Staring at Nonnos, Lucterius sent up a prayer of thanks to the gods for the bravery of his tribe and his second, and for his own survival. Then, convinced of his safety, for the time being at least, he paused and unwrapped the rough leather belt that he had around his tunic, tying it around the top of his thigh and pulling it tighter and tighter until he gasped at the pain, then cinching it.
Now at least he shouldn’t bleed out before he reached Bibracte.
Time to raise the tribes to his lord’s cause.
* * * * *
‘What is the result?’
Fronto turned at Caesar’s question, the early morning sunlight still gracing only the oppidum and the surrounding peaks, leaving these low valleys and the plain in shade. The attack of the Gallic cavalry had been pointless and brief, doing little damage to the legions and the defences they were constructing, but it had become apparent that there was more to the action than just a suicidal attack.
‘They’re still bringing in the odd body from as far as the Brennus river a couple of miles to the south, general, but the current count is four hundred and twenty three Gallic dead and one hundred and eight captives. Most of them are at least lightly wounded, but the medicus reckons only thirty or so of them are on their way out.’
‘I want them roped and sent under guard to Agedincum. When we finish the rebels, we will require a goodly number of slaves to fund a healthy donative to the men for their hard work.’
Fronto nodded. ‘There is one that you might be interested in, though, Caesar.’
Speeding up, Fronto wandered along the lines of dejected prisoners being herded this way and that by hard-faced legionaries, and the blood-slicked stinking dead being stacked ready for disposal. At the end of the busy area, huge stacks of timber and wicker, piles of rope coils and heaps of tools awaited transport to the next section of the construction. Among them a man sat slumped, naked to the waist, wounded in a dozen places, missing a hand, which was bound with a soaked scarf, and coated with blood and grime. He was clearly a Gaul, his hair long and braided by the ear, moustaches clogged with blood and stuck together, almost comically jutting out to the side of his face, like a hairy, crimson wing.
He was not bound, but there seemed little chance of him running, since his leg lay at an odd angle from the knee, broken more than once, and badly so. Amid the grime, the general could pick out bronze and gold, including arm rings and a torc. A noble, then.
Five legionaries and an optio stood around the man, the officer a lantern-jawed fellow with gimlet eyes.
‘Talk to us,’ the optio urged his prisoner in a gravelly tone. When the captive simply turned a defiant stare on him, the officer stepped forward and placed his hob-nailed boot on the man’s ruined knee, gently rolling it back and forth. The man screamed, but bit defiantly down on the cry and fell silent, hissing against the pain. Caesar raised an eyebrow, but Fronto cleared his throat.
‘That’s enough,’ he said to the optio. ‘He’ll not break like that.’
As the optio saluted and stepped back, Fronto crouched close, though not close enough to endanger himself. ‘I can see from your expression that you understand my words. You are broken, my friend. Quite apart from the leg, I note that one of your wounds oozes very dark blood from the belly and that you are already noticeably greying. I suspect your liver has been nicked. If you’re lucky, that’s the case and you’ll slowly bleed out over the next few hours. If not, then I’m wrong, and the belly wound will be the one that kills you, very slowly and very painfully. Ever seen a man die from a belly wound? It’s not pretty, and it can last for days.’
The man glared at Fronto. ‘Threaten me all you wish, Roman. I will not break.’
‘I’m not threatening you,’ Fronto replied quietly. ‘I’m simply explaining the facts. What I will offer you is this: you answer a few simple questions and I will grant you a very quick warrior’s death. How’s that?’
‘No.’
Fronto looked up at Caesar. The general was clearly weighing his options, and the legate felt certain that he would come down in favour of torture soon enough… experience suggested so, anyway. He smiled. Sometimes the most defiant man could be the most revealing. Priscus had taught him the trick with recalcitrant legionaries during disciplinary hearings. He leaned forward again.
‘It was no attack, clearly. Only a fool would commit such a small force to an attack like that. Your king must have known that you would lose. And when our cavalry countered, the officers said that your men fled not in the direction of Alesia, but away, towards the river and south. After all this time in the field, I find it hard to picture cowards among your army.’
