Marius' Mules IV: Conspiracy of Eagles (16 page)

The Roman cavalryman came to a halt a few yards away, reining in expertly and throwing a salute.

“Soldier?”

“General, commander Varus begs to report that a small group of what appear to be Germanic riders approached from the northeast. There are only a score or so of them and they’re demanding to speak with you. What are your orders, Caesar?”

The general gave a half smile and raised his eyebrow.

“Shall we see what they have to say, gentlemen?”

As the small party of officers turned their horses and rode off at a tangent from the column, toward the bank of the fast-flowing
Mosella
River
that ran some quarter of a mile to the southeast, Fronto fell in alongside them and Varus’ man, a frown etched into his forehead. He had no doubts at all about Varus or his veteran riders, but having a vanguard out there made up of Piso’s horse and
Cicero
’s legion made him very nervous.

Regardless of the lack of obvious danger, Fronto’s spine was tingling in the same way as it had a couple of years ago when he’d first had bad feelings about the brutal Belgic campaign. Something about what awaited them to the northeast felt wrong and dangerous.

He suddenly realised he was rubbing between the fingers of his free hand the amulet of Fortuna he’d taken to wearing on a thong around his neck. Irritated, he pulled it away, though apparently not before Caesar saw.

“Something wrong, Marcus? You look nervous.”

Fronto muttered something under his breath.

“Marcus?”

“Nothing. Got a bad feeling about what’s coming.”

Caesar smiled benignly. “It’s rather unusual for you to be jumpy and superstitious.”

“Just a feeling, Caesar. It feels like I’m riding a wolf into combat against a bear. I don’t know which one’s going to snap at me first.”

Something in Fronto’s voice pulled a serious expression across Caesar’s face. “Anything you want to tell me, Marcus?”

Fronto forced himself to look the general in the eye, trying not to note the hard, accusatory glance Labienus was levelling at him from the general’s other side.

“Nothing concrete, general. Just a feeling of danger and unease. Let’s make sure we keep Varus’ men close by.”

“Of course.”

Ten minutes passed for Fronto in a sense of nervous agitation that deepened and sharpened with every passing step. Caesar and the others continued to pass the time in small-talk, but Fronto declined to take part in the light-hearted banter.

Finally, on a small hillock rising from the north bank of the Mosella, the group spotted a small knot of horsemen and, as they closed on them, Fronto was surprised to see that very few of them appeared to have any kind of rich adornment. Indeed, most of them bared their torsos, their only covering the baldrics that hung across them, supporting the heavy Germanic swords, and the long beards that in many cases hung down to below their collar bones, oft braided or tied in a knot. Their hair, almost uniformly wheat-coloured, was wild and tied in a knot atop their heads. Their weapons were, however, sheathed. The men who sat ahorse behind these visible front men appeared to be almost entirely naked apart from their wild hair and a loincloth, their spears pointing at the heavens.

Caesar smiled happily, and the men with whom he’d been chatting seemed to find the appearance of their visitors amusing.

Not so Fronto. The first thought that entered his head was how suicidally brave a score of mostly naked men would have to be to ride up to the Roman cavalry and demand to speak to their commander. After all, word must have spread to them by now of the Gaulish council’s decision and Caesar’ approach.

These were the sort of men who would try and outstare a crocodile.

“Let’s be patient and courteous, gentlemen” Caesar said quietly as they slowed on the approach.

“Good greet Caesar” intoned one of the lead tribesmen as the general reined in and turned his horse to face the visitors with the expert knee control of a cavalryman. Fronto, less sure and practiced, simply hauled on the reins until Bucephalus complied.

“Good day” replied Caesar. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”

There was a brief silence, and then a huddle of confused murmuring.

“Who are you” simplified the general.

“We not here to fight Roman.”

“Clearly not, with only twenty men” the general smiled. The visitors frowned in incomprehension. Finally someone seemed to grasp the point.

“We – all tribe – we not cross Renos to fight Roman.”

“I can imagine.”

The man narrowed his eyes, a strange move that, given his wild hair and huge beard, almost entirely removed his face from the picture.

“But if Roman want fight, we not run.”

“How kind. It would certainly save us some energy and legwork.”

A chortle broke out among the officers and again the tribesmen conferred until they reached a consensus about what had actu been said.

“Tribes never turn from war. Ancestors fight; we fight. On to tomorrow. Never we talk ‘stead of fight. Is Roman way, yes?”

“I would invite you to put that to the test” smiled Caesar coldly, causing another confab.

“But this time different. Tribes here because we pushed across Renos.”

“Indeed.”

“So we talk. You leave us land we take, we support Roman. We make many strong horse warrior for you. Is good trade.”

Labienus nodded thoughtfully. “It’s not a bad option, Caesar. I’m sure we could talk the council around.”

Caesar glanced at him once and Fronto couldn’t see the general’s expression, but the staff officer lowered his gaze deferentially. When he turned back to the visitors, Caesar’s face had taken on the hard military look that Fronto knew only too well. Impervious, imperious and immovable.

