PISO WAS SICK
of trees. Beech trees. Hornbeam trees. Oak trees. He’d seen enough of them to last him for the rest of his life. He had lost count of the number he had cut down, or helped to fell that day. His arms ached like they had during his training, and it was a struggle to swing the axe more than a few times before having to rest. And brambles – he was sick of them too. They grew everywhere, in great dense patches. Every exposed part of Piso’s skin bore red lines where he had been caught or scratched by their thorns.
Lucky for him, everyone was in the same state, which meant that Tullus recognised it as generalised exhaustion rather than individuals shirking their duty. During the midday meal break, he ordered that the legionaries who’d been on sentry duty would change places with those who had been widening the track for the army. Piso felt a warm rush of gratitude towards his centurion. Watching out for bears and Angrivarii warriors – who everyone said were unlikely to appear – would be easy in comparison to hacking down trees.
The short rest was more welcome than the idea of cold food. Men squatted down on their haunches, or sat on fallen trunks, uncaring of the damp that soaked through their cloaks and tunics. Some even lay down under the trees, where the ground was a little drier. Few talked, and when they did, it was to complain about Varus, who had commanded them to march into this living hell instead of back to Vetera, where they belonged.
‘What a man needs on a day like this is soup, or at the least, hot wine,’ complained Vitellius, ripping up a chunk of bread and shoving it into his mouth.
There was a loud chorus of agreement from the rest of the contubernium, gathered in a circle around a flattish stone that was serving as a table. Helmets and sodden felt liners, yokes, equipment, javelins and shields covered the ground at their feet.
‘That would require a fire,’ observed Piso, indicating the sodden earth and dripping trees. ‘Even Vulcan would struggle to light one in this shithole.’
That raised a chuckle from some.
Tullus arrived then, as he so often did, out of nowhere. There was no sign of Degmar, his Marsi servant, but that didn’t surprise Piso. Like as not, he was off scouting somewhere. The horsehair crest of Tullus’ helmet had sagged down to either side, like an old man who combs his hair down the middle, and his cloak was soaked, same as everyone else’s, but his confident demeanour remained. ‘Men,’ he said by way of greeting.
‘Sir.’ Piso and the rest began to rise, but Tullus waved them back into their positions.
‘There’s no need to move. You look too comfortable.’ The legionaries managed a dutiful laugh, and he smiled. It didn’t last, though. Piso felt a tickle of unease as Tullus’ expression became grim. ‘You’re staying alert?’
‘Aye, sir.’ ‘Of course, sir.’ ‘You can rely on us, sir.’
A stern nod. ‘Good. Forget about Long Nose making the mistake with the bear. If you see anything unusual this afternoon, shout! I want the men at the front of the damn column to hear. There’ll be no reprimand if it’s a false alarm, I promise you. I’d rather know about something I don’t need to worry about than the other way round, if you get my drift.’
Piso wondered forever afterwards how Tullus could have timed his advice better.
Without warning, a shoal of spears flew out of the trees to their left, whipping into Piso’s vision as a blur of long, black streaks. A heartbeat later, a similar cloud was hurled from the right. Next came a succession of loud cracks, which was followed by a rain of slingstones, whizzing towards the Romans like so many angry bees. Caught unprepared, without their shields, legionaries were struck down in their dozens. Two of Piso’s contubernium slumped dead into the mud, without even the chance to cry out. A spear slammed into the tree behind him; another thumped into the ground by Afer’s feet. Behind Tullus, a legionary uttered a surprised ‘Ohhhh’ as his forehead was smashed by a stone; he dropped like a discarded child’s puppet. Piso and his comrades gaped, not believing what they were seeing.
Not far off, a mule brayed. It wasn’t the normal, complaining sound, but a deep, distressed cry. Another mule joined in, and then another, mixing with the screams and cries of men that filled the air around them.
Piso felt numb, nauseous, paralysed.
Tullus was on his feet, gesturing. ‘Up, you maggots, if you want to live! Grab your fucking shields!’
Guts churning with fear, expecting a spear between the shoulder blades, Piso scrambled towards his scutum. Uncaring that he had no time to take off the leather cover, he lifted it and faced to his left. Fresh fear coursed through him as another volley of spears hummed in from behind, from the trees on the other side. Fresh slingshots poured in as well, from the left, from the right, from above. Ten paces away, a legionary went down, roaring for his mother.
‘Pair up with another man,’ bawled Tullus, who was standing, shieldless, in the middle of the track. ‘Stand back to back – protect one another. Keep your heads down! MOVE!’
