When the watchers in the citadel saw the activity begin, the surveyors moving for mile after mile all the way around the base of Alesia, the ditches and the wall starting to form, they realized what Caesar was doing. Vercingetorix’s instinctive reaction was to send out all his cavalry. But the Gauls found it impossible to conquer their fear of the Germans and went down badly. The worst slaughter occurred at the eastern end of the mount, with the Gauls in full retreat. The gates in Vercingetorix’s walls were too narrow to permit the panicked horsemen easy entrance; the Germans, in hot pursuit, cut down the men and made off with the mounts, for it was every German’s ambition to own two superb horses.

Over the next nights the surviving Gallic troopers rode off eastward across the ridge, which told Caesar that Vercingetorix now realized his fate. He and eighty thousand foot soldiers were marooned inside Alesia.

The water-filled ditch, the V-shaped ditch, the earth wall, the breastworks, battlements and towers came into being with a speed Antony, though he had thought himself fully educated in all military matters, found unbelievable. Within thirteen days Caesar’s legions had completed all of these structures over a perimeter measuring eleven miles, and dug the trench across any flat ground.

They had also finished installing Caesar’s “garden” in those four hundred paces of unused land between the water-filled ditch and the trench where it existed. Deep and perpendicular though the trench was, it could be bridged, and was; raiding parties out of Alesia harassed the soldiers working on the fortifications, and did so with increasing expertise. That Caesar had always intended to do what he did was manifest, for the smiths had been casting wicked little barbed goads since camp was established. Thousands and thousands of them, until every sow and sheet of iron plundered from the Bituriges was used up.

There were three different hazards planted in those four hundred paces of Caesar’s “garden.” Closest to the trench the soldiers buried foot-long logs of wood into which the iron goads had been hammered. The barbed goads projected just above the ground, which was covered with rush matting and scattered leaves. Then came a series of pits three feet deep with slightly sloping sides; viciously sharpened stakes as thick as a man’s thigh were planted in their bottoms, the pits filled in two-thirds of the way, the earth tamped down. Rush matting was laid over the ground, the tips of the stakes just poking through it, and leaves were sprinkled everywhere. There were eight courses of these devices, which the troops called “lilies,” arranged in a most complicated series of quincunxes and diagonals. Closest to the water-filled ditch came five separate and random courses of narrow trenches five feet deep, in which sharpened, fire-hardened antlered branches were fixed on a slant aiming the antlers directly into the face of a man or the breast of a horse. These the soldiers jokingly called “tombstones.”

The raiding parties came no more.

“Good,” said Caesar when the eleven miles were finished. “Now we do it all again on the outside. Fourteen miles by the surveyed route—we have to go up and over the tops of most of the hills, which increases the distance, of course. Do you understand that, Antonius?”

“Yes, Caesar,” said Antony, eyes dancing; he enjoyed being Caesar’s butt, and happily played up to the image of shambling oaf. He asked the question Caesar wanted him to ask. “Why?”

“Because, Antonius, the Gauls are mustering at Carnutum at this very moment. Before too many days have gone by, they’ll arrive at Alesia to rescue Vercingetorix. Therefore we have to have fortifications to keep Vercingetorix in, and fortifications to keep the Gallic relief army out. We will exist between them.”

“Ah!” cried Antony, striking his brow with the palm of his huge hand. “Like the track laid out on the Campus Martius for the race between the October Horses! We’re on the track itself, with the fortifications forming the rails. Alesia is on the inside—the middle—and the Gallic relief army is on the outside.”

“Very good, Antonius! An excellent metaphor!”

“How long have we got before the relief army gets here?”

“My scouts say at least another thirteen days, probably more. But the outer perimeter of fortifications must be finished within the next thirteen days. That’s an order.”

“It’s three miles longer!”

“The troops,” said Trebonius, breaking in, “are three miles better experienced, Antonius. They’ll build each mile a lot faster this second time around.”

They built each mile a lot faster, though the miles were more precipitous. Twenty-six days after Caesar’s army arrived at Alesia, it was fenced in between two separate encirclements of fortifications, identical but mirror images of each other. At the same time a total of twenty-three forts were erected inside the lines, a very tall watchtower went up every thousand feet around the outside defenses, and both the legions and the cavalry went into separately fortified camps, the legions on high ground inside the lines, the cavalry on the outside near plenty of good water.

“It isn’t a new technique,” said Caesar when the inspection tour began on completion of the work. “It was used against Hannibal at Capua— Scipio Aemilianus used it twice, at Numantia and at Carthage. The idea being to keep the besieged inside and negate any possibility of aid and supplies coming from the outside. Though none of the earlier double circumvallations had to contend with relief armies of a quarter-million. There were more inside Capua than inside Alesia, and the same at Carthage. But we definitely hold the record when it comes to relief armies.”

“It’s been worth the effort,” said Trebonius gruffly.

“Yes. We won’t be afforded the luxury of an Aquae Sextiae hereabouts. The Gauls have learned since I came here. Besides, I have no intention of losing my army.” His face lit up. “Aren’t they good boys?” he asked, love in his voice. “Such good boys!”

His legates received a stern look. “It is our responsibility to do everything in our power to keep them alive, if possible unscathed. I won’t see so much work on their part go for nothing, nor so much good will. A quarter-million relief army is to err on the conservative side, so I am informed. All of this has been done to save Roman soldier lives. And to ensure victory. One way or the other, the war in Gaul will end here at Alesia.” He smiled in genuine content. “However, I do not intend to lose.”

The inner line of fortifications lay in the bottom of the vales around Alesia save for the eastern end, where it traversed the end of the ridge; the outer line crossed the beginning of the little plain on the west, climbed to the top of the mount south of Alesia, came down again to the southern river on the east, went over the top of the eastern ridge, down again to the northern river, then up onto the top of the mount north of Alesia. Two of the four infantry camps stood on the high ground of the southern mount, one on the high ground of the northern mount.

And here, where the northern mount descended, lay the only real weakness in the circumvallation. The mount to the northwest had proven too big to cross over. A cavalry camp on the outskirts had been connected back to the outer line of fortifications by a very strong extra line, but the fourth infantry camp lay on ground too difficult to strengthen in the same way. For this reason had the camp been put there; it was to protect a gap existing between the lines ascending the northwestern mount and the lines along the site of the infantry camp, which, to make matters worse, lay aslant a steep and rocky slope.

“If they scout well enough they’ll find the weakness,” said Labienus, his leather cuirass creaking as he leaned back to show his eagle’s profile against the sky; alone among the senior staff, he rode his own high-stepping Italian horse. “A pity.”

