The Noise of War

by Vincent B Davis II

  “Then you are in the wrong place.”

  “I need to know where the Tigurini are gathering for battle.”

  “I don’t give away information for free,” she replied, a shrewd business woman, as I’d expected. Someone who offers a service and a product as one must have a keen understanding of economics.

  “How about this, then”—I stood, towering over her—“we go back to your cot or tent or whatever it is, I pay you for information, and you get a break from your ‘work’?”

  “It’s a shame. You don’t know what you’re missing.” She looked around the room and exhaled. Suddenly she covered herself and crossed her arms, modest enough not to expose herself without a purpose. “Come, then,” she said.

  I followed her through a dark and narrow hallway that was not unlike the brig we kept our prisoners in. Every few steps, there were small rooms on the left and right, filled with Gaul’s finest women, laboring intensely.

  She pulled back a beaded curtain and stepped aside for me to enter her personal work space. A single bedroll was spread out on ground, some hemp burning in a candelabrum in the corner.

  “What do you need to know, again?” she asked.

  I assumed she remembered, but I repeated myself anyway. “I need to know where the Tigurini warriors are gathering. I mean to join them.”

  “And why would you do that? You aren’t from around here.”

  “Do you solicit all your customers about why they visit you?” I asked. She thought for a moment and then shrugged. “Go ahead, then.”

  “The customer pays first.” She snapped her fingers and held out her hands.

  I pulled out my dwindling coin purse and tossed most of what I had left, sparing only a few denarii for emergencies.

  “They are massing in the west, twenty leagues or so. Most of our men have left to join them. It has made work difficult. Those that remain are old or crippled.”

  “Sacrifices of the job?” I asked, calculating the distance in my head. “Thank you.”

  “Denarii? The coin of the Romans?” She analyzed her payment with a raised eyebrow. “What would someone with Roman coin need to do with information about the location of our warriors?”

  I thought for a moment and then exhaled. I pulled the coin purse from my belt and tossed the rest to her. I wouldn’t need it for the remainder of my journey.

  “No need to serve the elderly and cripples for a few days. Just don’t mention my passing through.”

  “What is to stop me from telling anyway?” she asked rather promiscuously.

  “I don’t think you will,” I said with feigned confidence. “Buy yourself something less revealing.” I pointed to her dress. Her laughter followed me as I departed the hut. Perhaps she would spread news of her mysterious visitor, but by then I would be long gone, and so would the Tirgurini.

  I traveled the rest of the way on foot. Along the way, I passed, and was passed by, several Gauls with spear and shield, most of them traveling in small groups. More men to join the fight.

  When I found it, I wasn’t sure it was actually a camp. It was so unlike a Roman camp that I spent some time trying to decide if I had wandered off my path. There were no walls, guard towers, praetoriums, or temples. In a Roman camp, the tents were lined up in rows like orderly soldiers. Here, the Tigurini made bed wherever they pleased, the camp seeming to stretch for miles. The few horses they had among them were not placed in stables but hitched to logs beside cots. The warriors didn’t seem to be given meat and grain allotments; instead, they had personally constructed fires beside their collective beds, each cluster with a deer or a boar roasting above it.

  It was only midday when I arrived, but most of the soldiers were already drunk. I had expected the Tigurini to operate quite differently than a Roman army, but I was quite shocked at the degree. Roman soldiers were not allowed to indulge in much wine without being given liberty and express consent from their centurions. These men seemed to do as they liked.

  I ambled through the “camp” and tried to analyze the enemy. I would need all of the intelligence I could collect if I was to earn myself a place among them. They were a hardy bunch. Most of them bided their time with foolish competitions, like bouts of brawling or attempting to see who could hurl rocks the farthest. They were jovial, even amusing, to watch. Unlike a Roman camp where the mules complained constantly of missing their civilian lives and the ability to have a woman on demand, these Gauls seemed to revel in the opposite. There were no prostitutes soliciting them on the outskirts of the camp. They were away from the pressures of their farms and the nagging of their wives. It was clear that war was what these men lived for.

  I did all that I could not to attract attention to myself. I would have liked to find a solitary warrior to approach and introduce myself to, but it was clear that all of these men were well acquainted, perhaps not with the body at large, but at least with other clan members.

  Eventually, though, I was bound to make a mistake.

  The temperatures began to drop with the sun so I approached a fire pit, upon which a few rabbits were roasting, to warm myself.

  I heard a call. “Ay, you.” I did not dare turn to the noise but continued to stretch my hands over the glowing embers of the log. “You! I’m talking to you.” Soon I heard heavy footsteps approaching behind me.

  I turned to find an old man with silver hair down to his shoulders towering over me by at least a head. He, too, was missing an eye. Instead of covering it with a patch, however, he bore the milky-white dead flesh to the world as a war trophy. The rest of his face was scarred and some of the teeth behind his snarl were missing. His breath stank of ale.

  “You must not be Tigurini.” He breathed heavily through his nose, which whistled from a previous break.

  My knees nearly buckled. Had I really already made a mistake? One that would cost me my life? I had been so careful and had prepared for so long.

