I laughed quietly at that, but stopped quickly, as the sudden movement was too painful for my battered ribs. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not so petty to want a finger back in return.’
This time it was Albanos who tried a weak smile, but it didn’t stay there for long. With a huge effort, I plunged the dagger into his heaving chest. He made an odd, gulping noise, and then scrabbled futilely to remove my hand that still clutched the knife. The scrabbling slowed and weakened. I looked directly into his eyes, unwavering, waiting to see the life ebb from them. With a last gasp, his eyes rolled and his head slumped to the floor.
Only then did I collapse, and a brief gesture from Quintus sent the two others to my side. Between them they carried me out of that hateful room, and into the street. The bright sunlight dazzled me; there had been no natural light in my torture chamber, and it seemed an age since I had last been out in the sun.
Our party hurried through the streets, as if searching for something. Bormo found it, whatever it was, and I was dropped on to a barrel. Groggily I looked around, and was surprised to see that we were in a blacksmith’s. I didn’t understand. Surely I needed a doctor, not a smith? Then a brazier of coals was set down about a yard away. Horrified, I realized what they were about to do. Before I had time to protest, someone had grabbed a scalding coal with a pair of tongs, another held my arm in position, and then a few moments of white-hot pain. The smell of my own flesh sizzling was fit to make me throw up, and I gagged at the stench. The coal was searing the skin and cauterizing the wound. Immediately afterwards my poor hand was dunked into a bucket of water. Whether from relief at being out of the hellish place or from the intense pain, I have to admit that I fainted again.
* * *
I don’t remember much of what happened after my ordeal by fire. The body has a wonderful knack of sending you into a long deep sleep after such traumas. It is all part of the healing process. Yet there was one drawback. Normally I don’t remember my dreams, but after my time at the mercy of Albanos they came thick and fast. Sometimes it was just him, wielding burning knives and dagger-shaped coals, other times it was all the Gauls. Martialis, Bormo, Vindex, Carnunnos, Lugubrix, Quintus, all of them, laughing at me for pretending not to be a Roman.
When I opened my eyes at last, I thought I was still dreaming, as I saw Lugubrix sitting in a chair in front of me.
‘Welcome to the land of the living,’ he said cheerfully.
Groggily, I asked, ‘How long was I out for?’
‘Nearly two days.’
I tried to sit up, but then several painful twinges warned me not to move too much. I looked at my left hand, and sure enough there was a thick bandage wrapping round my wrist and where my finger should have been.
‘The doctor did suggest sewing it back on, but he charged extra for that,’ added the spy, grinning.
In response I crooked most of my remaining digits towards my palm, leaving the middle one standing to attention.
‘I know, bad joke. Still,’ he gave a little wave of his stump, ‘it could be worse.’
There was one question I was desperate to ask. ‘How by Pluto’s arse did you know where to find me?’
‘Ah. You remember that charming conversation we had in the governor’s house, about what would happen if you discovered I was spying on you?’ I was about to reply, but he didn’t bother to listen and carried on. ‘Well, I hadn’t told anyone to follow you, so someone else must have done instead. I simply chose a reliable man and told him to tail you until he found out who was spying on you. I then put the tail on the tail, so to speak. Lucky for you I had come back the day of your little drinking session. My man saw you being bundled into a cart, ran his legs into the ground in following it to that house, and then hared to my quarters to give me the news.
‘I had a bit of trouble sobering up your companions, but figured they would be the safest ones to use if Albanos had discovered that you were a Roman, so I couldn’t very well choose anyone else. I’m sorry we couldn’t get there any earlier, but better than not getting there at all!’
Dumbstruck, I just stared at him.
‘By all means thank me.’
I found my voice at last. ‘Thank you, I suppose, for disobeying me.’
‘To be fair, I only sent a spy to spy on another spy. Any other complaints?’
Shaking my head, ‘None.’ Then I thought for a bit. ‘I don’t suppose you know whether Albanos was acting under his own initiative?’
