Marius' Mules IX: Pax Gallica

by Turney, S. J. A.

  Fronto watched for a moment, impassive. There was still a sea of the enemy coming at the walls. The fight was going to be a tough one. The figure of Masgava appeared around the corner from the east, several centuries of men at his heel . He spotted Fronto and ran toward the legate, gesturing for his men to filter up onto the ramparts .

  ‘South wall is being ignored , sir . I’ve left enough men to hold it until reinforcements arrive, but it seems stupid to man it strongly. I’ve brought five centuries here as a reserve.’

  ‘Good man,’ Fronto acknowledged. Where’s Aurelius, by the way? He’s always hovering around me like a protective gnat, but I’ve not seen him since I regained consciousness.’

  Masgava’s midnight face split into a wide, toothy grin.

  ‘I’v e got a little surprise brewing and Aurelius is in charge of it. He’ll be here shortly. In the meantime, just keep the rampart clear.’

  Fronto frowned at the Numidian, but Masgava had already turned his attention away and had joined the men on the wall, a gladius in one hand and his old gladiator’s sica in the other. Shrugging, far too used to his odd, secretive friends, Fronto stepped toward the parapet and sought a place to join in. As he approached, a legionary staggered backwards hissing, clutching his sword arm, which was bathed in blood, a long gash in the forearm. The man’s sword fell from numb fingers and Fronto gestured to him. ‘ Get to the medicus .’ As the soldier ran off, clutching his arm, Fronto neatly stepped into his place on the rampart and peeked over the edge of the wooden defences atop the wall. His curiosity was answered with steel as a sword point swept past his nose, almost taking it off. Instinctively, he l ashed out downwards wit h his beautiful, ornate gladius and caught the man a blow on the side of the head, carving off a piece of his scalp. It was little more than a flesh wound, but enough to cause agony and send the man falling away into the mass below him.

  Thus began the butcher’s work to which the Roman military was bred. Fronto’s entire world became a short stretch of wall and the man to each side. He managed to parry a blow between strikes that was meant for the man on his left, but failed to similarly save the man on his right, who fell back with a cry, a neat red chasm cut across his face below his eyes. Th e injured man was replaced a moment later by a regular cavalryman, who began to jab down sharply and expertly with his spear, skewering man after man, spinning the pole and yanking it back out only to slam it down again. The sheer butchery was staggering .

  Fronto lashed out again and again with his sword, ducking back and using the parapet for cover as the enemy blades swept through the air atop the walls. What kind of people developed walls of dry stone that could be climbed? Fronto gritted his teeth as he fought on, slamming his sword down into the unprotected shoulder of a climbing warrior and clucking his irritation as his sword drew sparks from the man’s helmet as he fell away. That blade would need careful attention now.

  An axe hissed past the legate, narrowly missing him, but continued on to lop off the hand of the cavalryman, who screamed and fell back. A legionary took his place and still Fronto fought on, jabbing down. A spear lanced upwards suddenly in the press , caught on the brow of Fronto’s helmet and very nearly went through his face. The tip scored an agonising line up Fronto’s forehead, ja mming between bone and bronze for a moment before the man withdrew it. Fronto felt white hot pain splash across his head yet knew even through the blinding agony that it was just a cut to the bone and he had narrowly avoided death with that blow.

  He fell back away from the wall, breathing heavily, blinded by the torrents of blood pouring from his scalp and down across his eyes. He reached up with his sword arm and cuffed away the flow of blood from his eyes, warm and thick, only for it to be replaced with so much more as the deep cut bled. He realised that every move of his head was jerking the cut as his helmet shifted and he stepped back carefully until he knew he was on the sloping turf of the rampart. There he cast away his sword and reached up, taking off his helmet and dropping it next to the blade. A fresh torrent of blood sluiced down across his face and he almost lashed out as someone g r asped him.

  ‘Capsarius, sir. Stand still.’

  He did as he was told and hissed as the medic pressed a honeyed wad of linen to his scalp. Then, a moment later, the blood was wiped from his eyes with a damp cloth. A medical orderly was sponging his face from a bucket full of water that had already been used so much it looked more like blood to begin with. Mercifully, on the third mop, he found he could see, though he quickly blinked as more blood swam down.

