Scaurus smiled back at Umbrius.
‘On the contrary. The empire, by which of course I mean the emperor, has an insatiable thirst for gold. Anyone’s gold, whether fairly taken or not. I’d imagine that the prospect of turning his men loose on your father’s great fortune would make Cleander’s mouth water. Even the smallest of financial irregularities, the most innocent of mistakes by a scribe, would be enough to redouble their interest in your father’s doings. Few men’s affairs can stand up to such thorough scrutiny.’
He smiled at them, seeing the realisation that their lives were about to change irrevocably dawning upon the brighter among them.
‘So here it is, gentlemen. If you’re invalided out of the legion while genuinely trying to prove your fitness to come with us, then I’ll allow you to take passage back to Rome by merchant ship, after the winter, when the seas are open again. But if you fail to display the zeal I’m looking for, or try to count yourself out with some imagined ailment, then I’ll put you on a praetorian warship that’s waiting in the harbour at Seleucia for just the purpose, ready to sail immediately. Cleander’s waiting for that ship, gentlemen, and the men that walk off it in Misenum can be assured that their families’ lives are about to get a good deal more interesting than might be considered healthy. You choose. It’s really all the same to me.’
‘So, Vibius Varus, tell us about the destruction of the Sixth cohort.’
The tribune looked about him, uncertainly, and Scaurus smiled reassuringly.
‘I know, you’ve told the tale a hundred times already, I’ve read the record. Your previous legatus called you a coward for not dying with your command, despite not having set foot over the Euphrates in all his time in command of this legion.’
Varus nodded warily.
‘I hear the insult a dozen times a day. They call me coward behind my back, loudly enough to be sure I’ll hear, men with no idea what it was that we faced.’
Scaurus spread his hands in agreement.
‘Exactly. But we understand. We’ve all seen the same terrible face that battle wears.’
He gestured to the men gathered around his desk. Marcus, Julius, Dubnus, and Cotta.
‘Varus, it’s clear to me that your First Spear sent you away to make sure that the manner of his cohort’s destruction reached his legatus. None of us is going to judge you, and if your failure to have died alongside the men of the Sixth Cohort troubles you, then you’ll have the chance to prove yourself soon enough, if that’s what you want.’
Varus nodded slowly.
‘When the cohort’s first spear sent me away, I rode far enough to see the whole thing without becoming a target. I took refuge in a fold in the land, a slightly elevated position from which to watch the battle, as the first spear had requested.’
He shook his head at the memory.
‘It was like a scene from one of the arches in the forum, our men in a four-deep line and crouching behind their shields, with the rear two ranks protecting their heads.’
Scaurus shook his head grimly.
‘All very well in the assault, but not the best choice if you find yourself trapped under the bows of the Parthians with no cover to be had. How many archers were there?’
‘At least five thousand, Legatus, all mounted. Once the cohort had formed a square they rode around it, just shooting volley after volley of arrows in from all sides. When their arrows were spent they rode to meet men on camels laden with spares, then came back and started the whole horrible thing again. Some of the legionaries died instantly, hit by arrows that found a gap in the shields, or simply punched straight through the wood at close range.’
He grimaced at the memory.
‘They were the lucky ones. Others were only wounded, unable to hold their shields up against the constant rain of arrows. I saw one man crawl out into the middle of the square, to get out from under his comrades’ feet, I suppose. I watched him jerk as each successive arrow hit him, until he just stopped moving.’
‘How long did they keep this up?’
Varus turned to face Marcus.
‘Two hours? Perhaps three …’
‘And then?’
The tribune shook his head.
‘I thought that watching five hundred legionaries being picked apart one man at a time was the worst thing I’d ever seen. But then, as the afternoon heat really started to tell on the men left standing-’
‘How many were still able to fight?’
The tribune pursed his lips in thought.
‘Perhaps two hundred. They were still huddled together around the dead and wounded in the double line, facing both ways. Their shields were black with the shafts of arrows by this point, and many of them were already wounded. I knew their time had come when the cataphracts mounted their horses. They had sat on the ground watching as the archers killed our men, talking amongst themselves and waiting for the right moment to make their attack. I remember one man losing his wits under that unrelenting rain of death, and charging out of the line with his spear ready to throw. He only managed twenty paces, of course, before they shot him down with half a dozen arrows clean through his shield, and the cataphracts stood up and applauded his bravery. But eventually they mounted their horses and rode forward to finish the job.’
The men sitting around him waited patiently while he took a deep breath.
‘Even now the thought of it terrifies me. The archers rode back to either side, leaving those men that were still alive to stand and stare as the heavy cavalry formed up. They mounted without any noise or shouting, seemingly without urgency, as if they were simply parading for inspection. Their leader rode out in front of them, spoke a few words of encouragement, then started trotting his horse towards what was left of our men with the rest of them following him.’
‘How many where they?’
‘A thousand, all fully armoured. The horses too.’
Dubnus shook his head in disbelief.
‘Armoured horses?’
Varus nodded grimly.
‘Scale armour, hundreds of pieces of iron plate the size of a small child’s palm sewn onto heavy coats, and overlapped until the resulting defence is thick enough to stop a thrown spear. The plates were silvered, to make them shine like the sun itself, and when they started to move it was like a wall of light crossing the desert. They went from a trot to a canter when they were two hundred paces or so from our line, and the noise …
‘My family has an estate on Sicily, on the slopes of Etna, and when I was young the volcano erupted for several days before the gods saw fit to calm its anger. I’ve never forgotten the grinding, bone-shaking fury of the mountain’s rage, and the sound of their hoofs was the closest thing to it I’ve heard in all those years, a constant growling thunder even from a mile away, as if the gods themselves were fighting. What it must have been like for the men standing helplessly waiting for them to attack is beyond my imagination, but only two of them ran. How they can have imagined they were going to escape from an army of mounted men baffles me, but I don’t suppose they were thinking all that clearly. The rest of the legionaries just stood and waited while the cataphracts rode up to them and started into them with their lances, stabbing down from out of sword reach. A few men threw their spears in reply, but they didn’t seem to have much effect. Then a horn sounded, and the riders dropped their spears and rode in closer with what looked like maces.’
Varus put his face into his hands, his next words muffled but still distinguishable.
‘It was a slaughter. Every time a cataphract’s arm rose and fell, one of our men went down. It was that simple. The fight was over within fifty heartbeats, and all that was left were the two men who had run. The cataphracts played with them for a short time, riding at them and turning away at the last moment, and then a man wearing black armour trotted his horse up and killed them both with two sweeps of his mace, as quick as it takes to tell you.’