On the twentieth day the work was nearing completion, and had approached the walls so closely that the ten thousand extra men inside the town were put to good use. A log wall joining the two parallel Roman siege tower walls was rising out of the partly leveled dip right against Avaricum itself; Caesar intended that he would storm the battlements on as wide a front as possible. The defenders tried constantly to set the mantlets on fire, though they failed in it because Caesar had found sheets of iron inside the oppidum of Noviodunum, and used them to roof the mantlets at the Avaricum end of the shelter sheds. Then the defenders switched their attention to the log wall rising against Avaricum’s outside, tried to demolish it with grappling hooks and windlasses, all the while pouring pitch, burning oil and blazing bundles of tinder down upon the heads of any exposed soldiers.
Avaricum’s defenders put up their own breastworks and towers along the ramparts, and below the ground a different scheme progressed. Mine runnels were dug down into the bowels of the earth until they were lower than the bottom course of the walls; they turned then and went forward until they were under Caesar’s siege terrace. The Avarican miners dug upward to reach the bottom layer of Roman logs, saturated them in oil and pitch, and set fire to them.
But the logs were green and of air there was little; great billows of smoke gave the scheme away. Seeing them, the defenders decided to increase the fire’s chances of taking hold by making a sortie from their walls onto the Roman walls. Skirmishes developed, the fighting grew fiercer, the Ninth and Tenth erupted out of camp to join in, the sides of the mantlets caught and burned, and so did the hide and wicker skin of the left-hand siege tower, which had been pushed most of the way toward the town. The battle raged all through the night, and was still going on when dawn broke.
Some soldiers began hacking down into the terrace with axes to make a hole to channel water in, while some of the Ninth diverted the stream supplying the camp and others manufactured a chute out of hides and sticks to carry the diverted water to the fire beneath the terrace.
A perfect opportunity for Vercingetorix, who might have won his war then and there had he brought up his army; but Gutruatus had done the Gallic cause no good turn in accusing Vercingetorix of abandoning his army to gallivant off with the cavalry. The King of the Gauls, not yet hailed as King of the Gauls, did not dare to avail himself of this wonderful chance. Until he was hailed King, he didn’t have the authority to move without first calling a war council, and that was too protracted, too quarrelsome, too fruitless a business. By the time a decision might have been reached, the fighting at the walls of Avaricum was bound to be over.
At dawn Caesar brought the artillery to bear. One man on the town ramparts proved a particularly accurate marksman as he hurled lumps of fat and pitch into a fire blazing at the base of the left-hand siege tower. A bolt from a scorpion, dramatic and unexpected, plugged him through the side. When another Gaul took his place, a second bolt from the same scorpion, which had the range nicely, killed him. As fast as each new Gaul started hurling his incendiaries, the same scorpion felled him; and so it went until finally the fire was out and the Gauls had retired from the fray. It was the artillery, in fact, which won the tussle.
“I’m pleased,” said Caesar to Quintus Cicero, Fabius and Titus Sextius. “We obviously do not make enough use of artillery.” He shivered, drew his scarlet general’s cloak closer about him. “It’s going to rain and rain. Well, that will end the risk of more fires. Get everyone onto repairs.”
On the twenty-fifth day the work was done. The siege terrace was eighty feet high, three hundred and thirty feet from one tower to the other, and two hundred and fifty feet from the walls of Avaricum to the Roman side of the dip. The right-hand tower was pushed forward until it was level with the left one, while icily cold, torrential rain fell remorselessly. Exactly the right time to begin the assault, for the guard atop the Avaricum battlements was sheltering from the elements, sure no attack would come in this weather. As the visible Roman troops went about their duties at an ambling pace, heads hunched into shoulders, the mantlets and siege towers filled with soldiers. The two towers winched down their gangplanks to thump onto the ramparts, while men spilled out from behind the shield palisade along the Roman wall joining the two tower walls, and put up their ladders and grapples.
The surprise was complete. The Gauls were ejected from their own wall so quickly there was hardly any fighting. They drew up then in wedge formation in the marketplace and the more open squares, determined to take Romans with them as they died.
