FIELDS OF MARS

by S. J. A. Turney

  ‘Get those inside the vineae, pushed up against the left side as an extra wall.’

  The legionaries did as they were bade and wheeled the curved wooden shields into the long tunnel, manoeuvring them into position as an extra thickness inside. Fronto and Galronus edged their way between two vineae into the tunnel, where Salvius was watching and nodding with satisfaction. The legionaries were hurrying along the defensive tunnel with their baskets and, reaching the end, the men at the plutei would twitch them aside for the count of ten while the assembled legionaries threw their building materials down, beginning to advance the ramp once more, and would then shuffle the shields back into place as missiles thudded down.

  Fronto peered through the gap. Only another forty paces or so, and the agger would reach level ground again. Then they would have access to the walls.

  Salvius Cursor glanced at them without acknowledging their presence, then turned and strode back along the agger toward the camp. Fronto and Galronus shared a look that suggested they agreed in their opinion of the tribune, then followed on.

  * * *

  The summer came to Massilia that next week, the chill of the early morning receding and the sun gaining in warmth daily. Scudding clouds became fewer and higher and the sky darkened to a rich blue. Four more days saw the completion of the first agger, and another week witnessed the southern one reaching the high ground beneath the enemy walls.

  The various constructions and work gangs were prepared for undermining, scaling and every conceivable method of besieging the place, but all were held back. Fronto and Trebonius took to working with the veteran centurions in setting up a new training regime for the legions so they could prepare themselves for coming battle while maintaining their lines at the same time.

  Salvius Cursor daily beseeched Caesar to commit to an assault, yet the general held back. ‘Why waste so much time and effort constructing the aggers and building all this equipment if they were not to be used?’ the tribune demanded, but still Caesar refused. The belligerent officer cajoled and demanded, snarling that Ahenobarbus needed to be removed as soon as possible and that any man who stood in the defence of those walls was an enemy by default. By the time another week passed, Salvius Cursor had angered the general with his constant pushing for battle and had been assigned some ancillary duty that kept him busy and away.

  For Massilia sat silent and still now that work had stopped. No arrows or bolts flew. And Caesar watched the walls each day, willing the locals to rise up and overthrow their masters, opening wide the gate. He’d not said as much, of course, instead maintaining that he had no wish to throw away lives while there was still the chance that the place could surrender. But Fronto had watched the general throughout their journey through Italia, and he could see how it grieved the man that this city, which had a special connection with him, would not capitulate, while cities in Italia that owed him no allegiance at all had thrown their gates wide, and at Sulmona the Pompeian leaders had even been removed by the populace and the garrison.

  The general simply could not countenance that something like that would not happen here if he waited long enough. But at the same time, each day the general looked a little more tense, and he had picked up the habit of waiting at the north-western end of the siege works, gazing out toward Hispania and waiting for news rather than watching the city they had surrounded.

  Another week passed, marking the end of the month that Caesar had grudgingly allowed, and finally, on the morning of the fifth of Junius, pickets reported a small fleet of ships coming in from the west. Fronto had joined the other officers in hurrying to the promontory that lay at the edge of Fronto’s estate and also at the north-western end of the siege line.

  ‘Twelve. Better than nothing,’ Trebonius said appreciatively.

  ‘Can you be sure that’s Brutus?’ asked Mamurra, struggling to fold an armful of parchments.

  ‘It’s Brutus,’ Antonius replied. ‘He’s put Caesar’s bull emblem on the sails.’

  ‘Will twelve ships be enough to blockade Massilia? Ahenobarbus has to have more than twelve ships in there.’

  Caesar drummed his fingers on his folded arms. ‘The city has a narrow enough harbour mouth. So long as Brutus uses his ships well, he can keep Ahenobarbus penned in and prevent anything entering. He will need marines, though. We need to get a couple of cohorts of the best men down to the coast and aboard the ships. And a few heavy weapons if we can get them aboard, too.’

  ‘The month is up, Caesar,’ Salvius Cursor said, quietly. ‘What are your orders?’

  The other officers turned to look at the general, equally pensive, waiting to see what the general planned. Caesar nodded silently, watching Brutus’ ships as they made for a small group of islands off the coast, opposite Massilia’s harbour.

  ‘The man knows exactly what he is doing. He has chosen his base and will come ashore shortly. Sadly, I will be gone when he arrives. I can tarry no longer. Hispania calls me. I will take most of you and the cavalry and locate Fabius and his six legions. Trebonius?’

  The legate, who had acted as Caesar’s lieutenant more than once in Gaul, straightened.

  ‘Caesar?’

  ‘Massilia is yours. I am placing you in command of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth legions. Brutus will work with you as commander of the fleet. Between you I expect you to crack this particular nut by the end of the season. But just like a succulent nut, I expect you to do it without damaging the valuable core inside. Bring me Massilia, but bring me it intact.’

  Trebonius saluted. ‘Of course, General.’

