Marius' Mules XI: Tides of War

by S. J. A. Turney

  ‘Trouble?’

  ‘Could be,’ Galronus said. ‘Not one of my units, but I can’t let things like that go unnoticed. Go see to your horse. I’ll find out what’s going on.’

  Fronto nodded and, leaving his friend to it, went over to the corral, where his great black steed was happily munching on lush green grass with the other officers’ horses. An equisio hurried over.

  ‘Make Bucephalus ready,’ Fronto said. ‘I need to take him out for a while. And can you saddle Galronus’ horse too?’

  The man saluted and scurried off into his store room, returning with Fronto’s saddle and tack. It took surprisingly little time for the expert horse handler to make Bucephalus ready. He was just back inside, gathering the gear for the bay mare when the Remi nobleman stormed into view once more with a face like thunder.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Two Allobroge chieftains causing trouble,’ Galronus snapped. ‘They’ve been helping themselves to their units’ pay chests. Quite blasé about it, they were, too. Didn’t deny the accusations of their men. Seem to think it’s their right as commanders.’

  ‘Arseholes,’ Fronto sighed. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘They’re not my men, so it’s not right for me to discipline them. Told them I’d report the matter to Caesar, so I’ve a change of plan for the afternoon. You still going south, or coming to command with me?’

  Fronto nodded and caught the equisio’s attention as he emerged once more from the hut.

  ‘Sorry, soldier, but belay that. We don’t need them now.’

  The soldier saluted, and Fronto only just caught the irritated rolling of eyes as the man turned, but ignored it. Instead, he spun and hurried off after Galronus, marching through the lines of cavalry tents until they reached the end of the horse barracks and closed on the ramparts marking the start of the Tenth and Thirteenth’s base, where the main command tents were to be found. Giving the daily password, they were admitted to the main camp and strode up the long, straight road to the large cluster of important tents at the centre. The guardsmen of Ingenuus’ praetorian unit stood at attention in a cordon around the headquarters area, but accepted the password and allowed the two officers entry. They passed the headquarters of the camp prefect and made directly for Caesar’s tent. Outside a guard bade them wait, knocked at the tent door and entered. A few moments later he reappeared and gave them permission to enter.

  Caesar’s tent was still strewn with maps and records, and the general himself was deep in conversation with Marcus Antonius, though they broke off and both looked up as the two men entered.

  ‘Marcus. Galronus. What can I do for you?’

  ‘We have a problem with some of the Gallic cavalry,’ Fronto replied, then gestured to Galronus.

  ‘Two Allobroge commanders by the names of Egus and Raucillus, General. Are you aware of them?’

  Caesar frowned as he dredged his impressive memory, then sat back, the frown still in place. ‘Yes. Chieftains. Been with us since the middle of the Gallic campaigns. They’ve been decorated and rewarded for valiant service a number of times. Is there trouble?’

  ‘Definitely, Caesar. These two have been helping themselves to their units’ pay chests for personal use. I gather it hadn’t been noticed until the chests ran too low to pay for a funeral for one of their men who died recently. They’ve been almost bled dry by two men for wine and women.’

  ‘Difficult.’

  ‘With respect, Caesar, I don’t think so. They should be punished. I don’t know in whose wing they serve, but they need to be brought under control. Their men are spitting feathers over the matter.’

  Caesar sighed. ‘But Gaul is still settling after a decade of war. The peace is fragile and it will take time for it to become a steady province of the republic. These two men are important. Moreover, their fathers are even more important. Egus and Raucillus have been granted land and position among the conquered regions, and they’re earmarked for senatorial position next year. I don’t doubt that they’ve done wrong, but a careful and measured response is in order, I think.’

  Fronto snorted. ‘A proportional response is appropriate. They stole from their own men. Whoever their daddies are, they need their bollocks kicked for behaviour like that.’

  Caesar flashed him an irritable look. ‘It is not unusual for an officer to file false records and walk off with part of his unit’s pay. It is reprehensible, but it is also surprisingly common. If we started charging everyone for such misdemeanours, we’d have few officers left. Worse, we’d have to arrest almost every governor the senate appoints, for they all do the same thing on a much grander scale. This is not the critical incident you seem to imagine, gentlemen.’

