Marius' Mules IX: Pax Gallica
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Marius’ Mules IX
Pax Gallica
by S. J. A. Turney
Smashwords Edition
“Marius’ Mules: nickname acquired by the legions after the general Marius made it standard practice for the soldier to carry all of his kit about his person.”
For one of the best of all writers of Historical Fiction, a true friend, a lovely lady and a great talent, whose words flow like silk over alabaster skin : Prue Batten.
I would like to thank Jenny for her help in bring ing Marius' Mules nine to completion and making it readable. O ne of my usual proofers and test readers, Lilian , passed away before I began this volume, and her aid has been sorely missed, as has she. Thanks also to my beautiful wife Tracey for her support, and my two children Marcus and Callie for keeping me smiling during my b u siest times .
Thanks also to Ga rry and Dave for the cover work.
Cover photos by Hannah Haynes, courtesy of Paul and Garry of the Deva Victrix Legio XX. Visit http://www.romantoursuk.com/ to see their excellent work.
Cover design by Dave Slaney.
Many thanks to the above for their skill and generosity.
All internal maps are copyright the author of this work.
Published in this format 2015 by Smashwords
Copyright - S.J.A. Turney
Smashwords Edition
The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Also by S. J. A. Turney:
Continuing the Marius' Mules Series
Marius’ Mules I: The Invasion of Gaul (2009)
Marius’ Mules II: The Belgae (2010)
Marius’ Mules III: Gallia Invicta (2011)
Marius’ Mules IV: Conspiracy of Eagles (2012)
Marius’ Mules V: Hades’ Gate (2013)
Marius’ Mules VI: Caesar’s Vow (2014)
Marius’ Mules: Prelude to War (2014)
Marius’ Mules VII: The Great Revolt (2014)
Marius’ Mules VIII: Sons of Taranis (2015)
The Praetorian Series
The Great Game (2015)
The Price of Treason (2015)
The Ottoman Cycle
The Thief's Tale (2013)
The Priest's Tale (2013)
The Assassin’s Tale (2014)
The Pasha’s Tale (2015)
Tales of the Empire
Interregnum (2009)
Ironroot (2010)
Dark Empress (2011)
Insurgency (2016)
Roman Adventures (Children’s Roman fiction with Dave Slaney)
Crocodile Legion (2016)
Short story compilations & contributions:
Tales of Ancient Rome vol. 1 - S.J.A. Turney (2011)
Tortured Hearts vol 1 - Various (2012)
Tortured Hearts vol 2 - Various (2012)
Temporal Tales - Various (2013)
A Year of Ravens - Various (2015)
A Song of War – Various (Oct 2016)
For more information visit http://www.sjaturney.co.uk/
or http://www.facebook.com/SJATurney
or follow Simon on Twitter @SJATurney
Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres , quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur. ( All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, the third : those who in thei r own language are called Celts and in our s, Gauls . )
VENI…
Hi omnes lingua, institutis, legibus inter se differunt. Gallos ab Aquitanis Garumna flumen, a Belgis Matrona et Sequana dividit. ( All these differ from each other in language, customs and laws. The river Garonne separates the Gauls from the Aquitani; the Marne and the Seine separate them from the Belgae. )
VIDI…
Aquitania a Garumna flumine ad Pyrenaeos montes et eam partem Oceani quae est ad Hispaniam pertinet; spectat inter occasum solis et septentriones. ( Aquitania extends from the river Garonne to the Pyrenean mountains and to that part of the ocean which is near Spain: it looks between the setting of the sun, and the north star. )
…
Prologue
THE stone block was recent work, like all of them. So new that the chiselled lines were still clean and crisp with no discoloration or mossy growth. Half the height of a man and almost as wide, it was formed of a heavy, white stone that was not indigenous to the region . The block stood in a proud, haughty manner on a low bluff as though to suggest that it commanded all that it observed, from the high, snow-clogged peaks behind to the deep, shadowed valleys before.
It was Roman work. Obviously, but not purely because of the text. It was clearly Roman, because only a Roman would conceive of such a thing. Only Romans felt the need to quantify everything in their lives, to label and claim everything. To record everything. It was said that the Romans even wrote down everything that happened in their council meetings in case any curious individual felt the need to check the precise wording of an argument held years earlier.
Everyone knew the Romans were mad. But they also knew they were dangerous. Some said even unstoppable. The Belgae, who had spent a hundred generations terrifying even the tribes across the Rhenus, had succumbed to Rome like a dog rolling on its back. The Gauls, proud in their walled trading cities, held out to the last, falling late and hard to the invader. The Aquitanii ? They were far from stupid. Unlike the belligerent Belgae or the proud Gauls, the Aquitanii watched the tide of steel and red sweeping across the world and simply nodded their head at Rome. Oh there had been pockets of resistance, when that animal Crassus had brought his legions to ‘suppress’ the region. And some of the tribes had answered the call of the Arverni king and hurried off to die in the drab flat lands of Gaul. But then, when the Belgae were a distant memory of a warlike people and the Gauls were more commonly found mouldering under the earth than standing upon it, the Aquitanii were still intact. Still strong.
