“Am I to have my own army?” asked Lucterius, astonished.
“It was you who said we must deal with the Province, and who better could I send than you, Lucterius? You’ll need fifty thousand men, and you’d best choose the peoples you know—your own Cardurci, the Petrocorii, the Santoni, the Pictones, the Andes.” Vercingetorix flicked the pile of scrolls with a finger, his eyes on Cathbad. “Are the Ruteni listed there, Cathbad?”
“No,” said Cathbad, not needing to look. “They prefer Rome.”
“Then your first task is to subjugate the Ruteni, Lucterius. Persuade them that right and might are with us, not with Rome. From the Ruteni to the Volcae is a mere step. We will talk more fully later on your strategy, but sooner or later you’ll have to divide your forces and go in two directions—toward Narbo and Tolosa, and toward the Helvii and the Rhodanus. The Aquitani are dying for a chance to rebel, so it won’t be long before you’re turning volunteers away.”
“Am I to start tomorrow?”
“Yes, tomorrow. To delay is fatal when the foe is Caesar.” Vercingetorix turned to the only Aeduan present. “Litaviccus, go home. The Bituriges will be sending to the Aedui for help.”
“Which will be long coming,” Litaviccuus said, grinning.
“No, be more subtle than that! Bleat to Caesar’s legates, ask for advice, even start an army out! I’m sure you’ll find valid reasons why the army never gets there.” The new King of the Gauls who had not yet asked to be called King of the Gauls shot Litaviccus a calculating look from under his black brows. “There is one factor we must thrash out now. I want no future reproaches or charges of partisan reprisals.”
“The Boii,” said Litaviccus instantly.
“Exactly. After Caesar sent the Helvetii back to their old lands six years ago, he allowed the Helvetian sept of the Boii to remain in Gaul— on the petition of the Aedui, who wanted them as a buffer between Aedui and Arverni. They were settled on lands we Arverni claim are ours, yet that you told Caesar were yours. But I tell you, Litaviccus,” said Vercingetorix sternly, “that the Boii must go and those lands must be returned to us. Aedui and Arverni fight on the same side now; there is no need for a buffer. I want an agreement from your vergobrets that the Boii will go and those lands be returned to the Arverni. Is that agreed?”
“It is agreed,” said Litaviccus. He huffed a sound of huge satisfaction. “The lands are second rate. After this war, we Aedui will be happy to acquire the lands of the Remi as adequate compensation. The Arverni can expand into the lands of the equally traitorous Lingones. Is that agreed?”
“It is agreed,” said Vercingetorix, grinning.
He turned his attention back to Cathbad, who looked no more content. “Why hasn’t King Commius come?” he demanded.
“He’ll be here in the summer, not before. By then he hopes to be leading all the western Belgae left alive.”
“Caesar did us a good turn in betraying him.”
“It wasn’t Caesar,” said Cathbad scornfully. “I’d say the plot was entirely the work of Labienus.”
“Do I detect a note of sympathy for Caesar?”
“Not at all, Vercingetorix. But blindness is not a virtue! If you are to defeat Caesar, you must strive to understand him. He will try a Gaul and execute him, as he did Acco, but he would deem the kind of treachery meted out to Commius a disgrace.”
“The trial of Acco was rigged!” cried Vercingetorix angrily.
“Yes, of course it was,” said Cathbad, persevering. “But it was legal! Understand that much about the Romans! They like to look legal. Of no Roman is that truer than of Caesar.”
*
The first Gaius Trebonius in Agedincum knew of the march against the Bituriges came from Litaviccus, who galloped in from Bibracte gasping alarm.
“There’s war between the tribes!” he said to Trebonius.
“Not war against us?” asked Trebonius.
“No. Between the Arverni and the Bituriges.”
“And?”
“The Bituriges have sent to the Aedui for help. We have old treaties of friendship which go back to the days when we warred constantly with the Arverni, you see. The Bituriges lie beyond them, which meant an alliance between us hemmed the Arverni in on two sides.”
“How do the Aedui feel now?”
“That we should send the Bituriges help.”
“Then why see me?”
