Marius' Mules IX: Pax Gallica

by Turney, S. J. A.

  He hissed in pain as the blade caught the ‘smile’ scar and drew blood. It happened with almost every shave, so deep and pronounced were the scars. Lowering the knife , he stared again at that familiar/unfamiliar face in the bronze as a thin trickle of red began to run down the gulley in his cheek to his lips, where they spread and began to drip to his chin.

  ‘Who are you?’ he whispered.

  The face stared back out at him defiant. Wicked. Deformed. Hollow …. Vengeful.

  The clang as the dagger hit the beautiful bronze mirror rang out across the room. The shining, imperfect surface rocked back and forth, the huge dent that ruined the mirror distorting his face into even more a thing of nightmares. With an angry bark, he cast the dagger away and swept the blood from his face with his thumb, staring at the crimson running down his digit.

  Chest heaving, pulse thudd ing, the king stood in the dim room as the door slammed open and Ategnio barrelled in, sword in hand. The warrior, his right hand man, looked this way and that and calmed almost instantly.

  ‘I thought there was trouble.’

  ‘Just old trouble,’ the king replied quietly. ‘Close the door.’

  Ategnio did so, though remained on the inside of it. ‘I still don’t know why you bother shaving.’

  ‘As I’ve told you a thousand times, I want to see my scars. And I want others to see them too. They have become who I am. I have become my scars. I wear them like a banner. They are every bit as much my livery as my standard or the wolf banners. They remind me of who I was, and of who I now am.’

  The burly warrior stooped and scooped up the fallen blade, turning it over and over and examining it distastefully.

  ‘And I cannot fathom why you would want this thing.’

  Wandering across to the king, the warrior proffered the knife, and his master took it and laid it beside the water bowl.

  ‘Because, Ategnio, as much as my scars, it is a reminder of things long gone.’

  The warrior huffed his disapproval, then folded his arms. ‘Once you are ready, we will move, my king. We should be at Tredos by sunset.

  The king simply nodded, and his warrior huffed again and wrenched the door open, exiting and thumping it shut behind him, leaving a solitary figure once more in the dim interior, watching a ruined face swinging back and forth on a hook. Reaching out, he steadied the mirror and reached for a towel, dipping it in the water and wiping the blood from his face. Satisfied that he was almost ready, he reached for the well looked after pugio dagger lying by the bowl, turning it over and over as he examined the blade. Perhaps he would use this very Roman dagger to cut out Caesar’s heart when he came.

  Chapter Seven

  FRONTO rolled his shoulders and picked up the heavy rectangular shield with the sligh t curve – standard legionary fa re. For all Arruntius’ words, there was no way Fronto was wielding a stick and prodding legionaries in a fight . Besides, if these soldiers were half as insane as they seemed to be – and even a quarter as insane as the centurion himself – then they would need no chivvying on. More likely they would need to be restrained. So Fronto had taken sword and shield. He had kept his plumed helmet, though. At Sorda he had walked through an arrow storm unharmed because the enemy seemed to be unwilling to target him. So while it was usually dangerous to mark oneself as an officer , as it drew enemy attacks, there was the tantalising possibility that in his case it might actually save rather than damn him.

  The rest of the force was already moving out of the clearing and into the trees, and Fronto’s century – the Sixth – was last to move off, his place at the rear of the very last contubernium of men making him the very last human into the woods. The animal trails had been widened and well trampled down by the other groups of seven men ( not the usual eight, for the number of volunteers had not made up a full cohort) who had moved through the woods into position. The organisation made sense. The cohort would move in seven man groups into position, and each century had been allotted an area of woods marked out by their officers. The First century had peeled off to the left into their position, the Second to the right, the Third to the left, and so on, gradually closing the gap until the Sixth filled the centre at the last . As they broke from the undergrowth, each ten groups would re-form into a century and move on the defences.