‘Well, ideally I would have liked to question him, but your sticking a knife in him made it rather difficult. Can I ask you a question?’
‘You can ask,’ I said cautiously.
‘Why did you kill Albanos? From what I hear he wasn’t a threat to you once Quintus and the others arrived.’
I chose my words carefully. ‘Revenge. Well, mostly. I know what you’re thinking, that it saves me the trouble of explaining to the others why a Roman nobleman is in command. But when you’re alone in a cell with men who are determined to torture and kill you… it’s not like facing death on the battlefield. A chance spear or a stab from some unknown soldier and that’s it. When it’s someone you know who’s going to kill you in cold blood, and you can’t defend yourself, the last thing you feel towards the man who threatened you is pity.’
Lugubrix nodded his understanding. ‘So you think he was acting alone then?’
‘I can’t be sure. I mean, if he had been following orders from Vindex he wouldn’t have tortured me for information.’
Lugubrix frowned. ‘Unless he wasn’t told the full truth, but just given orders to extract information from you, and then kill you, depending on what you said.’
I pondered this a while. At length, I asked, ‘Would you trust Vindex if you were me?’
‘I don’t think it likely that Vindex has the brains or the balls to arrange something like this. Yes, he puts on a good show in front of his subjects, but I reckon you know as well as I that most of it is just bravado. But then again, it showed surprising initiative for Albanos to do all this on his own. So on balance I would trust the governor, but only up to a point. I’d watch my back if I were you, just in case.’
This seemed like sound advice.
‘So what news do you have now you’re back here in Vienne?’ I asked.
‘Oh,’ he said casually, ‘just that Galba has officially thrown his hat into the ring.’
‘What? Already?’
‘His troops in Tarraco have called upon him to make himself emperor, but he prefers the title of Legate of the Senate and People of Rome for the moment.’
‘But will he march on Rome?’
‘I don’t think so; not yet anyway. He’s not prepared to abandon the province yet. He has to leave it in good order, with a legally appointed replacement ready to take over. From what I hear, I think he’s hoping to be called upon by the Senate rather than having to march on Rome itself. But to be honest I’m not sure if the news has filtered through to Rome yet. It only happened two days ago, and my contacts are closer to Hispania than Rome is. But in the immediate term, there’s even bigger news. Verginius Rufus has begun a siege of Vesontio.’
‘Wait a minute, that’s two hundred miles from Mogontiacum. How did he get there so quickly?’
‘You’ve been unconscious for two days, remember? That’s only a week’s march for the legions. It’s not as though it’s news to me, I was waiting to report back once I knew where they were headed.’
‘Why Vesontio?’
‘It’s the capital of the Sequani, and one of the few towns that has openly declared for Vindex. You see, the ordinary troops are livid that the Gauls are rebelling against them. I think Rufus is trying to keep them on a leash, making sure that as little blood as possible is spilt, and at the same time flushing out Vindex’s army. Vesontio is a real bastard to take, so they could be there for some time.’
‘And how far is it from here?’
‘As the crow flies, about a hundred and twenty miles.’
&nb
sp; I was amazed. A Roman army was four days’ march away, and I wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about sending in the Gauls to close ranks with them!
‘What’s Vindex been doing in my absence, then?’
‘Making speeches to the troops mostly, and before you ask, you don’t want to hear what he said; it was the usual rousing stuff. He’s tried his best to organize the men for a march, but I think he’ll need you by his side as soon as you’re back on your feet.’
At this point, a man who I assumed to be the doctor entered, and chided my friend for disturbing me. Lugubrix was ushered out, wishing me a speedy recovery, and then the man tut-tutted in the way doctors do, and set about examining my various injuries. My little finger was healing up nicely, he told me, and the skin was making an effort to close over the stump.
The bruises and internal damage would take another day or two to heal properly, despite all the pungent poultices and weird and wonderful ointments that he prescribed. So I had to give orders from my sickbed, though I had visits from my friends to relieve the tedium.
