“Perhaps. I’m too tired to think. The men are dead on their feet, too. They had better camp here, off the road. Put the waggons across the pass in front of the tower. A pity we had to burn it.”
The squadron commander choked back a laugh. “We couldn’t force our own ditches, sir.”
“Yes, they were well sited. Put a guard inside the place anyway and tell off a party to repair the palisade.”
We slept for four hours and when we awoke it was to a black sky and falling snow. The nearest enemy had been three miles away when we slept, and the main force six miles further on at Bingium, where only the Alans, if they were not too drunk on the garrison’s wine, would have been in a fit state to march at dawn. Had they done so, we should have been attacked by now. Yet it was more probable, I thought, that they would remain there and leave matters in the hands of the Marcomanni. The Alans were leaderless now, and they had their own lands to look to. The Marcomanni under Hermeric were our nearest foe. So far they had proved to be clumsy and slow and stupid. Gunderic, I was sure, would never have let me get so far. The Vandal host was another matter. They needed food desperately and there was little enough in the surrounding countryside, with its pitiful handful of villages and its wasted land. They would march for Bingium where they knew there was food; but not enough. There would be quarrels between the chiefs, and fights between their men. It would all give us a little time.
“We have about three hours, possibly five, Quintus. In that time we must fell trees, build palisades and dig ditches. We have no ballistae worth speaking about.” I looked at the road. It looped and coiled, like the Mosella, between high hills whose steep slopes were covered with trees. “All they have to do to outflank us, is to climb through the woods. This road looks easy to defend, but it isn’t. And I can’t make any effective use of cavalry here.”
A bearded man, who had been drawing lines in the snow with a stick, said quietly, “Is it wise to go on fighting like a soldier?”
It was Fredegar.
I said, equally quietly, “It is the only way I know how to fight. We held them for seven days at Moguntiacum because I was a soldier.”
He said, “I understand.”
“How many of your people are with us now?”
He said calmly, “I have not been able to count them all. I am waiting, still, for more to come in. About three thousand.”
The man I had spoken to the night before came up and saluted. He said, “The commandant, Scudilio, will be all right, so the doctor says. The arrow has been removed, but without too much loss of blood. He is trying to get up, but the orderlies are holding him down on the waggon.”
“Keep him there. He can walk when he is fit and not before. Aquila, how many of his men are with us?”
“Two hundred and forty, sir.”
“Does that include the wounded?”
“It is all those who can fight.”
Fredegar said, “Let me hold the pass for you. Leave me two centuries of your men. Give me some auxiliaries also. I will hold this position for two days while you withdraw and set up further ambushes at each signal post down the road. Leave me one troop of horse, also, to act as messengers and to fight as a rear-guard. In this way we will slow them down and give time for your ballistae to arrive.”
I hesitated. He put his head on one side and smiled. “I am not a young man, but I am a good fighter.”
“Right. We will do as you suggest.”
At that moment the sentry shouted, and we saw a horseman coming down the road from Treverorum at a canter. Quintus shaded his eyes and swore softly. At first I thought the animal was riderless but, as it came nearer, I saw that its rider was lying along the beast’s neck. The horse trotted up, blowing froth, and then stood still before us with heaving flanks and lowered head. Its rider slipped sideways out of the saddle and fell to the ground before any one could catch him. He was one of the five men I had sent on to Treverorum the night before.
He was still alive but there was blood on his neck and on his left thigh. They looked like spear wounds. He was bleeding badly and his face had no colour in it. I bent down and took him in my arms.
He said in a whisper, “We got six miles up the road to that big bend. There we met the survivors from the garrison at Boudobrigo.” He choked. “Water, please.” A soldier ran to fetch some. He swallowed a little. “The fort fell two days ago. They were hunted across the hills.” He spat blood, choked again and was silent. Presently he opened his eyes. He said, “Burgundians on the road to Treverorum. They caught us. Two got away. We covered them. The others died. I escaped.” He stared up at me, his eyes frightened. He was only a boy. He said, “Guntiarus has his war-host out. Thousands of them.” The blood was coming very slowly now from the wound in his thigh, in spite of the efforts of the medical orderly who knelt beside me. The wounded man looked faintly puzzled. He said in a whisper, “I didn’t know it was so easy.” I looked at the orderly, who shook his head. Presently the blood stopped coming altogether and I laid him down upon the snow.
Quintus said quietly, “I could not have ridden two hundred yards with a wound like that.”
Fredegar said calmly, “Let my plan stay. It is still the only one. But keep your cavalry. You will need them all. Leave me only a few horses.”
“As you wish.”
Quintus said, “Well, I had better get on and clear the Burgundians off the road.”
“Yes.”
The trumpet blew, and I said to Fredegar, “Join us when you can.”
He stroked his beard. He said, “If I cannot join you, then I shall be with Marcomir. Either way I shall be content.”
I gripped him by the arm, and then swung myself on to my horse.
He looked up at me and smiled grimly. “I have much to avenge.”
The Franks were spreading out on the slopes above the road; trees were being felled, and the palisade round the tower was being straightened up, as I rode off at the head of my legion. Ahead of us, Quintus and his cavalry were fading from sight into a blur of falling snow. I wrapped my cloak about me and chewed a dry biscuit. I was sick with fatigue and with worry.
We marched, and, at intervals of two miles, a double century would fall out to prepare defences and lay an ambush. Three hours later we reached the scene of the fighting. The Burgundians had blocked the road with fallen trees, had roasted the garrison of the signal post to death, and were spread out along the slopes, either side of the road. Quintus had failed to break through, had taken his horses well to the rear, and was feeling the enemy position with his scouts. The main body of his troopers were off the road and out of sight. It was then the middle of the afternoon and behind us, in the distance, echoing between the hills, we could hear a distant murmur that was the sound of Fredegar and his men engaged in battle.
By nightfall we had failed to dislodge the Burgundians, and it was then, while we were sitting, exhausted, round a small fire, that a messenger rode in to say that Fredegar was in difficulties.
“Our people cannot hold them,” he said, in his vile Latin. “They are fighting all the five tribes at once, and soon they will be surrounded. We have used the last of our arrows.” He put his hand on my arm. “My chief does not ask this, but I do. He is an old man and was a great warrior once. Can you not help him? He is prepared to die, not for your emperor, but for you, and to keep faith with Marcomir.”
I rubbed my eyes. “Quintus, we’ve got to get behind these Burgundians. Try to get a cohort round to the left, if it takes all night. Send fifty horsemen across country to make for the road in their rear. Send men with loud voices who can blow trumpets. They are to pretend to be reinforcements. Brushwood tied to the saddles will kick up the snow. It’s dry enough.”