Vae Victis

by Francis Mulhern

  “Mercius” Marcus said with a long sigh. “I’m sorry, I need you and your men to return to Rome and send back anything which you think will be useful to us. I will send Mella to you later today with a hundred horsemen and you will act as my eyes and ears at the city walls. Thank you” he said as he clasped the man on the shoulder and nodded slowly to each of his scouts. The men nodded with a sense of pride as their Dictator turned and headed back towards the gates of Veii.

  A full hour later the last of the officers stood and saluted before turning and heading out of the meeting, the sound of his feet slapping the stone floor as he marched away to inform his men that they were to leave Veii within the hour disappeared as Marcus sat back and rubbed his eyes with balled fists.

  Marcus bent over the votive candle and, after a few words to Mars and Jupiter, he blew out the flame. The dark smoke curled to the ceiling as he stood and turned to Mella, the older man leaning against the wall with a wide grin across his unshaven face.

  “You have nothing to be happy about” he smirked as his friend moved away from the doorway where he was leaning and crossed to the table.

  “I disagree. Who could not be happy about returning to Rome?” he shrugged. “And if the reports are right the Gauls will be distracted and not even notice that we are there” he added as he sat in a chair across from Marcus. “I’ll take Cascius and Scaevolo” Mella said as he took a small sip from a cup on the table and closed his eyes for a moment.

  Marcus sighed again, the sound causing Mella to open his eyes swiftly. “I wish there were some other way” he said with tight lips.

  “I can think of no other” Mella replied before standing again and searching the room with his eyes as if he had misplaced something. “Cascius is faster than any man I know. He can out run a horse over fifty yards” he added as he stretched his back and grunted. “Scaevolo is the best wrestler and knife-man I know. I’d trust him in a dark alley against any man” he said. “We’ll be in and out in an hour and have all the information you need” he said matter-of-factly.

  “Then let’s run over it again” Marcus said, his eyes suddenly alert. “We must prepare for the best outcome, and the worst” he said as he took a pitcher of wine from a table at the rear of the room and strode back across to fill Mella’s cup. “Where will you enter the city?” he asked.

  ************

  Chapter 19

  Night had brought a slight drizzle which had quickly dissipated, leaving grey skies and a cold wind which whistled through the streets of Rome. Brennus stood and shifted the bear skin cloak he had wrapped around his shoulders as he watched the light moving along the road below him. He smirked as he thought about leaving the city. Hundreds had died of the disease which had eaten away at some of his strongest warriors, and more had succumbed to bouts of sickness which left them mere shells of the strong men they had been when they crossed the mountains to Clusium. He shook his head and huffed a deep sigh, which caused two of his guards to peer at him momentarily. The lights moved again as the men began to climb up the hill towards him. What a city this was, he thought. The hills were as steep as a mountain pass in some places. In others the resourceful Romans had built steps into the slopes and created deep gutters in the flagged roads which collected the rain water and filth and shed it back to the river. Yet, he grinned, he Brennus of the Senones, had conquered this city.

  The light revealed several men struggling to carry what looked like a large iron frame which was clearly causing them a problem as they rounded the corner and headed straight up towards their leader. A deep scraping noise echoed off the wall followed swiftly by some choice cursing as one of the men was roundly scolded by his fellows for dropping his end of the heavy frame. Brennus laughed quietly, his guards taking his lead and relaxing a little as they watched the men struggling with the object they carried. After ten minutes Brennus was able to make out the beads of sweat on the foreheads of the men as they placed the object tentatively on the ground before him.

  “Hmmph” he grunted as he stepped forwards and walked around the object. “Is this it?” he said dismissively as he looked at the leader of the gang of men who had carried the heavy iron all the way from the Forum Boarium.

  “Yes leader” slurred a bull of man, his torso criss-crossed with deep scars and his left cheek gouged into a deep hollow where an arrow wound had healed many years before. His voice made him sound drunk, but Brennus knew that it was the missing teeth and chunk from his tongue that caused Aratenos to slur his words. He grunted in reply as he walked around the iron frame. He nodded as he pushed at the frame with his bare foot, the cold metal slippery and wet.

