Eagle in the Snow (11 page)

Quintus said stubbornly, “We could repair it. A useful thing, I would suggest, to have a toe-hold on the east side.”

I screwed up my eyes against the glare. “I’ll think about that one,” I said. “The important thing is to get ourselves established here first.”

That first evening I walked out through the river gate and down the bank to where the bridge stood. I walked out on to the broken planks and stared at the remaining piles, stretched out to the further shore, stepping stones for some giant in a child’s story. Patches of mist drifted above the swirling water. I threw a stick into the current and was amazed at the speed with which it was taken away. Barbatio explained to me that a little way upstream from the bridge the river Moenus flowed into the Rhenus. “That’s the division, sir, between the Alemanni and the Burgundians. The Burgundians’ western frontier lies between here and Confluentes where the Franks take over.”

“Are their frontiers firm ones?”

“No, not really, sir. It depends who is on top at the moment.”

“Well, what’s the position now?”

“You see those escarpments, sir, down-river on the east bank. Well, all the country behind that, extending from this town to Bingium, is disputed. At the moment it’s held by a Frankish clan who guard the right bank for us in return for subsidies.”

“You mean Roman silver; and they stay loyal just so long as the bribe is sufficiently heavy?”

He looked startled. “Yes, sir.”

It was getting cold now and I shivered, staring hard at the east bank. That bank there—on that my father had once walked in civilian dress and bearing no arms. But I, if I walked on it, would risk death as an enemy. In my father’s time we had owned it with as much certainty and as little doubt as we had the crumbling city of which I was now governor.

Quintus twisted the bracelet on his wrist and said, “This place is like the end of the world.” It was as though he were thinking my thoughts.

“Yes,” I said. “It is—the end of our world.”

He said, moodily, “I still think it would be a good thing to repair this bridge and take back that camp on the further bank. It would give us a fine start if we should need to take the offensive.”

Barbatio said diffidently, “The Alemanni, sir, would see that as an act of war. General Stilicho, by his terms, gave them absolute rights over the east bank.”

“In that case there’s no point in provoking them without cause.”

Quintus turned to the praefectus. “Have you seen the old camp? Can it be repaired easily?”

Barbatio said hastily, “Yes, sir, though half the walls have been pulled down and the huts destroyed. They did the same to the villas.”

“Who burned the bridge?”

“That was done many years ago, sir, after Rando sacked the town. It was he who destroyed the cathedral.”

“Who is Rando?”

“He was a prince of the Alemanni then. He is now their king.” There was a note of enthusiasm in his voice that had been lacking before. I turned to him and said, “Have you had dealings with him?”

He licked his lips and the sweat rolled down the sides of the leather cheek-pieces of his helmet. “Come on, man, tell me.”

“Yes, sir,” he muttered.

“Slaves, I suppose.”

He nodded.

I said to Quintus, “There isn’t a tribune of frontier troops anywhere in the empire who doesn’t trade in slaves. They’re more interested in that than in their military duties.”

Barbatio flushed. He said, defensively, “We get paid so little. They give it to us in food and supplies instead, but half the time the rations are short. We get cheated by everyone.”

“You should receive money,” I said sharply.

“That’s what I mean, sir.”

“I know all about that. I have been on a frontier too. Tell me, have you heard of the new law which allows you seven days rations a year from your men which you can commute for silver?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And have taken advantage of it, no doubt.”

He nodded again, his eyes shifting from face to face.

“Stick to the law then.” I stared at him hard. “You will have little time for being a slave dealer from now on. You will be too busy being a soldier. Your unit is in a disgusting state. Mend it quickly or I will have a new commander appointed.”

He saluted and started to back away.

“Don’t go yet. There is another matter I want explained. I thought your cohort’s strength was five hundred, but you’ve only two hundred, in fact. Why?”

He said, “We had sickness, sir. Some died, others have gone on pension recently and—and there are a number on leave.” He spoke confidently.

