Rome: Fury of the Legion (Sword of the Legion Series)

by R. Cameron Cooke

  Only the Aeduan cohort lingered, guarding the rear and ensuring no Belgae war bands shadowed the Romans. After waiting several hours, the Aeduans also entered the road, but the head of their column turned in the opposite direction from that of the legions, to start the long journey back to their own lands.

  From his mount, Divitiacus watched as the final ranks of his spearmen disappeared around a bend on the road south. He would catch up with them later. For now, he had chosen to stay behind. There was some unfinished business requiring his attention.

  It was hard to imagine that the trampled, barren plain that lay before him once held forty thousand men and several thousand beasts – enough to inhabit a large town. All that remained now were burning piles of broken wheels and axles, smoking outlines of palisades, and mounds of fresh earth covering trenches and latrines. A few camp followers – or were they local peasants, it was impossible to tell which – ignored him as they sifted through the rubbish looking for anything of value the soldiers might have left behind. How many of them would also joyfully plunder the dead after a battle, not caring which side had won?

  Just then, a horseman appeared from the edge of the woods. It was one of Divitiacus’s men. Upon seeing his chieftain, the man galloped his mount over to him. The man was wiry, with sunken cheeks, but he had the eyes of a warrior and handled his horse like an extension of his own body.

  “My lord!” he said, hailing Divitiacus.

  “Did you find anything, Adalbert?”

  “I did, my lord. You had best come see for yourself.”

  Divitiacus nodded and followed the man’s lead. Adalbert was his ablest scout, and had the eyes of a hawk, and senses acute as those of a wolf. He led the chieftain back into the forest from which he had come, well off of the road and following no path that Divitiacus could make out. They continued into the thick of the forest until they were several hundred paces away from the road.

  Earlier in the day, Divitiacus had heard the stories about the disappearance of the Scythian merchant. The merchant’s retainers were tight-lipped as always, and performed the routine of packing their master’s tents and carts as if he would return at any moment. Though the merchant’s people said little, rumor had it that he had gone alone to a nearby village the previous evening to negotiate the sale of a stash of unrefined ore known to be there. Several in the army had expressed concerns at the Scythian’s absence, especially those who had made deals with the merchant for the sale of anticipated plunder, but the hustle of breaking camp that morning prevented them from looking into the matter further, and everyone assumed the merchant would simply catch up with the column once his business in the village was concluded.

  Personally, Divitiacus didn’t care if the fool had been devoured by a bear in the middle of the night. He had never before stooped to doing business with that eastern scum, and never intended to. He would, in fact, have not given the matter a second thought, and would at this very moment be marching south with the rest of his men, had he not been approached in the dark hours of the morning by a very concerned-looking centurion asking if he knew of the legionary Lucius Domitius’s whereabouts. It was the same centurion that Lucius had saved by running to his side in the thick of the skirmish – the one called Vitalis. This was also the man Lucius had said betrayed him and had been part of the conspiracy with Piso and Amelius. That’s why Divitiacus was stunned to see such concern on the officer’s face.

  “He missed muster with the rest of the century, my lord,” Vitalis had said. “No one’s seen him since last night. I have to mark him down as deserted, but I don’t want to do that.”

  Divitiacus was curious as to why this man would not be delighted at such a prospect, since it might lead to Lucius’s punishment or execution. Isn’t that what he and his cronies wanted?

  Vitalis continued. “Some of his mates said he went to meet with that Scythian bastard last night, and never came back.” Vitalis glanced over his shoulder at the assembling legions, and seemed somewhat self-conscious. “He’s been a comrade of mine for a long time. I noticed you had taken an interest in him, my lord. I don’t know what he told you, but I never wished him harm. Things happened that were out of my control. There are many things that I would do differently. Well, I can’t go looking for him, and I can’t send any of my lads either, with the army getting on the march and all.”

  “Why do you come to me, centurion?”

  Vitalis had hesitated before saying, “I was wondering if you might send some of your men to…well, it isn’t right for me to ask you this, but – ”

  “Say no more,” Divitiacus had interrupted him with a raised hand. “I will look into it. Tell no one of this.”

  Appearing torn by guilt, Vitalis had expressed his thanks and had jaunted off back to the legion, leaving Divitiacus wondering if Lucius Domitius had finally fallen victim to Senator Valens. If he had, then obviously, the centurion was not a party to it.

  Divitiacus suspected he would have better luck locating the Scythian, since he was well-known throughout the camp, and if he found the Scythian, then perhaps he would also find Lucius. With this in mind, he had spent most of the morning asking around, everyone from tribunes to traders, but at every turn he had come up with nothing. Frustrated, he had finally sent Adalbert to ride to the village to see if the merchant was there, or if the villagers knew anything of his or Lucius’s whereabouts.

  Now, hours later, as Divitiacus followed Adalbert’s mount weaving through the thickening trees, he suspected that errand had also turned up nothing.

