The Mandubian chief was shaking his head, his face despairing, but he could find no words to argue, for the king had spoken an edict and the decision had been made.
‘It is a waste,’ said Critognatos darkly.
‘What?’
‘The Romans will not let them leave. They will die before the legions’ defences, or they will come back here, and when they do we must be hard and not let them in to eat our grain once more, lest we all starve for it. But if they were to simply take a knife to their own throats, then the larders would fill with fresh meat and we would last weeks longer!’
Vergasillaunus lost his grip on Cavarinos as the angry noble ripped his arms free and threw himself at his brother.
‘You vile, sick, twisted bastard!’
Critognatos reeled under the first heavy punch and fell, enduring a flurry of blows before Cavarinos was pulled from him by three of the gathered chiefs. As the smaller of the two brothers was hauled back across room, flexing his knuckles and snarling imprecations, Critognatos rose with a malevolent grin, spitting out a broken tooth and wiping the smeared blood across his face.
‘Now that is the attitude that would win us the fight. See how my brother only gets his blood up when fighting his own.’
Cavarinos yelled and tried to break free of the restraining arms, his bloodied fists lunging.
‘Release the Mandubii, then,’ Critognatos spat out a wad of blood. ‘But heed my words. When they come crawling back, you cannot let them back in unless it is as meat.’
* * * * *
Fronto climbed the rampart and peered down at the scene before them.
Several thousand women, children, old men and invalids, some on carts, some with beasts of burden, everyone with a bag of their belongings. None armed or armoured. No warriors here. And many in floods of hysterical tears. He felt sick.
‘We don’t have to house them or feed them, Caesar, but the noble thing to do would be to let them through. They pose no threat to us.’
‘Not directly,’ the general replied, eyeing the distraught civilians with a neutral expression.
‘You cannot be seriously considering turning them down.’
‘I am doing just that, Fronto.’
‘What threat are they to us?’
‘None. But their very presence tells us that the rebels are beginning to find food in short supply. Why else would they send their womenfolk to us? They are conserving supplies. And that means that every mouth we allow past our defences eases the enemy’s situation.’
‘That’s cold, general.’
Caesar turned to Fronto. ‘We can be fairly sure that a relief force is on the way, the size of which is unknown. It could be massive. If there is any chance that we can bring Alesia to its knees before that happens, we must leap at it. We cannot let these people go free. This is war, Fronto, and we do what we must to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion as soon as possible.’
‘I understand that, Caesar. I do. But we are dealing with a general who burned his own people’s lands just to deny us food. Do you think for one moment Vercingetorix will let those people back into the city to resume their drain on his granaries?’
‘Probably not.’
‘And so those people will be trapped on the slopes and will starve and die beneath their own walls.’
‘Which will undoubtedly cause ructions and distress to the enemy up there. Imagine how you would feel if it were your wife or sister, Marcus.’
Fronto simply could not find a more convincing argument against the inhumanity of this course. Military logic wholly supported the general’s decision, but Fronto’s heart could not.
A voice called up beyond the wall in stilted, thickly-accented Latin, and the half-dozen assembled officers stepped to the parapet once more. In the wide flat stretch of ground between the initial wide ditch and the more wicked Roman defences, one of the Mandubian civilians had stepped forth. He was an old man, almost entirely balding and with a heavily-lined, careworn face.
‘Slave!’
‘What?’ asked Antonius, frowning.
‘We be slave!’
Fronto felt his heart sink slightly further. That the poor bastards might voluntarily offer themselves up for slavery told him with no uncertainty that the whole bunch were well aware of their position - little more than a burden to their own people and a weapon to the general. Some of the legionaries on the wall looked around at the officers hopefully. Slaves meant money, and every man in the army had made a small nest-egg with the funds from six years of slave caravans back south to Italia and Massilia and Narbo.
Fronto shook his head at the nearest one. ‘Eyes front!’
As the legionaries turned back, disappointed at such lost profit, Fronto raised his eyebrow at Caesar.
‘No,’ the general said finally, addressing the old man beyond the wall, the ditches, the pits and the sharpened stakes. ‘There will be no slavery here. You are not permitted to pass our lines and we have no need of you. Return to your city.’
‘Can… not,’ managed the old man in the unfamiliar tongue.
‘You have no choice. We cannot have you camped around our defences. You have the count of two hundred to take your beasts and carts and move back up the slope, or my scorpions and archers will start pinning limbs to the ground. Now go.’
As the man shook his head desperately, Caesar turned his glittering gaze on Fronto. ‘Give them a clear count of two hundred and then have the barrage begin.’
Fronto nodded unhappily, and the general turned to Antonius. ‘And tell the artillerists to aim for wounds, not kills. We want a deterrent to drive them back up the hill, not a thousand corpses to bury.
* * * * *
Cavarinos stood before the oppidum’s heavy wall, atop a steep incline where the greenery often gave way to striations of bare grey rock, the heat beginning to make the day tiresome already. A mile below and to the west he perused the most impressive section of the Roman siege works. No different in form really to the rest of the circuit, this section on the flat plain provided the best view and, because of the level ground, the twin ditches before the rampart were water-filled here. To the right hand - northern - edge of the plain, at the base of Mons Rea, the largest of the Roman camps sprawled across the lower slopes.