  Fronto was still boggling at the centurion’s apparent folly as he picked his way through the trees to his position. The legate had been unable to determine any strategy that would see them into the oppidum and so had thrown open the floor to all the senior officers . None of them had been able to come up with a usable plan, but Arruntius had been so sure he could take the place that Fronto had simply accepted such , assuming that the old centurion had some cunning manoeuvre in mind.

  His opinion that the man was clearly one mushroom short of a basket was confirmed when he’d enquired as to the plan while they moved through the forest in the pre-dawn light.

  ‘Plan?’ Arruntius ha d said with a frown.

  ‘Yes, your strategy for scaling the walls.’

  ‘Run at the bastards screaming, and stick a sword in as many as I can,’ the old man had replied, calmly and in a matter-of-fact tone. Fronto had been so taken aback by the basic irrationality of the ‘plan’ that he’d remained silent for the rest of the walk. The same could not be said for the legionaries of Arruntius’ volunteer force, though. Each and every man was upbeat, chatting amiably, many comparing how they had tweaked the standard manoeuvers the centurions had trained them in long ago to achieve swifter or more defensive strikes. Pulled from eleven different legions, most of these men had very different and conflicting ideas as to what work ed well in a fight , though they all knew the main basic manoeuvres, and the weeks they had spent at Samarobriva had allowed them to grow used to a new set of calls and melodies so that they could work well as a unit for all their differences. In fact, the legionaries were so jolly and enthusiastic the entire endeavour felt more like a summer picnic in the woods than a march into a brutal siege. Arruntius and his officers had to silence the men as they closed on Biguro for fear of alerting the enemy, and for the rest of the journey, the legionaries whispered to one another and chuckled under their breath.

  And so Fronto travelled with them in silent disbelief. Four hundred men were about to charge perhaps four or five thousand enemy who were comfortably packed behind defences up a steep slope, and they seemed to be excited at the prospect. And what was their officer’s grand plan? Run at the enemy, screaming. Brilliant.

  It was hard to deny the distinct possibility that Fronto was about to throw away a tenth of his entire army on the most ridiculously futile attack. And yet while it was his right – perhaps even his duty – to call it off, he found that he couldn’t, because something about Arrunti us was infectious , as though his reckless madness was a virulent disease. Certainly the legionaries had caught it . Wh en you listened to him talk, the part of your mind that wrestled with doubt seemed to be totally subdued. And after all, had Arruntius not been the man who had broken through Pompey’s army alone at the Sucro? If anyone could do this, then surely it was Arruntius.

  Fronto reached into the neck of his tunic, wrestling with the scarf until he produced the small figurine of Fortuna hanging from the thong, and gave it a kiss for luck before tucking it back inside, almost tripping over a tree root as he fought with his bulky shield on the narrow trail. At least it was nice and dry under the canopy of the woods. Perhaps an hour before dawn, as they’d set off from camp, there had begun one of those mists that could burn off with the morning sun, but could just as easily develop into a soul-destroying drizzle or even full blown rain . The world had been dark, but the lack of twinkling stars had confirmed that a blanket of cloud covered the sky. Maius was always an unpredictable month for weather, no matter where you were, but among the foothills of a mountain range, that uncertainty was compounded.

  As they pushed through the trail, the legionary two in front of the legate said something in a throaty whisper, and the nex
t man in line chuckled quietly.

  ‘Can’t wait to get stuck into the buggers,’ the legionary replied to his friend lightly and in a sibilant whisper. Again the other soldier said something that made his friend laugh.

  ‘And I hope you get a Gallic spear up that stinking behind of yours Vedetius.’

  Fronto had been about to silence both men, but the light-hearted manner of such a dark comment concerned him, and instead he cleared his throat and whispered to the man in front ‘If you two don’t like each other, maybe you should be separated.’

  ‘Don’t like him?’ the man whispered in reply, turning with a grin. ‘Best mate is Vedetius , Legate . Come up through the Eighth together, we did.’

