‘Alright. Same route as last time. Cloaks and swords only, though. No armour.’
The two tribunes nodded and rushed across to collect their Gallic wool cloaks from the chair upon which they hung. Since leaving Bibracte their uniforms, armour and shields had all been stacked away in a cupboard in the farm house and every man, including the eight legionaries, had adopted the drab cloaks, rugged tunics and itchy, patterned trousers of the Gauls. Foregoing shaving, each of them had grown a full beard and their hair was ragged and unkempt after months of inattention.
Opening the door, Priscus nodded to legionary Cenialis, who worked a vegetable garden with no plants in it, hoeing the soil repeatedly to maintain the fiction of a working farm in winter.
‘Hold the fort, as it were, Cenialis. Tell the others to get the meal ready as normal. We’re going for a quick peek at the town, but we’ll be back within the hour.’
The legionary nodded his understanding and continued to hoe the soil as Priscus and the two tribunes ducked out of the door and disappeared around the side of the farmhouse, where they were out of sight of the oppidum and the party of warriors who had arrived at the gate now.
Jogging behind the pig sty, they ran along a bushy hedgerow until they reached the stream that ran between steep banks through the farm’s land. Turning, they descended into the gulley and lost sight of the oppidum altogether. A quick run along the stream’s bank, and they emerged into a small copse. Following an old game trail, they gradually climbed the slope and closed on Gergovia, as the clearer sounds from the town confirmed. If they paused, over their heaving breaths they could just hear the sound of heated argument at the gate.
A hundred heartbeats later, they arrived at the treeline, where they dropped into the undergrowth, their view of the gate of Gergovia not as well-angled as from the farm window, but much closer and within earshot. Whatever the argument had been about it seemed to have been resolved. Vercingetorix and his men - for that was certainly who they were - had entered the oppidum and the gates were closing. Priscus cursed under his breath. Had they got here a little earlier and brought one of the natives to translate, they might have learned something. It seemed that they had missed whatever had happened.
‘What now?’ whispered Fabius breathlessly.
Priscus tried not to squint as he turned to Fabius and noted once again how the tribune’s real eye turned to him while the painted, false one continued to stare out blindly at the city ahead. He shuddered despite himself.
‘We’ve got time. We’re in no immediate danger unless their hunters or wood-gatherers come out for the woods. We wait.’
The three men settled into the brush and Furius produced a water-skin, taking a quick swig and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before passing it round.
A shout from the Oppidum that rose above the general daily hubbub caught their attention, and the drink container paused mid-pass.
‘What the hell was that?’
‘Sounded angry.’
More shouting and a roar from a larger group of people. Priscus frowned. ‘That’s no small argument. That’s a public event.’
‘And it’s got to involve that shitbag who just arrived.’
Priscus nodded. Where the hell was Pixtilos?
‘I am somewhat torn between waiting to find out what’s going on and getting the hell out of here as fast as my legs can carry me,’ Priscus muttered, raising a nod from the other two.
A cry of dismay suddenly arose in the oppidum, followed by a surge of shouting and anger.
‘Something is definitely going on,’ Fabius muttered, scratching his hand.
‘Well done,’ Priscus grunted. ‘Nice to see the loss of an eye hasn’t made you any less perceptive.’
Furius gave a low throaty laugh, and then his face dropped into a mask of seriousness once again. ‘Question is: was that anger directed at our favourite exiled puppy or at the old men who run the place?’
‘The very question bothering me,’ Priscus agreed and frowned as the silence was suddenly interrupted by a chant, which began as a call by a few voices and was soon taken up by dozens of the Arverni. ‘I wish we had one of the natives with us!’ grumbled Priscus. ‘I’d give good money to know what they’re chanting.’
‘Chanting is never good,’ Furius said quietly. ‘And that’s hungry chanting. That’s like the crowd at the games when they’re waiting for a champion to make the killing blow.’
