Druids (55 page)

Though he was too far away to be certain, it seemed that Caesar paused, and looked back toward Gergovia.

On impulse, I raised my arm and waved.

Caesar was no sooner out of sight than Vercingetorix attacked his camp, where he had left something in excess of two legions. The Gauls sent wave after wave of men against the now-outnumbered Romans, forcing them to defend themselves without rest or respite. The fighting was savage, with heavy losses on both sides. The land around Gergovia was black with war and warriors.

Unfortunately, the worst of the fighting was taking place between the stronghold and the distant sacred grove of the Arvemi-1 could not get through to conduct rituals in the grove to help our warriors. I made the mistake of complaining about this to Rix when he was brimming with battle.

“Don’t waste your effort on smoke and sacrifice, Ainvar,” he

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said harshly. “We’re winning through our own strength, not because of some dubious druid magic.”

Winners, my head observed, believe they succeed on their own merit. It is only losers who require gods to blame.

The fighting continued. Clash and grunt and scream echoed from every ridge and valley. We had not given the Romans time to set up medical tents close to the battlefields, so at sundown, when our healers went out to collect the wounded, Rix ordered them to bring back the most gravely injured Romans as well for

treatment.

I understood. It was a variation of the same impulse that had made me wave to Caesar.

We were Celts, men of honor.

The prince Litaviccus and his brothers arrived at a headlong gallop, requesting protection inside the walls of Gergovia. The sentries took them to the command tent at once, and Rix sent for me to hear their story.

When I arrived, Litaviccus was silting with widespread knees on a stool outside the tent, enjoying the sun with the relish of a man who had feared he might never see it again. His was a typically Aeduan face, broad through the jaw, and he had the permanent squint of a mountain man.

“Caesar overtook us not far from the Allier,” he was telling Rix when I joined them. k ‘We had entered a strip of Boii territory and were looking for Romans. By then my men were wild with anger. I had sent messengers ahead to tell our tribesmen of the massacre and urge them to kill every Roman in Aeduan land.

“Then Caesar caught up with us-He is a clever man. He had brought with him the very leaders of the cavalry whom he had supposedly slain for treason. When my followers saw those men alive and unharmed, they threw down their weapons.

“It did not take Caesar long to convince them the whole thing had been a trick. They were afraid he would have them slain for desertion, but he made a disgustingly magnanimous speech about forgiveness and friendship that eventually had them fawning at his feet like hounds.

“But I was not such a fool as to think he would extend his mercy to myself and my brothers. So without waiting for the geese to cackle, we took advantage of the confusion and slipped away. We came straight here to you.”

“You are welcome to both our protection and our gratitude,” Rix replied. “You have been a great help to us. Being forced to split up his armies has cost Caesar almost half a legion already.”

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“And more Romans will die in the land of the Aedui,” Litaviccus assured us- “My messengers will have gotten through. When my people hear the story of the massacre, they will not wait for confirmation, but will fall on every Roman trader and official they can find and tear them to bits and take their property. By the time they leam what really happened, there will be fewer Romans in my land.”

“And here,” said Rix, cocking his head toward the ongoing din of battle.

When Caesar returned from his pursuit of the ten thousand, he found me army he had left behind badly mauled. Men had become carrion; when he rode out to inspect the battlefield, he was greeted

by lingering swarms of flies.

Meanwhile, our numbers were increasing. New recruits arrived daily, having been persuaded to take up arms by their tnbal druids in places as far away as Aquitania. Caesar, on the other hand, had lost not only his battle casualties but the Aeduan ten thousand, because his trust in them had been destroyed and he dared not bring them back with him.

Caesar did send messengers to the land of the Aedui in an attempt to head off the burgeoning revolt there, but once you set fire to dry grass, it is not easily extinguished. It would not take long for the uprising to spread to nearby tribes, and soon they would all be killing Romans. Cae’sar would soon be flanked by hostile tribes where he had thought to have allies.

“He’ll have to retreat,” Rix said to me. “The most obvious thing for him to do now would be to withdraw to the Province and collect reinforcements.”

