I rushed from where I had been preparing for my own sparring session with Sallustius, and knelt beside Julian. To my relief he soon began sputtering and gasping for air. The wind had been knocked out of him, and he was badly shaken, but was otherwise unhurt. He was still dizzy, however, and barely able to talk, when Sallustius rode up calmly on his horse. The man didn't even bother to dismount, and I glared up at him accusingly.
'Look at him! Were you trying to kill him?'
Sallustius glanced down at Julian impassively. 'Yes,' he said simply.
I bristled. 'You had better be joking.'
'Do you see me smiling?'
'You never smile.'
'Nor do I joke,' he replied.
Julian struggled to sit up. 'I–I could have you arrested for that…' he gasped.
Sallustius looked down with an expression of mock puzzlement on his face. 'For failing to joke?'
Julian's face turned red in anger as the breath rushed back into his lungs. 'For trying to kill me!'
'So arrest me.'
Now it was Julian's turn to look puzzled.
'You should thank me for trying to kill you,' Sallustius continued coldly, 'for if I don't try to do so now, and fail, someone else will surely try in the future and succeed. And you fault me?'
'Damn you, Sallustius,' Julian muttered, staggering to his feet. 'Where's my horse?'
In private, Sallustius shook his head in admiration as the young Caesar continued to make the long ride out to the farm every morning for further drilling, never complaining of his aching muscles and the knots on his head. To Sallustius' great satisfaction, once Julian finally developed a basic level of strength and dexterity, his military skills improved amazingly, and what he lacked in pure physical ability, he more than made up for in wit and cunning. His major frustration, however, continued to be mounting; here his skills continued to fall embarrassingly short, and this failure was having an effect on his confidence in all other areas of horsemanship and weaponry. After several weeks, however, the camp's head blacksmith arrived, bearing with him a stout cavalry lance with a curious supplement to it — a thick iron hook attached to the shaft by a sturdy band, about four feet from the butt end.
'This,' Sallustius said, 'is your strator.'
The next day, as Julian prepared to ride out to the farm to resume his lessons, he asked with a wry smile that I not accompany him for a time. Though surprised, I presumed that it was to spare his dignity when learning yet another impossible technique, and so I agreed without protest. His uncommon cheerfulness upon his return from the paddock each day, however, kept me wondering, and when next I was allowed to accompany him several weeks later, I was astonished at the sight that met my eyes. There stood Julian calmly, in full cavalry regalia, stiff mailed tunic descending to his hips, thigh plates, mailed knee joints and greaves, crowned by a tight-fitting, open-faced bronze cavalry helmet, all of which weighed near sixty pounds. He had been fitted with a gilt-plated, full-sized Roman cavalry shield, a richly decorated scimitar, and a gleaming officer's lance, twelve feet long, its painted wood sanded smooth and enameled to a polished, ivory gleam. These weapons lay neatly against a fencepost, as they would be positioned while in camp, except for his scimitar, which he hung in a scabbard against his left leg. His horse pawed the dirt nervously at the far end of the paddock.
As I leaned against a rail watching, the stable slave gave a signal and then began loudly counting beats with a drum, measuring elapsed time. Julian rushed to his gear while simultaneously cinching his armor, and in a single, fluid motion that astonished me with its focused gracefulness, he hoisted the heavy shield onto his left shoulder and picked up the lance. He then began running toward his waiting horse, which was itself heavily mailed, even to the bronze faceplate and rounded iron blinders over its eyes to prevent it from seeing anything but straight ahead.
At first, Julian lumbered slowly in his heavy armor, then gradually picked up speed and momentum, as the slung shield slapped loudly against his back. It was then that I noticed something odd — the lance he was carrying in his right hand, which had been fitted with the strange hooked device, was backward — the tip was pointed to the rear. I sighed, and resigned myself to another embarrassing attempt by Julian to demonstrate skill at arms.
Just as he neared the animal, however, which was beginning to skitter and paw in anticipation as he heard his rider's clanking approach, Julian planted the thick butt end of his lance into the ground some four feet from the horse's left hooves, and drove his body in toward the shaft. The pole lifted to the vertical, flexing slightly, and he leaped into the air and swung upward with his two hands on the shaft. He then planted his left foot on the hook as if it were a ladder rung, lifted his right leg, and dropped easily and gracefully up onto the enormous horse's back, armor and all. In the same motion he kneed the animal sharply, causing it to rear back and paw the air as he calmly tightened his grip on the reins with his right hand and flipped his lance forward with his left; then deftly swinging the pointed head of the weapon forward, he braced the shaft squarely against the top of the horse's head, between its ears, and raced off like an arrow shot.
I was dumbfounded.
'Nothing like four hours of practice a day to improve your mounting,' said a voice next to me. It was Sallustius, who had sidled up in silence as I watched.
'The lance hook is ingenious,' I said. 'I'm sorry I doubted you.'
'Developed by the Spartans,' he noted laconically, ignoring my apology, as we watched Julian canter confidently around the arena. 'I've ordered one made for every cavalryman in Vienne.'
It was Julian, naturally, who first demonstrated the lancevault technique to the city's garrison and reserves at a ceremony held at the arena that spring to launch the campaigning season. The garrison's champion swordsmen first gave an impressive show of the bladework and shield technique for which they had trained all winter and in which they were now to drill their comrades. Boxing and wrestling then ensued, followed by demonstrations of feats of strength among the infantry companies. Finally, the cavalry squad, decked in heavy ornamental armor, divided themselves into two teams of twenty, distinguished by dramatic enameled masks depicting golden-coiffed Amazons and Olympian gods. At a signal, the two sides raised a shout, and raced toward each other across the arena at a thundering gallop, smashing into their opponents with blunted weapons and a blinding cloud of dust, fiercely striving to knock the opposing riders off their mounts. The ferocity of their charges was astonishing, and at the time, Brother, I could scarcely believe that actual battle with the Alemanni could have been any more brutal. Lance tips snapped in the foining and flew winging into the stands, shields split and shattered from the impact of the collision, and men who failed to grip their horses securely with armor-clad thighs were thrown twisting and grunting to the ground, where they rolled to avoid the horses' flailing hooves. Those who fell were disqualified, and had no recourse but to scramble stiffly from the sand and hobble to the edge of the arena, nursing their bruises and scrapes, to await the outcome of the match. A few remained writhing where they lay, and had to be dragged to safety by attendants.