The Furies Of Rome Part 24

t.i.tus took another look at the gap. 'Right. I'm going to speak to our trierarchus.'

The approach of four Roman vessels had not gone unnoticed, even by the most blood-crazed of the Iceni, and, as they neared the gap with the stroke-masters' shrill pipes sounding a fast beat, many of the red-stained apparitions gathered on the bridge, well aware of the opportunity that was going to present itself should the ships be foolish enough to try for the gap.

'Ramming speed!' the trierarchus shouted from his position between the steering-oars.

The stroke increased to the fastest possible rate, maintainable only for a couple of hundred pulls.

On went the four ships in single file, headed straight for the gap, a hundred paces between each of them; on their decks knelt the sixty-four troopers of the two turmae they each carried, shields poised, javelins in right hands and a spare grasped in their shield hand.

The first arrows from the bridge slammed into the bow with vibrating reports and slingshot fizzed through the air and thwacked into the hull; on the sh.o.r.e the ma.s.sacre continued with groups of victims now herded together, many accepting their fate, dully awaiting the inevitable as the warriors despatched them in batches with cold-blooded, methodical efficiency. Behind them the town burnt pumping thick smoke into the already laden sky.

The ships powered on and the missile hits increased, juddering into deck and shields and clinking off helms; in the hold the horses skitted, their nerves taut.

Fifty paces out, forty, thirty. Javelins began to hail down; a horse bucked and screeched with a sleek missile embedded in its rump. Panic spread amongst its neighbours to either side.

Twenty paces.

'Loose!' shouted t.i.tus.

The troopers jumped to their feet, hurling their javelins in one fluid movement at the bridge and then, without pause, let fly with the second; many of the scores of missiles. .h.i.t home, punching men back or sending them howling into the river below.

Ten paces.

'Oars!' the trierarchus roared.

With remarkable precision all sixty oars were brought inboard and the vessel glided on into the gap as missiles, fire and the mutilated bodies of the dead were hurled down onto the deck.

Shieldless, Vespasian crouched in the lee of the mast, his arms around Caenis, protecting her. A couple of the more reckless warriors jumped down onto the ship but were despatched as they tried to regain their footing. Half a dozen troopers dashed around with buckets, dousing flames before they could take hold. A trooper fell back, a javelin in his eye, the point, bloodied and brained, protruding out of the back of his helmet. A scream as another was crushed under the dead weight of a headless cadaver. More burning timber was hurled down and just above head height part of the bridge's supports had caught fire.

Another hail of missiles from above and two more deaths, skewered to the deck, and then it stopped, suddenly. They were through and the warriors had turned their attention to the next ship.

Vespasian took his arms from around Caenis. 'Are you all right, my love?'

She looked about and then back at the bridge as the order to reset the oars was shouted. 'Yes, I'm fine.'

'Jorik!' t.i.tus shouted. 'Calm the horses and then get this mess cleared up. I've never seen such an untidy deck; what are you thinking of?'

The decurion grinned and saluted. 'Yes, sir!'

'He's got a good way with his men,' Caenis commented.

Vespasian nodded thoughtfully. 'I was just thinking that myself.'

Through came the next ship, its deck smouldering and stuck full of embedded arrows and javelins; and then the third appeared through what was now becoming thick smoke as the fire in the bridge supports had strengthened and it would only be a matter of time before what was left of the northern section of the bridge would collapse into the river and likely block it. Beyond the smoke the fourth ship could not be seen and Vespasian waited with drawn breath for its outline to materialise.

'Come on,' t.i.tus urged in a tight whisper, peering into the pall as their ship gradually increased its speed now that it made its way upriver.

'There she is,' Vespasian said with relief as the bow of the vessel broke through the smoke.

But the further it came through the more it became obvious that all was not as it should be: the deck was a ma.s.s of combative figures all engaged in dispersed fights, some single duels and others in groups. There was no formation as the Britannic warriors had jumped, en ma.s.se, onto the deck as the ship had pa.s.sed through the gap beneath them, so that they covered its full length. Fire had taken a firm hold amidships as the troopers were too busy trying to repel boarders to deal with it.

