“The general will not run, Majesty,” I said, “that is not his way.”
He regarded me balefully. “And you know him so well, do you?” he mocked. “Tell me, then, what sort of man is he? I know he is a good soldier, and what happened at Decimum proves that he enjoys the luck of the gods. But of the inner man, I know very little.”
“His watchword is duty,” I replied simply, “that is my reading of him. The Emperor has given him a task, and he will fulfil it or die in the attempt. He cannot be bribed, or dissuaded against his better judgment.”
We rode on in silence for a while, and the steady thump-thump of infantry drums masked the pounding of my heart.
“I think you speak the truth,” said Gelimer, “and I understand Belisarius better now. Look at the Empire that he fights for. It is like a conjoined twin, one member of which has died and rotted away, leaving the other sibling to live on as best it can. The glory has passed. Rome is degenerate and corrupt. She relies on mercenaries to defend her borders. Every year a little more of her territory is lost, snatched away by the younger and more vigorous races she once ruled.”
“Belisarius, now,” he added, wagging a finger at me, “is a man born out of time, a throwback to the days of antiquity, when Rome was an enemy worth fighting. He should have lived in the time of Scipio Africanus, or Julius Caesar, or even Aetius. His destiny is to die fighting for a cause that is already lost. A pity.”
I felt like laughing in his face. The Romans had already beaten Gelimer once, and were in possession of his capital and much of his treasure. But that would have meant my death — or perhaps not, since Gelimer’s moods were so unpredictable. Overall, I thought it best to agree with him.
While the Vandals were camped at Tricamarum, their scouts raced back to report that Belisarius was on the march. He had left a garrison of just five hundred men to hold Carthage, and sallied forth at the head of his army to face the Vandals in the field.
“Did I not say he would?” cried Gelimer, before going on one knee to thank God for delivering the enemy on a platter. His officers did likewise, Arians and Catholics in a rare moment of unity. Their prayers were led by Zano, the king’s brother, who somewhat resembled Gelimer physically but was the more constant character and a better soldier.
According to the Vandal scouts, Belisarius was marching straight towards Tricamarum. This was soon confirmed, and the sandy plain became frantic with activity as the enormous Vandal host broke camp and readied for battle. Gelimer ordered the women and children to stay behind, and had his Moors shift at spear-point those who refused to go. He and Zano harangued their troops, urging them to remember the glory of their ancestors, who had carved out the Vandal kingdom of North Africa, and consider the fate of their families if the Romans prevailed.
The Vandal host was hurriedly drawn up into line, with most of the cavalry on the wings and the mass of infantry in the centre. Zano had the command of the latter, while Gelimer took charge of the mounted reserve and the auxiliaries.
The King kept me close by his side, so I might witness his glorious deeds and the number of Romans he personally slew with Caledfwlch.
“Remind me, Briton, how many barbarians your grandfather slew in one battle with this sword?” he demanded, raising his voice above the din of drums and war-horns and thousands of marching feet.
“Nine hundred and sixty, Majesty,” I shouted back, “so my mother told me.”
“Today I shall make it a round thousand!” he laughed, and featly tossed the sword in the air. I watched it fall with greedy eyes, longing for the blade to puncture Gelimer’s throat, but he caught it by the hilt and grinned at my expression.
The clamour eventually died down, and the Vandals stood ready, some forty thousand men arrayed in perfect order. A light breeze swept across the plain, whipping up the sand and snapping at their pennons and banners. Gelimer disliked the eerie silence and ordered his drummers to beat constantly. The sound of drums, he claimed, would smother the fears of his men and fill their hearts with martial ardour.
Belisarius did not come. The horizon to the west remained empty, and no distant sound of trumpets pierced the air. Gelimer peeled off his gauntlets and gnawed his fingernails in frustration.
“Enough!” he shouted at last, “I will not be kept waiting. Sound the advance.”
He threw up his arm, the war-horns again boomed out their song, and the Vandal host lurched into life. They tramped west in the direction of Carthage, sending out parties of scouts and skirmishers to look for any sign of the Romans.
Belisarius was too clever to advance into the lion’s mouth. Instead he had halted some thirty miles from Carthage and drawn up his little army on the banks of a small river, a confluent of the Merjerda that runs through Algeria and Tunisia. His bucellarii were drawn up in the centre, my old comrades the Heruli on the right along with the rest of the foederati, and his infantry in the rear. The unreliable Huns, whose loyalties were still far from certain, had taken up position some distance from the main army.
My heart sank. The Romans were pitifully few, and a ripple of laughter passed through the ranks of the Vandal infantry as they beheld the enemy. Gelimer was exchanging jokes with one of his generals — they were merrily debating whether to employ the captured Belisarius as a groom or a cook — when Roman trumpets sounded from across the river.
Belisarius had fooled the Vandals into thinking he intended to fight a defensive battle. Instead he seized the advantage and threw his bucelarii, all fifteen hundred of them, at the Vandal centre.
The forward squadrons of Zano’s infantry were still deploying. His mounted officers charged back and forth, screaming at their men to get into line as the heavily armoured Roman horsemen splashed across the river and stormed towards them.
“Archers!” shouted Gelimer, though none could hear him besides me and his immediate guards. Some of his captains were alive to the danger, and a few hundred Vandal horse archers spurred from the wings. They might as well have shot flowers, for their arrows pattered harmlessly off the thick Roman armour.
The bucelarii crashed into the Vandal spears like a tidal wave against a flimsy sea-wall. I felt the collision in my gut and winced at the carnage as scores of infantrymen disappeared under the churning hoofs. Then the Romans were in among the shattered Vandal ranks, spitting men on lances and striking right and left with their spathas.
Somehow, despite their appalling losses and the nerve-shredding impact of the Roman charge, the Vandals did not break. Their sheer press of bodies slowed the impetus of the bucelarii, and they fought back with the suicidal courage of men who knew the fate of their families and their country was at stake.
Trumpets sounded the retreat, and the Romans turned and retired in good order back across the river, leaving bloody chaos behind them. Entire squadrons of Vandal infantry had ceased to exist. The broken bodies of dead and dying warriors lay strewn in heaps, while the few survivors staggered among the human rubble in a daze, bleeding from terrible wounds.
Gelimer sat like a statue, struck dumb by what he had just witnessed. His active brother sent gallopers tearing up and down the line to summon troops from the wings and reserve of the Vandal army to reinforce his battered centre.
There was no time for the Vandals to think of launching an attack of their own. Almost as soon as the bucelarii had re-formed, the trumpeters signalled another charge, and they rumbled forward again.
Belisarius clearly had but one object in mind. I can best compare his tactics at Tricamarum to a smith beating away at an inferior piece of metal. The metal may resist for a while, but will eventually yield under the blows of the hammer.