Druids (50 page)

Caesar did. As soon as the news reached him, he left the main body of his two legions in winter camp, and set out with a picked force of men and cavalry. He did not, however, march directly south toward Gorgobina as we had anticipated.

In lashing rain and driving wind, he crossed the Liger and attacked Vellaunodunum.

In addition to being the stronghold of the Senones, Vellaunodunum, like all Gaulish towns, had what remained of the winter’s grain supply in its storehouses.

Caesar’s men encircled the fort. Those within lacked the ability for a sustained defense because the majority of the Senonian fighting men were, like my own Camutes, with Vercingetorix. After a spirited but token resistance, the Senones sent out a deputation to discuss terms of surrender.

Caesar demanded their weapons, their grain and enough pack animals to carry it, and six hundred hostages who would inevitably be sold as slaves. Leaving a Roman legate behind to supervise arrangements concerning the latter, Caesar set out again.

In the direction of Cenabum.

THE WARRIORS OF the Boii were defending Gorgobina with considerable skill and we had settled in for a prolonged siege when we received somewhat garbled news of the surrender of Vellaunodunum to the Romans. The Senones among us were understandably upset and threatened to desert.

Rix rallied them with a stirring speech that raised the hair on the back of my neck. He shouted of victory until they were shouting too, clashing their fists against their shields and crying for vengeance against Caesar. When Vercingetorix stood tall and golden and unafraid, he was a light shining on us all.

That night a hundred campfires flickered in a vast circle around besieged Gorgobina. At the request of Vercingetorix, Hanesa went from one group to another, reciting tales of terrible punishments their Arvemian commander had been known to visit upon deserters. Over the keening of the wind, snatches of his rich, rolling voice came to us as we sat around the fire at the command camp, and from time to time I saw Rix smile to himself beneath his moustache.

Eventually Hanesa rejoined us to entertain us with less cau-tionary tales. Rix wanted to hear of Gaulish triumphs, and Hanesa happily complied. “Once,” he declaimed, making extravagant gestures, “the men of Gaul were more ferocious in batde than even the Germans. Once, men of Gaul crossed the Rhine and occupied Germanic land!”

Rix remarked to no one in particular, “I wish we had some Germans fighting with us now.”

Cotuatus commented, “By all accounts Ariovistus was very brave.”

“How many brave men will it take to kill Caesar?” a prince of the Parisii wondered aloud.

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The Otherworld moved through me. I heard my own voice say,

“No brave man will kill him. The deed requires a coward.” Rix turned toward me. “What did you mean by that?” “I cannot say,” I replied honestly. “What you heard came

from the spirits.”

“Hunh,” snorted Vercingetorix.

The assault on Gorgobina continued. It was a strongly fortified town and the Boii were defending it valiantly.

In the tent I shared with Hanesa the bard, I dreamed of my daughter, and awoke to feel tears on my cheeks. “What’s the matter. Ainvar?”

I opened my eyes. Above me loomed a fleshy face with a bul-bous red nose and two very concerned eyes. In one hand Hanesa held a small bronze lamp, its flame guttering. ‘ ‘You were making a strange noise in your sleep,” he told me. He held the lamp lower. “And you look dreadful.” “I’m all right.” I sat up.

“Move over.” Hanesa eased his increasingly ponderous bulk down on the ground beside me. We still slept rolled in our cloaks, but at least the learner tent overhead kept us dry during the cold, wet weather. “Tell me what’s troubling you, Ainvar,” Hanesa urged. His rich voice sank into me on waves of sympathy. I tried to resist but could not; the bard had a special magic. At last I told

him about my child.

‘ ‘Does Vercingetorix know of this?”

“I don’t want him to. He has enough burdens to bear and this is a small problem by comparison.”

“If we are one people, as you keep telling us, what happens

to one child involves us all.”

Our conversation was interrupted by the sudden shouts of sentries and then the clatter of galloping hooves. Hanesa and I scrambled to our feet and left the tent.

Rix was just emerging from the command tent nearby. In the light of the campfires his face looked as if he had not slept; as if

he never needed sleep.

