Eagle in the Snow: The Classic Bestseller

  They stood there silently, patiently waiting to be told what to do; waiting for me to deliver a stream of miraculous orders that would set all to right. They had great faith.

  I studied the map. The enemy were south of Moguntiacum and the road to Divodurum and Treverorum was open to them. It was not a good road. It would be bad for waggons, for old men and young children; but it would serve for war bands on horses, and they had horses, I knew; for they had used them against us. They were to the north of our position as well, and though the river bank was thickly wooded and it would take time, yet they would get through and could cut the road to Bingium behind us. They might already have done so. There had been no news from Didius on the east bank at all, and no news from Goar for five days; yet his men were experienced at slipping through the enemy lines.

  The tent door was thrust open and one of Quintus’ troopers stood to attention before me. “The centuries you stationed along the Bingium road are being attacked, sir. The Marcomanni crossed the river last night.”

  “How many?”

  “About five thousand, sir.”

  I blinked. “Is there any news from Goar and his Alans? What about the cavalry I sent across the river?”

  “I don’t know anything about the Alans, sir, but the last news we had of the cavalry under the tribune, Didius, was that they were holding their ground.”

  “When was that?”

  “Two days ago, sir.”

  “When you left, was there any movement on the road to the north-west?”

  “No, sir, but the last patrol sent out came in three hours ago.”

  “And you left, when?”

  “An hour ago, sir. I would have been here sooner, but my horse went lame on the ice.”

  Quintus raised his head. “You had better do something about him then.”

  “Yes, sir.” He saluted and went out.

  I turned back to the map. Goar had been unable to hold them. I was not surprised. We had barely been able to hold them ourselves. Probably, by this time, the cavalry units on the far bank had been annihilated as those centuries would be, too, if I didn’t send them help. The others stood quite still, with expressionless faces, waiting for me to speak. I stared up at them and I tried to smile. They were waiting patiently for me to produce a miracle, and I could not do so. If I pulled back half the legion to control the road I might still hold them here, for a while, but I should have extended my lines too far and they would be bound to break through in the end. They had so many more men, and they could build up an attack at any point they chose. The answer lay in one simple statement: we had failed to contain them.

  I knew then that we were beaten. Now, I never would visit Rome; I never would see the theatre of Pompey, the great statue of Trajan and the arch of Constantine upon which my father had scratched his name when a small boy. I never would see that city which I had loved all my life. Perhaps, like all my hopes, it too was only a dream.

  I said, “Order Fabianus to abandon Moguntiacum as arranged, but tell him to make contact with Borbetomagus first and let them know. When the message has been passed, the garrisons of the signal towers are to fall back on their nearest point of safety. Prepare to strike camp here and be ready to move upon my orders. Quintus, send an ala now to help those two wretched centuries. When we march, the waggons are to be in the middle with all the stores and wounded. We shall withdraw on Bingium and hold the line of the Nava there. Inform Bingium of this and tell Confluentes, Salisio and Boudobrigo to withdraw on the thirtieth milestone. Order the garrison at Treverorum to meet them there and await further instructions; and tell Flavius, too, to warn the Bishop and the Council.”

  “It will cause a panic in the city,” said Quintus.

  “Of course. This is a retreat, not a strategic withdrawal. Now don’t worry.” I tried to force a smile and look cheerful. “Everything will still be all right if we keep our heads. You and I, Quintus, have fought on the defensive before.”

  I motioned Aquila to remain as the others went out. Quintus gave me a long look as he departed. I knew what he was thinking.

  “When we pull out I shall leave a small force to hold the palisades here; men with horses. I don’t want the enemy to know we have withdrawn until the last possible moment. Do you understand?”

  He nodded. He said, “They’ll guess, from the lack of numbers.”

  “Not if we use our heads. There is an old trick, used once by Spartacus, that might help.”

  At first he looked shocked and tried to protest. I said, “Aquila, I am not a christian. Yet these things should not matter to you, though they are of great importance to those of my faith. Do you not believe that the soul is more important than the body?”

