Marching With Caesar: Conquest of Gaul (60 page)

“
Salve
Pullus. Come to check on me, eh?”

I am not sure why, but I bit back the retort that rose to my lips that I was just doing my job, and instead merely nodded.

“Thank you Pullus,” he said and I knew that he could see the shock on my face because his own turned a little red as he gave a self-conscious laugh. “Now I know what all the fuss is about when you almost get killed, neh?” He did not wait for me to answer, “I thought I was a goner for sure. That bastard waited until I was occupied with someone else and nearly did for me.”

I was determined to match his pleasant tone, and I tried to sound sympathetic. “Hurts, doesn’t it?”

He grimaced and nodded his head, wincing at the pain the motion caused. “More than anything I’ve ever had before, I can tell you that. Still, it’s good to be alive. We gave those
cunni
a good whipping, didn’t we?”

I nodded, again biting back a retort about how he was only around for the first few moments and then out of it, so how would he know, but I was honest enough with myself to know I was being unfair.

“That we did, that we did.” I cleared my throat. “Well, I’m glad to see you survived.”

Now it was his turn to be surprised, and for the briefest of moments, I saw Didius let down his guard as he opened his mouth to say something. But the moment apparently passed, he snapped it shut and merely nodded, not saying anything.

“Did you happen to see what happened to Romulus? He’s not here, although I know that the
medici
haven’t gathered all the wounded. Do you know anything?”

Again, the mask slipped and I saw what I will swear on Jupiter’s stone to my dying day was a look of genuine sadness, though it was gone as quick as it appeared. He looked me in the eye, and without saying a word, shook his head. My blood turned to ice; his meaning was unmistakable.

“Where? Did you actually see it happen?”

He nodded, then with a grimace, lifted his arm to point in the direction where there was a slightly larger group of bodies. “It was after I was wounded. I was down on the ground, but I saw it happen plain as day.”

“How do you know he’s dead?” I demanded, not caring if my tone was harsh.

Didius’ lips thinned in anger, and he opened his mouth, but there was……..something different this day for both of us, and I would like to think that at least for this moment, he was just as reluctant to break the fragile truce as I was.

He paused, then replied tightly, “I don’t know for sure, but he was gutted, and I saw them fall out on the ground.”

My stomach lurched; I would have to face it sooner or later, so I left Didius, still looking as close to sad as I had ever seen him, and walked unsteadily towards the heap of men that he had indicated.

Seeing him while I was still several feet away, I smelled him soon after. Didius was right; Romulus had been gutted, and was laying on his side, with most of his insides in front of him, the flies already starting to swarm. The thrust that did this had sliced through his bowels, and it was this I smelled on my approach. Biting my lip to keep from crying out in despair, I walked up to him slowly, my shadow preceding me and covering his face in darkness. It must have been this change that did it, and I felt my knees almost give out when I saw his eyes flutter, then open as he peered up to see who approached. He squinted as he tried to focus, then recognizing me, opened his mouth to speak. Rushing to his side, I knelt next to him, careful not to touch any of him and quickly tried to hush him.

“Romulus, it’s Titus. Don’t try to talk; save your strength.”

A shadow of a smile crossed his lips as he looked up at me, his eyes telling me that there was no need to lie. “What for? I won’t need to be strong for much longer.”

Opening my mouth to protest, I instantly realized the pointlessness, so instead merely nodded. Reaching down, I took the hand that was not clutching at his intestines in a vain attempt to pull them back into his body. It was cold already, not surprising given the amount of blood that was pooled around him and already being soaked up by the earth. A thought flashed through my mind as I wondered how much blood this world had soaked up over the years, but I was brought back to the moment by Romulus’ voice.

“Titus, will you make sure that I’m put in our family tomb next to Quintus?”

I was puzzled for a moment, since I had forgotten Remus’ real name. Seeing my confusion, he smiled again, “We weren’t born Romulus and Remus. Remember Titus, when we showed up at camp in Scallabis we were Quintus and Marcus Mallius?”

