Marius' Mules VIII: Sons of Taranis

by S. J. A. Turney

  ‘You are the bastard who persuaded us that we could still win and then abandoned us to our fate. You are the bastard who led us to our defeat and death yet again. You are the man who has condemned the Cadurci to the fires of the underworld. This is all your doing, Lucterius. All your fault.’

  Lucterius frowned as he recoiled at the words.

  ‘Now, listen…’

  But the three dozen men were rising now, like the shambling dead from the graves of Alesia, fists balled and eyes afire. And they were closing on him.

  ‘Everything I have done, I did for the good of the people of all our tribes,’ he stuttered defensively.

  ‘Tell that to the king of the dead when you meet him,’ snapped the first person to reach him, and swung a fist like a sack full of sharp stones, sending him reeling and to one knee. He had no time to recover, though, as someone behind him stamped down and shattered his leg. Lucterius fell prone to the ground with a scream as the flurry of fists and feet began to rain down. From somewhere a secreted makeshift wooden knife appeared in the flurry. It pierced several organs a dozen times before it found his heart and finally ended Lucterius, architect of rebellion, and his dream of a free world.

  * * * * *

  The triclinium of the Puteoli villa was as full as it had been in years. Fronto, still breathing carefully due to the slowly-healing wound at his side, sat close to his recent companions: Aurelius, who had his arm strapped up to his chest and hissed when he moved; Balbus, with the bindings around his scalp that he prodded and scratted at constantly with his good arm, the future of the other still uncertain; Biorix, with wrappings on each limb and often prone to fits of memory loss; and Cavarinos, marked with a few scars but largely intact, at least physically. The Arvernian had agreed to travel south to Puteoli with the others, despite the fact that since the carcer his conversation had largely revolved around his intense desire to find a new world where nothing was familiar. He had passage to Galatia booked with a merchant from Neapolis, who would sail on the Ides of the month, and Fronto was taking daily opportunities to try and argue him out of it, as yet with no luck.

  Across from the survivors of Rome, Lucilia cradled the boys as both Falerias – elder and younger – cooed over them. Galronus sat close by, his face uncharacteristically grave. Fronto had never seen his old Remi friend looking more Roman, from the clothes to the stance to the hair, to the gravitas. Throw a toga over him and he could walk into the senate’s curia without drawing much of a glance. Masgava and Arcadios were here too, seated close together with Catháin, who had spent the past few weeks completely reorganising Fronto’s business and rarely sported anything other than a satisfied grin.

  It was a busy place. The villa was full of life and laughter. Reunions had been warm and happy, and even news of the dreadful events that had taken place in Rome had done little to mar the last few nights of festivities as family and friends reunited, some after more than a year.

  Then, this morning, everything had changed.

  There had been a knock at the door and as the visitor was escorted in while his entourage were settled in the guest quarters, Fronto had felt his heart lurch at the sight. Decimus Junius Brutus would always be welcome in his house as an old friend and fellow officer, but anything that might bring him this far from Rome at a time when his duties there would be all consuming could hardly be good. Finally, the tired-looking Brutus was ushered in by one of the servants and took a seat gratefully, the proffered glass of wine even more so.

  ‘It’s good to see you all,’ Brutus sighed after his first sip.

  ‘I’d like to say the same,’ Fronto replied with a sad smile, ‘but I suspect this is no social visit? Caesar and Casca’s business I fear will keep you in Rome for months yet?’

  Brutus nodded unhappily. ‘The matter is resolved and I am but a courier, for all my station. Your name has been dragged through the mud in the senate and the courts, even through the streets, just as we expected. I do wish you’d stayed in the city to help defend yourself. Coming south just made you look all the more guilty. There’s only so much even a great advocate like Galba can do to defend someone in absentia, even with the funds Casca spared for the matter.’

  ‘The senate will decide what the senate will decide, and my presence would have made little difference. If Galba’s oratory and Caesar’s money couldn’t swing it, then there was nothing I could have done to change things. Marcellus was targeting me from the beginning since it’s well known I’m Caesar’s man. The whole matter was simple lies drawn from circumstantial evidence, anyway. I told you what really happened.’