Priscus nodded. He’d formed a similar opinion. The hair was standing proud on the back of his neck. He felt the distinct and growing urge to put boot leather to forest floor and get back to the farm, but fought the urge. No matter how much he might want to be close to his armour and the horses - as well as their comrades - it was important to find out everything they could right now, given the sudden change in the atmosphere. Besides, some sixth sense was pressing him to remain…
‘Something’s happening!’ Fabius hissed, pointing at the gate. Priscus and Furius moved their focus from the source of the chanting somewhere in the oppidum’s centre, and followed their companion’s gesture to the main gate, which was opening.
The three men watched with bated breath as figures emerged.
‘There he is again, with his warriors.’
The chanting was still rising from the centre of the oppidum, and Priscus felt a momentary wave of relief. He’d had a horrible feeling that the chanting was Vercingetorix and his men. But the fact that they were now leaving the oppidum again, so soon after their arrival and after an apparently-violent argument went a little way to assuaging his fears.
‘Looks like their elders have denied them something,’ Furius smiled. ‘Good. Serves the bastard right.’
‘Wait,’ hissed Fabius, pointing again. The others followed his finger and it took them a moment to spot what he was gesturing at. Priscus felt that relief slip away again into a pit of anxiety as he realised what was happening.
Though Vercingetorix and his warriors had mounted once more and emerged from the city, not all of his party had headed out into the open. As the young noble rode out to the grassland before the gate, a small party of his warriors had dropped from their horses at the threshold and split up. Some had rushed to the sides of the gate and appeared to be fighting with their tribesmen, while others were scurrying up onto the ramparts at the gate’s top, running for the defenders thereupon.
‘What are they doing? There’s only a score of them! That’s like a Fronto plan!’
Priscus nodded at Furius’ appraisal of the situation, but felt his heart sink as the next step in these events unfolded. At a blast from the Carnyx, warriors began to emerge from the woodlands before the gate, swarming towards the oppidum. They came like a tide of men, tooled for war and bellowing cries of anger and triumph. Shouts of alarm went up from the city, and Priscus recognised the sounds of a Gallic settlement scrambling to defend themselves, but there was plainly no hope. With the gate already in the hands of Vercingetorix and his army seething towards them, there was nothing the people of Gergovia could do but capitulate. Besides, most of their strong young warriors were with the rebel.
‘I think the elders have lost their control over him,’ Fabius hissed.
‘Again with the skills of observation!’ snapped Priscus irritably.
‘What now? Do we run?’
‘Soon. It’s not over yet.’
Fabius turned his disconcertingly disparate gaze on Priscus and frowned. The prefect pointed at the woodland and the two tribunes peered out at the trees and furrowed their brows further. Though the sizeable army - probably five hundred men at Priscus’ estimate - had already cleared the woods and begun the seizure of the town, Vercingetorix and his companions among them once more, another small party had emerged from the treeline. This group wore the long robes indicative of druids and Priscus felt a thrill of loathing run through him.
‘Never a good sign.’
Priscus wished his eyesight was better as he squinted at the group. They were stroll
ing across the grass towards the gate of Gergovia, and as they entered, a small group of warriors remained outside on guard, the gate still invitingly open.
The sounds arising from the centre of the oppidum were horribly familiar to the three men watching from the woods. The noise of a city falling was a mix of shouts of alarm and those of rage, screams of fear and of pain, the crash of weapons and smash of doors thrown open. For what seemed an age, the three men watched the empty walls of Gergovia and listened to the sounds of its fall. Eventually, with a sigh, Priscus broke the spell.
‘Normally I’d be overjoyed to learn of a civil war breaking out among these bastards,’ he mumbled. ‘But if it ends with that man in control of the city, I’m less of a fan.’
‘Worse than that,’ Furius added, ‘if he controls Gergovia, he probably controls the whole tribe.’
‘And with the Arverni behind him he’ll be in the position the Aedui said he couldn’t achieve. Those with a grudge against us could flock to him. What we saw with Ambiorix and Indutiomarus would be nothing. They were Belgae spoiling for a fight. This man has the druids behind him and has been building towards something for at least two years.’
