Centurion (3 page)

A handful of them nodded and some managed a few words of acknowledgement. Septimus cleared his throat. ‘What about you, sir? You can’t come with us.’

‘I know. I’ll stay here and deal with the standard. They can’t be allowed to take that.’ Castor held his hand out to the cohort’s signifer. ‘Here, let me have it.’

The standard-bearer hesitated a moment, and then stepped forward and handed the shaft over to his commander. ‘Take care of it, sir.’

Castor nodded as he grasped the standard firmly and used it to support the weight on his injured leg. Around them the crackle and soft roar of flames filled the warm air and a lurid orange glow lit up the ground around the watchtower. Castor staggered towards the narrow wooden staircase in the corner. ‘When I get to the roof, I’ll give the order to charge. Make every thrust of your spears and every blow of your swords count, lads.’

‘We will, sir,’ Septimus replied softly.

Castor nodded and clasped the centurion’s arm briefly, and then, gritting his teeth, he made for the roof, painfully working his way up the wooden stairs as the air grew heated around him and wisps of smoke curled into the orange light seeping through the windows and arrow slits. By the time he reached the roof, the side of the watchtower closest to the enemy was ablaze. Castor could see scores of Parthians waiting in the bright glare of the flames and he drew a deep breath.

‘Centurion Septimus! Now! Charge!’

There was a thin chorus of war cries from the base of the tower and Castor saw the Parthians raise their bows, concentrating their aim, and then the air was filled with the flitting dark splinters of their arrows. Over the parapet he saw the small compact body of his men charging out across the site. Their shoulders were hunched down behind their shields as they ran straight at the enemy, following Septimus as he bellowed insults at the Parthians. The archers stood their ground and shot their arrows as fast as they could at the moving target. Those who still had fire arrows to hand loosed those and brilliant flaring paths cut through the air towards the auxiliaries. Several lodged in shields and burned there as their owners ran on. Then Castor saw Septimus suddenly draw up and stand still, his sword dropping from his hand as he clutched at the point of an arrow that had passed through his neck as the last of his cries still echoed over the site. Then he slumped to his knees and toppled forward on to the ground, writhing feebly as he bled to death.

The auxiliaries closed round his body and raised their shields. Castor watched them in bitter frustration. The impetus of the charge had died with Septimus and now they were picked off one by one as Parthian arrows found their way in between the shields and pierced the flesh of the men behind. Castor did not wait to see the end. Leaning heavily on the standard he crossed to the far side of the platform and looked down the cliff towards the river. Far below the mist had cleared and moonlight rippled off the swirling current as it flowed over some rocks. Castor tipped his head back and looked into the serene depths of the heavens and breathed the night air deep into his lungs.

A sudden crash of timber from the far side of the tower made him glance round and he knew that there was no time left if he was to make sure the standard did not fall into enemy hands. Through the wavering curtain of the flames and smoke he could see the shimmering ranks of the Parthians and he knew that this was only the beginning. Soon a tide of fire and destruction would spill across the desert and threaten to engulf the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. Castor grasped the shaft of the standard firmly in both hands and limped to the very edge of the platform. He took one last deep breath and gritted his teeth and then hurled himself into the void.

‘This is as good as life gets.’ Macro smiled as he leaned back against the wall of the Bountiful Amphora, his usual drinking hole, and stretched his legs out in front of him. ‘Finally, I got my posting to Syria. You know what, Cato?’

‘What?’ His companion stirred and blinked his eyes open.

‘It’s every bit as good as I hoped it would be.’ Macro shut his eyes and relished the warmth of the sun on his weathered face. ‘Good wines, fairly priced women who know a trick or two and fine dry weather. There’s even a decent library.’

‘I’d never have thought you’d take an interest in books,’ said Cato. In recent months Macro had nearly sated his epicurean desires and had taken to reading. Admittedly his preference was for bawdy comedies and erotica, but, Cato reasoned, at least he was reading something and there was a chance that it might lead to more challenging material.

