Sword of Rome(130)

Benignus, who had ridden at Valerius’s side all day, nodded quietly in agreement. Aquila, the Thirteenth’s commander, had bristled at the suggestion of lack of organization in the column, but he gave his support to Paulinus. ‘And we should send our scouts further ahead. If we meet Vitellius’s forces on the march they will smash the column before we can deploy. You have seen the ground to the north: a nightmare of bushes, vines and ditches. We must have time to clear a line of fire or they will be on us before we know it.’

‘Or we among them,’ Titianus suggested tartly, ‘if we show more offensive spirit than has been hitherto displayed. My brother’s orders were to press the enemy.’

‘Your brother is not here,’ Paulinus snapped.

They were still arguing when an exhausted Imperial messenger rode up, instantly identifiable by the yellow cape that warned no man to delay him. He looked from one officer to the other, seeking a leader and evidently not finding one. There was an odd moment of comedy while Paulinus and Celsus jostled for position with Proculus and Titianus before Titianus accepted the dispatch. He broke the seal and opened the cylindrical leather pouch. Proculus stood at his shoulder frowning as he read the contents.

‘My brother chides us for our lack of progress.’ His tight smile said the wording was more forthright. ‘He demands to know why we have not brought the enemy to battle.’

Paulinus sniffed. ‘Very well, we will continue, but I ask that my protest be noted in case of disaster. And Aquila is right: those idle cavalrymen must probe another five miles further ahead.’

There was no disaster, just another few weary miles and a camp site with little water on stony ground that defeated even the strongest mattocks. The following day began like any other with its dawn chorus of coughs and farts, the soft murmur of thousands of men lost in the low mist.

Valerius was preparing for another long day in the saddle when Marcus, the lanista who was now a centurion, approached apologetically.

‘We lost another twenty in the night,’ he said, confirming what Valerius had feared. A few men had deserted before the march began, and more on the first night. ‘They’re not soldiers,’ Marcus explained. ‘They expected a quick campaign, a little bit of glory and the chance to spend their winnings as free men. What they’ve had is day after day of ankle-breaking marches, bad food and lives thrown away by a man who wasn’t fit to command a tannery’s piss pots.’

‘They signed up for this.’ Valerius tried unsuccessfully to work up the anger the desertions merited. These men weren’t soldiers, they were slaves trained to fight. ‘And the prize wasn’t just money, it was their freedom. If they’re caught they will either die on a cross or go back to the arena, where they’ll die anyway.’

Marcus nodded, but the look in his eyes told Valerius he should be asking why men marked for death should be prepared to take their chances on the run rather than fighting under the command of men like Titianus, Proculus and Celsus.

‘Tell them Orfidius Benignus is a fine man and a fine soldier. The First Adiutrix will be in good hands when it meets the enemy.’ He hesitated. ‘And tell them Gaius Valerius Verrens, Hero of Rome, will be proud to stand beside them with a sword in his hand tomorrow.’ Marcus grinned and strode off to carry the message, but Valerius’s thoughts were already elsewhere. A sword, but no shield. For the first time in days he felt the loss of the wooden hand and he tried to shrug off the feeling that it might be some kind of omen. He had survived the siege of Placentia. He would survive the battle, if there was a battle. He looked out over the encampment to the north, where the pale line of the Alps showed where he and Serpentius had risked their lives all those weeks earlier. What had it all been for? The thought came to him like a whisper on the air. There was one way to make the trials of recent months worthwhile. When it was over he would go to Domitia and offer her his protection. The decision gave him comfort, but he drew his gladius and set off to find an armourer in any case.

On the march an hour later, he noticed that the men were warier and less eager than on previous days. The marine legionaries of the Adiutrix kept up the pace, fired by pride and a determination to be as good as the men of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth who marched in front of them, but gradually the gladiators began to lag behind. Valerius rode forward and found Benignus at the head of the legion.

‘I’d like to borrow your eagle and a few of your men,’ Valerius said, and explained what he had in mind.

Benignus had noticed the gap between the leading cohorts and the gladiators. ‘Of course, as long as you bring them back.’