Piso shoved himself up against Afer, while Vitellius and Long Nose did the same alongside. Just doing that was respite of a kind, although they still weren’t wearing their helmets. Piso watched, amazed, as Tullus stalked up and down, ordering men to join them and form a line. He seemed oblivious to the spears raining down around him, and his calmness transferred in some measure at least to those he confronted. Little by little, man by man, the line began to take shape. As the storm of spears and stones eased, it became a solid file, perhaps thirty paired legionaries, facing both ways towards the once gloomy, now deadly forest.
Another scatter of spears flew out of the trees, wounding one soldier and killing an injured man.
There was a loud crack as a slinger released, and a last stone streaked into sight, thunking harmlessly into a tree.
No more followed.
‘Steady, brothers,’ cried Tullus. ‘It’s not over.’
The stunned legionaries glanced at their comrades, at the widespread carnage. Bodies were strewn everywhere: face down in the mud, staring blankly at the grey sky, propped against tree trunks, sprawled over each other. The spears that had silenced their banter forever protruded from their flesh at jaunty angles, like so many hedgehog spines. They stuck into the air from the mud and poked out from tree trunks:
frameae
, fearsome weapons that every Roman recognised. Their shafts varied in length from that of a man’s arm to one and a half times his height, and their short, sharp iron blades delivered a mortal wound with ease. Of the stones that had hammered down, there was less sign. Most had vanished into the mud, but occasional examples lay by the men they had slain, innocuous-looking shiny lumps of rock no bigger than hen’s eggs.
Tullus’ voice broke the silence, giving the legionaries something to do. ‘Ease forward, careful like. Pick up your helmets and any javelins that you can, then back to where you were.’
As Piso and his comrades started to obey, a fearful humming began. It rose from the mouths of hundreds of hidden warriors on either side, a deep buzzing sound that made the skin crawl.
HUUUUMMMMMMMM! HUUUUMMMMMMMM!
On and on it went, until every hair on the back of Piso’s neck stood up. The terrifying sound ebbed and flowed, growing louder and louder each time, as the waves of a rising tide smash with growing intensity off a cliff. At length, it became a deep-throated roar, a swelling shout that even threatened to drown out the sounds of the injured legionaries and the mules.
HUUUUMMMMMMMM! HUUUUMMMMMMMM!
Piso grabbed his helmet, and a javelin, and shot back to where he’d been standing. His comrades were close behind him.
The noise continued unabated for what seemed like an eternity. Just when Piso thought it could get no worse, the singing warriors began to clatter their weapons off the iron rims and bosses of their shields.
CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!
The metallic banging melded with their war cry in terrifying unison.
HUUUUMMMMMMMM! HUUUUMMMMMMMM! CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!
Piso felt an overwhelming need to shit, and he clenched his buttocks tight. Beside him, he heard a man vomit. The tang of fresh piss reached his nostrils a moment later. Wails of fear were rising from elsewhere, and the line of legionaries began to waver.
‘If we break, we’re fucked,’ hissed Afer. ‘Stay where you are.’
Grateful to be told what to do, Piso obeyed. The legionary three men along hadn’t heard, however, or was too scared to listen. He stepped out of line, naked terror contorting his face. ‘They’ll kill us all!’
Tullus was on him like a snake coming up out of a burrow on an unsuspecting mouse.
Crack!
His vitis struck the soldier in a flurry of blows – against his helmet, twice, on his chest, over his shoulders. For good measure, Tullus delivered a whack across the face that raised a massive red weal on the man’s cheek. ‘GET BACK, YOU FUCKING MAGGOT!’ he roared. ‘INTO LINE, BEFORE I GUT YOU MYSELF!’
Cowed, shame-faced, the legionary retreated. Tullus gave him a withering look before his eyes, stony cold, raked the rest of the soldiers. Few dared meet his gaze. As if the enemy wanted to listen to Tullus, the chanting and hammering of weapons died away. ‘That was their war cry, you useless shower of limp-pricks!’ yelled Tullus. ‘It’s called the barritus, in case you didn’t know. Yes, it’s bloodcurdling. Yes, it’s terrifying. Yes, you think you’re going to die when you hear it.’ Tullus stalked fast along the line, eyeballing them in turn. ‘SO FUCKING WHAT? YOU ARE SOLDIERS OF ROME! OF FUCKING ROME! WHAT DO YOU CARE FOR THE SCREECHING OF A HORDE OF STINKING BARBARIANS? EH? EH?’
‘Nothing, sir,’ shouted Afer.
