Claudius (20 page)

XXXI

‘Lord?’ Caratacus heard the concern in his shield-bearer’s voice and suppressed a small stirring of irritation.

‘What is it?’ He didn’t turn his head. He had been concentrating on the river, attempting to interpret the sounds from the bridges and gauge the extent of the Roman progress. It was a bad moment to disturb him and he knew his voice was brusque.

‘Lord,’ the lad was pleading. ‘Look. To the west.’

Now he turned, and when he followed the pointing finger he was frozen by a momentary shiver of panic. At least a dozen huts, probably more, were blazing in the Dobunni encampment. It was impossible. There must have been some kind of accident. He shook his head. Don’t be a fool. This is no accident. Antedios was right, and he had underestimated the enemy. He willed himself to be calm. Fear was contagious. The chiefs around him must believe this was something he had prepared for.

‘Send a runner to Togodumnus,’ he ordered, deliberately keeping his voice steady. ‘Tell him I must know what is happening. Every detail of it.’

A messenger trotted off into the darkness, but he had only been gone for a few minutes when one of Togodumnus’s Dobunni warriors appeared, gasping for breath.

‘My . . . my . . .’

‘Wait,’ Caratacus admonished him gently. ‘The knowledge you carry is only of use if I can understand what you are saying. Recover your wind and be calm.’

The warrior nodded and stood sucking in air for a few moments. When he was ready, he straightened and looked the king in the eye. ‘My lord Togodumnus bids you to send reinforcements immediately. The Dobunni have been attacked by a force two legions strong.’ A murmur of dismay ran around the men surrounding him and Caratacus realized he should have received the message in private. But it was too late now. He raised a hand for silence and told the messenger to continue.

‘We are hard-pressed, but holding them. My lord is of the opinion that with the Iceni and the Durotriges under his command he will be able to crush the Romans and slaughter them to the last man.’

Caratacus felt Scarach stiffen at his side and put out a hand to calm him. Whatever he decided there was little chance the Durotrige war leader would agree to serve under Togodumnus. ‘And what does your lord believe we should use to fight the Romans here, where the main attack will come, when he has taken half my forces?’

The man chewed his lip. What he was about to say was not the sort of thing messengers wanted to tell kings, particularly not kings with Caratacus’s reputation. ‘My . . . my lord Togodumnus is of the opinion that the Dobunni are facing the main attack. He says . . . believes . . . you have allowed yourself to be tricked by the Romans and urges you to join him against them and leave a small force here to hold the diversionary attack from the bridges.’

Scarach growled, but Caratacus ignored him. He walked forward to the edge of the hill and stared into the darkness. What was happening out there? He waited, feeling the pressure from the men behind him who wanted an instant decision, but knowing he must not react to it. Every instinct told him the main attack would come across the bridges. It was the Roman way. An assault in overwhelming strength that would grind the enemy into dust. Togodumnus must be wrong. It was impossible for the Romans to have crossed the river upstream with so many men. There wasn’t a ford for ten miles and Ballan’s riders had searched the whole length of the bank. For a moment his thoughts turned to the Iceni scout. Surely he should have returned by now. No. No time for that. He made his decision.

‘Tell your lord he must hold the Romans in place. Tell him I do not wish him to attack them, but to find a defensive position where he can protect my flank and hold it. Nuada?’ He called the Druid across. ‘You will accompany this man to the king of the Dobunni, see for yourself the strength of the enemy and his dispositions so that I may assess the threat, and return immediately you are certain of the position.’ He nodded in dismissal. Nuada didn’t like it, but what could he do? He needed to know what was happening, not what Togodumnus’s overactive imagination was telling him. He could see the messenger was reluctant to go and he didn’t blame him. Togodumnus was unlikely to take the reply well. He turned back to the assembled chiefs of the Catuvellauni, the Iceni, the Trinovantes and the Durotriges.

