Marius' Mules VI: Caesar's Vow (36 page)

‘Wake him up.’

Striding across the clearing and uncorking his canteen, Palmatus threw a splash of water into the Gaul’s face and, when he failed to respond, stepped forward and gave him several slaps in the face. Gradually, the native came to, groaning.

‘What tribe are you?’

The Gaul stared at Fronto, groggily, and then spat blood and saliva at him.

‘Oh good. Someone to take my bad mood out on! Tend the wounded, bury the dead and set pickets. We camp here tonight.’

* * * * *

The flames danced and crackled in the small fire as Palmatus took a swig from his wineskin, watered three parts water to one wine, and then passed it to Fronto.

‘The Segni? So we can now assume that they are part of Ambiorix’s ‘great uprising’?’

‘Safe to say. But they’re a small tribe, and we’re almost out of their lands now, so I’m not going to lend too much thought to this. I put it down to an unfortunate chance meeting. Samognatos is still insistent that the Segni are loyal, and if he’s right, they might be split the way the druids seem to be. However it pans out, we’re moving away into Eburone territory anyway. Hopefully without further incident.’

‘Hopefully. We’ve lost three now. Three out of twenty. First Galatos back in Divonanto and now Pontius and Myron. Both from my bloody contubernium too, they are. As is Numisius with his broken arm.’

Masgava’s brilliant white teeth glittered in a smile in the dark. ‘I lost Galatos. And Magurix has a flesh wound.’

‘Which he barely notices,’ Palmatus snorted. ‘That lunk is almost entirely muscle. Probably most of his head is too.’

Fronto smacked his hand on one of the flat stones upon which they’d prepared their dinner. ‘Can you two save this kind of pointless one-upmanship for another time? We’re three men down and two wounded and we’re not even officially in enemy territory yet. And you might argue about how many are down in each of your contubernia, but I’m missing
all
of them!’

The two officers fell into an awkward silence.

‘You’re convinced we have a traitor with us?’ Palmatus asked in little more than a whisper.

‘Someone set Luxinio’s horse off on purpose.’

‘Could it not have been an accident?’

Masgava shook his head. ‘I saw the stud-marks. They were about two feet up. No one kicks that high accidentally. I think he might have been trying to break its leg. Nearly succeeded, too.’

‘I’d hoped the traitor was Galatos,’ Fronto sighed. ‘Then we’d have lost him and he’d have passed on misinformation. No such luck. So I think we have to assume that Galatos either fell foul of the Arverni in the town, or one of his companions did away with him. That means either Brannogenos or Magurix  would have to be the one we seek.’

‘We could just get rid of them both?’ Masgava muttered.

‘I’m not about to dispatch two Remi on the off-chance one of them is not what he seems. Galronus might be a little pissed at me. Besides, when we find him, I want to have a few choice words with this traitor.’

‘So we keep an eye on the two Remi from now on,’ Masgava muttered. ‘Never leave them alone?’

‘Got to be the most sensible course of action,’ Fronto agreed. ‘Think it’s time I got some shut-eye. We’ve a long ride in the morning. Which one of you is on next watch?’

Masgava stretched. ‘That would be me. I’ll go and relieve Damionis now. The poor bastard spent every moment tending the injuries and then went straight on watch. He’ll be exhausted.’

‘Send him back to the fire for a warm up.’

Masgava nodded and rose, disappearing off into the night.

‘Have you given any thought to what we’re going to do when we find the other king?’ Palmatus asked quietly, pulling his blanket round him and settling to the ground uncomfortably.

‘Depends on whether he’s feeling cooperative. If so, we’ll camp down with him and his men and wait for Ambiorix to show up. Cativolcus is well known to hate the man, so we might be in luck. If not, then we’ll take the bugger hostage and wait anyway. The details we can hammer out as we go.’

‘I think we’ll have to get the plan set well in advance if we…’

Palmatus fell silent at the sound of Masgava’s voice raised in alarm. A heartbeat later both he and Fronto were up, their blankets dropping to the ground, drawing their swords and sharing a look before they ran off in the direction of the shout.

Around the clearing, the men of the singulares were coming rudely awake, blinking and lurching from their beds, some alert enough already to be scrambling for their swords. Past the rising men Fronto and Palmatus ran, towards the figure of Masgava, standing at the watch position where the main road and the small track could both be easily observed from the same point.

