Rusticanus and some of the lesser non-coms stepped deliberately to cover behind their shields. As was usually the case, it was much safer to face danger steadfastly than to flee it; but the experience that allowed a soldier to stand when he could flee was hard-bought and a long time coming.
The mobile gallery had no front or rear wall, but the roof overhung by three feet on either end to block plunging missiles. There was little to be seen, even for Clodius Afer and the other three soldiers in the front rank. Vibulenus, in the row behind them, was lighted dimly by what sunlight seeped past the heads and armored shoulders of the leading rank; and the twelve men arrayed behind the tribune might as well have been in a sealed tunnel for any view they had of what was about to happen.
Vibulenus felt a sudden urge to scream, hurl the gallery away from him, and rush toward the wall which loomed unseen somewhere before him. He couldn’t have budged the cover of mud and timber, couldn’t rush anywhere while the rest of the assault force packed him tightly . . . and he probably couldn’t even scream through a throat which had gone as dry as old bone. He was shaking all over, and he had a terrible need to urinate.
That could wait until they started moving and the act became less obvious. Vibulenus relaxed, feeling enormously pleased that he had just demonstrated intellectual control over one of the few factors within his capacity to change.
A single trumpet signalled them.
“On the count, boys,” said Clodius Afer over his shoulder as his own muscles bunched on the crossbar.
There were five transverse poles, as thick and sturdy as a quinquireme’s oars. They would make it hard to move forward and back in the gallery, to exchange workers — or flee — but they had to be solid to accept the strain of moving so heavy a structure. Most of the men in the assault force would be unable to help prise apart the tower wall. They were present simply to add their strength in shifting the gallery.
And to swell the butcher’s bill in event of disaster, but that was a purpose only for the gods — should they will it. Let the thought not be an omen.
“. . . two,” said Clodius, “three!” and the gallery lifted with a slight sway to the left as if the structure were a turtle just sober enough to walk.
“Pace!” the centurion ordered. “Pace. Pace. Swing right, boys, just a cunt hair — pace, that’s the way, pace —”
Vibulenus heaved at his bar with a sidewall to his left and a legionary he didn’t know grunting to his right. He was lifting with all his strength, but that strength was nothing in comparison to the mass of the gallery. He could feel it shift above him, and his instinctive attempt to counterbalance that thrust was as vain as trying to bail Ocean dry.
Guided and controlled by Clodius Afer, who at least sounded as calm as the stone wall, the assault party staggered onward. Bolts spat into the wet mud with which the gallery was covered, audible but unfelt as the protective roof swayed step by step across the guardwalk.
“Watch it here, now,” the centurion called, as the motion threatened to become uncontrolled. Where the gangway met the surface of the rampart, there was a lip and a gap of several inches. The leading rank tried to hop the irregularity, but the gallery was too massive for that to be possible. Divided among twenty men, the weight was acceptable, but no individual had the strength alone to make the structure so much as quiver.
As the assault party jerked their loads high again, a poisoned quarrel flicked past the roof gable and thumped the guardwalk between Vibulenus’ boots.
“Pace, curse ye!” shouted the centurion.
The quarrel that Vibulenus snapped off beneath his hobnails as his foot shuffled forward must have kissed Clodius’ thigh on the way past. Perhaps the poisoned head had not broken the skin; probably the centurion had not received a lethal dose — and very likely they were all dead in the next few minutes anyway.