As it turned out, however, neither of us had a choice. We had miscalculated by one entire day in Lot's favour, for he had arrived with his army on the plains of Camulod midway through the afternoon of the day we left, and as we made our leisurely way southward, his forces were battering brutally at the fort itself.
His unexpected arrival took my father and his defenders totally by surprise. A large number of infantry, almost a full cohort, were busily at work throwing up a defensive breastwork and ditch at the bottom of the hill. Popilius himself, our senior warrant officer, was commanding them, and faced with a decision either to abandon the incomplete breastworks or remain there to defend them, he chose the latter. Approximately a mile to the north of his position, to his left, another large party of troops was involved in removing everything useful from the buildings of the villa farm. The officer in charge of this operation was a young man, but a wise one. By the time he was apprised of the rapid approach of Lot's advance parties, it was already too late for him to retire to the fort in safety with his men, so he took immediate steps to strengthen the main building of the villa to the best of his ability. By overturning the wagons they had been loading and using them as barricades, he and his men were able to construct a defensible perimeter, and there they remained, a potential thorn in the side of Lot's advancing army.
The fighting on that first afternoon was savage. Lot's army was largely undisciplined, each unit paying heed only to the most basic orders of its local commanders. His soldiers, if they could be called such, were all unruly individuals, and their first assault on the villa's defenders turned into a disorganized brawl, quickly and effectively won by the defenders, who fought as a unit and drove their attackers off to lick their wounds as darkness began to fall. Instead of allowing his men time to relax after beating off their assailants, however, the young officer in charge took advantage of the weakness he had perceived in the enemy's lack of discipline and led his men through the darkness, in a hard and bitter fight, to join Popilius's cohort a mile away. Hearing the noise of the fighting, and guessing what was happening, the veteran Popilius flung out his men on his left flank along the hillside, until they made contact with the fighters from the villa and enabled them to gain the comparative safety of the unfinished breastworks.
In the meantime, under cover of the darkness, the opportunity arose for Popilius to withdraw his men completely from their unfinished camp and get them up the hill in safety to the fort. Instead, he sent a courier up the hill to inform my father that he intended to hold his position and defend it against Lot's rabble. His major problem, he pointed out, would be the danger of being outflanked and infiltrated by Lot's people, who might attempt to climb the hillside on either side of his position, and start shooting arrows into his men from above and behind. My father sent out two squadrons of bowmen to guard his flanks, and at the same time he sent out three of his best riders to break through Lot's cordon and find us, warning us to get back sooner than we had planned.
These messengers were to tell us that Picus himself would be holding back his own cavalry. The brunt of the initial defence would fall on the shoulders of Popilius and his infantry. As soon as we put in an appearance, my father would loose his own seven hundred cavalry in a frontal attack, down the road and into the centre of the enemy.
One of these three messengers found us just after noon the following day and we immediately began a forced march, cursing the caution that had sent us so far north needlessly. My father had estimated the strength of Lot's army at around four thousand, a number that surprised me and added greatly to my sense of having erred badly. The urgency of a quick return had become immediately and devastatingly obvious.
Late in the afternoon, heavy grey clouds began piling up in the west, and we could see lightning flickering among them. The heat grew more and more oppressive as the storm drew closer, so that I found myself anticipating the chill of the rain that was sweeping towards us. My pleasure was short-lived. The downpour was awful, blowing against us in torrents, soaking everyone and everything completely and almost instantly, and turning the soft earth under the hooves of our thousand horses into a bog, so that headway was almost impossible. I had never seen such heavy rain, and it showed no signs of abating. The clouds were so thick that they blocked the sun completely, so it seemed we rode at night, although we knew there were still several hours of daylight left. We had no option of resting to wait it out, however; we had to keep moving as quickly as possible, and what had started as a leisurely march quickly degenerated into a nightmare ride, with horses slipping and falling everywhere, terrified by the savagery of the storm, the glare of the lightning and the chaotic noise of thunder, wind, rain and battering hailstones.
The freak storm lasted for almost three hours, and by the time the clouds finally began to break, our force was totally demoralized. It had been impossible even to shout to each other during that time, and every man had been immured in his own private hell, suffering the agony of cold, wet clothing and armour, exhausted by the relentless struggle to keep his horse upright, moving and sane. The first break in the clouds showed us the pink and purple high sky of the setting sun, which took with it our only opportunity of finding warmth and dryness that night, for all the wood in the land lay soaked. We settled our minds to the prospect of a long, miserable night.
Uther made his way to my side. "What do you think?"
"About what? I don't think I'm capable of thought. It's a mess."
"We all know that, Caius." There was a measure of asperity in his voice. "I didn't come to you to hear you crying! I want your opinion as an officer. Is it better to stop here and rest or to ride on? We've still got a long way to go and it's getting dark."
I made myself think, and it turned out to be easier than I expected, for a memory of Uncle Varrus sprang into my mind unbidden. I took a long look around me, as far as I could see. We were in the bottom of a shallow valley and as the land rose to my right it flattened out slightly before rising again to a heavily treed hillside. A picture emerged in my mind of a boat burning.
"Who's our quartermaster?" I asked Uther.
"We have three. Why?"
"Send them to me. We'll stay here tonight. The rain's gone. We'll move up to the high ground there and see what we can do about getting dry. Pass the word for one man in every two to start gathering wood. Enough for four large fires, big enough to dry us all off."
"Are you mad?" Uther's voice sounded shocked. "Fires? Everything's soaked! How in the name of Hephaestus are you going to light them?"
"Publius Varrus's way. That's why I want our quartermasters."
He looked at me in silence for a while, then shrugged his shoulders and rode away, signalling to a centurion. Very soon thereafter, everyone was out of the valley and up on the high ground. Within half an hour four large piles of wet wood had begun to take shape and I had spoken with the quartermasters in charge of our commissary supplies. They, too, thought I was mad, or at least profligate, but they produced the oil from our rations, poured it over the sodden wood and set it alight, and in what seemed like no time at all, our entire force was clustered around four massive conflagrations. I had no fears at all that these fires might be seen by unfriendly eyes. We were still a long, long way from home. The effect on our men was magical as the chill slowly thawed from their bones and their clothes began to steam. After a while, smaller fires began to appear apart from the larger ones, and the commissary staff began doling out food. The night was warm, too, and most of the men were almost naked as they waited for their wet clothing to dry. Leather legionary tents sprang up like mushrooms and out of chaos and demoralization came order, new resolve and comfortable rest. I was determined to make the most of this mood of renewed optimism, and I kept the men moving in relays to gather fresh supplies of wood, giving the roaring bonfires no chance to die down.