Marius' Mules VI: Caesar's Vow (51 page)

And what they would do to the Eburones would make crucifixion look like mercy. The gut post, the burning rack, the skinning knife. And, of course, raping all the women regardless of age, and often the men and boys too. It would make a clean Roman death look like paradise.

And so here they went once more, hiding in the woods.

Even as he heard the first sounds of the approaching warband, he gave his hut a regretful glance, wishing he could have preserved more, had there been time, and scurried off down the bank towards the stream and the copse where their few prized possessions were stored.

Sliding down into the undergrowth, he kissed his wife’s head and pulled the inquisitive twins down from the upper foliage and into better cover. The family held their breath.

The raiders burst from the far side of the farmstead’s clearing like water from a shattered dam. Hundreds of men, tattooed and painted, decorated with torcs and arm rings, mostly bare-chested, but occasionally clad in mail, poured from the trees and into the hut and the barn and the store house and even the hen coup. Their sounds of disappointment were audible even from this distance as they found the farm deserted and poor. One or two took out their anger on the few remaining chickens, smashing them against the wall of the hut and even tearing at their feathered flesh with jagged teeth.

Would they burn the hut? Venitoutos cast yet another prayer up to the great Goddess Arduenna that his farm might escape this latest deprivation. The wind rustled the leaves in noncommittal answer. The Goddess was known to be fickle and easily enraged. Having admitted - if only to himself - to his wish to see an end to it all, would she still shelter him? Arduenna had a dangerous sense of humour and was quick to anger.

And those two traits were never more in evidence than now, as the tribesmen turned their attention from the hut, leaving it unburned, unbroken and entirely intact, only to focus on the footprints left in the soft, dewy morning grass.

Venitoutos cursed under his breath. He’d sent the others around across the tree roots and down the scree slope to avoid leaving just such a trail, yet in his haste to join them, he’d forgotten to do so himself and had left a line from the hut to their hideout.

‘Come out!’ snarled a voice in harsh, Germanic tones.

Venitoutos remained silent, though he could hear the faint crying of the children beneath their mother’s hands and her own muttered panic.

‘The Sugambri are here now, little man,’ a huge, blond creature with a broken nose bellowed from the slope, slowing as he approached the copse. ‘No need to fear the Romans now!’

No
, Venitoutos thought to himself.
Now I need to fear the Sugambri
.

But the sad truth remained that they were trapped. Before them stood the farm clearing full of Germans. Behind them was the narrow stream gulley that was treacherous and would slow them in full sight of the enemy. And the copse was small. It would not take the Sugambri long to root them out. Now, their only hope was negotiation.

But he’d been thinking about this all morning, ever since he’d seen the Germanic raiders. In bringing the Roman armies so close to the farm that he could smell their wine-soaked breath, Arduenna had given him a gift. She had placed in his hands the one thing that might buy off the Sugambri.

With a deep breath, he gestured to the family to remain silent and hidden and clambered up out of the undergrowth, staggering into plain sight. On shaking legs, holding his arms out in a gesture of supplication, he walked a few paces and stopped before the Sugambri war leader.

‘Greetings great chief.’

‘Where are your goods,’ the man replied absently, peering past him at the copse.

‘I am a poor farmer with no wealth,’ he replied. ‘I have nothing to adorn such great men. Just a few tools and some rat-eaten grain.’

‘You have warm and comfortable women, I’ll wager,’ leered the German, still looking past him.

‘And if I could offer you riches and glory and easy victory, what would its value be to you?’

For the first time, the Sugambri leader’s eyes slid back towards Venitoutos and settled on his face, the big brow creasing into a frown.

‘Riddles?’

‘No riddles, great chief. We have nothing. We are beneath your attention. But only a day north of here - two at the most - is the camp at the Fortress Valley, where the Eburones slaughtered their legion in the winter.’

‘A place of corpses and ghosts,’ spat the German.

