optiones, the centurions’ seconds in command, were sorted into fatigue parties; some for trench-digging, some for soil-packing and some for stake-cutting. The auxiliary Gallic cavalry turmae from the front and the rear of the column formed up in a defensive screen to protect the men as they worked. Beyond them smaller units of Thessalian light cavalry and foot archers patrolled the surrounding countryside. The camp servants and slaves offloaded the baggage, corralled the animals and levelled the ground, whilst the engineers paced out and marked up the line of the square palisade and the position of each of the two hundred papiliones, eight-man tents, within it.
It took only a few moments for the marching column to convert itself into a hive of industry. Every man fell into his allotted task, with the exception of the dozen Thracian guides who squatted down on their haunches and pulled their undyed woollen cloaks around their shoulders and their strange fox-skin hats over their ears against the cooling mountain air. They watched with sullen eyes, murmuring to one another in their unintelligible tongue, as the camp began to take shape.
By the time the sun had set the exhausted legionaries had started to cook their evening meal within the security of the 360-foot-square camp. Each man had either dug just over four feet of trench, five feet wide and three feet at its deepest, piling the spoil up two feet high on the inside for others to pack down, or they had cut and shaped enough five-foot stakes to cover the same length; and all this after marching sixteen miles over rough ground. They hunched in groups of eight, over smoky fires by their leather tents, complaining about the arduousness of their new military lives. The odour of their stale sweat masked the blander smell of the rough military fare that bubbled in their cooking pots. Not even their daily wine ration could produce any laughter or light-hearted banter.
Vespasian sat outside his tent listening to their grumbling as Magnus boiled up the pork and chickpea stew that was to be their supper. ‘I’ll wager there’s more than a few of them regretting joining the Eagles at the moment,’ he observed, taking a slug of wine.
‘They’ll get used to it,’ Magnus said, chopping wild thyme into the pot. ‘The first ten years are the hardest – after that it slips by.’
‘Did you serve the full twenty-five?’
‘I joined up when I was fifteen and did eleven years with the Legio Quinta Alaudae on the Rhine then transferred to the Urban Cohort; they only have to serve sixteen so I was lucky – I was out after a further five. I never made it to optio, though; mainly because I can’t write, although regularly getting busted for fighting didn’t help either. When I was discharged four years ago, it seemed sensible to make a virtue out of a vice so I became a boxer. The money’s better, but it tends to hurt more.’ He rubbed one of his cauliflower ears to emphasise the point. ‘Anyway, these whippersnappers are only moaning because it’s the first time they’ve had to build a full camp after a day’s march; they’ll get used to it after a season in the field. If they survive, that is.’
Vespasian conceded the point; since they had joined the column, late, ten miles outside Genua, they had covered twenty miles a day along proper roads within the safety of Italia, pitching camp wherever they pleased until they had reached the port of Ravenna. From there, after a long wait for the transport ships, they had crossed the Adriatic Sea and sailed down past Dalmatia to Dyrrachium, on the west coast of the province of Macedonia. Here they picked up the Via Egnatia and marched across Macedonia, only ever setting pickets around their camps. This was the first night that they could be said to be in some sort of danger. The men, many of them no older than him, would soon learn that it was better to be tired and safe in a camp than fresh and dead in an open field.
He turned his mind back to the day that he and Magnus had joined the column. Marius and Sextus had put them ashore, with their horses, just west of Genua, and then, before making their way back to Rome, had sailed the small ship into the harbour, under cover of night, to abandon it to be reclaimed some day by its rightful owner. He and Magnus had ridden across country to within a mile of the recruiting depot outside the town’s walls. There they had waited for two days in the overlooking hills for the column’s departure. They had shadowed it along the Via Aemelia Scauri until they were sure that there were no Praetorians travelling with it, and then had caught up with it as if they had just come from Genua. The bollocking that he had received from Corbulo for his late arrival had been excruciating. However, it didn’t overshadow the relief that he had felt at being safely on his way out of Italia and, hopefully, out of the reach of Sejanus and his henchmen.
