High in the Cevenna range.
Februarius had come and the advancement of another month on the calendar did nothing to bring signs of spring any closer. Indeed, as the army of Julius Caesar moved ever higher into the lofty peaks of the region over the succeeding days, winter seemed to come down on them with renewed vigour, running the whole gamut from chilling rain through hail, ice, sleet and snow. The legions, while they had been partially trained, well-equipped and thoroughly enthusiastic, were little prepared for such conditions and were finding the journey hard.
After only a day and a half moving up from the border, they began to pass through lands owned by the Helvii tribe, who refused to show themselves in any strength to the invasive force, melting away as soon as the scouts saw them and scattering among the high peaks and deep valleys to seek shelter in caves or hidden fortresses. Initially, Caesar had given the order that such groups when seen should be dealt with, since they at least nominally owed allegiance to the Arverni and their king, Vercingetorix. In the event, the practicality of sending barely-trained, frost-bitten legionaries or out-of-condition garrison troops after such parties was soon brought home to them when half a century of men vanished over a cliff in a small avalanche caused by a blaring carnyx. Since then, for the next three days, Caesar’s strict orders had been for the men to stay together in the column and to do their best to support one another through the harsh conditions. The few tribesmen they managed to entrap were simple farmers and woodsmen with no knowledge of events beyond their own village, yet whose local knowledge was proving invaluable in the army’s passage of the peaks.
It was at times like this when Fronto missed the companionship of his Belgic friend, Galronus, who always seemed to have some insight into their surroundings. For a moment he wondered whether the Remi noble had returned to Massilia yet, or whether he was still in Campania. Galronus and Fronto’s sister had been very coy and evasive when they had planned their journey, citing the need to visit her mother and discuss a match.
A small flurry of snowflakes dusted his face and halted his reverie.
Fronto, for once grateful to be on horseback, though he feared for Bucephalus’ health with every bone-jolting shiver, rode up from the rear of the column where he had been discussing the issue of stolen supplies with Oppius Proculus, the quartermaster who had accompanied the column from Aquileia. His singulares followed a short way behind, limited by the terrain and weather to trudging in his wake. Kicking Bucephalus into a little extra speed and praying to every god he could name that the foot-and-a-half deep snow concealed no sudden drops or animal bolt-holes, he raced to the van, where he could now see the scouts and the lead elements of the unnamed legion gathered in a group. The entire column was shuffling to a halt in response to the sudden stoppage at the fore, and the men stamped their feet on the spot despite the lack of forward movement, determined to keep as warm as they could.
Fronto neared the lead elements and began to slow his mount as they approached the slight rise in the saddle between white-clad peaks. The men had halted at the very crest and Fronto reined in beside them, taking a moment to scan the area before addressing the hold-up. Caesar was towards the rear still, in discussion with Aristius and Priscus over the need to up the training of the troops on the journey, despite the conditions. He could hear his singulares catching up. Palmatus and Masgava would berate him for charging out ahead without them, but only nature and the gods stood to ruin Fronto’s day here, and the best gladiator in the world could not beat them.
His eyes took in the view directly ahead, where the pass crossed the highest region of the mountain range. The trail ahead, to which they had been directed by those same few locals they had managed to interrogate, was as invisible as that behind, submerged beneath a white sheet that blanketed the world, fresh flakes already beginning to fall and add to it after a three hour lull in the blizzards. To the left, a deep valley plunged down into the abyss, its lowest reaches concealed by a freezing fog that denied them clear vision. To the right, a set of jagged peaks rose one after the other, as though shadowing the beleaguered army on its journey.
‘Why have we stopped,’ he asked irritably.
‘Respectfully, sir, we don’t see how we can get past that.’
Fronto frowned at the man who had spoken. He was an ordinary legionary, though a little older than many of the recent recruits, and the ochre-coloured focale, or scarf, he wore around his neck, tucked beneath the armour and almost concealed under his heavy wool cloak, identified him as a sapper or a man with at least some engineering experience. Fronto had been about to retort angrily to the man, given the differences in rank, but years in the army had taught him that while engineers might well be the weirdest bunch ever to grace the world with their peculiar presence, if they had an opinion it was always worth hearing them out.
‘Explain.’
The man frowned as though Fronto had asked him to explain why up was above you. ‘Well, look at it, sir.’
Fronto did as he was asked, and once more saw the white blanket that had buried the landscape. ‘It looks exactly the same as the last two or three stretches between peaks. And we’re not far from the point where the descent begins according to the locals.’
‘Erm… look again, sir.’
Fronto was starting to get irritated now.
‘Snow. I’ve seen it.’
‘But in the snow, sir.’
Fronto, utterly bewildered now and wondering whether they were somehow looking in different directions, peered into the white, trying to ignore the increasing fresh deluge trying to conceal the view. ‘There’s little shrubs and bushes sticking out of it here and there. That’s good. Tells us that there’s no hidden drop.’
The engineer gave him another look as though a chicken had just pushed its way out of his ear, confused by Fronto’s apparent oblivion. One of the scouts leaned closer from his horse and cleared his throat.
