The Druid King (17 page)

The guard captain stood there frozen, his head slightly cocked to one side, his shrewd eyes measuring Vercingetorix, glancing at the crowd to measure
its
mood, then back at Vercingetorix. He gave him the subtlest of nods.

Vercingetorix offered an outstretched hand to the guard captain and addressed the crowd. “Or give me back my sword, and I will enter that nest of spiders alone, and I will challenge Gobanit to fair and honorable battle. Let the gods decide! Let them choose our destiny!”

At this there was a great roar of approval, as Vercingetorix had known there must be, for no Arverne, no Gaul, wherever his loyalty might lie, could deny another’s honorable appeal to the will of the gods as expressed in such a challenge to combat.

“Well and fairly spoken,” said the guard captain, and handed Vercingetorix back his sword to a thunderous ovation.

Vercingetorix climbed out of the fountain and turned to regard the entrance to the Great Hall. A squad of guards had emerged from the building. Six of them, swords drawn, stood shoulder to shoulder atop the stairs, barring entry. Six more had descended to the foot of the stairs and had advanced a dozen or so paces before them.

He ran to his horse, mounted as quickly as he could, and, with sword still drawn, charged at the Great Hall at a full gallop.

The guards before the stairs froze for the briefest of moments. Then some raised their swords threateningly, while others dashed to escape, and all was confusion as they stumbled and tumbled into each other.

Vercingetorix did not wait for a gap to open up; rather, he jumped his horse over and through the melee, and in the next leap, he was riding up the low flight of stairs straight for the guards blocking the entrance.

Two of the guards fled to the side, two of them hesitated, the other two bravely stood their ground, swords leveled at the horse’s chest, blocking the entrance with their bodies and pointed steel.

Vercingetorix wheeled his horse right, brought the flat of his sword down hard on the blade of one guard’s weapon close by the hilt, sending it clattering, and then, as the other guard circled round to his left hand, kicked him square in the jaw, sending him tumbling off balance down the stairs. He then reared his horse again before the door— causing it to come down with its full weight on its front hooves as they hit the door, smashing it inward—and rode into the building.

The Great Hall of the Arverni had been transformed.

The chests that held the gold and silver, the gems and jewelry—and there were many more of them—were now tightly shut, and lined up in neat rows. The grease and soot had been cleaned from the ancient paintings that covered the walls, but in many places the paint had come off with it, and the damage had been “repaired” with fresh and over-bright colors. The imposition of the new Roman style on the venerable Gallic mode was outrageous.

A semicircle of white-painted wooden benches, five rows deep and rising toward the rear, half enclosed a large central well where the long oaken banquet table had been replaced by a smaller, lower one painted shiny black, with curved and gilded legs in the likeness of clawed eagles’ feet, surrounded by soft-backed upholstered couches. Upon the table were silver plates heaped with fruit and cheeses, platters painted in woodland scenes bearing baked confections, platters decorated with ocean waves offering displays of small fishes.

Reclining on the couches, eating this fare as three serving wenches filled their glass goblets from small amphorae, were eight men, no doubt members of Gobanit’s self-serving “Arverne Senate.” Four of them wore tunics and orange Arverne pantaloons. Two of them were dressed as Romans in white togas with orange piping. Another two wore togas over pantaloons. Vercingetorix was gratified to see that Critognat was not among them.

The only person whom Vercingetorix recognized was Gobanit. His uncle, to judge from his soft and jowly face, had put on considerable weight, though how much was hard to tell with a toga draped over his body as he lolled on his couch.

Vercingetorix rode right up to him, sword drawn, terrorizing the serving wenches, causing them to stumble backward in their haste to escape the hooves of his horse.

“Guards!” Gobanit shouted. “How did this barbarian get in here?”

When he saw that the guards were not to be seen, he turned his ire on Vercingetorix. “How dare you intrude upon the deliberations of the vergobret of the Arverni and his senators in this brutish manner!”

“To serve the will of the gods and the people,” Vercingetorix told him.

“To serve—! Who, by the gods, are you?”

“I am Vercingetorix, son of Keltill, come to claim my birthright!”

By now the senators were sitting upright.

“What do you want from me?” demanded Gobanit.

“What is rightfully mine, Gobanit!”

Gobanit’s attitude changed abruptly. “Well, of course,” he said, favoring Vercingetorix with an unctuous smile. “There was no need to ride in here like some Teuton barbarian, nephew. As his only lawful heir, or so it was supposed, I inherited your father’s lands and treasure, but now that I see you’re alive and well, of course—”

“What about my mother?”

