Rufus fell silent, saving his breath for the run, grateful for the fact that his military boots with their hobnailed soles gave him a better grip on the mucky slope than civilian wear would. It also gave them the edge over the mob that chased them up the hill who were struggling to keep their feet at speed, several going over in the mud and crap.
Ahead, the fort walls loomed ever closer and finally, in the murky grey, the shapes of individual men resolved themselves on the parapet. Finally the alarm went up inside; the poor visibility must have prevented the fort’s soldiers from spotting the warning beacons at the harbour.
It was a disaster all round.
“Open the damn gate” Rufus bellowed at the top of his voice. Figures were moving around the gate now, and more and more heads and torches began to appear along the wall, backed by the bellow of numerous buccinae and cornu.
The din was growing detestable as the six men closed on the fort, the cacophony of a legion preparing itself for action mixing with the unintelligible cries and curses of the Morini mob behind them.
A loud tortured groan arose from the walls ahead of them and, despite expecting it, Rufus flinched as the scorpion released with a ‘crack’, sending a foot-long bolt down the slope. Despite the skills of the artillerists, the bolt whipped over the heads of the mob and disappeared down into the town harmlessly.
“Angle it down more, you idiots!” Rufus snapped as he bore down on the gate, whose left hand leaf was now swinging open.
In response a second scorpion from the other side of the gate released with a ‘crack’, the bolt whistling over the heads of the six soldiers with only two or three feet to spare. Rufus felt his bowels clench involuntarily at the shot as the passage of the bolt actually ruffled his hair. He was about to snap out a curse at the firer when a shriek of pain and the sound of falling behind them confirmed the perfect accuracy of the shot.
Rufus clamped his mouth shut and hurtled through the gate, the others close at his heel.
“Close it!” he cried, somewhat unnecessarily, given the fact that the portal had already begun to swing shut as they passed through it.
Above, an unseen centurion bellowed out the order for pilum fire and there was the distinctive noise of dozens of missiles arcing out into the air, followed by the thud and rip of the javelins falling into a mass of men, then the screams of the wounded and dying.
The duty centurion stomped towards the six men as they variously bent double, clutching their knees and spitting or leaned heavily against timber and coughed painfully, heaving in breaths.
“Anyone else likely to come back, sir?”
Rufus blinked away the sweat and focused on the centurion.
“I very much doubt it. They’ve got the town’s defences under their control, as well as the port. Watch those two points where the walls meet the fort very carefully and get a good force there. As soon as you’re sure it’s safe enough, get some men out there and tear down a five yard section of the new town walls. I want plenty of open ground around the fort. We don’t know how many of them there are or what they want.”
He straightened. “But they’ve clearly planned this for a while, and there are other Morini coming from nearby to their aid, so I think we have to assume we’re here for a while. I’m hoping it’s just a small rabble of local civilians that we can draw out into open battle and flatten, but I have the horrible feeling that we’re looking at a sizeable uprising that we’re woefully ill-equipped to deal with until one of the other legions makes contact.”
The centurion nodded professionally.
“Then we’d best settle in and hope we can get control of the situation before the general returns, sir.”
Rufus felt his heart sink again. They’d lost the port and there was no way to warn Caesar. Where was Fortuna when she was really needed?
Chapter 17
(South east Britannia)
Lucius Fabius, centurion of the third century, first cohort of the Seventh legion, gestured at a chattering legionary with his vine stick.
“I’m watching you, Statilius. Shut your trap and concentrate on your job. We need to be back in the camp by nightfall and you are without a doubt, the laziest, slowest, most pointless dullard I’ve ever seen don a tunic. How in Hades you manage to get it on the right way round every morning is beyond me. You must have helpful tent- mates.”
The legionary flushed and the half dozen men scything the wheat awkwardly with their swords laughed.
“And the rest of you shower of shit are little better. Shut up and work.”
Turning his back on the labouring soldiers, the centurion spotted his colleague and old friend, Tullus Furius striding through the unevenly cut stubble, staff jammed under his arm and a look of irritation on his face.
“We’ll never make it back to camp before dark with this lot. We might as well make the decision now. Do we leave some of the harvest, hope it survives the night well and come back in the morning, or keep working into the dark and hope we find our way back without too much trouble?”
“I say we keep working. It’s only three miles and pretty much a straight line. We can — Legionary Macrobius, if I see you put that sword down or take that helmet off, you will be emptying latrines with your remaining hand for the next month, while I use the other as a back-scratcher. You got that?”
The legionary saluted, almost concussing himself with the hilt of his gladius. Furius rolled his eyes as he turned back to his companion.
“This legion is a shambles. At least if Caesar had left it as he found it, they’d have been a proper unit, and not just a patchwork collection of misfits. Half the bloody centurions don’t seem to have a clue. Did you know that Lutorius has half of his men loading the grain into the wagons without wearing their armour or helmets? The prat’s even got their swords lying in a heap while they work. I swear I had to clench my fists to prevent myself beating the idiot.”
“Similar story all round. Look at the amount of tunics you can see without armour. Pompey would have had half of them strung up by now. This army’s soft.”
“This
“With any luck we’ll both be able to move up and sort this lot out. Fronto’s a good enough lad, but he’s still a bit lax and disorganised. It irks me that his legion should be so much better than ours.”
“Here’s to that. And to the Seventh being the best in the army by next spring.”
The pair fell silent, taking in the scene around them. Existing rations had run out in the morning, after breaking their fast, and replenishing the stocks had been the first priority of the day. Early in the day, the Seventh had split into four groups of fifteen centuries apiece who had left the camp all with the same assignment: Find food. It didn’t matter what it was — animal, wheat, vegetables. So long as it would go in a pot or bake loaves, it was required. It had taken only two hours for the first section to come across a nicely hidden wide bowl of a valley, surrounded by woodland and filled with ripening white-gold wheat waiting for the harvest, which would be due at any time.
Lutorius, the primus pilus of the legion and the senior centurion of their party had almost rubbed his hands with glee at the sight of enough grain to keep the two legions for the best part of a month. Another hour of searching the tracks that radiated into the woods had turned up the farms that cultivated the area, which supplied them with plenty of commandeered carts along with what could have been termed ‘nags’ if the speaker were being kind, as well as a few mangy oxen.
Now, after four hours of cutting, binding, stacking and loading, the carts were laden with towering piles of wheat. The sun was already hovering over the tops of the trees in its ever swiftening descent to evening, and though much of the wheat had been harvested, still almost a quarter of the fields remained intact.
The two centurions’ gaze both fell on Lutorius, standing among a collection of sheaves, snapping out orders.