It was permanently busy. Units of horse were constantly ranging out over the nearby countryside and returning, the outer gates spending more time open than closed, forage parties collecting timber and stone and the grain and livestock commandeered from the local Mandubian farmers, legions training and exercising, engineers and work parties upgrading, improving and maintaining the system.
Or at least, that had been the case until half an hour ago. Then, as the late morning sun had approached its apex, sweating out the worst of the summer day, the ranging Roman scout units had arrived back at the fortifications en masse and at speed. The forage parties had been withdrawn into the fortifications, engineers and workers dismissed back to their units and the legions called to standards and then deployed around the ramparts.
Relief? After nine days of hardship it had seemed too much to hope.
His eyes slid closer, to the scattered figures on the lower slopes, just out of Roman missile range. The thousands of starving, weak, exhausted and terrified civilian Mandubii had, as the days wore on, diminished to mere hundreds. Critognatos had watched the poor abandoned souls beginning to eat those among them who had died of exposure or hunger or illness, and had wisely kept his opinion to himself at the looks of sick hatred Cavarinos shot him, though the knowing half-smile on Critognatos’ face spoke clearly of his view of the matter.
But now was not the time to dwell on those poor lost souls and what had been done to them by a foreign force encamped in their city. Food was still becoming all the more scarce, and every day the besieged warriors watched the horizon and waited, desperately.
Too much to hope. But then, what other reason could the Romans have for standing to and pulling their force within their walls e
ntirely? He watched, tense, expectant, trembling slightly.
Cavarinos almost cried as the first wave of horsemen appeared among the trees atop the peaks known locally as Dead Men’s Mountains, beyond the plain and the Roman fortifications crossing it. In a matter of heartbeats, the hillside was flooded with horsemen, gathering like a swarm of ants. The reinforcements!
Even as the cheer went up from the watching army on the walls above him, Cavarinos watched the cavalry moving across the range of hills on some unknown set of orders. Into the gaps that opened came the warriors on foot, filling the hillside with a mass of tiny dark figures. Small groups of horse moved among them, presumably the commanders and nobles. Lucterius would be there somewhere, the hero of the hour to the beleaguered men of Vercingetorix’s army.
His eyes slid, involuntary, back to the sad figures of the starving Mandubians on the slope below. Amid the elation of the besieged, the black spot that corroded the soul was the knowledge that no matter how many men had gathered on that hill, none of it would do the Mandubian refugees any good. Indeed, the moment the reserves made a move to the outer Roman walls, Vercingetorix would order an attack on the inner defences and those people would be little more than an obstacle, pushed out of the way or simply cut down by the army who had supposedly come to free the tribes from oppression.
Curse you Fronto, for not letting the people go. His fingers brushed the pouch that contained the curse tablet. Of course, he knew why the Romans had not done so. Any astute, if cold-blooded, general would have done the same. Somewhere in his heart he hoped that the Romans had at least argued over it before Caesar had essentially condemned them to death. Well, Caesar and Vercingetorix between them, anyway.
Tomorrow there would be a battle.
Not a foray, or a skirmish. Not a cavalry engagement on the move. Nothing like that. Now, Vercingetorix knew he had the numbers. He would not be able to move until the relief force did, but he would be ready to attack immediately thereafter. Hopefully the battle would easily fall in their favour. If so, it might conceivably be the last battle.
Cavarinos reached up to his chest and gripped the dangling figure of Fortuna, the irony of calling upon a Roman god for their destruction not lost upon him.
Chapter 19
Lucterius stared at the relief army’s commander with wide, disbelieving eyes.
‘You cannot be serious?’
‘I am most serious,’ Commius replied, his face stolid and straight. ‘I have seen the might of Rome first-hand many times and if they are to be defeated they must be taken by surprise. Think back on the few times the Romans have suffered in our lands, Lucterius… most recently at Gergovia where your insane charge and the mix-up with the Aedui cavalry led to their defeat. The destruction of Sabinus and Cotta’s legion two years ago by Ambiorix’s surprise attack. Even the battles when the Romans first encountered the Belgae… the Nervii almost finished Caesar by springing a trap. Not once have the Romans lost a fight in our lands when they were prepared for it.’
Lucterius ground his teeth in the silence. Nothing he could say would refute those facts for what they were: the plain truth. And yet to do nothing was to lose anyway. Beside him, Molacos, his nephew and second in command glowered, his already skeletal face twisted into a rictus mask.
‘What do you intend then, might I ask?’
Commius shrugged as he shot a faintly annoyed glance at the outspoken Cadurci chief. ‘We simply cannot attack those defences. We will lose, and with us all hope for the tribes will die. No; an attack is out of the question. What we must do is starve the Romans. They will have supplies within their lines, but only a finite supply, and if they send out foraging units… well, those we can defeat. We will besiege Caesar. We have adequate numbers to harry them if they sortie, and if they choose to come out in force to deal with us, the army in Alesia will be able to attack from the rear. But unless the Romans leave those defences in force, we will wait and let them die of hunger.’
