Marius' Mules VIII: Sons of Taranis Read online

  ‘Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!’

  Fronto flinched. What was it with these Greeks? The ‘woman’ was shrieking again now, his/her awful voice given terrible reach and strength by the excellent acoustics of this Greek-style theatre that formed a horseshoe shape around a circular performance area. He blinked as he realised that she was actually screaming now, not singing some drivel about Pentheus and perverts hiding in trees. And he could see why. The white front of her dress was soaking through with a blooming circle of dark red as blood gushed out into the fabric. The screeching shifted up a tone as something happened and a steel point, gleaming with the crimson of fresh blood, emerged from the front between the fake breasts. The actor shuddered and gurgled as the strange cloaked figure behind rammed in the sword point and twisted for a confirmed and most agonising kill.

  Fronto stared in horror and turned to Lucilia, who was applauding slowly, her face sombre but pleased. What in the name of…?

  Fronto woke with a start and almost fell forward off his seat into the audience members in front. Lucilia gave him a disapproving shake of the head and rolled her eyes. ‘You need to see another herbalist. There are some very highly recommended ones in the town.’

  Fronto shuddered at the memory of that last imagined scene as below, in the orchestra, the man/woman on the tottering heels was swinging a head made from a tragic mask wrapped in a wig. Tendrils of red and brown rags hung from the fake severed neck in a surprisingly effective imitation of ravaged flesh and blood. He shuddered again as the woman warbled in her cracked masculine voice to her father, waffling on about animals.

  ‘Why does she have a head?’

  Lucilia blinked and frowned at him. ‘How long have you been asleep?’

  ‘I don’t know. Since November, I think.’

  ‘The head is her son’s. She and her maenad sisters tore him apart in the tree top.’

  ‘Ah yes. I remember that. And what’s this about the lion?’

  ‘She thinks it’s a lion she’s carrying. Not her son.’

  ‘She needs to study her wildlife a little more, then.’

  Lucilia’s glare could have outstripped Medusa’s gaze, and Fronto quailed.

  ‘Sorry. Look, I’m not enjoying this.’

  ‘It’s almost over.’

  ‘Even your father’s gone to sleep, and he was looking forward to it.’

  ‘My father is past his sixtieth summer, Marcus. You have not the excuse of age.’

  ‘I have the excuse of exhaustion and boredom. I’ll see you out by the exit in half an hour. I need to find some refreshment.’

  ‘Try not to have so much ‘refreshment’ that you can’t walk home this time.’

  Fronto sighed. ‘I’m not debauching myself, Lucilia. It’s just that the more I douse myself, the better chance there is that I might sleep through until at least past midnight.’

  He realised that his voice had become gradually louder as he talked and that other spectators nearby were glaring at him. Shrugging at them apologetically, he patted Lucilia on the shoulder, gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and scurried out from the seats, making for the exit.

  It wasn’t just the bad dreams since Alesia that were killing his healthy nights. There was business, too. Four months into his new career as an importer of wine he was finding out just how hard it was to make a profit in the mercantile world. Especially in a thriving Greek port where Romans had no special advantage. Balbus had helped subsidise his business from the start, but even the unconventional old man had been slightly disapproving of Fronto, with all his rank and position, lowering himself to the world of commerce. The gods alone knew what his sister and mother would say when they found out. His hope had been to fund it himself, or at least with Balbus’ aid, and not to have to dip into the family’s coffers. That way he could keep his dealings from the family until his business was thriving and he could simply put a factor in charge of it and sit back to reap the profits. That was a good old Roman way. But the longer the winter dragged on, the less it looked like the wine import trade would thrive. In fact, if he didn’t find another source of income soon to help support it, he might have to give up and try something else.

  And that didn’t bear thinking about…

  His mother, sister, wife and father-in-law had all expected him to either take up some important provincial posting, perhaps when the Gallic war was a memory and the newly-conquered lands had been defined as a province in itself, or at least to take a leading role in Massilia’s own government.

