Marius' Mules V: Hades' Gate (62 page)

Priscus stood on the ramparts of Cicero's camp and shook his head in exasperated wonder. For the last hour, as the Eighth and Tenth legions had scurried around putting things right at the ravaged winter quarters, and while the scant remnants of the brave Eleventh had rested and eaten freshly delivered rations in peace, Priscus had prowled the battlefield like some restless spirit, trying to take in the enormity of what had happened here.

It clearly
was
the uprising he had suspected, that he should have been able to prevent.

And yet something nagged at him and made his scalp itch. Though Ambiorix and Cativolcus had both escaped so he could hardly prove it, none of the captives they had found had ever heard of 'Esus' even when questioned by Blattius Secundus and his evil knife. That, and the distinct absence of any druidical influence found among the enemy - both dead and captive - prompted Priscus to believe that this was something somehow disconnected from his discoveries; that worse was still to come.

The dead were being carried off and dumped in piles for burning, the records of the legion being checked against the corpses' identity tags. Priscus knew from experience that near a tenth of the men would not be found or identified, but at least this way the ferryman could be paid for most of them and stones set up in their memory.

Somewhere back across the camp, he could hear Caesar's voice raised in praise, delivering a public address to the Eleventh and thanking them for their bravery and fortitude, promising them bonuses and loot from the smashed Gallic army and their tribal lands - once punishment was delivered upon them.

The Eleventh weren't cheering, but no one expected that. The poor brave bastards had fought for weeks against insurmountable odds with no hope of relief and with a commander who had apparently been laid low by an almost fatal fever.

It was a feat just to have survived this long. There would be tales written and songs sung about Cicero's siege. He had succeeded on a level more pronounced even than Sabinus' failure.

Priscus tried to block out the sound of the general's words.

No druids. No 'Esus'. Just two big tribes and a lot of smaller ones riding in their wake, raised against Rome. It felt like a war of opportunity, not the grand-scale revolt he had been finding rumours of with every Gallic stone upturned. Even with the troubles down among the Carnutes - which had presumably caused no issue for Plancus - and with the resistance Labienus was meeting in the lands of the Treveri, this was less than nothing compared with what he'd been
expecting
.

No druids. 'No Esus'.

It wasn't over yet.

This was a prelude.

One of the things that had bound Priscus to his commander - Fronto - in their early days together had been a shared heritage in the great lands of Campania to the south. While Fronto hailed from the seaport of Puteoli and serious lineage and money, Priscus had been raised inland at Nuvlana into an unpopular branch of an old family, with faded glory and heavy debts.

But the one thing they could both recount was the tremors that habitually swept through their homeland. No child of the region had lived to adulthood without feeling the shaking of the ground more than once. And sometimes, when there was to be a big quake - one that sheared marble columns and toppled weaker buildings - there were warning signs in the hours to its approach that a native could watch for: Faint trembles; cracks appearing in walls; even the birds leaving the trees in droves.

That was what
this
felt like.

It was a first rumble. A crack in the fabric of Gaul. A warning of the earth-shaking to come.

With a sense of foreboding, and wishing for the thousandth time that his old friend was here to share his fears, Priscus turned from the rampart to tend to the business of command.

* * * * *

Caesar pushed the lists and maps back across the table.

"I think that is all we can do."

Priscus peered at the map and its markers. "The Eighth back in place. The Tenth and Eleventh to Samarobriva. What of the Ninth? Trebonius will likely be here tomorrow."

"The Ninth to Samarobriva as well. It was a tactically sound idea to spread out the army, but we've learned a painful lesson, Priscus. Now let us have a strong central force that we can take to any trouble spots. Samarobriva is within a week's march of almost anywhere it could be needed."

Priscus nodded. "With the Eighth back on the coast, and assuming that Labienus is still in position and not wiped out, we have a reasonable grip on the land. I'd like to hear word from both he and Plancus before things are set in stone, though."

