Marius' Mules VII: The Great Revolt (6 page)

Ingenuus shook his head. ‘Cannot penalise a man on account of geography. If Allidius cannot go because we are too close to marching season, then neither can Rectus. Tell them that once the season is over I will sanction an extended leave for them both.’

‘Very good sir.’

‘Anything else?’

‘All fine otherwise, sir. The new bridles should arrive later today, barring unforeseen mercantile delays, and the three spare mounts were delivered yesterday by Olichus the horse trader and are now in the training school.’

‘Excellent.’ Ingenuus straightened. ‘Be about your business then, Strabo, and I shall see you later.’

The man saluted and Ingenuus departed the office, leaving the door to close with a click, and strolled on. Next stop: Caesar. As he rounded a corner and found himself in the wide vestibule that led to the Proconsul’s office, lined with statues of the Julii clan and of Venus Genetrix, the family’s divine mother, he was almost knocked sideways as a slave scurried out of another side corridor. The small Spaniard - whom Ingenuus recognised vaguely from having seen around in the palace only recently - stared wide eyed and then dropped his head and rattled out a string of apparently heartfelt apologies in his thick Iberian accent.

‘Clumsy idiot,’ Ingenuus grumbled, sweeping aside the matter with his three fingered hand as he righted himself once more. The slave backed away and the commander noted the hardened leather scroll case in his hand. An official courier’s case.

‘That is for the general?’

‘Yes Dominus. Arrived by dispatch rider at the palace gate only a moment ago. I was instructed that it was of the utmost urgency and to deliver it to the proconsul immediately.’

Ingenuus nodded. He briefly contemplated suggesting he take the scroll, but he had no authority over the palace slaves and the messenger would not give up his burden without argument.

‘Come with me.’

As he neared the end of the vestibule, the scurrying slave at his heel, he nodded to the two cavalry soldiers standing beside the office door. The men saluted him, yet stepped half a step closer together and crossed their spears over the door between them.

‘
Docendo discimus
,’ Ingenuus said clearly and watched in approval as the spears uncrossed in response to the password and the men stepped apart. Caesar had argued against the need for guards and passwords on the door of his office when the entire palace was under the same measure of security, but Ingenuus had calmly pointed out how only a month earlier the powerful and influential Clodius Pulcher had been waylaid on the Via Appia and slaughtered in a bloodbath. Given the current mood of Roman politics, Ingenuus was not about to relinquish even an ounce of control over the general’s safety.

One step closer and the commander rapped neatly on the door.

‘Come,’ came the muffled command from within.

The young prefect opened the door and stepped inside, bowing sharply and then striding over to the proconsul’s desk where he came to a halt at an attentive stance. The slave hurried up next to him and bowed deeply, clearly unsure as to whether to approach before the two Romans had spoken.

‘Give him the scroll you fool,’ snapped Ingenuus and harrumphed in disapproval as the slave fumbled the scroll case and almost dropped it before managing to pass it across to the proconsul, who took it without comment. The slave bowed again and retreated from the room, closing the door with a click and leaving the two men alone.

Caesar turned the scroll case over in his hands and finally plucked the lid from it, addressing Ingenuus without looking up.

‘Good morning, Aulus. Anything to report?’

‘Nothing unusual, sir. Still two men sick and none on leave. The new recruits are settling in nicely and appear to have mastered the basics. Their horses are being put through their paces again this morning and this afternoon, I have decided to take them on an exercise up into the woods.’

Caesar nodded, apparently only half-listening as he slid the scroll from the case. ‘Good. Well now, would you look at this.’

Ingenuus leaned forward as the general rolled the scroll to face him. The officer took note of the wax seal and the imprint of the goddess upon it.

‘Fortuna Conservatrix? With an orb?’

‘The seal of the Falerii. Fronto, in fact.’

Without further ado, the general snapped the seal and unfurled the scroll. ‘Interesting.’

‘Sir?’

‘Fronto’s seal, but this writing is Priscus’. I have spent years reading his reports.’

‘Then it is news from Gaul, sir?’

Caesar’s eyes played back and forth across the scroll, his eyes hardening as he read, his lips drawing thin and tight. Ingenuus frowned. He knew that look. ‘Sir?’

