Harry Sidebottom - Iron and Rust

A voice in Maximinus’ mind screamed for him to kick on to a gallop, to get it over, one way or another. He ignored the strident urging, forced himself to be calm, to survey the field. On the right, the Sarmatians were still struggling into some order. Honoratus’ men were drawn up, waiting. The Praetorians screened the coming cavalry combat from the rest of the battle. Ahead, if anything, the right and centre of the infantry battle seemed to be grinding towards the barbarian camp. But the Roman line was bending; the left was not going forward. As he looked, the first few individuals emerged from the pall, running. It was almost the tipping point.

Maximinus dug in his heels. The stallion gathered its powerful quarters and surged forward. Maximinus had to hold him hard to keep him to a canter. Behind, the earth reverberated under thousands of hooves.

More Romans were fleeing from the extreme left, groups of three or four. They were from the two auxiliary units posted there.

Drawing his sword, Maximinus held it aloft. About two hundred paces behind the front line, he gestured with the blade and began to swing to the left.

‘Keep together. Keep your place.’

As he thundered along behind the backs of the rear ranks of the struggling legionaries, the auxiliary units came into view. They were surrounded; Goths on foot in front, Sarmatian horse behind. Suddenly, like a dam giving way, they broke. Those who could, ran; the rest turned on each other, fighting their own to try to get clear, or dropped their weapons and held their hands up in supplication. Sarmatian horsemen leant out from the saddle, slashing their long swords down on unresisting heads and shoulders.

Further on through the tumult, a large knot of men still fought under a standard of a white horse. Hedged by their shields, Eadwine and his Angles were packed together in a circle. Sarmatians rode around, jabbing down with spearheads and sword points, probing for a gap in the shieldwall. Maximinus smiled. After this battle there might be no Angles left to make the trek back to the Suebian Sea.

‘Are you ready for war?’ Maximinus shouted.

‘Ready!’

Three times Maximinus shouted. Each time the response came back stronger.

A Sarmatian in silvered scale armour wearing a tall pointed helm saw the Romans. He raised a horn to his lips and sounded a note that pierced the din. His warriors went to answer their chieftain’s call. Goths on foot and injured and panic-stricken Romans got in their way. The riders struck left and right, at friend and foe indiscriminately, as they attempted to force their way through.

A wounded auxiliary staggered in front of Maximinus. Borysthenes did not break stride. The stallion’s shoulder sent the soldier spinning to the ground. A thousand-strong, the Equites Singulares rode over him.

The Sarmatian in the silver armour rode under a dragon standard. There were three or four hundred riders with him, more struggling to join. He sounded the charge. Kicking on in time with the beat of their horses, the warriors advanced. Hunched forward, faces half hidden by their helmets, they looked bestial, like savages who killed for pleasure, who slaughtered defenceless old women and children.

Maximinus tried to spit on his chest for luck. His mouth was dry. He yelled an ancient war cry from the hills of Thrace.

The leader closed from the right. His sword was levelled at Maximinus’ chest. All his concentration on the glittering steel, at the last moment Maximinus forced it wide. Something hit his shield so hard from the left only the saddle horns stopped him from being knocked to the ground. Borysthenes collided side on with the chieftain’s mount. Maximinus rebounded and scrabbled upright. For a second, the two men were face to face. There were red beads braided in the Sarmatian’s blond beard. Each cut at the other, but their impetus pulled them past.

In the heart of the melee, Maximinus’ awareness closed to the reach of a sword. Everything was moving, screaming, shouting. The clamour stunned his senses. Through the blinding dust, blows came from nowhere. He twisted and blocked, slashed and hacked. Blood sprayed in his eyes. A blade split his shield. Another buckled the armour on his right shoulder. He struck out and felt his sword bite into something. His thighs pushed Borysthenes on.

‘Keep moving!’ An arrow whipped past his face. A Goth lunged at him from the ground. Maximinus smashed the spear away, kicked the man in the face. The warrior reeled, and was gone. Two Sarmatians struck at Maximinus from either side. Throwing his ruined shield at the one on the right, he took the other’s blow on the edge of his blade. With his left hand, he grabbed the warrior by the throat, hauled him out of seat, and let him fall. Swivelling, he slashed at the warrior to his right, turning the blow just in time when he realized Javolenus was there.

The bodyguard was speaking. The blood pounding in Maximinus’ ears stopped him hearing. There was a noise of cheering, as if from a long way away. In the choking dust, Maximinus circled Borysthenes, looking for the next threat, seeking his bearings. They were in a stand of trees with thin grey trunks.

‘ Imperator .’ A soldier walked up to his horse. He was holding a severed head by its long hair.

At the bottom of the bank, the river was broad and shallow, its waters churned and fouled.

‘I give you joy of your victory, Imperator .’ The soldier held up the head. There were beads of some sort in its clotted beard.

The East

Ephesus, Province of Asia,

the Nones of October, AD237

The view from the governor’s palace at Ephesus was magnificent. To the left, the saw-toothed mountains cut down towards the sea. Grey limestone showed through the vegetation on their upper slopes; the lower were a jumble of red tiled roofs. At their foot stood the delicate columns of the famous library of Celsus, up against the great square of the commercial agora , and along from that, almost directly below the palace, was the broad, monumental street which ran west, straight to the harbour. To the right, blue with distance, more mountains curled around, with a gentler profile. Below them, the Caystros river curved in wide sweeps through the broad plain which stretched to the city. Inside the walls were the grand Olympieion and the monumental complex of the harbour baths, gymnasium and colonnaded park, all of which drew the eye back to the statue-lined street leading to the harbour. Timesitheus did not want to go to the harbour. He did not want to leave Ephesus.

It was the nones of October, growing late in the sailing season. The poet Hesiod had advised not to go to sea after August. Admittedly, Hesiod had been a farmer in the hills of Boeotia, and presumably vessels had become more seaworthy since his day. All the authorities that Timesitheus had ever consulted had considered that three days before the ides of November marked the onset of winter, after which only fools and the desperate would leaveport. If the winds were adverse, Timesitheus and his party might struggle to make harbour in Brundisium before the sea lanes closed. Although his family had owned merchantmen, Timesitheus had never enjoyed sailing. Once, a ship on which he had been a passenger had been caught in a storm off Massilia. Even though he did not believe in the gods, when the crew started praying, he had joined them. Still, if they rounded Cape Malea safely, this voyage should not hold many terrors. There was no point worrying. An imperial order to proceed by sea to Rome could not be ignored.

Timesitheus was alone on the terrace. The formal speeches bidding farewell to him as acting governor had been made by the leading citizens in the Council House that morning. The slaves and porters had already taken the baggage down to the ship. Now Timesitheus was waiting for Tranquillina and their daughter. He leant on the parapet and let his eyes rest on the theatre below.