The Last Caesar

by The Last Caesar (retail) (epub)

  Bormo marched at the head of just over 2,000 men, a wooden training sword in his grasp. From my vantage point I could see them in the distance, advancing inexorably into our trap. Bormo even had the first few ranks marching in step! I glanced at the boy next to me, who had been entrusted with a cumbersome war horn. It was a huge thing, unwieldy and still covered with traces of old cobwebs. It had been unearthed somewhere in Vindex’s villa, and he had demanded that we gave it an airing before starting on the campaign proper. This was to be the signal for the attack, and the young Gaul next to me was fair glowing with pride at being given this responsibility.

  The men were much closer now, and I could begin to make out individuals. The back of the column was starting to look a little ragged, as those furthest from their commander took the opportunity to slow their pace as the track climbed uphill. Some of the more alert ones were glancing from side to side, in a somewhat agitated manner. The brilliance of this training was that the men down below knew they were going to be ambushed, but had no idea when. That lingering fear is the closest you can get without being a real soldier marching in enemy territory.

  The boy glanced up at me, his brown eyes questioning. I shook my head. Lots of the attacking party were getting fidgety too. It is all very well to know that you’re the ones about to attack, but if a few idiots lose their nerve and charge early it gives the enemy vital time to organize themselves. It is a bit of a cliché among us soldiers, but waiting is the hardest part of war.

  I waited a little longer. The ambushers and spectators alike lined the slopes, and I lay at the end of the line, furthest from the valley. Waiting for the front ranks to reach the spot in line with me, I whispered to the boy to wet his lips. Bormo was perhaps ten yards below that all-important spot, and that was the moment in which the ancient horn blew.

  Perhaps a beat after the horn was sounded, the screams and shouts of the Gauls thundered in my ears, mixed with the deafening crashes of sticks on shields. In an instant the crest of the far slope was lined with a thousand shouting, screaming men. The Gauls on the track froze. I could see the figure of Bormo hurrying back to join his troops, marshalling them into some sort of formation. At various points along the two ridges, junior officers gave the order to charge, and immediately 2,000 armed men thundered down the hills towards the terrified ranks of Bormo’s men.

  At once the rearmost segment of the column broke off from the main party and fled back down the track, while simultaneously Bormo tried to organize his men into two lines to face the separate attacks. The momentum of the charging Gauls meant that any sense of order would have been lost. An ambush has to be lightning fast, and I could see that the remaining Gauls on my hill were awed at the speed of Carnunnos’s ambushers. I could see the old man himself surprisingly near the front, sprinting as fast as his ageing legs could carry him. Soon there was an ear-splitting crash, as the two charges hit home. The sheer force of one group’s charge took them straight through Bormo’s line to the other side.

  I nodded to the boy again, and the two short blasts that were the signal to disengage ended the fight almost as soon as it had begun. There was no way of proving how successful the ambush would have been without inflicting casualties, not something that I was over-keen to do to my own men.

  Calling for those who had not taken part to follow me, I made my way down to talk to my command. Carnunnos’s men looked absurdly pleased with themselves, though some of the older ones were still gasping from the sprint down the hill. Once down on the track, I ordered the assembled men to split, leaving a space about ten yards wide. The rear of Bormo’s column was coming back.

  Shamefaced, they walked up through the gap between the troops, to a chorus of catcalls and abuse from the men that they had abandoned, though most just pointed and jeered. I had some sympathy for them. Most had never held a sword until a fortnight ago, and now they were facing ambushes. However, they needed to be criticized in front of the rest of the men.

  ‘Would someone please explain to me why you decided to run?’

  A voice piped up from somewhere in the middle of the group: ‘We were scared!’

  ‘Scared? You’re meant to be soldiers, and you ran to save your own miserable skins, despite the fact that this was only a drill! If you are ever ambushed like this again, you do not survive by running. Runners are picked off one by one by the cavalry, who feed on cowards like you.’

  None of them dared to look me in the eye; they all shuffled about nervously.

