The two men were grateful to pass the rows of orderly warehouses and reach buildings that at least looked like Aedui houses, despite the signs here and there in Latin and the figures in Roman tunics and bare legs moving about them as though they owned this city. And there, at a corner and with a view down across the river, was the tavern they sought. The place had played host to them on more than one previous visit, and the owner was an old friend.
The two men tied their horses to the hitching post out front and strode into the bar, blinking as they adjusted to the dim interior. A dozen or so Aedui in their woollen tunics and trousers, wild hair and flowing moustaches fell silent for a moment as they turned to the door, and when they realised that the new arrivals were not Romans, conversation resumed and the room returned to life.
A haven of Aedui culture, apparently, amid the Roman changes.
The two men took a seat at a table in the corner, and Eporedirix hunched forwards and spoke quietly, unheard above the general hum by any bar his companion.
‘What now?’ The two men were here to support the Roman garrison and aid them in keeping the people of Noviodunum working in good faith. The documents they carried commanded the Aedui officials here to grant the two men anything they required on the proconsul’s authority. And yet somehow they felt more comfortable here in the embrace of their countrymen than the foreigners they were here to aid.
‘Now,’ Viridomarus murmured, ‘we need to decide, I think, whether we are Aedui, or Roman.’
‘Talk like that is dangerous.’
‘Not as dangerous as choosing the wrong side in a war.’
‘Wait here,’ Eporedirix muttered and, rising, wandered over to the bar, where two locals leaned, supping frothy ale.
As he ordered and the barman fetched two mugs of beer, Eporedirix, feeling the Roman sealed orders like a lead weight beneath his tunic, cleared his throat.
‘I’ve never seen so many Romans in one of our towns.’
‘Bastards,’ snorted one of the men, spitting on the floor in disgust.
The other turned and looked Eporedirix up and down. Apparently satisfied that the new arrival was a true Aeduan, he took a swig and then spoke. ‘Where you from?’
‘Decetio. Not been here in a while. It’s changed a bit.’
‘Bastards,’ repeated the other man and spat again.
‘Who let the Romans have the town?’ Eporedirix asked quietly. ‘Everywhere else they’ve been, they just build an enclosure.’
‘The piece of scum tribune in charge feels nervous. Thinks everyone’s out to get them.’
Eporedirix narrowed his eyes. He’d always prided himself on being able to read between the lines, to pick up on unspoken sentiment. ‘And that’s because they are, aren’t they?’
The man turned a suspicious gaze on him.
‘You heard about Gergovia?’
‘Heard about it?’ Eporedirix replied. ‘I saw it for myself.’
The second man at the bar stopped drinking and turned to him. The newly arrived Aeduan felt the Roman seal beneath his tunic almost burning him from within. Someone at the far side of the bar shut the door at a nod from the innkeeper and slid the lock shut. All eyes turned to him and to his companion who sat at the table in the corner.
‘What really happened there?’
Not a genuine question. Again, Eporedirix picked up on a hidden nuance. A test, then?
‘I was with the Aedui cavalry on the hillside. We were supposed to bare our shoulder to show our allegiance, but… wouldn’t you know it?’ he said with a sly grin. ‘Some enterprising nobleman had us bare our wrong arm and the legion decided we were the enemy and panicked.’
A smile spread across the interrogator’s face. ‘I’d heard the Romans mistook you for enemies. Not why.’
‘I’ve still no idea whether it was a genuine accident,’ Eporedirix replied, ‘or whether one of the commanders decided he’d had enough of Roman orders. Either way, it started a landslide of cock-ups for the Romans, and they ran back east with their tails between their legs.’
The man nodded. ‘We heard they make for Aedui lands. Would that we could give them the same kind of kicking again. I’d always assumed that the Arverni king was just bluster and posture, but it seems he’s actually got what it takes. Still, if Caesar’s hoping for a warm reception among us, he might be surprised.’
‘Oh?’
The man lowered his voice to a conspiratorial tone, despite the fact that the inn’s only occupants all seemed to be friends of his.