‘What is it?’ Fronto yelled as he closed on the man, but then added ‘Shit!’ as he saw the shape of Damionis the capsarius splayed out on the ground, soaked in glistening dark liquid.

‘Damn it!’ Palmatus snapped. ‘We should already have been watching them!’

Fronto’s eyes widened as Palmatus turned and raced back into the clearing, the other two officers at his heels. Despite the unity of the singulares, its constituent members were still new enough that they tended to separate off into their national or professional cliques at night. Arcadios had camped down with Myron and Luxinio, Biorix and Iuvenalis tended to talk late into the night in the way engineers seemed to need to, and the Remi habitually camped together.

Fronto’s heart sank as he came to a halt with the others at the edge of the clearing, looking down at the two sleeping blanket/cloak piles. Brannogenos, with his charms and sigils, his dark hair and darker eyes, had gone, and all his kit with him. Magurix lay wrapped in his cloak, snoring like a boar with a sinus condition.

‘Shit, shit, shit!’ snapped Fronto.

Masgava stared down at the sleeping Gaul as the rest of the group began to assemble near them, barring the few who had spread out to search the edges of the clearing. ‘How can he still be asleep through this racket?’

Palmatus shrugged in defeat. ‘Damionis had given him some concoction of poppy juice for his chest. He’d probably sleep through another stabbing, the lucky bastard.’

‘Well I guess that answers one question for us,’ Fronto snapped. ‘Unlucky old Galatos must have been onto him back in Divonanto, so Brannogenos did away with him before following. I guess he realised now that after wounding the horse he’d be watched, so he did a runner. I wonder what the piece of shit has in store for us. He knows where we’re going, too, so there’s a damn good chance Cativolcus will know we’re coming.’

‘We still have an advantage,’ Samognatos announced, strolling up behind them. ‘The horses were all corralled and roped close together near me and they’re all still accounted for. Wherever Brannogenos has gone, he’s on foot. We can beat him there.’

‘I hope so,’ Fronto grumbled, picturing the dark, sour-looking Remi with his various sigils. Was one of them a symbol of Arduenna? He should have looked when he had the chance. Now the man would be out and about preparing to cause them endless trouble.

‘Everyone get back to sleep. Masgava, get on watch, but now I want three men on watch every time we stop. Always in sight of one another, too. It’s time we got this situation under control.’

Turning, Fronto spotted Aurelius climbing back into his blankets, his eyes nervously scanning the branches above that blotted out the stars and moon even in the clearing, courtesy of trees that had been left growing here and there to add to the leafy canopy. He remembered hearing the story of the legionary and the bat that had been entangled in his hair as he went for a late-night piss. Drusus had roared with laughter as he told the tale under the sullen gaze of Aurelius.

Fronto had dutifully chuckled along, but his mind had furnished him with a question. How had the bat got entangled in the first place? He’d encountered endless clouds of the vermin in the caves below the villa in Puteoli and the one thing he knew about them was they never, ever, collided with you.

Arduenna
.

‘You’d better have listened to those druids, you ugly, untrustworthy bitch.’

Chapter Twelve

Delta of the Rhenus River

Priscus stood at the water’s edge and watched debris floating out towards the cold northern sea from the heart of Gaul and Germania. His gaze took in the variety of humps of land that sat defiantly out in the sluggish flow and then strayed back to the near bank and the Menapi town. No one knew what it was called - even the native scouts from other Belgic tribes. It was a miscellaneous, unlabelled town. It was also a ghost-town, the latest in a long line.

‘How many does that make?’ Antonius sighed as he skipped a flat stone across the wide waterway.

‘Twelve, by my count, plus endless tiny villages and farmsteads.’

‘All deserted.’

Priscus took a deep breath. ‘I told you before we marched north that these bastards flee into the swamps and islands at the first sign of real danger and feel safe as anything. Largely because they are.’

Antonius nodded dejectedly, his eyes scouring the deserted, empty town as though for a solution. ‘So you think they’re out in that estuary, on those islands?’

‘Yes. And beyond, spread over about fifty miles of marsh, fen, swamp and river.’

‘Is this the Rhenus I keep hearing about?’

