Stertorius was badly wounded in the fight against Hasdrubal. I went to visit him in the camp hospital, along with Mattias, who had finally been blooded and had earned his red handprint from Aelius. Caelia was there, too, helping tend to the large number of wounded, under the watchful eye of the legionary medics.

            ‘I’ll mend, lad, don’t you worry. I’ve seen worse than this, and I have wonderful company.’

He winked at Caelia, who smiled at the old soldier.

‘Just imagine, if that arrow had been a little to the left.’ Stertorius coughed, and Caelia supported him as he leaned forward. ‘Damned lucky if you ask me’, he finished, lying back in his cot.

‘This should help’, I said, passing him the flask of wine I had filched from the mess hall. Caelia scowled at me.

            ‘Thanks lad. Now back to work, the pair of you!’ He lay back, and closed his eyes, falling into an uneasy sleep.

            While Stertorius healed, our victory paid dividends many times over. Delegations arrived at our camp, Spanish chiefs, offering their fealty to the Scipio brothers. We heard from one of the sentries what had happened.

            ‘They’ve swelled our numbers, I can tell you that’, said our comrade, a man named Gaius, who had been on guard duty while the negotiations went on and had eavesdropped on the discussions. ‘They’ve brought with them their soldiers, their gold, and their influence. The tide is turning, mark my words.’

Indeed, Hasdrubal’s defeat had sent ripples throughout eastern Spain: ceremonies of thanksgiving were held, and we feasted on fresh boar and fine wines and other luxuries that we looted from the Carthaginian camp. But our rest was short. The Fifth left us the day after the fight with Hasdrubal, and soon we had new orders.

‘Back on the road to Saguntum, lads’, Aelius told us one night. ‘We leave in the morning.’ He held up a hand. ‘No grumbling. It’s not far and once we’re set up there, you’ll get some time off.’ We grumbled anyway, because we were soldiers, but we moved on south. Again we kept close to the shore, with the hills and low mountains to our right. Several enemy patrols were glimpsed along the march, but when challenged they melted away, refusing our offer of battle.

‘Fuck me’, Mattias said as Saguntum finally came into sight. It was a blackened scar on the landscape, its walls broken and charred. The citadel watched forlornly over the city, a mute witness to the horror of its final days.

Our column halted on a low ridge a few miles to the north, just to the left of an old quarry, as Gnaeus Scipio ordered his cavalry scouts ahead. The rest of us broke out our rations and waited for the signal to advance. Later, with the sun almost at its height, the scouts returned, and following a brief discussion with our commander, orders were passed for us to form up into maniples and proceed.

            ‘Not taking any chances, then’, grunted Mattias, as he hefted his ruck onto his sore shoulders.

            ‘I can’t see anything in the damned place’, I replied, ‘but I’d rather be ready for a fight going into those narrow streets than be caught and butchered because we were careless.’

            ‘Like Trasimene’, Mattias said, recalling the horrendous slaughter inflicted on an army unprepared for battle, and lazy in its confidence.

            On we moved, cautiously, the only sound the creaking of our armour or the jangling of a harness, and my own breathing. The main gates of the city hung open on their hinges, the walls each side breached and cracked. As a legion, we halted a few hundred paces from the gate.

            Aelius gave us the good news.

            ‘Lads, we’ve got the duty. You’ll be the first Romans in Saguntum for a long time, so be on your best behaviour. Drop your packs here.’

Our company centurion waved us forwards, and we began a quick trot towards the cavernous hole ahead, fanning out once through into a skirmish line which dropped the depth of our ranks from four to one. Spread out, we advanced with great care through the deserted streets.

‘Look at this’, whispered someone to my right. Around us lay human bones, picked clean and baked by the sun.

            ‘Shit, this place is eerie’, I muttered. ‘Not a sound anywhere.’

            ‘Quiet!’ hissed Aelius, who then stopped and held up his fist. We all stopped, eyes everywhere, a nervous energy keeping us as tight as a trireme’s anchor cable.

            ‘Split up into squads, eight men each’, Aelius ordered. Each of our groups took one of the narrow streets to our front. ‘Meet in the forum. Be careful, men. Something doesn’t feel right.’

            With my comrades I moved into a lane, bounded on both sides by shops and taverns. Doors were open, jugs of wine on tables; more bones, of both men and animals; blackened spaces where fires had been set. Mattias jumped and I nearly pissed myself as a deer, alarmed by our presence, bolted down a side alley. My heart was thumping as the street opened out into the forum, the centre of a once thriving city. We stared ahead, stupefied.