The Cadurci chieftain felt the faint trembles of anger and fought to control his temper, keeping his voice controlled and level. ‘I was in the oppidum before I came to Bibracte, and the Mandubii had inadequate supplies in storage even for their own town. If you starve the Romans, the army in the oppidum will die first, and you cannot waste eighty thousand of the best men the tribes have to offer; men who have already been tried and tested against Caesar this summer.’
‘We have no other choice, Lucterius!’ snapped Commius. ‘I will not commit to a suicide attack on those defences. Now stop pestering me and see to the quartering of your men.’
With a last glare of loathing at the army’s leader, Lucterius turned his horse and trotted off across the lush grass, the late evening sun gleaming between the trees atop the hill - a sun currently bathing the town of Alesia across the plain in its last golden rays. The Cadurci and Arverni, both serving under his command, were busy making camp in a position with a good view of the oppidum and the Roman siege works some half mile to the north. In the midst of the activity, his second-in-command, Molacos, was busy honing a gleaming blade with his whetstone. This newly-appointed infantry commander was one of the best in the army and a man Lucterius knew of old. A hunter by trade, he was as sharp and accurate as an arrow, as quiet and deadly as a snake. He also was loyal to the hilt.
If anyone could do it, it was Molacos.
Lucterius slipped from the saddle, tied his horse to one of the hastily-erected hitching posts, and wandered over to the Cadurci hunter, stepping close and speaking in low, hushed, tones.
‘Our illustrious leader will not attack the Romans.’
Molacos simply spat on the ground, his face twisting beyond its normal sour grimace at the news.
‘Precisely. The leaders here are largely a credulous lot and they’ve been put off my command by the Aedui. As long as Commius is in charge they will listen to him and there’s nothing we can do. If we want to act, we must change things.’
‘You wish me to kill Commius?’ murmured the hunter, running his finger down the blade’s edge with a hint of satisfaction.
‘No. It may come to that, of course, but I do not think that will help our cause at the moment. I need you to get past the Romans and tell Vercingetorix of the problem. His should be the decision. He is our king, after all.’
The hunter nodded and put away his whetstone, sheathing his blade with an air of regret.
* * * * *
Cavarinos reached the rampart top above the oppidum’s north-west gate and peered down into the darkness. Irritably he removed his cloak and draped it over the wall. The temperature this evening was troublesome, not quite warm enough for a cloak, but with enough of a bite to chill a man in just a tunic.
‘What are they up to?’
The warrior who had called him to the parapet creased his brow. ‘A scout or a hunter, perhaps? They have scouts patrolling from time to time, and foragers across the lowest slopes.’
Cavarinos nodded. He’d seen the Romans’ auxiliary cavalry - good men of the tribes fighting for the enemy - ranging around the flat ground inside the defences once or twice. Far from a constant presence, they were simply small units of half a dozen men who did circuits of the oppidum every now and then before returning to their fortifications. Additionally, both legionaries and auxiliaries would range inside the lines hunting rabbits and birds, and on very fortuitous occasions a boar or young deer. But none of them - scouts or foragers - had yet had the temerity to advance up the slope towards the Gallic army.
Yet this man was coming mysteriously close to the walls.
‘Go and inform the king,’ he said to the warrior. ‘Ask he and Vergasillaunus to join me.’
As the warrior jogged off to the nearby house that had been requisitioned by Vercingetorix, Cavarinos watched the figure with interest. The man wore drab, dark clothes in the Gallic fashion as well as a brown wool cloak. A bow jutted from one shoulder, confirming his role as a hunter. He was brazenly striding up towards the walls, still. Along the
parapet, half a dozen of the defenders plucked arrows from their stock and nocked them, raising their bows in readiness but leaving a little slack in the string until the last moment.
Long heartbeats passed as the man struggled with the steeper section of the slope, the bare rock showing through the scrub grass and making the approach treacherous. Presently, Vercingetorix and his cousin arrived and climbed to the gate top, the king’s temporary residence having been selected specifically to be close to the western promontory for convenience and speed. Cavarinos bowed his head in greeting.
‘My king.’
‘What do we have here?’ mused Vercingetorix as he looked down at the figure, now close to the walls and in clear, plain sight.
‘Auxiliary huntsman by the looks of it,’ replied Vergasillaunus, and the three commanders stood in silence at the parapet and watched the figure reach the level grass twenty paces from the rampart and stop, hands on his hips as he heaved air into his straining lungs. ‘Pretty one, isn’t he?’
‘Who are you?’ Vercingetorix called in a clear, commanding voice, the squeaking of bats adding counterpoint.
‘I am Molacos, chosen man of the Cadurci,’ the hunter growled, his rictus face dark.
The Cadurci?
‘And how come you to be standing here thus?’
Molacos shrugged back the dark cloak and indicated the bow at his shoulder. ‘The only route through the fortifications I could find was to slip among their foragers out on the plains and then join those moving inside the walls. With the arrival of the relief force, the Romans are doing all they can to bring in final extra supplies of meat, and their control over the auxiliary levy is less secure than it should be in the circumstances.’
The Great Revolt Page 44
