Nobody Loves a Centurion (27 page)

“So Molon has informed me. What of it?”

“A whole
contubernium
lies under suspicion and imprisoned under guard at this minute. If I do not denounce the Druids as the guilty parties, eight innocent men will die a most lingering, excruciating death.”

He and Molon muttered back and forth for a while. I suspected that the interpreter was having a hard time explaining the word “innocent” to Ariovistus. Then the king addressed me once more, through Molon.

“There are no innocent Romans.”

13

A
RIOVISTUS KEPT US IN HIS CAMP
for five more days. There were no more beatings, and we were fed regularly. Our bonds were not too tight. But we were under constant guard by men for whom the word “unsympathetic” must first have been coined. In the absence of physical abuse, mental anxiety fully occupied us. This was a barbarian king, who might change his mind at the slightest whim. Nobody spoke to us. A few times Freda walked by and I tried to engage her in conversation, but she had lost interest even in beating me. Oddly, I almost felt slighted in this. Perhaps there was a little Titus Vinius in me after all. Molon, likewise, merely shook his head when I addressed him.

So Hermes and I talked to each other for lack of better company, as men will when they are confined together. I told him that, when we got back to Rome, I would enroll him with
a schoolmaster, for I would be needing a secretary in my future career. He said that maybe staying with the army and fighting Gauls and Germans wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all.

He tried to wheedle out of me exactly when I expected to manumit him, but I knew better than to answer that. Keep them in suspense is the best policy. After a while we stopped talking about the future. Too much talk of the future makes the present seem all that much more precarious.

On the morning of the sixth day, we woke in a deserted camp. I jerked up and looked around wildly. “Hermes! They’re gone!”

“Huh?” he said brightly, blinking and staring owlishly. “Where did they go?”

“Back to Germania, I hope! Come on, let’s get loose from these bonds.” So we sat back to back and made a ridiculous attempt to untie one another’s ropes. Then we gave that up and tried to tug up our stakes. No luck there, either.

“This is going to take some thought,” I said finally. “Maybe we can rub the cords through against a rock.”

“No rocks around here,” Hermes said, looking about him. “Hey, where did the god go?”

I looked behind us and saw a hole in the ground where the ugly thing had stood. “They dug it up and broke camp without waking us,” I observed. “These Germans know how to handle themselves in the dark.”

“Here comes somebody,” Hermes said apprehensively. We watched the treeline and a moment later an ugly, gnomish, but familiar figure came through.

“Thought I’d sneak back and make life a little easier for you two.” From within his tunic he produced a knife with a
short blade and cut our bonds. “Get along now, before the Germans notice I’m gone.”

“Tell me something, Molon,” I said.

“What?”

I grabbed his right arm and raised it. “Tell me about this.” Around his wrist was the silver bracelet I had seen worn by Titus Vinius on the day of our first encounter. “How did you get it? From the Druids? What sort of private game have you been playing?” I twisted it off his arm.

“Ow!” he cried, rubbing his wrist. “If you must know, I took it when I heard Vinius was dead. It was with his dress gear in the tent.”

“The others said he never took it off,” I pointed out.

“Well, he couldn’t very well be wearing it and pass for a slave, could he? Come on, give it back. I turned you loose, didn’t I?”

“I need it,” I explained. “I am going to show it to Caesar as evidence that this insane story is not just a lot of vaporing on my part.”

“You are an ungrateful man,” Molon said. “I gave you good service, even though I really wasn’t your slave.”

“Yes, and how you came to be an adviser to Ariovistus must make quite a story, but I haven’t time to hear it. You’d probably just lie, anyway.”

“Any chance of getting our swords back?” Hermes said.

“Are you serious?” Molon said. “That much iron?”

“Come along, Hermes, let’s be away from here.” I turned for a last time to Molon. “Tell Princess Freda, if that is her title, that I shall always remember her fondly.”

“She’ll be glad to hear it,” he grinned. “I know she thinks
the world of you, Senator.” Who knows when a man like that is telling the truth? He walked away, back into the forest.

