Falling sky, p.1
Falling Sky, page 1
Praise for
‘Makes you feel as though you are there’
BETTANY HUGHES, THE TIMES
‘Harry Sidebottom’s epic tale starts with a chilling assassination and goes on, and up, from there’
MARY BEARD
‘An amazing story of bloodlust, ruthless ambition and revenge’
KATE SAUNDERS, THE TIMES
‘An extraordinarily vivid take on the ancient world. Think of The Killing crossed with Andy McNab crossed with Mary Beard, and you’re there’
DAVID SEXTON, EVENING STANDARD
‘Ancient Rome has long been a favourite destination for writers of historical military fiction. Much the best of them is Harry Sidebottom’
SUNDAY TIMES
‘Swashbuckling as well as bloody, yet curiously plausible . . . a real gift for summoning up a sense of place’
TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
‘The best sort of red-blooded historical fiction – solidly based on a profound understanding of what it meant to be alive in a particular time and place’
ANDREW TAYLOR
‘Absorbing, rich in detail and brilliant’
THE TIMES
‘Sidebottom’s prose blazes with searing scholarship’
THE TIMES
‘Superior fiction, with depth, authenticity and a sense of place’
TLS
‘A storming triumph . . . wonderful fight scenes, deft literary touches and salty dialogue’
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
‘He has the touch of an exceptionally gifted storyteller, drawing on prodigious learning’
TIMOTHY SEVERIN
In memory of Michael Dunne
16th December 1958 – 17th August 2017
Contents
Part One: The Mountains
Part Two: The Emperors and the Armies
Part Three: The Cavalry
Epilogue
Afterword
Letter from Author
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
‘A cavalry raid at its best is essentially a game of strategy and speed, with personal violence as an incidental complication. It is played according to more or less definite rules, not inconsistent, indeed, with the players killing each other.’
S. A. Forbes, Captain, Company B, Seventh Illinois Cavalry
PART ONE
THE MOUNTAINS
CHAPTER ONE
The Pass of Summus Poeninus in the Alps
The Day before the Kalends of June
T
HIS WAS ALL WRONG.
Ballista looked at the enemy at the top of the pass. A cohort of Roman auxiliaries, about five hundred infantry, well armed and close packed, blocked the narrow road. To the left was a bare, unclimbable cliff, to the right a sheer precipice. No way around. This would be murder.
‘We have our orders,’ the Praetorian prefect said.
Ballista did not look at Volusianus. Instead, he gazed at where the pass notched the skyline, the rocky slope near at hand, the great mass of the mountain beyond. There had to be a way around.
‘The Emperor Gallienus will be here with the main army tomorrow. We have to clear these heights.’ There was resignation, perhaps sadness, in Volusianus’ tone. The Praetorian prefect had risen from the ranks. He knew what this would cost.
‘You can teach a monkey to ride a goat, but a northern barbarian can never learn Roman discipline.’ Acilius Glabrio was with the staff assembled in the small area of flat ground to the side of the road some way behind Volusianus, but his patrician voice carried.
Ballista ignored the insult to his origins. He turned to Volusianus and saluted.
‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’
‘May the gods hold their hands over you,’ Volusianus said.
Ballista nudged his horse, and went up along the road towards the pass.
Maximus and his other two bodyguards were waiting upslope. Scarred and lined and ugly, that their faces were pinched with the cold did not improve their looks. Despite their appearance, Ballista regarded them with pleasure. These were men he could trust. Maximus had been with him for almost a quarter of a century. On his way to Hibernia, Ballista had needed a native to teach him the language of that remote island in the west. Sold into Roman slavery after a tribal war, Maximus had been fighting as a gladiator in Massilia. Passing through, Ballista had bought the Hibernian. Friendship and freedom had come later. The companionship of the other two was more recent. It was three years since Ballista had saved Tarchon from drowning in a river in Suania high in the Caucasus mountains. Apparently that made them inseparable, like blood brothers in some obscure but fierce Suanian way. It was only the summer before that Rikiar the Vandal had given his sword-oath to Ballista. In his previous hearth-troop, a drunken joke had led Rikiar to be held in contempt as a thief. The new allegiance had offered a chance of redemption, and the Vandal had proved his worth since along the shores of the distant Suebian Sea.
