The Swabian Affair

by Ray Gleason

  He bent over, picked up the sica, briefly examined it, then shrugged. “I trust you weren’t harmed, me’ domina,” he finished, tossing the dagger back on the floor.

  I heard an unworldly shriek.

  Gabinia was off her couch, coming at me, blood-red claws out! I caught her wrists and quickly pivoted my hips, catching the knee that was meant for my testicles on my upper thigh. I knew that would leave a bruise!

  She spat in my face, shrieking, “You mentul’! You verpa! No snot-nosed, Gallic, cunnus says no to Gabinia Pulchra.”

  “Is this how Romans perform foreplay?” Athauhnu asked dryly.

  I fleetingly wondered where Athauhnu had picked up the Latin word for “foreplay,” but another knee drove into my leg, and I remembered that I had my hands full with a raging Fury who wanted to kill me.

  I released Gabinia’s hands, but before she could do any damage to my face with her nails, I pushed her shoulders hard. She fell backward onto the couch.

  “I think we have overstayed our welcome here!” I said to Athauhnu.

  Gabinia continued to scream at me, saying I was a dead man, that she wouldn’t rest until she had me killed and fed my body to pigs. Athauhnu and I beat a hasty retreat. We collected our gear from the peristylium and left quickly through the kitchens. Athauhnu grabbed a handful of olives on the way out.

  As we hurried toward the stables, where we expected to find our horses, Athauhnu chuckled, “Now I know why all you Romans are up here in Gaul!”

  “Pro qua?” I responded. “Why?”

  “With women like that, you need to get as far away from Rome as you can!”

  V.

  De Proposito Novo Caesaris

  CAESAR’S NEW AMBITIONS

  Bello Helvetiorum confecto totius fere Galliae legati principes civitatum ad Caesarem gratulatum convenerunt

  “When the war with the Helvetians was concluded, envoys from almost every nation of Gaul, the leading men of their tribes, assembled to give thanks to Caesar.”

  (from Gaius Marius Insubrecus’ notebook of Caesar’s journal)

  Throughout my military career, the speed at which rumor and gossip spread among the muli always amazed me. I don’t think we were back in the legionary camps around Bibracte more than an hour before the boys were giving me the big grin, clapping me on the shoulder, and asking questions like, “Hey, Pagane! You set the date yet?” Or, “What you give your new bride as a wedding present? Your balls?” Even Emlun, Athauhnu’s nephew, walked up to me, shook my hand solemnly and said, “Arth Uthr, if you haven’t anyone to stand as a witness for you at the wedding, I would be honored.”

  I felt nothing as my mates ribbed me, at least not about what had happened with Gabi. At the time, I wondered at my lack of grief over her.

  I have discovered in my career that, when a man receives a physical wound, a thrust from a sword or a slashing blow with a dagger, often he feels nothing at first. A deep thrust from a spear can feel no more serious than a punch in the stomach.

  During the battle against the Liberatores at Phillipi, some podex got in around my open side and slashed my forearm with a gladius or a pugio. He opened my arm down to the bone. I felt the blow, but not the pain. I wrapped the wound in my sudarium, my neck scarf, and continued the fight. When the battle was done and my arm began to ache, I was almost surprised when I uncovered my wound. The worst pain I felt was when Spina poured that rot-gut wine of his over my arm and started stitching me up.

  The medici cannot explain the numbness that comes with a sudden deep wound, other than to shrug and declare that the temporary suspension of pain is a gift of the gods. Spina theorizes that the wound itself does not generate pain; some other part of our bodies registers it. What part of the body and how it might be connected to other parts, Spina has no idea.

  I’ve found that the motus animi, the gyrations of the mind that we sense as distress and anguish, act in a similar manner. We receive a blow—the death of a close comrade, the loss of a child—and when the blow lands, we feel nothing. And, in that brief interim between injury and pain, we have a chance to bury the shock of the wound deeply in the dark recesses of the anima, where ratio, human reason, never goes.

  I think I had convinced myself that somehow I had not really lost my Gabi. That murderous harpy, Gabinia Calpurnia Pulchra, was an imposter, some grotesque parody of my beloved, a changling foisted upon me by the Danu, the dark god. Somewhere my Gabi, the girl with whom I took wild rides up into the Gallic hills, the girl whose hand I held in a shady, enchanted mountain glen while she read poetry to me, still existed and still awaited my return.