Tullus bounded back to stand in front of Afer. ‘What’s that? I can’t hear you!’
‘NOTHING, SIR. I DON’T GIVE A SHIT, SIR.’
A pitiless smile split Tullus’ face. ‘That’s right. We don’t give a SHIT about them and their fucking war cry, do we? DO WE?’
‘NO, SIR!’ Piso and the rest roared at him.
Tullus had a shield in one fist now, and a sword in the other. With fierce intensity, he began to beat the blade off the iron rim. At the same time, he chanted, ‘ROMA! ROMA! ROMA!’
The legionaries copied him. A little further down the line, Piso heard Fenestela take up the cry, and encourage his men to do the same. Every time the sound was repeated, the soldiers’ fear leached away a little, to be replaced if not by courage, then by resolve. When Tullus was content that they had steadied, he ceased his hammering. Piso and his comrades did the same, muttering encouragements to each other, things like, ‘We’ll show the bastards what for.’ ‘Let them come!’ ‘Dirty savages!’
‘Ready, my brothers,’ said Tullus, from his new position in the centre of the line, facing to the right of the road. ‘They might still charge.’
They waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Nothing happened. There was no barrage of spears and stones. The Germans’ barritus was not sung again, nor were their shields battered with weapons. The legionaries began to share uncertain looks. If their attackers had not vanished, what in Hades were they doing?
Again Tullus stepped into the breach. ‘This is all part of the whoresons’ plan. They’ve gone, for now. Starting with you’ – and he pointed at the first legionary in the line – ‘every second man is to remain in position. Every other man is to break rank, and see to the injured. Move!’
Piso left the defensive formation with reluctance, but his attention was soon taken up by his injured comrades, many of whom were in urgent need of care. The luckier ones, with bruised ribs and limbs from slingshots, or flesh wounds from spears that had struck glancing blows, were able to look after themselves. Supervised by a prowling Tullus, and directed by a lone orderly who’d appeared, Piso and his comrades made the casualties as comfortable as was possible in the wet, dirty conditions. It was clear that some men would not make it, and Piso grew used to seeing the orderly giving them long pulls from his flask of poppy juice. His mind was quick to turn from the fate of the wounded to his own, and his comrades’. Their attackers, whoever they were, had gone, but they might well return. The army was yet at a standstill. Fresh fear licked at Piso’s spine. They were like a shoal of fish, left by the ebbing tide in a tiny rock pool: easy prey.
‘What are we going to do, sir?’ he asked the next time Tullus came striding by.
‘We’re waiting for orders,’ replied Tullus. A shadow flickered across his face. ‘We’ll be told to get moving, and find a place to camp. Making plans about what to do will be easier behind fortifications.’
Afer joined in. ‘Was it the Angrivarii who attacked us, sir?’
The darkness passed again over Tullus’ face, but Piso still had no idea what was going through his centurion’s mind. ‘That’s what many will say,’ said Tullus. He walked off. ‘Be ready to move at a moment’s notice.’
Piso eyed Afer. ‘What’s up with him?’
‘No bloody idea. What matters is that he’s here, eh?’
‘Aye,’ replied Piso with feeling. Rumours had reached them from down the column of heavy casualties among other units, of dead centurions, foundered wagons and widespread panic among the non-combatants. Whatever they had suffered here was mild by comparison, and it was attributable in the main to Tullus. ‘May the gods keep him safe.’
‘I’ll second that,’ said Vitellius, raising his eyes to the grey, cloud-covered heavens.
If the gods heard their prayers, they were not interested. Heavy rain began to fall once more, pouring down on their upturned faces in torrents and increasing the already deep gloom. Lightning flashed deep within the clouds, once, twice, thrice. A few heartbeats later, there was an ominous rumble of thunder.
It was hard not to think that Jupiter was angry with them, thought Piso, seeing his own unspoken disquiet mirrored in his friends’ faces.
Piso had not thought his dislike of the forest could escalate, but in the sodden, bloody hours that followed, he grew to loathe it with every fibre of his being. It became the limits of the Romans’ world. Dense, green, dripping with moisture, it appeared to go on forever, mile upon mile of beeches, hornbeams, oaks and trees Piso didn’t even recognise. Tall ones, shorter ones, thick-trunked and thin-, gnarled, diseased, aged and saplings, they stood side by side, in disapproving legions of their own, sentinels at the entrance to another world. At times, it seemed to Piso that they were watching the sweating, tired legionaries.
That
was a most uncomfortable feeling, inviting thoughts of malign forest spirits, druids and blood sacrifice.