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

“You must tell him so. It will help him. We—soldiers always fight better when we know that someone loves us,” I said harshly. I patted her on the shoulder. “I will send him to you.”

She raised her head. “I thought—”

“I know what you thought.” I paused. I said, “I did kill a woman once. It is something I have not been able to forget.”

“Why—?”

“You are so like the daughter I always wanted but never had.”

I found Fabianus in my office and told him what he had to do. “You may escort her as far as Bingium and that is all. We have not much time.”

“How long, sir?”

“I don’t know. It will take them as long to get ready as it takes us. To-day is the christian festival. Three days, perhaps. Goar will light a beacon the moment they move. He has prepared three fires on the escarpment slopes in the shape of a triangle. When they are lit we shall know that the time has come. Now get a move on. I have a lot to do.”

Later, Gallus came to me, no longer grinning and cheerful, but still as calm and as level-headed as ever. “I am a sailor without a fleet,” he said. “What are the orders for my seamen, sir?”

“They can return to Treverorum if they wish.”

“They would rather stay and fight, I think,” he said, coolly.

“Very well, let those stay who wish to do so. Form them into a unit under your own command. Get hold of Julius Optatus and have them issued with arms and equipment. Then move them into the old camp. I will keep them as a reserve. They will be paid at legionary rates from now on.”

Walking through the camp I saw the ex-slave, Fredbal, stacking swords outside the armoury. He had put on weight in the months that he had been with us, and looked fit and healthy; but a centurion had told me that he lived inside himself, was unsociable and rarely spoke, though he was a good worker with his hands. I called out to him and he came up to me and stood rigidly to attention. He could never forget that he had once been a soldier.

I said, “We shall soon be in great danger. If you wish—and I advise it—you may be taken off the strength. I will see that you are given the money that is due to you, and you can go with the others to Treverorum. The Alemanni are too close for comfort.”

He said, in that cracked voice of his, “If the general wishes, I will go. But I would rather stay. I am not too old to use a sword, and I have debts to settle with them across the river.” He spat as he spoke.

I nodded. “Do as you please.” I smiled. “I will help you to settle those debts if I can.”

That night I called a conference of my senior officers and we discussed the strategy and the tactics of the coming battle. I wanted to be sure that everyone knew exactly what was expected of him. At the end Aquila said, with a grin, “What about the pay chest, sir, and all the other funds?”

There was laughter at this.

I said, “I am not paying the men now, Chief Centurion, if that is what you mean. They will have enough to carry without being loaded down with silver as well. Don’t worry. I am sending it all back to Treverorum. We have a number of men who are sick or injured and who will be no use to us here. They will go as an escort. I shall have it put in the safe-keeping of the Bishop. I think I can trust him that far. Satisfied?”

He nodded. “Yes, sir.”

This year there was no feasting, no celebration, no jollity, no prayers of thanksgiving; only a long line of waggons and people trudging through the snow in a seemingly endless line on their way to Belgica and safety. That night, Quintus and I, and four others, went out of the town, past the old camp, and up the hill to the wooden temple; and there we performed our mystery. I was comforted to think that the long night of our lives would soon be over and that we, all of us, had the courage and the fortitude to face the change. We would move from one circle to the next, and the change would not be for the worst. I had been told that: I knew. So I worshipped the god in whom I was consumed with a quiet heart. Afterwards, as we left in the darkness, and the lights of the camp shone below us, Quintus put his hand on my shoulder. It was a rare gesture. In all the years that I had known him we had never touched, save upon a meeting or a departure.

He said, “You forgave me, Maximus, but I cannot forgive myself. That is why I would have made you emperor if I could.”

I said, “I understand.” I smiled. I said, “I wonder if Stilicho will remember us. I wrote to Saturninus last night. I sent him your wishes.”

We returned to the camp and we waited; but the waiting was not for long. On the thirty-first day of December, in the year of their Lord, four hundred and six, by the christian calendar, the peoples of Germania; the Alans, the Quadi, the Marcomanni, the Siling and the Asding Vandals, led by their five kings, broke camp and crossed the ice at Moguntiacum.

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