Marius' Mules VII: The Great Revolt (3 page)

For all their fearsome reputation, the Romans had treated the native dead with exactly the same respect. The larger pile of native ash lay beneath another mound on the far side of the plain.

But here in the middle lay the ordered rows of the notable dead. Romans commemorated with a wooden marker carved with their name, helmets, swords, torcs and the like hanging from the top to help identify them and the rank they held. Sons of Rome who led armies of thousands would be buried there, alongside their standard bearers, centurions and optios.

The Gallic honoured dead were considerably fewer, of course. Hardly any had their names marked, for the Romans knew not who they were. They were mostly commemorated only by the richness of their gear, displayed above the resting place of their ashes, only the few leaders that had been identified by the prisoners bearing a named marker.

The Gaul shook his head at the insanity of it all, and set off among the ordered lines.

It didn’t take him long to find the grave he sought. It was strange to think that such a vital man could have become ash and nothing more, just one among hundreds lying here in the earth. If the Gaul had had any truck with Gods, he might think the man and his silent companions had gone on to some divine after-world, but he knew in his heart of hearts that ash was all they would be. Ash and darkness, and unfeeling silence.

He looked down at the wooden marker with a sense of sadness tempered only by the knowledge that this man had been his enemy. A glittering sword hung on the wooden marker. In coming days that weapon would be stolen by one of the numerous scavengers who would move in when the Roman force left. Its beautiful orichalcum hilt, embossed with shapely Gods, identified it as a very valuable item.

‘I never wanted this. You know that,’ the Gaul whispered. ‘I argued against the whole thing.’

He was hardly surprised when a tear leaked from the corner of his eye and drove a channel through the caked dirt, sweat and mud on his cheek. He looked down at his clenched fist and, with seeming reluctance, turned it over and unfolded the fingers. The bronze pendant of the Roman Goddess Fortuna gleamed in the faint moonlight. He had apparently been gripping it so tightly it had cut his hand in half a dozen places, and a patina of watery crimson tinted the metal.

How appropriate
.

‘Luck apparently wasn’t with us.’ He prepared to cast the bronze figurine onto the grave, but paused with a sad smile.

‘Actually, I think I’ll hang onto it a while yet. After this disaster, I think any of us could use a little extra luck. Go to your Gods peacefully.’

Fastening the thong around his neck and tucking the figurine into his tunic, he fetched out of his purse the other thing he had brought -
that had brought him here
? Two shattered shards of slate, etched with shapes and strange arcane words that had once formed a whole. With a sigh, the Gaul crouched and jabbed the two shards into the freshly-turned earth above the buried jar of ashes. Standing once more, he placed his worn boot-sole upon the dreadful broken thing and pushed it down into the grave, out of sight.

‘Let it end there, in silence and darkness.’

He looked up and across the flat ground, towards the oppidum of Alesia that rose above the valleys and the plain like an upturned ship. Land of the lost.

‘Let it
all
end here.’

With a last sad look at the grave and the beautiful, rich sword, the Gaul turned, away from the man’s resting place, away from the silent rows of the slain, away from the Roman host, away from the last stand of Gaul and towards an uncertain future.

PART ONE: OPENING MOVES

Chapter 1

Massilia, some months previously
.

Fronto missed his step and stumbled, brushing painfully against the wall. For a moment he paused, hardly daring to breathe, and listening intently for any sound. His eyes automatically strayed along the wall to the location of one of the hidden weapons and he silently chided himself for such a reaction. The background hum of the building’s occupants was barely audible from outside, and after a count of twenty he decided that he was safe and that no one had heard. Allowing himself a long, slow exhale which plumed in the cold winter air, he straightened from the wall, reaching out to one of the columns in the colonnade. Very carefully and being as quiet as possible, he looked down at the crusty dark red stain on his leg. Damn it!

As carefully as he could he lifted his foot, causing the faintest of scrapes from the gravel underfoot.

‘Stop sneaking around like a thief and get back inside.’

