Nobody Loves a Centurion

13

Ariovistus kept us in his camp for five more days. There were no more beatings, and we were fed regularly. Our bonds were not too tight. But we were under constant guard by men for whom the word “unsympathetic” must first have been coined. In the absence of physical abuse, mental anxiety fully occupied us. This was a barbarian king, who might change his mind at the slightest whim. Nobody spoke to us. A few times Freda walked by and I tried to engage her in conversation, but she had lost interest even in beating me. Oddly, I almost felt slighted in this. Perhaps there was a little Titus Vinius in me after all. Molon, likewise, merely shook his head when I addressed him.

So Hermes and I talked to each other for lack of better company, as men will when they are confined together. I told him that, when we got back to Rome, I would enroll him with a schoolmaster, for I would be needing a secretary in my future career. He said that maybe staying with the army and fighting Gauls and Germans wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all.

He tried to wheedle out of me exactly when I expected to manumit him, but I knew better than to answer that. Keep them in suspense is the best policy. After a while we stopped talking about the future. Too much talk of the future makes the present seem all that much more precarious.

On the morning of the sixth day, we woke in a deserted camp. I jerked up and looked around wildly. “Hermes! They’re gone!”

“Huh?” he said brightly, blinking and staring owlishly. “Where did they go?”

“Back to Germania, I hope! Come on, let’s get loose from these bonds.” So we sat back to back and made a ridiculous attempt to untie one another’s ropes. Then we gave that up and tried to tug up our stakes. No luck there, either.

“This is going to take some thought,” I said finally. “Maybe we can rub the cords through against a rock.”

“No rocks around here,” Hermes said, looking about him. “Hey, where did the god go?”

I looked behind us and saw a hole in the ground where the ugly thing had stood. “They dug it up and broke camp without waking us,” I observed. “These Germans know how to handle themselves in the dark.”

“Here comes somebody,” Hermes said apprehensively. We watched the treeline and a moment later an ugly, gnomish, but familiar figure came through.

“Thought I’d sneak back and make life a little easier for you two.” From within his tunic he produced a knife with a short blade and cut our bonds. “Get along now, before the Germans notice I’m gone.”

“Tell me something, Molon,” I said.

“What?”

I grabbed his right arm and raised it. “Tell me about this.” Around his wrist was the silver bracelet I had seen worn by Titus Vinius on the day of our first encounter. “How did you get it? From the Druids? What sort of private game have you been playing?” I twisted it off his arm.

“Ow!” he cried, rubbing his wrist. “If you must know, I took it when I heard Vinius was dead. It was with his dress gear in the tent.”

“The others said he never took it off,” I pointed out.

“Well, he couldn’t very well be wearing it and pass for a slave, could he? Come on, give it back. I turned you loose, didn’t I?”

“I need it,” I explained. “I am going to show it to Caesar as evidence that this insane story is not just a lot of vaporing on my part.”

“You are an ungrateful man,” Molon said. “I gave you good service, even though I really wasn’t your slave.”

“Yes, and how you came to be an adviser to Ariovistus must make quite a story, but I haven’t time to hear it. You’d probably just lie, anyway.”

“Any chance of getting our swords back?” Hermes said.

“Are you serious?” Molon said. “That much iron?”

“Come along, Hermes, let’s be away from here.” I turned for a last time to Molon. “Tell Princess Freda, if that is her title, that I shall always remember her fondly.”

“She’ll be glad to hear it,” he grinned. “I know she thinks the world of you, Senator.” Who knows when a man like that is telling the truth? He walked away, back into the forest.

We got lost a few times, but I had a general idea of where we were and how to get back. The hills were not unpleasant early in the day, and such was the menace from our two-legged enemies that we did not even bother to worry about wolves and bears and such. The air was fresh, we were free, and our bruises were fading. Best of all, I had found out the truth about the death of Titus Vinius and I would save Burrus and his friends. I explained this to Hermes, who was starting to complain.

“No, best of all, the Germans are going away. As for the rest, I’m tired, I’m sore, and I’m hungry.”

“Don’t be so joyful about the Germans,” I chided him. “The Helvetii will kill us just as dead if they catch us.”

