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.”