The King's Cavalry Page 11

  After five days’ preparation of the defences, Maxentius rode out of Rome in the centre of his praetorian guards to inspect matters, and he was actually standing on the Milvian Bridge when the great fireball zoomed overhead, spreading smoke, fumes, noise and panic.

  Maxentius scrambled to hide behind the bridge parapet, and stayed there for minutes until he was sure the celestial storm had ended. He was badly shaken, and the event undercut his already tentative decisions. Was this a sign he should retreat behind the walls of Rome, or was it confirmation that meeting Constantine in the open would bring success? Eventually, considering the ruined bridge on which he stood, he realised that ordering this destruction and then retreating before the enemy even appeared would make him look foolish.

  “We make our stand here,” he ordered, hoping his officers would not note the indecision in his voice. “The gods have shown us that they will throw thunderbolts at our enemies, and tomorrow is a fortuitous day, the anniversary of my accession. We cannot lose.” With that, he waved for his senior advisors to follow him into the command pavilion and set about ordering the troop dispositions.

  That was when Maxentius made his fatal decision. The bridge had been on his mind for days, plaguing him. Should it be destroyed, to delay the enemy while he readied to hold the walls of Rome, or should he be bold and take the battle to Constantine, and fight with the half-ruined bridge at his back? After he chose the latter course, he was so conscious of the crossing and its importance that he arrayed his troops too close to it.

  “Great Augustus,” said an anxious tribune, “there is little room behind the front ranks for, er, re-forming our troops should we, er, move towards the river.” Maxentius looked at the wretch with a face of thunder.

  “Do you mean we would give ground?” He demanded. “These are Roman troops, my troops. We will not be forced back by any enemy. I have planned this battle. There will be no retreating, no yielding of ground at all! Understood?”

  It was the first thing Constantine saw as he rode up with his cavalry squadrons. “Their arses are almost in the river,” he said incredulously. “My stupid brother-in-law has bottled himself up!” He surveyed the scene more closely, and realised that Maxentius’ artillery park, the heavy catapults, the ballistae and wild asses that flung huge darts and small boulders with such effect, were all on the other side of the Tiber. “That restricts their range,” he thought, puzzled. “Is he so afraid we’ll capture them?”

  He turned his view to the bridge and saw rubble piles, then the temporary timber beams across which troops were slowly, carefully moving. “He’s wrecked the bridge and now he can’t get his heavies over it!” Constantine said aloud, delightedly. The emperor twisted in his saddle to see his own oncoming columns of infantry, swaying rhythmically as they marched down the dusty stones of the Flaminian Way. “Get the archers and slingers to the fore,” he commanded. “We’ll encourage these bastards to stay back. Just pray they’ll remain there until we can get everyone in position.”

  I was not there to see the opening stages of the conflict, for Constantine opted to strike swiftly, while he had Maxentius pinned. My British heavy horse squadrons were at the rear of the second column so we were among the last to arrive at the Milvian Bridge and the conflict had started.

  When I rode down the trampled grass alongside the Via Flaminia, there was already a steady stream of wounded going the other way, being taken back to the impedimenta and ambulance carts, pushing through a chaos of sweating, swearing men and beasts flowing like a human river in both directions. We could hear the blacksmith clatter and shouts of the battle from more than a mile away, a dull roar of fighting, dying men and horses. I rode out of a grove of olive trees and onto a slight downslope to find myself with a view of the whole dusty, heaving scene.

  We had approached from the north and before us was the floodplain of the Tiber: excellent flat cavalry ground that led to the stone bridge at the centre of it all. On the other side of the river, the bridge vanished between two square towers and a portcullis and gate that would be heavily defended. A short distance from the bridge Maxentius had ordered a pontoon bridge built with a sort of drawbridge in its centre, that could be opened by withdrawing some iron bars.

