The King's Cavalry Page 9

  The courier was still standing there, at attention. He obviously was waiting for my reply. I gave it to him. “Please inform the emperor that I shall be following him,” I said, and suppressed a sigh. Then I called for Grabelius and Quirinus, my cavalry commander and his fellow tribune. We were now going to Verona and then probably, to Rome. The year was 312 in the Christian calendar, soon it would be autumn. My concern was that we might not be back in time to cross the Alps during the winter snows, I had no idea that I was the pagan riding to try to save a religion he despised: Christianity. The Fates must have been cackling that day as they spun the threads of my future.

  Grabelius did a fine job and our cavalry looked splendid as we trotted out of Milan’s southeast gates on the Via Porticata. Ahead of the main body of about 500 men trotted several troops of Asturian outriders, mostly horse archers mounted on their Asturcon ponies, which were easily identified even from a distance. They ambled, or moved oddly sideways whenever their gait exceeded a walk.

  Behind them, and heading the squadrons of heavy cavalry were the conical-helmeted descendants of Sarmatian auxiliaries who had first been stationed in northwest Britain two centuries ago. These fine cavalrymen’s forefathers had been taken as hostages from their homeland and put to duties that included guarding the lands around the Wall of Hadrian. They worshipped Epona, Gallic goddess of the horse, fought under a dragon banner and had bred and trained much of the heavy cavalry of my command. They were so horse-oriented that after their discharge from the military, they refused to live in houses, but instead returned to reside in waggons like those that had been their homes on the Steppes a century before.

  Most of them were mounted on heavy Roman horses from the transalpine region but some had the splendid big Frisians that were the pride of our cohort. We bought the animals as three year olds, and within a year or so they were fully trained and would serve as the world’s finest war horses for more than a dozen more years.

  My only regret was that most of our Frisians were geldings. We had kept some uncut for stud purposes, but those prideful war horse stallions could be less than tractable, and although the Sarmatians handled them well, it was most practical to neuter the beasts. The Persian Nisean breed, of which we also had a fair number, were large horses with a very comfortable gait, but they were not of the same class as the Frisians in terms of intelligence, aggression and loyalty, but they certainly were better than the Steppes ponies of the Huns and other tribes and fitted well with our excellent cavalry.

  In barracks, our troopers lived in the same building as the stables, their quarters backing onto the horse stalls at ground level while the servants and grooms lived in attics built above the stalls – and smelly, smoky places they were, too. I’d remarked on it during inspections: the grooms always stank of ammoniac horse urine and smoke from the troopers’ fires. It was a standing joke about the grooms’ stink, and some regarded it as a badge of honour because it showed how devoted they were to their charges.

  The troopers were even closer to their mounts, which they trusted with their lives, and almost all spent far more time than necessary tending to the beasts’ needs and training. That included teaching the horse to bite and flail with his hooves at an infantryman, to leap and kick backwards at any attempt to hamstring him, to turn and wheel on commands which were transmitted by knee pressure so his rider’s hands were free for weapons, and to perform other movements of both attack and defence.

  The Romans themselves were not great horsemen, preferring to rely on their armoured infantry to grind enemies under, and they usually employed auxiliaries for cavalry duty, but the Celts and Britons were highly regarded as equestrians and with reason. For myself, I prized our cavalry and knew the value of having the biggest, heaviest horses, as they could intimidate as well as carry better armour. In the battle ranks, Grabelius allocated a space of about three feet by eight to each mount, and the Frisians were easy to find. At 15 handspans tall at the withers, or about a half-head shorter than a man’s height, they towered over the usual pony-sized cavalry mounts whose riders’ feet could often touch the ground whilst in the saddle.

