The Batavians growled their affirmation, reaching back for a javelin each whilst controlling the mounts with prodigious skill as they thundered over the ever-darkening ground.
‘Pass me one,’ Vespasian shouted, stretching out his hand whilst keeping his eyes fixed upon his quarry; he sensed that they were gaining. He felt a javelin pressed into his palm; he fiddled with it, getting his forefinger through the looped thong midway down its shaft. They rode on, the barrel chests of their mounts heaving. Despite the darkness, Alienus was becoming clearer; they were gaining.
‘We’ll try a shot!’ Vespasian called, clenching his calves tight around his horse’s sweating flanks to gain purchase. The Batavians did the same, throwing back their right arms. With colossal effort all three raised themselves from their saddles as they thrust their arms forward, hurling the missiles away into the darkness. Alienus remained mounted but suddenly skewed to the left and then just as quickly veered back again to the right.
Vespasian thrust out his hand again. ‘Another!’ A javelin was quickly passed over as Alienus continued to swerve, shortening the distance between them. Again Vespasian braced himself against his mount, judging the diminished distance and the rate of Alienus’ deviations. With another huge effort he and his companions hurled their sleek weapons, but this time at a lower trajectory. Alienus’ mount again changed direction abruptly and then veered back with equal force but not smoothly; it let out a shrill neigh that rose in pitch, bucking to try and remove the javelin embedded deep in its rump. Vespasian slowed his horse as the stricken animal kicked out again with its back legs, this time with such violence that it dislodged its rider. Jumping from his saddle, Vespasian sprinted forward, whipping his sword from its scabbard as the unhorsed man crunched down onto his back. He rolled over and got to his knees as Vespasian brought the flat of his sword slamming round onto the side of his head, sending him rolling to the ground, unconscious. Vespasian kicked the body over and looked down at the man who had betrayed Sabinus, his brother.
CHAPTER V
Vespasian and Magnus picked their way through the piles of bodies that marked the line of combat like driftwood delineating the extent of high tide. Dawn had broken in the east, red as blood as if in mimicry of the slaughter that had preceded it. The dead lay on the field in their hundreds, twisted, broken, dismembered and slimed with offal, blood and faeces. Here and there a groan indicated that life still lingered in some pain-racked body.
As the sun rose the scale of the killing became clear. Valens’ cohorts had joined up with Cogidubnus’ auxiliaries and the Gauls and together they had swung round onto the rear of the Britons, trapping many and consigning them to an inevitable death; no quarter had been offered or expected. Caratacus, however, had seen the danger that had appeared out of the west and, realising that his chance to annihilate one of Rome’s dreaded war machines had passed, had fled back into the night with the majority of his warriors. The Batavians and the surviving Gallic and legionary cavalry had pursued them, harrying the broken Britons and preventing any attempts to rally. They had still not returned but their passage north was littered with corpses that were now being picked out by the rising sun.
‘There must be ten of their dead for every one of our lads,’ Magnus observed as they came across a knot of legionary casualties that were being untangled by one of the many burial parties searching the field for Roman dead and wounded.
‘The first reports indicate that we lost over three hundred with double that wounded,’ Vespasian replied looking into the lifeless eyes of a young legionary and bending down to close them before walking on. ‘Most of our dead or wounded were either from the cavalry or the fourth cohort at the centre of the line, but every unit suffered to some degree. Some will need a couple of days to lick their wounds.’
‘What about the others?’
‘I’ll use them to probe north and make sure that the enemy aren’t regrouping, and whilst that’s happening I’m going to use the time to find Sabinus.’
‘Has Alienus said anything?’
‘Not yet, he’s still groggy but he will; every man has his limit and I intend to find Alienus’.’ Vespasian stopped next to a dead auxiliary. ‘He’s from the cohort that plugged the gap, so they should be around here somewhere.’
After a short while searching amongst the dead they found what they were looking for: the corpses of the druids. Vespasian knelt down next to an older man whose long, grey beard and hair were matted into clumps and festooned with what looked to be the bones of birds. Looking at the dead man’s dirty robe, Vespasian ran his hand over it and realised that the staining was not just the result of years of continuous usage without thought of hygiene; some of it had been put there deliberately. As he pulled his hand away he found it covered with fine off-white threads. On closer examination of the robe he saw that it was coated with these fibres; each area of staining was in fact a colony of thousands of threads interwoven with each other and sewn onto the garment. ‘They look like the roots of some sort of fungus,’ he observed, pulling off a chunk and sniffing it.
Magnus picked off another bit and placing it in the palm of one hand he cupped the other over it and put his eye to the small hole left at the join; after a few moments he looked back at Vespasian, proffering his hands. ‘Have a look.’
As Vespasian’s eye adjusted to the dark he became aware of a faint luminescence within. ‘So that’s how they make their robes glow in the dark. It’s not magic after all, it’s just luminous fungus roots, thousands of them.’
‘You’d better make that known around the legion; the lads will feel much better if they understand that the glowing robes are just a trick and not the result of some spell or influence from one of their accursed gods.’
‘I’ll get the robes stripped off them and display them in front of the praetorium. It’ll help morale.’ Vespasian got to his feet and hailed one of the burial parties; having given instructions to the optio commanding them, Vespasian and Magnus headed back towards the still smouldering camp past where the body of young Vibius had been found. ‘I’ll write to his parents. They should be told that he did his duty despite knowing that my orders would mean his death.’
‘You shouldn’t blame yourself for it, sir, he’s not the first man you’ve sent to his death and nor will he be the last.’
‘Yes, I know, but he was the first man I did so knowingly — and he knew it too. I could see in his eyes that he understood in that instant that there would be no career in Rome’s service to bring credit to him and his family, and yet he went.’
‘He certainly wouldn’t have had a future if he hadn’t gone.’
‘He couldn’t have been more than twenty. I keep on wondering what I would have done at that age in his position.’
‘Exactly the same. When Fortuna grabs you by the foreskin and leads you to an early death there’s fuck all that you can do about it. It’s just the way the dice roll and it don’t do to brood on it. Give him a decent funeral, praise his name to the lads and then forget about him because one thing’s for sure and that is he ain’t coming back from across the Styx; but what he did last night prevented Charon from being very busy today ferrying the entire legion over to the far bank.’