Harry Sidebottom - Iron and Rust

Nevertheless, Gordian had persevered.

The nomads had come to pillage, not to conquer. It was too late to head them off — the worst damage was done — so they should be caught as they returned. Whether they took Capsa or not, it was unlikely they would venture deeper into Roman territory. They would know troops from Numidia would be mobilized to chase them. Almost certainly, the raiders would seek to leave the province by the same route they had entered. Ad Palmam was the key. At that oasis the land narrowed between the Lake of Triton and the smaller salt lake to the west. One of the two safe paths through the great waste ran off south-east from there. It intersected the other somewhere out in the wilderness. A force at Ad Palmam dominated both escape routes.

Gordian, guided by Mauricius and accompanied by Sabinianus and Valerian, would lead eighty men of the mounted bodyguard as a flying column. They would go via Thysdrus and Taparura. When they reached the hills, Mauricius could take them south by unfrequented ways to avoid running into the nomads.

Arrian was by far the best horseman among them. He would ride ahead, take spare horses on a lead rein. At the high country he would bear west for Thiges. He could take a couple of troopers with him, but, if he came across the nomads, he would have to rely on his mount and his skill.

‘I might try praying as well,’ Arrian had said, ‘although I know some think it useless.’

After Arrian reached the frontier wall, it was not far to the Mirror Fort. At their headquarters, he would take command of the five hundred scouts and then force march them back to join Gordian and the others at Ad Palmam.

Meanwhile, Menophilus would have ridden west from Hadrumetum, through the Sufes Pass, and collected 15th Cohort Emesenorum from Ammaedara. He would bring them down from the north through Capsa.

The raiders would be burdened with their plunder. They were barbarians, and had no discipline. They would straggle all over the country. Their retreat would be slow. Gordian and Arrian, if they acted with alacrity, could be waiting at the oasis long before the nomads appeared. Between them, the Romans would dispose some six hundred cavalry. More than enough to delay the enemy until Menophilus appeared with five hundred infantry in their rear — like a hammer on to an anvil.

‘You are proposing to surround a much greater number with about a thousand men,’ Sabinianus had said.

Gordian had agreed. ‘But we are not trying to massacre or capture them all. Merely retake their loot, kill some of them and teach the rest a lesson. Make them think twice before crossing the border again. Show weakness, and they will be back before the end of the year. There will be more of them. Garamantes, Nasamones, Baquates … tribesmen from far away will flock to the banners of this Nuffuzi. You all know the nature of barbarians: success breeds arrogance.’

No one at the dinner had an answer to that, not even Arrian or Sabinianus. He was self-evidently right: that was how barbarians were. Gordian Senior was predisposed to be won over. He had no desire to be rescued by Capelianus. The thing had been clinched by Mauricius. Could he join the expedition? The local magnate had twenty-five mounted, armed retainers with him. He was sure other nearby estate owners would contribute more. If there had been time, he himself could have produced perhaps nearly a hundred from his own lands.

The Proconsul had approved the plan. He told his son to take all the equites . The younger Gordian would not hear of it; nor would the others. Together they urged the governor to have a ship prepared in the harbour to take him and his household to safety, if things should go very badly wrong and the nomads threatened Hadrumetum. Gordian Senior had replied that he had never run from his enemies, and he was too old to start now.

Menophilus and Arrian had ridden their separate ways the next morning. Three days had passed getting ready the men, weapons, supplies, and animals of the flying column. When finally Gordian led them out, he was at the head of eighty troopers and a similar number of armed locals. He had waved to his father, blown kisses to Parthenope and Chione, his two mistresses, and wondered if he was doing the right thing.

When they had ridden through Thysdrus, they had got the news that Capsa had fallen. The barbarians appeared to be taking their time over their looting. The estimates of their numbers remained unreliable, hopefully vastly inflated. They had received no further word on the journey.

Gordian shaded his eyes, and watched. Another flock of doves got up as Sabinianus disappeared into the oasis. Perhaps his friend was right — perhaps he was doing this for the wrong motives. Still, it was all too late to worry now.

The doves circled and swooped back into the treetops. The chickens had vanished. It was quiet — dreadfully quiet — and very still. Now and then Gordian thought he half saw movement deep in the shade. If something happened to Sabinianus … Odysseus must have felt this apprehension when he sent Eurylochus to scout the smoke drifting up over the Aeaean island. Eurylochus had returned from the halls of Circe. It would be all right. We won’t go down to the House of Death, not yet, not until our day arrives. But Eurylochus had not come back from Sicily. All ways of dying are hateful to uspoor mortals. If he had sent Sabinianus to his death … Gordian pushed the verses from his mind. No point in entertaining such thoughts; not until necessary.

‘There!’

Sabinianus had emerged from the tree line. He was still mounted. His horse was ringed by children. He beckoned.

‘Mount up.’

It was dark under the high fronds. Sabinianus led them through the oasis towards the settlement. There were conduits everywhere. Of all sizes, they crossed and recrossed each other, elaborately regulated by dams and aqueducts of palm-stems. Where the sun penetrated, the water was jade; elsewhere, a cool brown. The hooves of their mounts rattled over narrow wooden bridges. Sheltered by the date palms, there were fig trees and a profusion of shorter fruit trees: lemon, pomegranate, plum and peach. Below, almost every inch was set out in gardens for grain or vegetables. With the arrival of the other riders, the children had withdrawn to a distance. Gordian caught glimpses of them, and of adults through the trunks of the trees.

‘They have had a bad time,’ Sabinianus said. ‘I talked to the headman. Only a few killed, but the nomads seized everything portable — all the food stocks, everything of value. The women and girls were much raped; many of the boys too. The nomads took some with them. The headman seemed most concerned about the animals.’

‘The animals?’ Valerian sounded appalled.

‘No,’ Sabinianus said. ‘Not that. The nomads took all the animals, and, while they were doing it, trampled some of the irrigation.’

Pale mud-brick walls showed through the foliage ahead. Gordian signalled the column to wait while he rode around the settlement with his officers. It was laid out in an oval. There was no defensive wall as such. But the houses abutted each other, their windowless rear walls forming a continuous circuit, only occasionally pierced by a narrow, easy-to-block passage. Flat roofs with low parapets could form a fighting platform. A watchtower and some higher walls at the south end must be what passed for a citadel. The whole was not big — maybe seven, eight hundred inhabitants, certainly not more than a thousand; difficult to tell when the houses were packed that close. Gordian might be able defend the place when Arrian arrived with the speculatores , but the perimeter was much too long to be held by the fewer than one hundred and sixty men with him now. If only Arrian had got here first with the Frontier Wolves.