Two disheveled men whom I recognized at once as Caroutians came out of the night, accompanied by sentries. While Rix listened with thoughtfully lowered head, they related some excited message to him. He looked up, saw me, beckoned.

‘ ‘These two men have ridden here at great risk to themselves all the way from Cenabum, Ainvar. They say Caesar baited his ; army outside its walls. It was twilight when he arrived; these two

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left as he was pitching camp. Nantorus sent them to tell me personally he fears a Roman attack.”

The Camutians were exhausted. They had ridden long and hard, stealing fresh horses on their way from farmsteads they passed, not daring to speak to anyone until they spoke to Vercingetorix.

Cenabum was a long distance from Gorgobina. Days had passed since Caesar arrived. Whatever happened had already happened. “We should have heard of this sooner!” I cried.

“We’re in Boii territory,” Rix reminded me. “They won’t shout any messages for me.” Lowering his voice, he said, “What do you advise me to do?”

Beyond the palisades of Gorgobina the dawn was gathering. The approaching sun had begun to stain the sky with a lurid light the color of blood. “There’s no point in making decisions until we know exactly what happened, Rix. Caesar may have done no more than camp for the night near Cenabum, then move on.”

“Is that what you think?”

I looked at the bloody sky. ‘ ‘No.”

We resumed our assault on the sturdy wails of Gorgobina, from which spears and stones rained upon us. Soon the red sky filled with clouds and they rained upon us, too.

Late in the day another messenger arrived, one man alone, though he had started with four companions. All had been wounded; the others had died on the way. The survivor was sagging on his horse.

Caesar, he told us, had attacked Cenabum. In the night some of the inhabitants had tried to escape over the nearby bridge across the Liger, but they were captured. Setting fire to the gates of the fort, the Romans had penned the Camutians inside and forced them to surrender. Only a few were kilted. The majority were taken prisoner. My people. To become slaves.

Nantorus was slain in his own lodge. Conconnetodumnus, who had remained behind, was killed defending him.

The Romans had plundered Cenabum and left it in flames. Caesar was on the march again, but with a greatly expanded force. Having seized the supplies of two forts, he had called the legions to join him.

Rix was grim. We had no choice. We must lift the siege and march to meet Caesar or be caught between him and the Boii, who would gladly leave their stronghold to attack us from the rear while the Romans battered our faces.

As the army was breaking camp, I noticed that a strange silence had settled over the customarily voluble Gauls. We were used to

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winning or losing; the inconclusiveness of this incident made

fighting men uncomfortable.

There would be battle soon enough, however.

I concentrated on wind and rain, hoping Caesar was thoroughly miserable.

Rix cast one farewell glance at the walls of Gorgobina. “I wish we had some of the siege machinery the Romans know how to build,” he said wistfully.

“We can learn. As soon as we can I’ll send to the Fort of the Grove for the Goban Saor; he can make anything if he has a model.”

“We could have taken Gorgobina in another day, Ainvar.”

“I know it. But Caesar isn’t allowing us another day.”

We set out to intercept Caesar, preferably in territory more friendly to us than Boii-land. For a time I rode with Rix. Then I dropped back and joined the silent, grim-faced Carnutians.

Cotuatus urged his horse beside mine. Warriors afoot and on horseback thronged around us, the vivid tribal colors of their clothing somehow inappropriate. The air smelled of anger and grief and steaming horse dung.

At iast Cotuatus said, “My family was in Cenabum.”

‘ ‘I know.”

“Yours is still at the Fort of the Grove?”

“Yes,” I said simply.

“They’re safe, then. Caesar didn’t go that way.”

I thought of my daughter and said nothing.

She must be given a name on her name day, even if we had not yet found her. For some reason, her lack of a name tormented me more than anything. Without one how could we invoke the Otherworid on her behalf? A stolen infant must leave an identity behind for her parents to weep over.

Yet in my heart she was simply my little girl. Perhaps she would always be that and no more … my little girl.

‘ ‘The days are growing longer,” Cotuatus said abruptly, breaking into my reverie. “The farmers will be yoking their oxen for the plow.”

I looked at the rolling, fertile land through which we were riding. “Gaulish farmers? Or Roman farmers?”