The rain kept cascading down; the cold grew intense. No Roman troops descended from the Avaricum ramparts. Instead, they lined them and did no more than stare into the town. A reflexive panic started; the next moment the Gauls were running in all directions for the lesser gates, the walls, anywhere they thought might provide an avenue of escape. And were cut down. Of the forty thousand men, women and children inside Avaricum, some eight hundred reached Vercingetorix. The rest perished. After twenty-five days of short commons and considerable frustration, Caesar’s legions were in no mood to spare anyone.
“Well, boys,” Caesar shouted to his troops, assembled in the Avaricum marketplace, “now we can eat bread! Bean and bacon soup! Pease pottage! If I ever see a hunk of old cow again, I’ll swap it for a boot! My thanks and my salutations! I wouldn’t part with a single one of you!”
*
At first it seemed to Vercingetorix that the arrival of the eight hundred survivors of the slaughter at Avaricum was a worse crisis than Gutruatus’s challenge for the leadership had been; what would the army think? So he dealt with it astutely by splitting the refugees into small groups and smuggling them to be succored well away from the army. Then the next morning he called a war council and gave it the news with complete candor.
“I should not have gone against my instincts,” he said, looking directly at Biturgo. “It was futile to defend Avaricum. Which was not impregnable. Because we didn’t burn it, Caesar will eat well despite the failure of the Aedui to send him supplies. Forty thousand precious people are dead, some of them the warriors of the next generation. And their mothers. And their grandparents. It wasn’t lack of courage caused the fall of Avaricum. It was Roman experience. They seem to be able to look at a place we consider invulnerable and know immediately how to take it. Not because it possesses weaknesses. Because they possess strengths. We have lost four of our most important strongholds to Caesar, three of them in eight days, the fourth after twenty-five days of such incredible Roman labor that my heart stills in my breast to think of it. We have no tradition of physical work to match theirs. They march for days on end faster than our army can advance on horses. They build something like the siege apparatus at Avaricum by starting with living and innocent forests. They can pierce man after man with their bolts. They own true military excellence. And they have Caesar.”
“We,” said Cathbad softly, “have you, Vercingetorix. We also have the numbers.” He turned to the silent thanes and threw off the veil of diffidence and humility which concealed his power. Suddenly he was the Chief Druid, a fount of knowledge, a great singer, the connection between Gaul and its Gods the Tuatha, the head of a huge confraternity more forceful than any other body of priests in the world.
“When a man sets himself up as the leader of a great enterprise, he also sets himself up as the man upon whose head falls the lightning, upon whose wisdom falls the blame, upon whose courage falls the judgement. In the old days it was the place of the King to stand before the Tuatha as the one who goes voluntarily to the sacrifice in the name of his people, who takes to his own breast the needs and wants and desires and hopes of every male and female creature under his shield. But you, thanes of Gaul, did not accord Vercingetorix the full extent of his power. You grudged him the title of King. You saw yourselves becoming King when he failed, as you were sure he would because in your hearts you do not believe in a united Gaul. You want supremacy for yourselves individually and for your own peoples.�
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No one said a word; Gutruatus moved deeper into the shadows, Biturgo closed his eyes, Drappes pulled at his moustache.
“Perhaps at this moment it does indeed seem that Vercingetorix has failed,” Cathbad went on in his compelling voice, its tones honeyed. “But these are early days. He and we are still learning. What you must realize is that the Tuatha threw him up out of nothing and nowhere. Who knew him before Samarobriva?” The voice grew hard. “Chieftains of Gaul, we have but one chance to free ourselves of Rome! Of Caesar. That chance is now. The time is now. If we go down in defeat, let it not be because we could not come together in accord, because we could not bring ourselves to hail one man as King. It may be that in the future we will not need a king. But we need a king now. It was the Tuatha chose Vercingetorix, not mortal men. Not even the Druids. If you fear, love and honor the Tuatha, then bend the knee to the man they chose. Bend the knee to Vercingetorix, and acknowledge him openly as King of united Gaul.”
