Marius' Mules VIII: Sons of Taranis

by S. J. A. Turney

Varus straightened from lacing his boot and sat for a moment until the spots disappeared from his vision and the camelopard that was running around inside his head, churning his brains to mush, stopped for a rest. Gripping the chair back for support, he rose and stood for a moment, trying to marshal his thoughts, the uppermost of which involved the apparently endless capacity for wine of the centurionate. By the time he’d left Pullo’s tent last night, he felt as though he’d been physically abused. It felt like a night in Fronto’s tent used to feel.

  Flashes of memory hit him, of that bedraggled trudge through the rain back to his own quarters. He’d been oblivious at the time, but now it seemed obvious that one of the legionaries on duty outside the centurion’s tent had shadowed him all the way through the camp, making sure he made it back intact. And while he had been about as compos mentis as a cabbage by the time he struggled out of the tent, Pullo and Vorenus had been going strong, louder than before and even less guarded in their comments, but completely in control of their bodies and minds, if not their mouths.

  Varus realised that he’d actually relaxed last night in a manner that he’d not achieved in months. But now, when the courier from the general was standing outside waiting to escort him, and his head was hammering like the anvils of the legion workshops, he considered last night’s adventure to be a rather poor bit of decision making. He was also under absolutely no illusion that the centurions from the Eleventh were not already up, bathed, shaved, armoured and busy shouting at their men, dressing them in neat lines. Even thinking about a centurion shouting sent a lance of pain into the matter behind his left eye. He could vaguely hear the sounds of construction muffled by his tent leather. Or was that just in his head?

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘I’m coming, I’m coming.’

  Throwing his cloak over his shoulders and fastening it with the bronze pin, Varus stepped out into the cold, white world of northern Gaul. A shiver wracked him from toe to head and back.

  ‘You alright sir?’

  ‘Never better. Just don’t shout.’

  Trying to ignore the sly smile the legionary flicked him, Varus glowered and followed across the turf and down the camp’s Via Praetoria, which led to the gate facing the gathered Gallic army. His head began to take on that extra crushing pain that could only be the result of a hangover exacerbated by the chill wet mist and the sounds of two thousand legionaries already chopping and adzing timber, hammering posts into place and the myriad other agonising noises of the ongoing fortification of the hill.

  Mere heartbeats later, he was climbing the earth mound beside the gate to where Caesar stood with the other staff officers and the watch centurion, as well as several dismounted scout riders. Reaching the top, Varus peered out into the mist following the direction of their gaze.

  Eerily, the enemy camp was clearly visible, along with the sea of humanity within, though the combination of the cold and the swampy ground had resulted in a thick mist that became a whiter, denser fog towards the waterways below. The result was that the enemy’s hill fortress rose from a blanket of white like an island in a ghostly sea. The effect did little to lift Varus’ battered spirits.

  The courier had said enemy reinforcements were arriving and that the general had summoned his officers to the gate. Little looked any different from here.

  ‘Reinforcements, general?’

  Caesar turned a withering gaze on him. ‘Ah, commander.’ Amazing how the man could fit so much admonition into two such simple words. Varus flinched as the general breathed slowly. ‘A few moments ago the traitor Commius returned with his Germans.’

  Varus’ spirits sank yet lower. ‘How many, general?’

  ‘Therein lies the good news. They appear to be Suebi, from what your scouts tell me, but at the highest estimate he brings only half a thousand with him. Not a great return on his efforts, but then I did not think the Germanic tribes would be enthusiastic about entering into another war with us.’

  Brutus rubbed his eye. ‘Your scouts rode round the entire circuit at dawn today. The current estimate of enemy numbers is that they amount to perhaps forty five thousand. That includes the newly-arrived Germans, and must account for every fighting man from each tribe involved. This is the enemy army in its entirety, so if we can finish them here, then we’ll have done to the Belgae what Alesia did to the southern tribes. There won’t be enough able men left to raise a shout, let alone a rebellion.’

