Varus felt the anger bubbling up inside him. ‘This girl is no rebel. Rape of the loyal subjects of Rome is a serious offence, legionary.’
He felt his nerves twang for just a moment as he registered just how big the soldier was. He was a bruiser and a veteran, going by his well-used but well-maintained equipment.
‘You threatening me, donkey boy?’
Varus cleared his throat. If the man had recognised him as cavalry, then he had probably also noted the apparent rank and seemed not to care. Moreover, Varus realised that now he had threatened the man with serious punishment, the legionary had less to lose.
He hefted his sword as the towering legionary stepped towards him. Freed, the girl curled in pain and shame, sobbing around her nakedness and the rents in her belly the nails of the legionary’s boot had caused. Varus snarled.
‘Name, century and cohort, legionary!’
‘Last chance, horseman. Leave the room and go hump your mare again.’
Varus raised his sword so that the tip hovered around the man’s neck height. He was no stranger to combat, though usually from horseback and in the open field. ‘Name, soldier.’
‘Ampelius,’ barked the legionary as, with lightning speed for such a big man, he jumped two paces forward, ducking left. Varus felt a moment of panic as he tried to bring his sword to bear. The legionary had recognised the long cavalry blade for what it was and had leapt in too close to allow for its effective use. Varus tried to step back, but the door had swung shut behind him and he was trapped. He angled his arm, trying to bring his sword close in defence, even if it might be useless as a weapon.
The legionary raised his dagger, an evil light in his eye, and only by some miracle did Varus manage to jam his sword in the way. He couldn’t possibly use it to fight from this distance, but the flat of the blade caught the legionary’s wrist, holding the plunging knife away from his neck. The man was strong and Varus’ sword awkward and heavy at this angle, and he could feel the blade being pushed downwards by the legionary.
The pressure on his sword was relieved so suddenly that he almost fell backwards with the movement. He stared in surprise at the legionary’s face as the man’s eyes widened in shock and pain and, as the brute stepped stiffly backwards, Varus caught a glimpse of the Biturige girl gripping Ampelius’ gladius in shaking hands, the tip still jammed in the soldier’s shoulder. With a grunt, the legionary stepped back again and the girl wrenched out the gladius, the sound of cracking bone accompanying the move as she retreated across the room. The enraged legionary, seemingly forgetting the presence of Varus entirely, spun painfully round, a low growl rising in his throat.
Varus smiled, calculating effective distance as the man took a third and then fourth step away from him, bearing down on the girl. Quietly, the cavalry officer raised his long sword, pulled it out to one side, and then delivered a hefty strike with the flat of the blade on the side of the legionary’s head. Ampelius jerked to one side with the blow, and he tottered and fell to the ground, shaking. Varus stood for a moment with his sword lowered, the tip pointed at the prone legionary, then raised his gaze to the girl. She was clutching her torn tunic around herself with one hand and wielding the gladius defensively with the other. Waving his flattened palm at her in a gesture for calm, Varus crouched carefully and rolled the legionary over, plucking the knife from his fingers. Ampelius was out cold but breathing, and the wound in his shoulder had been agonising and had actually chipped the bone, but was far from fatal and leaked blood only slowly. Varus rose once more and focused on the girl.
‘Do you speak Latin?’
‘Bit.’
‘I am sorry for the conduct of this man. He should not have done this. He will be sentenced to a flogging with the barbed whip for this.’
The girl stared at him in incomprehension. ‘Bit’ had clearly been a correct appraisal. Varus tried to give her a reassuring smile. She would have no idea what would happen to her attacker, but it would not be enough. Not for the man who had so brutally raped her. Varus found his own sensibilities a little unaccepting of the result too, and a nasty smile replaced the reassuring one.
