'Ogmios is not a giving God. He is a taker — of tributes, of souls, of lives. He only gives when he knows it is needed, and his curse-tablets are so rare that some chiefs are hoarding ones a thousand years old, considering them too precious to use. This curse is destined for an enemy of our peoples — and a specific one — though who that is will only be revealed to you in time, when the boar and the eagle are locked in a struggle, bound by the sword. Do not waste it now.'
Cavarinos stared at the item, and then huffed his irritation and folded the wrappings tight once more. 'Tell your wyrd brothers that it is in the right hands.'
The druid nodded and turned, threading his way back among the trees and out of sight. Cavarinos eyed the bundle again as though it might bite him if he held it wrong and, reluctantly, pushed it inside his mail shirt for safety, giving him an odd lump in his belly area. For a moment, he could not get his bearings and wondered which way he had come, but he realised he had left something of a trail pushing through the trees. Curious that the druid seemed not to have done. Still, he turned and began to make his way back out from this strange wood, to where his horse was tethered in a field of rich grass.
Now to ride to Vellaunoduno and meet up with Critognatos before they returned to the army.
* * * * *
Fronto wondered idly whether his backside would ever be the same. It felt as though someone had opened up the skin, pushed in half a broken amphora in jagged chunks and then sewn it back up again. He was no stranger to protracted periods in the saddle, but he had never before ridden for a week, day and night, with only the shortest of breaks to catch a little sleep and rest the horses. It honestly felt now as though Bucephalus had been riding him for the past two days rather than the other way around.
Their route had taken them from the heartlands of the Arverni, across the highlands and into the valley of the Iaresis river, which had deposited them at the city of Vienna late in the second day of travel, all the time keeping as far from population centres as possible. In Vienna they found a small Roman wagon train and its cavalry escort that had been trapped there for almost a month, the valley in both directions deemed too dangerous for travel. Leaving the goods and the merchants to make their way south as best they could, they took the cavalry into their force and rested a full night for a change.
From there they had suffered a nerve-wracking three days’ travel up the valley of the Rhodanus, all the time watching their flanks and their rear, expecting the agents of the Arverni or their allies to spring some deadly trap on them. Yet the only time they had encountered clear danger had been when the advance scouts had spotted a large party of riders armed for war ahead, large enough to have resoundingly beaten Caesar’s party. The Roman column had lain low for four hours while Samognatos had shadowed the warband and eventually returned proclaimed the party out of range of danger.
At an abandoned (or destroyed) Roman depot high up the Rhodanus, where the Roman supply road veered off east to Vesontio, Caesar despatched riders to the winter quarters in that important town, that Roscius and Trebonius should bring their legions to Agedincum with all haste. The command party watched the couriers leave, then departed the river trail and cut west and a little north for a further two and a half days, riding harder than ever, with the welcome presence of the main winter camp for six legions looming ever closer at the end of the ride.
A little more than twenty miles from the Rhodanus, they reached the second of the winter quarters: a fortress for the Eighth and Eleventh legions positioned on a hill near a sleepy, peaceful oppidum that went by the name of Alesia. Caesar had issued orders to Fabius and Cicero to strike camp and move at speed to Agedincum, and the riders had left the camp in sudden throes of activity, skirting the huge upturned-boat shape of Alesia and riding for Agedincum.
‘There she is,’ Priscus sighed with audible relief, pointing ahead as the party rounded a small stand of trees and the massive six-legion complex that sprawled on the edge of the native town of Agedincum came into view. Three times the size of the town it hugged, the winter camp gave off the smoke of dozens of cooking fires and rang with the noises of a hundred blacksmiths and armourers hammering metal upon metal. The distinctive sounds of parade marches and weapon drills echoed across the landscape.
Fronto rubbed his rump and winced. There was precious little skin left around his coccyx if he was any judge and he had a horrible feeling that all the bruises had joined up and left him with a blue-grey backside. ‘I shall be glad to rest. Preferably sink into a nice warm bath.’
‘I offered to tend to your pains,’ muttered Masgava, riding along close behind.
‘Thank you, but one thing I try not to do is spend my evenings with a large, scarred Numidian professional killer rubbing oil across my buttocks.’
Palmatus snorted laughter, but Masgava merely shrugged. ‘You’d have lived a sore and unpleasant life in the arena if you can’t let another man massage you.’
Fronto turned to him. ‘It’s not that I…’ he rolled his eyes. ‘Priscus, just try and talk sense into him.’
‘Oh I don’t know,’ grinned the prefect. ‘I think you ought to give it a try. Let Masgava get himself all oiled up and ready, and you can strip down to your bare blue arse and let him have some fun.’
Fronto turned his back pointedly on the pair of them and opened his mouth to address Caesar before spotting the wicked grin on the general’s face.
‘It really isn’t funny.’
‘If you say so, Marcus.’
Fronto cleared his throat noisily. ‘What’s the plan now, sir? The troops will have all-but exhausted their winter stores, and are probably wondering when more will be forthcoming. I’m quite surprised Labienus hasn’t been tempted to bring the legions south when the supply lines were cut.’
Caesar shook his head. ‘They had adequate supplies to last until spring. Labienus is too sensible to strike such defensive camps and risk his forces, given what happened the winter before. Besides, even if the supplies ran low, they could get by. The Eighth and Eleventh had supplemented by foraging the local area and impounding what they could get away with.’
‘Easier for two legions to survive like that than six, general.’
‘Supplies will not be an issue, Marcus. As soon as all ten legions have met up, we will be moving west. There is a high probability from local rumour that the Carnutes are now eating out of Vercingetorix’s hand. Our supply hub at Cenabum is deep in Carnute lands — their commercial centre, in fact — and we must secure it and subdue the Carnutes first. Then we will turn towards the true enemy.’
‘That doesn’t resolve supply issues, general.’
‘It partially resolves them, Fronto. Cenabum is a major supply hub, and I feel sure that the stores still held there will keep us in the field for a time. But in addition, en route to Cenabum — perhaps halfway — is the Senone city of Vellaunoduno, which is renowned for its wheat production and stacked granaries.’
‘And what if the Senones are also allied with Vercingetorix,’ Fronto queried. ‘They are apparently at peace here in Agedincum, but there are six legions to consider here. Not so further west.’
‘The Senones are nominally still our allies, but if they baulk at supplying us, I will not hesitate to grind them beneath our heel on the way. Never fear, Fronto. I will feed the legions on the march. Vercingetorix thought to raise Gaul while keeping the army cut off. We have beaten him, though. In a couple of days we will have all ten legions combined and under my control. The Arvernian rebel tried, and he has failed. Now we begin the task of making him pay for his temerity.’