‘What in the name of Minerva’s hairy tits is that on your helmet, soldier?’
The legionary’s face slid into an expression of utter panic as the centurion leaned closer to him, then swiftly untied the tho ng holding his cheek plates together, plucking the iron bowl from his head.
‘Sir?’ asked the confused legionary with a nervous tremor.
‘That!’ snapped Terpulo, pointing at the bowl of the helmet. As he spun it in the torchlight, Fronto caught sight of a blossom of rust perhaps two finger-widths across near the crest holder.
‘Sir, I…’
‘Close that mouth soldier, lest I push your helmet into it.’
The soldier fell silent. Fronto felt rather sorry for the lad, though he did deserve to be pulled up on the condition of his helmet. ‘Dagger,’ demanded Terpulo, holding out his hand. Close to panic, the legionary yanked his knife from its sheath and handed it shakily over. Passing the helmet to his optio and reaching into his belt pouch, the centurion withdrew a tiny, delicate glass bottle with a stopper and undid it. His tongue poking from the side of his mouth in concentration, he used the dagger to scrape the find red dust from the iron helm, teasing it down to the bottle, where he deftly tipped the rust inside. Fronto watched the skill involved and wondered how many times the centurion had done this. Finally, Terpulo stoppered the bottle once more and wiped the blade of the dagger on his tunic hem. He then gestured to the optio, who held out the helmet. The legionary took it, slammed it on and quickly fastened it. It was impressive just how much sweat was pouring from the lad’s hairline now.
Once it was done, Terpulo slid the lad’s blade back into its sheath and then held out the glass jar . ‘What is your name and unit, soldier?’
‘ Gaius Sid onius, sir. Cohort two, century of Calpurnius Ferro.’
‘Well, legionary Sidonius. In this bottle is Mister Rusty. Since you grew him, he can be your pet. Look after him well. I shall be checking in from time to time, and woe betide legionary Sidonius if I find him without Mister Rusty in good condition. And you’ll need to sharpen and polish your blade before you buff out the marks on your helmet. And do you know what happens when you have Mister Rusty?’
‘N- no, sir.’
‘You can only have one Mister Rusty. So if I ever find you growing another one, I shall have you report to the medicus with instructions to insert that bottle somewhere only your lover might find it. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes, sir,’ replied the ashen-faced legionary.
Switching his attention away from the lad instantly, Terpulo gestured to Fronto. ‘What were you saying about grain shipments, Legate?’
And so they strolled on, involved in small-talk until they were well out of earshot, when they stopped and the optio and standard bearer exploded into howls of laughter. Terpulo grinned lop-sidedly. ‘That, sir, is Mister Rusty.’
‘That poor lad almost shat himself,’ Fronto chuckled. ‘Maybe a little harsh?’
‘ I bet you’ll never see another spot of rust on his kit, though, sir. You might be surprised to find out just how many men in my old legion are still carrying a Mister Rusty. But we had well-polished kit.’
‘ You might very well be insane, Terpulo.’
‘A little insanity’s healthy in a man expected to run at a wall of spears, Legate.’
‘Can’t argue with you there,’ laughed Fronto. ‘I’m off to gently soak my liver in Chian red. I shall see you bright and early.’
The three men, still chuckling, saluted, and Fronto wandered off toward his tent. As soon as everything was in place, they would march south. He was starting to feel quite confident in his men. Certainly life seemed unlikely to be dull in the coming months.
Mart ius
THE beardless ‘smiling’ man stretched and then folded his arms. Around them, the small outpost burned, dry timbers holding the heat as the flames crept along the beams and planks with searching fingers. The tiles on the roof of the main building were cracking and collapsing in the heat, and the thatch of the other structure s roared liked a lion with its head back, calling defiance to the world.
At the heart of the small installation, beside the new well which now contained a dead goat just to be certain the place would be unusable, stood the Roman altar.
‘Pax Gallica,’ t he man spat, his v oice hoarse and whispering, difficult to hear over the conflagration.
