‘Take Avenna. Do not kill any man, woman or child unless they offer you resistance. When you have the town, chain every last occupant for the slave markets of Narbonensis, commandeer everything of value, butcher the animals, impound the grain and have everything shipped back to Samarobriva.’
The Nervii were blustering now, shouting imprecations and accusing Caesar of breaking his word. The general turned to them with an arched eyebrow.
‘I do not break my vows. Ever! I vouchsafed your lives and you have them, under the conditions I have set. If you resist, however, I am absolved, as you are committing suicide. Now you have my conditions, do not test me further.’
Without further exchange, Caesar turned his horse.
The first few arrows began to come, loosed by archers on the gate tower or the nearby walls, sent without the need of orders from a noble. Ingenuus and his cavalry threw up their shields to protect the general, but he was already almost out of range, having carefully stopped for the parlay at a distance that would render arrows largely harmless.
As the group moved back towards the army, the Praetorian horsemen sheltering their rear ranks, the Nervii rushed back into their gate and the huge timber portal began to close. Caesar turned to Antonius.
‘They will resist, of course. You have a solid reputation, Antonius — built upon your years in the east — for ending engagements quickly and decisively. Take Avenna for me. Do it quickly and with as few losses as possible.’
Marcus Antonius nodded to his friend and commander, and turned to the rest of the staff as the general rode off to where other members of his guard were overseeing the erection of his headquarters tent.
‘Alright. You heard the general. We need to take Avenna quick and easy. I need ideas.’
* * * * *
‘This wasn’t what I had in mind when I said he needed a small force.’ Fronto eyed the soldiers around him.
‘We are a small force’ Palmatus replied with a shrug.
‘I was thinking more like three centuries to a cohort. Not less than twenty men who barely know each other.’
‘How did you get volunteered for this?’
‘Sort of by accident. Antonius asked for ideas. I gave him one, but he thought it was mad and unfeasible. I tried to convince him it could be done and next thing I know, I’m being told to make it happen. In the old days Caesar would either have listened to me and given me a full unit to command or given me a flat no. Antonius is an odd one. Unpredictable, I’d say.’
‘Priscus reckons he’s dangerous,’ Palmatus added quietly.
‘He might be right. But there’s no denying that he’s also good at what he does.’
‘Sounds like someone else we all know.’
‘Shut up.’
Fronto looked around at the men once again.
He had just shy of two contubernia of soldiers, with his friends commanding one each.
Palmatus’ squad of eight men consisted of hand-picked and dangerous legionaries from the Tenth — and one from the Eighth who had been recommended as a homicidal lunatic, which had sparked Palmatus’ interest enough to give him a try out. The former legionary had settled on a unit of traditional soldiers, for all their oddities, since he knew the drill and the commands well.
Masgava’s squad consisted of three Gauls drawn from the auxiliary cavalry, two Cretan archers from Decius’ auxiliary cohort, a slinger from a Balearic cohort and an engineer from the Ninth who had been with the army since the action at Geneva five years ago and had been involved in nearly every project since. There was still one space left in the contubernium, but he and Fronto had decided to leave it empty until he could locate Biorix, who would likely still be serving with the Thirteenth.
So in alclass="underline" eighteen men, himself included. Against the most important and best fortified city of the most dangerous tribe among the clearly battle-mad Belgae. The more he thought about it, the more deranged it sounded.
Still, he had insisted himself into this situation, and now there was a certain amount of professional pride involved. He knew it could be done, and so now he had to prove it, not just to Antonius the disbeliever, or even to himself. But to Caesar. The old man might be made to reconsider his position if Fronto gave him Avenna.
The small knot of men — a motley collection to be sure — stood in a low, tree-lined dell, where a trickle of spring water flowed into a stream, a weathered, unrecognisable shapeless lump of an ancient Gaulish deity overseeing the flow. A sacred spring. For luck, Fronto pulled the small figurine of Fortuna from his neckline, kissed it, splashed sacred water over it and then dropped it back onto the thong beneath his tunic.
He was unarmoured. In fact, he wore no helm and carried no shield, clad in only a drab tunic and with his sword on the baldric — just like the rest of his unconventional singulares. This action was about being fast and quiet, not slow and well-defended. His gaze played across the other fourteen figures in the dell. He had tried to remember names, but he’d only been introduced to them twice, and simply could not hold them. He knew there was a man called Quietus, because the irony of taking him on a crazed hectic night-time raid was not lost on him, but he couldn’t remember which one he was. He had the suspicion, with ever increasing irony, that he was the big fellow who kept snorting his runny nose and appeared to have a permanent twitch.
The missing three men were even now on their way back. He could hear them moving through the undergrowth, light as cats, recognisable only because he was expecting them and because they were making the strange ‘kua kua’ noise of the little crakes that inhabited the lower swampy areas of the region.
The trio of native riders had been the obvious men to send out as scouts and had disappeared on their mission half an hour ago, and it was with a great sense of relief that Fronto watched them appear through the brush and slide down into the hollow, pausing only to make a brief devotion at the spring and take a sip of water before reporting to Fronto.
‘How is it?’
‘Poorly defended.’ One of the scouts scratched a map in the dirt with a stick, drawing the three circles of the settlement’s walls, two linked like a figure 8 and a third within the eastern, larger, loop. He pointed to the one at the west. ‘You were correct in your thoughts, sir. It is a nemeton — a sanctuary of the shepherds. There are three buildings only, and a grove that is still used. The ramparts are guarded by men from the main city, but widely-spaced. They do not apparently consider it important to defend. They know it is separated from the city itself by a wall.’
‘And that is true,’ Fronto smiled. ‘But it is a mental weak spot. They will not expect an attack to come through there. Two things bother me, and two things only. How do you three feel about mounting an attack through this ‘nemeton’?’
The three Remi horsemen shrugged. To the Remi, the Nervii would be more of an enemy than Rome could ever be. Until Caesar had brought the army here, the tribes of the Belgae had spent hundreds of years at war with each other. And the Remi may still respect the druid class, but these were Nervii druids.
‘Good. And you two?’ He looked across at the archers. ‘How fast can you get a fire arrow off?’
‘With a ready-prepared arrow, a count of twenty at most.’
‘Impressive. Try to be faster. Time will likely be an issue.’
He looked around at everyone again. ‘Alright. Is everyone happy with their tasks?’
There were a variety of nods and mumbled affirmatives and he took a deep breath. ‘Let’s do it then.’
With no further words — there would be no more speech until stealth was no longer an issue — the group scurried out of the dell and through the scrub land. The shadows were now becoming intermixed and almost indistinguishable in the fading light. The timing had been very carefully selected. Dusk would help mask their movements, given the sparse cover that nature had afforded them, and the men on the walls would be weary, their eyes tired, and less alert than usual. Plus Roman forces attacked during the light — usually working from dawn, so no one would expect this.