  ‘Misdemeanour? With respect, General,’ Galronus pressed, ‘this is drawing divisions in their units. Soldiers at odds with their commanders do not perform well in war. Something has to be done about it.’

  Caesar sighed. ‘To an extent, I agree, but this is not the time to drag these two men through the mud and ruin them. It sets a dangerous precedent. The matter will be deferred for now.’

  ‘General…’

  Caesar held up a warning hand. ‘I will speak to the two men privately and make my displeasure known. I shall take them to task and make sure they are aware of my opinion on the matter. They shall cease their larcenous ways, believe me, but without a public condemnation.’

  ‘That is your final word?’ Galronus asked coldly.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Then I shall take my leave.’

  * * *

  The two men returned to the corral and gathered their steeds, to much eye-rolling once more from the tired equisio, and rode out, heading south on Fronto’s scouting trek. As they left, they saw two of the general’s praetorians marching determinedly through the lines of tents towards where the Allobroge officers were quartered.

  ‘I hope he makes them shit their trousers,’ Galronus snarled, and then they turned and rode off.

  They spent the rest of the afternoon around the southern defences, peering at the enemy positions from the few high points, checking out the terrain, some of which was appalling, riding out into the no-man’s-land between the lines on occasion to get a closer look, but making sure not to get within range of an opportunistic artillerist or archer.

  In the end, after four hours of riding and observing, they were none the wiser, and Fronto had to conclude that there was no way of knowing what the mad old bastard planned without any kind of inside knowledge of the enemy, which was next to impossible to even contemplate. They rode back to the main camp in a sullen silence, and Galronus watched his friend with a level of worry. Fronto seemed to be hovering on the verge of distress and anger all the time at the moment. He was never the most relaxed of men, but the last time Galronus had seen him like this had been in the aftermath of Alesia. In the end, the Remi, some decade and a half younger than the Roman, had to conclude that if even he was beginning to feel too old for all of this, how must Fronto feel? Fronto might call Caesar ‘the old man’, but in truth there were surprisingly few years between the two of them.

  They dismounted and handed over their reins in silence, and the equisio took them and hurried off with the beasts. As they moved back through the tents, they could hear conversation in the headquarters tent of Volusenus, and decided to drop in and see the Prefect of Horse, to appraise him of the situation. A swift knock at the door bought them an offer to enter, and so they did. The world was already fast slipping into evening now, and so the difference in light as they entered the dim interior was not so great. Volusenus looked tired.

  ‘Gentlemen. What can I do for you?’

  Galronus pursed his lips. ‘There was a spot of trouble today. If I give you the names of unit commanders, can you tell me to whose wing they belong?’

  ‘Easily. Probably without even needing the records.’

  The Remi opened his mouth, but paused. ‘Did you hear that?’

  Fronto and Volusenus shared a furrowed
expression as they looked at him, but a moment later they all heard it. The sounds of fighting and raised voices close by.

  ‘Shit. Come on.’

  The two of them raced back out of the tent, Volusenus right behind them. The noises were coming from one of the main corrals, and the three men hurried in that direction, the Prefect of Horse moving out in front with a speed and agility that belied his apparent age.

  An altercation had broken out at the gate of the corral, where an equisio was lying on the floor, motionless, a spear standing proud from his back.

  ‘Shit,’ Fronto said again.

  Volusenus was enraged. Out front, he raced towards the trouble, but Fronto’s eyes, even old as they were and peering into the dim evening, could see the trouble the prefect was headed for.

  ‘Volusenus, come back.’

  But the prefect had ripped a vitus vine cane out and was bellowing for the scuffling soldiers to stand down. There was no chance of that happening, and Fronto knew it. He could see the shapes of the two disgraced Allobroge nobles, Egus and Raucillus, already on their horses in the corral, and they had perhaps two score men with them, all Gallic horsemen, all armoured for war, and those who weren’t mounted already were in the process of doing so. Only the five men at the gate, who had overcome the Roman guards and butchered them in short order, remained afoot.