  ‘This is a bastard of a head-cut, sir,’ muttered the capsarius.

  ‘I…’ began Fronto, and then stopped in surprise as something was jammed into his mouth. It tasted of leather and bad breath and old wine.

  ‘Bite down, sir.’

  Fronto frowned, which produced unutterable agony.

  ‘And stop doing that. Bite. Now, sir.’

  The legate did as he was told and tried not to whimper as the medic hauled the two pieces of flesh together across his skull and stitched them with brutal, simple efficiency. Within fifty heartbeats, the man had tied off the thread and his orderly was wadding once more, then mopping his face. Once his vision was clear once more, Fronto opened his mouth to thank the capsarius, but the man was already gone, crouching over a legionary and probing his chest, shaking his head as he did so.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ the orderly said. ‘Busy morning.’ And then , shoving a damp cloth into Fronto’s hand, he too was gone.

  A faint tric kle of blood dripped into his eye again and he wiped it with the pink, soggy cloth.

  ‘Stand back, sir,’ called a voice and Fronto had to spin to identify the source. He blinked in surprise to see carts emerging from the houses and streets of the fortress, heaved toward the slope by several dozen legionaries each. He stepped out of the way of one such cart, blood loss, confusion and pain adding to his fascination as he gawped.

  Aurelius gave him a hard look as t he bodyguard escorted one such cart to the walls. ‘See what happens when I’m not there,’ he admonished, shaking his head. Fronto peered in woolly interest at the cart as it passed. It was loaded with sacks.

  ‘What in the name of Minerva?’

  Th e soldiers were h eaving the carts up the slope and g radually they closed on the rampart top, six carts in all, spaced out along the wall. Fronto watched in fascination as the carts were stopped, wedges hammered under the wheels to keep them in place, a nd then at a call from Aureliu s legionaries began to work the carts.

  He stared as a soldier slammed his blade down into a sack and a puff of white billowed up. Flour? Aurelius and his men had been pillaging the granary, but what for? To throw sacks of flour down on the enemy? Weird.

  Yet he watched in silence as all along the wall, the legionaries hacked at sacks of flour and then carried them to the edge and threw them over. Trails of white and fragmentary grains criss-crossed the rampart, but a cloud of dust began to billow beyond the walls, and curled up like a cloud beneath them. Fronto felt a heavy drop of rain pound the cut on his forehead and realised the storm had arrived even as the thunder rolled.

  ‘Quickly,’ Masgava yelled. ‘Before the rain starts.’

  The soldiers sped up their efforts, that white cloud rising into the air, but the rain was beginning now, and Fronto felt it spattering his abused scalp.

  ‘Stop,’ Masgava bellowed. ‘We’re out of time. Arcadios?’

  Fronto stared in bewilderment as the Cretan archer ran up the grassy slope, an arrow nocked to his bow.

  ‘Back,’ Aurelius yelled, and the centurions blew their whistles, ordering disengagement. The soldiers pulled back, a few taking parting wounds as they stepped away from the edge.

  Arcadios nodded back to the town and a legionary with his arm strapped up to his side just like Fronto’s ran forward with a blazing torch in his other hand.

  ‘Surely…’ Fronto began, but Masgava was there a moment later, none-too-gently manhandling him down the slope. The legate
watched as he descended. Arcadios moved into the clearest air he could find, tested the wind, drew back the string and tilted backwards, aiming up into the air. At a call from him, the legionary set light to the arrow and the archer released instantly, sending the missile high into the air. The world seemed to hold its breath as that flaming bolt flew up high. Now, the Arenosio were beginning to cross the parapet, but they were slow, their gaze turned upwards in fascination, following the falling star.

  The arrow plunged into the white cloud outside the walls, just where the north gate had once been. The resulting explosion shook the fortress to its foundations. Sections of the wooden parapet simply disappeared, and Fronto went blind for the second time in a short span, this time with a white-green blur superimposed on everything he looked at.

  The screaming began outside the fortress .

  Fronto rubbed at his eyes. He could only make out shapes around the periphery of his sight. Panicking, he blinked again and again, and gradually, the flash resolved into mere green-yellow blobs at the centre of wherever he looked.