They knew they could never hold out against Caesar and his armies, so they nodded at Rome and remained intact and strong. And that was why they were still here and still lords of the mountains and the valleys. And then, in autumn, the beak-nosed general himself had toured the region, announcing his settlement and his peace and his belief in a unified province.
Caesar. Caesar had come. And everything had changed.
The altar on the bluff, formed of pale Roman stone, was suddenly cast into shadow, t he two words delicately and neatly incised into the side thrown into darkness.
PAX GALLICA
The young man hit the altar hard, ribs cracking against the smooth stone. He was whimpering now. He’d stopped screaming half an hour ago, but the whimpering had gone on ever since. He was the son of a chief – a nobleman in his own right. He wore two armlets of silver and a torc that he had never earned in battle for his skin was smooth like that of an untouched girl. His hair was long and braided and hung down behind his ears in a manner that was almost as Gaulish as his moustaches, drooping in the Arvernian style. These lowland Aquitanii were hardly worthy of bearing that name, they were so like their Gaul neighbours. Not like the mountain tribes, who tended toward shaggy hair and thick beards, which granted an extra degree of warmth in the snows tha
t clogged the passes for much of the year.
Not everyone wore such a beard, even in the mountains, of course, but those who didn’t always had a good reason.
Two shaggy, muscular warriors stepped forward and grasped the panicked boy who was rolling around on the stone, trying to rise. With brutal roughness, one grasped his wrists and slammed them back against the smooth surface, while the other held his knees down, pushing him flat. The whimpering and sobbing began to rise once more in pitch and volume, terror and desperation driving the sound into a shriek.
A third warrior stepped to the altar and lifted his hands, spitting on them and rubbing them together. He then reached down and picked up the axe, which gleamed with a perfect smooth arc, barring the single small notch that a stray torc had caused. The boy’s shrieking became deafening, and even the two muscular warriors were having difficulty holding him down now.
The axe rose.
The warrior wielding it turned to look at his master, waiting for the nod.
The nod came.
The axe fell.
The heavy blade slammed into the bo y’s midriff from the side , severing the spine a few vertebrae up from the pelvis. There was no need for a second blow to divide him. With the backbone gone, the pressure the oth er two men were exerting to hold him in place simply resulted in the tearing of flesh and the boy ripped unpleasantly in two, his torso coming away, leaving snaking trails of gut, while the other warrior staggered back, gripping a thrashing pair of legs that ended in a messy pelvis. The boy was still shrieking, alive even now he was but half a man.
The blood sluiced from the two severed halves and ran down the side of the altar, filling in the carved lettering first, so that the words Pax Gallica were picked out in dark crimson against the pale stone before the flood of red obscured the whole thing.
The man on the bluff, surrounded by howling warriors, lifted his eyes from the gruesome remains to the snaking valleys before him. He might have been smiling, and certainly his clean shaven face was open to view without the ubiquitous beard, but an old set of wounds that rose in a curved line from each end of his mouth, extending the bow up almost to his ears, made it hard to tell when he was smiling. It didn’t happen often. And when it did, something nasty inevitably followed.
Pax Gallica .
Caesar had toured the region and returned to his own graveyard in the north, leaving behind his altars of peace. Soon he would return. Soon he would know how fragile his peace really was.
Chapter One
THE ship b ounced gently against the jetty and the group gathered on the walkway near the steering oars lurched for a moment, trying to keep their feet. Once the vessel was entirely stationary, Balbus crossed to the rail and put a fatherly arm – the good, unwounded one – around Fronto, who was busy making sounds like an expiring hog as he continued to expel the air from his gut long after any real contents had gone. The weather on the sea to the west of Italia was often brutal in late autumn and winter. It was in these cliffs that Aeolus kept his four winds, and so the turbulence of the waters was quite understandable .
‘How can you continue to ret ch for so long, Marcus? Are you trying to set some sort of recor d ?’
Fronto turned slowly, heaving himself up from the rail and lifting his grey, waxy face to his father - in - law. ‘You have no idea, Quintus. I swear at one point I was inside out. Exile or no exile, that is the last time I take a ship at this time of year. ’ With some difficulty, he straightened and staggered across to the rest of them. At least the wound in his side was healing well, and now no longer inconvenienced him.
It had been a matter of great concern to them all. They had tarried in Puteoli far longer than was safe. Every day they ’d expected the senate’s hounds at the door, arresting or ejecting Fronto and his family and impounding the villa. But they had clearly been tied up for some time impounding all holdings of the Falerii in Rome, and it would take time for their grasp ing hands to reach Puteoli. The family and friends had stayed until winter began to close in, for the medicus they consulted seriously advised against sea travel – or any travel for that matter – with so many nasty wounds among them still in the process of healing. And finally, when Fronto felt his side was comfortable once more, Balbus’ head was no longer in danger, Aurelius’ arm had been released from its sling and Biorix was unbandaged entirely, they had deemed it time to leave before the forces of the senate caught up with the exile.