‘Not really. But it’s connected… everything’s connected here. The delta and its rivers cover an area half the size of Latium. It’s enormous, and impregnable.’

‘I swear some of those islands are actually moving!’

‘Probably. This place is the worst place to campaign in the world. I’d rather drive a wedge up mount Olympus against the Titans. I’d rather fight a battle underwater. Looking at this place, that might actually happen!’

The army, five legions strong, had pushed north after the Gallic assembly, marching on the Menapii in the same fashion as they had against the Nervii, swiftly, but with considerably less success. While surprise and the early season had been on their side against that other tribe, it was now high spring and word seemed to have leaked out in advance, so that the forces of Rome met nothing throughout Menapii territory but empty buildings and deserted towns. Finally, this afternoon, they had reached the first of the wide, marshy delta areas. So far, the ground had been reasonably solid, though with a sogginess that would see foot-rot rife within the army. This wide stretch of water with its islands and reed beds marked the beginning of the Menapii’s place of refuge. From here to the north, scouts had confirmed over the past few years that at least fifty miles of territory would yield nothing other than wide channels, swampy areas, reed beds, treacherous sucking muck, fens and cold, wet, rotting death.

Priscus grumbled and Antonius smiled mirthlessly at him before skipping out another flat stone towards the nearest of the islands.

‘I think I saw something move. Something glinted in the sun.’

‘Probably one of the occupants from this town.’

A tell-tale noise attracted their attention and the two officers turned to see Caesar striding across the squelching grass towards them, half a dozen of the more senior men behind him.

‘How long would it take to bring the fleet from Gesoriacum, Brutus?’ the general enquired, coming to a halt by the water, and nodding a greeting to the others.

‘Five or six days at the very least, General, and that’s using fast couriers and relying on the fleet being ready to sail, as well as conditions being right and the captains and crews willing to sail every hour the Gods give them. But it’s a moot point. Even with the shallow draught of most of our vessels, they’re too wide, deep and cumbersome to risk in most of these conditions. The locals don’t take anything bigger than a four-man trader anywhere in this delta.’

‘The main channel looks wide and deep,’ Caesar noted with a frown.

‘That it is, sir, but that would only give you access to the centre of the main channels, and the ships cannot reach the shore in the delta to embark men; only out at the coast or inland some thirty miles. Anywhere else and they’ll be mired or holed. It would be endless trouble, and would only give us access to the larger islands at the centre, not the endless swamps beyond.’

‘What about using the local vessels?’ Gaius Fabius, legate of the Eighth, asked, scratching his chin.

‘All gone, like the people,’ Priscus cut in. ‘They took them to their refuges with them. Besides, sending a legion against one of these island havens four men at a time would take forever and put the army at too much risk from missiles. Not feasible even if it were possible. It’s difficulties like these that’s kept the Menapii out of our reach for years.’

‘No longer,’ Caesar said with a fierce glare. ‘They ally with Ambiorix and defy us. They will share the fate of the Nervii.’

‘But how?’ Antonius sighed. ‘Without ships or boats.’

The general rubbed his forehead and turned to the cadre of officers behind him. ‘Mamurra? Causeways: are they feasible?’

The engineer stepped forward for a better look, nodding to himself.

‘Not an easy job, General. There’s no local source for quarrying, so it’ll have to be brought a good distance. We could take a lot of the weight of the men with timber lashed together, mind. If we did that, we’d cut down on the stone needed, and they could be dismantled quickly and moved to the next causeway. It’s feasible, but difficult.’

Caesar nodded. ‘Then that is the way we shall proceed. Each of the islands we can see from here will play host to whole settlements of Menapii. We have five legions. Have one legion assigned to each of three of the larger islands and begin the causeways. The other two will work on supplying the resources. We begin today.’

Priscus pinched the bridge of his nose and winced. ‘General, there are literally thousands of islands in this dreadful place. If we have to build a causeway to each, we’ll be here for years.’

‘You are not thinking it through, Priscus,’ the general smiled. ‘Watch the local Menapii tribes fall to our swords within sight of the others and imagine the word spreading among their people. Once these islands have fallen, we will move upriver to where we can cross and then begin to assault the islands on the far side in the same manner. I anticipate a matter of weeks at most before the Menapii come to us on their knees begging for clemency.’