FIELDS OF MARS Read online

  ‘And we cannot hope to undermine the defences,’ the engineer went on, ‘for normally we would begin to tunnel far from the walls and out of missile range. But here you would have to be very close to the ramparts to begin the mining, at which point you would lose nine men in every ten just getting the tunnels started. Not a viable option.’

  Caesar was beginning to look a little exasperated, but Mamurra was not finished yet. ‘Worst of all, it seems to have been a reasonably wet winter for the region, and the dip gathers and retains moisture, so there is a certain marshy quality to the turf. My initial recommendation is aggers.’

  ‘Aggers?’ Trebonius mused.

  ‘Yes. Causeways of earth, timber and stone.’

  ‘I know what they are,’ snapped Trebonius.

  ‘Well we could build two or more agger from our side of the depression, crossing the place and meeting the rising ground nearer their walls. That would give us reasonable access to their defences. And a line of investment that follows the near high contour is also required, I would say.’

  Caesar nodded. ‘See that it’s done, Mamurra. The faster we can gain access to the walls, the faster we can finish this.’ The general’s gaze snapped round to the sound of the tent door opening, and Brutus strode in.

  ‘I realise, General, that this news is unlikely to lift anyone’s day, but a small fleet of ships has arrived and is making directly for Massilia’s harbour. They are a mix of military and civil shipping, but do not appear to be filled to the brim with men, so we must assume mostly supplies.’

  Caesar slapped his hand on the table in anger, causing many of those in the room to jump nervously.

  ‘How can I hope to besiege a city when I dare not harm its populace unduly and they are free to receive supplies by sea?’

  ‘A blockade, Caesar,’ Brutus replied simply.

  ‘Indeed, but with what? Every ship in Italia is already serving Pompey, barring the few we seized, which are with Curio and Valerius to secure Sardinia, Sicilia and Africa, the few we have in Narbo I’ve put under Fabius’ command to help secure the route into Hispania, and the fleet we assembled during the war in Gaul is on the damned Gallic coast out beyond the Pillars of Hercules and on the other side of Pompeian Hispania. We have no fleet with which to stop supplies reaching Ahenobarbus.’

  ‘Build more?’ Fronto said quietly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, if you have no ships and there are no ships to be had, then there is only one solution: make more ships.’

  Mamurra turned on him. ‘I cannot claim to know much about matters naval, Fronto, but I do know you would need an experienced admiral to oversee the project, a shipyard of adequate size and a workforce skilled in shipbuilding.’

  Other men in the room nodded, but Caesar’s eyes were narrowing in thought. ‘You may be on to something, though, Fronto.’

  ‘Sir?’

  We have neither the facilities nor the skills here to carry out such a task. But fifty miles northwest is the city of Arelate, which is on a wide, navigable river, has an excellent port facility, a sizeable shipyard, and owes me strong allegiance. And Brutus here is a knowledgeable and capable admiral, as he proved against the Veneti some seven years ago.’

  ‘Caesar, the time it would take to manufacture a fleet…’ Antonius began.

  ‘Not a full fleet,’ Caesar said quickly, cutting him off. ‘We do not need a huge fleet. All we need is enough ships to blockade the port under the command of a cunning tactician. I do not like to tarry here too long, but my fate is fixed. I cannot leave Massilia behind me in the hands of my enemy. Fabius will have to keep Hispania under control, and Curio and Valerius will have to do what they must to maintain the frontier and keep Pompey penned in in the east. I will allow one month.’

  He straightened.

  ‘One month, gentlemen. One month for Mamurra to build his aggers and invest the city and create whatever technological terrors his febrile mind can conjure. One month for you, Brutus, to travel to Arelate, take command of the shipyard and all its resources and begin constructing ships. Build as many as you can manage in the allotted time, but one month from now, I want you and your new ships out in those waters below Massilia, making Ahenobarbus nervous. Are you the man for the job?’

  Brutus nodded. ‘I can do that, Caesar. I cannot guarantee how many ships I can produce, since I have no experience in their construction, but whatever the time and facilities allow, I will achieve.’

  ‘Good man,’ Caesar announced.

