where the sun is always shining. The Alemanni wish only for control of the west bank.”
Quintus said, “That makes the odds heavy indeed.”
I said, “I have written to the Praefectus Praetorio at Arelate. He has promised to send troops.” Quintus raised his eyebrows at this, but I outstared him. “How many?” asked Fabianus excitedly.
“Will they come in time, sir?” asked Aquila bluntly.
Goar dropped his eyes. “Then Stilicho has kept his promise.”
I said gently, “Rome does not forget her generals.” I looked at Quintus, but he was looking at Goar, now staring blankly at the wall. I said, “There is something on your mind? What is it?”
Goar said, “Because of the Alemanni and the Burgundians, I cannot cross the river. I cannot abandon my people. But I will fight on the east bank for as long as I can. That I promise you.”
Fabianus said nervously, “You said, sir, you would kill Rando’s daughter if the Alemanni crossed. Will you still do so?”
I stared at him. I said, “I give the orders; you obey them.”
I turned round. “Aquila.” He nodded and went to the door and shouted. There was a pause and the aquilifer entered, carrying the Eagle. It was of bronze, clean and shining and worn smooth with much polishing; now it had been freshly gilded and it glowed in the lamplight. I said, “A soldier can commit only two sins: desertion and cowardice. Those I have never tolerated, nor will I now. Any one who wishes to be released from his oath must ask to be released now or not at all.” I smiled as no one moved. I said, “I am not an emperor, nor shall ever be one. I am content to command the Twentieth. I make no promises; I tell no lies.” I held up my hand. “But, before the Eagle, there is only death or victory. In this matter we are at one with the gladiators in the arena, and I am glad that it shall be so.”
They saluted the Eagle and they saluted me. And then they left. I poured myself a cup of wine and put it carefully on the table before me. Then I sat down heavily upon a stool and put my head in my hands. I felt very old and very tired.
That night it snowed again.
It was December now and each morning the birds gathered about the cook-houses, hoping for scraps of food. The wolves howled in the forest at night and the foxes, desperate with hunger, broke through the village palisades in their search for prey. The blue smoke from the enemy camp hung thick and heavy in the cold air and the black sludge on the dark, moving water turned to thin delicate circles of ice. The galleys moved slowly up and down the main channel and the sentries shivered in their watch-towers and cleared the ballistae of snow each morning. Many men went sick; some with sores, others with fever, and those who remained on duty looked thin and pinched with the effort of fighting the intense cold. Others tried to fish, hoping to eke out their diet with fresh food, but few caught anything. Fabianus, who knew about these things, told them that it was a waste of time. “It is no good,” he said. “In such conditions the fish only bury themselves in the mud.”
The circles of ice began to join together and formed what we called black ice. Floes from higher up came floating down, some to break through the black ice and be carried on to Bingium, others to remain, jammed against the banks or caught and held by the thinner ice. Each day at set times we fired missiles from the ballistae into the water. At the beginning this was successful. The sixty-pound balls of iron broke the ice with ease so that it was carried away by the moving current; but each day there seemed to be more ice on the move than there had been the day before, and it grew more and more difficult. The galleys smashed at the ice with their oars and the water level, which should have been dropping, remained constant. Each day the sun rose, a pale disc in a grey sky, and the rooks, black and hard of eye, sat on the walls, cawing dismally, and watched us at our work. In the evenings now, wolves could be seen. They moved about the edges of the clearings, sometimes snarling and fighting amongst themselves, but more often simply just standing and waiting as though they knew that we must come to them in the end. They were like the Vandals and they got on our nerves with their terrible, controlled patience. And at night the moon rose to light a land that was white and dead and silent, save for the hooting of the owls that lived on the islands and which were better sentries than the iron helmeted legionaries who stood there, numb and still, staring with strained eyes across the water and quivering gently with the cold. The ice floes changed colour in the shifting light; sometimes they were blue, sometimes green and sometimes black. Only at the end did they stay white. Each morning the galleys found it more difficult to weigh anchor and cut their way out into the stream. The bows would press against the ice and a thin black line, or a series of lines perhaps, would streak out suddenly, like ropes laid across the frozen water, and there would be a great booming noise as the ice cracked and then a harsh grinding that went on and on as the smashed floes jostled against each other and the galleys forced them apart.
