Sorry for the delay on this. Real life has been somewhat weird of late.
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The group of horsemen that gathered at the centre of the line opposite Cato’s Legion was an… interesting one. There were several bannermen, with standards and other banners, there were officers with plumes and above all there was the idiot in the brightly polished armour that made him stand out like, well, an idiot who wanted people to know exactly where he was and how important he was. On a field of battle that made him a liability, not just to him but also to everyone around him. He might as well have painted himself as an archery target.
Cato spurred Hadrian on towards the group, with Malgo and his two bannerman behind him, and after a long moment the group from Eboracum seemed to notice them before riding out themselves. The man in the shiny armour that would be a smile to the face of any archer worth his salt was in the lead. Ah. Beliatrix. Who seemed to be red-faced with anger.
“Who comes with force of war against Eboracum, capital of the North?” Beliatrix shouted with a great of angry spittle. Cato forced himself not to roll his eyes. Histrionics. The man truly was an idiot.
“I do,” he grated as he nudged Hadrian forwards a few steps. “I command this Legion of cavalry.”
Marcus Junius Beliatrix looked at him in some surprise. “Legion? I don’t understand. Who are you?”
“Legatus Legionis Lucius Tullius Cato. I command the First Legion of cavalry.”
Beliatrix blinked at him, but someone behind him hissed with surprise. Cato flickered his eyes in that direction. Two bannermen. Some underlings. And four men dressed as officers. Gaius Beliatrix had told him that his brother had always had four old friends around him. One was a an idiot, two were sycophants and one was something of an enigma, closed-mouth and slow to comment. The first was called Lucius Caecilius, the next two were called Marcus Gelix and Quintus Rufus Sertorius and the last was one Caius Strophontes. So – which one was it? Or was it more than one?
After a long moment Beliatrix seemed to find his mental equilibrium again and then he stared at Cato. “You lie – Aemilianus is the leader of the First Cavalry Legion.”
Cato stared back at him flintily. “The command was always mine to take up. I have done so. And who are you to be asking me such questions?”
This got an instant reaction. “I am Marcus Junius Beliatrix, the Dux of the North! I have inherited my father’s title and his command!”
“No,” said Cato after a long pause of apparent deep thought. “That is not your title. Lucius Ambrosius Aurelianus Aemilianus is the Dux of the North. The sole Dux. The Dux of Britannia.”
And this infuriated Beliatrix. “Lies! My father left his command to me! His banner, his insignia and his title! I am the Dux in the North. I AM the North!”
“No.” Cato said the word with a finality that made everyone around him blink. “You are not. And your banner and your insignia are worthless. Nothing more than fakes. They did not belong to your father. I should know – he gave the real ones to me. Your brother helped me to smuggle them lout of the city and they are now on their way South to Londinium. You have no title. No claim. Your father transferred his powers to Aemilianus.”
For a moment he thought that Beliatrix might solve all their problems by dropping dead in his saddle from an apoplexy, but sadly the man failed to do so. Instead he drew himself up and then glared at him. “You. Lie. Now – send your so-called Legion away. You have no power here, Lucius Tullius Cato. Go back to Deva – if that’s where you came from.”
“No. We stand against you. You do not command here. The men you lead should not be here. Why should they fight for you? You do not command here!” He shouted the last words. “There should be no battle, because there is no cause for a battle. Would you bring the evil of civil war to Britannia? Where does your loyalty lie?”
Beliatrix looked at him, his nostrils flaring with rage. “I have a right-”
“To cause a war? Over your so-called inheritance?”
One of the men behind Beliatrix made a noise of protest and Cato looked at him fiercely. “Be silent!” Be still! You think that this is a matter of inheritance only? No! This a matter of preventing civil war! You wish to fight here? In this place? At this time? Why? Beliatrix. Does. NOT. COMMAND. HERE!”
He bellowed the last words, shouted them into the air around them and as he did he saw a susurration in the lines of the nearest men. Time to bring this to a conclusion, he thought. Beliatrix was already so angry that he was red in the face and almost vibrating with rage. “Dismiss this force and send them back to the barracks!”
“I command here!” Beliatrix shouted back.
“No,” he grated. “You don’t. Bannermen?”
The two men spurred their horses forwards quickly. Both looked rather wide-eyed at the confrontation unfolding before them, but bother also looked as if they wouldn’t be anywhere else right now.
Cato turned Hadrian quickly in a circle as he pointed to the bannerman to his right. “Now!”
The man nodded and then pulled at the coverings. As the last pieces of cloth came off then the dragon banner emerged. It flapped once and then blew out fully, inflating as the wind took it. As it did the susurration from the garrison of Eboracum became an open muttering. “The Dragon Banner!” he heard. “Cato is here!” “The Dragon Banner!”
Other men were shouting now, some calling for silence in the ranks, others calling for men to get back to their places. They’re rattled, he thought – and then he caught sight of Beliatrix, who had now turned white, consumed by an even greater rage at the sight and sound of everything going on in front of him and also behind him.
“You know this,” Cato roared at the ranks. “The Dragon Banner! My father’s banner, and before him the banner of every Cato for more than a hundred years! The banner that flew at Alt Clud! The banner that flew along the Rhenus at the downfall of the Hunnoi! The banner that led the charge that relieved the garrison at Din Eidyn when the Painted People last breached the Northern Wall! The banner that held the Great Bay! Would you fight me, who holds it? Would you?”
The noise from the men opposite him was no longer a susurration, no longer a muttering, no longer unrest. “No!” came the cry from many throats, as the soldiers wavered. Beliatirix was shouting something incoherently now, waving his arm and bellowing some kind of orders that no-one was listening to as he had lost control of the situation completely. The officers behind him were all looking about and scowling, shouting themselves.
Now. Now was the time. Caro stood up in his stapeda and gestured at the second bannerman, who quickly pulled off the cloth covering from the other standard. Gold flashed in the sunlight, catching the outspread wings and proud head of the Eagle. The Eagle that his ancestor had recaptured at Alt Clud. The Eagle of the long-gone Ninth Legion. The Eagle that had not been on any battlefield since that far-off day in Valentia. “Would you fight against THIS? The very symbol of what we are, what we have taken back and what we have to protect?”
Silence fell for a brief, almost stunned moment. And then chaos erupted in the ranks of what had been the forces commanded by Beliatrix.
