empire.

The light was beginning to fade and he clenched his fist in excitement as he heard the notes of wailing horns carried to him on the breeze. The great column was halting for the night. One of his scouts came to a skidding stop by him, panting as he too stretched out.

“It looks like all of them, sir. I couldn’t see any sort of rear guard or reserve. They’re moving fast, but they must rest tonight, or they’ll start leaving bodies on the plain.”

“They’re stopping now,” Julius said. “Can you see how the soldiers are settling into groups around the core? Greek spear phalanx, it looks like. I wonder if they came to it on their own, or if their ancestors ever passed through that land. If I have the chance, I’ll ask one of them.”

He scanned the plain, considering his alternatives. A mile behind him in the woods, he had thirty thousand legionaries ready to descend on the Helvetii, but after forcing a march of almost forty miles to intercept the tribe, the men were exhausted. Julius felt frustration that he had been unable to bring the great war ballistae and scorpion bows that formed such a part of the legion’s power. The plain would have been perfect for them, but until he cut roads through the land, they stayed in pieces on the carts he’d brought from Rome.

“I’ve never seen so many warriors,” the scout whispered, awed by the army they faced. The Helvetii were too far away to hear, but the sheer size of the migration was oppressive and Julius pitched his voice as low to reply.

“I’d guess eighty thousand, but I can’t be sure amongst the followers,” he replied.

It was too many to send the legions in a straight attack, even if they were not worn down by the march.

“Bring Brutus to me,” he ordered.

It was not long before he heard running footsteps and Brutus was there with him, crouching in the damp leaves.

The Helvetii had marched through a wide valley that led into the lands of the Aedui. They had forced a hard pace to skirt the river, and Julius was impressed at their stamina and organization as the night camp began to form on the plain. If they struck any deeper into Aedui lands, they would be into heavy forest and the legions’ advantages would be lost. These were not the wide-spaced woods he knew from Rome, but dense undergrowth that would trap horses and make any sort of organized fighting impossible. Sheer numbers would carry the day then, and the Helvetii had a host of warriors, with nowhere to go but onward.

The tribe had burnt the first village they came to on the border of the Aedui, and the scouts reported no one left alive. Women and animals had been taken into the column and the rest butchered. Village by village, they would cross the land like locusts unless Julius could catch them on the plain. He thanked his gods that they were not pushing on through the night. No doubt their numbers made them overconfident, though even with his legions ready, it was difficult to see how to attack so many and win.

Julius turned to Brutus. “You see that hill to the west?” He pointed to a solid crag of layered green and gray in the dim distance. Brutus nodded. “It’s a strong position. Take the Tenth and Third to the crest, ready for dawn. The Helvetii will see the threat and they cannot leave you there to harry them. Take the archers from Ariminum, but keep them far back from the front. The bowmen will be better used on your hill than on the plain.”

He smiled grimly and clapped Brutus on the shoulder with his hand.

“These tribesmen have never fought legions, Brutus. They will see a mere ten thousand facing them as the sun comes up. You will educate them.”

Brutus looked at him. The sun was already setting and its light was reflected in Julius’s fierce gaze.

“It will be dark before I reach it,” Brutus replied. It was the closest he would come to questioning an order with the scouts listening all around them.

Julius seemed not to notice his reservations, continuing quickly, “You must have silence as you move up. When they see you and charge, I will hit them from the rear. Go quickly.”

Brutus slithered back until he was clear and could run for his men.

“On your feet, lads,” he said as he came to the first ranks of the Tenth. “You won’t get much sleep tonight.”

As dawn approached, Julius was back looking over the plain. The sun came up behind him and there was a gray light long before it rose over the mountains. The Helvetii began to move into their marching order, and Julius watched as the warriors bullied the other castes onto their feet. Those with swords and spears had status, Julius could see. They did not carry supplies themselves, remaining free to fight and run. Julius watched for the moment when they would see the legions arrayed on the hill, and the time seemed to stretch endlessly.

Behind him, Mark Antony waited with his legion and three others, cold and grim without breakfast or fires to warm them. It hardly seemed enough to tackle such a vast army, but Julius could think of nothing else to alter the balance.

A horse galloped up from behind and Julius turned in fury to wave the man down before he was seen.