“You haven’t heard . . . ?” said Gobanit.

“Heard what?”

“Your mother has . . . joined Keltill in the Land of Legend, Vercingetorix,” Gobanit said, not quite meeting Vercingetorix’s eyes as he spoke. “Gaela died a most noble death. She was seen to have thrust a dagger into her own heart when captured by Teuton raiders in order to avoid dishonorable slavery . . . or worse.
You should be most proud of her. . . .”

Gobanit’s eyes darted evasively to the right and behind Vercingetorix, and, turning his head, Vercingetorix saw that the dozen guards he had ridden through had entered the Great Hall and were tentatively advancing on his rear with their swords drawn.

He leapt off his horse, and stuck the point of his sword under Gobanit’s chin, where his jaw met his throat.

“I don’t believe you for one moment, Gobanit!” he said, prying him up off his couch at sword point. “You slew her or had her slain as surely as you killed my father!”

Gobanit’s eyes bulged with terror.

“Whoever told you that is a liar! As surely as I did not kill your father, I did not kill your mother!”

“You’re the liar! You lit the fire! I was there! I saw it!”

Beads of sweat broke out on Gobanit’s cheeks and brow. “I had no choice!” he whined. “If you were there, you know that the druid Diviacx commanded me!”

“You could have refused!”

“At what gain? Some Eduen would have done the deed, and I would have been slain myself for defying a druid.”

“You would have preserved your honor! Draw your sword, Gobanit, for I would preserve
my
honor by granting you the honorable death in fair combat you withheld from my father.”

And he withdrew his sword from under Gobanit’s throat.

Gobanit staggered backward, screaming, “Kill him!
Kill him!
”

Thought stopped as Vercingetorix whirled around, his sword before him, blade parallel to the floor, in a sweeping circle, and saw that it was not the guards who had come up behind him, but three of the Arverne senators who had risen from their couches and were rushing toward him, swords thrust out to skewer him.

Continuing his whirling turn but sidestepping as he did, he allowed their motion to carry them past him, then, still smoothly turning, sliced one deeply across the buttocks, and confronted the other two as they clumsily reversed direction, slashing one’s throat, ducking sidewise, and spearing the other under the sternum.

Withdrawing his sword with another whirling, dancing turn, Vercingetorix found himself facing Gobanit in the process of clumsily drawing his sword from beneath his toga, and without pause twisted his wrist as he plunged his sword deep into his uncle’s belly, so that he could rip upward, toward Gobanit’s heart.

Gobanit fell screaming and was already dead when Vercingetorix pulled out his bloody sword, and thought returned. And if what the man of action had done seemed to have happened in an instant, the next moment seemed to last an eternity, as the man of knowledge beheld the results.

One man lay screaming and blubbering on his stomach in a growing pool of blood. Another lay supine and unmoving. A third was on his back, his head lying at an impossible angle, the gaping wound in his neck gushing blood as a mountain spring gushes water. Gobanit lay facedown in yet another lake of gore.

Without thought, Vercingetorix had slain not merely his first man but his first three, and though he had done it like a dance, with his own blood hot and his sword singing, now he only felt his heart sinking and his gorge rising, and his spirit was hard put to find the glory in it.

But Vercingetorix forced himself to choke back his nausea, for there was no time for vomiting or contemplation. Gobanit’s five remaining “senators” had scrambled to their feet, though none had summoned up the courage to draw a sword. The dozen guards had come up behind them, and were surveying the carnage in numb stupefaction, glancing uncertainly at their captain, and Vercingetorix knew that he must immediately assume their command.

“You . . . you killed not just the vergobret but two senators!” Baravax stammered. “That was no fair and honorable combat. . . .”

What was he to do now? Whose orders must he obey? Surely not a dead man? The remaining senators? But they seemed as reluctant to speak as he was to act.

“Surely not,” said Vercingetorix. “I offered Gobanit honorable combat, did I not? Yet he refused the challenge and instead sought to have these cowards cut me down from behind. I therefore slew no man of honor. I slew no man worthy of being a leader of the Arverni!”

“You . . . would claim Gobanit’s place by right of arms!” whined one of the senators.

“Never has that been done!”

“We must hold an election!”