‘You know about Litavicus?’
Eporedirix shook his head, hoping that word had not spread about how he and Viridomarus had ruined the young noble’s plans to subvert Caesar’s Aeduan cavalry.
‘The Arverni king’s sent him to our leaders. He arrived at Bibracte declaring himself Vercingetorix’s man. If the old oath held true, they’d have taken him and handed him over to Caesar, but they didn’t. They welcomed him in. The new magistrate, Convictolitanis and all the nobles welcomed him.’
Eporedirix felt the world shift slightly beneath him. The Aeduan capital had declared for the rebel? Then everything was changing. Caesar was already on the defensive, but with the Aedui adding to his enemies, his time in this land must be coming to an end. A thrill of excitement flowed through him.
‘An alliance is being negotiated between our tribes,’ the man said quietly. ‘And those bastards out there herding their horses and stacking their grain sacks know nothing about it.’
‘Why wait then?’ came a voice from the corner. Eporedirix turned in surprise to see his companion standing.
‘What?’
‘Why wait for the magistrate and his friends to send out the word? We know what’s happening, and Taranis knows, you and I are aware what’s at stake, Eporedirix. We’ve seen it first-hand. Do we want this mess they’ve made here to become the new standard for Aedui towns? Bollocks to them. Time to throw the Romans out.’
There was a murmur among the locals. The man at the bar narrowed his eyes. ‘If we start something before our leaders are ready, we might bring the Romans right to our door.’
‘So what? Bring them. I’m not afraid of them. Caesar’s failed now. He’s beaten. The Arverni are smaller than us and poorer than us, and they beat him. If the Arverni can rout Caesar, think what the Aedui can do!’
‘There are enough supplies here to keep an army in the field for a year,’ Eporedirix noted. ‘We could see that just on the way through. Better they belong to us than to Caesar.’
Viridomarus nodded. ‘Take the supplies. Send them to Bibracte. Put the garrison and the Roman merchants here to the sword. Strike the first blow.’
‘That’s what the Carnutes did at Cenabum,’ replied the barman quietly. ‘And look what that brought down upon them. Cenabum’s gone. Ash and bone and nothing more.’
‘Then give them nothing to revenge themselves upon,’ Viridomarus snapped. ‘Take all your people to Bibracte with the supplies and burn the place. It’s ruined now anyway. Half of it’s a Roman fort.’
The man at the bar was shaking his head, but there were encouraging nods around the room. Eporedirix took a steadying breath. They were talking about breaking their oath, betraying Caesar, and starting a war. But it made sense. And even those who lived here were in agreement.
‘You know what else is here?’ the man at the bar said in a low whisper.
‘What?’
‘All of Caesar’s hostages.’
Eporedirix blinked. ‘All of them?’
‘All of them. Every noble taken from every tribe as a means of securing loyalty. All here. If they found their way to Bibracte, half the tribes who are carefully staying out of the conflict to save their own would have no more reason to hesitate.’
The bar fell silent, each man looking around expectantly, nervously, eager to make a move, but waiting in trepidation for someone else to do so first. With a half-smile, Eporedirix reached into his tunic and withdrew the sealed parchment he had be
en given by Caesar himself. Leaning along the bar, he dipped the top of the scroll into one of the tallow candles that lit the interior and watched it catch light. Stepping back, he tilted it so that the flames raced up one edge, reaching the wax seal, where the Roman bull began to contort and change shape, dark red drips falling to the rush-strewn floor like blood.
‘What’s that?’ the barman asked in puzzlement.
‘That,’ Eporedirix smiled unpleasantly, ‘is my oath to Rome.’
* * * * *
The tired scouts who had brought the news roamed the bank ahead, and Fronto leaned back in his saddle, a sense of dread flowing through him. Across the southern hill they had seen a few tendrils of smoke and he had hoped to discover that they rose from the content chimneys and smoke-holes of the Aedui houses. But it seemed that the news that had reached the army two days ago, and which had been so tumultuous as to divert Caesar from his original course of action, was true.
