He rode sedately through the ranks of cavalry almost to the dais upon which Caesar sat. Then he dismounted, removed the baldric holding his sword, unhooked the dagger from his belt, walked forward and deposited them on the edge of the dais. He stepped back a little, folded his feet and sat cross-legged upon the ground. Off came the crown; Vercingetorix bowed his bare head in submission.
Biturgo and Daderax, already deprived of their weapons, followed their king’s example.
All this happened in the midst of a huge silence; hardly a breath was drawn. Then someone in a tower let out a shriek of joy and the ovation began, went on and on.
Caesar sat without moving a muscle, his face serious and intent, his eyes upon Vercingetorix. When the cheering died down he nodded to Aulus Hirtius, also togate; Hirtius, a scroll in his hand, stepped down from the dais. A scribe hidden behind the marshals hurried forward with pen, ink and a foot-high wooden table. From which Vercingetorix deduced that had he not sat upon the ground, the Romans would have compelled him to kneel to sign this submission. As it was he simply reached out, dipped the pen in the ink, wiped its nib on the side of the well to indicate that he was properly schooled, and signed his submission where Hirtius indicated. The scribe sprinkled sand, shook it off, rolled up the single piece of paper and handed it to Hirtius, who then returned to his place on the dais.
Only then did Caesar rise to his feet. He jumped off the little dais easily and walked to Vercingetorix, right hand extended to help him up.
Vercingetorix took it and uncoiled. Daderax and Biturgo got up without assistance.
“A noble struggle with a good battle at its end,” said Caesar, drawing the King of Gaul toward the place where a gap had been hewn in the Roman fortifications.
“Is my cousin Critognatus a prisoner?” asked Vercingetorix.
“No, he’s dead. We found him on the field.”
“Who else is dead?”
“Sedulius of the Lemovices.”
“Who has been taken prisoner?”
“Your cousin Vercassivellaunus. Eporedorix and Cotus of the Aedui. Most of the relief army got away; my men were too spent to pursue them. Gutruatus, Viridomarus, Drappes, Teutomarus, others.”
“What will you do to them?”
“Titus Labienus informs me that all the tribes fled in the direction of their own lands. The army broke up into tribes the moment it was over the hill. I don’t intend to punish any tribe which goes home and settles down peacefully,” said Caesar. “Of course Gutruatus will have to answer for Cenabum, and Drappes for the Senones. I will take Biturgo into custody.”
He stopped and looked at the other two Gauls, who approached. “Daderax, you may return to your citadel and keep those among the warriors who are Mandubii. A treaty will be drawn up before I leave, and you will be required to sign it. Provided you adhere to its letter, no further reprisals will be exacted. You may take some of your men and see what you can find in the camp of the relief army to feed your people. I’ve taken the booty and what food I need already, but there’s food left there. Those men who belong to the Arverni or the Bituriges can depart for their homelands. Biturgo, you are my prisoner.”
Daderax walked forward and went down on his left knee to Vercingetorix; he embraced Biturgo, kissed him on the lips in the Gallic manner, then turned and walked back to the men gathered beyond the trench.
“What happens to Biturgo and me?” asked Vercingetorix.
“Tomorrow you’ll start the journey to Italia,” said Caesar. “You’ll wait there until I hold my triumph.”
“During which we will all die.”
“No, that’s not our custom. You will die, Vercingetorix. Biturgo won’t. Vercassivellaunus won’t, nor Eporedorix. Cotus may. Gutruatus will; he massacred Roman citizens, as did Cotus. Litaviccus certainly will.”
“If you capture Gutruatus or Litaviccus.”
“True. You’ll all walk in my triumph, but only the kings and the butchers will die. The rest will be sent home.”
Vercingetorix smiled, his face white, dark blue eyes huge and very sad. “I hope it won’t be long before you triumph. My bones don’t like dungeons.”
“Dungeons?” Caesar stopped walking to look at him. “Rome has no dungeons, Vercingetorix. There’s a fallen-down old jail in an abandoned quarry, the Lautumiae, where we put people for a day or two, but there’s nothing to prevent their walking out unless we chain them, which is extremely rare.” He frowned. “The last time we chained a man he was murdered in the night.”
“Vettius the informer, while you were consul,” said the captured King instantly.
