The Druid King (22 page)

“I know what you are thinking,” Dumnorix shouted over the tumult in a disparaging tone. “You believe that the Romans would only have us board their boats in the teeth of this howling storm to put to sea and drown us in the maelstrom.”

At this there was a roar of outrage, albeit a confused one, for there was agreement with his words but not at all with the sardonic tone in which he had delivered them.

Dumnorix took a deep breath.

“Well, you are right!” he roared, drawing his sword and plunging it into the neck of the Roman to his right before the man even had time to be surprised. “It’s a trap! Scatter to the four winds! Return to our own lands, where we belong!”

“Who will board his men after Vercingetorix?” demanded Caesar. “Don’t all speak at—”

He stopped in mid-sentence, suddenly staring toward the tent entrance. Vercingetorix whirled around to see a Roman centurion, bleeding profusely from wounds on his right arm and left thigh, half staggering, half falling into the tent.

“The Edui . . . Dumnorix . . . Caesar . . .”

Caesar rushed to his side and cradled him in his arms, heedless of the blood. “Go to the ships and fetch a surgeon!” he ordered Tulius, and only when the general had departed on an ordinary servant’s errand did he speak to the centurion, displaying a sense of priorities that left Vercingetorix quite touched.

“Easy, man, help is on the way,” Caesar then said gently. “Now, do you think you can tell us what happened?”

“Dumnorix . . . he . . . tricked us. . . . When he spoke to his men . . .”

The centurion hesitated, wincing in pain; then forced himself to continue. “The Romans would drown us in this storm, he shouted . . . and he drew his sword and cut down one of the guards before . . . before I could . . . draw my own . . . and by the time I did, Edui were rushing forward to aid him, he was shouting at them to scatter and flee. . . . It was all swords and confusion. . . .”

Caesar’s face had been darkening with anger and flushing red as he listened to this. “I am shamed to have failed you, Caesar . . . but there were only three of us . . . they took us by surprise . . .” the centurion said.

Now purple veins in Caesar’s temple throbbed with rage, yet he managed to lay the wounded centurion gently on the ground. “No blame,” he said. “For your bravery against hopeless odds, you shall be promoted to primus pilius.”

But when he rounded on the Gauls, his fury was uncontained. “I’ll crucify the cowardly bastard when I catch him, and all who fled!” he roared. “And if this man dies, I’ll execute the Eduen hostages too! I’ll . . . I’ll . . .”

“Calm yourself, Caesar,” said his man Gisstus, “you know—”

“I’ll . . . I’ll . . .”

Caesar’s tongue seemed to turn to wood in his mouth, his body began to shake, his knees crumpled, his eyes rolled upward, showing only whites; the Gauls shrank backward as he began to foam at the mouth like a mad dog—

—all but Vercingetorix, who had learned of this malady in the druid school and knew what it was before Gisstus spoke its Roman name.

“The falling sickness!”

“Touched by the gods!” cried Comm.

Vercingetorix had already dropped to his knees at Caesar’s side, and as he had been taught, he jammed the heel of his left hand into Caesar’s mouth to prevent him from biting his tongue, wincing at the pain of the bite as he kept Caesar’s teeth pried open. He pressed the thumb of his right hand hard into the back of Caesar’s neck, rotating it rhythmically.

“What are you—”

“Druid magic!” said Epirod. “I have seen this before.”

Caesar emerged from the blinding white light of the fit to find himself supine on the ground with a hand in his mouth and a not unpleasant pressure at the back of his neck.

He looked up and saw the face of Vercingetorix looking down on him, then realized the hand was his. And Caesar’s teeth were biting cruelly into it, his mouth tasting blood.

Hastily, he spit out the hand, pried himself upright, saw that the blood was Vercingetorix’s, not his own.

“Your hand . . .”

“It is nothing, Caesar; I’ve had worse from playing too roughly with dogs. . . .”

“Still . . .”

As his wits returned to full clarity, he saw that the Gauls were staring down at him with expressions of fear tinged with awe, and then he remembered that many of the superstitious believed that victims of the falling sickness—among them, some said, Great Alexander himself— were favored by the gods. Indeed, there were times he believed it himself, times when he had returned from wherever his spirit went with visions.

But this was not one of them.

On the other hand . . .

“What are you staring at?” he shouted. “Have you never seen the gods speak thusly to a man before?”

