Tribune of Rome

CHAPTER XXII

Vespasian came to. It was dark. He felt a sticky substance in his eye and went to rub it away but found his hands firmly tied behind his back. Then he remembered the blow to his head that had felled him. Blood, he thought, blood from the wound.

His throat was dry and his head ached; in fact, his whole body ached. He groaned as his consciousness cleared and the pain started to register.

‘Welcome back, sir, although I don’t think that you’ll be very pleased to be here. I certainly ain’t.’

Vespasian turned his head. Next to him was Magnus.

‘Where are we?’ It was a stupid question; he already knew the answer.

‘Guests of the Thracians; and after what we did to them not very welcome ones, I should imagine.’

Vespasian’s eyes started to clear. All around small orange glows started to come into focus: campfires. In their light he could see huddled figures sleeping on the ground. His eyes gradually got used to the light. Closer to him, in the gloom, he saw a mesh of poles; he looked above him, the same, they were in a wooden cage. There were two others in there with them. He squinted and made out the uniforms of Corbulo and Faustus, both still out cold.

‘Where are the others?’ he asked, wondering about the remaining legionaries.

‘I don’t know. I only came to a short time before you, I haven’t had time to have a wander round and suss out the accommodation arrangements.’

Vespasian smiled; Magnus had not lost his humour.

‘Get some rest, sir, there’s nothing we can do at the moment. The ropes are well tied; I’ve been trying to loosen them but have only managed to rip the skin off my wrists. We’ll have to wait until our hosts untie them for us, then we’ll need our wits about us.’

Vespasian knew Magnus was right – if they were untied he would need to be fresh and alert. He closed his eyes and fell into an uneasy sleep.

At dawn the camp stirred. Vespasian woke to find a Thracian in the cage giving sheep’s milk to his fellow captives. He waited his turn and when it came sucked the warm liquid in gratefully, overcoming the disgust that most Romans felt for milk in its natural form. He felt it filling his stomach and realised that he hadn’t eaten since the midday break the day before.

‘If they’re bothering to feed us they can’t be planning on killing us immediately,’ Corbulo observed. His hair was matted with dried blood and his right eye swollen and dark blue.

‘We kill you when we ready,’ the Thracian growled in broken Latin as he secured the cage’s gate.

‘What charming hosts,’ Magnus muttered. The Thracian glared at him and then walked off, leaving three others, armed with spears, to guard them.

‘Tell your man not to antagonise them, Tribune,’ Corbulo hissed. ‘If we’re to keep our strength for an escape, we would do well to avoid a beating.’

Vespasian looked at Magnus who nodded and gave a half-smile.

‘The men must be exhausted,’ Faustus said, looking over Vespasian’s shoulder. Vespasian swivelled round. Half a mile away, on the north bank of the river, the first and second cohorts stood formed up, with the cavalry on either flank. The baggage was corralled a little way behind them.

‘Good man, Gallus, he didn’t panic,’ Corbulo said. ‘The Thracians won’t dare to cross now, they’ll have to withdraw unless they want to sit here and live off roots and berries.’

‘And with our archers keeping them away from the river they’ll run out of water in a day or so,’ Faustus pointed out.

On the slope leading down to the river parties of Thracians moved around collecting their dead, piling them up in a huge mound laced with wood. The Romans were left to rot in the sun.

‘Bastards!’ Faustus spat. ‘Leaving our lads like that. It’s bad enough them not having a coin to pay the ferryman.’

‘I think we would have done the same, centurion,’ Corbulo said.

‘Besides, they have different gods to us,’ Magnus said. ‘I wouldn’t like to end up in the Thracian version of Hades, would you?’

‘Especially not speaking the language,’ Vespasian quipped.

They all turned and looked at him; he sat straight-faced with a twinkle in his eye. Even Corbulo, for all his aristocratic seriousness, could not resist laughing.

As the morning wore on the upper slopes were cleared and the Thracians had to venture closer to the river, where a line of mangled bodies marked the position of yesterday’s final battle by the ropes. The retrieval party came forward waving a branch as a sign of truce. They got to within thirty paces of the bank when a volley from the archers, on the far side, thumped into them. A dozen went down, feathered with shafts; their screams could be heard all the way up the hill. The rest scampered to safety, a couple with arrows protruding from their shoulders.

‘That’s going to piss them off,’ Magnus said.

Corbulo looked pleased. ‘Good. They can’t expect to collect their dead under truce but leave ours: that is not how it works.’

‘Fucking savages!’ Faustus opined.

From another part of the camp, fifty paces to their right, voices were raised; a heated argument had broken out. A tall, grey-haired Thracian with a long, forked beard that came almost down to his round belly was remonstrating with a smaller, weasel-faced man with a shaven head. A young man, in his early twenties, sat between them on a folding stool. He listened with a calm air of authority to the altercation as tempers rose, never once looking at the protagonists, always keeping his eyes on the line of dead by the river. Weasel-face shrieked at the older man, dipped his hand into a bag that hung from his shoulder, pulled out a human head and brandished it in his opponent’s face. This apparently settled the argument one way or another in the young man’s mind; he stood up and issued a series of orders to some waiting warriors, who rushed off to do his bidding.

