Betrayal: The Centurions I Read online

  A gust whipped away the curtain of mist that was shielding them from the unsuspecting Britons for a moment, and with an exultant leap of his heart, Draco saw the disorganised sprawl of the enemy camp barely two hundred paces from where they stood, their horses tethered to stakes across the back of the tribes’ rough line of campfires and tents, while the chariots they were intended to pull in the coming battle were scattered among them in a seemingly random manner. The mist closed in again with no indication that they had been sighted by the unwary tribesmen, and with a savage grin he took hold of the big horse’s saddle and stuck two fingers into his mouth to whistle once, a piercing note that would be heard along his force’s line, telling his men that the time to fight was upon them. Vaulting into the saddle, his decurion spurred the beast to a trot, Draco increasing his pace to a long striding run to keep up with the animal, using his grip on the saddle to drag him along faster than any unaided man could run carrying so much weight.

  Suddenly the mist parted, and the Batavi line swept out into the clear morning air moving fast and still undetected, closing the gap by five paces with every heartbeat. A tribesman walking sentry duty on the tethered horses let out a scream of terror at the thundering line of horsemen bearing down on him and was gone, speared by one of the leading riders and dropped into the meat grinder of the charging cohorts’ boots and hoofs. A few dozen of the more alert Britons ran through the tethered horses in a suicidally brave attempt to defend the precious animals, but they had barely cleared the chariots’ obstruction as the Batavi line raced to meet them, soldiers releasing their grip on the horse’s saddles as their riders reined them in and using their shields to smash into the Britons’ pitiful defence with the momentum of their headlong charge, making short work of the few defenders as their flickering spears reaped the lives of those men who were resolute enough to stand against them.

  ‘First rank centuries! Push through and form a line!’

  The leading centurions along the line’s length recognised their leader’s gruff bellow and led their men forward through the enemy’s horses, ignoring the tethered beasts in their haste to do as they were bidden. Erecting a wall of shields three men deep and reinforced by their comrades who had left their horses under the control of a few riders while they strode to join the fight, they set their spears ready to fight off the tribesmen who were now rapidly waking up to the fact that they were under attack. A hubbub was growing among the tribal encampment as men rolled out of their blankets and climbed out of tents, reaching for weapons and shrugging on mail if they were wealthy enough to possess such a small fortune in iron, girding themselves to meet the unexpected attack. Draco turned back to the second row of centuries where they stood awaiting his command, roaring the order that so pained him despite its necessity.

  ‘Second rank! Hamstring the horses!’

  The waiting Batavi stabbed their spears into the ground and drew their swords, advancing into the chariot park with grim-faced purpose, hacking and stabbing at the tethered animals with devastating effect, severing muscles and tendons to leave the beasts lame and screaming in their unexpected agony. The Fourteenth Legion’s young legatus had been insistent on this tactic when he made his orders clear the previous evening.

  ‘A horse that has been crippled has to be put out of its misery by some poor bastard, and in the meantime may well pull its tether and cause chaos in their lines. And it’s quicker than making sure the beasts are dead. I want you and your men in and out with the minimum casualties, Prefect, as I suspect I’m going to need your strength at my back later in the day.’

  Draco looked over the line of his men’s shields at the Britons facing them, growing rapidly in strength as they turned away from the expected direction of the Roman attack and re-oriented themselves to face the hard-faced auxiliary soldiers who stood waiting for their attack. Shaggy-haired warriors were striding forward up the hill’s shallow slope towards their attackers, some running, recognising from the horse’s screams what was happening behind the line of oval shields, the initial trickle of men swiftly becoming a flood. Exchanging glances with Tribune Lupercus, he nodded decisively at the Roman’s questioning look.

  ‘Better to be the men doing the attacking, if we want to be away from here clean.’

  Raising his voice to be heard over the growing cacophony of agonised equine screams, as his soldiers rendered one horse after another incapable of ever running again, he shouted the command that his men were waiting for.

