The Scourge of Thracia

Chapter 3

A century of the Cornutii and the five men of the XI Claudia set off from the Great Northern Camp at dawn, the armoured column snaking north towards the Haemus Mountains, rain driving into their faces as the damp day wore on. By late afternoon when the grey light began to fade, they found themselves on the lower slopes of the great range.

Gallus’ chest and thighs were burning from the march. It was a welcome agony in many ways, for it meant he could not dwell on his troubles, for the unremitting crunch-splash-crunch of boots and the drumming of rain on his helm helped scatter any nascent thoughts that tried to gather. The scale-vested Cornutii marched on ahead of them as if unfeeling of fatigue — though they marched burdened only with light ration packs, while his five carried a tent and full marching supplies.

‘Concentrate only on the next mile,’ he called over his shoulder to the four with him, rainwater lashing from his brow, ‘and soon we will be at our journey’s end. A fire, a bellyful of stew and a dry bed awaits us at the Shipka Pass.’

‘Come on, come on!’ Barzimeres bellowed in an entirely different tone from the front of the march as he twisted in his saddle and looked back down the line to the XI Claudia five. He swept his spatha out and pointed it up the rain-soaked northern slopes like some sort of conquering hero. ‘Where’s the famous discipline and steel of the XI Claudia, eh?’ He slowed his stallion, falling back past his century of Cornutii, then the barely noticeable gap of a few paces, then coming to Gallus at the head of the XI Claudia. ‘Eh?’ he reiterated with an edge of venom. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted ahead. ‘Military step!’ in moments, the rhythmic footsteps of the Cornutii grew faster, and the small gap stretched to a handful of strides. ‘Look: my Cornutii are pulling ahead.’

Gallus opted not to reply.

‘So come on,’ he roared, ‘up the pace. Faster, faster!’ Then he leaned down again to whisper: ‘That’s an order, Tribunus.’

Gallus’ teeth gnashed behind his lips. Then he bellowed: ‘Military step, up the pace!’ The rhythm of footsteps increased, and the balls of Gallus’ feet scraped and slid on the ever steepening path. But within moments, the gap had closed again.

Barzimeres’ features grew pinched as he watched this. ‘Faster still, order them to full step,’ he hissed.

Gallus felt the words sting on his lips as he prepared to shout the order, but he could not. This dog would not stop until one of his men stumbled or fell. His banished thoughts flooded to the fore, and his eyes blazed with ire. ‘What do you seek to prove, Tribunus?’ he snapped at Barzimeres. ‘That a group of legionaries encumbered with kit and supplies cannot march uphill as fast as lightly-burdened soldiers? Save your misguided vendettas for a time when we are not at war. Perhaps then you and I can march in contest — if you can prise your wart-ridden arse off the saddle, that is.’

Barzimeres’ features reflected Gallus’ wrath. ‘How dare you. I outrank you. I could have you flogged. . ’ He raised his hand, bringing it back as if to rake the knuckles across Gallus’ face. Gallus willed him to strike and heard the desperate intakes of breath from those watching on from behind.

But the tension was broken when a Cornutii voice called out from the front of the column. ‘The pass!’ All eyes swung up the track. Just ahead, it bent even more sharply uphill on the back of a great ridge that wound towards the heart of the range. Up there, shrouded in raincloud, lay the lofty choke-point they sought.

The Shipka Pass.

Barzimeres growled and lowered his hand, then clicked his tongue and set his mount in motion up the path.

The rising ridge path was narrow and treacherous. Ancient flagstones poked through the shale and scree as evidence that the empire had once, long ago, tried to master this terrain. As they ascended, the raincloud began to envelop them. Shadows seemed to move before them. Rain-soaked bushes flitted in and out of view either side of the steeply rising track, the wet leaves glinting in the fading light like the armour of waiting Goths or brigands. Eventually, the air grew thin and cold. Then, some way above and ahead, tiny pockets of orange torchlight glimmered through the haze like a cloud of fireflies. The marching men of the column slowed, all eyes fixed on this ethereal sight. The Shipka defences, Gallus realised. A chill wind swept around them, moaning and driving the mizzle stubbornly into their faces.

Gallus noticed that Barzimeres was frozen by the spectacle too. His skin had taken on an unhealthy pallor and his Adam’s apple bulged as he gulped dryly and his tongue darted out to dampen his lips. Lost your pluck? Gallus wondered. He had seen the signs a thousand times before.