‘The main attack will come here, and when it comes we will choke the river with Roman corpses. The gods will it.’ The final four words echoed in his head and in the same instant his heart soared when he heard a clap of thunder as the gods reaffirmed their will. It took a second before he realized the sound was not thunder. It was the clash of wood and leather and metal as two mighty walls of shields met with a force that shook the earth. And it came from downstream.

It was impossible. How had they crossed the river in the east? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they were there. His army was caught between three Roman forces, any one of which might be strong enough to destroy him. The fine trap he had manufactured would become the graveyard of his warriors. His first instinct was to gather the bulk of his forces to meet the most obvious threat, from downstream, but he dashed the thought from his head. There was a greater danger, and it would come from across the river where he still sensed the bulk of the legionary force waited. His mind, which had been on the very brink of panic, cleared, and in extremity, he decided, there was an opportunity. Plautius had split his command. If – and it was an enormous if – he was given time to defeat the main thrust from the south, across the river, he could then attack each of the diversionary forces in turn. He undoubtedly still outnumbered his enemy and the deadly obstacles still lay submerged under the placid waters of the lagoon. It would be costly, bloody work and there would be many thousands of weeping widows by nightfall, but it was still possible to shatter the Romans, here, on the Tamesa.

But first he must buy himself time. Epedos and Bodvoc would have been surprised by the assault from downstream, but the very fact they were able to organize a defence line to meet the attack meant someone had reacted swiftly enough to ensure a crisis hadn’t turned into a disaster. Still, they would be hard-pressed.

‘Antedios? Take your Iceni and support the Atrebates and the Regni.’ He was giving up his precious reserves, but it had to be done. He was conscious of a greater pressure from that direction than from upriver, where he felt certain Togodumnus had overestimated the threat. ‘If it is your judgement that the Romans have been stopped you may return here to your positions, but I must have time to meet and destroy the main attack across the river. This is still the greatest danger. Do you understand?’

The Iceni king nodded. He was unused to being given orders like some beardless boy before his first battle, but he was aware of the gravity of the situation and had pledged his support for Caratacus. The sky was clearing now, heralding a sharp, crisp morning that reminded a man he must look to the crops that would see him through the winter. He had fought in more battles than he could remember, but his bones were creaking with age and his body was beginning to fail him. Would this be his last? With ponderous dignity he was helped on to the back of his pony, and he gave a final salute as he rode off at the head of his tribe.

At last, Caratacus could turn his attention to the river. It was light enough to see the far bank now, but the morning mist still blanketed any activity there or on the river itself. The only evidence was the sound of the bridge builders at work, and the frantic hammering and splashing told him they were close to completing their task. Every warrior on the hill listened intently. The hammering stopped and there was a momentary silence that was quickly replaced by a noise that sent a shiver through the defenders. A sharp, rhythmic rattling as thousands of feet shod in hobnailed sandals marched in step over the three wooden crossings.

The sun broke clear above the eastern horizon and the mist burned off the river as if it had never existed.

Caratacus felt his warriors tense all around him; a mass tightening of muscles, thousands of fists firming their grip on sword or spear, the shuffling of feet as warriors readied themselves to fall upon the enemy. The enemy. He saw them arrayed below him and he found himself breathing hard as if he had just tackled some strenuous physical task. His heart beat faster and his mind raced. Calm, he told himself. Stay calm. Of all men here, you and only you have the will to prevail.

They frightened him. Of course they frightened him; he would be a fool if they didn’t. He had seen them from afar with Ballan as well as when he had disguised himself as a cavalry trooper to infiltrate the baggage train. But this was the first time he had witnessed them in full battle order. When he was a child, he had once found a giant insect, a long sinuous thing with a body made up of many parts and countless legs on either flank. It didn’t walk so much as ripple across the ground. The legions reminded him of it. The men, and the sections, and the centuries and the cohorts, were the body parts, each a separate entity, but creating a single unit which moved as one. Their armour glinted in the sun as they marched, just as the armoured carapace of the insect had gleamed as it flowed from place to place between the stones. The monstrous thing had been a bright, sulphurous orange, but the predominant colour in the monster that was a Roman legion was red. The cloaks and the vestments of the officers were a uniform scarlet, but the tunics of the rank-and-file troops varied according to their length of service and the conditions they had served in. Some were sun-bleached to a pale pink, others so dark they could almost be called brown, and in between was every colour of that spectrum.