  “Good” he said, standing tall and beckoning Aratenos to him. “Set it up over there” he said to the remaining men with a wave of one arm as he placed the other around the shoulder of the leader of the group. “Tell me again how we can fix these Roman scales so we can take all of their gold” he smiled as Aratenos grinned a toothless, half-lipped, smile back at Brennus.

  ***********

  The smell of the dead was like nothing Mella had ever known. It was so totally overpowering that the three men had changed their course to move up-wind of the stinking pile of rat-infested carcasses as soon as they had come across the putrid smell, amazed that the Gauls had not yet burnt the bodies. Mella was glad it was pitch black with only the weak light of the moon through the clouds to guide their way, he had no intentions of seeing the dead, smelling them was more than enough. Marcus had completed a long ritual prior to the men leaving, half the camp cheering the men off as they left the assembling army and rode swiftly towards Rome. They had met with Mercius and his men, leaving their horses and quickly crossing the river to arrive at the Boarium. Having changed into dry clothes they had taken the west wall and moved through the old Tuscan quarters before returning back to the Forum Boarium from where they had now retreated, almost circling back to where they had risen from the freezing cold Tiber an hour or more earlier that day.

  Mella rubbed at a scratch on his leg which he had gained crossing the Tiber, the cold instantly stemming the cut but still annoying him as he stood with his back to the wall of a small building which was at the cross roads between the Aventine Hill and the Palatine. The wide road swept away to his left and headed towards the Forum with the Capitol Hill on the left-hand side. The sounds of Gauls shouting and singing came floating down from the city around them and Mella nodded to Cascius, the man nodding in reply and silently slipping off into the roadway ahead. A moment later a stone skittered along the road and the two remaining men slipped around the corner quickly before stopping next to the kneeling form of Cascius who was watching the road ahead intently. Mella nodded again and Cascius set off once more into the streets without a sound. An owl hooted a few moments later and the two men slipped out into the street once again, heading directly to the half burnt wooden building that used to be a leather workers shop where Mella had once bought an expensive pair of calf-skin sandals. He shook his head slightly at the memory before seeing the urgent thrust of Cascius’ head. He peered in the direction and saw a large framed man move from behind a wall as he fidgeted with his Gallic trousers before disappearing back into a house from where laughter and the shrieks of a number of women split the air. Mella nodded and Cascius pointed back up the road behind them as he stood and slipped into an alleyway which led towards the Sacred Way and skirted the lower reaches of the Palatine.

  After a few moments Mella glanced to Scaevolo, who was also suddenly looking alert. Cascius had disappeared and the silence became disconcertingly worrying. Both men pulled their daggers from their belts and crouched as they strained to hear any noise apart from the low rumble of laughter which came from some of the houses around them. A dog barked somewhere above them, the noise setting Mella’s nerves on edge as he scanned the roadway behind them and slunk back against the wall of the house where they were crouched. Scaevolo nudged his arm and Mella turned to the man next to him.

  “I will go look for him
” whispered the shadowed form of his fellow.

  Mella shook his head. “No. We wait” he replied. “If they had him, we would have heard something by now. Most likely he is having to lay low for a moment whilst another Gaul takes a piss” he added as he shifted his feet and sat on his heels. Scaevolo nodded and copied his leader’s actions. The darkness waned slightly as a thinner cloud moved across the moon, before the darkness fell again and Mella began to fear for Cascius. It had been at least ten minutes since the man had disappeared, and good sense told Mella that they had to move. To his credit Scaevolo hadn’t seemed nervous or skittish at all and responded quickly when Mella tapped his shoulder and suggested they move back down the hill and try to circle back to the Tuscan street. Mella crept to the street corner and lay flat on the floor before he stretched his neck and peered around the corner into the gloom. Nothing moved. No sound. He blinked several times as he watched the alleyway for at least a hundred heartbeats before returning to his companion and shaking his head.

