Ambrosius (Leader of Battles Book 1) by Pilling David

Author:Pilling, David
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sharpe Books
Published: 2023-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

14.

“Set thieves to catch thieves.”

Ambrosius puzzled over these words until he reached Vercovicium, an auxiliary fort located on a stretch of the Wall some fifty miles north-west of Eburucum.

The state of the fort was both depressing and frightening. The walls were crumbling and collapsed in places, worn away by decades of neglect and appalling weather, and the men looked like they would flee at the first sign of a Pict. Either that, or join forces with them in pillaging the country.

Only now did Coel’s words reveal their meaning. The quality of the garrison mirrored their surroundings. Even the foederati of the Saxon Shore made a better show than these slovenly, villainous-looking characters, more like brigands and cattle thieves than soldiers. There was barely enough of them to occupy half the fort, a compact rectangular enclosure guarded by stone walls and towers.

Ambrosius realised what was happening. Lacking enough warriors to defend the Wall, Coel was manning the forts with criminals. Mere gallows-bait, good for hanging or stopping a spear, but nothing else.

He spent an hour walking along the battlements adjoining the fort. The icy winds sweeping down the barren landscape from the north helped to clear his mind, and wipe away uncomfortable memories of the red-headed girl in his bed.

He leaned his elbows on the parapet, and thought of all the generations of Roman legionaries that had stood here, buffeted by winds and rain, watching nervously for any sign of the dreaded Picts, the Painted Ones, lurking among the heather.

They were drawn from all over the Empire, the soldiers who had guarded this Godforsaken spot, from the baking plains of North Africa to the frozen wastes of Scythia. For those raised in warmer climes, being sent to the Wall must have seemed a terrible punishment. To the Romans, this was the furthest frontier of the civilised world. Beyond lay nothing but rainy wilderness and scattered tribes of man-eating savages.

Ambrosius had been sent to ride into that wilderness. He peered into the misted landscape, obscured by drifting curtains of drizzle and fog, and wondered what awaited him.

In theory, the territory north of the Wall was guarded by certain local tribes, subjugated long ago by the Romans and paid to form an extra barrier against the Picts. Considering the number of times Pictish war-bands had swept down from their dark forested highlands and attacked the Wall, meeting with little resistance on the way, Ambrosius considered them a flimsy barrier at best.

The northern tribes were wild, every bit as wild as the painted savages they were hired to fight. Only a fool would trust them. Even so, Ambrosius was glad to leave Vercovicium and its sullen, uncooperative garrison, and venture into the unknown at the head of his men.

He expected the journey to be full of danger, but no hostile war-bands appeared on the horizon as they rode the forty miles to Curia. The stark beauty of the land was offset by rain, pelting down in sheets from grey skies shot through with ragged black clouds.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.