* * * * *
The cornu blared its warning and Fronto looked up from the table, where Masgava had almost entirely cleared the latrunculi board of his employer’s pieces. For a gladiator who had never even seen the game until Fronto introduced him to it two years ago, he was unsettlingly good at it.
‘An attack?’ the big Numidian asked quietly, noting the distant call. He was gradually becoming used to the army’s signals, and recognised most of the Tenth’s, but he still had some trouble with the different unit calls, and the melody blaring out across the lines outside the small command tent belonged to the Fifteenth, one of the four legions whose men continually garrisoned the section of defences on the plain.
‘The Fifteenth — a call to the standard. Preparation, so something’s going on. Come on.’
The two men, already in kit given the lateness of the morning, spilled from the tent to see the legions moving to their standards or to positions on the ramparts, as assignment required. Beyond the Fifteenth’s calls, which were being issued by a cornicen only twenty paces from the tent, the musicians of the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth were also calling the alarm. Biorix, Samognatos, Arcadios and Aurelius stood nearby, already having collected their weapons and shields in preparation. Almost a day had passed since the burnings and interment of the dead, and last night had been entirely uneventful for the six men who had joined Antonius and Varus to send off the souls of their friends through the medium of drink. But each had felt that building of pressure that a career soldier comes to recognise as the approach of action, and each of them was ready for the next Gallic push.
With his singulares in tow, Fronto jogged across the ground, trying to keep to the paths that the legions had laid with sections of timber amid the churned mud that had once been turf. Up the steps to the rampart he climbed, shading his eyes against the brightness of the day as he looked out across the plain.
The mass of horsemen spread out across the flat ground before the enemy camp seemed undiminished since they had first arrived. Despite being soundly beaten, the Gallic reserve cavalry appeared as numerous as ever and the huge press of men and beasts was gathering, seemingly for an attack, below their hill. Behind them, Fronto could just see another gathering of infantry on the hill.
‘What are they playing at?’ Fronto muttered, his eyes narrowing.
‘Massing for an attack, sir,’ said a centurion off to his left — someone he didn’t recognise, but probably from the Fifteenth.
‘Why the cavalry, then? Horse aren’t much use against ramparts.’
‘Perhaps they are hoping to draw out our cavalry again?’ Masgava hazarded.
‘Varus won’t do that. Caesar and he learned their lesson last time, when the enemy pulled tricks and traps on them. And the infantry are lurking at the back. It’s all a bit strange.’
‘Maybe they’ll do it the German way?’ Aurelius offered, and Fronto nodded at the thought. Despite the tactics of the German cavalry now serving with Caesar, the common method of Germanic horse was to ride to the fray, then leap from their horses and fight as infantry while their slaves held the reins until they returned. But that was not usually the way of the more civilised Gallic tribes.
‘Something’s wrong.’
Around the defences, more signals went up and Fronto turned to see Antonius marching along the space between the ramparts in full glittering kit. A distant shape was approaching from the south and the white horse and red cloak confirmed his initial thought: Caesar was coming to take a hand in matters. The legate frowned.
‘Caesar coming down here, and listen… those signals.’
The others cocked their heads or cupped their ears. Most of them were long-term soldiers and knew enough signals to catch the details long before Masgava had unthreaded them.
‘Calling down the reserves,’ Aurelius said quietly.
Biorix nodded. ‘Not just these four legions either. I can hear the Ninth and Fourteenth. Every man in the western half of the circuit that can be spared. Someone thinks this wall is about to be assaulted worse than ever.’
‘Which is, I fear, exactly what the enemy wants us to think. The commanders think they’re preventing a repeat of the last struggle by increasing the manpower here, responding to a simple show of force and starting to concentrate troops on the plain. But the enemy’s attacked here twice and I don’t think they’re daft enough to try the same a third time. This is a feint, and we’re falling for it.’
‘Are you sure, sir?’ Arcadios asked in his thick Greek accent. ‘Looks to me like the reserve force is spreading out to launch an attack all along the wall from hill to hill.’
Fronto followed his gesture. It did indeed look exactly like that. ‘I don’t doubt there will be an attack here,’ he replied, ‘but I don’t think it’ll be the main one.’
He turned at the distant sound of carnyxes.
‘Sounds like Vercingetorix and his men have woken up. They’ve seen it, too. Watch them go for the inner walls. We’re about to be hit from both sides again.’
‘So it’s not a feint?’ Arcadios frowned.
‘Yes it is, but it’s an enormous one. The enemy out there are using the cavalry to draw us all to the plains. The Gauls trapped in the oppidum are cut off. They can’t have any more idea what’s happening than we do, so they’re following suit. But something else is happening. I asked you why the cavalry? The answer’s simple. Their bulk is hiding the fact that their infantry is diminished. Half the enemy foot aren’t there.’
Masgava frowned. ‘So where are they?’
‘That,’ Fronto said flatly, ‘is the important question.’
Turning, he jogged down to where Antonius was approaching the sector’s command post, upon which Caesar was also converging.
‘Fronto. Good. I’ve drawn as many men as I can down here. I’m not going to let us fall short of manpower like last time.’
‘Counter the order,’ Fronto said, breathlessly.
‘What?’
‘Get everyone back to their posts,’ he added, hurriedly.
‘Why?’
‘It’s a feint. Something’s going on. We’re just playing into their hands.’
‘You been sacrificing goats and reading their livers, Fronto?’
‘I’ve been looking carefully at the enemy and working out what I’d do in their place. They’ve failed a direct assault on the plains twice, and only an idiot would try a third time with a tired army.’ He looked north and south along the open space between the walls, where men scurried around preparing the supplies against an attack. Fresh cohorts of men from six legions were hurrying to the flat ground to bolster the lines. He thought for a moment and rubbed his scalp. ‘You were involved in the planning of the circumvallation, Antonius. Is there a weakness anywhere?’
‘A weakness?’
‘Yes. A weak spot. Somewhere that the Gauls don’t have to face twin ramparts, ditches and lilia?’
Antonius fell into deep thought and shrugged. ‘Well there’s Mons Rea. We couldn’t drive the outer rampart and ditch over the hill and didn’t have the time to encompass it, so the defences there are basically the camp ones.’
Fronto’s head shot round to the looming bulk of Mons Rea.
‘But that’s where the largest camp is, Fronto. The home of the Twelfth and Fifteenth. Caninius and Reginus. Only a lunatic would attack the camp of two legions.’
‘Not if most of those two legions were busy down here. That camp is under-manned.’
Even as Caesar slowed on his approach, a question in his expression, Fronto realised how much danger they might be in, the alarms going up on Mons Rea. His searching eyes picked out a huge force of men on foot pouring down the slope above the camp, making for the northern walls. ‘We’ve got trouble,’ he shouted and pointed at the hill. Turning to Antonius and Caesar, he rolled his head, his neck clicking. ‘You need to give the orders to get the men back to their positions and send reinforcements to Mons Rea.’ Gesturing to his singulares, he pointed at the flood of men on the distant hill.