David Pilling - Flame of the West

“He has arranged them well,” I said, the first and only time I paid a compliment to Narses, “Belisarius could have done no better.”

Narses had indeed done well. The little chess-master was something of a soldier after all, and possessed a martial spirit under the soft powdered flesh and opulent trappings of the courtier.

He had taken up a defensive position, securing what little high ground existed, on the north-west edge of the plain. A mile or so to his east was the little village of Taginae, which gave the region its name. The village was deserted, for the prudent inhabitants had fled into the mountains until all was quiet again.

In the centre of the Roman army, massed in a single dense phalanx of infantry, were the foederati troops, Huns and Heruls and Lombards and the levies from Thrace and Illyria. They numbered some ten to fifteen thousand men, presenting a long, unbreakable wall of shields.

My spirits rose at the sight of the forest of banners and streamers, garishly painted with the crude symbols of the various tribes in Roman service: the wolf and the fox, stag’s heads with spreading antlers, swooping hawks and snarling bears.

On the flanks of the infantry, protected by lines of stakes and hastily-dug ditches, Narses had placed his archers. Isaurians mostly, mixed with a few Sassanids and Thracian slingers. The Roman battle-line resembled a crescent, with the archers on the wings inclining slightly towards the infantry in the centre.

“It’s a trap,” said Asbad, who had also been studying the Roman formation, “if the Goths attack the Romans in the centre, they will be shot to bits by the archers on the flanks. This Narses is a shrewd devil.”

I agreed, and smiled as I imagined the eunuch sitting in his pavilion, thoughtfully planning the deployment of his army with chess pieces representing the various units.

My heart clenched as I saw what lay in wait behind the archers. Narses had also stationed his cavalry on the wings, squadrons of lancers and horse-archers, including the elite bucelarii. Somewhere among them, assuming he had survived the long march from Salona, was my son.

It was agonising, knowing he was so close, but unable to go to him. “Stay where you are, old man,” snapped Asbad, noting my anxiety, “dare to give away our position, and I’ll put my sword through your heart.”

My contempt for Asbad instantly soured to hatred, and I swore a silent oath he would not live out the day. I am in the habit of keeping my oaths.

For long hours we waited, listening to the distant throb of drums. Narses kept his men in position, but allowed them to rest and eat their rations, so they would be in prime fettle when the Goths appeared.

Asbad grew increasingly impatient. “Where in Hades are our scouts?” he fumed, “for that matter, where is Totila? Has the famed warrior king turned craven at last, and chosen to hide behind the walls of Rome?”

We didn’t know it then, but his second band of scouts had been caught and massacred by a troop of Gothic outriders. Their bodies lay cooling a few miles to the south, a fitting end for such villains.

The noonday sun was just starting to dip when Totila finally arrived. His vanguard poured through the mountain passes from the south, thousands of lancers in shining mail, followed by disciplined squadrons of infantry. The Gothic spearmen wore no mail but relied on the protection of large, rectangular wooden shields, with archers and slingers on their flanks.

Totila had mustered all the troops he could in haste, but it soon became clear he was outnumbered. I expected his cavalry to deploy on the flanks of his army, but instead five hundred lancers of the vanguard clapped in their spurs and charged straight at the Romans.

It was insane, the most desperate gamble I had ever witnessed on a battlefield. “What are they doing?” I exclaimed, “five hundred men against thirty thousand? They will be slaughtered.”

“Good,” remarked Asbad, rubbing his hands, “let the killing began. The horses those lancers ride are worth a small fortune.”

I thought a Gothic captain had chosen to disobey orders and launch a wild, suicidal charge against the Romans. In reality they were acting on the orders of their king.

On the left of the Roman position was a small hill, guarded by a detachment of spearmen. If the Goths could seize the hill and hold it, they would be able to turn the Roman flank.

The lancers swung to the right, galloping out of range of the Roman archers, and charged up the flanks of the hill. Even on our lofty height we could hear their war-cries, and the ominous thunder of hoofs as they surged in for the kill.

“Hold!” I shouted, gripping my reins until my knuckles turned white, willing the little band of spearmen to close up and repel the Gothic onslaught. They were Isaurians, the toughest infantry in Roman service, a stubborn race of peasants and hill farmers. I remembered the Isaurians I once led, and how I had cursed and flogged them before they showed me a little grudging respect.

Such men do not break, not easily. Their shield-wall vanished under the impetus of the Gothic charge, and for a moment all was waving banners and stabbing spears and flashing blades, rising and falling amid a sea of bodies.

A trumpet sounded, somewhere to the north, cutting through the din of battle. On the summit of the hill, above the heaving throng, I glimpsed a lone horseman.

My heart died inside me, and rose again from the ashes. The horseman was Arthur. It was impossible to see his face from such a distance, but his sword flamed into being when he ripped it from the scabbard. Caesar’s sword, burning like a silver candle in his grip: Caledfwlch, the Hard Hitter, the Red Death, the Flame of the West.

I yelled in wordless, spluttering excitement, fairly bouncing up and down in my saddle, and drawing baffled glances from the Masterless Men. A few of them already thought I was touched in the head, and this only confirmed it.

A line of riders appeared at Arthur’s side. Heruls, his men, light horse armed with spears and shields. They couldn’t stand against heavy Gothic lancers in a straight fight, but Arthur was a born soldier, with the blood of warrior princes coursing through his veins. He led them down the hill in a lance-shaped formation, with himself as the tip, aiming for the exposed enemy flank.

The Gothic charge had foundered on the Isaurian shields. They rode in baffled circles around the stubborn ring of spears, hurling axes and broken lances at Isaurian faces in an effort to smash gaps in the line.

Arthur chose his moment to perfection. He and his men plunged into the Goths like a blade into exposed flesh. In a second the Gothic lancers were reduced to a struggling mass of rearing beasts and panicking men, spilling back down the hill in hopeless confusion. Arthur’s riders made dog meat of them, slashing riders from their saddles left and right, while the Isaurian spearmen broke formation and joined in the slaughter, dragging down and butchering as many Goths as they could catch.

I could not restrain a whoop of joy as the Goths fled in total disorder back to their own lines. Sensibly, Arthur did not pursue, but wheeled his men about and led them back to the hill, with the blood-sated Isaurians jogging in pursuit.

“That your boy, was it?” asked Asbad, who had watched the brief fight in silence, “he’s quite the cavalryman. I never saw better. Sure his mother wasn’t a horse?”

He grinned, and a few of his men snickered. I bit my tongue, wincing as I drew blood, and repelled the urge to draw my sword and chop his craven head off. My time would come.

Having failed in his bold effort to seize the hill, Totila resorted to delaying tactics. His army, when fully deployed across the southern expanse of the plain, was barely two-thirds the size of the Roman host. More Goths were marching up from the Flaminian road, and Totila needed to delay the battle until they arrived to bolster his slender lines.