I nodded, making a mental note to remember to use his proper name so that his ashes would make their way back to the right family. My vision started to blur, and I fought back tears as I began to absorb that both of these brothers were for all purposes now dead, but I was again jerked out of my thoughts by a squeeze of my hand, and I looked down to see Romulus gazing at me, his eyes rapidly dimming.

“Don’t mourn for me Titus. I’m happy. Soon I’ll see Quintus again, and we’ll never be apart.”

Again I nodded my head, and I heard my voice choke as I agreed with him. “That’s right, Rom….Marcus. You and your brother will be together. Be sure you wait for us, and then we’ll all be together, and we can sit by the fire again and lie to each other.”

He smiled again, began to reply, then died before he could say anything. Sitting beside him for a moment, I started to weep bitterly, not caring this time if anyone saw me.

Cleanup of the battlefield had to wait while we finished the building of our camp, then the next two days were spent with honoring our dead and cremating them. Once again we had to dig mass pits to bury the Nervii, Atrebates and the other tribe who had joined them, the Viromandui. The air was filled with the remains of our dead as their souls were released by the fire, and I made sure that the urn that contained the ashes we would send back to the Mallius family was correctly addressed, with Romulus’ proper name. The mood around our fire was somber for the next several days; Romulus had always been the most animated among us, and was usually the one to start a conversation about some topic that he would seemingly produce from thin air. It was a source of constant amusement to us how he came up with some of his ideas, and now that was missing, nobody really knew what to do. Our tent now had only six men in it, since Calienus had moved out when he was promoted. At that particular moment, it was down to five because Didius was still in the hospital tent, and it is with no little surprise when I say that we missed his presence. As sour and truculent as he may have been, we had become accustomed to having him around, if for nothing else than to serve as the butt of our jokes. We were not the only ones so affected; there was clearly a pall of sorrow and loss hanging over the whole camp, with almost every fire losing someone in such a manner. The 7th and especially the 12th were the hardest hit; in the 12th they lost several Centurions, along with the standard bearer of the Fourth Cohort. Their Cohort standard had even been lost, only for a short time, but to lose a standard for any length of time is a horrible blow to the pride and morale of not just the Cohort, but the entire Legion. I do not wish to be harsh, but of all the Legions, that day the 12th had not acquitted itself well, and a cloud now hung over every man in the Legion, the rest of the army looking at them differently. Until they had the opportunity to redeem themselves, they would be suspect in our eyes. On the matter of Centurions, our Pilus Prior Vetruvius was not killed, but had been wounded so severely that his arm had to be amputated, meaning his career was over. The subject of who would be our new Centurion was not yet decided; again, being the First Century of the Second Cohort meant that whoever was appointed to lead us was also the ranking Centurion in the Cohort, so he had to be senior to all the other Centurions, or there would be bitter resentment on their part. This also meant that Rufio would most probably be promoted to Centurion, but moved to some other Century, or even another Cohort. It was not out of the realm of possibility that we would have a Centurion from another Legion put in command of the Second Cohort, although this was always considered a last resort and did not happen often, at least in those days. These were the topics that occupied what little conversation did take place around our fire as we awaited our new Centurion. Over in the First Cohort, our former Pilus Prior Gaius Crastinus moved up to take command of the Second Century, the First Cohort losing two of their own Centurions. The fact that he was leapfrogged over two Centurions who led the Third and Fourth Centuries was very unusual, but Crastinus’ reputation was such that there was little grumbling about the decision, with the exception of the two bypassed Centurions. It was in this manner that the next few days passed, as the army reorganized and rested from what was our toughest battle to date.

