Marius' Mules II: The Belgae (53 page)

But despite
the enormity of it, he had just about come to terms. Velius was
dead and a new position had opened up in the centurionate of the
Tenth. A new chief training officer would have to be selected. It
seemed ironic that there was a good chance that whoever was
selected would themselves have been trained by Velius.

Suddenly the
legionaries parted, having spotted the officers approaching the
scene, and Fronto felt the bile rise in his throat.

“
Gods!”

The smell of
meat, both raw and burned, assailed his nostrils. Sabinus, next to
him, had gone white.

A frame had
been hastily constructed by bending two saplings and nailing them
to the boles of trees, resulting in a diagonal cross between two
trunks. On the frame was tied the remains of a man, his headless
body, missing both hands and feet and opened from neck to groin,
hanging limp from the vines that held him. For a moment Fronto
almost asked how they knew this was Velius, but then his roving
gaze caught the sight of the head, impaled on a spear nearby.

The charring
smell came from the ashes of a small fire, where the hands and feet
and what was presumably a pile of internal organs had been burned,
presumably in some sort of ritual. He averted his eyes. Looking at
the head was making him an unpleasant mix of queasy and angry.

“
Druids!” a voice barked.

His head
snapped round to Sabinus, who was still pale, but now displaying a
grim snarl.

“
What?”

“
Druids,” the man repeated. “This is what they do: death
rituals. This wasn’t the work of ordinary men. I know the ordinary
plebs back in Rome think all barbarians are nine feet tall and eat
babies, but you and I know the truth. Look at Galronus. It’s not
Celts that do this; or even Belgae. It’s druids that do
this.”

The legate
couldn’t find a reason to argue. Sabinus was probably right. And
Fronto just couldn’t think straight; was frightened to open his
mouth in case the sight and the stench made him vomit.

Priscus took
one look at the senior officers and addressed the optio and his
men.

“
Get this cleared up. All the body parts need to be put away in
a bag for cremation and funeral, but the guts and all the wood…
just burn it.”

He took a deep
breath.

“
But leave the head. I’ll bring the head.”

The optio
saluted and he and his men began the grisly task as Priscus stepped
in front of the three officers. Fronto blinked.

“
Why the head?”

“
Because that’s what you need to see. That’s why I brought
you.”

The primus
pilus turned and strode in a business-like fashion across to the
head, sitting atop its spear and glaring at them, in a manner that
looked disturbingly accusative to Fronto.

The officers
walked across behind him, focusing on the head, while at the same
time trying not to think too hard about it. Priscus, in a
no-nonsense fashion, marched up to the grisly object and
pointed.

“
There.”

“
What?” Fronto frowned as he examined the remnant of his
officer. It was extremely unpleasant, messy, and clearly a
statement to the commanders of the Roman army, but it was equally
clearly just Velius’ head on a spike.

“
The mouth.” Priscus jabbed with his finger.

“
What’s that?” Fronto leaned closer, swallowing against the
unpleasant smell and the bile that threatened to rise. There was
something in the mouth of the severed head; something dark, smooth
and oily.

Priscus
shrugged.

“
Don’t know. Thought I’d better wait so that you’d seen it
first. Want me to take it out?”

Fronto wavered
for a moment. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know what the
object was.

“
Yes. Take it out.”

The three men
watched tensely as Priscus reached in and, slowly and carefully
worked the object loose with his fingers before withdrawing it. As
the small, oily object came loose with an unpleasant noise, a
gobbet of thickened blood followed it. Once more bile rose into
Fronto’s mouth and he had to turn and spit into the undergrowth.
Velius’ tongue had been removed to make room, probably burned in
the fire along with the rest of the viscera.

“
What the hell is it?”

Priscus turned
the object over in his hands several times, frowning at the
unpleasant liquids that ran across his knuckles.

“
It’s a bag. A pouch. Leather but waxed or oiled for
waterproofing.”

Fronto
stared.

“
So what’s in it?”

Priscus stared
down at the unpleasant article.

“
I think finding that out’s the commander’s prerogative,
sir.”

Fronto stared
at the small, shiny bag. Funny how the chain of command and all
proprieties of officerhood came out when they were trying to decide
who would do the worst tasks.

“
I can’t. I’ve only got one working hand.”

Priscus glared
at his commander for a moment and the clearing was blanketed in an
uncomfortable silence. Moments passed until Sabinus stepped
forward.

“
Alright then, children. I’ll look.”

Clenching his
teeth, fighting back the urge to retch at the coagulated blood on
the smooth leather, he retrieved the pouch and began to work at the
tiny string at one end. As he unknotted it and gently worked the
aperture open, Fronto found he was holding his breath.

“
Well?”

Sabinus held
the pouch up, allowing the light to illuminate the opening. He
stared into it for a moment.

“
Sabinus…” Fronto prompted.

With a frown
and a shrug, the staff officer tipped the pouch up and its contents
tumbled out onto his palm.

“
It’s a ring. And a note.”

“
A note?” Balbus frowned at it quizzically. “That’s parchment!
Where in the name of Jupiter did a barbarian druid get hold of good
Egyptian parchment?”

Fronto
stared.

“
And that’s a Roman ring. A good one, too.”

He reached out
and grasped the parchment, struggling one-handed to unroll the
small sheet.

“
It’s in Latin. Well-written too.”

“
What does it say, though?” Priscus was tense and
staring.

“
Gods, I can hardly read it, it’s so small.” He held the paper
up to his face and squinted.

“
It says…” he took a breath. “No matter how many tribes you
make bend to your will, the Gods and their priests will never
accept you. Savour your petty victory for, in time, all of Gaul
will pucker to spit you back out.”

He paused.

“
Crap, who is this man? ‘All Gaul will pucker’? He sounds like
a slave in a Plautus comedy!”

