The Sword of Attila Read Online Free PDF Page B

We’re the true soldiers of Christ, not the priests.’
    The other man, a Sarmatian archer named Apsachos, grunted and got up. ‘Anyway, gold
solidi
are of no use out here. I don’t see a market anywhere in this godforsaken desert to buy food. And I’m starving.’
    Macrobius dropped down into the trench and stood in front of the two soldiers. ‘Well, then you’re in luck. The cooking fire smells ready to me. As you’re the first to get up, I’m detailing you and the rest of your section for first call at breakfast. There’s a haunch of venison and a bowl of broth for each of you. Take your swords and get them sharpened. When you’re done, come back here and I’ll detail off the next section. And remember, if I see any of you pissing or shitting anywhere except in the latrine trench you know what your next job will be.’
    The two soldiers jumped out of the trench followed by the dozen or so other men who had been slumbering nearby, all wide awake at the mention of food. Macrobius made his way up the trench to the
optio
of the next section. The waft of boiled and roasted meat had made Flavius salivate; he suddenly realized how famished he was. One advantage of being in a forward reconnaissance unit was that his command included a detachment of
sagittarii
like the Sarmatian Apsachos – archers were as useful for foraging as they were in battle. The previous evening in a wooded oasis they had cornered and shot three of the European deer that had been stocked there centuries before when the Romans had first taken over those lands after the Punic Wars, making them into a vast hunting preserve. Flavius had thrilled to the chase, forgetting the coming onslaught, his exuberance taking him back to his boyhood years when he learnt to hunt with his father and uncles in the forests of central Gaul. The deer would provide a hearty breakfast for all sixty of the men ranged along the hilltop, and the cook had made a hot drink from the broth.
    Flavius tried to ignore the rumbling in his stomach and the knowledge that hot food would help against the cold.
Primus inter pares
or not, one thing he would not do was to go ahead of his men to the cooking fire. Despite their griping and ribald humour, these were some of the toughest men left in the African garrison, and they all knew that this meal was likely to be their last. If he were to lead them to their deaths in battle, he would at least have the satisfaction of knowing that he had fulfilled his responsibility as a commander and provided for their families and their stomachs.
    He swallowed hard and looked ahead. The men not yet at breakfast were already standing to along the parapet, silent, swords loosened in their scabbards and spears ready, the archers holding their bows unslung, all of them staring at the horizon as Flavius was, looking for the first hints of what was to come. He saw one man make the sign of Christ, and he glanced back at the huge wooden cross that had been erected outside the walls of Carthage, standing there like the cross of the crucifixion that was still said to tower over the rock of Calvary in Jerusalem. The Carthage cross had been made from charred timbers found outside the walls from buildings destroyed when Scipio took the city, and it seemed to stand there now as a symbol of past glory, as a talisman against the coming evil. And yet the cross was behind them, invisible when they turned to face the enemy, as if Christ himself were fearful of straying too far forward into the jaws of hell, as if the thin line of soldiers had been thrust into a hinterland where even the power of the Lord would be swept aside by the violence of war.
    He thought of what the soldier had said about the wealth of the Church and the poverty of Jesus. It had been over a hundred years since the emperor Constantine had thrown away the mantle of the old gods and embraced the cross – years that some in secret were no longer