‘They’re not bushes, Legate. They’re the tips of trees. Firs of some kind, in fact. Fully grown ones, too.’
Fronto turned his unbelieving gaze back to the path ahead. They did look suspiciously like treetops. ‘But if that’s true then that path is under anything between ten and forty feet of snow! That’s not possible.’
‘It’s quite possible, sir. Your own eyes can confirm it for you.’
‘It’s not quite as deep as you might think, though,’ announced the voice of Priscus as the prefect slowed his mount, arriving at the van along with Brutus, Aristius and Caesar himself, Palmatus and Masgava sitting respectfully to the side with their men.
‘I remember this part from the other direction. The path through the pass actually runs to the left of the trees and is probably only six or seven feet deep. Yes,’ he added, squinting into the snow. ‘The Helvii mark their individual territories with posts that display tribal signs - we’ve seen half a dozen of them as we passed. Unless I’m very much mistaken, I can see another down there to the left of the trees.’
Fronto nodded slowly. There was at least a mile of that snow, possibly as much as two. It was a daunting prospect, especially for an army that was already freezing and falling foul of sickness from the conditions. ‘Well we can hardly go back, and so we must go on. You,’ he went on, pointing at the engineer. ‘How fast can you and your men manage to clear snow?’
The man tapped his finger on his chin. ‘If we have to bring it down to clear ground and wide enough for the supply wagons, it’s going to be a very slow job. Half a week, perhaps, depending on conditions as we go.’
Fronto pursed his lips. ‘And how fast if it’s for an infantry column?’
‘Two men wide, sir? If there’s no vehicles we only need to take it down roughly to a foot or so. The rest will soon get trampled down. Much faster. A day. Maybe two.’
‘Get to work. You’re in charge.’ He turned to Caesar, who was watching him with interest. ‘General?’
‘Do as you think best, Fronto.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ He pointed at the engineer. ‘You just got commissioned, centurion. It’s your project. I’m granting you the authority to use every soldier in this army if you have to, barring a couple of centuries I’m commandeering. Rotate the men for rest breaks, but get that pass opened for a narrow column of infantry.’
He turned to the general again.
‘We’re going to have to leave the wagons, sir.’
Caesar nodded. ‘It is only perhaps thirty miles to the lower slopes now. We will soon be in Arverni lands and once we are among them, we will take everything we need and burn the rest, replacing our lost provisions. Now we need to move fast.’
‘Agreed, sir. We will have to distribute the most important supplies from the wagons among the men to carry, though we can use the beasts that have been hauling the cart if we unhook them.’
‘Every effort must be made, as well as every sacrifice,’ Caesar said loudly as he hauled himself from the saddle and slid down to the ground, where his expensive gorgon-embossed boots sank into the snow. ‘Every rider in the column is hereby ordered to give up his beast for the transport of supplies. We will all walk until we are out of the snow.’
Fronto couldn’t help but smile. The general sometimes drove him to the very edge of his temper with his unyielding attitude, but on the occasions when he shone, the man shone so bright the sun would envy him.
* * * * *
Samognatos, the scout of the Condrusi tribe who had now been attached to Fronto’s bodyguard for almost a year and on this most difficult journey had become something of a preferred figure among the scouts for his intuition and inside knowledge of the workings of the Gallic mind, reined in his sweating, snorting steed and nodded to his commander and to the general.
‘What have you found?’
The scout gestured out across the rolling hills ahead, a range of green mountains sprinkled with white in the distance to the north. The dreadful conditions of the snow-clogged passage through the Cevenna had taken its toll on the forces of Caesar, and every man had been grateful and thrown up thanks and promises to the Gods when they had left behind the whitened treeline and descended into the low hills of the Arverni lands.
‘A settlement beyond the hill. Not large and without defences. Perhaps thirty houses and a few outlying farms. Something near a quarter of a mile from edge to edge. There are signs of current occupation, but not more than a hundred inhabitants at an estimate and the only horses I spotted were farm beasts.’
Fronto and Caesar both looked at Priscus, who shrugged. ‘When we came through here, we tried to stay as far away from built-up areas as possible. We came down a valley to the west of here.’
Behind him, Fabius and Furius exchanged looks and the latter cleared his throat. ‘When we were at Gergovia, I remember Pixtilos,’ he noted Fronto’s frown and paused to explain, ‘a tame Arvernian merchant we dealt with,’ and back to Priscus, ‘Pixtilos named three settlements heading south between Gergovia and the mountains.’
Priscus nodded. ‘I remember Briva. We had to give that place a wide berth.’
‘Right. And south from there are Revessio and Condate. He said Condate was in the lower mountain valleys. He used to deliver grain there. We’re past that area now, so maybe this is Revessio.’
Caesar pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘This is all very fascinating, but I am more concerned with the lie of the land than its nomenclature. We are in a race against time here, along with Vercingetorix. I have no doubt that he works to strengthen his forces, while ours remain spread thin. We have to gain the upper hand - combine our forces and harry him - to turn the tables on this Arverni rebel.’
‘And how do we do that?’ Fronto huffed in a cloud of chilled breath.