  ‘And I believe you, of course. After all, I’d seen these ‘Sons’ at Massilia. Yet the word across Rome remains that you drew a gladius within the pomerium, killed citizens in the carcer, and tried to free a political prisoner against the consuls’ explicit will. Marcellus hardly had to do anything to ruin you. You’d all-but ruined yourself, and running away just compounded it. Galba fought tooth and nail in that courtroom, and while Caesar’s money helped turn a few purses your way, Marcellus was Croesian in his generosity to those who might be bought. Pompey might not have been involved in the case, but you can bet his money changed hands in its regard. Galba fought your corner valiantly, but his best hope was damage limitation. The only thing that really worked in your favour was that Pompey deliberately distanced himself from the whole Comum affair, and that meant he had to stay completely out of the case against you and leave it to Marcellus. He couldn’t be seen to be butting heads with Caesar, you see. In fact, I hear that Pompey is furious with Marcellus over the Comum thing.’

  ‘Come to the point, Brutus. We’re all tired. What actually happened in the end?’

  ‘Marcellus tried to bring a verdict of treason against the state. After all, though the evidence was entirely circumstantial, it was pretty compelling nonetheless. You’ve got to try and see it from an objective point of view. You were found over the bodies of both Romans and Gauls with a sword in your hand – within the pomerium, in a building that theoretically contains no blades. The presence of the Gauls and their blades wasn’t likely to do much to change the verdict. Fortunately, Galba managed to turn that blow well enough. Even the serpents in the senate baulk when asked to bring a capital verdict against a patrician with a history of valiant military service.’

  Fronto let out a relieved sigh. ‘Good. I’m sick of putting the good of Rome above self and family and with no consideration in return. I’ve spent seven years helping conquer Gaul for the republic, but it’s starting to strike me that I’ve done the world irreparable harm there. It’s becoming unpleasantly clear to me that the Gauls have an innate sense of justice and loyalty that is sadly lacking in Rome. Just look at the men in this room alone. Biorix, Galronus and Cavarinos. Each one a Gaul of some tribe who has put their life and freedom on the line time and again to help a republic that couldn’t care less about them.’

  ‘There are still good men in the republic, Fronto,’ said Brutus defensively. ‘Look at Galba, for instance. Without him you’d be facing a death sentence.’

  Fronto huffed. ‘A few years ago I pulled away from Caesar. I saw trouble in him. I saw him treading a dangerous path of power and becoming a new Sulla, commanding Rome alone and with an iron fist, disposing of his enemies and directing policy – a king in all but name. Seeing how much worse Pompey was drove me back, but I still think that’s the general’s end goal. The odd thing is: the more time I spend in this pit of serpents, the more I think that a new dictator might be just what this sickly, diseased republic needs.’

  He had expected some rebuttal from Brutus, but his friend’s expression was bleak.

  ‘I didn’t get off free, did I?’

  ‘No. I am the bearer of awful tidings, in fact.’ He passed over a sealed document with a troubled expression. Fronto looked down, wiping a faint sheen of sweat from his forehead, cracked the seal, unfurled the document and read down it, his face darkening as he did so.

  ‘What is it, M
arcus?’ Lucilia murmured nervously.

  Fronto took a deep breath, his face stony. ‘It is the judgement of the senate that the evidence of my motive is far too circumstantial to support any accusation of treason, or even of murder, despite the bodies at the scene. However, since there is clear record that I was bearing a military blade whose source could not be adequately determined as coming from anywhere other than my own person, I have been tried and convicted of breaking the sacred laws of the pomerium.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And for a period of ten years, I am banished. I am to remove myself from Rome and all Italian soil for the duration of that sentence. Additionally, all my property is forfeit and has been claimed by the state.’

  Lucilia’s hand flew to her mouth in shock. ‘This cannot be, Marcus?’

  Fronto shook his head slightly as he looked around the assembled faces. Many dark or disapproving, some shocked or even horrified. Only his mother seemed to be oddly unaffected. ‘It is,’ he replied. ‘Our holdings in Rome will go. The Campanian vineyards and the house at Paestum. This villa, too, since I am official paterfamilias of the family. All of it.’

