“In principal I agree with you, centurion. However, the army is about to march, and I think both troop numbers and morale could be better served with a lesser punishment in this case. A non-fatal beating should be enough to make the lad more careful next time.”
Fabius’ face betrayed no sign of irritation. He simply nodded and turned to the century of men.
“Lines two and four, you may retire. Lines one and three, you will continue to administer your punishment, with a single pass.”
Fronto leaned close to Priscus. “That’s still forty blows from practice swords. The lad might just die anyway.”
Priscus nodded. “Then we’d best go pour some more of your wine on that little altar to Fortuna — that I know you carry with you — in the lad’s name eh?”
Fronto glared at him for a moment, and finally nodded unhappily. The three men turned away as the victim was lifted and tied to the posts. Even halfway back down the Decumanus on their way to the gate they heard the screams of the first few blows. Fronto ground his teeth as they left.
“That centurion’s more of a bastard than any Germanic warrior we’re going to meet.”
Carbo looked uncertain, but Priscus shook his head. “I think you’re letting your personal feelings about those two centurions get the better of you. His decision was harsh, but entirely appropriate. I might have done the same thing.”
Fronto glared at him.
“You’ve turning into a hard hearted man, Gnaeus.”
Fronto eyed the column ahead with mixed feelings. He’d always liked Cicero, for all his minor faults and leanings, and it went against the grain of every soldierly fibre in his being to see a legion singled out as dispensable. And yet, with the Seventh legion in the van, at least Fabius and Furius were as far away from Fronto as they could be, and that suited him just fine.
The column stretched out both ahead and behind and he had a fairly clear view of the whole affair from the back of the glorious ebony-coated Bucephalus — following the customary twenty minute argument with Carbo about the benefits of an officer who marched with his men.
Of course, with advance scouts, the Seventh would theoretically have time to deploy should any aggressors be discovered up ahead, but Caesar had sent Piso with one wing of the Gallic cavalry ahead to scout the lie of the land and, to both Caesar and Fronto, Piso was still something of an unknown. He seemed in every way the perfect man for the job; thoroughly Romanised — as far as an Aquitanian could hope to be, clever, brave, strong, and quick-witted. It seemed that his men had taken an almost instant shine to him too, calling him ‘Camulos’ — apparently the name of a war God from these parts. And yet, while Caesar sent this trusted man forward, Fronto remembered Piso only from his association with Labienus during that conversation upon his arrival at camp. Just how far could any man be trusted these days?
Just like the Republic, the army seemed to be decaying, riddled with tumours and cancers, falling apart and in need of surgery. His attention was suddenly caught by a single rider making to intercept the army.
Varus’ cavalry had the task of patrolling alongside the column as outriders, while Galronus and his men kept a rearguard with the wagons and the Fourteenth. The lone rider was one of Varus’ men; one of the few Roman cavalrymen among the hordes of auxiliary Gauls.
Fronto calculated the man’s rough trajectory and, nodding to Carbo to keep the men moving, dropped out of the line and turned Bucephalus to walk back along the line of the Tenth to where the senior commanders rode between Fronto’s legion and the Eighth. The crimson cloak of the general and the glinting cuirasses of the senior commanders rose from the cloud of grey dust that marked the passage of so many thousand feet, and Fronto converged with them just as the general, having spotted the rider, rode out to the side from the line of march with his top men.
The Roman cavalryman came to a halt a few yards away, reining in expertly and throwing a salute.
“Soldier?”
“General, commander Varus begs to report that a small group of what appear to be Germanic riders approached from the northeast. There are only a score or so of them and they’re demanding to speak with you. What are your orders, Caesar?”
The general gave a half smile and raised his eyebrow.
“Shall we see what they have to say, gentlemen?”