  ‘Form ranks for battle! Front rank! Advance!’

  Along the eight-cohort-strong line of soldiers the command was repeated by each centurion, their barked orders sending the Batavi down the slope towards the oncoming Britons at a steady walk and in a neat, unbroken formation, shields up and spears held ready to fight. The Britons, seeing their enemy come forward, increased their own pace, eager to get at the invaders, loping forward with their weapons raised.

  ‘Into them!’’

  The Batavi line stepped into the advancing Britons and took the leading runners down hard, punching with their shields and following through with spear blades, halting the enemy charge in an instant and reaping the enemy warriors with swift, clinical strikes that opened throats, bellies and thighs, killing their targets with the efficiency of long, hard practice, and then stepping forward again to repeat the slaughter on those who followed. The Britons railed at their shields, occasionally finding a way past the wall of wood and iron to take a life or leave a man bleeding on the turf, but they died in their hundreds as German ferocity married with Roman discipline drove the Batavi forward one step at a time, their weapons carving a bloody path.

  ‘Change!’

  At their centurions’ command each century’s second rank men released their grip of the front rank’s collars, stepping forward and sliding their shields around the leading men’s left sides to protect their comrades as they fell back, breathing hard from their exertions and the sheer thrill of the fight, taking their places and renewing the ferocity of the Batavis’ grinding advance into the tribal warriors opposing them.

  From the knots of men facing the first century, a handful of warriors stepped forward to face the attackers’ line, half a dozen hard-faced men carrying long swords and small shields, moving as one as they stalked towards their enemy, each of them scrutinising their enemy in search of a weakness to exploit. The man who seemed to be their leader pointed and barked a command, and their walk accelerated to a run as they came on in silence, picking a point where the Batavi line had been thinned by the natural chaos of the battle and bursting through the shields raised against them with brute force. Scything their way into the soldiers to either side of the rupture, their assault sent the Batavi soldiers skipping back with shields raised, while the biggest of them killed the only man between himself and Lupercus, levelled his sword at the Roman and stepped in to attack without breaking step, flashing the blade in at head height with a bellow of anger in an attack so fast that the tribune could do no more than raise a weak parry to block the blow. He staggered back as the flat of his own blade smashed into his helmet, momentarily scattering his wits and leaving him open to the death blow. Draco threw himself forward and lunged with his gladius, but the Briton side-stepped with sinuous ease and shifted smoothly from defence to attack, stepping forward to put all his strength behind his colourfully decorated shield’s hard bronze boss and sending the prefect flying with the force of the blow. Turning back to the tottering Roman, the Briton pulled his sword back, bellowing in his victim’s face as he swung the long blade at Lupercus’s head with lethal intent.

  ‘That’s what I was waiting for!’

  The initial screams of maimed horses from the far side of the river were now underlaid by the sounds of battle, iron clashing against iron and the shouts and imprecations of men fighting at close quarters. Geta pointed down at the waiting legionaries whose front ranks were barely a hundred paces from the wide bend in the river, which the invasion force’s scouts had reported as the bes
t place to mount a legion-strength attack across the Medui’s natural barrier, the water slower through the bend’s curve and shallow enough to be waded, with a narrow mud-bank island in the middle of the stream to provide some firmer footing for their men.

  ‘Now is the time, Flavius Vespasianus! Time for your men to make their attack across the river and take a bridgehead, while the enemy are concentrating on the threat to their rear!’

  The older man looked down for a moment longer and then nodded his agreement.

  ‘Have your men ready to follow up, but concentrate your force to either side of my legion. Once we’re across I expect they’ll throw every last man down that slope at us, and I’ll be happier knowing you have my flanks if the worst happens.’

  He turned away and hurried down the hill’s slope with a pair of auxiliary cohort prefects following in his wake, while his brother and Geta stared out into the slowly clearing mist and tried to discern the course of the battle in the enemy’s rear.