  ‘I’m not sure how you hope to achieve that, Caesar?’ Varus hazarded quietly.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘We’re hardly in a position to attack them. Their position is too strong and they outnumber us by too high a margin to be confident of victory.’ Caesar nodded, listening carefully, so Varus scratched his head and went on. ‘Well, if we manage to lure them out now, we’re truly in the latrine. If we meet them straight in the field they outnumber us enough that we could easily lose, especially with the surrounding woods and swamps limiting the usefulness of the horse. And if we let them besiege us, yes we have a strong fortress now, but even if we forage like mad, it’s winter and we’ll be very unlikely to pull together enough food to see the army through more than a few days. No course of action looks favourable.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Caesar murmured quietly. ‘And that is why I sent out riders at haste last night.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘I have sent for Trebonius to bring the Tenth and the Twelfth, and to pick up Sextius and his Thirteenth on the way. They are the closest legions to our current position. The couriers took changes of horse with them, so I am confident that they will arrive at the camps by nightfall today. Trebonius has orders to march at all haste without a full supply train, in the same manner as we did. If everything works out as I anticipate, in four days we will almost double our force. With seven veteran legions, I could bring down an army of Titans.’

  Varus nodded. Seven legions would, at least, be more than a match for the enemy.

  ‘We need to keep the enemy interested in the meantime, though. We must keep their attention riveted on us. We will attempt skirmishes wherever possible and keep them occupied until the reserves join us. I want the enemy too busy concentrating on our minutiae to notice the underlying plan. I anticipate the legions’ arrival, as I say, either in the evening four days from now, or the morning after.’

  He turned to the small group of officers and singled out Mamurra.

  ‘Appius?’

  ‘General?’

  ‘Are you required for any further work on the camp?’

  The engineer shook his head. ‘I think things are progressing well enough in the hands of the legion engineers now, sir. I might be consulted from time to time, but otherwise…’

  ‘Good.’ The general smiled. ‘I want you to turn your talents to a new project. I want you to plan a bridge across the swamps from this hill to that one. I want it to be sturdy and wide enough for a contubernium of men to march abreast. And most importantly I want it to be able to put in place in a matter of hours. Half a day at most.’

  Mamurra blinked, peering down into the sea of swirling, ethereal white below. ‘That’s near impossible, general.’

  ‘That is why I entrust such a task to a man who has a reputation for achieving the impossible. I do not want it in place now. I want to put it up four days from now, finishing by nightfall. I want it in place a matter of hours before Trebonius arrives with the reserves, so that the enemy have no time to plan anything. I want them off-balance and concerned, and then to suddenly find that their fortress is vulnerable and that their enemy have doubled in numbers and are coming for them unexpectedly. Do you understand the strategy?’

  Varus did. It was brilliant. It was also extremely risky.

  ‘General, what happens if Trebonius is delayed by days?’

  ‘Then the enemy will rally and probably destroy the bridge – they do have vastly superior numbers, after all. And then our entire strategy collapses. Similar issues occur if Trebonius is over-enthusiastic and runs his men into
the ground to join us, getting here before the bridge is built. Then the enemy will have knowledge of our full force and time to plan. So we shall just have to rely on my estimates being accurate, shall we not?’

  Mamurra sucked on his lower lip as his gaze moved up and down from the sea of white to the hill opposite. ‘It’s possible, sir. This mist seems to happen every morning as a consequence of the marshes. We could send teams down there the morning before, under cover of darkness. They could ram in the piles for the bridge in the mist, which would help deaden the sound. Then, when the time came, we would already have the supports. We would only have to build the superstructure. And if we have three days, as soon as this camp is finished we could start putting together the bridge in pieces within the camp. Then we can run out the bridge already partially constructed and assemble it swiftly when needed. And we could start with a causeway of timbers at our side of the marsh earlier. The bridge will only be required for the central, wider, section. It is entirely possible, sir.’

  Caesar smiled. ‘I knew you would come up with something, Mamurra. Start working on your plans. Take any men you need from any legion and get to work.’