He rose to a crouch as he saw the scout’s pale features, and when the man slid from his saddle, he could not speak at first for panting.

“Sir, there is an enemy force on the hill to the west! A large number of them.”

Julius looked back at the Helvetii in the dim light. They were getting ready to decamp, with no sign of panic or distress. Had they spotted his scouts and prepared a flanking position? His respect for the tribe increased a notch. And where was Brutus? The two forces clearly hadn’t met in the darkness, or the sound of battle would have been heard for miles. Had he climbed the wrong hill in the night? Julius swore aloud, furious with the setback. He had no way of communicating with his missing legions, and until they showed themselves, he dared not attack.

“I’ll have his balls,” he promised, then turned to the men at his side.

“No horns or signals. Just fall back. Pass the word to regroup at the stream.”

As they moved away, Julius heard the tinny blaring of horns as the Helvetii began to move on. The frustration was appalling and the thought of having to take them in the thick forests was nothing like the crushing victory he had hoped for.

Brutus waited for the sun to banish the dark shadows on the hill. He had the Tenth arranged before his Third Gallica, depending on their greater experience to stand anything the Helvetii could send against them. In addition, a part of his own legion were from Gaul. Julius had said a legion could be raised in less than a year. Living, working, and fighting together bound men stronger than anything, but there was always the nagging suspicion of what could happen if those men were ordered to fight their own people.

When Brutus had asked them about the Helvetii, they had only shrugged at him, as if there could be no conflict. None of them were from the tribe, and those that had come to Rome for gold seemed to claim no special loyalty to those they had left behind. They had been the sort of mercenaries who lived for nothing except pay and found companionship only amongst their own kind. Brutus knew the regular silver and food of the legions would be a dream for some of them, but still he had placed the Tenth to take the first charge.

Though he was unutterably weary after the climb, he had to admit Julius had an eye for good land. If anything, Brutus regretted leaving the extraordinarii back in the camp, but he could not have known the ascent would be easy, with only a few sprains and one broken arm from a bad fall in the darkness. Three men had lost their swords and now carried daggers, but they had crested the hill before dawn and gone over to the far slope without losing a single man. The legionary with the broken arm had strapped it to his chest and would fight left-handed. He had scorned being sent back and pointed to Ciro in the front rank of the Tenth, saying that the big man could throw his spears for him.

In the first glimmers of gray light, Brutus sent whispered orders to dress the formation that stretched across the slopes. Even the veterans of the Tenth looked a little ragged after finding their positions in darkness, and his own legion needed the staffs of their optios to create order. They loosened the ties on their spears as he watched, and with four to a man, Brutus knew they would destroy any charge sent against them. The Helvetii carried oval shields, but the heavy spears would pin them to the ground, shields and all.

The sun rose behind the mountains as the Helvetii marched unaware toward their position. Brutus felt the old excitement build as he waited for their soldiers to see the Tenth and Third looking down at them.

He grinned in anticipation of the first rays of light, and when it came, he laughed aloud at the sight. The sun spread a beam across them from the peaks. Ten thousand helmets and sets of armor went from dull gray to gold in a few minutes. The yellow horsehair plumes of the centurions seemed to glow, and the column of the Helvetii staggered below on the plain as men pointed and shouted a warning.

For the tribe, it was as if the legion had appeared out of nothing, and yet they were not without courage. As soon as the initial shock had faded, they saw the small army that clung to the slopes and almost as one they roared defiance, filling the valley.

“There must be half a million of them. I swear by Mars, there must,” Brutus whispered.

He saw the fighting phalanxes swarm to the front, bristling with spears as they began to accelerate over the ground between the armies. Their front ranks carried wide shields to batter the enemy, but the formations would never survive the broken ridges of the hill. They raced across the shifting scree like wolves, and Brutus shook his head in amazement at the numbers coming toward him.

“Archers-range!” Brutus cried, watching as four arrows flew high and marked the outermost limit of their shots. He had only three hundred from the Ariminum legions and didn’t know how skilled they were.

Against unprotected men, their fire could be devastating, but he doubted they would be more than an irritation to the Helvetii under their shields.

“Ready spears!” he bellowed.

The Tenth gathered their four, checking the points one last time. They would not aim them, but launch the heavy iron-headed weapons high into the air, so that they would be dropping almost vertically at the moment of impact. It called for skill, but it was their trade and they were experts.

