Jack Whyte - The Singing Sword

"Of course." His question surprised me. I was amazed that he should remember.

Five years earlier, we had taken to sending our wagons north towards Glevum twice a year, to buy up ingots of iron and lead. From Glevum, we would travel back to the Colony through Corinium and south through Aquae Sulis, gathering extra luxury items that were otherwise notably absent from our Colony. The return of the wagon-train from Glevum had quickly become a semi-annual event looked forward to with eagerness by everyone, until the word spread, within three years of our first such journey, that the garrisons had been withdrawn completely from the inland forts, and reduced in the coastal forts. Within the following year, Hibernians by the boatload were spilling into Cambria, searching for the fabulous gold mines of Dolocauthi. To the best of my knowledge, they never did find Dolocauthi, but they terrorized every miner in the country to the extent that the flow of iron into the Glevum markets had dried up completely.

That was a blow to us; to me personally. It meant I had to start looking elsewhere for my iron. It had been on the last of those Glevum journeys, about a year earlier, that I had found the horse Caius referred to.

We had been searching to the north of Glevum itself for pockets of iron production, and on a spring afternoon we crested a hill and saw a raid in progress on a farm in the valley below us. The fighting was over, if there had been any at all. There were raiders everywhere, and the flames were just starting to spread in the buildings. I sounded a call on my horn and led my men down the hill in a charge. The raiders saw and heard us coming, and they ran. There were three of us on horseback that day, and we pursued them, easily outdistancing our soldiers, who had no hope of catching them. Within a short space of time we were in bowshot range of the fleeing raiders, and we managed to drop half a dozen of them at no risk to ourselves before we ran out of arrows and had to turn back.

The only living being left on that farm had been a stallion, a heavy black with wild eyes. And he was alive only because of his wildness. Two other horses lay slaughtered. He alone had kept his distance. We chased him, those of us who were mounted, and finally managed to loop a rope around his neck and bring him back with us.

"What happened to it? It was a stallion, wasn't it?"

"Aye. And a fine one. I still have him, but he's too wild to ride."

"You mean he's in the stables? Here?"

"Well of course. Where else would he be?"

"Hmmm." His face assumed one of those strange Britannican expressions I had come to know so well and which, I knew from experience, normally resulted in an increased work-load for someone, usually me. His next words hinted eloquently of fermenting thoughts and yeasty processes occurring within his brain. "A stallion. Publius, what do you know of breeding horses?"

I looked at him, recognizing the tone and wondering what was coming next.

"Nothing, apart from the obvious. You need a stallion and a mare, and they handle the rest themselves."

"Nothing more?"

"What more could there be, Caius? It's natural."

"Publius, when I want a clown, I'll hire one," he snapped.

I shrugged, grinning at his short temper. "Pardon me. What's on your mind?"

"Adrianople," he said, mollified slightly by my ready apology. "Adrianople and Alexander of Macedon."

I waited for more, and when nothing was forthcoming I prompted him. "Forgive me, but I don't follow you. What connection is there between Adrianople and Alexander?"

"None, Publius, there is none. Not yet. Apart from the obvious, as you said to me. But my mind tells me there should be. Are you hungry? I could eat something."

"There are some pears there, on the table. Permit me." I rose and took the bowl to him, then watched as he selected one, took out a small clasp knife and began to pare the skin from it. He was obviously deep in thought, as was I, wondering about the "obvious" connection between Adrianople and Alexander that I had evidently missed.

"Varrus," he asked me after a few moments of silence, using his old, army tone, "what is the major difference between our cavalry and our foot-soldiers?"

I barely had to think about that. "Speed," I answered. "Speed and ease of manoeuvring."

"And which would you say are the better troops?"

"The infantry, naturally."

He looked up and smiled at me strangely. "Why? And why 'naturally'?"

I thought he was twitting me. "Are you serious, Cay? They are more dependable, more adaptable, more solid in every way."

"Why?"

I blinked at him, wondering where this discussion might be taking us. "For many reasons. What are you driving at, General?"

"Just answer the question, Varrus. Why more solid?"

I thought about it for several seconds. "Well, for one thing, infantry are more... permanent. They stay in the field longer and have the ability to prepare their own defences. Fortifications. They're more stable. They have fewer needs. A foot-soldier need only look after himself. A horseman has to look after his animal, too. And in the final analysis, infantry are a solid, unified force. Horsemen are individuals."

He barely gave me time to finish. "But you have just finished telling me that mounted troops have the advantage of speed and the ability to manoeuvre more quickly."

"Well... they do, under certain conditions. In hill country, a man on foot is far more dependable."

"If he holds the high ground."

"Aye." I nodded.

"Then what about Adrianople? Heavy concentrations of horse in that engagement wiped out an entire Roman army."

I shook my head. "No, that was a fluke, a trick. The army's commander must have been negligent in the first place."

Caius was frowning, shaking his head. "Do we know that, Publius? Really? I doubt it. There are no flukes in war. Trickery is a legitimate principle of warfare."

I shrugged, beginning to feel very mildly exasperated. "I don't see where this is leading us."

"You will. Tell me, what would you say was the difference between Alexander's cavalry and ours?"

Again I paused to think before answering. "Discipline, I suppose, if anything. And tactical deployment. Alexander refined his father Philip's tactics, which were already superb. But apart from that, the major difference was that the Macedonian cavalry was heavy cavalry of a kind that we don't use today. Big horses, carrying heavily armed men. All trained to operate in concert."

"Like hammers, Varrus?"

He had surprised me again. My mind jumped backwards, twenty-odd years, to the special unit, "the Hammers," that Caius and I had assembled to smash back the Caledonians after the Invasion of 367. I nodded, slowly. "Yes, I suppose you could say that. Like hammers. Or like one big hammer."

There was the vestige of a smile on his lips. "Now do you see what I'm thinking, Varrus?"

"I think I'm beginning to."

"Imagine the effect, Publius." His voice was excited. "Imagine the effect of a squadron, or even more, a cohort, of heavily armoured soldiers, mounted on big horses and trained to ride as a unit. Not skirmishers, Publius, no, nor mounted archers, but front-line troops — shock troops! Imagine a solid line of mounted spearmen riding at the gallop against a boatload of Saxons caught on land. Can you see it?"

I could. I could see it clearly and something stirred in my gut, but I had to be sure that I was seeing what he was seeing. "Spearmen? You mean with sarissas? The long, sixteen-foot spears Alexander's Companions used?"

"Why not? Or even axemen. But trained to fight together, as one force, like an infantry maniple. Could it be done?"

I was seeing a solid wall of charging men on enormous horses. "Why not? They would require a lot of training, but it could be done, if you had the horses." I stopped short, disappointment sharp in my breast over the death of my own sudden enthusiasm. "Unfortunately, we don't.