Marius' Mules VI: Caesar's Vow (21 page)

‘At least we won’t have to make the assault,’ Antonius sighed with relief.

‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ Priscus muttered from behind them, and Fronto could only nod his agreement. Somehow he couldn’t see Caesar simply walking away from this.

The Nervian leader cleared his throat. ‘Since, though you are a low, murderous Roman beast, you are also noted as a man of your word, and you have vouchsafed the lives of our people, the council authorises me to inform you that your enemy Ambiorix is not at Avenna. He has not visited this place at all, but his small party of ambassadors approached our lands and treatied with us at the town of Asadunon, which is two days north of here, close to the border of our lands. Whether or not he was among them, we are not certain, but it is very likely the ambassadors remain there still. This is all the knowledge of them we have for you, and it is given freely in return for your clemency.’

Caesar smiled then and Fronto, catching the corner of it from one side, recognised that smile. He took a deep breath.

‘Prepare yourselves. Here it comes.’

Antonius turned a frown on him just as Caesar opened his mouth with his reply to the Nervii.

‘Do not mistake my offer for childish clemency, Nervian. I did not guarantee your
freedom
… just your lives.’

Turning away from the falling faces of the Belgic nobles, who were just now realising what they had done, Caesar gave his clear orders to the entire staff and all the senior officers assembled on the plain loudly enough to be heard even over the walls and inside the oppidum.

‘Take Avenna. Do not kill any man, woman or child unless they offer you resistance. When you have the town, chain every last occupant for the slave markets of Narbonensis, commandeer everything of value, butcher the animals, impound the grain and have everything shipped back to Samarobriva.’

The Nervii were blustering now, shouting imprecations and accusing Caesar of breaking his word. The general turned to them with an arched eyebrow.

‘I do
not
break my vows.
Ever
! I vouchsafed your lives and you have them, under the conditions I have set. If you resist, however, I am absolved, as you are committing suicide. Now you have my conditions, do not test me further.’

Without further exchange, Caesar turned his horse.

The first few arrows began to come, loosed by archers on the gate tower or the nearby walls, sent without the need of orders from a noble. Ingenuus and his cavalry threw up their shields to protect the general, but he was already almost out of range, having carefully stopped for the parlay at a distance that would render arrows largely harmless.

As the group moved back towards the army, the Praetorian horsemen sheltering their rear ranks, the Nervii rushed back into their gate and the huge timber portal began to close. Caesar turned to Antonius.

‘They will resist, of course. You have a solid reputation, Antonius - built upon your years in the east - for ending engagements quickly and decisively. Take Avenna for me. Do it quickly and with as few losses as possible.’

Marcus Antonius nodded to his friend and commander, and turned to the rest of the staff as the general rode off to where other members of his guard were overseeing the erection of his headquarters tent.

‘Alright. You heard the general. We need to take Avenna quick and easy. I need ideas.’

* * * * *

‘This wasn’t what I had in mind when I said he needed a small force.’ Fronto eyed the soldiers around him.

‘We
are
a small force’ Palmatus replied with a shrug.

‘I was thinking more like three centuries to a cohort. Not less than twenty men who barely know each other.’

‘How did you get volunteered for this?’

‘Sort of by accident. Antonius asked for ideas. I gave him one, but he thought it was mad and unfeasible. I tried to convince him it could be done and next thing I know, I’m being told to make it happen. In the old days Caesar would either have listened to me and given me a full unit to command or given me a flat no. Antonius is an odd one. Unpredictable, I’d say.’

‘Priscus reckons he’s dangerous,’ Palmatus added quietly.

‘He might be right. But there’s no denying that he’s also good at what he does.’

‘Sounds like someone else we all know.’

‘Shut up.’

Fronto looked around at the men once again.

He had just shy of two contubernia of soldiers, with his friends commanding one each.

Palmatus’ squad of eight men consisted of hand-picked and dangerous legionaries from the Tenth - and one from the Eighth who had been recommended as a homicidal lunatic, which had sparked Palmatus’ interest enough to give him a try out. The former legionary had settled on a unit of traditional soldiers, for all their oddities, since he knew the drill and the commands well.

