Tales of Ancient Rome Read online

  Tales of Ancient Rome

  S.J.A. Turney

  S.J.A. Turney

  Tales of Ancient Rome

  Hold The Wall

  It seemed like days since they had come the first time, drifting like ghosts from the mist, death incarnate, shrouded in white. Forgais, the commander of the limitanei troops who garrisoned the milecastle, leaned back and sighed, lifting the rim of his simple iron helm and wiped away the sweat and grime.

  Glancing to his left he could see Saturninus and Artorio leaning against the stonework and breathing deeply, recovering from the last push. Finn and Carro at the wall’s curve to his right completed the remaining garrison.

  Just in case, he turned and scanned the interior for the hundredth hopeful time. No. Just the five of them left now. The few bodies that remained in the yard of the milecastle below had already turned grey in the cold, with no blood to warm them, their skin tone matching the frosted gravel. Twisted grins and mangled limbs, lying where they had fallen from the wall. This morning there had been nine defenders, and before nightfall last eve: sixteen. The son-of-a-whore barbarians in this forbidding northern land never seemed to let up, even at night. It had been almost two days since he’d slept and he was starting to feel far too groggy to keep control of the situation.

  Twenty men down to just five in less than two days. He bit down hard on his personal suspicion that the milecastles on either side, as well as the nearest fort, Aesica Castrum, were probably suffering similar attacks at this point. No good would come of snatching away the last ounces of hope the others still clung to. He blew on his hands to warm them. At least the wall was still in Roman hands, since none of the bloodthirsty bastards had come along the parapet yet; when they did, the game would be over.

  There was no hope of sending for relief; they could only wait and fight to the last and hope that it came unsought. Aesica, two miles away to the west, was out of sight in the gloomy mist. Two short miles, but it might as well be a hundred. Hell, anywhere more than twenty yards from the wall was indistinct in the white fog, and had been since the enemy first came.

  Briefly, he re-considered sending a runner to try and fetch help, but quickly he discounted the possibility. They had tried that twice before over the last couple of days. Somehow some of the enemy had managed to get south of the wall and both times a runner left that gate he had been peppered with arrows before the mist even enveloped him. How many there were and where they lurked would remain a mystery, at least until the fog lifted, though there could only be few as they hadn’t made a try for the gate. With only five defenders left, none could be spared to make a try for it.

  What had led to this sudden siege would also likely remain a mystery. The men who were coming out of the mist in both darkness and light were snarling maniacs, spittle on their lips and murder in their eyes. But they weren’t the blue-painted, spike-haired cannibals that people said lived to the north and would come soon for blood. These were farmers, fishermen, smiths; ordinary people, just like those to the south of the great wall of the Emperor Aelius Hadrianus. Ordinary people like Forgais had been five short years ago, down to the south in Isurium. What had driven ordinary people to this?

  A blood-curdling cry sounded somewhere in the mist and was picked up and whooped by numerous other voices.

  “They’re coming again, lads.”

  There was a chorus of tired and fatalistic nods from the other four and they wearily hoisted their huge, round shields onto sagging arms, propping swords where they could be easily retrieved, and hefting their heavy spears. The men crossed themselves and muttered prayers to God almighty that he either spare them or grant them a swift and noble death and accept them into his kingdom afterwards. All except Carro, of course, who still refused to acknowledge the truth of the church and had alone maintained the fires in the mithraeum a couple of miles away for years. Even Carro made prayers in his own way, though. Somehow, in the face of a screaming enemy, the months of argument over the truth of the one God seemed petty.

  “Carro? Best get down below and make sure the gate’s still secure. Shore it up with anything you can find. See if there’s anything left of the bunks in the barracks.”

  The shorter, dark-haired man nodded, hoisting his shield and weapons and making for the staircase down.

  “Finn and Saturninus: you take the corners. Artorio, you’re in the middle with me. Anyone got any plumbata left?”

  The men shook their heads. The last of the heavy, iron darts had been used hours ago, but he had to be sure. The small piles of rocks and bricks they had gathered desperately this morning as additional missiles was all but depleted too. The stones they would be able to throw now were little more than pebbles; nothing but an irritation to the attackers.

  He glanced over the parapet, being careful not to lean too heavily. The battlements were less than secure. The mortar was ancient and crumbling and the stones often loosely stacked atop one another. The last repair work on the wall had been done before Forgais had been born, and even that had been done by a unit of Syrian boatmen who had as much knowledge of construction and engineering as they did of weapon-smithing or property law. This was not like the ancient days when well-paid and heavily-armoured men learned a craft and fought in drilled precision to expand the borders of the Empire.

  The nearest of the old legions was half a world away in Deva, and even they were poorly-paid and equipped these days, with priority given instead to the field army of the Dux Britannicus. Forgais tapped the laminated plates of his armour, an antique he had purchased at great expense in the forum at Isurium on his last visit. It really was in excellent condition given its age. Apart from Saturninus with his chain shirt, he was the only one with any kind of armour.

  His wandering attention was brought sharply back to the present as a thrown axe smashed into the wall two feet below where he stood, sending shards of facing stone out into the mist and releasing a cloud of desiccated mortar that resembled the mist into which it flew.