‘More than that,’ smiled Venitoutos. ‘The Roman general has placed all his army’s wealth and supplies there while he raids this forest. Think of the plunder from
ten legions
, great chief. Think of the glory in slaughtering the small guard and taking from Caesar everything of value. More than that: think what damage you will do to Rome! You could cripple their army.’

The Sugambri leader was clearly interested, his lip working away in silent calculation. His eyes widened momentarily as he estimated the goods that would be required to support such an army.

Venitoutos smiled. He had the man. It was a prize no raiding chief could ever pass up.

‘You are sure of this?

‘I heard if from the scouts of Caesar’s army, though they knew not that I was listening. Lead the Sugambri to greater glory than pillaging a simple farmstead.’

Two other war leaders were now making their way across the damp grass, one of them tall and powerful on a horse, his wire-haired chest bared and marked with patterns that protected him from earthly harm and from divine magics.

‘Why do you delay, Adelmar?’

‘This farmer knows of the Roman baggage train.’

‘So?’

‘Think on it, Gerwulf! All the supplies for ten legions. With only a small guard. And the whole Roman army in this stupid forest looking for their coward king. We could take it all and be across the river back in our own land before Caesar even hears we have been there!’

The mounted chieftain nodded, with a smile.

‘It would be a good raid, I am thinking.’

His nod was echoed by the third chief. ‘I agree.’

‘Then we will abandon this pointless journey, picking over a carcass already stripped by Caesar and we will find this baggage train and take it for our own. Send out riders to draw the other warbands to us.’

Venitoutos smiled. Arduenna protected her own and this time, even despite his failing courage, she had continued to do so, with no cruel joke.

He was still smiling as his head bounced down the grass leaving a fine red spray, coming to rest a few feet from the copse, from which issued a chorus of screams.

Adelmar turned and smiled at Gerwulf, wiping his bloodied sword on a pelt hanging from his belt.

‘Kill the men,’ he ordered one of the nearby warriors. ‘But fetch the women. I have needs to sate before we leave.’

High in the treetops, a woodpecker laughed hard and long above the untouched farm buildings.

Chapter Seventeen

Deep in the forest of Arduenna.

‘He has to be heading for the Rhenus,’ Fronto said, rubbing his scalp absently as he leaned against a tree trunk and emptied his water canteen over his face.

‘The Eburones are not universally accepted by our cousins across the river,’ Ullio replied with a slight shake of his head. Our history of war with many of them goes back to long before we even knew the name of Rome. Ambiorix will find few potential allies there, especially close to the river where all the tribes have given their oath to Caesar. The king would have to be
truly
desperate to try such a thing.’

Fronto frowned at Ullio’s use of such a title for Ambiorix, but said nothing. For all the hunter might hate Ambiorix and all he stood for, he still recognised him as the now-undisputed king of the Eburones and accorded him the appropriate honours, if not the allegiance.

‘The wily bastard must be getting desperate. Bear in mind the rumours rushing through the forest. Three Roman armies! Nine legions scouring the lands of the Eburones for him, crushing him from three sides, along with every other nation who fancies a try at your tribe’s pickings. The whole forest is alive with his enemies. There are more enemies hunting the Eburones in their lands than there are of their own people! And unless he dares try slip between those armies and tribes, the only way open to him is the river. And let’s face it, we’ve been turned east for three days. We can’t be a long way from the river now.’

Ullio nodded. What Ambiorix hoped to do was still the big question, and what he would do when he finally reached the river was beyond any of them. In addition to nine legions, Caesar’s offer had brought every tribe in on the hunt. Even the shattered Nervii had sent what few warriors they could gather in a band to hunt the fugitive king, as had the crushed Menapii, both more intent on securing Caesar’s favour and forgiveness than the potential loot. But the Condrusi and the Treveri were also coming through the forest from the south. Even the Segni, having declared their usurper king and his pet druid enemies of the tribe, were on the hunt. There were even faint rumours that the Germanic peoples had crossed the torrent to help, not that any sign of them had shown up this far into the woods yet.

‘You’re still troubled, Ullio.’

