Marius' Mules IX: Pax Gallica

by Turney, S. J. A.

  ‘Except for two things,’ Fronto said as the three men walked side by side. ‘Firstly, we know now for sure that the answer lies in the mountains, and secondly we know it is down to one man and he calls himself a king.’

  ‘Which at least gives us a specific target to aim for,’ Carbo said.

  ‘But it worries me. This whole thing is faintly reminiscent of Vercingetorix, if you think about it. A king rousing the tribes against Rome. There are a lot fewer Aquitanii than Gauls and Belgae, but that doesn’t improve our immediate situation, for there are a lot fewer of us than there are of Caesar’s full army , too . ’

  Carbo nodded his agreement. ‘So what are your orders?’

  ‘We ’ ll stay here two nights. I want the army rested up and time for the minimally wounded to recover and for the cavalry’s horses to rest up. The army can continue to inhabit the current camp. But while that happens I want this battle site cleared and the village thoroughly searched . I want it perfectly clear and fresh by the time we leave . And I want you to find five hundred volunteers from among the centuries to remain here and begin to establish a colony. The critically wounded can stay with them. Those that don’t recover can be buried with the fallen and those that do can join the colony. Each man can have his appropriate honesta missio payment, and we’ll leave them the forty six captives as slaves to help set things up.’

  ‘They’ve a good town to start out with,’ Carbo noted, nodding at the empty settlement up the bank.

  ‘Exactly. And this bridge will be a vital crossing, so I’d rather have it manned. Plus this place is clearly important to the Preciani. The scouts found a Pax Gallica altar in the square. So having a veteran colony settled here will help maintain control in their tribe’s land. This can’t be anywhere near all of them, and I don’t want to repeatedly find the Preciani rising up. To that effect, I’d like to make sure that there are good, cool, dipl omatic heads among the settlers.’

  Carbo nodded again. ‘We should send a rider or two back to Lapurda to inform them of the colony, so they know about it and can begin to send appropriate supplies. And we’ll have to leave a cart of stuff for them.

  ‘How far away is Lapurda?’

  ‘ Perhaps forty miles, I think,’ Carbo replied.

  ‘Maybe we should have settled another place somewhere in between?’

  The prefect shook his head. ‘We can’t afford to shed too much manpower as we move. You’re leaving a cohort here as it is. That’s a lmost a tenth of our whole force, and we’re not even in the foothills and valleys yet.’

  As Galronus and Carbo went off to variously arrange settlers and repair saddles, Fronto stopped at the bridge where they’d so recently fought so hard and peered off into the distance. Still, those great mountains that rose like a barrier between the lands of Gaul and Hispania were not visible. Somewhere beyond the rolling green slopes and forests there were high grey peaks clogged with snow for much of the year. He had seen them from the far side many times, never thinking he might be on this side looking back one day. Never thinking that he might lead an army up into them, which it seemed increasingly likely he was about to do.

  The king in the mountains .

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked quietly, peering off into the distance and looking at something that wasn’t quite visible.

  Mid Maius

  THE young man was barely old enough to be considered a chieftain. He had muscle enough to swing a sword, and a budding beard, though still soft and downy, but he was yet to take a scar or achieve that flatness of the eye which spoke of a man who had taken lives. Yet he wore two bronze arm rings and his tunic was of high quality, as was the mail shirt he wore over the top. His belt was of leather and bronze and the decoration labelled it an import from the Hispanic tribes across the mountains. His sword was shorter than was common, but broad and strong, with a hilt decorated with leaping stags.

  The lad looked rather nervous as he carefully pulled apart the ornate bulbs at the terminals of the grand golden torc , enough to fit it around his slim neck. Once it was round the throat, he pushed the soft gold ornament closed once more and straightened.

  He was a chief now, for all his youth.

  The king was speaking again, and the young man swallowed nervously, hoping the torc would hide his throat apple bouncing anxiously up and down. Th e king’s strange hoarse voice filled the room and there was no escaping its sibilant power.

