His last moments of thought were of the missing Fortuna amulet, then of the men he had led to their doom and finally, painfully, of Lucilia standing by the threshold of the newly-renovated Falerius townhouse, the sacrificial bull lowing nearby as she waited for the iron ring he would never be able to give her.
The glinting blade swept down to split his skull and was met by the upward swing of a gladius and a pugio that crossed to block it. Fronto stared up at the meeting of three blades, a shower of sparks raining down on him, and felt his bowels give just a little at how close he’d just come to being an ex-legate.
As another sword took the barbarian in the chest and drove him away from sight, the sword and dagger uncrossed and the face of the optio appeared, all concern.
“You alright, sir? Thought you were a gonner for a minute.”
“Juno’s arse, so did I” Fronto grinned up at him as he clambered to his feet, knees creaking as he went. He almost fell again as his left knee gave way, painfully twisted.
“Looks like we’re starting to get it together sir.”
“We are?” Fronto looked around in astonishment and saw that it was true. In less than half a minute, the men around the clearing had gone from being beleaguered groups into defensive squares, holding their own against the enemy. It was astounding, given the speed of the sudden turnaround and the fact that Fronto had been unable even to think about giving the right signals.
Signals.
That was it. He was suddenly aware of the cornu calls ringing out across the farmstead and the circling standards organising the centuries into fighting forces.
That was a command call.
His eyes drifted towards the farmer’s hut, where a dozen men stood in a defensive knot around Cantorix and Menenius. The Gallic centurion was leaning heavily on a stick and clutching his side, but Menenius was gesticulating with the centurion’s vine staff while standard bearers and musicians relayed the tribune’s orders across the open ground.
Fronto stared in disbelief and yet, even as he watched, the century around him reformed in the face of brutal attack, creating an organised defensive line. Their lack of shields was resulting in a much higher casualty rate than one would normally expect but at least now they were holding, rather than being slaughtered in a disorganised chaos.
He turned to the optio.
“You got everything under control here?”
“We’ll manage, sir.”
With the briefest of nods, Fronto turned and limped at speed for the central buildings of the farm. His mind formed a picture of the optio who had just saved his life and he committed that image to memory so that he could find him later and buy him enough wine to float a quinquereme. In fact, given the fate of his commander, the man would probably be a centurion by the time Fronto got to thank him properly.
The centre of the farm showed signs of hard fighting. Eight or nine barbarian bodies lay around in the dirt, the rain diffusing the blood from their wounds into the muddy puddles. Three legionaries lay among them, and Cantorix was clutching a torso wound from which blood was blossoming, leaking through the links in his mail. Apart from the inconvenience, he seemed to be ignoring the wound, which was entirely in keeping with the centurion Fronto remembered from the thickest fighting last year.
The big surprise was tribune Menenius. Standing as straight and tall as one of the statues of the great generals that stood in the forum, the tribune’s sword hung by his side in his right hand, watery blood coating the blade, while he continued to issue commands, pointing with the stick in his free hand.
Fronto stared as he staggered forward wearily, his knee clicking painfully.
“Menenius?”
The tribune spotted Fronto and his face broke out into a wide, relieved smile.
“Legate Fronto? Thank the Gods. I think we’re going to survive, sir.”
“How the hell?” Fronto stared at him, using his free arm to take in the whole battle with the sweep of an arm. “What did…?”
Cantorix straightened, holding his wound. “The tribune shows a remarkable grasp of military strategy, legate.”
“And he’s bloodied his sword too.”
The centurion nodded. “Saved my damn life, sir. Fast as a bloody snake, sir.”
Fronto’s stare turned into a frown. “Menenius?”
“Sort of lucky with the sword, legate.”
“Lucky, my arse” Cantorix grinned.
“My father paid for some very expensive weapon training in my youth” the tribune said humbly. “Not had much chance to put it into action before, but it seems I can remember enough.”
Cantorix’s eyes told Fronto that it had been a little more than that, but he let it go for a moment. “And you put out the signals?”
“With the centurion’s advice here.”
“My arse” repeated Cantorix.
“I’ve studied the historians, sir. History is replete with examples of how to turn an ambush against the ambushers. It’s all a matter of maintaining control. They expected easy pickings and panic. As soon as we take control the panic passes to them.”
Fronto glanced around the clearing. The barbarians were melting away into the woodland, their easy victory snatched from them in moments.
They had won!
“We were hit hard” he noted, assessing the situation with the practiced eye of a man who had surveyed many a battlefield. “I reckon we lost over a third of the men; maybe even half.” He turned back to Menenius. “But without your help, we’d have been lost altogether. Caesar’ll hear about this, tribune. I may have underestimated you, and I think the general needs to hand out a few phalera for this.”
Menenius looked down with a strangely shy, boyish smile.
“I’d rather go unsung, if you don’t mind, sir. Cantorix here deserves the real credit.”
Fronto, surprised at meeting a self-effacing junior tribune, looked at Cantorix and the man’s expression left him in no doubt as to just how much of this was the tribune’s doing.
“Perhaps, Menenius, but I’d love to transfer you to the Tenth.”
The men of the Tenth and Fourteenth legions jogged through the woods as fast as the terrain and unit cohesion would allow, their cloaks discarded to prevent snagging on branches or entangling in armour and scabbards. All pretence had now been thrown to the wind in favour of speed. Fronto had bound his weak knee with a thick strip of torn cloak, and tried to limp as little as possible, biting his lip against the pain and discomfort. A number of the men, in fact, had used the discarded cloaks to bind or pack wounds that they could run with, including Cantorix who had pushed half a garment beneath his mail shirt and proceeded to completely ignore the wound at his ribs.
In the light of the enemy’s recent attack and the lack of information about the barbarians’ disposition it had been a difficult decision to make. On the one hand, perhaps this had been an entirely coincidental encounter and this band of warriors was unconnected to the archers at the riverbank, in which case by discarding their disguise they further endangered themselves on the journey. More likely, though, this attack had been carried out in concert with a grand plan and therefore the barbarian archers must know they were coming. In that case speed was now of the essence. To move slowly or indecisively was to allow the possibility that the ambushers would regroup and link up with the archers.
Fronto swallowed as he ran, tense at that very thought. They would have roughly equal numbers to the archers now that they had lost so many men, but enough ambushers had escaped to make the odds almost three to one if the two barbarian forces joined up. Not good odds when lacking shields, pila and helmets.
“Sir” barked Atenos, away to his right, ducking through the trees as though born to the forest, his great size apparently causing him no difficulty.