The Horse Changer (25 page)

I saw none of these things from my position. The field was soon covered in a thick screen of dust, and I was tucked away behind the lines, pressed against the marsh and our camp palisades. From my perspective, all of our legions were being pushed back even as our camp burned. At the rear of our battle lines men were turning from their appointed places and crowding the camp gates in the vain hope of saving the camp from annihilation. The result was chaos at the gates and a blockage of the ground behind our army.

Realising there was no chance of receiving orders from Cassius, I gave the order to abandon our horses and enter the marsh. Soon the entire cohort, three hundred Thracians and a handful of Roman officers, crashed into the murky water and began wading through the mire. I went last, making sure the men formed a column and moved as quickly as possible away from the battlefield. When a volley of arrows came swarming into us, our centurions ordered shields up and directed the men to continue their slow retreat from the battlefield. Once beyond the reach of Antony’s archers I ordered the wounded to be taken to dry ground, where their wounds might be treated. As this occurred I brought my staff together and explained my intentions. The moment their complaints began I shut them off. ‘Any man disobeying orders will lose his head.’

Our long summer of training paid off. Not another man dared protest, and when we returned to the Thracians my officers were quick to keep their centurions and the rank and file from protesting, repeating my promise of severed heads. So it is with armies; the officers assume the manner of their commander. Up and down the line, men behave exactly as their superiors do. Hesitation breeds cowardice; confidence makes for courage. I was taking our men into the fight, not away from danger as they had at first hoped, and though every man in our cohort dreaded my decision he pressed forward without daring to protest. So the armies of Caesar had fought. The real Caesar, I mean.

As we made our way we encountered legionaries who had fled death on the battlefield by plunging into the marsh and escaping into the wetlands. These I pressed into our column, and I was soon commanding four hundred men. Sometimes we were in water, sometimes deep in the mud, but there were also soft fields of dead grass atop mud flats, which was as close to hard ground as we could hope for.

We were closing in on Antony’s road when two of the legionaries I had pressed into service broke from our column and ran. I tossed my lance and shield to Horace and took off after them. I knew that if I let these deserters get away, I could expect to lose a great many others as well. They were fit and fast, but they had foolishly kept their shields, and I was soon closing on them. Of course a legionary is loath to abandon his shield, for he fights as much with it as with his gladius. We raced along the soft dead grass, sometimes sinking into water, sometimes running on ground firm enough to let us run flat out. I was barefoot of course. Like everyone else I had lost my sandals soon after entering the mud. Two furlongs on, a quarter of a mile at most, I began to close the distance. The legionaries stopped and turned to face me. Each man drew his gladius.

I expect they hoped I would be afraid to face them. We were certainly too far from the others for me to get any assistance. When I kept coming for them they spread out to either side to receive me. Several paces away from them, I stopped to catch my breath. ‘Don’t be a fool, lad!’ the older of the two men called to me. ‘Turn back and save your own skin.’

I pulled both of my swords out. ‘I’ll turn back when I’ve got your heads.’

‘They might be harder to take than you think!’

Saying this, they came at me. These men were not like my officers, who had grown wary of my talents and fearful of being hurt. They had spent their lives on the line and had survived against every sort of enemy; so they had no fear of me. They were veteran brawlers and supremely confident of their abilities. Best of all, from their perspective, I was without a shield.

The first to lunge at me was on my right. He swung his shield at my sword, holding his gladius close to his hip at the ready. Only a step behind his companion, the second man came against my left side, pushing close and ready to end it at once. He too used his shield in an effort to pre-empt my attack. Like his partner, he kept his gladius close to his hip. Rather than getting caught between their shields, I threw all my weight across the shield of the second man. With my left hand I blocked the gladius that came for me. With my right hand I reached around and cut a deep gash across the tenderest part of the fellow’s arm. Rolling off his shield, I heard his scream as the blood spurted wildly from his wound. I turned to find the second man coming in for the kill. I had not the balance to meet his attack. Instead, I went under his shield. I blocked his sword thrust with one gladius, then cut his tendon with the second.

Coming to my feet again, I faced the man whose arm I had cut. He had dropped his shield and sword because he was desperate to bind his wound. I stepped toward him hoping to plunge a sword into him. Rather than trying to recover his weapons, he ran for his life.

I finished the man on the ground; then I took off after the other. We had not gone another half a furlong when I suddenly went face down in the mud. I kept a grip on both swords but with the wind knocked out of me I was slow coming to my feet.

By then, the fleeing legionary had vanished. I knew he was in the high grass; I knew he had to be close, not more than fifty paces away, somewhere in front of me. I watched the grass in case he tried to circle behind me. He was without shield or sword, but he had a dagger and there were fieldstones lying about.