  The axe fell from the wall into the mass of twisted corpses below. How many there were could no longer be counted, as they were stacked at least three or four deep, much more in places. Twenty defenders had killed more than five or six times that number. It was something to be proud of, but somehow it still wasn’t deterring the regular assaults.

  “Spears!” he bellowed as the enemy began to climb the mound of bodies in dribs and drabs. Their dead were making a very effective siege ramp. Even if the five limitanei could hold for another day, the enemy bodies would be piled so deep they could simply walk up to the parapet.

  A snarling man, his beard matted with spittle and blood, threw himself against the gate of the milecastle below and the wooden door shuddered.

  “Carro?”

  “It’s holding” the strained reply came from below.

  Suddenly a man appeared from the mist with a long spear, leaping up the mound of the dead. There was so little warning that Forgais barely ducked to the side as the nicked blade glanced off his shoulder plate, close to his cheek.

  Changing his grip, he leaned against the parapet, hoping it was still strong enough, and jabbed down with his own spear. Other indistinct shapes moved behind the spearman. The mist suddenly flurried and Forgais had no idea where he was striking, but a yelp of pain confirmed his success.

  An arrow zinged from the stonework close to his arm and a second buried itself with a thud in the ‘P’ of the Chi-Rho painted on his shield.

  “Cover!”

  A hail of arrows began as the four defenders on the wall ducked behind the stonework, their shields raised. A hundred or more arrows hissed past them, falling into the yard below and peppering the dead; others bounced from the wall below the battlements, disappeari
ng back down into the white.

  Forgais gritted his teeth and took a deep breath. He knew very well what a cloud of arrows meant. This would be perhaps the tenth time the manoeuvre had been tried in the past two days. As the last arrow fell, he stood again, dropping his shield to the walkway.

  “Defend!” he bellowed, and lunged to the parapet, his spear reversed in his grasp again, the point facing down.

  Below the battlements the defenders had used the cover of the arrows to rush roughly-constructed ladders to the wall and raise them. The hail of missiles had now halted to allow their own men to climb safely.

  With a shout of rage, the commander leaned over the parapet and thrust down, the spear’s leaf-blade stabbing into the man climbing the ladder between his neck and shoulder and sliding deep into his chest cavity, impaling organs on its journey. The man grunted, dead before he even had time to scream, and fell into the white.

  Desperately, Forgais tried to maintain his grip on the spear, but it was too tightly wedged in the falling corpse and was ripped from his grasp. Leaning over the battlement and wincing at the slight movement in the stones, he grasped the top of the ladder and thrust it back out, away from the wall.

  A shout to his left attracted his attention. The curse had been in Latin. Artorio staggered back from the edge, clutching his chest. His face had that look that the commander dreaded: half surprise, half resignation.

  “Sorry” was all he managed, as he toppled back from the walkway to land among his brothers in the courtyard below, a blossom of red growing on his white tunic, a flower of death.

  Forgais muttered a brief prayer; all there was time for.

  A face appeared at the edge, frost in the shaggy brown hair and moustache, rotten teeth bared in anger. A muscular arm hooked itself over the top as the man tried to clamber on to the parapet. Grasping the hilt of his long sword where it stood leaning against the stone, Forgais spun a full circle, picking up enough speed as he swept out with the blade to take the top half of the man’s head off.

  The commander shrank back, appalled at the sight of the man’s sheared head, his brain slopping out as he toppled from the wall, his expression invisible behind the destruction of his face. He turned his face away.

  Happier times they had been, back in Isurium, selling fruit and vegetables, before the army had begun calling up everyone they could. Before he was made an offer he couldn’t refuse and shipped to this border zone at the end of the Empire.

  “Sir!”

  He turned at the shout. Saturninus was gesturing toward the other end of the fort. In confusion, Forgais turned and looked at the south gate. Slowly, his ears caught the sound of combat out there in the mist. Shouts in Latin echoed away in the white and, miraculously, there was a heavy thump at the gate.

  “Go get it open. Must be the relief!”

  Grinning, Saturninus paused briefly to smash a climbing barbarian in the face with the pommel of his sword before running down the stairs and crossing the courtyard, leaping over the piles of his comrades until he reached the gate.

  “Who goes there?” he yelled, though he was already unlatching the heavy bar.

  “Volusianus, centurion of the Cohors Secundae Asturum at Aesica. Open up.”

  With a relieved smile, Saturninus finished unbarring the gate and swung the heavy portal open. Without pause or acknowledgement, a rider trotted into the courtyard and reigned in at the centre, close to the piles of bodies, his horse prancing impatiently, four heavily-armoured men following him in and standing to attention behind him. Saturninus peered through the gate but, seeing nothing without, turned back to the visitor, frowning.

  A brief glance over the wall’s edge told Forgais he had a few moments before the next push. Two bodies screamed and writhed at the wall’s foot, but nothing else stirred in the mist. Turning in to look down at the figure in the courtyard, he sighed with relief.

