It was impossible. How had they crossed the river in the east? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they were there. His army was caught between three Roman forces, any one of which might be strong enough to destroy him. The fine trap he had manufactured would become the graveyard of his warriors. His first instinct was to gather the bulk of his forces to meet the most obvious threat, from downstream, but he dashed the thought from his head. There was a greater danger, and it would come from across the river where he still sensed the bulk of the legionary force waited. His mind, which had been on the very brink of panic, cleared, and in extremity, he decided, there was an opportunity. Plautius had split his command. If — and it was an enormous if — he was given time to defeat the main thrust from the south, across the river, he could then attack each of the diversionary forces in turn. He undoubtedly still outnumbered his enemy and the deadly obstacles still lay submerged under the placid waters of the lagoon. It would be costly, bloody work and there would be many thousands of weeping widows by nightfall, but it was still possible to shatter the Romans, here, on the Tamesa.
But first he must buy himself time. Epedos and Bodvoc would have been surprised by the assault from downstream, but the very fact they were able to organize a defence line to meet the attack meant someone had reacted swiftly enough to ensure a crisis hadn’t turned into a disaster. Still, they would be hard-pressed.
‘Antedios? Take your Iceni and support the Atrebates and the Regni.’ He was giving up his precious reserves, but it had to be done. He was conscious of a greater pressure from that direction than from upriver, where he felt certain Togodumnus had overestimated the threat. ‘If it is your judgement that the Romans have been stopped you may return here to your positions, but I must have time to meet and destroy the main attack across the river. This is still the greatest danger. Do you understand?’
The Iceni king nodded. He was unused to being given orders like some beardless boy before his first battle, but he was aware of the gravity of the situation and had pledged his support for Caratacus. The sky was clearing now, heralding a sharp, crisp morning that reminded a man he must look to the crops that would see him through the winter. He had fought in more battles than he could remember, but his bones were creaking with age and his body was beginning to fail him. Would this be his last? With ponderous dignity he was helped on to the back of his pony, and he gave a final salute as he rode off at the head of his tribe.
At last, Caratacus could turn his attention to the river. It was light enough to see the far bank now, but the morning mist still blanketed any activity there or on the river itself. The only evidence was the sound of the bridge builders at work, and the frantic hammering and splashing told him they were close to completing their task. Every warrior on the hill listened intently. The hammering stopped and there was a momentary silence that was quickly replaced by a noise that sent a shiver through the defenders. A sharp, rhythmic rattling as thousands of feet shod in hobnailed sandals marched in step over the three wooden crossings.
The sun broke clear above the eastern horizon and the mist burned off the river as if it had never existed.
Caratacus felt his warriors tense all around him; a mass tightening of muscles, thousands of fists firming their grip on sword or spear, the shuffling of feet as warriors readied themselves to fall upon the enemy. The enemy. He saw them arrayed below him and he found himself breathing hard as if he had just tackled some strenuous physical task. His heart beat faster and his mind raced. Calm, he told himself. Stay calm. Of all men here, you and only you have the will to prevail.
They frightened him. Of course they frightened him; he would be a fool if they didn’t. He had seen them from afar with Ballan as well as when he had disguised himself as a cavalry trooper to infiltrate the baggage train. But this was the first time he had witnessed them in full battle order. When he was a child, he had once found a giant insect, a long sinuous thing with a body made up of many parts and countless legs on either flank. It didn’t walk so much as ripple across the ground. The legions reminded him of it. The men, and the sections, and the centuries and the cohorts, were the body parts, each a separate entity, but creating a single unit which moved as one. Their armour glinted in the sun as they marched, just as the armoured carapace of the insect had gleamed as it flowed from place to place between the stones. The monstrous thing had been a bright, sulphurous orange, but the predominant colour in the monster that was a Roman legion was red. The cloaks and the vestments of the officers were a uniform scarlet, but the tunics of the rank-and-file troops varied according to their length of service and the conditions they had served in. Some were sun-bleached to a pale pink, others so dark they could almost be called brown, and in between was every colour of that spectrum.
A rush of air heralded the arrival of the first of the catapult-launched missiles he knew would flay the British line all day. But they must be ignored. If the gods wanted him, they only had to take him.
Plautius had ranged a single legion as if they were on parade at the far end of each bridge, and that convinced Caratacus he had been right to leave Togodumnus to cope alone. Three legions to his front, another on his left flank where Antedios should by now have reinforced the battle line of the Atrebates and the Regni. That meant Togodumnus must be facing a relatively small force of auxiliaries. It was the vanguard of each legion who now thundered across the bridges. Caratacus knew these would be crack troops. The heavy infantry. He watched them advance, short, squat men heavily burdened by their weapons and armour, but running as easily as if they were naked. They were close, perhaps twenty paces from the end of the bridges, when they began to fall. An officer, a centurion, at the very point of the centre column, spun and dropped from the bridge to disappear soundlessly and instantly into the swirling waters of the river. Another fell, jerking convulsively, and the British leader watched in admiration as the legionary deliberately rolled over the side — to certain death — so as not to impede his comrades. What mark of men these were, he thought; an enemy worthy of any king.
He turned his attention to the near bank where the slingers, spearmen and archers he had placed sweated to kill as many of the charging men as they could before they were overwhelmed. They had orders not to get into a fight, but to retire to the battle line along cunningly sited paths to a position at the base of the hill where they could kill and kill again. Not all would escape. A few would stay to cover the retreat of the others. The Romans were not the only people who knew the meaning of sacrifice.
The first legionaries leapt from the end of the bridges into the shallows and the Britons on the bank launched their final few missiles as the enemy floundered knee deep in the water. But as one fell he was replaced by two more and two more still, and at last the red-clad figures reached the shore. They spread out, forming a perimeter, just short of the swamp he had turned into a death-laced lagoon. He believed he detected confusion among them, and his heart soared. Let them come. Let their pathetic diversions smash themselves against the rocks of his champions. He had them now.
A shout from behind distracted him. He turned to see Scarach, white-faced, listening to a bear-like man who knelt before him. Ballan, but a Ballan worn thin by whatever horrors he had experienced in the last few hours. The Iceni scout’s clothing was torn and mud-stained and his face was so swollen as to be almost unrecognizable.
Ballan saw him, and raised himself to his feet, reeling with exhaustion. ‘Lord,’ he croaked from a throat serrated by thirst. ‘You must reinforce Lord Bodvoc.’
Caratacus stared at him. He trusted Ballan more than any other man he had ever met, but the scout’s mind must have been unhinged by his ordeal. ‘I have already sent your Iceni compatriots to support Lord Bodvoc and Lord Epedos. Surely twenty thousand men can hold a single legion?’