Balbus
nodded.

“
May sound all very literate, but don’t ignore what that
message is actually saying. He's warning us... or possibly
threatening us, I suppose... that the Druids will continue to raise
resistance to us. We can pacify all of Gallic and Belgic lands, but
there's always the German tribes and even Britannia to the north
that look to the druids. And, of course, we may have pacified
places now, but what happens as soon as we withdraw the
legions?”

Fronto
nodded.

“
Given the amount of influence these druids have over the
barbarians, I think maybe if Caesar really does want Gaul, he’s
going to have to deal with the druids somehow.”

“
Fronto…”

The legate
turned to Sabinus, who was staring at him and holding out the
ring.

“
What?”

The staff
officer swallowed.

“
This is Paetus’ ring.”

The four
officers fell silent, staring at the small item of jewellery in
Sabinus’ hand.

“
Then I suppose we know what became of our runaway” muttered
Balbus.

Fronto nodded
sadly.

“
Poor bastard can’t have got far. I hope they dealt with him
quickly and not like this!”

Priscus
cleared his throat.

“
Gentlemen? Time to return to camp. I’ve got to deal with
this.”

Fronto was
about to argue until his primus pilus wrenched the disembodied head
from the spear tip with a crunch, a squelch, and a rush of dark
blood.

“
He’s right. Let’s go see if they’ve finished with my tent.
I’ll get some wine.”

Sabinus and
Balbus nodded emphatically, and the former straightened.

“
I’ll meet you there shortly.” He closed his hand on the signet
ring and reached out to take the parchment from Fronto. “I need to
deliver this to Labienus, and Caesar ought to see the
note.”

Fronto
relinquished the paper and, with a last glimpse back at the grisly
clearing, turned and made for light, warmth and civilization.

* * * * *

Labienus
shuddered. The vexillation he was taking from the legions had been
prepared to move by first light and had been required to wait until
the rest of the army was in order so they could take all the
surplus gear on the carts. Caesar was travelling very light, with
the legions and the cavalry and only two dozen wagons, leaving a
half-mile train to head west with his lieutenant.

Three thousand
men and a few cavalry. Enough of a force to deal with any small
encounters, but Labienus repeatedly found his imagination playing
out fantasies in which half a million Belgae, Britons, Gauls and
Germans dropped from trees onto his slow-moving column.

And Gods, was
it a slow moving column. He’d sent the couriers out in threes to
deliver his message to the Belgic chieftains before they left, and
then they’d started the long, mind-numbing journey to the oppidum
of Nemetocenna. He’d marched with the legions many times in his
reasonably illustrious career, and they could move fast. It had
sometimes been the major cause of victories that the legions moved
so fast and efficiently, surprising the enemy by cutting them
off.

But a long
supply train slowed things down; and then there were the wounded.
The worst of them were in wagons which had to be manoeuvred very
slowly and carefully so as not to jar the occupants; and alongside
them came the walking wounded, though such a description was being
especially kind to some of them, men who Labienus expected to die
on the journey. And if the carts and the wounded weren’t enough,
there were the prisoners all roped together and being herded along
at the back with an escort drawn mainly from the Ninth.

He would be
lucky if they reached Nemetocenna before the place fell down from
the ravages of time! Caesar and the chieftains would already be
there waiting when he arrived at this rate. He grumbled and rolled
his shoulders, allowing his cuirass to settle into a slightly less
uncomfortable position.

And just to
top it all off, the morning had been the first cold and grey one he
could remember for months. His force had only been travelling for
an hour when the clouds had broken and the rain began to come down
in diagonal rods. He was already soaked and chilled to the bone and
it was only mid-morning… clearly Fortuna was shitting on him today.
He could only hope that meant she was saving all her good stuff for
Caesar against the Aduatuci.

He smiled
grimly.

The general
had, this morning, ordered the haruspices that travelled with the
staff to gut a goat and read the omens for their next campaign. The
strange thin and balding men in their white robes and shiny hats
had carefully lifted out and examined each organ in order and had
finally pronounced the omens to be good. Labienus had been standing
next to Fronto when the legate had said quite loudly “but not for
the goat.”

In fact,
Fronto had been very dour and quiet this morning. It was not the
Fronto they all remembered, and this new facet of his personality,
that kept reminding them of the perils they faced, was starting to
infect the staff across the board.

On the bright
side, Labienus had snatched the goat carcass when it was done with
for the officers’ dinner tonight.

He had to do
something to ‘blow out the cobwebs’ as they said. Travelling at
this slow walk was just killing his spirits ever further. He took a
deep breath and leaned across to the tribune beside him, a man he
didn’t know who’d been drawn from the Eleventh.

“
I’m riding on ahead to that rise; I need a little space for a
minute.”

The tribune
saluted, looking exceedingly unsure.

“
Sir, you need to take a guard.”

Labienus
laughed.

“
I’ll not leave the sight of the column. I’m only going up the
hill, not heading for Illyricum. Besides, no self respecting
ambusher is going to be out in this. Even the druids will be inside
by a fire. We’re the only idiots in this half of the world to be
outside today.”

The tribune
laughed.

“
Apart from Caesar, sir!”

Labienus
snorted.

“
With the luck the general has, a small patch of cloudless blue
sky’s probably following him. He is descended from Venus, after
all.”

Another laugh
from the tribune.

“
Just be careful sir. There’s nobody here who can replace
you.”

Labienus
nodded darkly as he set off ahead at a canter. The man was right.
There was not a soldier in the column above the rank of tribune.
Oh, there were Procillus and Mettius, of course, who would be
invaluable when it came to politics and treaties, but then they
were spies and diplomats; no use if a million Celts fell out of the
trees as they passed.