‘The Senones are cowards,’ Critognatos spat. ‘They took their oath to Vercingetorix, but the moment Caesar appears, they all quiver and shake.’
‘They hold for now. But they must capitulate soon, brother. They will all die otherwise.’
‘At least they will die for a cause.’
‘And we will die with them,’ reminded Cavarinos. ‘A peaceful solution that sets us on our way is advantageous.’
‘Coward!’
Cavarinos rounded on his brother. ‘Don’t be a fool. You know I’m no coward. But the answer is not always in drawing a sword and running naked, screaming, at the enemy!’
‘You have that curse?’
‘Yes.’ Cavarinos took a step back, his eyes narrowing. The value in the tablet was as a talisman to rally the men. Not in using, only to discover it was as useless as he felt certain it was. ‘I don’t know when I should use it, but the druids said ‘when the boar and the eagle were struggling with a sword or something. I don’t think this counts.’
Critognatos slammed him in the shoulder and pointed out over the no-man’s-land.
‘Do you see a figure over there, behind their defences, on a white horse, with the red cloak?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s almost certainly Caesar. That’s what they say: he wears a red cloak and rides a white horse.’
‘And if it isn’t? If we waste this thing? No. The value of this curse is in showing it to the army and carrying it with us.’
‘Use it on Caesar!’
‘No.’
‘Then use it on one of them!’ He pointed at the small knot of Romans on the mound and, ignoring his brother’s continued badgering, Cavarinos peered at the men. A large figure had now joined them: a big, ebony-skinned man. Cavarinos felt a jolt. The clever Roman from Bibracte last year. He had had a black-skinned warrior with him. It was too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence.
‘We have to get out of Vellaunoduno and back to the army. We cannot do that by attempting to use the walls to defeat an army more than forty thousand strong with a few thousand frightened locals. We have to see this to a peaceful solution.’
‘There will be more than a few thousand, brother.’
‘What?’
‘My embassy to the tribes was successful. Upwards of ten thousand warriors are leaving their lands and heading south for the army.’
‘They’re hardly likely to all come through here, you idiot. And even if they did, and they all got the urge to fight straight away, that would still only make us one to about three or four in numbers. Nowhere near enough.’
‘How the king ever came to put you in command of warriors I will never understand,’ Critognatos spat and, turning, stomped off back down the slope and into the town.’
‘Idiot.’
Cavarinos allowed his gaze to linger for a long moment on the small group of Romans, including the dark-skin and the officer atop the wall, and then the figure with the white horse and the red cloak crossed the camp and came to join them. Despite his personal misgivings and his flat disbelief that the burden he carried held any true power, Cavarinos found himself fingering the edges of the curse tablet in the leather case at his belt.
‘No. A peaceful solution, for now…’
* * * * *
The sanctuary of the god Borvo and the goddess Damona thrummed with the collective worry of two hundred throats. Consisting of a portico of heavy timber posts supporting a sloping tiled roof, only one side of the square structure rose above a single storey, and it was from the balcony on this section that the magistrate of Vellaunoduno, accompanied by the most notable residents and a white-clad druid, had asked the crowd to hush.
Cavarinos and Critognatos sat on the driver’s seat of a large cart at the far end, above the heads of the crowd. The pair had hardly exchanged a civil word since their argument on the walls, yet sat together largely for the security that granted among a foreign tribe.
‘The Romans have made no demands,’ the magistrate repeated. ‘They arrived and besieged us. We have the choice now.’
He paused for a moment as the general hum of the crowd intruded, and when it subsided, he continued. ‘We can see this as an open act of war and assume that their commander has nothing in mind but the conquest of our city and the impounding of our grain to feed their hungry legions. Or we can see it as a cautious reaction from a people who now know that much of the land has risen against them and cannot simply presume us to be allies. After all, while they cannot know that we have taken the oath for the Arverni king, they can hardly be sure we have not.’
Again, the hubbub arose. Cavarinos sat patiently. Even over the din in this place, he could hear the distant sounds of hammering as legionaries worked in the darkness by the light of flaring torches to complete the barrier surrounding the oppidum. The magistrate waited for the lull once more, and then spoke again.
‘You people are the nobles, the land owners, the free artisans and workers. It is to you that I turn, for the way forward to me is clouded and obscure. Segomaros here represents the druids, and it is his council that we defend this place to the last and deny the Romans any succour, including our grain.’
‘He would torch the grain?’ one of the crowd called out incredulously.
‘Would you feed the Romans?’ shouted another with an audible sneer.
‘Tarvos here,’ the man went on, indicating a warrior who physically lived up to his name — the bull — ‘would see us come to terms with the Romans and buy passage from the city with our grain. He would see our warriors join the Arverni army at any cost.’
‘And what about the children?’ shouted a woman. ‘If the Romans take our grain and the warriors leave to join the Arverni, the rest will starve!
‘And this is what we are here to debate,’ announced the magistrate patiently.
Cavarinos listened to half a dozen more shouts and finally rose from the wagon seat, towering above all, bar those few on the balcony.
‘If you fight here to the death, what fate do you expect for your children? Anything better than starvation? Romans are not like the tribes across the Rhenus. They will take slaves when they win a battle, yes, but they are almost always open to negotiation. They might be the enemy but they value life and they understand the value of life. Submitting to them might be ignominious for you, but you would be alive and, I daresay, free into the bargain; and few Romans I have met will watch the children starve if you have willingly aided them.’
A murmur of agreement and support sussed across the crowd, and Cavarinos could see the magistrate nodding his appreciation of the comment, albeit coming from a foreigner. Sometimes it took an outsider to bring sense.
His heart sank as the bench weight shifted, warning him that Critognatos had risen behind him.
‘Many hundreds — thousands even — of warriors of the Meldi, the Parisi and the Catelauni tribes will be passing here as they rush to join the Arverni army. They will not pass by here and see you beneath the Roman yoke. You need only hold until they come.’
Idiot!
With a malicious streak flashing through his heart, Cavarinos gave the side of the cart a good hard thump with his heel and was rewarded by the sound of his brother falling with a crash behind him as the cart shuddered. Despite the gravity of the situation, those nearby chuckled at the sight and Cavarinos smiled. Good. His brother’s credibility was waning.
‘Those warriors will not pause on their journey to engage an army many times their size, even for your grain. Your only hope of survival is to parlay. I know these Romans. I have met one of them myself before now, and he is a reasonable man. Favourable terms are within your grasp. I beg you for the love of reason not to throw away your lives and those of your families for a prideful gesture.’