  Dazed, and unable to defend himself, the tribune stepped unsteadily back out of the blade’s slashing path, feeling the wind of the sword’s passage past his face and a sting of pain as the point scored a deep nick into his cheek below his left eye. His attacker was still advancing, rolling his wrist over and leading with the point, spearing it down at the Roman so fast that he barely had time to get his own blade up to meet the thrust, flinching as the sharp iron skated down his sword’s length and hammered into its hand guard, smashing the weapon from his numb fingers. Stepping shakily backwards on legs still reluctant to obey, he found himself unable to put any distance between himself and the remorseless Briton as the warrior stepped forward again with his long blade held overhand, teeth bared as he aimed the weapon’s point at the helpless Roman’s neck.

  As he stepped in to make the kill something stole his attention for an instant, and then, faster than the dazed tribune could comprehend, he was gone, fighting in turn for his own life as a mail-clad man with a centurion’s crest assailed him furiously from his left, bulling through his defence with a combination of brawn and speed the equal of that which the Briton had used to defeat Lupercus a moment before, his sword the shining tongue of a viper as it flickered in the iron-grey dawn. Turning the newcomer’s blade aside with his own, the Briton punched out with his shield, but the Batavi officer who had saved Lupercus’s life met the punch with the boss of his own shield, sparks flying with the resounding bang of their impact. Before the warrior could strike again, Draco was upon him from behind, hamstringing the Briton with a sweep of his sword and dropping him to his knees with his back arched in agony and his sword pointing uselessly at the grey sky. His other assailant stepped forward and put the point of his gladius into the gap between the man’s mail shirt and his helmet, plunging it deep and then tearing the blade free in a fountain of blood as the dying warrior tottered and then sprawled headlong, his eyes dimming as the life left his body. Turning away from the dead man’s corpse, the tribesman’s killer wiped the blood from his lips and then, as matter-of-factly as if he were adjusting the fit of his armour, pulled off his helmet and took hold of the rope of dyed red hair that hung down to the square of his back, putting the bloodied blade to it and slicing through the plait with a sawing stroke of the sword. Draco walked forward and offered the tribune his hand, pulling him to his feet and picking up his gladius. He turned to look at their saviour, who was retying the leather thong that secured his helmet’s cheek guards.

  ‘Kivilaz.’

  The younger man knotted the leather cord and kicked the dyed red rope of his discarded hair aside, then saluted.

  ‘Draco.’

  ‘You’re supposed to be maiming horses, Centurion.’

  The prince shrugged.

  ‘Other men might be content with maiming horses, but I am not one of their number.’

  He might have said more, but from the mist that still shrouded the river a mournful blare of horns began to sound, first one, then another, and then a chorus of sonorous notes that presaged an attack in force by the legions on the far side. Draco shook his head, still winded by the shield punch that had momentarily floored him.

  ‘We will speak of this later. Return to your century and prepare to fall back.’ Kivilaz nodded brusquely, saluted again and turned away, stopping as his superior spoke again. ‘But on my behalf and that of Tribune Lupercus, thank you.’

  Nodding again, the younger man walked away to rejoin his century, leaving Draco staring at his back for a long moment before turning to give the order for the retreat to the river.

  1

  The Palace of Tiberius, Palatine Hill, Rome, September AD 68

  A clank of iron against iron as the cell’s door was unlocked announced a break in the usual routine, and it was all that Kivilaz could do to stop himself turning his one-eyed gaze from the window slit through which he had been staring north across the city from the Palatine Hill’s elevated position. He had determined weeks before that he would never show any sign to his jailers that the sheer loneliness and crushing boredom of his imprisonment was anything more than an inconvenience, but the unexpected contact with another person, even one of the impassive men who watched over him wordlessly for the most part, was still enough to set his heart racing.

  ‘There is a visitor for the prisoner Civilis.’

