Marius' Mules II: The Belgae (56 page)

Tetricus
dropped the length of rope and the two men jogged across the eerie
moonlit landscape with its streaks of black, grey and white where
poplars cast their shadows. They watched the last few shadowy
shapes disappear among the defences on the slope as they came
within clear view of the fortifications.

The torches
and braziers of the guards still burned, but there was no polished
reflection of helm or spear in the silvery glare.

“
This is not good.”

The two men
skittered to a halt at the near end, where the ditch in front was
only two feet deep, with the rampart of discarded earth the same
height. Fronto strode purposefully across to the nearest brazier.
Soldiers should have been sheltering over it, warming their hands
in the night breeze, but no. No men here.

Scanning the
area, he noted shapes on the floor nearby. With a sigh, he strode
over, already sure of the guards’ fate.

Sure enough,
only a few yards from the brazier, a contubernium of eight men lay
piled atop each other. Reaching down, he rolled the top man aside.
Tetricus crouched next to him and examined the man.

“
Strangled with a laqueus. From behind, clearly.”

He examined
the pile of men.

“
Same for them all. They must have come out of nowhere and
overwhelmed all the guards before they could raise an
alarm.”

“
Shit,” Fronto said again with great feeling. “There were an
entire century of men guarding this work. All gone without a sound,
and not a sword drawn. These Aduatuci are nasty. And
clever.”

Tetricus
nodded.

“
We’d best get back to camp and report this.”

“
What about your measurements?”

“
I’ll guess. Come on.”

* * * * *

Paetus
clenched his teeth. The first day of their journey he had spent
tense, expecting at any moment to be hauled aside by the guards and
accused of treason against Rome. The prisoners had been roped
together in four lines hundreds of men long. There may have been
some sort of order based on the tribe of the captive, but Paetus
could not tell one man from another; with one exception.

That first
day, as they had been roped together, he had noted that
Boduognatus, chief of the Nervii, had been positioned through blind
chance only three men ahead of him in the chain. The man had not
cast a single glance at him throughout that long walk, but of all
the barbarians in this motley collection, Boduognatus was the only
one that definitely knew who and what Paetus was, and the only one
who would likely turn him over to the Romans. Possibly he was
keeping Paetus’ identity as a piece in the game, to play at the
last minute and save himself, but that seemed unlikely. The man who
had initially wanted to skin him alive for merely being Roman
wasn’t the sort of man to play those games.

No. More
likely the chieftain was waiting for an opportune moment during the
night when the guards weren’t looking to quietly do away with him.
The legionaries wouldn’t care too much. It would be a small
financial loss for them in slave profits, but one barbarian was as
good as the next to the average legionary. He probably wouldn’t
even get buried, just thrown in a ditch when they moved on.

And so from
that first agonising hour of expecting trouble, he had decided on a
course of action. Boduognatus must die first, before he got the
opportunity for which he was waiting. He had briefly worked on a
plan to take the chieftain at night, but the man never seemed to
sleep and, since Boduognatus was already looking for a way to deal
with him, would be alert during that time. But during the day, all
the prisoners experienced was hour after hour of painful shuffling
and their minds drifted and switched off, especially if, like
Boduognatus, they had slept little during the night.

So on the
third morning, as the prisoners, bound by their wrists only during
the night, were lined up for the rope to be passed along the rows,
Paetus had positioned himself carefully. The chieftain may have
noticed that Paetus was now in the line behind him but, if he
cared, he showed no sign.

The column had
started to move at sunrise and continued without a break, churning
the mud of the track and eating away at the miles until the watery
sun behind the thin clouds with their intermittent drizzle was high
overhead. As noon came upon them, a rest was called and the legions
were allowed to sit and recover, while the prisoners remained roped
and standing. Half a dozen soldiers came down the lines with jugs
and baskets, dropping a chunk of bread into their greedy hands and
tipping a ladle of water into every thirsty mouth. And everyone
drank desperately, and tore into their bread; all except Paetus.
The former prefect drank his water without comment as always, but
the bread was tucked into his tunic, the pinion around which his
plan revolved.

After perhaps
forty minutes of tense waiting, the column began to move off once
again. Knowing your enemy and situation was important to a
commander and Paetus was a planner by nature. Two more hours of
interminable shuffling, as the rain began to fall heavier and
heavier and the clouds became dark grey and pregnant with the
promise of storms. Two more hours was Paetus’ target. More, and he
risked Labienus calling another halt; less, and the prisoners would
be too rested and alert. Two more hours into the march and they
were at their most docile, numbed by boredom and soreness and
routine.

And now the
time at last had come. His teeth clenched tightly, he fixed his
eyes on the back of Boduognatus’ head in front and slyly, as subtly
as was humanly possible, he reached into his tunic and withdrew the
bread he had secreted there.

Starving as he
was, Paetus recognised the simple fact that the warriors around him
were all equally hungry and desperate and would likely have less
discipline than he.

Holding his
breath, he waited until the nearest guard had looked away at
another section of the line, and threw the torn loaf over the heads
of the men in front. The item came down amongst the starving
prisoners six or seven men ahead. He’d meant to throw it further
than that, but the ropes that held him restricted his movement too
much for a good throw.

The effect was
everything for which he’d hoped. An explosion of activity followed,
as half a dozen captives struggled and fought to obtain the
precious food. The guards called the alarm and charged to
intervene, but there were four roped lines of men and getting to
the centre from the sides of the column was near impossible. As a
soldier desperately jabbed lightly with a spear, trying to frighten
them into submission, what was a small fracas expanded, almost
turning into a somewhat restricted riot. The men nearest the
soldier grasped his spear and tried to wrest it from him while,
around the place the bread landed, men had now collapsed to the
floor, fighting.