‘Him?’ he tried, and the girl nodded. ‘Yours,’ Varus added, trying to mime giving her the prone soldier. The girl frowned in confusion and when Varus took a step towards her she held up the gladius in defence. The officer nodded and pointed at the sword. ‘Sword.’ Then at her: ‘you’. Then at the legionary on the floor. For another moment, the girl’s confusion reigned, but then it cleared as understanding dawned. From the violent, vengeful look in her eye, Varus decided that Ampelius’ future looked less than rosy. In fact, the man might shortly be dreaming of mere barbed whips. With a nod of approval, Varus cast one last spiteful look at the disobedient legionary and turned, opening the door and leaving the building. His small honour guard was still waiting in the square, and Varus gestured to two of them.
‘I’m going to report to the general. You two stay here and guard that door. Whatever you hear from inside, leave the door shut. No one goes in until the girl comes out. Then take her gently to a medicus and have her fed and looked over.’
The two men looked at one another in incomprehension, but saluted and took up position. Varus crossed to his steed and pulled himself up into his saddle. If things were going to settle into the Pax Romana in Gaul, it was time someone started to take steps in that direction.
* * * * *
Two days later, Caesar’s army marched forth to repeat their success at the oppidum of Argatomagon on the south-western fringe of Biturige lands. The weather had turned less clement, and the sky intermittently spat down rain, sleet and hail depending upon Jupiter Pluvius’ mood. Yet despite the depressing wintry climate, the attitude of the legions remained optimistic and strong, partially through the ease of the campaign and partially the regular donatives Caesar paid them from captured goods.
Varus sat astride his mount, watching the Eleventh climb the gentle slope towards heavy ramparts which sat on a low ridge enclosing a tired-looking settlement that was sizeable, if sparsely inhabited. The warriors lined up on the parapet watching the might of Rome roll inexorably towards them were also few and far between, more like frightened mice than the heart of any rebellion.
Varus couldn’t help wonder how the general’s information had been so far off this time. With each and every action through these weeks of campaigning, the intelligence drawn from the Biturige loyalists had been accurate and had led to success time after time. Yet those same sources had apparently noted this very oppidum as the centre of the rebellion, the home of the revolt’s leaders.
Had the real enemy flown the coop before the Romans arrived?
A pitiful smattering of arrows and sling stones fell from the rampart, rattling off the painted surfaces of hundreds of red and black shields. Varus had seen stauncher resistance put up by wandering warbands than by this supposed nest of vipers.
The cavalry officer sat and watched patiently as the last ranks of the legions moved on, the riders starting out at a walk behind them. Once more, the regular squadrons had been given the task of keeping the legions from rapine and pillage, though for some reason Caesar had stuck his confidante, Aulus Hirtius, in with them. And Varus knew the general well enough to know that there would be a very specific reason for such a decision.
He looked across at the spindly figure in the polished bronze cuirass in time to catch Hirtius giving him an appraising look. He tried not to glower in reply. He failed. Urging his steed forward, Varus blinked irritably as his face was spattered with a fresh dose of wind-borne sleet.
Unlike Laniocon, this fortress exhibited no strong defensive ditch and consequently Varus had a continuous view of the action ahead at the crest of the hill, over the serried ranks of the Eleventh. It was clearly a truly one-sided engagement, the legions reaching the ramparts with few casualties, most of their difficulties coming in the form of churned mud underfoot rather than sharpened iron and bronze ahead. Soldiers slid and slipped, struggling to remain upright, but beyond that the siege was very much a foregone conclusion. As Varus watched, the ladders went up among the front ranks. For all the poor defence of this place, the walls were considerably higher than the previous settlement, and the testudo trick would be inadequate to reach the top. Consequently, rather than spend days on end constructing vineae and siege towers, the commanders had had their men cut and construct siege ladders. Looking at the pitiful resistance, the decision had been a good one. Nothing else would be needed. The missiles stopped coming as the few men on the walls were forced to concentrate on the myriad ladders clunking against the stonework instead. Warriors pushed them back with forked sticks, sending the climbing legionaries tumbling back down among their own ranks, and for a moment it seemed the advance might falter.