  And although he would prefer to sit and debate with the democratic council of the Greek city than to idle in the curia of Rome and listen to senators trying to outdo one another, still it held little interest for him. Perhaps, if the wine trade failed, he could persuade the boule of Massilia to take a step into the world of gladiators or chariot racing. Then he could start up a faction of chariots or build a ludus to train fighters. He’d even considered going back to the army, when the markets had first almost broken him. Balbus had bailed him out, but not before he’d already half-written the letter to Caesar.

  It wasn’t even the dreams that were stopping him from going back. It was the knowledge that there was no place for him there. Soon the great army that Caesar had led around Gaul for eight years would disband. Caesar would return to Rome to take up a consulship, those legions that had come with his proconsular position would be assigned to his replacement. The ones granted to him by the senate would be returned and probably disbanded, as would be all those Caesar had levied himself. Without the great spectre of Gallic revolt, there would be no need for the army. So there was no point returning to an army that would be split up and disbanded within the year.

  He sighed and reached up instinctively for the thousandth time to fondle the twin figurines at his throat, and once again sighed that they weren’t there – one broken and the other given to the Arvernian noble at Alesia. He was convinced that the absence of Fortuna from his person was at least partially responsible for his business’ failure, if not for his poor sleep. He’d tried replacing them at the markets of Massilia, but to no avail. The Greeks did not recognise Fortuna. Oh, they sort of did. But they called her Tyche, and in the few usable figurines he’d found of Tyche, she was wearing a flouncy Greek-style himation dress and holding up what appeared to be a misshapen club. Not at all like his very sober Fortuna in a stola and palla holding the cornucopia with a wheel of fortune at her knee. Somehow he felt his patron goddess might be a little insulted by the oddness of the shift. But he would have to do something about it. And the Greeks recognised Nemesis the same as the Romans, but even in Rome she was rarely actively worshipped outside of gladiator circles, and so no Nemesis pendant had shown up across the months.

  He huffed his despondency into the cold afternoon air and his heart sank slightly again as he spotted Aurelius making for him across the square. The former legionary had a face like Jupiter’s arse after too much Greek food, which boded badly. And he was carrying a ledger, so it was something to do with the business again.

  He looked up at the leaden-grey sky and wondered whether the sky looked any better at Samarobriva four or five hundred miles to the north, where the army wintered. As he stared into the clouds, trying to ignore Aurelius’ clamour, the first drop of rain hit him in the eye.

  * * * * *

  Quintus Atius Varus sat at the small table, an uneaten platter of pork and bread going cold before him as he watched the parade of misery trudge past.

  ‘That’s the third one this month,’ Brutus noted from the far side of the table.

  Varus nodded as he watched the column of slaves shuffling forward, roped at the neck, legionaries hurrying back and forth along the lines, keeping them moving. Behind them, carts were rolling along, loaded with supplies for the arduous, interminable journey – over four hundred miles to Massilia, and then a sea-voyage to Ostia and Rome, where they would further deluge the already flooded slave market. Reports of slave prices plummeting were rife in missives from home, a
nd the nobles of Rome apparently did little but mutter about Caesar devaluing their own stocks and of the potential for yet another slave uprising, given that they now outnumbered the free folk in the city.

  ‘This one’s not as big. Seems to be the last, too. Look: they’re sickly and weak. These are the ones who were too weak to travel during the snows last month. They’ve been fattened up a bit and now they’ll march to the sea, but I’d wager you twenty denarii that more than a third of them die before they get there.’

  Brutus sighed and stole a piece of bread from Varus’ platter, dipping it in the rich brown stock and savouring the taste in this cold, grey world of northern Gaul as the cavalry officer continued.

  ‘That particular train, you might notice, has Caesar’s mark. The profit from those slaves is not going to the army and the province, you know? It’s filling the general’s personal coffers alone.’

  ‘Who can blame him, Varus? In a year or so he’ll have to lay down his command and return to Rome. He’ll want to take a profit with him.’

  Varus grunted noncommittally. ‘Very wise men are saying that more than a third of the population of Gaul has been sent to Rome in chains.’

