Marius' Mules IV: Conspiracy of Eagles

by S. J. A. Turney

  Labienus lowered his eyes deferentially, though Cicero met the general’s gaze staunchly for a moment before he nodded.

  “Apologies Caesar” Labienus said quietly. “We spoke out of place.”

  “You did. Let this be an end to it. What do we know or suspect of the enemy camp?”

  Fronto, glancing briefly at Cicero, turned to the general again.

  “Nothing concrete, general. Varus suspects it’s close. When the cavalry were attacked, the enemy horse were fresh, and they had peasants with them who would have travelled by foot. They wouldn’t have spent the night there waiting for us; with that many horses, they most likely came straight from their main camp at dawn. That all suggests that the enemy is encamped not more than, say, twenty miles away, at an educated guess.”

  Tetricus cleared his throat.

  “With respect, Caesar, I think we will find the enemy encamped close to the Mosella, if not directly on its bank. They will need fresh water and only that river is large enough to supply such a force in this area. Also, they must have some method of crossing the flow. Quite apart from having come from the far side of the Rhenus in the first place, we know that they sent their cavalry out a few days ago to raid south of the Mosella, so they must have rafts at or near their camp in enough size and quantity to transfer a large cavalry force across the river.”

  Fronto nodded thoughtfully.

  “Also, if they’ve been there long enough to send out long-range raiding parties, then that camp is at least semi-permanent. I’m guessing it could be fortified.”

  Caesar leaned on the table again, his decorative, sharp blade still standing proud from it as a reminder to the more argumentative in the room.

  “We must hit them hard enough to break their will, and it would be to our advantage to attack them before their cavalry return from the south. Each legion will leave their Tenth cohort with the baggage train, along with all their standard kit. The army will travel light and fast and equipped only to fight.”

  He turned to Fronto.

  “I recognise your concerns about the possibilities of them laying traps and ambushes on the route, but we cannot afford to risk their cavalry returning because we are slow and cautious. We will have to rely on scouts out in force to identify any trouble spots before we run into them.”

  Standing straight again, Caesar’s gaze passed around the assembled officers.

  “Return to your units and prepare to march, gentlemen.”

  * * * * *

  “You won’t bloody believe it, Gantus!”

  The legionary on the far end of the four-hole wooden latrine seat that covered the stinking pit frowned at the man who had just pushed his head round the rough-hewn timber doorway. Another innovation of Priscus as camp prefect was to do away with the latrine tents that some units favoured and to close in the open trenches that others preferred, surrounding each latrine with a simple slat-wood wall that provided a measure of privacy, prevented the wind blowing the smell across the camp at ground level, and yet allowed air to circulate within and keep the gag-inducing stench a little more subdued.

  Fronto looked up from his seat at the opposite end, where he had been sitting, casually reading the medicus’ injury and sickness figures for the Tenth. Curiously, despite his popularity that had always made him ‘almost-one-of-the-men’, legionaries still deferentially used the latrine seat furthest away from him.

  That, or possibly it was the spiced lamb he’d had last night was having a more powerful effect than he realised. Raising a leg to flatulate more comfortably, he watched the man’s face as he realised there was a senior officer present and saluted.

  “At ease. All men are equal in the shitter.”

  “What’s up?” Gantus asked from the far end, reaching for the sponge on a stick in its water tub and eyeing it suspiciously. “Wish some people would make more effort to clean the sponge afterwards. I’ll be more shitty after this than I was before.”

  Fronto smiled and reached to the small bucket next to him, removing his personal stick-sponge and proffering it along the bench.

  “I want it so clean afterwards you’d stir your soup with it. Understand?”

  “Thanks sir” Gantus smiled and went to work, arcing a questioning eyebrow at his visitor.

  “The barbarians have sent more ambassadors. The gate guard didn’t know what to do with them, but the duty centurion had them disarmed and taken to the stockade.”

  Fronto frowned.

  “After yesterday, they’d dare try and talk to us again? Caesar’ll be pleased as punch.”

