Marius' Mules VII: The Great Revolt (52 page)

‘But they’re not here now,’ sighed Fronto. ‘You could join us, you know? I have need of clever men, and I get the feeling that describes you quite well.’

‘Turn my back on my own people and serve Rome?’

‘Plenty of others have.’

Cavarinos shook his head. ‘My honour sells dearer than that, I’m afraid. Not that the offer doesn’t tempt me, mind.’

‘But you don’t want this any more than I.’

‘And yet you’re still here too, Fronto. A man of your rank doesn’t
need
to be - I can recognise a patrician when I see one. Why don’t
you
walk away?’

‘Something about honour I guess,’ Fronto smiled wearily. ‘It’s my last season. This winter I hang my blade on the wall and leave the military for good. I’m a father now and I’d like my boys to grow up with me around.’

Cavarinos laughed. ‘You might plan that, but I can see the warrior in your eyes, Fronto. You can no more settle down like that than you can walk away from this war.’

‘No. This is my last fight. And it’ll end with Gaul peaceful, so that I can settle in Massilia and not have to worry about the lands a few miles from my door erupting in rebellion.’

‘I hope you get to retire peacefully, Fronto, though I doubt it will come to pass. And I cannot hope that it comes about through the end of our culture.’ He straightened. ‘Now, to business. Am I destined for a slave brand, or to be traded for Roman captives when the time comes?’

Fronto laughed, though with no humour. ‘I don’t think so. I’m thinking that when this entire mess comes to an end one way or another, the world will need men like you and I to try and bring it back into order. And your name’s been struck from the captive list, remember?’

Cavarinos gave him an appraising look. ‘If you free me, you know I will continue to fight against you. Remember what your friend Priscus advised.’

‘Then let’s pray to our gods that we don’t meet in the fight that’s coming, eh?’

Cavarinos chuckled. ‘You pray for both of us. The gods and I don’t get on all that well.’

‘Shame. You might need their help soon. Perhaps if you’d paid a little more devotion before now, you wouldn’t be here now.’

‘And I wouldn’t have had the chance to sample your fine vinegar and have this little chat.’

‘Seriously, Cavarinos. Keep yourself safe. When this is over and we’re working through the captives and the dead, I want to see you being marked off the former list, not the latter.’

‘Luck is luck, Fronto. Not the will of the gods. Good or bad, it comes when you wake and leaves when you sleep.’

On a whim, Fronto reached into his tunic and pulled out his small bronze figurine of Fortuna, struggling to remove the leather thong from his neck. The broken, legless ivory Nemesis looked lonely against his skin, and he resolved to replace them the next time he found a merchant with a supply or an artisan who could do them justice. Silently, he held the bronze figure in the palm of his hand and offered it to Cavarinos.

‘What is this?’

‘Fortuna. Our goddess of luck, and my patron goddess. I feel you might need her more than I in the coming days. If we both get through this, you can always give me it back sometime, but take it and wear it for now.’

Cavarinos hesitated, but finally reached out and took the pendant. ‘Try not to get speared in her absence,’ he smiled weakly.

‘I have to get back to my tent before Antonius has drunk all my wine. And shortly it’ll be truly dark and it’ll be a bugger climbing back to camp. Get going and don’t look back. There will be scouts out there, so be careful.’

Cavarinos nodded and thrust out his hand. Fronto took and gripped it. ‘Be safe.’

‘You too.’

The Roman officer stood and watched as the Gaul slipped out of the doorway and into the night, and then sighed, straightened, and began to stroll back to camp. This had been the third time he’d had Cavarinos of the Arverni in his grip - after Vellaunoduno and Decetio - and the third time he’d let him go. He hoped the habit he’d formed would not come back to bite him, but didn’t think so. Cavarinos might continue to fight with his king, but men whose ultimate goal was peaceful coexistence were men who should be encouraged, whatever side they fought upon.

His hand went up to the damaged figure of Nemesis at his throat. He hoped Fortuna wouldn’t take it personally that he’d given her away. After all, Cavarinos might be in desperate need of luck, but Fronto had only survived on her whim a number of times now.

