Epilogue

 

‘Carry out the sentence!’

The centurion in command turned and saluted Priscus and the camp prefect stepped back and took his seat on the benches along with the other officers. Caesar was conspicuous in his absence. Whether or not he had decided to leave for Aquileia this morning to throw further insult at the Carnutes and the Senones, or whether he truly cared so little to see his will done, Priscus did not know, but Antonius sat in the general’s chair, watching events unfold with a stony face.

The assembly had lasted for two days, and the Remi and the Aedui, apparently eager to display their loyalty to Rome, had delivered up Acco, the chief of the Senones, as the man behind the rebellious attitude of the tribes, and the chief architect of the troubles. The Carnutes and the Senones had almost come to blows with their old friends over the betrayal, but with ten legions breathing down their necks, they checked their weapons, held their peace, and produced the wretched Acco as requested.

The man was terrified. Priscus had in his mind an image of the architects of Gallic revolt. The Ambiorixes and the Vercingetorixes and the Indutiomaruses of the world.

Acco was not one of them.

As he had been led out into the dusty square before the council of his peers and the senior commanders of Rome, he had been slumped, defeated, broken. As Caesar had listed the crimes of which he was accused and summarily pronounced his judgement without even bothering to seek approval from the Gauls, Acco had stood shaking, with wide, frightened eyes, a pool of warm urine growing at his feet.

Rome needed a villain. Priscus understood. And with the major villains gone or unavailable, this poor sod was being raised as a mastermind, but he could not find it in himself to approve of this or to hate the man. He had nodded when Antonius had requested that he be the officer in charge of the execution of Acco. He’d disliked it, but he’d agreed. And after this brief, unpleasant duty, the legions would be sent to their winter quarters - two on the borders of the repeatedly troublesome Treveri, two with the Lingones, where they were within striking distance of much of the Gallic and Belgae lands, and six in Senone territory, close to what was now being perceived to be the heart of the troubles.

But Priscus would not be going with them. With a few centuries of veterans, Priscus would be making for Aedui lands, where he would continue to pull apart the web of deceit and rebellion and learn what he could of Vercingetorix without alerting the man to his suspicions.

The winter looked like being a difficult, if interesting, time for Priscus.

The centurion startled him back into the present, calling out for the legionaries to perform their tasks. Acco was dragged, screaming like a defiant child, to the wooden ‘T’, where his wrists were lashed to the horizontal bar. The soldiers stepped back and the punishment officer walked across the dusty ground, his flagellum gripped tight. As he reached the mark in the dirt, he set his feet in position and let go of the barbed whip’s multiple tips, which fell to the ground and hung there ready, the leather thongs knotted around shards of glass, pottery, bone and iron. It was a brutal weapon. One of the worst ways imaginable to die, and reserved for the worst of criminals.

At the centurion’s whistle, the man pulled back his arm, tensed, and delivered the first blow.

Jagged fragments ripped across the man’s back, tearing flesh from it in chunks, fracturing bones and flaying the man in excruciating agony.

Acco screamed and his cry echoed around the valley and across the silent spectators. Priscus took a deep breath. It would be over soon. He’d seen a few ‘scourgings’ in his time, and even hardy condemned soldiers would be dead by the count of thirty. A weak man like Acco might not make it past a dozen. And in the absence of Caesar’s specific instructions, Antonius had declared that he be scourged to death, rather than the more common practice of stopping near death and then crucifying him for the end. Priscus knew Antonius well enough to know that this was no showing of weakness or compassion, though. It was simple expediency. He wanted the chiefs to watch Acco die and there to be no doubt as to his fate and no potential that he be saved from the cross by rebellious sympathisers.

No. Acco would die in the next dozen strokes.

He watched as a lung was exposed and then shredded with the third blow, and the man’s cries of agony quietened with his inability to draw in enough breath.

Around them, the Gallic council watched. Silent. Angry. Helpless.

 

* * * * *

 

Vercingetorix, exiled noble of the Arverni, both master and pawn of druids, pulled the cloak tighter about himself. There was no likelihood of anyone here recognising him, especially at the back and lost among the spectators, surrounded by the equally miscellaneous figures of his men, but there was sense in leaving as little as possible to chance. It seemed that Ambiorix had escaped Roman clutches and fled across the Rhenus to his German friends, and the druids were content with the result, but Vercingetorix’s men had not returned nor sent any word, and his suspicions kept him in a heightened sense of awareness of danger. He would not relax now until Rome was naught but a burning hole in the ground.

It was ironic, really. Here he was, standing watching the death of a poor fool who had - like Ambiorix - tipped his hand too early. He was surrounded by an assembly of the same chieftains who had condemned his own father to death for seeking to unite the tribes of Gaul under him. And the druids who had done nothing to help the father were now doing everything in their power to see that very thing happen to the son. Many of his father’s judges were now pledging their tribes’ swords to his command.

He would have laughed had he not been trying to maintain his anonymity.

‘The Senones and the Carnutes are straining at the leash now,’ the druid beside him muttered from the depths of his plain brown wool hood.

‘They will not move, though, until they are told to do so.’

‘They will not wait for long. This humiliation is the final one that they will suffer. Already their nobles plot and plan and gather their men.’

‘Tell them that if they move early they will simply follow Acco to the whipping post. If they seek what we all seek, they will wait until I give them the order.’

‘You are our figurehead and general, Esus. Remember that. Not our king.’

‘I am the man who will rid you of Rome and if you wish to succeed in your endeavour, you will do exactly what I tell you, and when I do so. You will tell the Carnutes and the Senones not to move until I give the word. The word will be given before the spring - you know that.’

The druid nodded. ‘It is said that their Crassus has died out in the east and that Rome teeters on the brink of disaster. It is said that Caesar will have to concentrate on Rome if he is to survive. The foretelling is that Caesar will be slow to move and mired in the workings of his webs in Rome.’

‘We will wait until the legions are settled in for the winter and believe themselves secure and in control. Until Caesar is in his palace and dealing with the failings of his own people. And then, when all is right and our people are ready, straining like the river against the dam, the word will be given, and the Senones can loose the fire arrow that signals the end of Rome.’

They watched the sagging figure of Acco, who must even now be dead.

‘Send word to all our friends. There must be no exchange of hostages - no evidence to betray us. Only the oaths of all. Each man must be ready to act when that fire is unleashed.’

The druid let out a slow, controlled breath.

‘The time is upon us.’

 

 

 

 

END