There was the obligatory pause in translation, and then a long silence as the menfolk looked at one another in panicked indecision.
‘You number perhaps a score of men, while I command some thirty thousand in your lands alone. There is no doubt about your fate if you disobey, and you know who I am and what I will do. Now drop those weapons and move.’
By the time the translated words had become echoes among the huts, the men had begun to drop their spades and rakes and scythes, and a number of small groups of women and children and the elderly had started to appear, blinking, from the darkness of their hovels.
Caesar waited patiently as the villagers traipsed despondently into the horse corral. Two centuries of legionaries moved off at a command from Trebonius and surrounded the enclosure, leaving only the open gate for the remaining natives to move through.
When the last of the visible Nervii had entered the makeshift holding pen, the small parties of soldiers began to move into the buildings, most of them coming out a few moments later with a signal for ‘all clear’, others shoving panicked, screaming women out into the cold light, crying children clamped around their mothers’ legs, inhibiting their movement.
In one hut there was the sound of raised voices, the words indistinct, shouting in the Belgae tongue and then a blood-curdling scream, after which four legionaries emerged, grim faced and dragging two young boys, their mother’s blood still running from one soldier’s sword.
Moments was all it took, and so far with miraculously only one death.
Fronto had watched it all in hard silence and noticed that Galronus had not flinched or looked away either. It was a hard fact that with these people there was no distinction in war between warriors and the rest. He remembered with a sudden ache the Germanic woman that autumn so long ago who had sunk her teeth into his ankle and very nearly done for him. The Nervii had plotted twice before to defeat the legions, and their underhanded sneak attacks had been brutal and costly. They could not be allowed to do the same again under the command of Ambiorix.
He hardened his heart against the violent demise of the poor unseen woman. She would not be the last. The legionaries moved to close the gate, but the centurion in charge halted them, selecting one middle-aged farmer with a tap of his vine stick.
As the man was dragged out by the legionaries, the gate closed behind him, other work parties moved around the farm. Some were igniting hastily-made torches and then moving to the huts of the village, holding the flames to the thatch or wattle until the fire caught and raced across the walls and roofs of the buildings, quickly turning them into an inferno. Others rounded up all the animals of the village, that fine horse retrieved and led to the cavalry detachments, much to the sullen chagrin of its owner. The pigs, sheep, cows and chickens were butchered quickly and efficiently, loaded into the empty supply carts that were being brought forward, where they would provide good fresh meat for the army. Other units began to move off into the vegetable plots and the granary, gathering the food, uprooting or harvesting everything of any value and storing it for the legion’s consumption. The village would be utterly devastated within half an hour of their arrival.
But the scene at the centre was the important part, and they all knew it, Roman and Nervian alike.
The farmer was manhandled to the central space, where the temperature was now becoming uncomfortably warm from the burning huts all around. The damp earth had been churned to mud by so many feet. One of the auxiliary cavalry drawn from the Remi stepped forward to join the centurion who stood near the captive. The pair waited quietly while the two legionaries hauled the farmer into position and then kicked him hard in the back of the legs, dropping him painfully to his knees with a squawk.
One soldier grasped his hands and yanked them up behind him, eliciting another yelp of pain, while the other drew his pugio dagger and tested the edge with his thumb, nodding his satisfaction.
Everything fell to an eerie silence, broken only by the cries of the animals being slaughtered and the tears and wails from the women and children in the corral — and from some of the menfolk.
‘Where is King Ambiorix of the Eburones?’ Caesar said, with deliberate slowness and clarity, enunciating each word carefully, so that there could be no mistaking what it was that he asked. The Remi cavalryman next to the centurion repeated the translation equally slowly and carefully. The farmer simply stared at his captors in panicked misery, shaking his head with what appeared to be genuine incomprehension.
The centurion looked around at Caesar with an unspoken question. The general nodded and, at a gesture — reminiscent of that of the editor of a gladiatorial combat — the legionary put his pugio beneath the farmer’s chin and opened his throat from one ear to the other.
Blood spurted, fountaining out onto the wet dirt. The cut was so wide, deep and professional that the watching Romans saw the man’s face change colour rapidly, going from a ruddy and healthy pink, through purple to a rubbery grey. His eyes bulged and his mouth worked silently but he remained in position, held in place by the iron grip of the legionary behind him. At another nod from the centurion, the soldier let go and the dead farmer, still twitching, fell to his face in the mud.
By the time two more soldiers had arrived and grabbed the farmer’s arms to drag him away, he had stopped kicking. The legionaries hauled him over to one of the burning huts and, taking his arms and legs, cast him into the flames to be consumed by the conflagration. By the time they had finished their grisly disposal and returned to the central space a second farmer — this time a young man, fresh faced and defiant — had been hauled out of the pen and to the centre. The performance was repeated and the man sank to his knees in the churned mud and blood, his defiant, cold blue eyes fixed on Caesar. Back in the pen his woman screamed her love and fear for him.
‘Where is Ambiorix of the Eburones?’ asked Caesar slowly. The Remi horseman repeated the translation. The farmer simply heaped more scorn and arrogance into his cold gaze and at Caesar’s nod, the centurion gave the order.
The young farmer’s blood arced and sprayed, adding to the russet coloured mud before them.
As the body was hauled away, leaving dark red streaks through the dirt, the young Crassus appeared between Fronto and Antonius, his face bleak and unsettled. If ever there was a sign that he was not a facsimile of his father and brother it was the difficulty that he was clearly experiencing in watching such efficient brutality. The older Crassus brother would — Fronto knew — have performed the task with gusto, and his father would have positively revelled in it.
‘What happens if they don’t know? Any of them, I mean? Will they all die?’ Crassus’ voice was little more than a whisper, but Galronus and Caesar both apparently heard and turned their heads while the next victim was being brought out.
‘We decided to set the limit at ten,’ Antonius replied quietly so that the natives would not hear, in case any might speak Latin. ‘After that it’s slavery for the rest.’
Crassus seemed slightly relieved to discover that there would be an end to it at some point. ‘And if none of them know the answer?’ the young legate persisted. ‘It seems farfetched that such low peasants would know of the doings of kings.’
Galronus shook his head. ‘They know. That last man knew. You could see it in his eyes — in the defiance and arrogance. He knew, and he took the knowledge with him to his Gods. And if he knew then others do too. Do not be fooled by their rustic appearance. I am Belgae and I know these things — no man in these lands is less than a warrior, no matter how much he kneads the bread.’