  Perhaps the medici are right and this period of numbness is, indeed, a gift of the gods, meant to protect the animus, our consciousness, from the crippling awareness of loss and heartache. By the time I realized that my sentiments were wrong, that my Gabi had indeed morphed into a self-serving, homicidal virago named Gabinia Calpurnia Pulchra, I no longer cared. I had other worries.

  The mockery and jokes didn’t bother me either. When the veterani treat a first-campaigner like this, it’s actually a sign of acceptance, an acknowledgement that the tiro, the rookie, is now one of them.

  Besides, we were all in a good mood. With the defeat of the Helvetii, we assumed this year’s campaigning season was over and soon we would be moving south into the warmer climes of the Provincia for the winter.

  Caesar soon demonstrated to us the danger of making assumptions, regardless of how sensible they might seem, especially when they concerned his decisions.

  During the third hour of our second day back, Caesar asked Labienus to give him a briefing on the state of the army. It was not a consilium, a war council. None of the senior officers were present. The only reason I was at headquarters was to try and make sense out of Caesar’s journals for inclusion in his dispatches to Rome.

  I was sitting at a field desk in the rear of Caesar’s cubiculum, barely able to see over a virtual wall of tabulae, wax tablets, that had been accumulating in my absence. Caesar was seated by the campaign maps hung along the tent walls, while Labienus was standing and reading from the latest adminsitrative and logistics reports.

  “So, after cross-leveling, we can field six operational legions, each of which is between 60-63 percent full strength, giving us a battleline strength of 18,787 muli and legionary-grade officers. We still have 682 men under medical care. The medici estimate that less than half of these will be back to full-duty status in the next sixty days. The rest may need to be mustered out.”

  “I understand the strength issues, Labienus,” Caesar interrupted. “Tell me again about our rations status.”

  “Certainly, Caesar,” Labienus responded. He closed the tabula from which he was reading and bent over to find another, which was mixed in a stack of reports on a chair next to Caesar.

  Finally finding the logistics summary, Labienus opened it and reviewed it for a few heartbeats before speaking. “Drinking water’s no problem . . . plenty of wells and springs in the area . . . We have enough livestock, grain, and sundries on hand to maintain the army at full rations for seven days . . . nine at the most . . . Most rations are being drawn from the Aedui . . . more than enough to sustain us until we move south.”

  “What makes you think we’re moving south, Labienus?” Caesar interrupted again.

  At that, I stopped fussing with the tabulae on my desk and gave Caesar my full attention.

  Caesar’s statement almost knocked Labienus off his cart. “Uh. . . with the Helvetii defeated and returned to the Rhenus, I assumed—”

  Caesar changed the subject. “On my way back to our camps, I noticed teams of Roman finitores, surveyors, at work between here and the Rhonus. I assume you ordered this. For what purpose?”

  Labienus was totally off script now. The logistics report, from which he had been reading, hung in his left hand at his side. “They are surveying the army’s route back to the Provincia, Caesar. They are also to locate bridging points on the Rhonus for our crossin
g and sites on the south bank for camps—”

  “Us’erit,” Caesar interrupted him. “That will be useful, but I want you to change their mission.”

  While Labienus scrambled to find the tabula he used to take notes, Caesar continued, “Instruct the surveyors that I want them to plot the route of a logistics road between here and the river . . . a road capable of supporting heavy wagons . . . bridges over the Rhonus. . . heavy duty and semi-permanent . . . Also, plot the site of a logistics depot on our side of the river, capable of supplying this army . . . Tell them to keep in mind that they have to integrate the depot with the existing road network in the Provincia. My eventual goal is to have a via munita, a continuous ribbon of Roman paving stone from the docks at Massilia to my supply depot on the banks of the Rhonus . . . and at least a via glareata . . . gravel, not packed earth . . . from the Rhonus to our camps here.”

  Labienus was scribbling feverishly into his wax tabula. I had totally abandoned my work, wondering where Caesar was going with this. A dark thought was forming itself in my mind. Our expectations to be in winter quarters south of the Rhonus before the harvest began were evaporating in the heat of Caesar’s new enthusiasms.