  At the far end of the seat, Gantus hurriedly cleaned himself up and then very thoroughly washed out the sponge before returning it to Fronto’s bucket.

  “Thanks again, sir.”

  Fronto waved a hand dismissively and then stood, snapping shut the tablet and rapidly cleaning himself before pulling up his breeches and following the two legionaries out of the latrine.

  Though the legate had not yet seen the stockade in the latest camp, it was not hard to locate, the roar of jeering soldiers drawing his attention. As he walked swiftly out to the main thoroughfare, he could see Caesar, Labienus, Brutus and Priscus striding toward the scene. Pausing, he fell in alongside.

  “You’ve heard the news then?” Priscus asked.

  “Yes. I find it somewhat hard to believe, though. Are they crazed?”

  “Let us find out” Caesar said with a cold, malicious smile.

  The stockade was a simple palisade of twelve foot stakes, with a door held closed by a heavy bar. There was room within to contain a dozen men comfortably or a century in cramped conditions. The eight-man contubernium guarding the stockade stood to attention, as alert as could be, keeping the gathered crowd of soldiers back largely by the force of their challenging glares.

  Fronto’s eyes played across the shouting, jeering crowd. It came as little surprise to him that only perhaps a quarter of them were legionaries, the rest being Gallic cavalrymen, many with some small wound marking them as soldiers who had survived the massacre the previous day. Their anger was entirely justified and the joint hatred of these Germanic invaders seemed to have bound the regular legionaries and their auxiliary Gaulish counterparts together in a camaraderie that had not previously been evident.

  The duty centurion and a contubernium of his men stood nearby, watching the scene carefully.

  “If you really want to take it out on these ambassadors” Fronto muttered to Caesar, “all you have to do is open the doors and let those cavalrymen in. They’ll tear them to shreds by hand.”

  Caesar nodded.

  “I cannot deny it is tempting. But I want to speak to them first.”

  As they arrived, the duty centurion bellowed a command that opened up a path through the crowd. Caesar and his party of officers strode through. Labienus’ face, Fronto noted, showed a personal battle raging within, conflicting emotions fighting for control of him. The man was the army’s greatest advocate for peaceful solutions these days.

  Fronto had asked him about it one night in camp and Labienus’ eyes had taken on a haunted look. “Back when we fought the Belgae, Marcus” he had replied. “Women and children. Old men. So many. So needless. Just so that they couldn’t be enslaved. You never saw the piles of babies. It... it changes a man.”

  Fronto had tactfully pressed no further, but something that had happened to Labienus two years ago seemed to have knocked from him the will to conquer. In its place it had left a man who Fronto – truth be told – much preferred. The Labienus who served Caesar now was a thoughtful, peaceful and calm man. He would be a man Fronto would value as a friend in Puteoli. But to an army on campaign, all it did was make him less effective and possibly even dangerous to have along. Even now he fought his own demons at every turn.

  Labienus seemed to come to some decision and his face took on a stony impassiveness.

  At a word from Caesar, the man on each side of the gate set his pilum point-down in the turf and heaved the bar to on
e side, freeing the gate. Two other men immediately moved in with their javelins, keeping them levelled as the gate ground slowly open. The caution turned out to be somewhat unnecessary, given that the dozen prisoners sat at the far side of the enclosure, their arms encircling their knees.

  After the group of low-status warriors and peasants that had masqueraded as ambassadors yesterday to keep the officers busy, these men were clearly the real thing. Their weapons and armour had been stripped by the duty officer and his men upon their arrival, but their clothes were reminiscent of the high quality woollen garments worn by the Belgic nobles, and they were adorned with gold and bronze arm rings, torcs and finger rings.

  As Caesar strode first into the enclosure, waving aside the worried protests of the guards, the enemy ambassadors stood and bowed surprisingly deeply and deferentially.

  “Great Caesar.”

  The general said nothing, merely coming to a halt in the centre of the stockade, with his officers fanning out to either side.

