The Druid King (21 page)

“Perhaps not,” said Caesar, “for even victory is properly only a means to a political end. There is even that which we call ‘Pyrrhic victory,’ after a Greek king who won so many great and glorious battles at such cost in men and treasure that he destroyed his armies and impoverished his kingdom.”

Vercingetorix found himself pondering this conundrum in silence. When they were quite alone, Caesar’s demeanor became almost furtive, hesitant, a mood Vercingetorix had never seen afflicting him before.

“I sense you wish to discuss something other than military matters,” Vercingetorix finally said.

Caesar nodded, but would not meet his eye, and, entirely uncharacteristically, he seemed reluctant to speak.

“What is it?” Vercingetorix said softly. “You can speak your heart to me.”

“Can I?” said Caesar, looking out to sea.

“This is not at all like you. . . .”

“No, it isn’t,” said Caesar, still avoiding his gaze. “This is a delicate matter . . . and, well, I am not the most delicate of men. . . .”

“Speak plainly, then. Man to man.”

Caesar shrugged, and now he did at last look Vercingetorix squarely in the eye.

“It’s about Marah,” he said.

“Marah . . . ?”

“How shall I put this . . . ? I have a wife I love back in Rome, I’m old enough to be Marah’s father, while you . . .”

“What are you trying to tell me, Caesar?”

“For me, she was a companion for my lonely nights far from home. But for you . . . much more. . . .”

“It was a long time ago. . . .”

“Would you believe I didn’t know?” said Caesar.

“No,” said Vercingetorix.

“Good,” said Caesar, managing a little smile. “I would not speak thusly to a man who was a fool.
Yes, I knew, but that was before you and I met. And what I am trying to tell you, my young friend . . .”

He paused. He looked away again.

“You know, even as you have no father, I have no son, and, well . . .” Once more Caesar’s eloquence seemed to fail him.

“What I am saying is that, if it should come to pass that Marah becomes your—”

“Queen?”

Caesar laughed, and a certain tension seemed to be broken. “
Consort,
queen or not,” he said. “I want you to know that that need not be something that comes between you and me. And were it possible for me to choose a son . . .”

He fell silent once more, then clasped Vercingetorix’s right arm.

The man who had taken the first flower of the woman he would wed had told him there would be no blame if he stole her away. His father’s enemy had told him he would be proud to have him as a son. He knew not what he truly felt, only that it brought tears close to his eyes.

All Vercingetorix could do was return the embrace.

X

AS THE LAST WAN SUNLIGHT sank beneath the invisible horizon, the hard wind continued to howl in off the Oceanus Britannicus, driving a heavy rain inland and whipping the slate-black sea into an evil cauldron of towering waves and foamy breakers. The ships fully laden with Roman legionnaires rolled sickeningly, and the lighter and more fragile ships, meant for the Gauls but not yet loaded, slammed against their docks.

Roman sailors and engineers, soaked and cursing, struggled to keep the docksides padded with whatever they could—bales of hay, sacks of grain, coils of rope—to prevent the storm from cracking the planking of the empty boats against them. Roman troops, who had boarded before the storm, lined the railings of the galleys, puking over the sides or sucking lungfuls of air in an effort to avoid doing so. These were the lucky ones who had reached the railings first and held back their comrades on the decks with knees, elbows, and fists. The unlucky ones were constrained to do their vomiting on the crowded deck, on each other, amidst sporadic fistfights, while those who had failed to gain deck space fared even worse.

The Roman encampment was empty, save for the hostage huts and the tent of Caesar, which had not been struck before the storm broke, and a disconsolate rearguard cohort manning the gate and patrolling a sea of mud in the pelting rain.

Outside the palisade, it was impossible to keep fires going, and the majority of the Gauls did not have tents. From time to time, singly or in small groups, warriors slunk off homeward, to the unconvincing derision of their fellows.

No lightning flashed, no thunder rumbled. It was a dull, plodding storm of the sort that could drag on for hours or days, nor was there presently a sign of its breaking.

The rain beat a drumroll against Caesar’s tent, and the wind flapping and snapping the canvas made the oil lamps flicker. All but the essentials had been packed away and loaded, and the atmosphere inside matched his iresome gloom. Nor was Caesar the only one in a foul humor. All of his generals who would go to Britain save Tulius were already aboard the boats with their legions, and no doubt wishing they were here in the tent.

Caesar had told Labienus that he was to be left behind to serve as “acting proconsul of all Gaul,” making it sound like a boon. But Labienus was not fooled, and kept glaring sullenly at Tulius. Nor was his mood improved by Caesar’s order that the change in command was to be kept secret from the Gauls until they were safely on their way across to Britain and there was nothing they could do about it.