However, this did give me plenty of time to mull over the political situation. Galba had been wise to refuse the title of emperor outright. It seems that even in the days since the fall of the Republic, the image of Cincinnatus’s refusal of ultimate power is still very potent. Julius publicly refused the crown, Augustus only reluctantly agreed to become First Citizen, and Claudius definitely did not want to be an emperor. Of course there have been exceptions, but the act of refusing power and taking it only when ‘convinced’ that it is in Rome’s best interests goes down extremely well, with the mob and Senate alike. One should never seem too grasping.
Still, any fool could see that this open declaration by Galba meant that he was putting his name forward to succeed Nero, and his success would depend on two factors: the military and the Senate. To make his accession constitutional, Galba had to be approved by the Senate. The senators’ lives under Nero had been uncomfortable at best, many being threatened with trial on a trumped-up charge for gaining a modicum of popularity, or else being politely told to commit suicide.
Yet the legions would also play their part. This was a dangerous precedent that Galba was setting, being declared emperor by his troops, and far from Rome. What would stop other ambitious senators with legions at their command from doing the same? Galba had only one legion to call upon in Spain, plus another that was composed of raw recruits. The Rhine provinces had seven legions, not counting auxiliaries. But I am getting ahead of myself. Everything shall be told, but in its proper place.
X
The essential thing now was to arrange a private meeting with Verginius Rufus, if it was at all possible. But first of all we had to get to him. As Lugubrix said, it was only about 120 miles from Vienne to Vesontio, but there were a seemingly endless number of things to do. Normally the quartermaster’s brigade would be sorting this out, but as we had to make do with a few of Vienne’s civil servants things were rather more chaotic.
It was obvious that the logistics of moving 30,000 men was far beyond their capabilities. Food had to be collected and carts found for it. Someone would have to work out how to ration it out between thirty thousand mouths over several days. Each man had to be armed, horses shod, tools collected for constructing camp, tents rolled up, forage gathered – it was a nightmare.
Moreover, the men had to be taught how to construct a defensible camp at the end of each day’s marching. Not only was this difficult because in my time in Britannia I had only ever been responsible for one part of the operation, digging the trench, so I had to improvise the rest, but I was still confined to my quarters. I therefore had to relay these orders to Quintus and the others, and hope to the gods that they would manage somehow.
It took another three days before we were ready to move off, and then only as far as Lugdunum. Only about eighteen miles away, on a proper Roman road, so I expected us to reach the city in no more than half a day. I was fit enough to ride by then, or at least sit in the saddle. An army on the march can do about four miles an hour, so just sitting in the saddle was pretty much all that was required. The troops were lined up on the road leading northwards out of Vienne, and the townspeople came out to see us off.
It was a moving sight; garlands of flowers were flung on to the street by a cheering swarm of Gauls. Mothers tearfully embraced their sons, wives pressed their husbands close, sweethearts and companions, some having met only the night before, whispered fond goodbyes. The governor sat on a resplendent steed draped in red saddlecloths to reinforce his military image, and signalled down to that same young boy who had been entrusted with his precious horn. The general order to advance was sounded, and I was delighted to see that, albeit after a few paces to get started, the army was marching in step!
I watched rank after rank pass by, 20,000 or so men marching ten abreast. It seemed to take forever for them all to pass me. At length the carts and various beasts of burden drew alongside, then only the rearguard was yet to come. In case you are wondering why I was staying put while the army moved off, I was simply waiting for the rearmost ranks to pass so that I could tag along behind, to make sure that no one slipped out of the column with a free pack of tools and rations to dispose of.
Finally, the last rank marched by, and I wheeled my horse round to head north. By now Vindex and the vanguard were well out of sight beyond the next bend in the river, behind a spur that jutted out into the valley. But you could still hear them. In fact the sound of 20,000 men marching in step on a proper road is quite daunting. The consistent, rhythmic tramping could be heard for miles around. Some soppy poets have penned that the earth trembles fit to shake fruit from the trees whenever an army is on the march. Well, that may be true of battles like Gaugamela, where they say there were a million Persians and at least 500 elephants, but I didn’t see a single grape tremble as we moved up the Rhone.
