That settled him down a bit.
“Then how do we find out?” he asked. Ithought I detected a plaintive quality in his tone and, in truth,it was a fair question. I just wished we could have started at thispoint.
“That’s a very good question.” I tried toapply some balm to his bruised ego. “And the truth is, there areonly two ways to find out.”
“And they are?” he asked impatiently.
“The first is to do as you suggest, but doit in a more cautious manner. We could start by sending thevanguard through the passage first, and see if they draw anyfire.”
“Let’s do that then.” Primus turned to lookfor the poor cornicen Caldus, eager to give some sort ofcommand to start the men.
“There are risks with this option, and theyare significant,” I warned him, but he was finished listening.
“Yes, yes. I am sure there are risks, justas there are in any military operation.”
He fluttered a hand in my direction, turninghis back on me as he did so, while I shot Masala a look that Ihoped he would interpret correctly. He gave a slight nod, thenputting his horse into a trot to catch up to his patron, I saw himsurreptitiously grab Primus by the elbow, urgently whisperingsomething in his ear. The Praetor was obviously reluctant toreturn, but he did so, petulant and resentful certainly, yet returnhe did.
“Yes, Prefect? You were saying about theserisks?” he asked with forced patience.
Knowing I only had a moment, I plungedin.
“The real danger is that if there’s an evensomewhat competent commander in that fort, he’ll know what we’redoing, and he’ll hold his fire and allow the vanguard to pass. Andhe’ll in all likelihood let both Legions march by. What he’ll bewaiting for is the baggage train, which we can’t protect. That’swhen he’ll unleash everything he has on us, because the one thingthat these barbarian tribes have learned is that our vulnerabilityis through our baggage train. It’s what stopped us when Antoniusmarched on Parthia the first time, and it’s part of the reason thatthe Thracians were able to beat us along the Hebrus (Maritsa) rivera long time ago, by falling on the baggage train.”
I paused, hoping that what I had said wouldbe enough, but while I could see Primus’ face cloud with doubt, hewas still not ready to submit.
“But that business with Crassus and Antoniuswas with the Parthians, and this battle on the Hebrus you speak ofhappened long, long ago. You surely can’t believe that thosebarbarians will remember that, do you?”
“Any defeat of Rome is an event that entersinto a people’s history, and becomes a deed of which legends aremade,” I pointed out. “I can assure you that there’s not a Thracianalive who wasn’t raised on stories of the defeat of Rome, not justat the Hebros, but every other battle. Spartacus was Thracian,” Ireminded the Praetor. Suddenly, Primus sagged in the saddle,closing his eyes and holding out his hands, palms out to me.
“Very well, Prefect. You’ve convinced methat this first plan isn’t a good one. But you mentioned a secondone.” He opened his eyes to glare at me, his tone dangerous. “And Iexpect this one not to be destined to fail like the first one.”
“It’s not destined to fail,” I replied, mytone grim. “But it will be hard. We’re going to have to take thatfortress.”
The decision to assault the fortress was notonly the right decision; it was the only one to make that made anytactical sense. Not only would we remove the threat to our rearonce we turned on Serdica, we would be further reducing the numbersof Thracians that we would be facing. That was one reason whyMacrinus and Flaminius had looked like they had been struck by oneof Zeus’ thunderbolts when Primus had tried to make us march pastthe fortress, knowing as well as I did it would be suicide. Notthat taking the fortress would be easy, the task made even moredifficult by the lack of suitable sites for a camp anywhere nearthe fortress. It soon became apparent that the only possiblelocation had already been taken, by the fortress itself. Thenearest spot we could find was almost three miles away to thesouth, just a short distance away from where the vanguard hadstopped when they had spotted it. This meant that we would somehowhave to haul our artillery from the camp to within range. First, Ihad to get a better look at the fortress itself, and I brought notonly the Primi Pili, but all the Tribunes along, thinking that itwould be a good teaching opportunity. Even Masala asked to join us,once Marcus Primus announced that he had other pressing matters toattend to and would not go on our scouting mission, giving me thestrong feeling that the young aide was happy to be free of hispatron for a while.
Taking a cavalry escort in the event oftrouble, along with Aelius Flavianus, we headed for the fortress.Flavianus brought along his own assistant, so that all told, ourparty consisted of almost fifty men. We rode over the steep andrough hillside, above the valley floor that followed the naturalcourse of a river that I assumed was the main water supply forSerdica, and approached the fortress cautiously. When we werewithin sight of the walls, I ordered half the cavalry to staybehind, taking the other half with me, along with everyone else.Drawing closer, we dropped out of sight of the fort, descending afairly steep incline, at the bottom of which was a dry watercourseleading up into the bulk of the large mountain off to our right.Climbing the opposite slope, I approached the top, inching forwarduntil the fort was just visible again, only the rampart at first,now crowded with men, all of them looking in our direction. I wasnot worried about being spotted; there is no way to hide fiftyhorsemen, and the ground was barren of any vegetation large enoughto screen our movement, so I knew they had been watching for sometime. What I was more concerned about was what they might havedecided to do in that time where we were descending