A rush of air heralded the arrival of the first of the catapult-launched missiles he knew would flay the British line all day. But they must be ignored. If the gods wanted him, they only had to take him.

Plautius had ranged a single legion as if they were on parade at the far end of each bridge, and that convinced Caratacus he had been right to leave Togodumnus to cope alone. Three legions to his front, another on his left flank where Antedios should by now have reinforced the battle line of the Atrebates and the Regni. That meant Togodumnus must be facing a relatively small force of auxiliaries. It was the vanguard of each legion who now thundered across the bridges. Caratacus knew these would be crack troops. The heavy infantry. He watched them advance, short, squat men heavily burdened by their weapons and armour, but running as easily as if they were naked. They were close, perhaps twenty paces from the end of the bridges, when they began to fall. An officer, a centurion, at the very point of the centre column, spun and dropped from the bridge to disappear soundlessly and instantly into the swirling waters of the river. Another fell, jerking convulsively, and the British leader watched in admiration as the legionary deliberately rolled over the side – to certain death – so as not to impede his comrades. What mark of men these were, he thought; an enemy worthy of any king.

He turned his attention to the near bank where the slingers, spearmen and archers he had placed sweated to kill as many of the charging men as they could before they were overwhelmed. They had orders not to get into a fight, but to retire to the battle line along cunningly sited paths to a position at the base of the hill where they could kill and kill again. Not all would escape. A few would stay to cover the retreat of the others. The Romans were not the only people who knew the meaning of sacrifice.

The first legionaries leapt from the end of the bridges into the shallows and the Britons on the bank launched their final few missiles as the enemy floundered knee deep in the water. But as one fell he was replaced by two more and two more still, and at last the red-clad figures reached the shore. They spread out, forming a perimeter, just short of the swamp he had turned into a death-laced lagoon. He believed he detected confusion among them, and his heart soared. Let them come. Let their pathetic diversions smash themselves against the rocks of his champions. He had them now.

A shout from behind distracted him. He turned to see Scarach, white-faced, listening to a bear-like man who knelt before him. Ballan, but a Ballan worn thin by whatever horrors he had experienced in the last few hours. The Iceni scout’s clothing was torn and mud-stained and his face was so swollen as to be almost unrecognizable.

Ballan saw him, and raised himself to his feet, reeling with exhaustion. ‘Lord,’ he croaked from a throat serrated by thirst. ‘You must reinforce Lord Bodvoc.’

Caratacus stared at him. He trusted Ballan more than any other man he had ever met, but the scout’s mind must have been unhinged by his ordeal. ‘I have already sent your Iceni compatriots to support Lord Bodvoc and Lord Epedos. Surely twenty thousand men can hold a single legion?’

He turned away. He had no time to spare for conversation with fools, even if the fool was Ballan.

‘Not twenty thousand,’ the Iceni whispered, and Caratacus froze. ‘No more than ten. King Epedos and the Atrebates vanished in the night. Antedios, my king, is dead. Bodvoc fights alone.’

XXXII

Rufus was puzzled. He was still alive. They were all still alive.

The British force on the far side of the western battleground dwarfed the thin line of auxiliaries. One all-out charge was surely all it should have taken to sweep the Batavians aside, yet they had made only three half-hearted attacks before withdrawing to the far side of the clearing. Occasionally, one of their champions would emerge to shout insults and a challenge at one of the Roman officers, but the auxiliaries only jeered at their antics. The high tide of the barbarian attack was visible in the scattering of crumpled bodies just in front of Frontinus’s shield wall, the harvest of Batavian throwing spears, but they were only a tiny fraction of the losses the Britons could have afforded to ensure a quick victory.