“Very good! No, you will be housed in extreme comfort in a fortress town like Corfinium, Asculum Picentum, Praenestae, Norba. There are many of them. No two of you will be in the same town, nor will any of you know where the others are. You’ll have the run of a good garden and will be permitted to go riding under escort.”
“So you treat us like honored guests, then strangle us.”
“The whole idea of the triumphal parade,” said Caesar, “is to show the citizens of Rome how mighty is her army and the men who command her army. How appalling, to display some half-starved, beaten, dirty and unimpressive prisoner stumbling along in chains! That would defeat the purpose of the triumph. You’ll walk clad in all your best regalia, looking every inch a king and the leader of a great people who almost defeated us. Your health and your well-being, Vercingetorix, are of paramount importance to me. The Treasury will inventory your jewels—including your crown—and take them from you, but they will be returned to you before you walk in my triumph. At the foot of the Forum Romanum you will be led aside and conducted to the only true dungeon Rome possesses, the Tullianum. Which is a tiny structure used for the ritual of execution, not to house a prisoner. I’ll send to Gergovia for all your clothes and any belongings you’d like to take with you.”
“Including my wife?”
“Of course, if you wish it. There will be women aplenty, but if you want your wife, you shall have her.”
“I would like my wife. And my youngest child.”
“Of course. A boy or a girl?”
“A boy. Celtillus.”
“He will be educated in Italia, you realize that.”
“Yes.” Vercingetorix wet his lips. “I go tomorrow? Isn’t that very soon?”
“Soon, but wiser. No one will have time to organize a rescue. Once you reach Italia, rescue is out of the question. So is escape. It isn’t necessary to imprison you, Vercingetorix. Your alien appearance and your language difficulties will keep you safe.”
“I might learn Latin and escape in disguise.”
Caesar laughed. “You might. But don’t count on it. What we will do is weld that exquisite golden torc around your neck. Not a prisoner’s collar of the kind they use in the East, but it will brand you more surely than any prisoner’s collar could.”
Trebonius, Decimus Brutus and Mark Antony walked some paces behind; the campaign had drawn them together, despite the manifest differences in their characters. Antony and Decimus Brutus knew each other from the Clodius Club, but Trebonius was somewhat older, very much less wellborn. To Trebonius they were a breath of fresh air, for he had been in the field with Caesar for so long, it seemed, that the older legates had all the vivacity and appeal of grandfathers. Antony and Decimus Brutus were like very attractive, naughty little boys.
“What a day for Caesar,” said Decimus Brutus.
“Monumental,” said Trebonius dryly. “I mean that literally. He’s bound to put the whole scene on a float at his triumph.”
“Oh, but he’s unique!” laughed Antony. “Did you ever see anyone who could be so royal? It’s in his bones, I suppose. The Julii Caesares make the Ptolemies of Egypt look like parvenus.”
“I would wish,” said Decimus Brutus thoughtfully, “that a day like today could happen to me, but it won’t, you know. It won’t happen to any of us.”
“I don’t see why not,” said Antony indignantly; he
disliked anyone’s puncturing his dreams of coming glory.
“Antonius, you’re a wonder to behold, you have been for years! But you’re a gladiator, not the October Horse,” said Decimus Brutus. “Thank, man, think! There’s no one like him. There never has been and there never will be.”
“I wouldn’t call Marius or Sulla sluggards,” said Antony.
“Marius was a New Man; he didn’t have the blood. Sulla had the blood, but he wasn’t natural. I mean that in every way. He drank, he liked little boys, he had to learn to general troops because it wasn’t in his veins. Whereas Caesar has no flaws. No weaknesses you can slip a thin dagger into and work the plates apart, so to speak. He doesn’t drink wine, so his tongue never runs away with him. When he says some outrageous thing he intends to do, you know in his case it’s not impossible. You called him unique, Antonius, and you were right. Don’t recant because you dream of outstripping him—it’s not realistic. None of us will. So why exhaust ourselves trying? Leave aside the genius, and you still have to contend with a phenomenon I for one have never plumbed—the love affair between him and his soldiers. We’ll never match that in a thousand years. No, not you either, Antonius, so shut your mouth. You have a bit of it, but nowhere near all of it. He does, and today is the proof!” said Decimus Brutus fiercely.
“It won’t go down well in Rome,” said Trebonius. “He’s just eclipsed Pompeius Magnus. I predict that our consul without a colleague will detest that.”
