Marius' Mules II: The Belgae (20 page)

Caesar
frowned.

“
I have scouts out far and wide. They were last reported about
twenty miles distant… They can’t be anywhere near yet? We’d have
had reports.”

Fronto shook
his head and pointed at the tent’s doorway.

“
They’re out there. What looks like half a million of them to
me. And they’re so close that if you pissed off a high ladder you
could probably hit them!”

The general’s
frown deepened and he leaned forward, placing the flats of his
palms on the table.

“
How close?”

“
Two miles. Maybe a little further. And I can tell you this:
there are a bloody lot of them.” He turned to the prefects behind
him.

“
How many d’you reckon, Decius?”

The prefect
frowned.

“
I reckon their camps cover about eight miles or
more.”

Fronto
nodded.

“
Something like that. And they’ve burned everything they’ve
come across between Bibrax and here. I think you’ve got a big fight
waiting for you just out of sight.”

Caesar
growled.

“
Then either my native scouts are defecting to the Belgae or
the enemy have caught and killed every last one of
them.”

He smashed his
fist on the table.

“
How can I have been so blind?”

Fronto
smiled.

“
Simple. I wasn’t here.”

The general
gave him a weak and humourless smile.

“
What’s the terrain like between here and there, do you know?
I’m planning blind, here.”

Fronto
shrugged.

“
A couple of low grassy humps and the odd belt of trees, and
then a wide plain.”

Galeo shook
his head and stepped forward.

“
If I may, sirs?”

The general
and his legate nodded at him.

“
Well it looks like a plain at first glance from a distance,
where we marched past, but I saw tell-tale signs. That plain’s a
marsh at the moment. I think it probably gets flooded by the Aisne
over winter and spring and stays swampy until high summer. There’s
reeds in clumps and there are herons perching and flying around.
It’s never quite dry, I’d say. In fact, I think that’s why the
Belgae made their camp where they did: the marsh lies between
us.”

Decius made a
sour face.

“
Got to be plagued by insects there.”

A nod.

Fronto
frowned.

“
How come you noticed all this? Looked like a green plain to
me.”

Galeo
smiled.

“
I come from the wetlands at the coast near Aquileia, sir. And
I know my birds, sir.”

Caesar
nodded.

“
Then there’s no clear field of battle near the enemy. They’ll
have to come round the edge of the marsh. That should even up the
odds a little.”

He stood
silently for a moment, tapping his thumb on his lower lip absently
and then looked up suddenly, as though he’d forgotten the officers
were there.

“
Mmm? Oh yes, sorry Fronto. I think you four had best go bathe,
change and get some rest. I’ll be calling a general meeting of the
staff some time this afternoon, but I’ll send for you
then.”

He frowned
again.

“
On your way out, have someone go and find Varus and send him
to me. I have a job for the cavalry.”

Fronto nodded
and, saluting, the four officers filed out of the tent.

Bees buzzed
and added their gentle hum to the background noises of a military
camp at rest. Fronto smiled. It was a nice time of year. Better
savour the next hour or two, since the next few days promised to be
busy.

“
Well I don’t know about you three, but I’m looking forward to
rinsing out my mouth with some good, old-fashioned Roman wine for a
change. Care to join me, relaxing in the laconicum with a nice
wine?”

“
Laconicum?” Decius raised an eyebrow.

“
Alright,” Fronto grinned, “the river, if you must
know!”

* * * * *

Quintus Atius
Varus inhaled deeply, sucking down the warm fragrant air of early
summer. Barbarians the Gauls and the Belgae might be, but they had
some lovely land up here in the north. The air seemed to be fresher
than it was back home in Italy; lighter and cleaner. He glanced
around him at the cavalry, two alae of regulars.

His orders
were clear. Examine the terrain between the two armies and report
back, preferably without engaging enemy scouts or outriders. Oh, a
job like this could be done by scouts for the Romans, but from what
Caesar had said, his scouts kept mysteriously disappearing, so the
task needed a little more force this time.

Varus
smiled.

And, of
course, he and his men would be able to report the terrain with a
soldier’s eye, rather than the basic geography relayed by a native
scout.

The crest of a
hill loomed ahead, crowned by a thin row of poplar trees as if
nature’s own crest surmounted the helmet of the land. Steering the
steed with his knees, he made for the avenue of trees. They were
spaced evenly, planted by the design of some unknown hand, rather
than naturally seeded.

As they
approached the rise, Varus gave commands using hand and arm
motions. The two alae peeled off to either side and came to a halt
in formation. Off to the left, a large thicket cut off the view of
the plain stretching away, and a similar knot of tangled trees lay
to the right. Motioning to the officers, he walked his horse gently
toward the crest. The two cavalry prefects trotted up to join him
as they reached the top.

Varus whistled
through his teeth quietly.

“
Shit, that’s a lot of Belgae!”

The three
riders, largely sheltered from view by the thin avenue of trees,
looked down the slope with a growing sense of awe. A sizeable marsh
began at the foot of the slope and stretched away to within a few
yards of the Belgae. The swampy ground was enclosed off to the left
by a ridge, along which Fronto and his men must have come this
morning. The other end, however, meandered off to the edge of the
Aisne River with which it was almost level. Varus’ trained military
eye spotted the possibilities. That area looked marshy, for
certain, but it was the area that had now dried out and sealed off
the water inland. It would be easily crossable by cavalry and would
probably present no great problem for infantry, but you wouldn’t
want to actually fight there, just in case.

The impressive
thing, though, that seized Varus’s gaze and held it, was the camp
of the Belgae. He’d been sceptical of the reports from Fronto that
the force covered a width of eight miles. It sounded such a long
way.

And yet,
looking down from here, the line of camps stretched from the river
bank to the crest and was perhaps two miles thick as well.

