Sword of Rome(97)

At the battle of the Cepha gap, Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo had used concealed pits and viciously spiked four-toed metal caltrops to confound the elite heavy cavalry of the Parthian host. Here, Serpentius had marked a path for Valerius and his men on the very edge of a bog concealed by heavy grass. By dismounting and leading the horses at a walk, they had ensured that the beasts’ hooves had cut into the surface crust of the bog without breaking it. But the Batavian horses covered the ground at the gallop with a fully armed and armoured cavalryman in each saddle. The moment they hit the soft ground their hooves plunged two feet into the clinging black ooze. At best, the horses hurtled to an instant halt in a welter of mud and water, throwing their riders into the mud. Animal screams of terror and pain told Valerius that several had broken legs and would never be ridden again.

‘Now!’

Valerius stayed in the saddle while his legionaries dismounted and hefted their heavy javelins with professional ease. Most of the Batavian riders were down, struggling to free themselves from the mud and groping desperately for swords or the long spears they’d lost in the thick sludge. Three had managed to stay in the saddle and were now urging their mounts to the edge of the bog and it was to these that Valerius directed the first of the spearmen. They aimed for the horses, because they were the more certain target, and soon all three were down or standing shaking, knee deep in the mud and with a pair of the deadly pila projecting from their rib cages. A well-trained legionary could pin a moving target at forty paces. Now they were confronted with trapped and struggling men at twenty feet. The heavy mail the auxiliaries wore was designed to stop a sword cut, but the triangular points of the weighted javelins carved through the rings like paper to pierce hearts and lungs and guts. Serpentius circled the bog to cut off any retreat. As the remaining Batavians tried to struggle clear, they were chopped down before they touched dry ground. Two tried to surrender, but they were treated to the mercy they would have given their quarry.

When it was done, Serpentius put the injured horses out of their misery and the surface of the swamp was stained red. Valerius ordered his men into the saddle. There was no time to lose. Claudius Victor would be hard on his vanguard’s heels and the slaughter of his men would only add to his fury.





XXXVI


They arrived at Vesontio in the first light of dawn with the smoke from thousands of cooking fires rising to merge with the low grey cloud. The city had originally been contained by a narrow-necked bend in the river, made more impregnable by the fortified hill that filled the neck like a stopper in a wineskin. Now the familiar red-tiled roofs and stucco walls spilled over to the east bank and a sturdy wooden bridge linked the two sections.

Serpentius wanted to continue onwards to maintain their slender lead over Claudius Victor, but Valerius knew they were in a race they could never win. ‘We have to find another way,’ he said as they sat apart from the others in a grove outside the city.

‘How? You admitted we could never pass close inspection as Batavians.’

‘That’s true, but perhaps we don’t have to.’ The Emperor’s sealed warrant had survived the search of his bags by Batavians more interested in gold than parchment and now he drew it from the sleeve of his tunic. ‘This order requires every Roman citizen to lend all possible aid to Gaius Valerius Verrens, Hero of Rome, on pain of death. Vitellius probably thinks we’re already dead and he can forget about it, but the commandant of this city, or whoever we have to bully into providing us with a boat, doesn’t know that.’

‘But—’

‘We are on a secret mission,’ Valerius continued, anticipating the question. ‘So secret that it requires a Roman officer to dress in the uniform of a Batavian cavalry trooper. It is vital that we reach General Valens as soon as possible. We’ll leave the horses here and use the warrant to replace them somewhere downriver.’ He read the look on Serpentius’s face. ‘You’re not convinced?’

‘It doesn’t matter what I think. By the time we find out whether it’s going to work or not, Claudius Victor will have us bottled up like rats in a grain barrel.’

‘Then let’s make it work.’

Valerius left the legionaries with Metto and took Serpentius to the wharf downstream of the bridge, where he sought out the centurion in charge of shipping. Paladius Nepos was a small, officious martinet of a man, with a permanently angry scowl and a shock of mousy hair. The two rows of clerks under his command cringed away from the rod he carried and he was clearly unhappy at being disturbed by what he perceived as a mere barbarian.