At the word coward, the man’s face hardened and his eyes glittered angrily. Fronto nodded. ‘They were not running from the battle, of course. They were no cowards, were they? And if they were not running from the fight, that suggests that they were intending to run in the first place. Perhaps that was the whole purpose of the attack? A breakout of the cavalry? But not simply to save you, even though you’d be of no further benefit in Alesia, eating all the grain but providing little use. So why?’
He smiled again. ‘Where would you run but to fetch reinforcements?’
He was rewarded with an involuntary flicker of the eyelid as the man tried to keep his face expressionless. Fronto nodded. ‘Reinforcements. Possibly already gathered, but I suspect more than that. You were to raise new troops to relieve the rebels, yes?’
Another flicker and Fronto almost laughed at how easy the man was to read. ‘And you broke southwest. I suppose the riders could have gone anywhere once they passed from our view, but my money’s on them staying on that very course. Because if I opened up a map right now and drew a line southwest from Alesia, where the riders went, it would pass right through Bibracte, where the tribes so often gather to sort things out.’
Again the man flinched slightly at the name of the Aeduan capital. Fronto chuckled and looked up at Caesar. ‘That’s it. Vercingetorix sent his cavalry out to Bibracte to raise the rest of the tribes. And over the years we’ve more or less made that place the political focal point for the whole of Gaul. By noon today, if they ride their horses into the ground, the survivors will be there.’
Caesar took a deep breath. ‘Then we have days - weeks at the most - before a relief force gathers here. Potentially a very large one.’
‘It seems likely.’
‘And currently we are already slightly outnumbered. If a sizeable second force comes, we could find ourselves in dire straits.’
‘Quite.’
As Caesar stood in silence, Fronto turned back to the Gaul. ‘Thank you for your silence.’ Quickly, he ripped his blade from its sheath and used his left hand to push the Gaul’s head forward, placing the point between two vertebrae at the bottom of the neck. The Gaul put up no resistance and Fronto took a deep breath and jammed the blade down. There was a crack and a spray of blood and the body jerked and then slumped beneath him.
Nonnos passed from the world of men with honour and Fronto tore a strip from the man’s discarded bloody tunic and rose, wiping his sword thoroughly and sheathing it once more.
‘What do we do? We cannot afford to abandon this place. If his force builds again and we let him go, we’ll end up on the run.’
Caesar nodded. ‘It has to end here, no matter what. The siege works must be enhanced. We have eleven miles of circumvallation planned already: a ditch and rampart connecting the redoubts and camps all around Alesia. This is clearly not going to be enough, however. The rampart will be raised to a height of two men and then topped with the palisade and towers. Instead of one ditch, we will have two. I will have lilia pits, sharpened branches, spikes and caltrops in the flat ground and more branches at the bottom of the palisade, and any other measures our engineers can come up with. And the flat lands will need an extra hurdle for the enemy. The engineers will drive a wide, deep ditch across the entire plain at the base of the hill, connecting the two rivers and flooding it.’
Fronto whistled with a frown. ‘Juno, but that’s some work, general. I’m not sure we’ll have time to carry all that eleven miles before a relief army gets here. Besides, I don’t understand how that helps us against a second army.’
Caesar straightened.
‘That is because I haven’t finished, Fronto. Eleven miles facing inwards will keep Vercingetorix and his hounds caged. A second line of fortifications - identical ones - will be drawn outside the first. It will have to be several miles longer and will face outwards to protect against any relief force.’
Fronto’s eyes widened. ‘Another? That’s weeks of work even if we use every man we have. Can it be done?’
Caesar smiled. ‘You should spend more time reading your histories and less time cavorting, Fronto. Scipio built a stone wall six miles long around Numantia, with added defences and towers, and all in a few short days. Our line may be a lot longer, but I am not asking for stone. Just earth and timber. And we have a much larger army than he to do it with. It can be done, Fronto. It will be done. And when it is done, we will draw all the army and supplies between the two circuits.’
