The Singing Sword

XXI

It usually took me about five minutes to stroll from the house to the forge. Today, at my fastest speed, it seemed to take twice as long. Men were running in every direction, but there seemed to be no panic. I could hear trumpets blaring in the distance and I recognized one of our centurions as he strode past me in the gathering dark. I grabbed his arm as he swept past, oblivious to my presence, and asked him what was going on. He blinked at me in surprise.

"Commander? I'm sorry, sir, I didn't see you. It's Vegetius Sulla, sir. His place is under attack."

"Under attack? By whom?"

"I'm sorry, sir, I don't know. Don't think anyone does."

Vegetius Sulla's place! This caught me totally off guard. Of all our villas in the Colony, his was the one generally thought to be the safest from attack, since it was the most south-westerly of all, guarded by high, hostile hills at its back, with nothing to the south and east for thirty miles except the high, rolling plains that led to Stonehenge.

"Who raised the alarm?"

"A patrol of our own men, sir. They saw smoke and went to investigate, and turned up a nest of snakes. Wiped out, except for one fellow who managed to get away and bring the word back, and it doesn't look as though he'll live."

"How many raiders? Did he say?"

"They couldn't tell, Commander. They didn't get close enough to see them. They were ambushed on the way in."

"How do you know so much and so little, man?"

"I was on duty at the gate when he came in, sir. Took him up to the main villa."

"All right. Get about your business." I limped on at top speed, cursing my lame leg for the first time in years.

The courtyard and the house were ablaze with lights as men with torches scurried everywhere. Stablemen were gathering horses and the cobbled yard was a madhouse. The same four members of Picus's escort were standing at the main entrance to the house itself, a four-man island of immobility in a sea of chaos. I went right to them.

"Is Legate Picus here?"

"Inside, Commander."

I passed them and made my way through the crush and into the house, where the first person I saw was my wife, white-faced but calm, although her eyes were full of apprehension. This was the first time real danger had ever come close to her. I crossed to meet her as she came towards me and took her in my arms. She was trembling. I kissed her, hugging her hard, heedless of who was watching.

"Don't look so worried," I whispered. "They'll never even threaten to come here. This place is in no danger. Where is everyone?"

"In Caius's day-room. What will you need?"

"My armour, and some food. There may not be much time to eat in the next few days, so I'd like some bread and cheese and some wine to take with me."

"Gallo has all of that in hand. He set the kitchen staff to work as soon as the news arrived. He's laying out your armour now, personally."

"Good. I'll go and put it on while he's still there. It'll be quicker if he helps me. Then I'll join the others. Where are the children?"

"With their nurse, Annika. She will keep them safe and out of the way."

"Fine. I have to go." I kissed her again and headed for my rooms.

"Publius?" I turned back to her. "Be careful. Don't get hurt, will you?"

I winked at her. "No, I won't get hurt. I'll take my bow and arrows. That way, nobody will even get close to me."

With Gallo's help on the buckles, I was able to get into my armour in minutes, conscious of the thickness of my waist and hips inside the unyielding harness. A few minutes later, my helmet tucked under my left arm, I joined the war council. As I entered Caius's day-room, all talk stopped abruptly.

"Excuse me for being so late. I came as quickly as I could when I heard the news. What's going on?" My eyes swept the room. There was Caius himself, Picus, some of our senior officers — and Vegetius Sulla. My eyebrows shot up in surprise to see him there.

"Varrus," he nodded, a strained smile on his face. "I stopped by here on my way home from Aquae Sulis this afternoon. I was just preparing to go on my way when the news arrived. Caius Britannicus would not allow me to leave alone then."

"Quite right. There's nothing you could do alone, and if you ride with us, you'll get there in one piece, at least. Is your wife with you?"

"No. I left her at home. With my sons."

"Well, let us hope we find them alive and well. What's happened so far?"

It was Picus who answered me. "We don't know for certain. One of our patrols was ambushed ..."

I interrupted him. "I've already heard that. They were probably careless, not looking for danger there. So we don't know how many raiders there are?"

"No. We have to assume they're in strength. They could only have come up from the south coast, overland. By any other route, they would have been seen and reported. And to have the confidence to come so far inland, they must be strong in numbers."

"That's a long march. You're right. There must be an army of them. So what steps are we taking?"

"General assembly call's gone out." This was Plautus. "If the response is as good as it's been in training, our men should be assembled at the training ground in half an hour."

"Half an hour from now?"

"No. From when the call went out."