Masgava’s squad consisted of three Gauls drawn from the auxiliary cavalry, two Cretan archers from Decius’ auxiliary cohort, a slinger from a Balearic cohort and an engineer from the Ninth who had been with the army since the action at Geneva five years ago and had been involved in nearly every project since. There was still one space left in the contubernium, but he and Fronto had decided to leave it empty until he could locate Biorix, who would likely still be serving with the Thirteenth.

So in all: eighteen men, himself included. Against the most important and best fortified city of the most dangerous tribe among the clearly battle-mad Belgae. The more he thought about it, the more deranged it sounded.

Still, he had insisted himself into this situation, and now there was a certain amount of professional pride involved. He knew it
could
be done, and so now he had to prove it, not just to Antonius the disbeliever, or even to himself. But to Caesar. The old man might be made to reconsider his position if Fronto gave him Avenna.

The small knot of men - a motley collection to be sure - stood in a low, tree-lined dell, where a trickle of spring water flowed into a stream, a weathered, unrecognisable shapeless lump of an ancient Gaulish deity overseeing the flow. A sacred spring. For luck, Fronto pulled the small figurine of Fortuna from his neckline, kissed it, splashed sacred water over it and then dropped it back onto the thong beneath his tunic.

He was unarmoured. In fact, he wore no helm and carried no shield, clad in only a drab tunic and with his sword on the baldric - just like the rest of his unconventional singulares. This action was about being fast and quiet, not slow and well-defended. His gaze played across the other fourteen figures in the dell. He had tried to remember names, but he’d only been introduced to them twice, and simply could not hold them. He knew there was a man called Quietus, because the irony of taking him on a crazed hectic night-time raid was not lost on him, but he couldn’t remember which one he was. He had the suspicion, with ever increasing irony, that he was the big fellow who kept snorting his runny nose and appeared to have a permanent twitch.

The missing three men were even now on their way back. He could hear them moving through the undergrowth, light as cats, recognisable only because he was expecting them and because they were making the strange ‘
kua kua
’ noise of the little crakes that inhabited the lower swampy areas of the region.

The trio of native riders had been the obvious men to send out as scouts and had disappeared on their mission half an hour ago, and it was with a great sense of relief that Fronto watched them appear through the brush and slide down into the hollow, pausing only to make a brief devotion at the spring and take a sip of water before reporting to Fronto.

‘How is it?’

‘Poorly defended.’ One of the scouts scratched a map in the dirt with a stick, drawing the three circles of the settlement’s walls, two linked like a figure 8 and a third within the eastern, larger, loop. He pointed to the one at the west. ‘You were correct in your thoughts, sir. It is a nemeton - a sanctuary of the shepherds. There are three buildings only, and a grove that is still used. The ramparts are guarded by men from the main city, but widely-spaced. They do not apparently consider it important to defend. They know it is separated from the city itself by a wall.’

‘And that is true,’ Fronto smiled. ‘But it is a mental weak spot. They will not expect an attack to come through there. Two things bother me, and two things only. How do you three feel about mounting an attack through this ‘nemeton’?’

The three Remi horsemen shrugged. To the Remi, the Nervii would be more of an enemy than Rome could ever be. Until Caesar had brought the army here, the tribes of the Belgae had spent hundreds of years at war with each other. And the Remi may still respect the druid class, but these were
Nervii
druids.

‘Good. And you two?’ He looked across at the archers. ‘How fast can you get a fire arrow off?’

‘With a ready-prepared arrow, a count of twenty at most.’

‘Impressive. Try to be faster. Time will likely be an issue.’

He looked around at everyone again. ‘Alright. Is everyone happy with their tasks?’

There were a variety of nods and mumbled affirmatives and he took a deep breath. ‘Let’s do it then.’