They were a map of his life since he’d entered the empire. Of his youth in the north there was nothing. There had been one, but he was dead, and still unavenged. Ballista pushed away the sadness and the guilt.
‘Our britches are down, I am considering.’ Tarchon the Suanian spoke in a heavily accented Latin acquired in army camps. ‘Most fucked beyond redemption.’ He had an inventive and foul-mouthed way of mangling any of the several languages he had almost mastered.
‘An elegant summary of our position,’ Ballista said. He swung his big frame down from his mount. ‘Rikiar, would you take Pale Horse back to the camp, and bring up my war harness.’
As the Vandal led the gelding away, Ballista walked over to where the vanguard of the expedition, a detachment from the Thirtieth Legion, sat huddled against the rock face. The centurion got to his feet and saluted.
‘It does not take a man skilled in physiognomy to read our future in your face, sir.’
Not all centurions were ex-soldiers. Some were commissioned directly from well-off equestrian families. Ferox liked to remind people of his educated origins.
Ballista smiled. ‘Indeed, Centurion, we are to have the honour of leading the way into the pass. As we go in, the archers from Emesa will distract the enemy by shooting over our heads. When the men are ready, I will say a few words.’
‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’
Ferox bustled off, snapping out orders, gesturing his legionaries into place with the vine stick that marked his rank. Affluent background or not, the centurion had served with the legion for years. On the march up, Ballista had come to appreciate that Ferox knew what he was about.
Where the snow had melted, the road was wet and slick underfoot. Elsewhere, patches had been trodden down to sheet ice. A slip might be fatal. Ballista leaned against a boulder, drew his dagger, and began to clean the hobnails on his boots. He worked methodically, careful not to cut himself. His fingers were cold, and clumsy with the beginning of an all too familiar apprehension.
The strategy of the emperor had been good. The rebel Postumus held Gaul and commanded the routes through the Alps. Spring had come early. As soon as scouts had reported the first signs of the thaw, Gallienus had marched from Mediolanum to Augusta Praetoria in the Italian foothills. Two passes led from there through the mountains. A decoy force had gone west into the easier passage. Gallienus and the main body of the imperial army had taken this less frequented northern path. The Praetorian prefect Volusianus had been sent hurrying ahead with three thousand men to seize the heights.
The strategy had been well thought out, but it had not worked. They had caught an enemy picket that morning on the other side of the last ridge below the summit. The four frightened auxiliaries had told their story. Last autumn Postumus had posted their cohort in this desolate place called Summus Poeninus. All winter they had been cut off. The snow never stopped. It had threatened to crush the buildings in which they were barracked just beyond the pass. Supplies had run short. Raised in Aquitania, they had never known such cold in the gentle plains by the Atlantic. No, there was no other way through the peaks. Nothing but jagged rocks and awful chasms.
Volusianus and the other officers in his war council had accepted the statements of the prisoners. Ballista had been a lone voice, arguing that they should take the time to question the local shepherd they had also captured. Ballista had been overruled. There could be no delay. The auxiliaries had been stationed here for months, and would have known any alternative tracks. The pass had to be taken by the next day, or the whole army would be trapped, strung out along the bleak and treacherous road.
Ballista wiped the dagger clean on his britches, and sheathed it.
There was something very wrong about all this. At Thermopylae a traitor had revealed a goat path around the narrows. The emperor Septimius Severus had only forced the Cilician Gates when the defenders had feared they would be outflanked. No one stormed a mountain pass head-on in the face of determined troops. There was always a way around.
