Eagle in the Snow Page 6

  “But—”

  “Listen to me, please. In summer the Lower Rhenus floods its banks for miles and the whole countryside is water-logged. That provides a natural barrier. The high Rhenus is in the mountains and the passes are few and easily defended. That only leaves the middle Rhenus, in Germania Superior, to be guarded: a distance of fifty miles or so, and there are only a handful of places along that fifty miles where a crossing can be made. A tribe migrating needs a road, and roads are few. I do not say that one legion is enough, but skilfully handled it could be.”

  He looked at me then and I saw the appeal in his eyes. “It must be enough, Maximus, my friend. I cannot spare any more men.”

  I held the centre pole of the tent and felt it shake under the strain. The wind was howling through the camp and I could hear men shouting outside to each other to check the ropes and the pegs. The rain crashed upon the roof like a flight of arrows striking a shield and a spattering of drops came through a worn patch in the leather above my head. I moved away.

  I looked at Quintus and he looked at me. I knew that we shared the same thoughts. We were neither of us young and we had had our share of the fighting. The exhilaration of the big command had almost gone. In its place was worry and work and sleepless nights. In five years we had had no regular camp. We were sick of living in tents, sick of hardship, sick of the dust and flies in summer, and of slush and rain in winter. We needed a rest. We had deserved one.

  “For how long?” I asked. I could not refuse him.

  “Give me eighteen months,” he said. “That is all I ask. Hold the Rhenus for eighteen months. By then the danger will be past and I shall be able to send reinforcements. When that day comes, and I promise you it will, you may take your legion back across the water.”

  I said, “Are you quite sure, general, that you do not wish for a new legate.”

  He smiled faintly. “Neither a new legate nor a new Maharbal.”

  Quintus said, “You have told us how to defend the Rhenus in summer. But what about the winter?”

  “In a very bad winter, which does not happen often, there is a chance that the Rhenus may freeze. But if it does not, the heavy rain and the melting of the snows raises the level. There will be a fast current too. In winter it is an impossible river to cross. No war chief would take such a risk.”

  Quintus said, steadily, “It last froze thirty-nine years ago.”

  Stilicho said, “Then the odds are in your favour. There is a risk, indeed, but it is a very small one.”

  “I will hold it,” I said, and I added quietly, “If I can.”

  “You must hold it,” he replied. “We cannot afford any more disasters. One major disaster and the western empire, like a cracked dam, will crumble slowly into pieces.”

  I said, “If that happens, my general, then be sure of one thing: neither I nor Quintus will be alive to watch it happen.”

  He did not say anything. He turned to the stool and picked up the wrapped parcels that he had put there. He handed one to each of us.

  “They are gifts,” he said. “From one friend to another. There is also a cavalry standard which I have given into the safe keeping of the camp praefectus.” He smiled at Quintus. “Your present one has suffered much in my service.”

  Quintus undid the wrappings on his parcel first. Inside was a most beautifully curved Sarmatian sword such as are worn by their horsemen. It had a wonderfully decorated hilt and the edge was as sharp as a razor. I could see from the expression on Quintus’ face that he was pleased.

  “I would have given you the sword of Maharbal himself had I been able to find it,” said Stilicho with a smile. “You would have deserved it.”

  I picked up my present in its turn. It was a short officer’s sword of a style that dated it from the great days of the legions.

  “I found it by chance in Rome,” said Stilicho, quietly. “If you look on the blade below the hilt you will see from the inscription the name of its owner.”

  I looked as he had told me. Very faintly I could see the marks cut by the swordsmith at the owner’s request:

  J. AGRIC.LEG.XX.VAL.

  He said, “I thought it fitting that one legate of the Twentieth should carry the sword of another.”

  VII

  THREE MONTHS LATER, on a day of alternating rain and sunshine, I rode with Quintus at the head of my bodyguard into Augusta Treverorum. It was the oldest city in the Roman world, once the capital of the Praefectus Praetorio of Gaul, the seat of the Caesars of the West, and sometime residence of the Imperial Court. Since the re-organisation of the provinces, however, it had dwindled to being only the capital of Belgica, though it was still a great centre of industry and commerce. But it was not Rome, that city I had never seen.

  The journey had been a depressing one. The countryside was bare and neglected. Here and there I passed a farm on ploughed land or saw in the distance a villa surrounded by vines that were still shaped and tended. More often, though, the farm was a disintegrating huddle of broken huts, and the land round it so full of weeds that you could tell at once it had not sown a crop in years. The surfaces of the roads were pitted with holes, their once carefully built edges crumbling away, and the ditches either side so filled with dirt that, at the least shower of rain, the whole surface flooded over and made marching difficult. The towns I passed through had few people in them, and those listless and with unsmiling faces. The streets stank of refuse, and the aqueducts that should have brought water to the public baths had fallen into ruin. The peasants we passed looked gaunt and thin, their hair greasy, their clothes in tatters and their children covered in sores. At the posting houses the horses looked out of condition and the carriages stood in need of repair. It was obvious at a glance why the imperial messenger service was often bad and unreliable; some of the animals were so out of condition that they could barely make the journey between one posting station and the next at a walk, let alone a canter. I was told by a sullen ostler that the crops had failed and that hay and oats were in short supply.