            ‘By the gods’, I said.

            ‘So the stories were true’, Mattias declared. Aelius emerged from a side street and stared in awe with the rest of us.

            ‘They said that the citizens of Saguntum burned themselves alive, rather than yield to Hannibal.’ Aelius picked his way forward until he was standing in front of the remnants of a great fire. The ashes were long cold, but one could make out piles of bones charred by the heat, the tell-tale random shapes of melted gold and silver, puddles of wax, flaps of half-burned skin, and rough pieces of parchment half-burned, thrown up into the sky by the heat of the fire and falling to settle by its edge.

We had now been inside the city for about as long as it would take to knead a loaf of bread; other maniples had been sent in behind us, and presently our legion-mates joined us, staring with the same horrified astonishment at the remains of Saguntum’s population.

Aelius beckoned me over after conferring with his centurion.

‘Marcus, return to the commander’s staff, and inform them that the area is secure. Go!’

I hurried off on my errand, happy to be free of a scene of so much death.

By the time I returned, the last units of the legion were filing into the broken city. Two maniples had been sent to explore the fortified citadel, which they found deserted. The men returned to the forum, shaken by the aura of death and catastrophe that hung over the city.

            ‘Close the gates!’ called an officer, who then ordered sentries to be posted on the city’s walls. ‘I want one century at each of the breaches’, he added, indicating the places around the main gate where Hannibal’s siege engines had succeeded in breaking through the thick stonework. Gnaeus set up his headquarters in the forum, and working parties set out to clear the streets of debris and remove the bones that carpeted the pavements. By nightfall, a new pyre was burning; the priests who travelled with our legion presided over prayers for the dead, as we wished their spirits a safe journey to the underworld.

            The next day, Aelius crouched in front of us as we rested, looking unhappy.

            ‘Lads, I don’t like it any more than you do, but we’re staying put here for at least the next few months.’ His face relaxed. ‘From what I’ve been told’, he went on, ‘we’re going to get a stranglehold on this part of Spain before we go south and cause so much mayhem that Hannibal will be forced to leave Italy and come fight us, here. We bring him here, Italy is saved. That’s the plan. I know you won’t let me down. Any questions?’

Nobody spoke. Aelius got up, brushing ash from his tunic. He gave us a warm smile.

‘Now, get to it. There’s a lot of work to be done to make this shithole liveable, and I’m sure even scum like you don’t want to live like dogs.’

Over the months that followed we repaired the city walls, cleared rubbish from the streets, sank new wells, prepared Saguntum’s port for Roman naval traffic, and aggressively patrolled the countryside. We were so busy that we forgot that we didn’t want to be there. Our womenfolk, traders, farriers, cobblers, and all of the camp followers found billets in the city. Taverns reopened, doing brisk business, and I saw Caelia every day. She was back with the cooks, and in the evenings we would sometimes sit on the ramparts of the citadel, gazing out over the land to the west as it gave way to foothills and craggy outcroppings. Caelia would lean her head on my shoulder, and we simply enjoyed the pleasure of being with one another, the wind teasing gently at her hair, and the warmth of her breath on my neck.

These happy times didn’t last—nothing good ever did in the army. We were out on patrol one morning, in the middle of a stretch of barren farmland, when Mattias spotted something up ahead.

‘Sergeant’, he called, beckoning Aelius forwards. We had all stopped, and now there was a jingle of armour and buckles as Aelius jogged to the front of our group, his hand on the pommel of his sword.

Mattias gestured at the ground in front of him, and Aelius swore. We remained on one knee, frozen in place, looking outwards towards the hills and the distant sea whose salty tang reached us, even though we couldn’t see it. We were keyed up and alert.

After a short while Aelius called us forwards.

‘Set security’, he ordered, and counted off twenty men to form a cordon around us. ‘The rest of you, get your shovels out. We have work to do.’

‘What is it?’, I asked Mattias as I unlimbered my pack.

‘More fucking bones, Marcus. Thousands of them.’ He looked blankly ahead.

It took four days, but we uncovered nearly two thousand bodies half-buried in the dirt. The stench that came from the ground watered my eyes and made us vomit. We tied scarves around our faces, but it did little to help. Most of the bodies, including small children and quite a few women, had their hands tied behind their backs, and their necks snapped. On the final day of digging a member of Gnaeus Scipio’s staff came out to the site.

‘Sir, it’s not clear who they are’, Aelius said, ‘but we reckon they must be from Saguntum. There are no other towns or villages around here.’

