Upper Rhinellus
Dragon's Claw Castle
It was the dead of night, a rare clear one for the spring season. The castle's garrison, comprised year round of the Second and Third Legions, and during the campaign season with their attached Auxilla, was doing what soldiers of all sorts do at night in peace time. Drinking, gambling, singing. The only thing they were not doing was fucking brothel whores. It was not the spawning season. Still, not everyone was enjoying their evening revel. There was a man on every single one of the towers along the outer curtain wall, and pairs patrolled every section of wall, and watched over each gate. A lone man stood in the tallest tower of the tallest keep, watching, waiting. It would be nearly impossible for the Amatocoya to invade without being noticed, but nearly impossible was not close enough to impossible for anyone's tastes.
The man at the top of the keep was none other than the castle's warlord, Baron Catesbeianus, he was a massive Utricularian, his skin bright with a nicely yellowed throat. His castle was the first line of defense for the Imperium, and also its first attack group. He had two legions under his command, along with their attached Auxilla and artillery companies. The fortress itself was sprawling. Two crags overlooked the pass, and on the top of each crag was a separate hexagonall tower-keep, each thirty five meters tall, with walls 5 meters thick, topped with six towers which rose another ten meters. The gate to each keep was defended by a causway which lead twenty meters up to a gap which could be spanned by a drawbridge. The roof was lined with crenelated battlements, and covered by a sloping slate roof. Its towers were treated similarly
The crenelated walls defending the inner baily were ten meters high, and four thick, each capped with a 20 meter tall tower, which, being the only way to get on and off the walls, were each independent fortresses, defended by stout oak doors which could be readily barred from the inside, and possessing their own stores of food and water in cisterns
The outer baily walls were designed similarly, though not as thick, only three meters. Each gatehouse, of which there were several, was a sprawling building twenty five meters tall, with towers flanking the doors. The outer baily gates were protected by a drawbridge spanned ditch, and possessed a portcullis on each end, as well as a set of oak doors in the center. Murder holes were in the cieling, and arrow loops along the inner walls.
The fortress was not something anyone wanted to attack if it only had a thousand men, but it has thirty times that in it right now, fed by a regular supply of provisions from the town ten miles further into Imperial territory. Catesbeianus was contemplating it. A signal from one of the scouts he had sent across the border.
He knew that the Amatacoya were mobilizing to invade, he just did not know where. He had sent out two scouting parties of fifty woodsmen archers each to survey the provinces bordering his own, and it seems that they had met at their rendezvous, and returned.
Or so it seemed. It was possible that they could have been captured, and that this could be a night attack, aimed at getting the gate open while most of the Garrison was unarmed and drunk. He turned to a bell, and rang it once, summoning to arms the men assigned to the next watch rotation to the front gate. By the time he got there, having to climb down many many spiral staircases and cross several hundred yards of courtyard, the men had assembled. The archers had mounted the battlements of the gatehouse, halberdiers were assembled behind the doors as a blocking action.
"Open the gate!" he called up, and with the sound of rattling chains and metal on stone, the portculli were raised. Once that was done, six men hauled on the massive lever that would release the wooden doors, locked by spiked teeth that jutted into the ceiling and floor of the gatehouse, then heaved it open. The caution, was unwarranted this time, however it was no shame to be cautious and wrong. There were many many instances of such trickery attacks through history, and no one wanted to have their name associated with one.
Standing before him was the contingent of Acridian woodsmen, their longbows in hand, their commander, Ser Virgatipes, his second in command, bearing a sealed parchment, which he handed to the Baron with a small bow.
"My Lord, to the North, the Amatacoya have deployed a hundred thousand men, to the east, forty thousand. We were not able to get close enough to reveal their disposition or arrangement, or where they will be marching."