  “I assume the merchant was not in the village?” he asked.

  “Not in the village, no,” the scout replied, and then brought his mount to an abrupt halt. He pointed to a small mound of earth that appeared to have been freshly made. Something had been buried there recently but was now only half-covered. Divitiacus’s eyes then registered the bluish hand sticking out of the mound. Several strips of orange silk, stained with blood, were strewn nearby.

  “I might not have found him, if the night wolves hadn’t dug him up and left him like that,” Adalbert said.

  “The Scythian?” Divitiacus guessed.

  Adalbert nodded. “Part of him, anyway.”

  “Any sign of the legionary?”

  “No, but I did find other tracks. There were several men here last night – three, by my count, other than the Scythian. Your man could have been among them. All three wore Roman boots. Two had fairly new soles and hobnails. The other man’s were frayed. Worn down to almost nothing.”

  “The boots of an infantryman.”

  “Probably,” Adalbert nodded. “I found a large pool of dried blood over there.” The scout pointed to a spot a few paces away. “I suspect that’s where they killed the Scythian.”

  “Or, that’s where Lucius Domitius killed him.”

  Adalbert shrugged, and then pointed off into the forest. “Whoever killed him, they left on horseback in that direction.”

  Divitiacus considered for a moment. Lucius Domitius had met with the Scythian last night, he had no doubt of that. The disappearance of the legionary could not be mere coincidence. The fact that Lucius’s body was nowhere to be found meant that he was possibly still alive. Had this merely been a deal gone badly, in which the Scythian had been killed and Lucius had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, or was there more to it? The tracks led north. If there were Romans here last night, and two of them were either nobles or cavalry, why would they have headed north towards the Nervii lands, instead of back to the camp? A pestering thought began to creep over Divitiacus. Was Senator Valens somehow involved in this? Was this further proof that he was in communications with the Belgae? Divitiacus had seen Valens and the portly senator riding with Caesar that morning, as the army pulled out. The two senators had been smiling and chatting cordially with the proconsul while the entourages of all three men followed close behind. At the time, Divitiacus had noted that Valens’s staff seemed somewhat diminished. Only now, upon reflection,
did it occur to him that the four nobles – the ones he had seen hanging on the senator’s heels all week, the ones conspicuous in their new cloaks and glimmering breastplates, fresh from Rome – had not all been present. Two of the nobles had not been there.

  “Adalbert,” Divitiacus said after a few more moments of internal deliberation. “Can you track this group?”

  The scout grinned. “Like following a herd of farting pigs, my lord.”

  “Good. Then we will join our troops later, Adalbert. We will follow these tracks, for the time being, and see where they lead us.”

  As he followed Adalbert’s lead, Divitiacus unconsciously rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. He was fairly certain he knew exactly where the tracks would lead.

  XIV

  The last few hours – or were they days – Lucius had drifted in and out of consciousness. He was moving, always moving, and one moment he had the wherewithal to realize that he was slung over the back of a horse like a sack of grain, with his hands and feet bound. Every step of the horse sent a pounding pain through his head. The blood vessels around his eyes bulged from hanging in that position for so long. He heard at least two men chatting jovially in Latin. They talked about trivial things, as if they were on their way to market. There was another time when the gait of the horse stopped, and for once the pain in his head diminished such that he was able to sense the dried blood mingled with his close-cropped hair. He heard voices again, but there were new voices as well, and they spoke in a mix of Latin, Celtic, and Gaulish. Craning his head ever so slightly that he might not be seen to be awake, Lucius saw a cluster of men several paces away, dismounted and talking formally. Two of them were Roman nobles, judging from their costly cloaks and armor, and they appeared to be bargaining with three other bearded men, almost certainly Belgae, dressed in mail and wearing an assortment of bronze helmets.

  Lucius got the sense that he was far from camp, because both parties spoke as though they were not concerned about being overheard. From where he hung, he could hear the conversation clearly.

  "...is that understood, now?" one of the Romans said in the Celtic tongue, of which Lucius understood a little. "The legions will march in column, each separated by the baggage train of the one before it. You are to wait in the forest opposite the river ford. When the first legion arrives, do nothing. Allow it to deploy on the river bank. When the baggage comes into view, fall on the single legion with your full force.”

  “What if the legion does not deploy?” asked one of the Belgae, a powerfully built gray-haired man who appeared to be a chieftain. “What if it keeps marching and crosses the river?”

  “There is little chance of that,” the Roman said dismissively. “But, if it does, then all the better. You will be in a better position to annihilate it. That is the key. The first legion must be destroyed to send a panic into the others.”

  “Will there be vedettes?”

  “Of course there will be vedettes. What army marches through an enemy country without vedettes? Find some way to distract them, but you must not engage them with your main body. If you do, the ambush will fail.”

  The chieftain mumbled something, as if he was not fully in agreement with the plan, and then finally spoke again loud enough that Lucius could hear. "I still question the wisdom of attacking now. The Aduatuci have not yet joined us. That’s fifteen thousand spears I will not have.”

