Conspiracy of Eagles mm-4

by S. J. A. Turney

  The duty centurion and a contubernium of his men stood nearby, watching the scene carefully.

  “If you really want to take it out on these ambassadors” Fronto muttered to Caesar, “all you have to do is open the doors and let those cavalrymen in. They’ll tear them to shreds by hand.”

  Caesar nodded.

  “I cannot deny it is tempting. But I want to speak to them first.”

  As they arrived, the duty centurion bellowed a command that opened up a path through the crowd. Caesar and his party of officers strode through. Labienus’ face, Fronto noted, showed a personal battle raging within, conflicting emotions fighting for control of him. The man was the army’s greatest advocate for peaceful solutions these days.

  Fronto had asked him about it one night in camp and Labienus’ eyes had taken on a haunted look. “Back when we fought the Belgae, Marcus” he had replied. “Women and children. Old men. So many. So needless. Just so that they couldn’t be enslaved. You never saw the piles of babies. It… it changes a man.”

  Fronto had tactfully pressed no further, but something that had happened to Labienus two years ago seemed to have knocked from him the will to conquer. In its place it had left a man who Fronto — truth be told — much preferred. The Labienus who served Caesar now was a thoughtful, peaceful and calm man. He would be a man Fronto would value as a friend in Puteoli. But to an army on campaign, all it did was make him less effective and possibly even dangerous to have along. Even now he fought his own demons at every turn.

  Labienus seemed to come to some decision and his face took on a stony impassiveness.

  At a word from Caesar, the man on each side of the gate set his pilum point-down in the turf and heaved the bar to one side, freeing the gate. Two other men immediately moved in with their javelins, keeping them levelled as the gate ground slowly open. The caution turned out to be somewhat unnecessary, given that the dozen prisoners sat at the far side of the enclosure, their arms encircling their knees.

  After the group of low-status warriors and peasants that had masqueraded as ambassadors yesterday to keep the officers busy, these men were clearly the real thing. Their weapons and armour had been stripped by the duty officer and his men upon their arrival, but their clothes were reminiscent of the high quality woollen garments worn by the Belgic nobles, and they were adorned with gold and bronze arm rings, torcs and finger rings.

  As Caesar strode first into the enclosure, waving aside the worried protests of the guards, the enemy ambassadors stood and bowed surprisingly deeply and deferentially.

  “Great Caesar.”

  The general said nothing, merely coming to a halt in the centre of the stockade, with his officers fanning out to either side.

  “Caesar, we have come to denounce a traitor in our own tribe and publically distance ourselves from the man who led an unauthorised attack on your army yesterday. If you will agree to hear us out and open talks with us, we are authorised to deliver this man to you for punishment.”

  An unpleasant, feral smile curved Caesar’s lip.

  “Fronto is right. You are relaxed and vital. You have not been in the saddle more than a few hours. I think your camp is less than twenty miles away; perhaps even ten.”

  The ambassadors frowned at the strange turn of conversation.

  Caesar turned to the duty centurion who had moved in with his men to join them. “Your sword please, centurion.”

  The officer obliged, withdrawing a well-tended and wickedly-sharp gladius with a personalised hilt bearing images of the Dioscuri carved in bone. Caesar reached across and took the handle with an appreciative gaze. “A nice weapon, centurion. I shall be careful not to damage it.”

  Everyone in the party accompanying the general had a fair idea of what was about to happen next. Labienus, Fronto noted, turned his face away.

  Caesar stepped forward, the sword hanging by his side, coming to a halt an arm’s-length away from the vocal diplomat. Without preamble or explanation, he lanced out with the blade, driving the point into the man’s stomach. The barbarian’s eyes widened in shock, but Caesar calmly turned the sword slightly and ripped it across to the other side of the man’s stomach, tearing the steel free at the furthest extent and raising it to look at the crimson blade.

  “It may, however, need a good clean, centurion.”

  The officer shrugged. “I have a man for that, general.”