  “Caesar, we have come to denounce a traitor in our own tribe and publically distance ourselves from the man who led an unauthorised attack on your army yesterday. If you will agree to hear us out and open talks with us, we are authorised to deliver this man to you for punishment.”

  An unpleasant, feral smile curved Caesar’s lip.

  “Fronto is right. You are relaxed and vital. You have not been in the saddle more than a few hours. I think your camp is less than twenty miles away; perhaps even ten.”

  The ambassadors frowned at the strange turn of conversation.

  Caesar turned to the duty centurion who had moved in with his men to join them. “Your sword please, centurion.”

  The officer obliged, withdrawing a well-tended and wickedly-sharp gladius with a personalised hilt bearing images of the Dioscuri carved in bone. Caesar reached across and took the handle with an appreciative gaze. “A nice weapon, centurion. I shall be careful not to damage it.”

  Everyone in the party accompanying the general had a fair idea of what was about to happen next. Labienus, Fronto noted, turned his face away.

  Caesar stepped forward, the sword hanging by his side, coming to a halt an arm’s-length away from the vocal diplomat. Without preamble or explanation, he lanced out with the blade, driving the point into the man’s stomach. The barbarian’s eyes widened in shock, but Caesar calmly turned the sword slightly and ripped it across to the other side of the man’s stomach, tearing the steel free at the furthest extent and raising it to look at the crimson blade.

  “It may, however, need a good clean, centurion.”

  The officer shrugged. “I have a man for that, general.”

  The barbarian stared down at the wide slash in his belly, his eyes wide with shock, fresh waves of horror and nausea assaulting him as he watched the first purple and pale coils of his intestines slipping out of the hole. Desperately, he grasped the loops and tried to prevent their escape, stuffing is own insides back through the jagged rent. Caesar watched with an interested frown as the man gradually went pale with the pain and effort and sank to his knees in tears, trying to contain his innards.

  The other eleven ambassadors had moved sharply forward at the attack, but the centurion’s men had stepped to meet them, javelins and swords levelled threateningly.

  “What is the meaning of this?” demanded one of the nobles in very strong Latin, though thick with some barbaric accent.

  Caesar glanced down at the man and then the blade in his hand, flexing his arm muscles as though preparing for another strike.

  “Sometimes” he said quietly, “people can assume that threats are merely empty, hollow things that are used to bargain with. I wanted you to be very well aware of the realism and accuracy of any threat I might level. I hope that this has made very clear just how little your very existence means to me and to what levels I am prepared to sink to achieve my aims.”

  There was a silence that spoke of frightened understanding.

  “Good. We have fallen foul of your trickery once and our cavalry paid a heavy price.”

  He stepped toward the man who had challenged his strike. The man backed a step away, but Caesar followed a pace and the man suddenly became aware that other soldiers had entered the stockade and lined the walls, surrounding them all.

  “Now” Caesar said calmly, “tell me the precise location of your camp.”

  The man frowned. “We are camped by the river near here.”

  “Not precise enough.” Caesar’s blade lanced out, cutting a slice from the man’s arm. The ambassador cried out in pain.

  “Oh shut up, man. I’ve suffered worse myself. Now tell me the precise location of your camp.”

  One of the other barbarians stepped forward. “Three hours ride at an easy pace, general Caesar. Follow the river and you will find the going easiest.”

  “And the traps most numerous, no doubt.” Caesar replied.

  “Traps, Caesar?”

  With a lightning-quick move, Caesar’s sword arm jerked up. The sharp tip of the blade sliced through the lightly-wounded ambassador’s neck just below his jawline, up through his mouth, shattering teeth, the point appearing through the man’s tongue as he opened his mouth to scream.

  “I want to know about the ambushes and traps you have set between here and there. You!” he barked at the man who had volunteered the information, ripping the blade out from his latest victim’s throat. “And you” he pointed the gore-slicked sword at a man who had cowered from the outset, shrinking back away from the violence. “You two will go with this man” he gestured at Priscus ”and you will tell him everything he wishes to know. The prefect is an astute man and will know instinctively if you lie to him. If he is satisfied that you have answered everything truthfully, he will return your mounts to you and you will be free to return to your people. That is the limit of my mercy.”