  “Sir?” he shouted, his heart lurching. He barely allowed himself to believe it. Relief! The relief was arriving at last. They had clearly dealt with the archers outside the south gate already from the earlier sounds of combat.

  “Who’s in command here?” the centurion called out, eyeing the dead before him.

  “I am, sir. Forgais: commander of the Numerus Gaesatorum Raetorum. We never thought you’d arrive, sir. We’ve held. Almost to the last man, but the wall’s held, sir.”

  The man’s expression hardly changed.

  “You are under attack?”

  Forgais squinted through the drifting mist.

  “Sir? Yes. The wall holds, but not for much longer. Where are the others?”

  The officer frowned, waving the question aside with a sweep of his hand.

  “How many are left here?”

  “Four, sir. And they’re still coming.”

  As if to add weight to his words more crashes and shouts arose and Finn, at end of the wall, lunged out across the battlements with his sword. Forgais nodded at his friend and then turned back to the visitor. It was hard to feel pride in Rome when she barely knew you existed these days, but pride in duty and a job well-done was hard to take away.

  “Sir?”

  The centurion nodded, thoughtfully and tapped his lip.

  “Well, come down from there and gather your equipment quickly. Four men is better than none, I suppose, though I was expecting the full numerus.”

  It was Forgais’ turn to frown.

  “Sir?” he repeated once more.

  “The general Magnus Maximus had ordered the withdrawal of our forces. The prefect at Aesica sent me to fetch your unit. Be proud, commander. We travel to Rome to make an Emperor.”

  “But the wall?” Forgais gestured to the small fort around him.

  “Leave it for the farmers; we have higher concerns now. I shall expect you at Aesica within the hour.”

  Without a further glance, the officer turned and rode back out through the south gate, his guard of four men following obediently. Forgais stood silent, his eyes wide and angry, breath frosting in the air. His gaze took in the milecastle with its twin barrack blocks, stripped of bunks yesterday to provide the timber to reinforce and bolster the north gate. The bodies of the numerus, laying where they fell, mute witness to the proud defence of… what? A wall that some Spanish ponce in a fur hat had decided was no longer important if he had a chance at the purple?

  He realised the others had paused and were watching him, waiting for orders. Even as they stood silently, regarding their commander, the hail of arrows began again, the very first one taking Saturninus through the eye and plunging him over the edge to the ever-increasing pile of their fallen companions.

  “What do we do?”

  Forgais turned to Finn and shrugged.

  “I don’t know about you, but I don’t care what the commander at Aesica says, Gratianus is my Emperor, not Magnus Maximus or any other would-be usurper. I intend to follow the orders of my emperor: hold the wall.”

  The hail of arrows slowed and ended.

  “Ready for the ladders, lads!”

  Cries of rage, defiance and pride rang out, enveloped quickly by the shrouding mist.

  Vigil

  Gaius Postumus turned over in his bed, snorting and pulling the cover tight up to his throat. What a lovely dream. He knew it was a dream, for sure, but continued forcing himself to stay that little bit more sleepy, prolonging the night time images as long as possible. Half a sow turned on the spit, fat dripping down into the fire and sizzling with a delicious smell. Probably wine. Those goblets looked like wine goblets. He wondered who was holding the party, since he seemed to be the only guest. Why so many goblets and so much food just for him.

  Finally, the messages from his frantic and overactive nostrils won through a passage into his gluttonous brain, and Postumus’ right eye flicked open with some difficult, the sticky sleep still trying to hold it shut.

  Smoke?

  His eye closed again and a satisfied smile crept across his face. Of course there would be smoke. You
couldn’t roast a hog without there being some smoke. He would have to tell Safranius how delicious it was in the morning.

  Safranius.

  The morning.

  Smoke.

  The eye flicked open again.

  In a fraction of a second, before even the left eye could join its fellow in wideness, Postumus was out of the bed and frantically panicking, spinning this way and that and waving his arms, achieving entirely nothing.

  He stopped, trying to remember his training through the combined fug of sleep and panic. As one of the vigiles, the fire-fighters of Rome, Postumus had been trained well and trained hard for months in every aspect of his duties. It had been said, even by his mother, that his head was so thick that not even basic concepts could pass into it. Hurtful and untrue, but he had to sadly confirm that at this very point, standing in his room on the second floor of the insula that had been allocated as the headquarters of the Second century in the Fourth cohort of vigiles, he couldn’t even remember his name without concentrating really hard.

  Safranius would kill him.

  The heavy pall of roiling smoke was coming under the door to his room in puffs. That meant it must be coming up the stairwell.

  Postumus slapped his hand over his face. Idiot. His had been the simplest duty of all, tonight. The rest of the century were absent. Half of them were asleep in their own homes, it being their week off-duty. Many of the others had been given special leave to go to the Lucaria festival. The rest would be out patrolling the streets, watching for signs of fire or for acts of criminal behaviour. Safranius would be leading the first patrol.

  He would be less than happy to get back to the headquarters some time just before dawn to find it had been gutted by fire and all because the untrustworthy idiot he left in charge of the insula had started the stove in the kitchen to cook his fish supper and had come over ever so tired and gone to bed, leaving it burning.

  Prat.