“Shit,” Fronto said again with great feeling. “There were an entire century of men guarding this work. All gone without a sound, and not a sword drawn. These Aduatuci are nasty. And clever.”
Tetricus nodded.
“We’d best get back to camp and report this.”
“What about your measurements?”
“I’ll guess. Come on.”
* * * * *
Paetus clenched his teeth. The first day of their journey he had spent tense, expecting at any moment to be hauled aside by the guards and accused of treason against Rome. The prisoners had been roped together in four lines hundreds of men long. There may have been some sort of order based on the tribe of the captive, but Paetus could not tell one man from another; with one exception.
That first day, as they had been roped together, he had noted that Boduognatus, chief of the Nervii, had been positioned through blind chance only three men ahead of him in the chain. The man had not cast a single glance at him throughout that long walk, but of all the barbarians in this motley collection, Boduognatus was the only one that definitely knew who and what Paetus was, and the only one who would likely turn him over to the Romans. Possibly he was keeping Paetus’ identity as a piece in the game, to play at the last minute and save himself, but that seemed unlikely. The man who had initially wanted to skin him alive for merely being Roman wasn’t the sort of man to play those games.
No. More likely the chieftain was waiting for an opportune moment during the night when the guards weren’t looking to quietly do away with him. The legionaries wouldn’t care too much. It would be a small financial loss for them in slave profits, but one barbarian was as good as the next to the average legionary. He probably wouldn’t even get buried, just thrown in a ditch when they moved on.
And so from that first agonising hour of expecting trouble, he had decided on a course of action. Boduognatus must die first, before he got the opportunity for which he was waiting. He had briefly worked on a plan to take the chieftain at night, but the man never seemed to sleep and, since Boduognatus was already looking for a way to deal with him, would be alert during that time. But during the day, all the prisoners experienced was hour after hour of painful shuffling and their minds drifted and switched off, especially if, like Boduognatus, they had slept little during the night.
So on the third morning, as the prisoners, bound by their wrists only during the night, were lined up for the rope to be passed along the rows, Paetus had positioned himself carefully. The chieftain may have noticed that Paetus was now in the line behind him but, if he cared, he showed no sign.
The column had started to move at sunrise and continued without a break, churning the mud of the track and eating away at the miles until the watery sun behind the thin clouds with their intermittent drizzle was high overhead. As noon came upon them, a rest was called and the legions were allowed to sit and recover, while the prisoners remained roped and standing. Half a dozen soldiers came down the lines with jugs and baskets, dropping a chunk of bread into their greedy hands and tipping a ladle of water into every thirsty mouth. And everyone drank desperately, and tore into their bread; all except Paetus. The former prefect drank his water without comment as always, but the bread was tucked into his tunic, the pinion around which his plan revolved.
After perhaps forty minutes of tense waiting, the column began to move off once again. Knowing your enemy and situation was important to a commander and Paetus was a planner by nature. Two more hours of interminable shuffling, as the rain began to fall heavier and heavier and the clouds became dark grey and pregnant with the promise of storms. Two more hours was Paetus’ target. More, and he risked Labienus calling another halt; less, and the prisoners would be too rested and alert. Two more hours into the march and they were at their most docile, numbed by boredom and soreness and routine.
And now the time at last had come. His teeth clenched tightly, he fixed his eyes on the back of Boduognatus’ head in front and slyly, as subtly as was humanly possible, he reached into his tunic and withdrew the bread he had secreted there.
Starving as he was, Paetus recognised the simple fact that the warriors around him were all equally hungry and desperate and would likely have less discipline than he.
Holding his breath, he waited until the nearest guard had looked away at another section of the line, and threw the torn loaf over the heads of the men in front. The item came down amongst the starving prisoners six or seven men ahead. He’d meant to throw it further than that, but the ropes that held him restricted his movement too much for a good throw.
The effect was everything for which he’d hoped. An explosion of activity followed, as half a dozen captives struggled and fought to obtain the precious food. The guards called the alarm and charged to intervene, but there were four roped lines of men and getting to the centre from the sides of the column was near impossible. As a soldier desperately jabbed lightly with a spear, trying to frighten them into submission, what was a small fracas expanded, almost turning into a somewhat restricted riot. The men nearest the soldier grasped his spear and tried to wrest it from him while, around the place the bread landed, men had now collapsed to the floor, fighting.
The ropes keeping them bound together lurched forward as the men fell and Boduognatus stumbled in surprise. Paetus, prepared and lithe as a cat, was on him the moment he fell, leaping forward with the rope that connected them formed into a loop that went over the Nervian chief’s head and was round his throat before they hit the ground.
There was no time to slowly strangle the man. The guards were already beginning to get the minor riot under control; besides, ligature marks on the man’s neck would be a give away and would bring Paetus to far too much attention.
With a move for which he was largely untrained, yet had thought out over and over for the last two days, he placed his knee on the Nervian’s back between the shoulder blades and yanked hard on the rope. There was a clear snapping noise and the body beneath him went limp. Paetus grimaced as he loosed the rope and returned it to its correct position while he crouched there on the man. The entire attack had taken three heartbeats, as he was acutely aware. The guards had been too busy to see anything, and the prisoners around him were clearly more concerned with the bread and the fight than with this less interesting activity. The only possible problem would be the man behind him who, if he’d been paying attention, would have likely seen what he’d done. It was a risk he’d had to take.
As the soldiers moved up and down the rows, bringing the prisoners back into line with the occasional well-placed smack of a spear-butt, two legionaries reached down and hauled up the victorious captive, still chewing the last of his prize. The man grinned at them and they rewarded him with a hammer-like blow to the stomach before attempting to stand him upright.
“You! Up!”
The legionary gestured to Paetus and the corpse beneath him. As Paetus stood, he drew on every theatrical nuance in his being, feigning incomprehension and arrogant innocence as he stepped back as far as the ropes would allow spreading his hands as he crouched.
The legionary barely glanced at him, but smacked Boduognatus in the ribs hard with his spear. The body lay limp.
“Looks like we’ve got a dead one.”
Another legionary came strolling over as the lines were being straightened to march once more. He crouched by the body and rolled it to the side as far as the ropes allowed.
“Broke his neck when this prick fell on him.”
As he began to cut through the dead chief’s bonds, the other soldier turned and delivered Paetus a crack on his shin with his spear, almost strong enough to break his leg. The former prefect staggered and gave the legionary a defiant stare.