  Legionaries were approaching the parapet once more, swords in hand, but there were no Arenosio clambering over it now. In fact, all Fronto could hear was screaming and moaning. Slowly, carefully, recognising that he was not in the best of health, the legate clambered up the slope. Aurelius was next to him a moment later, helping him and, in his current state, Fronto felt disinclined to argue.

  The land beyond the rampart was a vision to make Hades himself sh udder. The world had gone black and small fires still burned here and there. There were so many corpses it was impossible to make out the burned grass.

  ‘ Sacred flame of Vesta ,’ was all Fronto could find to say.

  ‘The idea of one of the legionaries, sir ,’ Aurelius said . ‘ He came from Ostia and he once saw this happen in a bakery. Flour in the air goes up real easy, he said. He was right, too, I reckon.’

  Fronto stared, trying to ignore the bright pinpoints superimposed over his sight. More than half the Arenosio out there must have perished or been horribly injured in the blast. Even as another crack of thunder split the air and the rain began in earnest, Fronto saw the surviving tribesmen halted back along the valley, arguing.

  ‘That’s that,’ he said. ‘They’ll either run or humble themselves and retake their oath. The Convenae are no longer a threat. Now find me a comfy chair and a drink. ’

  * * *

  Rectum was a cemetery. As the sun slid slowly from the sky, Fronto watched the endless lines of dead waiting to be burned or buried. Surprisingly few were Roman. Had it not been for Aurelius ending the fight as he had, likely there would have been very few Roman survivors . But in the end, t he Arenosio had felt the last of their resist ance drain away with the blast that had killed more than a thousand men and burned another thousand to a living crisp. Most of them had fled, and a few – the ones whose true home was in this valley – had abased themselves and begged for Fronto’s mercy. Arruntius had advocated the execution of all the nobles and leaders, but Fronto had been too tired. He’d listened to them retake their oath and let them run away and bury their dead. After what had happened in these mountains it would be a very long time before any chief contemplated rousing Rome’s ire again . Besides, the true enemy had left. Verginius had gone, and he had so clearly been the real threat – the catalyst that had turned angry tribes into a rebellious army. Without Verginius, there would be no further trouble in these mountains.

  Fronto sighed as he leaned his good elbow on the southern parapet and watched the funeral pyres blazing as the Romans were committed to ashes, the natives being buried in another convenient pit half a mile away .

  ‘We’ll be ready to move at first light,’ Carbo said, arriving quietly and leaning with a sigh on the parapet close by.

  ‘ Not a hope,’ Fronto replied. ‘ The legion needs several days to recover from all of this. And really, the fight’s over now. Aquitania is quelled as per Caesar’s instructions. Time to finish the job of settling the place.’

  ‘The king’s not dead , Fronto .’

  ‘No,’ the legate agreed, ‘but he’s no longer the same threat. Not to Caesar or to Rome. The legion’ s done its job. We need to take out a sizeable group and settle a new town here, or maybe across at the camp site. Then all remaining manpower and supplies can be split between every colony from here to Lapurda. The last ones can send word from there to Caesar, to tell him what we’ve done. You’ll have responsibility for all that, of course. ’

  ‘And you, sir?’

  ‘I?’ Fronto sighed and slumped onto his elbow again. ‘I have to go find Verginius. I have to… I don’t really know. Kill him? Bring him home? Kick seven shades of shit out of him? I just don’t know. It’s beyond me. But I do need to find him. If I don’t, some day he’ll find me , and I feel that might be a bad way for things to work out. No, you need to settle the legion, then take whatever force remains that’s not retiring and return to Caesar. I’ll see you there soon enough.’

  Carbo was shaking his head. ‘I don’t usually agree with that idiot Aurelius, but he’s quite right about how dangerously impulsive you can be. You can’t go running off across the mountains and into Hispania on your own.’

  ‘I won’t be on my own. I’ll have Masgava and Aurelius. I’ll take Galronus and Arcadios and Biorix , too . We’ll take spare horses and enough food and gold to see us through several weeks. And I know Hispania , too . Once I get down to the foothills on the other side of these peaks, it’s like home to me. And Tarraco really is home, in a way. For Verginius too. This will end there, one way or another, and then we’ll come back to meet up with Caesar’s army. If anything important happens before then , send word to the governor’s office in Narbo. I’ll hear it as we pass through.’