  Yet even the pony soldiers could do great damage to an infantry line. The Parthians used horse archers to skirmish with enemy formations to loosen them, then sent in heavily-armoured shock cavalry armed with lances to shatter the disjointed enemy ranks. Another Caspian tribe, the Roxolani protected their horses with mail coats or horn scale armour, and their riders carried wicker shields and wore protective corselets of raw oxhide. Some opted for leather bands like hooped segmentata armour as reinforcement over leather backing, and sometimes continued the leather, apron-like undergarment down as a skirt that helped protect their horse, too.

  I had studied their war gear and concluded it offered less protection than Roman segmentata, but the small size of the Roxolani ponies meant they were unable to carry fully-armoured riders. This, I felt, was the key. Big horses could carry well-protected men. Speed was not really needed. No horse would charge fully into a standing line of spears, so most ‘charges’ were made at a moderate pace and the lancers would halt just short of the enemy ranks and engage the opposition from above, with longer-reaching weapons than the enemy infantry possessed.

  I sat my big war horse Corvus, who was as black as the raven for which he was named, and watched the cavalcade pass. After the skirmishers and scouts, after the Sarmatians on their fine heavy horses came the Britons, my warriors of the chevron, on their huge Frisians, and my heart warmed to see them.

  Grabelius was acting under my specific orders for this critical march. We had much travel ahead of us and we had to make time on Constantine though we would be moving through a land riven by civil war. Two columns, I thought, would be best, and would facilitate deployment to a flank, or even to echelon if attacked. “We’ll need all the usual security: advance guards, covering detachments, flank and rear guards. The men are to be instructed that anyone who drops out must not do so alone, and should continue to march during the five minutes per hour rest periods to make up distance lost to his unit,” I told my commanders.

  I expected to cover 35 miles a day, and laid down specifics to sustain the pace so the condition of both men and horses would be maintained. The beasts were to be walked at not more than four miles per hour, trotted at no more than eight, and there would be no galloping unless a tactical situation demanded it. Unsound animals, either by reason of age or incapacity, were to be left at a mansio en route, as they would slow the entire column.

  We would be on good roads almost the entire way, and would use the cool of early morning and evening to avoid the late summer’s heat, but troopers should use horse covers to keep their animals from chilling when halted.

  There was a litany of other orders, including a critical one: watering the horses may be necessary during the day’s heat. The animals can go all day without water, but in dusty, hot conditions, we must water them every few hours. However, if the water facilities are small or congested and could cause long delays, they should only be used when the animals are in extreme need.

  “These orders may seem like a concentration on minutiae, gentlemen,” I told my officers, “but we must make very good time on this march, we must remain secure and I want every man and horse to arrive in excellent condition and ready for combat if required.” For I guessed, though I had not spelled it out, that Constantine wanted my presence with my elite cavalry to show what Christian armies he might command. That would be a powerful token in the game of dice he was throwing with his rival.

  If Constantine could demonstrate that his ally was the Emperor of Britain who had formed the Christian army that defeated Maximian, he might sufficiently impress Maxentius to ascend to the imperial throne without bloodshed. I had to admire the man’s political brain even if I was being used as a playing piece in his game.

  XVI - Verona

  We rode into Constantine’s meticulously-ordered marching camp in time to join the battle, and the emperor himself strode
out of his campaign tent to greet me. I slid down from Corvus and we grasped forearms, old style. “Welcome, Emperor of Britain,” he greeted me, graciously I felt.

  “Lord,” I murmured, bowing my head. I knew where I stood in the scheme of things. This man was the master of the world, once he’d disposed of Maxentius and one or two other nuisances.

  “In here,” he gestured, striding into his pavilion tent. “Let me give you a briefing, quickly, so we understand each other.” I nodded, appreciating his directness. “We’ve had too much civil war, it’s time for one strong man to rule Rome. My rival Maxentius has recognised, as I do, the value of the Christians, he’s even appointed another Eusebius, of Caesarea, as bishop of Rome, but he’s not doing much more. We have to give them full recognition, they’re too many to ignore. You’ve learned that.”

  It was a shrewd observation, and I squirmed a little. I’d publicly adopted the Christian god and had led a so-called Christian army to victory but I, myself and many of my warriors, were private pagans. I nodded.