“Range!” Brutus shouted.

He watched as Ciro tied a red cloth around the butt of one of his spears and heaved it into flight with a grunt. None of them could match the big man’s distance, and as the spear slammed quivering into the turf,

Brutus had his outermost point marked, fifty paces short of the arrows farther down the rocky slope. When the Helvetii charge crossed those lines, they would be running through a hail of missiles. As they pushed past Ciro’s spear, forty thousand more would be launched in less than ten heartbeats.

The Helvetii howled as they began to pound up the slope, and a dawn breeze skimmed the hillside, blowing dust off the plains.

“Archers!” Brutus called and, ten ranks back, the lines of bowmen fired with smooth skill until their quivers were empty. Brutus watched the flight of arrows as they fell into the yelling men below, still out of range of the more deadly spears. Many of the shafts were deflected as the tribesmen raised their shields and ran on, leaving only a few bodies behind them. First blood had been taken. Brutus hoped Julius was ready.

Julius was in the saddle when he heard the tribe roar. He jerked his horse round viciously, looking for the scout who had brought him the news.

“Where is the man who told me the enemy were on the hill?” he shouted, his stomach suddenly dropping away in a hollow feeling.

The call went round and the man came trotting up on his horse. He was very young and pink around the cheeks in the morning cold. Julius glared at him in terrible suspicion.

“The enemy you reported. Tell me what you saw,” Julius said.

The young scout stammered nervously under the stare of his general. “There were thousands up on the hill, sir. In the dark, I could not be sure of numbers, but there were many of them, sir. An ambush.”

Julius closed his eyes for a moment.

“Arrest that man and hold him for punishment. Those were our legions, you stupid bastard.”

Julius wheeled his horse, thinking furiously. They had not traveled more than a few miles from the plain. It might not be too late. He untied his helmet from the saddle horn and pulled it roughly over his face, turning the metal features to face the gathered men.

“The Tenth and Third Gallica are without support. We will march at our fastest pace to attack the Helvetii. Straight in, gentlemen. Straight in, now.”

Brutus waited as the Helvetii streamed past the ranging spear until it could not be seen. If he gave the order too early, the Third behind him could throw short. Too late and the crushing damage of seeing an attack destroyed would be wasted as the front ranks were passed over. “Spears!” Brutus cried at his best volume, launching his own into the air.

Ten thousand arms jerked forward and then they were reaching for the second at their feet. Before the first wave landed, Brutus knew the Tenth would have two more in the air. The Third were slower, but only by a little, inspired by the example of the veterans and the nervous fear of the attack.

He had judged it perfectly and the different ranks of the Tenth and Third sent spears in a carpet of whistling iron onto the enemy. Not just the front rank, but most of the first ten went from running warriors to broken corpses in moments. Hundreds died from the first wave, and the men who survived could see the black launch of the second coming at them, even as they urged each other on.

There was no way to avoid the death from the air. The spears moved in flight to fall in groups or widely apart. One man could be struck with a cluster of them, or a whole charging line destroyed bar one, miraculously untouched. Though the Helvetii ducked under their shields, the heavy iron heads punched through wood and bone into the soft ground beneath. Brutus saw many tribesmen struggle to free their shields, sometimes pinned to others through the overlapping edges. Many of them still lived, but could not rise as their blood poured from them.

Brutus watched as the attack stuttered to a stop. The third strike did less destruction and they pulled back from the last, running wildly from the men on the hill. The Tenth cheered as the Gauls turned, and Brutus looked east for Julius. If he sent in his legions at that moment, they could very well panic the Helvetii into a rout. There was no sign of him.

The Helvetii re-formed at the edge of the range and began to advance once more over the bodies of their finest.

“These men have never fought a legion of Rome!” Brutus called to the men around him.

Some of them smiled, but their eyes were on the advancing hordes that made the broken bodies vanish as they climbed the hill again. A few of the legion spears were tugged from corpses and thrown up at the Tenth, but against the rise of the land, they fell short.

“Ready swords!” Brutus ordered, and for the first time both legions drew their blades and held them high for the sun to catch. Brutus looked around him and raised his head proudly. Let them climb, he thought.