As he stood and poured his scorn across the foreign obscenity, the six heads of the outpost’s personnel were lined up on the altar, three to each side, staring outwards with wide, agonised eyes, the skin almost hidden by soot and blood, with just those horrified white orbs amid the mess.
‘Some of the warriors are unhappy.’
The man with the smiling wounds looked around to see one of the older warriors standing close by, gore-coated axe still in hand from the beheadings. He was clearly a strong warrior, though perhaps his glory days had passed along with the last colour in his hair and the last of his lower teeth.
‘What?’
The old man shrugged. ‘ They’ll butcher Romans until the sky falls on them, but these are Aquitanii. Some of the lads don’t like that we’re killing Aquitan i i.’
The hoarse voice began as a low, papery whisper and somehow the force in it cut through all the dreadful noise . ‘These were cattle , bred by Rome to feed her legions. They were not men, let alone Aquitanii. If any man mutters dissent, send him to me.’
The old warrior faltered for a moment. Staring into that awful face stripped away the desire to argue any point , but the half dozen warriors below, who’d fired the last building, had been quite vocal in their unhappiness at the people they were now killing. Three other warriors had come close now and were hovering behind him. Their presence emboldened the old man .
‘Why do this? We are greater than we have ever been. You are greater than you have ever been . Why provoke Rome and risk it all?’
The smiling man’s arms unfolded in a fluid movement and the old warrior didn’t even see the knife in them until it had ripped his throat from side to side in a single smooth rent. His neck opened and the blood gushed forth as h e hissed and gurgled and toppled backwards.
‘Why?’ croaked the smiling man, his ruined face looking more menacing than ever. ‘Because of vengeance. Because of an oath. Oaths must be kept. They are what separate us from base animals. Does anyone else wish to question my orders ?’
The other three had melted away into the burning outpost before the old warrior ’ s legs had even stopped thrashing. Alone once more, the man with the grinning wounds carefully wiped his blade on a rag from his belt and then sheathed it in its scabbard.
Chapter Three
FRO NTO couldn’t quite equate what he was seeing with his only memory of the place. It had been two years since he was last here, during that awful summer when Vercingetorix had almost dri ve n Caesar to defeat .
Cenabum. Oppidum of the Carnutes on the Liger River.
The town had risen in revolt more than once, harboured some of the worst enemies of Rome, been a heartland for resistance and a flag for the Gauls to rally behind. For while the Arverni had been the tribe who had led that war under their glorious king, it had been the Carnutes with their druids and secretive ways who had begun the revolt and had been mostly behind it.
And yet Cenabum went on.
The place had been commandeered by Rome for a supply station. Given the regular trouble there, it had seemed expedient to have a local small garrison. But then the Gauls had driven their defiant standards into the ground here. Quartermaster Cita and his supply depot had been butchered and burned, all Roman presence razed. Cenabum had fallen back to the Carnutes as the first target of their great revolt.
And then the next summer Rome had come for revenge. Fronto had been there. Hiding in the boats down by the river, waiting for the noise across the bridge to draw out the Carnutes enough to open their gates. He had been one of the first through that portal and into Cenabum, where he had exac
ted a terrible price from the natives for what they had done to Cita and his depot. It was a rare occasion when Fronto let go of all control and surrendered to the beast that lurked inside every instinctive warrior. He hated it. He hated having no control , b ut sometimes he simply couldn’t help it. He had rampaged through Cenabum taking life after life in violent, bloody vengeance.
He’d never thought he’d be back.
He’d have rather not, in fact. He would never again go to Alesia, or to Aduatuca, or to Gergovia, or a dozen other places. For such battlefields held the spectres of the dead who still sometimes came for him in his dreams. And he couldn’t face thinking on the young lives he had taken in the name of Rome.
Yet somehow, this was different. It shouldn’t be, but it was. Cenabum was among the worst of them. He should feel as sickened and hollow here as anywhere , and more so than most.
But he didn’t.
