CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER ONE
Middle Vistula Valley
Imperium Romanum
March 10th, 170 CE
General Fronto was—inwardly—amused by how his presence made the senior centurion of this cohort a little nervous as the unit tramped north along the new road they’d built after settling in last fall.
He mentally read the man’s mind:
As if the natives weren’t enough, I have to look out for a muckety-muck, he mused. Or possibly not, but I’d bet a considerable sum that’s what he’s thinking.
It was a chilly spring day a few hours before noon in northern Germania, and there was a slight sogginess to the sound of the hobnails and iron-shod hooves and iron-banded wheels on the new-style bed of rolled and hammered crushed rock that covered the surface of the road. The sky was overcast, the air chill and damp though not really cold . . . not compared to what they’d just lived through in the winter.
And there was a smell of old wet ash and burnt wood from the roadside verges. Where the forest had been chopped back, and mostly burned to get rid of the timber and brush apart from what was hauled away to build the northernmost fort they were heading for, or to pile up for firewood to get them through the accursedly long, cold, wet, snowy winters here.
Northernmost for now. So far, he thought cheerfully. We’ll go another hundred miles at least this spring and summer . . . maybe all the way to the German Ocean.
The men weren’t even sweating much yet, despite marching since dawn and the doubled tunics under their armor, and the fact that many of them were wearing thick wool neck scarves and local-style breeches and the new knitted socks and closed hobnailed shoes rather than caligae sandal-boots. It was a bit of a different smell from the one you’d get on a march by the Middle Sea or in his home province of Asia Minor this time of year.
He’d never been a centurion himself, of course. Equestrians could start that way, but as a man from a—fairly recently—senatorial family he’d done his first three-year stint in the Imperial army as a tribunus laticlavius, a broad-stripe tribune. Which meant a young staff officer attached to a legionary commander.
Officially with that rank you were senior to the five narrow-stripe tribunes, and second in command of the legion . . . whose commander, the legatis legionis, was usually a relative or patron and one on the right side of the Emperor. Unofficially you were—
If you have any brains at all!
—there to learn the basics of the trade, the grimy details of things that didn’t get into written accounts or even very much into old-soldier stories. That had been a bit over twenty years ago for him, and—apart from a spell as a quaestor in Rome itself to make a stab at the cursus honorum career path—he’d been campaigning or in garrison duty or lately governing provinces as well as commanding troops most years since and, just last year, general of a great field army under the Emperor’s immediate supervision.
He’d started by commanding auxiliary cohorts, then a spell as legate of the Ninth Claudian Legion south and east of here at Durostorum, which had been a frontier posting back then . . .
You learn from the centurions, not least. War is a trade, and like any other it has its mysteries.
“Don’t worry,” he said quietly to the senior man, the pilus prior of the cohort, who was riding beside him.
The man was tough looking and stocky, brown haired and blue-eyed and weathered, and in his late thirties. Which made him six or seven years younger than the general, who went on:
“I’ve made it clear to several high-ranking men that this was my idea and you’re blameless if I get an arrow through an eye. I need to see how the campaign is going—and it’s spread out now, not a matter of great pitched battles, so I also need to see the smaller units in operation. Cohorts at least.”
The centurion eyed him out of the corner of his eyes, then grinned back.
“Thank you, sir,” he said. “I’d heard you were a bold one, and smart.”
A scar on his upper lip showed white through his black mustache and drew the lip awry a little, which blurred the Gallic accent in his fluent Latin. Then he went on cheerfully:
“But if you take an arrow I’d probably be dead too, and we could share a drink in Elysium and talk about it there!”
They both laughed, which was visibly reassuring to the troops. Who’d just spent a long, cold northern winter in log huts inside bank-and-palisade forts, and were aware that the drive northward would resume soon, aiming at the German Sea. Which meant more road-making and fort-building while your gear rusted and rotted in this damned damp climate and had to be painfully scoured every evening and the leather repaired far, far too often . . . and constant skirmishes at least.
They won nearly all of them, but you could get crippled just as badly or killed just as dead in a forgotten, victorious little tiff at the edge of the world as you could in a major battle.
That too is the price of Empire, he thought.
They marched in silence, keeping an eye cocked on the forest verges, until the senior centurion’s head came up, and he spoke to his optio:
“Pass the word to be ready. Quickly, but quietly! No show!”
