The Druid King (33 page)

“Worse still, I lost myself,” said Caesar. “But no more. In the winter, in the spring, taking a city bereft of supplies would have been a disaster, but now there are a city or two whose tribes are minor ones which wisely sought to keep out of Vercingetorix’s ruinous war—”

“Like the Bituriges?”

“Exactly, my young friend, exactly! Vercingetorix has thus far kept out of their territory, for fear of accumulating new enemies.”

He wheeled his horse around.

“But now we will force
him
to follow
us
! To Bourges! Where the Bituriges will surely have stored away the harvest within its walls against the general chaos outside.”

“But surely Vercingetorix will realize where we are going and, with his well-fed horses and us moving mostly afoot, will be able to get there before us.”

“Exactly!” said Caesar. “Pray to the gods that he does!” He laughed again, this time more heartily. “On second thought, why bother them with beggarly entreaties? He will have no choice! We have him, Brutus, we have him!”

And he set off at a full gallop to give the order.

Vercingetorix had called Critognat, Litivak, Comm, Luctor, and Cottos into council in a small forest clearing some distance from their troops. The night sky was moonless but star-bright, yet empty of omens that might aid him in comprehending the mind of Caesar. Even though a young boar was roasting on its spit above the fire around which they hunkered, Vercingetorix could summon up no visions from the flames. Nor did the barrel of beer into which they dipped drinking horns from time to time provide any.

For five days, Caesar’s army had ceased its futile pursuit and instead marched away through lands already burned black. And today he had even refused the bait when Vercingetorix had shown his assembled forces atop a ridge to his southeast, continuing relentlessly to the northwest.

“He is going somewhere,” said Vercingetorix. “That much is obvious.”

“You do not have to be the Great Leader of Warriors to figure that out,” snapped Comm.

“But where?” said Luctor. “And why?”

“Why should we care?” said Critognat. “Wherever he’s going, we can move faster than he can, so let
us
finally chase
him,
catch him, and finish him off.”

Vercingetorix knew that Critognat was speaking for most of the Gauls. Morale had been low since this strategy of despoiling and burning Gaul before the Romans had begun, but now that Caesar had seized an initiative that Vercingetorix could not explain, it was getting worse. Even Litivak was, in his darker moments, openly skeptical of his leadership.

“It is not yet time,” Vercingetorix told them nevertheless.

“You always say that!” said Critognat. “Why
not
now?”

“Because we must have patience. Because time is on our side. Because the Romans only become weaker day by day.”

“You always say that too!”

“Because it is always true.”

“Arrgh!” growled Critognat, throwing up his arms in disgust. “We act like cowards who have shot arrows into a lion and slink back waiting for him to bleed to death, lacking the courage to do what honor demands!”

Litivak had said little, but now Critognat had spoken what his warriors, restive with disgust, were telling him. Surely the time had come for him to be forthright himself.

“Time is
not
on our side,” said Litivak. “The Romans’ bodies may be weak with hunger, but our spirits are weakened by this craven retreating, this destruction we wreak in our own land, which makes us hated by our own people—”

“—which makes us hate ourselves!”

“Well spoken, Cottos!” declared Critognat. “I say it is time to remember what it means to be Gauls, and attack now before our troops lose
all
heart!”

“That is what he’s inviting us to do,” said Vercingetorix, “and only a fool accepts an enemy’s invitation.”

“He is desperate,” said Luctor. “All the more reason to fall upon him now.”

“He is both desperate
and
cunning,” said Vercingetorix.

“So what does the cunning Vercingetorix suggest we do?” Litivak asked, somewhat taken aback by the edge he heard in his own voice.

“Continue the strategy that has made him so desperate, and in the end victory will be ours.”

“In the end, we will all be old men with beards down to our belly buttons!” roared Critognat. “In the end, we all end up in the Land of Legend! In the end, what tale of glory will we have to boast of to the heroes we will meet there?”

“I tell you, Vercingetorix, your ‘army of Gaul’ will not survive much more of this,” said Litivak.

“Meaning what, Litivak?”

Litivak paused to take a deep draft of beer, or, rather, took a long drink of beer to allow him a pause. But when he had swallowed it all, there was still nothing else for it.

“Meaning
I
cannot keep my warriors under your command much longer,” he said.

“
Cannot
or
will not
?” demanded Vercingetorix.

“I will not lose the loyalty of my own men in the service of a strategy in which neither they nor I believe, and I
cannot
disobey my own vergobret when Liscos finally summons up the courage to order me to withdraw—”

“For fear of losing your chance to succeed him, Litivak?”

“Who are
you
to chide
me
for such modest ambition, Great Leader of Warriors and would-be king of Gaul?”