  He bit his lip hard and then saluted me. “I will see that your orders are carried out,” he said carefully.

  A few minutes later Quintus came back. “Maximus, I’m worried about water, especially for the horses. If the ice is as thick on the Nava as it is here—”

  “We can’t carry it with us—very little anyway.” I rubbed my eyes. “Use your judgement, Quintus. Do whatever seems best.”

  He nodded. “Of course. But I thought you had better know.”

  I said, “Yes. Cavalry are so mobile that everyone forgets their damned horses need ten gallons of water a day on full work as well as thirty pounds of food.”

  “What about the aqueduct?”

  “Fabianus has instructions to poison the water tanks in the town. Get it broken, not in one place only, but in as many as possible.”

  He said, “I dreamed of Rando’s daughter last night. Funny, wasn’t it? And when I woke I kept on thinking of those children across the river. I would like to have had children of my own—once. But not now.”

  I said harshly, “Gallus is dead.”

  “He was a soldier; that’s different.”

  “I shall leave them nothing but the bare earth. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.”

  The signal beacons shone red, and the black smoke drifted upwards, like feathers blown on the wind. A thin column of smoke answered from Moguntiacum, and I waited with my staff on the right hand flank of our position. In front of me were the stakes and the ditches, the bodies sprawled out under a thin sheet of snow, while the ravens circled overhead and cawed pitilessly. Below us the tribes were forming up for another attack on the town. They crouched behind the hummocked snow, behind burnt-out carts and hastily made fences, and behind the carefully piled bodies of their own dead. To my rear the legion began to pull out; waggons were harnessed and the wounded and the stores packed inside them; the carroballistae were hitched to the mule teams, and the men dismantled their tents and fell in by sections. Two squadrons of cavalry alone remained, spread out in a thin line along the length of the palisade, and between them, propped against the timber, staring out with blind eyes through the firing slits, their helmets on their heads and javelins in their nerveless hands, stood the frozen bodies of our dead, keeping their last watch upon the enemy below.

  A cohort commander came running towards me, his long sword flapping at his side. “Everything is ready, sir. General Veronius has gone on ahead. We await your orders.”

  “Tell the head of the column to march. When they contact our advance-guard they will take their orders from the general. I will join you with the rear-guard as soon as I can. I am only waiting for the tribune, Fabianus.”

  He saluted and went back to his men. In a little while I heard the rumble of waggon wheels and the steady tramping of the cohorts as they marched out of earshot.

  I waited. The water dripped through the hour-glass in my orderly’s hand until it was all gone. Then he turned it over and it started again. . . . I must have dozed for a while for I found myself yawning and shivering with cold. I turned to speak to him, and then I saw fire, great tongues of flame leaping up from the camp, both from the sides and the centre. Fireballs hurtled outwards into the surrounding town and the huddled rows of wooden shacks caught fire, one b
y one, as columns of black smoke, thick and oily, spread outwards and hid the flames from our sight. The shrieks and yells of the barbarians came to us, even at that distance, and then out of the smoke I saw what appeared to be a gigantic tortoise, ponderously breaking a way through the surging mass of men outside the gates. The tortoise seemed to flicker with bright pin points of light, and I knew that it was Fabianus and his men, using the testudo formation, and that the lights came from the sun’s reflection on the metal strips upon their shields. At the same time the old camp to our right went up in flames with a great whoof of sound, and there was a sudden wind upon our faces as we felt the blast of the explosion. The tortoise had charged clear, and then it disintegrated, as though at command, and the men who composed it took to their heels and ran towards us across the wet snow. Men were pouring out of the old camp too; legionaries, auxiliaries and seamen; their retreat covered by a handful of horsemen. I sent a troop of horse down the slope to cover the escape of Fabianus and his men, and all the while Moguntiacum blazed with fire until the fort and the town were consumed, and the barbarians were left with nothing but a handful of acres of charred wood and blackened stone as the prize of their conquest.

  War bands of the Vandals and the Quadi came up the slope after the retreating legionaries, but the two ballistae left in our lines opened fire and dispersed them in a few moments.