The crisp sunshine gave no warmth, but illuminated the mountains with a startling clarity. Snow lay thick on the crests and in the hollows, dazzling white against the black of the rocks. No trees or grass up here, nothing green. It was a harsh world devoid of other colours.
From where Ballista stood, the road up to the pass was steep, no more than ten paces wide, and carved out of the sheer cliff on the left. The rocks above looked loose, prone to avalanche. Climbing, one false move , one piece of ill fortune, and a man would be lost, sliding and scrabbling, tearing his fingernails on the sharp rocks in a hopeless attempt to stop himself crashing back to the unyielding road. Most likely he would be swept over the side, down into the ravine below in a hail of debris, taking his companions with him to their doom. The mountain on the other side of the pass was higher – if anything, more rugged and daunting. Yet on the march Ballista had noticed valleys opening off the route. Not every one could be a dead end. They should have been explored.
The stamp of boots and the jingle of equipment heralded the return of Rikiar, and ended further speculation. Ballista unbuckled his military belt and slipped his sword-belt over his head, and placed them on the boulder. He sank to his knees and held his arms aloft to make it easier for Maximus to help him into his mail coat.
How many times have we gone through this performance?
Getting back to his feet, Ballista felt the heaviness of the armour dragging down on his shoulders. His belt refastened tight, he pulled some of the mail through it, up above his waist, to take a little of the weight from his shoulders. He slung the baldric over his shoulder, and tied the thick scarf in the neck of his armour. Finally, he went to settle his war helm on his head. The laces under the chin tangled in his fingers. Like a mother fussing over a child, Maximus pushed Ballista’s hands away, and tied the laces.
‘Sure, we have been through worse places,’ Maximus said.
Sometimes the Hibernian infuriated Ballista. He was like an animal, living in the present, to whom cause and effect were meaningless – an animal blissfully unaware of its own mortality. Certainly they had lived through dozens of fights: famous battles, the storm of great cities, minor border skirmishes, and nameless fights in squalid backstreets and bars. They had been lucky. Every survival had robbed Ballista of a little of his luck. Now it was threadbare and frayed. Perhaps here, on this cold track in these remote mountains, its material finally would rend and tear.
‘What is it you always mutter? Don’t think, just act. We are good at this.’
Maximus was right. It was not just luck. The Angles of the far north, Ballista’s people, believed a man did not die until the Norns, the implacable goddesses who weaved a man’s destiny, cut the thread of his life. And, tempered by a lifetime of violence, trained by renowned warriors in barbaricum and the most skilled sword-masters of Rome, Ballista knew he was good at this. Not a natural like the Hibernian, but hardened and shaped over the years into a killer of men. Empty the mind of fear, and let training and experience take control. A coward dies a thousand times, a brave man just once.
‘Reminiscences of times past,’ Tarchon said. ‘Beautiful mountains, a sharp blade, much killing – it reminds me of home in the Caucasus. Such happy days!’
The three bodyguards were grinning like yokels in town on market day. Rikiar had a far-off look in his eyes. At any moment the Vandal might start reciting poetry.
‘Today we will behave as good Romans.’ Ballista spoke quickly to forestall whatever verse was composing itself in Rikiar’s thoughts. ‘A Roman officer of exalted rank, such as myself, manages the battle from the rear. He does not hurl himself into the fray, like some hairy-arsed Hibernian or other savage barbarian.’
‘Things never work out like that,’ Maximus said. ‘And, unlike me, those two are not Roman citizens. They are the most benighted barbarians you could ever find – filthy, ferocious, and quite beyond reason.’
‘Enough.’ Ballista was laughing, despite himself. ‘It is time to address the troops.’