As the small party of officers turned their horses and rode off at a tangent from the column, toward the bank of the fast-flowing MosellaRiver that ran some quarter of a mile to the southeast, Fronto fell in alongside them and Varus’ man, a frown etched into his forehead. He had no doubts at all about Varus or his veteran riders, but having a vanguard out there made up of Piso’s horse and Cicero’s legion made him very nervous.
Regardless of the lack of obvious danger, Fronto’s spine was tingling in the same way as it had a couple of years ago when he’d first had bad feelings about the brutal Belgic campaign. Something about what awaited them to the northeast felt wrong and dangerous.
He suddenly realised he was rubbing between the fingers of his free hand the amulet of Fortuna he’d taken to wearing on a thong around his neck. Irritated, he pulled it away, though apparently not before Caesar saw.
“Something wrong, Marcus? You look nervous.”
Fronto muttered something under his breath.
“Marcus?”
“Nothing. Got a bad feeling about what’s coming.”
Caesar smiled benignly. “It’s rather unusual for you to be jumpy and superstitious.”
“Just a feeling, Caesar. It feels like I’m riding a wolf into combat against a bear. I don’t know which one’s going to snap at me first.”
Something in Fronto’s voice pulled a serious expression across Caesar’s face. “Anything you want to tell me, Marcus?”
Fronto forced himself to look the general in the eye, trying not to note the hard, accusatory glance Labienus was levelling at him from the general’s other side.
“Nothing concrete, general. Just a feeling of danger and unease. Let’s make sure we keep Varus’ men close by.”
“Of course.”
Ten minutes passed for Fronto in a sense of nervous agitation that deepened and sharpened with every passing step. Caesar and the others continued to pass the time in small-talk, but Fronto declined to take part in the light-hearted banter.
Finally, on a small hillock rising from the north bank of the Mosella, the group spotted a small knot of horsemen and, as they closed on them, Fronto was surprised to see that very few of them appeared to have any kind of rich adornment. Indeed, most of them bared their torsos, their only covering the baldrics that hung across them, supporting the heavy Germanic swords, and the long beards that in many cases hung down to below their collar bones, oft braided or tied in a knot. Their hair, almost uniformly wheat-coloured, was wild and tied in a knot atop their heads. Their weapons were, however, sheathed. The men who sat ahorse behind these visible front men appeared to be almost entirely naked apart from their wild hair and a loincloth, their spears pointing at the heavens.
Caesar smiled happily, and the men with whom he’d been chatting seemed to find the appearance of their visitors amusing.
Not so Fronto. The first thought that entered his head was how suicidally brave a score of mostly naked men would have to be to ride up to the Roman cavalry and demand to speak to their commander. After all, word must have spread to them by now of the Gaulish council’s decision and Caesar’ approach.
These were the sort of men who would try and outstare a crocodile.
“Let’s be patient and courteous, gentlemen” Caesar said quietly as they slowed on the approach.
“Good greet Caesar” intoned one of the lead tribesmen as the general reined in and turned his horse to face the visitors with the expert knee control of a cavalryman. Fronto, less sure and practiced, simply hauled on the reins until Bucephalus complied.
“Good day” replied Caesar. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”
There was a brie
f silence, and then a huddle of confused murmuring.
“Who are you” simplified the general.
“We not here to fight Roman.”
“Clearly not, with only twenty men” the general smiled. The visitors frowned in incomprehension. Finally someone seemed to grasp the point.
“We — all tribe — we not cross Renos to fight Roman.”
“I can imagine.”
The man narrowed his eyes, a strange move that, given his wild hair and huge beard, almost entirely removed his face from the picture.
“But if Roman want fight, we not run.”
“How kind. It would certainly save us some energy and legwork.”
A chortle broke out among the officers and again the tribesmen conferred until they reached a consensus about what had actually been said.
“Tribes never turn from war. Ancestors fight; we fight. On to tomorrow. Never we talk ‘stead of fight. Is Roman way, yes?”
“I would invite you to put that to the test” smiled Caesar coldly, causing another confab.
