“He’s right. Let’s go see if they’ve finished with my tent. I’ll get some wine.”
Sabinus and Balbus nodded emphatically, and the former straightened.
“I’ll meet you there shortly.” He closed his hand on the signet ring and reached out to take the parchment from Fronto. “I need to deliver this to Labienus, and Caesar ought to see the note.”
Fronto relinquished the paper and, with a last glimpse back at the grisly clearing, turned and made for light, warmth and civilization.
* * * * *
Labienus shuddered. The vexillation he was taking from the legions had been prepared to move by first light and had been required to wait until the rest of the army was in order so they could take all the surplus gear on the carts. Caesar was travelling very light, with the legions and the cavalry and only two dozen wagons, leaving a half-mile train to head west with his lieutenant.
Three thousand men and a few cavalry. Enough of a force to deal with any small encounters, but Labienus repeatedly found his imagination playing out fantasies in which half a million Belgae, Britons, Gauls and Germans dropped from trees onto his slow-moving column.
And Gods, was it a slow moving column. He’d sent the couriers out in threes to deliver his message to the Belgic chieftains before they left, and then they’d started the long, mind-numbing journey to the oppidum of Nemetocenna. He’d marched with the legions many times in his reasonably illustrious career, and they could move fast. It had sometimes been the major cause of victories that the legions moved so fast and efficiently, surprising the enemy by cutting them off.
But a long supply train slowed things down; and then there were the wounded. The worst of them were in wagons which had to be manoeuvred very slowly and carefully so as not to jar the occupants; and alongside them came the walking wounded, though such a description was being especially kind to some of them, men who Labienus expected to die on the journey. And if the carts and the wounded weren’t enough, there were the prisoners all roped together and being herded along at the back with an escort drawn mainly from the Ninth.
He would be lucky if they reached Nemetocenna before the place fell down from the ravages of time! Caesar and the chieftains would already be there waiting when he arrived at this rate. He grumbled and rolled his shoulders, allowing his cuirass to settle into a slightly less uncomfortable position.
And just to top it all off, the morning had been the first cold and grey one he could remember for months. His force had only been travelling for an hour when the clouds had broken and the rain began to come down in diagonal rods. He was already soaked and chilled to the bone and it was only mid-morning… clearly Fortuna was shitting on him today. He could only hope that meant she was saving all her good stuff for Caesar against the Aduatuci.
He smiled grimly.
The general had, this morning, ordered the haruspices that travelled with the staff to gut a goat and read the omens for their next campaign. The strange thin and balding men in their white robes and shiny hats had carefully lifted out and examined each organ in order and had finally pronounced the omens to be good. Labienus had been standing next to Fronto when the legate had said quite loudly “but not for the goat.”
In fact, Fronto had been very dour and quiet this morning. It was not the Fronto they all remembered, and this new facet of his personality, that kept reminding them of the perils they faced, was starting to infect the staff across the board.
On the bright side, Labienus had snatched the goat carcass when it was done with for the officers’ dinner tonight.
He had to do something to ‘blow out the cobwebs’ as they said. Travelling at this slow walk was just killing his spirits ever further. He took a deep breath and leaned across to the tribune beside him, a man he didn’t know who’d been drawn from the Eleventh.
“I’m riding on ahead to that rise; I need a little space for a minute.”
The tribune saluted, looking exceedingly unsure.
“Sir, you need to take a guard.”
Labienus laughed.
“I’ll not leave the sight of the column. I’m only going up the hill, not heading for Illyricum. Besides, no self respecting ambusher is going to be out in this. Even the druids will be inside by a fire. We’re the only idiots in this half of the world to be outside today.”
The tribune laughed.
“Apart from Caesar, sir!”
Labienus snorted.
“With the luck the general has, a small patch of cloudless blue sky’s probably following him. He is descended from Venus, after all.”
Another laugh from the tribune.
“Just be careful sir. There’s nobody here who can replace you.”
Labienus nodded darkly as he set off ahead at a canter. The man was right. There was not a soldier in the column above the rank of tribune. Oh, there were Procillus and Mettius, of course, who would be invaluable when it came to politics and treaties, but then they were spies and diplomats; no use if a million Celts fell out of the trees as they passed.
He kicked his horse into an extra turn of speed and rode up the slope. The rain was just as heavy, just as wet and just as cold but, for some reason, not half as depressing when you were racing through it at speed.
He was starting to feel a little lighter and easier as he reached the top of the hill and turned to view the long column snaking away behind him so far that it disappeared into the grey murk. Perhaps things would be a little easier if he continued to do this throughout the journey. Maybe Procillus and Mettius would appreciate the opportunity to leave the column… but probably not. The pair of them were travelling in a covered wagon and had made no attempt to venture out into the weather; not something a commanding officer could do, really.
He sighed and turned back to the view ahead.
“Juno, what happened here?”
Labienus stared at the dip beyond the ridge. To the left was the forest they’d been skirting for the last hour and which had given rise to his fantasies of tree-dwelling Belgae. To the right: a wide shallow bowl that had played host to a large camp; perhaps as large as the Belgae’s camp where Rufus had massacred the warriors of the Atrebates.
Rough tents and shelters formed from logs, branches and ferns formed the bulk of the camp, with burnt-out grey campfires dotted around, the whole thing arrayed around a central complex of buildings; presumably a local farm.
But the camp was not the issue.
The camp was not empty.
“Juno, Dis and Nemesis!”
The bodies lay so thick in places that they were piled on top of one another. For a moment he worried for his safety, the words of the tribune echoing through his mind. No, he was in no danger. Nothing down there was alive. Taking a deep breath, preparing for whatever fresh horror lay ahead, he walked his horse down the slope and into the depression.
He had barely reached the edge of the distressing sight when he was forced to pull his tunic up over his nose to try and block out the smell. These bodies were fresh; fresher than those of the army back at the river yesterday. They’d died during the night.
In fact, as he walked his horse slowly and carefully in among the piles of the dead, he realised that some of the fires were still smouldering slightly. They had only been untended a few hours, but now the rain was finishing them off.
So many bodies. More than at the battlefield. Many more. So many dead. And…
He drew a deep breath and fought back a tear that threatened to run down his cheek. Not a single warrior among them. Not a man between the age of twelve and sixty. Mostly women and children. Girls of five or six years old, covered in their own blood. Gutted.