  At this end of the bridge, the northern bank of the Tiber was the killing ground where surprisingly-ordered ranks of armoured men clashed and heaved against each other in a series of shield walls that seemed in places to be eight or ten men deep. Above them waved the bronze and silver-gilt eagles and the fluttering pennants of the legions, and here and there the occasional officer on horseback was stabbing down with a spear or trying to urge his ranks forward.

  I could make out the sawtooth shapes of the wedge formations Constantine favoured for his front lines. The principle was that soldiers at the points of the wedges would force through the enemy’s straighter ranks, breaking them and allowing a slaughter of their suddenly-unprotected enemies as their comrades’ shields were pushed aside.

  But, even in the swirl and eddy of the shield walls, Maxentius’ men, who outnumbered Constantine’s, were not being broken. To me, watching for several minutes, it seemed as if the bridge defenders’ ranks were actually making slight gains. They were relaying fresh troops up through small gaps in the ranks, to take the place of troops in the front line who had been pushing, thrusting and wrestling for long minutes, and this recycling of fresher men was beginning to tell.

  Constantine’s eagerness to trap his enemy was working against him. He had released the arrow of his forces before his reinforcements were in place and he had no easy way to push his fresh troops through without considerable sacrifice of the front ranks that were rapidly becoming exhausted.

  As I watched, several squadrons of light cavalry galloped the short distance forward from Constantine’s army and tried to break the left wing of Maxentius’ ranks, but the result was predictable. The horses shied away from the shield wall with its thicket of spears and the riders were reduced to trying to stab down with their lances over the top of the Roman shields. A hissing storm of arrows and darts scoured the riders, horses began to wheel and fall and the cavalry attack foundered in a welter of blood and horse spume.

  As the riders turned their beasts to retreat, a shower of heavy javelins caused brutal havoc on their unprotected backs and by my estimate fewer than one in three of the attacking cavalry rode back. With losses like that, Constantine faced swift defeat.

  I glanced around to assess what he was moving up from the staging area. Infantry in the centre, cavalry on the flanking wings. The infantry were ranked deeper than usual, the extra depth could be useful in pushing back the enemy, but the bridge defenders might well with their superior numbers envelope and overwhelm our foot soldiers. As I watched, Constantine gave a little ground and wheeled his troops to anchor one end of his line on the Tiber’s bank. I saw what he was also doing, apart from securing the left flank. He was moving so that the sun was right behind him, and its rays would dazzle Maxentius’ men. The breeze helped, too, blowing dust and sand in their faces.

  On our right flank, under a cavalry screen, Constantine was also moving up some siege engines, and I wondered at that until I saw what was on the carts behind them: my old ally Byzantine fire.

  At my vantage point, I sat Corvus and watched. Grabelius was bringing our 500 heavy dragoons into position behind me and I still had idle minutes to spare. Below, on my right, I saw soldiers wearing the bulky, vinegar-soaked leather coveralls of the fire artillery units. It was the protection they needed to handle the deadly mix of oily minerals, sulphur and resin that they would be lighting and lobbing onto the still-unsuspecting enemy. A few of our fire bearers were moving cautiously forward with the stirrup pumps they would use to spray flames directly at the opposing ranks.

  Carts carrying ceramic pots were rumbling up to have their containers filled with the deadly fuel mix and artillerymen were setting up wild asses and ballistae to fling the burning pots over the ranks of our own soldiers and onto the
enemy’s left wing. Constantine did not have the troops to envelope the enemy, but he was using the Tiber on one flank and a river of fire on the other to contain them in a narrower field. With the river behind them and our troops in front, they were effectively boxed in, so cramped they could not deploy their superior numbers.

  “They’ll be in hell soon, eh, Lord?” said Grabelius, nodding to the Roman ranks as the first fire bombs crashed down, shattered and splashed them with sticky, clinging fire that was near-impossible to extinguish.

  “They’re screaming now,” I said grimly, as the sounds of agonised men came to us, even upwind as we were. Several panicked Bactrian camels broke through the ranks, too, their hides on fire, their bellowing charge scattering men from both armies.

  “How are we coming along?” I asked my cavalry commander. “I’d best get down to Constantine and report.”