“But this time different. Tribes here because we pushed across Renos.”
“Indeed.”
“So we talk. You leave us land we take, we support Roman. We make many strong horse warrior for you. Is good trade.”
Labienus nodded thoughtfully. “It’s not a bad option, Caesar. I’m sure we could talk the council around.”
Caesar glanced at him once and Fronto couldn’t see the general’s expression, but the staff officer lowered his gaze deferentially. When he turned back to the visitors, Caesar’s face had taken on the hard military look that Fronto knew only too well. Impervious, imperious and immovable.
“I’m afraid, gentlemen, that I have already given my word to the chieftains of Gaul, who we now call ally. There can be no alliance with an aggressor into their territory. There is no land available for you here. I believe that one of the tribes you represent is the Ubii who straddle both banks of the Rhenus? If that is the case, I urge you to settle in their lands on this side of the river. To this I will turn a blind eye, but to nowhere else.”
There was a long pause as the barbarians conferred again and Fronto watched them, curiously. Something was very odd about all of this. The man’s Latin was not wonderful, for sure, but he knew words like ‘ancestor’ and could form, admittedly broken, sentences. They should not be having so much trouble understanding the general’s words.
Frowning, he wondered why they appeared to be labouring over this more than need be.
“Caesar — you give three day. We deliver term and come with reply. Good, yes?”
Fronto frowned. Three days now too? He wished there were some way to speak to the general alone. Suspicions were forming like dark clouds around his brain and he felt a storm coming. A flash of inspiration struck him and he dug deep into his mind for the words.
“I expect they will have great trouble understanding this” he said loudly to the General, in rusty Greek.
Caesar turned to frown at him and then, seeing the urgent look on his face, turned back to the small group. A new sense of worry and confusion had fallen on them, as though everything that had happened had been their own plan, but this new and incomprehensible development was a serious problem.
“I didn’t even realise you knew the tongue, Marcus,” Caesar replied in fluent Greek with a marked Illyrian accent. “Go on. I think we’re mentally alone.”
“Caesar” Fronto said, again in Greek, “they’re just trying to delay us all. I don’t know what their game is but they’ve been deliberately faffing and now they’re asking for more time.”
Caesar nodded, wrinkling his lip.
“I fear they are trying to buy time to bring home the huge amount of horse I understand they sent raiding to the south a few days ago. Without them, they will be at a disadvantage against us.”
“Would that it were that, Caesar, but I think it’s more important than that. The Ubii at least are supposed to be reasonably civilized, or so Galronus said. They trade with Rome. If they were going to send ambassadors, they would be noblemen with fluent Latin, dressed like rich men and would act like them.”
Caesar frowned.
“Not ambassadors?”
Fronto shook his head. “I think what they are is decoys, sent to keep the bulk of the army busy. Something’s about to happen, or it’s happening already.”
Caesar nodded slowly, a worried shadow in his eyes. Turning to Varus’ cavalry, he scanned the ranks until he spotted the commander himself.
“Varus. Take some good men and ride for Piso’s vanguard. Make sure all is as it should be and order them to pull back to the main column.”
Varus saluted and started shouting out orders, but Fronto saw a few snarling lips and wrinkling brows among the enemy. Caesar had switched back to Latin to give the order. In seconds, as Fronto drew breath to get Caesar’s attention, the Germanic riders were already turning and racing off down the far side of the hill.
“Caesar!”
The general glanced at the sudden explosion of movement and nodded.
“Let them go. I won’t push any more men out from the column to catch them. They’re too light and fast; they’ll easily outrun our heavy-equipped cavalry.”
As Varus trotted past the group of officers, a turma of regular cavalry forming up behind him, Fronto reached past and tapped him on the arm.
“If you value the cavalry, ride like Pegasus himself and get Piso and his men back here.”
Somewhere away to the northeast a single flash of lightning rent the sky.
“Great” Fronto muttered as his left hand rose involuntarily to the Fortuna pendant.