"Agreed. We will send fast riders in the morning to determine their status. With changes of horse, they should be able to being us news within a week."

Priscus rubbed his eyes wearily. He really needed to sleep.

"Are you staying with us until all the reports are in, general? The weather is still unseasonably mild for travelling south."

Caesar leaned back in his chair.

"More than that, Priscus: I will be wintering in Samarobriva with you and the main force."

The veteran officer blinked in surprise. The general never wintered with the army, with political and familial commitments elsewhere. Illyricum sometimes; Cremona and Cisalpine Gaul on occasion. Even Rome for some months. But never the far flung Belgic lands.

"Caesar?"

"We both know Gaul is far from settled, Priscus. Anything could happen in the coming months and I do not intend to be sitting sipping mulsum in Pola while Gaul bucks and churns and attempts to dislodge us."

"General? Your administration? Your family?"

Something passed across Caesar's face and Priscus found himself leaning back away from the great man's suddenly frightening dark eyes.

"The administration of a province can be carried out without its governor, Priscus. Only those skimming a dangerous sum from the takings need to supervise it personally. And with my parents and children gone, I am freed of personal entanglements in Rome."

Priscus felt as though he'd been hit with a brick, such was the force of whatever passed between them in that simple, dead, shocking statement. He sat silent for eight heartbeats, not knowing what to say to his commander, and with a strange suddenness the cloud passed and Caesar stretched, his demeanour switching seamlessly back to the casual military officer

"Then if that it all, Priscus, I think we should call a general meeting and brief the others, yes?"

Priscus could only nod.

In a year that had brought Rome's control of Gaul to the brink and threatened their very existence
, it seemed that crises and disasters were not limited to the army. With a second nod - this time to himself - he stood, wishing the army had not fragmented so much this past year.

"With respect, Caesar, I fear you need to look to the command system again and promote a few good men to senior positions."

The general gave him a strange, quirky smile.

"The matter is in hand, Priscus. Upon our return to Gesoriacum, I enlisted the aid of an old friend. Call the rest in and we will plan ahead for the winter."

Chapter Twenty

Fronto sat atop the courtyard wall in the early morning sun - watery and pale thing that it was. The drizzle had died away just before dawn, around an hour ago, when the rest of the villa's occupants had left for the great crater and their daily wait.

Despite wiping the wall dry and having laid out an old cloak from the servants' quarters to sit upon, the stone was still cold, damp and uncomfortable and he kept returning to the tales Posco had told him of how such activity was a major cause of piles. 'Bum-grapes' was the last thing he wanted right now, just when he had shaken off two years' weight and indolence and hit a physical peak he'd not have thought possible the previous year.

He sighed and kicked the wall with his heels, rearranging for the twentieth time the sheath that contained the decorative gladius he'd taken from the murderous tribune the year before.

This was now the fourth day he had spent sitting and waiting and he was starting to worry about being foolish. What if they weren't coming after all? What if they were waiting until some unspecified event? Would Fronto and his friends be forced to repeat the procedure every day for months?

Grinding his teeth, he shuffled his backside to try and find a better position. There
wasn't
a better position. He could wait anywhere, of course, but the main gate wall was the obvious spot. It would be where the enemy arrived, supplied the best view of the surrounding approaches, and was also the very best spot from which to run for the Forum Vulcani.

Squinting into the grey, hazy brightness, Fronto first saw the arrivals as a shapeless blob on the horizon where the road crested a low rise, and he had to strain his eyes to discern their numbers. He was expecting at least a dozen - probably more - and so it came as something of a surprise to spot only three figures.

His mind raced. Was this all that were coming? Had he seriously over-estimated their numbers? It seemed unlikely. They had the resources to drag in every killer from the carcer, and quite possibly others along the way. Three could not be the whole force.

And that begged the question: where were the rest?

