Marius' Mules: Prelude to War (2 page)

Cita’s heart skipped a beat. The noise and activity hadn’t changed. There was no smell or sight of anything alarming. But Cita had served in Gaul since they’d followed the Helvetii. And he had a sense for these things. The atmosphere had changed entirely.

‘Brocchus…’

‘I apologise if I seem demanding and unreasonable, Prefect, but…’

‘Brocchus, gather your friends and have your men start moving back towards the enclave across the river.’

‘What?’

‘We’re in trouble. Get across that bridge.’

The merchant frowned, his brow wrinkling as he failed to understand the officer’s order.

‘Listen, Prefect…’

But Cita was now ignoring him entirely, having turned his attention to the landscape. A narrow strip of land, some fifty paces across, separated the defences of Cenabum from the river and its bridge to the Roman stockade. A narrow clear area for the convenience of the quay users and which was currently filled with Roman merchants and their men. Out to either direction, along the bank, the land hereabouts was uniformly flat farmland.

Thus the figures were clearly visible even at some distance, partially because there were no undulations in the landscape and no woodlands to obscure them, and partially because of the
number
of them.

‘Shit.’

‘Prefect, I really must…’

Cita, without turning back, reached out a hand and grasped Brocchus by the shoulder, hauling the man closer as his own chubby finger pointed off into the scrubby, ridged fields, separated by hedgerows and shrubs, ditches and paths. Hundreds of figures were visible moving towards them.

‘Who are they?’

‘They, Brocchus, are the enemy.’

‘The enemy?’

‘The Carnutes, or the Senones, or their friends. Time to move.’

As the merchant peered off into the distance with narrowed eyes, Cita turned, already expecting what he saw next. Far from shutting the oppidum’s gates and lining the defences in preparation to receive an enemy, the population of Cenabum were moving through the streets towards the gate. Having drawn back like a wave that has struck the beach, unarmed and passive, the Carnutes were now washing back towards them, this time bristling with a spume of blades.

‘
Across the bridge
!’

He was already moving as his eyes now took in the smaller groups on the far side of the river. There were fewer attackers on the far bank, but still enough to deal with less than a score of Romans. They were moving in from all sides, tightening like a noose on the stockade depot.

‘We should make for the ships!’ Brocchus shouted at him as he ran. ‘We can flee downstream!’

Cita paused as he found his aide and factor, Bennacos, marking off scratches on a wax tablet as the merchants’ men unloaded amphorae from a small barge into a Roman cart. Slapping the Boii auxiliary on the arm, he gestured at the groups of men closing in on them.

‘Get across the bridge.’

Bennacos needed no further words of encouragement, nodding and secreting away his tablet as he ran. Cita turned to see panic and indecision on the faces of Brocchus and the other merchants.

‘Across the bridge!’ he reiterated.

‘We should leave on the ships!’

‘Don’t be
stupid
- you don’t have time to put to the water. Get across the bridge.’

Some of the merchants were already moving, the combination of familiar command and urgency in Cita’s voice enough to ensure their capitulation. Five of them were making for the bridge, bellowing for their teamsters, labourers and aides to follow. Men began to drop their crates, amphorae and bales and pound on desperate feet along the quay toward the end of the rickety wooden bridge.

Brocchus, along with a number of the others, was dithering, looking this way and that between the swarm of warriors pouring across the fields, the gateway to the oppidum - towards which more enemy warriors ran - the smaller groups closing in on the Roman stockade across the river, and finally the trade ships and barges.

They broke, making for the boarding planks. Cita shook his head at the madness. They saw only immediate danger, with the eyes of civilians, believing the vessels a safe haven and a route away from here. Cita knew the truth: there
was
no way away from here.

Disregarding the ships, that left only the stockade. Against more than a thousand angry Carnutes, what chance did a score of Romans stand, even with a stockade? But at least there they would be armed. They could make a stand, and it would take the Gauls a short while to get the bulk of their men across the narrow bridge, so that would buy them some time.

He was at the end of the bridge a few heartbeats later, diving between two men in pale yellow tunics from the port of Narbo, running as fast as the press of men on the narrow bridge would allow. Almost a third of the way across he stopped, moving to the side and letting the desperate men pass him. One of the merchants - a fat man with a hare-lip - paused next to him.

