Juva’s deep, resonant tones roared out the first verse of the pornographic marching song that had driven the legions of Rome from the snow-capped mountains of west Britannia to the deserts of Africa from the super-heated sands of Syria to the cool blue seas off Lusitania. The March of Marius.
There was a mule, he was no fool,
He had a girl in every fort,
Another one in every port.
In Allifae she was not shy …
They didn’t know the words, and in truth it was not Homer, but they joined in with a will and Valerius felt them surging behind him, their legs automatically taking the rhythm of the song. Up ahead he knew the men of the First Adiutrix would have heard it too and would push on harder still. He grinned, because this was what he lived for. Hardship, yes. But comradeship, too. These men would stand together and die together, and that was all he needed. And, perhaps, they just might bring the Emperor his eagle.
Away in the mist another man listened to the song with a semblance of a smile on his pale features. He did not smile because of the song, but because of the name that had preceded it. Something primeval gripped the very centre of Claudius Victor’s being. If the gods of battle were kind, his brother would have his revenge. He wrapped the wolfskin cloak tighter around him and led his patrol back towards Cremona.
XLVI
The rhythm of the march dulled a man’s senses, but Valerius was so attuned to the distinctive sounds that formed an army’s heartbeat that he came instantly alert as a troop of Pannonian cavalry galloped up to rein in opposite the army’s commanders. His racing mind took in the agitation of the Pannonian commander and the moment of confusion and consternation as Titianus, Paulinus, Proculus and Celsus digested the information they had been given.
‘We should be ready to move,’ he warned Benignus. The legionary commander shot him a nervous glance and called up his cornicen, the signaller who would relay his commands to the ten cohorts of the First Adiutrix. The cohort commanders all had their orders, but Valerius wondered how they would react. Paulinus had said the First was a young legion and he was right. For all the drill they had performed in the last three months, they couldn’t hope to deploy as quickly as a veteran formation. A clarion call rang out from the command group and was taken up by the legionary trumpeters. His blood quickened, because like every man in the miles-long column he knew it meant the enemy was in sight. Valerius had witnessed the smooth transformation of a legion from column of march into battle formation a hundred times, but it never ceased to awe him. Thousands of men moving as if they were controlled by a single hand in precise, perfectly choreographed movements. With a sinking heart he saw this was going to be different.
‘Mars’ arse,’ Serpentius muttered. ‘I hope the bastards aren’t in a hurry for a fight.’
The Via Postumia, with its hardened, well-drained surface, had provided the legions with good marching, but it was a narrow causeway constricted by deep ditches on either side of the raised surface. It meant the two full legions, their baggage and heavy weapons, and the Praetorian cohorts who would make up the centre of the Othonian line, were strung out over at least five miles of road. Thirteenth Gemina, leading the column, was a veteran legion, with a long history. A Thirteenth had crossed the Rubicon with Divine Caesar and helped raise him to the purple. Now the Thirteenth, and its reinforcing cohorts from the Fourteenth, had to disperse into attack formation over the ditch and into the fields on the north side of the causeway. As the road ahead cleared, theoretically, the First Adiutrix would move forward and deploy to the left and align with the Thirteenth’s formations, allowing the Praetorians to advance to fill the centre and create an unbroken line. But the fields on the north side of the road were choked with trees and bushes strung with vines, and deep ditches had been cut to drain the swampy land. The four cohorts who would make up the front rank hacked their way through the vines to take up their positions and the legion’s engineers sweated and cursed to cut some kind of space that would allow the onagri and scorpiones to provide support against the enemy. Behind them the six cohorts who would form the second and third ranks struggled to hold position in the maze of vegetation. A further three cohorts attempted to get off the road into a supporting position, but only added to the chaos and confusion. Officers roared orders and standard-bearers screamed out the name of their units, trying desperately to unify their commands. Meanwhile the road ahead of Valerius was jammed with men trying to join their centuries and cohorts, a bustling mass of bobbing iron helmets and frantically waving unit standards. Beacons of red indicated where the scarlet-plumed centurions battled to regain order, but it still looked more like a bread riot than a military operation. He could see that it might be an hour and more before Aquila, the Thirteenth’s legate, could bring any sort of cohesion to his ranks.