One by one the great chieftains got to their feet, and one by one they went down on the left knee. Vercingetorix stood, his right hand extended, his right foot forward, the jewels and gold on his arms and neck flashing, his stiff and colorless hair like rays about his head, his clean-shaven, bony face alight.
It lasted but a moment. Yet when it was over everything had changed. He was King Vercingetorix. He was King of a united Gaul.
“It is time,” he said then, “to summon all our peoples to Carnutum. They will assemble in the month the Romans call Sextilis, when the spring is almost over and the summer promises good campaign weather. I shall carefully choose envoys to go among the peoples and show them that this is our one chance to eject Rome. And who knows? Perhaps the measure of our success is in the measure of our opponent. If what we want is vast, then the Tuatha will set a vastness against us. That way, if we go down in defeat, we need not be ashamed. We will be able to say that our opponent is the greatest opponent we will ever encounter.”
“But he is a man,” said Cathbad strongly, “and he worships the wrong Gods. The Tuatha are the true Gods. They are greater than the Roman Gods. Ours is the right cause, the just cause. We will win! And we will call ourselves Gaul.”
*
At the beginning of June, Gaius Trebonius and Titus Labienus arrived at Avaricum to find Caesar dismantling camp and preparing to move out; a great many baggage animals had been found grazing the marshes, and Avaricum’s food was to go on the road with Caesar.
“Vercingetorix has adopted Fabian tactics, he won’t commit himself to battle,” said Caesar, “so it behooves us to force him into battle. Which I intend to do by marching for Gergovia. It’s his town; he’ll have to defend it. If Gergovia falls, the Arverni might think again about Vercingetorix.”
“There’s a difficulty,” said Trebonius unhappily.
“A difficulty?”
“I’ve had word from Litaviccus that the Aedui are split in council and senate. Cotus has usurped Convictolavus’s position as senior vergobret, and he’s urging the Aedui to declare for Vercingetorix.”
“Oh, I piss on the Aedui!” cried Caesar, clenching his fists. “I don’t need an insurrection at my back, nor do I need to be delayed. However, it’s plain that I am going to be delayed. Aaah! Trebonius, take the Fifteenth and put all the Avarican food into Noviodunum Nevirnum. What is the matter with the Aedui? Didn’t I donate Noviodunum Nevirnum and all its lands to them when I took the place off the Senones as punishment?” Caesar turned to Aulus Hirtius. “Hirtius, summon the entire Aeduan people to a conference in Decetia immediately. I’ll have to find out what’s happening and settle them down before I do anything else— and do it in person. Otherwise the Aedui will drift into revolution.”
Now came Labienus’s turn, but now was not the right time for Caesar to raise the subject of Commius. That would have to wait. Labienus the force of nature was going to be operating on his own again, and the force of nature had to be tranquil and tractable.
“Titus Labienus, I’m going to split the army. You’ll take the Seventh, the Ninth, the Twelfth and the Fourteenth. Also half the cavalry—but not the Aeduan half. Use the Remi. I want you to carry the war into the lands of the Senones, the Suessiones, the Meldi, the Parisii and the Aulerci. Keep every tribe along the Sequana River too busy even to think of reinforcing Vercingetorix. It’s up to you how you proceed. Use Agedincum as your base.” He beckoned to Trebonius, who walked over mournfully. Laughing, Caesar threw an arm about his shoulders. “Gaius Trebonius, don’t look so sad! My word on it, there’ll be plenty of work for you before the year is done. But for the moment, your orders are to hold Agedincum. Take the Fifteenth there from Noviodunum Nervirnum.”
“I’ll start tomorrow at dawn,” said Labienus, satisfied. He shot Caesar a wary, puzzled look. “You haven’t told me what you thought of the Commius incident,” he said.
“That it was a pity you let Commius get away,” said Caesar. “He’ll prove a thorn in our paw. Let us hope, Labienus, that we find a mouse willing to withdraw it.”
*
The business at Decetia proved to be so complex that when it was over, Caesar had no idea who was telling the truth and who was lying; the only good which came of it was the opportunity to face the assembled Aedui in person. Perhaps that was what the Aedui needed most, to see and hear Caesar himself. Cotus was ejected, Convictolavus reappointed, the young and feverish Eporedorix promoted to junior vergobret. While the Druids hovered in the background and swore to the loyalty of Convictolavus, of Eporedorix, of Valetiacus, of Viridomarus, of Cavarillus, and of that pillar of rectitude, Litaviccus.