‘What do we do?’ he begged in a nasal, frightened tone.

‘Get everyone into the stockade and find the optio. Everyone needs a shield, a helmet and a sword. Armour will be too time consuming, but everyone can be armed in moments.’

The merchant stared. ‘What?’

‘Get yourself armed and ready to face a siege.’

‘But we’re not legionaries!’

‘Would you rather be legionaries or corpses? I fear that’s your choice.’

As the man stared, bulge-eyed, Cita pointed back the way they’d come. The last men were rushing for the bridge, but already the enemy had issued from the gate in the defences of Cenabum and were overtaking them. Even as Cita watched with a sinking heart, a Roman merchant fell, his leg smashed to pieces at the knee with a sweep from a heavy, long blade. His limb mangled beyond repair, the merchant screamed and tried to raise himself onto his one good foot, but already two of the Carnutes were on him, one hauling him up by the hair while the other began to hack and slash at him. Cita felt his blood run cold as he watched the screaming man’s mutilation. None of the blows were deep enough to kill. They were torturing him - shredding him for amusement. A grisly echo of what Rome had done to their own leader, Acco.

There was nothing he could do about it, though, and moments later he’d lost sight of the unfortunate merchant amid the flow of howling warriors. A lucky labourer managed to slip the grasp of one of the lead Gauls and ran onto the bridge, yelling for help. From somewhere behind, a cobble sailed through the air and hit him square in the back - between the shoulder-blades - throwing him forwards onto the timbers of the bridge.

Desperately, crying out in pain, the young labourer tried to rise, but now the enemy was on the bridge and the mob’s advance was momentarily blocked as two more men beat the fallen worker, smashing bones and rending flesh. Cita took a deep, steadying breath and his gaze fell on the ships.

For a heartbeat he wondered whether perhaps Brocchus had been right and he wrong after all. One of the barges began to move away from the quay, trying to use a combination of desperate physical strength and the fast current to move into the centre of the river, where they would be able to safely clear Cenabum and make for the coast.

But, no. He’d been correct after all. They’d had no time. The barge barely made it two paces from the quay when half a dozen Carnute warriors leapt aboard, one misjudging the jump and plunging into the freezing waters of the Liger, where he floundered for a while, before swimming back to the bank. The remaining five howled with glee, a man in expensive armour and gold adornment among them.

The barge was a simple affair with a single square sail that was as-yet still furled, unoccupied oar spaces to each side, and a wide, flat deck with a no shelter, providing plenty of storage room for goods.

Perhaps ten Romans had made it aboard the barge, including one of the merchants, who was now shouting for his men to repulse the invaders and unfurl the sail. None of his men were soldiers, though; none of them were armed, beyond a few knives or timber belaying pins.

Cita watched in silent helplessness as the Carnute warriors dispatched the sailors, closing on the merchant at the steering oar, who was screaming desperate offers of coin and treasure for his safe passage. The man’s last scream remained locked in a silent ‘O’ as the head was brutally hacked from the body, one of his killer’s hands gripping his hair and tearing the grisly orb away from the neck to which it was still attached by tendrils of flesh. Laughing, the warrior - probably a chief or noble from his attire - thrust the Roman head in the air and stared bellowing something in his native tongue to his compatriots on the shore.

The slogan that he finished upon was picked up by the rest of the warriors, who fell into a rhythmic chant as they worked their way through the moored vessels in their violent harvest. Behind the chieftain, the rest of the crew’s heads were taken as prizes.

Shaking his head at such waste and at the stupidity of those who’d sought safety on the water, Cita turned to find his native assistant, Bennacos, standing patiently beside him.

‘What do they shout?’

‘It’s a little difficult to translate, sir. Essentially:
Gaul, not Rome
. Or not a
province
of Rome. Something like that.’

‘You might be safer joining them, Bennacos.’

The native frowned as though Cita suggested he spread his arms and fly away. ‘I am
Boii
, sir, with an oath given to the general!’

Cita smiled. ‘Good man. Let’s get in the depot then, and shut the gate before we’re overrun.’

