The Wald (10 page)

Adalbern
kissed the air sweetly while nudging his horse’s belly with his boots.  The animal took two quick steps forward before his men noticed that the attack was on and tensed their own legs around what would shortly become two thousand pounds of an intelligent projectile.  In four horse lengths, the beasts, all two hundred, were up to full speed and the exhausted Romans were just becoming aware of another attack.

Even over the noise of his cavalry, Adalbern heard shouts of command from all along the Roman line.  The dark echoing valley would disorient them, he knew, so that they would have to set themselves in squares to prepare for the usually fleeting attacks from all sides.  As Adalbern drew closer he could see the familiar form settling into place.  The half-cylinder-shaped shields of the Romans locked orderly one next to the other to face their unseen attackers.  The silhouettes of spears showed above and in front of the wall of wood and leather shields.

Adalbern knew that some of his men and horses would be killed running against the sharp wall.  He may even be among the dead when they were counted.  But he would not have the invaders in his wald without sending them a message.  It was the same wald where his father’s father led his village.  It would be the same wald where his son’s son led his people.  If Adalbern’s death could protect the forest from these interlopers, he would go with honor.

Directly in front of him one of the Roman army’s beloved centurions stood out from his men.  He would surely be dead in less than three heartbeats, if not by Adalbern, then by one of his men.  The man seemed surprisingly calm in the face of death, standing with his plumed helmet jutting above his shield, watching the horsemen approach.  The man was brave, thought Adalbern – brave but dead.

All at once the soon-to-be dead man shouted a command and before he had even finished saying it, the men behind him split into three parallel lines in the direction of Adalbern’s advance.  Adalbern instantly found himself thundering between two tightly packed lines of men.  He heard some of his men hit the leading Romans in the lines, but the brutal force of his charge was allowed to sluice through the army like water between the rocks.

Adalbern, who had kept his sword sheathed so that
he could hold tightly to the reins, swore violently, “By Teiwaz!” as he found himself pounding out the other side of the Romans into the dark valley beyond.  He looked over his shoulder at the receding mass and saw that some of his men had been successful at crushing a few of the soldiers, but they now found themselves cut down with pierced torsos.

When
the nobleman was out of projectile range he pulled hard on the reins to beat to a stop.  All around him men did likewise until they sat in panting expectation for orders from their elected war leader.  Behind them, several men still clashed with the Romans – by choice or stuck fast when their horses were cut down – so that clattering and shouting rang into the night.

“Count your men,” clipped Adalbern.  Within seconds the elders told him they had lost fifteen
.  If all those weren’t yet dead, they would be in moments.

“We did nothing but ride in one of the parades the Romans like so much!  Damn!” snorted Gundahar who had found his way to the front with Adalbern.  The leader looked at the ugly face with reeking anger so that the faithful man knew to say no more
of the obvious.

“We killed how many of them?  Ten?  Twenty?” asked Adalbern.

Another nobleman who had ridden further back in the horde answered, “No, Adalbern.  If we killed five I would be surprised.  Their formation was perfect.”

The battle on the path faded so that the only sounds were the rolling Latin words of the officers setting their men back into position.  They would form their shield wall again, deliberate and straight.  They would wait for sometime before they were sure no
other attack came and then renew their march toward the river.

. . .

“They linger!” Marcus shouted over to Septimus.  The two most junior centurions had found themselves at the back of the marching cohort for each and every battle.  They and their centuries had weathered the brunt of every Sugambrian storm.

“Yes, I hear them
at the edge of their forest,” said Septimus in return as he slapped a legionary into line.  Others of his men lie dead or dying in the center of his square.

The most senior centurion of the cohort rod
e his horse to the rear of the column.  “What do they plot?” the man shouted to Septimus.

“To attack us again, I suppose,” answered Septimus.  “It’s their last chance before the river and
our reinforcements.  They’ll want more blood than what they just spilled.”

“But they haven’t
attacked us twice in a row yet – not as we drove them east, and not as we ran west,” said the senior man.

“No, sir.  But they’re led by a bear of a man.  I’ve seen him many times now.  I don’t know what he says to them, but he inspires them
into a lather.  I hear his voice over there now shouting in his tongue.  He wants us gone from these forests forever.  I think his boy wants us gone even more than the father.”  The senior centurion looked down at Septimus with surprise showing on his face.  Septimus added, “At least, that’s what I’d want if I were either of them.”

