‘When we get back to the Rhine, we’ll honour them,’ I encouraged my friend, hoping that my words would not betray my true feelings. ‘We can dedicate a shrine to them.’
‘The Rhine?’ Stumps snorted miserably. ‘We’ll never see those forts again, Felix. We’ll never set foot in the Empire. They’re taking us south. We’re going to their towns, and the slave markets.’
But Stumps was wrong, for the next morning, after we were roused viciously to our blistered feet, we were marched westwards.
Westwards, and towards Roman lands.
3
Hope burned bright in me during the second day of my enslavement. A voice in my head began to whisper that my captivity would be short-lived. That Arminius was looking to come to an accommodation with Rome, and that we prisoners would be returned to the Empire as an act of good faith.
I battled against that voice, but with each mile west it grew louder, and I dared to dream of food, open fires and a bed.
I was a fool.
The evidence of my stupidity was a small Roman fort that burned savagely beside the River Lippe, where it had likely been erected as part of the army’s supply chain. There were screams coming from within, behind its low wooden palisade. They came from those who had sought to hide, and were now being consumed by flames. Piled in front of the blaze were the bodies of those who had tried to fight.
Varus, convinced by Arminius that the province was peaceful so long as it was garrisoned, had sent detachments from his legions and auxiliary cohorts to man a series of forts along the river. These forts had been designed to resupply Varus during any punitive campaigns against the tribes, but Arminius had again used his relationship with the governor to convince him to abandon the supply route, and to instead push the army north and into the forests. Now, it seemed, Arminius was eradicating what was left of the Roman presence east of the River Rhine.
‘Arminius isn’t going to stop.’ Brando shook his head, his granite jaw twitching. The trio of Batavians had stayed beside me during the march, though they had stayed silent until now. Like us, their unit had been decimated in the battle of the forest, and so he had seen enough of Arminius’s treachery to guess at the German’s intent. ‘He’s not looking to bring Rome to the table,’ Brando went on. ‘He wants her on her knees.’
I said nothing.
‘The garrison hardly put up a fight.’ Brando spat, looking at the one-sided battlefield. ‘They didn’t know what was coming.’
The evidence of his words was in the bodies. They all wore Roman uniform – no Germans amongst the dead. Behind them, the gate of the small fort yawned open and belched flame.
‘They surprised them,’ I guessed. ‘Unless a survivor made it here, there’s no way they’d know about the forest.’
Brando grunted in agreement. ‘As far as Rome knows, Arminius and his men are still allies. They probably rode straight in through the open gate.’
‘How many forts on the Lippe?’
‘What’s it matter? None of them will know what’s coming. He’ll do this one by one, until he hits the legion’s main forts on the Rhine.’
It seemed that Brando was right, for the next day, having been marched beside the river, we reached a second small fort. The garrison had been defeated, but the fort stood intact, its gates spread invitingly wide like a camp whore’s legs. A pair of auxiliary soldiers lay dead in the churned dirt beside them, whilst a few dozen others were being herded out to join our growing number of slaves. These latest captives were sped onwards by the screams of their former commander – a half-dozen German warriors were finding great hilarity in skinning him alive. We looked on at this new torture with numb eyes.
German voices began to bark orders. Threatening spear-points enforced them.
‘They want us to strip the fort,’ Brando translated. ‘They want the good timber.’
We were jostled towards the barricade. The Germans were crafty enough not to trust their prisoners with tools in their hands, and their own warriors set about the task of cutting ropes and pulling away nails. Then, with muscles already aching and spent, we slaves lifted the timbers on to our sagging shoulders and made for the bridge that crossed the river.
It was a place I remembered well.
I turned quickly to look at Stumps behind me. We had been here before. We had built this bridge, and I had spilled blood on its boards when Germans had ambushed our work party.
Thinking of that fateful summer day, my mind began to play tricks on me. I could hear the sound of blades clashing. I could feel the resistance of the German’s skull as I had driven a blade into his brains, and then the choking water in my lungs as Titus threw me into the river. So strong was my nostalgia that, for a moment, I pictured the boy soldier Micon struggling to carry his own timber across the bridge.
‘Felix?’ he asked me, feeling my eyes on him. ‘Stumps?’
It was no illusion.
‘Micon,’ I managed, taking in the boy with my gaze and fighting back the urge to drop my burden and embrace him. ‘Don’t drop your log!’ I warned, worried that he would be thinking the same, and would incur the guard’s wrath.
I drank in the sight of him. Like us all he was battered and bloodied, his limbs drained and empty, but his face still retained the same idiot, confused smile he had worn since the day I had first come across him, polishing armour outside of the section’s tent.
‘We’ll talk when we stop,’ I promised him. ‘I’ll find you.’
Holding to my word was not easy. Darkness had fallen by the time we were allowed to stack the cut timber beside the river and halt for the night. The burdens had grown heavier by the hour, and a constant stream of fire had poured down from my shoulder and into my hip. Men had groaned or prayed to get through their own pain; I saw a legionary on his knees plead for mercy before a blade was driven between his chattering teeth. I saw other men drop to the floor unconscious, or simply because they ceased to value their own lives. I didn’t blame them for giving up. A part of me envied them, but I was more afraid of the mystery of death than the certainty of pain. I had found life to be brutal and uncaring. Why should I expect the afterlife to be any different?
‘Micon,’ I called quietly, picking my way across the prone soldiers who hadn’t moved from where they had fallen. ‘Micon?’
‘Felix?’
I could make out his young face in the moonlight, innocent as a lamb despite all that he had seen and endured. It was as if the reality of the situation had yet to dawn on the boy soldier. I wished in that moment that it never would. Let him be ignorant. It was a blessing.
‘Follow me. I’ll take you over to Stumps. We’ll look after you.’
He followed. I stepped carefully over sore limbs, using the position of the German campfires to guide me back to where I had left my comrade. Micon was not so nimble, treading on hands and feet, leaving a chorus of tired insults in his wake. Perhaps it was this that drew the Germans’ attention.
I heard a harsh word barked in our direction. From its force, I took it to mean ‘halt’. We did. Looking over my shoulder, I saw a huddle of Germans approach. Several of them began rousing sleeping Roman figures to their feet. The light of torches played from their blades as the enemy shoved a handful of prisoners towards their campfires, the tribesmen talking excitedly amongst themselves.