The King's Cavalry Read online

  Fifty years before we arrived, the place had seen the departure of the last legion, the Minerva, not so long after Julianus had reinforced the walls. We found most of the castrum in fair condition, including a small temple to the Batavian god, Magusanus, and made offering to him, discreetly stacking our red-crossed, Christian shields inside the fort walls before a troop of us, all outward Christians, all privately pagans, paid our respects. It was a relief to me to do so openly, as I was tormented by the thought that the true gods might bring disaster on me for my outward faith to the Christian god.

  Spiritually refreshed, we marched on through the land of the Tungri and Eburones to their walled capital, Tungrorum, which was a one-time Roman administrative centre on the road from Cologne to Bavay. These were fertile lands, with handsome villas and burial tumuli dotting the landscape and the city’s importance as a crossroads was underscored by an eight-sided pillar marked with distances to other cities across the continent.

  I had looked it over. “To Rome: 854,000 paces,” it said. That was 54 days’ unhurried marching at about 15 miles a day. My troops could halve that time almost without effort, I knew, but there would be no need for it. I had no intention of going to Rome. Now Bavay, that was different, I thought as we trotted south to our rendezvous with King Stelamann. We’d pass through that town on our way home, and I remembered the place’s welcoming thermal baths, fine aqueduct and beautiful forum. The place was awash in temples, too, seven of them, even one to the fearsome god Bel. I had good memories of Bavay and I looked forward to a visit on our way north, with a fine horse herd, I hoped.

  Grabelius interrupted my daydreaming. “That must be Vallis, Lord,” he said, pointing to a distant hilltop fortification.

  “Probably,” I said, jolting back to the present, and kneeing my horse to quicken his pace.

  In a matter of a couple of hours we were clattering into the courtyard and the king himself was out to welcome us. I slyly watched Grabelius’ stunned reaction. Stelamann was tall, and looked even taller from the way he fashioned his hair into long, lime-paste-supported spikes. This bristling mane was accompanied by a whitened, drooping moustache and a bared chest full of swooping, curling tattoos. A lethal-looking, long dagger, leaf bladed and bone handled, hung from his belt and his checked trews were tucked into long, soft, leather riding boots.

  I’m a big man, but Stelamann’s spiked hair made him even bigger and when we embraced, clasping forearms Roman-style, he seemed a giant, overtopping me. “Welcome, king,” he rumbled.

  “I am glad to be here, brother,” I responded.

  “You come at a hard time,” he said, “and you may need that great sword of yours,” nodding to Exalter at my hip.

  Quickly, he sketched the political situation. The Romans had been retreating from their old frontiers under pressure from the Germanic tribes but recently had been reinforcing their troops in Colonia, called Cologne, on the Rhine. This was only a few days’ hard travel north and east of Stelamann’s kingdom and he was expecting demands for tribute that would be backed up by the legions’ spears. “We might well find ourselves shield to shield with the Romans again, soon,” he said gloomily. I grunted.

  “We’d best get our heavy cavalry organised, then,” I said. “Have you got horses for me?”

  He had. Grabelius and his cavalrymen were in awe. The copers had brought in some fine animals, black and dark brown Frisians with white stars; long-maned and with feathery, silky hair on the lower legs. These were powerful horses with long arched necks and well-structured shoulders, muscular hindquarters and deep chests. One or two were taller at the shoulder than a man’s head height, all were fine large beasts that towered above the standard, sturdy near-ponies we were used to seeing as cavalry horses.

  Quirinus had done well, scouring the region to get such a herd together, and sending envoys south into the alpine meadows of Noricum to bring back several score of the heavy horses that were used as draught animals there. The traders who heard of the British gold on offer had also brought some Nisean horses, bay, chestnut and as brown as seals, that were robust, heavy-hoofed and powerful. They were easily distinguished from the other beasts by the horn-like, bony knobs on their foreheads, and were prized for their comfortable, silky gait as the world’s smoothest-riding horses.

  Our cavalrymen were ecstatic, and the days and weeks passed in a welter of saddlery, training, grooming and exercising as the horses and men worked together to meld into a fighting force unlike any the world had seen.