‘It begins here, gentlemen. As a concerted force, we wipe this settlement from the face of Gaul, so all that remains is a column of smoke visible for ten miles, but we make sure we allow a few to escape and carry the word of our work. I will leave the infantry here under the command of…’ he paused, his eyes on Fronto for a moment until he shook his head and moved on. ‘…Brutus. You will take the remaining seven thousand new legionaries and the Narbonensis garrison under Aristius. I will leave you a few alae of cavalry and I expect you to continue the men’s training while they work. Your remit is simple: move around the entire Arverni region, ravaging and destroying. Make sure you leave survivors to tell the tale. I want word of this wanton destruction to reach the ears of their King. He will not be able to resist coming to deal with you.’
‘Respectfully, Caesar, if he does that, we are in serious trouble,’ Brutus said quietly.
‘That is why I want you to be lightly-equipped and highly mobile. You will hit places and then run. Move on all the time. Stay out of reach of any army sent after you, but keep needling this Arvernian by destroying his people. You will need to travel light, so no supplies or heavy equipment. Live in the field and train the men in the art of forage survival.’ Brutus nodded his understanding, Aristius straight faced beside him.
‘While we do what?’ asked Fronto.
‘While we rendezvous with the rest of the army. We are now far enough north that we will be past the bulk of the enemy who watch the Rhodanus valley, and if Brutus does his job here with adequate zeal and vigour, all rebel eyes will be upon him. While he ravages, we will make for Vienna, move up the Rhodanus, picking up the legions in the two smaller winter camps and head for Agedincum where we shall mass the army. On the journey we will take only Ingenuus and his praetorians, and each of us will be mounted, so we will move much faster than the Arvernian and his force.’
‘And then?’
Caesar smiled hawkishly. ‘And then, while the rebel has been forced to halt his recruiting and deal with the trouble in his southern lands, we will begin the work of suppressing the north, removing his power bases. We will isolate him from his allies, the Carnutes, and then begin to drive south, pinning him against the mountains and our other forces. We have an opportunity here to trick the man into a dangerous position and finish him off. We will not waste it.’
He looked across once more at Brutus. ‘I will take my guard and depart now with appropriate officers. Begin your work, Brutus, and draw the eye of the rebel south.’
* * * * *
Marcus Aristius, newly-raised tribune commanding the Narbonensis garrison, leaned around the tree and peered at the settlement below. The collection of huts and houses that they had named Revessio - whether it was or not - lay peaceful, almost slumbering. No more than a hundred folk could live there, including women, children and the elderly.
He glanced back over his shoulder. Once Caesar and his officers and guard had departed, the noble Brutus had quickly taken stock of the situation and decided that it was time to begin assessing the capabilities of the new units, but in concert with one another. Aristius had been given the task of destroying the settlement and allowing no more than half a dozen survivors to flee, making sure to drive them north, towards Vercingetorix and his army.
With an estimated hundred residents, Aristius had settled upon only a small force as a first test. One century of the garrison troops under a centurion who had cut his teeth on Spanish tribal wars, one century of the new legionaries with a centurion who’d just come out of retirement, but had fought in Caesar’s first year in Gaul, and a single ala of thirty two horse. Just short of two hundred men. Plenty for the task. The place would likely have the usual contingent of fighting men found in any Gallic settlement, but not many. Most would be farm folk.
With a series of signals that he hoped were not open to misinterpretation, he sent the lighter-armed garrison troops down to the right, into the valley, held his hand up to the legionaries to remain in position, and gestured for the cavalry to move down into the other valley on their left and behind the screen of trees that bordered the stream which ran along the bottom of it.
Despite his position in the military government of Narbonensis and his apparently-advancing rank, Aristius had never yet in his career commanded a unit in action, and he found his heart racing. It was not the fear of battle or combat - he would not be expected to do any actual fighting, he was sure - it was the fear of failing in his first command. Of making a fool of himself. He chewed on the inside of his cheek as he watched the two departing units moving into position in the valleys and as soon as both had stopped moving, he had the standard bearer wave commands to the three forces.
So far, so good.
In response to the signal, the legionaries behind him began to approach with the measured step of trained soldiers, their mail chinking and their boots crunching on the cold ground where the grass of the hilltop was still hard with morning frost. They looked every bit the veteran legion. He could only hope they fought like one.
The garrison, to his dismay, were already falling behind, unable to pull together into a cohesive unit and keep pace. He could just make out the optio smacking legs and backs with his staff, pulling the unit into vague order. To his relief, they moved to quick pace and began to catch up, slowing once more as they pulled level and forming better lines.
As per orders, the cavalry waited until the two infantry forces began to move on the village and the standard waved again, and then burst into activity, racing along the treeline and making for the outlying houses and farm buildings.
Aristius opened his mouth as he felt the gradient start to pull him at speed towards the enemy, but it seemed the centurions were already ahead of the game as the man with the transverse crest a dozen paces to his left yelled out the command for quick time.
