soldiers and invariably the lightest. They were backed up by the principes, the inner strength of the formation and, to the rear, the triarii, the veterans of many battles. These second and third ranks ensured that the legion did not take one step back unless ordered, denying the junior hastati the opportunity should they falter under the stress of battle. In the newly formed Ninth, however, the rapid recruitment of its ranks meant that both the hastati and principes were, in the main, raw recruits, with only the physical size of each man deciding their rank. Only the triarii were experienced, drawn from other legions; in the fight to come, they would be the bulwark of the Ninth.
The sound of thundering hooves interrupted Septimus’s invective and he spun around as another squad of cavalry shot past on a headlong dash to the approach road on the far side of the town. That western side had been assigned to the Second Legion and they were already sweeping across the flat tillage fields that separated the landward walls of Panormus from the towering hills that framed the bay. Septimus watched their advance with a studious gaze, noting the ordered ranks of the experienced legion, and he knew it was not by chance that the Second had been assigned the road that led from the enemy stronghold at Lilybaeum.
The command to halt echoed across the Ninth and Septimus instinctively repeated it, an order that triggered a weary sigh from the troops behind him. He frowned at the sound, conscious that his men didn’t even possess the basic level of stamina that campaigning required. With Fortuna’s blessing, unless the Carthaginians sallied forth from Panormus, there would be no fighting that day, but the day was far from over. Septimus glanced left and right, immediately spotting the men laying out the boundaries for the rectangular encampment that would need to be completed before nightfall. Their marks would delineate the trench to be dug, ten foot wide by five deep, with the earth thrown inwards to form a rampart, on top of which the sudes, the six-foot-long pointed oak stakes that travelled with the legion, would be implanted and intertwined with lighter oak branches. It was a task that a seasoned legion could complete in less than three hours, but one that the Ninth had struggled to complete in five on the previous nights during their march from Brolium. Under the watchful gaze of the enemy, Septimus could only hope that any ineptitude would go unrecognized.
Scipio braced his feet in his stirrups and stood tall in his saddle. The horse shifted beneath him, adjusting its balance, and Scipio instinctively murmured a soothing word, settling his mount once more. She was an Andalusian, a Spanish horse, fifteen hands high, and Scipio had specifically selected her from his own stables, one of three war horses that had accompanied him to Sicily. Specially bred and trained, the horse responded instantly to his shifting body weight and the press of his legs, eliminating the need for reins in battle, allowing the rider to wield weapons in both hands.
Scipio stood motionless as his eyes scanned the width and breadth of the walls of Panormus. They were formidable and, despite the obvious sounds of panic from within the walls, he realized that no military commander would relinquish the town without a fight. Beneath his gaze marched the Second Legion. They moved without command, their only sound a thousand individual rhythms as kit and armour clanged in time with the beat of the march. They were a hardened legion, tried and tested, and would bear the brunt of the assault.
To his right Scipio spied the Ninth deploying to build their encampment. They were legionaries only by virtue of their uniform and were far from being a useful fighting unit. Scipio had ordered them on campaign only as a last resort, wanting their numbers as a show of outward strength, knowing that the Carthaginians on the walls of Panormus would see only the legion and not their fragility.
The march from Brolium had been arduous, over the more difficult inland mountainous terrain, a route taken by necessity to detour around the Carthaginian-held port of Thermae. It was a bold strike, one which had some detractors in the Senate, but Scipio had insisted, wanting to retake the initiative in the war, knowing that a piecemeal, timid approach would rapidly sap the limited time of his consulship without achieving any noteworthy gains. If he could take Panormus, he could begin a campaign to retain proconsul command of the army after his tenure, a prize that could only lead to further possibilities.
He sat back in his saddle and the tribunes around him became immediately alert, waiting anxiously for his command. He looked to the walls again, and to the massive gate that barred the eastern entrance to the town. There was a similar gate no doubt on the western approach, both firmly shut against the Roman legions.
Scipio called a tribune to his side. ‘Take a detachment of cavalry and ride to the walls,’ he ordered. ‘Seek out an enemy commander, someone of rank, and give them this message: “If they surrender without a fight, every man of military age will be enslaved, but their lives will be spared, as will those of the inhabitants. If they resist, when we breach the walls, and we will, there will be no mercy.”’