“Well spoken, Litivak,” Vercingetorix admitted softly, touching Litivak’s heart. Still. . . .

“I tell you, no matter what
I
will or do not will, my Edui will no longer follow a leader who takes them where they do not want to go.”

“You speak of me or yourself?”

Litivak sighed. He calmed himself with another swallow of beer before he spoke again. “Both,” he said. “My men will not follow me if I follow an Arverne who leads us only into dishonor. They’re at the point where they will follow whoever will lead them where they want to go.”

“Which is where?”

“Either home, or in an attack on the Roman army on its desperate march to wherever—”

Litivak stopped in midstream as the revelation struck him.

Of course!

“Or find out
where
the Romans are going and get there first!”

“Yes!” exclaimed Vercingetorix.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I know how to get there first.” For Vercingetorix had now remembered the first time he had seen a Roman road, arrow-straight from horizon to horizon, thrust through the landscape like a sword of stone. Caesar was on no such road now. But his army was marching as if one were there. That was his Roman nature. And that was his Roman mistake.

He picked up a twig from the ground and began making purposeful marks with it in the dirt.

“Look!
Here
is where Caesar broke off pursuing us,” he said, marking an X in the dirt. “And here is where he was the second day, and here the third, and the
fourth,
and the
fifth.
”

He drew a line connecting the five position markers.

“Straight as an arrow!” said Comm.

“And to where does the arrow point . . . ?”

“By the gods, of course!” exclaimed Luctor. “To the lands of the Bituriges!”

“Who have held aloof from the war,” said Litivak.

“And whose lands neither we nor the Romans have entered,” said Cottos.

“And who therefore have been able to bring in the harvest!”

“And no doubt stored it
here
!” Vercingetorix said, jabbing the point of his stick into the earth. “In Bourges!”

“Of course!
That’s
what they’re after!”

Vercingetorix nodded. “The Romans’ last hope of resupply,” he said. “And, knowing where they are marching, we can easily ride there first.”

“And then,” cried Critognat, “when he arrives, we destroy him!”

“No,” said Vercingetorix. “We burn the granaries of Bourges. Every bit of food for man or horse in the city.”

There was a brief moment of silence, during which nothing could be heard but the distant hoot of an owl and the death scream of some small creature nearby in the woods.

“What!” howled Litivak, bolting to his feet. “You’ve gone mad!”

Have I? Vercingetorix wondered. But the logic of it was as cold and clear and hard as a sword of ice. They must slay Caesar not here in Gaul, but where he must be slain if another Caesar was not to come to avenge him.

In Rome.

Vercingetorix rose slowly and deliberately to his feet, then turned, took a step backward toward the fire. He let it heat his back just short of pain, knowing that this was going to be the hardest thing he had ever had to tell them. Knowing that this was not at all how Gauls thought of war. Knowing that the one man in all Gaul who would understand it completely, who would even admire it, was the man he was going to destroy, Gaius Julius Caesar.

“Here is the great and final victory I promised you,” he said. “Greater even than victory in this one war. By destroying Caesar’s last hope of supply and sending him crawling back over the Alps to disgrace in Rome, at such a terrible price to ourselves, we teach any Roman general who would seek vengeance or glory in Gaul just how dearly we hold our liberty, just how impossible it is to break our spirit, just what will happen to any fool who tries. Thus do we defeat Rome not only for our time or the time of our children or our children’s children but for all the ages to come.”

“We can’t do this!” cried Litivak.

“We can easily reach Bourges before Caesar’s army,” Vercingetorix said evenly.

“You would not burn the granaries of Bourges and leave its people to starve were it an
Arverne
city!” Litivak shouted at him in a fury.

“I would do it to Gergovia itself if that was what it took!” Vercingetorix shouted back just as hotly.

He now saw something worse than anger or even hatred in Litivak’s eyes: a pity so deeply regretful, so sorrowful, that hatred would have come as boon in its place. Vercingetorix found that pity stealing into his own heart, pity for himself, pity for what he must become. But he was Vercingetorix, was he not, chosen by destiny to become king of Gaul? Who had stood outside of time and seen in a vision his life entire. Therefore, where was his choice? He must harden his heart, and his will must be forged in cold, hard steel. Only thereby could Gaul be saved and destiny fulfilled.

“We must win this war at any price,” he said, “or the very soul of Gaul will perish. There is no choice.”

“At the price of your own honor?” demanded Litivak.

“If need be.”

Litivak took two long steps away from Vercingetorix before he turned to address the others. “The worst of it is that this vile plan will work, and you all know it will work too!” he said.

