We were three hundred, who had been three thousand. Our unit alone was reduced to five men: Sarapammon and the Rabbit were gone, lost somewhere down the pass. I had seen neither of them die, but Rufus had seen both, and convinced the rest of us that they were dead beyond all hope of rescue or recovery, and we must not venture out to find them.
Syrion, Rufus, Horgias, Tears and myself were left. In a tight knot, each cleaving to the other, we stepped back and back and back and at a certain point, when it was clear the Parthians really had departed, we turned and walked wearily together back to where we had left our camp in perfect order, never expecting to see it again.
It took longer than it might have done to kindle the fires, to gather water, to cook, to eat. When we were done, Cadus called us together in our centuries, to find who was left.
A good portion of the first century of the first cohort had held the centre; they really were a supremely effective fighting force. By contrast, only three men were left of the second cohort; they were the newest, the rawest, and while we had not left them in the front ranks — we valued our lives too much for that — they had borne the brunt of a light cavalry attack on our left flank, and then their centurions had failed to see the archers. Or had seen them and not been heard. Or their signallers had been too slow. Or they had not drilled often enough to raise their shields. All or any of these; what mattered was that the entire second cohort was gone, those who had not taken leave and stayed the winter out in the whore-baths of Melitene.
In between these two extremes, the rest of us were left speaking aloud the names of our dead, that they might know themselves gone, and so walk lightly away from this life. Nobody laid out the blankets and chose what to keep: there were too many dead, too many to remember and too few of us to take things from them. We chose instead to hold them all equally, and not single out one for more attention than the others.
We were tired as galley slaves, fit to drop, but Cadus did not yet let us go.
‘We are three hundred,’ he said, which we knew. ‘We can hold this pass, perhaps for another day. We will sell our lives dearly, and they know already that they cannot send the cataphracts against us. But Paetus must know what has happened, and I will send a man also to Corbulo. This may be against our governor’s wishes, but if I am dead there’s nothing he can do.’
It was a joke, of a sort; nobody laughed. We watched him, fearful of what was coming next. He held out his helmet and shook it; we all heard the rattle of lot-stones. ‘All those with mounts will come forward.’
I might have held back, but Syrion shoved me, and Horgias, and Lupus took Tears by his elbow and thrust him into the firelight. We and seven others stood there. Perhaps because ofour history, certainly because of what Cadus had said about loving battle, I was the one who spoke up.
‘I don’t want-’
Cadus cut me off. ‘Nobody wants to leave. You all want to die beside your fellows. But these messages must be sent. Ten stones are here. Seven are white; those men stay. Two are black. Those men go to Corbulo; two of you, because the road is arduous, even were we not at war with Vologases. The last is black with a white line down the centre; that man goes to Paetus with news that the Parthians are a day’s march away, and we will be lucky to hold them beyond tomorrow’s noon. That man must ride fastest.’
His eyes were on me as he spoke, but it was a lottery, a drawing of chance with only the gods able to influence the outcome. He could not have known it beforehand.
Even so, none of us was surprised that I drew the black stone with the white line down it. The surprise was that Tears and Horgias drew the black, which took them south to Syria.
‘No!’ I said. ‘Three from the same unit? Only Syrion and Rufus are left.’
‘There are units with fewer men left than that,’ Lupus said, from behind us. ‘Yours will join with others. Afterwards, you may be the seeds of a new legion, with a new sixth cohort and a new first unit of the first century. Thus will you remember us.’
I knew that voice, the solid implacability of it. Dismissed, I turned on my heel and made for the tent.
Tears and I passed that night in the warmth of each other’s embrace, but we were too tired for more; we slept deep as the dead until dawn and left the camp with thick heads and tired hearts, and Syrion and Rufus stood at the tent lines to wave us on our separate ways.
For the rest of my life, I will remember them, and the peace that was in their eyes.
Chapter Twenty
I don’t remember the details of the ride back. The bay mare knew her way without my pushing her and I didn’t allow myself to believe that it was happening; it was only when I reached the camp, saw the state of the newly completed palisades, and spoke to the lead centurions of the IVth that it began to feel true.
Then they took me to Paetus and truth became a nightmare as he argued that defence was impossible and we were better to surrender to Vologases when he came, and depend on his better judgement, or his mercy, or his fear of Nero — all or any of these were suggested, and all were equally unlikely — to at least send the officers home alive.
I left him that first evening, heart-sick and desperate. I would have ridden back to the Lizard Pass had not night fallen and in any case what point when everyone left behind must be dead by now?
I was given a place to sleep in a tent with one of the centurions of the IVth. Crescens was his name, third centurion in the fifth cohort, not one we had come across on the Hawk mountain, for which I think both of us were glad.
We of Lupus’ century had a reputation amongst the IVththat made us out to be madmen and savages, or so I learned after the tense and fitful night which left both of us weary in the morning, and more inclined to speak.
‘He needs a backbone, that one,’ he said of his general, and nobody offered to flog him for it. ‘If anyone can shame him into making a stand, it will be you.’
He was cooking me a meal; I was not going to turn him down. And when two other centurions of the IVth came to beg me to speak again to Paetus, I did as they asked thinking that if he had me flogged to death for the temerity, at least I would join the dead, amongst whom I now counted Rufus and Syrion.
Four of us went into the general’s tent that day and the day after, and the day after that.
Slowly, we created for Paetus a plan, the first and most important part of which was the destruction of the bridge we had built across the foaming river, so that when Vologases marched here he might not have use of it to reach us.
Paetus agreed, as a weak man will do, not out of conviction or the need to see our plan through, but to keep us quiet. And he vacillated over every other thing that we suggested. I lost patience in the end, and told him that two men had already gone to Corbulo for help on Cadus’ order, and that we only need hold out a few days; four at most, and we would be safe.
I thought he might order me killed then, he was so angry, and that was when we realized that, truly, Paetus would have preferred to lose us all to Vologases than to lose his pride to Corbulo.
Without being dismissed, I walked out. Crescens caught my shoulder as I stepped out of the governor’s quarters.
‘Don’t do anything stupid. He can still have you flogged.’
‘I’m going to destroy the bridge.’
‘I know. He knows. He gave permission for it.’
‘Then help me do it. We can’t have long before they come.’
‘I’ll bring a unit. Any more and he’ll stop us.’
He ran, I give him that much; he was a centurion and he ran across the hard-packed earth that had been our parade ground so few days before, past the unfilled foundations whence the sacrifice had fled, and into the tent lines.
Returning, he brought eight men equipped with crowbars, hammers, axes and ropes. I chose not to learn their names — what point to come to know men when we must all soon be dead? — but led them at a run to the bridge.