Nobody Loves a Centurion

10

In what had become a monotonously regular custom, somebody was trying to wake me in the middle of the night. At first I thought it was Freda, wanting me for another session. The woman reminded me of the arms masters who had been drilling me so mercilessly.

“Captain, darling! Wake up, beloved!” It was Indiumix.

“What now?” I said, shaking my head. “Are the barbarians here?” Another of my Gauls stood just outside the tent, holding a torch.

“The legatus wants you, Captain, Labienus himself. He’s with Captain Carbo over by our quarters.”

I sat up and tugged on my boots. “What’s this all about?”

“I do not know. A runner came to us from the Prefect of the Camp and said to saddle up and be ready to ride. He also said you were to be summoned.”

I looked around for Freda but she wasn’t in the tent. Hermes came stumbling sleepily in and he helped me into my armor by the light of the flaring torch.

“Where are Freda and Molon?” I asked him.

“No idea. What do you need them for, anyway?” He fastened my sword belt.

“Nothing, but they shouldn’t be wandering around in the middle of the night.” My mind was on other things, though. What new emergency had come up? One thing was certain: Caesar was gone, and if Labienus wanted me, it had to be something bad. Hermes handed me my helmet and I ducked out through the tent doorway, clapping the metal pot on my head and fastening the cheekplates beneath my chin as we walked toward the cavalry quarters.

The camp was sound asleep-by army standards, anyway. At least one quarter of the men were up and standing sentry duty at all hours. Watchfires glimmered here and there, and a smell of smoke drifted over everything. An overcast sky rendered the stars invisible, but I judged it to be somewhat past midnight. With the torchbearer walking ahead of me, I managed to make it the whole way without tripping over a tent rope.

Labienus, Paterculus, and Spurius Mutius, the acting First Spear, stood by the watchfire with Carbo and Lovernius. They all wore the expressions of combined anger, fear, exasperation, and puzzlement that, in this army, had become as much an item of official issue as the scutum and the gladius.

“What’s up?” I said cheerily, not feeling cheery at all.

“Carbo’s men have found something,” Labienus said. “I think you ought to have a look at it.”

“Damned barbarians,” Mutius grumbled. “Why can’t they act like civilized people?”

The answer seemed incredibly obvious to me, but sometimes you have to point things out to soldiers. “Because they aren’t civilized people,” I told him. “What have they done this time?”

“I am going to show you,” Carbo said. “The less said here in camp the better. Our Provincial allies are going to be spooked enough as it is.”

“Metellus,” Labienus said, “I want a full report from you at morning officer’s call. Speak to no one else about this before you have reported to me.”

“You aren’t going out this time?” I said.

“The Prefect can’t leave the camp and Caesar ordered me not to venture beyond the rampart before his return.”

“Beyond the rampart?” I said, my stomach sinking.

“I’ll tell you about it as we ride,” Carbo said impatiently. “Come on. I want to be back before daylight.”

As we were conferring, my ala had been assembling. Each man held a flaming torch and had a bundle of spares tied to his saddle. Indiumix led my own horse up and boosted me into the saddle.

“You’re probably safe enough tonight,” Labienus said. “But if you should be captured, keep your mouths shut and die like Romans.”

With these touching words of encouragement we rode off through the Porta Decumana. Out in the open, I could just make out the watch fires of the lonely First Century in their exposed camp to the northeast. I almost envied them. At least they had the security of the great rampart to the north.

“What in the name of all the gods is going on, Cnaeus?” I demanded.

“Something so strange that my first thought was to get hold of you,” Carbo answered. “Tonight we completed our sweep early. Not a single Helvetian to be found. But the guards on the rampart reported unusual activity in the hills to the north-west. It’s heavy woods up there, but they could see lights flickering, like a lot of men running around with torches, and one big glow like a bonfire in the woods. They could hear sounds, too-drumming and singing.

“I figured the barbarians might be massing up there under cover of the woods for a morning assault. It’s not very far, and the Gauls like to fight at a run. If they were to come out of the woods at first light, when there’s a heavy ground fog, they could be at the rampart before anyone would even know they were there.”

“Clear so far,” I assured him.

“So I sent a runner to inform the legatus that I was undertaking a mission beyond the rampart to see if there was a Gallic army up there.” He said this as if he had taken out a work party to improve the ditch. This is why the whole world pays tribute to Rome instead of the other way around.

“What did you find?” I asked. “I don’t suppose you just want to show me a million painted savages dancing around and working themselves up for a morning attack.”

“Nothing that simple,” he said. “You’ll see.”