The ropes
keeping them bound together lurched forward as the men fell and
Boduognatus stumbled in surprise. Paetus, prepared and lithe as a
cat, was on him the moment he fell, leaping forward with the rope
that connected them formed into a loop that went over the Nervian
chief’s head and was round his throat before they hit the
ground.

There was no
time to slowly strangle the man. The guards were already beginning
to get the minor riot under control; besides, ligature marks on the
man’s neck would be a give away and would bring Paetus to far too
much attention.

With a move
for which he was largely untrained, yet had thought out over and
over for the last two days, he placed his knee on the Nervian’s
back between the shoulder blades and yanked hard on the rope. There
was a clear snapping noise and the body beneath him went limp.
Paetus grimaced as he loosed the rope and returned it to its
correct position while he crouched there on the man. The entire
attack had taken three heartbeats, as he was acutely aware. The
guards had been too busy to see anything, and the prisoners around
him were clearly more concerned with the bread and the fight than
with this less interesting activity. The only possible problem
would be the man behind him who, if he’d been paying attention,
would have likely seen what he’d done. It was a risk he’d had to
take.

As the
soldiers moved up and down the rows, bringing the prisoners back
into line with the occasional well-placed smack of a spear-butt,
two legionaries reached down and hauled up the victorious captive,
still chewing the last of his prize. The man grinned at them and
they rewarded him with a hammer-like blow to the stomach before
attempting to stand him upright.

“
You! Up!”

The legionary
gestured to Paetus and the corpse beneath him. As Paetus stood, he
drew on every theatrical nuance in his being, feigning
incomprehension and arrogant innocence as he stepped back as far as
the ropes would allow spreading his hands as he crouched.

The legionary
barely glanced at him, but smacked Boduognatus in the ribs hard
with his spear. The body lay limp.

“
Looks like we’ve got a dead one.”

Another
legionary came strolling over as the lines were being straightened
to march once more. He crouched by the body and rolled it to the
side as far as the ropes allowed.

“
Broke his neck when this prick fell on him.”

As he began to
cut through the dead chief’s bonds, the other soldier turned and
delivered Paetus a crack on his shin with his spear, almost strong
enough to break his leg. The former prefect staggered and gave the
legionary a defiant stare.

“
Hey” called the other man from beside the body. “Don’t damage
him. We’ve already lost one!”

“
Screw ‘em. Brainless pricks!”

“
Your problem, Carus, is that you don’t think
ahead.”

The two men
dissolved into a friendly argument as the body was cut free and
hauled away from the line. Paetus smiled to himself. The man behind
him clearly either hadn’t seen, or didn’t care, or he’d have spoken
up.

He
straightened, ready to proceed. Now he was unknown. A miscellaneous
Belgic prisoner as far as anyone was aware. All he had to do was
keep quiet and unnoticed and he would be taken in bondage all the
way to Rome. Of course, when he got there, his life was effectively
over, but he’d bought himself weeks of thinking time; likely a
month or more. And most importantly, he’d be away from Belgica and
Caesar’s army.

He would
survive. He had to.

* * * * *

Labienus stood
at the gates of the camp. As Caesar had requested, he’d made the
fortress as impressive as possible and was pleased with the
results. Fronto was right about his engineers; this Pomponius lad
that was the chief engineer of the Tenth was really rather good at
his job. Even Cornelius, the temporary camp prefect replacing
Paetus, who had years of experience in fort construction from the
Spanish campaigns, had nodded in satisfaction at the work, clearly
impressed.

In the half
day since they had arrived at Nemetocenna, the vexillation of
legionaries had been hard at work and had just now, as the sun set,
put up the last of the tents, posted the night guards and set the
watchwords. They had watched the large, low oppidum that was the
home of the Atrebates since they arrived but had not entered yet.
Labienus would give them tonight to think about the huge presence
beyond their walls and to be impressed. It was vital to his plans
that the chieftains were impressed not only with the power of the
Roman military, as Caesar had intended, but also with their
efficiency, patience and, later, when time allowed, their leniency
and pragmatism.

He was
determined, since the chances were low that Caesar would attend, to
put this in the best possible light and to suggest to the Belgic
leaders that the greatest future for them all was to be part of the
great Roman confederacy.

And now, as
his eyes left the oppidum with its twinkling lights and low air of
suspicion, he glanced briefly at the impressive triple ditch to
either side of the causeway, turned and strode through the gate.
The legionaries on duty saluted and, as soon as he had entered,
closed the portal and dropped the bar.

With a nod to
the men, he strode up the via praetoria to his headquarters at the
centre. As he passed the lines of tents, he mused on the tasks
ahead of them. While the leaders of the Belgae gradually arrived
for this council, he would create a permanent fortress here,
setting the men to work in the morning constructing wooden
buildings throughout.

He smiled. But
where Caesar had told him to impress the Roman law on them and had
meant him to frighten them into submission with his military power,
Labienus had other ideas. The Belgae had to come to see Rome as a
protective brother, advising and supporting them in their
transition to a Romanised culture, rather than an oppressive
victor. It would be tough, particularly given the reputation Rome
seemed to have built in the north, but it needed to be done.

He smiled as
the plans fell into place in his mind, and that smile broadened as
he spotted Pomponius poring over some chart or other on a trestle
by the lamplight from the windows of the headquarters, the only
timber construction so far within the camp.

“
Good evening centurion. May I borrow you for a few
minutes?”

Pomponius
looked up from his work, blinking and, recognising the army’s
commanding officer, saluted urgently.

“
No need for that right now, lad. I need your somewhat massive
brain, rather that your obedience.”