  ‘Volusenus,’ Fronto bellowed again, but the prefect was already there. Unnoticed by the scuffling men, he had walked up right behind them and, reaching back, thwacked his heavy stick across the nearest man’s back. The Gaul yelled, then turned and swung his naked blade. Fronto saw the prefect fall, and then the two rogue Gauls were in the gateway and making for open ground. They had with them more than a dozen spare horses, and the men at the gate grabbed at beasts as they passed and hauled themselves up into the saddle. Fronto stared. Half a hundred Gallic cavalry revolting? Damn it.

  Galronus was shouting now, too, and the Gauls turned, spotting the two men on the path. Recognition passed through the two chieftains as they took in Galronus, the man who had reported them to Caesar, and with bellows of war, they rode towards them. Galronus drew his long blade and set himself ready to face them, and the only thing that stopped him being churned under a hundred hooves and ground into the dirt was Fronto, who hit him in the midriff and knocked him out of the way, the two men falling to the grass behind the corner of a tent.

  He half expected the Gauls to pause and deal with them, but clearly the rebels were working to a time and a plan, and they raced off, whooping, their saddles laden with bags that shushed and clinked with the sound of many coins. Fronto felt around for his sword that he’d lost in the fall, and instead found a heavy rock. Rising and stepping out into the street, he hurled it.

  Fortuna was clearly enveloping him today, for the makeshift missile struck the rearmost rider directly on the back of the skull with a crack that was audible even over the hooves. The two men were running, then, as the dead Gaul lolled around in the saddle, his head smashed. The rest of his mates ignored him and continued to ride off towards the defences.

  ‘They’re not just deserting,’ Fronto breathed in huffs.

  Galronus shook his head. ‘They’re going over to Pompey.’

  A moment later the Remi was at that dead Gaul’s horse, pulling him from the saddle and then hauling himself up in the man’s place.

  ‘You can’t stop them,’ Fronto shouted, as Galronus kicked the mount into life and hared off after the defecting cavalry. Fronto jogged slowly, a little out of breath, until he was out in open ground and could see what was unfolding. The plan had been more subtle than simply grabbing horses and running. They had stolen a great deal of money in the process, taken a solid unit of veteran Gauls, and had sent men ahead to clear the way. That last was certain, for the nearest gate in the siege lines lay wide open and unmanned, a dozen Gauls swarming around it. They grabbed free horses as the renegade unit reached them, and all of them rode out into the evening light, into the barren, dangerous ground between the two armies. Galronus looked for a moment as though he was prepared to chase them through the gates of Hades if he needed to, but as he reached the defences, he reined in and turned, his horse dancing impatiently.

  What difference could half a hundred Gallic cavalry make in the grand scheme of things?

  Fronto hated the fact that they answers came quick and easily, and each was more worrying than the last.

  The sense of foreboding was building. A storm of shit of gargantuan proportions was coming…

  Chapter 9

  Caesar’s camp, Junius 48 BC

  ‘One legion is not enough,’ Fronto said fiercely, slamming his fist down on the chair arm. The force of his words brought out a mix of responses among the other officers, from surprise and agreement to shock and anger.

  ‘I’m not sure whether you’ve noticed, Fronto, but we do not have an infinite supply of men. They are stretched as it is,’ Canuleius replied irritably. ‘The ongoing work on the ramparts drains what men are available to just stand and wait for fictional attacks.’

  Fronto ground his teeth for a moment, glaring at Canuleius. ‘The south is weak. The Ninth are a good legion. We know that. We’ve seen their response to Pompey’s attacks already, but they are dangerously under strength, and they are the single sole legion controlling the southern end of the works. They are not enough. Let me take the Tenth there, or at least move the Seventh further along, since they’re the nearest legion.’

  ‘No,’ Sulla replied, though Caesar’s eyebrow rose a little at senior command decisions so clearly being made without his consultation. ‘No. It doesn’t matter what legion you intend to take to bolster the Ninth, it will mean shuffling the men around and losing a legion from the main camp.’