  Brutus swallowed noisily, winced at a twinge of indigestion, and replied, ‘and other wise men say another third are dead. Gallic corpses will be feeding the plants of this land for years. That’s probably why the whole place is so green and fertile.’

  ‘That and the rain.’

  ‘You’re in a cheerful mood today, Varus.’

  ‘I’m sick of winter.’ He grunted again and slapped a palm on the table. ‘And I’m sick of war, and I’m sick of Gaul. We should have followed Fronto’s lead and become civilians. Sunning ourselves on the southern coast with nothing to worry about other than whether our jars of wine have gone bad.’

  ‘That time is coming soon enough, Varus. As soon as Caesar returns to Rome we’ll all be going with him. I’m bound for a praetorship, I think, though if Caesar has enough pull in the senate when he’s made consul, I might even secure a provincial governorship early. Somewhere warm like Cilicia or Crete sounds like a damn dream after soggy Gaul, eh? And what of you, Varus? Back to Rome for good, or will you try to secure a province with your newfound riches and the general’s goodwill?’

  ‘Let’s try and make it through Gaul first.’

  ‘Gods, but you’re fun today.’

  Varus sighed yet again and turned to his companion. ‘Don’t kid yourself into thinking this is all over, Decimus Brutus. We broke them at Alesia, but we’ve got plenty of fights ahead of us yet before this place can be safely left and settled. How long have you been watching the Gauls? Do you think the people we fought at Gergovia and Alesia are going to just lie down and accept defeat?’

  ‘You don’t think they’ll try again, surely?’ Brutus replied incredulously. ‘After their land’s been stripped of two thirds of its population? They’re going to find it hard with this few people just making it through the next few harvests. They couldn’t possibly consider fighting on.’

  Varus coughed in the cold air and watched the resulting cloud of frosted breath dissipate. ‘The farmers and craftsmen? No. Nor the women, the children and those who still have a family to protect. But remember how many leaders and warriors there were on that hill where the reserves waited opposite Alesia? They left bitter and angry. That’s never a good combination in anyone, but to the Gauls it’s fuel. The land will never rise again like it did under that Arverni son of a war-dog Vercingetorix, but there are plenty of lesser chieftains who’ll fight on just through sheer bloody-mindedness, determined to make us pay for every foot of land we control. Mark my words, Decimus: before the spring thaw we’ll be putting out small fires of revolution all over the bloody place.’

  Brutus paused, clearly seeing the truth in his friend’s words, the cavalry officer’s gloomy mood beginning to infect him too. ‘And Caesar can’t afford to leave Gaul restless when he goes back to Rome. All those fires will have to be out within the year.’

  ‘See what I mean? Caesar’s preparing for his consulship. He’ll have the position and the money, and he’s always had the plebs behind him, especially when he wins something big. But if he goes home to the adoration of the Roman people claiming to have brought them Gaul as a province, he can’t afford to have rebellion flare up in his wake. Then even the plebs might turn against him.’

  ‘So what do you plan to do?’

  Varus shrugged. ‘I plan to eat my cold pork, drink some sour wine, then go and brush down my horse, and make sure my slave’s got my saddle polished and all my kit in good order. I’m going to need it soon enough, I reckon.’

  Brutus nodded wearily and watched his friend chew on a piece of poor quality meat before turning back to the slave column. At a conservative estimate of thirty denarii, even for these poor quality specimens, the column just leaving camp represented perhaps thirty or forty thousand denarii. If Caesar’s factor in Rome was worth his salt, the net gain could even go up to hundred thousand denarii. And this was the meagrest of the slave columns so far.

  By the gods, Caesar really was feathering his nest…

  Chapter One

  CAVARINOS, nobleman of the Arverni, former chieftain and general in the great war against Rome, perked up at the familiar voice and rose from his chair, taking the mug of frothing ale with him to the window, where he peered out.