Macro smiled. ‘This is a good enough spot for now. A warm climate and warm women. I tell you, after that campaign in Britain I never want to see another Celt as long as I live.’

‘Too right,’ Centurion Cato murmured with feeling as he recalled the cold, the damp and the mist-wreathed marshes through which he and Macro, and the men of the Second Legion, had fought their way across the Empire’s most recent acquisition. ‘Still, it wasn’t so bad in the summer.’

‘Summer?’ Macro frowned. ‘Ah, you must mean that handful of days we had between winter and autumn.’

‘You wait. A few months on campaign in the desert and you’ll look back on those times in Britain as if it was Elysium.’

‘That may be,’ Macro mused as he recalled their previous posting on the frontier of Judaea, in the middle of a wasteland. He shook off the memory. ‘But for now, I have a cohort to command, a prefect’s pay and the prospect of a decent rest before we have to risk life and limb for the Emperor, the Senate and People of Rome’ – he intoned the official slogan wryly – ‘by which I mean that sly, conniving bastard, Narcissus.’

‘Narcissus . . .’ Repeating the name of Emperor Claudius’ private secretary, Cato sat up and turned to his friend. He lowered his voice. ‘Still no reply from him. He must have read our report by now.’

‘Yes.’ Macro shrugged. ‘So?’

‘So, what do you think he will do about the governor?’

‘Cassius Longinus? Oh, he’ll be all right. Longinus has covered his tracks well enough. There’s no firm evidence to link him to any treachery and you can be sure that he’ll do his level best to be the Emperor’s most loyal servant now that he knows he’s being watched.’

Cato glanced round the customers sitting at the nearest table and leaned closer to Macro.’Given that we are the men Narcissus sent to watch Longinus, I doubt that the governor would shed any tears over our deaths.We have to be careful.’

‘He can hardly have us killed.’ Macro sniffed. ‘That would look too suspicious. Relax, Cato, we’re doing just fine.’ He stretched out his arms, cracked his shoulder and then tucked his hands behind his head with a contented yawn.

Cato regarded him for a moment, wishing that Macro would not dismiss the danger posed by Cassius Longinus so easily. A few months earlier the governor of Syria had requested that another three legions be transferred to his command to counter the growing threat of a revolt in Judaea. With a force that size at his back Longinus would have posed a serious threat to the Emperor. It was Cato’s conviction that Longinus had been preparing to make a play for the imperial throne. Thanks to Macro and Cato the revolt had been crushed before it could spread across the province, and Longinus had been deprived of the need for his extra legions. No man as powerful as Longinus would easily forgive those who had frustrated his ambitions and Cato had been living in wary anticipation of revenge for several months. But now the governor faced a real threat from the growing menace of Parthia, with only the Third, Sixth and Tenth Legions and their attached auxiliary cohorts to confront the enemy. If war came to the eastern provinces then every available man would be needed to face the Parthians. Cato sighed. It was ironic that the threat from Parthia was welcome. That should divert the governor’s mind from thoughts of revenge for a while at least. Cato drained his cup and leaned back against the wall, staring out across the city.

The sun was close to the horizon and the roof tiles and domes of Antioch were gleaming in the brilliant hue of the fading light. The centre of the city, like most of those that had fallen under Roman control, and before that to the Greek heirs of Alexander the Great’s conquests, was filled with the kind of public buildings that were to be found right across the Empire. Beyond the lofty columns of the temples and porticoes, the city gave way to a jumble of fine townhouses and sprawling slums of grimy flat-roofed buildings. In those streets the air was ripe with the smells of densely packed humanity. That was where most of the off-duty soldiers spent their time. But Cato and Macro preferred the relative comfort of the Bountiful Amphora where its slightly elevated position took advantage of any breeze that wafted over the city.

They had been drinking for most of the afternoon and Cato began to doze off into the warm embrace of weary contentment. For the last month they had been relentlessly drilling their auxiliary cohort, the Second Illyrian, in the huge army camp outside the walls of Antioch. The cohort was Macro’s first command as prefect and he was determined that his men would turn out smartly and march faster and fight harder than any other cohort in the army of the eastern Empire. Macro’s task had been made more difficult by the fact that nearly a third of the men were raw recruits – replacements for those lost in the fight at Fort Bushir. As the army had been placed on a war footing every cohort commander had been scouring the region for men to bring their units up to full strength.

