I looked from her to Fabianus and the look on his face startled me.
“It is enough,” I said and passed on, leaving her standing in the snow, looking across the river to where her own people lay.
In camp I called a council of my officers and faced them across my table, Quintus sitting at my right hand and Goar at my left.
“Now listen carefully,” I said. “How long the river will take to freeze, I do not know. But freeze it will unless the weather changes. When the time comes I shall call in all regular cohorts from the outlying forts, leaving them in the hands of the auxiliaries. If these forts are attacked in strength, their commanders will hold them as long as possible, then fire their camps and withdraw on the thirtieth milestone as best they can. The legion will concentrate here, and it will fight here. The galleys have been ordered to patrol the river in an effort to keep the main channel clear, and island commanders are to use ballistae to break up the ice as long as possible.”
“What about the Bingium bridge, sir?”
“Scudilio will burn it the moment his outpost on the further bank is driven in. Signal post sections are to move on their nearest forts the moment a general attack takes place on their area. General Veronius has their disposition details arranged. The road to Bingium, however, is to be kept manned and open. Is that clear?”
Goar dug his nails into the palms of his hands and then slowly relaxed them. I noticed the movement but I said nothing. There was something wrong, but he would tell me in his own time.
He said, “What do you want me to do?”
“Attack them in the flank the moment they start to cross. Go for the baggage and the supplies. Without food and fuel they will die in the cold. If we cannot stop them, then cross the river yourself, wherever you are, and join up with me between Bingium and Moguntiacum.”
He hesitated. He said, “It is better that you know everything.”
“Well?”
“The Burgundians wish to cross to the west bank, too, and the main force of the Alemanni intend to cross at Borbetomagus.”
“How do you know?”
“I have friends still in all camps. Besides, Sunno is afraid for his sister.”
“Will they move with the Vandals?”
“Perhaps. Probably later. The Vandals are the most restless. They talk of seeking a land that is hot and 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.