We rode to a sally port in the rampart. This was a narrow slot, just wide enough for horsemen to pass single-file. It was blocked at entrance and exit by heavy logs studded with long spikes. The auxilia manning that port dragged the logs aside and we rode through. On the other side waited a wild-looking little detachment of Carbo’s scouts, more like hunting hounds than human beings. Among them I recognized Ionus, the man who had discovered Vinius’s body.

“Let’s go,” Carbo said. The Scouts set off at a lope. On the uneven ground their progress was more a series of leaps than the long strides of a civilized runner. Bent over almost double, their arms held a little away from their bodies for balance, they looked as if they were following a scent trail. They kept ahead of us easily, even though we were riding at a swift trot.

As we drew away from the rampart, I felt the chilling dread experienced by most soldiers when they are separated from their legions. Precarious as military life can be, there is tremendous comfort to be had from six thousand shields with six thousand resolute Roman swordsmen standing behind them. Even the primitive fortification of an earthen wall topped by wooden stakes takes on the permanence and solidity of a fortified city when you are out on your own in enemy territory.

A short ride across the grassy plain brought us to the foot of the densely wooded hills. The Helvetii, whose agriculture was primitive, never bothered to clear this hill country to till the slopes. They dwelled in the valleys and plains, where the land was hospitable and yielded easily to their wooden plow-shares. The great labor required to clear and plant vineyards on steep slopes was repellant to the Gauls, who thought such work fit only for slaves. True, most Gallic peasants were little more than slaves themselves, but they had no liking for hard toil either.

A small detachment of Carbo’s skirmishers awaited us at the base of the first hill. “Any sign of the enemy?” Carbo asked them.

“Not a hair of them,” a decurion said.

“We continue on foot from here,” Carbo said, dismounting. “You skirmishers get some torches from the horsemen. Lovernius, you come with us. The rest wait here. Be ready to run for it, but don’t run before we get back.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked nervously. I didn’t like the idea of being separated from my horse. When I have to flee, I prefer not to waste time at it. Armored and in hobnailed boots, I would have no chance of outfooting a horde of near-naked Gauls. It wouldn’t even take a horde of them. Two or three would do the job. Mabe even one. I’d had an exhausting night.

“The woods are too thick for horsemen,” Carbo said phlegmatically. “Come on.”

We went up onto the slopes with the Scouts in the lead. I wondered what the watching Helvetians were making of all this activity. Our little torchlit cavalry procession must have been visible for miles, and the torchbearing skirmishers probably presented a twinkling display as we ascended.

Our climb was all but silent, the only sounds the faint rustle of mail links against sword sheaths and the hiss and crackle of the torches. The massive, ancient trees pressed close in upon us, the undersides of their limbs luridly illuminated by the torches. Night-roaming animals scurried away from us as we climbed. It was all monstrously oppressive and frightening.

We Romans do not like wild places. We like open, cultivated land that has been tamed by the hand of man. Deserts repel us; mountains are just obstacles; and we dislike forests with their wild animals and their swarms of spiteful spirits. Only pastoral poets pretend to like nature, and their sylvan dales occupied by nymphs and handsome shepherd lads are as unreal as a wall painting. The real thing is vicious, messy, and unforgiving.

Soon I detected a faint glow ahead of us. “Almost there now,” Carbo said. Iron man though he was, he was breathing heavily. This was his second such climb of the night.

Abruptly, we were at the edge of a clearing. The Scouts halted, then the skirmishers, and finally Carbo, Lovernius, and me. The trees ended at a roughly circular patch of mossy ground perhaps thirty paces in diameter. Big, rough rocks protruded from the ground, strangely shaped, although they were apparently nature’s work, showing no marks of hammer or chisel. Tremendous oaks marked the periphery, their branches interlacing overhead to form a ceiling.

These details were made faintly visible by the low-burning remains of what must earlier have been a huge bonfire. It was nothing but embers now, crackling and sending up smoke to the heavens. It was an uncanny place, and I had the uneasy but certain feeling that I was looking at what the Greeks call a temenos: a sacred place consecrated to the gods.

Carbo stepped into the clearing and walked toward the fire. I took a deep breath and followed. Lovernius and the others hung back until Carbo turned and beckoned impatiently.

“Come on, bring those torches. What was done here is done.”

I went to the remains of the fire, dreading what I might see there. To my relief it seemed to be ordinary wood, not wicker. I detected none of the charred bones I half expected to see. I scanned all around the clearing but could see nothing but the ominously surrounding trees.