Fronto felt himself jump, leaving the ground in shock for a moment, and turned to note in particular the arched brow of Lucilia where she stood behind him, her fists on her hips in the universal sign of a disgruntled spouse.
The army could use a couple of hundred of her
, he thought, aware that after two decades of military service and at the peak of his physical fitness he had not even reached the safety of the gate before messing up and making a noise, and yet this delectable - if irascible - young woman had managed to plant herself right behind him absolutely silently.

His heart seemed to be attempting to set some kind of speed record as he plastered his most ingratiating smile across his face.

‘Listen, beloved…’

‘Be quiet,’ she said in a calm, quiet voice that somehow managed to contain all the power and command of a military order backed by horns and standards. He had shut up before he had even thought about whether to… Lucilia certainly had
that
quality about her. She pursed her lips and Fronto experienced a moment of hope that he wasn’t in trouble, but then realised it wasn’t a matter of absolutes, but the
degree
of trouble that she was considering.

‘You agreed to the deal, Marcus. One more season… perhaps two. But you are a father now, and not getting any younger, and as soon as Caesar has this new province calmed and this rebellion you keep whiffling on about is put down, you are handing over your command and settling. Even Galronus has taken a step back from the army.’

Fronto felt the lurch that he experienced every time he thought of retirement and almost spoke, but stopped himself in time.

‘And once you have done that,’ she went on, ‘whatever you decide to do…’ she held up a warning finger, ‘and no, it will not involve any kind of arena or stadium,’ Fronto felt his spirits sink a little lower again, ‘you will need connections and the goodwill of the leading figures in the city. Remember, Marcus, that we are not in Rome now. In fact we are not even in the Republic as long as Massilia remains an independent city. We are subject to their laws and decisions.’

She pointed an angry finger at the doorway that led inside. It had never looked more like an executioner’s blade to Fronto. Her voice jacked up a notch.

‘My father -
your friend
- has put a lot of effort into getting those men here tonight. Five of the city’s most important men, and they are all here to see you. All so that you can form a network of allies in local government rather than blundering along as you normally do, like a blind hedgehog in a maze. It has been almost ten minutes since you went to the latrine, and if I have to listen to my father make one more embarrassing ‘pushing out a difficult one’ comment, I swear I will not be responsible for the murder spree of Olympian proportions that will ensue.’

Fronto quailed under that gaze and found that he was nodding meekly, again without having consciously made that decision. Somehow without Galronus around to add a little strength to his backbone, he seemed to cave all the easier.

‘Now get your sorry backside back into that villa and put on a show of being an erudite, grateful and entertaining social host so that all this effort is not for nothing.’

Fronto nodded again and watched as her eyes fell to the stain on his leg.

‘But go via the atrium and clean off that leg quickly in the impluvium pool. And it’s dripped on your shoes too, so change them for your spares - the soft ones, mind, and not those clod-hopping nailed military abominations.’

Fronto managed to recover a little and smiled disarmingly. ‘Beloved, you need to lower your voice,’ he said in a quiet and calm fashion. ‘You’ll wake the boys.’

‘The boys,’ she replied in a dangerous tone, ‘are out for the night now. You exhausted them earlier, and don’t think I didn’t see you dipping your finger in the wine and rubbing it on their gums. I told you before that when I saw you do that again I would have you dipped in the horse trough and you could sleep in the stables for the night.’

Fronto’s meek nod returned as his resistance drained. Things had been so different at the villa since Galronus had taken ship for Campania a month ago. He had lost his support and had never felt quite so exposed to feminine control. Damn the man!

‘Where were you going anyway?’

Fronto swallowed. If he even dared mention the
Dancing Ox
, his favourite little tavern down in the city, he knew he would wake the next day with a world-shaking headache. ‘Erm…’ he said, his mind racing to try and find an acceptable reason to be out in the front courtyard in the dark of a Ianuarius evening.

‘I thought I heard horses,’ he rattled out, trying hard to sound convincing and, as he saw Lucilia narrow her eyes, he cupped his hand to his ear. Yes. Definitely. Running horses. A lifeline to grasp for.