  ‘Then you might be better not wishing him a brutal death,’ Fronto hissed disapprovingly.

  ‘But we’re going to lose men, Legate, and don’t forget that every man who drops increase s the share of the gold pot for the rest of us, eh? Vedetius gets himself pinned and I get richer. Sometimes the gods have funny ways, don’t they, sir?’

  Fronto stared in horror at the man, who grinned. ‘Don’t worry sir. I won’t wish anything nasty on you. You’re not in the pot anyway, see?’

  With a guffaw he turned back and moved on again, leaving Fronto staring after them all. They were clearly as mad as Arruntius, each and every one of them.

  A quarter of an hour later, as the first strains of light were beginning to filter through the leafy canopy and the moist morning had begun to penetrate the branches to drip forlornly beneath, the legionaries fell into position, and Fronto found himself standing at the back of a line of six other men, staring up the steep grassy bank to the forbidding ramparts above. He was, oddly, in almost exactly the position from which he and the officers had observed the place the previous day.

  Above the oppidum, the grey fleecy sky told a tale of coming rain and possibly even storms. So much for the sun burning off the mist , then . It struck him that he should be thanking Jupiter for the weather, really. Any enemy archer who had his bow out would find it more or less useless now, the string soggy and stretched, and those who’d kept them sensibly in a cover or indoors, out of the wet, would hardly have time to fetch or unpack them and bring them to bear on any swift attack. There would likely still be slingers up there, but at least arrows would be a diminished threat.

  Somewhere distant there was a rumble of thunder.

  Of course, the general dampness in the atmosphere would make running up a grassy slope treacherous to say the least – especially if seventy odd men had gone up in front, churning the turf to mud. Still, Fronto knew that this assault was a make or break thing, rather than just part of an ongoing siege situation, and so rather than facing a week of being bogged down here, one way or another it would be over within the hour. If they succeeded , then Biguro was theirs. If they failed there would be little choice but to move on south with the rest of the legion and deal with being flanked by the Begerri when the time came. And so , either way, Fronto prayed that the storm would hold off an hour or so until it was over. It didn’t look likely.

  Fronto heard a muttering ahead, which seemed to be repeated all across the treeline, and the instructions were gradually passed back and forth across the men. Finally, the legionary ahead of Fronto turned and whispered.

  ‘One owl hoot and we move out. First whistle and form into contubernia. Second into centuries. Third we run.’

  ‘It’s a cunning plan, there’s no denying it,’ Fronto replied in exasperation, at which the legionary simply grinned. For the first time, Fronto began to wonder why he’d been so adamant he wanted to be part of this. It had nothing to do with glory or the need to rush an enemy headlong. In fact, it had mostly been inquisitiveness – the desire to watch this impressive veteran in his natural environment. Suddenly Arruntius’ natural environment was looking ridiculously dangerous and foolish.

  It was odd to stand in such a position. Fronto had fought for his life alongside the legions many times, but he had always been either in the thick of it fro m the start or had been in a commanding position. Never had he endured such a wait among the rear rankers , and he hadn’t realised how tense it made a man. Not that his companions seemed to be suffering so. If anything, they seemed to be enjoying themselves. Weird.

  He missed the hoot. The first he knew of the attack was when the man in front of him began to push forward through the undergrowth. Fronto shoved forth in his wake , branches scratching the painted design from his shield, and barely had he emerged from the trees before the centurions’ first whistle went.

  The rain had begun while they were beneath the trees , though at this point it was little more than the odd spot, but the air had a curiously washed-out appearance between them and the oppidum above. The contubernium of seven men fell into line in the order they’d emerged from the woods just six paces from the next group, and Fronto was still busy lining himself up with the man in front when the second whistle blew. The head of his contubernium held up his hand to keep them in place as the contubernia to either side hurried across with a jingle of metal and the clonk of wood, forming up to either side. Suddenly Fronto was at the rear of a century of seventy or so men, and he could just see the transverse crest of the centurion as he fell into position at the front

  Amazingly, the entire manoeuvre had taken perhaps twenty heartbeats – from lurking in the woods to waiting expectantly in century formation on the grass. It had taken the Begerri by surprise, for sure, and the alarm was beginning to go up in surprised shouts from the ramparts only as the centuries formed.