‘Halt!’ Barzimeres cried out, raising his hand. ‘Cornutii, about turn!’ he continued as he heeled his stallion round to face south. At once the feather-helmed legionaries swung on the spot and came back down the track. Their faces betrayed no hint of exhaustion or dismay at Barzimeres’ behaviour.

Good men, Gallus thought, plagued with a petty fool as their leader.

Barzimeres shuffled on the saddle as if to shake off Gallus accusing stare. ‘Now that I have brought you to within sight of the pass defences, I will lead my escort back to the great camp. I trust you can make the rest of the journey on your own?’

Gallus barely resisted the urge to laugh dryly. It seemed that Barzimeres was a paragon of military valour and discipline only until he came within a half-mile of danger. ‘I trust we can,’ Gallus replied flatly. ‘Now, you had best make haste, else the Great Camp will be going to ruin,’ he said, deadpan.

They climbed higher and higher up the ridge path, the mountain chill searching under their tunics and cloaks and the dull orange glow of the defences growing slowly closer. Slivers of moonlight pierced the fog here and there to illuminate the steep, unforgiving drops either side of the path, and every now and then scree loosened by their boots plummeted over the edges. Gallus heard his men talk, at first mainly of Barzimeres’ detestability. But then he heard Pavo’s words to Sura.

‘He’s up there, my brother is up there!’ Pavo insisted.

‘And Felicia was at it with him?’ was the best Sura could muster in reply.

Gallus had seen how Pavo coveted the bracelet his father had given him in Persia. Not for a moment did he believe that the message on it would lead to anything. Now, it seemed, the young optio was but moments from being united with his lost half-brother. If he has even half of your heart, lad, then this will be a fine day indeed.

He glanced up seeing that at last they were nearly at the defence works: a dark shape was emerging from the fog — a thick, squat bulwark, sitting astride and blocking the ridge like a worn tooth, the walls shining with damp and with a jagged timber palisade jutting from its edges to make a parapet of sorts. This small, square enclosure was all that stood between the Gothic hordes and Thracia? He saw faint shapes along the walls, vaguely silhouetted by the watery orange torchlight. Legionaries.

Well that’s a good start, he mused wryly. After less than a day in the quagmire camp by the River Tonsus, this keep was a fine sight. It was tiny — wedged onto the high-point of the ridge and designed to hold no more than a cohort.

‘Who goes there?’ a voice cried out from the southern gateway.

Gallus answered the challenge of the gate sentries. The timber gates creaked open and he led his five inside. Within, he saw tidy if cramped rows of legionary tents and banners. They filed along the main south-north path that split the camp in two, passing the rows of contubernium tents. Up ahead, he sighted the principia tent, and instantly spotted the eagle standard erected beside it: the white banner draped from the crossbar depicted a red bloom riven with crossed spears. The V Macedonica, he realised, seeing similar designs on the legionaries’ shields. This legion — limitanei like the Claudia — had guarded the Danubian frontier as something of a brother-legion to his own. He had heard that many of the Macedonica had fallen at Ad Salices, but the regiment lived on, it seemed.

They halted at the principia. A man emerged from this command tent. Gallus did not recognise him. Certainly, he was much unlike the giant of a man who had led the Macedonica the last time they had marched with the Claudia. This one was of Gallus’ age, medium height and whip-thin, with lank, dark hair hanging to his collar. He had wan and delicate — almost feminine — features that looked as if they had been shaped by the most delicate of hands. He wore a brown cloak and bronze scale armour that failed to disguise his narrow, rounded shoulders. ‘Saturninus, Magister Equitum of the Great Northern Camp and the Five Passes,’ he said in a timid, hoarse voice, his breath clouding in the lofty chill.

‘Tribunus Manius Atius Gallus of the XI Claudia Pia Fidelis,’ Gallus replied, throwing an arm up in salute. He did not let it show, but he could not dispel a sense of disappointment that this man — subordinate only to Magister Militum Traianus — seemed so meek. He had heard so much about these mountain passes that he had built up an image of some ironclad colossus, fighting back the marauding Goths. Was Saturninus craven and unsuited to military life as Barzimeres had suggested? He pushed his doubts to one side. ‘We come at the behest of Emperor Valens, Magister Militum Traianus. . and Tribunus Barzimeres.’