Across the river, where all that remained of the new Roman bridge was a series of blackened stumps rising from the swift, deep current, stood what was left of Noviodunum. A circuit of walls with no gates encircled a pile of charcoal half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. No horses - the huge herds brought from Hispania and Narbonensis to supply the army. No grain - all the huge supply they had taken at Cenabum and Vellaunoduno. No arms and armour - the majority of the army’s spares brought down from Agedincum. No Romans, military or civilian, and no hostages. No locals. No sign of life at all, in fact. Noviodunum was gone and with it Caesar’s main supply base in Gaul.
‘I had a bad feeling about letting those two Gauls go,’ Fronto sighed. ‘And since the rumours about what happened here are true, then I think we can safely believe the ones about Bibracte having given themselves to the rebels. We have lost the Aedui.’
Caesar was nodding, his face as bleak and stony as ever.
‘General, we’re in ever-increasing danger. The Aedui can still field probably six or seven thousand men. More if they have the time to call up their allies. And if the news of all this has reached Gergovia, be sure Vercingetorix is on the move again somewhere behind us. With due respect, the very idea of drawing him to us is starting to look more than a trifle dangerous.’
Antonius, on the general’s far side, nodded. ‘Gaius, there are perhaps forty or fifty thousand men with us here, all in. If we stay in Aedui lands, we’re going to end up with eighty thousand Gauls - at the last estimate - chasing us down from Arverni lands, and another...’ he glanced at Fronto, ‘… seven thousand Aedui at the minimum from the east. Trapped between two pincers and seriously outnumbered, and all without adequate supplies.’
The general was nodding, or so Fronto thought, but after a moment he realised the man was shaking slightly - actually shuddering with rage. As Caesar turned to him, the man’s aquiline face might be stony cold, but his eyes danced with furious fire.
‘We need Labienus and his legions. It’s time to combine the army once more and put an end to this.’
‘That might not be so simple,’ Antonius said carefully. ‘They’ve burned the bridges again and word is that large groups of enemy horse rove the lands north of here, disrupting communications and any further attempts at supply.’
‘I do not care, Antonius. Find me a ford shallow enough to cross. No small warband will face us on the far side. And for the first time in this entire campaign, we are moving ahead of our enemies, so the lands north of here have not been burned clear of crops and farms. We can forage as we go. Communications may be impossible with the north, but Labienus will still be in contact with Agedincum as his home base. We make for there. And as soon as we have the army whole, I will have this Arvernian king’s head on a spike.’
* * * * *
Cavarinos rode his horse up the steep slope to Bibracte’s western gate with a curious sense of disjointed familiarity. He had been here several times this year, but always in disguise or with some kind of subterfuge, effecting entry with the aid of rebellious elements and fearing what might happen if he were revealed as Arverni to the populace. To be riding towards that wall with his serpent arm-ring in evidence, the standards of the Arverni wavering about them and the rebel king at his side felt distinctly odd. He felt as though he ought to be shrinking down and hiding himself.
‘And so begins a new chapter in our land’s history, eh, Cavarinos?’ Vercingetorix smiled as they approached the gate to the cheers of Aeduan citizens by the roadside.
‘I really hope so. We have Caesar on the defensive now, and we mustn’t let up. Give that man a breather, and you know he’ll recover.’
‘Then we must continue to push him,’ the king smiled, earning an encouraging nod from Vergasillaunus and Critognatos at the far side. Behind them rode the other leaders of the army, including two of Bibracte’s greatest heroes: Teutomarus of the Nitiobriges, who had lost everything in the battle, but had managed to sound the alarm and save the day, and Lucterius of the Cadurci, whose incredible cavalry advance down a slope thought too steep for horses had all but demolished the Eighth legion.
The noise as they passed through the gate and into the great capital of the Aedui was astonishing. It seemed as though the whole tribe lined the streets, standing in doorways and windows, cheering the man who had beaten Caesar. Cavarinos gave up attempting to converse and simply took in every detail of the oppidum he had only seen before from beneath a veil of subterfuge.