Again, Furius nudged Priscus and pointed.
Atop the ramparts of Gergovia, figures were appearing. Men and women, young and old, were brought up and positioned at the edge of the rampart in a line. Even from here, Priscus could see the twinkle of jewellery, torcs and arm-rings. These were the nobles and leaders of the oppidum.
‘Don’t much fancy their chances,’ grunted Fabius.
The others nodded, watching impassively as Vercingetorix appeared on the walls along with a druid. Steadily, with a powerful stride and his head high, the young warrior-noble started down the line of his opposition in the city, pausing at each figure only long enough to slit their throat with his long, sharp knife and shove them over the parapet and down into the ditch outside the city.
‘I don’t think we need be in any doubt as to who’s in control now.’
As the three watched the grisly executions, Priscus shuddered. ‘If he’ll do that to his own tribe, I hate to think what he has planned for us… and worse still, for those native tribes who are loyal to us!’
‘I think we need to get back to the farm,’ said Furius quietly. Fabius nodded his agreement, but Priscus shook his head. Though it seemed extremely unlikely they would learn anything more of use, that strange sense that sometimes told him things were not what they seemed told him to stay still.
‘We wait.’
‘What for?’
‘I don’t know. Trust me and sit tight.’
Fabius shrugged and took a swig of the water again, passing the skin to Furius, who joined him.
‘Do you think the Aedui will support him?’
‘Who knows?’ Priscus muttered. ‘With him in the game, I’d say all wagers are off. I wouldn’t like to guess how long any tribe’s oath to Caesar will stand when they’re lined up along the edge of a precipice and their throats are being cut.’
They watched as Vercingetorix and his druid companion descended from the rampart again, disappearing from sight, and two warriors produced buckets of water to swill the blood from the wall top. A long silence fell as the oppidum wallowed sullenly in the grip of its prodigal son and crucial things happened somewhere within, out of their view. Priscus watched, that prickly feeling still jabbing at him, keeping him alert and expectant.
Fabius and Furius fell to intermittently watching the quiet, seething city and eyeing their commander anxiously. Both were twitching to return to their armour and horses, to where their companions waited along with the only method of fleeing this place at speed. Occasionally, the pair would share a look. Or at least three of their four eyes would, while Fabius’ other one kept a watch on the trees for rogue squirrels.
Furius was just taking a breath to urge for a move when Priscus hissed and gestured at the gate. The two tribunes followed his pointing finger and shrank back into the undergrowth as half a dozen figures emerged.
In front was Vercingetorix, every bit the tribal chieftain, glowing with power, great long sword in one hand and bloodied knife in the other. Behind him came another warrior, well armoured and well-decorated with silver and gold and bronze, marking him out as one of the leaders. Third came one of the druids - a big man, the size and shape of a wrestler, almost a match for the powerful rebel leader. Three men of importance and power. But it was the next three that had drawn the hiss from Priscus and which made the others shrink further from sight.
Two of Vercingetorix’s men emerged onto the grass, dragging a third figure between them and even from this distance, Priscus recognised the form of Pixtilos the merchant, his distinct green tunic and grey trousers stained with dark patches, his limbs limp and head hanging forward.
‘Oh shit.’
Vercingetorix began to speak, not loud enough for the three to hear, even if they could have understood the words. Whether Pixtilos answered him or not, they could not tell, but the druid shuffled close and spoke to the prisoner. The senior warrior then stepped forward and cuffed the merchant across the cheek, hard enough to dislocate or break bone, and was admonished by the druid, presumably for his roughness. Priscus nodded his understanding. No matter what the circumstances you never hit a prisoner hard enough to break his jaw when you wanted him to talk to you.
While the three men held their breath, they watched with dismay as the merchant slowly raised his head, his face bloody and misshapen, and pointed directly at the farm.