‘And not a moment too soon,’ Saturninus mused as if thinking aloud. ‘Have your men prepare camp in the north-eastern quarter.’ He pointed to a small tentless patch of ground there. ‘They can eat their fill too,’ he added, nodding to a sheltered table with a steaming urn of broth and a basket of well-fired loaves.

Gallus swung round, nodded to his four wordlessly, and in moments they were at work. As Gallus turned back to Saturninus, he spotted a few Macedonica legionaries coming to and from their tents. He recognised none of them.

‘You expected to find familiar faces of the Macedonica here?’ Saturninus said, having stepped over next to him.

Gallus shrugged. ‘I am just pleased to find good soldiers here.’

Saturninus laughed. ‘Gracious words, but your eyes betray your true feelings. The Macedonica were utterly crippled in the wake of Ad Salices. Less than thirty men survived and none of them officers. . and their eagle was lost in the clash. I thought that by resurrecting the legion, by commissioning a new eagle, I might also revive the spirit of their fine past.’ He swept a hand to the silver eagle standard near the principia; it was gleaming and clearly a recent commission. Opulence, but with a purpose, Gallus thought, recalling Barzimeres’ pointless bronze vest. ‘So I drew in veterans from the south — men who know little of these lands. We have just six hundred men here. Many fell after the last Gothic attack, but the wall holds and holds well,’ he gestured to the north-facing side of the fortlet and beyond. ‘Fritigern can count many spears amongst his horde, but he does not know how to tackle a well-built wall.’

‘Long may that be the case,’ Gallus replied flatly, eyeing the battlements.

‘A century is posted on the northern parapet at all times, a century of archers is split between the two northern corners,’ he nodded up to the nearest corner, shrouded in the fog. These sections of the walls were a few feet higher than the rest. Up there, Gallus noticed the glint of stockpiled bows, lancea and plumbatae — the arrows, javelins and lead-weighted darts would be more lethal than ever when thrown from those points in the high ground, ‘and another century of legionaries is spread over the southern, eastern and western walls,’ he pointed to each wall in turn.

‘You fear they might circumvent this path and come round on your rear?’ Gallus said, his brow furrowing as he thought of the steep sides of the ridge. Surely such a move was impossible — certainly for any sizeable force.

‘We cannot neglect the possibility, unlikely as it is,’ Saturninus replied.

‘But the ridge path is surely the only way through this section of the mountains?’ Gallus insisted.

‘I thought so too,’ Saturninus nodded wearily, ‘until my men found a broken, veiled trail. It runs along the shale and scree of the ridge-side, right past this fort and all the way to the north. It is so treacherous a route that it is unlikely the Goths will stumble upon it, but we must be prepared for anything. Above all, we must hold this ridge path. As long as we do, the Goths will never be able to bring their wagons along it and to the south. Without their wagons, they have no grain, no tools, no tents. . no means of migrating south as a horde.’

‘So these walls are everything,’ Gallus nodded, appraising them once again in a different light.

Saturninus beckoned him and the pair strolled around the principia area. ‘With just over seven operational centuries, we have been running a rota of eight hour shifts for the last two weeks. Right now a third of my men sleep, a third maintain the camp and a third stand guard on the wall. But they are weary. Worse, some are growing complacent — we have not heard nor seen Fritigern or his men in nearly a month.’

‘And the other four passes?’ Gallus asked.

‘The same,’ Saturninus replied.

Gallus glanced to his four men erecting the tent — and the compact sea of legionary tents around them, then scoured the legionary line along the defensive northern stockade. ‘When Barzimeres despatched my four men and I to this pass, it was clearly not as any form of reinforcement. He told me of some sortie, into the north?’

Saturninus smiled a wry smile. ‘Ah, yes; Barzimeres. Tell me, are the reports I hear true? Has my great camp become a morass of drunks?’

Gallus sought his words carefully. ‘The blockade of the mountain passes is best served with you here and him at the camp.’

Saturninus nodded with a slight flick of one eyebrow. ‘Some men have to be tolerated, Tribunus, and that one has many names he can call upon, and so he must be allowed the command that his father bought for him,’ Saturninus laughed bitterly. ‘But enough about Barzimeres. Should the Gods be on our side, he will remain inconsequential.’ He stopped and crouched by a patch of bare, wet earth illuminated by torchlight, took out his dagger and drew five marks in a line. ‘If any one of the five passes fall, the entire blockade is foiled. The Goths will flood in through the fallen pass, and their number is such that they will be able to fall upon the rear of the other stockades with ease.’ He traced a line from the north, through the middle pass — this one — and then split it into four lines that rounded upon the rear of the other four passes.

