But the manner in which the Great Hall at the far end of the plaza now sought to mimic that “civilization” was truly a desecration. The sand-colored stone and the gray wood facings had been painted white, obliterating the venerable floral carvings. Stone columns flanked the entrance now, supporting a white-painted wooden roof over a low flight of broad stone stairs.
A fitting lair for the likes of Gobanit.
Vercingetorix rode very slowly through the crowded market, spiraling inward toward the fountain, making three full circuits before he got there, saying nothing, meeting no eye, gazing steadfastly straight ahead, drawing the crowd of the curious with him. And all the while, he heard his name whispered and murmured and passed among the people. By the time he reached the fountain, the area around it was thronged, and trading in the surrounding market had all but ceased.
As Vercingetorix halted, the warriors who had been tracking him emerged from the crowd to form a circle around him—whether to hold back the crowd to protect him or in preparation for seizing him, he could not tell. Perhaps they did not know either, for their swords remained undrawn, and some of them faced outward like guards, others faced inward, and still others craned their necks and twisted their bodies in indecision. An expectant silence fell upon the plaza, and all eyes were upon him as everyone waited to hear the words of the silver-tongued Vercingetorix.
But the only public speech the silver-tongued Vercingetorix had ever delivered had been a few simple words in praise of his father, and then he had been quite drunk. For the first time since he had ridden into the city, Vercingetorix knew fear.
Still…
“I am Vercingetorix, son of Keltill! You know my name but you do not know me, for I was forced as a boy to flee when Gobanit violated the sanctity of the Great Hall of the Arverni to seize my father and steal all that Keltill had save that which he held most dear, his name and his honor!”
At this there were scattered shouts of “Keltill!” but also much low, guttural murmuring. The Arverne warriors surrounding Vercingetorix moved their hands to the hilts of their swords.
“See what the man who set the torch to the pyre that burned Keltill has done to the heart of our people and our city,” Vercingetorix declaimed, indicating the Romanized façade of the Great Hall with a wave of his arm. “Gobanit feigns the glory of Rome with white paint and stone fakery, but it is all a sham, for he has not the stomach to emulate Caesar’s singular virtue and ride at the head of the warriors of the Arverni into battle!”
The cries and shouts became ugly now. The captain of the guard nodded and drew his sword, and his men followed suit. When he made a signal with his hand, they all turned to confront Vercingetorix with a fence of pointed steel.
“This horse I ride was given to me as a token by Caesar himself,” Vercingetorix declared. “A token of his promise that all Gauls who join in his invasion of Britain will divide half of the spoils among them. This you already know. Gobanit will not lead you in joining this grand adventure, and this too you know already.”
He grabbed onto the edges of the crimson cloak and spread his arms wide to display it like the wings of an eagle.
“But know this too! This is Caesar’s own cloak! This you know to be true because all others are forbidden to wear a cloak of this color. But Caesar has given it to me to wear. To be returned to him when I exchange it for a cloak of Arverne orange and ride to his encampment at the head of an Arverne army! I was forced to flee as a boy, but now I am returned as a man to recapture the birthright which was stolen from me! To lead all who would follow me to glory and fortune and slay the slayer of my father!”
“That’s enough!” cried the guard captain. “Seize him!”
The warriors rushed inward at Vercingetorix. As they did, turning their backs on the crowd, the front ranks of that crowd surged forward amidst shouts, curses, shoving, the outbreak of chaotic empty-handed fighting.
Vercingetorix drew his sword and reared his horse, whirling his mount round and round in a bounding hind-legged circle, its front hooves pawing the air, causing the warriors to fall back in disarray as he swiped at them with his sword. He felt destiny smile on him, allowing him to control the horse with a skill that had eluded him on the Roman road.
Vercingetorix leapt from his horse onto the back of the guard captain, knocking him to the stone-paved ground. He then pulled him back to his feet with one hand and laid the edge of his sword across his throat with the other.
No more than a few moments had passed. No killing or maiming blows had yet been struck. Four of the warriors had been disarmed by the crowd and were being held with their arms twisted behind their backs while their comrades threatened their captors with their own swords uncertainly.
