Eagle in the Snow: A Novel of General Maximus and Rome's Last Stand

He looked at me then and I was shocked at the pain in his eyes. He said, “I want nothing except to live in peace. When my children and my grand-children smile at me, then I am warm inside. But even that must be paid for it seems.” He paused and when he spoke again I could hardly hear him. He said in a whisper, “Before we went out into the arena we used to offer our prayers at the Shrine of Vengeance which stood between the changing room and the exit tunnel. Down that tunnel you could see the white light that was the arena, and hear the voices of the sentries and the ugly roar of the crowd. But in the tunnel it was dark and peaceful. The rough stone of the walls and the cool marble of the altar were wonderful to touch when you stood there, shivering with fear and excitement. I used to pray for so many things, but I never thought my prayers would be answered.” He raised his head for a moment. “Oh, gods, why must they be answered now, after all these years, and in this way?” He sat slumped in the saddle with eyes averted and his shoulders shook.

I said, “Be happy if you can. Live in the present, Julian. It is easier than the past.” I held out my hand. “I shall not meet you again. But I shall remember the happy times, I promise you—with pleasure and not with pain.”

He turned to me and gave me the parody of a smile. He said, “Goodbye, Maximus, my friend. It is because of people like you that Rome has lasted so long. We shall win the battle but you will not be defeated.”

I waited for Fabianus to rejoin me. On the edge of the slopes the two distant horses paused for a moment and one of their riders raised his hand in salutation. I held up my own in reply. It began to snow again and the wind drove into our backs as we made for the river. It was so cold that I could not help shivering, but inside I felt warm. In a curious way I felt almost happy.

The wind increased in strength that night and doors banged and shutters rattled as the cold blew mercilessly through the camp. The channel narrowed, inch by inch, and the snow settled on the ice and piled itself into great ragged hummocks. I ordered the ships to move downstream before they were trapped, and they had difficulty in moving, so that I was forced to use tow lines, and the men heaved and strained on the bank to pull the galleys clear and get them past the safety of the south island. One galley remained, which had a damaged hull below the water-line, and the crew worked all night to make it right again. The delay was fatal, however, and though we got the ship out into midstream, having moved her thirty yards in two hours, she stuck again and the snow fell and we had to abandon her. I gave orders that the moment the weather eased, the crew were to bring off all her stores and useful supplies. They wanted to stay on board but I would not let them. They were safer on shore.

That night the cold became worse and we could hear the ice groaning on the river, as the wind whipped at the surface and the remaining loose floes smashed into each other. Some, driven by the pressure of the ice upstream, were forced out of the water to freeze themselves onto the ice in front. For three days the blizzard raged, the sky was black with clouds from north to south, and the snow fell and smothered everything where it lay. It was impossible to go out, visibility was less than a spear’s throw in the camp, and at night nothing could be seen but a whirling mass of black and white. The sentries huddled round the braziers on their towers and turned their backs to the wind. An army could have approached the camp then and the sentries would neither have seen nor heard them. Faintly, through the moaning wind you could hear, if you had good ears, the ceaseless crack and crash of the grinding ice. All night long I heard the floes shudder and roar as the wind drove them one into another, and they froze in a series of high ridged barriers, like a field that is ploughed all ways at once. Two sentries died at their posts during that time, and later, on the road outside the camp, we found a horse and rider, both still erect, who had been caught in the worst of the storm and smothered to death in a drift of snow. The rider had come from Borbetomagus, but what message he carried I never knew. On the fifth day the blizzard blew itself out and the wind shifted to the north-east again, and the sky was clear, except for a few broken clouds overhead and a dark mass away to the east that would not reach us unless the wind changed again.