  ‘Your father made poor decisions.’

  The young man glanced around the room, aware that it felt more like a prison than a chieftain’s house. Especially with that creepy, ever-smiling face sitting so relaxed in the chair upon the dais. The room displayed the shields and standards and other trophies of a dozen tribes the Begerri had defeated in the endless internecine wars that had afflicted the Aquitanii for centuries. No longer. Now there was peace , of a sort . Peace enforced by something infinitely more dangerous and terrifying than any of the armies that had carried these trophies into battle. Peace enforced by the will of the man in that chair. Even the druids had left, and that should have been a warning to everyone.

  He wondered if he could flee into a life of quiet obscurity? Perhaps he could be a farmer? Perhaps he could make it to the Roman province and seek a new life there? Perhaps he could get across the mountains with a purse of gold and settle among the Vascones? No. The mountains were the very haunt of the smiling bastard. He should be running away from the mountains, not toward them, even if that meant running into Caesar’s seemingly unbeatable legion.

  ‘I hope your loyalty is more dependable than your father’s?’

  The young chieftain nodded his head. He knew he’d kept his back straight and that he’d not trembled, though inside he was shaking like a corpse in a noose, a metaphor he’d applied to himself more than once this morning.

  ‘When Caesar comes, ’ the king went on, ‘ you will have the opportunity to add an eagle to the decoration in this hall. I care not about the baubles they carry, nor the gold in their wagons. Your Begerri can have it all – be richer and more famed than ever – just deliver me the general, and you will find yourself the most favoured chief in the whole region.’

  The lad nodded again, his eyes flicking to the standards and shields around the walls again, then looking through them, and through the timber and stone walls to which they were fastened, through the great fortified mound of Biguro with its houses and shops, its kilns and granaries, its walls and gates. Its sacred grove, empty and untended since the druids took umbrage at the king’s arrival and abandoned the people.

  He shuddered and hoped it was not noticeable from the throne.

  Of course it was. The king saw everything. Was he actually smiling now? It was always so hard to tell, and even when he did it was rarely a good sign.

  His gaze swept around once more and this time caught sight of the body that he’d been trying so hard not to look at. His father, the former chieftain of the Begerri , decapitated and lying face down in a lake of his own blood . And not just head less…

  Despite his desperate desire not to, his eyes strayed across to the king’s banner, where a tenth lead phallus clanked and clonked against the others. Some said that the king would only be invincible while he carried that banner. Nescato, new chief of the Begerri, somehow doubted that. Some men were larger than life, favoured by gods either good or wicked. The king was one such and it would take a god or a gods-born spirit to stop him. In the silence and privacy of his own heart, Nescato wis h ed Caesar luck, praying that t he Roman gods-born general carved the king a new smile, this time in his neck.

  Chapter Six

  THE outpost was clearly long since deserted. Nestled against the north bank of the river, it had the hallmarks of any Roman military enclosure across the republic. A timber and wattle fence stood atop a turf mound, all surrounded by a good ditch, though the small size of the place had meant it required only one entrance.

  The fence had gone in three or four places some months ago, and the gate had b
een turned to little more than kindling. Brush and earth had been used to fill part s of the ditch, making it possible to cross without the attack being slowed too much.

  Barely forty paces across , the place had held one or two contubernia of legionaries. Fronto had seen such places before. Not a permanent installation, but expected to remain for some months while its occupants worked on some project or other. Two timber buildings stood inside the depot, leaving little room for anything else. Washing and bathing would have taken place in the river close by.

  ‘Come on,’ Fronto called across to Galronus, and the two, accompanied by Aurelius, trotted forward to the small outpost.

  ‘What happens if it’s not deserted?’ Aurelius asked archly, ever concerned with his job as Fronto’s bodyguard.

  ‘It is,’ replied Fronto with conviction. ‘And we’re out of Preciani land now?’