  ‘However, I’m not going to punish you. You have lost the respect of your comrades, which should be punishment enough.’ I looked around. ‘Bormo!’

  ‘Sir?’ he replied, navigating through the ranks of his men. ‘You will reorganize these men into their own cohort, so that they can all prove to me that they are not really cowards when we come to face the Romans.’

  I paused, turning to look at the others. ‘Scary, isn’t it?’

  They chuckled.

  ‘In Britannia, we did that to a column of the Ninth Legion, the ones who had killed the druids of Mona. Within an hour, we wiped out every last one of them. That is what a well-practised ambush can do. Terror and speed – that combination won us the victory, not them with the heavy armour they hide behind, or their famous discipline. We will be lighter, faster, more manoeuvrable. Swarm and surround them, trap them, kill them. We can take any Roman army, and destroy it piece by piece!’

  A triumphant cheer went up. I even spotted a few tears from some of them.

  * * *

  The next few days went better than I could have hoped for. Each unit had a turn of ambushing and being the ambusher, and Quintus reported that the training had been just as successful with his troops. Albanos’s replacement, Mhorban, had proved himself more than capable, and the men’s morale could hardly have been higher. So it was with a merry heart that I decided to hit the tavern.

  Quintus, Bormo and Carnunnos accompanied me to a grubby-looking place down by the river. It was approaching dusk, and after several days toiling out in the hills I felt that we were in serious need of some time to wind down, and drink heavily.

  It would be pushing it to say the inn was charming. In fact, it was a downright hovel, but my friends assured me this particular establishment offered the most fun for those on a meagre budget. I kept forgetting that these good men I had come to know over the last couple of weeks were very ordinary and down to earth. Of course, I’m from an old and wealthy family, a senator of Rome. But these men, with the exception of Quintus, were tradesmen. Bormo was an apprentice blacksmith. Carnunnos, from what I’d heard, applied some of the magic his ancestors had practised at fairs and festivals. We had learned not to ask him too much about it; the subject was strictly taboo, even among the Gauls. Anyway, the point is these men enjoyed the simple things of life, and I was more than prepared to join in.

  As soon as we entered, I started coughing and spluttering. The smell inside was rank, a mixture of smoke and vomit. Carnunnos gave me a friendly thump on the back.

  ‘Come on, you’ll get used to it soon enough. Let’s get some beer down you!’

  At this stage I should point out that I had only tried beer once, in Britannia, and I hated it. Wine was much more suited to my delicate Roman palate. Unfortunately, the Gauls drank almost lethal amounts of the foul black stuff, good wine being far too expensive for the man in the street. However, if I was to maintain my disguise, I was going to have to go through with this ordeal by ale.

  We grabbed ourselves some rickety stools a comfortable distance away from the fire, as smoke was one of the more bearable smells in the place. Soon a barmaid was bringing over some worryingly large tankards. She leaned across to place them on the small table in the centre of our group, and I was ideally situated to run my eye over her finer points, if you follow me. This is history, not some cheap filth you might buy for a few coins in the seedier parts of the forum!

  Even if I had wanted to watch her ample frame bulging out of her skimpy serving at
tire, I couldn’t, as a tankard of the vile stuff was placed into my hands, and I was forced to drink heavily. I knew beer was bitter, but that didn’t stop me spitting out the first gulp, as I felt some solid bits of I-don’t-want-to-know-what swilling around my mouth. My friends laughed, after appreciatively necking their own beers in a single go. Another round was ordered as I was told to down the bilge and enjoy it! Deciding to get it over with, I went for it. With my nose too big for the mug, I was only just able to make out the level of liquid dropping as it gushed down my throat, and thankfully I couldn’t tilt the mug far back enough to finish it all. My effort was applauded with a resounding cheer, and I made a promise to myself that these men would be treated to a proper Roman drink, as and when circumstances allowed.

  The rest of the night was a drunken haze as I was forced to down more and more beer, until at long last I was past caring. I can vaguely remember attempting to join in with some old Gallic drinking songs, and throwing up in the corner, but it seemed to add to the jollity of it all. Bormo had managed to convince the pretty serving wench to sit on his lap and attend to him more thoroughly. Carnunnos was trying to remember the punchline of a joke that the swaying Quintus would certainly not recall in the morning.