Then to the general:
“Our exploratores should have reported back by now, sir.”
Fronto nodded. Scouts brought you information . . . or sometimes they didn’t, and that was news too. Usually rather bad news. The centurion went on:
“This area, the local tribe is the Gutōz. The easternmost Germanii, and they’re mad bastards and go blood-crazy sometimes. Some of their girls have moved in with our troops just lately, too. Not just the ones dragged in by the hair, either.”
“Their women are showing surprisingly good taste, then,” Fronto jested.
The centurion smiled dutifully, but then went on:
“Yes, sir, but that sets them off badly. And I have a bad feeling . . . something in the air . . . it’s suddenly too quiet, even for early spring there should be more noise from the birds.”
Ah, good, I wanted to see how the lesser new things do in this sort of situation, Fronto thought as the man turned back to his business.
A lone cohort didn’t rate the new carroballistae, much less a cannon. There were other things, though.
The men had been marching with their uncovered shields slung over their backs, bright with red and yellow and white, crossed thunderbolts and eagle wings and the sigil of their legion. Now they pulled on the straps and each shifted the scutum to their left hands in a unified ripple taking only a few seconds as their heads came up. As if that had been a signal—
Which it probably was, Fronto thought tensely.
—there was a sudden blatting, lowing, dunting chorus of oxhorns from the woods to their left, westward. On the heels of that a straggling mass of men surged out from behind the cover—you could see them before they left the trees in little bands and groups, because this stretch of road had been driven arrow straight through dense stands of huge old-growth trees, pine and oak and alder and the eerie-looking white-barked birches, with no time for underbrush to grow up since.
The tubae and cornua of the cohort sounded, the clear brassy notes of the straight and curled instruments cutting through the blatting of the enemy cow-horn trumpets and the growing chorus of their snarling, shrieking war cries. Every man in the cohort dropped his furca in unison, the carrying pole that bore his gear from its crosspiece clattering to the pavement.
The centurion slid down from his mount and moved to take his place at the fore. There was a reason the casualty rate among men of that rank was double the one ordinary soldiers suffered.
The Roman troops moved in a snapping unison, without shouts or spoken orders. They’d been marching in a hostile-country formation, a column taking up the whole thirty-foot width of the road. It was eight ranks across, with the baggage carts—four-wheeled ones with pivoted front axles and mule drawn, now, with the new collar harness—in the middle.
Now the century standards, poles with a crossbar and a wreathed open-palmed bronze hand—carried by men with tanned wolves’ heads on their helmets and the fur down their backs—were moved to the western verge of the road. That was just inside the four-foot-deep ditch that ran along the straight course of the roadway, and two files of soldiers lined up along it, spaced out at three-foot intervals with the second row covering the gaps in the first.
Each hefted his pila, the long metal shanks of the heavy javelins glinting, their wielder’s eyes fixed on the shaggy band shambling towards them, long hair and unkempt beards above furs and leather and often tattered wool. There were four hundred and twelve men in the cohort; the enemy were about twice that number or a bit more.
The easternmost file of troops turned in place to watch the woods on that side of the road and marched forward to the ditch. Fronto checked in that direction himself, but evidently the enemy had no more men . . . or it hadn’t occurred to them to do anything but mass as many as they had and run forward screeching and frothing at the mouth with their blue eyes bulging.
Savages, he thought. But dangerous savages. Don’t underestimate an enemy—they pick up tricks fast. That was Varus’ mistake and he lost three legions.
It was the middle ranks of the legionary cohort who did something new. They set four-foot shield and six-foot pilum leaning against each other, and reached into the satchels that each had at his right side, below the usual high hitch for his sheathed gladius. Each muscular hand came out holding a malogranatum.
The word meant pomegranate, and the iron spheres did look much like them in size and shape, though each had a cord dangling from the top. The fuzz of rust gave them a mottled reddish-brown look, strengthening the resemblance.
Every third or fourth man also had a Ronsonius. Each of those men flicked back the brass cover with their left thumb and spun the little wheel that scraped flint on steel, while everyone held their grenade high up and away. Absolutely nobody wanted to light a fuse accidentally, once they’d seen what grenades could do. The pale blue flames welled up from the wicks that coiled down into the hollow interiors full of distilled naptha or redoubled superwine . . .