The tribune slammed his fist to his chest in salute and rode off in a cloud of dust, shouting orders as he passed a squad of cavalry. A dozen riders peeled off from the formation and pursued the tribune, catching up with him only as he neared the walls. Scipio watched them with mild disinterest. The offer of mercy was a mere formality, extended on the remote possibility that the military commander was a coward or the inhabitants had somehow overcome the garrison, leaving a civilian in charge. Otherwise these offers were rarely, if ever, accepted.
The minutes drew out and Scipio stood once more in his saddle to get a better view of the cadre of Roman horsemen beneath the walls of the town. Above them he could see a group of Carthaginians on the battlements, the sun glinting off their helmets as they peered down from the heights. Without warning a flight of arrows struck the horsemen from further along the wall, and Scipio watched in anger as the Carthaginians loosed spears directly down on the Roman cavalry. The horsemen broke away instantly, leaving dead and wounded in their wake, and a roar of anger rose up from the previously quiet Second Legion, as those that had witnessed the malicious attack gave vent to their fury. The Carthaginians had given their answer: there would be no surrender.
Scipio’s mount became skittish as it sensed the tension of its rider. Scipio spurred his horse to a full gallop, his startled coterie of tribunes reacting more or less quickly in following him as he rode to cut off the retreating detachment of cavalry. He halted their flight and quickly scanned their number. Two of the remaining seven were injured, with arrow shafts protruding from grievous wounds. The tribune was not amongst them, and Scipio looked beyond to the crumpled figures lying in the shadow of the town walls. It was a senseless, wasteful death and Scipio burned the sight into his consciousness. Panormus would fall, of that he had never had any doubt, but now he was determined that the fall would take the town, and all who dwelt within, to the very depths of Hades.
Dawn afforded Atticus his first proper view of the captured trading boat; he rubbed the tiredness from his eyes as he moved to the side rail for a better view. It was a small boat, lateen-rigged for coastal trading, and the trader had tried to slip through the blockade three hours before sunrise. It had been a moonless night, putting the odds firmly in his favour, but Fortuna had taken a hand in his fate and his attempt to slip through a gap in the blockade had coincided with the return of a galley, the Corus, to its station.
The trader had been quickly discovered and the skirmish that ensued had been both brief and one-sided. The shouts of alarm and commands had roused Atticus from his sleep; he had rushed on deck to witness the confused encounter that was illuminated only by scattered torches less than a hundred yards away. Orders rang out for the release of grappling hooks, and Atticus judged that at least two other Roman galleys that flanked the Corus came to her aid, but it was all over before any other ship could intervene.
In the silence that followed, sporadic cheers rang out, and Atticus quickly shouted orders to be passed down the line of galleys, warning the crews to be vigilant against any other boats that might take advantage of the distraction to make their own attempt at escape. Thereafter the blockade had descended into near silence, but few slept, including Atticus, the nearness of dawn and the brief but intense restlessness brought on by the skirmish combining to keep all alert and awake.
In the dawn light, the crew of the Corus had lined the side rail of the trading ship with its own crew, and Atticus watched in silence as he waited to see what fate the victors had decided for their captives. The attitude of the blockade crews had changed over the three weeks since arriving in Panormus. Initially there had been many attempts at escape, particularly amongst the larger trading ships. All had been recaptured and their crews sent to a stockade that straddled the encampment of the Second Legion. From there they would be sent to the slave market and the proceeds would be divided amongst the blockade crews.
As the blockade dragged on, however, and the attempts at escape had become more sporadic and the boats smaller, the Roman crews began to tire of the boring routine of blockading. Their attitude had changed towards any Carthaginian crew that was captured trying to escape. Frustration and tedium had descended into anger, and an unspoken decision was made amongst the men that smaller Carthaginian crews were fair game, not worth the paltry sum they would fetch on the slave market. A precarious balance had begun to emerge between discipline and insubordination, but Atticus had turned a blind eye to the brutal retaliation the men were dealing out to the captured Carthaginian crews, preferring them to vent their frustration at the enemy rather than at their