  The central square of Uxellodunon was suddenly thriving after an hour of near-emptiness. Perhaps two dozen nobles from a number of different tribes were striding resolutely across the packed earth towards the large inn where Cavarinos had lodged this past week. He could see men of the Cadurci, his own Arverni and the Ruteni, whose lands bordered these to the south. There were others too. He couldn’t precisely identify them, but would have been willing to bet they were Carnutes, Bituriges and Aedui. Their warriors trooped along in an unruly bunch behind them all, eyeing each other as suspiciously as they would had the men next to them been wearing a toga. But even the sight of a gathering of nobles from different tribes was not what made Cavarinos shake his head sadly. That was the sight of Lucterius of the Cadurci – avid anti-Roman, habitual rebel and former close friend of the great king Vercingetorix – leading them all, with great purpose in his step.

  That boded badly for all concerned.

  Cavarinos stepped back slightly as the group approached. Since the disaster – the wake-up call? – of Alesia, the Arvernian noble had moved around almost continuously, only pausing for a few weeks here and there. The simple fact was that he knew not what to do with himself. He was no longer truly Arverni. He had continued shaving off his moustaches in an effort to remove himself from his brother and the past, and had cast his serpent arm-ring into a wide river on his travels. The Arverni were not what they had been, and they would never be proud again. And if he stopped thinking in tribal terms, and started to think like a Roman, which sooner or later all the people would have to do, then he was not really a ‘Gaul’ any more either. Because what the Romans called ‘Gauls’ had ceased to exist as a people after Alesia. Now they were slaves or Roman provincials who just didn’t yet recognise the fact. Consequently, there was no home for him in this land, whether inside his tribe’s territory or without.

  Yet the idea of leaving somehow seemed impossible. Even if he could endure the wrench of breaking those bonds with his ancestral lands, where would he go? To the northern island, where the tribes were all cousins of the Belgae, hard and bloodthirsty, and the land was inhospitable and swampy? Across the river to the lands of the Cherusci or the Suebi, who the Romans called Germani, where life was cheap and death a daily occurrence? To the tribes south of the mountains, in that parched, brown land of bronze and blood, where a war with Rome had been ongoing for more than a century now? To Rome itself, the enemy who had vanquished his people?

  And so he had wandered, and he had observed, and he had learned. And most of what he had observed was a dying culture that knew it was about to be eclipsed and era
dicated. And most of what he had learned was that he no longer really cared.

  The vast majority of people he had seen had been hopeless and dead-eyed, trying to eke out an existence in the impoverished, war-ravaged fields that they were too weak and too few to make work for them. And here and there he had come across small pockets of anger, where a noble who claimed to have been on that hill at Alesia – and they were invariably lying – stirred up trouble among the disenchanted, dispossessed warriors who were truly too few to make any difference now. Even had Vercingetorix remained free and spoken to the masses, there was no longer any hope of success.

  The former king had disappeared after the surrender of the oppidum last autumn. Some said he had been quietly murdered in the aftermath, though Cavarinos doubted that. Not only did it not seem to be the Roman way, but also the Arverni king would be too valuable as a symbol to merely kill without pomp and show. But what had happened to him was still a mystery as far as the people of his former army knew.

  The familiar voice of Lucterius was closing on the door now, and Cavarinos retreated to the corner of the room and slumped into his seat with his beer. There was nowhere to hide from the gathering of nobles, and he couldn’t really see any reason to hide anyway. He was no more their enemy than he was their friend.

  The door clicked open and the four other occupants looked up in passing interest before going back to their drinks and food. Lucterius was finely arrayed, though not in armour. His sword, however, remained at his side, as did those of the other nobles accompanying him.

  ‘It is all a matter of time and location,’ Lucterius was saying to his cronies. ‘If only we could trust Commius and bring him in to our plans, he could prove extremely useful, but after his flight and cowardice at Alesia, we simply cannot rely on him.’

  ‘What use is Commius anyway?’ snorted one of the nobles in an accent that was either Carnute or Senone. ‘He has ever been but a lap-dog of Caesar. One summer of riding in Vercingetorix’s shadow does not make him a hero.’