“
What would you say, Casco? Does that look like three hundred
thousand Belgae?”

The prefect
beside him shrugged.

“
Respectfully, sir, it’s damn near impossible to tell when they
have no formation.”

The prefect on
the other side of him shook his head.

“
Not that many, sir. They’re spread out.”

Varus turned
and raised an eyebrow.

“
Oh, there’s a lot, sir, don’t get me wrong, but not a third of
a million. Remember seeing Ariovistus’ army at Vesontio last year?
Well I reckon there’s about twice as many here. Ariovistus had
about seventy thousand men.”

Varus
frowned.

“
D’you know? I do believe you’re right. It’s a huge camp, but
they’re well spaced. I wonder whether they’re trying to look bigger
than they are? Must be… what? A hundred and fifty thousand at the
most. Maybe half the Belgae we’re expecting!”

Casco shook
his head.

“
Careful there, sir. Might be that they’ve left room for the
other half, and there’s more on the way.”

“
Hmm.” Varus’ frown deepened. Casco was right. This army could
double in size any time and the only way they’d know is if they
kept a permanent eye on it.

“
Maybe that’s why they’re killing off Caesar’s scouts. They
don’t want the general to know where they are until they’ve met up
with the other half of the army.”

He shook his
head.

“
Shit. That means we need to do something about this, and fast.
Let’s get back to camp.”

He turned his
horse to walk her slowly back down the slope to the ala below and
stared in horror. Warriors were pouring out of the thicket to the
right and the corpse to the left in their hundreds. An ambush.

“
Form up!” he bellowed as he started to gallop down the hill to
his men, the two prefects at his back. The Belgae had known exactly
what they were doing. They didn’t need this many men to pick off
the occasional scout, and the warriors emerging from the
undergrowth were, to a man, armed with long spears. The bastards
must have been watching them for a while and preparing.

“
Can we outrun them?”

Varus glanced
at Casco.

“
If we can’t,” he replied, ”then we’re all dead!”

As they
reached the bottom of the slope, Casco shouted “Orderly retreat to
the camp.”

Varus stared
at him for a moment, and then shouted in the loudest voice he could
manage: “run!”

The first few
of the barbarians were already reaching a position ahead of them.
Behind lay the line of poplars and, beyond that, the marsh. No
escape that way. The ground to either side of them was swarming
with barbarians who had broken cover from the trees. Their only
hope was to outrun the closing door of men ahead of them.

“
Charge!”

Around him,
his cavalry, now working on their own individual instincts rather
than commands, rode as hard as they could for the closing gap,
formation forgotten. Already a dozen barbarians had joined up ahead
of them and were preparing themselves to unhorse the riders.

Without any
need of issued commands, as soon as the first riders were within
range of the barbarians, they raised and released their javelins
before drawing their blades. Many of the long, tapered missiles
found their targets and the waiting barbarians clutched at their
wounds, dropping their own spears.

The first
rider found himself clear of the attackers, the nearest barbarian
alive but pinned to the turf with a javelin through his thigh, just
below the hip. For a moment, the soldier looked around in surprise
and relief, but then the reality of his situation kicked in and he
ignored the chaos around him and rode for Caesar’s camp as though
death itself fluttered at his shoulder.

Varus watched
with dismay as the arms closed in front of them. Moreover, ahead in
the distance, he could see a few Belgic horsemen. As far as he’d
been told the Belgae favoured infantry. He wasn’t even aware they
had cavalry! This was turning out to be a truly shitty day…

Ahead of him,
two riders went down as the barbarians lunged with spears, one
catching a rider in the gut and the other spearing a horse through
the chest. Varus didn’t have time to wheel his horse or stop;
besides, if he stopped, he was dead. This was one of those very few
situations where ‘every man for himself’ was the only viable
formation.

Taking a deep
breath, he hauled on the reins and jumped his horse, arcing
gracefully over the collapsing heap of men and horses. He counted
all three heartbeats while he was in the air for what felt like
hours, expecting at any moment to feel a spear jammed up through
him or his horse.

And suddenly
his hooves hit the ground once more. Without a single glance back,
he thundered on. There were only a dozen or so barbarian riders; a
mere reserve force to pick off the odd Roman who broke through the
line, but they were off to the side and making a beeline to cut off
the fleeing cavalry. Risking time to glance around him, Varus
realised that perhaps twenty or thirty of his men had escaped the
trap and were riding on. Far too many men were being butchered
behind him, but there was nothing he could do about that.

“
To me!” he bellowed.

Surprised
troopers hauled on their reins and either steered or slowed to fall
in with their commander. Varus cleared his throat.

“
Riders off to the left. They’ll intercept us before the hill.
They’ve got to stop us escaping if they want to keep their numbers
unknown. Take them down!”

The resolute
grimaces on the faces of his men were born partially from the
desperation of their situation, but the commander knew well how
much they were now also being driven by the need for revenge after
the butchering of over a hundred of their colleagues.

Indeed, as the
Belgic horsemen closed on them, Varus began to feel a little more
confident. The barbarians were clearly unused to mounted combat and
unsure of their skills, for all their vicious demeanour. Varus’
men, on the other hand, had set jaws and gripped their blades with
white knuckles. There would be no quarter given by the survivors of
this ala.

The attack was
swift and efficient. The Belgae were hacked, stabbed, pushed from
their saddles and left a bleeding mess, their surviving horses
fleeing the scene and, among the Romans only one man down and two
wounded.

Varus glanced
behind him at the howling barbarians, cursing themselves at failing
to spring their trap correctly.

The cavalry
commander smiled to himself. Wait ‘til he’d seen Caesar and
gathered his entire mounted division. Then the bastards would have
something to howl about!