  Varus peered at the enemy force. It was an audacious plan, and worked on narrow timings. But it would nullify both the enemy’s advantage in numbers and their fortified position.

  ‘I think I need a drink,’ he croaked, rubbing his thumping head and looking down into the white world of deadly swamps.

  ‘Make no mistake, gentlemen,’ Caesar said quietly. ‘This is not like the Bituriges or the Carnutes. Once more we face a sizeable army of strong warriors. This is serious business, and upon it rests the peace of all Belgae lands. But we have achieved so much in recent years and Gaul is on the cusp of being settled permanently under the law of the republic. I will not allow all our success to backslide at this point. The war will be over this year. Time to finish it.’

  Varus nodded to himself. Certainly in four days’ time someone would be finished.

  Chapter Six

  FRONTO leaned forward in his seat and peered around the doorway. Andala the Bellovaci woman – slave, he tried to remind himself – turned to look at him with some odd instinctive awareness and he ducked back feeling guilty, although not entirely sure what about. He could hear Lucilia deep in conversation with the Belgic woman – slave – and tried not to concentrate on what they were saying, but it kept insisting itself on him, over and above his own business.

  ‘I must apologise to you, Andala…’

  No. You don’t apologise to slaves, Lucilia. Even if they fascinate you.

  ‘No insult, lady. I know Roman thoughts.’

  ‘I had been led to believe that your people were averse to bathing. There is so much we don’t understand, sadly. You are welcome to use the villa’s bath house whenever you wish. I would ask that you make sure it is unoccupied first, and if the floors are cold just let Bocco know and he will stoke the furnace for you.’

  No, Lucilia. You don’t pamper the help.

  ‘Do I take it you’re uninterested in business today?’ Catháin said with a strange smile. Fronto ripped his attention from the annoying exchange out in the atrium and back to his new employee. The factor of Fronto’s business was always giving him odd little knowing smiles. Sometimes they seemed to convey sympathy, sometimes admonition, and sometimes curious humour. Fronto simply couldn’t quite get the man straight in his head. He seemed capricious, irreverent, totally disrespectful when in private, inscrutable and downright odd at times. And yet there was something unexpectedly likeable about him. Despite the vast gulf in their backgrounds and careers, the man reminded him in strange ways of Priscus, and each time he felt that familiarity there was a small twinge of guilt and loss.

  Catháin was quite the most unusual companion Fronto had worked alongside, including Masgava. In fact, if there could be a direct opposite of Masgava, Catháin was probably it, and yet the pair had quickly formed a solid, if unlikely, friendship. The strange fellow was an inhabitant of the isles of Britannia, though he seemed not to think so. His homeland, which he called Īweriū, seemed to be only describable in terms of mystical beauty and belligerent bloodshed, from what Fronto could gather. Its people sounded a lot like the Belgae – all punch-ups over honour and too much drink.

  Indeed, Catháin had been involved in a small scuffle over a woman – a half-sister, Fronto had discovered with fascinated interest – and had beaten a cousin to death with a drinking vessel. Before the brawl erupted into full-scale tribal warfare, which from what Catháin said seemed to be a national pastime, the young man had scurried down to the seafront of his settlement and had stowed away on board a visiting Phoenician trader. That had been almost a decade ago, and since then the man had been to ports in exotic places that Fronto had only heard of.

  But despite a decade of maturity and a world-wisdom settled deep into the man’s being, nothing seemed to have removed the impulse of violence that clearly ran in his blood.

  ‘Business?’ he said with more acid than he intended.

  ‘Yes, business,’ smiled Catháin.

  ‘I thought we might talk about yesterday’s incident and how it might impact on my trading.’

  ‘Incident?’

  Fronto rolled his eyes. ‘Gods, but you can be infuriating, man. You punched a Greek trader between the eyes.’

  ‘It was a good punch.’

  ‘I’m not denying that. It was an excellent punch. I’ve never seen someone go down so quick and heavy from one punch. Maybe when Atenos hit someone once, actually. But still – an excellent punch. Though that’s not the issue. Business would probably go much smoother if you didn’t punch other traders into next year. The man probably hasn’t woken up yet.’