Because Cenabum thrived. As the legion emerged from the treeline and the Carnute city lay before them beside the river, Fronto was struck suddenly by how lively the place was. Ships were coming and going from the dock in an almost constant procession , and their shapes even from this distance showed them to be both Roman and Gallic. Smoke rose in twisting columns from roofs of both thatch and tile. The north gate in the oppidum’s wall stood open and inviting, and here and there farm carts could be seen on the road, heading for Cenabum to sell their wares. The city was full of life and the gentle distant hum of vibrancy hovered on the marginal breeze. Fronto could already almost hear the children playing, the fishermen hawking their goods, the priests calling their displeasure at all things worldly.
Not that he had expected to find a cemetery, of course , b ut from what he’d heard, Caesar and the army had come here again last summer in response to yet more Carnute trouble, and had found only a fledgling village amid the ruins of the old city they had destroyed. Even a year on, Fronto had expected at best a subdued and sparsely-populated place , not an energetic and busy place . With interest still quashing any dread and pushing back the distaste he’d expected to feel, Fronto mo ved to the front of the column and led his men down to Cenabum.
‘Be careful here ,’ he said, knowing the officers would carry his instructions back down to the men. ‘Cenabum was recently very much enemy territory and there could well be a great deal of resentment simmering here. The place has been free of our garrison for only two years, and our presence may not be popular. ’
But whatever they found in Cenabum, Fronto was determined to spend a day there with the men. They had marched south from Nemetocenna for ten days , as soon as the column was gathered, and that was enough without a rest. It would take a total of around forty days to reach their destination, by Fronto’s estimation, given the need to move at the speed of the supply train. The legion would march just over ten miles a day for ten days at a time, and then have a period of rest before moving on. He had planned stops at Cenabum, then at Limonum, where apparently a small Roman garrison remained from the previous year’s campaigning , then Burdigala, a town of the Bituriges, and then finally to Lapurda, where a Roman garrison awaited them at the end of the mountains.
‘Atenos, we’ll quarter the legion outside the north gate at a respectable distance. I don’t want to push anything. Just the officers and myself and a small cavalry escort will go on. You and Carbo get the camp underway and we’ll be back as soon as we’ve spoken to the locals.’
The column moved on along the dusty road and some thousand paces short of the gate, Atenos called for a halt and prepared to set up camp. Fronto, along with the senior officers and a dozen regular cavalry , rode on to the portal in the walls of Cenabum. His heart began to beat faster as they closed on it, remembering the blood and the screaming, the darkness and the dancing flames . But for all the trouble he’d expected, the gate remained open and the men on guard there nodded at him respectfully, issuing no challenge.
He motioned for the column to halt and reined in before the warriors. As he looked down, he was interested to note a new paved approach to the town had been formed with a very Roman style drainage ditch .
‘Where might I find the leader or leaders of this town?’ he asked in polite Latin.
One of the warriors frowned in incomprehension and looked at the other, who was working through the words slowly, as though translating them carefully, one at a time.
‘ Vergobrate. Druid. Hut of big. Water road fat . See?’
Fronto thought it through. ‘A large house by the river, on a wide road. Thank you. Can we enter?’
Not that he had any intention of staying outside, of course, but he was also acutely aware of the fact that less than a year ago this place had been a burning heart of anti-Roman sentiment.
‘You come. Good.’ The warrior waved his hand to indicate their passage, and Fronto thanked him and rode on.
Inside, Cenabum showed more evidence of its recent troubles than had been clear from a distance. Wide swathes of the interior were empty lots with bare land or charred cobbles where houses had burned. But many buildings had clearly been constructed over the win ter, and they showed distinct elements of Roman design, including verandas and tile d roofs. In fact, the second house they passed was roofed with red tiles that bore the distinctive bull and XI of the Eleventh Legion. As they clopped down the stone road toward the river and the gate where two years ago he had forced his way in, he pondered on the tiles’ origin. Had they been in Cita’s supply depot? Probably. Then reused by the locals in their rebuild ing work . He felt he ought to be put out by such re use , but found oddly that he wasn’ t. In fact , it w as rather endearing to find the Carnutes of all people , in the ashes of failed rebellion, adopting and adapting those things their former enemy left behind.