  “Are we abandoning the depot at Lugdunum of the Sequani?” Labienus suddenly asked.

  The question stopped Caesar dead in his tracks. I could feel his mind processing the question. “No! No, I don’t think so,” he answered. “That position could prove quite useful to us in the future.”

  Future! I thought. What plans does the imperator have for this army? What would a supply depot that far east be useful for?

  “That’s an execellent observation, Labienus!” Caesar continued. “That oppidum sits at the confluence of the Rhonus and the Arar. The high ground and bluffs are easily defensible . . . and it borders our Provincia . . . No . . . we will not abandon that position. . . It’s strategically critical to us . . . Have our surveyors determine whether the Rhonus is navigable by barge to Lugdunum . . . I imagine the natives can tell us . . . If it isn’t, can we make it so? . . . Then we will survey the Arar to the north . . . Again, the Aedui and Sequani who inhabit the area have the answers we need . . . I’m especially interested in a river, a tributary of the Arar known as Flumen Nig’rum . . . the Black River . . . The Greek geographies call it the Dubis. Gai! Since you’ve been easedropping on this conversation, tell me . . . what is the Gallic name for the Black River?”

  I should have known by that time that Caesar had eyes in the back of his head and had seen me sitting there at my desk with my mouth hanging open. “The Black River, Patrone? That would be Uhr Afon Du,” I translated.

  “That’s it!” Caesar said snapping his fingers. “The natives call it the Arabondou . . . That’s where the Greeks got their name for it, Dubis . . . I want to know if supply barges can reach the confluence of the Dubis and the Arar from Lugdunum . . . I believe there’s a settlement of the Sequani there . . . a small oppidum of some sort . . . Yes . . . this could be a prority.”

  Caesar walked over to his maps. “Here is Cavillonum of the Aedui on the Arar!” he stated pointing at a spot along a squiggly blue line representing the river. He then traced the river to where it intersected with another blue line. “The Dubis and a possible Sequani position,” he said, to no one in particular, as his finger traced the second river. The Dubis looked like a blue horseshoe on the map, reaching up into the northeast, then doubling back on itself to the south.

  “And, here!” Caesar announced, pointing to a spot near the top of the horseshoe. “Vesantio of the Sequani . . . whoever holds this position controls the valley of the Rhenus and access to central Gaul . . . This is strategically important . . . I must know who controls Vesantio.”

  Labienus broke Caesar out of his revery. “Caesar, perhaps if you’d share with me what your goals are in the East, I would understand why these places . . . Cavillonum . . . Vesantio . . . are so important to Rome . . . I don’t understand.”

  Caesar seemed to come back into room with us. “My goals . . . ah . . . yes . . . I’m getting ahead of myself, Labienus. My apologies . . . The day after tomorrow, a deputation of Gallic kings, led by our current ‘host,’ Diviciacus of the Aedui, will arrive here . . . If that works out the way I expect it, all your questions will be answered. Meanwhile, issue the necessary orders to the surveyers in the South. I will send exploratores to the Arar. That may be a good mission for Adonus Dux and his Sequani. Do you agree, Gai?”

  “Ti’ a’sentior, Patrone,” I snapped, “I agree, Patrone!” What else could I say?

  “Bene! Bene!” Caesar said, bringing that discussion to an end. Then, suddenly, he said, “Gai, quot‘orarum?”

  Since we were under leather in Caesar’s praetorium tent, I had to reference a burning candle next to my desk marked with twelve notches, one for each summer hour.

  “Half the fourth hour, by the candle, Patrone!” I responded.

  “Please, remain for this, Labienus,” Caesar said. Then, he called out, “Scriba! Is the tribune, Agrippa, waiting?”

  “Te manet, Imperator,” I heard Ebrius’s voice call out from the other side of the tent flap.

  “Then, send him in!” Caesar directed.

  Agrippa, in full armor, his helmet clasped tightly under his left arm, burst smartly into the room: “Imperator! Lucius Vipsanius Agrippa, Tribunus, dicto paret—”

  “Laxa . . . laxa,” Caesar stood Agrippa down. “At ease, Agrippa. Let’s keep this thing informal. You’re a member of my personal staff. You don’t have to be on parade when you brief me.”

