Marius' Mules VI: Caesar's Vow

by S. J. A. Turney

  Fabius counted under his breath each and every footstep that brought them closer to the trees. Not part of a century of men, the two tribunes were not enclosed by a testudo, keeping the large body shields they had requisitioned facing forward and hunched down behind them, making sure that the only body parts they presented to the attack were feet and the narrow slice of face between the shield’s rim and the brow of their decorative officers’ helmets.

  Thirty seven paces and the first leaves brushed across Fabius’ plume. He had also noted half a dozen yelps of men struck by well-placed arrows or sling-shots during the advance, and there would have been many more he couldn’t hear over the din, but now they were at the trees.

  ‘Break!’ Carbo yelled from the front. ‘Pila!’

  Like an anthill splitting open, the testudo formations exploded into individual activity, each legionary immediately looking up into the canopy above them and readying their pila. Most of the trees were oak and beech, the former lower to the ground, but with wider, heavier branches and therefore favoured by the Menapii archers and slingers sitting there. Their favouring of those branches was their instant undoing, most of the branches being within easy reach of the legionaries’ pila.

  Men stabbed upwards with their javelins, skewering the natives and ripping through arms, legs and bodies. Many pila were lost to the men as their victims fell from the branches, smashing the shafts as they tumbled to the earth. The woodland resounded to the noise of bodies crashing through twigs and foliage. A few of the more accurate legionaries began to cast their pila up into the branches, aiming for the men out of reach of simple thrusts.

  Fabius found himself wishing they had sent the archers of Decius’ auxiliary unit across first, for now they would have had an effective force to remove the more difficult figures among the greenery. Alongside the crashes and cries of the dying Menapii, the occasional shriek or Latin curse confirmed that the legions were still suffering casualties to the missiles even at this more difficult range.

  ‘Get those four scorpions into this clearing!’ Furius yelled. ‘Have them set up and take out the bastards in the trees. Carbo! Get a century to each machine and make sure they’re shielded while they work.’

  The pink-faced centurion turned and waved his understanding as he gestured for his men to move on towards the heart of the island. His orders began to ring out, melding with those of the officers of the Eighth, who were bringing their two scorpions forward.

  Fabius and Furius shared a three-eyed glance and nodded, leaving the clearing up of the archers in the trees to the scorpion crews and their defenders as they moved on to the island’s heart with the bulk of the legions.

  As they moved between the wide boles of oak and the narrower, taller beech, the trees began to close up, growing tighter together, the ways between hindered by thick undergrowth. Fortunately, years of using these havens in times of need had led to the natives keeping them well-maintained, and the approaches to the settlement were clear and wide enough that there were gaps in the green canopy above. The legions had lost their neat formations during the first encounters in the woodland, and had now broken up into individual centuries, the Eighth and Tenth largely intermixed, and yet working in concert with the efficiency that was indicative of veteran centurions. Centuries moved four men abreast towards the defences ahead.

  Furius stared in surprise. This place must have been settled for a long time. The trees and plants had been trained to grow together, interlinked like a giant wattle fence, branches curling around one another like some strange chain of brown and green, and wherever nature could not be trained to form a wall, the Menapii had inserted a solid palisade.

  The scouts were right: it would be troublesome to assault. Far from impossible, though. For all the oddity of the system, there was no ditch - the land was too low-lying and swampy to permit such a defence, and for similar reasons there was no rampart.

  The lead centuries, at the orders of their commanders, roared out a challenge and broke into a run, leaping at the strange, knotted defence system, hacking at anything that protruded and attempting to clamber up the root systems and grasp the palisade to haul themselves over.

  A guttural shout from within echoed across the island and without warning several hundred spears - simple wooden affairs formed of beech shafts with sharpened ends - lanced out between the defences through every crack.

  The unprepared legionaries of the lead centuries took appalling casualties in that first strike and Fabius and Furius, delayed at the first encounter, watched from a dozen paces back as men were impaled and skewered all along the line of attack, some being lifted off their feet as they slid down the tilting shafts towards the wielders, leaving a trail of wet red along the wood.