We got lost a few times, but I had a general idea of where we were and how to get back. The hills were not unpleasant early in the day, and such was the menace from our two-legged enemies that we did not even bother to worry about wolves and bears and such. The air was fresh, we were free, and our bruises were fading. Best of all, I had found out the truth about the death of Titus Vinius and I would save Burrus and his friends. I explained this to Hermes, who was starting to complain.

“No, best of all, the Germans are going away. As for the rest, I’m tired, I’m sore, and I’m hungry.”

“Don’t be so joyful about the Germans,” I chided him. “The Helvetii will kill us just as dead if they catch us.”

“See? Things aren’t so good after all.”

The mountainside where the sacrifices had taken place seemed almost as familiar as home by the time we reached it, early in the evening. After that there was no great problem as to direction: just go downhill. The first stars were coming out as we reached the plain.

“Not far now,” I said.

“Well, at least it’s flat,” Hermes commented.

I should have known by that time that no smallest aspect of my time in Gaul was going to be truly pleasant or easy. Shortly after midnight a heavy ground fog closed in. We strode on, but less confidently.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Hermes said. “Maybe we should wait for daylight.”

“I don’t want to be caught out here on the plain,” I told him. “We’ll just have to trust to my sense of direction.” He looked dubious at this. “We have to reach the rampart pretty
soon. It’s nineteen miles long. That’s pretty hard to miss.”

“I have perfect confidence in you, master,” he said, a remark open to more than one interpretation.

Daylight came, but not clarity of view. We were walking in white fog instead of dark fog. I thought I could determine the direction of the rising sun, but I may have been fooling myself in this. I betrayed no doubts to Hermes, though.

“Halt!” the command came out of the gloom with such authority that both of us were struck as by a thunderbolt. “Who’s out there?”

“I am Captain of Praetorian Cavalry Decius Caecilius Metellus, accompanied by one slave. I must report to the
legatus
at once.”

“What’s the watchword, Captain?”

“Watchword? How would I know? I haven’t attended a staff conference in seven days! Let us through—I have urgent business!”

“Sorry, Captain. I can’t let you pass without the watch-word. You’ll have to wait until the officer of the watch gets here.”

“I cannot believe this!” I shouted, all but tearing out my hair by the roots. “At least let me know where you are!”

“Oh, I guess that’s all right. Just keep coming the way you were for a few steps.” I did as he instructed and then I saw the great rampart in front of me. Just over its palisade I could make out the shapes of two helmets, close together. The fog was lifting rapidly now.

“Can’t you see that I am a Roman officer?” I demanded.

“Well, you talk like one. What you look like is a beggar.”

I could imagine how he would think so. My tunic was ragged and filthy, I was equally filthy as well as unshaven, with
my hair sticking out like a Gaul’s. Then I heard somebody else clumping along the wooden walk and I saw a helmet with the transverse crest of a centurion.

“What’s all this commotion, Galerius?”

“There’s someone out there who says he’s a Roman officer, though he doesn’t look it. Got a slave with him.”

“Somebody said something about a missing officer.” The centurion peered over the palisade. “Let’s hear your story.”

“I was on a night reconnaissance and was captured by the Germans. We escaped yesterday and have been wandering in the fog all night.” The shorter the better, I decided.

“Well, at least you sound all right.” He pointed east, toward the lake. “There’s a gate right down there about a quarter of a mile. Go on and I’ll see they let you in.”

We hurried down to the narrow sally port and a group of extremely puzzled men let me through at the centurion’s orders. I was so agitated and frustrated that only now did I notice that I was looking at legionaries, not auxilia.

“When did legionaries take over guarding the rampart?” I said. They just stared and then I noticed the stars painted on their shields. “What legion are you?”

“The Seventh!” said one, proudly.

I whooped and hugged Hermes, much to his embarrassment. “Our reinforcements! When did you get here?”

“Late yesterday evening,” said a decurion. “Caesar came riding in when we were camped just the other side of the Alps. He didn’t march us here; he made us
run
here!”

“Six men dropped dead from exhaustion in the mountains,” another said, nodding and grinning, as if this was a great distinction. “Caesar had his lictors marching in the rear, with orders to behead any that fell out.”