“Stop!” Vercingetorix shouted as loudly as he was able. “As I would not slay this brother Arverne, so let no other Arverne here harm another!”
But the thuds and shouts of fistfights within the body of the crowd could still be heard along with screams and shouts of fear and rage and confusion.
Vercingetorix saw that words were not enough.
Sword to his neck, he marched the guard captain backward to the fountain, up over its rounded stone lip, into the shallow water, to its center, where streams of water flowed from the mouths of the stone bears, and forced him up on their round pedestal beside him.
Then he withdrew his sword from the throat of the guard captain and handed it to him.
The guard captain stood there, holding the sword loosely, utterly dumbfounded. The silence was sudden and profound, and Vercingetorix spoke into it.
“Slay me if you will,” he said. “Slay honor and glory in the service of dishonor and scorn! Slay riches in the service of cowardice!”
The guard captain stood there frozen, his head slightly cocked to one side, his shrewd eyes measuring Vercingetorix, glancing at the crowd to measure its mood, then back at Vercingetorix. He gave him the subtlest of nods.
Vercingetorix offered an outstretched hand to the guard captain and addressed the crowd. “Or give me back my sword, and I will enter that nest of spiders alone, and I will challenge Gobanit to fair and honorable battle. Let the gods decide! Let them choose our destiny!”
At this there was a great roar of approval, as Vercingetorix had known there must be, for no Arverne, no Gaul, wherever his loyalty might lie, could deny another’s honorable appeal to the will of the gods as expressed in such a challenge to combat.
“Well and fairly spoken,” said the guard captain, and handed Vercingetorix back his sword to a thunderous ovation.
Vercingetorix climbed out of the fountain and turned to regard the entrance to the Great Hall. A squad of guards had emerged from the building. Six of them, swords drawn, stood shoulder to shoulder atop the stairs, barring entry. Six more had descended to the foot of the stairs and had advanced a dozen or so paces before them.
He ran to his horse, mounted as quickly as he could, and, with sword still drawn, charged at the Great Hall at a full gallop.
The guards before the stairs froze for the briefest of moments. Then some raised their swords threateningly, while others dashed to escape, and all was confusion as they stumbled and tumbled into each other.
Vercingetorix did not wait for a gap to open up; rather, he jumped his horse over and through the melee, and in the next leap, he was riding up the low flight of stairs straight for the guards blocking the entrance.
Two of the guards fled to the side, two of them hesitated, the other two bravely stood their ground, swords leveled at the horse’s chest, blocking the entrance with their bodies and pointed steel.
Vercingetorix wheeled his horse right, brought the flat of his sword down hard on the blade of one guard’s weapon close by the hilt, sending it clattering, and then, as the other guard circled round to his left hand, kicked him square in the jaw, sending him tumbling off balance down the stairs. He then reared his horse again before the door—causing it to come down with its full weight on its front hooves as they hit the
door, smashing it inward—and rode into the building.
The Great Hall of the Arverni had been transformed.
The chests that held the gold and silver, the gems and jewelry—and there were many more of them—were now tightly shut, and lined up in neat rows. The grease and soot had been cleaned from the ancient paintings that covered the walls, but in many places the paint had come off with it, and the damage had been “repaired” with fresh and over-bright colors. The imposition of the new Roman style on the venerable Gallic mode was outrageous.
A semicircle of white-painted wooden benches, five rows deep and rising toward the rear, half enclosed a large central well where the long oaken banquet table had been replaced by a smaller, lower one painted shiny black, with curved and gilded legs in the likeness of clawed eagles’ feet, surrounded by soft-backed upholstered couches. Upon the table were silver plates heaped with fruit and cheeses, platters painted in woodland scenes bearing baked confections, platters decorated with ocean waves offering displays of small fishes.
Reclining on the couches, eating this fare as three serving wenches filled their glass goblets from small amphorae, were eight men, no doubt members of Gobanit’s self-serving “Arverne Senate.” Four of them wore tunics and orange Arverne pantaloons. Two of them were dressed as Romans in white togas with orange piping. Another two wore togas over pantaloons. Vercingetorix was gratified to see that Critognat was not among them.