  He composed himself and turned away from the window to find one of his jailers standing at the open door with another man, a stranger dressed in the formal toga of a Roman gentleman and with the gold ring of a senator on his finger. He stared at the newcomer for a moment in perplexity, knowing that he recognised the man’s air of alert watchfulness from somewhere, but was unable to place him. The jailer stared at him for a moment with obvious irritation before speaking again.

  ‘Does the prisoner Civilis wish to receive the visitor?’

  Jumping to his feet, and pushing away his chair so hard that it toppled to the hard stone floor with a loud clatter, Kivilaz nodded eagerly.

  ‘I would be happy to receive the visitor.’

  Standing aside, the jailer gestured to the man waiting behind him. ‘You may enter the prisoner Civilis’s cell, Senator.’

  Kivilaz frowned at the man quizzically as he turned away in apparent disinterest.

  ‘That’s all? Shouldn’t you stay to ensure that nothing treasonous is said between us? Or to stop this man from giving me—’

  ‘The visitor has been authorised for the prisoner Civilis by Praetorian Prefect Tigellinus. And he is a Roman gentleman.’

  With nothing more to be said on the subject he walked away, leaving Kivilaz staring at the man in front of him for a moment before coming to his senses.

  ‘Where are my manners? I must appear every inch the barbarian. Please come in.’

  The Roman bowed, but remained where he was.

  ‘I should introduce myself before accepting your invitation. When you know my name you may not be quite as eager to welcome me.’ He sighed. ‘I have become something of an outcast among the men of my class. The jailer tells me that you are reading the Iliad?’

  Kivilaz nodded with a slight smile.

  ‘I asked him to find me a copy in Greek, rather than the bastardisation of a translation into Latin, just to make the point that not all northern barbarians are completely uneducated.’

  The newcomer nodded, raising a hand to declaim from Homer’s epic poem.

  ‘No man or woman born, coward or brave, can shun their destiny.’

  He looked over at Kivilaz with a wry smile.

  ‘My destiny, so far at least, has been to play the bold role of the bravest of commanders, and yet to end up being regarded with no better sentiment among my peers than the rankest of cowards.’

  He waited for Kivilaz to respond, and after a moment the prisoner nodded his head slowly.

  ‘I know who you are. It’s … Cerialis? Is that right?’

  ‘Yes. My name is Quintus Petillius Cerialis. You remember me as legatus of the Ninth Hispania in Britannia ten ye
ars ago, at the time of the revolt of the Iceni, whose full strength I was unfortunate enough to encounter as I marched to relieve their siege of Camulodunum with two and a half thousand of my men. Having already sacked the city, and drunk with victory, they simply mobbed us without any regard for their own lives, numbering perhaps three times our strength. They overran us in minutes, as I’m sure you remember, killing every last legionary and chasing myself and the legion’s cavalry away to the nearest fort …’

  He paused, shaking his head at the memory.

  ‘Where they kept us bottled up until Suetonius Paulinus defeated them and relieved us. I was recalled to Rome, of course, and it would probably have been less embarrassing for all concerned if I had fallen on my sword like that poor fool Posthumus, but at least I answered the call to duty and didn’t hide in my fortress like that coward did when he became convinced that Boudicca already had the province in the palm of her hand. In any case, I wasn’t ready to throw my life away over a battle that no man in Rome could have won, and so I declined the suggestion of an honourable death and left the province with my head up, ignoring those men who weren’t there and had no right to an opinion. Although, as I discovered soon enough, a man who loses a battle that badly does tend to find himself ostracised, shunned by those of his peers who have never suffered such ill-fortune, which is of course most of them.’ He shrugged, a wan smile betraying the lingering wound that his defeat had inflicted on his pride and sense of self-worth. ‘So, now that you know both my name and my crime in the eyes of polite society, are you still willing to receive my visit, Prince of the Batavians?’

  Kivilaz smiled slowly.