  Moving back across the road they strode past where they had seen the man relieving himself, then they jogged along behind a long pile of rubble where several houses had once stood. Another dog barked somewhere ahead of them and both men came to a halt, Mella holding his hand up as he narrowed his eyes and strained his hearing into the darkness. “We should split up and head for the two ends of the Forum” he whispered as he bent his head close to Scaevolo’s ear. The man nodded and placed a hand on his shoulder as he caught his eye and winked.

  “Five Ases for the man who finds the information first” he said as he held out a hand.

  Mella grinned, his pulse racing as he considered the words. “You old dog” he whispered as he gripped his palm. “You know I’ll win” he laughed in a low whisper.

  “We’ll see” Scaevolo said as he hefted the dagger in his left hand and set off up the road in a low crouch.

  Mella smiled to himself and waited to see if there was any sound of anyone following his man, but none came. He wondered what had happened to Cascius again as he set off along the road to his left, climbing the back streets towards the Tarpeian Rock before turning right which led him directly to the Forum, where they knew Brennus had his main camp. Their plan was simple, to eavesdrop and find any information about the location and time when the Senate were to hand over the gold. Executing the plan suddenly seemed more of a task than he had originally believed it to be. A movement ahead caught his eye and he came to a standstill in the darkness under a short olive tree, his sight obstructed slightly but good enough to see to the end of the road where he saw the movement again. He held his breath as he watched the man step out into the road and look left and right, his hand on a thick sword at his right hip as he stood silently at the intersection of two roads. A guard, Mella thought. So, they did have some out in the city. His mind went to Cascius again and he frowned. If the man had been found, then surely the roads would be swarming with guards shouting and calling for their men to search the streets. So Cascius must still be out there somewhere. He smiled and leant in against the tree trunk to hide his shape behind that of the tree, resting his chin in the gap between two branches. The guard stretched his arms and yawned, seeming unsure which way to go to continue on his route. Mella tensed, realising that if the man chose this way, he would walk within two strides of his hiding place. He gripped his dagger and slid it out of its sheath slowly as he watched the man begin to walk towards him. He felt his teeth clench as he took a long slow breath and prepared to attack. The man walked as if he hadn’t a care in the world and began to scratch at his beard as he moved to within ten steps of the Roman.

  Mella watched his eyes. If the man caught his own eyes, he would have to rush him, if not he would chance that the man would walk past. Just as the guard reached the point at which Mella was considering jumping out at him a noise made the man spin on his heel and stare back up the road from where he had come, his hand half pulling his sword from its scabbard as he did so. Mella saw his chance and ran two short steps to the right and three forward to catch the man across the throat with his dagger as he gripped his hair and pulled at his head. The guard twisted as the knife slit his windpipe and his eyes bulged as he fought for breath but could not even gasp as a rush of warm air played against Mella’s grappling fingers as he pulled the man backwards. The Gauls hands grappled with his throat as he stared at Mella and tried for a second to pull his sword free of its scabbard before he began to topple backwards as the dark liquid gushed from his neck. Mella caught the man, his eyes watching the street ahead of him in case anyone had seen the movement. With the efficiency of years of training Mella gripped the body under the arms and dragged it away into the shadows, pulling it behind a small rock pile and quickly searching the body for any valuables. It had taken less than two minutes to kill, move and search the guard before Mella was back at the tree and staring up the road again. A sudden noise shook him as a stone clattered along the floor beside him. He pulled his chin in as he frowned and looked quizzically up the road. A few seconds later Cascius’ head appeared from the corner and nodded at him, his bright smile causing Mella to relax and chuckle at the same time. So, he was safe and had distracted the guard earlier, allowing Mella the opportunity to make the kill.