As they began to pant and blow, the phalanx formations broke apart as the Helvetii neared the Roman lines. The Tenth waited patiently for them, each man standing amongst friends he had known for years.

There was no fear in the Roman lines. They stood in perfect formation with the cornicens ready to rotate the front ranks as they tired. They carried swords of hard iron and all along the faces of his men Brutus could see eager anticipation. Some of the legionaries even beckoned to the warriors, urging them on. In a flash of insight, Brutus saw them as the Helvetii did, a wall of men and shields without gaps.

The first of the Helvetii met the Tenth and were cut down with efficient ferocity. The hard Roman blades chopped into them all along the line, cutting arms and heads free in single blows. The long spears of the Helvetii could not pierce the Roman shields, and Brutus exulted at the toll.

He stood in the third rank of the right and raised his head from the fascination of the carnage to view the position. There was a mass of men struggling to support their comrades and even more were streaming around the hill to flank them. He felt fresh sweat break out on his skin as he looked for Julius once again.

The sun was in his eyes at that angle, but he squinted against the glare to the tree line.

“Come on, come on,” he said aloud.

Though it would be some time before the Helvetii could surround his men, if they reached the crest behind him the Tenth and Third would have no line of retreat. He groaned aloud in frustration as he saw the small number the Helvetii had left to guard the women and children. An attack at the rear would cause instant panic amongst the warriors.

The sheer numbers of the charge began to cut gaps in the front rank of the Tenth. The velites were fast and lightly armored and though they could fight for two hours without a rest, Brutus thought of sending the heavy men in to keep them fresh for the retreat he may have to order. If Julius did not come quickly,

Brutus knew he would have to take the legions back to the crest of the hill, fighting every inch of the way.

It would be worse when they were followed down naked to the blades of the tribe behind.

Brutus looked over the heads of his men, his heart pounding with anger. If he survived the retreat, he swore Julius would pay for the destruction of the Tenth. He knew almost all of them after the years in Spain, and every death was like a blow.

Suddenly, in the distance, he saw the silvered lines of Julius’s legions surging onto the plain, and he shouted with pleasure and relief. The Helvetii of the column blew horns in warning and Brutus saw their phalanx reserves go out to meet the new threat. More horns sounded on the hill as the tribe halted and looked back at the plain. Brutus roared at them in incoherent triumph as they began to fall back from the Tenth, a gap opening between the armies. There would be no flanking movement then, with every warrior desperate to protect his spoils and his people.

“Tenth and Third!” Brutus shouted, over and over to his left and right. They were ready for his orders and he raised his arm to sweep down toward the plain.

“Close formation! Archers gather shafts as you find them! Charge Tenth! Charge Third!”

Ten thousand men moved as one at his word, and Brutus thought his chest would burst with pride.

The Helvetii had no cavalry and Julius sent the extraordinarii out to hammer their lines as they tried desperately to re-form to repel the new attack. As Julius marched with Mark Antony, he watched Octavian guide the lines of horsemen along an oblique angle to the Helvetii phalanxes. At full gallop, each man reached down to the long tube of leather at his leg and drew a thin javelin, releasing it with crushing accuracy. The Helvetii roared and brandished their shields, but Octavian would not close with them until the last spears had gone. By the time Julius reached the rear of the column, the reserves were in chaos and it was no difficulty to clear the last of them.

At his order, the cornicens sounded the command to double their speed and twenty thousand legionaries broke into the dogtrot that could carry them for miles, straight at the enemy. The vast column of the Helvetii followers watched them in silence as they streamed by without even a call. There was no danger from them and Julius thought furiously how he should make the best use of the position.

The warriors who had attacked the hill were in full panicked flight back to the column by then, and Julius smiled as he saw the shining squares of the Tenth and Third coming behind them, their tight formations making them look like silver plates in the dawn sun. The hill was littered with bodies and Julius saw the Helvetii had lost all direction, their phalanxes forgotten. Their fear was weakening them and Julius wanted it to increase. He considered calling the extraordinarii back to harass the column, but at that moment Octavian signaled a charge and the mass of horses formed into a great wedge that hammered into the running warriors. Julius waited until the extraordinarii had disengaged and were wheeling to go in again before he sent the signal to hold their position.

“Ready spears!” Julius called. He hefted his own in his hand, feeling the solid weight of the wooden stock. Already, he could see the faces of the warriors running at him. There would barely be time for more than one throw before the armies met.