‘Why don’t they come?’ he asked Frontinus.

The Batavian shrugged, unmoved as he had been when the British attacks had splintered on the Roman spears. ‘Perhaps they are afraid of Bersheba?’

‘That would be like Bersheba being afraid of a rabbit.’

Frontinus grinned. ‘Then I think they lack a leader. By now they will know they are attacked on three sides.’ He had informed Rufus of Plautius’s battle plan once he was certain the Second’s crossing would be complete. ‘They will be nervous. If two forces have crossed the river by stealth, why not three? Even now an army could be cutting off their retreat and ensuring their annihilation. They are brave, but their women and children are in the camps yonder, and even a brave man will look to his family when all hope of victory is gone.’

His words made Rufus think of Gaius, back with the Roman baggage train. Was he wondering where his father had gone, or was he too young to understand? Whatever the answer he wished he was with his son now.

‘Commander!’ The warning shout came from one of the auxiliaries in the front rank. Frontinus marched over to him and looked to the far side of the field, where a horseman in a silvery grey robe rode at the side of a British chariot, the first they’d seen that day. The man standing beside the chariot driver wore the glittering symbols of his rank, heavy golden torcs which ringed his neck and arms. His green cloak was pushed back from his shoulders, but otherwise he was naked to the waist, and even from three hundred paces Rufus could see he was powerfully built.

‘There is your leader,’ Frontinus shouted back to him.

Nuada had finally tracked Togodumnus down to his hut in the centre of the Dobunni encampment. It had been evident as soon as the Druid set eyes on the tiny Roman force that Caratacus’s brother had exaggerated the danger, and equally evident that Caratacus would not have ordered Togodumnus merely to hold his line if he’d known the paucity of the Roman forces. The sub-chiefs of the Dobunni were unable to meet his eyes when he demanded to know where Togodumnus was, but he’d soon discovered the king had retired, sulking, to his hut when he’d heard of his brother’s refusal to support him. He could have used subtler methods to stir him from his torpor – Togodumnus was a king, after all – but Nuada was a Druid, and a Druid of little patience. It hadn’t been difficult. A man who has been brought up in the shadow of priests will be for ever susceptible to their magic. The knowledge that his private parts would turn black and fall from his body if he remained where he was soon restored Togodumnus’s courage, if not his spirit.

But now that he was back with his army, it seemed he was having another change of heart. Nuada reined in his pony in the centre of the Dobunni line and Togodumnus told his charioteer to halt. He stared towards the Batavian shield wall.

‘Caratacus ordered me to hold the Romans, not to attack them. Am I to disobey his orders?’

Nuada smiled through gritted teeth. Worm, he thought, it will be the first time you have obeyed them, and the last. But when he spoke it was with the silken voice of reason. ‘Your brother was unaware of the true circumstances, Lord Togodumnus. The two legions which attacked you have evidently retreated across the river in fear of your vengeance, and left this paltry force of mercenaries as a sacrifice to appease your wrath.’ He waved a disdainful hand at the Roman line, which looked pathetically thin and weak when compared to the Dobunni host facing them. ‘Lord Caratacus would squash them like a flea, and he would expect a mighty champion like his brother to do the same.’

Togodumnus stared across the gap towards the Romans. The defeat at the first river line – despite his protestations to the contrary, he was forced to admit it had been a defeat – had left him nervous of the power of the legions. Yes, there were comparatively few of the lightly armed auxiliaries, but he had seen them fight and had learned to fear them. There had been reports of movement in the trees along the clifftops to the Roman left that he didn’t like. He turned to Nuada, who had dismounted from his pony. ‘I understand your concern, Nuada, and I share it, but in all honour I cannot disobey my brother’s orders without a counter-order or . . .’ he gave a smile that made the Druid’s hackles rise like a brindle hound’s, ‘a sign from the gods.’