He turned as he ascended toward the rampart, and his gaze just about picked out a shadowy figure moving among the trees on the far side of the river.

‘Good luck.’

* * * * *

‘You should get yourself dried out first,’ Vergasillaunus suggested, looking the drenched, shivering nobleman up and down. ‘Less than a thousand cavalry made it back, you know. Their pickets must be half-blind for you to slip past them. You were lucky to escape alive.’

Luck
. Yes, that was it. Cavarinos’ hand went up to touch his chest, feeling the shape of Fortuna beneath his wool tunic.

‘I will find dry clothes shortly. Caesar has stopped running for Agedincum, my king. His army is encamped not five miles from here, at the old spring temple near Abello. He is convinced that he can beat you in battle in the open field now that you have no cavalry support, at least according to one of the Romans I overheard. I suspect he is waiting until the morning to see what you do before he finalises his plans.’

Vercingetorix nodded. ‘He is astute. And almost certainly correct. Without our cavalry, there is too great a risk of failure if we confront him. Once again, ill luck strips away our advantage. We cannot meet him in the field, and it will take too long for reserves to reach us. We must make for a place of safety while we await reinforcements.’

Cavarinos pursed his lips. ‘Abello is too close to them. Caesar would stop us before we reached the hill. Decetio is too far back south, and again, the journey would take us perilously close to Caesar’s army.’ He paused with a frown. ‘What about Alesia?’

The king nodded appreciatively. ‘The Mandubii owe their allegiance to us, and Alesia is almost as defensive as Gergovia. Perhaps, even without the cavalry, we can repeat our earlier success there. And once the reserves turn up, we’ll trap Caesar between an anvil and a hammer. A good choice. If we push ourselves as soon as the sun is up, we can be behind its ramparts by sunset.’

‘The Romans will know where we’ve gone,’ Vergasillaunus noted. ‘Their scouts are all over the countryside.’

‘That matters not. Alesia is more or less impregnable. We will make a stand there and wait for the reserves.’

Cavarinos nodded, shuddering in his cold wet clothes.

The capital of the Mandubii, then. That was where the big fight of which Fronto and he had spoken would take place.

Alesia
…

PART THREE: ENDGAME

Chapter 17

Alesia. Summer 52BC.

Vercingetorix stood tall on the bluff at the western end of Alesia’s plateau, both hands resting casually on the pommel of the long sword at his side, his intelligent, contemplative brow furrowed as he looked down over the aptly-name
plain of mud
below, his long hair whipping in the evening breeze.

Behind him the sounds of oppidum life went on. Alesia was perhaps a third as large again as Gergovia. Its slopes may not be as steep and unassailable, and its walls not quite as sturdy, but it made a more than adequate camp for the army of free tribes. Despite being so much larger than the Arvernian capital, Alesia supported less than half that population, leaving acres of space for the army that had arrived a few hours ago, even if much of that was at the eastern end and outside the walls. Even now the bulk of the force was still setting up, selecting where to site their tribes and assigning sections of rampart to watch over. Many of the nobles, including the king’s cousin, were busy working with the Mandubian elders of the city, trying to settle in without too much inconvenience to the population. But Cavarinos stood here with Vercingetorix, Lucterius, and the Mandubian chieftain, looking out over the plain, as much to be away from his brother as any other reason.

The local chief looked distinctly uncomfortable as he surveyed the scene before them, and who could blame him. He had not quibbled at the huge army that had arrived on his doorstep and asked that they be given space and food until further notice, warned that the might of Rome would be on his doorstep in a matter of hours. He had not complained at all. But the private silent panic supposedly locked in the darkness of his mind emanated from him like a carnyx call to retreat. Cavarinos could not help but sympathise with the man.

Below them, on the wide plain bisected by a narrow and shallow river, that Roman might was assembling, having appeared on the scene mere hours behind their quarry. Their baggage was yet to arrive, Caesar having clearly considered the wagons safe with the enemy in front of them, and the army had pushed on, harrying the rearmost of the tribes as they ran for the safety of this high mountain.

Legions were moving even now around Alesia’s bulk, heading for the heights of the other hills that surrounded it, where they could watch for every movement and maintain a siege if required.

‘They are sealing us in well,’ Cavarinos noted.