"And then?"

"Sulla's place is to the south and west of here, about three hours away by forced march at night."

"Picus?"

As I spoke his name, he turned to me. "You're in command, Varrus."

"Nonsense. You are the serving legate. I fought long enough beside your father to have confidence in his son. Will you lead our cavalry?"

"Gladly!" He looked at his father who nodded his approval.

"General? Any suggestions as to how we might best tackle this?"

He shook his head. "No, Publius. Our men have trained for this for years. Now we can gauge the value of our methods. Picus, the infantry will follow your cavalry at the forced march. They should not be far behind you by the time you arrive. How do you want them deployed?"

Picus was deep in thought, his eyes on Vegetius Sulla, who was rubbing his hands together as though washing them, plainly beside himself in his anxiety to be gone from here. "Vegetius," he said. "I have not seen your home since boyhood, but I remember an open field to the north-east of the main buildings. Is it still there?" Vegetius nodded. "Bounded by that little wood to the north? And by the river?" Sulla nodded again. "Good." Picus turned back to us. "Varrus and I will take the cavalry and swing south, cutting off the road back to where these people came from. We will then turn and attack at first light, driving the enemy north, away from the farm.

"Vegetius, you will take us to your home by the shortest route. We will leave you there to wait for Plautus and his infantry. See to it that they are concealed among the woods and that they stay there, hidden, until we start to drive these people into their arms. Then when the time comes, form your battle lines in the open field and we'll crush these lice between the hammer and the anvil."

In spite of the seriousness of the situation, I found myself wanting to smile at the reference. It brought back memories. Picus, meanwhile, was still talking.

"We have to improvise with what we have, gentlemen. Until we know the enemy's strength, we will be unable to make a sound military disposition of our troops, but we do have our cavalry hammer and we have our infantry anvil, and the enemy, no matter how strong he is, doesn't know we exist. So let's go and introduce ourselves."

Britannicus stopped me on my way out of the room. "A word with you, Varrus."

"General?"

He smiled at me, a sad smile. "No more, my friend. In spite of Stilicho's warrant, I am grown old, quite suddenly. Too old to go to war."

"But not to plan."

"No, never too old for that. Observe my son for me, Publius. I believe he is as good as they say he is. You will be my judge."

"Don't worry, Caius. You have bred an imperator. It shines through his eyes. He's just as you were, thirty years ago." I saluted him and left him standing there, my heart heavy at the parting.

The ride to the south-west was hellish. The land was heavily treed, and had Vegetius Sulla himself not been there to lead us, we would have had to take the long route in the black of night. As it was, he led us across country by some fairly open ways he knew of. It was a cloudy night with a brisk, warm wind and a full moon. When we were in the open, the moon's light showed the fields clearly, when it was not obscured by clouds, but in the darkness of the woods the going was the stuff of nightmares, with men being knocked from their mounts continually by unseen branches. It took us just over two hours to reach Sulla's lands. A sullen, red glow flickered in the distance. Vegetius raised his arm to call a halt and turned to Picus and me.

"We're about two miles from the home farm. That's it there, burning. The big blaze on the left." His voice sounded dead, and I found myself admiring his calm self-discipline in not demanding that we charge the place immediately. But his next words showed me the true mettle of the man. "I have it in my mind that my wife and sons are dead. If I am right, I want to be avenged on those that killed them. All of them, not just the few we would catch if we were to charge up on them now. If, on the other hand, my family are being held, then they are safe enough for now and probably asleep. Any damage done to them will have been done long since. I'll be avenged for that, too, if it is so." He paused, sitting his horse in silence for a time before going on.

"There's a road, a farm track, directly ahead of us here, running from right to left, west to east. If you take your men east, you will come to a fork about two miles along. Take the south road. It leads up through the hills to pasture. The road ends at the entrance to the pasture, but if you hold to the right and follow the line of the trees, you'll come again to open fields on your right about three miles further on. You can muster there. You'll be just less than two miles from the buildings with nothing to impede your advance.

"I will take Plautus's infantry along this road here to the west when they arrive. It will take us about an hour to get into position from this point, and they should be about an hour behind us, little more. That should put us in place about an hour before dawn, by which time you should be ready, your men and horses rested. Start your attack any time you want to. We'll be waiting for you."

Picus's horse bridled and jigged nervously, jostling mine, which reared, almost unseating me. I pulled him back down savagely. Vegetius looked at both horses.