As the cavalry raced in, converging from the left and the garrison troops picked up the pace on their right, two things happened simultaneously: a shout of alarm went up in the settlement with a bell ringing in desperation, and chaos struck the force descending the hill behind Aristius. The new legionaries marched well, but as the pace suddenly increased at the same time as the gradient, the men - unused to such activity and unable to maintain formation, suddenly broke apart. Two men in the second row lost their footing and fell, bringing down the legionaries in front of them. Those behind largely veered around the chaos, but their own change of direction impacted on other files of men and caused further falls and collisions. In moments, half the century was rolling down the hill in the clatter and crash of armour and weapons, shields splintering and chain-mail hooks snapping. The other half were leaping over fallen bodies or swerving wide to pass them.
Aristius fought the irritation at this display of novice incompetence, noting with a small spark of pride that his own garrison troops were now managing to hold tight formation as they moved into a charge and bore down on the terrified Gauls.
The centurion called out new commands and as the slope became gentler once more the legionaries who had kept their feet reformed into a tight unit and moved into a charge. The optio, left behind on the lower slope, was beating his staff down on the hapless fallen men, yelling at them to get up and run. Gradually the flounderers dragged themselves into a run with no formation at all, following on in the wake of their compatriots, hungry to redeem themselves.
Aristius found that despite his intentions of leading from the rear, he had ended up automatically running at the front, parallel with the centurion. As they leapt over narrow irrigation ditches running with icy water and through the muddy, empty wheat fields suffering the throes of winter, he saw farmers emerging from the huts with pitchforks and sickles and staves - any makeshift weapon they could produce from their farm stores.
With a slight detour to race through the open gateway in a fence rather than having to hurdle it, Aristius raised his gladius, wishing he had a large body shield like the legionaries under his command. One particularly tall man with golden hair shot through with grey and moustaches that hung to below his jaw, ran straight for him, a sickle in his right hand and some sort of small knife in his left.
As the sickle came out for a side sweep, Aristius found that despite the somewhat formulaic and rigid training his father had him receive from a retired soldier, the reactions that flowed through him in response seemed to have been born more from careful observation of the better gladiators than the stab, twist, withdraw he had been taught.
His body automatically shifted left and back, allowing the sickle free path through the air in front of him, though the blow was so close that it caught the baldric that held his scabbard and he felt the weight of it drop away to the ground. Damn, that sickle must be sharp!
The man might be a farmer, but he was quick. Before Aristius had recovered himself, the knife was coming for him and, though he desperately dodged back to the right, the blade dug a deep line across his bicep, bringing white hot pain with it.
Something happened then. Without conscious thought or intent, the tribune found his sword hand coming up. He had no room for a thrust, but his body seemed to have registered that long before his brain and his hand, apparently with a mind of its own, crashed into the man’s face. Wrapped around the bone hilt of the gladius and largely protected by the wide pommel and guard, his fist smashed the man’s nose and cheek together in one blow, as well as mangling an eye.
Aristius watched his victim in astonishment as the farmer staggered back, blood pouring from his face. The tribune actually blinked in surprise as his fist struck again and repeated the blow, knocking the farmer back a few more paces.
As the man shuddered, his arms out at his sides and still gripping the twin weapons, the world and all its sounds and smells came rushing back in to Aristius’ senses and with a cry of pure fury, he slammed into the reeling farmer, knocking him flat to the ground, the sickle and knife skittering off to the sides.
The tribune, his first taste of the horrifying, thrilling adrenaline of battle suffusing him, went down with the floundering Gaul and his arm bent back at the elbow and then shot forward, stabbing the steel point into the man’s chest. The Gaul tried to yell something, and Aristius could not quite hear it, let alone understand it, but he was certain it was a cry of defiance, for the man’s one good eye carried only hate and strength.
Pulling back again, his blade left the man’s chest with a spray of blood that washed across the tribune’s face and filled his mouth with a cloying iron tang, and yet still the Gaul seemed to be trying to rise. With a cry to Mars for strength, the tribune smashed his sword down into the man’s gut, and then again into the chest.
Again…
Again.
He was not at all sure how long he had been here and when the uncontrollable anger had begun to subside, but Aristius blinked as a hand closed on his shoulder in a gentle yet firm grip.
‘Come on, sir.’
‘I… I…’
‘He’s dead sir. Stand up, sir.’
Surrendering to the calm voice, Aristius stood, his eyes taking in the shape beneath him, ripped ragged with half a hundred stab wounds. He blinked in surprise. He remembered three… maybe four. He turned with a confused expression to see the veteran centurion standing next to him, an unperturbed look on his face.
‘It… he just…’
‘First barney, sir?’
All Aristius could do was nod dumbly. The centurion smiled, showing two missing teeth and a badly split lip, long-healed. ‘Takes everyone different, sir. Some dither and some panic. Those who do either don’t last long. Most well-trained soldiers just accept it and get on with it. Some odd ‘uns get the spirit o’ Mars and Minerva right in the gut, sir, just like that. Shame you wear the tribune’s tunic, sir. You’d make a fuckin’ dangerous centurion, beggin’ your pardon.’
With a grin, the centurion patted him on the back.