‘What the fuck are they up to?’ Magnus asked.

‘I think that we’ve just witnessed a conflict of interests between the chief’s adviser and his priest,’ Corbulo said, adding with a wry smile: ‘Much like Sejanus arguing with the chief Vestal, only this time the Vestal seems to have won.’

‘It’s not his priest,’ Faustus said. ‘Their priests wander around the country going from tribe to tribe; they belong to no one but their gods.’

More shouting came from further off in the camp and, a few moments later, the warriors returned leading five young men with ropes around their necks and hands tied behind their backs. The russet colour of their tunics identified them immediately.

‘They’re our lads,’ Vespasian said. ‘What are they going to do with them?’

‘Something that I don’t think will work,’ Corbulo replied.

The terrified legionaries were herded down to the edge of the camp where a line of fifty Thracians with shields had assembled. With the ropes still around their necks they were driven before the shielded line as it advanced down the slope, the burial party following close behind.

‘Come on, Gallus, do what you must and really piss those bastards off,’ Corbulo whispered, almost to himself.

The line reached the Thracian dead, clambered across and stopped. The captives fell to their knees; their shouts and pleas carried up the hill. The burial party started to remove some bodies. The Roman cohorts began to bang their pila against their shields. Gallus could be seen riding in front of them with his arm in the air, he stopped in the centre, turned towards the Thracians and brought his arm down. Fifty arrows sped across the river and the captives were silenced; the Romans fell quiet.

‘Well done, Gallus,’ Corbulo said.

‘He just shot our lads, sir.’ Vespasian was outraged.

‘Of course he did, and if they were sensible they would have been begging him to. It may well be that any one of us would happily trade places with them in a hour or so.’

Another volley clattered into the wall of shields, then another into the burial party dragging bodies up the hill behind it, bringing down a good many. The rest dropped their loads and ran.

With their human shields dead the Thracian shield wall began to retreat, but, lacking the discipline of regular soldiers, did so piecemeal, leaving gaps which the archers brutally exploited; a little over half of them made it back up the hill.

To Vespasian’s right the weasel man howled curses and shook his severed head at the Romans, whilst the chief sat impassive with his fists clenched on his knees. The fork-bearded man said something to the chief, who nodded and dismissed him. The priest wailed as he watched him make his way down the hill to the remnants of the burial party.

This time the Thracians retrieved the Roman dead left on the higher reaches of the hill, and made a separate pyre for them. Cheers rang out from the opposite bank.

Corbulo looked pleased. ‘The chief seems to have an adviser with some manners; he might have a few more men alive to command if he’d listened to him in the first place, rather than to that disgusting-looking priest.’

‘I don’t fancy getting too close to him,’ Magnus said, ‘but I’ve got a nasty feeling we might get to meet him if we don’t find a way out.’

Vespasian glared at Magnus. ‘I think it would be best if you keep those thoughts to yourself.’

‘He’s right though, sir,’ Faustus said, having another attempt at loosening his bonds.

Down the hill only the dead by the river were left untended. The burial party again approached under a branch of truce. They took the Roman dead first, including the recently shot captives, and then untangled the Thracians. No arrows disturbed their work. One body in particular was treated with more reverence than the rest, and placed on a small pyre on its own.

Eventually the field was cleared of bodies and severed limbs; only dark red stains on the grass and the occasional pile of offal marked where men had fallen.

The Thracians lit the Roman pyre with no ceremony whatever, before turning their attentions to their own.

The weasel-faced priest stood before the massed Thracians and began a series of short chants, to which his congregation responded with ever-increasing intensity. Even the guards around the cage joined in. During this the chief made his way down to the foot of the smaller pyre that bore the solitary warrior. The chants reached a crescendo, and then abruptly stopped. The chief opened his arms in a gesture of supplication and let out a cry of profound grief.

‘No wonder they were so keen to reclaim the dead by the river,’ Corbulo concluded. ‘Looks like their chief lost a family member down there.’

‘Or lover?’ Magnus suggested.

‘No, they’re not like the Greeks,’ Faustus said. ‘From my experience they’re strictly women, boys and sheep; though not necessarily in that order, or separate.’

The crowd of Thracians parted, and another struggling man in a russet tunic was hauled out.

‘How many more have they got?’ Vespasian asked.

‘If we all survived, one more after him; then us four,’ Faustus replied.

The priest kept up a constant stream of prayers and ululations as the legionary was stripped, then pegged out on the ground between the two pyres; his mouth was gagged to quell his screaming. Ten men, naked to the waist, started to circle the writhing sacrifice on horses; each had a huge log or rock across his saddle. The priest drew a knife from his belt and raised it to the heavens. The first horseman lifted his log and hefted it down on to the Roman. It smashed his ribcage. A second followed, then a rock, then another log, each crushing and mangling the body part it landed on. The man was dead before the last rock landed on him.