  Galronus nodded. ‘According to the scouts , we passed into Begerri lands over an hour ago.’

  ‘Then this lot, it seems, are no friendlier than the Preciani.’

  ‘You could say that,’ Aurelius noted, pointing at the ground as they passed. A Roman helmet lay half buried in the churned mud of the track, missing a cheek piece and with a dent the size of an apple in the crown.

  Behind them, the army continued its approach perhaps a quarter of a mile back, but the scouts had spotted the outpost and come to report. Fronto had immediately ridden forward despite the disapproval of others, taking his two friends with him. He had forbidden the scouts from entering any settlement they found without checking in fir s t, partially to prevent them from disturbing the scene before he’d had a look, but also to reduce the potential for greedy fingers to make off with anything valuable unnoticed. Consequently, the scouts had skirted around the outpost and then reported back to Fronto.

  There were no bodies in evidence around the fort, and the occasional fragments of broken armour and weapons were partially covered by the mud , clearly placing the fight that had taken place here some months earlier.

  With a sense of quiet distaste, the three men rode in through the ruined gate, and Galronus tied the horses to a hitching post inside that had taken some damage but remained intact enough to serve its purpose. The place was small, but the signs of extreme violence around the ruined walls told the tale of a bitter and heroic defence by its meagre force .

  ‘Spread out?’ Aurelius suggested, but Fronto shook his head. ‘No point, there’s nothing going to jump out on us.’ Still, he found that he’d drawn his gladius just in case, and Galronus and Aurelius followed suit. With the other two at his shoulders, Fronto wandered over to the left hand of the two structures . Both buildings had a window in each of three walls, and a door in the fourth. Aurelius hurried ahead along the side of the building and craned to peer in through the window. He stepped back and shrugged, shaking his head. As he re - joined the other two, they moved to the door. The wooden portal was intact , so clearly no one had been forced to fight their way in.

  The interior was dim. The windows were largely obscured by shelving, as was the centre of the room. A storehouse. The near end of the building was open-plan with a hefty work table . Half a n adzed log lay on the bench, along with the tools that had been in use. A large tool box sat in the corner, open, and a small stack of similar untouched timbers lay to one side.

  ‘Wonder what they were here to do?’ Aurelius said quietly.

  ‘Looking at the timbers and the tools and what’s on the shelves, I’d say they were starting on a bridge.’

  Striding out of the warehouse and workshop, Fronto beckoned and led them up onto the surrounding turf rampart, the wall-walk of which had been paved with rough timbers. Engineers! They could never do anything by halves. Around the ramparts they trod until they reached the south wall, where they peered down the short slope. Sure enough, there were the bare bones of a new bridge. Amid a small copse of trees, six of which had been felled some time ago, four heavy timber pylons rose from the water, still awaiting the superstructure, even though they only marched out across a third of the water.

  ‘They were only here to build a damn bridge,’ Fronto snapped, glaring down at the water. He’d somehow come to terms with the Gauls and the Belgae. Half a decade of fighting with and against them had given him something of an insight into their world, and he’d begun to appreciate what these people , who Rome had sought to suppress and conquer , were . But this? The Aquitanii seemed to have risen under some king against a non-existent threat. There had been no occupying army here. No governor. No oppression. Hardly anything in the way of tax and tribute , if Caesar was to be believed. Just one fort at the western end of the mountains controlling trade. And these people the maniacs were killing? Many of them were clearly other Aquitanii. And even the Romans had been merchants, here to buy the locally-mined lead and quarried marble and limestone and in return to sell luxury goods from other lands and heady Hispanic wines. And then there were soldiers, like the ones who’d been stationed here. Oppressing, fighting and causing trouble? No. They were building a damn bridge. And because they wore the russet tunics of Rome while they did it, they had been attacked.

  Angrily, Fronto turned.

  ‘Come on. Let’s go see what nightmare awaits us this time.’