  T hen the whistle went again, echoing across the forest edge from each centurion, and the unit surged forward. Fronto had burst in to a r u n to keep up with his unit – t he many long-serving old legs in the unit seemed to be young and agile enough right now. Praying his knee would hold up, especially in the damp weather, the legate pounded on. He found himself suddenly wondering what to do. He had commanded and fought in many battles, and he knew that centurions commanded at a unit and melee level. H e knew that optios supported the centurion and chivvied the soldiers along from the back, whacking dawdlers on the legs with a stick. He’d seen them doing it many, many times, and yet now, thrust into the role of one, he couldn’t decide what to do. None of the men were dawdling – i f anything it was him lagging at the back. He couldn’t decide on any words of encouragement, for the soldiers were now raising a cacophony that was probably audible as far as Egypt. He was essentially redundant, and so he ran on.

  As the slope began to tell and footing became more difficult, the centurions bellowed the order to unsheathe swords. ‘ T il this point each man had kept their blade sheathed due to difficulty among the branches and undergrowth and the potential for accidents among the close press of bodies . Now, at the command, each soldier drew his blade as he ran. No pila here – the gradient made them a largely pointless weapon in such situations.

  The centuries were beginning to fragment a little as they moved onto the slope of the hill . The rain was increasing steadily, though as yet it counted for little more than a light patter, but the ground underfoot was slippery and dangerous, and Fronto had to fight to maintain his footing with every pounding step, paying attention to his balance and keeping one eye on the terrain as much as possible. Even the wildlife of Aquitania were proving troublesome to Rome, for here and there Fronto could hear a squawk and clatter as a man fell foul of some animal’s burrow or den, and it was a testament to the quality and collective experience of all those present that they managed so successfully to skirt the fallen and continue on their way as they ran.

  ‘ Broken leg,’ someone up ahead shouted gleefully. ‘The shares just went up, lads!’

  There was a cheer at the news that Fronto felt was just a little too cold for his liking, though as he passed the man of whom they’d spoken who was floundering by a rabbit hole with a turned leg , he was surprised to find the man not screaming with pain, but angrily bellowing at his friends to ‘leave my damn share alone
yer vultures!’

  Mad, the lot of them.

  Fronto could now hear the Begerri , who sounded a lot more nervous and desperate than the tiny force charging at them up the hill, and he clucked in irritation as raindrops dinged off the bronze of his helmet. Then one clang almost sent him flying flat on his back and he staggered for a moment, recovering his footing carefully to avoid sliding back down the slope. As he steadied himself and ran on to catch up, more raindrops dinged , their pace increasing , but another sling stone like the one that had almost sent him flying glanced off the doubled mail at his shoulder, sending a thrill of pain coursing along his arm.

  A few dozen Begerri had taken to the rampart top with slings and were using them with deadly accuracy. Fronto’s view was rather restricted by a full century of men in front, but he could just see the shapes of the defenders, swinging their slings with that expert single circle release that seemed to be the mark of the true professional. Here and there, soldiers were falling to the smooth stones and their companions would whoop and jeer and bellow threats to claim their shares of the prize. Fronto shook his head in disbelief as they closed on the defences at the top of the hill. Miraculously, due to the speed and surprise of their assault and the wet weather tha t had largely nullified the use of bows in the oppidum, remarkably few legionaries had fallen during the ascent, perhaps a score of soldiers scattered across the grassy rise, and most of them sporting relatively minor injuries or trying to pull stone-dented helmets from dazed heads. Once more there was considerably more angry cursing and whoops of delight across the slope than there were screams of pain or anguish. It was altogether the oddest assault Fronto had ever experienced.