Vespasian watched and understood what was being acted out; he could guess what would happen next. He put a hand to the pendant that Caenis had given him as the priest stepped forward brandishing his knife. He grabbed the dead man’s genitals in one hand and with a flash of the blade severed them. The Thracians roared. The priest then presented the blood-dripping pile of flesh to the chief who took it in two hands and held it over the small pyre. He muttered a private prayer and laid his grisly offering on his dead kinsman’s chest. A torch was plunged into the oil-soaked wood and the pyre burst into flames.

‘They do weird stuff here,’ Magnus said, making the sign to ward off the evil eye. ‘What was all that about?’

Vespasian remained silent, thinking of the story that Caenis had told him when she had given him his pendant.

‘It’s like something in Publius Ovidius’ Metamorphoses,’ Corbulo said, but got no further. Whatever literary observation he was going to make was interrupted by screaming from the large pyre.

A wooden cage, similar to theirs, was being hauled up the side of the huge mound of seven hundred or more corpses. In it was the last russet-clad legionary. He knew what fate awaited him, but was helpless to prevent it. Once the cage had reached the top the priest embarked on another set of prayers. Men with burning torches surrounded the pyre. The caged legionary screamed out pleas to the gods, his comrades, his mother, none of whom could help him. They drowned out the voice of the weasel-faced priest, who pressed on regardless.

From across the river the men of the first and second cohorts crashed their pila against their shields three times and then began to sing the Hymn of Mars. The doleful voices booming out the ancient hymn carried up the hill to their comrade and seemed to settle him. He stopped his cries, raised himself to his knees and bowed his head in silent prayer to the gods below.

On a signal from the priest the torches were thrust into the base of the pyre. The flames caught, consuming first the hair, then the tunics and cloaks of the fallen, before taking hold of the flesh itself. That in its turn blistered, then sizzled and spat, giving off the aroma of roast pork as the fat within melted and oozed flaming droplets that were consumed as they fell into the blaze below. The heat had become intense; no smoke was given off, only flames. They licked their way ever upward until the top layer of bodies caught.

The man in the cage stayed motionless, as if he’d found peace through the singing of his comrades. The flames spread towards him. His hair was singed, and then his chest started to heave with irregular jerks – but not in pain. He couldn’t breathe: the fire had consumed all the oxygen. He lost consciousness as his tunic started to smoulder. His lungs collapsed. He was spared the agony of being burnt alive.

The Romans sang on.

The fire had now completely engulfed the pyre. Vespasian looked away; he exhaled and realised that he had been holding his breath for a long time. None of his comrades uttered a word. What was there to say? They were all busy with their own thoughts of death and how they would face it, and prayed that, when the time came, they would have the strength that the young legionary had shown.

The Thracians started to strike camp. It didn’t take long; they had travelled light.

The four prisoners were roughly manhandled out of the cage and dumped unceremoniously on to the floor of a mule cart.

‘Nothing but the best for us, it seems,’ Vespasian said. ‘I was expecting to have to walk; we’ll be the envy of everyone.’

Corbulo nodded in acknowledgement of the attempt at humour as the four struggled to sit up with their hands and legs still bound.

‘Something to eat would be nice,’ Magnus said. ‘I don’t think much of the service. Where’s a nice plump serving wench to take our order?’

The cart jolted. They were off. The column plodded its way up the hill leaving the three pyres burning and, next to them, still pegged out, the gelded legionary.

The Romans stopped their singing and began jeering.

Corbulo smiled. ‘Poppaeus will be pleased when he receives those men. They’ve shown good character; they won’t disgrace the Fourth Scythica or the Fifth Macedonica.’

‘Then we shall have to make sure to be there when he does, so we can see his face,’ Faustus said.

But the idea of escape seemed absurd, bound as they were hand and foot and surrounded by guards. They lapsed into silence.

The column climbed out of the valley and turned to the southeast. It plodded on for a few miles under the searing midday sun. Conditions in the cart started to deteriorate as the call of nature, so long resisted in the cage, became impossible to ignore. Although they were used to hardship, it was an affront to their dignitas to lie so close together in soiled clothes, like slaves being transported to the mines.

Vespasian, to avoid the eye of his fellows in these humiliating circumstances, spent his time staring back out of the cart. As he scanned the crest of the last hill they’d descended a lone horseman appeared. He stopped and was soon joined by a few more, and then more, until at least a hundred sat watching the disappearing column from their vantage point, three or so miles away.

‘Corbulo!’ Vespasian whispered so as not to attract the guards’ attention. ‘They’re our Gallic auxiliaries, I’m sure of it. Look. Gallus must be coming to rescue us.’

Corbulo smiled ruefully. ‘If he is, then he’s a fool. He doesn’t even know if we’re alive or not. No, I’m afraid they have just been sent out to make sure that the Thracians are really pulling back, so that Gallus knows that he is safe to move off, free from pursuit.’

As he spoke the horsemen turned and disappeared back over the crest of the hill.

‘I’m afraid that that is the last we’ll see of them.’

Vespasian turned his eyes back to the hill, willing the cohorts to appear. But he knew it was futile. Corbulo was right: they had seen the last of their comrades whose duty was to the north.

They were on their own.