  Back down the rampart and across the depot, they peered into the side window of the other building, but again there was nothing to be seen. Round to the front, they peered at the door. It had been smashed to pieces and hung from one hinge with the locking bolt still extended where it had burst from its socket under the pressure of Aquitani hammers and axes.

  Gingerly, he pushed the door aside and stepped in. The smell of old rot hit him immediately, like a musty, dusty grave. The interior was dark, and he moved across to one of the windows, reaching up for the black-out blind that had been fashioned from a military cloak. Even as he unhooked it, Aurelius did the same at the window opposite and cold, grey unforgiving light flooded in to illuminate the room.

  The barracks had four double bunk beds, a stove, a table and four chairs. The armour and weapons, like all the useful loot from the stores next door, had gone, and in their place had been left a scene from Fronto’s night-terrors.

  Four legionari es knelt beside a heavy log – one of the ones that was being used for bridge piles, by the size and shape. Their ankles and wrists had been bound, and they had been draped over the log. Their necks had been pinned to the timber with iron pitons driven through the back, hammered in until the y stuck deep into the log. Each neck had broken and lolled and stretched unpleasantly, but all remained at least partially attached. Four men. Where were the other four?

  ‘Spre ad out and find the other four.’

  As Galronus and Aurelius left the building and did a quick sweep of the depot before checking the ditch outside, Fronto jogged off toward the approaching column of men. Masgava and Carbo were at the front, and he gestured to them. The pair rode across and reined in close by.

  ‘What’s it like?’

  ‘Messy,’ Fronto r eplied. ‘I don’t want news of this spreading round the legion. It’s bad finding Roman merchants butchered, but tortured legionaries will have a strong effect.’ The others nodded. Such a thing could go one of two ways. Either it would enrage the legion and make them hunger for a fight, or it would unnerve them, and then the officers would be starting to look at trouble among their men.

  ‘What do you want us to do?’

  Fronto chewed his lip for a moment. ‘Take the column on, slightly furt her away from the river and past the outpost. Set up camp a mile or so upriver. And can you send me half a dozen of the natives with shovels. We’ve bodies to bury and they’re less invested in it than the soldiers would be.’

  Masgava nodded and as he rode back to give the legion the commands to veer to the north a little, Carbo sought out the native scouts and sent them to the wagons for shovels. Fronto left them to it and wandered back toward the small fortlet. As he approached, he could see Aurelius waving at him from the cop
se toward the river. Picking up pace into a jog, Fronto ran past the broken ramparts and the in filled ditch. Masgava and Aurelius were standing close to the waterline on a timber platform the engineers had constructed as part of their project.

  ‘Found the men,’ Aurelius said darkly, and pointed.

  Fronto’s gaze slid down to the water, where the scalps of four men were visible as hairy domes jutting out of the water. Each man had been bound to one of the bridge supports.

  ‘How did they drown? Surely it’s not tidal this far inland? Was there a flood?’

  Masgava shook his head. ‘Same principle as crucifixion. You’re not too bad until you start to lose the strength in your legs, then they give way, you can’t support your weight and the inevitable happens. With crucifixion, that’s the shoulders separating. In this case it meant that once they lost their strength, they simply sank beneath the surface and drowned. ’

  ‘Vicious bastards,’ Fronto said, glaring down at the four poor souls under the river’s glassy surface . ‘They’re goading us, you know,’ he added, remembering how he’d provoked the Preciani noble into giving away something he shouldn’t. ‘They’re deliberately goading us. Maybe even drawing us in, which is a bit of a worry.’

  ‘Do you think we should inform Caesar and maybe send for another legion or two?’

  ‘Shit, no,’ Fronto snapped. ‘I want the bastards responsible for this and I want them now. I want to know why this king is so angry at Rome that he tortures the living and dishonours the dead just to rile us. Get them cut loose and bring them up to the fort. We’re going to burn the whole damn place to the ground, bodies included. Let’s make it a funeral pyre they can see from the mountain tops.’