Gordon Doherty - The Scourge of Thracia

‘You spend your time fashioning an intricate chestplate?’ he said. ‘There are tens of thousands of Goths not a day’s march beyond those mountains,’ he thrust a rigid arm out, one finger extended to the Haemus Mountains. ‘Who gave you permission to waste your furnace and materials so?’

The smith looked up, startled, sweeping his long, grey rain-soaked hair from his eyes. He grinned. ‘I was ordered to, by the Master of the Camp.’

Gallus felt this was a modicum of progress. ‘The Magister Equitum, Saturninus?’

The smith scratched his beard and shook his head with a look of incredulity. ‘Saturninus? No, he has been engaged at the Shipka Pass for months now.’

Gallus frowned and shot a glance to the north, his eyes narrowing on the mountains. The Shipka Pass was the centre-most of the five rocky corridors blockaded to keep Fritigern’s Gothic alliance from flooding into Thracia. The centre-most and the most difficult to hold.

‘So your leader is absent. Then who is in command of this. . camp? ’ he spat the last word like a knot of gristle.

But the smith did not answer. Instead he looked up and past Gallus’ shoulder and a sickly grin split his face. He clasped the bronze cuirass using wet rags and held it up. ‘Your new armour is nearly complete, my lord.’

Gallus heard a wet, sucking thud-thud of hooves approaching behind him, then felt the hot breath of a horse on his neck. He turned and looked up, slowly and with growing dread. Before him, saddled upon a black stallion mired fetlock-deep in mud, was a barrel-chested officer wearing a bronze scale vest and a white cloak. His face was round and ruddy with a thick brown tuft beard trimmed carefully to grow out to a point that disguised what Gallus suspected was a rather weak chin. His sunken eyes were further shadowed under a bronze helmet with a jutting brow band, a lengthy neck guard and two delicately crafted bronze wings, one welded onto each side just above the ears — clearly a recent addition and the work of the cloying blacksmith.

Gallus hesitated before speaking. The man wore no clear indication of rank — no stripes on his tunic sleeve and no obvious clue as to his unit.

A tense silence ensued. Those nearby gathered to watch.

‘Tribunus Barzimeres,’ the rider said at last, eyeing Gallus askance. ‘Leader of the Cornutii, heroes of the Milvian Bridge, and of the Scutarii, the finest chargers in Thracia.’ His tone was bumptious to say the least.

As he said this, Gallus noticed that a thousand-strong unit of infantry had marched into the camp in the man’s wake from the west, four abreast. The Cornutii he recognised straight away, distinguished by the eagle feathers they wore either side of their helms and which their leader had sought to outdo with his bronze wings. Their shields and the amber banner hanging from their eagle standard depicted a twin-headed red serpent, both heads facing each other, as if ready to quarrel. He had seen these men once before, in Constantinople. They were an auxilium palatinum legion, a specialist infantry regiment of Emperor Valens’ inner guard — part of the Praesental Army left behind in Constantinople whilst the rest were garrisoned with Valens on the Persian frontier.

Behind them came the Scutarii. These mounted men wore intercisa helms, scale vests and oiled black cloaks, with shields bearing patterns of concentric red, blue then yellow circles. These fine horsemen were a wing of the emperor’s horse guard — the scholae palatinae. These two crack corps were a precursor to what forces might be mustered here in months to come when the Praesental Armies of East and West came together.

But these two pristine divisions did not excuse the pitiful state of the rest of the camp. Legions of border limitanei and the comitatenses field legions had once been the pride of Thracia. This rabble was a disgrace.

Gallus sucked in a long, slow breath through his nostrils and held Barzimeres’ gaze. ‘I am Tribunus Gallus,’ he noticed Barzimeres eyes flare for an instant at the mention of his equal rank, a chink of fear in there, ‘of the XI Claudia Pia Fidelis. Emperor Valens despatched my men and I at haste to aid the effort in holding back the Goths, pending his arrival early next year. Magister Militum Traianus hastened us here from Constantinople, told us to seek out Magister Equitum Saturninus, the commander of this camp.’

Barzimeres gazed at Gallus for a few moments, a hint of a smile playing on his lips. Finally, a complacent look crossed over his face and he gazed past Gallus’ shoulder. ‘Ah, so that’s what you are: another few limitanei?’

Gallus felt his skin prickle as the man went on to bark out orders to unseen others, obviously more important to Barzimeres. He rummaged inside his cloak and produced the scroll Traianus had given him. ‘I have this message detailing our orders. . ’ he paused in disbelief as Barzimeres heeled his mount round as if to walk it away while he was still talking ‘. . a message for Saturninus — your superior,’ at this, Barzimeres’ wandering gaze snapped back to attention.

‘Saturninus is absent, Tribunus,’ Barzimeres sighed hotly as if reiterating some tired point to a recalcitrant child. ‘ I am commander of this camp.’

‘Then you’ll have three cohorts of legionaries ready to repopulate my ranks?’ he finished, holding up the scroll.

Barzimeres’ sunken eyes shrunk further under an agitated scowl. He snatched the scroll and scanned it. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, waving one hand around. ‘You’ll have your men, Tribunus,’ he said, that haughty look returning. ‘I’ll have them mustered soon enough. It’s difficult to replace a fallen man in the Cornutii ranks. And the Scutarii take years to train. But your limitanei? You can find recruits lurking in any city alley,’ he laughed as if he was sharing a joke. ‘I hear that these days they even recruit the curs who cut off their thumbs in an effort to avoid service!’

Gallus’ stony expression did not falter.

‘You can set up your tent by the riverbank,’ Barzimeres said, his levity fading and his lips growing thin, ‘and you will report to me after evening curfew.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Gallus replied hotly.

At that, Barzimeres clicked his tongue to guide his stallion away, waving his cavalry and infantry units with him towards the eastern edge of the camp, urging them unnecessarily with hectoring cries.

Night had fallen, blessedly darkening the horizon and veiling the menacing outline of the Haemus Mountains. The mizzle had stopped too, but the camp was still a morass. Worse, Barzimeres had assigned them — entirely deliberately — the boggiest patch of ground for their tent. Pavo finished tying the goatskin to the tent frame and hammering the guy-ropes into the soft earth. Next, he took the opportunity to wade into the shallows of the river, ducking under to soak his head. It was white-cold and perishing, but it washed every morsel of splashed mud and filth from the march from his person. A fair bit cleaner, he ducked inside the tent. Sura, Quadratus and Zosimus had laid out their bedding on a goatskin roll that would serve as some kind of floor over the mud and were now cleaning their armour.

‘Don’t know why I’m bothering,’ Quadratus moaned. ‘Every other bugger in this place looks like they’ve had a bath in pigshit.’

‘Apart from that winged bastard,’ Zosimus flicked his head in a random direction that was his best guess as to where Barzimeres’ tent stood. ‘I bet his lot bathe him by hand every bloody night.’

Quadratus’ face split in a grin as he made an obscene hand gesture. ‘Aye, I bet they do. . ’ he said, his shoulders jostling in a chuckle.

‘Oh for f-’ Sura started. A small channel of muddy water had found a way in over the goatskin floor mat and soaked his bedding. ‘Perfect,’ he cast both hands up, dropping his half-cleaned boots.