Litaviccus opened his innocent blue eyes wide. “You know perfectly well why, Gaius Trebonius! The Aedui have Friend and Ally status! If it were to come to your ears that the Aedui were in arms and marching west, what might you think? Convictolavus and Cotus have sent me to inform you of events, and ask for your advice.”
“Then I thank them.” Trebonius looked more worried than he usually did, chewed his lip. “Well, if it’s internecine and has nothing to do with Rome, then honor your old treaty, Litaviccus. Send the Bituriges help.”
“You seem uneasy.”
“More surprised than uneasy. What’s with the Arverni? I thought Gobannitio and his elders disapproved of war with anyone.”
Litaviccus made his first mistake—he looked too casual; he spoke too readily, too airily. “Oh, Gobannitio is out!” he exclaimed. “Vercingetorix is ruling the Arverni.”
“Ruling?”
“Yes, perhaps that’s too strong a word.” Litaviccus adopted a demure expression. “He’s vergobret without a colleague.”
Which made Trebonius laugh. And, still chuckling, Trebonius saw Litaviccus off the premises on the return section of his urgent visit. But the moment Litaviccus clattered off, he went to find Quintus Cicero, Gaius Fabius and Titus Sextius.
Quintus Cicero and Sextius were commanding legions among the six encamped around Agedincum, whereas Fabius held the two legions billeted with the Lingones, fifty miles closer to the Aedui. That Fabius was in Agedincum was unexpected; he had come, he explained, to alleviate his boredom.
“Consider it alleviated,” said Trebonius, more mournful than ever. “Something is happening, and we’re not being told anything like all of it.”
“But they do war against each other,” said Quintus Cicero.
“In winter?” Trebonius began to pace. “It’s the news about Vercingetorix rocked me, Quintus. The sagacity of age is out and the impetuous fire of youth is in among the Arverni, and I don’t understand what that means. You all remember Vercingetorix—would he be going to war against fellow Gauls, do you think?”
“He obviously is, I believe that much,” said Sextius.
“It’s very sudden, certainly, and you’re right, Trebonius—why in winter?” asked Fabius.
“Has anyone come forward with information?”
The three other legates shook their heads.
“That in itself is odd, if you think about it,” Trebonius said. “Normally there’s always someone dinning in our ears, and always with moans or complaints. How many plots against Rome do we normally hear of over the course of a winter furlough?”
“Dozens,” said Fabius, grinning.
“Yet this year, none. They’re up to something, I swear they are. I wish we had Rhiannon here! Or that Hirtius would come back.”
“I think,” said Quintus Cicero, “that we should send word to Caesar.” He smiled. “Surreptitiously. Not perhaps a note under the webbing on a spear, but definitely not openly.”
“And not,” said Trebonius with sudden decision, “through the lands of the Aedui. There was something about Litaviccus that set my teeth on edge.”
“We shouldn’t offend the Aedui,” Sextius objected.
“Nor will we. If they don’t know about any communication we might send to Caesar, they can’t be offended.”
“How will we send it, then?” asked Fabius.
“North,” said Trebonius crisply. “Through Sequani territory to Vesontio, thence to Genava, thence to Vienne. The worst of it is that the Via Domitia pass is closed. It’ll have to go the long way, around the coast.”
“Seve
n hundred miles,” said Quintus Cicero gloomily.
“Then we issue the messengers every sort of official passport, authority to commandeer the very best horses, and we expect a full hundred miles a day. Two men only, and not Gauls of any tribe. It doesn’t go out of this room except to the men we pick. Two strong young legionaries who can ride as well as Caesar.” Trebonius looked enquiring. “Any ideas?”
“Why not two centurions?” asked Quintus Cicero.
The others looked horrified. “Quintus, he’d murder us! Leave his men without centurions? Surely by now you know he’d rather lose all of us than one junior centurion!”
“Oh, yes, of course!” gasped Quintus Cicero, remembering his brush with the Sugambri.
“Leave it to me,” said Fabius with decision. “Write your message, Trebonius, and I’ll find boys in my legions to take it to Caesar. Less obvious. I have to be getting back anyway.”