Fronto had taken the unusual step of granting manumission to the villa’s slaves before they left . There would be a full complement of household slaves where they were going, and if these ones were still bound to the Puteoli villa, the senate would simply take them. So they were given their freedom and adequate fun ds to begin a small life. T hroughout the trip , Fronto and his companions relied upon each other, the crew of the ship, and the slaves and servants wherever they put in for the night. It was little hardship, really.
And now here they were, putting to shore at last.
Balbus helped Fronto to the group, his own right arm still unfeeling and unmoving after the fight in the carcer. The others were gathered now, waiting for the ramp to be run out. The sailors shouted to one another in a westernised form of Greek. The group had taken a Grecian ship back to Massilia, for no Roman vessel could be trusted by an exile. Lucilia, her face proud despite the situation, held tight to the boys . Behind her Fronto’s mother and sister, two Falerias each as powerful and shrewd as the other, stood with inscrutable expressions as they held tight to the hand of young Balbina . Galronus hovered close to the younger Faleria , as was usually the case these days. He looked every bit the Roman now, barring the lack of a toga. His mode of dress and his grooming were perfectly Roman, and only a faint trace of a Gallic accent would give him away in a crowd. But while he had adopted all things Roman, he was still a prince of the Remi, and not a citizen of Rome. The toga was not his by right. Fronto could see how the difference between him and the family he was almost a part of pained him. The women brushed it off, of course, as did Fronto, but Galronus was acutely conscious that he w as still not truly one of them.
And then there were Aurelius, and Biorix, and Masgava and Arcadios. And Andala, too – the Belgic slave girl who seemed more at home with a sword in her hand than a comb, yet who Lucilia seemed to dote on. There was a sad hole left by the departure of Cavarinos the Arvernian, which had rather taken Fronto by surprise, but the man’s path was his own, and he had made it perfectly clear that it lay in neither Rome nor Gaul.
Thirteen passengers then, altogether, who had left Puteoli and had finally arrived, worn and cold, at the s afest of havens, a city beyond the reach of the senate, beyond the border of the Republic even.
Massilia.
They moved to the ramp and began to disembark. Further along the ship another ramp was run out and their horses and goods were brought forth and deposited on the jetty. As they alighted on the slimy, troublesome timbers, Balbus turned with a heaved breath.
‘You arrange for everything to be taken up to the villas, Marcus, and follow on with the family. I’m going to visit a few people and find out what’s been happening in this part of the world, then I’ll meet up with you at your place. Best to keep abreast of events. ’
Fronto nodded and clasped the old man’s hand. Balbus had lived here for some time longer than Fronto, and his connections in the town were deeper and more varied. With a light farewell, the old man sauntered off toward the agora, and Fronto waited a while as their goods were brought ashore, trying not to look at the water or think about the food and drink that the others were discussing. In an effort to take his mind off his churning innards, he strolled over to the station of the carters and teamsters. With no slaves to escort them up to the villa, he hired a small group of men from the port to shift all the baggage up the hill to their destination, as well as a rickety carriage for the ladies.
Half an hour later, they were climbing the slope behind Massilia, making for the villa, and Fronto’s stomac
h was finally beginning to settle with the comfort of solid ground underfoot. Briefly he considered making conversation, now that he wasn’t suffering with the endless pre-vomit drooling any more , but the women were filling every foot of space with their own talk, leaving little room for others, so he remained silent and concentrated on the villa . I t was odd coming back this time since , for the first time, this was to be the centre of their universe. It had been home for a while before, but the family had always had the townhouse in Rome, the villa in Puteoli and one or two other small estates. Now, this was to be their world.
The women were discussing what would need to be done and purchased as they crested the hill and made for the villa, but Fronto continued to march on in silence, listening to the creaking and groaning of the carts behind them. The house seemed to have been well-maintained in their absence , for the lawns were trimmed, the flower beds weeded and the stonework kept free of moss. The sun was beginning to sink slowly toward the waterline to the west, the walls of the villa positively glowing in the last rays. Even as the party approached, lights started to spring up in the windows.
Home…
* * *
The family and friends were lounging around the triclinium that night, barring the elder Faleria who had retired early and A urelius, who was enjoying an extended soak in the bath suite, when Balbus finally put in an appearance. The doorman showed him into the room and then bowed and returned to his task, and Fronto’s father-in-law stretched, reached for a glass, mixed himself a wine, and then sank onto one of the couches.
‘It seems that the exile and disgrace of the Falerii is completely unknown in Massilia, as we anticipated.’
Fronto nodded. ‘Massilia is safe from the senate. We can live here unmolested, and I can even continue to operate my business, so we won’t run short of ready funds even if the senate take every sestertius in Rome.’
‘ Will it support the extended family?’ Lucilia murmured. ‘We need to look after your sister and mother, as well as your companions. That’s many mouths, Marcus. You had little luck with wine last year.’