  The men sang as they marched and made jokes. They were pleased to be over the mountains and out of the flat plains of Italia. Gaul was next door to the island from which many of them had come, and to be in Gaul, any part of it, was to be near home. But for me it was the land I had to defend, and upon the help of whose inhabitants I must rely if I was to fulfil the orders of a grey-faced man, now in Ticinium, collecting troops for his war against Radagaisus.

  Once, I stopped a man to ask him a question about the distance to the next village, for even the milestones had been allowed to collapse onto the ground; the local officials were apparently too incompetent or lazy to attend to their duties. This man had blue eyes and fair hair and spoke Latin vilely. I learned that he was a Frank whose family had been allowed to settle west of the Rhenus and who had come south seeking work. I asked him, being curious, why he had not stayed in his own land.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “We are a restless people, highborn. We like to move and to see new places.”

  “But why come to our lands?” I asked in exasperation.

  He shrugged again. “You are Rome,” he said, simply. “We all know that the Romani are rich.” He wrinkled his nose. “That is what we thought,” he said, gutturally. “But we come and we find we must work as before. I do not see that you can be rich if you have to work.”

  “You could go home,” I suggested.

  “I should have to work there. It would be the same.” He looked at me expectantly. “Perhaps if I go on far enough I shall find those Romani who are so rich that they do not have to work.”

  “Perhaps,” I said, and rode on.

  Further on I met a great column of men marching purposefully towards us. They carried staves but no other weapons and had the look of servants, not free men. When my cavalry surrounded them they did not seem put out, but stood their ground and waited quietly till I came to them.

  “And where are you going?” I asked. “You are slaves, aren’t you? Look a
t that man, decurion. He has the brand mark on his heel.”

  One of them bowed and held out a roll of parchment. “If you please, excellency, your excellency is correct. But this order will explain.”

  “Explain what, man?”

  “We come from Remi, excellency. We were told by the curator of the city that the noble emperor, Honorius, has need of men for the army. If we go to Italia to take up arms we shall receive money and, when the war is over, our freedom.”

  I read the paper and passed it to Quintus who did not say a word. Now I understood Stilicho’s agitation that last night in my tent. Things must be desperate indeed for Honorius to make an offer that had never been made before by any emperor of Rome in all its history, save only Marcus Aurelius.

  I smiled, and my cavalry sheathed their swords as though at a command.

  “And what will you do when you have gained your freedom?”

  “I shall buy a small farm, excellency, and if it prospers then I shall be able to afford slaves to work it instead of my family.”

  I turned to watch them pass. As I did so I wondered how many of them would survive to enjoy the freedom of which they dreamed and which they, who had never known it, believed to be so wonderful.

  A fortnight later we reached our destination and, leaving my legion to make camp outside the walls, I rode through the south gate into a city that was bigger and grander than any I had ever seen. I have often wondered since how it compared with Rome. The south and north gates, known familiarly to all legionaries as Romulus and Remus, were staggering in their size; over a hundred feet high as near as I could judge; their twin arches containing gates that three men, standing on each other’s shoulders, could not have seen over. Built of massive white sandstone blocks they were monuments that would endure for ever to the patience, industry and technical skill of the military engineers who had made them. Each had three upper floors around a square with a courtyard between the gates, and could house a cohort without difficulty. But they were more than gates: they were fortresses in which garrisons could still hold out even though the city itself had fallen.

  The city was crowded and we trotted down the broad street with its shops, its fountains and its red sandstone buildings, across the forum, forcing a way through the crowds, the cattle, the ox-carts and the traders’ stalls, while the people stood back to gape at us as we passed. They looked clean and well-fed and smiling and I was glad at last to be in a town whose citizens had some heart in them. But I noticed a number of young men whose right hands were covered in bloody bandages, and this struck me as curious. I wondered if there had been rioting in the city when they heard of our coming. The army was never popular when it came to a city or a town. The people bitterly resented having troops billeted on them, but we were used to that. On down the road past abandoned temples, some half pulled down; children and dogs all over the arcaded pavements; and then right, towards the Basilica where the Curator and two officials of the governor’s staff were awaiting us. With them were the members of the Council: the civic magistrates, the quaestors responsible for finance, one or two senators (but that was only a term now for a man of wealth and dignity) and the minor officials in charge of docks, public buildings and the granaries, the factories and the aqueducts. In a group, to one side, formidable in their appearance, stood the christian bishop and his priests.

  The Curator was a sharp-faced man named Artorius, about half my age, and with a nervous manner that concealed the efficiency with which he managed his own affairs. He apologised for the absence of the Praetor—the governor—who was on a visit to the Dux Belgicae in the north. He regretted, too, the absence of the Praefectus Praetorio of Gaul who must have been detained by pressure of work at Arelate, for he had promised to be here if he could. He himself had not, however, been warned of my coming, save by the arrival of my own advance party.