Fronto snapped open his telescope, blessing the makers inwardly while he did, and raised it to an eye. The savages were tall—Germanii were, on the whole, and these even more so than the southern tribes he was more familiar with. More of them had blond hair leaking out from under caps or in a few cases helmets than the folk along the Danube, too.
Even here they weren’t all blond, though, contrary to fable down in the southlands. Where blond wigs were fashionable nowadays for women, and not only ones of ill repute—he’d sent a bale of sheared locks to his domus for his female kin to play with.
They deserve their share of the loot too! After all, every mother of a soldier went under the shadow of Hades to bear him.
Most of the Gutōz had round shields as the northernmost tribes preferred, simple things of planks covered in leather painted with birds of prey or bears or wolves or crude abstract patterns, probably symbols of this local God or that. In their right hands were long battle spears with heavy iron heads—contrary to fable and rumor, they didn’t use flint for that, either.
Though they do sometimes when sacrificing victims to their Gods. Human sacrifices, often enough.
Here and there a helmet or mailcoat glittered gray under furs and wool, but not many and concentrated around the chief and his banner; only about half the shields had copper or bronze or iron bosses over the central handgrip, the rest contenting themselves with extra wood and leather.
Fronto grunted thoughtfully. Two to one was bad odds, though Roman gear and discipline would probably have produced a victory anyway.
“Now, though . . . ” he murmured under his breath, sliding his shield around and drawing his long horseman’s spatha. “Now, we shall see.”
The new saddles made precise control of the horse easier, and gave you a firmer seat to strike, so he didn’t dismount himself. Arrows began to fly toward the Roman troops from tribesmen who halted a moment to let fly . . . but German archery was more a dangerous nuisance than a real threat.
Nothing like Parthians. Now, their bows are deadly dangerous.
He batted one shaft headed for his face aside with his hexagonal cavalry shield, and it cracked across and the severed halves went tick off someone else’s gear somewhere near. The pace of the attackers went faster and faster, and their formation grew a little more ragged—as caution, or perhaps just shorter legs, varied their speed. It was more or less a wedge with their chief and his standard of a bear skull on a pole at the front. What the natives called a “swine array” after the lowered head of a wild boar; they claimed one of their Gods—an uncouth one called Wothenjaz—had taught it to them.
Thirty yards away, and a trumpet call familiar to any Roman soldier rang out:
First rank, throw!
The long pila drew back, the shields went up with the left feet, and then the heavy throwing spears flashed out in unison as feet stamped down. Seconds later a series of hard tock! sounds came back, or softer meatier thuds, as the points and long, narrow iron shafts pounded into bodies. Many of the Gutōz who’d caught them on their shields were wounded too; the three feet of narrow iron shank were designed to slide easily and fast through the hole the elongated four-sided points made, and many of those points gouged into faces or arms or chests.
Those that didn’t wound also served a purpose. The iron shanks bent, and the Gutōz discovered something Rome’s earlier foes had known since the Punic Wars. You couldn’t wrench the pilum free of your shield, not in the middle of a fight you couldn’t, and the dragging weight and awkwardness made the shield useless until you did.
The enemy line rippled as men tried to free their shields, or tossed them aside. Then the trumpet call sounded again:
Second rank, throw!
The next volley slammed home, doing even more damage than the first. The Gutōz were very ragged now, and a few from the rearmost were just running away in howling panic. There was a long flicker along the front two Roman ranks as hands slapped down reversed on the high-slung short swords by their right sides and the two-foot blades snapped out. The men crouched a little, left foot forward, shields up under their eyes, each gladius held hilt down with the blade ready to stab or—less often—chop.
And then a new horn-call rang out:
Light! Throw!
Fuses lit, sputtering and hissing. Arms cocked backward and a hundred and sixty of the little bombs flew out, trailing off-white smoke.
They could be thrown further than a pilum, being lighter. A dozen or so burst in the front ranks of the Gutōz; more landed in the middle or slightly behind. A stuttering—
crackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrack—
And the same signal again, and again; each man carried four of the little bombs.
Fragments of the iron casings whined through the air, pinwheeling until they struck flesh like supernally fast saws in splashes of blood. When they landed at a man’s feet he was gutted like a butchered hog, or had limbs blown mostly off.