Vespasian sighed and contemplated the irony that the further he got from someone who would kill him the further he would be from someone who would love him. He fingered the good-luck charm around his neck that Caenis had given him as they had said goodbye and recalled her beautiful face and intoxicating scent. Magnus brought him out of his reverie.
‘Get this down you, sir,’ he said, handing him a bowl of steaming stew. It smelt delicious and, realising just how hungry he was, Vespasian started to eat with relish.
‘How did you learn to cook so well?’
‘If you haven’t got a woman to cook for you then you need to learn, otherwise you end up living on shit.’ Magnus shovelled in a mouthful with his wooden spoon. ‘Most of the young lads here will be half-decent cooks by the time they finish their service. Unless of course they decide to drag a woman around with them; but that’s generally a pain in the arse on campaign, as they tend to moan all the time. It’s fine if you’re stationed in a permanent camp where you can build her a nice little shack outside the walls, somewhere where she can have all her creature comforts and where you can go for a bit of afternoon delight, if you take my meaning?’
‘I do indeed,’ Vespasian replied, feeling the need for some delight himself. Any further thoughts in that direction were halted by the sound of a bucina.
‘That’s “All officers to the command tent”, you’d better go, sir. I’ll keep this warm for you.’
Vespasian handed Magnus his bowl and mumbling his thanks trudged wearily off to the commander’s tent, the praetorium, at the centre of the camp, on the Via Principalis, the road that divided the camp into two.
‘Good evening, gentlemen,’ Corbulo said, looking around the gathering. Present, in the dim lamplight, were the Roman prefects of the two auxiliary Gallic cavalry units, twelve centurions, six from each cohort, including Centurion Faustus who, as the most senior centurion, was acting as prefect of the camp. Vespasian and Marcus Cornelius Gallus, the other newly arrived military tribune, made up the rest of the group.
‘I trust that you have eaten well and feel refreshed, because we have a long night ahead of us.’
There was a small murmuring of assent, but most had, like Vespasian, been halfway through their meals when the summons had come.
‘There is a high probability of an attack on the column either tonight or in the course of the next couple of days. Our Caeletaean guides have been less than helpful and we cannot afford to trust them. I have placed them under arrest with orders for their execution should an attack materialise. This means that we have to find our way to Poppaeus’ camp unaided. Neither Centurion Faustus nor I travelled this way last year on our way back to Genua, as we went directly from Moesia before Poppaeus moved his legions into Thracia. I would appreciate anyone with previous experience of Thracia to make themselves known.’
‘Sir!’ One of the centurions from the second cohort stepped forward.
‘Centurion Aetius, you may speak.’
‘Sir! I served with the Fifth Macedonica under Publius Vellaeus five years ago when the Odrysae revolted, the last time we had to sort out a Thracian mess. We came in from Moesia, just as Poppaeus has done, and cut them to pieces outside the walls of Philippopolis. We passed through Bessapara on our way through. I got to know the country quite well as we stayed for nearly a year, mopping up. They’re a nasty, vicious people, although Marcus Fabius, optio of the princeps posterior century of the second cohort, would beg to differ; he had a woman here five years ago, he even speaks the lingo.’
‘Excellent, thank you, Aetius. What would you recommend we do?’
‘Between twenty and thirty miles north of here we should hit the Harpessus River; it’s not too wide but it’s fast flowing at this time of year with snow melt from the mountains, but it’s still just shallow enough to ford. Once we’re across we could follow it east to the Hebrus River; we could then follow that northwest to Philippopolis and on to Bessapara. It’s a longer route, but without trustworthy guides to take us directly there through the mountains it would be safer.’
Corbulo weighed up this information, trying to reconcile arriving later with the possibility of not arriving at all, and liking neither of the outcomes drew the briefing to a close.
‘Thank you, gentlemen. I will make my decision in the morning. In the meantime have your men sleep in shifts, I want half the centuries to be stood to arms throughout the night. As I said, it will be a long night. Good evening.’
