When he had pulled the final strap tight and polished the last immaculate leaf of burnished gold, Rufus stepped back and examined her. With a perfection of timing that only the gods could have decreed, the sun cut through the shredding curtain of the morning mist and caught each scale of that immense golden carapace, reflecting its glory a thousand fold. She looked majestic. Terrifying.
As they marched to their position in the line a buzz of excitement ran through the legionary ranks at the sight of the armoured giant their Emperor had brought to fight alongside them. Here was the glory of Rome. Here in this fearsome gold-encrusted killer of men was combined the raw power and the prosperity of a civilization the barbarians could never match in a thousand lifetimes. The veterans among them knew her for what she was, an ungovernable, unreliable ally in the heat of the fight, but even they looked upon Bersheba and saw victory.
A sharp blast from the long funnel-shaped trumpets carried by the cornicens of the leading legion was taken up by others along the column. It was followed immediately by barked orders from tribunes to centurions and from centurions to decurions, and finally they were moving. To war.
Three hours later, the horns signalled the halt, and the legions began to disperse into their battle formations. For Rufus it was like being at the centre of someone else’s dream. The cohorts and centuries ahead and around him flowed in tight columns to left and right, the muted thunder of thousands of marching feet pounding the dry earth and the metal of their equipment clashing to the same hypnotic rhythm. In the distance, he saw sunlight glinting on polished metal as troops of auxiliary cavalry scoured clumps of trees and bushes for the inevitable scouts and ambush parties of the enemy. The precise, choreographed movements brought back a half-forgotten memory of the machine that had crushed the grain so long ago in Cerialis’s bakery. Mechanical and relentless; not quite human.
As suddenly as it began, the noise was replaced by a silence as shocking in its way as any unexpected fanfare. Rufus knew he could see only a fraction of the field of battle — that assigned to the Eighth — which he assumed was on the far right of the army. The legion’s ten cohorts were in a staggered formation, with six cohorts in the first line followed by two further lines of two cohorts each. The individual cohorts were tight-packed formations of six centuries, nominally four hundred and eighty men, but sickness and administrative absences would have whittled them down to less than four hundred. Only the first cohort, the long-serving elite of the legion, had more: eight full-strength centuries.
Every man knew his place and his job, in attack or in defence. Hundreds of hours of muscle-tearing training and hundreds more amid the tumult and madness of battle had made them what they were. In tight formation, if they stood squarely behind the shoulder-high protection of those brilliantly painted shields, no enemy of equal force could move them. Well aimed — and it was always so — the first cast of javelins from the front-rank cohorts could kill or disable a thousand attackers and it would be followed by a second in the time it took a man to draw back his throwing arm. Only against overwhelming numbers were they vulnerable, when the enemy could overlap their flanks and surround them. But even in that dire situation, when another army would panic and be destroyed, the legions had an answer. The testudo. In a well-practised manoeuvre they would lock shields over and around the century like the shell of a gigantic tortoise and cut themselves clear with the razor-edged, needle-pointed gladius each man carried.
The Eighth, alone among the Army of Claudius, had not yet fought a battle on British soil. They had heard the stories of their enemy’s exploits — of tattooed giants who took a dozen wounds and still fought like madmen — but if they knew fear, they did not show it. Even from his position hundreds of yards away Rufus could feel their stillness. They stood, row upon red-tunicked row behind their tribunes, trumpeters and standard-bearers, waiting grimly for the order that would send them forward against the barbarians.
But when the order came, it was for Rufus, and it was Narcissus who brought it.
‘Time to stop dreaming and start working.’ The Greek was on foot and had been watching him as he watched the legions. ‘Follow me and I will lead you to the Emperor, but be sure Bersheba takes care where she treads. I do not want to be the first casualty of this fight.’
They threaded their way through the baggage carts and the auxiliary units held in reserve, and Narcissus explained the situation facing the Roman army. ‘The barbarian chiefs have taken up a strong position on the far side of that shallow valley yonder, with the wood at their backs and boggy ground to their left and right. That is clever, Rufus, because it means it is impossible for the general to use his cavalry to attack them from the flanks, where they are most vulnerable. There will be no Tamesa tricks today.’
He stopped, arms flapping as he almost backed into a hulking, stony-faced auxiliary officer, and mumbled an apology before continuing.
‘Emperor Claudius will gamble all on a direct, frontal attack with the heavy infantry of his legions. First, he will use the power of our artillery to strike fear into the enemy, then he will send in his most secret weapon, his mighty elephant and her fearless-’ Narcissus ducked his head to avoid a roundhouse swing of Bersheba’s trunk. ‘I know, great Bersheba. I should not joke at a time like this, but I am nervous, as you should be, for this is your hour. No, then. Not his mighty elephant and her fearless handler. Once the barbarians have felt the power of our ballistae the legions will advance. It will not be easy; the enemy have the slope. The soft going on either side will funnel our soldiers on to the ground held by the greatest of their champions. It will be bloody work, but the Emperor’s priests have sacrificed a fine white bull to Jupiter and it is their view that we will prevail. He is keeping the auxiliaries in reserve, for this is to be Rome’s day. They will only join the attack if the legions are hard-pressed or cover the retreat if — Mars aid us — the barbarian warriors and their gods prove the stronger.’
By now they were approaching the mound where the Emperor’s tented palace had been raised. To its left, Rufus was puzzled to see what appeared to be a reviewing platform. He asked Narcissus what it was.
‘That,’ the Greek sniffed, ‘is reserved for those who wish to enjoy the spectacle but care not to smell the blood or hear the cries of the wounded. No doubt Senator Galba will have reserved a position in the front row, with his fellow giants of the Senate, Asiaticus and Gallus, at his shoulder. Watch them scuttle off like hermit crabs on an open beach at the first sign of danger. Yet they are already heroes. The Emperor has decreed that every man among them should be awarded the triumphal regalia, for if they are rewarded, must not he be rewarded tenfold?’ Rufus detected a note of resentment. It seemed one faithful servant who had been risking his neck for his Emperor had not yet received his reward. He hoped Verica was looking down on them. He would appreciate the irony.