  The barbarian stared down at the wide slash in his belly, his eyes wide with shock, fresh waves of horror and nausea assaulting him as he watched the first purple and pale coils of his intestines slipping out of the hole. Desperately, he grasped the loops and tried to prevent their escape, stuffing is own insides back through the jagged rent. Caesar watched with an interested frown as the man gradually went pale with the pain and effort and sank to his knees in tears, trying to contain his innards.

  The other eleven ambassadors had moved sharply forward at the attack, but the centurion’s men had stepped to meet them, javelins and swords levelled threateningly.

  “What is the meaning of this?” demanded one of the nobles in very strong Latin, though thick with some barbaric accent.

  Caesar glanced down at the man and then the blade in his hand, flexing his arm muscles as though preparing for another strike.

  “Sometimes” he said quietly, “people can assume that threats are merely empty, hollow things that are used to bargain with. I wanted you to be very well aware of the realism and accuracy of any threat I might level. I hope that this has made very clear just how little your very existence means to me and to what levels I am prepared to sink to achieve my aims.”

  There was a silence that spoke of frightened understanding.

  “Good. We have fallen foul of your trickery once and our cavalry paid a heavy price.”

  He stepped toward the man who had challenged his strike. The man backed a step away, but Caesar followed a pace and the man suddenly became aware that other soldiers had entered the stockade and lined the walls, surrounding them all.

  “Now” Caesar said calmly, “tell me the precise location of your camp.”

  The man frowned. “We are camped by the river near here.”

  “Not precise enough.” Caesar’s blade lanced out, cutting a slice from the man’s arm. The ambassador cried out in pain.

  “Oh shut up, man. I’ve suffered worse myself. Now tell me the precise location of your camp.”

  One of the other barbarians stepped forward. “Three hours ride at an easy pace, general Caesar. Follow the river and you will find the going easiest.”

  “And the traps most numerous, no doubt.” Caesar replied.

  “Traps, Caesar?”

  With a lightning-quick move, Caesar’s sword arm jerked up. The sharp tip of the blade sliced through the lightly-wounded ambassador’s neck just below his jawline, up through his mouth, shattering teeth, the point appearing through the man’s tongue as he opened his mouth to scream.

  “I want to know about the ambushes and traps you have set between here and there. You!” he barked at the man who had volunteered the information, ripping the blade out from his latest victim’s throat. “And you” he pointed the gore-slicked sword at a man who had cowered from the outset, shrinking back away from the violence. “You two will go with this man” he gestured at Priscus ”and you will tell him everything he wishes to know. The prefect is an astute man and will know instinctively if you lie to him. If he is satisfied that you have answered everything truthfully, he will return your mounts to you and you will be free to return to your people. That is the limit of my mercy.”

  The two men’s eyes took on a hungry desperation as Priscus gestured to them, four of the legionaries stepping out to join him in escorting them away. Caesar waited until they had left, watching the life draining with infinite slowness from the man who sat cross-legged on the floor, whimpering and burbling to his own intestines. Gut wounds could linger for days.

  Slowly he looked up at the nine men who remained standin
g, one of whom was clutching his neck as blood ran between his fingers and soaked into his woollen tunic.

  “Two of you get to live, for now.” He gestured apparently at random to two of the ambassadors, though Fronto knew damn well that nothing Caesar did was random and that the two men he had picked out were those who had remained as far apart from the rest as possible. Cowards? Or at least men with some sense of self-preservation.

  With a gesture to the duty centurion, Caesar stepped back. The centurion and his men rough-handled the two prisoners away. Caesar gestured to him as he left and handed back the crimson sword. The seven remaining ambassadors watched with leaden faces as Caesar stepped back from the circle, gesturing for his senior officers to join him. As they reached the gate, Caesar issued a further command and the legionaries who had lined the inner face of the stockade filed slowly out. The ambassadors stood in confusion in the centre as the circular space emptied around them. Outside, the guards made to close the door but Caesar stayed their hands with an order.