‘It would appear that we cannot wait until Martius for the
tubilustrum
festival and the start of campaigning. The season this year has begun early.’

‘Sir?’

‘Priscus brings news of a new rising in Gaul. Perhaps the ‘
great revolt
’ he has been anticipating. It certainly sounds like it, for the Carnutes have put the Roman merchants and the garrison of Cenabum to the sword, severed all supply and communication lines to the north and have elected Vercingetorix to lead not just the Arverni, but some great army of all the Gauls.’

‘Then we must mobilise immediately, sir.’

‘Agreed. I will leave Hirtius to tie up my affairs in Aquileia and send out summonses to any officers on furlough. We will move swiftly, picking up Priscus and Fronto at Massilia. I wish to pry further into the matter before we march across Gaul.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘What is your opinion on our route?’

‘Fast horse from here with the guard changing mounts regularly to give all the steeds a rest. From Massilia it is a simple matter to move up the Rhodanus valley and rendezvous with the army at Agedincum.’

‘It is. Far
too
simple, in fact. If the Gaulish rebels have severed supply lines and communications then that means they are in command of at least part of that route, and I cannot believe that they have left it unguarded. To march straight up the Rhodanus, which is precisely where they will expect us to move, is to invite trouble. No. We must go another way.’

The general stood and turned to the huge map hanging on the wall, tapping his finger on Massilia by the sea, his eyes ranging up the valley beyond and then back and along the coast.

‘This is the way we shall go,’ he announced, tapping out a dotted route along the southern coast and finishing at an image of a castellated red blob.’

‘Narbo, sir? Isn’t that rather a strange way round?’

‘It is. But it has three benefits. Firstly, it is not the way any Gallic rebels will be expecting me to go. Secondly, there is a garrison in Narbonensis that we can mobilise and use against the Gauls. And thirdly, once we cross the mountain passes it will deliver us directly into the heartland of the Arverni, the tribe that seem to be at the heart of this revolt.’

Ingenuus tried not to let the surprise show on his face.

‘But general, we are too few to bring war to the heart of Gaul until we meet up with the legions. I have a good cavalry unit, but the Narbonensis garrison is small and even with them we will be walking into the lion’s jaws.’

Caesar nodded and strode over to the window, where he pushed aside the wooden shutters that had kept the room shady, allowing the bright sunlight to flood in.

‘We will have adequate forces.’

Ingenuus crossed to the window and looked outside. This time he could not prevent his surprised expression from becoming manifest. ‘
Them,
sir? But they’re new, untrained, raw and untested. They’re trainees, sir. They haven’t even been given a legion number or a standard yet.’

His eyes played across the ranks of new, young legionaries standing in ordered rows for their veteran officers to complete their morning inspection. The senate had passed a law over winter authorising a levy of new blood for the legions in the proconsul’s provinces, and almost two legions’ worth of men stood there now, well-equipped but with little more than two weeks’ training under their belts.

‘Untried they might be, but they are eager and well led by solid veterans of my old legions. They are equipped with the best arms and armour and - most important of all - they are here and available. The Gauls will expect me to travel up the Rhodanus with a small escort unit. They will not expect me to appear over the mountains from Narbonensis with two legions at my command. Imagine the chaos that will ensue within their carefully planned revolt at that surprise.’

Ingenuus simply nodded, though as his gaze took in the sheer youth and scrawniness of the recruits before him, chaos was about all that he could imagine coming out of this.

‘Good,’ Caesar smiled. ‘Then we are agreed. I will give the details to Hirtius while you have your unit fall in on the parade ground with the new recruits where I can address all the men at once. Speed has just become our watchword, so we march Marian style, with every man bearing his own kit. No wagons or supplies or artillery, and marching as fast as the new men can manage. They can recover their breath on the intermittent sea voyages. I wish to be in Tergeste watching the men board ship for Ariminium by nightfall. We can be in Massilia en masse in eight or nine days if all goes well.’

Ingenuus saluted, tearing his eyes from the new recruits back to the huge map on the wall, where they picked out the names of the known tribes north of Narbo. There seemed to him to be an awful lot of them between Roman territory and the Arverni, not to mention apparently a range of mountains.