While we were in camp along the Sabis, a deputation of Nervii consisting totally of old men who were clearly past their prime as warriors approached the camp, asking Caesar for an audience. It was granted, whereupon they were brought into Caesar’s presence, a curule chair on a dais placed in front of the
Praetorium
, with a formation of all the army called to witness what transpired. In front of our hostile eyes, the Nervii elders threw themselves on the ground in front of the dais to beg Caesar for mercy. They claimed that of the 60,000 men we faced, only 500 remained, and had joined the women, children and old people of the tribe in their sanctuary in the middle of a swamp some miles distant. It would turn out the numbers of the slain turned out to be exaggerated, but it seemed credible at the time; we had tallied the dead that we buried, and the number was fifty-three thousand. However, we had not gone into the forest and we made the assumption, mistaken as it turned out to be later, that the remainder were seriously wounded and gone into the woods to die. What we were unable to determine was which of the bodies were Nervii and which were the other tribes. They had been dragged from the areas where they fell into one huge pile before anyone had thought to count by tribes. Therefore it passed that these numbers claimed by the Nervii elders were accepted; later enemies of Caesar would claim that he exaggerated the numbers for his own personal gain. The goal of this narrative of mine is not to defend Caesar, so I would only point out that those who say such things were not there, so to my mind, they are not credible.

Caesar accepted the surrender of the Nervii, choosing not to inflict any punitive punishment on them, deeming that they suffered enough humiliation by the destruction of their huge army. In fact, he allowed the Nervii to return not only to their farms but to their towns, even those that were fortified, and decreed that the tribes surrounding them should not harass them in any way. In fact, he went so far as to declare that their neighbors should provide whatever assistance that was needed. It speaks much to the character of Caesar, and to the respect that he had earned, albeit through our right arms, that his orders were obeyed without protest, even by tribes who were hereditary enemies of the Nervii for many generations. We also were informed that there was another tribe, the Aduatuci, who had been marching to join the Nervii, but on hearing of their defeat turned around and marched back to their lands. This tribe made the decision to abandon all of their other towns and gather their forces in their strongest position, a town on a river that was very similar in nature to Vesontio. On hearing of this, Caesar gave the orders to prepare to march, and it was this command that forced the decision of who would be the Centurion of our Century and Cohort. Consequently, the night that the orders to march were issued, as we sat around our fires, the Primus Pilus came up to us with another Centurion with him, a man two or three inches shorter than me, but with a slender build. He had aquiline features that could have been called handsome except for the scar that ran diagonally across his face, starting at the corner of his right eyebrow, running under his right eye and downwards to the edge of his right nostril, continuing diagonally across his lips and ending at the base of his jaw on the left side. The scar had cut the nerves in the region of his mouth, so his upper lip curled into what appeared to be a permanent sneer. His eyes were somewhat hooded, and were such dark brown that they appeared black, giving his gaze the same fierce countenance as an eagle. He carried his
vitus
in his right hand, and was tapping the end of it in his left as the Primus Pilus spoke to us.

“This is your new Pilus Prior, Centurion Vibius Piso. He's from the 9th Legion and is now in the 10th.”

This caused a bit of a stir, and I am afraid our unhappiness was evident, but since this was the last stop in the Century, I was sure that the two Centurions were not surprised, and in truth, probably understood.

When our new Pilus Prior spoke, it was in a deceptively soft voice, and it was on this occasion that we were introduced to a different style of command than we were used to. Centurion Piso rarely raised his voice, but he possessed other ways of getting our attention that were just as effective. “As the Primus Pilus said, my given name is Piso, but I'm more commonly known as Pulcher,” he pointed to his face, “because I'm easily the handsomest man in this army.”

This brought a laugh from us, and our distrust for him eased a bit as he continued. “I'm extremely proud to have been selected for this post, and I'm equally proud to be in the mighty 10th Legion.”

So far, he was hitting all the right notes, but he still had some ground to cover. Oh, we would obey him to the letter like we were trained, except there is a vast difference between forced obedience and willing obedience, and that is the key to good leadership, making your men want to obey because you are the one giving the orders.