The oars were spread and the stroke began as the fighting grew in intensity in proportion to the fire.

In the chaos and thickening smoke it was impossible to make out who was getting the upper hand. Bodies fell to the deck or tumbled over the rail to bounce off the oars and down into the river. The clash of weapons, shrieks of agony and the b.e.s.t.i.a.l screeching of panicking horses drifted across the water, louder even than the clamour of the ma.s.sacre that still continued on the sh.o.r.e, this side of the bridge. On the four ships went with the battle still raging in the rearmost; and then suddenly it slewed to the starboard as the larboard oars fouled and then were dropped. The fire had burnt through the deck and red-hot timbers were falling onto the rowers. The starboard oars ceased rowing and figures could be seen clambering out of the oar-ports. Above them, on the deck the fire had grown in intensity, fed by the sizzling bodies of the fallen.

The third ship had turned, ready to pick up survivors as the oarsmen, clad only in their tunics, thrashed in the water; those who could swam towards the returning ship, others just cried choking prayers to their G.o.ds as they tried to pull oars out of the floundering vessel in the hope that they would float well enough to support their weight.

The fighting had suddenly ceased on the deck as both sides realised that the ship was doomed. The horses had realised it too and their terrified screeching rose in intensity as the gate at the top of the ramp to the hold was hauled open. Up they streamed onto the deck and then, seeing the flames, made the easy choice of clearing the rail; the first few crashed into oars, breaking them off and clearing the way for their fellows behind as, with mighty splashes, they hit the water. With them came their riders, expert swimmers as Vespasian knew from the early days of the invasion when Aulus Plautus had used Batavians to swim a river in order to take a hill; a feat they had accomplished despite being in full armour. Man and beast now swam together, making for the south bank and relative safety as the Britons left on the burning deck now faced a choice between immolation and taking their chances in the river; in they went as the rescue ship neared. Vengeful troopers hurled javelins at the floundering warriors, picking them off with ease as others reached down with boat hooks to haul rowers to safety.

'They'll be able to keep pace with us on the south bank,' Vespasian said as he and t.i.tus watched the forty or so surviving troopers swimming to safety with their mounts. 'If I remember rightly the terrain is mainly flat. They can swim over to us when we land on the north bank.'

t.i.tus looked over his shoulder at the north bank; the fire raged in all parts of the town and on the sh.o.r.e b.l.o.o.d.y murder was still being done, but the ships were now pulling away from the carnage and were in full view of the main part of Boudicca's army camped outside Londinium, sealing off all chance of escape. 'I believe that'll be harder than you think, Father.'

Vespasian turned; a large war band of warriors, over three hundred of them, all mounted on their s.h.a.ggy ponies had detached itself from the main army and was now keeping pace with the ships. 'Ah! I see. It looks as if they want to discourage us from landing on the northern bank.'

'In which case we'll oblige them.'

The horses' hoofs made a hollow clatter as they were led down the ramp onto the southern sh.o.r.e and Vespasian was certain that it would be audible in the night air to the Britons if they were indeed just over a quarter of a mile away on the north bank. But no one knew for sure whether they were or not.

t.i.tus had ordered the ships to press on under sail and oars as fast as the exhausted rowers could manage for as long as possible in order to tire the Britons' ponies as they struggled to keep up. Then, as dusk fell, he ordered the oars in so that the vessels carried on under sail in relative silence; with no lights burning and staying as far as possible from the northern bank, the ships were almost invisible in the night with thick cloud overhead. Sharp-eyed lookouts were stationed in the bows but the river was wide and the speed of the ships under sail slow. For five hours of the night they had edged forward in silence with no idea whether or not the Britons still tracked them until t.i.tus ordered the disembarkation.

'You and your girls are going to have to stay on the ship, my love,' Vespasian said to Caenis as the last few horses were led down the gangplank.

'I know,' Caenis replied, taking his arm. 'There is no way that I'll be able to swim the river, even if I'm holding onto a horse's saddle.'

'It's not so much that; we could find a way of getting you across.'

'A woman's place is not in a battle?'

'What do you think?'

'I think Boudicca might have a different opinion on the subject. But I saw enough in Camulodunum to know that I don't want to see more so I won't argue this time.' She grinned up at him. 'Besides, I've killed my man. What are the ships going to do?'