Comm, grim-faced, nodded in reluctant agreement. Cottos and Luctor looked away from both Litivak and Vercingetorix.

“The Bituriges have never sent a single man to support us,” said Critognat. “They bought their safety from the Romans with their cowardice. Let the bastards pay for our victory! It is only just!”

Hearing such words spoken by this simple-hearted old warrior, Vercingetorix knew he would retain the forces to do this necessary and terrible deed. If Critognat understood, so would the like-minded warriors of the Arverni. And to do this thing, the forces of the Arverni alone would suffice.

“Oh yes, your plan will work,
Great Leader of Warriors,
” Litivak told him scornfully, “but you can no longer style yourself Leader of Great Warriors, Vercingetorix, son of Keltill. For no great warrior would buy victory at such a price.
Your plan will work in
this
world, but it is without honor. It is wrong! You’ve spent so much time fighting Caesar, you’re beginning to think like a Roman!”

“The Romans fight to win,” said Vercingetorix. “And if we are to defeat them, so must we.”

“The Edui will not fight at the side of a man who would do such a thing!”

“Nor will the Cadurques,” said Luctor.

“In order to defeat the enemy, we must become the enemy?” said Litivak, and spat into the fire as if it were Vercingetorix’s face. And, followed by Luctor, he stalked out of the circle of firelight and into the darkness of the forest night.

XIV

WELL, another two days’ march and we will be there,” said Tulius, “but Vercingetorix’s army is arriving already.”

“Excellent,” said Caesar, in high spirits despite the reduction in the ration to
one
handful of gruel a day.

“What’s so excellent about it?” asked Labienus. “It means he’ll have time to bring his army into Bourges before we can catch him outside the walls. It means a siege.”

“Exactly,” said Caesar.

Caesar, Labienus, Tulius, and Gallius sat outside Caesar’s tent, slurping down their meager share of the tasteless slop in full view of the surrounding troops. It seemed more watery today, and more noticeably tinged with green from the added grass.

Dionysus protect me! Caesar thought. I’m beginning to become a
connoisseur
of this stuff! His rumbling gut, however, was not in agreement. Patience, he told it as he licked the last of the gruel off his spoon, soon you will eat your fill.

“You
want
a siege?” Labienus said in no little perplexity.

“Why attack a pack of wolves in the process of entering a trap?” Caesar told him. “Why not wait till they’re inside and have barred the exit behind them?”

“You’re assuming he’ll make the mistake of accepting a siege,” Labienus said dubiously.

“Why do the Gauls build fortified cities on hilltops?”

“Because they know that fighting from inside them is an advantage . . . ?” Labienus muttered, his perplexity now complete.

Caesar laughed. Labienus was a great tactician, an inspiring leader of men, a soldier’s soldier, and perhaps
because
of that he had difficulty with the concept of winning battles with means other than swords and valor.

“Explain it to him, Gallius,” he said.

“It is an advantage when one tribe of Gauls is being besieged by another,” the chief engineer told Labienus, “but they’ve never seen
Roman
siegecraft. They’ll piss themselves when they see the battering ram I’ve constructed!”

He gave Caesar an imploring look. “I wish you’d let me deploy the catapults. I do believe I’ve perfected the formula for Greek fire, and I’m anxious to try it out.”

“The point is to cook the grain supplies in Bourges
in our pots,
Gallius,” Caesar told him dryly, “not inside the city’s granaries.”

“Couldn’t we at least heave dead horses over the walls? Or cows or dogs—it doesn’t really matter—you half cover them with water, leave them in the sun till they’re good and maggoty, then—”

“Something strange is going on, Caesar!”

Brutus came running up to the tent in a dither. Had he been a horse, he would have been in a lather.

“When is it not, in this strange land?” Caesar said, still in a fine humor.

“There’s been some disagreement between the Arverni and the Edui—”

“Next you will surprise us with tales of cats falling out with dogs,” said Tulius.

“The scouts have seen the Gauls making encampment outside Bourges, but they’ve also seen Litivak’s Eduen cavalry riding away!”

“Well, well, well . . .” crooned Caesar.

Vercingetorix’s alliance with this Litivak’s personal army of Eduen warriors
had
always been about as natural as an alliance between cats and dogs, which was why Caesar had not yet attacked the Edui on their home grounds, calculating that the implied threat to do so would sooner or later persuade their vergobret to recall him. But Litivak’s campaigning with Vercingetorix seemed also a campaign to succeed the spineless Liscos, and as long as the lands of the Edui were kept out of it, Liscos lacked the political authority to order him to defect.

Now Litivak had defected anyway.