  King Stelamann was glad to host our troop, recognising its military worth and enjoying the security it gave against any Roman approach and I was content to see the cavalry force forming into a viable unit before we began our trek back north. I twice had messages from Britain that all was well and in those early days of summer, by the beautiful River Meuse, I was satisfied to see my cavalry take shape. Sadly, the peace did not last.

  Maxentius’ administrators had intercepted cargo of timber, grain, charcoal, hides and walnuts that King Stelamann had sent downriver to the trading post at Forum Hadriani, and they sent a patrol to investigate the king’s granaries and warehouses and to levy taxes on them. By chance, the mounted squadron arrived on a day when almost all our cavalry was out to the south on an exercise, so they did not see the horse lines, but they did eyeball the uniform rows of military tents and could form an estimate of the absent force.

  I was downstream from the tent lines, working with two of my troopers to dig a latrine trench. It was a fine day, I was clad only in my trews and boots, was dirt-streaked and sweating. A yell from the garrison sentry on the ramparts alerted us to the arrival of the Roman patrol, about 40 of them, on hardy moorland ponies. I glanced up, shrugged and carried on digging. Tax collectors. By chance, the Romans had approached from the side where we three men were working. The officer at the head of the column rode his mount to us and looked down.

  “Get out of there, you,” he said, “and take me to whoever is in charge here.” The two troopers with me grinned and I thought to go along with the joke. “Yes, sir,” I said, climbing out of the hole. “Please follow me, sir, this way sir, please sir.”

  The Roman caught the slavish insolence and struck me across the back of the neck with his vitis, the vinewood staff that is symbol of a centurion’s rank. I spun around and he backhanded me again across the face, temporarily blinding my right eye. The pain sparked the overwhelming rage that welled up in me in familiar form, a buzzing, irresistible force that makes seconds seem like minutes. The world brightens and slows to underwater pace, my senses are heightened and quickened, and that sweet fighting madness swamps my will. I am invincibly faster, stronger and more skilled and I joyfully surrender to the emotion.

  Without conscious thought, I cupped my two hands under the Roman’s dangling foot and heaved to tip him off his horse. The man catapulted upwards, clean out of the saddle, to crash, helmeted head first, into the ground on the other side of the pony. Before he even landed, I was ducking under the horse’s head. Then I was on him, hands around his throat. He struggled half-upright, putting me behind and above him. It took an instant. My right hand was around his neck and grasping my own left bicep and my left hand went in practised way against the back of the man’s helmet.

  One short, vicious heaving twist upwards, sideways and back produced a sharp crack as the vertebrae separated. The man’s spine snapped and his head lolled. I dropped the body, noting dispassionately that he had blood running from his mouth where he had bitten deep into his tongue. His troopers were sitting their mounts, gaping and still. Then the spell broke. The first few kicked their horses forward at me, my two men were scrambling out of the trench and I was diving back towards it, to grab a weapon of some kind.

  All I could find was a wooden spade but it badly hurt two of the legionaries before I went down under the flat of a gladius’s blade. It came from the right and made a clunking noise on my skull. I never saw it coming through my blinded eye, but somebody wanted me alive for
a slower death than my two troopers had received on the Roman spear points that bright morning.

  The movement and jolting brought me back to consciousness and I found myself staring one-eyed up at the stars, bound and laid out in the bed of a farm waggon. Alongside me was the body of the centurion I’d killed. To judge by the stiffness and pain through most of my body, I felt he had the better of it, but all I could do was grit my teeth and wait for matters to improve.

  Some things did get better, others got much worse, and three days later, we arrived at their great castrum in Mainz where the sullen troopers had to explain their centurion’s death and where I expected to receive mine. One positive I could take from the situation, I thought as I was pushed into a stone-built cell, was that the Romans had no idea who I was. Another plus: I knew the town. I had been here before when I was recovering from wounds and I had friends among the XXII Primogenia legion that was stationed here, almost all of them Mithraists. If I could get word to them, I might have a hope.