  *

  I found the emperor in the middle of a maelstrom of couriers, harassed officers and anxious-looking guards. He had set up his standards and command post on a small rise fewer than 400 paces from the bridge itself, perilously close in my mind, but he shrugged aside the attempts his officers made to move further back. “I want the legions to see me. I want them to know I’m in the line with them, more or less.”

  As I got closer, pushing through the throng, I saw he had a line of blood across the bridge of his nose, and I mentioned it with a: “Sword cut?”

  “No,” he grinned at me like a boy. “Damned horse threw me into a thorn bush yesterday when that fireball went over.” We grasped forearms in greeting and he waved at the melee of battle below us. “We had them on the back foot for a while, but they’re getting better organised. I need them broken up somehow, and I don’t think we have the numbers to do it,” he said quietly, so as not to be overheard.

  “I need another damned miracle like that fireball. The men think they can win, but the numbers are against us. I should not have left so many garrison troops in Gaul.” He grasped my elbow and pushed me forward. “There and there,” he pointed, “are Maxentius’ weakest spots. If we could break in with your heavies, we could split them like dead timber.”

  “You’re already setting them ablaze, Lord, what about floating fire rafts downriver into their rear ends?” I suggested.

  “They would stop them at the bridge,” he said gloomily. A great yell interrupted us. Maxentius had somehow wrangled five or six farm waggons across the damaged bridge, and was rolling them forward through the flames at his flank, using them as rolling platforms that shielded dozens of archers who were targeting Constantine’s artillerymen.

  Behind, in the shelter of the carts, men were making a bucket chain to the river and damping the Byzantine fire with water so there would be a path for an infantry movement through the wall of flames. As I watched a crew operating a stirrup pump that was jetting flame at the enemy halted, three of the five of them falling down, arrowstruck. And, ominously, over all the activity, we could hear the boom of the kettle drums and blare of the brass trumpets that the enemy were using to coordinate their manoevres.

  “They’re breaking out on that flank,” Constantine said calmly, issuing a spate of orders to move a countering force to meet the attack. “Now, “ he said, “how do we use those fine beasts of yours? Do you want to send them in behind a testudo?” He referred to the armoured tortoise-like formation of infantry, who ground their way forward under shelter of shields held before and over themselves. I shook my head. “They’d get in the way. If we could loosen the enemy formation we could send in the big horses and crash our way through, open the ranks that way, but, looking at that” – I gestured at the densely-packed Romans backed up against the Tiber – “there’s nowhere for them to go to get separated, except into the river.”

  “Then,” said Constantine, “it’s up to us to find a way to make them want to get in the river.”

  And the spectre of Myrddin burst into my mind. I had fought a riverbank battle once before and the sorcerer, who happily was on my side, had turned the tide with his magic, or non-magic. I had half an idea, and that triggered another half-idea. “How much time, Lord,” I asked, “can you give me?”

  Constantine shrugged. “I have more men marching in, this battle will go until dusk, but after that, we shall have to move back, and once that happens, and they have room to move, they will inevitably slaughter us. You have four, maybe five hours before this is all ended, I’d say. “

  I saluted and limped towards Corvus, bellowing for my tribunes and for several bright centurions I’d already marked for promotion. Myrddin was not here, Guinevia was not here, but I could use their magic because I’d seen it done, and I started issuing some frantic orders. Within minutes, three squadrons of light horse were galloping towards Ostia and the sea; two more squadrons were hurrying to the impedimenta train to collect certain supplies. All had strict commands to seize what we wanted, at swordpoint if necessary, we’d pay later, and then get back with the utmost haste.

  Meanwhile, our heavy cavalrymen were drawn off a short distance and issued with a new set of instructions that caused even the grimmest of them to crack smiles. And then they checked their weapons.