All around Cenabum the scars remained, but the rebuilding was going on , and the repairs were working to remove the evidence of destruction . Fronto’s initial fears about their reception began to fade and diminish. Sellers of bread and fruit shouted hopefully to them. Women did not whisk their children off the street at their approach, and the young lads poked each other with sticks, playing soldier. The calls of the fishermen down by the open river gate did not silence as mounted Romans approached.
The house was not hard to find, and Fronto nodded to the man standing by the door again.
‘Is this where I will find the ordo or chief?’ A look of incomprehension. ‘Druid?’ A nod. ‘May we enter?’ he pointed at the doorway and the warrior nodded. Fronto turned. ‘Listen, we don’t seem to be in any real danger, and I don’t want to make their chief feel uncomfortable. Galronus and Decius come with me. The rest of you… maybe you could negotiate to have some vittles delivered to the camp? I’m sure the lads would like some fresh food and not to have to grind their own grain for a change. Fish might be nice? ’
Leaving the others to it, Front o, Galronus and Decius entered.
‘It’s a far cry from the east,’ Decius noted.
‘How so?’
‘ I’ve been in Vesontio a lot in recent years, and Vesontio has been undamaged throughout the war, Fronto. It’s thrived on legion postings and become rich and content . Here, you can still see signs of the war . Scars. ’
‘ Healing scars, though,’ Fronto breathed. ‘ I hardly like to say it, ‘coz we all know how capricious the Fates are, but it does actually feel like the war’s over here.’
‘And if the Carnutes of all people have accepted that, then it seems likely so have the others.’
‘Indeed.’
There was no guard on the inner doorway and no actual door in it, and F ronto emerged into a large room formed of irregular stone block walls upon a timber framework. A mezzanine level with a railing reached by rickety stairs was partially hidden from sight, though there was movement up there. Below, in the centre of the room was a low, circular table of oak, with five chairs arou nd it. Two were occupied.
Fronto peered at the druid in his long robes suspiciously, then moved on to the nobleman with his ric
h clothes and gold and bronze accoutrements. There was a good chance that he or Decius had fought against one or both of them in recent years, but neither seemed familiar, at least.
‘Greetings,’ the noble said, rising to his feet.
Fronto bowed his head. ‘I am Marcus Falerius Fronto, commanding the… a legion of men freshly arrived from Nemetocenna. We are bound for Aquitania and seek your permission to make camp outside your walls and stay for two nights to rest the men. No soldiers will enter Cenabum without authorisation, and even then numbers will be limited. Do you have any objections?’
The nobleman glanced to the druid, who gave him an odd look. The nobleman chuckled.
‘Ordetix here worries that parties of drunken legionaries in the town will cause trouble. They wi ll not, will they, Legate Fronto?’
‘I shall personally flog any man who starts trouble.’
‘Then the council of Cenabum has no objection.’
‘Thank you.’ Fronto smiled. ‘I am pleased to see that Cenabum begins to thrive and grow once more. I… I was here in less happy times.’
Blood running between the cobbles on the street outside this very house where he had forced the gate and rushed the Carnutes with a mind filled with blood and rage.
‘War is over, Legate. My people were foolish and fell for the lies of the Arverni king. Now we have made our oath to Rome and p eace is with us once more. Our tribe was almost wiped out, our farms were destroyed, our livestock taken and butchered and our houses burned. But we kn ow this to be the fault of our h ubris and the lies of Vercingetorix, not your people. For we made an oath to Rome and we broke it time and again, and the gods hate an oath-breaker. So now we will make children and begin again. Our farms begin slowly to yield, we import cattle and goats, and build our houses with the remnants of the old world. The Carnutes will live, Legate. It is what we do.’
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