"Thank you Virgatipes"
"Sir" the man said, accepting the thanks. "Do you have other orders"
"Rouse the men who are asleep. I want them on the wall guard, four six hour shifts beginning tomorrow, send a message to the capital and request the sixth legion be recalled. Another message to Marmoratus with the updated information. A third... send a messanger falcon to the town. Evacuation orders, with as much in the way of provisions as they can carry or haul by beast. At this point, an invasion is probably imminent."
Messages were sent by falconers, attaching messages to the feet of the highly trained fast-flying birds
...
Several days later, Marmoratus was soaking in his rented villa in the Pomerium, just outside Rome. The climate was far too dry this far south, especially in the spring and summer. It was the reason why his victory at Ostia over a hundred years prior could not be pressed to full advantage. He simply had no way of keeping that many soldiers from dehydrating. His villa however, contained its own small bath house, which in truth was where he spent most of his time, and where his business was conducted. The only problem was the slavery. The Villa came with a staff of terrified slaves, who seemed to walk on pins and needles around their current--if transient--masters. There was no doubt what horrible tales were told in Rome about the Batrachians. Slavering monsters, eaters of man-flesh. None of this was true, necessarily. In times of great need, in old times before he had instituted the system of sacrifices and the spirits were unplacated, when the Great Serpent Asmodeus was not imprisoned, famine was common, and cannibalism was not unheard of. That however, had been hundreds of years ago. Even then, sacrifices were occasionally taken from neighbors, but even that had not happened for centuries. It was at a time when the state was occasionally too weak and divided to compel them, even with compensation, through the lottery. Now this was no longer a problem.
There was a certain irony however. The Batrachians did not have a tradition of slavery. Someone could be forced into indentured servitude as a form of legal punishment such as restitution for a crime, or to pay off debts, but there were strict legally imposed time limits, and it was not hereditary. The difference was not even moral, it was practical. It was always cheaper to have slaves run your farms and mines, but those were also major sources of employment. In a civilization where nobility was elected, it made poor political sense to have slaves take all the meaningful work. Without having to compete with large slave-holders, artisans and craftsmen were better able to nurse their businesses, and eventually, large merchant families grew from them. These merchant families, in the pursuit of power, invested in the arts, sciences, architecture, and magic, advancing the state of these disciplines--under the patronage of a given merchant family of course--who then often had their patriarch, or matriarch for that matter ascend into the nobility. In the days before the state was unified before the Roman War, conflicts between noble houses often erupted into open war. Now, this was far less frequent.
Marmoratus supposed, as he wistfully thought about the history he had helped to bring about, that if the Batrachians were to see the realities of slavery within Rome, they may view it as a barbaric practice. That would be a naive appraisal. It was not barbaric, because the Romans were a great civilization, and no great civilization could have its foundation built upon barbarism. For example, Slaves within Rome could obtain their freedom, and had certain legal protections of their persons. This was not the case in many other states. No, it was not barbaric, but it would eventually become a problem for Rome. There was however, a cultural difference. In the Batrachian language, no living thing was ever linguistically an object. Nothing in nature, and this included thinking beings, was a
thing; but was recognized in the language as a subject, a being with intentions. So, while a living thing or even the land itself could be used, directed, or utilized, they could not be owned. No one really owned land for example. They owned the buildings on the land, but not the land itself. They controlled it, but there was an implicit recognition that the land owned itself.
Marmoratus mused over these things as he penned several letters, setting one piece of parchment aside as he took up another, using a plank of timber spanning an inset in the bath as a writing table. He had gotten the message about the Amatacoyan troops the night before, and the falcon had been well fed for its trouble, allowed to rest for the night, and sent home. He finished up the last of his dispatches, and sealed each in a canister.
"Kaiseri?"
"Magister?" said one of he soaking Halberdiers
"I have messages to send, do you have enough water?" Tarichans were somewhat more drought tolerant than their cousins, able to store more water in their bladders, and their skin was less permeable.
"Enough for the day."
"Good. I need these two canisters delivered to Lucius Cornelius Sulla, and this third, delivered to Quintus Sertorius
<PMs to be sent shortly>