“Yes,” Caesar agreed, “but a worse pity if we ourselves were not acutely aware it exists. The infantry camp will protect it.” He looped one leg around the two front pommels—a habit of his—and turned in the saddle to point back into the southwest. “That’s my vantage spot, up there on the southern hill. They’ll concentrate on this western end; they’ll have too many horse to attack on the north or south. Vercingetorix will come down the western end of Alesia to attack our inside fortifications at the same spot.”

“Now,” sighed Decimus Brutus, “we have to wait.”

Perhaps because these days he had no access to wine, Mark Antony found himself so alert, so quivering with interest and energy that he drank in every word the legates said, every look on Caesar’s face as well as every word he uttered. To be here at such a moment! Nothing like Alesia had ever been attempted, no matter what Caesar said about Scipio Aemilianus. Fewer than sixty thousand men defending a racetrack twelve miles in circumference, lying between eighty thousand enemy on its inside and a quarter of a million on its outside…

I’m here! I’m a part of it! Oh, Antonius, you have luck too! I am a part of it! That’s why they labor for him, why they love him almost as much as he loves them. He’s their passage to eternal fame because he always shares his victories with them. Without them, he’s nothing. But he knows it. Gabinius didn’t. Nor any of the others I’ve served with. He knows how they think. He speaks their language. Watching him with them is like watching him stroll through a crowd of women at a party in Rome. There’s lightning in the air. But I have it too. One day they’ll love me the way they love him. So all I have to do is pick up his tricks, and then when he’s too old for this life, I’m going to march into his place. One day Caesar’s men will be Antonius’s men. Ten more years and he’ll be past it. Ten more years and I’ll be coming into my own. And I’ll be more than Gaius Julius Caesar. Nor will he be there to eclipse me.

*

Vercingetorix and his thanes stood atop the western walls of Alesia where the flat top narrowed to a point jutting further west, like a wayward crystal grown out of the diamond.

“It looks as if,” said Biturgo, “they’ve just finished riding all the way around their defenses. That’s Caesar in the scarlet cloak. Who’s the one on the only good horse?”

“Labienus,” said Vercingetorix. “I take it that the others have donated their Italian beasts to the German beasts.”

“They’ve been in that same spot for a long time,” said Daderax.

“They’re looking at the gap in their fortifications. But how when the relief army arrives can I send word to it about the weakness? It’s not visible from anywhere but here,” Vercingetorix said. He turned away. “Inside. It’s time to talk.”

There were four: Vercingetorix, his cousin Critognatus, Biturgo and Daderax.

“Food,” said the King, his own increasing emaciation lending the word poignancy as well as significance. “Daderax, how much have we left?”

“The grain is gone, but we still have cattle and sheep. A few eggs if there are any chickens left unstrangled. We’ve been on half-rations for four days. If we halve that again, perhaps another four or five days. After that, we eat shoe leather.”

Biturgo brought his fist down on the table so thunderously that the other three jumped. “Oh, Vercingetorix, stop pretending!” he cried. “The relief army should have been here four days ago, we all know that! And there’s something else you’re not saying, though you should say it. That you don’t expect an army to come.”

A silence ensued; Vercingetorix, seated at the end of the table, put his hands upon it and turned his head to stare out the huge window aperture behind him, shutters open on the mild spring day. He had been growing a beard and moustache since they had realized they were immured in Alesia, and it was easy to see now why he alone had been clean-shaven: his facial hair was scant and silver-white. Nor had he donned his crown, carefully put away.

“If it were coming,” he said at last, “I believe it would be here by now.” He sighed. “My hope has gone, it won’t come. Therefore the food is our first consideration.”

“The Aedui!” snarled Daderax. “The Aedui have betrayed us!”

“Do you mean to surrender?” asked Biturgo.

“I won’t. But if any of you want to lead your men out and surrender to Caesar, I understand.”

“We can’t surrender,” said Daderax. “If we do, then Gaul has nothing to remember.”

“A sortie in full strength, then,” said Biturgo. “We can at least go down fighting.”

Critognatus was an older man than Vercingetorix and looked nothing like him; he was physically big, red-haired, blue-eyed, thin-lipped, a perfect Gaul. As if he found his chair at the table too confining, he leaped to his feet and began to pace. “I don’t believe it,” he said, smacking his right fist into his left palm. “The Aedui have burned their boats; they can’t betray us because they daren’t. Litaviccus would go in Caesar’s baggage to Rome, and walk in Caesar’s triumph. He rules the Aedui, no one else! No, I don’t believe it. Litaviccus wants us to win because he wants to be King of Gaul, not some tame Roman puppet vergobret. He’ll strive with everything in him to help you win, Vercingetorix—then he’ll turn traitor! Then he’ll make his move.” He moved back to the table, looked at Vercingetorix imploringly. “Don’t you see I’m right?” he asked. “The relief army will come! I know it will come! Why it’s late, I don’t know. How long it will be before it comes, I don’t know. But it will come!”

Vercingetorix smiled, held out his hand. “Yes, Critognatus, it will come. I believe that too.”

“A moment ago you said the opposite,” growled Biturgo.

“A moment ago I thought the opposite. But Critognatus is right. The Aedui stand to lose too much by betraying us. No, it may be that the muster took longer because the people were slower reaching it than I had estimated. I keep thinking of how long it would have taken me to organize it, and I shouldn’t. Gutruatus is a deliberate man until passion overtakes him, and there’s no passion in organizing a muster.”

Enthusiasm returned as Vercingetorix spoke; he looked more alive, less careworn.

“Then we halve the rations yet again,” said Daderax, sighing.

“There are other things we can do to stretch the food further,” said Critognatus.

“What?” asked Biturgo skeptically.

“The warriors have to survive, Biturgo. We have to be here and ready to fight when the relief army comes. Can you imagine what it would do to the relief army if they had to beat Caesar only to enter here and find us dead? What it would do to Gaul? The King dead, Biturgo dead, Daderax dead, Critognatus dead, and all the warriors, and all the Mandubii women and children? Because we didn’t have enough food? Because we starved?”

Critognatus walked away a little and took his stand where the other three could see him from head to feet. “I say we do what we did when the Cimbri and the Teutones invaded us! I say we do as our people did then—shut themselves up in the oppida, and, when the food ran out, ate the useless. Those incapable of fighting. A ghastly diet, but a necessary one. That was how we Gauls survived then. And who were our enemies then? Germans! People who grew bored and restless, who drifted off to find other lands, and left us what we had before they came—our liberty, our customs and traditions, our rights. But who are our enemies now? Romans! Who won’t drift off. Who will take our lands, our women, our rights, the fruits of our labors. Build their villas, put in heating furnaces, bathrooms, flower gardens! Cast us down, elevate our serfs! Take over our oppida and turn them into cities, with all the evils cities contain! We nobles will be slaves! And I say to you, I would far rather eat human flesh than find myself a Roman slave!”