The staff officer, carefully keeping his scarlet cloak out of the muck with one hand and covering his nose with the other, stared at the corpses and coughed.

‘Will that be all, sir?’ Aelius asked.

‘Yes sergeant. Make your report to your centurion, if you please’, and he stalked off before he, too, was overcome by the dreadful miasma of death that hung in the air.

It didn’t take long for our gossip to turn all of the dead into Saguntines, virtual kinsmen of Rome with a friendship that went back to the time of Romulus himself. Our anger at Hannibal and his savage forces grew; it never occurred to us that the dead might have been killed by Spaniards or that they were Carthaginian settlers. Mattias said it for all of us.

‘Those African motherfuckers’, he spat, amid murmurs of agreement.

Perhaps it was the opening of the graves, or perhaps it was just because Saguntum was cursed. Before long legionnaires began to fall sick and die. There was a high fever, a terrible, watery purging of the bowels, and a rattling in the lungs that ended so many lives. We dug new wells, as deep as we could go, and took even greater care than usual with our baths and latrines. The disease sputtered out, but the damage to our morale was done.

Fighting the enemy in combat was bad enough; discovering a host of slaughtered souls was another. In some of us, it unearthed a deep and festering rage. Men who had been friends since their first days as brothers in combat picked fights with each other. The duty centurion found himself busy docking pay and assigning punishments. Some of our comrades left at night, and were never seen again. Others jumped from the citadel to smash their bones in the streets below. Finally, Aelius came up with a solution.

            ‘I’ve talked with the centurion, and he’s authorised a long-range fighting patrol to the south. Maybe we can find some of these bastards and put them in the ground. Two maniples—we’re going to make for the coast, to link with up a small naval force that will keep us provisioned. We’ll be with some marines on this one, so be nice to the squiddies and don’t hurt them. Any questions?’

            Mattias stood. ‘When do we leave, sergeant?’, he asked.

            Aelius looked down at his feet for a moment. ‘One week’, he said quietly.

            Grumbling and curses broke out amongst us.

            ‘Alright, alright. I want to get the fuck out of here too. Let me talk with my officer and we’ll see if we can move it up a few days. In the meantime, there is to be no more fighting. You understand? Anyone caught making problems will not come on this patrol and won’t get to kill any of the fuckers that did those civilians. Are we clear?’

True to his word, we left three days later.

            ‘Caelia’, I said, kissing her and holding her close. She smelt of the smoke from the cookhouse, and her own scent, delicate and beautiful.

            ‘I want to carry this scent with me everywhere I go’, I murmured. She rolled her eyes at me and laughed.

            ‘Lavender, Marcus. It’s no great secret. Whenever you see some, pick it and think of me.’ She lay her head against my shoulder, and kissed my neck. ‘Take this with you’, she said, pressing a small metal figurine into my hand, and closing my fingers slowly around it.

            I started to ask her what it was, but she placed a finger on my lips and said, simply, ‘one of our gods, to bring you home to me.’ Later, I had it sewn into a pocket in my tunic, and so miracle of miracles, it came back from Spain with me all those years later.

‘Move out’, Aelius ordered, and we looked at each other again. I kissed her, and she stepped backwards, a brave smile on her face betrayed by the wetness in her eyes. Mattias passed her and put his hand on her shoulder.

‘Don’t worry, he can’t even get out of bed the right way if I’m not around. I’ll look after him’. She hugged Mattias tightly, and then left with the other womenfolk who had come to see us off.

All told, we were a hundred and ninety-eight. Outside the east gate, we met the marines, forty fellows in legionary armour, their officer sporting a horse hair plume on his helmet.

‘Well, there’s one squid I can get along with’, Mattias whispered, pointing out Crispus amongst them, and my spirits leapt. Our officers conferred briefly, and then we set off on the march. We moved in column, with scouts spread out to our front and right flank, and a rear guard moving about a half mile behind us. Everywhere, the countryside was empty, and we saw not a single soul. We passed through villages that had been sacked and burned, and searches of the rotten hovels revealed signs of desperate struggle—blood stains on the dirt floors, torn pieces of skin, bones, remnants of meals interrupted. And still there was no sign of the enemy. At lunchtime we halted, formed a perimeter, and broke for lunch.

            Crispus walked over to us and we embraced each other.

‘What news?’, I asked.