“See? Things aren’t so good after all.”

The mountainside where the sacrifices had taken place seemed almost as familiar as home by the time we reached it, early in the evening. After that there was no great problem as to direction: just go downhill. The first stars were coming out as we reached the plain.

“Not far now,” I said.

“Well, at least it’s flat,” Hermes commented.

I should have known by that time that no smallest aspect of my time in Gaul was going to be truly pleasant or easy. Shortly after midnight a heavy ground fog closed in. We strode on, but less confidently.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Hermes said. “Maybe we should wait for daylight.”

“I don’t want to be caught out here on the plain,” I told him. “We’ll just have to trust to my sense of direction.” He looked dubious at this. “We have to reach the rampart pretty soon. It’s nineteen miles long. That’s pretty hard to miss.”

“I have perfect confidence in you, master,” he said, a remark open to more than one interpretation.

Daylight came, but not clarity of view. We were walking in white fog instead of dark fog. I thought I could determine the direction of the rising sun, but I may have been fooling myself in this. I betrayed no doubts to Hermes, though.

“Halt!” the command came out of the gloom with such authority that both of us were struck as by a thunderbolt. “Who’s out there?”

“I am Captain of Praetorian Cavalry Decius Caecilius Metellus, accompanied by one slave. I must report to the legatus at once.”

“What’s the watchword, Captain?”

“Watchword? How would I know? I haven’t attended a staff conference in seven days! Let us through-I have urgent business!”

“Sorry, Captain. I can’t let you pass without the watch-word. You’ll have to wait until the officer of the watch gets here.”

“I cannot believe this!” I shouted, all but tearing out my hair by the roots. “At least let me know where you are!”

“Oh, I guess that’s all right. Just keep coming the way you were for a few steps.” I did as he instructed and then I saw the great rampart in front of me. Just over its palisade I could make out the shapes of two helmets, close together. The fog was lifting rapidly now.

“Can’t you see that I am a Roman officer?” I demanded.

“Well, you talk like one. What you look like is a beggar.”

I could imagine how he would think so. My tunic was ragged and filthy, I was equally filthy as well as unshaven, with my hair sticking out like a Gaul’s. Then I heard somebody else clumping along the wooden walk and I saw a helmet with the transverse crest of a centurion.

“What’s all this commotion, Galerius?”

“There’s someone out there who says he’s a Roman officer, though he doesn’t look it. Got a slave with him.”

“Somebody said something about a missing officer.” The centurion peered over the palisade. “Let’s hear your story.”

“I was on a night reconnaissance and was captured by the Germans. We escaped yesterday and have been wandering in the fog all night.” The shorter the better, I decided.

“Well, at least you sound all right.” He pointed east, toward the lake. “There’s a gate right down there about a quarter of a mile. Go on and I’ll see they let you in.”

We hurried down to the narrow sally port and a group of extremely puzzled men let me through at the centurion’s orders. I was so agitated and frustrated that only now did I notice that I was looking at legionaries, not auxilia.

“When did legionaries take over guarding the rampart?” I said. They just stared and then I noticed the stars painted on their shields. “What legion are you?”

“The Seventh!” said one, proudly.

I whooped and hugged Hermes, much to his embarrassment. “Our reinforcements! When did you get here?”

“Late yesterday evening,” said a decurion. “Caesar came riding in when we were camped just the other side of the Alps. He didn’t march us here; he made us run here!”

“Six men dropped dead from exhaustion in the mountains,” another said, nodding and grinning, as if this was a great distinction. “Caesar had his lictors marching in the rear, with orders to behead any that fell out.”

“Caesar truly believes in having his orders obeyed,” the decurion said with considerable awe. It was as if they were talking about a god, except that they spoke with affection. I could not believe it. Lucullus had tried to enforce stiff discipline in his army and the soldiers had rebelled. Caesar demanded inhuman discipline and they worshipped him for it. I will never understand soldiers.