Tulius himself, dutiful pragmatist that he was, knew full well that what might seem to the innocent Labienus to be a promotion over him was far from a sweet plum. It was in fact a nasty assignment to eliminate those Gauls who must be eliminated, and who were going to be outraged and distrustful in the extreme when they were informed of the mysterious change of command.

Caesar had confined the leaders of the Gallic auxiliaries to the encampment as soon as his legions starting boarding the boats, according to plan, but he had made what in retrospect was the mistake of taking down their tents before the storm blew in. Now they had been huddled here in his tent for long hours, muttering and bickering among themselves. Caesar had spent more time outside in the mud and rain with his rearguard than was necessary, preferring the foul weather to the foul mood of these Gauls, half of whom demanded he give up and re-establish the comforts of the camp, while the other half groused that the gods were cursing the whole enterprise and it should therefore be abandoned.

Caesar certainly didn’t want to unload everyone and re-establish the camp, at which point, no doubt, the sun would come out, and Apollo, having overcome Neptune, would have a good laugh at his expense. But putting to sea in the teeth of a storm would no doubt further tempt Neptune’s wrath, and abandoning the whole enterprise was out of the question.

Unload, wait for better weather, and start all over again?

Load the Gauls and their horses, set sail, and hope that the weather would improve or the fleet would make it across to Britain in the storm?

The decision was Caesar’s to make, his chances of making the right one equaled that of making the wrong one, and he could not procrastinate forever, so he had sent Gisstus to fetch Demetrius, the Greek soothsayer. Caesar did not place much faith in soothsaying as a predictive art, but there were times when it had its other uses. As a sometime pontifex, he had learned the craft of making the bones and guts say what he wanted them to. But since he didn’t know
what
he wanted them to say, that was not going to work this time. Now he had to make an arbitrary decision that could determine the outcome of the whole venture. The oracle of a soothsayer might be no better than the toss of a coin, but it was no worse either. And if someone was going to take the blame for a wrong guess, better Demetrius than Gaius Julius Caesar.

Gisstus arrived, soaking wet, with a gray-haired old man in a white robe vaguely resembling that of a druid and embroidered with a profusion of stars, comets, constellations, and other astrological arcana. The mystical effect was considerably marred by the fact that the rain had rendered it translucent and clinging, revealing the resemblance between the corpus it contained and one of the sacrificial tools of his trade, a scrawny chicken.

“Well, when will the storm end, Demetrius?” demanded Caesar.

“The omens are not clear, noble Caesar—”

I needed you to tell me this? Caesar thought peevishly, though he could sympathize with Demetrius, who, like any accomplished soothsayer, plied the trade mostly by telling his clientele what they wished to hear and discerning what that was by reading them, not the omens.

“Then allow me to help you clarify them,” Caesar said. “Speak! When will the storm end? If you are proved right, I’ll make you a rich man. If you’re wrong, I’ll nail you to a cross and feed you to the fishes!”

Demetrius gave him a half-quizzical, half-terrified look. Caesar, without altering the sternness of his visage, shot a sidelong glance at the semicircle of Gauls, who were taking this farce quite earnestly.

“Great Caesar, the skies are hidden, and the gods of this land are not ours,” Demetrius intoned, “but this storm will end within the week if a bullock is sacrificed to Neptune.”

Remembering that Gisstus had ironically suggested much the same thing, Caesar could barely keep from grinning, despite the dire situation. Gisstus himself had an even harder time choking back his laughter.

“And how long if we sacrifice two bullocks?” Caesar said. “How many will it take to end the storm by morning?”

Demetrius shrugged.

“Perhaps,” said Caesar, his anger rapidly becoming genuine, “
one
Greek soothsayer
might do the trick?”

At this Demetrius paled. “Let the gods themselves speak,” he said, producing a coin from within his robe and holding it aloft like a talisman. “And not through such a poor creature as myself, but through a man of destiny—yourself, Caesar.” He handed Caesar the coin. It was old. It was Greek. One side bore a portrait of Alexander the Great.

“Toss it in the air, let it fall. If it lands with Great Alexander upright, the storm will end by dawn.”

“And if not?” Caesar demanded.

“If not,” said Demetrius, staring him full in the face, “the gods refuse to speak, and not even you can command them.”

Caesar found himself laughing inwardly, even though the joke was on him. All this to avoid choosing by tossing a coin, and Demetrius had weaseled out of it by bringing it down to a coin toss anyway.