The horseman nodded.  “Then we’ll wait in formation for them to attack us again.
  Hopefully they do so that we may cut more of them down.  I’d like us to be the ones teaching the lessons.”

The senior man turned to trot back to the front of the line to command his century when Septimus called to him.  “Sir, my men want nothing more than to kill these creatures and march to the barracks for warm baths, warm meals, and warm whores.”  His men laughed behind him. 
“Allow my century to strike out a skirmishing line to either draw them into battle sooner than they wish or at least drive them away so that we may return to our march.”

The man considered the proposal.  “How many horsemen would you say they have?
  You’ve been closer to the action with each attack.”

Septimus guessed, “One hundred fifty?”  A
Sugambrian who was cut from his horse on the first pass groaned at his feet.  Septimus put him out of his misery by driving a spear into his neck.  “Less now.”

“Let’s end this,” answered the senior commander. 
“I, too, would like to get to the whores of Oppidum Ubiorum before the rest of the legion spends all their wages on them first.  You there,” he ordered pointing to Marcus.  “Take your century with that of Septimus.  Strike southeast, make a skirmish line and send javelins into the loitering fools.  Perhaps we can drive them onto the rest of the waiting cohort.  And go no more than one hundred yards away from the column.  I don’t want to lose all of you.”

“
You heard him.  Let’s move,” directed Septimus.

In moments Septimus had led the men at a fast jog out into the meadow, the troops fanning out without
another word of command into a skirmish line.  The two centuries had practiced this maneuver many times so each man knew the spacing necessary for hurling javelins.  They waited only for the men from Marcus’ unit to settle and then for the order from their leaders to launch.

The shouting from the German tribesman became elevated
as the legionaries moved into place, with many voices heard arguing, each trying to shout down the next.  Good, thought Septimus, they would bicker and die all the same.  All was ready.

“Now!” cried Septimus.  As one arm of the Roman Empire, the remnants of the two centuries threw their missiles into the darkness.  Screams followed and then more shouting
in the arresting Sugambrian tongue.

Slaves were passing out more javelins to the
Romans for another round, when a lone child’s voice rose above the din of the rest.  Marcus could not understand what was said, but he knew the voice.  He knew the boy spoke with authority.  Instantly, out of the night came the shout of riders goading on their mounts. A second charge came into sight like a host of gods materializing from the dark nothingness.

The
Germans were led this time by the spear-thin boy who held out a sword pointing the way.  As they approached, Septimus gave the order to fire whatever javelins had been passed out and to prepare to receive the charge.  The javelins skipped from the men’s hands.  One in particular found the forehead of the horse of the great beast of a man who rode next to the boy.  The horse crumpled, but its momentum carried it and the rider into a terrible forward roll.  Still the Germans came.

The Roman line was already spread thin
. The men did not have to bunch so tightly to make paths for the charge through which to sieve.  This time, however, the boy pulled his horse to a halt between two batches of legionaries and prepared to do battle.  He made a wild swing with the sword, which danced off the helmet of one soldier.  The same man set himself to thrust his spear into the boy’s ribs, when the child’s horse spun so that its hind quarters faced the man.  With a single word the horse heaved both feet back, snapping the man’s shield and fracturing a host of ribs into his lungs.

All along the skirmish line the same events were playing out.  The
Sugambrians used their beasts more effectively than they used their iron.  Men were trampled and kicked.  While Septimus was confident that they had killed scores of the tribesmen, his own men were falling at an alarming rate.

“Kill the horses,” shouted Marcus.

“Do you not think we try?” answered Septimus as he pulled his spear from another beast as another legionary killed its master.  The small band of legionaries was being overrun.  If they stayed much longer the resurgent bravery of the tribesmen would see the two centuries eliminated.  “We were foolish to separate ourselves from the rest of the cohort.  Withdraw to the column!” he shouted.  Never in his life did he think he would order a retreat from such an ill-trained force.  Marcus echoed his command.

Quickly the legionaries ran together and formed a line that was able to backtrack to the path, protecting itself from attack.  For a moment
, as he stood in the tight, safe ranks of men, Septimus toyed with the idea of ordering an immediate, better-organized counterattack.  But the thought would have been, at best, only a second foolish idea added to the last, and so he dismissed it entirely.  His men and those of Marcus inched away, eyes fixed on the Sugambrians who sat atop their panting horses watching them go, seemingly not interested in pursuit or the risk of running onto the greater number of spears of the massed cohort.