  Fabianus came up to me, the sweat dripping from his blackened face. His hair was singed, he had lost his helmet and his eyebrows were burned off. “We got out,” he said, and then grinned.

  I smiled. “You got out.”

  “It went up like a furnace, sir. With enough men, though, I could have held that fort for ever.”

  “What are your casualties?”

  “I left two hundred dead in the camp. They were all chest or face wounds.”

  I said, “It was well held, but they have broken through further down the river. We’re falling back on Bingium. I’ve got your horses here. Get your men mounted and go on ahead. I stay with the rear-guard.”

  He said, “I had one message from Borbetomagus. They thanked us for the news of our withdrawal. Sunno is dead, and the Alemanni disorganised. They thought they could hold out for three days more. Then, if their commander could not get terms, he would break out and withdraw upon Vindonissa. He wished us luck.”

  I said, “It is he who will need the luck.”

  He hesitated. Then he turned away. Over his shoulder he said, “Barbatio is dead. He was killed by an arrow early this morning.” He strode off to the waiting horses and I noticed that he was limping slightly.

  The waggons were coming across the river now in a steady flow, and the tribesmen were massing again upon the edge of the smoking ruin that was Moguntiacum. I mounted my horse and sent my bodyguard riding through the camp in pairs, lighted torches in their hands, setting fire to each building in turn. The tribesmen, seeing the fires, came up the slopes in a rush. Abandoning the camp and the field defences to the enemy who, in seven days of ceaseless fighting had been unable to take them by direct assault, we rode off as the first of their war bands reached the ridge. The fire and the smoke concealed our retreat effectively enough, and I thought that by the time they had re-organised themselves for a pursuit we should, with luck, have a lead of between three to five hours.

  It was seventeen miles to Bingium but the road was ice hard, slippery, and cut into ridges by the wheeled traffic of the refugees who had left Moguntiacum the week before. Many of our men were wounded, all of us were on short rations and none of us had eaten a hot meal for twenty-four hours. The legion ahead, I thought, would march slowly, and so kept my horse at a gentle amble, though I dropped pickets every half mile to keep watch for signs of a pursuit. It was very cold, and only the thought of the hot meal and the proper bed that I should find awaiting me in Bingium, kept me awake upon my horse. Behind me I left the dead, who were my friends, unburied in the snow.

  XVII

  IT WAS SNOWING again by the time we reached the milestone where I had ordered the two centuries to hold the track running up from the river. There, by a huddle of burnt out huts that had once been a village, I found Quintus, standing with his feet apart, resting upon his naked sword. I looked at the smashed palisade, at the burnt out signal tower, at the bodies in armour, and at the limp figures, hanging from trees to which they had been skewered whilst still alive. A man whom I could not recognise sat upon a fallen tree trunk, wearing a cloak and a hood. From his attitude it seemed as though he held his head in his hands. All about me I could hear movement, as though men stood in the darkness of the wood, waiting quietly, but shifting from one foot to the other to avoid the numbing cold that was upon us all.

  Quintus raised his head but he did not smile. He said to the tribune with me, “Tell the men to go on. They must not talk or make any noise. They will be directed where to go.”

  I slid from my horse and looked about me, and I could see little groups of legionaries, drawn swords in hand, watchful and somehow menacing, posted in a wide circle about us. I felt the hairs prickle on the nape of my neck.

  “What is it, Quintus?” I said.

  He did not move. He said, in a tired voice, “That is for you to judge. When I reached here with the advance-guard, the two centuries were still fighting, after a fashion. One half had been wiped out, and the other driven back across the road. The way was barred by about two thousand of the Marcomanni. There were others too, Franks and Alans.” He paused and then said very carefully, “It was difficult, you understand, to know who was fighting whom. The rest of the Marcomanni were still down by the river, looting the native town there. That went up in flames at dawn, so a wounded soldier told me. The Marcomanni have been crossing the river all day. There must be nearer ten thousand than five by now. The woods are thick with them. I drove my lot off in one charge and they broke and fled; but I think they will come back.” He stopped and then spoke again, his voice quite without expression. “Then I met Goar with a handful of his men. He told me the rest.”