The Gauls shrank back fearfully, as well the treacherous, lying bastards should. All save Vercingetorix, who offered him his uninjured hand instead.

Just as Caesar was rising shakily to his feet with this aid, Tulius returned to the tent with the surgeon.

“Caesar—”

“I’m all right, Tulius,” Caesar told him brusquely. Then, to the surgeon, “Tend to the wounded man, while I tend to
these.
”

He glared at the Gauls. “It would appear that Dumnorix and the Edui have robbed us all of glory and fortune—”

“What?” exclaimed Tulius.

“Dumnorix has fled with an unknown number of his troops,” Labienus told him. “So much for your chance to lead an army of Gauls to glory, Tulius. The invasion can hardly go ahead now that—”

“That’s for
me
to decide,” Caesar snapped peremptorily.

“I only—”

“Never mind that now, Labienus. I put
you
in charge of order here. Restore it. Take however many men you need off the boats and do it! And have whatever so-called leaders of the Edui still remain here brought to me. Including that lying dog’s brother, Diviacx!”

Few words were spoken among the Gauls while the Romans rounded up the Eduen prisoners, and Vercingetorix himself was at a loss for words. Caesar huddled in a corner of the tent in hushed conversation with his man Gisstus, whose face always seemed familiar to Vercingetorix somehow, and who, though no Roman noble or general, always seemed to have Caesar’s ear.

It was Decimus Brutus, a Roman officer not much older than himself, who finally brought in half a dozen sodden Edui under the guard of an equal number of legionnaires, among them a fearful Diviacx and a defiant-looking Litivak.

“As you can see, Caesar,
I
did not betray you,” Diviacx whined, “I’m still here—”

“Silence!” roared Caesar. “Dumnorix is your brother, you treacherous swine!”

“Am I responsible for that? I’ll have Litivak—”

“Another unbidden word and I’ll rip your tongue out myself!” Caesar said. “Brutus, what’s the situation out there?”

“Utter confusion, Caesar. Perhaps two-thirds of the Edui scattered when Dumnorix fled.” Brutus nodded at Litivak. “But this man rallied the rest to him and kept them from leaving.”

“This is true?”

“Someone had to uphold the honor of the Edui,” Litivak said. “We are not all oath-breakers, Caesar.”

“We shall see about the
honor
of the Edui when we have Dumnorix before us,” said Caesar. “Brutus, take as many men as you need, and track him—”

“You can’t do that, Caesar!” cried Diviacx.

“
You
are telling
me
what I can’t do?” Caesar roared. “And when did I give you permission to speak?”

“I crave your pardon for misspeaking myself,” Diviacx said in a groveling tone that curdled Vercingetorix’s stomach. “But allow me to explain, Caesar.”

Caesar gave Diviacx a curt, contemptuous nod, clearly as disgusted with him as Vercingetorix was.

“This is a matter of Eduen honor, to be—”

“Eduen honor?” shouted Caesar. “About as real as the teeth of chickens!”

“Something that my brother has stolen from us and that must be returned,” Diviacx told him. “He must be condemned by a druid enforcing the law of—”

“Congratulations, Diviacx,” said Caesar, “you have just volunteered. And the verdict and punishment had better not be in doubt.”

“So be it,” Diviacx said softly. “But if Dumnorix is captured and held by your men, no Gaul will see this as other than an act of Rome.”

“He’s right!” cried Comm.

“No Gaul must be seized by Rome!” said Litivak.

“It is true,” Vercingetorix told Caesar. “Dumnorix has disgraced the Edui, but if your men seize him, it will rob the Edui of the chance to redeem their honor, and his punishment will be seen not as druid justice but as your vengeance.”

“He is right,” said Litivak. “Do this thing, Caesar, and what remains of the Eduen army will no longer heed me unless I denounce you.”

Caesar grew more thoughtful at this. “Point taken,” he muttered sourly, “but—”

“Send Litivak after him,” said Diviacx, “a man who has proved his loyalty.”

“I’ll not trust another Eduen with anything until Dumnorix is captured and disposed of.”

“Then send Vercingetorix,” said Litivak.

“Vercingetorix?”
cried both Caesar and Diviacx. Vercingetorix himself was taken aback.

“He’s an Arverne who has won the admiration of many of the Edui,” said Litivak. He gazed at Vercingetorix with more warmth than Vercingetorix had ever expected to see on an Eduen face.

