Джерейнт Джонс - Siege

I turned my eyes back to the taller officer, working out by his decorations and manner that he was the cohort’s commander, the Pilus Prior. Confidence came from him in waves. The Syrian archers almost bowed as he addressed them.

‘Don’t waste arrows on these cunts, understand? Where’s the interpreter? Come here. Tell them that these screams send a message. They scare the other goat-fuckers, and scared goat-fuckers mean you lizards will live through this. You start feeling sorry for them, go and speak to the survivors of the army that came in last night. Ask them how the hairies treat our wounded. Our prisoners.’

Centurion H had noticed my presence, and came over. ‘That’s the cohort commander, Malchus,’ he explained. ‘All your lads all right?’

I nodded, my eyes scanning the distance – there appeared to be no stirring for a second attack. The morning’s massacre had taken the fight from the enemy, at least for now.

‘We didn’t lose a man,’ H told me, recognizing the same. ‘Not that I’m complaining of course, but… fuck. You almost feel sorry for them.’

I said nothing, and the officer took that to mean he had offended me.

‘I’m sorry, Felix. I wasn’t with you in the forest. I didn’t mean it like that.’

I shook my head. ‘No warriors deserve to die like cattle.’

We fell into silence then, distracted by the agonized cries of the dying.

Centurion Malchus paced over to us. He towered over me, a formidable presence. Slate-grey eyes peered intently from his rugged face. ‘You’re the one that came in last night? What’s your name?’

‘Legionary Felix, sir.’

He surprised me by offering his hand. ‘You’ve got some bollocks on you. I hope you got the chance to get stuck into the bastards this morning?’

I realized then that I had taken no direct part in the dawn’s killing, but I was under no illusion that my hands were clean, knowing that the rocks I had carried to the battlements had been used to split skulls and crush bones. I was not ashamed of that – survival of my comrades was my first and only concern – but that gave me little solace as the pleading screams for mercy droned on.

‘We can only hope to do our duty, sir,’ I finally said.

‘Come with me, Felix.’ The man gestured, surprising me again. He then turned to my own centurion. ‘H, make sure the lizards don’t waste any more arrows. This isn’t a place for weakness.’

‘Will do, sir. Do you need any more men?’ he asked. There was an edge of confusion to my own centurion’s tone, wondering what the cohort commander could want with me.

‘Just him,’ Malchus replied with a grim smile. ‘He’s going to help me kill Arminius.’

Malchus was silent as he strode towards the fort’s centre. I followed in his wake, watching as lone soldiers ran back and forth to the ramparts. These runners were the fort commander’s eyes and ears during the battle. They were all young, as they needed to be fit, but it wasn’t a responsibility that could be handed to any boy soldier. Delivering the wrong message could bring disaster, and I made a mental note to never allow Micon to be drawn for the duty within our own century. It was as much for his own good as the safety of the fort.

The imposing officer found Prefect Caedicius in the headquarters building, which was still lively with chatter following the morning’s attack. In the centre of the room stood a table on to which had been drawn a diagram of the fort. Numbered stones showed the disposition of the Roman forces, and I expected I had been brought here to help the officers learn more about the enemy’s. Seeing me beside Malchus, Caedicius came to the same conclusion.

‘I’ve already debriefed him, Malchus.’

‘Not about their army, sir,’ the centurion explained, removing his helmet. ‘Arminius himself.’

Arminius himself?

I don’t know what they saw on my face in that moment, but my mind screamed in alarm; how could Malchus know that I had knowledge of the German personally? Had I let something slip as I’d talked to H? What about to Caedicius? He appeared unwitting, but had he set the trap, and was he now readying the noose for my neck?

Malchus turned to me, pressing a cup of wine into my hand. When he spoke, I almost fell to the wooden floorboards in relief.

‘This soldier’s seen Arminius as a general at work, sir. Not just the numbers in his army, but how he drew Varus in. How he broke the legions. The tactics. The tricks.’

Caedicius now gave me his full attention. ‘True,’ he agreed after a moment. ‘But he’s not the only survivor we’ve brought in.’

‘He’s the only one that escaped his army. And I know a veteran when I see one.’ Malchus turned to me. ‘Got more scars on your arms than hairs, eh? How long have you served?’

I plucked a number from the air. ‘About ten years, sir.’

‘Done a lot in that time.’

I held my silence, and hoped that hiding my past would be interpreted as modesty.

It was.

‘Good lad.’ Malchus smiled before turning back to the prefect and coming to the point of his visit: ‘I don’t like how this morning went, sir.’

Caedicius looked about the headquarters; then he raised his voice so that it could be heard by the half-dozen clerks and runners. ‘Clear the room,’ he ordered. ‘You stay here.’ He gestured towards me as the room quickly emptied.

‘My runners told me you butchered them?’ Caedicius then asked of his subordinate.

Malchus nodded. ‘We didn’t lose a single man, sir. There’re at least a hundred dead goat-fuckers in the ditch. Probably another hundred more on the rampart and in the field.’

‘But?’

‘But Arminius didn’t destroy three legions by throwing eggs at a brick wall, sir. The bastard’s got brains, and we can’t expect that he’ll keep doing us a favour and let us kill all of his men.’

‘His trenches are getting closer,’ Caedicius thought aloud.

‘That buys him some distance, but we’ll still slaughter them in the ditch,’ Malchus explained. Then he turned to me. ‘You saw what he did to the other forts. Tell us what you think. Speak freely.’

And so I did. Not because of any misplaced sense of duty, but because my mind was aligned with Malchus’s; Arminius was not just good, he was brilliant, and to survive in the fort we would need to find our own weaknesses before the enemy did.

‘He didn’t expect two things here, sirs,’ I began. ‘The first is that you would be ready. The second is that you’d have archers.’

‘A little fortune on both counts,’ Caedicius agreed. ‘Go on.’

‘Arminius’s success in the forest came because his forces were lighter than ours, and that suited the terrain where we could never set our formations. When we set our lines in the open, he was content to hold us there and wait for us to starve.’

‘He won’t do that here.’ Malchus spoke up, rubbing a hand over his jutting jaw. ‘In the forest he knew that Varus had a week or two of supplies at best, and the army was deep into Germany. He has no idea how well supplied we are here, and the Rhine legions can march to us if he digs in to starve us out.’

Caedicius chewed over Malchus’s words. I could see by the worried crease of his temple that he had come to the same conclusion as I: that holding the crossings on the Rhine was the best guarantee of Rome’s protection against Arminius. Crossing them to break a siege and fight on Arminius’s terms risked too much, at least until the frontier could be reinforced.

‘Sooner or later, there will have to be a reckoning with the German.’ Caedicius spoke as he paced, the room silent but for his words and the tap of his hobnails on the wood. ‘We have no idea when that will be, but what we do know is that the German tribes do not easily come together. Nor are they easily held together. After his victory over Varus, Arminius has momentum, but he must keep it if he wants to fight on.’