  I made my farewells, and, after knocking into a stool or four, staggered out of the inn, hoping that sheer blind luck would take me to my door. A few minutes of zigzagging got me as far as the street corner, and I remember taking a last look back at that grotty little inn, before unseen hands grabbed me.

  The next thing I knew, a filthy sack was put over my head. I am surprised given the state I was in that I can remember at all what happened that night, but I do remember giggling, thinking it was some sort of game. Then the hands spun me around, as if I needed disorientating! Unfortunately the effect was to make me throw up inside the sack, and I heard several shouts of disgust. Then there was a sharp, painful blow to the back of my head, and I collapsed in a heap.

  * * *

  They always say that when you’re knocked out, you feel nothing. I can categorically tell you that that is an absolute lie. There may have been a few hours between the blow to my head and coming round, but as you’re unconscious you aren’t aware that you’re not in pain. So it was that when I did come round I was in just as much pain as I had been when I was assaulted. My head felt there were a thousand horses trampling inside it, and I groaned.

  I heard a chuckle. ‘Head hurts, does it?’

  My other senses flooded back. The stink of sick, the agony, the cold feel of the stone floor, the voice; I opened my eyes a fraction, only to see the grim features of Albanos staring down at me. His nostrils were arching, probably in complaint at my putrid smell, and yet there was an unmistakable gleam of joy in his eyes.

  It can only have been a few hours since I was knocked out. For one thing, I spotted Albanos with an oil lamp, and secondly all the beer I had drunk was still having an effect. If it hadn’t, I would have been in much more pain.

  ‘Kind of you to drop by after your drinking session. I hope you won’t be too difficult a guest.’ There were other laughs, each like a hammer blow inside my head. I tried rolling on to my other side, but that brought my newly formed and tender lump into contact with the floor, and I winced in pain.

  ‘Now, Roman, tell us why you’re pretending to fight for the Gauls,’ Albanos said.

  ‘I’m not a Roman!’ I protested.

  ‘Not a Roman, eh?’ He kicked me violently in the ribs; the pain was horrendous. ‘Then speak some Gallic.’

  I was stumped. Any few words that I had picked up in recent days seemed to vanish as soon as I had thought of them. So I tried a different tack.

  ‘I was never taught to speak in Gallic.’

  A smile lit up my tormentor’s face, his cold grey eyes narrowed. ‘That is painfully obvious.’

  Trying to pick myself up, I retorted, ‘Because my uncle is a senator, he wanted his family to be brought up Roman.’

  I received another kick for my troubles. ‘Bollocks. Your so-called uncle was the one who told me to keep an eye on you. I reckon you’re a spy.’

  I tried a laugh myself, but it sounded feeble. ‘Spy! Why do you think I’m a spy?’

  At this point his thugs picked me up by my arms and held me up against the wall. Albanos let fly a sharp jab to my gut.

  ‘Why? Because you talk like a Roman.’ Then he punched me in the face. ‘You look like a Roman. You fight like a Roman. You lie like a Roman.’ And every time he said the word ‘Roman’, he rained yet another blow on my face.

  My head rocked, and I felt blood trickle down from my nose, and its warmth in my mouth as his savage strikes had loosened a tooth. He asked me again, ‘Why are you pretending to fight for us?’

  I spat out the gore-covered tooth, and it hit him square between the eyes. He blinked. Then he took his time, delicately wiping the flecks of my blood from his face.

  ‘Soften him up.’

  He gave me a last, contemptuous look. Then he left me in the company of his two thugs.

  I put up the best fight I could, but considering I was still fairly drunk and already weak, it wasn’t much. They knocked me about for I don’t know how long, and thankfully I soon fainted from the pain.

  IX

  Battered and bruised, I came to after feeling a rough hand slap me about the face.

  ‘Hold him tight.’

