The rear ranks of the Alamanni began to swarm like a disturbed wasps' nest. Some warriors who had turned to face the new menace were hefting their shields, standing firm, but others were trying to edge back into the illusory safety of their comrades. A handful had lost their nerve altogether; small groups and lone men were running away to the south-east. Gallienus felt the blood pounding in his head, sensed Hercules beside him. This was going to work.
The emperor aimed at a hole in the line. His charger bowled over an isolated German. The warrior tumbled to the ground, then vanished behind, under the hooves of the Roman cavalry.
A big warrior aimed a cut at Gallienus. The emperor caught the blow on his blade. He rolled his wrist, forcing his opponent's sword wide. He slashed downwards, but missed.
The protectores were trying to catch up and cover their emperor, but Gallienus surged ahead. Sunshine flashing on his blade, he swung left and right. He felt no fear. The god had covered him in his lionskin. The pelt of the Nemean lion was proof against iron, bronze, stone. There was no need for fear.
Three mounted Alamanni appeared out of nowhere, one ahead, one on either side, murder in their eyes. Heraclian, the commander of the Equites Singulares, drove his horse between the emperor and the German to his right. A blow caught him on the helmet. The protector was knocked forward on to his horse's neck. The German drew back his arm for the killing blow. Ignoring the other two enemy, Gallienus leant far out of his saddle, putting all his weight behind the blow. As the impact ran up his arm, Gallienus saw the warrior's helmet buckle. The blood sprayed hot up his arm, into his face.
With god-granted time, Gallienus regained his seat, blocked the slash of the warrior on his left. The German's bearded face twisted in agony as Camsisoleus drove his sword through the mail between his shoulderblades.
The third of the Alamanni had vanished. The immediate threat gone, his protectores around him, Gallienus looked about. Everything had changed. Where there had been battle, now there was rout. Where there had been fighting, now there was only killing. The Alamanni were broken; a mob of individuals fleeing for their lives.
'Horse Guards stay with me,' Gallienus shouted.
The Germans seldom employed a reserve, but Gallienus knew that many a battle had been lost by an overconfident pursuit. The protectores got most of the cavalrymen who followed the emperor back in hand. No one and nothing was going to snatch this victory away from Gallienus.
'Imperator! Imperator!' Fierce faces roared out the traditional acclamation. In the levity of victory, men clasped Gallienus's hand, thumped him on the back. 'Imperator! Imperator!'
Volusianus rode up: 'I give you joy of your victory, Dominus.' Gallienus smiled and shook the veteran's hand.
Aurelian galloped up: 'Claudius is chasing their horsemen on our flank. He will keep our boys in order.' More hugs and handshakes.
Theodotus came to report from the left: 'Acilius Glabrio has hared off after them, but I have a couple of hundred troopers held back.' Yet more rejoicing.
Gallienus felt the exhilaration begin to drain out of him. He heard soft music on the air. The god was leaving. Not for ever, merely withdrawing. Hercules would return to stand with the emperor again. Gallienus looked at his sword. It was slick with blood, right up to the eagle pommel. He sheathed it anyway. Someone else would clean it later. Gallienus noticed his hands were shaking.
Flanked by two of the protectores, a mounted man was led forward. Dressed in travelling clothes stained with sweat, neither very old nor young, the man was familiar to Gallienus, but he could not place him at once. At odds with the surrounding relaxed discipline of success, the man snapped a formal salute. He dismounted and performed proskynesis full length in the dirt. When he got up, Gallienus recognized him.
'Valens, you are a long way from the east.' As he spoke, Gallienus realized something had gone terribly wrong. The governor of Syria Coele should not be here.
'Dominus…' Valens stopped.
Gallienus could feel the tension mounting inside him.
Valens took a deep breath and let the words out. 'Dominus, the Augustus Valerian has been defeated. I am sorry to tell you your father is a prisoner of the Persians.'
A ripple of silence spread outward. In the distance, shouts, screams, snatches of songs, the sounds of victory. Here the silence of shock. In the emptiness, half-formed thoughts raced through Gallienus's mind. Father… too old, too infirm for this. Hercules help me. What should I say? What would an emperor say? What would a Roman of the old republic say? The phrase came fully formed.
'I knew my father was mortal.'
Grim-faced, the officers nodded. The phrase had been good. It had the right gravitas. Gallienus gathered himself.
'How stands the imperium?'
Relieved, Valens spoke a little more normally. 'Carrhae and Nisibis have gone over to the Sassanids. The people of Carrhae opened their gates. At Nisibis, they say a thunderbolt split the walls.' Valens shrugged. 'Whatever, Edessa still held when I left. Shapur had not advanced further.' Valens still looked on edge.
'Who was captured with my father?'
'It is thought some ten thousand men. Many of the high command: Successianus the Praetorian Prefect, Cledonius the ab Admissionibus, Ballista…'
'No!' Aurelian shouted out. Red-faced, he punched his saddle. His horse flinched.
Gallienus remembered the close friendship between Aurelian and the young northerner. 'We will all have lost amici.'
'Dominus,' Valens continued, 'there is more.'
'Speak.'
'When the news reached the Danube, Ingenuus had your portraits and those of your father and son torn from the standards. His men have invested him with the purple.'
A babble of voices rose up in indignation. Gallienus held up his hand for quiet. Valens had not finished.
'On the Euphrates, Macrianus the Lame has taken command of what remains of the field army. He has claimed maius imperium over the east. He has had Exiguus, the governor of Cappadocia, killed. He is appointing his own men to commands. When I fled Syria, it was openly said he would put his sons, Macrianus the Younger and Quietus, on the throne.'
Treachery, revolt, civil war — would it never end? A time of iron and rust. This was not a moment to show weakness. Gallienus knew he had to be decisive.
'When we have killed and enslaved the last of these Alamanni, we will send troops to the Caesar Saloninus on the Rhine. He has good, loyal men around him. Silvanus and Postumus will help him hunt down the Franks in Gaul. We ourselves will march without delay against Ingenuus. When his head is on a pike, we can deal with the cripple in the east.'
Gallienus forced himself to smile. 'The imperium was not won without bitter strife. It will not be held by the faint-hearted. No one has defeated us. We will triumph over these rebels as we have triumphed over these Alamanni.' The emperor raised his voice, made it ring. 'Today we won a heroic victory. Tonight we will hold a heroic feast. We will distribute the booty and then drink until the sun is back in the sky, until the wine peeps through our scars.'
As the protectores and others close enough to hear his words cheered, Gallienus's thoughts flew to the east. Shapur at the head of the Sassanid horde. Macrianus the Lame commanding the Roman forces. And between them, holding the balance, was Odenathus, the Lord of Palmyra. The man they called the Lion of the Sun.
PART THREE
Vir Perfectissimus (The East, Summer-Autumn AD260)
'You know well that you have not kept your oaths to me.'