After five hours or so, the pace slowed for a time, then it sped up again. I never actually got to see Lugdunum, as the road to Vesontio branched off from the Rhone about a mile south of the city, which is shrouded on that side by thick woods. Soon I saw why there had been a stumble in the column’s march. Thousands of new troops streamed through the trees, but many of these were mounted.
It had troubled me a little that we had no cavalry at Vienne. If you know about Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul, you’ll know that the Gallic tribes are excellent with horses, hence the use of the Aedui and others as auxiliaries way back in the last days of the Republic. But over the years following our conquest, Gallic society underwent a strong period of Romanization. The tribes began to matter less and less as the Gauls adapted to the pax romana. As the tribesmen drifted towards the old towns and new colonies, their way of life changed dramatically. Soon it was only the privileged few, the equites, who could afford to buy and look after horses.
So it was with great surprise that I saw a force of about a thousand cavalrymen forming up at the side of the road. At their head I recognized Sextus, Quintus’s younger brother. He was only about eighteen, a slender figure but full of boyish enthusiasm.
‘Where on earth did all these horses come from?’ I called out to him.
‘Father sent out messages to all the important families of Gaul, asking for help. We must have the noblest cavalry in the empire!’
I saw what he meant. Among the entire force I made out perhaps two dozen beards. This was partly because these aspiring gentry had aped the Roman fashion for a clean-shaven chin, and also because few looked old enough to have any hopes of growing a beard even if they wanted to.
‘What are you doing here at the rear? You should be scouting far in front of the column for ambushes.’
For a moment his face fell. ‘Father told me to assemble my men and report to you.’
‘Then ride to the van, give the governor my compliments, then start doing what cavalry are meant to do!’
‘He also told me to tell you that he has left two thousand men to cover Lugdunum while we head to
Vesontio.’ Then he dug his heels in and was off, with a thousand thundering horses following.
* * *
Several hours later the rearguard and I came upon a camp, of sorts. There were no palisades, no ditches, no watchtowers, no walks, just a collection of tents all massed together in a huddle. The men were tired after a full day’s march, and were fit to drop. I was feeling rather delicate as well. A day in the saddle meant some of the aches and pains from Albanos’s hospitality had made their return painfully clear, and after dismounting I hobbled bow-legged towards Vindex’s tent.
All around me the Gauls were busy attending to their own tents, arguing over who would sleep where. Some had fires going already, others were gambling. Not exactly a highly disciplined force, but surprisingly chirpy at the prospect of taking on the armoured might of the legions. Still, they had volunteered, I suppose.
I was, however, pleased to see that Vindex had taken some of my advice on board, and had posted two sentries at the entrance to his tent. When I approached they asked me what I wanted, for I was still in civilian dress, and I told them who I was. They stepped aside. I then took them to task for allowing me in just because I claimed to be Vindex’s nephew. They apologized, and I made my way inside.
Sextus, Quintus and the governor were all there, celebrating with a pitcher of wine. They ushered me in and Quintus poured me a drink.
‘What are we celebrating?’ I asked.
Vindex seemed to be in his cups already. ‘Why, our first day’s march of course.’
‘And this is reason enough to celebrate?’
‘Relax, Severus, or Gnaeus, or whoever you are. Have some wine!’ The governor made an effort to pour himself another drink, but missed the goblet and spilled some down his fine toga. He swore loudly.
‘May I make a suggestion, sir?’ I still stood stiffly, as an officer should.
‘If you must.’
‘Since the army obviously hasn’t learned how to set up a proper, fortified camp, Quintus should command the rearguard and I the van, so I can be on hand tomorrow night and oversee the whole thing. Every day brings us nearer to the Romans, and they will have their own intelligence, so we need to be able to defend ourselves in case a force has broken off from the siege.
The Last Caesar Page 11