  * * *

  Atop the walls of Massilia, a figure in drab, nondescript tunic and boots ducked and weaved in and out of the soldiers and nobles. The ramparts and towers seemed to be filled with a mixture of Massiliot nobles and politicians in rich whites and vibrant colours, and Roman legionaries in their madder-dyed reds and rusty russets, chain armour shushing and weapons clanking.

  The figure found a relatively clear spot and moved to the battlements, ignoring the glare he received from a legionary nearby. His gaze played across the besieging Romans. A line of the criss-crossed sudis stakes reached from the cliff edge to the north, around the city in a wide arc as far as the uncrossable marshy ground to the south, on the far side of the city’s harbour. Behind that arbitrary line that roughly followed the terrain, three camps had been constructed and manned by legionaries, though, since the main force had arrived, a fourth, much larger camp had been constructed further back and higher up; a camp which overlooked the ground in between, and had become the main accommodation for the besieging army, with the three smaller camps filled with workers and forward garrisons.

  And every hour he looked out, there were fewer and fewer trees on the hillsides inland, and more and more stacks of logs in the camps.

  Neither the forces arrayed outside, nor the prospect of the city’s fall bothered the figure on the walls and, though the very idea of the hardships of a long siege were hardly attractive, the figure had endured similar and worse.

  But he fumed. Because he was trapped in this stupid and untenable situation. Because he should have got out while the getting was good. Because the idiots running this city might think they were backing the fastest chariot with Pompey, but they would soon enough discover that Pompey’s chariot was a two-horse biga to Caesar’s four-horse quadriga, and he wasn’t half the rider the general appeared to be.

  With a sigh, Catháin scanned the tents one last time in the hope of seeing Fronto somewhere out there amid the mess, then gave up. He would go back to the office, settle in and wait out events to see what happened.

  And he might get drunk. Whatever deprivations might be experienced in the coming months, one thing was certain: he had a more than adequate store of wine…

  * * *

  ‘How many vinea do we have so far?’ Trebonius asked from the observation platform at the line of investiture.

  Caesar turned an inquisitive look on him. ‘Mamurra?’ he prompted.

  ‘What?’ muttered the engineer as he pored over his drawings. ‘Oh. Vinea? Four complete I believe and four more in production. I’ve had most of the work directed at the aggers.’

  ‘The aggers will not go much further without the vinea,’ noted Trebonius, and pointed.

  Fronto and Galronus, standing at the rampart close by, peered into the distance. ‘I think he’s right,’ Galronus said quietly, and Fronto nodded. ‘This one doesn’t have to get much closer to give us access to the level ground, but the other one will have to get a lot nearer.’

  As if their collective anticipation of the moment of conflict had triggered something, there was a dull thud and a dozen pairs of eyes swivelled to one of the heavy, square towers, where a katapeltikon, a bolt thrower of Greek design and every bit the match of Roman artillery, had finally loosed its deadly shot. The officers had been nervously eyeing the weapons atop the towers for three days now, waiting for the time they came into play as the Roman ramps crept slowly closer and closer.

  The arrow was well-placed, especially for an initia
l shot. It angled forward and down and obliterated two legionaries busily compacting the rubble at the end of the northern agger. The missile went clean through the torso of the first man and thudded into the shoulder of the second, throwing him from the raised embankment down into the damp, marshy grass below.

  Fronto watched in disbelief as half a dozen legionaries formed a shield wall at the unfinished end of the agger while their mates continued to bring up materials for its construction.

  ‘What in the name of sacred Minerva’s droopy boobs are they doing?’ Fronto breathed.

  ‘I think they believe they can stop the missiles with their shields,’ Galronus replied.

  ‘Idiots. If a bolt can go through a man and out the other side, a shield won’t do much good.’

  Caesar sighed. ‘Oh for veteran legions, but all the veterans are committed in Sicilia, Sardinia and Hispania.’

  Fronto watched a centurion on the agger trying to get some concept through to one of his men with much waving of hands and finally a clout on the shoulder with his vine staff. These three legions had been formed in small part from the barely trained forced who had surrendered at Corfinium, but were largely new recruits from Cisalpine Gaul and northern Italia. They had hardly had time to learn which end of a sword did the damage, let alone how to deal with a siege. They’d looked good cutting logs and digging trenches, but they had never experienced a fight. Fronto wondered how hard the Massiliots would have to push to break a new legion.