  “It cannot be helped, My Lord Boduognatus,” the Roman said without much conviction. “The senator has done all he could. There can be no further delays. Caesar is marching north rapidly. The rest is up to you. If you retreat inside your oppida now, you will be isolated and annihilated piecemeal. But if you strike Caesar first, with your full force, while you have the advantage – “

  “Advantage? Against eight legions?” the chieftain said incredulously. Apparently he was the one the Roman had addressed as Lord Boduognatus. “What kind of wine did the senator bring with him from Rome? For I think he has been drinking quite a lot of it."

  Boduognatus chuckled at his own jest, as did the warriors with him.

  “You will not be facing eight legions,” the Roman said with forced patience. “Only one - or two at the most. You have more than enough men for that. If you annihilate the first two, the rest will flee. The senator will see to that."

  “And Caesar will just stand by and do nothing while we slice up the front of his column?” Boduognatus said skeptically. “Caesar is known for pulling victory out of defeat."

  "You give him far too much credit, I think. His deputy is the real mind behind the so-called genius.”

  “Labienus?”

  “Yes.” The Roman nodded. “And Senator Valens will ensure that Labienus is far in the rear when you attack."

  "And what of Caesar?"

  "Do not concern yourself with him!” the Roman said curtly. “He will be taken care of.”

  “Killed?”

  “Killed in battle, or assassinated. Either way, he will not survive.”

  “Senator Valens has thought of everything.”

  “Yes, he has.” The Roman agreed condescendingly. “Caesar will die, and Senator Valens will assume command of the army. The senator will then withdraw the remaining legions to the Aeduan borders, as we have agreed, and you will have your victory."

  So, that was it, thought Lucius through the cobwebs of his brain. The two Roman men were henchmen of Valens, and the senator was conspiring with the enemy. Lucius was not surprised by the revelation, only by his own foolishness for believing that Valens had come all the way to the Belgic lands just to eliminate him. That night, after arriving in camp, when Lucius had met with Divitiacus, the Aeduan chieftain had said as much. Divitiacus suspected the plot to kill Lucius was just a side-show in a much broader and deeper conspiracy, but Lucius had not believed it. Now, there was no doubting the senator’s true intentions. In his lust for power, he had stooped to making deals with the Belgae, and the price would be the lives of Caesar and several thousand legionaries.

  "How can I be sure that the senator will not change his mind?” Boduognatus asked after considering Valens’s henchman’s last statement. “What’s to stop him from turning the rest of the army on me, once Caesar is dead?"

  "You have well over 50,000 spears, even without the Aduatuci.” The Roman said it as if the answer was obvious. “The senator is no fool. Besides, a Roman victory does not serve the senator’s purposes. He needs a defeat, one that will resound throughout the halls of Rome. Only a defeat will tarnish the auctoritas of Caesar and disgrace his followers. The proconsul has many clients back in Rome who would like nothing more than to come and finish the conquest their patron began. Making a martyr of Caesar will just prompt another like him to spring up in his place. Discredit him, and his followers will slink back into the holes from which they came. Do not worry. The senator will not betray you. He wants peace between our peoples. He wants what we all do – peace and fair trade between Rome and all Gallic and Belgic people.”

  The chieftain chuckled at that.

  The Roman seemed perturbed by his merriment. “You will attack as we have discussed! You will defeat Caesar’s army, and in so doing will make yourself king of all the Belgic tribes. You will be referred to as King Boduognatus of the Belgae.”

  “I like the sound of that,” the chieftain said light-heartedly.

  “Caesar will be dead, and the senator will see to it that no legions ever again set foot in the Belgic lands. Is that good enough for you?"

  Boduognatus shrugged, seeming to accept that. He jabbed a finger in Lucius’s direction. "And what of him?"

  "He is a gift," the Roman said plainly. "A token of the senator’s good will.”

  "The senator wants to get rid of him, eh?” The chieftain laughed. “Who is he?"

  "Merely a common legionary. He had the misfortune to cross Senator Valens. You need know nothing more. The senator has heard of the unique manner in which you dispose of your captives. This man has slain many Nervii by his
own hand, so let him be no exception."

  Lucius struggled to stay awake and listen to more. He had to think of something, some piece of information, anything he could use to bargain for his life, but he was finding it difficult to concentrate. The pain in his head was too great. He heard the men laughing as he slipped out of consciousness once again.

  XV

  The torches were arrayed in a large ring, their flames dancing in the brisk wind. Drums thumped in the night, and hundreds of war chiefs surrounded the ring of illumination, their painted faces contorted as they shouted wildly and slung curses at the bound and naked prisoners sitting in a row within the ring of flames. Many of the tribes were represented. It was an assembly of Belgic power that had not happened in the memory of any living man. The Nervii, the Viromandui, and the Atrebates had come, and they had come for war, united by blood, united in defiance of their common foe.