  “Goar!”

  “Yes, he is here with us now.”

  The man, sitting upon the log, stood up and put back his hood. I could recognise him now—Goar with a sword in his hand, and a cut across his face, and a look in his face that I had never seen before.

  “You crossed the river after all,” I said. “What has happened, man? Tell me?”

  Goar said, “We failed to hold them on the east bank. We were forced back into the hills. I made a detour and circled round, intending to cross at Bingium and come up the west bank to your aid. On the shore opposite Bingium, two days ago, we caught a man. He was an auxiliary from the fort there. He was a Frank. He had messages from the commander, for Guntiarus.” He paused, and I could see that he was sweating. He said, “We hurt him until he talked. Then I crossed by night and lay up in the woods, waiting for you to come. I have only a few men with me.” He hesitated. He said, slowly, “We did our best. I gave you—my word.”

  Quintus said, “It would seem that Scudilio has betrayed Bingium to the barbarians. To test them, and—and prove Goar right, I sent a patrol of three men to the town with orders to return. That was three hours ago and they have not come back.”

  “They might have been ambushed and killed, or even delayed.”

  “No, Maximus.”

  I was silent. He was right. I knew that none of these things had happened to these men on their journey to Bingium. They had been ambushed and killed inside the camp, not out of it.

  “Where is the legion now?”

  He said, in a low voice, “In a valley, about a mile down the road, just off a track to the left. I told Aquila to halt there and await your orders.”

  I looked at them in turn. I said, “They have all the stores that we need: food, arms, water, everything.”

  “I know,” said Quintus. “Everything.”

  “When did they betray us?”

  “I do not know.” He spoke in a curious voice, and I knew, from the way he lo
oked at me, that something was still wrong.

  “Is that all?”

  “It would seem to be enough; but it is not, in fact, quite all.”

  “Go on.”

  “We have a prisoner here, a Frank, who tells a curious story. Centurion!”

  An elderly man was dragged before me, his hands tied behind his back. He had grey hair and a grey beard, and I recognised him. It was Fredegar, the sword-brother of Marcomir, whom I had not seen since the night I made that hurried, hopeless journey in the rain to avert a catastrophe, and failed.

  I said, “What do you do here?”

  He said, hoarsely, “You did not bother about us when our Prince died and we were defeated. You never asked what happened to us and to our people.”

  “What did happen, old man? You forget that Marcomir broke faith with me.”

  “You let that man take our lands.” He nodded to Goar, who stared at him, contemptuously. “He was your ally then. We did not matter.”

  “Come to the point, old man, or I will lead you to it myself, and it will be sharper than you think.”

  He said, “The Alans took our land, our bergs and our young women. Yet, despite the fact that you no longer thought us of any moment, we stayed loyal. Marcomir would have wished it so. When the fighting began, we tried to help. The Alans did not want us. But when things began to go badly we crossed the river to join you and found the Marcomanni attacking your limes. We fought them, and then your men came up. This one,” he pointed with his chin at Quintus, “took us for the enemy and fought back. When I had been captured I told him what I knew, but he would not believe me because this man had spoken to him first.”

  “What would you say again that my friend did not believe?”

  “That the Vandals tried to bribe the commandant at Bingium, and failed; then when the fighting started the Alans held off. It was we who attacked the Vandals in the dawn of that first morning, for you had told Marcomir you wanted the waggons destroyed. Only later in the day, when it seemed that you were holding them, did the Alans at last make war on your side.” He spat. “They are a people who are loyal only to the strong. Later, when things did not go well with you, they retreated to the hills and let the Marcomanni cross the river; and they murdered the cavalry you sent to the east bank, while pretending to be their friends. I, myself, saw their messenger carry the head of Didius to the Vandal kings.” He paused, and then said, in an even louder voice, “They crossed the ice at Bingium and made for the camp, pretending one thing but doing another, and when the commandant let them in they took the camp by storm and destroyed your garrison. All that happened to-day. All this would I say, still, even though you burned me on a fire.”