As Hermes and I walked toward the camp of the Tenth, the rest of the fog cleared off and we saw the most heartening sight in the world: Where there had been only the solitary camp of the legion and its auxilia, there were now three full legionary camps and three auxilia camps, and since these had been newly raised for this campaign they were at full strength; something in excess of thirty-six thousand men.

“There’s enough soldiers here to conquer the world!” Hermes said.

“I’m sure Caesar would like to do just that,” I told him, “but we’ve marched ten legions at a time against an enemy and still had a hard fight of it. Still, this army should be able to take on the Helvetii handily.”

“And the Germans?”

“Caesar won’t take on both at once. Ariovistus may have been exaggerating his numbers, but he may have three times as many men as Caesar.”

“That sounds bad.”

“It isn’t good, but Marius overcame odds that great, fighting Germans. Sheer ferocity and courage can only accomplish so much. Discipline counts for more than that, and you saw how they were armed. Those flimsy shields won’t even slow a pilum. Wooden spears won’t penetrate a scutum or a mail shirt. As long as the legions hold their formations, they can deal with greater odds than that.”

“But they’re huge!”

“Just big targets,” I assured him. “Without helmets or armor, they are just meat for a sharp gladius.” I hoped that I was not just reciting a lot of propaganda. Roman armies had been destroyed before, and Hannibal had even done it with inferior numbers. But Hannibal was the best general who ever lived. Alexander’s reputation is greatly exaggerated, in my opinion. Romans are rarely outfought, but we have been outgeneraled from time to time.

But I knew that those wild men had none of the discipline of Hannibal’s veterans. Caesar’s legions would deal with the Germans right after a victory over the Helvetii, when their morale was soaring, and that would make a tremendous difference.

Or am I just indulging in hindsight here? Perhaps I was really far less confident and far more frightened back then. I may have just been putting on an act for Hermes.

“Speaking of swords,” he said, “are you going to get me another one?”

“Not until I replace my own. I still have my cavalry sword, but I need a gladius, too. We’ll see how my luck at dice runs. Maybe I’ll ask Burrus and his contubernium to take up a collection to replace the swords we lost on their behalf. They ought to be grateful for. .” Then, with rising horror, I remembered.

“Run!” I shouted, breaking into a sprint.

“Why?” Hermes cried from somewhere behind me. I didn’t waste any breath on answering him.

The camp of the Tenth was the easternmost. I ran past the others through a heavy smell of new-dug earth. They were still digging their ditches and raising their ramparts. Under the watchful eyes of their decurions the men paused to stare at the crazy, ragged man running by as if all the Furies were clawing at his buttocks, until the decurions barked at them to stop being lazy sods and get back to work.

As I got to the north wall, I saw that all the sentries were facing inward and I prayed to Mercury to lend wings to my heels. I dashed through the Porta Decumana and behind me someone shouted: “Hey! Stop, there! What’s the watchword?” The muscles in my back tensed in anticipation of the untimely arrival of a pilum, but I knew the likelihood was remote, for it can be extremely bad luck to kill a madman.

Through the deserted quarters of the praetorian guards I ran, noticed only by horses and other livestock. As I neared the forum, I saw Caesar and his officers atop the speaking platform, watching something below them. What it was I could not see, for the legion was drawn up by cohorts around three sides of the forum. With a final, Olympic-quality surge of speed I ran between two cohorts and burst into the open amid surprised shouts.

Before the speaking platform stood Caesar’s twelve lictors. In the middle of them, incongruously, stood a painted stone pillar. Before this odd grouping stood the men of the First Century of the First Cohort, dressed in their tunics and armed only with vinestaffs, looks of misery on their faces. But their expressions were as nothing to the woeful countenances of the eight naked men who stood at one end of the double line. First among them was Burrus, who was about to walk between the lines. The vinestaffs were already raised to strike.

“Stop!” I bellowed. “Stop at once! These men are innocent!” A babble of astonishment erupted around the forum and the commands of the centurions did little to quiet it. I ran up to the platform, panting and gasping, and stopped before the odd stone pillar. I saw that it was the grave monument of Titus Vinius. He was to witness the execution, if only in effigy.

“I see you retain your flair for the dramatic, Decius Caecilius,” Caesar said. “You had better explain yourself quickly if you do not wish to join your friends about to go under the vinestaffs.”