‘It’s over?’ Aristius managed without shaking too heavily.
‘Yessir. Just farmers. We tried to be selective. We let more than half a dozen escape, though, sir. More like two dozen. None of the new lads much wanted to deal with the children, though there’s a few captive women in them huts as is becomin’ well-acquainted with the odd soldier if you get my drift, sir.’
Aristius could not find it in himself to argue with the leniency of allowing children to flee. These tribes folk may be the enemy, but they were little different from the Gauls of Narbonensis who paid their taxes and enjoyed the benefits of Rome. He couldn’t quite imagine putting his sword through the chest of a six year old boy in Narbo’s fruit market.
‘Well done, centurion. I think we can count this a success.’
‘One thing occurs, sir. There were no warriors here. None at all. I reckon as they’re all in the north with the rebels.’
Aristius nodded. ‘Then we may feel a little less nervous about our position, centurion, so far from our allied legions.
‘Yessir. This was a bit of a mess, I’ll grant you, but it’s the first time any of these lot have ever seen their own sword draw blood, I reckon, and most of ‘em are only part trained, so we have to give ‘em a bit o’ leeway. Next time will go smoother, and in between we’ll start drilling some sense of discipline into the buggers.’
As the centurion saluted and jogged off to a call from the optio, Aristius took in the scene of carnage before him and the iron tang of blood in the air made him shudder.
This is just the beginning. How many of these attacks would it take to bring Vercingetorix down on them?
* * * * *
Cavarinos trod warily, his boot slipping on the mossy stones. The Carnute magistrate who administrated the settlement of Briga had been reluctant to give him directions to this place, his eyes constantly flicking to the carved sacred stone in the village’s centre, but Cavarinos’ reasoned argument that the druids had been the ones to raise Vercingetorix to his position and that it was that same leader who had sent him to recover the curse had swayed him.
It seemed that none of the - clearly highly superstitious - inhabitants of Briga ventured into this section of woodland that made up part of the great forest of the Carnutes yet was considered wholly separate and sacred to Ogmios above all. As was his wont, Cavarinos had scoffed at their credulity in the privacy of his own head while maintaining a polite façade.
Following the instructions, the Arverni noble had reached the forest, tethered his horse, searched the treeline for a time and then fought his way in through the undergrowth, strangely unable to find a track or path leading into the foliage and to the sacred nemeton he sought.
His heart had almost jumped from his mouth when a badger, presumably disturbed by his passage, had actually run at him from the shadows of the forest floor and stopped but two feet away, growling and snarling, watching him intently. This strange behaviour, particularly during the daylight hours, was as nothing when a moment later three more of the creatures appeared at speed, side-by-side with the first as though forming ranks on a battlefield.
Despite his self-avowed practicality and disbelief in the oddities that seemed to fill the hearts of most of his peers, even Cavarinos was starting to feel distinctly uncomfortable in the circumstances. He had departed what he assumed to be the badgers’ territory at some speed.
His foot slipped off another of the slimy green stones that seemed to be arranged in the shapes of buildings long gone among the boles and roots of the pine trees, and this time he fell heavily, throwing out his hands with a thud into the blanket of mud and pine needles to arrest his fall As he slowly straightened, an odd thing occurred to him.
Breathing shallow and almost silently, he frowned. Stooping, he picked up the offending stone, its surface slippery and unpleasant. Raising it above his head, he threw it down as hard as he could onto the other rocks that seemed to have once formed a wall.
It hit with a loud crack and split in half. Cavarinos looked up, listening to the echo of the crack again and again through the woodland.
Curious.
He had seen noises much quieter than either that or his earlier fall send up clouds of cawing and flapping birds in woodlands such as this. Where were the birds?
‘Have some respect, young man.’
In his state of heightened senses, Cavarinos jumped slightly at the voice from mere feet behind him, and turned in surprise. He had been listening carefully for the rock and the sounds of avian life and yet had heard no sign of the man’s approach.
The visitor wore a pair of warm, oft-repaired wool trousers and a tunic of midnight blue with green stitch. His grey hair was held in place with a silver circlet and his beard was trimmed neatly to perhaps an inch long. One of his eyes was half-closed by an old scar that had left an impression on his socket both above and below, and his left ear was missing entirely. Yet, despite this odd appearance, what drew Cavarinos’ curiosity was the man’s outer-wear. Against all probability, he seemed to be wearing a lion skin about his shoulders and down his back, the mane creating some sort of shawl and the paws tied below his chin. Cavarinos had seen a lion once, on a visit to Narbo with a delegation when the Arverni were considered allies of Rome. He had watched the poor beast in the arena there rip a man apart and then get ruthlessly speared for its efforts. How did a man up here get hold of such a pelt?
He realised as he regarded the staff upon which the man leant and noted its vaguely club-like shape, that the form of dress was likely some sort of homage to Ogmios - the pelt and club the same as the manner in which the Greeks portrayed him.
Druids.
‘I slipped.’
‘And then deliberately defiled an ancient place.’
‘It’s a mossy rock that broke on other mossy rocks.’