I said, “I saw your ration statements at the imperial granary. You have been drawing food for five hundred with regularity for the last four years.”

“Well, sir, I—my quartermaster always asks for the rations of—of the men on leave. It is customary.” He sounded aggrieved now as though I did not understand something that was obviously a matter of simple common-sense both to him and to his quartermaster.

“Stop lying. You haven’t had three hundred men on leave, now or at any time. You’ve been indenting for food for men who are dead or who were pensioned off years ago. Is that not so?”

He did not say anything. He opened and shut his mouth like a fish.

“Answer me,” I said. “What was the cohort’s strength when you took over. I want the truth.”

He rolled his eyes as though in prayer. Then he licked his lips. “One hundred and eighty,” he whispered.

I prodded him in the chest with my stick. “I could have you broken for this. You’ve recruited twenty men in four years. That must have been hard work.”

“Everyone does it,” he muttered.

I said, “I am not everyone. Remember that from now on.”

When he had gone, Quintus said, “You were a little hard on him, Maximus. The poor devil’s been rotting here or in places like this for years.”

I said, “How many years were we on the Wall? And we never rotted.”

“Didn’t we?” he said. “I am not so sure.”

I looked at him. His face had gone pale and he looked sick and unhappy.

“Quintus.” I touched him on the arm. “Don’t look like that. Are you all right?”

He, nodded silently and I wondered if he was thinking of his home in Hispania which he had not seen in thirty years.

“Don’t worry about Barbatio,” I said. “He’ll prove a good soldier from now on. I’ll give you twenty denarii if he hasn’t shown an improvement by the end of a month.”

Quintus smiled. “Done,” he said.

I won my bet and it was Barbatio who acted as a guide whenever I wished to explore the countryside. In the plain around Moguntiacum the Franks and Burgundians who had settled in the district made some effort to develop the land they had been allowed to annex by agreement. In places the woods had been cut back and clearings made where straggling villages of smoky huts sprang up, strongly fortified by stockades of heavy pine. Strips of land outside were cultivated and each village had its cattle, its goats, its dogs and its few horses. The people were large, cheerful and good looking with their flaxen hair and blue eyes. They drank a great deal of beer and fights between them were frequent, though seldom over women.

These people I liked though I had difficulty in understanding their speech, and their guttural Latin was atrocious; but I did not trust them and the sentries on the town gates had instructions to admit no-one bearing arms.

It was close on midsummer now and I thought that the dangerous time would be in the early autumn when the harvest was gathered. It was then that the tribes would be restless and eager to look for plunder if their own food supplies for the winter seemed to be insufficient. Barbatio discounted Stilicho’s suggestion that the Alemanni had thoughts of a migration, and I was inclined to agree with him. Those whom I met were friendly enough and my spies brought back little information that was of value. But still I had to be careful and before the autumn came there remained a great deal to be done.

At all the garrison centres the troops were kept busy, repairing and fortifying their camps. I gave instructions that all were to be protected by palisades of earth and timber, with square towers at the corners, each strong enough to mount a ballista. Around each camp protecting ditches were dug while traps were prepared in the ground outside each gate. Signal towers, large enough to hold a section of ten men, were erected on the roads linking each camp with the next, each guarded also by a palisade and a ditch. Another line of towers was built along the road between Bingium and Treverorum. In time I hoped to have these manned by auxiliaries so as to relieve the legionaries for more important work.

It was within the area of Moguntiacum, however, that the most important work was done. Between the river wall and the north wall a huge area was cleared, large enough to hold two cohorts and an ala of cavalry, and walled off again from the rest of the town, which was too large to defend with the few men at my command. The huts were cleared from the waterfront and a triple row of ditches dug along the front of the east wall. Each ditch was V shaped, the outer face being at an angle of forty-five degrees. The outer face was lined with timber to prevent filling in, while the bottom of the ditches, fifteen feet deep, were planted with pointed stakes. Between the two outer ditches was a flat space, forty feet wide, and between the middle and inner ditch a space of ten feet. The distance from the fighting platform on the fort wall was ninety feet to the outer edge of the furthest ditch: the length to which our soldiers could throw a spear with lethal accuracy. The main killing area, however, was the forty feet between the two outer ditches. These ditches would break up any attack while there were still men to stand on the walls and hurl missiles.