But why? Caesar asked himself. Perhaps his own men forced it on him? Or perhaps he’s finally realized his chances of succeeding Liscos will evaporate entirely if he’s still supporting Vercingetorix when we destroy this so-called army of Gaul?

In any case . . .

“Bring Litivak to me, Brutus,” Caesar ordered. “I must speak to him.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” Brutus asked glumly.

“Use your imagination, Brutus! Show some initiative! Guarantee him safe passage. Offer him gold for his time. Tell him any lie you like. I don’t care how you do it.”

“Yes, Caesar,” Brutus said without noticeable enthusiasm for this opportunity to prove his worth, and turned to depart.

“Hold!” cried Caesar, suddenly realizing that he had been paying too much attention to one part of the report. “You said the Gauls were camped
outside
the city? They haven’t entered?”

“No, Caesar.”

“But
why
?” asked Labienus.

“Why indeed?” muttered Caesar.

And then it struck his brain like the gift of a joyous vision from the gods.

“Of course!” he cried. “It’s obvious!”

“It is?” said Tulius.

“It certainly is if you’re the Bituriges in Bourges! You’ve managed to stay out of the war long enough to harvest your grain and store it up behind your walls. Now Vercingetorix arrives with an army to feed and us close behind. Would
you
invite a horde of rats into your granaries to protect them from an approaching cloud of locusts? Would the Bituriges invite his army in to devour their supplies and invite a Roman siege? This changes everything!”

“It does?”

“Vercingetorix is camped outside the walls because they won’t let him in! Knowing the Gauls, they’re still arguing about it! If we’re lucky, he’ll have to fight his way inside!”

Caesar leapt to his feet.

“Labienus! Tulius! Give the order to break camp at once! If we march all night, and into the morning, we can catch Vercingetorix out in the open with his back to the wall of a city still closed to him and crush him against it like a walnut!”

At first, the Bituriges had refused all entry to Bourges, but they could hardly bar the Arch Druid, so Vercingetorix had dispatched Guttuatr to treat with them. He emerged an hour later with an agreement from their vergobret, Jarak, to allow Vercingetorix into the city to parlay, but accompanied only by his standard-bearer, Guttuatr himself, and half a dozen guards, and only afoot.

And so a score of Biturige warriors surrounded Vercingetorix, Rhia, Guttuatr, Baravax, and five Arverne warriors as they made their way through the city to the Great Hall.
The bear standard of the Arverni was greeted with hoots and curses.

Bourges was a smaller city than Gergovia, but it seemed a good deal richer. The proximity of Tulius’ major garrison to their capital had given the Bituriges an excuse to keep out of the war during the winter, and the advent of Caesar’s huge army likewise in the spring. A walk through the city made it clear to Vercingetorix that Bourges had profited well from its craven neutrality and commerce with Rome. The people looked well fed; there was meat, fruit, vegetables, and beer in the market stall, as well as amphorae of Roman wine and olive oil, baskets of spices, rolls of cloth, jewelry, even scrolls, which could only have been brought here by Roman merchants. No wonder the townspeople did not welcome the commander of the army of Gaul.

The exterior of the Great Hall of Bourges, ironically enough, was not defiled with any vain attempt to adopt Roman style. Inside, it was another matter. Roman tapestries depicting goatmen, naked women, impossibly lush forests, monstrous sea-beasts, gods and goddesses all but hid the stone and wood of the walls. The sunlight filtering in through the narrow window slits was augmented not by torches but by large brass oil lamps. A mosaic of many-colored small tiles covered the floor with a scene from a seacoast no one here could ever have seen. A semicircle of tiered marble seats in the Roman manner enclosed a well.

These seats were half filled with Biturige nobles, perhaps threescore of them, some wearing bits and pieces of Roman garb and jewelry, a few even wearing togas. Vercingetorix could see no arms-bearing warriors among them. Perhaps this was meant as a sign to him, or perhaps it was the true state of things.

Jarak stood alone in the well of this Biturige “Senate,” and he at least was dressed entirely as a Gaul, in yellow-and-blue pantaloons, white linen shirt, and leather jerkin. But he wore no helmet and bore no arms. His blond hair had gone half gray, and his sun-leathered skin had its lines of age, but he was still a vigorous man, and Vercingetorix felt his strength when Jarak approached and embraced him in greeting.

Though his warrior woman bore the bear standard of the Arverni, surely the most detested tribal emblem in his city, Jarak found himself wishing that
he
were a bear, so that he might hug the life out of this arrogant young hero, who surely did not come here to confer any boons on his people.