  With a gleam of vengeance in his eye, he turned to the assembled mass of angry Gallic auxiliaries.

  “Inside are seven of the leaders responsible for your fight yesterday. Do as you will with them, but I want their heads at least vaguely recognisable afterwards.”

  A roar of approval went up among the angry Gauls and Fronto swallowed, his mouth dry at the thought of what was about to happen within that stockade. Dozens and dozens of cavalrymen pushed and jostled to get to the entrance and have a first go at the prisoners.

  Caesar glanced around and his gaze fell on a regular cavalry decurion in the crowd. He gestured with a crooked finger and the man strode over, saluting.

  “Once it’s over, have their heads removed, cleaned and bagged up for the journey.”

  The soldier saluted again. Fronto looked across at Caesar as they started to walk away.

  “What of the two you had removed at the end there?”

  Caesar shrugged. “Priscus will probably get everything we need from the first two, but I thought it prudent to have two men spare for him to question afterwards.”

  “And will they be released afterwards as well?”

  Caesar flashed a genuine frown of incomprehension at him.

  “As well?” Realisation struck him. “Oh you expect me to release the first two after interrogation? Marcus, if everything goes the way I expect there will not be enough of them left to ride a horse afterwards. There are times, Marcus,“ he added with a curious smile “when you are almost deliciously naive.”

  Fronto glanced over his shoulder, trying to keep his mind on the mundanities of legion command, the ordered lines of soldiers marching through the dust behind him, kicking up clouds of grey, the standards glinting in the sunlight, the crimson flags that stood out blood-red against the blue and green of the summer’s day…

  But the problem was that even they were too reminiscent and drew his gaze back around to settle on the grisly sight at the front of the army.

  Twelve bearded, top-knotted, grisly severed heads bounced up and down on the tips of spears, bobbing along to the gait of the walking horses beneath them. Caesar’s cavalry guard had been given the ‘honour’ of carrying the trophies, and Aulus Ingenuus had selected a dozen of his toughest and most loyal men to carry out the unpleasant task. Flies buzzed in clouds around them where they rode, at the ‘head’ of the army, as Priscus had put it in a moment of attempted light relief.

  It was yet another display of ruthlessness from the general that jarred his sensibilities, and yet Fronto could not help but think that the fault really lay with himself. Somehow, despite having served for over a decade with Caesar, in two different theatres of war, deep down Fronto still expected Caesar to live up to the expectations that he’d had all those years ago when he disembarked in Hispania to take up his post. The fact that Caesar consistently failed to live up to them was more likely a problem with his own expectations being too high than with Caesar being less than he could be.

  Irritated with the general for his shortcomings, himself for his naivety and the Germanic invaders for being stupid enough to cross the Rhenus and push the matter, Fronto clicked his tongue angrily and glared at the bobbing heads.

  “Do you approve?”

  The voice was so close and unexpected that Fronto actually jumped a little in the saddle. Turning, his heart sank at the sight of Labienus, pulling alongside with his dappled grey mare. The staff officer was pointing at the heads.

  “Do you like the new standards the general has raised for the army? Are you proud that the Tenth get to march at the front behind them?”

  “Leave it, Titus.”

  “Do you approve of the execution of men of diplomacy to create a symbol of Roman implacability?”

  “Titus…”snapped Fronto, turning a warning glare on him. Labienus blithely ignored it.

  “Is this the man you came to Gaul to serve with? ‘Cause I know for certain that this is not the man I followed.”

  “Just leave it, Titus.” Fronto’s face darkened further and Labienus searched his companion’s eyes, feeling that he’d scored a point somewhere — touched a nerve; perhaps there was a chance here…

  “Why did you defend the general in the command tent? There was the chance of a peaceful solution. It only took a little more support; a few more of us to stand before Caesar and nudge him to a diplomatic answer. But you defended him. Even though you knew Cicero and I were right. And you did know that, didn’t you?”