Vercingetorix gagged, white-faced. “Awful!” he said.

“I think we must take this to the army,” said Biturgo.

Daderax had slumped upon the table, head buried in his arms. “My people, my people,” he mumbled. “My old ones, my women, their children. My innocents.”

Vercingetorix drew a breath. “I couldn’t,” he said.

“I could,” said Biturgo. “But leave it to the army to say.”

“If the army is to have the say,” said Critognatus, “why do we have a king?”

The chair scraped as Vercingetorix got to his feet. “Oh, no, Critognatus, this is one decision the King won’t make! Kings have councils— even the greatest of the high kings had councils. And in something which brings us down to the level of the basest beasts, all the people must decide,” he said. “Daderax, assemble everyone outside the walls on the eastern end of the mount.”

“How clever!” whispered Daderax, hauling himself upright. “You know what the vote will be, Vercingetorix! But you won’t have to wear the odium. They’ll vote to eat my innocents. They’re very hungry, and meat’s meat. But I have a better idea. Let us do what all peoples do with those whom they cannot afford to feed. Let us give the innocents to the Tuatha. Let us put the innocents on the hillside, as if they were unwanted babies. Let us be like parents, unwilling to feed them, but praying that someone wanting babies will come to the place and take pity on them. It goes out of our hands and into the hands of the Tuatha. Perhaps the Romans will take pity on them, and let them through the lines. Perhaps the Romans have so much to eat that they can afford to throw scraps. Perhaps the relief army will come. Perhaps they will die on the hillside, abandoned by everyone, including the Tuatha. That I will condone. But do you seriously expect me to consent to an alternative which would force me to eat my own innocent people, or starve? I won’t! I won’t! What I will do is cast them out as a gift to the Tuatha. If I do that, we’ll have several thousand fewer mouths to feed. Not warrior mouths, but the food reserves will go much, much further.” His eyes, blackened by dilated pupils, glittered with tears. “And if the relief army isn’t here by the time the food runs out, you can eat me first!”

The last of the livestock grazing the unwalled eastern end of Alesia was driven inside; the women, the children and the old were driven outside. Among them were Daderax’s wife, his father, his aged aunt.

Until darkness fell they huddled in groups below the walls, weeping, pleading, crying out to their warrior men inside. They curled up then and slept an uneasy, hungry sleep. With the dawn they wept, begged, cried out again. No one answered. No one came. And at noon they began the slow descent to the foot of the mount, where they halted on the edge of the great trench and reached out their arms toward the Roman wall, lined with heads along the breastworks, up all the towers. But no one answered. No one beckoned. No one came riding across the exquisitely smooth, leaf-strewn ground to bridge the trench, let them in. No one threw them food. The Romans simply looked until the prospect bored them, then turned away and went about their business.

In the late afternoon the Mandubii innocents helped each other up the hill again and clustered beneath the walls to weep, to beg, to scream the names of those they knew and loved inside. But no one answered. No one came. The gates remained closed.

“Oh, Dann, mother of the world, save my people!” babbled Daderax in the darkness of his room. “Sulis, Nuadu, Bodb, Macha, save my people! Let the relief army come tomorrow! Go to Esus and intercede, I pray! Oh, Dann, mother of the world, save my people! Sulis, Nuadu, Bodb, Macha, save my people! Let the relief army come tomorrow! Go to Esus and intercede, I pray! Oh, Dann, mother of the world, save my people! Sulis, Nuadu, Bodb, Macha, save my people….” Over and over again.

*

Daderax’s prayers were answered. On the morrow the relief army arrived. It rode up from the southwest and took possession of the heights there, not so awesome a sight because the hills were forested, the men partially concealed. But by noon of the following day the three-mile plain of the two rivers was packed from end to end with horsemen, a spectacle no watcher in one of the Roman towers would ever forget. A sea of cavalry, so many thousands they could not be counted.

“So many thousands,” said Caesar, standing at his vantage spot just below the summit of the southern mount on its western side, “that they’ll never manage to maneuver. Why don’t they ever seem to learn that more isn’t necessarily better? If they fielded an eighth of the number down there, they could beat us. They’d still be sufficiently stronger numerically, and they’d have room to do what needs to be done. As it is, their numbers mean nothing.”

“There’s no real commander-in-chief out there,” Labienus said. “Several joint commanders at least. And not fully agreed.”

Caesar’s beloved warhorse, Toes, was nibbling nearby, its strange toed feet almost concealed by the grass. The Roman war command was assembled, those among the legates like Trebonius who didn’t already have charge of a section of the field, and thirty tribunes on their German nags ready to ride off with orders to this or that area.

“It’s your day, Labienus,” said Caesar. “Make it yours. I won’t give you orders. Issue your own.”

“I’ll use the four thousand in the three camps on the plain side,” said Labienus, looking fierce. “The camp on the north side I’ll keep in reserve. They have to fight on the vertical axis of the plain; four thousand of mine will be more than enough. If the front ranks fall back, they’ll ride their own rear down.”

The four cavalry camps were extensions outward of the great perimeter rather than built on its inside wall like the infantry camps; they were heavily fortified, but the goads, the lilies and the tombstones did not mine the ground in front of them. While Caesar and his high command watched, the outside gates of the three cavalry camps impinging on the little plain flew open, and the Roman horse rode out.

“Here comes Vercingetorix,” said Trebonius.

Caesar turned to where the gates at the western end of the citadel’s south walls had been flung open; the Gauls were flocking out to scamper down the steep western slope, armed with trestles, ramps, planks, ropes, grapples, screens.

“At least we know they’re hungry,” said Quintus Cicero.

“And that they know what’s in the ground waiting for them,” said Trebonius. “But they don’t have enough gear stored up there; it’s going to take them hours to cross the goads and lilies before they have to contend with the tombstones and the real fortifications. The cavalry fight will be finished before they reach us.”

Caesar whistled to Toes, which came to him immediately; he leaped up without a toss from the groom and adjusted his brilliant scarlet paludamentum so that it lay across the horse’s rump. “Mount, everyone,” he said. “Tribunes, keep your ears open. I don’t want to have to repeat an order and I expect an order to reach its destination in exactly the same words you heard from me.”

Though Caesar had every foot soldier at his proper post and every foot soldier knew what was expected of him, he didn’t expect an attack from the enemy foot on this first day; whoever was in command clearly expected that the enormous mass of horse would win for Gaul, and soften the Roman troops up for an infantry attack on the following day. But this unknown Gallic commander was clever enough to put a few archers and spearmen among his masses of cavalry, and when the two forces met it was these men on foot who gained ground for the Gauls.