“I do not seek to proclaim myself vergobret by force of arms, for that is not our way,” Vercingetorix declared. “I claim only my father’s lands and property and the loyalty of those nobles and warriors who owed loyalty to him. All who wish to follow me I will lead to join Caesar’s invasion of Britain. I invite all who would become vergobret to gather their warriors and do the same. Let us hold the election upon our return, and let our deeds in battle speak for us.”

“Well spoken!” cried Baravax, sealing his decision by raising his sword high in salutation, then nodding to his men, who, after a moment’s hesitation, did likewise. Clearly Vercingetorix was the only one in the Great Hall
worthy
of his loyalty. And, after all, by far the most likely to emerge as the man with the power to appoint the guard captain of his choosing.

IX

JUNIUS GALLIUS’ ENGINEERS had erected the camp palisade, enclosed it in the usual entrenchment, and finished the docks in less than a week. Two hundred ships had already made the journey from the Mediterranean without serious mishap.

Caesar had his four legions bivouacked snugly inside the fortifications, with the tribal encampments of the Gauls being set up safely outside, and even Dumnorix, who Caesar suspected was a lot more cunning than the oaf he took pains to pretend to be, had been seduced away from his well-justified suspicions when shown to the sybaritic quarters laid on for the favored few Gallic leaders within the Roman walls.

Moreover, it was a fine sunny day on the northern coast of Gaul, a region not famed for such weather, and even the customarily saturnine Gisstus was grinning broadly when he caught up to Caesar outside his tent, bearing a mysterious sack.

“Good news, better news, and amusing news, Caesar. Vercingetorix is only two or three days away, and as for bridling your young unicorn, we already have the means among the Carnute hostages.
You knew her yourself. Intimately.”

“I did?” Caesar shrugged. The memories of the amatory lessons he had delivered in the hostage grammaticus last winter were sweet, but there had been so many pretty young faces and ripening nubile bodies that they all seemed to blur together in a pleasant rosy haze. “A Carnute girl? What was her name?”

“Marah,” said Gisstus.

“You are saying that Vercingetorix will remember her, and fondly?”

“Oh yes. He met her only once or twice, but there was a plan to seal an alliance between the Arverni and the Carnutes by marrying them. Then too, he’s been at a druid school since he fled Gergovia, where, I am told, the boys’ opportunities for amatory experience are limited to each other, and the Gauls take a grimly dour view of such sexual recourse. So somehow I doubt that Vercingetorix would have forgotten a girl tasty enough to have appealed to
your
sophisticated palate, Caesar. Indeed, I would say he might still be a virgin.”

“A virgin!” exclaimed Caesar.

“We’re not in Rome, Caesar. Perhaps you’ve noticed?”

Caesar had indeed noticed that the sexual practices of this part of the world were peculiar. The Teutons even mocked warriors who availed themselves of natural sexual pleasures before their twenty-fifth year or so, believing it made them less fierce.

“Here’s another little surprise for him,” said Gisstus. He reached into the sack and pulled out a crown. “The legendary Crown of Brenn!”

It was a rather crudely fashioned crown, but apparently crafted of gold.

“Is it real?” asked Caesar.

“Well, it’s gold all right,” Gisstus told him, “but I had the thing made. I saw the real one myself, if you will remember. Assuming it was the real one, and not something Keltill had made up for the occasion. I hear from certain cynical sources that more than one petty Gallic chieftain claims to hide the real thing.”

“You really think it would fool Vercingetorix?”

“Is he a jeweler?”

“But didn’t he have the real thing when he fled? How could he be made to believe that I—”

Gisstus made a dramatic pass over the crown with his free hand. “Druid magic!” he said. “The Crown of Brenn has a will of its own and journeys to meet its appointed darling of destiny!”

Caesar laughed. “What
would
I do without you, Gisstus?” he said.

Critognat, who had slain more men in combat than he could count and had an abundance of honorable battle scars to prove it, found himself riding as second-in-command beside a war leader of the Arverni less than half his age and with no battle experience at all.

And willingly!

Of the four thousand Arverne warriors riding behind them, about half had inherited their loyalty to Vercingetorix through their loyalty to his father. Most of the rest were followers of Critognat, or of experienced warriors like Cavan, Blosun, and Rackelanar, who looked to him as their senior. Critognat knew full well that he could have claimed leadership of the Arverne forces, just as he could have demanded an immediate election of a new vergobret and probably won it.