  Fronto growled. ‘The main camp is over-full. There are so many legionaries here the latrine pits fill on an hourly basis. Two thirds of our strength is here, with the rest strung out around the defences., and Pompey is not going to come here. It’s pointless. Pompey is gathering in the south.’

  ‘What evidence do you have of that?’ snapped Canuleius.

  ‘None, as you damn well know. But regardless, that is what’s happening.’

  ‘Yet we see his troops parading in the northern region the same as ours every time we lead the men out and offer battle. All the evidence points to Pompey’s army being gathered mostly in the north.’

  ‘Yet I tell you they are in the south. You might not have seen them, but they are there. Believe me.’

  Canuleius snorted, and Sulla shook his head. ‘You cannot drain the strength of the north for some perceived potential threat. The prize is here. Dyrrachium is here. Keep your eyes on the main goal. If we send men south, the forces that we know full well he has here will simply roll over the main camp and reach Dyrrachium. If he gets into Dyrrachium, we’ll have more chance of opening an oyster with a loincloth than prising him out from those walls. No. Caesar?’

  The general tapped a finger on his lips. ‘I appreciate the danger you suspect Fronto, but there really is no evidence to support it. I cannot sanction the draining of men from a location that we know to be critical against the vague possibility of action elsewhere.’

  ‘When have I been wrong, Caesar?’ Fronto snapped.

  ‘Would you like a list? I have one somewhere.’

  Fronto threw an angry glance at Hirtius, who had chuckled at the jibe.

  ‘It will happen. And if you’re not prepared, then we might as well just open the gates and hand him our weapons.’

  ‘The answer is no, Fronto,’ Sulla said. ‘You heard the general.’

  The argument was clearly lost. The officers en-masse were arrayed against him. Earlier, when it had been just Canuleius and Sulla denying him there had been possibilities, but now that Caesar had spoken, the rest of the officers had sided with him. Only one figure crossed the room and stood next to Fronto. Marcus Antonius took a sip of his wine and cleared his throat.

  ‘I think I stand with Fronto
on this.’

  Caesar’s eyebrow jerked upwards again, and Antonius shrugged. ‘Fronto’s gut tells him we face trouble there, and his gut has a tendency towards prophecy, I find. And eye-watering wind. But mainly prophecy. If Fronto says there will be trouble in the south, I say bolster the south.’

  Fronto nodded, but there was still a distinct air of refusal in the room.

  ‘Sulla, the Ninth are your legion,’ Fronto snapped. ‘Does it not concern you that it’s your men who face any danger? No, of course it doesn’t. Now that they’ve been blooded and redeemed themselves you’re not bothered about them anymore. When was the last time you set foot in their camp? I notice that you command the Ninth from a comfy chair ten miles away and under Caesar’s wing.’

  Sulla stepped forwards angrily. ‘Watch that tongue, Fronto, or I might be tempted to rip it out.’

  ‘Who is commanding your men, though,’ insisted Antonius.

  ‘The Ninth are in the care of the capable senior tribune, Lentulus Marcellinus.’

  ‘A man who’s suffering some kind of dreadful illness and is bedridden for much of the time I understand?’

  ‘His mind and his mouth still work, Antonius.’

  ‘So while he’s sweating out his commands from his bedsheets, who’s striding around the place actually telling people what to do?’

  ‘The camp prefect, Fulvius Postumus, is a veteran and a good man. The Ninth are in good hands, Antonius.’

  ‘The Ninth are going to get their arses handed to them by Pompey’s legions soon,’ grunted Fronto.

  ‘Clearly this is going nowhere,’ Caesar put in, cutting through the building tension of the argument, ‘Fronto, your instincts are good, but the evidence suggests that on this occasion they are wrong. Without some sort of supporting evidence I am not willing to weaken our position in front of Dyrrachium and tempt Pompey to walk over us. What I will do is have the number of lookouts and couriers all along the defences doubled, so that messages are guaranteed to be passed quickly, and I will make sure that every unit’s commander and ever position’s senior officer is aware of the possibility of trouble in the south and ensure that they are in a position to react in the shortest possible time. That is the end of the discussion. Hirtius, I need you to remain here. We have correspondence to complete.’