  ‘They need proper direction down there,’ Fronto noted. He straightened, preparing to go, but Salvius Cursor was there first, drawing his sword and rolling his shoulders. ‘Fronto’s right. Permission to go put the men in order, General?’

  Caesar frowned and pursed his lips. ‘Granted, Salvius, but carefully.’

  The tribune saluted and jogged away from the platform. Fronto watched him go, then tapped Galronus on the shoulder. ‘Come on.’

  With the Remi prince in tow, he left the observation point and jogged across to the work camp, which was in a state of semi-organised chaos. Work gangs of burly legionaries unarmoured and in just tunics and belts were engaged in every stage of preparation. Some were ferrying in baskets of rubble on the backs of carts from a temporary quarry on the hillside a quarter of a mile away. They were then offloading them into a large stack, from which men were hauling them, grunting, onto their backs and porting them through the siege lines to the end of the agger to help create the embankment that would grant them access to Massilia. Other men were still working on timbers, creating planks, pegs and straight stakes. Others were mixing up cement, resins and pitch. Others were forging nails. Men were assembling ladders and mobile arrow screens and vineae and even beginning work on a huge, outsized ballista that had drifted into the world from Mamurra’s imagination via one of his scrappy pages of designs.

  Fronto peered this way and that but couldn’t identify an officer. Probably there were several centurions around, but without their armour and weapons only their attitude and a vine stick would identify them, and he had no time to hunt one down.

  Since the initial gathering of resources, most of the legionaries had now either been moved into place along the siege works or in the building of the aggers, with half a legion at most working on all this material. Likely the legate of this legion – whoever he was, since Fronto didn’t know which legion it was and was unfamiliar with the commanders of them all anyway – had committed his best men to the siege lines and put his newest, rawest men on the work duties. That suggested the latter half of the cohorts.

  ‘Seventh Cohort, form up!’ Fronto bellowed, plucking a number from the air. He was rewarded by upturned surprised faces and then a whole swarm of legionaries downing tools and running over to line up.

  ’Good men,’ he shouted. ‘Your comrades on the agger are being skewered with Massiliot arrows, and the things they need to protect them are here. Divide into centuries and collect the completed vineae and plutei and move them as fast as you can up to the end of the north agger.’

  A centurion appeared from somewhere, his status clear as much from his professional attitude and stance as from his vine stick symbol of office. ‘We’re with you, Legatus.’ He turned to the men. ‘First to Fourth centuries, one vinea each and stay inside as you move it else you’ll be prey for enemy arrows. Fifth and Sixth centuries, bring the plutei, two contubernia to each. Any men left over are support at the rear to replace the fallen. Now move!’

  ‘They could do with you up at the front line,’ Fronto said with feeling, and the centurion simply saluted in acknowledgement and began bellowing orders for the men to move their siege equipment. Fronto nodded at Galronus and the two hurried back toward the siege line. A gate had been constructed in the palisade at the near end of each agger. The south agger had not yet progressed too far, but the north one was closing on Massilia’s walls rapidly.

  The gate stood open and men were gathered around both inside and outside the siege works, their bodies armoured, but lacking helmets and shields, due to the baskets of rubble and earth they had been carrying, which now sat idly by their feet. The legionaries moved respectfully aside as Fronto and Galronus arrived and strode through the gate onto the agger. It was the first time since the siege had begun that Fronto had been forward of the line of investiture and he had to nod at the quality of the agger. The legions may be too green for real war, but it seemed they had some fine engineers and strong workers among them. The causeway was wide enough for a whole eight man contubernium to travel abreast and had been compacted and levelled so thoroughly that it felt like any major road, rather than a ramp amid a siege.

  Over a hundred paces away, toward the walls of Massilia, Fronto could see the red plume of Salvius Cursor’s helmet amid a small group of legionaries. Whatever the man was doing, he’d kept a few men with him and sent the rest back to the gate.

