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

The men stood off the side of the road and I sat, relaxed upon my horse, waiting. I called out softly to a decurion of cavalry, “Find out how the commander, Scudilio, does, and send me that Frankish man we took prisoner.” He saluted and rode off down the line.

After half an hour the column moved on again and I rode over bloodstained snow, saw bodies lying in a ditch, and two of our men with arrows in their chest. A few minutes later a beacon glimmered on the hills to our right, and I knew then that we had been seen by watchers on the cliffs, and that the alarm would soon be given. We quickened our pace and dropped down a steep slope between tall pine trees, bowed with snow, and could hear the patter of water somewhere to our front. The waggons were in difficulties and men had to be detailed to help them over the bad ground. They held our tents, our cooking gear, our palisade stakes, our entrenching tools, fodder for the horses, our medical supplies, our wounded and our spare arms. They were essential to our continuing life as a legion, and without them we should be doomed. Each man carried his weapons and rations for five days; that was all the food we had, and some of it would have to be shared with the men who had come out of Bingium and who had been able to bring nothing with them, save their weapons. There were others to feed as well: Franks, who were loyal to Fredegar; the remainder of the garrison at Moguntiacum; and the sections from the signal posts, who joined us as we passed them by. How many all these made, I did not know. I left matters like that to my quartermaster. He would tell me soon enough.

Our pace was slower now because of the bad going. The men sweated, even in the cold, and they walked hunched up against the drifting snowflakes. Sometime before midnight there was another halt, and in the silence I could hear the screams of horses, the clash of swords and the sound of men shouting. This time our halt was much longer, and a messenger rode back down the line to tell me that the cavalry had had to dismount because of the steepness of the bank on the far side of the Nava, and that a cohort was in action against a group of tribesmen.

“Are they many?”

“The general thinks about eight hundred. They are armed with bows and axes, and are well placed.”

“Do you need me?”

The trooper grinned. “No, sir. I was told that the Legate was not to be troubled. The ala commander has the matter in hand.”

“Which ala?”

“The Fourth.”

“Ah! Marius. Very good.”

It was two hours, however, before the enemy position was taken and a cohort had to be called in to assist.

The Nava was wide but shallow, which was fortunate, for the ice did not hold, and we had to wade clumsily through the bitter water that rose to our waists and numbed us with the cold. Then we had a two and a half mile climb up a steep and twisting track that barely showed through the thickening fall of snow. It was hard work, walking in wet boots on a surface that made one slip back every time a step was taken. The horses had to be led also, and the waggons pushed and pulled by hand, ten men to a waggon. And all the time we were conscious of empty stomachs and tired eyes, and the wind cut through our cloaks, so that we were wet outside with the snow and wet through with our sweat. But no-one dropped out or complained.

Once at the top of the climb the going became easier and we walked through a pine forest that protected us a little from the eternal beat of the wind. We had had no sleep now for twenty-two hours and we stumbled on mechanically. The agony of marching was to be preferred to that which the enemy would offer if we fell alive into his hands. Two miles further on we dropped down a shallow slope and walked along the shoulder of a high ridge that banked a narrow, twisting stream. There was no track that one could see and the men marched in pairs, so that each might help the other; while the waggons were pushed and pulled between one tree and the next. Then we left the stream and struck a track that was deeply rutted beneath the loose surface snow. It was dawn now, and we could see each other’s faces, dark of eye, unshaven and deathly tired. Two hours later, walking as though in our sleep, with blistered feet, cramped muscles, and shoulders rubbed raw by the friction of our armour, we reached the road that led to Treverorum. To my front was a smooth, round pillar, nearly as tall as myself, and with a cap of snow upon it. It was one of the milestones set up by the Emperor Hadrianus, and the lettering upon it, I remember, was so worn that it was hardly legible. After I had seen it for the first time, I had complained to the officials at Treverorum but they had simply shrugged their shoulders, and nothing had been done. To the right of the stone, a cavalry picket slept beneath the tethered heads of their horses, and a tired sentry rocked on his feet, leaning upon his spear before the embers of a wood fire.