  XX - Demons

  First to canter back were the riders we’d sent to the impedimenta train, and they began distributing the supplies and equipment they had found there, while work parties dragged fuel to stack a line of bonfires. The wind, I noted, was still in about the right position for what I had in mind, leaving us upwind of the bridge and the front ranks of the enemy. I glanced at the sun, which was low; the late-October dusk was fast approaching, we might just have time…

  On cue, the first riders trotted in from the coast, with sacks slung across their saddle bows, sacks whose contents they also began distributing among the heavy cavalry. Constantine, too, was glancing at the setting sun, then nervously eyeing our left flank, which was slowly giving way under the irresistible pressure of Maxentius’ greater weight of forces. Only a desperate barrage from the slingers and archers was slowing the oncoming tide of the legions.

  “They’ll not hold much longer, and I can’t afford to send reinforcements without risking collapse in the centre,” he said matter-of-factly. “I have to hold these fellows,” pointing, “to throw in at the centre as we need them. I want a steady retreat of our centre to envelope Maxentius between our horns. If we can grab him in a pincer like a blacksmith’s, or like Hannibal did to Varro at Cannae, then we can defeat him, but if the right goes,” he shrugged, “we’re neck deep in the shit. Your magic had best work soon,” he said. “In a half hour at most, we’ll be forced too far back on the left and then we’ll face a bloody business.”

  Instinctively, I glanced right, to where the bonfires were now burning brightly. Alongside them a swarm of troopers were setting up the apparatus from the baggage train, and I saw officers racing from rig to rig. Behind the bonfires, in a small fold of the land and in the shadows of an olive grove, the dragoons were mostly dismounted and working with the contents of the sacks, the last of which were just arriving from Ostia.

  Grabelius galloped up, saluted briefly and announced: “We have the fire dragons ready, Lord, the men have been issued with the shellfish and the fires are ready, too.” I nodded, and Constantine breathed deeply, then said: “Do it.”

  Grabelius turned in the saddle and waved, his attentive officers began throwing piles of wet leaves onto the bonfires and in moments, a dense white smoke began rolling towards the enemy lines. From my vantage, I could see what was happening in the clearer air behind the fires, and I saw the dragoons mounting up onto their big horses. “With your permission, Lord?” I asked Constantine, indicating with an inclination of my head that I wanted to join my cavalrymen.

  “May all the gods go with you,” he said, and I galloped away.

  Dusk was closing in rapidly now, the bank of white smoke was almost at the front ranks of the enemy, who we later found thought we planned to retreat under its cover. I arrived at our squadrons of
horses as they hauled up their red and white shields. They were still holding their mounts steady. Behind me, our artillerymen were waiting for the signal. My glance went down the line of horse heads and even though I knew what I was seeing, a shiver ran down my spine.

  Every horse and every rider had a pale, eerie visage, an unearthly luminescent glow that seemed to come from the depths of the Underworld. The men had taken the shellfish called piddock or angelwings that we had brought from Ostia, and crushed it in their mouths. This released a luminous essence which they smeared on their own faces and their horse’s brows and muzzles. In the dusk, they looked like glowing spectres, and the black horses especially looked like steeds from Hades.

  I bellowed in my biggest parade ground voice that the gods were with us – had they not sent a great thunderbolt yesterday to give us signal of their approval? “We cannot lose!” I shouted, and a rumble of growls came from my ranked horsemen. “Let us go in and scythe down these traitors!” I yelled. “Ride in hard, aim at their bellies, trample over them. We have the big horses, we have the lances and we have the gods!”

  A ripple of cheers ran down the line. I motioned the front ranks to walk forward into the dense smoke bank, turned and waved ‘Ready!’ to the artillerymen, who were standing by a line of tripod-like structures. Each contained a battery of what the Qinese called ‘exploding bamboo’ and were a secret from hundreds of years ago obtained for me by Myrddin.

  The Qinese in the remote lands beyond the Silk Roads had discovered that by mixing kitchen ingredients like saltpetre, charcoal and sulphur, packed into a hollow bamboo or other tube - we used tied-off heavy parchment and cow horn – you could create a combustible fire dragon that would scare off demons and ghosts with a shower of sparks and explosions.