  ‘Shields, you miserable dogs!’ bellowed centurion Atenos from somewhere off to the left. The scant survivors of the first assault staggered back from the defences, amid the groaning wounded and dying, readying their shields and falling in with the next group of centuries.

  More cautiously this time, the men moved forward, shields held forth to deflect the spear thrusts. Furius and Fabius looked at one another and the pair nodded. As the legionaries reached the defences and the wooden shafts lanced out again, this time the majority of them being turned aside by the heavy body shields, the two tribunes leapt into the fray, swords coming down and shearing off the wooden spears where they protruded from the wall before clambering up onto the lower twisting limbs of the tree-fence. Fabius glanced off to his right briefly and saw his friend disappearing into a knot of legionaries who were already at the top of the knotted defence and attempting to clear away enough defenders to drop down within.

  Gritting his teeth, aware that Furius would rib him endlessly if he failed to bloody his sword, Fabius let go his shield and reached up, gripping the top of a short section of palisade and pulling himself up. As his face came to the upper edge, sword in hand at the same level, a rabid Menapii woman appeared before him, rising over the palisade tip, dagger readied.

  For a brief moment, Fabius baulked. In all his years of fighting with the legions, he’d never been presented with the necessity of doing away with a woman in mid-battle. It was the slightest of pauses, but it was enough. With a snarled imprecation in her unpleasant tongue, the dirty, dishevelled farmer’s wife stabbed down with her dagger, the blade sinking into the back of Fabius’ hand where he grasped the wall top. He heard the delicate bones smash as the blade drove deep enough to pin him to the timber.

  Shock flowed through him, though decades of war experience drove his actions even as his brain filled with blinding pain-light. He never even thought about or saw what he did as his sword hand swept forward, driving the tip of the gladius into the snarling woman’s eye, slamming though liquid and brain.

  And then the flesh of his hand gave way, the pinned limb the only thing holding him up at the top of the palisade. The flesh and blood ripped around the dagger’s edge and tore free, and he fell back to the ground, his hand split down the centre, sword lost to him, stuck in the dead woman’s face beyond the wall.

  Fabius gasped in agony and looked down at his ruined hand as he landed heavily on his discarded shield. With a grimace, he used his free hand to unknot his scarf and rip it free of his neck, winding it round and round his wounded one and pulling it tight, tying it to slow the blood loss.

  Wincing against the pain, Fabius grasped the shield in his good hand and held it up against the possibility of stray missiles as he staggered away from the fight. He’d seen enough wounds in his career to know that this wasn’t deadly - though it could be debilitating - but if he left it to bleed too long, that would all change. He needed to find a capsarius with a good, steady sewing hand as soon as possible.

  Shield raised, he passed the centuries marching into the fight, and spotted a medicus in a white robe, surrounded by half a dozen orderlies and capsarii, close to the legates and their tribunes, setting up in a clearing. Turning, he made his way towards them.

 
‘Ah, tribune,’ Crassus greeted him with an enthusiastic voice, ‘all goes well?’

  ‘Apart from this, sir,’ he raised his wool-scarf-wrapped wounded hand. ‘I think we’ll have the place secured in about a quarter hour.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Let me look at that, Fabius,’ called the medicus, spotting the wound, and the tribune and the legate of the Eighth both turned at the name, then shared another glance and shook their heads. Tribune Fabius stepped across towards the medicus and something caught his attention. It was a slight creaking noise, almost lost in the din of the battle, but he knew it for what it was. His gaze was moving around the branches and boles of the trees for the source even as he heard the release and the whisper of the arrow in flight.

  His sharp eye caught the airborne missile as it shot towards its target and he leapt forward, knowing he would not make it. Legate Fabius was unaware, concentrating on the minutia of command. The arrow would take him in the neck - an instant and definite kill.

  Fabius threw himself forward, shield extended as far as possible.

  The arrow passed him, not stopped by the shield. He’d not been quick enough to prevent the strike. But the feathers of the missile brushed the shield’s bronze edge as they passed, and the course of its flight changed at the last moment, the shaft plunging off-course into Fabius’ shoulder, some of the force of the blow dampened by the leather strops hanging from his cuirass. Legate Fabius gasped in pain as his tribune namesake fell to the ground at the end of his dive, shield falling away.