“We had better,” said Sextius, “try to discover anything more we can. Tell Caesar that there’ll be further information waiting for him at Nicaea on the coast road, Trebonius.”
3
Caesar was in Placentia, so the message found him in six days. Once Lucius Caesar and Decimus Brutus arrived in Ravenna, inertia began to pall; things in Rome seemed to settle down under the consul without a colleague fairly well; Caesar saw no gain in remaining in Ravenna merely to learn what happened to Milo, bound to be sent for trial, and bound to be convicted. If anything about the business annoyed him, it was the conduct of his new quaestor, Mark Antony, who sent Caesar a brusque note to the effect that he was going to remain in Rome until Milo’s trial was over, as he was one of the prosecuting advocates. Insufferable!
“Well, Gaius, you would relent and ask for him,” said Antony’s uncle, Lucius Caesar. “He’d not serve on any staff of mine.”
“I wouldn’t have relented had I not received a letter from Aulus Gabinius, who, as you well know, had Antonius in Syria. He said Antonius was a bet he’d like to take with himself. Drinks and whores too much, doesn’t care enough, expends a mountain of energy on cracking a flea yet goes to sleep during a war council. Despite all that, according to Gabinius, he’s worth the effort. Once he’s in the field, he’s a lion—but a lion capable of good thinking. So we shall see. If I find him a liability, I’ll send him to Labienus. That ought to be interesting! A lion and a cur.”
Lucius Caesar winced and said no more. His father and Caesar’s father had been first cousins, the first generation in that antique family to hold the consulship in a very long time—thanks to the alliance by marriage between Caesar’s Aunt Julia and the enormously wealthy upstart New Man from Arpinum, Gaius Marius. Who turned out to be the greatest military man in Rome’s history. The marriage had seen money flow back into the coffers of the Julii Caesares, and money was all the family had lacked. Four years older than Caesar, Lucius Caesar luckily was not a jealous man; Gaius, of the junior branch, bade fair to becoming an even greater general than Gaius Marius. Indeed, Lucius Caesar had requested a legateship on Caesar’s staff out of sheer curiosity to see his cousin in action; so proud was he of Gaius that reading the senatorial dispatches suddenly seemed very tame and secondhand. Distinguished consular, eminent juror, long a member of the College of Augurs, at fifty-two years of age Lucius Caesar decided to go back to war. Under the command of cousin Gaius.
The journey from Ravenna to Placentia wasn’t too bad, for Caesar kept stopping to hold assizes in the main towns along the Via Aemilia: Bononia, Mutina, Regium Lepidum, Parma, Fidentia. But what an ordinary governor took a nundinum to hear, Caesar heard in one day; then it was on to the next town. Most of the cases were financial, usually civil in nature, and the need to impanel a jury was rare. Caesar listened intently, did the sums in his head, rapped the end of the ivory wand of his imperium on the table in front of him, and gave his judgement. Next case, please—move along, move along! No one ever seemed to argue with his decisions. Probably, thought Lucius Caesar in some amusement, more because Caesar’s businesslike efficiency discouraged it than because of any justice involved. Justice was what the victor received; the loser never did.
At least in Placentia the pause was going to be longer, for here Caesar had put the Fifteenth Legion into training camp for the duration of his stay in Illyricum and Italian Gaul, and he wanted to see for himself how the Fifteenth was faring. His orders had been specific: drill them until they drop, then drill them until they don’t drop. He had sent for fifty training centurions from Capua, grizzled veterans who slavered at the prospect of making seventeen-year-old lives a studied combination of agony and misery, and told them that they were to concentrate on the Fifteenth’s centurions in their hypothetical spare time. Now the moment had come to see what over three months of training in Placentia had produced; Caesar sent word that he would review the legions on the parade ground at dawn the following morning.
“If they pass muster, Decimus, you can march them to Further Gaul along the coast road at once,” he said over dinner in the midafternoon.
Decimus Brutus, munching a local delicacy of mixed vegetables lightly fried in oil, nodded tranquilly. “I hear they’re really terrific troops,” he said, dabbling his hands in a bowl of water.
