Enica glared at him warningly.
‘My lord,’ Ferox said, hoping the aristocrat would take this as obedient contrition.
‘Good man.’ They were on a hillock beside the road, watching the column deploying into a battle line. Crassus swept his arm along the ridge ahead of them. ‘There are the rebels. I make their numbers little more than ours.’ A mounted vexillarius carried the square red flag marking the commander’s position.
That seemed about right, though only if he believed the entire enemy force was visible. In the centre, formed across the road itself, were the dark blue shields of around three hundred men of the Brigantian royal cohort. From this distance they looked the same as their own auxiliaries, for they wore mail, bronze helmets in the regulation pattern, and each carried a spear and a lighter javelin, as well as having a gladius on their right hip. They were drilled and trained like Roman soldiers, and if they were anything like the horsemen who had accompanied Arviragus, they ought to be pretty good. Their line was broken a little by the ditch on either side of the road, but otherwise their formation was neat. More to the point they waited in silence, keeping in their ranks and watching as Crassus’ men formed up to attack.
On each flank a body of two hundred mounted guards sat on their horses, the gaps between each turma visible even at this distance. Ferox presumed the men he had got to know a little on their journey to Mona were among them. At this distance they could easily have been a regular ala, and a good one at that, each turma mounted on horses of a distinct colour. For some reason the Brigantes had always had a fondness for chestnuts, and more than half of the troops rode them.
Next to each detachment of cavalry was a loose swarm of horsemen, tribesmen armed and ready to fight in the traditional way. Ferox could make out a couple of mail-clad leaders in front of the warriors on the enemy left and three on the right, and judged that there were over a hundred riders in each group. Between them and the foot guards were clumps of warriors. They were not in neat ranks and there was a lot of movement as men milled around, some sitting or standing, and, no doubt, being Brigantes, all of them talking. They would close up before the fight, but were not soldiers and saw no reason to act like them. There were some three hundred and fifty on either side of the royal cohort.
‘How many men serve in the royal guard, lady?’ Ferox asked the question loudly enough for Crassus to hear.
‘Nearly eight hundred infantry in the cohort,’ she explained. ‘My Lord Crassus, is there not a name for a regiment of that size?’
‘Indeed there is, my dear Claudia. It is a cohors milliaria. The royal ala is of standard size.’ Crassus gave her an indulgent smile. ‘It is much to the credit of your fellow tribesmen that so many of them have refused to join the rebels. As so often, rumour has exaggerated the army of your treacherous brother.’
Ferox was about to suggest the obvious alternative, when another fierce stare from Enica warned him off. On the enemy right the ground rose steeply up towards the hills, which meant that the Romans could not try to envelop them. On their left was a wood, straggling on for miles away from the road. Plenty of men could be waiting there in concealment. More could be behind the low crest of the ridge.
Crassus had deployed his own men to match the frontage of the enemy. The turmae sent on the cattle raid had not returned, and with so few horsemen left, there were around ninety on each flank and a turma of twenty-eight stationed near the commander. These, along with the veterans, were his only reserve. The legionaries of VIIII Hispana stood as two improvised cohorts in the centre, the men standing in three ranks. That was fine for steady, confident troops, but Ferox wondered whether it was deep enough. One cohort was led by only two centurions, the other by three, and there were barely more optiones and other leaders standing behind the formation to keep the men in ranks. The auxiliary infantry on either side of the legionaries were six deep, a far more prudent formation that made it easier to control the men. A tenth of all the infantry were still at the camp, some four and half miles to the rear, guarding the baggage.
‘Time to temper the steel,’ Crassus announced, and rode towards the battle line. ‘Soldiers!’ His voice surged to the power of a trained orator. ‘Before us we see traitors to the lord Trajan. He is our emperor! To him you swore your sacramentum! To him we look to steer the res publica onwards to peace and prosperity!’
Ovidius had said he thought Claudia Enica to be a great actress. For Ferox, all that meant was that she was a wealthy and educated Roman, for they all performed at every opportunity. Crassus must have read in histories of the great orations delivered by famous commanders before a victory. He could sense the man revelling in the occasion, perhaps imagining how a writer would phrase what he said. Enica shrugged and trotted her horse after the commander, and Ferox followed.
‘Arviragus who leads that rabble over there took the same oath! He has broken it! None but the vilest of worms would commit such an impiety. The gods will punish him and all who follow him and we are their instruments.’
Ferox lagged behind, so that he heard muttered comments from the legionaries.
‘Hear that, we’re gods!’
‘Can’t be, gods don’t fart! You might be a humping goddess.’
‘Promises, promises.’
At least they sounded in good spirits. A soldier with the energy to moan was not too worried to do his job.
‘Traitors will suffer eternal torment in the Underworld. Think of Sisyphus…’ Crassus seemed to have forgotten his audience and began to invoke a schoolboy’s list of famous traitors and others suffering punishment in Hades. The legionaries lost interest and began to joke and bitch about other things. It was better than thinking.
‘Buggers had to be uphill, didn’t they’, ‘You’re a lazy bastard, Servius’, and so on and so on. Crassus was walking his horse further and further away, right arm flailing in all the gestures of an orator.
‘Look, lads!’ Ferox raised his voice so that he got their attention. ‘Brigantes can’t fight, but they’re all rich. So go up there and slaughter the bastards and shag their women!’
Someone laughed and then started to cheer, and the shout rippled along the line. Crassus spun his horse around on a denarius, delighted at the enthusiasm his words had provoked. Enica flicked her hand against his thigh in reproof.
He shrugged. ‘Best to keep it simple,’ he whispered.
Sadly, that also appeared to be Crassus’ approach to tactics. ‘The army is to advance!’ he shouted. ‘Keep in your ranks, follow your orders, and the day is ours!’ He drew a sword with an ornate handle shaped like an eagle’s head and pointed it towards the centre of the ridge. ‘Forward!’
Officers repeated the order and the line stepped out. The enemy were half a mile away, and for the moment the ground was flat. Part of Hispana had the same problem with the ditches as the royal cohort, but they coped well and kept the separate sections of the cohort in line. The enemy watched, the warriors shuffling and pushing into a closer formation so that soon they had a front rank of men standing in line, shields ready. Most of the boards were painted blue, the favourite colour of the tribe when it went to war.
Crassus came back and they fell in with his staff.
Ferox knew he had to speak and did his best to find the right words. ‘My lord, barbarians are naturally devious, and the Brigantes worse than most.’ He suspected Enica’s eyes were boring holes into his back. ‘That wood on their left is a likely place for a treacherous ambush.’