Gallus crouched beside him. This man, however meekly spoken, clearly had no delusions of overblown strategic nous. His logic was simple and flawless. Gallus chided himself for judging Saturninus on appearance just moments ago.

‘Only while they remain on the northern side of our ramparts are we safe. And it must remain that way until the Praesental Armies of East and West arrive in the south. Only then will we have forces numerous enough to engage and defeat the Goths.’

Gallus’ thoughts darkened, imagining the shadowy faces of the Speculatores that would come with the Western Emperor and his army. His heart thudded a little harder and a frisson of ire swept across him. He dug his nails into his palm to shake off the dark thoughts, focusing on the crude earth map, imagining the great distances and mustering efforts required to bring the two Praesental Armies to Thracia. ‘Yet they will not converge on these lands until spring. Can the passes hold out that long?’

Saturninus’ face grew longer. ‘They have to, Tribunus. They have to.’

Gallus’ eyes were drawn to the section of earth north of the five passes where the Goths were currently camped: Moesia. ‘But the Goths will be starving before then. They will spare no effort in tearing these stockades down to flood south. There must be a secondary plan.’

‘There is,’ Saturninus’ face lifted in a laconic half-smile. ‘Can I trust you, Tribunus?’

‘It depends on what you are about to tell me,’ Gallus replied flatly.

Saturninus smiled again, this time it was truly wry. He tapped the area north of the five passes. ‘I heard word, little more than rumours, that Fritigern was open to the notion of peace talks. Now many say the time for talks has passed, but few have lived on the edge of the war as I have for the last half-year. So I despatched an embassy north along the ridge path, down into the Moesian plains where the Gothic horde gathers. They were to engage in an opening dialogue with the Gothic Iudex and his council of reiks.’

‘How long ago?’ Gallus asked, immediately pitying the poor souls in that party.

‘A fortnight,’ Saturninus said, ‘and the Gothic camp is but a day and a half of marching from here along the ridge path.’ He pointed off over the north wall.

‘You have heard nothing from them?’ Gallus asked and Saturninus shook his head gravely. He frowned, a fresh night breeze searching under his armour and robes. ‘Not even a ransom. . not even a severed head tossed to the walls?’

‘Nothing.’ Saturninus shook his head again. ‘Hence, the proposed foray north of the blockade. I need to know the fate of the embassy. A reconnaissance group could cross the mountains to gather this information. As I said, the V Macedonica is populated with natives of southern Greece, well-drilled in manning this blockade but without great knowledge of these mountains and little knowledge of the Moesian plains. But your legionaries know that land well, do they not?’

Gallus nodded. ‘I agree in principle, but surely a handful of equites would be best placed to ride north in less than half the time it would take my infantry?’ He looked around and located the small lean-to stable sheltering two grazing geldings.

‘Ah,’ Saturninus smiled, ‘I did try such an approach, but the riders were pelted with Gothic arrows further up the ridge path and driven back. No, this group must travel unseen. This broken trail I spoke of is the only viable route, and that is not a path for horsemen. Not at all.’

Gallus nodded, then looked up and over to the now erected XI Claudia tent, seeing Quadratus groaning, stretching his back like an old man, heard Sura flop onto his bedding with a groan and saw Zosimus sitting cross-legged, tongue poking out, attempting to lance a blister on his ankle with the end of his spatha.

‘Very well,’ he said with a cocked eyebrow. ‘My men will be ready to move out tomorrow.’

Saturninus stood and Gallus did likewise. ‘Excellent. Now let me tell you more about this embassy.’

For some reason, Gallus’ gaze was drawn back to the Claudia tent. He noticed now the absence of Pavo. He swept his eyes across the fort and found the young optio walking from tent to tent, asking the V Macedonica legionaries something — the same question over and over, it seemed, each time getting the same negative answer. ‘Tell me, sir,’ he interrupted Saturninus, ‘is there a soldier in this fort by the name of Dexion?’

Saturninus arched one eyebrow, a spark of realisation in his eyes. ‘As I said, Tribunus, let me tell you of this embassy. . ’