Quintus said, “It will not be much longer now.”
“No, not much longer. We have been a long time waiting.”
The ice began to thicken along the banks and the ice field spread outwards until there was only a narrow stream, a hundred yards wide, down the centre, through which the water coiled and writhed like a gigantic snake. The ice was thin still and, as Gallus said, would break up under pressure, but each night it froze again and the work of the day was undone in a few hours.
One afternoon five men tried to cross the river from the east bank. Why they tried we never knew. Perhaps they were ordered to test the ice; perhaps they were desperate or out of their minds through fatigue and starvation; the last most likely. We watched them, five tiny dots in the distance, who, as they came closer, slowly turned into men, scrambling across the hummocks and slipping on the ridged snow. When they reached the centre channel they paused and cast about for a way across. One tried to jump onto a floe but it tipped and he lost his balance and fell into the water. Even at that distance we could hear his thin, despairing cry. Then two ballistae from the camp opened fire. The iron balls crashed with sickening accuracy to right and left of the remaining men. The ice boomed and split and the men disappeared into the water. A moment later we saw their heads on the surface as they clawed frantically at the jagged edges of the floes. Then the floes turned slowly in the current, rubbing against each other as though in friendship; and after a while there was nothing to be seen but the black water and the moving ice.
Then the signal beacons flared and plummets of smoke drifted upwards, and the signallers were busy with messages from the outlying forts, and an elderly cavalryman with a sun-blacked nose, brought a message from Goar that Gunderic would speak with me. “Why go?” said Quintus. “Talking is only a waste of time.”
“So is this,” I said, pointing at the draughts-board where he had my pieces nicely penned up like sheep under the care of an over-attentive dog. “Why not? I, at least, have time to waste.”
He looked at me with half a smile. “It is your company I value. Time is running out.”
“Very well. Let us finish the game anyway.”
I went with Fabianus for company. We crossed the bridge at Bingium and cantered slowly up the river bank till we met Goar, who was quite alone. He led us up into the hills, past our fighting camp and then through the snowed up woods to the slopes overlooking the enemy position. It was a world of white up here now, a silent mysterious world of sparkling snow and naked trees. There was no wind and the sun gleamed like a gold coin in a grey sky. A white-winged falcon with a brown flecked body stood on the dead carcase of a goat and tore at the frozen flesh with furious energy. It was so hungry that it scarcely looked up as we passed it by. It was terribly cold and I shivered as I watched the steam from my breath mingle with my horse’s in the thin air. Overhead, a skein of swans flew south, and I knew that they came before the threat of a blizzard that lay in the darkened sky to the north-east.
Two horsemen were waiting for us in the distance, close by a stunted, solitary tree. They were two black figures against an infinity of white. As we came closer I saw that the Vandal king was accompanied by Julian. We circled each other for a moment but this was not a time for dismounting. It was warmer to sit one’s horse. I did not fear an ambush. What would have been the point? They did not fear me. Why should I kill the Vandal by treachery? What was Gunderic to me? It was his people I feared, not him.
He rested his hands on the saddle and I did the same. Drops of snow sparkled on his thick eyebrows and on his matted beard. He looked gaunt and hollow cheeked, like a famished fox. If his people had gone hungry he, at least, had shared their hunger.
He said, “You are a clever man. You tricked us over your numbers.”
I said, “You made it necessary. But still, we gave you a good fight on the east bank.”
He said, “For a year now you have held us with trickery, with lies and with deceit.” He glanced at Goar and frowned. “You caused such dissension amongst us that we quarrelled amongst ourselves. It was well done. And yet—” He paused. “We are still here on the east bank and the river is freezing fast. Soon it will be time for us to