But he had done neither of these things. There was something magic about the young son of Keltill that made an old warrior not only love him but trust in his leadership against all common sense and experience—the magic of how Vercingetorix had seized this leadership. Or how he had not.

When Critognat learned that Vercingetorix proposed to postpone the election until all who might seek to be elected vergobret had the chance to prove their worthiness on the field of battle, he had wept with joy. Unblooded in battle or not, here was a man with the heart of a true Gaul! Here at last was a leader who loved honor above power and understood that the loyalty of warriors must be won with the sword.

If Vercingetorix held him under a magical spell, it was the right sort of magic. The magic of honor and the sword. The kind of magic that had brought Brenn’s army to victory at Rome itself.

To the northeast, by the shore of the gray rolling sea, was a Roman stockade. And before it Critognat could see tens of thousands of warriors setting up an enormous encampment. Gauls of many tribes, to judge by the standards and pennants set out above them.

“Never have I seen such a gathering of the tribes,” said Critognat. “Never had I thought to see one.”

“Never has there
been
one since the time of Brenn,” said Vercingetorix.

“But gathered together not by a Gaul, but by a Roman,” Critognat muttered, shaking his head ruefully.

“What do we do now?” grunted Critognat.

It was a good question for which Vercingetorix had no good answer, for they were approaching the edge of the Gallic encampment outside the Roman palisade, and there seemed no place to go; indeed, they confronted a scene of pandemonium.

Though standards staking out tribal territories had been planted widely, thousands of warriors were clustered around each of them, leaving only ragged random aisles between the tribal encampments. These might be wide enough for the parade of camp followers and tradesmen offering their wares, but far too narrow for the Arverne troops to pass, assuming there was any territory closer to the palisade where Vercingetorix could quarter his troops.

Nor were the troops of the tribes who had already claimed their territory properly quartered. Some tents had been pitched. Here and there, enterprising peasants had set up large cookfires and were roasting pigs and sheep and chickens for sale. There was an abundance of bread loaves, but no ovens to be seen. There were brewers selling beer out of barrels or whole casks, but the briskness of their trade seemed to be moderated by the amphorae of Roman wine that were everywhere.

Horses were tethered and did their shitting and pissing where their masters sat gambling, eating, but mostly drinking, and likewise befouling the nearby ground. The boisterous encampment sent up a stench that had Critognat wrinkling his nose.

“I’ve seen better-organized pigsties,” he grumbled. “Smelled them too. Where are we supposed to quarter our troops? Where are the vergobrets? Who is in charge of this mess?”

“Keep the men mounted for now,” Vercingetorix told him, “and I’ll try to find out.”

He summoned Baravax, and had him assemble a dozen warriors before riding into this unruly encampment, for he didn’t like the smell of it, and not just that of the steaming urine and fly-speckled dung. Then, flanked by his guards, he rode in a zigzag fashion up the disorderly paths between the tribes in the direction of the palisade gates.

He had exchanged Caesar’s crimson cloak for one of Arverne orange, but he was still riding the horse Caesar had given him, with its red-and-gold saddle blanket, an unpopular combination of colors here, to judge by the sour looks he got, by the mutterings that seemed to be stopped just short of coherent curses by the presence of his escorts.

So he was pleased to see the familiar face of Litivak as he approached the boar standard.

“Litivak!”

“Vercingetorix! I hear you’ve become a great general,” Litivak said. His tone of voice did not allow Vercingetorix to tell whether this was sincere congratulation or wry jest.

“Those who followed my father now follow me, if that’s what you mean,” Vercingetorix said carefully. “Perhaps
you
can tell me what is going on here? I see no Romans. I see no vergobrets. No one seems to be in charge of anything.”

“Caesar keeps his legions inside the wall, where the vergobrets, and whoever else he seeks to seduce, are favored with luxurious quarters. The rest of us are at liberty to fend for ourselves.”

“Well, I can see the wisdom in keeping Romans and Gauls apart . . .” said Vercingetorix.

“It may help to keep the peace now,” said Litivak. “But once we find ourselves fighting alongside each other . . .” He shrugged.

“Under whose command?”

“Caesar’s, who else?”

“I mean all these tribal armies.”

“I am given to understand that Caesar has assigned command of the Gallic auxiliaries to his favorite lieutenant, Titus Labienus.”

“A
Roman
?”

“Can you imagine all these tribes accepting a
Gaul
as their commander?” Litivak scoffed.