The only person whom Vercingetorix recognized was Gobanit. His uncle, to judge from his soft and jowly face, had put on considerable weight, though how much was hard to tell with a toga draped over his body as he lolled on his couch.
Vercingetorix rode right up to him, sword drawn, terrorizing the serving wenches, causing them to stumble backward in their haste to escape the hooves of his horse.
“Guards!” Gobanit shouted. “How did this barbarian get in here?”
When he saw that the guards were not to be seen, he turned his ire on Vercingetorix. “How dare you intrude upon the deliberations of the vergobret of the Arverni and his senators in this brutish manner!”
“To serve the will of the gods and the people,” Vercingetorix told him.
“To serve—! Who, by the gods, are you?”
“I am Vercingetorix, son of Keltill, come to claim my birthright!”
By now the senators were sitting upright.
“What do you want from me?” demanded Gobanit.
“What is rightfully mine, Gobanit!”
Gobanit’s attitude changed abruptly. “Well, of course,” he said, favoring Vercingetorix with an unctuous smile. “There was no need to ride in here like some Teuton barbarian, nephew. As his only lawful heir, or so it was supposed, I inherited your father’s lands and treasure, but now that I see you’re alive and well, of course—”
“What about my mother?”
“You haven’t heard…?” said Gobanit.
“Heard what?”
“Your mother has…joined Keltill in the Land of Legend, Vercingetorix,” Gobanit said, not quite meeting Vercingetorix’s eyes as he spoke. “Gaela died a most noble death. She was seen to have thrust a dagger into her own heart when captured by Teuton raiders in order to avoid dishonorable slavery…or worse. You should be most proud of her…”
Gobanit’s eyes darted evasively to the right and behind Vercingetorix, and, turning his head, Vercingetorix saw that the dozen guards he had ridden through had entered the Great Hall and were tentatively advancing on his rear with their swords drawn.
He leapt off his horse, and stuck the point of his sword under Gobanit’s chin, where his jaw met his throat.
“I don’t believe you for one moment, Gobanit!” he said, prying him up off his couch at sword point. “You slew her or had her slain as surely as you killed my father!”
Gobanit’s eyes bulged with terror.
“Whoever told you that is a liar! As surely as I did not kill your father, I did not kill your mother!”
“You’re the liar! You lit the fire! I was there! I saw it!”
Beads of sweat broke out on Gobanit’s cheeks and brow. “I had no choice!” he whined. “If you were there, you know that the druid Diviacx commanded me!”
“You could have refused!”
“At what gain? Some Eduen would have done the deed, and I would have been slain myself for defying a druid.”
“You would have preserved your honor! Draw your sword, Gobanit, for I would preserve my honor by granting you the honorable death in fair combat you withheld from my father.”
And he withdrew his sword from under Gobanit’s throat.
Gobanit staggered backward, screaming, “Kill him! Kill him!”
Thought stopped as Vercingetorix whirled around, his sword before him, blade parallel to the floor, in a sweeping circle, and saw that it was not the guards who had come up behind him, but three of the Arverne senators who had risen from their couches and were rushing toward him, swords thrust out to skewer him.
Continuing his whirling turn but sidestepping as he did, he allowed their motion to carry them past him, then, still smoothly turning, sliced one deeply across the buttocks, and confronted the other two as they clumsily reversed direction, slashing one’s throat, ducking sidewise, and spearing the other under the sternum.
Withdrawing his sword with another whirling, dancing turn, Vercingetorix found himself facing Gobanit in the process of clumsily drawing his sword from beneath his toga, and without pause twisted his wrist as he plunged his sword deep into his uncle’s belly, so that he could rip upward, toward Gobanit’s heart.
Gobanit fell screaming and was already dead when Vercingetorix pulled out his bloody sword, and thought returned. And if what the man of action had done seemed to have happened in an instant, the next moment seemed to last an eternity, as the man of knowledge beheld the results.