From noon until almost sunset the outcome of the battle was in doubt, though the Gauls thought they had it won. Then Caesar’s four hundred original Germans, fighting together in one group, managed to mass and charge. The Gauls gave way, floundered into the huge number of unengaged horsemen behind them, and exposed the footbound archers and spearmen. Easy meat for the Germans, who killed them all. The tide turned, the German and Remi troopers all over the field pressed an attack, and the Gauls broke into retreat. They were pursued up to the Gallic camp, but Labienus, triumphant, ordered them back before foolhardy courage undid so much good work.

Vercingetorix and his army, as Trebonius had predicted, were still trying to cross the goads and the lilies when the noises from the plain outside told them where victory had gone. They packed up the gear they had got together so painfully and went back up the hill to their prison on its top. But they didn’t encounter the Mandubii innocents, who were still clustered on the eastern end of the mount and too terrified to venture near the sounds of war.

The next day saw no action at all.

“They’ll come across the plain in the night,” said Caesar in council, “and this time they’ll use foot. Trebonius, take command of the outside fortifications between the north river and the middle one of Labienus’s three camps. Antonius, here’s your chance. You’ll command the outside fortifications from Labienus’s middle camp to my spot on the slope of the southern mount. Fabius, you’ll command the inside fortifications from the north to the south river in case Vercingetorix makes it across the goads, the lilies and the tombstones before we beat those attacking on the outside. They don’t know what they’re in for,” Caesar went on with satisfaction, “but they’ll have hurdles and ramps to bridge the ditches, so some of them might get through. I want torches everywhere on the ramparts, but held by soldiers, not fixed. The punishment for any man who mishandles his torch and sets fire to our works will be a flogging. I want all the scorpions and bigger catapultae on the towers, ballistae positioned on the ground where they can fire one-pounders further than our far trench. Those on ballistae can find their range while there’s still daylight, but those firing bolts from the scorpions and grapeshot from the big catapultae will have to rely on torchlight. It won’t be like picking off men at Avaricum, but I expect the artillery to do its best and add to Gallic confusion. Fabius, if Vercingetorix gets further than I think he will, call for reinforcements immediately. Antistius and Rebilus, keep your two legions inside your camp and watch for any sign that the Gauls have found our weakness.”

The attack from the outside came at midnight, and started with a huge bellow from many thousands of throats, the signal to Vercingetorix in the citadel that an assault had begun. The faint sound of trumpets drifting down from Alesia answered the bellow; Vercingetorix was coming out and attacking too.

It was impossible for fewer than sixty thousand to man a double set of ramparts which together totaled some twenty-five miles. Caesar’s strategy depended upon the Gauls’ concentrating on particular areas, and sorties in the darkness were feasible only on the flat ground of the plain. Because he never underestimated his foe, Caesar didn’t leave the rest of the perimeter completely undefended, but the main duty of the watch-towers was to spot enemy forces approaching and notify the high command at once. Two things governed his campaign in those last few frenzied days around Alesia: speed of troop movements and flexibility in tactics.

The Gauls on the outside had brought along a fair amount of artillery, some of it inherited from Sabinus and Cotta, most of it copied from those original pieces, and they had learned how to use it. While some of them were busy hurdling the outer trench, others shot stones onto the Roman ramparts, easy to see in the light of all those torches Caesar had ordered. They did some damage, but the one-pounders the Roman ballistae were firing constantly did more, for they had found their range, something the Gauls had not had the sophistication—or the opportunity—to do. The trench filled in or bridged, thousands upon thousands of Gauls commenced the charge to the Roman fortifications across those two thousand smooth and leafy feet of ground.

Some were ripped up by the goads, some impaled on the lilies, more ran upon the tombstones; and the closer they got, the more of them went down from scorpion bolts, the artillerymen using the better light and hardly able to miss, so great was the pack outside. In the darkness it was impossible to understand what manner of devices the Romans had planted in the ground, nor discover what if any pattern had been used. So the Gauls behind used the bodies of those who had fallen as fill, and reached the two ditches. They had brought their ramps and hurdles with them, but the light of the torches here was brilliant, and right at the junction between the earth wall and the breastworks more fire-hardened and wickedly sharp antlers had been fixed so thickly that no Gaul could find a way among them, nor manage to position his ladder over the top of them. Roman archers, slingers, spearmen and artillerymen picked them off by the hundreds.

Alert and efficient, Trebonius and Antony kept reinforcements pouring in wherever the Gauls looked likely to reach the ramparts. Many of them were wounded, but most wounds were minor, and the defenders held their own comfortably.

At dawn the Gauls outside drew off, leaving thousands of bodies strewn across the goads, the lilies, the tombstones. And Vercingetorix on the inside, still struggling to bridge the water-filled ditch, heard the noise of their retreat. The whole Roman force would transfer to his side of the lines; Vercingetorix gathered his men and equipment together and returned to the citadel up the western slope, well away from the Mandubii innocents.

*

From prisoners Caesar learned the dispositions of the Gallic relief army. As Labienus had guessed, a split high command: Commius the Atrebatan, Cotus, Eporedorix and Viridomarus of the Aedui, and Vercingetorix’s cousin Vercassivellaunus.

“Commius I expected,” said Caesar, “but where’s Litaviccus? I wonder. Cotus is too old to sit well in such a youthful high command, Eporedorix and Viridomarus are insignificant. The one to watch will be Vercassivellaunus.”

“Not Commius?” asked Quintus Cicero.

“He’s Belgic; they had to give him a titular command. The Belgae are broken, Quintus. I don’t imagine Belgic contribution to the relief army is more than a tenth of its strength. This is a Celtic revolt and it belongs to Vercingetorix, little though the Aedui might like that. Vercassivellaunus is the one to watch.”

“How much longer will it go on?” asked Antony, very pleased with himself; he had, he decided, done quite as well as Trebonius.

“I think the next attack will be the hardest, and the last,” said Caesar, looking at his cousin with an uncomfortable shrewdness, as if he understood very well what was going through Antony’s mind. “We can’t clean up the field outside on the plain, and they’ll use the bodies as bridges. A great deal depends upon whether they’ve found our weakness. Antistius, Rebilus, I can’t emphasize enough that you must be ready to defend your camp. Trebonius, Fabius, Sextius, Quintus, Decimus, be prepared to move like lightning. Labienus, you’ll hover in the area, and have the German cavalry in the camp on the north side. I don’t need to tell you what to do, but keep me informed every inch of the way.”

*

Vercassivellaunus conferred with Commius, Cotus, Eporedorix and Viridomarus; Gutruatus, Sedulius and Drappes were also there, together with one Ollovico, a scout.