‘Caesar, if a large enemy force arrives, we’ll essentially be under siege ourselves.’
‘But so will the rebels on the hill, but they will become hungry and we will have time to gather plenty of supplies. We do not have to be able to last forever. We only need to outlast the rebel king.’
Fronto stared, still shaking his head. As the general nodded, satisfied, and walked away, the Tenth’s legate looked down at the peaceful, still form of the rebel horseman, released from pain.
‘I have a feeling that in the coming days, I might envy you.’
Chapter 18
Atenos stormed across the ruined turf, torn by hundreds of nailed boots, vine staff gripped in his white-knuckled hand. The legionary wiped his sweat-drenched face with his scarf and then carefully tucked the material back beneath the edge of his mail shirt to prevent chafing and fastened it with a bronze pin. He was reaching up with his helmet to put it back on when the vine staff caught him a fiery, sharp snap across the back of his thighs. The helmet fell from shocked hands, rolling away across the grass as the soldier turned, his hand going to the pommel of his sword.
As he spun, his eyes fell upon the harness across the big Gallic centurion’s mail shirt, hung with medals and torcs, and his eyes slid slowly, full of dread, upwards to rest upon the hard, angry eyes of the legion’s most senior centurion. His hand left the pommel of his sword, trembling slightly. The men of the Tenth had been in awe of this huge centurion since he had first joined, years ago, and his training regime was said to be the most punishing in all the army. No man had ever had the guts to cross him. One brave fellow - the legion’s inter-unit wrestling champion, built like a bear - had taken him on in a ring during the Saturnalia celebrations a year ago. His elbows still ached in the cold and wet and he had accepted a demotion in order to transfer a long way from his opponent.
But since the huge former Gallic mercenary had moved up from being the legion’s training officer in the wake of Carbo’s demise at Gergovia, he had taken on a yet harder dimension. Any softness about him - which had been difficult enough to find anyway - had apparently vanished with his appointment as primus pilus.
Atenos glared, and the legionary quailed.
‘What part of full kit escapes you, soldier?’
‘Sir… I just… I couldn’t see for the sweat in my eyes.’
‘Then sweat less. If I see your helmet come off once more, Glaucus, I will have the smiths weld a spike to the inside before you put it on again. Now get kitted up properly, pick up that axe and take down one of those saplings, and when you get back to camp, report straight to the latrines for clearance and extension duty.’
The soldier saluted, still trembling. As he stood waiting for Atenos to move away, the centurion blinked and brought his vine stick down on the man’s head, quite hard.
‘GET GOING!’
The legionary scrambled away, grabbing his helmet.
‘Centurion? I think we’ve got company,’ shouted one of the excused duty legionaries standing watch on the hillside. Atenos jogged over to the man and followed his pointing finger.
‘Well spotted.’ The big centurion squinted. ‘Can’t be more than a couple of hundred of them.’ The running Gauls had somehow descended the hillside from the oppidum unseen from the forage party’s position on this hill to the south of Alesia. Given the undulation of the plateau’s slope at the eastern end, the scrub and small coppices and thickets that covered the hillside, and the somewhat obfuscatory nature of the terrain the party worked in, it was hardly a surprise. But the Gauls must be idiots to think they would get anywhere close before they were spotted.
‘What are they doing, sir?’
‘We’re only three centuries, so they match our numbers, lad. They think they’ll take out a forage party. Picked the wrong bunch, though, eh?’
‘Want me to get a signal back to the camp, sir?’
Atenos paused for a moment in thought, but shook his head. ‘No point causing a major disturbance.’ He turned and cleared his throat. ‘Grab your pila and form up on me! Three blocks of four lines to my left, using all the open space.’
In a few heartbeats the party had downed tools, leaving branches half-adzed and trees with wedges cut from the base, ready to topple, grasping the shields that lay on the ground close to them as they worked. Running past the pilum stacks, each man took one and moved into line as ordered.
‘Front rank: pila at fifty paces and then down. Second rank: follow on the first. Third and fourth pass your pila forward as soon as the volleys are out, then first two repeat at twenty paces before you draw swords.’