I went forward slowly, listening, turning, watching for an attack. When I came to a large pool, I realised he could be somewhere in the high grass at the centre of it or already over the small knoll on the opposite bank. The water was moving but where exactly he had gone I could not tell. As I weighed my options, I heard the cry of what sounded like a girl just beyond the pond. I waded into the pool and crossed to the opposite bank. Crawling out of the water and over a low grassy bank, I pushed forward to have a look, only to discover Maecenas and Caesar alone in the marsh.

It was Caesar’s cry I mistook for a girl’s. I knew this because he was at it again. Maecenas, the larger of the two but a very soft man, was pulling his friend by the hand. Caesar begged him to stop. It was over, he panted. They were dead men! Maecenas whispered to him that there was still hope, but Caesar was having none of it. ‘We’ve lost!’ he cried. ‘I only wish I had the courage to kill myself!’

Maecenas started to answer, but at that moment they saw me. I had come to my feet without even thinking. I fixed my gaze on Caesar. My heart was brimming with a terrible passion for revenge. The slick little thief, sending thugs to murder honest men that he might claim their fortunes! I cannot explain how thoroughly my emotions seized me. He was alone for the taking, or practically so, at any rate. Maecenas was certainly no protection.

Caesar begged me or some imagined god for mercy, but for a long beat he did not move. I must certainly have presented a terrifying sight. I was covered in mud, an officer of the cavalry, with a gladius in each hand. When I stepped toward them, both of them shrieked in terror and turned to run.

They were thirty paces from me, neither really capable of running full out at this point, nor armed with anything more than a dagger. I smiled at my prospects. With the head of young Caesar I hoped to own all of Tuscany.

At just that moment the man I had been pursuing came up out of the tall grass. He was a step behind me when I saw his shadow. He carried a large boulder, which he threw at me as I turned toward him. I ducked under his assault but the rock hit my back and shoulder, and I went down under the force of it.

I heard the drawing of his dagger from its sheath. Then, only half-conscious of what was happening, I rolled toward him. I brought the gladius in my right hand under his leather skirt. The blade plunged into soft flesh. The legionary howled. I gave a twist of the blade as I pushed up and then pulled the sword free. Blood washed across his thighs as he swayed over me. Then he collapsed beside me, his dagger useless in his hand. For all that, he was still alive when I took his head.

Maecenas and Caesar had vanished in the high grass by the time I had got to my feet again. I sheathed one of my swords and took the head of the man I had killed in my free hand. Scaeva waited for me where the first man lay. I took the second fellow’s head and carried them like a couple of gourds with my fingers locked into their open mouths. I meant to show my men I was as good as my promise. When I did, the Thracians stared at me as if I were some kind of monster. Which I suppose I was.

Five decades on I still curse the fool who came out of the grass for me. Had he only stayed hiding, he could have kept his head, and I would have taken Caesar’s instead!

Antony had secured his road through the marsh with several redoubts. Each was guarded by a century of infantry and several squads of artillerymen. Rather than battle through each fortification, I took our men toward the last of the redoubts, the one closest to Antony’s camp.

Before we were out of the marsh the enemy hit us with a volley of spears, arrows, and slung stones. Up went our shields and then our legionaries were soon coming out of the water, meeting the enemy head-on, exactly as the legions are trained to fight. Our Thracian auxiliaries swarmed around the enemy flanks, as cavalry are taught to do. Antony’s men had the superior position, but we outnumbered them and were soon pressing them back. Once I had secured the redoubt against those centuries farther down the road, I turned the remainder of our cohort against the camp ditch.

I went in the vanguard with our legionaries, racing toward perhaps a hundred defenders. We caught a volley of spears, but kept our formation as we raced up the bank of the ditch. I threw myself against a man directly before me and heard the men to either side of me cracking shields at the same time. My opponent reached around my shield with a deadly thrust. Anticipating him, I slashed at his arm with my shield. As he fell back with a broken arm, I cut at the tendons of the man to my right then struck the back of the leg of the defender to my left.

Soon we had pushed the last of Antony’s men back into their camp. Rather than drive into the camp with my entire force, I sent three centuries forward to loot and burn what they could. I led the remainder along the perimeter bank. We caught another fight but soon drove the enemy back into the ditch. After that we got to the corral and caught up fifty horses. We did not bother with saddles, and many times used only a halter and a lead line instead of bridle and reins. Most of us grabbed up javelins and lances but I made sure some of the squads also got hold of lit torches. We rode through one legionary camp, setting fire to the tents as we went, but a quarter of an hour after we had taken the horses, Antony’s rearguard began pouring into the camp. Taking what small victory we had, I ordered our cohort’s immediate retreat.