I was panting too hard to speak, so I reached into my tunic and took out the silver bracelet. I tossed it up to Caesar and he caught and examined it.

“This gets you a hearing. Come up here, Decius.”

I managed to stagger up the praetorium wall and thence to the platform. Someone shoved a skin into my hands and I choked down a mouthful of heavily watered wine. The next mouthful went down easier and the third easier yet.

“You had better talk before you drain that thing,” Caesar said. Then, to the others, “Gentlemen, give us leave.” The officers filed off the platform, eyeing me like a visitation from the underworld. When we were alone, I talked very swiftly, in a low voice. Caesar’s expression changed little during my recitation. He paled a little when I told him of Vinius’s treachery, but the terrible danger I had undergone seemed to cause him little distress. When I was finished, he stared at me for a while.

“Well done, Decius,” he said at last. “I want full particulars of your experience in the German camp later.” He called for his officers to rejoin us and he gave them, very succinctly, the basic facts of my discoveries. Their expressions were a marvel to behold.

“Well, I always said Titus Vinius was a bastard,” Paterculus remarked, an observation applicable to most centurions. “But, Proconsul, we’ve got the legion formed up here to witness an execution. If we don’t kill somebody, they’re going to feel that things aren’t quite right.”

Caesar smiled. “Oh, I think I can give them a pleasing show.” He leaned over the parapet and spoke to one of his lictors. “Go to the blacksmith’s and fetch me a hammer and chisel.” The man dashed off and Caesar raised his hands for silence, which descended instantly.

“Soldiers! The gods of Rome love the Tenth Legion and will not allow dishonor or injustice to befall it! They have furnished me with proof that the Druids murdered Titus Vinius as a barbaric human sacrifice, and that this fate befell him as a result of his own treachery. The First Cohort, and its First Century, are restored to full honors and their disgrace canceled!” The legion erupted in a tremendous roar and the morning sun flashed from the tips of waving spears. The other legions probably thought we were under barbarian attack. The soldiers began to shout Caesar’s name over and over again, as if he had just won a great victory.

“Wait here,” Caesar said. “I shall be back presently.” He left the platform and walked toward his tent.

Burrus and his friends were so numb with relief that the men who had been about to kill them had to help them on with their tunics. A few minutes later the First Cohort was intact again, standing in armor, crests fluttering in the breeze, shield covers off to flaunt their bright colors. Caesar was giving the gods all the credit, but I took a great personal satisfaction in the sight. It is not often that one gets to see the good results of one’s actions in so dramatic a fashion.

When Caesar came back, he was out of military uniform. Instead, he wore full pontifical regalia: a striped robe bordered with gold, a silver diadem around his balding brows, the crooktopped staff of an augur in his hand. The jubilant legion fell silent at this unusual spectacle.

He descended into the forum and stood before the grave marker of Titus Vinius. The stonecutters of Massilia, in anticipation of legionary casualties, kept a stock of these three-quarters finished, needing only to add the inscription and details when one was commissioned. For Vinius, the relief of a standing male figure had been furnished with the insignia of his rank: the transverse crest on his helmet, the greaves on his shins, the phalerae atop his scale shirt, the vinestaff in his hand, all painted in bright colors. The face bore only the vaguest resemblance to the man. Below the figure were inscribed his name, the posts he had held, and his battle honors.

Caesar stood before this monument with hands raised and pronounced a solemn execration, using the archaic language of ritual that nobody can really understand now. When he had finished the resounding curse, he turned to face the soldiers.

“Let the name of Titus Vinius be stricken from the rolls of the Tenth Legion! Let his name be forgotten, his honors stripped from him, his estate forfeit to the Rome he would have betrayed!”

He turned around and faced the gravestone. The lictor placed the hammer and chisel in his hand and he shouted: “Thus do I, Caius Julius Caesar, pontifex maximus of Rome, strike from the memory of mankind the accursed name of Titus Vinius!” With deft blows of the hammer, he chiseled away the face of the figure. Then he obliterated the inscription in the same fashion. Then he dropped the tools and remounted the platform.