The other centurions, signifers and musicians present relayed the command in case anyone had missed the commands in the centurion’s booming voice.
Half a hundred heartbeats the legionaries waited, arms starting to waver slightly with the effort of holding aloft the javelins. Then the first of the Gauls emerged from the bushes down the shallow slope. More and more burst from the undergrowth and, as they realised the Romans were aware of them and stealth was no longer of value, they began to yell war cries and push their tired, strained muscles to a last burst of speed.
‘Steady, lads.’
Another fourteen heartbeats, and the first man passed the shrub that Atenos had selected as a distance marker.
‘Ready… throw!’
With a fluid grace that had come from years of Atenos’ hard training, more than fifty arms jerked back a foot and then came forward, casting the javelins. Barely had the missiles left their grip before they dropped behind their large body shields and the second rank repeated the manoeuvre.
A hundred pila fell in two close waves, the descending gradient aiding their distance and power, and almost all the visible front ranks of Gallic attackers fell, torsos, heads, legs and arms pierced by the javelins. Here and there a man had managed to get his shield up and the pila had ripped through them, bending and becoming fast, their weight dragging the shields down and away until the Gauls gave up and dropped them.
More were coming, though. The Gauls were bellowing their defiance and hatred as they emerged still from the scrub in a ragged band. This time, as he had planned, Atenos waited, allowing the enemy to close on them, heaving in breaths as they climbed. As the first few men passed the centurion’s next marker, he glanced quickly to his left. Swiftly, efficiently, the rear ranks had passed their pila forward.
‘Mark and throw.’
The third and fourth volley followed in quick succession, every bit as effective as the earlier ones, more deadly, given the closer range.
By the time the living had extricated themselves from the dying and cast away damaged and useless shields, the legionaries were formed up in a solid wall, the three centuries closing up into one unit. Ten paces away, the lead Gauls snarled and shouted, clambering closer, sweating with the effort. The Romans stood calm and
collected, each man a perfect mirror of his companions.
The first Gaul arrived and leapt at the wall. The legionary behind the shield he hit turned his arm slightly, allowing the man to roll off the curved surface and, as the Gaul simply changed target, launching a savage attack on the man next to him, that first legionary took the opportunity to jab the tip of his gladius into the Gaul’s armpit, recovering his position in the shield line before the next man arrived, the first victim falling away gurgling.
The Gallic force began to arrive in greater numbers, attempting to push the shield-wall back and buckle the defensive line. Atenos had no doubt that his men could hold. One of the many innovations he had brought to the Tenth since his arrival was the addition of a bronze or wood lip just inside the top right corner of their shields, allowing the man next to a legionary to slot his shield in, giving the wall tremendous extra stability, and yet allowing a man to pull his shield free and stab out, which the men were doing with mechanical speed and accuracy.
Leaving his men to their work, Atenos concentrated on doing his part. A centurion had to lead by example, and he had never yet led men into a fight without drawing as much blood as any other man. Indeed, he and Carbo had had something of a private competition going. Carbo had been ahead by an estimated ten bodies, though it seemed Atenos would likely pass that total before the week was out.
Five men were coming in his direction, veering off from the bulk of the enemy and heading for the extreme right flank, aiming for the man in the transverse crest, recognised as an officer. The first of them threw an overhand attack which was easily blocked with the centurion’s shield, but Atenos felt a moment of irritation as the legionary to his left took the opportunity to help his commander and jabbed out unseen, ripping his gladius into the Gaul’s side.
One down. Atenos tried not to feel angry at his man for the blow - he should really be praised for it. Concentrating on the fight, he swung his shield down and right, slamming the bottom rim into the next man’s shin and thrusting down over it with his gladius, ripping a hole in the Gaul’s mail with the tapering point and piercing his heart with simple accuracy. The man cried out briefly and the centurion brought the shield back up, pushing as he did, so that the Gaul fell away into the path of one of the other attackers while the Roman’s blade came free.
The Great Revolt Page 42