  I was pinned against the wall, still very groggy. When my eyes finally focused, I saw Albanos’s hand clutching a dagger. I tried shouting that I wasn’t a spy. He ignored me, and nodded at one of his accomplices. While one of them restrained my right-hand side, the other put all his weight on my left forearm and wrist, leaving only my hand free to wriggle.

  Albanos then took my free hand into his own, and brought the wicked little blade closer.

  Leering at me, he leaned in so close that I could smell his filthy breath on my face. ‘Now you can tell me everything that you have told your Roman friends, or I can slice off your fingers one by one.’

  I was shocked, appalled, horrified. The unfairness of it! I hadn’t told anyone anything about what I was doing, in fact I was doing my best to prepare the Gauls in case they had to fight proper soldiers, and now I was to be tortured for selling them out.

  ‘Talk to my uncle,’ I pleaded. ‘Why do you think he called you off, if I wasn’t loyal?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘But I’m not a spy! Even if I was, how would I know why he’d send you away if he believed you and not me?’

  I was jabbering now, not sure myself if I was making any sense. The filthy Gaul took hold of my smallest finger and rested the blade against its base. He held it there, toying with me. Finally he gave a swift cut, and I felt the cold metal slice through flesh and bone.

  I screamed, catching a glimpse of the bloody stump. Seeing the blood pump from the wound had the unfortunate effect of sobering me up and the pain sharpened dramatically.

  At this point you may be thinking how brave I was being, withstanding torture and not revealing my true purpose and identity. As much as I would like to put it down to bravery, it was stupid, blind hope that kept me going. I knew that my story, though improbable, was at least credible, and I clung on to that, praying that this gleeful Gaul would either believe me or give me a quick death.

  But hope can only drive you on so far, and I was close to cracking. Whimpering, muttering, cursing, I babbled that I was on his side, and that I’d never tell anyone what I’d done with the Gauls. Which was true in a way; I certainly didn’t want to tell anyone that I’d been helping out in a rebellion.

  ‘So you admit that you’re a spy, then?’ Albanos demanded.

  Inwardly, I was raging at the bloody unfairness of it all. I was not a spy, but if I told him his precious Gallic rebellion was just some idealistic drivel dreamed up by Vindex to get him recruits, he’d have gutted me there and then. I didn’t have any idea what to say to him that could possibly save my neck.

  He sighed.
‘How much more of you will I have to cut off before you tell me the truth?’ Then he raised the dagger once more to my reddened hand. I screamed at him to let me go.

  The door was flung open, and in charged some shouting figures. Albanos looked behind him to see who the arrivals were. I took advantage of this distraction to use the only free limbs I had. My boot flew into that tender patch between his legs. Not the most gentlemanly of moves, but it did the trick. Albanos bellowed like a skewered boar, and crashed to the floor. Abandoning the fiendish dagger, both his hands dropped to cradle his damaged pride.

  I received an elbow in the ribs from one of the Gauls, and sank down on to the floor myself, the breath knocked out of me. There was a flash of iron and the offending arm was slashed, spraying me with blood. By now the floor was slippery with the stuff.

  Then silence… One Gaul was dead, slumped in the corner, a flapping red hole where his throat used to be. To my right, the other was moaning, looking at his damaged arm. Only Albanos seemed relatively unharmed. He writhed on the floor, and then he froze. His breathing was fast and shallow, his chest rising and falling quicker than my own. At that moment I saw why he had frozen. The tip of a sword rested at his throat.

  My gaze followed up the blade. It was the short blade of a gladius, and the owner’s hand had a large golden ring on the middle finger. I followed the sword arm up, until I saw the grim and determined face of Quintus. Behind him stood Carnunnos, Bormo and two others that I didn’t recognize. The latter two sheathed their swords, walked over and offered their shoulders for me to lean on. I shook my head.

  Gingerly, I went over to the prone Albanos, slowly bent down towards the floor and picked up the fallen dagger. My torturer’s eyes widened into a petrified stare. I smiled at him.

  ‘My, how the tables have turned!’ Instinctively, he clenched his left hand into a fist and buried it in the folds of his cloak.