It was a statement rather than a question, and a stupid one, though neither acknowledged it as such. Of course he was troubled. His tribe was being systematically exterminated and here he was trying to stop it, but in doing so, finding himself teamed up with the very people doing the exterminating. How it sat with his conscience, Fronto could only wonder. One thing was certain: when this was all over, he would find some way to make things right with Ullio. After all, if Basilus had not interrupted Ullio and his lord, Ambiorix would have been interrogated and dead for days now and all would be well.

His blood thumped and his vision darkened at the memory of the stupid, blind, block-headed idiocy of that cavalry lunatic. The last time he’d seen the man he’d been following Galronus dejectedly as the Remi officer led the cavalry back towards the Rhenus with an aim to meeting up once more with Caesar’s army. He’d heard nothing about his friend since, but he felt with some certainty that Galronus would be fine. Basilus, hopefully, less so.

He, on the other hand, was starting to despair of ever finding the fugitive, and the Belgae were burning and dying by the thousand because the little rat continued to evade capture.

‘I’m sorry, Ullio. Every time we hear of another strike, it’s a punch to my gut, so I can only guess how bad it must be for you. As soon as we find Ambiorix, I will personally deliver the man’s head to Caesar and make sure this all ends and that the general knows some of the Eburones have been instrumental in his capture.’

The hunter, his face set into a permanent scowl, whittled at the end of a stick with a small knife and paused for a moment, looking up at Fronto.

‘I am at war with myself.’

‘Sorry?’

‘My mind tells me that Ambiorix must be caught, and soon, if we are to end the slaughter. My mind tells me that the only men that can do it are yours, not those of your general. My mind also tells me that you cannot do it without my help. A dozen times these past days you would have fallen foul of the Goddess without my aid. Samognatos is a good man, but we are far from his lands now, and he does not know this forest as well as I.’

‘I agree entirely, Ullio. I’ve said as much.’

‘But my heart tells me that I am being too longsighted. I am concentrating on the events that could change my world, but while I do so, my family and my kin are in daily danger. Without my bow and my arm and my hunter’s senses, my sister-son and his family - who are all I have left - could be crucified by one of your armies or tortured and burned by the Treveri or the Germans. My heart tells me that I should be with them, to look after them.’

Around them, the meagre remains of the singulares nodded their sympathy, unable to even pretend not to hear in such close circumstances. Ten men, in addition to Fronto and Ullio, and of course Drusus and Magurix, who scouted ahead, towards the settlement that lay half a mile away by the river while the rest waited impatiently.

And of course, Valgus.

The legionary who had vanished during the night they had been attacked by animal-headed bandits had yet to put in a re-appearance. Masgava persisted in the belief that the man lived and was somewhere about, but then somewhere out there was also Brannogenos, plotting their downfall. Perhaps the traitor Remi had already done away with Valgus.

Whatever the case, they had gone on working on the basis of his permanent absence.

‘I do sympathise with your plight,’ Fronto sighed. ‘If it were my family, I doubt I would have had the strength of spirit and presence of mind to do as you have done and put your entire people first. For all that my people call yours ‘barbarians’, the putting of the good of state above the good of oneself is the most Roman of values and defines what we like to think of as a ‘good man’. You, Ullio, are a good man. And when things are done with, I will turn Gaul over to make sure your family are safe. But for now I can do nothing but plead with you to stay with us until we have completed our task.’

Ullio sighed and began to whittle again.

‘I will think on it. In time, Arduenna will give me her advice.’

Out of the corner of his eye, Fronto saw Aurelius glance around nervously at the name and reach up to clutch the Minerva figurine that sat on a thong around his neck. That man was getting more superstitious by the day. Something would have to be done soon, before he put the whole party in danger.

‘Sir?’

He turned to see the two scouts strolling back into the clearing wearily. Magurix unbuckled his sword belt and carried it by his side, while Drusus knuckled his eyes, a nervous energy about him.

‘Any news?’

‘Best yet, sir,’ Magurix smiled. ‘This settlement has not yet been touched by the armies of the general, and they were remarkably talkative to one of their own - or the closest I could manage.’