“The Roman defenses on the northwestern mount look excellent from here and from the plain,” said Ollovico, who belonged to the Andes, but had made a great name for himself as a man who could spy out the land better than any other. “However, while the battle raged last night, I investigated at close quarters. There is a big infantry camp below the northwestern mount adjacent to the north river, and beyond it, up a narrow valley on a tributary stream, a cavalry camp. The fortifications between this cavalry camp and the main line are very heavy; there’s little hope there. But the Roman encirclement is not quite complete. There is a gap on the banks of the north river beyond the infantry camp. From here or from the plain it’s invisible. They’ve been as clever as they could given the terrain, for their fortifications go up the side of the northwestern mount, and really do look as if they go right over the top. But they do not. It’s an illusion. As I’ve explained, there is a gap going down to the river, a tongue of unwalled land. You can’t get into the Roman ring from it; that’s not why finding it excited me. What it does do is enable you to attack the Roman line at the infantry camp from downhill—the fortifications are aslant the sloping flank, they don’t go up and over. Nor is the ground outside the camp’s double ditch and wall mined with hazards. The ground’s not suitable. Much easier to get inside. Take that camp, and you will have penetrated the Roman ring.”

“Ah!” said Vercassivellaunus, smiling.

“Very good,” purred Cotus.

“We need Vercingetorix to tell us how best to do it,” said Drappes, pulling at his moustache.

“Vercassivellaunus will cope,” said Sedulius. “The Arverni are mountain people—they understand land like this.”

“I need sixty thousand of our very finest warriors,” said Vercassivellaunus. “I want them hand-picked from among those peoples known not to count the cost.”

“Then start with Bellovaci,” said Commius instantly.

“Foot, Commius, not horse. But I will take the five thousand Nervii, the five thousand Morini and the five thousand Menapii. Sedulius, I’ll take you and your ten thousand Lemovices. Drappes, you and ten thousand of your Senones. Gutruatus, you and ten thousand of your Carnutes. For the sake of Biturgo I’ll take five thousand from among the Bituriges, and for the sake of my cousin, the King, ten thousand of the Arverni. Is that agreeable?”

“Very much so,” said Sedulius.

The others nodded gravely, though the three Aeduan co-generals, Cotus, Eporedorix and Viridomarus, looked unhappy. The command had been thrust upon them unexpectedly at Carnutum when Litaviccus, for reasons no one began to understand, suddenly climbed upon his horse and deserted the Aedui with his kinsman, Surus. One moment Litaviccus was sole leader, the next—gone! Vanished east with Surus!

Thus command of the thirty-five thousand Aeduan troops had devolved upon Cotus, old and tired, and two men who were still not sure that they wanted to be free of Rome. Besides which, their presence at this council, they suspected, was mere lip service.

“Commius, you’ll command the cavalry and advance on the plain under the northwestern mount. Eporedorix and Viridomarus will take the rest of the foot to the south side of the plain and use it to make a huge demonstration. Try to force your way to the Roman ramparts—we’ll keep Caesar busy there too. Cotus, you’ll hold this camp. Is that clear, you three Aedui?” Vercassivellaunus asked, tone confident, voice clipped.

The three Aedui said it was clear.

“We time the attack for the hour when the sun is directly overhead. That gives the Romans no advantage, and as the sun sinks it will shine in their eyes, not in ours. I’ll leave camp with the sixty thousand at midnight tonight with Ollovico as our guide. We’ll climb the northwestern mount and go part of the way down the tongue before dawn, then hide ourselves in the trees until we hear a great shout. Commius, that’s your responsibility.”

“Understood,” said Commius, whose rather homely face was grossly disfigured by a scar across his forehead, the wound Gaius Volusenus had been responsible for during that meeting primed for treachery. He burned to avenge himself; all his dreams of being High King of the Belgae were gone, his people the Atrebates so reduced by Labienus a scant month before that all he could bring with him to the muster at Carnutum was four thousand, mostly old men and underaged boys. He had hoped for his southern neighbors the Bellovaci; but of the ten thousand Gutruatus and Cathbad had demanded from the Bellovaci a mere two thousand came to Carnutum, and those only because Commius had begged them from their king, Correus, his friend and relative by marriage.

“Take two thousand if it makes you happy,” said Correus, “but no more. The Bellovaci prefer to fight Caesar and Rome in their own time and in their own way. Vercingetorix is a Celt, and the Celtae don’t know the first thing about attrition or annihilation. By all means go, Commius, but remember when you come back defeated that the Bellovaci will be looking for Belgic allies. Keep your men and my two thousand very safe. Don’t die for the Celtae.”

Correus was right, thought Commius, beginning to see the shape of a vast fate hovering above Alesia: the Roman Eagle. And the Celtae didn’t know anything about attrition or annihilation. Ah, but the Belgae did! Correus was right. Why die for the Celtae?

*

By midmorning the watchers in the citadel of Alesia knew that the relief army was massing for another attack. Vercingetorix smiled in quiet satisfaction, for he had seen the flash of mail shirts and helmets among the trees on the northwestern mount above the vulnerable infantry camp. The Romans would not have from their much lower position, even including, he thought, those in the towers atop the southern mount, for the sun was behind Alesia. For a while he fretted that the watchtowers on the northern mount might have seen the telltale glitters, but the horses tethered to the feet of the towers in readiness remained tethered, drowsing with heads down. The sun was coming up over Alesia, directly opposite; yes, Alesia was definitely the only place able to see the glitters.

“This time we’re going to be absolutely prepared,” he said to his three colleagues. “They’ll move at noon, I’d think. So we will move at noon. And we concentrate exclusively on the area around that infantry camp. If we can breach the Roman ring on our side, the Romans won’t be able to hold on to both sides at once.”

“Far harder for us,” said Biturgo. “We’re on the uphill side. Whoever is in that tongue of land is on the downhill side.”

“Does that discourage you?” demanded Vercingetorix.

“No. I simply made an observation.”

“There’s a great deal of movement inside the Roman ring,” said Daderax. “Caesar knows there’s trouble coming.”

“We’ve never thought him a fool, Daderax. But he doesn’t know about our men inside the gap above his infantry camp.”

At noon the relief army, horse massed to the north side of the plain and foot south of them, let out the huge bellow heralding attack and commenced to run the gauntlet of the goads, the lilies and the tombstones. A fact which registered on Vercingetorix only vaguely; his men were already halfway down the hill, converging on the inner side of the ring at the infantry camp held by Antistius and Rebilus. This time they had mantlets with them, equipped with clumsy wheels, some shelter from the scorpion bolts and grape-sized pebbles being fired from the tops of the Roman towers, and those warriors unable to squeeze beneath the mantlets locked their shields above their heads to form tortoises. The goads, the lilies and the tombstones by now had well-worn paths through them, packed with bodies or earth or hurdles; Vercingetorix reached the water-filled ditch even as the sixty thousand men belonging to Vercassivellaunus were throwing earth into the ditches on the other side, working much faster because the slope was downward.

