Dreaming the Eagle (71 page)

Those were the orders but their hearts took it further. Beyond duty, the Batavians had a score to settle with Caradoc and the man rode in the van of the enemy, separated from the rearward lines by a thousand warriors or more. Whatever the courage and fighting skills of the Batavians, if they attacked from behind they would never see their prey; they needed a means to draw him round. Civilis’ smile was savage. He gave the hand signals they had agreed upon and added one that was new. Grinning, the men of his cohort swung away from the river towards the reserve lines of the enemy. In horror, Ban grabbed at Civilis as he went past.

‘You can’t mean that.’ His words were lost in the chaos. The Batavian bent and put his mouth to his ear.

‘It’s necessary. If you can’t stomach it, go back. We don’t need you.’

‘No, I’m staying. But I’ll not do that.’

‘Suit yourself.’ He was already gone, racing his mount to the horse lines. Ban watched until the killing began and then, retching, forced the Crow forward to join the rear of the milling cavalry. He had come to kill warriors, to avenge the deaths of his kin; nothing on earth would persuade him to take his revenge on their mounts.

The Batavians had no such scruples. A horse, when wounded, screams louder than any man. Forty horses with their tendons cut, their guts opened and their flanks carved to the bone screamed above the thunder of battle. Those not wounded panicked and broke their tethers. Some were unhobbled and able to run. The remainder broke their legs trying to do so and added to the noise. It would have been impossible not to hear it, not to feel sick at the sound. Ban leaned weakly on the Crow’s neck and spewed his guts on the ground. Even the Romans, labouring in the lines, paused to listen.

The effect on the defenders was shattering. First in ones and twos and then in hundreds, the mass of Silures, Durotriges and Ordovices, and finally Caradoc and his Catuvellauni, turned towards the sounds of slaughter coming from behind their lines. They hesitated, caught between the need to hold the ford and the equal need to meet the fresh invasion.

A cry went up in a different note. There were mares among the injured and some of them were pregnant. A Batavian warrior galloped the length of the horse lines with his spear held aloft, an unborn foal writhing mutely on the haft-head. He could have done no more damage if the dying beast had been a child. Calling down vengeance and death, the warriors of four tribes and a great wedge of the Trinovantes abandoned the battle at the river and kicked their battle mounts at the new enemy. The noise of their howling drowned that of the dying horses.

The Batavians numbered five hundred, a full cohort. The Britons outnumbered them hundreds to one. Caradoc pushed through, surrounded by the small knot of white-cloaked Ordovices that formed his honour guard, all picked from among his daughter’s relatives. Half of them were women and all had given birth to at least one child. The dead foal became their standard, stolen and desecrated by the enemy - an act of sacrilege for which there could only be one answer. They cut through until they reached it and took alive the man who had borne it aloft. His death, impaled on his own spear, was slower than any on the field that day and clearly visible to the invaders. The Batavians, seeing it, fought with the ferocity of cornered bears; the horse guard could have done no better. Still, they fell like dead trees in a storm. Two hundred and thirty Batavian warriors died in less time than they had taken to cross the river. The remainder, led by Civilis, fought a bloody retreat back to the water. There, seventy of them formed a rearguard while the rest gathered in groups to swim across.

Ban was amongst the last to leave. The Crow fought him all the way to the water. The colt had smelled the death of other horses and become impossible to handle, killing indiscriminately. At least one Batavian had died under the flailing feet before the rest learned that the safe place to be was behind him or far to the side. Even at the end, with the madness abating, none of them would swim beside him. Ban used the flat of his sword on the colt’s flanks and forced him into the water. The current caught them and spun them downstream. The horse struggled, thrashed and surged forward. Ban swam at his side, holding his sword in his right hand, letting the water wash it clean of blood and his own vomit and the screaming horror of sacrilege. The slaughter of the horses had numbed him to everything that had followed. He had killed his own kind and knew nothing of it. He had not seen Caradoc, except as a swirling mess of colour enclosed in a ring of lethal, screaming white. He had seen his enemy kill, but had not seen him die. His ghosts told him he had failed.

On the far bank, a Batavian hand thrust Ban into the saddle and the Crow, without intervention from its rider, followed Civilis as he led them back to their place in the lines. From there, dizzily, Ban made his way across the field behind the resting men of the XIV th to join the Ala V Gallorum who had gathered near the standard. Aulus Plautius was within sight, and Sentius Saturninus, who had led the southern landings. The legates and senior tribunes of each legion were gathered about them. Corvus sat his horse at the head of the cavalry, waiting. His face was pinched and white. They saluted, each according to his rank.