'They'll wait until the Britons pull out of Londinium and then sail back through the bridge and on to Germania Inferior. That's the reason why you can't come with us: I need you to go to Germania Inferior and emphasise the gravity of the situation here to Governor Rufus; your eyewitness account may be the difference between him waiting for orders from Rome or acting on his own initiative. It's so vitally important that you make him do that, my love, if we're to stand any chance of retrieving the situation.'

'Now, that is something I can do, if he's prepared to listen to a woman's a.s.sessment of a military situation.'

'He'd better for all our sakes. Even if Paulinus does manage to defeat Boudicca in one set-piece battle we'd still find ourselves in a precarious position in a partially conquered and restless province with a population that has now witnessed the destruction of a legion and knows that it could be done again. We need reinforcements soon and the nearest legions are on the Rhenus. You must make him act.'

'I'll do my best.'

'I'm sure you will; I've seen how persuasive you can be with Burrus. I've ordered Hormus to stay with you for protection; he can be very handy if he needs to be. I'll see you in Germania Inferior once this business is done and we can get back to Rome.'

'Why don't you come with me now? This is not your fight and surely Rufus would be more persuaded by your word rather than a woman's?'

'And not go to war with my son? What would he think of me?'

Caenis pursed her lips, shaking her head slowly. 'I hadn't looked at it that way; you're right, you have to go.' She stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. 'May Mars Victorious hold his hands over you; both of you.'

'Over us all, I pray. We're certainly going to need him to in the coming days.' He kissed her in return, full on the lips, and then followed the horses down onto the bank, praying that it was not to be their last.

Decurion Jorik issued a stream of quiet orders in the strangely harsh language of the Batavians that always made Vespasian think that they were trying to clear their throats mid-sentence. The troopers emptied their water-skins and then blew them up, tying the top in order to seal in the air so that they were left with a leather balloon which they then secured to their shield handles.

Vespasian had done the same and now stood next to his mount, one of the surplus from the fourth ship, the survivors of which had rejoined them as they disembarked. Another quiet order and then, holding on to one of their saddle horns with the right hand and the buoyed shield in the other, Vespasian, t.i.tus, Sabinus and Magnus, with an excited Castor and Pollux in tow, walked their mounts into the water along with the rest of the half ala.

'My b.o.l.l.o.c.ks have just disappeared,' Magnus complained as the water submerged the area in question.

Vespasian gritted his teeth and forced himself onward; as he got deeper he placed his shield on the surface, with the improvised buoyancy bag underneath, and lay on it still holding onto his mount. As the beast started to swim it pulled him along on his little raft and so, in the dark of the night, the half ala crossed the Tamesis in almost total silence.

However, the silence could not be maintained when they got to the northern bank as the horses emerged from the water and the troopers swung up onto their backs in a jangle of equipment and the metallic rings of drawing swords. The suddenness and intensity of the noise woke the sleeping Britons, who had, indeed, managed to track them. But newly waken men are easily confused and the sight of more than two hundred cavalry horses surging from the river, water exploding about their hoofs and flowing from their manes and tails, in a line as if they had galloped along the riverbed, was too much for the Britons' dulled minds to comprehend; as the throat of the first man to his feet was sliced open, they still could not fully understand what they were facing.

Howling the war cries of their ancestors, now that silence was not an issue, the Batavian troopers set about the rousing warriors, giving them no time to arm themselves or to organise a defence, and with blade, point and hoof they brought death to those who would have killed them. Vespasian worked his mount and sword in unison, turning and slashing as panic quickly spread through the Britons and they began to flee rather than face these hors.e.m.e.n of the deep. And as they ran the hors.e.m.e.n followed, sending them to the afterlife bearing the shame of a wound to the back. So with the few surviving warriors scattered and the ponies sent bolting, the Batavian half ala headed north, without fear of pursuit, to join Governor Paulinus for his desperate stand against the ma.s.ses of Boudicca.