“I don’t see anything,” I said, relieved but disappointed.

“That’s because you’re looking in the wrong direction,” Carbo said. I looked to see his head tilted back, gazing straight up.

Beneath my helmet, my scalp prickled and icy fingers danced up and down my spine. In the gloom above, my eyes were at first confused by the interlacing of the branches and the uncertain light of the torches. Then I saw three shapes dangling from three stout limbs, slowly turning as if there was a breeze up there that I could not feel down below. They were dressed in long, white robes and upon the breast of each was a richly worked golden pectoral. Their faces were distorted, but I recognized them, two old, one young.

“The Druids!” I cried, my voice far louder than I had intended.

Lovernius grasped an amulet that hung around his neck and began yammering some sort of prayer or spell, a look of superstitious terror on his face. The skirmishers were equally upset. I grasped his arm.

“Lovernius,” I said sternly, “you are a civilized man with a Roman education, not a superstitious savage. Possess yourself!” Gradually he calmed.

“What can this mean?” I demanded. “Who sacrifices Druids? I thought they did the sacrificing!” For I had no doubt that this was a ritual killing. Ordinary executions do not take place at such remote sites or under such bizarre circumstances; the grove, the stones, the fire-all were redolent of barbaric religious practice.

“I don’t know!” Lovernius said, his voice shaky. “I have never seen anything like this, nor heard of any such. Sometimes-sometimes a Druid is sacrificed when the people face a terrible calamity; famine, plague perhaps. But then the Druid is chosen by lot and there is a great festival. Only one dies, and the body is sunk into a sacred marsh.”

“Any ideas, Decius?” Carbo asked.

“Absolutely none. I won’t admit it to Labienus, but I’m as devoid of answers as a Bruttian is of table manners. You might as well ask an Egyptian to exhibit bravery in battle.”

“No, you’d better not tell Labienus that,” he concurred. “Just smile your superior smile and pretend you know more than you’re letting on.” Carbo knew me all too well.

“I’ll figure it out sooner or later,” I assured him. “It’s just that we’re dealing with barbarians here.”

“That’s why I brought you to see this.”

“So what do we do now?” I asked. “It doesn’t seem quite right to just leave them hanging there.” It wasn’t that I really thought their spirits would harm us if they weren’t properly buried, but I was in no mood to take any chances.

“No, we get away from this place. It will be light soon. If the Helvetii didn’t do this, they’ll be along to investigate soon. This hill has looked like the first evening of Saturnalia all night. The Druids were Gauls, let the Gauls take care of them.”

This was eminently sensible advice and we followed it forthwith. Our little party did not exactly run back down the hill but we did move out smartly. We found our horses where we had left them and remounted. We rode back at an easy pace, because Carbo refused to leave his skirmishers behind. This was an estimable display of loyalty, but not one close to my own heart.

“Was there anybody else there when you found the place?” I asked him as we rode. I kept looking over my shoulder for an advancing army.

“Not a soul. Whoever did it was not long gone, though. The fire was still burning high, so I didn’t need any torches to see them hanging there.”

“I wish I could go back to investigate after daylight,” I said. “But I’m only going to do it if Labienus agrees to give me the whole legion for security first. With the hill surrounded I might be able to keep my mind on my work.”

“Don’t count on that,” Carbo said. “What do you think you might find?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, but somebody always drops something. I might find an indication of who did it or why it happened.”

“Do barbarians always need reasons for doing things?” he asked.

“Always,” I assured him. “It may not be something that we would understand but there has to be a reason.” The Gauls and the Druids and Titus Vinius. Somehow they were tied together by the gold in that chest and in some way it had led to these bizarre killings.

We rode back into the camp as gray light was staining the eastern horizon. As always, the legion was wide awake by this hour. The clatter and bustle was reassuring after the strange events of the night.

“Any activity from the barbarians last night?” I called up to a sentry on the gate.

“Not a sound from them,” he answered. “Doesn’t seem right, somehow.” Any break in routine seems ominous to soldiers, even a reduction in danger and harassment.

“I know it’s useless to tell your men to keep their mouths shut about this,” Carbo said as we dismounted. “Mine certainly won’t.

“We are all loyal to Rome!” Lovernius insisted.

“Of course. But things are chancy enough now without all our Gallic auxilia getting agitated. They’re not all educated men like you, and the Twins know our own soldiers are as superstitious as a bunch of old peasant women.” The trumpets sounded officer’s call. “Let’s go report to the legatus.” He turned and walked toward the praetorium. I gave my reins to Indiumix and started to follow, when Lovernius touched my arm. I stopped and faced him.