  “When I’m in sole command, their religion will unite the entire empire, I’ll see to that. We have to have the Jesus followers inside the tent pissing out, not outside pissing in. At this time, I’m in full charge of my father’s army and territories, but Maxentius has bought up a lot of troops, including Severus’ entire army, the Praetorians, Galerius’ men, the imperial horse guard and the African forces, which ensure his grain supplies.

  “Now, I’ve had some success here in the north and I have a policy of not burning or looting, which meant that Turin refused to let Maxentius’ people in after I defeated them, but opened the gates to me instead. The same went for Milan. I want you to know this, and to inform your troops. We need the populace’s cooperation. Execute all looters and rapists, understand?”

  I’m a big man, a professional soldier and the ruler of Britain, but there was no withstanding this man’s force, and anyway, it made sense. He didn’t wait for my grunt of acquiescence, he took it for granted. He was in command, as always.

  “Take a look at the situation here,” he said, spreading a scroll on a camp table. “This is Verona. It sits in a loop of this river, which is too fast for us. The usual way in is over this peninsula to the west and they’ve reinforced that neck of land, as you’d expect. It’s a tough nut, but I’ve got them besieged at present, and I’m told there is a ford which we can use to attack from two sides. This would let us cut their supply line, too. I have scouts checking it as we speak.”

  The emperor straightened up and grinned with big, yellow teeth. I understood he was impatient to send me on my way, he wasn’t going to ask me for anything, he simply expected my cooperation. I gulped. This, if ever, was the time. “About your father,” I began. “It was necessary.” It had been necessary, too. I’d personally executed the Caesar Constantius Chlorus after defeating his invasion. Left alive, he would have simply tried again, until he executed me. His son gazed at me thoughtfully.

  “You did,” he said. There was a pause as if he’d forgotten what I had done, until now.

  “Yes,” he said. “You did what you had to do. He would have taken your head in the same circumstances. At least he died cleanly. I bear you no grudge. I hardly knew the man myself, and my mother disliked him intensely.” I think I let out a gust of breath I did not know I had been holding. Constantine showed me his yellow teeth again, but there was no humour in his face. “You do what you must, in war,” he said, and I knew he’d kill me if it was expeditious. “Look at me,” he said. “I’m married to Fausta, and she is Maxentius’ sister. I’m at war with my own brother-in-law. It’s not personal, it’s just military matters. Now, look, go and see what we’re doing about this siege. I’d guess we’ll get them outside their walls at some stage, and you might as well check the ground. I want you to use your cavalry to advantage.”

  Outside the pavilion, a tribune took me to view Constantine’s preparations. He’d mounted a full, formal siege and my heart sank. It could take months. As the Fates had it, it did not.

  Over the next week, the hidden ford allowed Constantine’s men to mount some fierce, simultaneous attacks on two sides of Verona’s walls, so threatening that the defending general, a praetorian called Pompeianus, sallied out with a strong force to repel the attackers. He failed. Constantine’s armoured ranks drove the besieged back inside their castrum and the big siege engines began their constant pounding again, hurling missiles, blazing firepots and rocks at the fortifications; a pontoon bridge was thrown across the river so we could roll siege towers up to the walls and a half-cohort of sappers began burrowing to undercut a corner tower.

  *

  Pompeieanus took advantage of a moonless night and his determined cavalry squadrons and broke out to seek reinforcements. A mere week later, he was back with a new army sent from the south, and for the first time, Constantine openly called on me and my heavy horse to fight for him.

  “We’ll have to face them on two fronts,” Constantine said cheerfully. “I’ve got the engineers throwing up an extra palisade across the peninsula, so we can bottle them up inside their own walls, and we’ve built a strong point to hold the ford, too. We’ll throw what we have at Pompeianus before he gets too close.”