Chapter 5
(Border of Treveri amp; Ubii lands close to the Rhine amp; Moselle Rivers)
Varus and his turma of cavalry raced up the gentle incline across open swathes of grass between the forested low hills that covered the landscape here, hiding fertile valleys and the ruined shells of small, peaceful settlements that had fallen victim to the Germanic invaders.
The small force had paused at one, despite the urgency of their mission, to confirm their worst fears. Varus very much wished he hadn’t entered the hut and seen what the Tencteri raiders had done to the Belgic farmer and his wife and daughters, almost certainly both before and after their deaths. Since that first encounter, they had warily avoided stopping at any of the other two dozen villages and isolated farmsteads they had passed.
Half an hour they had been riding now, the last ten minutes of which they had followed the unmistakable trail left by Piso’s cavalry wing, some five thousand men and mounts.
Across the low saddle they rode, almost three dozen men pounding the earth in their haste to reach the vanguard as fast as possible. Crossing easily into a wide, shallow depression surrounded by forested hillocks and ridges, they espied a deeper and narrower valley across to the west, flattening where it met the river to the east.
Full of milling horsemen.
Piso’s cavalry had come to a halt in the valley. Their direction of travel so far, following the northeasterly course set by the general, would lead them directly over the highest hills ahead, with the deepest, most tangled forests. Since clearly the army could not pass that way, the cavalry commander had paused, sending scout units out to locate the best route, whether it be along the MosellaRiver or further up the valley. Varus nodded as he slowed his mount at the crest. He’d have done exactly the same. Of the force of five thousand cavalry, perhaps three thousand remained in the centre of the wide valley, the rest split into units of three hundred, each under its own officers, dispersed around the valley, probing each low saddle or side valley for the best route onwards.
At least they were intact. Nothing untoward had befallen them.
“Sir!”
Varus turned to the man who’d addressed him, a regular cavalryman, holding his shield and reins in one hand, while jabbing his spear out toward the valley.
“Hmm?”
“I saw movement
on the hill opposite. Above the tree line.”
Varus didn’t even bother to look. His men were good. The first turma in his command was made up of veterans, each of whom had served since the first push against the Helvetii, and many even in Hispania before that. Each man in this small unit knew Gaul backwards and inside out now. Each one of them was as alert and trustworthy as a soldier could be. If Afranius said there was movement, then there was movement.
And the Roman forces in the valley were scattered over more than a mile of open land in small groups.
“Form up!” Varus bellowed, already kicking his bay mare into activity and urging her down the slope into the wide depression.
By the time he’d picked up to a canter and then a gallop, the turma had formed on him and kept to a tight knot as they descended toward the large force of auxiliary cavalry — Gauls, Belgae, Aquitanians, and the occasional Roman officer amid the spread-out mass.
By the time they were half way down the valley side, Piso and his officers had spotted them, a standard bearer gesturing in their direction with his silver wolf standard, other men pointing and many horses turning to face them.
Varus’ gaze took them all in, and then rose above them, tracking across the fields and past the burned shell of a small farm, to the tree line opposite, from which shapes were now detaching. Enemy cavalry; lightly armed and clothed men — a number of them naked he assumed from the fleshy tint — were leaving the shadows of the wood and pouring down the hillsides toward the large force.
A quick glance showed the same thing happening up and down the valley. There were not a vast number of enemy riders, but they had been well positioned in groups, each small force falling upon one section of the separated Roman cavalry.
Finally, Piso’s men had noted the enemy coming at them and horns rang out with half a dozen contradictory orders. Varus cringed at the cacophony. He was watching a potential disaster. Piso was a new commander and, for all his vaunted abilities, he was as yet unused to leading a force like this in such a campaign. Many of his men had served together before, but the mixing in of the former forces of Galronus had destroyed a lot of the units’ cohesion from the previous year, and the result was chaos.
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