“These men are mule drivers,” Lucius said. “Cisalpine Gauls.”
“Why in the name of Lugus would they be waiting around for you?” Divitiacus voiced Lucius’s exact thoughts.
“I do not know.”
“So, what happened between you? Did you cheat them at dice? Did they lose some wager to you?”
“They’ve been with the legions for over a year – at least since the Seventh came to Gaul. Aside from that, I do not know them.”
“They knew you. That means someone put them up to it. You must have enemies, young Lucius.” The chieftain smiled. “I like a man with enemies. Honest men have enemies. You never can trust a man that has too many friends.” He shrugged and then tossed the head into a bush as if it were a bare chicken bone. “Any ideas who might want to usher you into the afterlife?”
Lucius shrugged, though he had somewhat of an idea who might be responsible.
“If I were you,” Divitiacus eyed him. “I’d start with whoever sent you out here this night. These bastards expected you. They have been waiting out here for some time. My men would have seen them leave the fort otherwise. Judging by your size, and the way you hold that weapon, I’d say they might have been better to bring a few more compatriots along. In any event, someone put them up to this.”
“You speak as though you know this to be true.”
The chieftain smiled and slapped him on the back. “Among my people, Lucius, nobles do not live very long unless they are clever. You have to think like a usurper to avoid one. You have to think like a snake. These two were snakes. But there's a larger snake that put them up to it. Mark you me, my young friend.”
Wondering just how many more armed mule drivers might be lurking in the woods, Lucius silently questioned the wisdom of continuing to stand under a burning torch for all to see. But Divitiacus did not seem concerned. Perhaps he had other warriors watching and listening.
“I should be getting back,” Lucius said.
“I will not stop you. But I do offer you this one word of advice, Lucius Domitius of Spain. No matter what your purpose out here tonight, these men meant your death. For some reason, they wanted you, and you alone, dead. Be wary. Whoever sent you out here tonight cannot be trusted.”
IV
The next day’s march started early, well before the sun peeked over the tree line. There were two fewer mule drivers to handle the wagons, but no one seemed to pay it much mind.
As the camp was disassembled, Lucius stole a moment away in the dull gray light of dawn to search the spot one last time. But again, he found nothing except for a stain of blood on the grass where the old woman had lain.
He reported as much to Vitalis, carefully watching the centurion’s reaction, but Vitalis merely shrugged, as if too consumed with the preparations of the column to bother with it – as if he had not been desperate about the whole thing the night before. He was acting oddly, speaking authoritatively, all professional and almost avoiding Lucius entirely. That was alarming in itself, but even more alarming was the short exchange of glances Lucius had seen between Vitalis and Piso whenever the tribune trotted by on his black mare.
Something had happened last night when Piso and Vitalis had met. That much was certain. As much as Lucius did not want to consider it, he began to recall the words of the Aeduan chieftain. That Piso was responsible for the assassination attempt, Lucius had never had any doubt, but now the overwhelming feeling began to creep over him that Vitalis was involved, too, and that the centurion, his old comrade, had knowingly sent him into that trap. Lucius quickly dismissed the thought as foolish and paranoid as he finished packing his kit.
The field was churned to mud again as drivers and legionaries loaded mules and carts with camp equipage. Reusable posts from the palisade walls were toted across the legionaries’ backs, along with shields, trenching tools and pila, while those posts deemed unsalvageable were burned. The auxiliary cavalry took off and disappeared down the path ahead, long before the first file of infantry began to march. As they had on the day before, the twelve centuries of the two Roman cohorts, led the march, stretching out into a long snaking column before they were followed by two hundred odd pack animals, a dozen carts, the naked captives, and finally the five hundred Aeduan spearmen of the auxiliary cohort.
The legion marched through forested country that was as dreary as it had been the day before. It was a long march for the soldiers. The heat and humidity rose with the sun, awaking millions of biting insects that penetrated the gaps in their armor and devoured their exposed legs. At noon, a rider on a lathered horse arrived streaming a long red banner behind him. He briefly went into consultation with the tribune and then clattered away again on a fresh mount. Word soon made it through the ranks that the expedition was being recalled to rejoin the main body, and the long column soon made a sharp turn to the south.
“Keep those men in step!” Piso could be heard to say to various centurions down the column. “I expect my troops should look sharper than this. They should march straight and stiff like the glorious eagle that goes before their legion. Remember, my centurions, men that march well, fight well.”
The seasoned centurions acknowledged, showing the respect due the tribune’s rank, as they were expected to do. But in the ranks, the men grumbled.
“Damn that mule’s arse!” Jovinus muttered marching next to Lucius, his face streaming with perspiration. “Up from Rome not more than a month and now he think he’s Alexander of bloody Macedon! What I wouldn’t give for that black beast of his to step in a nice deep hole and throw his pompous arse into a tree.”
Lucius had thought of sharing last night’s events with Jovinus, but with the prospect of Vitalis involved in some kind of conspiracy against him, he was not sure who he could trust. Several times when the terrain afforded it, Lucius looked over his shoulder at the column of auxiliary to catch a glimpse of the riders at their head. There were no mud-covered warriors in sight. In fact, the cluster of mustached Aeduan nobles riding together were barely distinguishable in their green cloaks and conical bronze helmets. If Divitiacus was among them, Lucius could not tell.
Mid-afternoon found the cohorts making camp again. Trenches were dug, stakes planted, and palisade walls erected as they had been the day before.
While taking a moment’s pause from the back-breaking labor, Lucius considered the options he had been mulling in his head all day long. As much as his emotions stirred over Vitalis’s possible betrayal, what had him most perplexed was the reason behind it all. Why should Piso or Vitalis wish to do away with him, and why would they go to such elaborate means to do it? He was just a ranker. He could not go around demanding answers from a tribune, or even from a centurion, for that matter. Either through circumstance, or intent, Vitalis had never allowed him close enough during the day for a confrontation, and he got the feeling he could look forward to similar behavior in the future.
At that moment, Lucius noticed the mule drivers pulling the teams into the camp corral. The thought suddenly occurred to him that perhaps one of them knew something. They were, by and large, a silent lot, seldom mixing with the legionaries. As Lucius knew the name of every man in his century, the drivers knew one another. They would surely know the names of the two men that had been waiting to kill him, and with any luck, one or two of them might have been intimates of the deceased. With no other viable source of information available, Lucius decided he would start there.
After the work detail, he ate the evening meal with the rest of his century, making sure that Vitalis saw him there, and then he retired with the others to the tents to get out of the mosquito filled air. But while the other soldiers bedded down for the night, or started card or dice games, Lucius slipped out of the tent and made his way over to the corral where also sat the tents of the mule drivers, smiths, cutlers and other impedimenta of the cohort. There was little to do within the confines of a marching camp, and the few hours of idleness were spent much in the same manner by soldier and artisan alike.