  Fronto raised a warning hand.

  “Why?” Labienus pressed. “Why defend him? You’ve always stood up to him and argued when you thought he’d crossed the line. You’re renowned for it. It’s what makes most of the officers respect you. I know that I’ve changed over the past four years, but so have you, Marcus. I may have begun to understand something beyond the simple discharge of duty, but you? You’ve hardened. Half the time now, when the general is crossing a line, you’re crossing it with him! Why?”

  Fronto turned in the saddle and something in his eyes made Labienus shrink back. Perhaps he had misjudged the legate.

  “Don’t stir up things you don’t understand, Titus.”

  “Fronto…”

  “Could it be that there are things you don’t know? Could it be that I feel I have a duty to defend and support the man who saved Faleria and my mother from murder by the mob in Rome? Could it be that without Caesar my entire family might have died when thugs and gladiators set fire to my father’s house and came to carve Faleria to pieces? That Caesar fought side by side and back to back with me to defend my family? That only he and his veterans stood with us?”

  Labienus blinked. He’d been in winter quarters with the legions much of the past two years and the troubles in Rome had reached him as mostly rumour, notes and fragments from people like Cicero. He opened his mouth to speak, but Fronto was almost snarling, spittle at the corner of his mouth.

  “Do you think I serve Caesar because of his patronage? The only thing I ever got from him was my first military post in Hispania all those years ago, and I’ve paid him back for that a hundred times over. Patronage? I’m Caesar’s client because I choose to be, not because I’m beholden to him. Do you think that every sestertius Caesar borrowed to put himself at the top came from Crassus? Of course not, but I’ve written off every last coin that changed hands between us because of what that man has done for my family. It’s nothing to do with money or power or position. You know me well enough, Titus, to know I don’t give a rat’s shit about that. But a man who will stand in front of a blade for my sister’s sake?”

  Labienus shook his head. “I didn’t know, Marcus.”

  “You!” Fronto snapped, jabbing a finger into Labienus’ chest. “You owe him nothing. I know that. You’re no client of Caesar’s. You came on the staff as an equal; a friend and a colleague. You could walk away at any time, so don’t push me to do what you won’t yourself.”

  “Fronto, I have to stay. Someone has to be here to try an
d temper the worst excesses of this endless war. To gainsay Caesar when he steps across that line. Fair enough if that person cannot be you any more, and I do understand what you say. I can see the point. But someone has to be here. Where else would I be able to make a difference?”

  Fronto withdrew his jabbing finger and fell into a sullen silence. Labienus took a deep breath, dangerously aware that he was about to poke a bear with a sharp stick.

  “But even with what you say and your personal bond with the general, surely you can still see the wrongness of that.” He pointed at the bobbing heads. “He broke his word. He murdered them all, or allowed it to happen. Twelve men of peace and diplomacy hacked to bits in interrogation or torn to pieces by angry Gauls, despite the fact that he’d promised clemency to at least four of them. An oathbreaker is a man to watch, and you know it.”

  When Fronto turned back to him, there was a glassy deadness to his stare.

  “It worked. It may not have been the gentlemanly thing to do, and it sure as shit was not the nicest. But look at the results. Three ambushes we might have fallen prey to, and each one dealt with efficiently and quickly by scouts and advance parties just because we knew where to look. Not a man escaped to tell the tale, either. As far as the enemy is concerned, they don’t even know we’re on the way. All because of what happened to those ambassadors. And the very fact that there were such ambushes tells you just how diplomatic those men were planning on being.”

  He gestured with a sweep of his arm. “And look at the army. Look at the Gaulish auxiliaries and the men of the legions. Those heads don’t make them question the general. Those heads have focused the mind of every man here. The cavalry were beaten, angry and humiliated by their defeat. Now, they’re hungry. They strain at the leash. They’re caged lions waiting to be freed and pointed at the enemy.”