For the remainder of the night they pressed on mainly at a walk, bearing, as far as they could judge, directly north on Sabinus' suggestion as it had been this part of the province that he had been responsible for subduing with the XIIII Gemina in the first years of the invasion. However, navigation in the starless night had proved reasonably simple: all they had to do was to keep the orange glow in the sky to their east; Londinium still burnt. By the time the sun crested the eastern horizon, they had reached the road running west to Calleva and were a dozen or so miles north of the river and twenty west of Londinium. But even at that distance, as the light grew, so did the clarity of the pillar of smoke climbing to the sky from the ruins of the town, backlit by the dawn sun, glowing with the same hue as the flames that produced it.

The growing light also revealed another unusual sight: the country was alive with people, either in family units, hoping that their small size would render them less visible, or in larger groups bound together in the belief that safety would lie in numbers. All were heading for the Calleva road and then following it into the southwest, away from the storm that had roared out of the east, for rumour did not need to travel by word of mouth now that the smoke, rising for all to see from the stricken town, proclaimed the hatred that approached.

'It would seem that the whole south of the island is on the move,' t.i.tus observed as he surveyed the countryside speckled with refugees, many driving their livestock before them.

Vespasian winced as he shifted his sore backside in the saddle. 'Are you surprised after what you saw in Londinium and Camulodunum?'

'But where are they going?'

'They probably don't know themselves; anywhere where Boudicca isn't would be enough for me were I in their place.'

'As for us,' Sabinus said, taking no interest in the refugees, 'if we carry on heading directly north we should hit the northwest road in about thirty miles, soon after it's pa.s.sed through Verulamium. Paulinus' choice of ground must be somewhere where the road pa.s.ses through hill-country just before Veronae. If we keep moving we should be there in two or three days.'

With no one other than Sabinus having any experience of this part of the province they accepted his a.s.sessment and, with tiredness eating away at them, pushed on, pleased to put themselves into Sabinus' hands and not to have to make any decisions.

It was after they had been travelling up the northwest road for a couple of hours the following day, keeping just to the side of it due to the carts and wagons fleeing the rampaging Iceni, that there came a moan, like a communal sharing of grief, from the refugees as many of them halted and turned to face back down in the direction whence they had come.

Vespasian looked behind as t.i.tus halted the half ala. It was unmistakeable: although not yet as large as the one that had risen from Londinium, it was a column of smoke, grey and growing fatter from the combustion feeding it below.

'Verulamium,' Sabinus muttered.

Vespasian wondered how many people had elected to stay with their property rather than follow the example of the thousands on the road. 'How far is that from Londinium?'

'About twenty miles.'

Vespasian did a rough mental calculation. 'She must have pulled her army out from Londinium yesterday at dawn to have got there by now. She's moving as fast as she possibly can with that huge host.'

'She has to,' t.i.tus said, turning away from the macabre sight. 'How else can she feed them?'

Vespasian nodded thoughtfully, pleased with his son's logic. 'That may be our best weapon against her.'

With a hand signal, t.i.tus restarted the column and they carried on their journey northwest in search of the army of Suetonius Paulinus.

'And you say that the road is still clogged with refugees?' Governor Paulinus asked, pacing to and fro in front of a map set on a board, hanging from one of the posts supporting the ma.s.sive leather tent that was the XIIII Gemina's campaign praetorium.

'Not clogged, but busy,' Vespasian replied. 'Most of them were continuing up to Veronae and beyond.'

'Only about a fifth left it following your trail,' Sabinus said.

'That should be enough,' Paulinus stated, stopping to consult the map yet again, and then looked over to Cogidubnus, seated on a campaign chair gnawing a chicken leg. 'Do you think she'll know yet that I didn't retreat to Veronae but left the road early?'

'She has her spies,' the King replied through a mouthful.

'I suppose it doesn't matter if she does or doesn't, just as long as there's a goodly number of refugees that she can follow to lead her here.' He turned abruptly and addressed t.i.tus. 'You said just now in your report that you saw the smoke from Verulamium at the beginning of the third hour of yesterday?'

'That's correct, sir.'

Paulinus contemplated the information for a few moments. 'It's forty miles from there to here, so a.s.suming that she lets her men have their fun for the remainder of the day and overnight, she would have pulled out this morning. A disorganised rabble like that won't build camps, they'll just sleep where they drop, so if she marches eight hours a day and spends four foraging, she'll-'

'With respect, sir, she won't,' Vespasian interjected.