“Spears!” he shouted, heaving his own into the air.

The ranks around him blackened the sky with iron, and the front lines of the Helvetii were battered down. Before they could recover, the first legions met their charge and smashed through.

The centurions behind kept up the barrage as each group came into range, and Julius roared as they went unstoppably deep into the mass of tribesmen. There were so many of them! His legionaries crushed anything that stood in their path, and the advance was so fast that Julius felt a stab of worry that he was inviting a flanking maneuver. The cornicens blew his warning to widen the line, and behind him the Ariminum legions spread out to envelop the enemy. The extraordinarii moved out with them, waiting to attack.

A splash of blood caught Julius in the mouth as he slowed, and he spat quickly, rubbing his hand across his face. He called for second spears to be thrown in waves of ten ranks at a time, not even seeing where the iron spikes landed. It was a dangerous practice, as nothing damaged morale more than the weapons falling short into the Roman lines, but Julius needed every advantage to reduce the huge force of the tribe.

The Helvetii fought with desperate ferocity, trying to get back to their main column, now unprotected behind the Roman legions. Those who were not in the front lines milled like bees at the edges, spreading farther out onto the plain. Julius countered with a wider and then wider front, until he had his four legions in a line only six deep, sweeping all before them.

For a time, Julius could not see much of the battle. He fought as a foot soldier with the others and wished he had stayed on some high outcrop to direct the fighting.

Brutus spread the Tenth and Third wide to cut off a retreat, and both legions hacked their way through while the sun rose and baked them. Boys ran amongst the ranks with leather bags of water for those who had drunk the ration they carried, and still they fought on.

Julius ordered the last two spears his men carried to be thrown blind. On the flat ground, many of them were sent back as fast as they were thrown, but the soft iron heads had bent on impact and they flew poorly, with little strength. Julius saw a man only feet from him reach up to bat one away as it spun at him and Julius heard his arm crack. He began to realize the Helvetii would fight to the last man and summoned the most senior of the Ariminum generals to him.

General Bericus arrived looking calm and fresh, as if they were engaged in nothing more difficult than a training maneuver.

“General,” Julius said, “I want you to take a thousand men and attack the column behind us.”

Bericus stood slightly stiffer at the order. “Sir, I do not believe them to be a threat. I saw only women and children as we passed.”

Julius nodded, wondering if he would regret having such a decent man leading his soldiers.

“Those are my orders, General. However, you have my permission to make as much noise as you can during the disengage.”

For a moment, Bericus looked blank, then his lips twitched in understanding.

“We’ll shout like maniacs, sir,” he said, saluting.

Julius watched him go and called a messenger to him.

“Tell the extraordinarii they are free to attack as they see fit,” he said.

As soon as Bericus reached his lines, Julius saw them shift as the commands were passed down the chain of authority. In only a short while, two cohorts had detached from the battle and their places in the lines were filled. Julius heard them roar as they turned and began a deliberate march back to attack the column. Bericus had taken horns with him and the cornicens kept up a constant racket until there was not a man on the plain who was not aware of the threat they posed.

At first, the warriors of the Helvetii fought with renewed energy, but the extraordinarii had resumed their scything strikes on the wing and Roman discipline held the wild charges of the tribesmen. Suddenly they were despairing, dreading the sight of the legion lines cutting into the naked column.

A distant cheer went up and Julius craned to see the cause. He ordered the maniples to rotate the velites back to the front and went with them, gasping with weariness. How long had they been fighting?

The sun seemed to have frozen overhead.

The cheering intensified on the left wing, but though it brought him hope, Julius found himself faced with two men who were using their shields to batter the Roman line. He had a glimpse of a mouth ringed in white spittle before he lunged forward and felt his gladius sink into flesh. The first fell screaming and Mark Antony cut his throat as they marched over him. The second was knocked from his feet by a legionary and Julius heard his ribs crack as the soldier dropped his weight onto a knee, caving in the chest. As the legionary stood, the Helvetii threw down their weapons in a great crash that stunned the ears and stood, panting and dazed. Julius ordered the halt with grim pleasure and looked back over the plain to the mass of bodies left behind them. There was more flesh than grass and only the two Roman cohorts moved over the red ground.

