He could see the flicker of camp fires, but couldn’t tell whether they were singing and drinking due to the increasing noise from close by on this bank. They were approaching the host of Belgae now. Fortunately, the enemy had had the sense to encamp some distance from the river to avoid the midges and other winged nuisances that continued to bother Fronto and his men. Still, an insect bite was less worrisome than a sword blow, as he kept telling himself.
As least, even with plain linen tunics, they would be unlikely to be spotted from the far side. The temperature was dropping rapidly, as it seemed to do in Gaul during the late spring and early summer, and that had resulted in the Belgae huddling around their campfires. And the beautiful thing about fires was how thoroughly they destroyed a man’s natural night vision.
Fronto grinned at the twinkling lights slowly drawing opposite.
They must be half way there now. Not as bad as he thought.
Suddenly the sound of splashing stopped him in his tracks. For a moment he couldn’t discern from which direction the noise had come, and glanced back angrily, but the sound was coming from somewhere ahead.
Squinting into the ever deepening darkness, he finally spotted the man standing on the ground above them and ahead, noisily urinating down into the river while whistling some native tune. As Fronto watched with the growing relief that they were still upstream, he noticed that the man had a sack of wine in one hand. As he watched, the man let go of himself in mid stream in order to tilt his head back and use both hands to squeeze the last of the wine out of the skin. With a guttural laugh, he began to shake his hips left and right, spraying a wide arc out onto the water.
Were it not for his situation, Fronto would have laughed, it was so comical.
As he watched, he crouched silently in the shallows and waited tensely as the man finished, slung the bag over his shoulder, tucked himself away, spat down into the water, and finally strode away to rejoin his fellow revellers.
With a frown of distaste, Fronto waited a while, partially to give the man time to get out of earshot, and partially so that the water ahead would have cleared. A minute passed and then the column began to move again.
With interminable slowness they made their way along the shore, the sounds of the Belgae revels rolling down on them from above. Regularly on the unpleasant journey, Fronto found himself offering up fervent prayers to Bacchus that they wouldn’t suddenly find themselves under the aim of ten thousand emptying Belgic bladders.
It was with an immense sigh of relief that he noted the sounds of the drunken warriors next to them beginning to fade. Though it was now very dark down here in the river valley, shaded by trees and tall plants, the looming bulk of Bibrax was quite close and quite clear. That, combined with the decreasing volume, put them in the no-man’s land of the slope between the Belgae and the oppidum.
A quick glance across the rippling surface of the water placed the camp fires of the waiting Belgae almost opposite now. Fronto stopped and, turning, made a motion to Decius. The command went down the line into the distance. It was ridiculous, really. Much like a marching column of multiple legions, this line of almost a thousand men must stretch almost half way back to where they’d started. There could be Spaniards back there being urinated on by drunken Belgae and he’d never know until it turned into a brawl.
He clicked his tongue, irritated at his own distraction, and made further gestures to be passed on as he climbed slowly and as quietly as possible out of the water and began to clamber up the steep slope at a crouch toward the walls of Bibrax.
He was finding his breathing more ragged and laboured the higher he climbed and set his gaze resolutely on the nearest area of the walls. Bibrax was clearly packed tightly within its perimeter and limited by the geography. A sizeable building of typical stone and timber construction rose up amid the occasional trunks of oak and beech trees.
He examined the surrounding wall as he climbed closer. Strangely, despite having spent time around the walls of Bibracte, Vesontio and Durocorteron, he’d never examined their defences. Of course, he’d always been off duty with no likelihood of having to utilise those walls. These ones might mean the difference between life and death for him and his army.
He tutted with irritation. The defences of Bibrax were clearly, even at first glance, nowhere near as strong as those of the larger oppida he’d visited. Vesontio had had defensive towers, for a start. This wall had no towers, though at least, he noted with relief as moonlight put in a brief appearance, they were faced with stone. They had been constructed by creating a strong wooden framework and then packing the intervening space with tamped earth. Very good against men and they’d be superb against rams or onagers, but flimsy when it came to undermining the structure. Fronto frowned. His plan might still work, but now it carried more danger.
With a sigh, he finally reached the base of the wall and gestured to the men following him to form up on the riverward side. As the auxiliaries began to join him at the summit, Fronto gazed down the slope at the myriad fires twinkling out across the ground below like a mirrored image of the stars. With a deep breath, he called on Nemesis, his favourite deity, to protect them all tonight and tomorrow. That was a lot of Belgae. He’d have to play it clever, as a straight fight would be suicide.
Another few gestures and his men began to climb the side of the wall. Stretching, Fronto turned his gaze back the way they’d come. The last hundred or so of his men were just reaching the slope and climbing out of the water now.
Simultaneously, the world around him exploded into activity. Behind and above him, one of the Remi guards above the rampart had finally spotted the men climbing and had thrust out with his spear, catching a Cretan auxiliary with a nasty stab in the shoulder and hurling him from the wall. The shout went up on the rampart and Bibrax burst into noisy life. Men appeared above them with spears and the Cretans climbing the wall paused in their ascent, afraid to climb further.
Fronto didn’t have time to worry whether he could call out to the Remi and claim friendship without drawing attention from the rest of the Belgae below and endangering the last of the troops in his column. Something had happened at the back; perhaps another urinating warrior had seen them? He couldn’t tell from this distance, but clearly something had gone wrong.
Trying to block out the noises above him for a second, he concentrated and could finally hear the faint sounds of combat down by the water.
“Shit!”
He turned and looked up.
“We’re Romans!” he yelled. “Roman relief force, get it?”
There was no reply, so he bellowed out again.
“Roman!”
Somewhere on the wall, a guttural voice said “Romani?”
“Yes, bloody Roman! Roman!” he shouted again, as the call was taken up by the prefects and other Roman officers.
Moments later, ropes were fetched and lowered down the wall for the Romans to climb. Fronto shook his head. Why the hell, now that it was clear who they were, didn’t they just direct them to a gate and open it? Grumbling, he turned to look back down the hill. There was now quite a clash going on in the narrow difficult triangle where the hill rose by the waterside. A small party of Belgae had risked the advance in the darkness and were engaging the rear of Fronto’s army. He barked his annoyance at nemesis for her lack of care. The poor bastards at the back were a unit of Spanish slingers, whose grand concessions to armour and weaponry were a linen tunic, a sling and a dagger. Caught up with fierce armoured Belgae wielding large blades, they would be cut to pieces in short order and there was not much Fronto could do about it from up here.