Free Throne of the Caesars 01 - Iron and Rust by Harry Sidebottom Page B

it. In the low, raking light of dawn, everything was blurred and indistinct.
    If Gordian could make out little of the enemy, he could see even less of his own forces. There were four men – one for each cardinal point – with him on the watchtower, and below there were the sentinels on the walls of the citadel and the horse handlers in the courtyard. All the rest, and the whole of the settlement, were hidden by the thick, interlaced fronds of thousands upon thousands of palms. Gordian knew the men were in position. In the dead of night, when sleep had refused him, he had walked the lines. He was convinced that he had made the best dispositions he could, but he was far from content.
    The narrow ends of the oval of the oasis were north and south. The tree line was about two thirds of a mile long and at its widest just under half a mile across. There were no defences – no ditch, wall or rampart – around this perimeter, and, anyway, Gordian simply did not have enough men to defend such a length. The village was set in the southern end of the cultivated land. As every inch of irrigated soil was used, the crops, shrubs and trees grew right up to the walls of the houses. There was no killing zone. Attackers could remain in cover until almost the moment they tried to scale the walls or storm the openings.
    It was not a strong position, but Gordian had done what he could to remedy its deficiencies. Traps – sharpened wooden stakes concealed in shallow pits; the ones the soldiers called ‘lilies’ – had been dug in the more obvious trails through the gardens. Half the speculatores , a full two hundred men under a young centurion of local birth called Faraxen, were lurking among the undergrowth. In small groups they were to harass the nomads, falling back before them into the village.
    The remainder of the scouts, under their commander Aemilius Severinus, waited in the settlement. All the entrances were blocked, except the two by which Faraxen’s men would retreat. Moveable barricades had been prepared to put across the latter. Gordian would have liked to make the place a more difficult proposition, but it had been impossible. There had been no time to cut back a space in front of the defences. There was no blacksmith, and no metal, to make caltrops to scatter where their sharp spikes would pierce the soles of the enemies’ feet. Normally, he would have ordered the collection of firewood and metal cauldrons in which to heat oil or sand. He had not done so, because the roofs of the mud-brick houses whose rear walls formed the defences did not look capable of withstanding the heat of a fire. Most were held up by palm trunks, and not a few were thatched.
    If, as was likely, the nomads broke into the village, all the speculatores were to retreat into the citadel by its main gate. The labyrinthine alleys, and the nomads’ inextinguishable desire to pillage, should somewhat slow down their pursuit. Gordian did not allow himself to think what would happen to the inhabitants cowering in their homes.
    The citadel was situated at the extreme southern tip of Ad Palmam. Mud brick, like every other construction, at least its walls were a bit higher and appeared a little more solid. Except on the north, it was ringed by only a shallow belt of trees. Two of its gates opened out west and south on to the plain; the third, the biggest one, north into the village. The seventy-seven remaining Africans raised by Mauricius and the other estate owners were distributed along the parapets. Mauricius was to act as second in command to Valerian. The equites of the Proconsular guard also were stationed in the citadel. Thirty-seven of them were on the walls to stiffen the resolve of the irregulars. The other forty were down in the yard with their horses, acting as a reserve. Arrian and Sabinianus were reunited as their leaders. The former in charge of those on the parapets, the latter the reserve.
    Looking down, in the gathering light Gordian saw the