“It is done! Let no man speak that accursed name! Soldiers, you have witnessed justice. Return to your duties.” Instantly, the tubas and cornicens roared and the cohorts marched from the forum, smiling broadly. It was a happy army once more. Gauls and Germans out there by the horde, and they were happy.

“Decius Caecilius,” Caesar said as we walked back toward the big tent, “you have one hour to bathe, shave, and get back in uniform. Then I want to hear your detailed report.” I suppose I should have been grateful that he allowed me even that long.

An hour later, shaved, barbered, dressed in my battle gear but still feeling somewhat ragged, I reported to the praetorium and went over the events since Caesar’s departure several times. Caesar asked frequent, pointed questions, his lawyer’s acuity ferreting out facts even I had overlooked. When he was satisfied with my report, we got out the infamous chest and, to my great sadness, Caesar made note of every deed and every bar of gold, and double-checked it all against my inventory. He was not a trusting man.

“Well,” he said finally, “that concludes this sorry business. My congratulations, Decius. Your performance exceeds even my best expectations.”

“What will you do with all this treasure?” I asked.

“I have condemned him as a traitor. Everything he owned is forfeit to the State.” He closed the chest and locked it. I made a mental vow to check the treasury records some day to see how much of it got turned in.

“This calls for a celebration,” Caesar said. “I shall hold a banquet this evening in your honor. Now go catch up on your sleep. Tonight, we banquet; tomorrow, it’s back to the war.”

I needed no encouragement. As I walked back to my tent, everyone I passed saluted me. There were smiles all around. I found Hermes already asleep, waiting in the tent door for me. I spread a cloak over him, stripped off my armor, and collapsed like a dead man.

That evening, we feasted on wild boar brought in by Gallic hunters and washed it down with excellent wine from Caesar’s personal store. Smiles and backslaps and congratulations were heaped upon me. Everyone was my friend. From being the most detested man in the legion, I was now its hero. I enjoyed it enormously, all the more so because I knew that it wasn’t going to last. Caesar even gave me a fine new sword to replace the one the Germans had taken from me.

Gradually the other officers wandered off to their beds or their night duties and I bade the Proconsul good night and went off in search of my own tent. Hermes, long experienced at this work, waited outside to make sure that I did not get lost. I handed him the napkin full of delicacies I had collected for him and we ambled slowly down the line of officers’ tents.

“It’s been a frantic few days, Hermes,” I told him, “but the worst is over now. Once the war gets going it will seem easy after all this.”

“If you say so.”

I thought about all that had happened since young Cotta had awakened me in the middle of the night, summoning me to the praetorium. The memory was like a blow to the head and I stumbled, almost falling.

“Did you trip on a tent rope?” Hermes asked.

“No, a revelation.”

He scanned the ground. “What’s it look like?”

“It looks like I’m a fool,” I said. “Druids, Germans! Nothing but distractions!”

“I think you’d better get to bed and sleep it off,” he said with a look of concern.

“Sleep is the last thing I need. You go on back to the tent. I’ll be along soon.”

“Are you sure about this?” he said.

“I am sober, if only from shock. Leave me now.”

He obeyed me and I was alone with my thoughts. Publius Aurelius Cotta had been the officer in charge of the Porta Praetoria the night Titus Vinius had died. What had Paterculus said? No officer of the guard leaves his post unless properly relieved. But Cotta had come to my tent to fetch me, and it was still dark at that hour.

He was preparing for bed when I stopped by his tent. “Decius Caecilius,” he said, surprised, “my congratulations once again. What brings you to my tent?”

“Just a small question concerning the night Vin. . that man died.”

“Is it still bothering you?” He grinned. “You are the most single-minded man I ever met. What is your question?”

“You were officer in charge of the Porta Praetoria that night. You let the Provincial party through when they displayed their pass. But you came to summon me to the praetorium later that night. How did that happen?”

“A little past midnight I was relieved and told to report to the praetorium as officer on call. Some of Caesar’s lictors were there and they told me he’d turned in. There’s a spare cot in the lictor’s tent where the duty officer can sleep when there’s no excitement. He’s got a runner who has to stay awake at all times. Mine was a Gaul who barely knew ten words of Latin.”

