Ours is about forty paces long. Much further and the air gets bad at the head of the mine. The wind sail helps a little. If there had been time I would have dug another tunnel next to our mine: if you light a fire at the mouth of a parallel tunnel it draws out the bad air.'
Allfather, but he is a good siege engineer this one, a good Praefectus Fabrum. I am lucky to have him.
'I think that their tunnel will pass just to the left of our cross gallery. We will have to dig a little more to catch them,' Mamurra continued in answer to Ballista's unspoken question. 'There is a risk that they will hear us digging, that they will be ready for us. But we will dig and listen by turns. Anyway, it cannot be helped.'
Both were silent. Ballista wondered if Mamurra was also thinking that the traitor might already have warned the Sassanids of the Roman counter mine.
'When you intercept them, what will you do?'
As was often his way, Mamurra slowly mulled the question over. 'We could try and break into their tunnel from below, light a fire and smoke them out. Or we could come in from above, throw down missiles, maybe pour in boiling water, try to make their mine unworkable. But neither really answers. As I told the Greek boy when he talked of bears, bees, scorpions and such things, it will be nasty work in the dark with a short sword.'
'And then?'
'Collapse their mine. Preferably not with us still in it.'
'How many men will you need?'
'Not many. Numbers can be an encumbrance underground. When I ask, bring up the reserve century stationed on the campus martius. I will take twenty of them into the tunnel to add to my miners. Have the rest of the century around the entrance. Keep Castricius with you, in case things should work out badly.' The corners of Mamurra's mouth were turned down.
'I will tell the centurion Antoninus Posterior to have his men ready.'
Two days passed before a red-faced messenger sought out the Dux Ripae. Ballista collected Antoninus Posterior and his men. When they reached the mine Mamurra was waiting. There was no time for an extended farewell. Ballista shook the hand of his praefectus fabrum, and Mamurra led twenty legionaries into the tunnel.
Faced with a period of inactivity when nothing was required of him, Ballista did what all soldiers do: he sat down. There was no convenient shade from which he could see the entrance, so he sat with the hot sun on his back. He watched the awful black mouth of the mine. It was the twenty-ninth of September, three days before the kalends of October. It was autumn. In the north it would be cool. Here it was still very hot. He draped his cloak over his shoulders to keep the sun off the metal rings of his mail coat.
Calgacus arrived with some slaves from the palace. They handed round skins of water. Ballista took off his helmet and scarf. He took some water in his mouth, swilled it round and spat it out then, holding the skin away from his lips, poured a sparkling jet of the cool liquid into the back of his mouth.
Passing the water skin to Maximus, Ballista looked round and caught the eye of his latest standard-bearer, a lumpen-faced Macedonian called Pudens.
'Dracontius, take my standard to the Palmyrene Gate. Let the Persians see the white dragon flying there as usual.' Ballista picked one of his equites singulares, a Gaul with fair hair. 'Vindex, take my cloak. Put it on and show yourself by the standard. Play at being the Dux Ripae for a while. Let the Persians thinkit is just another day.'
Mamurra took his ear from the bronze shield. It was time. Holding it so that it did not clash on anything, Mamurra stepped between the two miners, then between the two men with bows. Putting the shield out of the way against the side wall, he squatted down. In the flickering light of the oil lamps everyone stared at him. Very quietly Mamurra said, 'Now.'
The two miners hefted their pickaxes, looked at each other, then swung. The noise was very loud after the silence in the enclosed space. Crash-crash, splinters flew. The two bowmen shielded their eyes. Crash-crash, crash-crash, the men with the pickaxes worked as a team, concentrating their blows in one place. Stripped to the waist, their bodies shone with sweat.
Mamurra drew his weapons, an old-fashioned short sword, a gladius, in his right hand, a dagger, a pngio, in his left. A lot depended on how quickly the axemen could make an entrance in the thin wall of the tunnel. Mamurra fervently hoped he had got it right. By all his calculations, by all his instincts, the Persian mine had advanced beyond the Roman counter mine. The breach should bring the Romans out some way behind the Persian pit face.
Crash-crash, crash-crash. Come on, come on. How thick was the wall? Mamurra was sure it would give at any moment. He found that he was humming under his breath, a legionary marching song as old as Julius Caesar: Home we bring our bald whore-monger, Romans lock your wives away! All the bags of gold you sent him Went his Gallic whores to pay.
One of the pickaxes went handle deep through the wall. The miners redoubled their efforts to enlarge the hole. Crash-crash, crash-crash.
'Enough,' shouted Mamurra. The men with the pickaxes stepped back. The bowmem stepped forward. They drew and released straight through the hole. The arrows could be heard ricocheting off the opposite wall. They drew again. They shot again, this time one to the left, one to the right. The arrows snickered down the rock walls. The bowmen stepped aside.
Mamurra and the man next to him hurled themselves through the hole and into the Persian mine. Crashing into the far wall, Mamurra turned right. The man next to him turned left. Mamurra took a couple of steps, then waited until another man joined him.
Together they moved forward. Mamurra kept low. Without his helmet or a shield he felt terribly vulnerable. In the distance, a shaft of light came down from one of the Persian air holes. Beyond it Mamurra could see the indistinct shapes of Sassanids. He caught a glimpse of a curved bow. He resisted the urge to flatten himself against the wall – arrows could follow walls. He crouched, making himself as small as possible. He heard the wisp, wisp sound of the feathers as the arrow spun through the air, felt the wind of its passing.
Straightening only a little – he had no desire to crack his head on the jagged roof of the tunnel – Mamurra ran at the Persians. The two eastern warriors at the front drew their swords, stood for a moment, then turned to run. One tripped. The legionary next to Mamurra was on the fallen Persian, a foot on the small of his back, stabbing repeatedly down at the man's head, neck, shoulders.
'Hold,' yelled Mamurra. 'Bring up the shields.' Wicker shields were passed forward. Four legionaries improvised a barrier. 'Where are the miners? Good, bring down those pit props and collapse the reptiles' mine.'
As the men with the pickaxes set to work Mamurra turned to find out what was happening in the other direction, at the head of the mine. He did not see what gave him the blow, he just felt the terrible dull impact. He stood for a moment stunned, feeling nothing but a vague surprise. Then a violent wave of nausea surged up from his stomach as the pain hit him. He saw the rough floor of the tunnel as he fell. Felt his face smash into the rock. He was conscious just long enough to hear the Persian counter attack, to feel a man stand on his ankle.
The first Ballista knew of the disaster below ground was when a legionary ran out of the entrance to the mine. His hands empty, the man stopped, looking around stupidly. Another legionary followed. He nearly ran into the first man.
'Fuck,' said Maximus quietly. They all rose to their feet. The soldiers around the entrance hefted their weapons. Antoninus Posterior started to get them into line. Now there was a stream of men running from the mine. Everyone knew what had happened. The Persians had won the underground fight. At any moment Sassanid warriors would burst out of the mine hard on the heels of the fleeing Romans. Castricius was standing by Ballista, waiting.
'Bring down the mineshaft,' said Ballista.
Castricius turned and issued a volley of orders. A group of men with crowbars and pickaxes fought their way into the mouth of the tunnel against the flow of panic-stricken legionaries. Others took up the ropes that were already tied around some of the pit props.
'No!' Maximus caught Baliista's shoulder, his grip tight. 'No. You cannot do this. Our boys are still down there.'
Ballista ignored him. 'As quick as you can, Castricius.'
'You bastard, you cannot do this. For fuck's sake, Mamurra is still down there.'