The druid held him in a penetrating gaze and finally brushed the matter aside, though clearly storing the act for later reference.
‘It is said,’ Cavarinos went on quietly, ‘that you hold a curse from Ogmios himself.’
‘And yet you come here a destructive and heedless unbeliever.’
‘Pragmatist.’
‘Unbeliever.’
Cavarinos sighed. ‘I was sent by Vercingetorix to retrieve the item. Have you got it and if so, do you have any intention of passing it to me, else I am wasting my time and may as well leave?’
The druid placed both palms on the top of the staff-club and leaned on it, placing his chin on the top. ‘You do not believe in the curse.’
‘Frankly, no. I believe in credulous folk beseeching gods for curses, which I have seen time and again and have yet to see answered. Do I believe that a great god of words and corpses took the time out of his busy schedule to jot down a spell that will kill a man who hears it? That a god would need to write such a thing? No, I do not. I believe that you and your power-mad friends wrote the curse and attributed it to a god to fool the people.’
The druid gave him a knowing smile that set his teeth on irritable edge and Cavarinos eyed the man suspiciously. The shepherds of the people were sacrosanct, of course, untouchable by most and revered by all. Almost all. Cavarinos trusted them about as far as he could spit a hunting hound and would rather spend time with a Roman than a druid, truth be told.
They were powerful, for sure, and they knew things that most men would never understand in a hundred lifetimes of learning, but they were also interested only in their own goals and not those of their people, no matter what they claimed. 'Shepherds of the people' was a misnomer as far as Cavarinos was concerned. 'Controllers of the people' was more like.
But they were needed this year. They were necessary during this time of struggle. The druids could never have hoped to field an army in the manner of the nations around the southern sea without Vercingetorix, but neither could Vercingetorix have hoped to build that army without the aid of the druids, who bound the people together with invisible chains. They needed each other, and so the uneasy alliance between the great chief and the gods' magicians would continue.
Until the war was over.
Then, Vercingetorix would be able to put them in their place. Cavarinos believed he’d almost persuaded the chief that the druids had become too powerful. That they could make Vercingetorix king over all the Gaulish tribes showed just how powerful they had become, and his leader knew that. The druids were there to please the Gods, perform the rituals, and interpret the wishes of the powers. Not to control the people.
The Arvernian rolled his shoulders, the Roman mail shirt he had taken from a centurion the year before shushing as he moved, the sword-damage among the links repaired by one of the finest smiths using bronze rings forged from the dead man's own medals. His once-Roman helmet still bore the centurion's crest holder, though black crow feathers and a silver serpent rose from it now, and that same smith had hammered good embossed images of a leaping boar and a running stag into the bronze bowl of the skull.
'I will have your oath upon the life of your king and the success of your endeavour that you will keep the curse safe until the time comes to use it, and that you will show it to no other?'
Cavarinos sighed. 'I thought I might go sell it in Narbo. Use the profits to bed a hundred Egyptian whores. Or perhaps I'll wipe my arse with it…'
The druid glared at him, and the Arvernian rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, I will keep it safe. And no, I will not let anyone take it from me.'
‘Then it is the will of the lord of words and corpses that I entrust this to you.’ The druid eyed him for long moments before he fished into his voluminous robe and drew out a bundle some hand-span in each dimension. He paused again before he reached out to the visiting warrior and passed the item over.
Cavarinos lifted the small bundle and began to unwind the wrappings. It was light and brittle within. Made from pottery?
'Do not open it yet. It will lose its power if you reveal its markings now. It will be useless when it is needed. Have you any idea how rare this is?'
'Have you any idea how little I care?' the warrior sighed again. 'This war will be won by men with strong sword arms, mailed chests, the ability to stand against a Roman and the desire to see them beaten. It will not be won by magical trinkets and bric-a-brac. The value of this thing,' he added, brandishing the package, ‘is in the morale it will bring to our warriors.’
'Ogmios is not a giving God. He is a taker - of tributes, of souls, of lives. He only gives when he knows it is needed, and his curse-tablets are so rare that some chiefs are hoarding ones a thousand years old, considering them too precious to use. This curse is destined for an enemy of our peoples - and a specific one - though who that is will only be revealed to you in time, when the boar and the eagle are locked in a struggle, bound by the sword. Do not waste it now.'
Cavarinos stared at the item, and then huffed his irritation and folded the wrappings tight once more. 'Tell your wyrd brothers that it is in the right hands.'
The druid nodded and turned, threading his way back among the trees and out of sight. Cavarinos eyed the bundle again as though it might bite him if he held it wrong and, reluctantly, pushed it inside his mail shirt for safety, giving him an odd lump in his belly area. For a moment, he could not get his bearings and wondered which way he had come, but he realised he had left something of a trail pushing through the trees. Curious that the druid seemed not to have done. Still, he turned and began to make his way back out from this strange wood, to where his horse was tethered in a field of rich grass.
Now to ride to Vellaunoduno and meet up with Critognatos before they returned to the army.