“Decius Caecilius, when you return from the praetorium, ride with us on our morning patrol.”

I was about to ask him what this was about, but I could see from his expression that he was turning over some painful thoughts. Clearly, he wanted to speak with me. It was quite as clear that he did not want to do it just here or just now. More than anything else, I wanted to get some answers from someone, anyone, who might hold another piece of the puzzle. I turned back to Indiumix.

“See that my horse is ready to ride out.” He nodded solemnly.

When we arrived at the meeting, Labienus had Carbo give a quick summary of the night’s events. The expressions of the other officers were incredulous. It was all just too far outside their experience.

“Any conclusions, Decius Caecilius?” Labienus asked.

I ruthlessly suppressed the urge to make a facetious request for a six thousand-man escort to go back and examine the site. “Just that I feel certain that this event and the murder of Titus Vinius are somehow connected.”

“You are grasping at anything to save your client,” Paterculus said. “Commander, in my twenty-five years of soldiering I have never seen so many strange things happen at once, but what has any of it to do with fighting a war? They can hang a Druid from every tree between here and the Northern Sea for all I care. It’s all just native doings and none of our concern. Let’s stick to matters that make sense and have a bearing on our situation.” A murmur among the assembled officers indicated a good deal of agreement.

“I’d say the same thing if we weren’t stuck out here all alone and dependent on our Gallic allies,” the legatus told him. “They may proclaim allegiance to Rome and execrate the Helvetii, but they’re as religion-besotted as so many Egyptians. They’ve been jumpy for days and something like this could trigger mass desertions. I hate to contemplate exemplary executions, but I won’t hesitate to order them. See that everyone knows this. Now, officer of the night watch, your report.”

After the meeting broke up, Labienus kept me for a private talk. “So you learned nothing, eh?” he said.

“I gathered a good deal of information from which to draw conclusions,” I said evasively. “And I expect to have some answers from a trusted informant by midday.” I thought this sounded impressive.

“You’d better. I am very tired of these matters and I want to see an end to them almost as much as I want to see Caesar arrive with those legions.”

From the praetorium I went to my tent to grab some break-fast before setting out on the morning patrol. Hermes was gone to his arms drill. Molon and Freda were likewise absent. Just when you want them, slaves always manage to duck out. Grumbling, I located the provisions and found some bread and cheese. This I choked down with plain water.

I was in a bad mood as I clumped toward the cavalry quarters. It seemed to me that the sleeplessness and poor diet of army life was probably calculated. The Gauls had better watch out when this lot was turned loose on them. Just a few days of it had put me in a murderous temper and these men lived this way for years at a time.

I found my little squadron of the ala mounted and ready for their patrol. The praetorian area was subdued and apprehensive, with men who were usually cheerful and boisterous speaking in low tones and frowning. Word of the Druid killings had spread. I could only imagine what the atmosphere must be like in the auxilia camp.

We rode out through the Porta Principalis Sinistra in the eastern wall of the camp. We rode until we were out of sight of both camp and rampart, then Lovernius called a halt near a small clump of trees.

“There will be no Helvetii to chase this morning,” he said, dismounting. “Let’s make ourselves comfortable.”

“That sounds good to me,” I said, feeling the accumulated soreness of the night’s activities as I heaved myself from the saddle. One of the men took our horses to picket them among the trees. We all sat in the shade. Lovernius had thoughtfully brought along a fat skin of native wine and we began passing it around our circle.

When it came to me, I leaned back against the bole of a tree and directed the pale stream into my mouth. For native stuff it was excellent, or else my tastes were coarsening. I didn’t try to rush things. The turf was springy and comfortable beneath me. Lovernius would tell me what he had to say when he was ready and I had run out of people to badger in the camp.

“I do not want you to think,” Lovernius said at last, “that we who are loyal to Rome are in any way in sympathy with these Helvetii.”

“I would never think it,” I assured him, not insincerely. In truth, while we Romans tended to lump all Gauls together, they had only the sketchiest sense of national kinship. In no way did they feel that they were taking sides with foreigners against their brothers. A member of another Gallic tribe was as foreign to them as a Syrian is to a Roman.

“We do not allow the Druids to dominate us,” he asserted. “Not as they do the Helvetii and others. But we still regard them with respect.”

“Quite understandable.” I took another pull at the wine. Not bad at all, really. I passed it to Lovernius, feeling that he needed a little more lubrication. He had almost worked himself up to saying what he had to say. He took a couple of sizable swallows and passed it on. Then he sat in silence for a while. Then, with an effort, he spoke.

