baggage guards. That’s how it goes.
‘Demetrios!’ I called. He did not look like a great warrior; he wasn’t very tall and his helmet looked several sizes too big. ‘Face to the right!’ I called. I ran to his men.
I’d like to say that the enemy didn’t expect us to abandon our tin, but they were not under anyone’s control either, at this point. I put myself at the head of Demetrios’s baggage guards and we charged the Aedui on foot, who had been pricked by the archers and crawled across the marsh.
A few of them died, but the rest chose to run, evading our short charge and running back into the marsh. There were some desultory spear casts from both sides.
I needed a decisive result.
I wasn’t going to get one.
‘Hold them here,’ I said to Demetrios, and ran — panting, now, with effort — back to my marines and Giannis and a few comrades.
‘Follow me,’ I spat. I ran down the slope towards the river.
The cavalrymen were trying to kill Seckla, and Seckla was refusing to be drawn into a fight, and the archers were running around, trying to stay alive and occasionally launching a shaft. I only had six archers, and they were the balance of the fight. The cavalrymen didn’t seem to know that, though. Phokis, one of the former slaves and a fine archer, died from a chance javelin throw, but he was one of the few.
At any rate… I charged fifty cavalrymen with twenty infantry.
I didn’t have a spear to throw.
It was foolishness. They were brilliant horsemen — as good as Persians — and one of them saw me, and all by himself he turned out of the chase for Seckla and rode at me. I should have stopped running, but I didn’t. I ran right at him.
He was grinning. He had a scale shirt down to his thighs, a fine helmet and two javelins. He threw one just before he reached me. It bounced off the face of my aspis and then I sidestepped and his horse sidestepped — he struck with his javelin, hitting me in the head. My sword licked out and caught his leg, and then he was past me, and I was alive.
I shook my head, and the eagle fell off.
A dozen more of their cavalrymen turned, now, eager to emulate their fellow. And he was circling wide behind me, coming back for another try.
‘Form on me,’ I croaked, and set my feet. I remember praying to Heracles, and feeling like a fool. I had come all this way, and I was losing my train of tin. And perhaps my life or my freedom.
I gritted my teeth.
A dozen cavalrymen may not sound like much. After all, I was a hero of Marathon! I had faced down a hundred Persian noblemen — the finest horsemen in the circle of the world.
But the Gauls were, man for man, marvellous horsemen, perhaps the equals of the Persians, and they were fresh, delighted to be fighting, dangerous men on well-trained horses. I was tired, and defeat has its own fatigue. And we were losing.
Behind me, the Aedui infantry were gaining courage, and working their way forward.
Far to the south, I could see Gaius’s Etruscan feathers waving on the brows of his helmet. He was rallying my phalanx. He would only be ten minutes late. In time, perhaps, to rescue my corpse.
My marines and some shepherds pressed in around me.
‘Spears up!’ I remember roaring.
There’s a belief that horses won’t face a spear point, or a well-ordered host of men. I don’t know — perhaps it becomes true at some point, if the host is wide enough. Certainly, I’ve seen five hundred Athenians turn the charge of the very best of the Persian noble cavalry, the horses turning away before a single man had died.
But the Gauls trained their horses differently. The Gauls came at us in no particular order, but one man, on a beautiful white horse, was in front, and he came at me at a dead gallop, and when he was a few horse-lengths away, I realized that he was not slowing down and that I was literally trapped between my comrades.
So naturally, I leaped out and charged him.
What would you do?
I got my aspis up — no low blows from a horseman. I was on the cavalryman’s bridle-hand side, so he had to cut cross-body at me, and I took his blow on my sword — held high over my head, across my aspis face — and I let the blow roll off my blade like rain falling off a temple roof, turned my hand and struck. It was a short blow, but I had plenty of fear to power it, and he had no armour on his thighs, and then the next horseman hit me in the back and I went down.
My cuirass took the blow, but I went face down over my aspis and I stunned myself on the rim of my own shield. A horse kicked me as I fell, right on the point of the hip.
I thought I’d got a spear through my armour. I assumed I was dead. I was down, and the pain was intense, and when I tried my legs, they didn’t work.
My legs didn’t work.
I don’t know how long I lay there. I was conscious, but I had taken two bad blows and a light ring to my head, and I had every reason to think I was raven’s food.
Then a riderless horse came pounding across the ground at me, and without conscious thought, I rolled myself over to avoid it.
With my legs.
Thought is action. I got my feet under me and powered to an upright position. My sword was lying there. My helmet had twisted on my head. I remember standing there on a stricken field, unable to decide which I should do first — retrieve the sword? Fix the helmet?
Aye, laugh if you like. Pain and fatigue and desperation make you stupid.
My marines had scattered. Giannis helped me get myself together.
Six of the Gauls’ cavalrymen were down. And Seckla was leading the others in a merry dance.
Suddenly, we were in a stalemate. A stasis. I muttered to Giannis, and he began shouting for the men to come to me.
Other men pointed at me.
Demetrios had all of the reserve together, and they came to me in a block. The Aedui infantry were still hesitant.
My archers were in a patch of brush, down by the water, and they were carefully loosing at the bolder Gaulish horsemen. They didn’t hit many men. But they hit a great many horses. And the Gauls are tender on their horses.
When I went down, we were losing. When I got up, we weren’t.
War’s like that. I made a good plan, and it failed. The enemy plan was foolish, and it nearly succeeded.
But now we had some advantages. So I ignored that dull, metallic ache in my hip, and I picked up a fine Gaulish spear and pointed it down the field at the riverbank, where our donkeys and horses were pinned by a handful of mounted Gauls.
‘There’s our tin, friends,’ I said.
‘Arimnestos!’ shouted Giannis. I thought he was trying to get my attention, but Demetrios shouted it too. In a moment, a hundred men were bellowing my name as if it were a war cry.
I’m not ashamed to say I almost burst into tears. And when we charged, I had the feeling — that old feeling — that I was invincible.
That’s the daimon of combat, thugater. One moment you think you are dead, and the next, you are full of of piss and vinegar, ready for anything.
I’ve seen a few defeats, but far more victories, and men die in defeat faster than they do in victory.
We slammed into them. No, that’s a lie, friends. We ran at them, and most of them ran from us — into the river. The men chasing Sekla were cut off, well up the ridge to our right. And in a few moments, we were all around our pack animals. The stubborn panic of the average donkey is a two-edged sword. They ran from us, but they weren’t going to tamely submit to our enemies, either.
If men hadn’t died, it would have been like comedy, Thugater. We’d run around in all directions, our bandit enemies had largely run around us, and now they were running away. I’m not sure if that counts as a battle or not. We lost nine men, dead and badly wounded, and the worst part was killing off our own wounded — Garun, a