‘You’re alive,’ said Corvus.

‘It seems so.’

‘Caradoc lives.’

‘I know. Civilis killed the horses.’

‘It happens in war.’

‘It should not. It goes against the gods.’

‘Then the gods have spoken to tell us so. Look.’

The battlefield spread out before them like a drawing in sand. Ban had eyes only for the eastern side, where half a cohort of Batavians lay dead, their bodies already stripped of armour and weapons. One man stood rigidly upright, his helmet on the ground before him. From this distance, it was not possible to see if he still lived. A second, denser straggle of bodies was piled at the river’s edge where the rearguard had given their lives for their brothers. Ban reeled at the scale of the slaughter.

‘We failed. I’m sorry.’

‘No. You were only ever the diversion. It is the Second that has failed. They were a full legion and they should have broken through while you held the attention of Caradoc and his warriors.’

‘What happened?’

‘The Eceni and the warriors of Mona hold the western flank. They are as many as a legion, and as solid. Vespasian has failed.’

‘The Eceni?’ The words rang hollow in his ears. The rest washed over him, devoid of all meaning.

‘Yes. I’m sorry. You should look, Ban. You can’t change it by hiding your eyes.’

Ban did not want to look. From the first sight of blue cloaks, his mind had erased for him the possibility of Eceni warriors killing and being killed, of Eceni dead left afterwards for the scavengers, of himself meeting a known face in battle. It took as great an effort of will as he had ever known to turn his head to the west, to look in detail at the upper fording place where the men of the II nd had crossed to the northern bank.

It was further away than he had imagined. At this distance, the thread of the river became a spill of molten iron in the low evening light. Figures massed and came apart and it was impossible to tell man from woman or adult from child. Only the legions were clear from their helmets and shields, and the solid wall of warriors that opposed them from their flowing cloaks - iron grey for Mona, blue for the Eceni and green striped with black for the Coritani. They fought as one body and the leading cohorts broke against them as a wave breaks on a cliff, losing men and making no headway. Then, as they watched, a mass of warriors in gorseflower yellow galloped along the river bank to fall on the legion from the rear.

‘Gods, that’s Togodubnos. He’ll go through them like a knife.’

‘No. They have seen him. Look.’

The II nd were seasoned fighters. Even as the first high note of the horn floated up above the battle, those watching saw the shimmer and break as every alternate man stepped out of the fighting line and turned back-to-back with his comrades to face the new enemy. It was a beautiful manoeuvre, executed well; shields linked and came up like the scales on a snake, swords and helmets dipped and flashed, and the new line took the shock of Togodubnos’ attack and held against it, shrinking only slightly in length as the living stepped sideways to close the gaps left by the dead. The yellow-cloaked warriors fought in tight formation and the mark of the sun hound, yellow on white, showed even to those on the far side of the river. The losses were greater amongst the legionaries than the warriors.

Ban said, ‘Togodubnos won’t let up. They will carve them to pieces unless, Plautius sends them reinforcements.’

‘Which is why he is doing so.’

Even as they spoke, a standard swung from left to right and dipped down to the river. The four cohorts of the IX th that it commanded had been waiting for just such a signal. They surged forward to the water in a single block, crossing shoulder-deep to come up on the band of Trinovantes from behind. The warriors, finding themselves assailed from two sides by infantry, galloped along the river bank, outpacing the enemy with ease.

The legionaries did not follow; their orders were otherwise. The ranks of the II nd stood ahead of them, every man exhausted. The IX th were fresh and eager to prove themselves. They formed rows behind their comrades and clashed their swords on their shields in readiness. Horns howled throughout the length of the II nd legion. To a man, the cohorts facing the bulk of the Eceni disengaged, stepped back and spread apart, each legionary a spear’s length from his neighbour. The horn sounded a second time and -raggedly, because manoeuvres executed in the push of battle rarely acquire the polish of the parade ground and the Eceni gave no quarter - the men of the IX th moved through the gaps between the lines to take up the van, closing ranks again in tight fighting formation. Behind them, the spent and battle-weary men of the II nd retreated in ordered blocks back to the river and began to cross in safety.

The fresh cohorts were outnumbered as greatly as those they were relieving, and the warriors they opposed had scented victory and drew strength from it. The fighting resumed with renewed ferocity. The band of Trinovantes that had attacked the rear circled back and came in along the river bank, a wedge of yellow in a sea of grey and blue. A century of the IX th wheeled sideways to cut them off. The rest held their lines steady until the II nd had safely crossed, and began a slow-stepped retreat.