  ‘Make way,’ Fronto shouted to the gathered legionaries. ‘Siege engines are coming through. Make space.’ And as the men began to shuffle aside, Fronto beckoned to Galronus and jogged on along the agger.

  As they closed on Salvius’ position, Fronto realised what the man was doing, though he wasn’t sure whether he was impressed or horrified. Even as he watched, the tribune pointed to a spot some fifteen paces from the end of the ramp and a legionary ran across to it and stood there, still as a post. There was a heavy thud from the nearest tower and a secondary, duller thud from the tower to the right. Two huge bolts whispered through the air, the second thudding into the rubble of the causeway about six paces from the legionary, while the first hurtled past him and stuck into the ground behind, passing so close to the legionary that the air current ruffled his tunic. As Fronto closed on them he could see the dark patch of liquid blooming around the soldier’s groin. Hardly surprising, being used as target practice by the Massiliot artillery as he was. Salvius Cursor waved the soldier ten paces back and threw a white stone down where he had been standing. There were a number of such stones at the end of the agger in various places and two skewered corpses among them.

  ‘This appears to be their maximum effective range,’ the tribune shouted, pointing at the stone he’d just cast down.

  ‘Get those men back out of artillery range,’ Fronto replied sharply.

  Salvius Cursor ignored him. ‘I would say that makes their effective range perhaps a hundred paces. And that is with no wind and no adverse weather conditions. With wind to account for, make that perhaps seventy paces, though with a talented artillerist behind it, they might reach up to one hundred and twenty, perhaps even one hundred and thirty paces.’

  There was a thud and another bolt thrummed past Salvius and smacked into the compacted earth of the ramp. The tribune didn’t even turn, let alone jump, still apparently counting off ranges on his fingers. The legionary who’d leaked a little at the last shot went white.

  ‘And get out of range yourself, you mad bastard,’ Fronto shouted.

  Salvius Cursor seemed to notice him again now, his
lip curling up into the sneer that seemed to arrive automatically in Fronto’s presence, and he ambled slowly back away from the walls as another bolt issued and thudded into the ground where his boot had so recently been.

  ‘I believe that with these measurements we can plan the other agger’s approach with a little more care.’

  Fronto stared at the man, and Salvius shrugged. ‘We knew little of the capabilities of their artillery. No Roman has faced a Greek artillerist in living memory.’

  Behind them, Fronto could hear the trundle and squeak of wheels and the grunting of men. He turned to see the siege engines approaching along the agger. The smaller plutei came first. Curved shields of timber, one and a half times the height of a man, they rested on two wheels and were manoeuvred by a single steering pole behind. Two came up in quick succession, the men pushing them ducking behind even as they approached, prepared for shots from the walls.

  The vineae came along behind, not wheeled this time, but carried by the legionaries. They were covered galleries some twenty feet long, built of a heavy timber frame with a slatted wooden roof and wicker walls to either side, the whole covered with dampened hides to prevent fire damage. Open at both ends, they formed a mobile tunnel, protecting workers from aerial attack. The soldiers lifting the upright posts and carrying the vineae were sweating and grunting with the effort, and Fronto and Galronus stepped aside, almost sliding down the steep side of the bank as the first vinea passed. The men expertly dropped the mobile tunnel at the very end of the agger, the two plutei forming a front for the place. The other men brought further vineae forward and lined them up behind the first, forming an eighty-foot tunnel atop the agger.

  ‘That should have been done when they first approached missile range,’ Fronto sighed. ‘Oh to have veterans. Still, I suppose everyone starts to learn somewhere.’

  Even as he watched, a centurion blew his whistle back at the gate and men began to move once more with their baskets of rocks and earth. The two nearest towers on the walls once more began to release their missiles at the defences. The bolts thudded into timbers and stuck there, shaking the vineae with each strike and knocking the plutei back a foot or so each time. Legionaries moved the plutei back into position. The second tower, off to one side, managed a rather effective shot, its missile striking the side of the vinea, where it simply ripped through the hide and wicker without good solid timber to stop it. Fronto turned and looked back. Half a dozen more plutei were sitting idly on the agger further back.