His mind raced in the way his body should be doing. Did he run for the Forum Vulcani, or was it wasting an opportunity just to draw three men into the crater? Perhaps the rest were a few moments behind? If so, could he afford to wait? The longer he waited the less chance he had of staying ahead of them.

Irritated at his own lack of foresight and planning, failing to account for such changes and form contingencies, he smacked his fist down painfully on the cloak-covered stone and slid from the wall.

No. It
was
worth it. He had to run and lead them off, because the shapes were now resolving into more than simple figures: they had become
identifiable
. The left one his keen gaze easily picked out: Berengarus - huge and bulky, a long blade in his hand and a single-minded expression of malice. The figure at the right hand side was equally unmistakable: a wraith-like figure who drifted across the ground as though not quite touching the floor, its robes tattered and frayed, its wild hair floating and whipping about in what should not be a strong enough breeze for such activity.

His feet rooted to the spot as he recognised the figure between them.

Lucilia
?

How in Hades had they got hold of Lucilia?

Panic flooded through him. What could he do? As the figures came closer, he could see that Lucilia's arms were bound behind her back with a leather thong, the other end of which was held tight in the wraith's left hand; in his right: a curved knife.

"Run!" his wife shouted at him, and was rewarded with a heavy cuff around the back of the head that send her staggering forward before being jerked back painfully by her tied wrists.

Fronto felt his knees begin to give in to the panic. How could he run now?

But what else could he do?

Setting his jaw firm, he took a few paces forward towards the two killers and their prisoner.

"Let her go and I'll give myself to you."

The giant's step faltered and Fronto realised that he was actually considering the offer. However, next to him, the wraith gave an unpleasant smile and yanked on the cord, pulling Lucilia in front of him. His curved knife came up to caress her throat.

"We will have both, young Falerius. I had hoped to tie you down and make you watch as I slowly dismembered and peeled this pretty young thing, but now that we have arrived at our destination, I am of a mind to simply end her now and concentrate on you instead.

Fronto's eyes widened as the wraith's left hand released the cord in order to grab Lucilia's brow and turn her head, raising the face so that her neck was presented clear to the blade. His right hand twisted to prick the gleaming point into her throat just enough to draw blood.

Fronto felt his world fall away.

He wanted to close his eyes and hope that all of this went away like some childish nightmare, for he knew the wraith's mind from his eyes and his stance. This was not a man who bluffed or procrastinated, and this was no threat to cause anguish. The wraith simply meant to kill her and to do it now.

He started forward to intervene as his eyes watched the blade move in for the final, slicing blow, and his heart skipped a beat as Lucilia's foot rose and then slammed down with a strength born of desperation on her captor's foot.

Fronto was too far away for such a small noise to carry, but he imagined well enough the sounds of most of the bones in the man's foot smashing. Lucilia's sandal was only light, yet her blow was anything but!

The wraith gave an unearthly howl, his sharp blade scoring a fine red line on Lucilia's throat. Fronto watched in panic as the pale flesh bloomed red and waited a single heartbeat for the arterial spray to begin.

It never came. Instead, as the wraith reacted too late, the throbbing agony in his foot clouding his senses and interrupting his reactions, Lucilia ducked and came up in front of the blade that had been at her throat.

"Run!" Fronto bellowed, realising that she was trying to grasp the man's knife in her bound hands. The killer was wounded, but not enough to relinquish that blade to her. If she did not run now, he would recover soon enough and then she would die.

Lucilia took to her feet.

He had not told her
where
to run - had not had the opportunity to think that far - but Lucilia knew Puteoli and the villa almost as well as he after two years of growing familiarity, and she would find somewhere to cut her bonds and hide.

Berengarus turned his head almost nonchalantly to watch the girl run. His expression revealed his thoughts clearly enough: he would have liked her to die, but she was at best peripheral to his plan. With Fronto alone and only twenty paces away, he was hardly going to concentrate on a meaningless woman now.