  The two men’s eyes took on a hungry desperation as Priscus gestured to them, four of the legionaries stepping out to join him in escorting them away. Caesar waited until they had left, watching the life draining with infinite slowness from the man who sat cross-legged on the floor, whimpering and burbling to his own intestines. Gut wounds could linger for days.

  Slowly he looked up at the nine men who remained standing, one of whom was clutching his neck as blood ran between his fingers and soaked into his woollen tunic.

  “Two of you get to live, for now.” He gestured apparently at random to two of the ambassadors, though Fronto knew damn well that nothing Caesar did was random and that the two men he had picked out were those who had remained as far apart from the rest as possible. Cowards? Or at least men with some sense of self-preservation.

  With a gesture to the duty centurion, Caesar stepped back. The centurion and his men rough-handled the two prisoners away. Caesar gestured to him as he left and handed back the crimson sword. The seven remaining ambassadors watched with leaden faces as Caesar stepped back from the circle, gesturing for his senior officers to join him. As they reached the gate, Caesar issued a further command and the legionaries who had lined the inner face of the stockade filed slowly out. The ambassadors stood in confusion in the centre as the circular space emptied around them. Outside, the guards made to close the door but Caesar stayed their hands with an order.

  With a gleam of vengeance in his eye, he turned to the assembled mass of angry Gallic auxiliaries.

  “Inside are seven of the leaders responsible for your fight yesterday. Do as you will with them, but I want their heads at least vaguely recognisable afterwards.”

  A roar of approval went up among the angry Gauls and Fronto swallowed, his mouth dry at the thought of what was about to happen within that stockade. Dozens and dozens of cavalrymen pushed and jostled to get to the entrance and have a first go at the prisoners.

  Caesar glanced around and his gaze fell on a regular cavalry decurion in the crowd. He gestured with a crooked finger and the man strode over, saluting.

  “Once it’s over, have their
heads removed, cleaned and bagged up for the journey.”

  The soldier saluted again. Fronto looked across at Caesar as they started to walk away.

  “What of the two you had removed at the end there?”

  Caesar shrugged. “Priscus will probably get everything we need from the first two, but I thought it prudent to have two men spare for him to question afterwards.”

  “And will they be released afterwards as well?”

  Caesar flashed a genuine frown of incomprehension at him.

  “As well?” Realisation struck him. “Oh you expect me to release the first two after interrogation? Marcus, if everything goes the way I expect there will not be enough of them left to ride a horse afterwards. There are times, Marcus,“ he added with a curious smile “when you are almost deliciously naïve.”

  * * * * *

  Fronto glanced over his shoulder, trying to keep his mind on the mundanities of legion command, the ordered lines of soldiers marching through the dust behind him, kicking up clouds of grey, the standards glinting in the sunlight, the crimson flags that stood out blood-red against the blue and green of the summer’s day…

  But the problem was that even they were too reminiscent and drew his gaze back around to settle on the grisly sight at the front of the army.

  Twelve bearded, top-knotted, grisly severed heads bounced up and down on the tips of spears, bobbing along to the gait of the walking horses beneath them. Caesar’s cavalry guard had been given the ‘honour’ of carrying the trophies, and Aulus Ingenuus had selected a dozen of his toughest and most loyal men to carry out the unpleasant task. Flies buzzed in clouds around them where they rode, at the ‘head’ of the army, as Priscus had put it in a moment of attempted light relief.

  It was yet another display of ruthlessness from the general that jarred his sensibilities, and yet Fronto could not help but think that the fault really lay with himself. Somehow, despite having served for over a decade with Caesar, in two different theatres of war, deep down Fronto still expected Caesar to live up to the expectations that he’d had all those years ago when he disembarked in Hispania to take up his post. The fact that Caesar consistently failed to live up to them was more likely a problem with his own expectations being too high than with Caesar being less than he could be.