From time to time the King of the Gauls became aware of Gallic successes elsewhere, for the infantry camp was well up the slope and enabled him to see down into the Roman ring across the end of the plain of the two rivers. Columns of smoke arose around several of the Roman towers on the outside perimeter; the Gallic foot there had reached the wall and were busy demolishing it. But he couldn’t quite sustain a feeling that victory was imminent there, for out of the corner of his eye he could see the figure in the scarlet cloak, and that figure was here, there, everywhere, while cohorts held back as reserves were poured in wherever the smoke rose.

There came a huge scream of joy: Vercassivellaunus and his sixty thousand were up and over the Roman wall, there was fighting on the Roman battle platform, and the disciplined ranks of Roman foot were fending them off by using their pila as siege spears. At the same time the prisoners of Alesia managed to bridge the two ditches; grappling hooks were flung upward, ladders everywhere. Now it would happen! The Romans couldn’t fight on two fronts at once. But from somewhere came an immense inrush of Roman reserves, and there on a dappled grey Italian horse was Labienus, coming down the hill to the north of the oblivious sixty thousand; he had brought two thousand Germans out of the cavalry camp beyond, and he was going to fall on Vercassivellaunus’s rear.

Vercingetorix shrieked a warning, drowned in another noise; even as the tower to either side of him came crashing and his men scrambled onto the Roman wall, there came a deafening roar from further away. Dashing the sweat from his eyes, Vercingetorix turned to look down inside the Roman ring on the edge of the plain. And there, riding at a headlong gallop, the brilliant scarlet cloak billowing behind him, came Caesar with his high command and tribunes streaming behind him, and thousands of foot soldiers at a run. All along the Roman fighting platforms the Roman soldiers were cheering, cheering, cheering. Not at a victory—this colossal struggle wasn’t over. They were cheering him. Caesar. So erect, so much a part of the horse he rode—the lucky horse with the toes? Was there really a horse with toes?

The beleaguered Roman troops defending the outside walls of the infantry camp heard the cheering even if they didn’t see the figure of Caesar; they threw their pila into the enemy faces, drew their swords and attacked. So did the troops defending the inside wall against Vercingetorix. His men began to falter, were steadily pushed down from the wall; the squealing of horses and the howling of Gauls filled Vercingetorix’s ears. Labienus had fallen on the Gallic rear while Caesar’s soldiers went up and over the outside wall, crushing the sixty thousand warriors between them.

Many of the Arverni, Mandubii and Bituriges stayed to fight to the death, but Vercingetorix didn’t want that. He managed to rally those near him, got Biturgo and Daderax doing the same—oh, where was Critognatus?—and returned up the mount to Alesia.

Once inside the citadel, Vercingetorix would speak to no one. He stood on the walls and watched for the rest of the day as the victorious Romans—how could they have won?—tidied up. That they were exhausted was evident, for they couldn’t organize a pursuit of those who had fought along the plain, and it was almost dark when Labienus led a great host of cavalry out across the southwestern mount where the Gallic camp had been. He was going to harass the retreat, cut down as many laggards as he could.

Vercingetorix’s eyes always sought Caesar, still mounted, still in that scarlet cloak, trotting about busily. What a superb craftsman! Victory his, yet the breaches in the Roman perimeter were being repaired, everything was being made ready in case of another attack. His legions had cheered him. In the midst of their great travail, beset on all sides, they had cheered him. As if they truly believed that while he bestrode his lucky horse and they could see his scarlet cloak, they couldn’t lose. Did they deem him a god? Well, why should they not? Even the Tuatha loved him. If the Tuatha did not love him, Gaul would have won. A foreign darling for the Gods of the Celtae. But then, the Gods of every land most prized excellence.

In his room, lit by lamps, Vercingetorix took his golden crown from under its chaste white cover, still bearing the little sprig of mistletoe. He put it on the table and sat before it, but did not touch it as the hours dripped by and the sounds and smells came stealing through his window. A huge shout of laughter from the Roman ring. Faint mews which told him Daderax had brought his innocents into the citadel and was feeding them broth from the last of the cattle—poor Daderax! The smell of broth was nauseating. So was the stench of impaled bodies just beginning to rot among the lilies. And over everything, the brooding of the Tuatha like unspoken thunder, the lightless dawn coming, coming, coming. Gaul was finished, and so was he.

In the morning he spoke to those who still lived, with Daderax and Biturgo beside him. Of Critognarus no one had heard; he was somewhere on the field, dead or dying or captured.

“It is over,” he said in the marketplace, his voice strong and even, easily understood. “There will be no united Gaul. We will have no independence. The Romans will be our masters, though I do not think an enemy as generous as Caesar will force us to pass beneath the yoke. I believe that Caesar wants to make peace with us, rather than exterminate those of us who are left. A fat and healthy Gaul is more useful to the Romans than a wilderness.”

No flicker of emotion crossed his skull-like face; he went on dispassionately. “The Tuatha admire death on a battlefield, none is more honorable. But it is not a part of our Druidic tradition to put an end to our own lives. In other places, I have learned, the people of a beaten citadel like Alesia will kill themselves sooner than go into captivity. The Cilicians did it when Alexander the Great came. The Greeks of Asia have done it. And the Italians. But we do not. This life is a trial we must suffer until it comes to a natural end, no matter what shape that end might take.

“What I ask of all of you, and ask you to pass on to those who are not here, is that you turn your minds and your energies toward making a great country out of Gaul in a way the Romans will not despise. You must multiply and grow rich again. For one day—someday!—Gaul will rise again! The dream is not just a dream! Gaul will rise again! Gaul must endure, for Gaul is great! Through all the generations of subservience which must come, hug the idea, cherish the dream, perpetuate the reality of Gaul! I will pass, but remember me for always! One day Gaul, my Gaul, will exist! One day Gaul will be free!”

The listeners made no sound. Vercingetorix turned and went inside, Daderax and Biturgo following. The Gallic warriors slowly drifted away, holding the words their king had spoken within their minds to repeat to their children.

“The rest of what I have to say is for your ears only,” Vercingetorix said in the empty, echoing council chamber.

“Sit,” said Biturgo gently.

“No. No. It may be, Biturgo, that Caesar will take you prisoner, as the King of a great and numerous people. But I think you will go free, Daderax. I want you to go to Cathbad and tell him what I said here this morning to our men. Tell him too that I didn’t embark upon this campaign for self-glory. I did it to free my country from foreign domination. Always for the general good, never for my own advancement.”