To the left of the town and just to the east of the Bingium road, at a point opposite the northern end of the southern island I had three small camps built, each to hold a century. The walls were of turf and timber and the whole was protected again by the usual ditches. The old camp, too, behind the town, was put into repair as a barracks for the horses.

While this work was going on cavalry patrols quartered the countryside and the first ship of our fleet, a converted merchant vessel, made a hesitant appearance on the river, armed with ballistae and manned by archers.

I went aboard at Bingium and found an anxious Gallus on the poop, having a heated argument with the Master.

He saluted and said gloomily, “The rowers aren’t up to much. None of them have ever been on the water before.”

The Master said something under his breath.

“We made very slow time coming up. She answers sluggishly to the river.”

The Master tightened his mouth and said nothing.

He took the ship up the Rhenus, hugging the right bank, and it was as Gallus said. We found the greatest difficulty in altering course in mid-stream. She would only turn in an arc that took her nearly from one bank to the other, and ran into trouble the moment she hit the heavy water. Broadside on to the full force of the current she lost way dangerously and drifted badly, so that it was all the rowers could do to get control over her again.

“She is too big for the work you want from her,” said the Master wearily. “I could have told you this at the start but the tribune would not have it so.”

Gallus said, “I am afraid he is right.”

“What is her length?”

“Two hundred and seventy feet.”

“What length should she be for this kind of work?”

The Master hesitated. “One hundred and twenty feet at the outside, but much narrower in the beam. The ballistae you have mounted have upset her balance and the oar banks are not distributed right. Besides, she takes too large a crew. At this rate we shall not find enough oarsmen for the remaining ships.”

Gallus said bitterly, “If we built a smaller boat we should only get one catapult in the bows.”

“That is better than nothing. I must have a ship that can turn in the space of a denarius.”

We went downstream again towards Bingium and found that the only effective way we could turn quickly was to throw out the anchor and, when she had gripped hard, let the current swing her round. The force of the river was tremendous and I was glad to be rowed ashore and to stand on firm ground again.

“Do what you can,” I said. “I shall need ships by the time the harvest is cut.”

News came from the outer world infrequently. There was an early letter from Gallus, telling me that he was not happy about the plans for the new warships submitted by the Master and that there was a shortage of carpenters owing to an outbreak of fever in the city; that the Curator had complained to his superiors at Arelate about the taxes; and that the Bishop had written to the Emperor complaining about me. He added, in a postscript, however, that the money had been made available and that we need not worry about a shortage of unskilled labour, the peasants being quite willing to work for the price of a meal a day for themselves and their families.

Another letter came; this time from Arelate, but it was full of polite evasions, veiled threats, meaningless assurances and hollow sincerities; the whole so wrapped in the stilted language of the civil administration as to rob the contents of any value whatsoever. I took no notice of it.

Messages came in from the various forts. Confluentes reported a willingness from the Frankish settlers to serve as auxiliaries and that their defences were completed, their quota of signal towers finished. Boudobrigo reported hostility among the tribesmen in the district and said that planned accidents had wrecked a half-completed tower, while a three man patrol had been killed in the woods, but by whom, no-one knew. At Bingium all was quiet, but there was considerable movement on the east bank and everything that they did was spied upon. Their commandant added, naively, that he trusted no-one save his own troops, though the new auxiliaries were behaving well. From Borbetomagus the cohort tribune wrote that tribesmen were infiltrating across the river in small boats, and that two attacks had been made on the supply trains that we had sent him. Patrols, landed on the east bank, however, had found the countryside apparently deserted and had returned safely with unsheathed swords.