  VII - Italia

  The legates Grabelius and Quirinus were anxious. They had been summoned back to Vallis by courier and returned with the heavy cavalry, the horses flecked with foam and stained with salt from a long hard ride. They found the citadel gates barred closed and the garrison on alert.

  King Stelamann rapidly painted the picture. “Arthur killed their officer, then was himself captured and taken away. You lost two men in the skirmish. The Romans were not strong enough to enter the fortress, but I did not have enough men here to sally out against them.” The Roman patrol had set fire to the tent lines but had done little else. “They were probably in a hurry to get their dead centurion back to base and to report on the signs of new soldiers here,” said the monarch. “I have called on the local people to hide their valuables, get in what crops they can and bring themselves and their flocks inside, for I expect the Romans will be back in force.” The king had also sent notice to his allies that the legionaries were active again, in case the tribesmen needed to ready for conflict.

  Grabelius asked for and was promised the services of two guides who could lead the British cavalry to the Roman base where they guessed the patrol had taken Arthur. “They will be at Mainz, not Colonia,” said the king. “It is the strategic centre, where the Main empties into the Rhine, and there is a bridge, a big one with 20 or more piers. The place is the key to the east and the keystone of Gaul’s defences against the Alemanni and the Chatti.”

  “We have to find Arthur,” said Quirinus. “We can’t expect to take on a legion with just a couple of hundred cavalrymen, but maybe we can find and free him.” The legates nodded agreement to each other.

  “Give the troops one day to rest and feed the horses and to ready for the next part of this mission,” said Grabelius. “We have to find our king before he is executed. May the gods be with him.”

  The two looked at each other, the thought unspoken. They shared Arthur’s fear that the true gods were angered by their declaration for Christianity. “We should make sacrifice to Jupiter,” said Quirinus.

  “And Mithras,” said Grabelius. “Tonight, before we head for Mainz.”

  The soldiers did not know it, but the bishop at the root of the crisis of beliefs, Bishop Candless the Pict, had already passed that city. He was well past Mainz on his way to Rome. The bishop was travelling with an entourage and making good time, 25 or more miles each day, for he was eager to reach Rome and Queen Helena before she could distribute any of the precious relics he knew she had collected in Jerusalem.

  Candless was once a warrior, and he knew that the gold he carried, for gold would be needed to acquire relics, and the impedimenta of his train would attract bandits. He had accordingly gathered a proper guard for the entourage, headed by a warrior from the south, Kenetis Potius, who had served in Mainz and fought with the XXII Primogenia legion against the tribes of the Danube.

  It was Potius who had overseen the equipment of his 80-man century at Bononia. Every soldier was kitted out Roman-style, from the heavy wool tunic that stretched to the knees, through the oiled-wool sagum, a hooded cloak that was his blanket, groundsheet, coat and sometimes the infantryman’s shroud, to the knee breeches, wool underpants and the toeless socks worn inside the closed, ankle-high, leather marching boots. These boots had soles that were cunningly nailed in an S or D pattern to spread the jolting load diagonally as the foot struck the ground, and they significantly reduced fatigue.

  The consul Gaius Marius had reformed the army several centuries before, loading much of the supplies and weaponry onto the legionaries who could carry it further and faster than the impedimenta trains hauled by plodding oxen, and the soldiers had since then ruefully referred to themselves as Marius’ Mules.

  But, even under full 80 lbs load of weapons, equipment and food supplies, those tough Mules could swiftly cover the ground, and Potius was resolved that his century would be a full match for any Roman infantry.

  He knew what he was doing, and he saw to it that the British footsloggers’ military packs, carried on a short pole, contained all they needed. There was a two-week supply of food, including imported fish paste flavouring and precious salt; a cooking kit, cloak bag, leather shield cover, spare socks and underwear. Lashed to the outside was an entrenching tool, and a six-foot heavy stake that would form part of the palisade of an overnight camp.

  For weapons, each man had a weighted javelin, a thrusting spear, a foot-long punching knife at his belt, and a gladius, the stabbing broadsword that had won battles for the legions from Persia to Pictland. This sword was carried sheathed over the right shoulder, to be snatched free after the javelin and the heavy darts that were clipped behind the legionary’s shield had been hurled at the enemy.