“I’ll tell him,” said Daderax.

“And now the two of you have a decision to make. If you require my death, I will go to execution here inside Alesia, with our men witnessing it. Or I will send envoys to Caesar and offer to give myself up.”

“Send envoys to Caesar,” said Biturgo.

*

“Tell Vercingetorix,” said Caesar, “that all the warriors inside Alesia must give up their weapons and their shirts of mail. This will be done tomorrow just after dawn, before I accept King Vercingetorix’s surrender. They will precede him by long enough to have thrown every sword, spear, bow, arrow, axe, dagger and mace into our trench. They will divest themselves of their mail shirts and toss them in on top of the weapons. Only then may the King and his colleagues Biturgo and Daderax come down. I will be waiting there,” he said, pointing to a place below the citadel just outside the Roman inner fortifications. “At dawn.”

He had a little dais built, two feet higher than the ground, and on it placed the ivory curule chair of his high estate. Rome accepted this surrender, therefore the proconsul would not wear armor. He would don his purple-bordered toga, the maroon shoes with the crescent buckle of the consular, and his oak leaf chaplet, the corona civica, awarded for personal bravery in the field—and the only distinction Pompey the Great had never won. The plain ivory cylinder of his imperium just fitted the length of his forearm, one end tucked into his cupped palm, the other nestling in the crook of his elbow. Only Hirtius shared the dais with him.

He seated himself in the classical pose, right foot forward, left foot back, spine absolutely straight, shoulders back, chin up. His marshals stood on the ground to the right of the dais, Labienus in a gold-worked silver cuirass with the scarlet sash of his imperium ritually knotted and looped. Trebonius, Fabius, Sextius, Quintus Cicero, Sulpicius, Antistius and Rebilus were clad in their best armor, Attic helmets under their left arms. The more junior men stood on the ground to the left of the dais— Decimus Brutus, Mark Antony, Minucius Basilus, Munatius Plancus, Volcatius Tullus and Sempronius Rutilus.

Every single vantage place on the walls and up the towers was taken as the legions crowded to watch, while the cavalry stood horsed on either side of a long corridor from the trench to the dais; the goads and lilies were gone.

The remnants of Vercingetorix’s eighty thousand warriors who had lived for over a month inside Alesia appeared first, as instructed. One by one they threw their weapons and mail shirts into the trench, then were herded by several squadrons of cavalry to a waiting place.

Down the hill from the citadel came Vercingetorix, Biturgo and Daderax behind him. The King of Gaul rode his fawn horse, immaculately groomed, harness glittering, feet stepping high. Every piece of gold and sapphire Vercingetorix owned was set upon his arms, neck, chest, shawl. Baldric and belt flashed. On his head he wore the golden helmet with the golden wings.

He rode sedately through the ranks of cavalry almost to the dais upon which Caesar sat. Then he dismounted, removed the baldric holding his sword, unhooked the dagger from his belt, walked forward and deposited them on the edge of the dais. He stepped back a little, folded his feet and sat cross-legged upon the ground. Off came the crown; Vercingetorix bowed his bare head in submission.

Biturgo and Daderax, already deprived of their weapons, followed their king’s example.

All this happened in the midst of a huge silence; hardly a breath was drawn. Then someone in a tower let out a shriek of joy and the ovation began, went on and on.

Caesar sat without moving a muscle, his face serious and intent, his eyes upon Vercingetorix. When the cheering died down he nodded to Aulus Hirtius, also togate; Hirtius, a scroll in his hand, stepped down from the dais. A scribe hidden behind the marshals hurried forward with pen, ink and a foot-high wooden table. From which Vercingetorix deduced that had he not sat upon the ground, the Romans would have compelled him to kneel to sign this submission. As it was he simply reached out, dipped the pen in the ink, wiped its nib on the side of the well to indicate that he was properly schooled, and signed his submission where Hirtius indicated. The scribe sprinkled sand, shook it off, rolled up the single piece of paper and handed it to Hirtius, who then returned to his place on the dais.

Only then did Caesar rise to his feet. He jumped off the little dais easily and walked to Vercingetorix, right hand extended to help him up.

Vercingetorix took it and uncoiled. Daderax and Biturgo got up without assistance.

“A noble struggle with a good battle at its end,” said Caesar, drawing the King of Gaul toward the place where a gap had been hewn in the Roman fortifications.

“Is my cousin Critognatus a prisoner?” asked Vercingetorix.

“No, he’s dead. We found him on the field.”

“Who else is dead?”

“Sedulius of the Lemovices.”

“Who has been taken prisoner?”

“Your cousin Vercassivellaunus. Eporedorix and Cotus of the Aedui. Most of the relief army got away; my men were too spent to pursue them. Gutruatus, Viridomarus, Drappes, Teutomarus, others.”

“What will you do to them?”

“Titus Labienus informs me that all the tribes fled in the direction of their own lands. The army broke up into tribes the moment it was over the hill. I don’t intend to punish any tribe which goes home and settles down peacefully,” said Caesar. “Of course Gutruatus will have to answer for Cenabum, and Drappes for the Senones. I will take Biturgo into custody.”

He stopped and looked at the other two Gauls, who approached. “Daderax, you may return to your citadel and keep those among the warriors who are Mandubii. A treaty will be drawn up before I leave, and you will be required to sign it. Provided you adhere to its letter, no further reprisals will be exacted. You may take some of your men and see what you can find in the camp of the relief army to feed your people. I’ve taken the booty and what food I need already, but there’s food left there. Those men who belong to the Arverni or the Bituriges can depart for their homelands. Biturgo, you are my prisoner.”

Daderax walked forward and went down on his left knee to Vercingetorix; he embraced Biturgo, kissed him on the lips in the Gallic manner, then turned and walked back to the men gathered beyond the trench.

“What happens to Biturgo and me?” asked Vercingetorix.

“Tomorrow you’ll start the journey to Italia,” said Caesar. “You’ll wait there until I hold my triumph.”

“During which we will all die.”

“No, that’s not our custom. You will die, Vercingetorix. Biturgo won’t. Vercassivellaunus won’t, nor Eporedorix. Cotus may. Gutruatus will; he massacred Roman citizens, as did Cotus. Litaviccus certainly will.”

“If you capture Gutruatus or Litaviccus.”

“True. You’ll all walk in my triumph, but only the kings and the butchers will die. The rest will be sent home.”

Vercingetorix smiled, his face white, dark blue eyes huge and very sad. “I hope it won’t be long before you triumph. My bones don’t like dungeons.”