With no further words - there would be no more speech until stealth was no longer an issue - the group scurried out of the dell and through the scrub land. The shadows were now becoming intermixed and almost indistinguishable in the fading light. The timing had been very carefully selected. Dusk would help mask their movements, given the sparse cover that nature had afforded them, and the men on the walls would be weary, their eyes tired, and less alert than usual. Plus Roman forces attacked during the light - usually working from dawn, so no one would expect this.

But it had to be done quickly. The scouts had had the reasonable light to work by. Now the attack would go ahead in the dim hazy indigo of evening. But they had to achieve their goal while there was still enough light for Antonius to bring the army to bear.

Moving from tree to tree and ducking behind scrub, trying to stick to the hollows afforded by streams or natural ditches, the motley assault moved across the flatland towards the western end of the oppidum. Squinting as he went, Fronto finally started to see the walls more clearly and could pick out the men on watch there. He smiled in gratitude. The druidic grove was indeed sparsely guarded, with only three men visible from this southern approach. Three men. Perfect. Thank you, Fortuna.

On and on they crept, as fast as they dared - the natives faster than Fronto would have recommended, but still they closed on the ramparts without an alarm going up, and Fronto found himself gripping the figurine on the thong through his tunic, mouthing prayers and offers as they moved.

Masgava gave a silent hand signal and the attack separated into three groups, one peeling off to the left and the other right, six men in each group, including one missile weapon and one native. Fronto followed the one to the right, the man in front of him a stocky legionary with a rope coiled over his shoulder - again one of three. The engineer from the Ninth, Fronto noted. Iuvenalis, he seemed to remember suddenly.

His world had then shrunk from an attack of eighteen men to an assault by six. He realised that the archers had gone off the other ways and his unit was relying on the slinger. Some might say slingers were less effective, but Fronto had nearly had his brains knocked out of his head with a slingshot twice now, and he would disagree. The Remi scout led the group, the slinger behind, then two lithe and dangerous looking legionaries that he vaguely recognised, followed by the engineer, and then him.

It took what appeared to be only a couple of dozen heartbeats to reach position behind an ailing yew tree and its surrounding undergrowth, and the Remi gave another little crake call. It was answered in only a few heartbeats by a ‘
kua kua
’ from somewhere nearby, out of sight. A heart-stoppingly long pause was finally followed by a third call.

No sooner had that final noise risen than the Spaniard who had been crouched near the tree, bullet already in his sling, rose and whipped it round just once, his arm coming up and over as he released the cord at the top of the arc. It amazed Fronto to watch a skilled slinger at work, and there were no better than those drawn from the Balearic Islands. Youths and the unskilled would whirl the damn thing round for hours, making a ‘whup-whup’ noise. Even the damned treacherous tribune Hortius a couple of years ago had whirled it three times before striking Fronto, but a truly skilled professional would be able to rotate it just once, the only sound being the faint flap of the loosened thong after and the hum of the bullet through the air.

The figure on the rampart disappeared instantly, thrown backwards by the blow to the face, most certainly dead before his feet left the ground. As Fronto strained to look left, the next man had also gone and even as he squinted he saw the third vanish silently, a shaft - invisible at this distance - through his throat.

The wall was clear.

Without the need for commands, the engineer with the rope ran forward and uncoiled it, holding the end near the iron grapple - a naval design, but put to good use here too. With a few test swings, the soldier heaved the rope up over the rampart. Fronto couldn’t see the other groups, but the engineer with his party was clearly an expert, and the grapple caught and held, even when he tested his considerable bulk on it. Pulling it taut, he nodded to the Remi scout, who grasped hold and began to climb fast, hand over hand and legs dangling.

Fronto hated climbing ropes. Always had. It was one of the few exercises Masgava had had him doing last year that he truly loathed. But now, at least, he was grateful for the practice.

By the time the Remi had reached the top - Fronto mentally noted that he must learn these men’s names - the engineer was already on his way up and the slinger was spitting on his hands and rubbing them ready for the climb.

Fronto, determined not to be that officer who was ‘just along for the ride’, made sure he was next, before the other two legionaries, and as the slinger, light, lithe and energetic, neared the  top of the rope, Fronto grasped and began to haul.