“Titus Vinius was triple-slain.”

I knew, at last, I was onto something. “What does that mean?”

“You recall that you told me Vinius had been strangled, stabbed, and axed on the head?”

“More like clubbed on the head, but I recall telling you.” I also remembered the distressed reaction of his men. At the time he had said that they were upset at the defiling of a sacred pond.

“Well, that is a Druid thing. For some sacrifices, the victim is triple-slain; he or she may be hanged or throttled. In either case the noose is left around the neck. Then the victim may be stabbed or the throat cut, then smashed on the head, then thrown into a pond or sunk in a marsh. Sometimes only hanged and stabbed or axed, the drowning being the third death.”

I remembered now the triple-headed god on Badraig’s staff and the Gallic habit of doing things by threes. “You think the Druids killed Vinius as a sacrifice?”

“They must have! Who else could have done it, and why?”

“The why of it is a major question,” I said, my mind speeding for a change. “But I know that Vinius had some sort of dealings on the side. He was amassing wealth from somewhere, and it certainly wasn’t from the army. Might he have been dealing with the Druids? If he somehow betrayed them-and this would certainly be in character-they might have done away with him in revenge.”

“But to do this without a festival of the people?” he objected. “That is terribly irregular.”

“In time of war,” I said, “we often simplify our religious rituals. Perhaps that is what they did. Am I correct in believing that the Druids never use arms?”

“Except for the instruments of sacrifice, they never even touch them. It would be polluting.”

“There,” I said, spreading my hands, “what could be more sensible? They can’t use swords or spears, so they used what they had.” It didn’t answer everything, but I liked the sound of it.

“Well, perhaps,” he said, still very uneasy.

“But there is more, isn’t there?” I prodded.

“Yes. What we saw last night.”

“That had the look of a sacrifice as well,” I said. “But you said that is never the way a Druid is sacrificed.”

“It is not,” he said, taking another pull at the skin.

“Then tell me, Lovernius: Who sacrifices their victims by hanging alone?”

“The Germans!” he said, vehemently. “In their sacred groves, they hang their victims in oak trees. At one great festival held every twelve years, they sacrifice twelve of every living thing: men, beasts, even birds and fish. Hundreds of corpses hanging in a huge oak grove near the Northern Sea.”

“The smell must be appalling,” I said. “You have seen these things with your own eyes?”

“No, of course not. The only Gauls who see their rites are the ones who get sacrificed. But I have heard of this. Everyone has.”

“I see.” More reliance on rumor. But this probably had a greater core of truth than the hearsay of soldiers in a strange country. “Have you any idea what these strange events might portend?”

He shook his head dejectedly. “None, save that things like this should not happen. Is this a war of men or of gods?”

“The two do seem to be getting confused,” I told him. “But I feel that all this mystical confusion is nothing but concealment for depressingly human evils.”

“What do you mean?” he asked earnestly.

How to explain the way my mind worked to a group of Gauls, half-civilized though they were. It was hard enough to explain myself to my fellow Romans, steeped as they were in traditions of Greek logic and native commonsense. I had a try at it. The Gauls paid my words close attention, with serious expressions on their faces. They wanted answers as badly as I did.

“Lovernius, men explain their actions with a great many words, imputing all sorts of noble motives to themselves. They may say they are driven by patriotism, or by devotion to the gods, or by the interests of the people, or loyalty to a king, or any number of other great things. Usually, they are lying. Far more often, their motives are base. They are after power, or wealth, or some other man’s woman.”

“This I understand,” Lovernius said, “but these are religious matters.”

I held up a pedantic finger, the wine lending eloquence to my teeming mind. “Always, Lovernius, when men perform ignoble deeds and seek to justify themselves with high-flown words and portentous actions, I look for the shoddy, base element that ties everything together. A few days ago I discovered that Titus Vinius had amassed a great deal of gold from no obvious source. Forget about gods and priests and dreadful sacrifices. The gold is the thing. When I find out where it came from and where it was destined, I feel sure that I will have all parties involved in this matter tied together as with a chain. A chain of gold.” I was absurdly pleased with the conceit, then reminded myself to go easy on the wine so early in the day.

The Gauls, with their love of flowery rhetoric, did not consider my speech excessive, and Lovernius seemed relieved to have the matter out in the open. He was loyal to Rome, but superstitious dread had caused him to hold his silence about the triple slaying. The triple hanging, on the other hand, had been too much. He now felt that I would be able to set these matters to rest with dispatch. I hoped that his faith in me was not entirely without justification.