  His mother nodded. ‘In these vicious days of politics, such a sentence is commonplace. Many of your contemporaries have suffered exile in their time, and usually for standing up for what is good against tyrants. It speaks well of you, my son, that you are so righteous that the snakes of the senate need to banish you to feel safe.’

  Fronto gave his mother a sad smile. His strength – his moral character had all come from her blood.

  ‘Your senate exiles you, but only for a time?’ Cavarinos frowned.

  Balbus nodded. ‘Ten years is long enough, but the property confiscation is usually worse. It’s basically a sentence of destitution or even death for most. Luckily, I have plenty of funds, so you’ll not find yourself lacking, Marcus. Where will you go?’

  ‘To Massilia, of course.’

  ‘But our property…?’ his sister murmured, still in shock.

  ‘Massilia is not inside the republic and, as the city’s boule have been so fond of reminding me this year, the land on which our villas are built is contested ground. If Rome tries to confiscate a villa on land that Massilia considers theirs there will be a great deal of trouble. I think the senate and even Marcellus will leave us that land rather than risk opening a war against free Massilia.’

  ‘Besides,’ Balbus added, ‘the deeds to the place are actually still in my name. I keep meaning to lodge the records with your name instead, but I’ve not got to Rome yet to do it. Officially you own nothing at Massilia, and the senate’s decree will not stretch to my property.’

  Brutus nodded. ‘And thanks to Galba’s expert defence, it’s only a lesser banishment, not Aquae et Ignis Interdictio. At least you get to keep your citizenship and leave with your head held high, so in ten years’ time you can take up where you left off, and so long as you can maintain funds, your boys’ future won’t suffer.’

  Fronto nodded. ‘All is not lost. This stinking pit of corruption and failure might take against us, but we have somewhere to run and a name to hold on to. There are still men in the republic who will see me in the same light as always.’

  Lucilia frowned suspiciously. ‘You’re going back to Caesar, aren’t you?’

  ‘No,’ Fronto shook his head. ‘Just Massilia. Somewhere safe.’

  But he couldn’t meet the gaze that burned into him from beneath her furrowed brows.

  The world was closing in now, and the republic was polarising. With Marcellus in Pompey’s purse and the consuls of Rome actively defying Caesar, two sides were emerging from the chaos of the past few years as he’d been fearing for so long, and Fronto couldn’t help but feel that the lines were already being drawn.

  When it came down to the bones of the matter, Fronto knew where his lines were.

  And Massilia would be close…

  THE END

  Author’s note

  THE final year of Caesar’s Gallic wars presents an author with several difficulties. The main first-hand account was not written by Caesar himself, as the previous seven had been, but by one of his senior officers – Aulus Hirtius. The style is noticeably different, and we are led to question whether such an account might be more objective, or perhaps less. Moreover, the events described in the book cover the period of 51-50BC, rather than a single campaigning season, which drags out into political meanderings. Since I was concerned here with only the first year, I have had to take only part of Hirtius’ story – no bad thing in my opinion. And while there is one great event in this year, much of it merges into a banal blur of siege and suppression so repetitive and unimportant that even Hirtius cannot be bothered to go into detail, such as describing the sieges or even naming the towns. Thus I was faced with trying to make the Gallic campaign side of the book interesting without Fronto’s involvement or too many really bloody battles.

  I chose to use Varus as the main military protagonist in this novel as he and his cavalry could appear in almost every place of interest in the campaign, allowing us to see it largely from a single viewpoint. Plus, of course, Varus is an old hand. This is his eighth outing and everyone knows him. Much of the year in Hirtius’ writing, then, is fairly tepid, then suddenly the second greatest siege of the war appears in the summer, following which things peter out and Caesar goes off on a jolly, exploring the hills and valleys of Southwest France. So the story needed to end at Uxellodunum, as far as I was concerned.