  ‘Get that archer!’ bellowed Crassus to the nearest optio, who drove his men into the woods at the arrow’s source.

  ‘It would appear I owe you a life,’ the legate of the Eighth said, his eyes wild as the wounded tribune slowly and painfully climbed back to his feet.

  ‘My pleasure, sir,’ he answered with a weary smile.

  ‘No,’ the legate replied, chuckling. ‘That is a pleasure.’ He stopped and cupped his hand to his ear. Fabius listened. The sounds of fighting had subsided, and the cacophony of the Gallic carnyx lowed its injured bovine call across the island, indicating the end of the fight and a desire to parlay.

  ‘We appear to have won, sir.’

  ‘It appears so.’

  Fabius sighed as the medicus began to slowly and carefully unwrap his tightly-wound bandage. Maybe he would be able to go find his sword if it was over. He would need it if Caesar was planning to turn on the Treveri.

  * * * * *

  Priscus watched the dejected Menapii leaders as they were escorted from Caesar’s headquarters by the implacable horsemen of Ingenuus’ Praetorian cavalry. They had attempted to bargain with the general, even knowing that they had lost everything. They had tried to seek favourable terms, and Caesar had simply ignored them and laid out his own conditions which, after an hour of bluster and wheedling, they had found no alternative but to accept.

  Commius - chieftain of the Atrebates and long-time loyal supporter of Caesar - would be given overall control of the Menapii, who would submit to his every command. The Atrebates would station their own men in Menapii territory to be certain of their ongoing submission. The usual hostages given, slaves taken, reparations, donations, and the like had followed. Already, before negotiations had even begun, all the druids had been forced to announce themselves and step forward, and without delay or pause for thought, Caesar had ordered the strange Gallic priests crucified along the causeway. Priscus had, of course, argued against it, but the general was not to be halted in the matter. Shame, since they undoubtedly had information that Priscus felt they could very much do with.

  ‘Come inside, Priscus. You’re letting in the damp and cold.’

  The prefect turned to the interior once more, where a few of the more senior officers had remained after the negotiations at the general’s request. Dropping the tent flap back into place, Priscus returned to his seat.

  ‘I am of a mind to travel with my hammer of five legions and crush the Treveri against the anvil of Labienus,’ the general said thoughtfully, peering at the map on the tent’s dividing wall. ‘I sent him three legions and the baggage on the basis that we would be moving south after the Menapii fell. Then the army will combine once more in order to deal with the Eburones and their craven leader.’ He took a deep, cleansing breath. ‘Now, we could travel upriver from here along the Rhenus to the Mosella and then back into Treveri lands. It’s a deal further, but faster terrain. Or we could cut directly across the forest of Arduenna. Much shorter, but troublesome going for a full army.

  ‘Faster is better,’ Antonius said from the shadowed edge of the room. ‘The men are weary after two months of endless raids and sieges against these two northern tribes. If you give them too long to ponder before they are committed once again, you may find them indolent or flagging. Added to that is the possibility that the Treveri and their allies might fall on Labienus before we arrive. Better to move fast and combine the army all round.’

  ‘I, on the other hand, would avoid the forest,’ Priscus noted, snapping a glare at Antonius. ‘A hundred and fifty-odd miles of stomping through unfamiliar, tough, enemy territory? Not favourable by any stretch of the imagination, and that’s if your scouts can find a clear way through that nightmare that allows for legions, cavalry and wagons - Fabius and Furius reported that there’s hardly a track big enough in the whole place to take even a horseman unless he ducks a lot. If you travel along the river bank, skirting the great forest and Eburone territory we might learn something of use about Ambiorix in our journey. Are the Treveri enough of a threat? Labienus already crushed them months ago, and now he’ll have three legions instead of one.’