‘They might think so. They do not anticipate our reinforcements, I believe.’

‘We need to learn from the Romans,’ Cavarinos mused, tapping his chin. ‘They like their boundaries. They work by them. If our army is largely encamped at the eastern extremity beneath the walls, they are in danger. The Romans will consider them exposed. All we need do is build a stone wall like the one we had below Gergovia, and maybe a ditch, and the Romans won’t even think of attacking. And it’s a much shorter rampart to build than the last one was.’

The king nodded slowly. ‘Agreed. See to it, Cavarinos.’ He turned with a genuinely warm smile. ‘I value your perceptive observations on the enemy. I am pleased you returned to us safe.’

‘So am I. What do we do about the reinforcements?’

‘Ah, that.’

‘Yes.’

The king reached up and stroked his moustaches, watching the legions moving like some sort of machine down below. ‘They will attempt to seal us in completely. That is their
modus operandi
. They did so at Vellaunoduno and with the aid of the swamps at Avaricon much the same. They did not try at Gergovia - I believe because the sheer scale of the place put them off - and there they failed, so they will not make that mistake again. Watch for them constructing some sort of circuit.’

Cavarinos frowned. ‘Are you sure?’ He looked around at the landscape he could see in the golden light of the sinking sun. ‘That would have to be an enormous rampart… many miles long.’

‘Caesar has both the men and the patience. It will happen. If we are to do anything, it must be done before those defences go up. It must be done before the dawn.’

Cavarinos sighed. ‘What do you wish of me?’ Subterfuge and distant missions seemed to be his lot in life this year. Somewhere deep in his soul, though - where he would not admit to its existence - a small part of him cheered that he would not be forced to face Fronto in battle. The king’s words ripped that away in a heartbeat.

‘Nothing, my friend. Your place is here with us. You are a constant source of wise recommendations, and the way this war currently wavers I value that input.’ He looked across at the fourth member of their group. ‘Lucterius?’

The Cadurci chieftain turned, currently enjoying a satisfying moment in the late sun. His year had started with numerous failures, but his brave and dangerous cavalry action at Gergovia had finally restored his reputation. Indeed, of the dreadful cavalry attack on Caesar’s army yesterday, only Lucterius had managed to pull together a unit of survivors and get them across the river and back to the army. The rest of the survivors had fled in braces and rare dozens and had filtered back to camp over the following hours.

‘My king?’

Vercingetorix smiled at him. The Arvernian leader was not the king of the Cadurci, of course, but the honorific was heartfelt and he knew it. ‘Only you and the cavalry stand a chance of getting past the assembled legions fast enough to move to free ground and escape their clutches.’

‘You would ask me to leave, my king?’

‘For the good of the army, to seek aid’ Vercingetorix explained. Cavarinos nodded sagely, as aware as the others of the unspoken bonus there: that the loss of so many human and equine mouths in Alesia would ease the food issues somewhat.

‘You will need every good warrior here,’ Lucterius argued. ‘My place is at your side. Send someone else.’

The king shook his head. ‘No. It must be someone in whom I have the utmost trust, and who I know is bright enough and brave enough to get past the Romans and stay free. Take the surviving cavalry - both yours and those other tribes who remain - out of Alesia during the hours of darkness.’

‘And if we break past the Romans, what do you require of me?’ Lucterius asked, sagging slightly.

‘Before you leave, I want you to visit each of the chieftains, kings or higher nobles leading the forces of this army and acquire a seal or other token that confirms that you speak for them. Once you have those, take the horsemen and ride for Bibracte with all haste. With Roman armies in the field and the future of the tribes still at risk, I feel certain that the assembly of chieftains will still be present there. Speak to the assembly and press for war on the grandest scale. Do not hold back. Make certain they are clear on what is required to win this fight and on what is at stake here. We can win now, but only if the tribes decide to fight Rome as a nation. It is time to put aside tribal politics and devote all our power to destroying Caesar.’

The Cadurci leader frowned. ‘Do you think the chiefs here will agree to me speaking for them?’

‘You are respected, Lucterius. And each of those chiefs is now trapped here with us. They know first-hand what is at stake.’