  A quick note on Uxellodunum: some of this is largely conjectural. Since the exact location of the Cadurci oppidum is still highly contested, there is no ground evidence to back up Hirtius’ writing. The oft-accepted site is near the town of Vayrac in the Dordogne, though there are many strong voices also placing it at Capdenac on the Lot. Neither fits exactly with Hirtius’ description, but both are close enough to stake a good claim and, after all, if we accept Alise Saint Reine as the site of Alesia, then Caesar’s description doesn’t quite match up either. Leeway simply has to be given. Thus my description of Uxellodunum is a mix of Hirtius’ description and the physical landscape of the Vayrac site.

  What did Lucterius hope to do with this last year of revolt? This question was what led me to build the plot of book 8. For the simple fact was that the tribes were beaten and having fought at Alesia, Lucterius has to have known how utterly useless a new revolt would be with only his new small confederation of tribes. Thus I have tried to build on the idea that he had a grander plan – that there was still some hope that he could rebuild what had been destroyed the previous year. I gave Lucterius a great scheme to drive out Rome, raise the southern tribes and retrieve their captive king.

  Fanciful, perhaps. But this is fiction, after all.

  Equally fictional is Caesar’s great loot convoy. You can, of course, be absolutely certain that Caesar did send vast amounts of loot and slaves back to Rome. We know for a fact that he brought back so many slaves that he flooded the market and most of Rome’s rich complained that their expensive slaves had become basically worthless due to the collapse in the market. We also know that Caesar, once he got to Rome, spent money like water.

  My description of Massilia (which was probably still named the Greek Massalia at this point by the locals) is based on fact, though the knowledge is fairly scant, given the successive centuries of rebuilding. Massilia must have been a fascinating place in 50BC. It was one of the greatest ports in the west, an independent Greek city-state surrounded by Rome and despite Caesar’s new trade route over the Alps, it must have remained a very important place for the transport of men and supplies.

  I enjoyed Fronto’s move into the wine trade, and I hope you did too. Roman wine is already a complicated subject. But Greek wine was also famous and very varied and a whole complex thing of itself. And then there is the fact that although French wine as it is began with the agricultural policies of the emperor Probus, the Gallic tribes even before Rome came were making wine, though of a much different so
rt. I’m sure there will be those of you out there who are unhappy with the move away from Fronto’s military career. Rest assured, that career is far from over. But between 52 and 49BC there is a tense time of political posturing and threat where very little actually happens for the legions. I decided long in advance of writing this that Fronto would need to take a hiatus during that time, as I simply could not write books about the military with Fronto in command where they sat in camps and rolled dice. Plus, we all, I think, know what’s coming. When the next giant turd hits the giant fan, Fronto needs to be motivated enough to pick a side. And with his history there has been a little uncertainty at times what side he would pick. I think book 8 has probably settled that issue.

  I have over the last two years had a number of mails suggesting long-gone characters that might be able to come back. Some were clearly mad, and others not interesting enough. But I had already decided about three books back to return Andala to the plot when the opportunity arose. I don’t like wasted loose ends. Carbo, though, was a suggestion of a friend. And at the end of the book I have finally returned Galronus to the fold. Things are starting to come together and the cast is being assembled for the second phase of the series – Caesar’s Civil Wars.

  Cavarinos has been one of my favourite characters to write in the entire series, and even though he’s only featured in two volumes, he has become a popular one, apparently. It is sad, then, that we are to see him flutter off to eastern climes. Simply, keeping him here would stretch the bounds of probability to breaking point, though he might pop up in the next book for a bit, and who knows what the future may hold.

  The laws of Rome and in particular the bearing of arms inside the pomerium of the city is central to the last part of this book. What strikes me as odd is that the pomerium was a sacred boundary supposedly defined when Romulus ploughed a line around the city, and yet the dictator Sulla some two decades earlier had extended the pomerium to a new area. The Romans might have been a practical people, but they were also a religious one. How would the more pious population take the extension of a sacred boundary by a blood-soaked dictator? And so I have had the people of the city in my story a little dubious about the new boundary. And Claudius later extended it as well. In fact, it is said that one of the reasons the senate met at this time in Pompey’s theatre complex was that it was outside the pomerium and therefore senators who were forbidden by their position to cross the pomerium could attend. And yet at the time of Caesar, the Sullan extension put Pompey’s theatre inside the new line. A complex subject that I have chosen to make rather fluid for the sake of ease.