Nuada stared at him for a moment, not hiding his contempt. He looked to the skies, hoping a convenient cloud would cover the sun, but the heavens were a dome of perfect blue. Not even a solitary hawk to claim as a messenger.

‘I—’ He had just opened his mouth to reason with the fool, when a gigantic, impossibly loud roar shook the trees and shattered the silence. He felt his heart swell and said a swift prayer of thanks. As he turned in triumph towards the Roman lines he had a glimpse of Togodumnus’s face, ivory white. Why had he not noticed it earlier? Of course, it was almost perfectly camouflaged against the grey stone at the base of the cliffs.

He raised his bear claw and pointed it towards Bersheba, the Emperor’s elephant.

‘There!’ he roared, so all could hear it, even those at the furthest wings of the Dobunni attack. ‘There is your sign. Kill the beast and the gods will wash these accursed invaders from our land and hurl them into the sea. Kill the beast and free this land of Britain. Kill the beast and ensure a hundred years of peace.’ More quietly, but in a tone even more commanding, he said, ‘There, Lord Togodumnus, is your honour and your fame. Kill the beast and none will dare say the name of Caratacus in your hearing again.’

Togodumnus stared back at him, his eyes bright with . . . what? Fear? No, the opposite. The Dobunni king’s thin lips drew back from his teeth in a feral snarl and he tapped his charioteer on the right shoulder.

‘Attack!’ His scream rent the air and was taken up by hundreds, thousands, all along the line. The Dobunni multitude broke into a run as one man and fell on the Batavian line like a pack of howling wolves.

The day was still young when that first terrible assault came; by the time it had been repeated more times than he could count Rufus felt like an old man. He wasn’t alone. Frontinus had the lined face of an ancient to match the premature grey of his hair and a haunted look that was shared by all the survivors of his dwindling, parch-mouthed band of heroes. A line that had started the day four men deep was worn down to a single thin strand. The dead and the wounded had been hauled clear and lay together with nothing to distinguish one from the other but the occasional shudder or moan. Those injured still able to walk wandered among them handing out the last of the dwindling water supply to the ones most likely to survive, but no one else raised a hand to aid them. They were saving what was left of their strength to meet the next charge.

Rufus had watched the Britons come from his place beside Bersheba, his guts a twisted ball of fear and his feet telling him to run. At first only the elephant’s calming presence had given him the courage to stand, but as wave upon wave of attackers surged and broke against the Batavian shields his fear was replaced by despair – and with despair came a different kind of courage. The courage of the damned.

Three times he had stepped forward to take his place in the line as men went down. He had picked up a discarded spear and forced himself between two of the Batavians in the second rank and jabbed the point between a pair of auxiliary helmets in front of him at moustached, sweat-slicked barbarian faces that came and went, screamed and snarled, bled and died. As he fought for his life he had discovered a curious calm born of close proximity to the men beside and in front of him. Mail-clad shoulders pushed against his on either side; from behind, a shield forced him forward so that he was in physical contact with the auxiliary in front and adding his strength to the frontline defender’s own. He had no shield to protect him, but when one of the long barbarian spears threatened, the man at his side would nudge his own shield forward to take the blow. Comradeship, was that it? No, what he was feeling was more than comradeship. It was brotherhood. His battle was limited to that narrow corridor of half a dozen friends and the enemy who faced them from between the two polished iron helmets that limited his vision. His nostrils were filled with the acrid smell of fear, and he knew that it was his own. But there was also sweat, the bitter metallic stink from the sparks that flew when two iron blades met in a certain way, and above it all the now familiar scent of butchered carcass and torn bowels. He wondered how any man in the line was able to hear an order, if orders came at all. The soldier’s aural world was one of grunts and unintelligible growls that rasped from dry, dust-filled throats; of fear-filled challenges in an unfamiliar language, and shrieks of mortal agony sung out against a background rhythm of shield against shield, sword against shield, and sword against flesh and muscle and bone. Of man against man.