  “Oh? And what makes you say that?” I met his gaze.

  “No Tigurini would stand there without a drink in his hand.” His companions chuckled behind him. Most of them were younger, possibly sons or junior clan members.

  I smiled along with them. “You are right to say that I am not Tigurini. I am a drifter.”

  “Drifters don’t drink?” the clan father asked again, to more laughter.

  “I haven’t been offered one,” I said. I felt a desire for intoxication that was uncommon to me, but I knew I had to keep my wits about me. If I refused him outright, though, their suspicions would be confirmed.

  “Get him a drink, boys,” the father said without averting his dead eye’s gaze.

  One of them scooped up some ale from a large barrel and brought it to me. A few others approached as well, the amusement drained from their faces.

  “A drifter, you say?” one of them asked.

  “Drifters must be from somewhere,” another said.

  “Where are you from? And why do you join the Tigurini?” someone else asked.

  They approached closer still. In the peripheral of my good eye, I could see that they were beginning to surround me. The hair on the back of my neck stood to attention like a Roman century.

  I did all I could to maintain my composure.

  “It doesn’t matter where I’m from. I heard that the Tigurini are joining the Cimbri. Right? And I want to kill Romans,” I said, the words stinging in my mouth. They all exchanged a good laugh, and for a moment, their postures relaxed.

  “You’re too short to kill Romans,” one said as his companions guffawed. I found the statement fairly ironic, but I obviously kept that to myself.

  The father stepped closer still, close enough to feel the warmth his portly flesh put off like a furnace.

  He reached up to my face, I started to move away but then resigned to remain still. His grimy fingers slipped under my eye patch and slowly removed it from my face.

  “Why would you hide such a trophy?” he asked. I struggled to swallow and felt my body begin to tre
mble with anger. I squeezed my fists but released them once the others noticed.

  “You’ve clearly seen battle. But perhaps you weren’t victorious?” one of his sons added.

  I felt naked before them. Romans did not prize such wounds. To display it marred my honor. I had never felt farther from Italy in my life.

  “It’s best you leave before you get yourself hurt,” the father said, his drunk sons cackling behind him. It was clear that they weren’t concerned for my safety.

  “I’ll fight any man here to prove I’m able,” I said, spitting out the words before I could stop myself. As they turned around and sized me up, I immediately regretted my words. The Gallic prisoner had told me I must do this, but I wondered if I could have avoided it, if only for a bit longer. Too late now, though.

  “Is that right?” the father said.

  “Any man among you,” I said again, doubling down on my stupidity.

  All eyes turned to one of the younger men, and it made sense why. As tall as all the other barbarians, this man was larger than the rest. His calves were thicker than my thighs, and the muscles of his back extended so that his arms hung out like wings. He had a single scar across his cheek, but the rest of him was flawless. He was old enough to have seen many battles but had clearly been victorious.

  “And if you lose, will you beg for your life?” the father asked, feigning concern.

  “I will not.” They turned to one another. “I will not lose, I mean. I will not lose against him.” I gestured toward the big one. All of them gasped in mock surprise.

  “It’s your death, then, little man,” my challenger said, grabbing his club. If victory in battle was determined only on the size of a man, then I would certainly lose. Then again, the Romans would have lost against the barbarians in battle every time we met them. But that wasn’t the case. That being said, I didn’t have the shield wall of my comrades to protect myself either. My odds weren’t good.

  The large man stepped toward me, then paused a few paces away. Then he charged forward with surprising quickness. Caught off guard, I held my shield before me. The club smashed into it, shattering the shield I had so recently purchased and sending a quake of pain through my fingers and into my chest. I crashed into the ground.

  I scuttled across the dirt and rolled over.

  I recalled my sparring with Lucius. I stopped focusing on where my challenger was, and began to look for the signs about where he was about to be.

  By the time the barbarian swung his club to crush my skull, I had rolled out of the way. He stumbled for a moment, in his drunkenness, and I took advantage by sweeping his leg out from under him. He shook the earth beneath us as he collapsed. A big man like that is like a tortoise on its back. He struggled to rise, but before he could, the edge of my spear was pressed against his neck. I put just enough pressure to puncture the skin. A single thrust and his life would be extinguished.

  I looked him in the eye and shouted, “You are dead, Roman!”

  Once he raised his hands in surrender, I turned to analyze the reaction of his clanmates. Their eyes were wide and there were no smiles on their faces.

  “Anyone else?” I asked. When no one moved forward, I pulled my spear away from the giant’s throat.

  After a moment, the father spoke. “Alright, lad.” Nothing else needed to be said. The rest of them relaxed.

  The wounded man rose to his feet and walked away for a moment, taking a second to nurse his pride.

  The father tried to lighten the mood. “So you can fight like a Tigurini. Can you drink like one?” he said, a toothless grin stretching across his face.

  “I’ll drink you under the table, old man,” I said, trying my best to play the part. Finally, the Gauls laughed with me, rather than at me.

  “Give him that cup, then,” the father said, and gestured for me to sit on a log across from him.