Ban bit back on his knuckles. Pride and terror warred within him. ‘They’re still losing. The Eceni will not be beaten. The last of the IX th to hold the bank will die as the Batavians did. Plautius will lose five hundred more men to no purpose.’

‘I don’t think so. He has half a legion yet that are not committed to the fight. Watch. They’re going in now.’

The standard swung again and the remaining five cohorts crossed in the wake of their comrades to take the Trinovantes once again from behind. This time, half of the mounted warriors turned to face them and give battle.

‘Gods, has Togodubnos lost his mind? They should run as they did before.’

‘Where to? They’re surrounded. Hosidius Geta is the centurion of the first cohort. He’s been fighting against mounted warriors for years. He won’t let them go.’

The moves had been practised often. The two lines of the IX th met at the ends, enclosing the knot of yellow cloaks as an oyster round a seething pearl. The yellow cloaks spun their mounts, seeking an exit that did not exist. Togodubnos yelled above the noise of battle and the sounds of killing changed as the Trinovantes made a circle facing outwards and began their death-songs, knowing they were doomed.

Corvus tapped a single finger tautly on the pommel of his saddle. ‘Now if Caradoc has a mind to try to save his brother, we may have just turned the battle.’

Sickly, Ban said, ‘Here he comes.’

On the edge of their vision, as if ordered by his words, a spearhead of white with a corngold tip hurled itself towards the IX th. The legion saw them coming and their commanders had time to prepare their orders. The Ordovices met no resistance. Like a doorway, two blocks of men swung apart to let the galloping warriors through and, like an iron gate, they closed smoothly behind them.

Pandemonium reigned amongst the trapped warriors as yellow cloaks mixed with white and a single multicoloured patchwork worn by a man on a shining bay cavalry horse. The ranks of the IX th closed tightly and did not give them time to form into fighting packs. The warriors abandoned their fighting formation and faced about in ones and twos, each taking care for a shieldmate but no more. The sound of the death-songs grew louder.

‘That’s it.’ Corvus bounced his closed fist on his pommel. ‘We’ve got them.’

‘Ardacos! There!’

Breaca forced the bear-horse forward, slashing at the white, unprotected face of the legionary who threatened Ardacos. The small man threw up his shield and the stabbing gladius slewed sideways even as the one who had thrust it died. The body was held upright for a while, caught between two others, living, until they too died and the three toppled together, leaking blood and body fluids, onto the churned and ruined turf. Their existence was forgotten long before their bodies fell; it was not a battle that gave time to the individual, to honour the courage of the foe, or the endless acts of selfless valour of those who fought side by side, saving, again and again, the lives of their shieldmates. It was a battle in which one killed, endlessly, on foot and on horseback, using spear and blade and shield-edge and bare hands if necessary. All day Breaca kept her knot of honour guard around her and they threw themselves into the thickest part of the fighting, at times on horseback, cutting off islands of legionaries to circle them, killing, as otters kill salmon, working from the outer rim inwards; at other times they dismounted and held a line on foot, leaving their horses with the best of the children, oath-sworn to mount and ride to safety if the battle overwhelmed the warriors.

Through it all, the battle anger raged in Breaca, spreading out over her warriors and those of the Eceni as it had done since morning, since the first clash at the ford when the two legions had surged forward and the warriors of the defending side had ridden to meet them. It had held through noon when the two armies parted under the high sun and the river had run with blood in the space between them, but only lightly so that it was possible still to see the green-brown weed and the shoals of silvery fish that flashed beneath the surface. It had held after that when the hard-ridden horse from the south had been seen to join the legions, its rider borne forward on a wave of enthusiasm to reach the commander, and the news of reinforcements, of the two missing legions, spread down from him to the ranks. Even then the fire of Mona had held and had carried them into a new charge and another so that still the warriors of the right flank believed in ultimate victory. The certainty lived in Breaca as a thing apart, sustained, she believed, by the dreamers. She could feel Airmid, as if she fought at her shoulder, with Macha and Maroc behind, two bears linked in defence of their land. Luain mac Calma was everywhere, adding the sharpness of vision that was the heron’s, and Efnis circled above, a grey broad-arrowed falcon seeking the kill. All of them kindled the blaze of the gods’ fire and kept it burning in the souls of those who fought, that they might not know fear or desperation in the face of overwhelming numbers.