The Iron Hand of Mars

LIX

I lurched upright, then clapped my arms against my sides and muttered "Hup!" in a pleading tone. The aurochs tossed its head disdainfully.

No byre could hold this bovine. The beast was a brownish colour with black tips to its tail fur. It had a straight back, a massive head, short legs, and shoulders that could demolish civic masonry, hung with a deep collar of heavier foxy-red pelt. Its upswept horns were strong enough and wide enough to lash a maiden to them – some Dirce who had managed to offend people who could dream up frantic punishments. Its breath rasped like a Cyclops in the last stages of pneumonia.

They are untameable. The aurochs belonged centuries before man invented placid domesticity. This one was huge, yet must have been capable of moving with great delicacy – the kind of nifty footwork that also goes with bursts of tremendous speed. Its angry eye told us the spears that were stuck in its coat like briar thorns had already maddened it and now, having tracked the perpetrators with malicious stealth, it was planning to do serious damage to anything that moved. To emphasise this, it emitted a long, strained bellow that spoke loudly of primeval rage and pain. It glared at the legate broodily, as if sizing up where it could hurt him most. Then it stamped.

We all stood very still.

Now, I hate to remember what happened to Florius Gracilis. The worst was, he saw it coming. He gurgled slightly, and broke into a run. Bellowing, the great beast swung after him so fast he stood no chance. He was gored, tossed, trampled, and then stamped to death. Some of those who had been with him tried to throw spears, but once Gracilis was on the ground terror gripped everyone. They fled.

I and my party stayed.

The aurochs must have liked my face; I could tell it had chosen me next.

I had to protect Helvetius. I began stepping slowly to my left. It was the only direction open, and pretty soon I had to stop, for I was nearing the edge of the creek. The bank dropped down for a foot or more, and then there was a sinister overhang of long dirty grasses. The last thing I wanted was to end up in an uncertain depth of water, wallowing helplessly while the massive creature charged.

The aurochs breathed ferociously, giving the bloodstained body of the dead legate a final contemptuous toss with one tremendous horn. It waited until I stopped, then it began to move.

The rest was fast, messy and unheroic.

Behind the aurochs my three startled comrades came to life. Orosius began whooping and reached for a dropped javelin. I saw the servant race towards Helvetius. Lentullus bravely hurled his shrimp bucket. It hit the aurochs on the nose. The aurochs flung up its head, but kept coming. It was like being rushed by a rapidly moving house.

The sting of the shrimp bucket didn't stop it – nothing could. But while it blinked, I just had time to jump somewhere. Trapped by the creek, there was only one direction: I flung myself sideways. The beast passed me, so close that I snatched in my arm.

The aurochs turned on nothing. Its head was down. If I had run it would have gored me before my second stride, but something did stop it this time: Lentullus. He had run out and grabbed it by the tail. His face was contorted with effort as by some fluke he held on. The powerful animal swung angrily away from me. With a violent shake to and fro of its shoulders it dislodged the young idiot. The whiplash from its rump flung our boy far into the creek. By then another idiot was doing something stupid. M. Didius Falco, who had once seen a Cretan wall fresco, chose this dank German riverbank as an arena to revive the lost art of bull-dancing. While the aurochs was still bellowing at Lentullus, I skipped straight for it and leapt astride its back.

Its pelt was as coarse as nautical rope and smelt of the wild. A tail clogged with dung lashed my spine. I had only one weapon, in my boot as usual: my knife. Somehow I freed it. My other arm clamped around a horn. There was no time to think: death was reaching for one of us. I gripped with both knees, heaved with all my strength on the mighty horn, hauled up the head, leaned round a flicking ear and savage eye, then started hacking through the aurochs' upstrained throat.

The kill was neither clean nor quick. It took more time, and a great deal more energy, than anyone would ever think having stood in a sparkling white toga to watch the refined priests of Jupiter conduct a taurine sacrifice on Capitol Hill.