“So Labienus is in charge of the bivouacking arrangements?”

Litivak shrugged. “Does it look like
anyone
is in charge of
anything
out here?”

“What should I do, then?”

Litivak looked his horse up and down. “That’s a Roman general’s horse you’re riding, isn’t it?” he said suspiciously.

“It’s Caesar’s,” Vercingetorix told him.

“
Caesar’s!
How in the world did you ever come by it?”

“He lent it to me . . . or sold it to me . . .” said Vercingetorix. “It’s a strange story. . . .”

“Well, Caesar’s horse should at least be enough to get you inside Caesar’s fortress,” Litivak told him.

Vercingetorix rode on toward the palisade gates. They were open, but the way was barred by four Roman legionnaires, who appeared more bored than hostile.

“You are?” said the one who seemed to be in charge, an older man with a long scar on his cheek and more gray than black in his hair.

“Vercingetorix of the Arverni.”

“Ah, the famous son of Keltill,” said another snidely. “Is it true that you slew a hundred men single-handedly in Gergovia, serviced their widows in a single night, and then started in on their horses?”

The gray-haired legionnaire silenced him with a poisonous look.

“No one gets in without someone who knows him by sight on hand inside to identify him,” he told Vercingetorix apologetically. “You could be anyone, after all. No offense intended.”

“None taken,” said Vercingetorix.

“Announce him, Claudius,” the squad leader ordered, and the legionnaire who had spoken trudged inside.

Claudius returned from within looking dazed.

“Well?” demanded the squad leader.

Claudius regarded Vercingetorix with much more respect than before.

“We let him pass,” he said. “But without his escort. Himself himself awaits him.”

“
In Latin that we can understand,
please, Claudius.”

“Himself, Marius,” Claudius said. “Gaius Julius Caesar.”

“Hail, Vercingetorix,” said Caesar.

He was amused to note that, though Vercingetorix had exchanged the crimson cape for one of orange, the animal still bore the livery of a Roman general. Caesar had deemed it politic to be attended by Labienus when greeting arriving tribal leaders and was even more amused to observe Labienus’ outrage at this sight. Not that Labienus was the most difficult officer in his army to scandalize.

Vercingetorix sat there on horseback silently for a long awkward moment, apparently unwilling to return the salutation in like Roman manner, lest it be taken as a gesture of fealty.
The boy had good political instincts.

“Greetings, Caesar,” he said instead.

“Uh, hail, Vercingetorix,” said Labienus.

“My chief lieutenant, Titus Labienus,” said Caesar.

“Greetings, Labienus,” said Vercingetorix. “I have heard much about you.”

“Have you?”

“It is said by your enemies—your former enemies—that you are the worthiest of foes, a clever general and brave as a lion,” said Vercingetorix. Labienus seemed close to blushing, and it seemed to Caesar that Vercingetorix was subtle enough to catch it. “Almost as brave as a Gaul,” he added with a little grin that turned into a chuckle in which Labienus could join, thus allowing this truly modest man to escape from his embarrassment.

Vercingetorix then untied a large cloth pouch from his saddle and dismounted with it. Reaching into it, he withdrew Caesar’s cloak, neatly folded. “Thank you for the loan of your mantle,” he said, handing it to him. “It shielded me well, but I do prefer orange.”

Vercingetorix took a small leather bag out of his pouch and handed that to Caesar. When Caesar opened the drawstring, he saw that it contained five gold coins with Vercingetorix’s own image graven on them.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Payment for the horse,” Vercingetorix told him. “I told you you would have it when I regained my birthright, and now I have.”

“Oh no,” said Caesar, handing the money back to him, “you’ll not get off as easy as that, my young friend! I intend to hold you to the Gallic version of our bargain,” he told him. “
Fifty
gold coins when we both are dead and meet again in the Land of Legend!”

He and Vercingetorix laughed.

The befuddled look on Labienus’ face was choice.

“Come, my young friend,” said Caesar, clasping Vercingetorix’s arm like that of an old comrade, “allow me to show you to your quarters.”

In stark contrast to the situation outside the palisade, all that Vercingetorix saw inside was well ordered and clean. There were cookfires, baking ovens, thick porridge bubbling in great black iron kettles, amphorae of wine and barrels of water set out at regular intervals. There were dung ditches dug at a decent distance away from the legionnaires, and the Roman horses, far fewer than those of the Gauls, were likewise corralled well away from the men.