‘You don’t think I would leave you alone tonight? I went to the latrines, but I was taking the long route back for fresh air when I heard them. Do
you
hear them?’

Lucilia gave him another dangerous look. ‘Yes. Though unless they’ve been running on the spot for the last few minutes or you have developed godlike hearing, you are talking utter rubbish.

‘Shh…’

Her eyes widened and blazed as Fronto put a finger to his lips and frowned, turning in the direction of the increasing noise of drumming hooves.

‘Don’t you
dare
…’

This time, Fronto placed his finger on her lips and the look he shot her stopped her anger in its tracks. ‘What is it?’ she whispered.

‘Those are cavalry, not civilians, and armoured, too.’

‘Really? Whose? Ours? Gauls? How do you know?’

Fronto simply peered out into the night. The regular, syncopated drumming hooves of three riders who were familiar and comfortable with a shared pace. The sound of mail shirts shushing with the horses’ motion. The rattle of metal fittings, scabbards and helmets. Almost certainly Roman. If they were Gauls they were the more Romanized variety and using similar kit, but then there were tribes like that. Probably no threat, but then, as Lucilia had just reminded him, they were not actually within the republic’s bounds here.

Wordlessly he crossed to a large plant pot from which grew a well-trimmed shrub and reached down behind it, into the narrow gap against the wall. With a measured breath he withdrew a plain, traditional soldier’s gladius and slid it from the scabbard.

‘When did you put that there?’

Fronto, still peering off across the dark ground beyond the villa’s low wall, shrugged. ‘I have a few in handy hiding places.’

‘You’ll move them before the boys start walking,’ she hissed.

‘Lucilia,’ he replied, pressing his finger harder against her lips as he raised the sword ready, the thunder of hooves so close now their noise was almost deafening in the quiet night air.

The figures resolved slowly as they rounded the small copse of trees that marked the edge of the villa’s grounds and the fork in the drive that separated the road to their home and that of Lucilia’s father. Fronto tried to pick out the details of the three men, but all he could tell was that they appeared to be cloaked and mailed and moving at pace. He hefted the blade again, glinting in the moonlight.

The three horses pounded along the gravel road and through the gate. Fronto stared at these intruders. They could hardly be hostile, for their blades were still sheathed, but they were hairy, tangled, messy fellows, wrapped in travel cloaks and stained armour and…

He frowned, and the furrowed brow slowly resolved into a wicked, dark grin. His sword lowered.

‘What in the name of seven fallen Vestals happened to you? You look like a hairy cow’s arse.’ Fronto leaned against the doorframe and shook his head with a grin. ‘No, no, no. You make a cow’s arse look
good
.’

Priscus slipped from the horse and landed badly, almost falling. It was only then that Fronto saw through the hair and the dust and dirt of the journey and realised how bone-tired - how truly exhausted - and deadly serious his friend was. He straightened, allowing all humour to drain from him once more. The rather battered and scarred figures of Furius and Fabius on the horses behind bore that same look, which made Fronto swallow noisily as the pair slid from their saddles and joined Priscus, one of them shutting the gate behind him and securing the courtyard.

‘What’s up?’ Fronto breathed.

Priscus straightened, stretched, and nodded to the villa’s master. ‘This city still have Caesar’s courier office?’

‘Of course.’ Now Fronto was worried. ‘Why?’

‘Then let’s get down there. I have to write a letter to the general and I’ll need your authority to get it sent expedited.’

‘Tonight?’

‘Preferably yesterday, but tonight will have to do.’

Fronto shook his head. ‘The courier service doesn’t operate during the hours of darkness by Massilian law, just like any other business. It’ll have to wait ‘til first light tomorrow. Besides, I’ve seen you write letters. It’s like watching an ape reading Plautus: slow and painful. It’ll take most of the night for you to write it!’

Priscus sagged a little. ‘Fronto, this is
urgent
.’

Fabius and Furius walked their horses forward - on his nicely tended lawn, noticed Fronto - and the latter clapped his hand on his commander’s shoulder. ‘It’s been weeks, Priscus. One night more will make no difference.’