“I gave it to him,” said Artorius, drily.
I looked at Fabianus. He was smiling. I did not ask what the message was.
“We are almost a legion still,” I said. Quintus gave me a long, steady look. He remembered, I think, as I did too, that day I landed in Gaul, and he met me at the camp, and we had been so absurdly proud and so happy at the greatness of our command.
“What about the Eagle?” asked Fabianus.
“It will not fall into their hands,” I said. “That I promise you.”
Aquila said anxiously, “You are sure?”
“I swear it upon the sword of Agricola.”
They went out then and I was alone with Quintus.
I said, “We were both wrong. I would never have thought our casualties could have been so heavy, or that our supplies would have been used up so quickly. I would never have thought the barbarians could have fought the way they did these last two days.”
“Nor I,” he said. “But you know, Maximus, they have their women and their children in their camp behind them. That makes a great difference. And they do not mind dying either; our men do. That makes a difference also.”
The wind had dropped and, in the ghastly, grey light of the dawn, we lined the palisades with the last of our men. The bodies of horses were dragged into the gaps where the fencing had been smashed or burnt, and the dead bodies of our men were pulled clear and laid in rows inside the tents they had last occupied when alive. All the spare weapons that could be found had been collected and stuck into the ground by our feet, for ease of use. Under Aquila’s direction, small parties hurriedly crossed the ditch into the killing area to pick up whatever weapons and missiles they could find; on the flanks the cavalry were saddling up their horses, while Quintus walked along the line, checking the girths; and in the camp behind us the cooks were lighting fires and preparing the morning meal. Huddled against a carroballista I saw a man I recognised.
“Fredbal,” I said. “What the devil are you doing here?”
He looked up at me defiantly. “I come back,” he said. “I saw your message delivered. I done what you told me.”
“But—”
“They killed my woman and my children. Thirty years ago, that was. So I come back.”
There was nothing to say. I touched him on the shoulder and smiled, and then turned away. Agilio, who was at my side, said suddenly, “I did not know you believed in devils, my emperor.”
I laughed. “It is through living too long with christians I expect. I find myself talking as they do.”
“My lord Bishop will make another convert yet.”
“I doubt that very much.”
We walked back towards the signal tower. I rubbed my cold hands together, and had a sudden absurd wish that my cloak could have been clean instead of dirty. A voice cried suddenly out of the half dark, and a figure approached and I heard the words, “Truce . . . truce . . . we want a truce . . . we would speak with you.”
“Hold your fire,” I cried.
Quintus cantered up. “Steady, it may be a trap.”
The man came up to the outer ditch. “King Gunderic would speak with your general. Let him come out alone to the ditch and talk. I, his brother, will be a hostage for our good faith.”
“Don’t go, sir,” said Agilio. “It is a trick.”
“Has he a brother?”
“Three,” said Fredegar. “The youngest is a wolf cub called Gaiseric. But this is the eldest by his voice.”
“Don’t go, my Lord.”
“Why not?” I said. “It will give us time to breathe for five minutes.”
A gap was made in the palisade and a plank run out across the first ditch. Gunderic’s men came forward and threw a plank over the outer ditch, and then stood back.
Quintus said, in exasperation, “If you must go, then take my shield. But be careful.”
“Watch the flanks,” I said to Aquila. “Kill the first man who moves.”
I put the shield on my right side, under my red cloak, and went forward, my sword in my left hand. Before me, Gunderic stepped out on to the bridge, and we met alone on the hard, frozen surface between the outer ditches, that forty feet we called the killing area, and over which so many Vandals had run and died. The ditches were three-quarters filled with dead, and there were dead, too, on this ground, over which we had to pick our way carefully to avoid stumbling. We met in the centre, Gunderic and I. He looked more gaunt than ever. There was a rag tied round his right arm and a long cut above his eyes, which looked to be swollen and bloodshot. He had the angry, famished look of a beast of prey that has missed its kill, and I was suddenly afraid. I could smell the danger in our meeting through the sweat of my own fear.
He said, “You refused our offer. I shall not make it again.”
“I did not expect you to do so.” He was a tall man, but he had to look up to me as I spoke, and this he did not like. “But I will make you an offer.” I spoke through my teeth. “Give me the wife of Marcomir living, and I will let you return across the Rhenus unharmed.”
“She is dead.”
“In the Roman fashion?”
“Yes.” He spoke coldly.
“Ah!”
“Unharmed you say?” He glared at me, and said in a blaze of hatred, “Unharmed. You poisoned the wells—butcher. My wife and my children died; and I watched them and could do nothing.”
I said, “I watched you of what would happen.”
He looked at me coldly, “You are a great fighter,” he said softly. “When I am old, I shall be able to boast of how I destroyed Maximus, a Roman general, who barred my way into new lands.”
“Will you also tell them how few men it was who barred your way, and for how long?”
“Of course. That is what makes the story that my people will sing.” He spoke coolly now, but with respect, and I was surprised. I knew so little, really, about these people.
“Will you also say how you were aided by the Marcomanni, the Quadi, and the Alans?”
His teeth snapped. “We have done the hard fighting,” he said. “Their share has been small.”
He lifted his head and looked at the sky. “The moon sets,” he said. “In a little while you will be destroyed with all your men; and your bleached bones will litter the snow. A good end for warriors, but a waste of life. Unbar the way, and you may take your men where you will. I have enough wives who weep in my camp. I do not want more.”
I said, “Once, on a summer afternoon, I met six kings. Are they still all living, Gunderic of the Vandals? I told you when last we met, that you would walk in blood to Treverorum. You must walk in my blood, too, before you get there.”
“Why?”
I smiled. “If all men bar your way, as we do, then how strong will you be when you at last reach those lands of which you dream? I think you will be so weak that, in the end, you will be destroyed in your turn. You will be remembered only as a people who could kill. For yourselves, or for other people, you will make nothing that will last.”
He snarled softly in his throat, like a dog. He said, “You are wrong. You bar my way as an enemy, but the day will come, when you are dead, that I and my people shall be the servants of Rome, calling ourselves its citizens. Does not that seem strange?”
“Perhaps. I do not know. I shall not then care. But why should you need Rome, if you hate her so much?”
He said, as though to a child, “There has always been a Rome. It is a great empire; it is needed; but it needs us also.”
He stroked his beard then, and his eyes flickered sideways. He said, “Rome has been wasted on you. I would not wish—”
“I do not think, King Gunderic—”
At that moment the archer fired. I felt an agonising pain as the arrow drove through my cloak and shield, and into my shoulder. I went sideways with the shock, and felt two more arrows drive home into the shield as I stumbled and tried, desperately, to regain my balance.