Three times Frontinus had sent him back. ‘Your place is beside the elephant, soldier,’ the Batavian snarled on the third occasion. ‘Your time will come, but disobey my order again and it will be my sword that kills you and not a British spear.’

So he had retired to his position and witnessed the martyrdom of the Batavian cohorts. Men didn’t die from a single wound. The mail that covered their torsos and the protective helmets they wore meant it was difficult for the Britons to inflict a mortal blow from beyond the shield. Instead they stood beside their comrades until they had taken a dozen cuts and dropped to the ground from exhaustion or loss of blood, then crawled clear to die without complaint among the bodies of friends who had already fallen. For every Batavian casualty the Britons suffered tenfold. With each successive charge, the mound of dead and dying in front of the Roman line grew higher and hampered the surviving attackers’ progress. It was only Nuada’s exhortations and faith in their gods that kept them coming forward. Togodumnus used his warriors like a giant club, battering again and again against the thin metal sheet that was the Batavian defence, and he raged and screamed his frustration as his men died in vain and the sheet bent and buckled, but did not tear. But there came a point as the sun reached its mid-point when not even the gods or Togodumnus’s rage could make the British champions charge again. They must rest.

A breathless hush fell over the battlefield, and where there had only been the endless clash of iron against iron and the agonized screams of men suffering and dying, Rufus could hear the sound of birdsong. It seemed inappropriate, unfair. While they had been trapped in this gore-slick enclave of carnage, life continued around and above them unnoticed. It made him want to weep. One of the auxiliaries came to his side and offered him a drink of precious water from an almost empty goatskin. He reached for it, but dropped his hand and gave the man a tired smile.

‘No,’ he croaked. ‘I’m not thirsty.’ The truth was that his tongue was cloven to the roof of his mouth as if it were set there in mortar. But he would not drink when better men were thirstier still. He waved towards the line of exhausted defenders.

Frontinus staggered up to them. The Batavian commander had lost his helmet and his face was coated with dust, making him look as if he were already long dead. ‘It is over, I think,’ he confessed. ‘If they have the spirit for just one more charge, I believe we are done.’ His voice was cracked and broken, but thick with pride. ‘Only Vespasian can save us, and I fear his troubles are as great as our own or he would be here by now. Take to your elephant’s back. If time is to be our saviour, then it may be that you can buy us a little more of it before . . .’ His voice tailed off and he nodded before limping back to be with his surviving auxiliaries.

As Rufus watched him go he absently rubbed Bersheba’s forehead where she liked to be scratched, and the elephant grunted in appreciation. Her trunk reached out and she sniffed his tunic, searching for the scent of the little pink apples she loved, but he had none to give her. ‘I am sorry, Bersheba, sorry for everything. I should never have brought you to this barbarian land and this dreadful place. You deserved better.’ He looked into her intelligent brown eyes and saw that, despite everything, she still trusted him. He bent to untie the ropes that held her. ‘When this is over you will never again want for an apple or sleep without a roof over your head,’ he promised, giving her the command to kneel. ‘But first, we have one last battle to fight.’ In a single movement he leapt on to her back and manoeuvred her behind the centre of the Batavian position.

On the far side of the clearing Nuada urged the exhausted Dobunni warriors to a last effort. He had watched in frustration and fury as Togodumnus launched his forces in one futile bull-headed charge after another, allowing the Romans to harvest his men the way a scythe harvests a field of corn. Now he drew Togodumnus to one side. Caratacus’s brother had the look of a man caught in a nightmare. His eyes flickered as if he were seeking an avenue of escape, but they never rested in one place long enough for him to identify it. If he didn’t win this battle, he knew he was finished. If his brother didn’t kill him, the Dobunni survivors would.

‘You have one opportunity,’ Nuada hissed, gripping the king by his cloak where a large golden brooch held it closed at his neck. ‘Do you understand me? One opportunity. Your warriors will follow you, but only if you lead them. This is what you must do.’