‘We have to warn them,’ Fabius whispered, Furius nodding his agreement.
Priscus stood still as a statue, his eyes locked on the six men. Yes, the men did deserve the warning - though Cenialis hoeing the garden should spot approaching men in good time - but he couldn’t help but notice how Pixtilos, now that his interrogation was temporarily done with, glanced up in their direction and appeared to be looking at them. The merchant had known about their hiding place, of course, had been instrumental in their finding it in the first place. He hadn’t given them up yet, but then he couldn’t know they were there right now, could he?
Priscus couldn’t help feeling the silent plea in that look. Vercingetorix had cut the throats of his own family for denying him the power he probably saw as his right. What would he be prepared to do to one of his people he saw as a traitor in bed with Rome?
Turning his thoughts with some difficulty from the dreadful fate that might await the man who had helped them so often and so much, Priscus gestured back towards the stream with his thumb.
The three men backed away from the edge of the coppice, moving slowly and carefully at first, so as not to show up as sudden movement and so as not to spook the wildlife and send birds up into the canopy. They could not afford to attract attention right now.
As soon as they were away and in the heart of the copse, though, they scrambled down through the wet ground towards the stream and began to run.
The ground was soft from the wet winter atmosphere and the mud and straggly turf by the stream squelched and shifted dangerously under the three men’s feet as they ran, threatening to upend them more than once, and it was more by luck and momentum than by balance that the officers reached the lower stretch near the farm without having fallen painfully into the narrow, cold flow.
At the lowest point, where the stream turned away and disappeared down the valley to join the Elaver river rushing north, Priscus grasped the projecting root of a long-dead tree to haul himself up to the level of the hedgerow that ran up to the farm buildings. Pulling himself up from the sucking earth of the stream bank, the prefect gave a sharp squawk of surprise as he found himself jerked back down, his hands scraping painfully off the root.
Shaken, as he stumbled and tried not to fall, he turned an angry glare on Furius, who was still gripping him tight, but the tribune merely shook his head and held up a finger to his lips, motioning for silence. Following his companion’s lead, Priscus steadied himself, breathing q
uietly and with deliberate slowness, and rose once more to look over the edge of the stream gulley, a tribune on each side.
A party of Gauls were reining in their mounts in the courtyard in front of the farm buildings. Priscus cursed inwardly. They had returned as fast as they could by the slightly circuitous route, but they’d been on troublesome ground and on foot. The Arverni had ridden horses steadily across the flat, strong terrain between and had easily reached the buildings first.
Crouched, only their eyes and the top of their heads visible over the ridge, and those partially obscured by flora and root systems, the three officers watched with a sense of dread as a score of warriors arrived. Vercingetorix was there, along with the druid from the city’s gate and the decorated warrior who had been with him. The rest all had the look of hardened fighters and were clearly the men who had been travelling the countryside with their leader. One of them had Pixtilos the merchant over the saddle of a spare horse, tied by wrists and ankles with a rope that ran beneath the beast’s girth.
Half a dozen of them remained in the saddle, along with the prisoner, while the others straightened on foot, rubbing their hands and stretching their muscles.
Vercingetorix turned his sword over and over slowly in his grasp before looking up at the front of the farmhouse, out of sight of the three watchers, and opening his mouth, clearing his throat.
‘Show yourself, Romans!’
Priscus was surprised at the clarity of the man’s Latin, spoken with an accent reminiscent of a citizen of Narbo and without the hint of Gallic distain that so often carried through when natives spoke to their occupiers.
There was a long pause. From their angle of view by the stream, the three watchers could not see the front of the farm house, but at an angle, they could see those standing outside. What was happening in the building? After a tense few heartbeats, a figure stepped out. They couldn’t quite see him, and couldn’t immediately identify the new arrival, but his footsteps bore the familiar crunch of nailed boots on compacted earth and grit ground, and briefly they caught a glimpse of glinting metal around the building’s corner as the man moved.
Marius' Mules: Prelude to War Page 8