  He was all business, but Fronto could see behind the façade into the officer’s eyes, and could see his dismay at being given this troublesome task. Massilia would fall easily enough if he were able to throw everything he had at it with impunity, but being restricted so would make it a much more difficult proposition. Still, he had three legions that were becoming better trained by the week, a fleet with which to blockade the place, and more siege engines than most armies could boast.

  Good luck to him.

  ‘We move into Hispania, Caesar, then?’ Fronto asked. ‘With just the cavalry.’

  ‘There are six legions there awaiting us somewhere between Emporiae and Gerunda under Fabius, and I have already sent scouts out over the past few weeks to our friends in Gaul asking for military support against the legions of Hispania. They will ride south to meet us there.’

  Fronto’s brow rose. He’d not known of such riders being sent out. Only two years after such a devastating war had ended, could many tribes afford to send warriors to Caesar? Were there any warriors left? Still, he had to admit that most of the Gallic tribes now would likely fall over themselves to ingratiate themselves with the general, and being invited by a Roman general to kick other legionaries would be an enticement all its own to the war-hungry Gauls.

  Hispania. Tarraco. Family.

  * * *

  Catháin watched in disbelief.

  He’d felt a wave of relief wash over him weeks back when he’d finally seen Fronto. The man had, almost predictably, been out at the very front of the action from the start. As soon as the ramp the besieging army was building came within range of the wall top artillery, the new Roman governor who had taken control of Massilia had given the order to loose their bolts.

  There had been some discussion, to put it politely, among those charged with the defence of the city as to whether being the first to draw blood against Caesar’s army might close forever a door many would have liked to leave open. In fact, since Caesar’s first arrival outside the walls, when the gates had been shut against him, there had been a gradual slide toward the idea of surrender.

  The boule of Massilia was split, and though the vote to side with the senate had been won by a small margin, that margin had gradually diminished with the Romans camped outside the walls. In fact, the vocal few who had so loudly denied the proconsul had been outnumbered by those who favoured seeking a peaceful solution, and the city ma
y well have voted to surrender had not this martinet of a mad man, Domitius Ahenobarbus, suddenly turned up with ships full of rabid soldiers and taken charge. Now, the vaunted democracy of Massilia had been stamped down beneath the autocratic boot of a Roman governor ostensibly sent to help them.

  The boule had even approached Ahenobarbus with the idea of surrendering the city, but the Roman governor had snarled and snapped like a wounded bear, refusing even to hear of such a thing and issuing an order against the city council meeting unless in his presence. Some believed him to be the sort of Roman, like Pompey or Caesar, who would never back down in the face of the enemy. But there was also a rumour passing around that Ahenobarbus had been forced to surrender a city of his and several legions in Italia because his subordinates had made peace behind his back, and he was not going to let something like that happen again. Having seen and listened to the man, Catháin favoured that belief, personally.

  But the fact remained that the city was not going to surrender, whatever the cost, at least as long as Domitius Ahenobarbus was in command. And Caesar was not going to leave them to their own devices. So there would be a siege. And there would be war. And blood, and fire and death. Catháin had grown up in a native island harbour settlement where death had been dealt out as often as beer, and blood and fire were daily fayre, but not on the scale the Roman legions offered it.

  So Ahenobarbus had launched his missiles at the Romans building their ramp, and Catháin had stood on the walls and watched. He had been less than surprised when two figures came rushing out to put things right in the midst of a rain of missiles, that those two men were Fronto and Galronus. Well, them and some lunatic Roman officer who seemed to like using his men to test artillery ranges.

  And then the missiles had loosed every day from dawn until dusk, and the legions of Caesar had laboured under the deadly hail to build their ramp across the dip until finally, with a surprisingly low casualty rate, they had finished the thing. Then they had built another, southerly, one, off toward the harbour and the marshland beyond. And then, perhaps two weeks ago, they had finished, withdrawn behind their siege lines, and spent time building peculiar wooden contraptions that sat mouldering in a compound.

  The artillery had fallen silent and the legions drilled daily and waited. It had been odd, and strangely tense. Ahenobarbus had convened the boule of the city, as though he were some sort of dictator with a council of his own, and had informed them that he believed the time had come to try a sortie against the besieging army. He had been frustrated and angered to the point of red-faced rage when the city’s leaders refused to add their soldiers to his Romans for such a move and, moreover, their allies the Albici who had poured into the city to stand firm against Caesar, had no more wish to go out front and knock on the general’s tent door than the Massiliots themselves. Lacking the manpower with his Romans alone, the governor’s wish for a sortie was crushed, and he returned to glaring at Caesar’s men from the towers as though he could peel their flesh with his eyes.

  For two weeks now little had happened. Life went on in the city, thanks to a good supply of stores and the freedom for ships to come and go. Knowing what lay at stake on a personal level, Catháin had made enquiries with ship captains at the port about the possibility of leaving the city with his personal effects. After all, he was neither Massiliot nor Roman, so this siege had little or nothing to do with him. But it seemed that Ahenobarbus’ eagle-like claws had dug into the port too. Nothing sailed in or out without his approval, and every ship was checked in both directions by his men.