            ‘They had us with the Fifth to begin with, and then we were suddenly yanked out and sent back to the coast. They had us doing boarding drills, mostly. We would put to sea most days, patrol the coast, but every time we saw one of the Carthaginian raiders, they would haul hard and clear out. Only once did we catch one, but it was adrift and abandoned, no sign of the crew. A few weapons and other items on board, some stale bread and soured wine. Damned creepy.  

‘Meanwhile, of course, you two got to have all the fun. I missed the big battle.’ There was envy in Crispus’ voice. ‘I heard it was eventful.’

Mattias nodded. ‘You should have seen those elephants, man… they were fucking terrifying. But we got them. This moron’, he said, pointing to me, ‘dropped his sword and got a real reaming from Aelius afterwards. I had to save his life at least four or five times’, he exaggerated, smiling broadly. ‘But since then we’ve seen barely a soul.’

Mattias turned serious. ‘We’re missing the real war, being stuck out here while our comrades fight and die at home.’

Crispus looked up sharply. ‘You haven’t heard?’

We looked blankly at him.

‘Heard what?’ asked Mattias.

‘Story is that Hannibal and his troops have gone soft. They spent the winter whoring and drinking with their new friends, those shithead Capuans who defected.’

He leaned over and spat in the dirt.

‘Capua! Never to be trusted’, I said.

‘From what I’ve heard’, Crispus went on, ‘nobody has managed to catch up with Hannibal and fight him, since the dictator—an old fellow named Quintus Fabius Maximus—has been refusing to fight. Some are calling him a coward, but others say it’s the right move. Let Hannibal waste himself on women and wine and then get thoroughly betrayed by those assholes in Capua, since that is all they really know how to do anyway.’

‘Wait a minute,’ I asked, holding my hands up. ‘How in Hades do you know all this?’

‘For all that time I’ve been wasting my time with drills and chasing phantoms, at least we’ve put into port a couple of times. Where there’s the navy, there’s always news.’

‘By the gods, Marcus, he likes being a squid!’ blurted Mattias, with a chuckle.

I laughed. ‘Go on, Crispus, don’t mind him.’

Crispus grinned. ‘You’d be amazed at what we hear. Really. Here’s another piece of news: the river Ebro is being defended, so that we can pen Hannibal’s brother and the other generals here in Spain. They won’t be allowed to get to Italy.’

‘That sounds like what Aelius told us’, I recalled, ‘consolidating in the eastern part of Spain before going after Hadsrubal.’

Crispus shrugged. ‘It may be why you’ve been stuck at Saguntum for so long. But the big news, the real news, is still the Capuan defection and Hannibal’s long stay there. Some are calling it ‘Hannibal’s Cannae’, a defeat of the soul, as if he’s lost the will to fight. Time will tell, I suppose. Officially the Senate is trying to control what news gets out where, but they can’t keep a lid on things forever.’

‘Prepare to move out!’ Aelius shouted, as he counted us off.

‘All right, friends’, said Crispus, getting stiffly to his feet. ‘I’ll catch you this evening.’

We made our farewells, stowed our food and gear, and hoisted our equipment. The afternoon’s march offered up more desolate villages and a blasted landscape, with no sign of the enemy. At night we camped by the shore, our ships anchored in a small cove. A gravel beach crunched beneath our sandals. After fortifying the north, west, and south flanks with a low berm and a wooden palisade, our two maniples and the marines ate roasted pigs, carried on the ships and freshly slaughtered, with bread and wine. Sentries were set and we settled down for a fitful night—a soft rain fell, and the wind picked up from the sea, causing the ships to swing at anchor, the creaks and groans of their timbers moaning in the gloom.

A soft hand pressed onto my shoulder.

‘Comrade… your watch’, a voice whispered. I sat up, shaking the sleep from my eyes.

‘You’re up?’ the voice asked again, and I nodded. The armoured legionnaire squeezed my shoulder and disappeared into the darkness.

I yawned and stretched, spurring myself awake. Silently I cursed Aelius for giving me the worst watch of the night. I quickly strapped on my armour, buckled my sword, and picked up my javelins and shield, making my way over to the western fence. Taking my position behind it, I pulled the cloak around my shoulders. The rain dripped over my helmet and into my eyes.

I remained completely still for a long time, staring into the darkness. Before long my eyes began to play tricks on me. I thought I saw a shadow about a hundred yards to my front, but remembered that we had a listening post out there; it must have been them. Then I heard what sounded like a muffled thump, and another shadow flitted across my vision. I hunched down, pulling the cloak further over my face, rubbing the water from my face. A mosquito landed on my arm, and I brushed it off.