“Were you told why you were relieved and your duty changed?”

“Do they need to give you a reason?” he asked.

“Usually they don’t bother,” I agreed. “Who took your place at the gate?”

“It was your cousin, Lucius Caecilius Metellus.”

“Thank you, Publius. You’ve cleared something up for me.”

“Happy to be of service,” he said, looking utterly mystified.

I didn’t bother to announce myself when I barged into Lumpy’s tent. He sat up in his cot, consternation on his face, then disgust.

“Decius! Look, if it’s about that hundred. .”

“Nothing that easy, Lumpy,” I said jovially. I sat on his cot and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Dear cousin, I want to know who you passed through the Porta Praetoria and then readmitted on the night the centurion whose name must not be mentioned was murdered.”

“Decius,” he hissed. “Let it go! It’s over. You proved your client and his friends didn’t do it. Everyone is pleased with you. You’re Caesar’s favorite. Don’t ruin it, I warn you.”

I pushed him back on the cot, drew my pretty new sword, and placed its point just beneath his chin. “Who went out, Lumpy?”

“Easy, there! Put that thing away, you lunatic!”

“Talk, Lumpy.”

He sighed and it was as if all the stuffing went out of him. “I was on night officer duty at the praetorium. Paterculus told me to go relieve Cotta on the gate. He said later on there’d be a party leaving and they’d have a pass from him. I was to let them out and back in and say nothing to anybody about it.”

“And did he tell you why he was doing this?” I asked, knowing the futility of it.

“Why would he do that? It was some business of his own or Caesar’s and I wasn’t about to ask.” No, Lumpy wouldn’t ask. That was why they had sent him. They wanted an experienced political bootlicker on that gate, not an inexperienced boy who didn’t know enough to watch out for his own future. I got up and resheathed my sword.

“Lumpy, I am ashamed to share the same name with you.”

He rubbed his neck, which was bleeding from a tiny nick. “That won’t be the case much longer if you keep this up.” But I was already out through the tent flap.

The guards at the praetorium entrance saluted me and smiled. Everyone was smiling at me lately, except for Lumpy.

“Good evening, sir,” said one of them.

“I forgot something earlier this evening,” I said. “I’ll just go in and fetch it.”

They turned and looked at the tent. Light poured from its entrance. “Looks like the Proconsul’s still up. Go on in, sir. He says all his officers are to have access during his waking hours.”

Caesar was sitting at a table with a line of lamps burning behind him. Before him on the table was the silver bracelet. He looked up as I came in.

“Yes, Decius?”

“The Druids didn’t kill Titus Vinius,” I said. “You did.”

He glared at me for a few moments, then he smiled and nodded.

“Very, very good, Decius. Really, you are the most amazing man! Most men, having settled a problem to their satisfaction, will never reconsider it to see if they overlooked something.”

“You’d have gotten away with it if you hadn’t sent Cotta to fetch me. I knew he’d been assigned to the gate that evening, not to the praetorium.”

“Ah, I see. Upon such minutiae do great matters balance. By the way, I did not ‘get away’ with anything. I am Proconsul of this Province, with complete imperium. I am empowered to carry out executions without trial where I see need, and no one may hinder me in this or call me to account, even if his name is Caecilius Metellus.”

“How did you do it?” I asked. “Did Paterculus throttle him while you stabbed him?” I suppose I sounded truly bitter. I never liked being someone’s dupe, and I had been feeling particularly good that evening.

“Don’t be impertinent! The pontifex maximus of Rome does not befoul his hands with the blood of traitors. The execution was carried out in accordance with my instructions by my lictors, in constitutional fashion.”

“Except for the Druidic embellishments.”

He looked at me sourly. “Oh, sit down, Decius. You’re spoiling my digestion with your righteousness. If you ever hold high office you’ll have to perform some disagreeable tasks. Be grateful if they involve nothing more unpleasant than exterminating a treacherous scoundrel like Vinius.”

I sat. “But why? If you found out what he was up to, why not just denounce him, whack his head off, and confiscate his property?”