* * * * *
Fronto wondered idly whether his backside would ever be the same. It felt as though someone had opened up the skin, pushed in half a broken amphora in jagged chunks and then sewn it back up again. He was no stranger to protracted periods in the saddle, but he had never before ridden for a week, day and night, with only the shortest of breaks to catch a little sleep and rest the horses. It honestly felt now as though Bucephalus had been riding him for the past two days rather than the other way around.
Their route had taken them from the heartlands of the Arverni, across the highlands and into the valley of the Iaresis river, which had deposited them at the city of Vienna late in the second day of travel, all the time keeping as far from population centres as possible. In Vienna they found a small Roman wagon train and its cavalry escort that had been trapped there for almost a month, the valley in both directions deemed too dangerous for travel. Leaving the goods and the merchants to make their way south as best they could, they took the cavalry into their force and rested a full night for a change.
From there they had suffered a nerve-wracking three days’ travel up the valley of the Rhodanus, all the time watching their flanks and their rear, expecting the agents of the Arverni or their allies to spring some deadly trap on them. Yet the only time they had encountered clear danger had been when the advance scouts had spotted a large party of riders armed for war ahead, large enough to have resoundingly beaten Caesar’s party. The Roman column had lain low for four hours while Samognatos had shadowed the warband and eventually returned proclaimed the party out of range of danger.
At an abandoned (or destroyed) Roman depot high up the Rhodanus, where the Roman supply road veered off east to Vesontio, Caesar despatched riders to the winter quarters in that important town, that Roscius and Trebonius should bring their legions to Agedincum with all haste. The command party watched the couriers leave, then departed the river trail and cut west and a little north for a further two and a half days, riding harder than ever, with the welcome presence of the main winter camp for six legions looming ever closer at the end of the ride.
A little more than twenty miles from the Rhodanus, they reached the second of the winter quarters: a fortress for the Eighth and Eleventh legions positioned on a hill near a sleepy, peaceful oppidum that went by the name of Alesia. Caesar had issued orders to Fabius and Cicero to strike camp and move at speed to Agedincum, and the riders had left the camp in sudden throes of activity, skirting the huge upturned-boat shape of Alesia and riding for Agedincum.
‘There she is,’ Priscus sighed with audible relief, pointing ahead as the party rounded a small stand of trees and the massive six-legion complex that sprawled on the edge of the native town of Agedincum came into view. Three times the size of the town it hugged, the winter camp gave off the smoke of dozens of cooking fires and rang with the noises of a hundred blacksmiths and armourers hammering metal upon metal. The distinctive sounds of parade marches and weapon drills echoed across the landscape.
Fronto rubbed his rump and winced. There was precious little skin left around his coccyx if he was any judge and he had a horrible feeling that all the bruises had joined up and left him with a blue-grey backside. ‘I shall be glad to rest. Preferably sink into a nice warm bath.’
‘I offered to tend to your pains,’ muttered Masgava, riding along close behind.
‘Thank you, but one thing I try not to do is spend my evenings with a large, scarred Numidian professional killer rubbing oil across my buttocks.’
Palmatus snorted laughter, but Masgava merely shrugged. ‘You’d have lived a sore and unpleasant life in the arena if you can’t let another man massage you.’
Fronto turned to him. ‘It’s not that I…’ he rolled his eyes. ‘Priscus, just try and talk sense into him.’
‘Oh I don’t know,’ grinned the prefect. ‘I think you ought to give it a try. Let Masgava get himself all oiled up and ready, and you can strip down to your bare blue arse and let him have some fun.’
Fronto turned his back pointedly on the pair of them and opened his mouth to address Caesar before spotting the wicked grin on the general’s face.
‘It really isn’t funny.’
‘If you say so, Marcus.’
Fronto cleared his throat noisily. ‘What’s the plan now, sir? The troops will have all-but exhausted their winter stores, and are probably wondering when more will be forthcoming. I’m quite surprised Labienus hasn’t been tempted to bring the legions south when the supply lines were cut.’
Caesar shook his head. ‘They had adequate supplies to last until spring. Labienus is too sensible to strike such defensive camps and risk his forces, given what happened the winter before. Besides, even if the supplies ran low, they could get by. The Eighth and Eleventh had supplemented by foraging the local area and impounding what they could get away with.’
‘Easier for two legions to survive like that than six, general.’
‘Supplies will not be an issue, Marcus. As soon as all ten legions have met up, we will be moving west. There is a high probability from local rumour that the Carnutes are now eating out of Vercingetorix’s hand. Our supply hub at Cenabum is deep in Carnute lands – their commercial centre, in fact – and we must secure it and subdue the Carnutes first. Then we will turn towards the true enemy.’
‘That doesn’t resolve supply issues, general.’
‘It partially resolves them, Fronto. Cenabum is a major supply hub, and I feel sure that the stores still held there will keep us in the field for a time. But in addition, en route to Cenabum - perhaps halfway - is the Senone city of Vellaunoduno, which is renowned for its wheat production and stacked granaries.’
‘And what if the Senones are also allied with Vercingetorix,’ Fronto queried. ‘They are apparently at peace here in Agedincum, but there are six legions to consider here. Not so further west.’
