The clerk looked confused and a little worried for a moment.
“Run along now. Your figures can wait.”
As the man saluted and ran off in the direction of Plancus’ camp, Fronto strode on, whistling, toward his own men. Making his way along the main thoroughfare between the tents and past the larger quarters of the tribunes, he spotted the primus pilus waving his vine staff at two legionaries.
“Carbo?”
The ruddy-faced centurion turned and saluted.
“Have two centuries fall in. We’re going for a jaunt in the woods.”
The primus pilus gave him a broad grin.
“Nice day for a stroll.”
Turning, he bellowed a command at the two legionaries and, paying them no further attention, strode off into the camp to find his men.
Fronto wandered across to his own tent and ducked inside. Scanning quickly around the interior, he found his helmet, baldric and cuirass and, collecting them, went to sit on his bunk and start strapping things on. Early on in his command, Priscus had tried to persuade him to take a body slave to help with these things, as was the custom with senior officers, but it just felt a little soft having a person dress you. How could a man be expected to hold his head high and command a legion when he couldn’t even dress himself?
It was therefore a minor irritation when he realised that he’d fastened the wrong buckle on his cuirass while thinking and been left with a spare strap.
By the time he had adjusted it and slung the baldric across his shoulder, fastened the ribbon around his middle and tucked the liner into his helmet before jamming it unceremoniously on, he could hear the general hubbub of men assembling on the open ground outside. Standing, he straightened, flexed his knuckles, and strode outside.
Carbo and a centurion he knew by sight, a big man with a flattened nose, stood to attention with their men lined up behind them parade-style.
Fronto nodded in satisfaction and cast his eyes back up toward the centre of the enormous camp, where he could see other legionaries jogging in formation toward them. No one in the ranks spoke as they awaited the arrival of the Fourteenth, who reached the parade ground area and fell into place next to the others. Fronto glanced at them out of the corner of his eye and could see the centurion smiling in realisation.
“Good morning, men.”
A roar answered him from the three centuries.
“I’ve a little job for you all. We’re going to take a wander in woods, with the help of the scouts who went out this morning, and we’re going to lay first eyes, then hands, on the enemy supply wagons. By lunchtime I want those wagons back here and being distributed into the army’s stores. Think you can do that?”
Another roar.
“Good. Stand at ease for a few minutes until the scouts arrive. Get to know one another, since you’ll be working quite closely over the next few hours.”
He grinned.
“Officers to me, please.”
Carbo and the broken-nosed centurion strode out front, closely followed by the officer of the Fourteenth, who was shaking his head, smiling.
“You two? I’d like you to meet Cantorix of the Fourteenth. I have it on good authority his century are good men, and I thought the presence of a staunchly Gallic unit might be advantageous this morning.”
Cantorix grinned.
“You could have told me you were an officer, sir. I’d have given you due deference.”
Carbo glanced across at him.
“A less officer-like officer you never will meet, Cantorix. If he turns up among your lot again, would you be kind enough to send him somewhere safe at the back?”
Cantorix laughed out loud.
“I suspect it’s not that easy!”
“True.” The primus pilus turned back to his commander. “I suppose there’s no point in trying to persuade you that we can do this without you and that a senior officer shouldn’t be putting himself in such a frankly stupid position?”
Fronto shook his head.
“My plan… my unit. Besides, there’s something else I might want to do and that would require someone with staff authority.”
Cantorix shuffled and shrugged his shoulders so that his mail shirt slipped into a more comfortable position.
“Legate Plancus is going to throw a major fit when he hears we’ve been seconded without his say so, sir.”
Fronto brushed that aside.
“Caesar agreed, so Plancus can go piss up a pilum or argue it with the general.”
The braided Gaulish centurion smiled.
“Fair enough, sir. How are you planning to do this?”
“First step is to head to the previous site of their wagons, then to move on to the current location. We’ll split the scouts into three groups, one with each century. Cantorix? You and yours will take the main forest path that the wagons took at a nice slow stroll. Feel free to let your entire century talk in their native tongue. I know the officers usually discourage such a thing, but I’m hoping to try and talk these tribes down from their pedestal and convince them that without supplies to keep them going, they’re better off joining us, and you could go a long way to helping with that.”
He smiled.
“That, of course, means that I’ll be going with you. The other two centuries will make their way as fast as they can by circuitous routes, guided by the scouts, until they can come at the clearing from other directions. That way, if we have to do this the hard way, we’ll have a solid advantage. Hopefully, you’ll get there moving fast before we do at our leisurely pace and be in position before we arrive. When you get there, spread out ready for trouble, but stay back and hidden.”
The other two centurions nodded.
“And then, sir?”
“Then we become heavily reliant on the scouts. I would like to try and repeat the procedure on the current position of the wagons, but that might be more troublesome, depending on what trails the scouts can find and where they lead. Be aware at all times of your bearings, as one century getting horribly lost in those woods with an antagonistic bunch of the enemy wandering around could be a somewhat fatal experience.”
He took a deep breath.
“If all goes well and the three centuries converge on the wagons, we’ll overcome whatever resistance there is and then two centuries can form a line and hold them off if necessary while the third leads the wagons back out of the forest. All clear?”
The three men nodded.
“Good, then you’d best fall back in. The scouts are coming.”
Fronto and Cantorix jogged forward along the trail as quietly as they possibly could; surprisingly so, really, given the mail shirt and phalera harness the centurion was wearing. The scout waved them to the side of the track and the two officers moved quickly off the road and onto the grass verge, beneath the branches, as they approached the point where the Gaulish scout was peering around a bend in the track.
Fronto appeared behind the man and leaned out to look. The clearing was large, perhaps a hundred and fifty or even two hundred feet in diameter, and packed with everything the tribe on the run might need. The wagons, which numbered in the dozens, were arrayed in half of the clearing, carefully manoeuvred and parked between the remaining stumps where the tribe had cut the trees down to widen the clearing and also to form the fence that sealed off the remaining half of the clearing and which held cattle, goats and pigs in tight confines.
Fronto ducked back, irritation plastered across his face. Cantorix shrugged and then peered out himself. Nodding, he pulled his head back in to the side. There were a few ordinary folk of the tribes, going about feeding the animals and gathering items from the wagons.
That wasn’t what was annoying the legate, though.
The wagons had been carefully arranged to fit between the stumps and it must have taken hours to get them in that position. Freeing them and taking them back along the trail to the Roman camp would be near impossible in anything less than half a day.