“Who gave you that news?” asked Caesar, picking indifferently at a piece of pork roasted in sheep’s milk until it was brown and crunchy and the milk was all gone.
“A purveyor of foods to the army, as a matter of fact.”
“A purveyor of army supplies knows?”
“Who better? The men of the Fifteenth have worked so hard they’ve eaten Placentia out of everything that quacks, oinks, bleats or clucks, and the local bakers are working two shifts a day. My dear Caesar, Placentia loves you.”
“A hit, Decimus!” said Caesar, laughing.
“I understood that Mamurra and Ventidius were to meet us here,” said Lucius Caesar, a better trencherman than his cousin, and thoroughly enjoying this less-spicy-than-pepper-mad-Rome, northern kind of cuisine.
“They arrive the day after tomorrow, from Cremona.”
Hirtius, too busy to eat with them, came in. “Caesar, an urgent letter from Gaius Trebonius.”
Caesar sat up at once and swung his legs off the couch he shared with his cousin, one hand out for the scroll. He broke the seal, unrolled it and read it at a glance.
“Plans have changed,” he said then, voice level. “How did this come, Hirtius? How long has it been on the road?”
“Six days only, Caesar, and those by the coast road too. I gather Fabius sent two legionaries who ride like the wind, loaded them with money and official pieces of paper. They did well.”
“They did indeed.”
A change had come over Caesar, a change Decimus Brutus and Hirtius knew of old, and Lucius Caesar not at all. The urbane consular was gone, replaced by a man as plain, as crisp and as focused as Gaius Marius.
“I’ll have to leave letters for Mamurra and Ventidius, so I’m off to write them—and others. Decimus, send word to the Fifteenth to be ready to march at dawn. Hirtius, see to the supply train. No ox-wagons, everything in mule-wagons or on mules. We won’t find enough to eat in Liguria, so the baggage train will have to keep up. Food for ten days, though we’re not going to be ten days between here and Nicaea. Ten days to Aquae Sextiae in the Province, less if the Fifteenth is half as good as the Tenth.” Caesar turned to his cousin. “Lucius, I’m marching and I’m in a hurry. You can journey on at your leisure if you prefer. Otherwise it’s dawn tomorrow for you too.”
“Dawn tomorrow,” said Lucius Caesar, slipping into his shoes. “I don’t intend to be cheated of this spectacle, Gaius.”
But Gaius had vanished. Lucius raised his brows at Hirtius and Decimus Brutus. “Doesn’t he ever tell you what’s going on?”
“He will,” said Decimus Brutus, strolling out.
“We’re told when we need to know,” said Hirtius, linking his arm through Lucius Caesar’s and steering him gently out of the dining room. “He never
wastes time. Today he’ll be flying to wade through everything he has to leave behind in perfect order, because it looks to me—and to him—as if we won’t be back in Italian Gaul. Tomorrow night in camp he’ll tell us.”
“How will his lictors cope with this march? I noticed he wore them out coming up the Via Aemilia, and that at least gave them a chance to rest every second day.”
“I’ve often thought we should put our lictors into training camp alongside the soldiers. When Caesar’s moving quickly he dispenses with his lictors, constitutional or not. They’ll follow at their own pace, and he’ll leave word whereabouts headquarters are going to be. That’s where they’ll stay.”
“How will you ever find enough mules at such short notice?”
Hirtius grinned. “Most of them are Marius’s mules,” he said, referring to the fact that Gaius Marius had loaded thirty pounds of gear on a legionary’s back, and thus turned legionaries into mules. “That’s another thing you’ll find out about Caesar’s army, Lucius. Every mule the Fifteenth should have will be there tomorrow morning, as fit and ready for action as the men. Caesar expects to be able to start a legion moving instantly. Therefore it has to be permanently ready in every aspect.”
*
The Fifteenth was drawn up in column at dawn the next morning when Caesar, Lucius Caesar, Aulus Hirtius and Decimus Brutus rode into camp. Whatever convulsions had wracked the Fifteenth between being informed it was marching and the actual commencement of the march didn’t show; the First Cohort swung into place behind the General and his three legates with smooth precision, and the Tenth Cohort, at the tail, was moving almost as soon as the First.
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