"One more thing. I don't sleep well at night. I often walk outside alone when everyone else is asleep, and I've noticed that if a fox barks or an owl hoots up on those hills to the east where you are going, it sounds as though he's just beyond the buildings. I don't know why it should be so, but sound really travels from up there, so be careful."

"Thanks for the warning," Picus said. "We will take care to make no noise."

"Nobody would hear us tonight, anyway," I said, and I immediately wanted to bite my tongue out.

"No," said Vegetius, his face expressionless. "The sounds of the burning should cover everything, but there's no point in taking chances."

"No, you're right. We'll take none." I felt awful, mentally cursing my big mouth. "Vegetius, I wish there were something I could say or do about this."

"What could you say? What's to be done, Varrus? What could you do to change anything?" He smiled bitterly, his face ghostly in the moonlight. "What could I have done, even if I had been at home? I would be dead now, with my family. At least this way, I'll have some vengeance."

I reached out and squeezed his shoulder and then I turned to Picus. "We'd better be going."

"Yes, you're right. Sulla, my friend, there is nothing I can say to ease your pain, but we can offer retribution, for what it is worth, on the heads of your enemies. Farewell."

I passed the word back through the ranks and we moved out. Within a quarter mile we found the farm track and followed it until we reached the fork. There we swung to the south, following the wheel ruts in the chalky ground until we began to climb. As we rode higher the wind died away. Picus stopped me and signalled to one of his men who rode directly behind us. The man came up to where we waited.

"General?"

"The wind is gone. It was blowing from our right, taking our noise away from the enemy. Any minute now, we are going to start smelling smoke from the burning buildings. It won't be pleasant. Pass the word back to bind the horses' nostrils. We don't want to wake anyone below with the noise of their whinnying. And tell the men to take it slowly. I want no noise, is that clear?"

"Yes, General."

"Good. Then make sure it is equally clear to everyone you tell it to, and tell it to everyone!"

We started moving again, riding two abreast, slowly enough that our horses took the gradient easily. I had bound a kerchief over Germanicus's muzzle and Picus had bound his mount's with a scarf. We rode in silence until Picus spoke in a low voice.

"My heart cries out for poor Sulla. It must be purgatory to wait as he does, within two short miles of home, not knowing if your loved ones are alive or dead."

"Aye," I responded. "I don't know if I could bear up as stoically as he under the same circumstances. It's ripping me up inside just trying to imagine it. God only knows what he's going through, knowing that it's real."

We rode on again in silence for a distance, and again it was Picus who spoke.

"Where do you think they came from, Varrus?"

"I've been racking my brains on that one. They have to have come up from the south."

"But that's what? Thirty miles? Forty?"

"Easily. Perhaps more."

"Inland, Varrus? It doesn't make sense. Why so far? On almost any other stretch of coast on the island, they'd have come across a town or a village within twenty miles. Their leader must have iron balls. Forty miles into hostile territory is a lot of risk."

"They may not be from the sea."

He jerked his head around to look at me. "What do you mean?"

"They could be outlaws."

"Rebels? Where from, in God's name?"

I shrugged. "I have no idea, Picus, but I know there are small groups of outlaws around. I ran foul of one group the first time I came out to your father's villa, before it became the Colony. That was a long time ago. Perhaps they are growing stronger, organizing themselves."

"But where would they come from?"

"Where do desperate men ever come from? They might be deserters. They could be farmers who have lost their farms, or villagers whose own homes have been destroyed — who knows?"

"By the living Christ! If these are deserters I'll crucify every one of them, living or dead!"

"Then again, they might have come down from the north-west, through the hills from the estuary, but that's even more unlikely. That's Ullic's territory, and his people watch those shorelines like eagles. I just can't imagine them getting through Ullic's country unseen, even though much of it is brush and heavy woodland."

"Well, we'll know in a couple of hours."

We had reached the pasture at the top of the hill and we could see the burning ruins quite plainly now in the valley below us. We looked down at the smoke-wreathed scene in grim silence.

"Sulla said to hold to the right and follow the line of the trees." Picus pulled his mount around and led us downhill until the tree line loomed up out of the darkness ahead of us, blocking the burning farm from our view. The smoke was heavy now, oily and sour-smelling. As we rode on along the line of trees, each man among us began to prepare himself for what lay ahead of us. We were coming very close now to battle.

Less than an hour later we rounded the end of the trees and found ourselves in open fields. We had ridden clear of the drifting smoke some time previously and the glowing buildings now lay to our right. Picus led us out into the open until we were directly abreast of the burning villa, where he signalled a halt and summoned his man again.