While Cato had taken charge of the cohort’s training and set about ordering the necessary equipment and supplies, Macro had tramped up and down the coast from Pieria to Caesarea in search of recruits. He took ten of the toughest soldiers with him, and the cohort’s standard. In each town and port Macro had set up a stall in the forum and delivered his pitch to an audience of the idle and restless men who were to be found in every town square across the Empire. In a booming parade-ground voice he promised them an enlistment bounty, decent pay, regular meals, a life of adventure and, if they should live to see it, the award of Roman citizenship when they were demobbed after the small formality of twenty-five years’ service. With a bit of training they would look every bit as impressive and manly as the soldiers standing behind Macro.When he had finished a motley crowd of hopefuls would approach the stall and Macro took the healthiest specimens and turned away all those who were unfit or witless or too old. In the first few towns he was able to pick and choose, but as the recruitment tour wore on he found that other officers had been before him and had already taken the best men. Even so, by the time he returned to the cohort, he had enough men to bring it up to full strength, and sufficient time to train them before any campaign could begin.

Macro spent the long winter months drilling the new recruits while Cato put the rest of the men through gruelling route marches and weapons practice. As the Second Illyrian trained, a steady stream of other units arrived at Antioch and joined the growing camp outside the fortress of the Tenth Legion. With them came throngs of camp-followers and the avenues and markets of Antioch resounded with the cries of street vendors. Every inn was filled with soldiers and queues of men waited outside the brightly painted brothels which reeked of cheap incense and sweat.

As the sun set over the city, Cato’s gaze took all this in without any sense of judgement. Although he was barely in his twenties he had already served four and half years in the army and had grown used to the ways of soldiers and the effect they had on the towns they passed through. Despite an unpromising start Cato had turned out to be a good soldier, as even he was prepared to admit. Quick wits and courage had played their part in transforming him from a pampered product of the imperial household into a commander of men. Luck had played its part too. He had been fortunate to find himself appointed to Macro’s century when he had joined the Second Legion, he reflected. If Centurion Macro had not recognised some potential in the thin, nervous-looking recruit from Rome, and taken him under his wing, then Cato had little doubt that he would not have survived for long on the German frontier, and the campaign that followed in Britain. Since then the two of them had left the Second Legion and had served briefly in the navy before being sent east to join Macro’s present command. In the coming campaign they would be fighting as part of an army again and Cato felt some small relief that the burdens of independent command would be lifted from their shoulders: relief tempered by instinctive concerns about the realities of entering a new campaign.

Far better soldiers than Cato had been struck down by an arrow, slingshot or sword thrust they had not seen coming. So far he had been spared, and he hoped that his good luck would continue if there was a war against Parthia. He had fought the Parthians briefly the year before and well knew their accuracy with a bow, and the speed with which they could mount a sudden attack and then melt away before the Romans could respond. It was a style of fighting that would sorely test the men of the legions, let alone those of the Second Illyrian cohort.

Or perhaps that was not fair, Cato reflected.The men of his cohort actually had a better chance against the Parthians than the legionaries. They wore lighter armour and a quarter of them were mounted, so that the Parthians would have to be far more wary in attacking the cohort than in any assault they mounted on the slow-marching heavy infantry of the legions. Cassius Longinus would have to proceed cautiously against the Parthians if he were to avoid the fate of Marcus Crassus and his six legions nearly a hundred years earlier. Crassus had blundered into the desert and after several days of harassing attacks under the pitiless glare of the sun his army had been cut to pieces, along with its general.

As the sun finally sank below the horizon there was a distant blare of bucinas from the army camp announcing the first watch of the night. Macro stirred and eased himself away from the rough plaster of the wall.

‘Better get back to the camp. I’m taking the new boys out into the desert tomorrow. Their first time. It’ll be interesting to see how they cope.’