“Eclipsed Pompeius?” asked Antony. “Today? I don’t see how, Trebonius. Gaul’s a big job, but Pompeius conquered the East. He has kings in his clientele.”
“True. But think, Antonius, think! At least half of Rome believes that it was Lucullus did all the hard work in the East, that Pompeius simply strolled in when the hard work was over and took all the credit. No one can say that about Caesar in Gaul. And which story will Rome believe, that Tigranes prostrated himself before Pompeius, or that Vercingetorix hunkered down in the dust at Caesar’s feet? Quintus Cicero will be writing that scene to his big brother this moment—Pompeius rests on more specious evidence. Who walked in Pompeius’s triumphs? Certainly not a Vercingetorix!”
“You’re right, Trebonius,” said Decimus Brutus. “Today will ensure that Caesar becomes the First Man in Rome.”
“The boni won’t let that happen,” said Antony jealously.
“I hope they have the sense to let it,” said Trebonius. He looked at Decimus Brutus. “Haven’t you noticed the change, Decimus? He’s not more royal, but he is more autocratic. And dignitas is an obsession! He cares more about his personal share of public worth and standing than anyone I’ve ever read about in the history books. More than Scipio Africanus or even Scipio Aemilianus. I don’t think there are any lengths to which Caesar wouldn’t go to defend his dignitas. I dread the boni’s trying! They’re such complacent couch generals—they read his dispatches and they sniff with contempt, sure he’s embroidered them. Well, in some ways he does. But not in the only way which matters—his record of victories. You and I have been with the man through thick and thin, Decimus. The boni don’t know what we know. Once Caesar’s got the bit between his teeth, nothing will stop him. The will in the man is incredible. And if the boni try to cast him down, he’ll pile Pelion on top of Ossa to stop them.”
“A worry,” said Decimus Brutus, frowning.
“Do you think,” asked Antony plaintively, “that tonight the Old Man will let us have a jug or two of wine?”
4
It was Cathbad responsible for the change in Litaviccus. He had gone to the muster at Carnutum convinced that his strategy was right: assist Vercingetorix to throw the Romans out of Gaul, then start moving in on his throne. An Aeduan to bow and scrape before an Arvernian? A yokel from the mountains who spoke neither Latin nor Greek, who could pretend literacy by making his mark on a piece of paper he couldn’t read? Who would have to lean on the Druids in all true matters of state? What a king for Gaul! He took the Aedui to the muster nonetheless, and there found Cotus, Eporedorix and Viridomarus with a few more Aedui troopers. The tribes were coming in, but very, very slowly; even after the news was shouted that Vercingetorix was marooned inside Alesia, the tribes were slow. Gutruatus and Cathbad struggled manfully to speed things up, but Commius and the Belgae hadn’t come, and this one, and that one…. Surus turned up with the Ambarri.
A great Aeduan noble (the Ambarri belonged to the Aedui), Surus was the only one Litaviccus could bear to greet when he arrived; Cotus was busy thoroughly indoctrinating Eporedorix and Viridomarus, who still shivered in their shoes at the thought of Roman vengeance should anything go wrong.
“I ask you, Surus, why would a man of Cotus’s standing even worry his head about putting some iron into the backbone of an upstart like Viridomarus? Caesar’s creature!”
They were walking between the trees of Carnutum itself, well away from the open plain where the muster was assembling.
“Cotus would do anything to irritate Convictolavus.”
“Who stayed safe at home, I see!” sneered Litaviccus.
“Convictolavus pleaded that he had to guard our own lands, as he is the oldest among us,” said Surus.
“Some would say too old. As can be said about Cotus.”
“Just before I left Cabillonum I heard that the army we were ordered to send to subdue the Allobroges has got nowhere.”
Litaviccus tensed. “My brother?”
“To the best of our knowledge, Valetiacus is unscathed. So is his army. The Allobroges chose not to fight in the open; they simply defended their borders in the Roman way.” Surus stroked his luxuriant sand-colored moustach, cleared his throat. “I’m not happy, Litaviccus,” he finally said.
“Oh?”