“I want ten thousand infantry and every horseman the Aedui can muster,” said Caesar. “They’ll follow me to Gergovia. And they’ll bring grain, is that understood?”
“I’ll be leading in person,” said Litaviccus, smiling. “You may rest easy, Caesar. The Aedui will come to Gergovia.”
*
Thus it was the middle of June before Caesar marched for the Elaver River and Gergovia. Spring was under way, the streams so swollen from melted snows and rainy thaws that passage across them had to be by bridge, not ford.
Vercingetorix crossed from the eastern to the western bank of the Elaver immediately and demolished the bridge. Which forced Caesar to march down the eastern bank, Vercingetorix shadowing him on the other side. Demolishing all the bridges. Never good stonemasons, the Gauls preferred to build wooden bridges; the river roared and tumbled, impossible to cross. But then Caesar found what he was looking for, a wooden bridge which had been erected on stone pylons. Though the superstructure was gone, the pylons remained. That was enough. While four of his legions pretended to be six and marched southward, Caesar hid the remaining two in the forests of the eastern bank and waited until Vercingetorix moved onward. The two legions flung a new wooden bridge across the Elaver, marched over it, and were soon joined on the western bank by the other four.
Vercingetorix ran for Gergovia, but didn’t enter the great Arvernian oppidum, which sat on a small plateau in the midst of towering crags; a spur of the Cebenna thrusting westward provided Gergovia with some of the highest peaks in the Cebenna as shelter. The hundred thousand men the King of Gaul brought with him camped among the rugged high ground behind and flanking the oppidum, and waited for Caesar to arrive.
The sight was truly horrifying. Every rock seemed peppered with Gauls, and one glance at Gergovia was enough to tell Caesar that it could not be stormed; the answer was a blockade, and that was going to consume valuable time. More importantly, it was going to consume valuable food. Food Caesar didn’t have until the Aedui relief column arrived. But in the meantime there were things could be done, particularly seizure of a small hill with precipitous sides just below the Gergovian plateau.
“Once we own that hill, we can cut off almost all their water,” said Caesar. “We can also prevent their foraging.”
No sooner said than done; comfortable working in the dark, Caesar took the hill between midnight and dawn
, put Gaius Fabius and two legions in a strongly fortified camp there, and extended its fortifications to join those of his main camp by means of a great double ditch.
Midnight, in fact, was to prove a crucial hour in the action before Gergovia. Two midnights later, Eporedorix of the Aedui rode into Caesar’s main camp accompanied by Viridomarus, a lowborn man whom Caesar’s influence had seen promoted to the Aeduan senate.
“Litaviccus has gone over to Vercingetorix,” said Eporedorix, trembling. “What’s worse, so has the army. They’re marching for Gergovia as if to join you, but they’ve also sent to Vercingetorix. Once they’re inside your camp, the plan is to take it from within while Vercingetorix attacks from without.”
“Then I don’t have time to reduce the size of my camps,” said Caesar between his teeth. “Fabius, you’ll have to hold the big camp and the little camp with two legions; I can’t spare you a man more. I’ll be back within a day, but you’re going to have to last the day without me.”
“I’ll manage,” said Fabius.
Four legions and all the cavalry moved on the double out of camp shortly after, and met the approaching Aeduan army twenty-five miles down the Elaver shortly after dawn. Caesar sent in the four hundred Germans to soften the Aedui up, then attacked. The Aedui fled, but Caesar’s luck was out. Litaviccus managed to get through to Gergovia with most of the Aeduan army, and—far worse news—with all the supplies. Gergovia would eat. Caesar would not.
Two troopers arrived to tell the General that both camps were under fierce attack, but that Fabius was managing to hold them.
“All right, boys, we run the rest of the way!” Caesar shouted to those who could hear, and set off himself on foot.
Exhausted, they arrived to find Fabius still holding out.
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