“Dungeons?” Caesar stopped walking to look at him. “Rome has no dungeons, Vercingetorix. There’s a fallen-down old jail in an abandoned quarry, the Lautumiae, where we put people for a day or two, but there’s nothing to prevent their walking out unless we chain them, which is extremely rare.” He frowned. “The last time we chained a man he was murdered in the night.”

“Vettius the informer, while you were consul,” said the captured King instantly.

“Very good! No, you will be housed in extreme comfort in a fortress town like Corfinium, Asculum Picentum, Praenestae, Norba. There are many of them. No two of you will be in the same town, nor will any of you know where the others are. You’ll have the run of a good garden and will be permitted to go riding under escort.”

“So you treat us like honored guests, then strangle us.”

“The whole idea of the triumphal parade,” said Caesar, “is to show the citizens of Rome how mighty is her army and the men who command her army. How appalling, to display some half-starved, beaten, dirty and unimpressive prisoner stumbling along in chains! That would defeat the purpose of the triumph. You’ll walk clad in all your best regalia, looking every inch a king and the leader of a great people who almost defeated us. Your health and your well-being, Vercingetorix, are of paramount importance to me. The Treasury will inventory your jewels—including your crown—and take them from you, but they will be returned to you before you walk in my triumph. At the foot of the Forum Romanum you will be led aside and conducted to the only true dungeon Rome possesses, the Tullianum. Which is a tiny structure used for the ritual of execution, not to house a prisoner. I’ll send to Gergovia for all your clothes and any belongings you’d like to take with you.”

“Including my wife?”

“Of course, if you wish it. There will be women aplenty, but if you want your wife, you shall have her.”

“I would like my wife. And my youngest child.”

“Of course. A boy or a girl?”

“A boy. Celtillus.”

“He will be educated in Italia, you realize that.”

“Yes.” Vercingetorix wet his lips. “I go tomorrow? Isn’t that very soon?”

“Soon, but wiser. No one will have time to organize a rescue. Once you reach Italia, rescue is out of the question. So is escape. It isn’t necessary to imprison you, Vercingetorix. Your alien appearance and your language difficulties will keep you safe.”

“I might learn Latin and escape in disguise.”

Caesar laughed. “You might. But don’t count on it. What we will do is weld that exquisite golden torc around your neck. Not a prisoner’s collar of the kind they use in the East, but it will brand you more surely than any prisoner’s collar could.”

Trebonius, Decimus Brutus and Mark Antony walked some paces behind; the campaign had drawn them together, despite the manifest differences in their characters. Antony and Decimus Brutus knew each other from the Clodius Club, but Trebonius was somewhat older, very much less wellborn. To Trebonius they were a breath of fresh air, for he had been in the field with Caesar for so long, it seemed, that the older legates had all the vivacity and appeal of grandfathers. Antony and Decimus Brutus were like very attractive, naughty little boys.

“What a day for Caesar,” said Decimus Brutus.

“Monumental,” said Trebonius dryly. “I mean that literally. He’s bound to put the whole scene on a float at his triumph.”

“Oh, but he’s unique!” laughed Antony. “Did you ever see anyone who could be so royal? It’s in his bones, I suppose. The Julii Caesares make the Ptolemies of Egypt look like parvenus.”

“I would wish,” said Decimus Brutus thoughtfully, “that a day like today could happen to me, but it won’t, you know. It won’t happen to any of us.”

“I don’t see why not,” said Antony indignantly; he disliked anyone’s puncturing his dreams of coming glory.

“Antonius, you’re a wonder to behold, you have been for years! But you’re a gladiator, not the October Horse,” said Decimus Brutus. “Thank, man, think! There’s no one like him. There never has been and there never will be.”

“I wouldn’t call Marius or Sulla sluggards,” said Antony.

“Marius was a New Man; he didn’t have the blood. Sulla had the blood, but he wasn’t natural. I mean that in every way. He drank, he liked little boys, he had to learn to general troops because it wasn’t in his veins. Whereas Caesar has no flaws. No weaknesses you can slip a thin dagger into and work the plates apart, so to speak. He doesn’t drink wine, so his tongue never runs away with him. When he says some outrageous thing he intends to do, you know in his case it’s not impossible. You called him unique, Antonius, and you were right. Don’t recant because you dream of outstripping him—it’s not realistic. None of us will. So why exhaust ourselves trying? Leave aside the genius, and you still have to contend with a phenomenon I for one have never plumbed—the love affair between him and his soldiers. We’ll never match that in a thousand years. No, not you either, Antonius, so shut your mouth. You have a bit of it, but nowhere near all of it. He does, and today is the proof!” said Decimus Brutus fiercely.

“It won’t go down well in Rome,” said Trebonius. “He’s just eclipsed Pompeius Magnus. I predict that our consul without a colleague will detest that.”

“Eclipsed Pompeius?” asked Antony. “Today? I don’t see how, Trebonius. Gaul’s a big job, but Pompeius conquered the East. He has kings in his clientele.”

“True. But think, Antonius, think! At least half of Rome believes that it was Lucullus did all the hard work in the East, that Pompeius simply strolled in when the hard work was over and took all the credit. No one can say that about Caesar in Gaul. And which story will Rome believe, that Tigranes prostrated himself before Pompeius, or that Vercingetorix hunkered down in the dust at Caesar’s feet? Quintus Cicero will be writing that scene to his big brother this moment—Pompeius rests on more specious evidence. Who walked in Pompeius’s triumphs? Certainly not a Vercingetorix!”

“You’re right, Trebonius,” said Decimus Brutus. “Today will ensure that Caesar becomes the First Man in Rome.”

“The boni won’t let that happen,” said Antony jealously.

“I hope they have the sense to let it,” said Trebonius. He looked at Decimus Brutus. “Haven’t you noticed the change, Decimus? He’s not more royal, but he is more autocratic. And dignitas is an obsession! He cares more about his personal share of public worth and standing than anyone I’ve ever read about in the history books. More than Scipio Africanus or even Scipio Aemilianus. I don’t think there are any lengths to which Caesar wouldn’t go to defend his dignitas. I dread the boni’s trying! They’re such complacent couch generals—they read his dispatches and they sniff with contempt, sure he’s embroidered them. Well, in some ways he does. But not in the only way which matters—his record of victories. You and I have been with the man through thick and thin, Decimus. The boni don’t know what we know. Once Caesar’s got the bit between his teeth, nothing will stop him. The will in the man is incredible. And if the boni try to cast him down, he’ll pile Pelion on top of Ossa to stop them.”

“A worry,” said Decimus Brutus, frowning.

“Do you think,” asked Antony plaintively, “that tonight the Old Man will let us have a jug or two of wine?”