  I have to admit, Constantine was a brilliant general. He sent a screen of horse archers out to harry the enemy ranks, hurled an ironclad infantry wedge right through their centre and deployed me and my heavy cavalry to thunder into the enemy’s left flank. The foot soldiers broke into fragmented ranks, the horsemen rolled them up from both ends and the carnage was both swift and total. Even the losing general Pompeianus died in that afternoon’s welter of blood and iron. As the late summer shadows lengthened, the killing ground was littered with dead and dying, and not one soldier had been able to sally out from the enemy oppidum to help.

  The victory was so shockingly complete it utterly demoralised the watching garrison and two days later they surrendered. Several days later, as we were finishing the burials, envoys arrived from Etruria and Umbria to declare that their cities cast their lot with the emperor. The conquest of Verona had not gone unnoticed. Constantine discreetly abandoned his own claims to divinity, and swiftly made a public announcement that he was God’s envoy on earth, and that Christianity would be his state cult.

  He was, he pointed out, by ancient prophecy under the protection of the Christian god because he had a portion of the Holy Nail of Christ’s death incorporated into his war helmet. This, and the sacred red cross of the Christians that the army now carried on their shields (“So that’s what it is,” soldiers nudged their companions) guaranteed, absolutely guaranteed victory against the ungodly.

  “It was probably an error to persecute the Christians,” he confided to me during a rare drinking session together. “It’s a bit of a revolution to bring them inside the tent, but we need their numbers, and I suspect their young god is more powerful than the old, enfeebled gods of our fathers. They are mostly impotent now, I think. Why else would Rome be in such sharp decline?”

  I muttered something or other, secretly fingering the small hammer of Thor that is concealed at all times under my tunic. I was still searching for my own ways to restore Britain, still puzzling over what could bring back the old gods of my country. A week later, my problem still unsolved, we turned our horses’ heads south. We were headed for Rome and the greatest battle of them all.

  XVII - Mosaic

  Guinevia’s psychic antennae were quivering. She had sent out her thoughts and communicated with her mentor, the sorcerer Myrddin, to tell him how he might begin to seek the all-important Torc of Caratacus, and this day she registered a summons that resonated in her mind. Myrddin wanted her back in Britain and she knew with every fibre of her soul that it was urgent. That afternoon, she was aboard a trader’s blunt-bowed vessel and heading for Dover. Four days later, she was in a speedy raeda carriage and clattering under the south gate’s arch of the castrum at Deva. Myrddin was standing in the courtyard, calmly waiting an
d watching. He had made the short journey from Yr Wyddfa in full knowledge that she would hear his telepathic message and would respond at once, for he had much to tell her.

  The sorcerer took his time. He waited until Guinevia’s maid had washed and fed the travel-weary Druidess, then settled her comfortably near the fire in Arthur’s chamber overlooking the harbour pool of the Dee.

  Myrddin began pacing back and forth, eyes closed, as he began his account. “The gods of Britain loosened their hold on our country four or five centuries ago, and this allowed the rapacious Romans to invade and take over our land,” he began.

  “The Druids who formed the bridge between the people and their gods had long warned that this might happen if we did not pay suitable tribute of worship and sacrifice but kings and their people who were more concerned with their own activities and pleasures relegated the Druids to roles as mere seers and judges and turned away from oak-worship and the cult of the mistletoe.”

  Guinevia shifted uneasily. As an adept who had almost completed her two decades of Druidical study, she was one of the elite few empowered to cut the mysterious mistletoe with an iron blade. The plant that lived halfway between earth and heaven and contained the essence of male gods was so sacred that even casual mention of it bordered on blasphemy.

  Myrddin was still speaking. “The Romans understood the importance of communication between gods and men, so set about destroying Britain’s go-betweens, and the Druids retreated to the isle of Mona, off the coast of Wales. Meanwhile, the invaders and their war elephants crushed the British, including the great king Caratacus, who was defeated at Caer Caradoc, then was handed over by Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes to be taken in chains to Rome.”