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

“How? We have already talked on the difficulties and danger of moving the legion across the river. To build a good bridge would take too long, and a good bridge is hard to destroy if things go wrong. I cannot even use the fleet. They have put a boom across the mouth of the Moenus. It would take too long to break it down. In any case, they have strengthened their defences at just those points we attacked before. As for the east bank, they have pulled their camp back five hundred yards and are out of range of our catapults.”

The night raid must have been a failure, because Marcomir was compelled to do battle as he had foreseen. He challenged Godigisel to fight and the Vandal king, under pressure from his allies who wanted no attacks on their part of the camp, was compelled to accept. For a long day the two hosts faced each other and Marcomir, on the advice of Fabianus, waited till an hour before sundown before advancing his men. It had been a hot day, the Vandals were hungry for their evening meal, and it was good tactics to tire them with waiting. Marcomir attacked in strength and, aided by three thousand of Goar’s Alans, broke through the enemy centre and cut the Vandals to pieces.

Godigisel was taken alive and his men fled back to their camp. Marcomir then made his mistake. He camped where he had fought, eight hundred yards from the enemy, and, all night long, we on the west bank could see the flicker of his fires and hear the sounds of Godigisel dying. Few of us slept, and in the morning when I met Quintus upon the guard-walk his face looked as sick as my own. Three hours later Respendial led his men out onto the plain and attacked Marcomir as he was striking camp. Outnumbered, the Franks withdrew in disorder to the hills while small bands, who found themselves cut off, were hunted westward to the banks of the Rhenus and drowned in the shallows. Goar watched the fighting from the scrub and did not allow his men to take part. He had no wish to set one half of his tribe against the other. The Franks were routed utterly.

Late that afternoon an embassy crossed the river and asked to see me. I could guess the purpose of their visit, so I ordered Rando’s daughter to be brought to me, and I received them in the courtyard outside my headquarters, surrounded by a guard of honour. Their leader was a wiry man in his fifties, brown eyed and arrogant in his manner.

“I bring for the General of the Romans a present from Respendial, King of the Alans,” he said. He held out a bundle, shook it slightly and the head of Marcomir fell to the ground and grinned at me with sightless eyes. The girl put her hand to her mouth, but said nothing. Quintus dropped his hand to his sword, and Aquila grunted with rage.

I said, coldly, “I am glad that you kill each other. It saves me the work.”

He bared his teeth and said, softly, “When we cross the river we shall do the same to you.” His eyes flickered from face to face. “All of you.”

The girl said, in a whisper, “I am glad he is dead. Glad, glad, glad.”

I heard her. I said, “The day you cross that river I shall crucify the daughter of Rando, a princess of the royal house, upon a stake on the river’s edge so that she may see you coming. Tell that to the Alemanni, whose bread you eat like the beggars that you are.”

“You would not dare.” He was white with rage. “It is against all custom. It is even against your own laws.” His sense of outrage and shock was genuine. His people had a high regard for women. They would steal them, make slaves of them, rape them and force them into marriage; but they did not torture them. That was stupid. It was a waste of a life that might breed and produce new warriors for the tribe.

I said, “There is nothing I would not dare to protect the lands of my emperor.”

He stared at me with unblinking eyes. “I believe you would,” he said. He nodded to the men with him and they left abruptly.

I went back to my office and the courtyard was empty but for the girl. She was white-faced and weeping.

Quintus limped after me. He said, coldly, “We should have helped them. Men fight best when there is something to fight for. If Marcomir could destroy the Siling Vandals we could have beaten the Alans. We had the opportunity to destroy them in one pitched battle.”

I said, “We had no bridge.”

“Only because you would not build one.”

“I told Marcomir we could not help him.”

“Yes,” he said. “You would do that, of course. I can hear you saying it.”

“It was my duty.”

He said, bitterly, “It always is your duty. Marcomir is dead. Do you ever think of people instead of things?”

I was angry now. I said, “Do you question my command?”

He hesitated. He said, “I question your judgement. There is always a risk in battle. This was our opportunity, and you threw it away.” He added in a low voice, “You did not even ask my opinion.”

“There was no time. I was on one side of the river and you on the other.”

“There would have been if we had had the bridge.”

“But we had no bridge.”