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

“Yes.” He looked, with frightened curiosity, around him. He was used to the bustle of a forum; not the squalid muddle of a battlefield. “I know I am breaking the law. I have no authority to bear arms, since I am only a civilian. I don’t know what the Praefectus Praetorio will say.” He paused, and I remained silent. “I wish to help,” he added in a low voice.

“How many men have you?”

“Only two thousand. Some are gladiators and slaves, to whom I have given their freedom. I had no real authority to do that either, I suppose.”

I was silent with disappointment. He tugged at his helmet and then held it, awkwardly, in the crook of his arm, as he had seen my officers do. “I spoke to the Bishop. I felt I must do something.”

“Of course.” I turned away. Two thousand men out of a city of eighty thousand. . . . I felt too sick to speak. He came after me, stumbling over the slippery ground. He said, “You haven’t accepted my. . . .” His voice trailed away. He cleared his throat, nervously. He said, “We want to help. I—” He broke off, as he tried to avoid a wounded man. “Don’t send us back. We can be of some use, surely. Besides, the men could not go back now. They are tired out.”

I said, “Yes, and I and my men are tired, too. We are soldiers.”

He flinched at my voice. He said desperately, “I know I am only the Curator; but I thought—”

I turned my back on him. I went to the signal tower, leaving the column still standing upon the road, and my officers silent behind me. I would have struck him had he spoken again.

I stumbled through the door. I sat down on my bedding roll and put my head in my hands. We had been so near to victory. Even if Chariobaudes did come in time, he had too few men to be of real help. We should be beaten just the same. The wind rattled the door. It was very cold, and I began to shiver. I knew what it was like now to be a defeated general.

Fabianus came in. He said, “I would like to speak to you, sir.”

“Yes,” I said.

“That was ungenerous,” he said.

“Ungenerous! I?” I stood up, and he backed away. “He has had two years, and in two years he has done little except at the point of a sword. Now he comes whining with offers of help. What help will that ragged crew of comics be, do you imagine? Help. When it’s too late. Too late, do you hear.”

Fabianus said, “It is you who are ungenerous. He has come to help, and you, sir, turn your back on him.”

“It is what he deserves.”

He said, doggedly, “I don’t agree, sir.”

“Why?”

He did not answer at first. He stood there, his hands clenched at his sides, just looking at me, tired and resentful. It was how his father had looked when I told him that the sentry who slept at his post must be executed.

“Why?” I said again.

“Because—because he has come out here to die with the rest of us, and that makes him my friend, if not yours.”

I got to my feet and went towards him. He did not move. “How dare you speak to me like that. Don’t presume too far upon my friendship with your father.”

It was then that he lost control over himself. He said, angrily, “If I dare, it is because you taught me how to speak to an emperor when he is in the wrong.”

He turned and went out. I called after him but he did not come back.

Quintus was brought to the signal tower an hour later. He had suffered an arrow wound in the neck, and had lost blood. He lay on his bed, grey-faced with shock, his hands, raw with the cold, lying limply upon the blankets that covered him.

He opened his eyes. He said, “I am sorry. I ruined the day. My men lost heart; the idiots.” He beat feebly upon the blankets.

“No,” I said. “It would have happened anyway. They are too strong for us, and we are too exhausted. Fresh troops might have done it, I agree. But our men—” I broke off and sat on the stool beside him. What else was there to say?

“Will you try again to-morrow?”

I shook my head. “Our losses were tremendous. So were theirs; but they can afford them. We can’t risk losing another man. Flavius fought well. He timed that charge brilliantly.”

He groaned. “I know. How many did we lose?”

“Aquila is making a count now.”

“Well, if we hold on, this relief army may come in time.”

“Yes, of course.” I trimmed the wick of the oil lamp and poured water into a bowl and began to wash myself.

He said, “Fabianus did well, too.” He paused and stared at the ceiling. “Agilio told me that Artorius has brought men from the city.”

“Yes.”

“He has told me what you said.”

I dried my face on a towel and looked on my bed for a clean tunic. I had just one left. I put it on. Then I poured out two cups of wine. Still he did not look at me. He said, gently, “It is not politic for emperors to turn their backs on those who offer them support.”

I said bitterly, “My horse is more dependable. And braver, too.”