The last of the fleeing sailors passed them, with the front men of the Carnute horde not far behind. Cita turned his ample frame and pounded along the bridge, with Bennacos at his side, across the short stretch of churned mud and through the stockade gate, which was hastily slammed shut behind him.

Cita paused in the open ground, where the civilians milled about aimlessly, panic infusing their voices. Leaning over with his hands on his knees, he heaved in a few deep breaths to recover from the run and then straightened, his gaze playing across the rudimentary defences of the depot. All bar two of the soldiers were already at the stockade, pila and shields in hand, swords at their side, armoured and prepared. The other two he could hear, along with the optio over by the barracks. As the crowd parted, he saw the two remaining legionaries, bearing the heavy timber weight of a scorpion bolt thrower as they carried it to the defences. Behind them, one of the sailors who’d managed to fight down his panic and had been suborned by the optio was carrying a case of ammunition for the weapon.

Good
. Not that the scorpion would do them much good. They were still horribly outnumbered and these defences would not hold for long. But at least it gave them a little heart and something to do as they waited to be overrun. And it was something the civilians were focusing on too, helping them to overcome their own panic.

‘
Crow’s feet
!’ bellowed the optio, and the legionaries around the stockade began to reach down into the bags at their sides and haul out the excruciating weapons, casting them over the top of the defences and onto the turf beyond. The
tribuli
, or ‘crow’s feet’, were tetrahedral caltrops a few inches across, which when thrown to the ground always presented a single point on the upper side.

Cita nodded his approval. The devices had been manufactured in Narbonensis and sent here down the Liger, where they had been stockpiled in preparation for distribution to the army. Tomorrow afternoon they’d have been on their way to Agedincum and Samarobriva. Here, they were more useful.

Even as the legionaries cast the last few tribuli over the top, mining the ground beyond the defences with painful obstacles, half a dozen labourers who had been singled out by the optio were bringing a second bag to each man. There was no doubt whatsoever in Cita’s mind as to the inevitable outcome of the next hour or so, but he would damn well make the Carnutes pay for every foot of ground.

Bennacos appeared again as if from nowhere, carrying Cita’s helmet and sword, which he delivered heavily before running off to find his own mail shirt and arms.

‘Optio!’

The officer looked up, saw Cita and nodded a professional greeting as he sent two more men into the lean-to for something. ‘Sir?’

‘Have weapons and armour dished out to every living soul here. I don’t care whether they’re Roman or Gaul, sailor, servant or merchant… every last one’s a soldier now!’

The optio threw him a quick salute and then sent two more workers inside to begin sorting the shields and weapons. ‘We’ve another scorpion, but no one else trained to use it. Hundreds of bolts and stones for it, though, sir.’

Cita frowned and threaded his way through the remaining panicking civilians, though there were considerably fewer now that the optio had put some of them to work. One of the merchants - a man with three chins that wobbled hypnotically as he talked, grabbed Cita on the way past.

‘Why aren’t they attacking?’ he asked desperately, a strained hope adding an odd inflection to his voice.

‘They are. They’re falling into position, spreading out to surround us and still bringing the bulk of their force across the bridge. Juno knows why they’re bothering, given that they could overrun us with a
tenth
of that number.’

‘Why wait? Why surround us so thoroughly?’ begged one of the sailors.

‘They’ll want to seal this place tighter than a Vestal’s underwear. I doubt they want
anyone
to escape. If word of this reaches the legions… well you can guess what’ll happen. So they’re moving into place to completely cut us off before they attack, making sure they don’t drive anyone through a gap and off to freedom.’

The merchant and his sailor both sagged, their hope extinguished by Cita’s flat explanation. For a moment he felt he should say something positive - something hopeful, uplifting - but he had nothing. If it had been
Caesar
here, or even Fronto, they’d have had the civilians roaring with venom and the naked hunger for battle. They both had the charisma of a true commander. Cita had a good understanding of the mechanics of command, and a lot of experience of war despite not being much of a fighter himself, but he’d devoted his long career to the
logistics
of the military. He was no real leader of men. Even the optio was motivating the men better than he could. Perhaps it was for the best, then that he could find no helpful words. Any hope he could give them would be a hollow thing, after all.