  ‘ If you pass through. Fronto, t his Verginius friend of yours is way too clever. You mig ht be underestimating him again .’

  ‘No. If he wanted to kill me, he’d have done it yesterday.’

  Still, Carbo was shaking his head. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I am. This is personal. It’s not a job for an army. Besides, the governor of Hispania Citerior might be a touch unimpressed if I march half an ageing crippled legion into his territory. Don’t forget that Caesar has enemies everywhere. No, we’ll be better off just the six of us.’

  ‘Then be careful,’ Carbo warned.

  ‘I’m always careful,’ Fronto said in an offended tone.

  Carbo’s snort echoed across the valley.

  Late Maius

  Gnaeus Verginius sat beside the camp fire and stared into the dancing flames, seeing in their depths echoes of what had been and what he’d lost. The future , he felt, lay somewhere beneath in white hot ashes. The wind howled like the loudest and loneliest of wolves, swooping down the pass toward Hispania, through their makeshift campsite on a narrow bluff with straggly trees. At least they were below the snowline now after days of travel. The pass had been difficult, but to a man who had spent ten years in these lands, the freezing, treacherous ways held little fear.

  Now, his eyes drifted up from the flames at angry sounding words. He had to force himself back into his role as Arenosio to pick them up. Oddly, since seeing Fronto’s face in that hut, he’d had sudden bursts of recollection and had miraculously begun to automatically think in Latin again – something he’d not done for many years. Switching back to the native dialect took considerable effort.

  As well as Ategnio, he had picked up seven more warriors at the picket stations in the valley once they had fled the fortress. In fact he had picked up nine , but two had been so instantly fearful and annoying that he’d caused them to accidentally slip from the treacherous mountain paths, plummeting to their doom . The eight remaining warriors were arguing as if he weren’t there listening. Of course, he might as well not be to some extent. He’d done little to inspire confidence since leaving the fortress, he knew, and most of these men were beginning to falter.

  ‘So why should I follow him?’
one warrior was saying to another. He then turned to Verginius. ‘Why should I follow you now?’

  ‘Monturos…’ warned Ategnio, his eyes catching those of his master.

  ‘No. screw you,’ snapped the warrior, pulling away from Ategnio and crossing to Verginius, drawing his knife and waving it threateningly. ‘Why should we follow you now? Once you were powerful, but what are you now? You’ve lost everything…’

  The man stopped waving his knife as Verginius uncoiled like a serpent and his hand snapped out, grabbing the warrior’s wrist. Monturos tried to fight the grip, but his eyes widened at the sheer strength the smiling king exhibited even now. He drew a shocked breath as Verginius twisted his hand and broke the wrist like a bundle of brittle canes. ‘Why should you follow me?’

  As the man’s hand flopped useless, Verginius caught the falling blade and dropped to a crouch, hamstringing the man on the way down. The gasping, shocked Monturos hit the ground like a sack of grain. There, he flopped, his ruined wrist flapping this way and that, his legs spasming, largely out of his control. Verginius was suddenly on the man with the lithe moves of an acrobat, sitting astride the man’s chest. With a sweep of the knife, he pinned the remaining good limb to the ground, eliciting a shriek from the man.

  ‘ T hat you should even have to ask , Monturos, shows how little you understand honour. Why should you follow me? Because I ask you to. Because I am your king e ven without my throne, and you v owed to follow me, whatever the cost. A vow is a sacred thing, Monturos. My vows drive me and will do so ‘til I cross the final river. I have vowed vengeance on a man I once called brother and similar upon a man who is the closest thing to a king in Rome, and I will not deviate from my course until that vengeance is complete. All I asked from you was that you honour a vow to follow me. How paltry is that by comparison ? Yet you cannot even do that. You are a sad, pointless excuse for a warrior. The world will be stronger with your loss. ’

  The blade was torn from the pinned arm and , as Verginius shuffled backwards, plunged into the gut, tearing this way and that, like a man trying to draw a seven pointed star in the flesh . The hopeless, helpless warrior shrieked and moaned, begging for an end, but the smiling king merely lowered the bloody knife and fished in his tunic.