‘The Senones are nominally still our allies, but if they baulk at supplying us, I will not hesitate to grind them beneath our heel on the way. Never fear, Fronto. I will feed the legions on the march. Vercingetorix thought to raise Gaul while keeping the army cut off. We have beaten him, though. In a couple of days we will have all ten legions combined and under my control. The Arvernian rebel tried, and he has failed. Now we begin the task of making him pay for his temerity.’
‘I only hope the legions are ready to move quickly, then. It can take a while after they’ve spent months languishing in winter quarters.’
* * * * *
‘Will the legions be ready so soon? ’
Marcus Antonius, along with Labienus the most senior of Caesar’s officers at Agedincum, idly scratched himself as he gulped down the last of his wine by the flickering firelight before replying.
‘The commanders here aren’t daft, Fronto. They’ve known trouble is afoot. A Boii scout called Bennacos arrived over a month ago bearing Cita’s family seal. He’d witnessed the downfall of Cenabum and his news put the whole army on high alert. Labienus has made no overt move without a missive from Caesar, but the winter quarters’ defences have been strengthened, and the legions have been ready to deploy for weeks now, their spring training schedule implemented early, deep in winter. Any one of those men out there can march out tomorrow as fit and ready and equipped as if they hadn’t been called to action weeks before the campaign season even begins.’
Fronto nodded and drained his own wine cup as the senior officer refilled his and then passed over the jar. ‘This changes things a little, though,’ the legate grumbled. ‘The scout’s news, I mean. If the Carnutes have flattened Cenabum and everything in it, we can hardly use it as a supply base now.’
‘It changes nothing, Fronto. The grain will still be there, just feeding the rebels instead of us. Now we have extra incentive to take the place, for Nemesis watches us with a blazing eye. Cita and the garrison should not go unavenged.’
Nodding his acceptance of the comment, Fronto bent to rub his knee and flexed his leg a few times.
‘Joint trouble?’
‘Old knee injury. Started to play up again when the weather’s cold and wet.’
‘That,’ Masgava grunted, ‘is because you don’t train as much as you should any more. It is weakening again.’
‘Can you not lay off me for even one evening,’ sighed Fronto, but he noted Palmatus nodding his agreement and made a mental note to make time for a little more exercise. If it didn’t strengthen his knee at least it would diminish Masgava’s nagging.
‘The Tenth have been itching to head over to Cenabum for the past few weeks and teach the Carnutes a lesson,’ Atenos, the huge, muscular centurion said with an ominous tone. Carbo tried to argue the commanders into letting us go three times, but Labienus was having none of it.’
Carbo nodded. ‘Kept bringing up phrases like ‘duty’, ‘chain of command’, ‘better safe than sorry’ and so on. I understand why he’s not moved, and maybe he was sensible, but the men would appreciate the chance to use their winter training to avenge the Cenabum garrison. Some of them were our own lads, after all.’
Antonius chuckled. ‘At least the Tenth did as they were told,’ he snorted, sipping his wine. ‘Varus had rather more trouble.’
Fronto frowned as he turned his gaze on the cavalry commander. ‘What with?’
Varus sighed as he scratched his head. ‘We’ve got a new unit of German auxiliary cavalry. Drawn from three different tribes, but all trained up by the best officers we’ve got and equipped with the top gear they can draw. They look like a Roman unit, though bigger and hairier. But… well, you can take the warrior out of Germania, but you cannot take Germania out of the warrior, apparently. No matter how much we try and train them, they’re more or less primitive head-hunters with an overwhelming thirst for blood and little interest in authority.’
‘They sound delightful,’ Fronto muttered.
‘They’re bloody dangerous,’ Atenos noted.
‘And possibly just as much to us as to the enemy,’ added Carbo.
‘It seems,’ Varus said with a quirky smile, ‘that one of your men, who had a cousin killed at Cenabum and had taken it rather badly, was mouthing off about the need for revenge. He was rather steamed, you see - barely able to stand, and angry-drunk. And he happened to be near a few of the German cavalry.’
‘For whom angry-drunk is the normal state,’ chuckled Atenos.
‘Indeed, Varus acceded. ‘Well about two dozen of the Germanics decided to try out their new horse kit on the Carnutes in revenge, despite Labienus’ orders to the contrary. My boys had to chase them down over eight miles from here to stop them, and two regular cavalry troopers were wounded bringing them back in. They’re rabid. Hard to contain, but I can’t wait to see what they do when they’re given free rein on a battlefield.’
‘I can,’ shuddered Carbo. ‘I hope they’re nowhere near me at the time. I foresee them being a little indiscriminate.’
The tent fell silent for a moment as Antonius topped up his wine again, tipping the jug upside down to drain the last few drops. ‘Shall I get another?’
‘I think we ought to call it a night now,’ Fronto murmured, with a hint of regret. ‘We move out to Vellaunoduno early in the morning.’
‘Besides,’ Palmatus added, nudging Masgava, ‘our unit is dangerously undermanned. We need to go through the Tenth’s records tonight and see which of Carbo’s best men we can purloin.’