“Caesar truly believes in having his orders obeyed,” the decurion said with considerable awe. It was as if they were talking about a god, except that they spoke with affection. I could not believe it. Lucullus had tried to enforce stiff discipline in his army and the soldiers had rebelled. Caesar demanded inhuman discipline and they worshipped him for it. I will never understand soldiers.

As Hermes and I walked toward the camp of the Tenth, the rest of the fog cleared off and we saw the most heartening sight in the world: Where there had been only the solitary camp of the legion and its auxilia, there were now three full legionary camps and three auxilia camps, and since these had been newly raised for this campaign they were at full strength; something in excess of thirty-six thousand men.

“There’s enough soldiers here to conquer the world!” Hermes said.

“I’m sure Caesar would like to do just that,” I told him, “but we’ve marched ten legions at a time against an enemy and still had a hard fight of it. Still, this army should be able to take on the Helvetii handily.”

“And the Germans?”

“Caesar won’t take on both at once. Ariovistus may have been exaggerating his numbers, but he may have three times as many men as Caesar.”

“That sounds bad.”

“It isn’t good, but Marius overcame odds that great, fighting Germans. Sheer ferocity and courage can only accomplish so much. Discipline counts for more than that, and you saw how they were armed. Those flimsy shields won’t even slow a
pilum
. Wooden spears won’t penetrate a
scutum
or a mail shirt. As long as the legions hold their formations, they can deal with greater odds than that.”

“But they’re huge!”

“Just big targets,” I assured him. “Without helmets or armor, they are just meat for a sharp gladius.” I hoped that I was not just reciting a lot of propaganda. Roman armies had been destroyed before, and Hannibal had even done it with inferior numbers. But Hannibal was the best general who ever lived. Alexander’s reputation is greatly exaggerated, in my opinion. Romans are rarely outfought, but we have been outgeneraled from time to time.

But I knew that those wild men had none of the discipline of Hannibal’s veterans. Caesar’s legions would deal with the Germans right after a victory over the Helvetii, when their morale was soaring, and that would make a tremendous difference.

Or am I just indulging in hindsight here? Perhaps I was really far less confident and far more frightened back then. I may have just been putting on an act for Hermes.

“Speaking of swords,” he said, “are you going to get me another one?”

“Not until I replace my own. I still have my cavalry sword, but I need a gladius, too. We’ll see how my luck at dice runs. Maybe I’ll ask Burrus and his
contubernium
to take up a collection to replace the swords we lost on their behalf. They ought to be grateful for . . .” Then, with rising horror, I remembered.

“Run!” I shouted, breaking into a sprint.

“Why?” Hermes cried from somewhere behind me. I didn’t waste any breath on answering him.

The camp of the Tenth was the easternmost. I ran past the others through a heavy smell of new-dug earth. They were still digging their ditches and raising their ramparts. Under the watchful eyes of their decurions the men paused to stare at the crazy, ragged man running by as if all the Furies were clawing
at his buttocks, until the decurions barked at them to stop being lazy sods and get back to work.

As I got to the north wall, I saw that all the sentries were facing inward and I prayed to Mercury to lend wings to my heels. I dashed through the Porta Decumana and behind me someone shouted: “Hey! Stop, there! What’s the watchword?” The muscles in my back tensed in anticipation of the untimely arrival of a
pilum
, but I knew the likelihood was remote, for it can be extremely bad luck to kill a madman.

Through the deserted quarters of the praetorian guards I ran, noticed only by horses and other livestock. As I neared the forum, I saw Caesar and his officers atop the speaking platform, watching something below them. What it was I could not see, for the legion was drawn up by cohorts around three sides of the forum. With a final, Olympic-quality surge of speed I ran between two cohorts and burst into the open amid surprised shouts.

Before the speaking platform stood Caesar’s twelve lictors. In the middle of them, incongruously, stood a painted stone pillar. Before this odd grouping stood the men of the First Century of the First Cohort, dressed in their tunics and armed only with vinestaffs, looks of misery on their faces. But their expressions were as nothing to the woeful countenances of the eight naked men who stood at one end of the double line. First among them was Burrus, who was about to walk between the lines. The vinestaffs were already raised to strike.