“I agree that it’s time the Aedui were something more in the scheme of things than Rome’s puppet, otherwise I wouldn’t be here any more than you would. But how, when we’re all so different from each other, can we ever hope to be united in the way our new King Vercingetorix is preaching? We’re not all equal! What Celt doesn’t spit on the Belgae? And how can the Celtae of Aquitania, those little dark runts, aspire to stand alongside an Aeduan? I think it’s a very clever idea to unite the country, yes, but under the right circumstances. All of us Gauls, but some of us better Gauls. Is a Parisian boatman the equal of an Aeduan horseman?”
“No, he’s not,” said Litaviccus. “That’s why it’s going to be King Litaviccus, not King Vercingetorix.”
“Oh, I see!” Surus smiled. Then the smile faded. “I have terrible misgivings about Alesia. After all Vercingetorix’s homilies about not letting ourselves get shut up inside our strongholds, there’s Vercingetorix shut up inside Alesia. He’s the wrong man to be king right now, Litaviccus.”
“Yes, I know what you’re saying, Surus.”
“The Aedui are committed; we can’t go back. Caesar is aware we’ve gone over to Vercingetorix’s side. It’s impossible to credit that Caesar has the remotest chance to beat us when we arrive to relieve Alesia. Yet I still have terrible misgivings! What if we’ve ruined ourselves and our people for nothing?”
Litaviccus shivered. “We can’t let it be for nothing, Sums, we can’t! I’m a marked man. The only way out of this is for me to take the kingship from Vercingetorix after Caesar is beaten. If the roster is filled, over three hundred thousand of us will march to Alesia. We must assume that Vercingetorix will win—or rather, that Vercingetorix will be hauled out of Alesia in one piece and with his kingdom intact. That alone is a disgrace, that alone gives me a platform to challenge him. So let us think only of taking the throne off that wretched, illiterate Arvernian!”
“Yes, that’s what we must think about,” said Surus, but not with conviction.
They walked in silence, feet in their soft leather riding shoes making no sound on the thick carpet of moss which had grown over the ancient stone path to the grove of Dagda. Wooden statues of long-faced godheads peered between the tree trunks, squatted grotesquely with penise
s touching the ground.
The voice seemed suddenly to emerge from a huge oak ahead of them, so venerable and old that the path, made after its birth, divided and went around it. Cathbad’s voice.
“Vercingetorix is going to prove impossible to control after we win at Alesia,” Cathbad’s voice was saying.
The voice of Gutruatus answered. “I’ve known that for quite some time, Cathbad.”
Litaviccus put a hand on Surus’s arm, stopped him. The two Aedui stood on the other side of the oak and listened.
“He’s young and impetuous, but the germ of autocracy is there. I fear he won’t defer to the Druids once he grasps the crown with both hands, and that can’t be allowed to happen. The Druids are the only ones who can govern a united Gaul. Knowledge rests in their care. They make the laws, they supervise the laws, they sit in judgement. I’ve been thinking about it a great deal since I forced the thanes to make him King of Gaul. It’s the right way to start, but the King of Gaul should be a warrior figurehead, not an autocrat who will gradually gather all the powers of government to himself. And that is what I fear will happen after Alesia, Gutruatus.”
“He’s not a Carnute, Cathbad.”
“It will start by his elevating the Arvernian Druids to the Druidic council. The power of the Carnute Druids will wane.”
“We Carnutes will be ruled by Arvernians in all ways,” said Gutruatus.
“Which can’t be allowed to happen.”
“I agree. The King of Gaul must be a warrior figurehead. And he should be a Carnute.”
“Litaviccus thinks the King of Gaul should be an Aeduan,” said Cathbad dryly.
Gutruatus snorted. “Litaviccus, Litaviccus! He’s a snake. Part the long grass and there he is. I’ll have to part his hair with my sword.”
“In time, Gutruatus, in time. First things first, and first is the defeat of Rome. Second is Vercingetorix, who will emerge from Alesia a hero. Therefore he must die a hero’s death, the kind of death no Arvernian— or Aeduan!—will be able to say came at the hands of a fellow Gaul. We’re between Beltine and Lugnasad at the moment. Samhain is still a long way off. So—Samhain. Perhaps we can find a special role for the new King of Gaul to play at the beginning of the Dark Months, when the harvest is all in and the people are assembled to endure the Chaos of the Souls and ask that next year’s seed be blessed. Yes, here at Carnutum during Samhain… Maybe the new King of Gaul will disappear into a fiery mist, or be seen sailing the Liger into the west in a great swan boat. Vercingetorix must remain a hero, but become a myth.”
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