Septimus watched the
Sugambrian boy ride his horse over to the man who was obviously his father and slide down to help the giant up.  The big man stood up favoring his side and patted the boy’s head like they had just played a game of sport.  It was as if they did not stand with dying comrades and enemy all around.  The two climbed onto the boy’s horse and quietly led the horsemen away, leaving the father’s horse behind to die in its unsightly death throes.

The cohort stood there on the road for a long while, ready for an attack that they didn’t believe would come, but ready
nonetheless.  Later, when the clouds blew away from the light of the moon, Septimus counted the men left in his century.  Sixty-four marched back to the river with him that night.  Seven of those were wounded badly enough to require attention from the medicus upon their return to Oppidum Ubiorum.  Sixteen of his men had died in that campaign, half of them in that last charge.

Foolish.  That is
the only word Septimus could think about as he marched under the light of the moon.  It was foolish for Drusus to pursue the Sugambrians without giving proper consideration to supplies or support.  It was foolish to invite their cavalry attacks without a full cavalry of their own.  All along it was clear that Drusus intended to invade Germania from the sea.  Once they had repelled the revolt at the river, Drusus should have been happy and moved on with his plans.  The general should never have allowed the tribesmen to dictate the manner in which he would give battle.

It was foolish for
Septimus himself to provoke a battle with the skirmish line when the last eight men – his eight men – would have likely lived through the night had they waited with discipline on the path.  Discipline.  Roman discipline was forgotten for fleeting heartbeats.  Was it for glory?  Was it to teach the tribes a lesson?  Foolish.

CHAPTER 3

12 B.C.

Drusus and all the senior men, commanders
, and administrators, asserted victory over the Sugambrians that year.  It was a legitimate claim since the legion had successfully halted the German invasion of Gaul, killed several hundred of their men, razed fields and towns – the effects of which would be felt by every person still inhabiting the forest – and enslaved a good number of the inhabitants of the wald.  Total losses for the legion amounted to one hundred twenty-three dead, one hundred sixty-seven wounded.

But the Sugambrians were quick to
declare victory among their people as well.  They had been surprised in their own land on “their” side of the Rhenus by a Roman army.  After an initial loss, the fleeing men had successfully navigated the legion away from the choicest of their lands and then ended in final triumph by driving the soldiers back across the river.  Most of the Sugambrians who met the most fearsome army the world had ever seen found that they actually survived.  Despite their losses in food and men, they claimed victory.  The tribesmen made a sound argument.

Sept
imus didn’t care about the Sugambrian’s point of view.  He cared about his men.  His personal view of the last night of action in Germania was of his failed execution of an idea that was flawed at the start – rash and irresponsible.  Such poor judgment caused his century and that commanded by Marcus Caelius to have the dubious honor of being the units that received the most fatalities over those fateful days.  Rome’s leadership disagreed with the centurion’s assessment and gave him an accommodation, adding to the medallions he wore on his chest.  Little consolation to the men who lay as carrion bird fodder and whose small amount of possessions had likely already been looted by some enterprising child poking his nose out of his Sugambrian hovel.

The
decoration was bestowed upon him by a scowling Manilius at a ceremony where he and several other men were recognized for their actions.  The camp prefect read aloud from a pronouncement written by the general himself, who could not be there for the function as he visited his wife, young son, and senior government functionaries in Lugdunum.  The message praised all of the men for their courage and bravery, but singled out Septimus for his exceptional cunning, for his ability to hold the right side of the line during the river attack, and for fighting a successful withdrawal.  The word retreat was not to be used in these official communications – ever.

Since their return to Oppidum Ubiorum, Septimus had trained what was left of his men
– hard.  Each day they awoke for general fitness work and games to keep the soldiers interested.  Those activities gave way late each morning to practicing maneuvers singly, as a unit, and oftentimes with an entire cohort or legion.  Repetition bred a familiarity into the men’s muscles and minds which was necessary for survival when the infrequent battle came.

