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

That night the cold became worse and we could hear the ice groaning on the river, as the wind whipped at the surface and the remaining loose floes smashed into each other. Some, driven by the pressure of the ice upstream, were forced out of the water to freeze themselves onto the ice in front. For three days the blizzard raged, the sky was black with clouds from north to south, and the snow fell and smothered everything where it lay. It was impossible to go out, visibility was less than a spear’s throw in the camp, and at night nothing could be seen but a whirling mass of black and white. The sentries huddled round the braziers on their towers and turned their backs to the wind. An army could have approached the camp then and the sentries would neither have seen nor heard them. Faintly, through the moaning wind you could hear, if you had good ears, the ceaseless crack and crash of the grinding ice. All night long I heard the floes shudder and roar as the wind drove them one into another, and they froze in a series of high ridged barriers, like a field that is ploughed all ways at once. Two sentries died at their posts during that time, and later, on the road outside the camp, we found a horse and rider, both still erect, who had been caught in the worst of the storm and smothered to death in a drift of snow. The rider had come from Borbetomagus, but what message he carried I never knew. On the fifth day the blizzard blew itself out and the wind shifted to the north-east again, and the sky was clear, except for a few broken clouds overhead and a dark mass away to the east that would not reach us unless the wind changed again.

The river was silent now and the absolute quiet was frightening. I walked down to what I imagined must be the bank of the Rhenus. It had disappeared altogether beneath a desolate waste land of jagged, lumpy, broken fragments of ice and snow; distorted by the current, whipped by the winds into fantastic shapes of sculptured silence. There was no water to be seen at all. To the right, the broken hull of the abandoned galley stuck out upwards at a sharp angle. I walked on over the uneven surface and could not tell whether I stood on land or on ice. Nothing creaked beneath my weight. It must have been inches thick. I shaded my eyes against the hard dazzle and could see men in the distance, tiny black figures against an aching blaze of light. I did not know whether they stood upon the shore or upon the ice. Nothing separated us now, but a short walk that any man might take on a winter’s day. I turned and walked back to where my officers stood waiting for me, in a silent group on the high ground before the camp. It was then that my hands began to shake with fear.

“Fabianus, signal the fort commanders to move in with their men; the auxiliaries to take over. Tell the town council that the city is to be evacuated; everyone is to leave by midday tomorrow.

“Quintus, get your cavalry out to break up the snow on the road and on the main paths to the camp.

“Aquila, get those firing platforms cleared of snow. Send reliefs to the islands and issue them with five days’ rations.

“Barbatio, all houses within three hundred yards of the camp walls are to be evacuated and then destroyed. See to it now.

“One more thing, Fabianus. Tell the commander at Bingium to burn the bridge before he leaves. Get that message off at once. Scudilio is a good man but he’ll have enough to worry about without that on his mind.

“Quartermaster, issue all spare javelins and arrows. They will be no use to us in the storehouse now. Give out three days’ rations and tell the section commanders to grind their corn now.”

Trumpets blew, orders were shouted and the troops began to move about their business.

A centurion came up. “Sir, there is a man crossing the river. He’s alone. What shall we do?”

“Let me see,” I said. I went to the river wall and Quintus came with me. The tribesmen were still on the bank, a faint patch of dark against the snow, like a smear of dirt upon a toga. Coming across the broken ice was a man. As he came closer we could see that he was running gently, his sword in his right hand and a spear in his left.

“Is he mad?” said Quintus in amazement.

“A spy perhaps, sir,” said a legionary, standing by with a bow held loosely before him.

I shook my head. “My spies don’t come in like that. He’s not on an embassy either, not with those weapons out.”

The duty centurion said quietly, “Perhaps he is mad.”

He came closer and closer. We could see that he was a man of middle age, his beard was streaked with grey and his face was contorted, but whether with hate or merely with the effort of running I could not tell. There was something strange and terrible about this man’s approach. He came on steadily as though nothing would stop him. He was shouting in a loud voice, but at first we could not hear what he said.

Quintus said, “He is mad.”

“Shall I fire, sir.”

“No. Wait for my orders.”

The man wore the dress of the Siling Vandals and he was bareheaded. When he was two hundred yards away I put my hands to my mouth and shouted to him: “Stop where you are or we shall shoot. Put your weapons down and declare yourself.” He took no notice. He was crying in a loud, high voice: “Butchers . . . murderers . . . my wife . . . my wife . . . children . . . butchers . . . starved . . . butchers . . . barbarians. . . .” Fifty yards away he stopped, his chest heaving. “Butchers,” he cried. He straightened up and hurled the spear with tremendous force. It passed between two legionaries and buried itself on the parade ground at the feet of a startled soldier carrying a sack of grain. Then he ran forward again, his sword outstretched in his hand. I nodded swiftly to the centurion, who cried, “Fast . . . stand . . . loose.” Three arrows took him in the chest as he ran hard for the gate. He stopped dead. His body went backwards six feet with the force of the arrows, twisting as it did so and then, arching slightly, lay crumpled sideways upon the snow.

The soldiers lowered their bows and we all looked at each other in silence. No one knew what to say. It was bizarre and horrible, even for us who were professional soldiers. He had been a man out of his mind, as Quintus said.

“Collect his weapons,” I said. “Leave the body where it is. The wolves will deal with that.” I turned away and walked to the ladder. It was then that I made up my mind.

Quintus, following, said tersely, “Rando’s daughter?”

“Well?”

“Don’t do it. There’s no point now.”

I did not answer him and I left him standing by number four armoury, staring after me in bewilderment.

As I went through the camp I saw the signal fires flare as the tar and pitch caught light, and a stray dog yelped suddenly as it cowered againt a wall and a troop of horse clattered by. Inside the Adjutant’s office the clerks were burning all unnecessary documents while the rolls that were to be kept were being loaded into a waggon under the direction of an auxiliary. Fatigue parties went from hut to hut with incendiaries, so that each building might be fired without difficulty when the time came; while others fixed prepared sections of palisading at strategic crossings in the camp, so that if the outer wall fell the barbarians would still have to fight their way through, building by building. Here, an archer was busy flighting his arrows; there, a legionary was fitting javelins into racks along the firing platform; and the north and south gates were being shored up with great balks of timber. They would withstand even a battering ram when the time came. I spent the morning inside my office, answering questions and giving orders, while messengers came and went with a stream of information. A little before midday Quintus lounged in, his face wet with sweat.