“Vercingetorix . . . ?” said Caesar in quite another tone, his fury apparently slaked by this suggestion for some reason Vercingetorix himself did not understand.

“Let him take a mixed party of Arverni and Edui,” suggested Litivak.

“Oh no!” said Caesar. “I’ll permit no more Edui out of my sight until Dumnorix is captured, condemned, and executed.”

There was a long moment of silence as Caesar and the Gauls glared at each other.

Then Caesar smiled at them.

“I will send either Brutus with a force of Romans after him, or Vercingetorix with his Arverni,” he said with the poisonous sweetness of a dose of hemlock in a cup of honey. “But let it not be said that Caesar is not a reasonable man.
You get to choose.”

There was another long silence.

“Do I hear any votes for Brutus?” said Caesar.

When there were none, he turned to Vercingetorix, cocking an inquisitive eyebrow at him. Gisstus seemed to be attempting to gain his attention, but Caesar paid him no heed.

“I cannot order you to do this, my friend,” Caesar told him, “nor would I if I could. But would you volunteer?”

“I cannot refuse such a request,” Vercingetorix told Caesar, then cast a black look at Diviacx. “Nor will I pretend that it displeases me to do it.”

“Get rid of them,” Gisstus hissed urgently in Caesar’s ear when Vercingetorix had departed. “We must speak privately at once.”

It sounded like an order, and Caesar would have taken umbrage at being addressed thusly by any other man.

“Tulius, take these
noble Gauls
to their men and have them see to it that there are no further defections,” he ordered. “And make sure they’re securely guarded while they do it. Brutus, take Diviacx back to his tent, and guard him well against loneliness.”

“You’ve made a mistake, Caesar,” Gisstus told him as soon as they were alone in the tent.

“How so?” asked Caesar irritably. He did not at all like being told he was wrong by anyone, even Gisstus. But any commander who trusted no one to tell him such things was courting disaster.

“Dumnorix may know too much,” Gisstus told him.

“He does . . . ? For whom to know?”

“Vercingetorix.”

“Keltill!”
Caesar groaned, realizing that Gisstus was right. The minor matter of eliminating that troublemaker now threatened major problems.

Diviacx had condemned Keltill under druid law, but Caesar had encouraged—or, to be blunt about it, ordered—the druid to get it done if the situation turned out to warrant it. No one else knew this, save Gobanit, who was dead, and of course Gisstus.

As far as Caesar knew . . .

But Dumnorix was Diviacx’s brother.

And however much Diviacx had or had not told him, he knew that Gisstus had been there when Keltill was seized, disguised as a simple Eduen warrior. . . .

“You really think he knows?” asked Caesar.

Gisstus shrugged. “We certainly can’t be sure he doesn’t.”

“But if so, why would he have held his silence so long?”

“If he knows, Dumnorix would have held his silence to protect his brother and to avoid Arverne retribution against the Edui. But now that half the Edui disown him, and Diviacx is ready to condemn him to death—”

“He has no reason to remain silent and every reason to speak and take vengeance before he dies . . .” groaned Caesar. “Take care of it yourself, Gisstus. But use a Teuton weapon. It won’t do to have our hand visible behind this one either.”

It was still raining hard when Vercingetorix reached the Arverne encampment. There were neither stars nor moon to see by, and Dumnorix’s defectors had broken up into small bands and scattered. But Vercingetorix realized that Dumnorix’s choices were limited. To the northwest was the sea, to the east were the lands of Teuton tribes, so surely the Eduen vergobret would be trying to make his way back south, to the lands of the Edui, within a wedge-shaped territory between the coast and the Rhine. And he was less than an hour ahead.

Leaving Critognat in charge of the rest of his men, Vercingetorix dispersed a thousand of his warriors into small groups, and sent them south along an ever-widening front with orders not only to seek out Dumnorix directly but to question everyone in their paths, for surely
someone
would have seen Dumnorix and his men.

Taking Baravax and a dozen guards, Vercingetorix rode out several leagues behind the center of this widening front. Rather than trying to capture Dumnorix themselves, any party picking up the trail was to follow it cautiously at a distance and send a messenger back to him. Hunched over on their horses against the rain, two men in rough brown peasants’ cloaks but with Teuton javelins lashed to their saddles rode a mile or so behind Vercingetorix’s party, hidden from them by the rain, the distance, and the darkness, but tracking them easily enough by the noise of their horses and the churned-up mud of their passage.