And the battles were infrequent.  Most of a soldier’s life was spent training for a task which took up a very short amount of time.  Even when Septimus had been on campaign as a common foot soldier with Drusus and Tiberius between the Alps and the
Danuvius River, the number of days of actual combat was low.  The number of moments during those days when he actually swung his gladius or flung his spear with the intent to kill another was even lower.  The majority of a day of battle was filled with organizing, marching, and maneuvering.  But the importance of the actual fight was not in the amount of time spent, it was in the outcome, as everyone knew.  And that outcome could only be assured with training, exhaustive training.  The Romans spent more time and exercise at equipping and instructing their forces than any empire or kingdom in the world.  It had been thus since Romulus founded the great city on the hills surrounding the Tiber River seven hundred fifty years earlier.  It would be thus seven hundred fifty years later, for the legions were the heart of Rome.  Of these facts, Septimus was certain.

After a
typical morning of difficult weapons training, called armatura, Septimus often set himself to the drudgery of administration.  He fell in love with commanding men in the fields, but that glory brought with it dreadful responsibilities more common to a low-grade city official such as a quaestor.  It was Septimus’ job to build and see that the duty roster was carried out for his century.  Assigning men to the latrines? His undertaking.  Assigning guard duty, road patrol, bath cleaning, market duty, street cleaning, tower patrol, granary watch, gate guards, dignitary escorts, all of it, and more?  Each his task, each tedious.

But
thankfully their time in the growing frontier city of Ubiorum ended when Drusus returned from his Gallic capital city.  Word of his arrival preceded him and as these dispatches began coming in, the activity of the legion blossomed.  The men prepared to leave at last on the naval expedition to the north.  They would slice through the Canal of Drusus, as the trench dug by the army and their Batavian allies had become known.  They would enter the salty Lacus Flevo and the Mare Germanicum beyond with the twin goals of exploration and subjugation.

As Septimus stood on the rocking deck of one of Drusus
’ warships he tried to count all the ropes which stood taut or snaked their way throughout the ship.  Some wrapped around pulleys, others were tied with some obscure sailor’s knot to a cleat.  Every ship was always filled ropes – hundreds upon hundreds of Roman feet of rope.  They were the glue that held the beasts together and made them operate.

When he lost track of his counting, Septimus switched to
watching his century help man the oars of the nearest two vessels, he wished he was back on terra firma.  Though he’d never admit it to anyone, not even his best friend, Marcus, Septimus never felt at ease in the water.  As a boy he splashed with his brothers in the shallow creek that snaked its way near his father’s home whenever the rains caused it to swell, but somehow that was very different.  He could plant his feet firmly on the ground in the glorified ditch and still breathe the clean air above the water.  He could be certain that one step in either direction would return him to dry land, and that knowledge brought comfort.  Now as a soldier, heavy laden with armor, steadying himself upon slippery planks next to the gubernator who handled the steering oar, Septimus feared that he would fall into the dark sea and plunge to the bottom, taking huge gasps of water into his lungs.  Or worse yet, he feared one of the mammoth leviathans that inhabited the depths would smash their ship to pieces.  He swallowed hard to get rid of the lump that was quickly lodging in his throat as his mind repeated these thoughts over and again.

His century had been partially replenished
with new recruits from Rome before they left Ubiorum.  It was still not back to full strength, but was only shy by five men.  The legion had been further strengthened by an auxiliary force of Batavians, several of whom rowed the oars of the supply transport ships. Long ago the legionaries affectionately dubbed those supply ships “pigs” since the boats seemed to be overflowing with mules and horses like hogs that had gorged themselves on the rich contents of a farmer’s field.  The Batavians, having not been a vast seafaring race, vomited the contents of their rapidly emptying bellies onto their chests.  The seas pitched while they worked the long oars that lay overtop the short gunwale of the flat ships.  Watching them, Septimus thanked Neptune that his nervous stomach was not susceptible to at least that one torture.

Off to his right on Germania’s northern shore, a new band of allies
had become the Roman navy’s shadow, marching along in the same direction of Drusus’ fleet.  The Frisians, a tribe that lived on the windswept shores of the Mare Germanicum, had capitulated in much the same way as the Batavians.  There was no fight left in them at all once the elders saw Rome’s massive navy of two hundred ships per legion – nearly five hundred crafts in this case – floating off their banks.  And these were simple frontier vessels.  They weren’t even close in size to the immense ships of Rome’s navy that patrolled the Mediterranean.  Had the Frisian rulers seen those behemoths, they may have just killed themselves outside their muddy hovels.