He muttered a silent prayer to Minerva as he bowed his acquiescence to the proconsul.

Chapter 2

The Bituriges oppidum of Avaricon (Modern Bourges)

Vercingetorix stretched and scratched his chin thoughtfully, keen eyes peering out into the chilly, damp morning. ‘What is the word from the scouts?’

Vergasillaunus rubbed tired eyes, but his expression was full of alertness and energy as he dragged his gaze from the oppidum in front of them and across to his cousin and ruler.

‘It seems that we have them sealed in tight.’

‘With the exception of the riders.’

Vergasillaunus nodded and Critognatos, who stood with his usual glower, curled a sneering lip. ‘You were foolish to let those horsemen go.’

The two cousins turned their gaze on the third chieftain present. ‘Everything I do is for a reason, Critognatos,’ the Arverni king said calmly, his smooth voice given counterpoint by the crows that filled the trees above the camp and cawed out their displeasure at this intrusion into their world.

‘Your reasoning baffles me, Vercingetorix. Those riders were sent to seek aid for the Bituriges before we had them trapped. We could have had this place sealed up tighter than a Roman’s arse and the populace in a panic, but because you let them get past, the men of Avaricon simply sit smug and await the arrival of the Aedui to save them.’

Vergasillaunus grinned. ‘You think the Aedui will rush to their aid?’

‘Of course they will. And it’s been two days now. I’m surprised they’re not here already, trying to stick spears in us. The Bituriges owe their allegiance to the Aedui, and they’re all oathbound to Rome. We’ve a strong army here, but it won’t be when we get trapped between the walls of Avaricon and the Aedui rescue force and ground like meal in a grindstone.’

Vercingetorix peered across at the oppidum, rising from the mist that concealed unpleasant, sucking death. He and his sizeable force had encamped on a hill to the east of the Bituriges’ capital with a view across the intervening shallow valley. The Biturige oppidum was well positioned on a hill situated within the confluence of two rivers which spread out and meandered to turn much of the surrounding landscape into marshland that was effectively uncrossable by an army. Nature had given Avaricon superb defences, and the Bituriges had augmented them with powerful walls and towers surrounding the hill and the settlement upon it. It was said that the granaries of Avaricon were so full and rich that the city would live a year without a fresh harvest. The only true access for an attacking army was this one: from the hill where they now stood, down into the valley and back up the other side, where they would dash themselves to pieces on the heavy walls while the Bituriges dropped rocks on them. It was a siege that no commander would wish to undertake, and Vercingetorix had no more wish to throw his army on those walls than any other general.

And so the bulk of the Gallic army had settled here, on the damp slope, sending out forays to set up small camps and patrols in a circuit around the place and make sure no further defenders managed to sneak out between the swamps and marshes. The riders’ escape had been part of the plan, but now isolation and uncertainty were required among the Bituriges within those walls. They had to be primed ready for the surprise the Arverni leader had in store.

With the enduring patience he saved for his more outspoken and imprudent chieftains, Vercingetorix turned to Critognatos again and smiled reassuringly. ‘There is little chance of that happening, my friend.’ He was beginning to have concerns over the wisdom of putting such a potentially unstable man in command of one of the army’s component forces, but Critognatos was popular with the older warriors and there was no denying his bravery or skill in battle. If only he would think a little harder before speaking or acting. ‘We are not here for battle, however it may appear. Even if we were successful and with negligible losses, the attack would be futile. We need the Bituriges
with
us, not strewn across the hillside, festering in the cold air and awaiting the carrion feeders.’

‘And you do that by allowing them extra support from those Rome-loving arseholes the Aedui?’

Vergasillaunus glanced at his cousin and saw the leader of the army counting silently under his breath, trying to keep his irritation contained. Perhaps they should have kept Cavarinos here. The soft-spoken young chief seemed to have the knack of keeping his brother under better control, for all their constant low-level argument. Since he had been gone, Critognatos had become ever more vocal and difficult. Before his cousin could lose his temper, Vergasillaunus leaned closer.