  Without hesitation, I emptied the cup into my stomach. That fowl ale burned into my nostrils and all the way into my belly, but I didn’t let it show. They smiled and nodded to each other.

  The father finished his cup in the same manner.

  “You hungry? The meat should be ready soon.” He gestured to the rabbits. They were a simple kind of people, the Gauls. Easy to anger, easy to befriend.

  “Aye,” I said like one of them, and for a moment, as the effects of the ale warmed my belly and rushed through my head, I felt like one of them.

  The father gestured. “Fill ’im up, lads.”

  Confident of my display, and that I had proved myself, I ate their meat and drank ale with them the rest of the evening. I even clanked my cup of mead against that of the giant I had defeated. There were no hard feelings. I was the newest member of their clan, even if an unspoken one.

  In another life, perhaps I could have been like them. I could have eaten and drank alongside them, and charged furiously into battle. But in this life, they were just men who wanted to kill Romans. And because of that, they were just another enemy I would one day roast above a fire like the meat they gave me.

  15

  Scroll XV

  Seven days before the kalends of June 651 ab urbe condita

  After a few months of “training” with the Tigurini, which felt more like a seaside vacation, the Tigurini elders received word from the Cimbri that their forces were massing west of the Alps, and gave order for us to pack up our things and march to meet them.

  In the interim, I stayed with the clan that had accepted me. We drank until late into the dark, and rose early to hunt during the day. Luckily, I had some experience with a bow growing up in Nursia, for they handed me one and expected me to be a contributor on their hunting expeditions. We brought back plenty of deer and boar, and to be honest I much preferred this meal to the allotment of grain and watery soups we received in a Roman camp.

  As the Tigurini force marched loosely through the savage passes north of the Alps, I traveled with these men as well. They still seemed to revel in being away from home. They were hungry for war, and so told old tales, much embellished, the entire journey.

  “What about you, Stallion?” the father asked me. When they asked me my name, I answered with the Gallic word for a male horse. It was what my comrades had once called me before they all died, and it seemed fitting that the name should continue a mission to avenge them.

  “What about me?” I asked, shouldering my shield and spear.

  “Tell us a war story. You’ve clearly seen a battle or two,” one of the sons said.

  “I’ve seen many battles. But none so great as you brave warriors,” I said, the sarcasm not lost on them.

  “What about your eye?” the giant I had defeated asked.

  “And your leg too. We’ve noticed the hobble. You hide it well, but we have an eye for such things.”

  We walked a few paces farther before I ventured to reply. “I lost it in battle with the Romans.”

  “And your leg?” the father asked.

  “Same.”

  They exchanged a confused glance, and for a moment I feared that my phrasing had tipped them off.

  “And so this is why you want revenge? This is why you want to kill Romans?” one of the sons asked, a mischievous grin on his lips.

  “That is exactly why I want revenge,” I said. Afterward, I returned to silence, allowing the bards among us to spread tales of their personal heroism.

  We marched on for a few weeks, taking a direct path to the Cimbri camp rather than sticking to the roads. We marched knee deep in swampland and crept over thick thornbushes in the middle of forests. The only thing better about marching with the Gauls than the Romans was the fact that we didn’t have to keep ranks, so at least we could go at our own pace. Father was a fat, old man, so he set the pace and we stuck by him.

  When the Cimbri camp crept into view, we all gathered atop the precipice to gaze down on the Tigurini’s allies. Their forces were as boundless as the sea.

  “The Romans don’t know what is about to befall them.” The fa
ther grinned. I was inclined to agree with him.

  We approached their walls at a slow pace, allowing messengers to announce our arrival and seek approval for our entrance. I call them walls, but they were nothing like the fortresses the Romans were capable of building. Unlike the Gauls, the Cimbri at least had something to repel attackers, but they were not high walls of solid wood but massive logs sewn to a sharp point, driven into the ground and facing out to meet attackers like a defensive tortoiseshell.

  After a moment of waiting, the Cimbri gave word for us to enter.

  “Are you nervous, Stallion?” the giant asked, slapping me on the shoulder.

  “I’m just ready to fight,” I said.

  Upon entering, I was surprised to see that the camp was swarming with not only warriors but women and children as well. I expected some civilians, of course, but it was nearly one woman to every man, and a child to match them at least. And this fact, and how it would affect their mobilization capabilities, didn’t seem to disturb them.

  There were plots of soil already laid and being tilled. Mothers carried jugs of water as well as babes slung in satchels around their chests. If there was ever a nomad society, this was it. Heracles had not a tenth of the infrastructure these Cimbri had managed to gain. They had been a traveling people for some time now, so it made sense that they could make their homes anywhere available to them.

  The father of our clan went to convene with the other clan elders, and returned to tell us to rest for a while, and to find something to eat, while they conferred with the Cimbri king, Boiorix.

  He didn’t have to tell me twice.

  I distanced myself from my comrades and found somewhere to sit down. I didn’t want to let anyone know, but my leg was throbbing under the strain of so much walking. Marching under the Roman standard was a much quicker pace, but something about keeping cadence seemed to stifle the swelling around my old wound.