A great low wail went up from the column of followers as they saw the surrender, and again Julius heard cheering, recognizing it now as the voices of the Tenth and Third. Julius took the bronze horn from the nearest cornicen and blew a falling note to stop Bericus before he could begin his attack. They halted in perfect formation as the sound carried to them, and Julius smiled. Whatever else went against him, he could not complain at the quality of the legions he commanded.

Julius paused then, removing his helmet and turning his face into the breeze. He sent the call for centurions and optios to gather the men back into their units. It had to be done quickly and sometimes brutally, if the surrender was to hold. Army tradition held that the slave price of captured enemy soldiers would be shared between the legions, which tended to prevent massacres of those who surrendered. Yet in the battle rage, Julius knew many of his legionaries would think nothing of cutting down an unarmed foe, especially if that man had just wounded them. Julius had the cornicens sound the halt over and over until it penetrated and some semblance of order began to come back to the plain.

Spears and swords were collected and removed from the battlefield, guarded by the extraordinarii as they reassembled. The Helvetii warriors were made to kneel and had their arms tied behind them. Those who asked were given water by the same boys who served the legions, and Julius began to gather them into lines of prisoners, moving amongst his men, congratulating where it was due and simply being seen.

The legionaries walked with stiff pride as they surveyed the numbers of prisoners and dead. They knew they had beaten a far larger force, and Julius was pleased to see one of his men calling a water boy over to a bound warrior, holding the bronze pipe to his lips for him.

As Julius passed through them, assessing the losses, the Romans stared in the hope of catching his eye, and when they were successful they nodded as respectfully as children.

Brutus came cantering up on a horse he had found, its rider amongst the dead.

“What a victory, Julius!” he called, leaping from the saddle.

The soldiers around him gestured and whispered to each other as they recognized his silver armor, and Julius grinned at the awe in their faces. He had thought wearing the silver into battle was dangerous, given that the metal was so much softer than good iron, but Brutus had kept it, saying it raised the men’s spirits to fight with the best of a generation.

Julius chuckled at the memory.

“I was pleased to see you on the plain. I can’t tell you,” Brutus said.

Julius looked sharply at him, sensing the question. A smile played about his lips as he called for the scout to be summoned, and Brutus raised his eyebrows when he saw the miserable Roman with his hands tied as tightly as the prisoners. The young man had been forced to march with the legions, an optio’s staff thudding into his back every time he slowed. Julius was pleased he had survived, and with the glow of victory on him, he decided against having the man whipped as he almost certainly deserved.

“Untie him,” Julius said to the scout’s optio, who did so with a swift jerk of a knife. The scout looked as if he was close to tears as he struggled to stand to attention before his general and the winner of the sword tournament in Rome.

“This young gentleman brought me a report that the enemy had taken the hill I ordered you to climb. In the darkness, he mistook two good Roman legions for a mass of tribesmen.”

Brutus broke into a guffaw of delighted amusement. “You didn’t fall back? Julius, that is…” He broke off to laugh and Julius turned a mock severe expression on the desolate young scout.

“Have you any idea how difficult it is to build a reputation as a tactical genius if I am seen retreating from my own men?” he asked.

“I am sorry, sir. I thought I heard Gaulish voices,” the scout stammered. He was flushed with confusion.

“Yes, that would have been my lot,” Brutus said cheerfully. “That is why you carry a password, son.

You should have called before haring home.”

The young scout began to smile in response and Brutus’s expression changed instantly.

“Of course, if you’d delayed the attack much longer, I would be taking a skinning knife to you.”

The sickly grin died on the scout’s face.

“Three months’ pay docked and you scout on foot until your optio is certain you can be trusted with a horse,” Julius added.

The young man breathed out in relief, not daring to look at Brutus as he saluted and left. Julius turned to Brutus and they shared a smile.

“It was a good plan,” Brutus said.

Julius nodded, calling for a horse. As he mounted, he looked over the battlefield, seeing the beginnings of order return as Roman wounds were stitched and splinted and bodies readied for funeral pyres. He would have the worst of the wounded taken back to the Roman province for treatment. The armor of those who had died would be sold off for replacements. The gaps left by dead officers would be filled by promotions from the ranks, signed by his hand. The world was turning the right way up and the heat of the day was beginning to fade.