Drusus went ashore with his closest officers to negotiate the terms of the Frisian subjugation.  It had taken little more than the length of a quick midday meal for Drusus to offer his protection of the Frisian people from their old enemies, the Chaucians, to the east.  In return, the chieftains offered an auxiliary army and an annual tribute of three hundred cow hides for use by the Roman army.  The terrifying Germanic tribes with their nomadic, warlike culture about which Julius Caesar had written were proving to be more lamblike than the lions so often feared. 

After waiting just two days for the Frisians to call together their force of fishermen armed with
poles, rods, clubs, gaffs, and other hooks, Drusus and the fleet departed to conquer more peoples.  Septimus laughed silently, thinking their new allies would be more suited to subduing a large school of fish than men.

Early in the third day of travel
, one ship had sunk and two of its men were killed when it struck one of the many great trees that floated in the rapidly shifting waters around Lacus Flevo.  The Frisians told their new masters that it was common for the mighty blasts of wind and storm that struck their shores to uproot oak trees growing along the sea. In batches of twos or threes at a time, the mighty beasts would be uprooted, toppling into the surf.  The massive net of intertwined roots acted as a balance so that the trees floated upright together in the deep waters, acting as a furtive naval attack from the beneath the surface.

Septimus ha
d watched it happen off the starboard of his ship.  All at once the prow of the poor vessel rose from the surface with sharp branches jutting from the hull.  Attached to the branches were two massive trunks that looked like the pale fangs of a monster escaped from Neptune’s prison.  The brave centurion gripped the gunwale helplessly in a fit of quivering panic until his mind finally regained control over his passions and he ordered his men to drop the sail and row toward the sinking vessel to salvage its crew.

Once all the excitement died
, as a precautionary measure Drusus ordered the flotilla to travel under the power of men’s backs rather than the by the spirit of the wind, in order to slow the armada’s pace.  In this way, the captains could guide and the gubernators more safely steer their ships around the flotsam and jetsam bobbing in the murky depths.  The men frowned but knew better than to complain in the close quarters on the ships or risk the wrath of their commanders.  Drusus’ direction was wise; however, as countless more of the giant, barkless beasts were seen over the coming days.  Only one other ship received appreciable damage, but it was able to hobble to shore so that its crew could march with the Frisians, abandoning their ship to the wild whims of wind, sea, and storm.

At last
Septimus saw that ahead a string of islands sprang from the sea to the north or port side of the fleet.  They were low, looking more like vast collections of sand to him, with no central mountains like the islands in the Mediterranean.

Septimus
squinted, trying his best to decipher what Drusus and his Frisian guide animatedly discussed aboard the legate’s flagship.  He would not wonder for long because in a matter of moments the signal flags changed and cornu rang out new instructions.  Then, like the contents of a bucket dumped over a rocky, stair-stepped ledge, the orders cascaded and trickled down through the ranks of men.  Those legionaries rowing on the port side held fast while those working the oars on the starboard worked all the more so that each craft in the fleet turned toward the first island.

Septimus hurriedly pulled out his map, unrolling it between his hands to see what Drusus must be considering.  His was a crude copy of the chart used by the general, but most of the basic details were there.  Septimus saw that most of those islands were thought to be uninhabited, but the westernmost and larges
t of the string held a people called Burchanians.  It looked as if the legate meant to negotiate another set of allies, thereby leaving no enemies at his back as he continued on his mission.

As soon as Septimus’ ship was in water just under waist deep, he ordered the vessel anchored and oars stowed.  Hundreds of other centurions or captains repeated the same commands while their men pinched back their sore shoulder blades, stretching to relieve their tired muscles.

If this was to be identical to the Frisian negotiations long in their wake, Drusus would assemble the interpreters and his most trusted guards to march into whatever hovels in which these people lived.  He would tell the natives about his battlefield success.  He would explain the power of the Roman legion.  Eventually, a truce, or more accurately surrender, would be negotiated and then the fleet would continue on.  Septimus could not stand for that.  His feet had been on the slippery deck for too long.  He needed to feel the earth beneath his heavy service-issued sandals more rightly called open boots.

“Shields and weapons!” he called to his century.  “Leave your
kit; we only march up the beach.”  Without delay or question, his men snapped at his bark.

Septimus affixed his helmet, snatched up his shield and spear.  He was the first man over the gunwale, sinking down until his feet pressed hard against the wonderful earth.  He splashed his way up the gentle slope of sand, feeling more and more secure with every step.  His breathing even felt lighter.  His men began splashing in behind him and followed him up to the shore.