  The shield itself was a weapon. Tall, oblong and curved, the elmwood and leather scutum had a large bronze boss in its centre, and the soldiers used that as a punching weapon, smashing the shield forward into the enemy before stamping forward and crushing him under foot.

  For the legionary’s own protection, he wore chainmail over his wool tunic, or sometimes acquired the lighter, preferred segmentata armour that hung hoops of iron around his chest like the carapace of a lobster. This segmentata was often worn over a leather tunic liberally greased with lanolin, and the soldier wore a scarf at the throat to prevent chafing. Topping it all was a metal helmet with horsehair crest, metal cheek flaps and a deep tail to protect the nape of the neck.

  Candless had grumbled at the silver he had to spend to equip the guards, but he had plenty and the expedition should bring him a fortune. “We’ll obviously need supplies on the march, too,” Potius told the Pict. “So bring plenty of coin, we’ll be travelling for two months or so. Each way.”

  Candless didn’t correct him. Privately, the bishop expected his return journey to be much shorter and less arduous. He opted to go to Rome overland because he needed the protection of a guard from a possibly-vengeful Caesar and he could not ship all those men and their equipment by water. But he planned to sail back from Rome if the season were not too late. He did not want his newly-acquired, precious relics to be at the mercy of every Belgic brigand or Gallic robber as the convoy trundled back across Gaul. A sea voyage from Ostia to Massalia in southern Gaul, then a river voyage up the great waterways from the southern coast to the northern shores and a swift voyage across the Narrow Sea was what he planned.

  The soldiers could march back, they’d be home by the turn of the year. The bishop, Bilic his bodyguard captain and a squad of picked men would sail back more swiftly and in greater comfort and safety.

  Candless was considering that return voyage as his train marched towards Rome. In the previous weeks, they had left the coast at Bononia, moved south through Bavay and on to Reims, where Arthur’s one-time mint lay shuttered and locked by the river. The blank walls of the town had been witness to a skill the bishop did not display often. At dusk, he had strolled out through the western gate to observe the sunset. Alone, seeming unarmed and in a cleric’s fin
e robe, he had attracted the attention of a cutpurse who stalked him to a quiet place.

  There, the man produced a knife and demanded the bishop’s coins. Candless never hesitated. He seized the man’s tunic in both hands, dragged him forward and off balance and headbutted him unconscious in one swift and practiced motion. “Robbing ME!” he murmured indignantly as he turned away. On impulse, he swiveled and leaned over the unconscious man, fumbled at his belt and pulled up the man’s own purse.

  A clink of coin told him there was reward in it. “For the poor, my son, for the poor,” he said aloud as he slipped the leather bag beneath his surplice. “God thanks you.”

  From Reims, the troupe took Agricola’s great highway south to the foothills of the Alps, turning east to Basel and halting for several days’ rest and repairs at Brigantia before beginning the laborious climbs and descents over the passes of the mountain ramparts of Cisalpine Gaul.

  In the second month of travel, Candless and his hardened men had marched past the blue lake of Como and had gaped at the splendour of the imperial palace in Milan. They had crossed the multiple rivers that water the soft-lit northern plains, the Padus, Rigony, Paala, Saternum and Animo, and were marching to the seacoast of the Adriaticus on the Via Aemilia. Rome was only a week away, now.

  News of the bishop’s mission had run ahead of him as he entered Italia and a steady stream of monks and preachers had attached themselves to Candless’ entourage, seeking patronage or reward from this distinguished prince of the church. Potius and Bilic tried to keep them away from their master, but some had useful information and the Pict patiently heard them all.

  “There are tombs of the apostles Paul and Peter on the Via Ostia, and there are oratories over their graves,” one lean, unkempt hermit confided as he strode alongside Candless’ palfrey. “They have been there since the reign of Domitian.” Another mendicant insisted that the tombs were where the apostles had died – near the Vatican itself, the palace of the pontiff, while a third insisted that Peter was buried near the Tomb of Nero on the Via Aurelia.