One man lay screaming and blubbering on his stomach in a growing pool of blood. Another lay supine and unmoving. A third was on his back, his head lying at an impossible angle, the gaping wound in his neck gushing blood as a mountain spring gushes water. Gobanit lay facedown in yet another lake of gore.
Without thought, Vercingetorix had slain not merely his first man but his first three, and though he had done it like a dance, with his own blood hot and his sword singing, now he only felt his heart sinking and his gorge rising, and his spirit was hard put to find the glory in it.
But Vercingetorix forced himself to choke back his nausea, for there was no time for vomiting or contemplation. Gobanit’s five remaining “senators” had scrambled to their feet, though none had summoned up the courage to draw a sword. The dozen guards had come up behind them, and were surveying the carnage in numb stupefaction, glancing uncertainly at their captain, and Vercingetorix knew that he must immediately assume their command.
“You…you killed not just the vergobret but two senators!” Baravax stammered. “That was no fair and honorable combat…”
What was he to do now? Whose orders must he obey? Surely not a dead man? The remaining senators? But they seemed as reluctant to speak as he was to act.
“Surely not,” said Vercingetorix. “I offered Gobanit honorable combat, did I not? Yet he refused the challenge and instead sought to have these cowards cut me down from behind. I therefore slew no man of honor. I slew no man worthy of being a leader of the Arverni!”
“You…would claim Gobanit’s place by right of arms!” whined one of the senators.
“Never has that been done!”
“We must hold an election!”
“I do not seek to proclaim myself vergobret by force of arms, for that is not our way,” Vercingetorix declared. “I claim only my father’s lands and property and the loyalty of those nobles and warriors who owed loyalty to him. All who wish to follow me I will lead to join Caesar’s invasion of Britain. I invite all who would become vergobret to gather their warriors and do the same. Let us hold the election upon our return, and let our deeds in battle speak for us.”
>
“Well spoken!” cried Baravax, sealing his decision by raising his sword high in salutation, then nodding to his men, who, after a moment’s hesitation, did likewise. Clearly Vercingetorix was the only one in the Great Hall worthy of his loyalty. And, after all, by far the most likely to emerge as the man with the power to appoint the guard captain of his choosing.
IX
JUNIUS GALLIUS’ ENGINEERS had erected the camp palisade, enclosed it in the usual entrenchment, and finished the docks in less than a week. Two hundred ships had already made the journey from the Mediterranean without serious mishap.
Caesar had his four legions bivouacked snugly inside the fortifications, with the tribal encampments of the Gauls being set up safely outside, and even Dumnorix, who Caesar suspected was a lot more cunning than the oaf he took pains to pretend to be, had been seduced away from his well-justified suspicions when shown to the sybaritic quarters laid on for the favored few Gallic leaders within the Roman walls.
Moreover, it was a fine sunny day on the northern coast of Gaul, a region not famed for such weather, and even the customarily saturnine Gisstus was grinning broadly when he caught up to Caesar outside his tent, bearing a mysterious sack.
“Good news, better news, and amusing news, Caesar. Vercingetorix is only two or three days away, and as for bridling your young unicorn, we already have the means among the Carnute hostages. You knew her yourself. Intimately.”
“I did?” Caesar shrugged. The memories of the amatory lessons he had delivered in the hostage grammaticus last winter were sweet, but there had been so many pretty young faces and ripening nubile bodies that they all seemed to blur together in a pleasant rosy haze. “A Carnute girl? What was her name?”
“Marah,” said Gisstus.
“You are saying that Vercingetorix will remember her, and fondly?”
“Oh yes. He met her only once or twice, but there was a plan to seal an alliance between the Arverni and the Carnutes by marrying them. Then too, he’s been at a druid school since he fled Gergovia, where, I am told, the boys’ opportunities for amatory experience are limited to each other, and the Gauls take a grimly dour view of such sexual recourse. So somehow I doubt that Vercingetorix would have forgotten a girl tasty enough to have appealed to your sophisticated palate, Caesar. Indeed, I would say he might still be a virgin.”
The Druid King Page 16