“I’m afraid, gentlemen, that I have already given my word to the chieftains of
Gaul
, who we now call ally. There can be no alliance with an aggressor into their territory. There is no land available for you here. I believe that one of the tribes you represent is the Ubii who straddle both banks of the Rhenus? If that is the case, I urge you to settle in their lands on this side of the river. To this I will turn a blind eye, but to nowhere else.”

There was a long pause as the barbarians conferred again and Fronto watched them, curiously. Something was very odd about all of this. The man’s Latin was not wonderful, for sure, but he knew words like ‘ancestor’ and could form, admittedly broken, sentences. They should not be having so much trouble understanding the general’s words.

Frowning, he wondered why they appeared to be labouring over this more than need be.

“Caesar – you give three day. We deliver term and come with reply. Good, yes?”

Fronto frowned. Three days now too? He wished there were some way to speak to the general alone. Suspicions were forming like dark clouds around his brain and he felt a storm coming. A flash of inspiration struck him and he dug deep into his mind for the words.

“I expect they will have great trouble understanding this” he said loudly to the General, in rusty Greek.

Caesar turned to frown at him and then, seeing the urgent look on his face, turned back to the small group. A new sense of worry and confusion had fallen on them, as though everything that had happened had been their own plan, but this new and incomprehensible development was a serious problem.

“I didn’t even realise you knew the tongue, Marcus,” Caesar replied in fluent Greek with a marked Illyrian accent. “Go on. I think we’re mentally alone.”

“Caesar~ Fronto said, again in Greek, “they’re just trying to delay us all. I don’t know what their game is but they’ve been deliberately faffing and now they’re asking for more time.”

Caesar nodded, wrinkling his lip.

“I fear they are trying to buy time to bring home the huge amount of horse I understand they sent raiding to the south a few days ago. Without them, they will be at a disadvantage against us.”

“Would that it were that, Caesar, but I think it’s more important than that. The Ubii at least are supposed to be reasonably civilized, or so Galronus said. They trade with
Rome
. If they were going to send ambassadors, they would be noblemen with fluent Latin, dressed like rich men and would act like them.”

Caesar frowned.

“Not ambassadors?”

Fronto shook his head. “I think what they are is decoys, sent to keep the bulk of the army busy. Something’s about to happen, or it’s happening already.”

Caesar nodded slowly, a worried shadow in his eyes. Turning to Varus’ cavalry, he scanned the ranks until he spotted the commander himself.

“Varus. Take some good men and ride for Piso’s vanguard. Make sure all is as it should be and order them to pull back to the main column.”

Varus saluted and started shouting out orders, but Fronto saw a few snarling lips and wrinkling brows among the enemy. Caesar had switched back to Latin to give the order. In seconds, as Fronto drew breath to get Caesar’s attention, the Germanic riders were already turning and racing off down the far side of the hill.

“Caesar!”

The general glanced at the sudden explosion of movement and nodded.

“Let them go. I won’t push any more men out from the column to catch them. They’re too light and fast; they’ll easily outrun our heavy-equipped cavalry.”

As Varus trotted past the group of officers, a turma of regular cavalry forming up behind him, Fronto reached past and tapped him on the arm.

“If you value the cavalry, ride like Pegasus himself and get Piso and his men back here.”

Somewhere away to the northeast a single flash of lightning rent the sky.

“Great” Fronto muttered as his left hand rose involuntarily to the Fortuna pendant.

Chapter 5

(Border of Treveri & Ubii lands close to the Rhine & Moselle Rivers)

Varus and his turma of cavalry raced up the gentle incline across open swathes of grass between the forested low hills that covered the landscape here, hiding fertile valleys and the ruined shells of small, peaceful settlements that had fallen victim to the Germanic invaders.

The small force had paused at one, despite the urgency of their mission, to confirm their worst fears. Varus very much wished he hadn’t entered the hut and seen what the Tencteri raiders had done to the Belgic farmer and his wife and daughters, almost certainly both before and after their deaths. Since that first encounter, they had warily avoided stopping at any of the other two dozen villages and isolated farmsteads they had passed.

Half an hour they had been riding now, the last ten minutes of which they had followed the unmistakable trail left by Piso’s cavalry wing, some five thousand men and mounts.

Across the low saddle they rode, almost three dozen men pounding the earth in their haste to reach the vanguard as fast as possible. Crossing easily into a wide, shallow depression surrounded by forested hillocks and ridges, they espied a deeper and narrower valley across to the west, flattening where it met the river to the east.

Full of milling horsemen.

Piso’s cavalry had come to a halt in the valley. Their direction of travel so far, following the northeasterly course set by the general, would lead them directly over the highest hills ahead, with the deepest, most tangled forests. Since clearly the army could not pass that way, the cavalry commander had paused, sending scout units out to locate the best route, whether it be along the
Mosella
River
or further up the valley. Varus nodded as he slowed his mount at the crest. He’d have done exactly the same. Of the force of five thousand cavalry, perhaps three thousand remained in the centre of the wide valley, the rest split into units of three hundred, each under its own officers, dispersed around the valley, probing each low saddle or side valley for the best route onwards.

At least they were intact. Nothing untoward had befallen them.

“Sir!”

Varus turned to the man who’d addressed him, a regular cavalryman, holding his shield and reins in one hand, while jabbing his spear out toward the valley.