“Caesar rarely does the obvious thing,” I pointed out, “and I don’t believe he’s ready to withdraw.” Caesar was not yet discouraged, I knew; I had observed the pattern of bird flight above his camp and tasted the soil of the battleground. In spite of his recent losses Caesar was relying on the valor and discipline of his men to overcome us; he still thought he had enough troops.

We must arrange for him to suffer losses he cannot ignore, I thought.

I suggested a plan to Vercingetorix.

A ragged stream of warriors claiming to be deserters from the army of free Gaul approached the Roman encampment. They allowed the Romans to coerce certain information from them concerning our terrain and vulnerability. Meanwhile, Rix withdrew his forces from the top of a strategic hill which gave access to a

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narrow, wooded ndge that led directly up the mountain on which Gergovia stood.

In the night, Caesar’s legions converged on the deserted hill. Dawn revealed them in control of the site. Our warriors swarmed to the attack, fighting to deny them the ndge. More Roman warriors emerged from hiding in the surrounding woodlands, and the battle was fierce.

Our men fell back gradually, letting the Romans win ground step by step but only with exhausting effort. The slope of the ground gave us the advantage. About halfway up the hill, the Goban Saor had erected a clever, complicated stone barrier the height of a Gaulish man, following the contour of the hill. Countless Romans fell to Gaulish spears as they tried to scramble over the barrier. But always we lured them on, taunting them, and eventually they succeeded and overran a few small camps of ours on the far side.

At about highsun the Romans surprised the king of the Nitiobriges in his tent. He barely managed to escape. As he told us later, “I had to ride for my life, half-naked and sitting astride a wounded horse!” He laughed; it was a good story because he was alive.

The Romans continued to advance. We fed them little victories to whet their appetites.

Had we not used the ruse of the undefended hilt, Caesar would never have launched an assault on the stronghold itself, where all the advantage was ours. We had tricked him into coming too close to turn and go back. 1 had counted on his willingness to take a risk if he thought he saw the smallest opportunity was to be gained.

We kept the enemy fighting hard for the better part of a day. Caesar shifted troops from one place to another, hoping to confuse us, and eventually there were a number of men on the heights below the walls of Gergovia. But the Romans could advance no farther. Caesar even sent the Aeduan cavalry around the mountain to find a better means of approach, but there was none.

As the sun was setting, Caesar sounded recall. His men were exhausted, their senses dulled, their brains befogged. When the Aeduan cavalry rode toward them out of the twilight, they mistook their fellow warriors for men of free Gaul and attacked them savagely, killing many.

At the same time-another Roman contingent proved unwilling to fall back at all. They made a wild rush on the walls of the stronghold. It was exactly what we had planned.

Throughout the latter part of the day our warriors had been slipping back into the fortified town as they gave ground to the

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Romans. Now there was not a space on the walls that was not crowded with them. They rained death down on the enemy directly below them. Spear and stone and boiling pitch did terrible damage. In their desperation to attack us, the Romans had thrown off discipline; they did not raise the roof of overlapped shields to protect themselves. Furthermore, those who had led the charge were now penned against the base of the walls by those who came up after them.

There was almost as much fighting taking place atop the walls. Everyone was struggling to find a spot to stand and watch. And to take part. I had secured an excellent position for myself near one of the watchtowers, with Cotuatus and many of our Camutians, when I heard a great yell behind me and someone surged up, almost knocking me off the wall.

It was Onuava. “Where is my husband?” she shouted at me.

I peered into the confusion. “There, see him? On that black horse Just in front of the gates.”

We both strained forward, watching Rix run his sword through a crazed centurion who was shrieking at him like a madman. Suddenly Onuava leaned forward farther. I had to grasp her about the waist for fear she would topple off. Below us I saw one Roman

balancing a second man on his shoulders. As this second man strained upward, Onuava bent toward him and tore open the bod-ice of her gown, baring her big white breasts.

••^”^OME UP HERE to me, you pretty little man,” Onuava f cooed down to the Roman as he gaped up at her from ^^his precarious perch on his comrade’s shoulders. ‘ ‘Come up here to me and claim your reward.” She bounced her breasts at him, she tossed her glorious tawny mane.