  This morning a small Roman fleet had been sighted off to the west on their way to the city and rumour had it that this flotilla was nothing to do with Ahenobarbus, which made them Caesar’s by default. Along with half the city, Catháin had scurried up to one of the clearer sections of wall to see. And while he caught an excellent view from this end section of the twelve ships bearing Caesar’s sign, he also had a nice position to observe the Roman commanders and officers at their little observation place.

  He watched now in dismay. He had been atop the wall for an hour, and had seen it happening, but he could hardly believe his eyes as Fronto and Galronus, along with Caesar himself and most of his officers, mounted up alongside a huge force of Gallic cavalry and rode off into the west, leaving some subordinate to command the legions here.

  Once more Catháin cursed himself for not having left earlier. And now it looked extremely unlikely that any Roman officer who made it through the walls of Massilia would be even remotely sympathetic to Catháin and to Fronto’s family and business interests.

  He was facing the decision he’d been worrying about since arriving in the city.

  Clucking irritably, he pushed past the other figures on the wall and descended the long ‘stairs of the rocks’, hurrying through the area of vegetable gardens and fruit orchards that lay between the walls and the housing. There he began to wend his way down the slope a little until he reached the street he sought, then fumbled momentarily with the key in a lock.

  Fronto’s warehouse door opened and he slipped inside, locking it again. In the gloom he hurried to light three oil lamps to give him adequate light by which to work, for he had long since taken the precaution of blocking up the high windows. In a time of siege the goods of merchants were often fair game and it would take longer for inquisitive locals to wonder what was inside the warehouse if they had to actually break in to find out. And as soon as they did, months of Fronto’s profit would disappear down the hungry gullets of the besieged Massiliots. While Catháin knew that Fronto could afford it these days and that it was small fry in the scale of a besieged city, it offended him to think of the profits he himself had made being ripped away by thieves.

  And then there were the other contents of the warehouse, as well as Fronto’s wine shipments. Stacked neatly and carefully in the alcoves were anything of value from both villas, Fronto’s and Balbus’. With both men being Roman nobles, that was worth a pretty sestertius, too.

  And the documents. There were Fronto’s business records, of course. They would do no harm in the wrong hands, but their destruction or theft would set the business back months in terms of permits, fees and the like.

  But the thing that he needed to keep safe, and the thing that was giving him his great dilemma was the leather bag under the desk. And it wasn’t even Fronto’s. It was the reason he was here, the reason he had come to Massilia even under the threat of war and siege. And he’d retrieved them in good time only to get trapped in the damned place with them. He had been tasked with returning them, but his own sense of security told him that whatever they contained, if they were that sensitive, it would be better to burn them than to risk their being discovered.

  Not for the first time, he contemplated opening the bag and reading them, but he had too much respect for that. If he couldn’t find a way out, and it looked inevitable that Caesar’s men would find a way in or even, when the city reached a level of desperation where locals might decide to ravage and loot the warehouse, he might be left with no other choice.

  His gaze drifted from the oil lamp with the flickering golden flame to the leather bag full of highly combustible documents.

  With a sigh, he slid the leather satchel back under the desk and decided to diminish profits by another five or six cups. In the morning he would see whether the strange stalemate continued and whether there might be someone at the port he could bribe with wine or silver. There had to be a way out of Massilia.

  Chapter Six

  12th of Junius - Gerunda

  The journey from Massilia had been swift, eating away in excess of forty miles each long, difficult day. Fronto’s backside had taken every mile of the two hundred and fifty mile journey personally and he would swear that each mile had implanted a permanent reminder there in the form of sores and callouses. How couriers speed-rode for a living, he would never understand. Most rides of that distance would take twice the time but, resting the horses as much as necessary, the
y had spent every possible hour in the saddle, pushing hard even over the mountains.

  They had passed across the Pyrenaei mountains by the main road and been greeted by the small garrison Fabius had left there, who had little news of the world beyond their tiny domain other than that the Tenth had moved on for Gerunda to meet up with Fabius and the other legions, and that the Seventh, Eleventh and Fourteenth had crossed the mountains soon after, also making for Gerunda. Fronto had taken advantage of their night’s stop with the garrison to examine the great trophy Pompey had constructed in the pass, and wished instantly that he hadn’t. The place had been used as a latrine for over a month and the flies gathered around it like nothing Fronto had ever seen. He swore the stench of Pompey’s glory would remain in his nostrils for the rest of his life.

  The next day – the morning of the day before the ides of Junius – they had crossed the green hills of north-eastern Hispania and raced the setting sun to the walls of Gerunda. This fortress town on the main road through the region had once been a settlement of the local tribe until Pompey’s year of victory in Hispania, when he settled veterans here and established the Roman town of Gerunda atop the native one, strengthening the existing walls and building the interior anew. That had been almost three decades ago, and already it was largely indistinguishable from many Roman towns.