  Agrippa relaxed, just slightly.

  “First, some administrative minutiae,” Caesar announced. “Agrippa, you are relieved from your assignment with the Sequani cavalry and reassigned to my personal staff as my quaestor exercitus, quartermaster of the army. You may have to play hardball with my provincial quaestor and my legates, but I think you have the sand for it after the way you dealt with that broad-striped mentul’ Gabinius, down in Massalia. I can’t put a broad purple stripe on your tunic, at least not until you’re appointed to the senate, but the purple sash of my praetorium should more than make up for that.”

  Agrippa’s posture stiffened again, “Imperator, paratus sum . . . Sir, I am ready.”

  Caesar held up his hand and continued. “Labienus will brief you on the guidance I just gave him on our logistics goals. We have to remain somewhat flexible until the concept of our next mission develops. Which reminds me . . . Labienus!”

  “Yes, Imperator,” he snapped. I noticed “Imperator” had replaced “Caesar” in Labienus’ response now that Agrippa had joined us.

  “I want you to select a reliable angusticlavus, a junior tribune, to serve on my personal staff as an adjutant. His primary job will be maintaining the strength reports of the army and writing my orders. I want to free you from having to count every head and every sack of grain in the army so that you can spend more time in operations planning with me . . . The battle with the Helvetii demonstrated to me I need an officer who is prepared to take immediate command if, for some reason, I am . . . uh . . . shall we say, non ad manum, unavailable. The chap who commanded the vexillatio to the Rhenus, Caecina, may be a good choice for that job.”

  “Compre’endo, Imperator,” Labienus muttered while scratching some notes into his tabula.

  “Now, Agrippa,” Caesar continued, “you said that you had a recommendation for me?”

  “‘Abeo, Imperator,” Agrippa snapped. “I do, sir! It has to do with the way the army is conducting its foraging operations. We are being too passive. We rely on our allies to supply us at their convenience. This issue affected our operations during the pursuit of the Helvetii. We were forced to make choices based not on the tactical situation but on our logistical needs.”

  “I don’t disagree with that observation, Agrippa,” Caesar said. “Please continue.”

  Caesar’s half-hearted agreement with Agrippa’s assessment was enough for him to continue. “I recommend that we
form an army-level unit of foragers whose mission is to fan out aggressively around the army’s route of advance and acquire the needed rations. If the indigenous peoples agree to donate them, our troops would merely collect, pack, and transport. If the pilosi, the hair-bags, are less than cooperative, our men would convince them to part with the goods.”

  “Where would you get the men for this detail, Tribune?” Labienus asked.

  “Legate,” Aggrippa responded, “from our last battle, we have a number of wounded whom the medici believe will recover but will not be mission capable as infantry. They will not be able to endure the strain of a daily twenty thousand passus march impeditus, under full pack. I can offer them the choice of joining my unit and staying with the army. They are physically capable of riding supply wagons and providing security for the foraging details. It would be a better option for them than being mustered out with a few quadriga in their purses.”

  “Hmmm,” Caesar muttered. “I am intrigued. If we march east, I don’t want to find myself in the same postion I did when we stalled south of Bibracte and the Aedui had stripped their settlements of food and livestock.”

  There is that “march east” suggestion again. I was now sure that Caesar had already made up his mind about it. The deputation from the Gauls was just another one of his show pieces.

  “There is another potential benefit to my plan, Imperator,” Agrippa suggested.

  “Di’ mi’, Tribune,” Caesar nodded. “Tell me!”

  “Our foragers can act as exploratores, Imperator,” Agrippa continued. “They can collect intelligence about the attitudes of the natives, enemy movements on our flanks and in our rear, things like that.”

  Caesar was nodding now. “I am intrigued. What do you think, Labienus?”

  “We have little to lose and much to gain,” Labienus shrugged.

  “Constamus,” Caesar concluded. “We’re agreed, then. Agrippa, we’ll try this plan of yours, at least to test it. If it works like you think, it will become a permanent detail. If not, we’ve lost little. Do you have a name for this unit?”