  ‘Ah, for the love of bilgewater, the bastard had it coming. He called me a runt. Men have died for less. And the poor fool was a nobody. Just a visitor, else he’d have known me and known not to rile me.’

  ‘You have a very high opinion of yourself, Catháin.’

  ‘I know what I’m worth. And if you stop messing around and listen, so will you.’

  Fronto frowned, his attention finally fully committed to his factor. Despite the ongoing fuzziness he felt from months of poor sleep, he felt brighter than usual this morning, perhaps due to the fact that it was today he was due to pick up his replacement Fortuna pendant. ‘Go on,’ he asked with keen interest.

  ‘How much are you paying for that old shed in the Street of the Oil Traders?’

  ‘I don’t know. Can’t remember exactly. About twenty drachma a month, I think, more or less.’

  ‘Thought so. You know a friend of Hierocles would get it for eight or nine?’

  ‘I’ll bet. But there’s no chance of that happening for me. A friend of Hierocles would sooner bed the Lernaean hydra than cut me a deal.’

  Catháin grinned. ‘That’s because you don’t know the right people or the right things to say, and even when you do speak Greek, you speak it like a Roman. But think on this: there are other people in Massilia who’ve had their noses bent by that Greek prick in the past, who will happily help put him in his place. Cancel your premises with half a month’s notice if you can. I’ve got you a secure warehouse two streets back from the port in the Street of the Brazen Carters and you’ll need half a month to move everything across, get it secured away and clear out your previous premises. The new one’s almost twice the size, comes with its own security, as it’s part of a conglomerate, and will cost you eleven a month. Twelve if you want to use the conglomerate’s own carts and muleteers, which I would recommend. I know you have your own wagon, but you can only ever deal with one shipment at a time like that.’

  Fronto boggled.

  ‘That’s… I can’t… did you really? Eleven?’

  ‘Twelve, with the carters.’

  ‘I hardly need a team of carts and muleteers to hand, Catháin. I can only afford to manage one shipment at a time, anyway.’

  ‘In which case, my dear Fronto, you mig
ht as well sign your business over to Hierocles now. Grow or go under, my friend. Grow or go under.’

  ‘And how do you suggest I do that?’ Fronto rubbed his tired eyes. ‘Grow, I mean. Not go under. I seem to be quite adept at that part already.’

  Catháin shrugged. ‘I know a few people. Let’s try and streamline your current process, and then we’ll look at alternate sources and routes and customers. You’d be surprised how many people will help an enemy of Hierocles if you know who to ask. And if it’s not a Roman doing the asking, too.’

  Fronto leaned back again. ‘You realise this might start a war. And not just a trade war. That bastard’s already tried to take me down more than once. If he thinks I’m actually a proper threat to his business, he’ll go all out to kill me, let alone ruin me.’

  ‘Let the bastard come, Fronto. I grew up in the ale pits of the black lake and the fighting dens along the banks of the Oboka. I learned to flatten a man’s nose and rip out his groin before I had my second teeth.’

  Fronto rolled his eyes again. Where did he pick these people up? He had only the vaguest idea of even the location of this strange Celtic isle which apparently did a good trade with southern merchants despite having no contact with Rome, but the more he heard about the place from his new employee, the less he wanted ever to go there.

  ‘Can we visit these new premises?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll take you there this afternoon. I think you should get some more rest. You look like you last slept during the civil wars. In the meantime, go sort out your family business.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The girl you keep looking at. It’ll do you no good to keep getting distracted from business by a pretty little backside.’

  Fronto’s eyes widened and he risked a glimpse round the doorframe again before making shushing motions at his employee. ‘It’s not like that, man, and for the love of Minerva will you keep your voice down. You’ll have Lucilia down on me like a collapsing vault.’

  ‘Ah, calm yourself and unknot your underwear, man.’ Catháin grinned and made a rather suggestive motion before nudging Fronto and cackling.