  I was so tired that I scarcely heard him and, when the formalities had been concluded, moved on to the north gate, Romulus, which was to be my headquarters.

  “Well?” said Quintus, unlacing his helmet in the large room on the second floor that I had decided would suit me best. “We are here. When do we start?”

  “To-morrow.”

  “I did not like that bishop.”

  “Nor I. We shall have to be careful or we may offend him.”

  “Pagans.”

  “Of course.”

  We both laughed.

  “Must we start so soon?”

  “Yes. The sooner the troops are split into their camps and at work, the better. If everything remains quiet they can be sent back to Treverorum on leave in groups.”

  “Don’t you trust them any longer?” He glanced at me with a guarded expression on his face.

  I hesitated. “They have not been paid in months and it will take time to get money out of this over-taxed province.”

  “We have had no trouble so far. They were glad to leave Italia.”

  “Yes. There, they were part of an army. Here, they are the army. Their sense of their own importance may swell if they have too much leisure.”

  I leaned out of the window and watched the sentries of the auxilia leaning on their spears while the customs officials checked, with unusual thoroughness, a waggon train of supplies waiting to enter the city. The merchant owner was expostulating bitterly, both at the delay and at the charges he was expected to pay.

  I turned my head. “It is odd that so many were absent whom I expected to meet here.”

  “But their reasons were good.”

  “Oh, yes, excellent. Our young Curator forgot to mention only what had kept the General of Gaul away.”

  Quintus said reprovingly, “You mean the Magister Equitum per Gallias. He will be offended if you call him less.”

  “They change the titles so often I find it hard to keep up with them.”

  “He will have a good excuse, no doubt. Perhaps he was hurt boar hunting. It is a sport I believe he is keen on.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Quintus said anxiously, “Don’t look for trouble, Maximus. Except the governor, they are all appointments of Stilicho. We shall get all the help we need. I am certain of it.”

  I frowned. I said, “I hope you are right.”

  Later, we stood in the Cardo Maximus behind Romulus, watching the cavalry groom their horses while the stall-holders watched us with resentful curiosity.

  “We shall have to move them to-morrow or the good citizens of this city will never forgive us.”

  “Naturally.”

  I turned and looked at Romulus. Through these gates, like a steel sword, slipped the great military road that ran to Moguntiacum, once the supply town for the abandoned Limes on the east bank of that river I now had to defend. There at Moguntiacum the road ended on a broken bridge. And beyond were the green woods, thick and impenetrable, wet with rain in winter and heavy with scent in summer, in whose shelter lived those peoples whom we of Rome had never conquered. This was the road down which Quinctilius Varus had gone to lead three legions to defeat and death in the Teutoburg forest. It was along this road that countless legates had marched at the head of their men on their way to the east and the barbarian darkness beyond. It was a road to nowhere.

  The next day we rode round the city on a tour of inspection. As befitting the capital of a province that once had sheltered the emperors of Rome, it still bore the signs of great luxury and great wealth. But, even here, one could see and feel the marks of that decay which, like the rot-holes in a piece of wood, were eating the heart out of city life.

  The town stood on the east bank of the Mosella, a wide, lazy river that crept indolently, like a snake in the summer sunlight, between steep banks and sheer cliffs until it joined the Rhenus. Outside the west gate, which was another Romulus in size, stood the bridge, and the road beyond coiled and shifted its way to Colonia, a small garrison town on the west bank of the Rhenus. Below the bridge there were docks and warehouses where, in the old days, the Rhenus fleet that escorted the troop trans
ports on their long voyage to Britannia, would put in for repairs or lie up during the winter months when the loose ice that swept down the main river made navigation too dangerous for safety. Now, only a few merchant ships were tied up, loading their cargoes of wine, while the slim hulks of the warships rotted upon the hard till they were stripped bare by the poor in search of free timber for their fires.

  “We could do with a fleet to patrol the river,” I said.

  “They couldn’t build them in time.”

  “No. But we might do something with the boats belonging to our fat merchant friends down there. One of the tribunes in the third cohort was on the Saxon Shore for a time. I forget his name—Gallus, yes that’s it. Get hold of him and put him in charge.”

  I looked at the skyline. The city was hemmed in by hills on every side. Like a rabbit in a bear pit, I thought.

  “Is it all like this?”

  “Yes, sir,” said the decurion who had arrived the week before with the advance party. “The whole district is a mass of hills and tiny valleys. Most of them are only connected by straggling paths. Each valley has its own village. And that usually means only a cluster of timbered huts and a handful of goats.”

  The hills were formidable, their lower slopes lined with vine orchards. Above the vines were outcrops of rock and thick scrub and above them, higher still, the hills were thick with trees, while forests of pine covered their rounded crests like the dark caps worn by Jewish traders.

  “At least we shall not die thirsty,” said Quintus, carefully. He was thinking of the wine that was sold in fat barrels in the forum market and then sent by ox-cart to all the distant parts of Gaul.

  “I shall want the legion to parade to-morrow in the Circus Maximus for their orders. It will impress the city. We shall need more horses. Some of ours are only fit as remounts.”