“Is that what Caesar really wants, Ainvar? Our land?”

“He wants it all.”

“But we have been born here and buried here for generation after generation. He has no right.”

“He has no right to yoke Gauls like those oxen you mentioned

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and march them off to sell into slavery, either, but he’ll do it, and give the land they leave behind to his own followers.”

My mouth had fallen into the old habit of running ahead of my mind. Too late I realized how painful those words must be to Cotuatus, who had left his family in Cenabum-But when I turned toward him, I saw that his jaw was set and his face was the face of a man.

He will make a good king after all, my head decided. The Camutes need a king now, with Nantorus dead.

“I’ve been observing Vercingetorix,” Cotuatus remarked, looking toward the forefront of the army where Rix rode at the head of his beloved Arvemian cavalry. The warriors of free Gaul followed him like a polychrome river snaking across the land, men on horseback or afoot, men who fought with sword or spear or bow or pike, men who divided themselves into tribes and watched the men of other tribes suspiciously, for all we were one army. The Camutians were toward the front. At the rear, so far behind us we could not see them if we looked back, rumbled the supply wagons. As we marched through friendly territory, the allies of the Gaulish confederacy kept those supply wagons filled.

“I once thought your praise of the Arvemian was excessive,” Cotuatus was saying, “but I don’t think so anymore. He’s skilled in the use of every weapon, he has frightening stamina, and he never takes a step backward. If anyone can defeat Caesar, he can.”

“He can,” I echoed. “And when he does, Cotuatus, we will find every man, woman, and child Caesar has captured as slaves and we will bring them home as free people. Including the inhabitants of Cenabum.”

He nodded thoughtfully and said nothing more. We rode silently together, Cotuatus thinking of his family and I thinking of my daughter.

Following the river valley, we were approaching the fort of Noviodunum, easternmost settlement of the Bituriges. We heard a shout from the front of the army and drew rein, shading our eyes with our hands. We could see a small band of people running toward us across the fields.

I tricked my horse and galloped up the line to join Rix.

The men were brought to him at once. They were smallholders who had just begun plowing their land outside the walls of Noviodunum, a typical fortified Gaulish town on high ground above the river. They wore the coarse, simple clothing of the common

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class, rather than the vivid colors and brazen ornaments of warriors-—and they were pale with fright.

I sat on my horse beside Rix as he listened to their tumbling,

almost incoherent words-Moving with his usual astonishing rapidity, Caesar had reached Noviodunum Just before us and at once began setting up camp. While the farmers stood gaping, the inhabitants of the fort had sent out a deputation asking that they be spared. Caesar’s response was to send two centurions and a company of men into Noviodunum to seize its weapons and horses, and take hostages,

While this was happening, some of the Bituriges on the palisade had seen Rix and the army in the distance. They had raised a loud cheer, telling their people within the fort that help was coming. The inhabitants took heart and began fighting the Ro-mans, reclaiming their weapons. The centurions led their men out of the fort just in time to save their lives.

The watching farmers came running across the fields to us. “Defend us from the Roman!1T they pleaded,

Rix moved swiftly. He had his trumpeters summon the horsemen from the various tribal groups, adding them to his own cavalry. Then he led the charge on the half-prepared Roman camp. My horse was so excited he leaped and plunged on the thin edge of control; I had all I could do to make him stay back. I wanted to join in the attack myself, and he knew it.

We topped a rise, and I saw the Roman camp-Caesar had indeed summoned his legions; thousands of men were assembled, blackening the earth. We had arrived before they were ready for us, and had the satisfaction of seeing mem scramble as our cavalry

thundered down upon them.

The Romans recovered quickly. Caesar sent his own cavalry forward to face ours, but we were superior in both numbers and anger and succeeded in breaking their line and scattering them.

It was a heady moment. I heard myself cheering; I looked around for Hanesa, trusting he was somewhere close enough to

memorize every moment.

Then a fresh body of men on horseback came galloping toward us. Our horsemen checked in surprise. The newcomers were big blond men wearing raw leather and fur, and they rode thickset horses with bristling manes. Their guttural shouts identified them