Caesar pinched the bridge of his nose, looking suddenly very tired. “Decius, I have here the largest task ever handed to a Roman proconsul. I must use every tool that comes to my hands if I am to accomplish it. Out there”-he released his nose and pointed northeast-“are the Helvetii. You’ve had some experience of the Germans and you know they’re pouring across the Rhine. I cannot afford an alliance between them. I must fight them one at a time. I saw an opportunity to drive a wedge between the Germans and the Gauls and I acted upon it.”

“You interviewed the Druid Badraig concerning their religious practices. That was how you learned of the triple slaying.”

“Exactly. Since I intend to break the power of that priesthood, blaming them for the murder seemed an elegant way to accomplish several of my aims at once. I was sure that Ariovistus would revenge himself upon them and that the Gauls would never ally themselves with someone who killed Druids.”

“But why not just denounce the Druids at once? Why blame the soldiers and leave me to puzzle things out while you went off to find your legions? That is labyrinthine even for you.”

“It certainly made me look innocent of conspiracy, didn’t it?”

“Ariovistus said there are no innocent Romans. Maybe he was right.” I felt as tired as Caesar looked. “How did you learn of Vinius’ treachery? Was it Molon?”

“It was. That ugly little schemer is playing more games at once than I am. He came with information for sale, told me that Vinius was storing away big bribes from somewhere. I find it is often a good idea to retain a slave to spy on his master.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“I told him to find out when Vinius was next to meet with his paymaster. This time it was that German, Eramanzius. He went out with the Provincials, who were too lofty to notice that they had an extra slave following them. I suppose he would have returned at first light and mingled with the peasants coming in to sell their produce. It would have been easy enough. He met with the German out by the lake. Molon knew he would have to pass close by the pond and we were waiting for him there.” He poked at the bracelet on the table before him. “Treasonous bastard though he was, Vinius retained a bit of his soldier’s sentimentality. He would never take this bracelet off. He covered it with a bandage when he went out.”

I remembered the scrap of dirty white cloth I had found at the murder site. Another little anomaly explained. “And the bracelet was Molon’s pay for betraying his master?”

“Part of it. And I thought it fitting. It offended me to see a traitor wearing a Roman award for valor, even dead. Why not give it to a wretched slave? Of course, I never dreamed that he was working for Ariovistus as well.”

“Do you think he’ll tell Ariovistus?”

“He cost Ariovistus his spy in my camp. It would be death for him to speak of it now. I think he will want to stay in my good graces. He did what he could for you while you were captive.”

Most matters were answered now. “How could you condemn eight innocent men?”

He looked almost ashamed, if that were possible. “I was sure you’d have it pinned on the Druids before I got back. I never dreamed that you would do something as insane as go beyond the rampart on your own and get captured by the Germans.”

“But when I ran in this morning, you were about to have their friends flog them to death.”

“Decius, here in Gaul we are playing the highest-stakes game in the world. When you set a game in motion, you must see it through, however the dice fall.”

I rose. “I will take my leave now, Proconsul. Thank you for answering my questions. I realize that, with your imperium, you owe no answers to anybody.”

He stood and put a hand on my shoulder. “I respect your scruples, Decius. Such are rare in Rome these days. I owe you no less. And, Decius?”

“Yes?”

“I am very pleased that you did not touch the contents of that chest. I inventoried it myself before I had that boy summon you. I would have been most upset if any of it had been missing. Go on and get some sleep.”

So I walked out of the praetorium, satisfied if not happy. I had rather liked Badraig, but a lot of Gauls were going to die soon, and a lot of Romans as well. Oddly enough, I was going to miss Freda. I would even miss Molon, but I suspected I hadn’t seen the last of him.

I went through the darkened camp, asleep now except for the doubled guard. It was a legion fully ready for war. I was determined to get a full night’s sleep at last. A soldier needs his sleep when there’s a war on. The Gauls might arrive tomorrow, and then I might not get a decent night’s sleep for ages.

These things happened in Gaul, in the year 696 of the City of Rome, the consulship of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus and Aulus Gabinius.