  Caesar pursed his lips. ‘My sources inform me that following his prior victory, Labienus was his usual peaceable self, allowing the tribe to return to their lands with just a hard word and a smack on the behind. Such magnanimity the Belgae simply consider weakness. Mark me: he has not seen the last of the Treveri. And do not forget that, while Labienus may have three legions, and may be able to deal with one tribe, we now know that Ambiorix is not in the north. If he is not among Nervii and Menapii lands, then he is south - close to the Treveri. That being the case, Labienus could be facing not only what is left of the Treveri, but also any other combined force the Eburone traitor has managed to raise. With three legions, if the worst happens, he should be able to hold even against the largest force until we arrive to lend a hand, but the Treveri are the remaining powerful ally of Ambiorix, and my focus should naturally fall there next. You would prefer I turn on the Eburones directly and risk Fronto? I have given him ample time, after all.’

  Priscus simply sat back wearily. The general spoke sense. Campaigning against the Nervii and Menapii had been hard work, but the two tribes were now certainly unable to support Ambiorix. Where was Fronto? The whole reason for his hunt was to provide Caesar with an alternative route to burning the Belgae to ash in his vengeance, but already the general had brought death and destruction to another great tribe, and now he turned to a third. Priscus was unpleasantly aware of the mood among the auxiliary cavalry - many of them Belgae. Desertions among the allies had risen threefold since the start of the Menapii campaign, and things would only deteriorate as the Treveri were crushed.

  He nodded.

  ‘And what then, Caesar?’ asked Marcus Antonius, sitting over to one side with his ubiquitous flask of wine. ‘When you have crushed all the tribes Ambiorix would rely upon?’

  The general’s brow furrowed and his eyes glinted.

  ‘Then we will trap the fox and tear him to pieces. Fronto will have had far more than the time I offered him, and I will not see this season end with that animal free to cause further trouble. I have vowed his death and I will have it.’

  Priscus took a deep troubled breath and glanced towards the closed door. A couple more weeks, then. A month at most, before Fronto’s hunt was to be consumed by Caesar’s vengeance - surgical strike replaced by the mallet of the general’s wrath.

 
He turned back to the general, who was moving on with his briefing.

  Fortuna be with you, Fronto.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Deep in the forest of Arduenna

  ‘Where the hell are we now?’ Fronto gave Samognatos a dark stare, and Masgava and Palmatus shared a look and braced themselves for the latest attack of Fronto’s bad mood.

  ‘The oppidum of Atuatuca.’

  Fronto shook his head. For the past week or more, they had moved back and forth through the more major tracks in the oppressive forest of Arduenna, even to the point where the hill regions ended and they looked down to the north over Menapii territory, where Fronto had almost expected to see Belgic armies massing against them. They had maintained a steady easterly direction, but roved a great deal at a nerve-gratingly slow pace in the process, covering Eburone territory and the heart of the great forest. Rarely had they come across any real settlement, and when they had, Fronto had kept the main force with him, while Samognatos and Magurix had gone ahead along with Biorix, the Gallic engineer, to investigate and pick up any information.

  News was scant. Apart from the rumours that Caesar was now laying waste to the Menapii - near where they had been five days ago, Fronto noted with irritation - they had picked up precious little of Cativolcus. Rumour suggested that the second king of the Eburones was trying to obfuscate and keep himself as far from worldly events as possible, still harbouring a deep-in-the-bone loathing of his brother king, along with a very real fear that Rome would soon rage through his lands like a forest fire, destroying all in its path.

  It was a very accurate fear, and Fronto could hardly blame the man for hiding himself, but the fact remained that as well as keeping him from harm’s way, it also kept him out of reach of those who would provide any kind of aid, such as seeing his hated brother removed from the world.

  During more than a week of travel, only twice had they heard rumours of the old king’s whereabouts. The last had proved to be complete fiction, and they had arrived at Avendura to find it dull, lifeless and miserable, the few occupants eking out a hard life after the death of many of the working menfolk in the previous year’s rebellion. Though the inhabitants were approached by what had appeared to be three natives, the townsfolk were hardly forthcoming, apart from snarling that Ambiorix had ruined them by taking their men off on a pointless uprising and that the old Cativolcus was no better and, no, he had not set foot in Avendura within living memory.