‘Mars’ arse!’ Vespasian exclaimed. ‘It’s not just the fire that has got the Cornovii excited. How did they get here so quickly?’
Fifty paces away, just visible in the weak dawn light, were the two and a half centuries of marines from the flotilla, approaching the open gateway. With an eight-man-wide frontage and protected by a roof and wall of shields, they stamped forward with blades flicking out between their shields, towards a mass of warriors forming up at the gates.
Vespasian slammed his fist against the palisade. ‘The idiots! Who’s the fool leading them? If they get in they’ll be surrounded and hacked to death. We’ve got to stop this.’
Cogidubnus unslung the rope and tied it to the top of the palisade. ‘It’s not long enough but there shouldn’t be more than a six- to eight-foot drop to the bottom of the ditch. Watch out for the stakes.’ He clambered up and over and let himself down; the noise was intensifying as the marines made contact. A mile or so beyond them, a solid shadow in the gloom, the rock of Tagell projected into the sea.
Vespasian glanced over his shoulder — the fire was growing, fanned by a strong breeze coming off the sea — before following Cogidubnus down. The rope reached to just above where the wooden poles of the palisade were buried in the banked earth dug from the surrounding ditch. He let go and slid down the steep bank; Cogidubnus grabbed him as he hit the bottom, preventing him from toppling backwards. Without a word they made their way through the stakes and clambered up the other side and then down into the second of the two ditches that comprised the settlement’s earthworks. Keeping low as visibility grew with the light they scuttled along until they were within ten paces of the rear of the Roman formation. Slingshot ricocheted off the marines’ javelin-studded shields as they advanced steadily towards the gate.
Grasping a sapling growing at the top of the bank, Vespasian hauled himself out of the ditch; Cogidubnus made to follow but the young tree’s roots were not strong enough and he fell back. Vespasian lay down and held out his arm; the King grabbed it as a javelin slammed into the bank next to him; slingshot followed.
‘Get away!’ Cogidubnus yelled, throwing himself to the far side of the ditch out of sight of the warriors on the palisade. ‘I’ll make my own way up.’
Feeling a stone fizz past his head, Vespasian scrambled to his feet and sprinted to the rear of the marines’ formation and barged into the middle of the back rank.
‘Let me through! Let me through!’ he ordered, pushing his way into the second and then third ranks. The startled marines parted just enough for him to squeeze forward without compromising the roof of shields over their heads.
‘Stand by to fall back!’
On he drove, up through the heart of the enclosed formation, repeating the warning, raising his voice against the drumming of slingshot and the growing resonance of combat as he neared the front.
‘On my mark, fall back!’ he yelled upon reaching the cornicen huddled just behind the forward ranks; the marine glanced at him and, recognising his commanding officer, set his lips to the mouthpiece.
‘Now!
The three descending notes of the signal rumbled out and the formation took a step back.
‘Keep a steady, slow beat,’ Vespasian ordered.
The cornicen blew a single note and they retreated another pace followed by another in time to the instrument’s call. Gradually they passed back through the gates, still under a sustained but ineffectual slingshot barrage and still in contact with the enemy on three sides in the forward ranks. But as the foremost rank passed onto the track leading away from the gates the precipitous drops to either side meant the only contact was to the front and the superior fighting technique of the legionaries of the sea began to tell. Fewer warriors were willing to throw themselves at the shield-wall bristling with blood-dripping blades, and by the time the marines had fallen back to the second ditch contact had been broken and Vespasian ordered an increase in pace to the jeers of the defenders.
‘Form line!’ Vespasian ordered as they cleared the second ditch and arrived back on open ground.
Within moments the rear ranks had flooded forward, fanning out to either side to make a block four men deep and sixty across. The defenders pulled back to the gates and the slingshot ceased: stalemate.
In the settlement the fire raged.
Vespasian pushed his way through to the front rank and looked around, fuming. ‘Who ordered this madness?’
An ordinary marine stepped forward and stood smartly to attention, his sword arm smeared with blood. ‘I did, sir.’
Vespasian sighed. ‘I might have known it. On whose authority did you do it, Magnus?’
‘Well, the lads all agreed with me. When the boatmen came back and said that you’d all been captured we reckoned that we wouldn’t be able to get ashore in the same place. However, I heard Cogidubnus mention that the captive had said this was the closest safe place to land within seven miles and seeing as we hadn’t passed a landing place I assumed that there must be one seven miles ahead. So we sailed along the coast not worrying about being seen since they already knew we were here and found the inlet that the captive must have mentioned to Cogidubnus. Then we rowed ashore in two trips and doubled the seven miles back in quick time and managed to get here under cover of darkness ready to storm the gates when they opened at dawn. The rest of Cogidubnus’ men have gone on down to secure the haven for when the ships get back, just in case we have to leave here sharpish.’
‘As I expect we will, now that you’ve managed to piss the Cornovii off by setting fire to their settlement and then trying to kill them.’
‘We didn’t set the fire, sir; that was just a piece of luck.’
‘Luck? Then it’s a weird coincidence.’
‘It is. Anyway it helped to cover your escape. What do you suggest we do now?’
‘Talk to them,’ Cogidubnus said, walking forward with the uprooted sapling, ‘seeing as that’s what we originally came for.’ He strode past Vespasian and on up the track holding the branch of truce and shouting, ‘Judoc!’
There was a stirring amongst the Cornovii and a squat, powerfully built man with a magnificent drooping, ginger moustache and a mane of hair to match pushed his way to the front; he called out in his own language and ostentatiously laid down his sword before walking to meet Cogidubnus between the first and second ditches. Behind Judoc, his followers thinned out as many fell back to fight the fires; but a sizable force of warriors remained to defend the gates.
As the two men started to talk, Vespasian turned to Magnus and said, ‘I suppose you think that barging in through their front door heavily outnumbered was a good idea?’
Magnus shrugged, looking pleased with himself. ‘We came to get you out and here you are, so it must have been.’
‘But now we’ve given away our actual strength and so are negotiating from a very weak position, whereas if you had sent some of Cogidubnus’ men in they might have been able to pass unnoticed through the fires.’
‘But they might not have and by that time it would have been broad daylight with no chance of a surprise assault; so the front door before dawn seemed to be the only option.’