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Then she screamed and huried a jagged stone straight into his

upturned face.

The man tumbled backward and disappeared into the roiling

mass below.

At once the other women on the walls began imitating Onuava, shouting invitations and offers of help to Romans trying to climb up, then mocking them, assaulting them with missiles, shrieking with laughter as they fell. Even tiny children clamored for something to throw at the enemy.

The Roman position was hopeless. At Rix’s signal the warriors of free Gaul came pouring out all the side gates of Gergovia and circled around behind them, scything them down. Another centurion made one desperate, doomed attempt to storm the main gates, but Rix rode him down with his big black horse. Thereupon the centurion’s men scattered, their nerve destroyed.

Our men smashed the enemy against the walls of Gergovia.

We could hear the Roman trumpets frantically shrilling recall now, and at last the legionaries were willing to hear it, too. Those who were still alive began running back down the mountain, and we stood on the ramparts and cheered them on their way in the

twilight.

Seven hundred Romans died that day, including forty-six centurions, the backbone of Caesar’s army. I saw Vercingetorix kill

two of them himself.

I wondered what Caesar would say to the Romans who had lost control of themselves and disregarded his orders. “The sternest discipline can be overcome,” I had told Rix when planning this strategy, k ‘if you can hold our men longer than Caesar can control

his.”

“I can,” he had said. And he had.

When they reached the level plain, the Romans had stopped and at last drawn themselves up into a ragged battle formation,

but we had no intention of pursuing them. It was dark, and we knew as well as they who had won.

The next morning Rix fought a cavalry skirmish with them, and pride demanded that they try yet another the next day; but after that they struck camp and marched away.

Litaviccus came to us at once. “Let me take the survivors of the Aeduan cavalry,” he pleaded with Rix. * ‘They’ve deserted the Romans and are anxious to follow my standard. I can take them home and use them to consolidate the Aeduan revolt.”

Some of the princes objected, saying we could use the Aeduans better as part of our own force. But Rix overrode them and

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let Litaviccus go. k “It’s more important to cost Caesar the Aedui,” he said.

Our victory celebrations lasted for nights and days. Everyone had battle tales to tell; Hanesa exhausted himself trying to memorize them all. Onuava was much praised and her style greatly admired as the model of behavior for a warrior’s wife.

She in turn seemed to be impressed by me. She personally undertook to keep my wine cup filled and rub the back of my neck when the night grew long. Her fingers snaked through my hair.

“Such a nice head,” I heard her murmur behind me. “Full of thoughts. All those twists and turns … there must be some very interesting pathways in your head, Ainvar. What would it be like to meander along them, I wonder.”

“Tedious,” I said, trying to keep my attention fixed on a conversation taking place between Rix and a prince of the Gabali about guarding the southern passes.

“Is it? Is it tedious, all that thinking?” Onuava slipped around and sat down on the bench beside me, pressing her round haunch against me.

I looked up to find Vercmgetorix’s heavy-lidded gaze upon us. I smiled back at him. I put my arm around Onuava.

Victory makes men more drunk than wine.

Rix held my eyes for a heartbeat longer, then deliberately looked away.

His wife leaned against me. “People wonder about you, you know,” she said. “The druid who rides with the warriors. How much of your advice does my husband lake, Ainvar?”

“I accompany him as his friend,” I said sternly. “The king of the Arverni makes his own decisions, he is a brilliant warlord.”

She was not misled. “Perhaps the final decision is his, but I know my husband. He is bold and straightforward; some of his

most successful strategies are anything but straightforward. They must come from a devious mind, and I think that mind is yours. Am I right?”

What harm would there be in admitting it? The king’s lodge was overheated and the fumes of the wine were swiriing through my skull; it would be most pleasurable to boast to this magnificent woman with her knowing eyes and insinuating smile. I would be telling her nothing she did not already suspect. Surely everyone had guessed that I was Rix’s principal, indeed his only, adviser.