The place was probably the greatest oppidum and city of all the tribes. No, it did not have the impressive defences of Gergovia, or the protective swamps of Avaricon. No it did not have the trade of Cenabum or the sacred places of the Carnute cities. But it was all things at once. It was huge - sprawling over a massive mountain and with a double encirclement of ramparts towering over steep slopes. It was sacred, for here was the most powerful place in the land, where often councils of tribes had met and decided the destiny of their peoples. Here was fed by sacred springs that made the place difficult to besiege effectively, and at the same time mystical and powerful among the druids. And here was a thriving centre of industry and commerce. Here was a city that was still inimitably Aeduan, and yet had taken enough architecturally from the Romans who had patronised it for so long, that its buildings were strong, graceful and well-equipped.
And here was now the place where the future of the land and its tribes would be decided once again. Cavarinos had felt his conviction over this entire war shaken once or twice over the past few months, and had been close at times to throwing down his sword and riding off into the countryside to settle in peace somewhere. But seeing this gave him some hope that what they were doing was not only possible, but was in fact also worthwhile and justified.
He smiled easily as they rounded a curve to the right in the main street, rising still. Up to the right, between smaller rough houses, he could see an open space which he knew to be the nemeton of Bibracte’s druids and the field of assembly before it. Down to the left, he could see residential streets reaching right to the inner rampart.
The Aeduan noble who had been sent to escort the esteemed visitors into the city rattled off facts and figures, tales and anecdotes as they rode, gesturing to various places, and the rebel officers nodded as if they cared, trying to please their hosts.
Around another bend, this time to the left, and an open area on the lower slopes to the side of the road created a clearing around a pool formed by a spring that flowed from a carved spout in the hillside.
‘The sanctuary of the cold fountains,’ intoned their guide, throwing his arm out towards it. Cavarinos noted the place with more interest than the others, remembering how Litavicus had claimed his uncle to be the attendant here, and how the place had been intimately involved in the rise of Convictolitanis, who had finally delivered the Aedui to Vercingetorix.
His ears caught a discordant noise among the din and he concentrated, frowning. There it was again: a scream amid the cheers. His hand went to the shoulder of the king by his side, and the two m
en slowed their horses as the rest of the nobles and leaders with them paused in confusion.
‘What is it?’ Vercingetorix asked quietly.
‘Listen. Down there.’
Both men waited, though not for long before another scream rent the air. Though their guide was trying to urge them on, Vercingetorix waved him aside and the two Arverni stepped their horses down to the sanctuary clearing. Due to the slope of the hill and the spring’s source, something of a cliff some ten feet high had formed behind the pool, hiding from the road the scene that greeted them as they descended. By the time they reached the pool side, the two men could see clearly what was happening.
A man stripped to the waist raised a huge serrated sword and cast a prayer up to Taranis, and then took the blade to a figure tied to a T-shaped edifice before the cliff. The serrated edge sank deep into the man’s belly at the bottom of the rib-cage, and the half-naked man drew it back out agonisingly slowly, sawing up into the rib as he did so and bringing another unearthly scream, all the clearer up close and not lost amid the din. The crimson holes around the figure’s body told a tale of hours of torture. Moreover, the victim was not alone. A limp, ruined, bloody mess on a similar post next to him had been gone for a while, and two more waited, terrified, for his attention to turn to them. A man decked in noble clothes and gold- and bronzeware stood with his arms folded, watching.
‘What is this?’ demanded Cavarinos, jumping in ahead of his king. Behind them, the other chiefs and nobles of the army were joining them.
The man watching turned, and Cavarinos faintly recognised him. It took only a few heartbeats to click, and he frowned. ‘Viridomarus?’ One of the men who had given over the Aedui cavalry to Caesar! And yet here he was. Cavarinos turned to their guide, who had now descended with them.
‘What is this traitor doing here? He serves Caesar.’
‘Served Caesar,’ snapped the former traitor. ‘As did we all among the Aedui. But no more.’
The Great Revolt Page 36