And so in early Februarius the general had agreed to let the Thirteenth and Eleventh rest and recuperate, and had sent for the Sixth and the Fourteenth legions from Cavillonum, a day’s march southeast, where they had been in charge of grain storage, gathering and distribution. As soon as the legions had reached Bibracte and mustered, Varus and the cavalry had joined them once more and the army had begun the all-too-familiar journey west into Biturige lands.
In addition to the trouble from the Carnutes, Februarius had also brought rain and a daily blanket of morning fog, and the journey through the oft-marshy lands of the Bituriges was an eerie, white and wet trek, full of nerve-wracking shadowy shapes and muffled noises.
The first few days had been a tiring and dispiriting slog through dismal and sparsely-populated lands. Those settlements the Biturige envoys had announced to be under Carnute attack had been cold and deserted when the legions reached them. The enemy had clearly been there and had stripped the poorly-defended oppida of humanity, livestock and all valuable goods. All that remained was a land of ghosts and the skeletons of towns mouldering in the landscape, picked clean by the Carnute crows.
On one particularly soul destroying morning the cavalry had ridden out ahead to check another silent, lifeless oppidum, and Varus had recognised with a heavy heart one of the fortresses they had been forced to besiege the previous month. A settlement which had been saved from rapine on Caesar’s orders and which had thereafter been returned to its legal rulers. The Roman move to save the city’s goods and populace from their own traitors had been worthless – they had simply preserved the Bituriges’ value to make them a valid target for the marauding Carnutes instead.
As soon as it became clear that the armies were too late to do anything about the raids, the nature of the campaign changed. Disregarding the last few westernmost Biturige towns, Caesar had turned his army north and the legions had marched from ravaged Bituriges territory into that of the Carnutes who had so recently raided them.
Half a day into those lands now, the army had passed four former Carnute settlements, all now long-destroyed, their charred timbers testament to punitive campaigns under Plancus, Marcus Antonius and Caesar himself, as well as the effects of having had legions wintered here over several years. It appeared that few of the Carnute towns remained habitable, and the army found traces more than once of gigantic nomadic sites where large numbers of people had camped for months in a huddle of makeshift temporary shelters.
Varus had been grudgingly opened to the possibility that the very reason the Carnutes were now preying upon their ravaged neighbours might be because the once troublesome tribe now had nothing but the clothes on their backs. If the Carnutes had been forced to change to a temporary nomadic lifestyle with no personal wealth, then raiding the weak would become a natural move for survival. Had Rome’s seemingly endless war in Gaul been so ruinous? How could the land ever hope to recover from this? It simply accentuated the folly of continued rebellion.
And now, in the mid-afternoon of the first day among the Carnutes, finally there were signs of life.
Blesio was not one of the tribe’s largest or most powerful oppida, yet it had the distinction of being one of few that apparently remained intact. Settled on the north bank of the Liger on a low rise, its walls remained intact and, though they were few and far between, there were occasional columns of smoke wavering up into the wet, grey sky.
The near bank was a glorious wide field of green grass sloping gently to the river. Yet even here, so close to a surviving oppidum, there were signs that a shanty-town of a thousand or more had spent some time in residence opposite the walled settlement. Ahead of the legions, Caesar and a small group of senior officers walked their horses between the areas of dead grass that had been beneath tent leather mere days earlier.
‘Looks to me like this lot moved on recently,’ Brutus murmured.
‘Do you think they were the ones who destroyed the Bituriges cities?’ asked the quiet figure of Lucius Caesar, cousin of the general and legate of the Sixth.
The proconsul pursed his lips and shook the rain from his thinning hair. ‘This could well have been a warband of some sort, Lucius. There is little sign of civilian life here. It would certainly explain their recent disappearance, with the legions approaching.’
Varus nodded and pointed down to the nearest of the patches of dead grass.
‘Look there. Twisted rope. Part of a slave’s bindings, I’d say. Looks like the Carnutes came back this way with a column of captives.’
‘But why camp here when there is a perfectly serviceable oppidum across the river?’ the general’s cousin frowned.
Varus sighed. The stick-like Lucius Julius Caesar was a perfectly acceptable commander, and he seemed to know his work, but despite serving last year during the height of the troubles, he was yet to become familiar with Gaul and its workings.
‘Likely not all the Carnutes are ravaging their neighbours. Those who still have a town and a population are probably content to simply try and survive the winter long enough to rebuild their lives. I would be willing to wager that the raiders who camped here were refused admittance to the oppidum. Any Carnute leader with his mind on the future will weigh up his options and come down on any side that doesn’t bring the legions to his hearth.’
Caesar nodded. ‘Let us not tar the whole tribe with the deeds of a vicious few. Come. There is a ferry ahead. We will speak to the locals.’
At the general’s order, Varus and Brutus rode forth, along with Lucius Caesar and Glabrio, the two legates in the force. Behind them, close and protective as always, rode Aulus Ingenuus and a dozen of his best Praetorian cavalrymen. The ferry across the Liger that served the Carnute oppidum was little more than an oversized raft with a tethering rail and two burly natives with oars. Varus eyed the vessel suspiciously as they approached. It might feasibly carry four men and their horses across the river, on the assumption that the horses stood perfectly still, the raft was entirely sturdy, and the two men were trustworthy. He would not put money on it. The men looked extremely fidgety and nervous, and well they might, with roughly twelve thousand Romans descending upon them.
‘General, you can’t go on that.’
Caesar turned with a curious smile. ‘I most certainly can, Varus, and I most certainly will. How can I expect my legions to perform the unthinkable with heart and aplomb if I am not willing to risk a rickety ferry ride? Besides, I am labouring under no misapprehension that Aulus here would let me go without the continued presence of a guardsman. Would you care to make up a third passenger, Varus?’
The cavalry commander sighed. The general was ever one to play up to the troops and show off, and now his unnecessary bravado had placed Varus in the position of either appearing cowardly or trusting to the raft. ‘Of course, General.’ He watched Caesar’s eyes sparkle as the man laughed with carefree ease. There was a growing group among the officers who worried that Caesar was beginning to believe in the rumours that he was indestructible. The way he acted sometimes suggested as much.
‘Come.’
The Proconsul of Gaul and Illyricum swung from his mount and slid to the ground, walking his horse down to the riverside where the two ferrymen waited beneath the eaves of their small hut.