Having clambered onto the boulder, Ballista could see all the way back down the track. Ferox was at the front of five centuries of his legionaries. The men were in ranks ten wide, with a few paces between each century. Each century was five or six deep. They should have been eight. The detachment was under-strength after years with the imperial field army. That they were veterans showed in their mismatched and patched equipment. Beyond the legionaries, the cohort of bowmen from the Syrian city of Emesa had come up, and now stood in a mass. The easterners must be feeling the cold. Further down, Volusianus and Acilius Glabrio still sat on their horses in the patch of level ground off the road. Their staff had gone, and the two men were leaning together, deep in conversation. Right down on the floor of the valley, troops were milling in the camp. Now and then the call of a trumpet sounding assembly floated up the mountain.
‘Silence for the officer!’ Ferox shouted.
The legionaries gazed up at Ballista. They had taken off their cloaks, and uncovered their shields and helmets. Equipped for battle, their upturned faces betrayed no emotion.
‘Soldiers of the Thirtieth Legion Ulpia Victrix.’ Ballista was accustomed to making himself heard on parade ground and battlefield. ‘Ulpian for the family of your founder, the divine Trajan, Victorious for your conquest of the proud Dacians and your many defeats of the savage Franks, today you will write a new chapter in the illustrious annals of your legion.’
The appeal to history had produced no sign of enthusiasm in the quiet ranks. There was something Ballista had to say – something that could not be omitted. It was a delicate subject. Ballista took a deep breath.
‘You fight for the legitimate emperor. Our noble Gallienus Augustus was invested with authority by the Senate and People of Rome. He rules with justice, not for himself, but for the benefit of all his subjects. Those who stand against you here serve Postumus, a pretender with no claim to the purple, a tyrant who desires power for nothing but his own advantage and pleasure. On the one hand the majesty of Rome, on the other a mere Batavian upstart. On the one hand Gallienus, a loving father, on the other Postumus, the murderer of an innocent child. Have no doubt, the gods favour your cause.’
Some of the legionaries looked sidelong at one another, and a low, unfriendly muttering came from the rear ranks.
‘It is true that the rest of your legion has been forced under the standards of the usurper. That is nothing but an accident of geography. How could they not pay lip service to his cruel regime, with their base on the Rhine cut off so deep inside the territory of the rebel? Have no doubt that when we descend from these mountains your tent-mates will cast off the shackles of the impious child-murderer. They will welcome you with open arms, join you in casting down Postumus.’
The legionaries looked unconvinced. Ballista needed to find words that might kindle their spirits – earthy things that appealed to old soldiers.
‘The day draws on.’ Ballista looked at the sky; perhaps three hours of daylight remained. ‘Another cold night for the army camped on the mountain. But not for us. The prisoners say that on the other side of the pass is an inn and snug barracks, storerooms full of wine and food. Clear those bastards out of the way, and they are ours – shelter, a warm fire, a hot meal, a few girls to pass around, perhaps a pretty boy for your centurion. No one enjoys a pretty boy more than that bugger Ferox.’
The hostile murmuring had ceased. Many of the legionaries were grinning. That the prisoners had moaned of privations, and that Ballista had no idea if Ferox was a pederast, were immaterial.
‘You are legionaries. The men up there are auxiliaries. You have enjoyed the winter warming your arses in the bars of Mediolanum, they have spent it freezing their balls off watching this desolate crag. You want to cross the mountain, they wish to leave. Would you fight to stay here?’
The soldiers were laughing.
‘And there is one thing of the utmost importance. A thing which unites all the squabbling schools of philosophy, a single thing on which all the long-bearded lovers of wisdom agree, and that is . . . no one fucks with the Thirtieth Legion!’
A roar of approval greeted the profanity.
‘And no one fucks with old Ballista!’ someone shouted from the ranks.
Ball-is-ta! Ball-is-ta!
The chant echoed up the cliffs.
Ballista raised his arms. The noise died away.
‘Time to earn our pay, boys. Ferox, sound the advance.’
The trumpets sounded, the standards inclined forward, and the legionaries began the ascent.
When the first century had passed, Ballista got down from his perch. Maximus handed him his shield, and Ballista and his bodyguards joined the column.