Paulinus looked about to shout but then controlled himself. 'What won't she do?'

'She won't march eight hours a day; she'll do twelve and won't stop to forage.'

'What makes you think that, senator?'

'I saw the size of her army at Camulodunum, sir; a conservative estimate would have put it at sixty thousand with at least the same again of families. It was the whole Iceni nation on the move, not just the warriors. Now, thanks to Paelignus, the Trinovantes have joined them; I saw her army again as we sailed past Londinium and it can now only be described as monstrously huge, almost double the original size. She can't feed them and the countryside can't support them; they have to rely on what they bring with them. They burnt Camulodunum and Londinium before they had time to loot them properly for food and I imagine that they did the same with Verulamium; and what with the whole countryside fleeing before her taking all their supplies and livestock with them, well? What's the point in stopping for four hours a day to collect what isn't there?'

Paulinus stroked his chin; his eyes widened. 'You're right, Vespasian: she has to get this over as quickly as possible so that she can disband. She has to force-march, to catch us quick before her warriors start to get too hungry.'

'Exactly, sir; so instead she'll opt for making them tired. She'll march before dawn and carry on until at least sunset.'

A smile crept onto Paulinus' face. 'Minerva's crusted minge, you're right. She'll be here tomorrow evening and her men will be exhausted; I'll make sure that mine aren't.'

The XIIII Gemina and the two cohorts of the XX legion plus their auxiliaries amounted to a little over ten thousand men, giving a frontage of just over half a mile if deployed eight deep, and Vespasian could understand exactly why Paulinus had chosen this ground: it was a sloping valley between two very steep hills that, at the opening, were a mile and a half apart but then the gap gradually closed, as the ground rose, until they converged. Just before their junction, Paulinus had built his fortified camp on the eaves of a thick forest that sealed the valley and would preclude any rear a.s.sault, just as it would prevent any retreat; it also provided shelter for the thousands of refugees that had sought the protection of the army, for Paulinus would not allow them in the camp. All in all the valley was a place where ten thousand men could stand a chance of defeating many times their number as they were funnelled uphill towards them, or die in the attempt.

What it was not, however, was a field for cavalry because Paulinus' strategy was based on infantry standing shoulder to shoulder and killing the man in front of them again and again until there were none left. To that end he had, during the time remaining to him before Boudicca's arrival, ordered the ground for a couple of hundred paces in front of where the Romans would stand to be strewn with stones and tree branches to disable the Britannic chariotry and their small number of cavalry. This had been done on a cohort by cohort rotation basis so that at any one time most of the army was resting or eating.

'There's no way that I'm going to fight mounted,' Magnus said after t.i.tus had told him, Vespasian, Sabinus and Cogidubnus the news that his Batavians and the rest of the cavalry were to act as reinforcements for the infantry line, having come from Paulinus' briefing the following afternoon.

'I didn't think you'd be fighting at all,' Vespasian said, 'considering your age, that is.'

'Now don't you start mocking me again, sir; there's plenty of fight and f.u.c.k left in me yet.'

'You're seventy; you should be dead.'

'Well, perhaps tomorrow I'll get the chance to put that right. Anyway, I wasn't thinking of getting nice and snug in the front rank; I'll leave that pleasure to the younger, keener lads. I thought that somewhere near the rear would suit me fine; you know, do some pushing on the back of the man in front of me, a bit of finishing off the wounded as we go forward, give Castor and Pollux a chance for some nice breakfast and all that sort of thing. Nothing too strenuous to start off with as I'm sure there'll be plenty to go round and I'd rather have my share when they're a bit less fresh, if you take my meaning?'

'I'm sure you'll get as many of them as you can manage,' Sabinus said, pointing to the mouth of the valley.

Cogidubnus gave a low whistle. 'More in fact than you might want, my friend.'

Vespasian, Magnus and t.i.tus looked up to where Sabinus had indicated: there, in the distance, a black shadow was materialising, extending across the complete mile and a half width of the valley's opening.