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

He said, “We had sickness, sir. Some died, others have gone on pension recently and—and there are a number on leave.” He spoke confidently.

I said, “I saw your ration statements at the imperial granary. You have been drawing food for five hundred with regularity for the last four years.”

“Well, sir, I—my quartermaster always asks for the rations of—of the men on leave. It is customary.” He sounded aggrieved now as though I did not understand something that was obviously a matter of simple common-sense both to him and to his quartermaster.

“Stop lying. You haven’t had three hundred men on leave, now or at any time. You’ve been indenting for food for men who are dead or who were pensioned off years ago. Is that not so?”

He did not say anything. He opened and shut his mouth like a fish.

“Answer me,” I said. “What was the cohort’s strength when you took over. I want the truth.”

He rolled his eyes as though in prayer. Then he licked his lips. “One hundred and eighty,” he whispered.

I prodded him in the chest with my stick. “I could have you broken for this. You’ve recruited twenty men in four years. That must have been hard work.”

“Everyone does it,” he muttered.

I said, “I am not everyone. Remember that from now on.”

When he had gone, Quintus said, “You were a little hard on him, Maximus. The poor devil’s been rotting here or in places like this for years.”

I said, “How many years were we on the Wall? And we never rotted.”

“Didn’t we?” he said. “I am not so sure.”

I looked at him. His face had gone pale and he looked sick and unhappy.

“Quintus.” I touched him on the arm. “Don’t look like that. Are you all right?”

He, nodded silently and I wondered if he was thinking of his home in Hispania which he had not seen in thirty years.

“Don’t worry about Barbatio,” I said. “He’ll prove a good soldier from now on. I’ll give you twenty denarii if he hasn’t shown an improvement by the end of a month.”

Quintus smiled. “Done,” he said.

I won my bet and it was Barbatio who acted as a guide whenever I wished to explore the countryside. In the plain around Moguntiacum the Franks and Burgundians who had settled in the district made some effort to develop the land they had been allowed to annex by agreement. In places the woods had been cut back and clearings made where straggling villages of smoky huts sprang up, strongly fortified by stockades of heavy pine. Strips of land outside were cultivated and each village had its cattle, its goats, its dogs and its few horses. The people were large, cheerful and good looking with their flaxen hair and blue eyes. They drank a great deal of beer and fights between them were frequent, though seldom over women.

These people I liked though I had difficulty in understanding their speech, and their guttural Latin was atrocious; but I did not trust them and the sentries on the town gates had instructions to admit no-one bearing arms.

It was close on midsummer now and I thought that the dangerous time would be in the early autumn when the harvest was gathered. It was then that the tribes would be restless and eager to look for plunder if their own food supplies for the winter seemed to be insufficient. Barbatio discounted Stilicho’s suggestion that the Alemanni had thoughts of a migration, and I was inclined to agree with him. Those whom I met were friendly enough and my spies brought back little information that was of value. But still I had to be careful and before the autumn came there remained a great deal to be done.

At all the garrison centres the troops were kept busy, repairing and fortifying their camps. I gave instructions that all were to be protected by palisades of earth and timber, with square towers at the corners, each strong enough to mount a ballista. Around each camp protecting ditches were dug while traps were prepared in the ground outside each gate. Signal towers, large enough to hold a section of ten men, were erected on the roads linking each camp with the next, each guarded also by a palisade and a ditch. Another line of towers was built along the road between Bingium and Treverorum. In time I hoped to have these manned by auxiliaries so as to relieve the legionaries for more important work.