Wallace Breem - Eagle in the Snow - A Novel of General Maximus and Rome's Last Stand

Quintus said, “Let me take a cavalry force across the river and destroy his salt springs. He won’t like that.”

“Do that,” I said. “And if you meet Guntiarus on the way, bring me back his head.”

“There is one more thing.” Goar looked at me intently. “Can you trust your commander at Bingium?”

“Why, yes.” I was surprised. “Why not? He is an auxiliary, of course, not a regular. But he is efficient and faithful. He has given excellent service this past year.” I glanced from him to Quintus. “Yes, I would trust him. Why not?”

Goar said, “What do you know of him?”

I thought: Scudilio—a dark haired, narrow faced, slightly built man in his middle thirties. He was good looking, attractive to women, and he laughed a lot. A bit nervous in manner, sometimes, but keen and energetic and a fine horseman. His family, so he had told me, had been settled on the east bank for forty years. He was of mixed blood, part Gaul, part Frank, but that was a long time ago. He had joined us some six months after our arrival and had received swift promotion. He was a leader of men; and I trusted him.

I told Goar all this. He nodded and then said quietly, “Would it surprise you to know that he is of the Alemanni?”

“Is that true?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Who in this part of the world is not of mixed blood? Look at the people in the town down there.”

“He was in Rando’s camp two years ago,” said Goar relentlessly. “Why did he lie to you if he is honest?”

I said, “I don’t know. Perhaps he thought we would not let him join us, and he would, very probably, have been right.”

Quintus said, “If he was disloyal he would have had his chance when we took the legion across the river. He commanded at Bingium then. He could have cut the bridge behind us. Is not that so?”

Goar said grudgingly, “That is so.”

I said, “What is worrying you?”

He said, “If you have to make a retreat, then you must retreat through Bingium. It is the one place which must be held by a reliable man.”

In exasperation I said, “Any man can desert me or turn traitor if he so chooses. This is not the old Rome when every soldier was a known citizen. They join us for many reasons—for money, for security, or simply because they like fighting and they enjoy the life.”

He said, “I thought you should know.”

“I am grateful to you, of course. It was right that I should know. Quintus, you will be going over the bridge at Bingium. Have a talk with Scudilio. If you have any doubts at all, then replace him.”

Goar nodded. “That is just,” he said. He looked disconcerted and I wondered if, perhaps, he was annoyed that I did not take his warning more seriously.

In the morning the ala cantered out soon after sunrise, and Goar re-crossed the river, taking with him a small boy who wept bitterly. Before he left I asked him a question. “On a matter of trust,” I said. “On this thing that we discussed yesterday. If the river freezes, if they try to cross, can I be sure that I may then count on your help?”

He looked at me steadily and did not smile. “Can you win?” he asked.

I stared at him hard. “Yes,” I said. “Let there be no doubt about that. With, or without, your help I shall beat them. But you have not answered my question.”

He smiled slightly. “The king, Respendial, is my cousin, and his people are my people. But I do not believe in kidnapping the young wives of fellow kings. Marcomir and I took the oath to be brothers in blood, before he died.” He held up his wrist and I saw the faint scars across it. “Is that the answer you want?”

I gripped his arm with my hand. “Yes. It is all the answer that I want.”

XV

IT GREW STEADILY colder, and each day I walked down to the river edge and looked at the swirling currents, the drifting logs, the pattern of colour that shifted with the light on the great mass of water that moved endlessly past. Somewhere in the high, snow-capped mountains to my right, so far away that I could not see them, this river crossed a great lake on the start of its long journey to the Saxon Sea. Here, it was just over seven hundred and fifty yards across, from bank to bank, but it was nine hundred yards wide at the mouth; so that, at times and places it seemed like an inland sea.

I did not like water really. I was no seaman as Gallus was, whose father had been a river pilot on the Danubius, but the Rhenus was my friend and I loved it in all its moods, as I had once loved the worn grey stones of that Northern Wall where I had passed my youth. It was a defence, this river, against the unknown, and it marked the limit of my Roman world. Beyond it lay only chaos.

The water was very cold and the level had dropped considerably. A great tree trunk that had been ripped out of a collapsing bank, perhaps as high as Borbetomagus, came floating by as I stood there, and on it, whimpering and wet but still alive, huddled a small animal that looked like a cat. Cats had been sacred to the peoples of Aegyptus, I remembered, and I had a sudden absurd desire that it should be saved. Perhaps if I propitiated enough gods they would help me in my turn when I needed assistance. I sent a horseman cantering down-river and later heard that a boat, sent out from Bingium, had rescued the cat and that it was living in the commandant’s office. It was recovering on warm milk, and Scudilio had been heard to remark, with a smile, that he thought the general was becoming senile. The soldiers in the fort, however, called the cat Maximus, and I was pleased.

Then the Bishop arrived, a black figure on a black horse, with an escort of my cavalry and a retinue of churchmen who looked blue with cold. If saintliness was next to coldness then they would have been close to heaven at that moment. To my surprise the Curator was with him and, when he got off his horse, he walked stiffly like a man unaccustomed to taking exercise.

I offered them what hospitality I could and asked the Bishop bluntly why he had come. He smiled for a moment. “I have brought a gift of oysters for you and your friend. I remember your saying that army food was monotonous.”

“You have not come all the way just for that.”

He smiled. “It will be a bad winter, as I told you. Many of your men are christians and I feel it right that I should come here to bless them and to pray. You do not object, I trust?”

“Barbatio, order a detail to prepare huts. No, I do not object.”

He looked at me steadily. He said, “It is very lonely to be the man in charge, to whom all else must turn for help, advice and instruction. You can confide in no-one. It is a great strain.” He paused, waiting for me to speak.

I said, “I am waiting for the wind to change. If it does, if it shifts to the east, it will snow, and if it snows then that river will freeze and they will cross the water on a bridge of ice. When that happens I and my men will all die.”

He looked shocked. “You spoke more confidently to the city elders when you last visited Treverorum.”

“Yes. I did not wish to alarm them.”

“Why tell me now?”

“You knew before. Besides, I do not tell lies; not to priests of any faith. I know—here.” I touched my chest.

He put his hands to the cross at his breast. “It is not too late, my son. . . .”

I said, “No. I will not betray my emperor, nor my general, nor my men. I will not betray the people of Augusta Treverorum. When then should I abandon my god?”

He was silent. He was too clever, too wise, perhaps, to say, ‘it is not the same thing.’ To him, no: to me, yes.

He said at length, “You will let us know what happens if you can. We shall be anxious for news.”

“I will do my best.”

“You have a young girl here, a hostage of some kind. May I see her?”