They made nothing of armor, too. Off-white sulfur-stinking smoke blanketed the carnage for a moment, then slowly, sullenly drifted north. In the stunned silence that followed, the shrieks of the wounded were loud, but the hale warriors were too appalled to keep up their war cries.
When the front rank of the Gutōz hit the Roman line, they were many fewer than their foes, though probably they hadn’t all realized that yet. Many were wounded, but they leapt down into the roadside ditch and tried to scramble up or thrust with their spears.
The Roman scuta stopped the points; short swords darted out . . . and then the Roman ranks were advancing, smashing the natives back with heavy shields, smash-stab-chop . . .
Ten minutes later the only Gutōz who weren’t dead, dying or captives were a scattering running away. Fronto sniffed; the damp chill muffled even the stink of blood and cut bellies, one of the few good things about the weather here. Though not the burnt-sulfur smell of thunder powder, a new thing too.
The senior centurion came up to Fronto’s stirrup iron; his blade was running blood, and he wiped it on a cloth before resheathing it, to keep it from rust or sticking in the scabbard. The scabbard was at his left hip, a mark of rank like the leather webbing over his mail-clad chest carrying his decorations. The ordinary troops wore the lorica segmentata, made of hoops and bands of plate on a leather backing and fastened with straps and buckles.
“Those malogranatum really helped, sir,” he said. “Long life and health to Artorius the War-Wise and his clients! Mars Himself whispers in their ears! We’d have had four or five times the casualties without them, and killed far fewer of the barbaro-scum.”
“Indeed, and may the Gods hear your words,” Fronto said. “You speak truth. Though most of them didn’t stop even with the grenades.”
The centurion shrugged. “Nothing wrong with their guts, sir. Brains, yes. They’re so stupid they couldn’t tie the laces on a sandal without a year’s instruction and I’m surprised they know where to put it to make babies. But they’ve got iron balls, all right. They’ll make useful recruits for the auxiliaries when they’re tamed a bit. Like the Batavians out west—they do well in northern Britannia, I’ve heard from men who were stationed in Eboracum.”
Fronto nodded. “Well, for now that combination of lack of wits and plenty of courage just gets more of them killed. What are our casualties?”
“Eighteen dead or nearly so, about twice that seriously wounded and three times more lightly hurt . . . with the new treatments, nearly all of those should recover.”
A high shriek rose in the background as doubled superwine was poured on a wound. It prevented infection . . . and hurt like liquid fire. You also had to keep it under close control to keep the men from stealing sips.
“Even if it smarts! We’ll put the badly hurt on the carts. We killed at least half of the Gutōz warband, or took them prisoner.”
“Hmmm,” Fronto said and thought, You should never let an act of rebellion go unpunished. “Where’s the nearest village of these Gutōz?”
“About four miles that way,” the man replied, pointing northwestward with a right hand that was covered in very slowly drying blood. “It’s not really a village as we use the word—more of a clump of little hamlets, strung out through fields, and a chief’s hall on a hill . . . or as close to a hill as this plains country has. I think they built up a mound under it.”
“We’ll drop off the wounded and the prisoners at the fort and then pay them a visit,” Fronto decided. “Together with some of the cavalry stationed there.”
“That’ll be a cold march, sir,” the centurion said warningly.
“The men can warm themselves up by putting everything to the torch. And with their women and boys when we get there!” Fronto said cheerfully. “If we wait, they’ll disappear when those who ran away make it home. But they can’t leave immediately, they’ll have to pack food and gear or they’d just starve in the woods. We should catch them running around like headless chickens if we double-time.”
“Yes, sir. Ah, these Gutōz women, they—”
“Carry concealed knives, yes, I know, Centurion.” He chuckled. “You just have to strip them completely naked and thump them a little before you get to work. Forward!”
He looked at the sprays of blood and body parts where the grenades had landed, faint under the dim cloudy light, as the cohort completed its cleanup and cuffed and kicked the saleable prisoners into a clump and tied their hands and elbows together behind their backs and then linked them neck-to-neck in coffles. The wet chill damped down the flies too—in summertime in his home province, the bloody insects would already be swarming. And the dead flesh at least starting to spoil.
And we have the only thunderpowder weapons in the world, he thought. Long may that continue! Roma aeterna victrix!