"Tell the men to dismount and stretch their legs. Water the horses. It will be dawn in less than an hour. That will be when we attack. I want no sound before then. Nothing. No talking. These people may have sentries out, so we can take no chances. Clear? Spread the word and then come back to me."

The man's silver wristlet slapped against his breastplate in salute. "Yes, General!"

"Fine. Next time, salute me quietly."

"Yes, General."

As soon as the man had gone, Picus swung his leg over his horse's head and dropped to the ground. I did the same, but backwards, taking my good leg over Germanicus's rump and holding his mane, favouring my bad leg as I lowered myself, rather than dropped, to the ground. It was good to be off his back. My buttocks ached.

"We have a hundred and fourteen men, counting ourselves, Varrus. How do we use them best?"

"Any way you want to." I was pleased to see that he, too, was kneading his buttocks. "But we have open ground ahead of us and a two-mile advance to the villa. I think we should make the most of our numbers, letting them see how many of us there are. It should scare them to death before we ever reach them. Our objective is to run them into the infantry. I suggest that we attack either in two lines of sixty or in three lines of forty. Three lines might be better. Ten paces between each two men and the same distance between each two lines. That way, to anyone seeing us coming, it'll look as though there are hundreds of us."

"I think you're right. That's the tactic we talked about last time I visited the Colony. I've had my men working on it, but we've never tested it."

"Neither have we. But it should work. There's enough room."

"So, three lines converging into three arrowheads. Can your men do this?"

I smiled at him. "Can crows fly?"

"Who will lead the third line?"

"Bassus. He's my strongest leader."

"Let's get him up here."

Within the quarter-hour we were ready, instructions having been passed among the men. This was a brand-new tactic designed one cold winter night by Picus, Titus Harmen and myself, expressly for situations like this one: open ground, room to manoeuvre, surprise on our side and an enemy who had never encountered cavalry before.

We would start our attack in three extended lines of forty men each. Each line would be staggered, so the enemy could see the troops in the second and third lines. As we moved forward, walking at first, then cantering, then loping before breaking into the charge, our manoeuvre would begin. The front rank would begin to converge on the man on the far left of the line: in this instance Bassus. At the same time, the second rank would begin converging on the man on the far right of their line: me. Two lateral motions, one from left to right, the other from right to left, and simultaneously with these moves, the rear rank would converge upon its centre man, Picus.

By the time the troops were cantering, the leaders would be moving slowly in again from the left and right, timing their movements so that as they rode, each had two men behind him, and three behind them, and four behind them, and so on; only the rear rank, led by Picus, would form up in its wedge directly behind its leader in a straight advance.

A watching enemy would see broad lines of mounted men moving across each other and finally solidifying into three wedge-shaped formations of heavy cavalry, each one capable of ploughing through any mass of men on foot.

We knew it would work. Our only concern was that it was untested in battle. Everything depended on the timing of the manoeuvre, with Picus's rear line becoming the pivot of the whole attack. He had to bring his squadron into line within seconds of the completion of squadron formation, to show the enemy a solid line of horsemen coming at the charge, with three armed points extended towards them.

Once this had been accomplished, the arrowhead formation should, we believed, be almost infinitely versatile against infantry. It was easy to maintain. A man on the outside of a squadron only had to know that the man ahead of him was to his right, if he himself rode on the left side of the formation; vice versa if his place was on the right side of the arrowhead. Those on the inside of the formation moved ahead and then either right or left to replace any on the outside ranks who went down. Each man had enough room to fight and enough protection inside the formation to be safe. We had simply quadrupled the traditional Roman fighting space per man, to accommodate the horses.

As I said, we knew it should work. I wondered how many of the men behind me suspected that this was the first time I had ever ridden into battle as a bona fide mounted trooper?

In the next quarter of an hour the night grew pitch-black. We could see nothing. Then I heard Picus say, "Varrus, I can see you," and I opened my eyes and saw the dim shapes of men and horses again. As the light grew stronger, Picus issued the order to mount up and form three ranks. Someone gave me a leg up on to Germanicus and I took my place at the far right of the second rank. And then we waited, watching the dawn come up and waiting for Picus to give the signal to advance — waiting for the killing to begin. Somewhere to my left a horse nickered softly and was answered by another from in front. Germanicus was restless, and I stroked his neck, gentling him. Somewhere up ahead a lark starting singing in the dawn sky and was joined by another and then another until the sky was filled with birdsong.