But the sigil of the Bituriges was the owl, bird of wisdom, not the bear, and it was as the owl that Jarak had not only kept the Bituriges out of this war but allowed them to wax prosperous. So it was as the owl that he spoke, or, rather, like an owl pretending to the innocence of a duck to hide his wisdom.

“I welcome you to Bourges,Vercingetorix, son of Keltill, but I do not understand why you are here with your army.”

“Caesar’s legions are even now approaching your city; surely you know that.”

“If your army were not here uninvited, they would not be coming here, so take it elsewhere and they will leave us in peace,” he said.

“Not so,” said Vercingetorix. “They are after your food supplies.”

Everyone knew that the tactic of Vercingetorix was the famishment of the Roman army, and the Romans well knew that the granaries of Bourges held plenty of grain, thanks to their commerce with the Bituriges. Until now, this had seemed anything but a calamity. There was a good surplus, the Romans were rich in gold but poor in food, and, things being what they were, the exchange of the one for the other should have been on terms quite favorable to the Bituriges.

But Vercingetorix was obviously here to prevent such commerce from happening. Jarak suspected that the fat days of neutrality were over, that the war had come to the Bituriges and now they would be forced to take one side or the other. Or, rather, that Vercingetorix was here to force them to enlist in his cause whether it benefited them or not.

“So you have brought your army to Bourges to defend the city from the Romans?” he said, resigning himself to the inevitable.

“Not exactly,” said Vercingetorix evasively, and Jarak did not at all like the furtiveness in his eyes.

“Explain yourself, then!” said Jarak.

“I would rather address myself to all of you at once,” Vercingetorix told the Biturige vergobret nervously.

“That is your right,” Jarak said coldly, and turned to address the assembled nobles.

“Vercingetorix . . .
son of Keltill . . .
wishes to explain to us why he has brought his army here.” Jarak shrugged. “He is said to be silver-tongued, so perhaps he can make more sense of it than a speaker as unskilled as myself.”

With this inauspicious introduction, Jarak took his place in the front row of seats, Rhia and Guttuatr did likewise along with Baravax and the guards, and Vercingetorix found himself facing the hostile attention of the assembly.

“Caesar is on his way here with his starving army, and his intent is plain,” he began forthrightly, “to get his hands on the abundant food supply of this city—”

“Or is Caesar on his way to Bourges because your army is here unbidden?” someone shouted out from the back of the hall, to hoots and jeers.

“Caesar is desperate to feed his army with the harvest you have stored up here!” Vercingetorix shouted back. “The army of Gaul is here to prevent him.”

“So you
have
come to defend our city?” said Jarak.

Vercingetorix hesitated. This was moving far faster and more bluntly than he had intended, but he could conjure up no words that would glide it down their throats without provoking their outrage.

“No,” he said, “for that is what Caesar wants me to do.”

“What, then?” Jarak demanded.

Vercingetorix sighed, took a deep breath, and said it:

“You must evacuate Bourges and take with you all you can carry, for the granaries of Bourges must be burned along with every scrap of food left in the city.”

The outrage was fully what Vercingetorix had expected. The Bituriges were on their feet, red-faced with rage. The warriors who had escorted him inside drew their swords and looked to Jarak for orders.

Rhia had her sword out and had leapt to his side. Baravax and his men formed a protective circle around them a moment later. But Jarak stayed his men with an upraised hand.

“We are not oath-breakers here!” he shouted. “You came to our city under peace bond to parlay, Vercingetorix, and that oath shall be honored. Anyone who slays you within these walls shall answer to me. But you shall not burn our granaries or our city.”

“You do it yourself, if you deem that more honorable. But anything edible in Bourges
will
burn.”

“We will do no such thing!”

“You have no right!”

“The choice is yours!” Vercingetorix roared over the tumultuous shouting. “You will open the gates, or you will force me to smash them down and do it with your people still inside!”

“Spoken like a Roman!”

“The Romans themselves will be here soon enough, and they shall not have the granaries of Bourges!”

“The Romans might at least pay
something
for turning us into famished wretches,” Jarak snarled. “You would turn us out into the countryside you yourself have made a wasteland both starving and destitute!”

“I will pay you ten times the worth of what is destroyed, in the Land of Legend when we are all dead, in the good old Gallic fashion,” Vercingetorix blurted, and immediately wished he had bitten his tongue before the leaden jest rolled off it, for the jeers and howls of contemptuous rage with which it was greeted burned his ears with well-earned shame.

“Fight Caesar for the city if you must, and we will defend Bourges at your side!” someone shouted.

“I told you, that is the trap Caesar sets for us!” said Vercingetorix, his shame transforming into chagrin, and thence easily enough escaping into anger. “He would destroy us in open battle and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, thanks to our stupidity!”