The night sounds continued. A wolf bayed in the distance, hunting its prey, while an owl cooed softly somewhere over the plain. Suddenly I stiffened. There it was, again. I looked to my right, to Corvus, my comrade at the next sentry post.

‘Corvus’, I hissed softly.

‘Ho, Marcus’, he replied.

‘Do you see something to your front, about a hundred yards out?’

‘No, comrade. There’s nothing out there. Just the night playing tricks on you. You need to go back to sleep’, he laughed.

‘I’m not so sure. Look just to the left of—’

I was cut off by a rushing, murmuring sound, and as I realised what it was I pulled my shield over me, shouting the alarm at the same time. Corvus was still chuckling to himself as he died with a goose-feathered arrow embedded in his throat. Now a rush of shadows came forward at a low run, straight for the western wall.

‘Alarm!’ I screamed as hard as I could. ‘Sergeant Aelius, up to the western wall!’

Behind me I heard barked orders as men awoke and rushed to our aid. Many were still in tunics, and at least one was stark naked, but everyone was armed. Some of the marines tossed firebrands over the fence, and in the dim light I saw dozens of figures coming towards us.

Without waiting for orders I picked up one of my two javelins and threw it into the inky darkness to my front, and followed quickly with the second. I was rewarded with a howl of agony. A whistle sounded to my rear.

‘Heads down on the fence!’ came Aelius’ voice.

‘Shit, shit!’ I yelled, dropping to the ground. Javelins whistled inches over my prone body and made a sickening, rolling thump as many of them found their mark.

‘Up!’ Aelius shouted, and then suddenly I was no longer on my own, as legionnaires took up positions to my right and left, locking their shields with mine.

Ten minutes later it was all over. The attack petered out at the fenced berm; we held the high ground, and our enemy had sacrificed armour for speed and stealth. As they pushed up we stabbed down, ripping arms from shoulders, heads from bodies, and leaving bloody entrails glistening in the wet light thrown off by the firebrands. They tried again, but one of our ballistas, brought ashore from one of our vessels the night before, was manhandled into a flanking position. A thick twang resonated along our line as a two-foot iron bolt was shot with murderous force into a line of figures struggling to take the berm. A short while later, the ballista crew managed a second shot, and the enemy scattered. We remained on high alert until sunrise.

Dawn revealed a spread of forty or so bodies lying in the blood-soaked dirt.

I heard my name called, and turned to see Aelius next to me.

‘Take four men, get down there, and see if anyone still breathes.’

I nodded, and with my comrades threaded my way through a break we had made in the fence. We found only a few mortally wounded, whom we dispatched with a sword-thrust to the throat. Pushing out, I came upon the remains of our listening post, their throats slit, their ears removed, and their tongues cut out. This, surely, had been the shadowy movement in the night.

‘Poor bastards’, Aelius said gruffly, coming out to check on our progress. ‘I’ll have some marines come out and bring them in. Have you found anything of interest?’

‘No, sergeant’, I replied. ‘There’s nothing on the bodies at all. It’s like they were ghosts.’

A shout went up behind us, and we both turned. Several legionnaires stood with a terrified prisoner, his arms pinioned behind his back. The soldiers faced him, murder in their eyes. The bodies of the three men of the listening post and four of the dead who had been at the fence were laid out in a neat row nearby.

One of the legionnaires approached Aelius. ‘Sergeant’, he began, ‘the prisoner claims to be part of a Spanish militia protecting farms and villages from robbers.’

‘What farms and villages do you see around here?’, Aelius replied.

‘None at all.’ A murderous look had come into the legionnaire’s eyes, and Aelius simply nodded at him and turned away. Over his shoulder, I saw the group disembowel the prisoner and leave him in the dirt.

Our dead, we burned, as was our custom; I paid my own farewell—poor Corvus, whom I had barely known. I pressed a coin into his hand.

‘For the ferryman’, I said. ‘A good journey across the Styx, comrade.’

We struck camp and prepared to move. Before we turned northwards, our officers gathered us into a huddle.

‘Men, you fought well last night’, the senior centurion began. We cheered, swords puncturing the air.

‘We have been recalled to Saguntum, and you’ll be glad to know that you won’t have to walk all the way back.’

‘That’s right, Mattias’, Aelius added, with a wicked smile. ‘We’re going on a boat.’

Mattias groaned audibly, and we laughed.

‘Embark by sections. Dismissed.’

We left the beach, singing as we joined our vessels. Nothing could stop us.

Next Chapter: Chapter Seven - Catastrophe