  The two men gripped arms as they met and Cascius told the story of how three guards had stood and chatted right above where he was lying under an old broken doorway which he had hastily pulled over himself as they approached. Mella grinned at him and told him that Scaevolo was ahead somewhere and looking to win five Ases if he gained the information they had been sent to retrieve. Cascius’ head shook and he sighed as he looked back up the road. “The way is clear; the other guards went towards the house of the Pontifex” he whispered before setting off again with Mella in tow.

  *****

  Scaevolo held his breath as the small man sniffed the air, working his way along the back of the Forum and twisting his head from side to side. Scaevolo had climbed to the first floor of the, mostly intact, remains of the long row of shops which stood along one end of the lengthy public meeting space. He gripped his dagger. Surely the man couldn’t smell him from that distance. But the wind was blowing along the Forum and he was, unfortunately, downwind. He felt a cold fear start to rise in his belly as he watched the man step lithely along the front of the shops and raise his nose in the air again, his eyes scanning the darkness around him urgently. The Forum was full of tents and make-shift huts, some built with good stone walls, three or four strides long, to give some privacy to the occupants, and everywhere people were milling around and fires were lit. He felt certain that nobody would be able to smell him with the conflagration of animals, people and cooking fires that were scattered around the scene, but something about the way the dark-cloaked man was acting made the Roman feel isolated.

  A thick-set man appeared from the corner by the Comitium and barked an order at three men who went rushing off along the edge of the sea of tents. Scaevolo watched the smaller man as he turned and strode purposefully towards the taller Gaul. The two men were deep in conversation when several men started to arrive, the fact that most of them were surrounded by armed bodyguards suggested something important was happening, clearly these were the Gallic leaders. As each one of the Gallic warriors arrived, they sat around a central fire pit which was edged in solid squares of marble from the better houses of Rome. Scaevolo knew a little of the language of the Gauls and crawled slowly into the shadows to make his way closer to the meeting to see what he could glean from their conversation. He could almost feel Mella’s money in his pocket already, but something made him watch the smaller man closely as he crawled along the cold stone. He had already decided that he would turn tail and run for it if the man made any move towards his location, something about him was unnerving.

  Deciding he was as close as he could get without being clearly visible, he lay flat and cocked his head to one side to listen to the gathering. People milled around the leaders, some drinking, others sim
ply sat listening. Scaevolo made out a few words. ‘Tomorrow’ and ‘tribute’ and ‘gold’ were enough to make him smile, but he needed more so he leant forwards slightly and tilted his head to look over the top of the parapet where he lay.

  Pain shot through his shoulder as a curved dagger shone in the firelight and arced into his upper back and arm, the cold eyes of the smaller man almost level with his own as he screamed and wrenched the attacker’s arm away from his body. The pain shot through him, but this mind was already moving away from the agony to self-preservation. He had to move. But he was too slow, the blade had already arced again and caught him in the upper arm, the sharp knife slicing through his bicep and lodging against his bone as the man pulled frantically at him, dragging him half out of the shadows. The attacker was smiling at him as he grabbed at his hair with his free hand, his body leaning against the stonework of the shop front as he manoeuvred into a position from which he could gain purchase on his body. Scaevolo yelled again and kicked out with his knee, colliding with the masonry before he managed a better kick which connected with the hand holding the blade. The attacker didn’t relinquish the blade but dug his fingers into Scaevolo’s eyes with his free hand and twisted the knife to gain a further scream from the Roman. Another face appeared above the stone, the arms already grabbing at his legs as he realised it was too late. He scrambled for his dagger, his hands working frantically as the Gauls pulled at his kicking and flailing legs, the red-hot pain of the dagger slicing into his arm. Finding his grip on his own blade he rolled forwards and grinned at the face of his attacker, his teeth clenching as he lifted the blade and forced his body onto it, his eyes narrowing as the pain felt like relief, knowing that what the Gauls would have done to him would have been far worse. As the darkness came, he heard the Gauls yelling angrily into the night sky as a heaviness came over him and he felt his forehead fall to the cold stone and heard his last breath die in his ears.