He tossed the coin in the air and let it fall to the dirt floor of the tent. The Gauls clustered round, leaning over the portent.

“Face upward!” cried Comm of the Atrebates, whose appetite for loot and glory apparently remained keener than his fear of the stormy sea.

Gisstus reached down, picked up the coin, tossed it to Caesar. “Alexander has spoken,” he said.

“You had better be right,” Caesar said, flipping the coin in the direction of Demetrius, who plucked it skillfully out of the air like a trained monkey. And so had I, Caesar thought. “We load the boats now.”

“On the toss of a coin!” groaned Dumnorix.

“Seasick again, Dumnorix?” said Comm, to derisive laughter.

“It’s the will of the gods,” said Luctor.

“What if the storm lasts for
days
?” demanded Dumnorix.

“You don’t trust the word of the gods?” said Caesar.

“
Your
gods, not mine,” Dumnorix told him.

“And not even
yours
at that,” said Epirod. “It’s not even a Roman coin. Alexander’s not even a Roman hero.”

“They have a point, Caesar,” said Tulius.

“What?”
exclaimed Caesar.

“Far be it from me to challenge the words of the gods speaking through coin tosses or chicken guts,” Tulius said sardonically, “but if we load our friends here on the boats, and it turns out that whosoever gods spoke through the coin toss are playing tricks on we mere mortals . . .” Tulius shrugged eloquently, glancing at the Gauls with a sympathetic eye.

Caesar’s immediate reaction was anger at a subordinate’s presuming to argue with his order in the presence of others, but then he realized that the clever Tulius was using this situation to begin to win the favor of the Gauls, which would well serve his mission later.

Besides, Tulius
did
have a point.

Still . . .

“What do
you
say?” he asked Vercingetorix, certainly his firmest supporter among the Gauls. “Would a few days waiting out a storm aboard ship turn your warriors into sniveling cowards unable to hold their own against savages?”

“Gauls will fight bravely under the worst circumstances!”

More than half of the Gauls cheered at this, if not exactly wholeheartedly.

But not Dumnorix. “Well spoken, silver-tongued Vercingetorix,” he said sarcastically. “But days spent aboard ship in port during a storm puking our guts out and trying to control terrified horses, followed by a voyage across the Oceanus Britannicus,
would
be the worst circumstances.”

“You speak like a man with a better idea,” said Vercingetorix.

“Alas, I speak only as a man with a less terrible idea, if not by much,” said Dumnorix.

“Or a coward,” muttered Comm.

“Coward, am I?” shouted Dumnorix, rounding on him. “I’ll show you who’s a coward!” He turned to Caesar. “Here is my challenge, Caesar, if you dare accept it! Load us and our horses on your boats. But at dawn, we set sail for Britain, storm or no storm, even in the face of rains as heavy as waterfalls and waves as high as mountains!”

There was a moment of stunned silence in which all that could be heard was the flapping and snapping of the tent fabric in the wind and the drumming of the rain upon it.

Dumnorix ran his eyes slowly around the assembled tribal leaders, and Caesar saw that he had captured them. And then he sealed it, and by so doing, captured the situation, and Caesar as well.

“Accept this challenge from a seasick coward,” he said, “and I myself will be the first to lead my men aboard!”

The Gauls, being Gauls, could only roar their approval.

“Well spoken yourself, silver-tongued Dumnorix!” said Vercingetorix, and gave a Gallic arm-embrace to his erstwhile rival. “And I myself will be the second!”

“So be it!” said Caesar, and Dumnorix gave him an ironic Roman salute and stalked dramatically out of the tent, into the teeth of the storm.

And so, in the end, the gods had smiled upon him through the darkness of this stormy night, for the Gauls had led themselves exactly where he wanted them to go, had they not?

Dumnorix, flanked by two Roman legionnaires and trailed by a centurion, trudged through the sucking mud to the palisade gate, thoroughly soaked, his long hair plastered to his forehead, his mustache dripping rain. He had never doubted that this invasion of Britain was a trap, and not a subtle one. But it was a powerful trap, for any leader of Gauls who failed to fall into it would be deemed a coward, and any Gaul deemed a coward would soon have no warriors to command.

Dumnorix was certain that the storm had been sent by one of his gods, not Caesar’s, probably by the war god Teutates, and not as a curse but as a blessing. For he had seen no escape from the Roman trap until it came.

The gate to the palisade was barred shut and guarded by four sour-faced and sodden legionnaires. “Open the gate!” said Dumnorix. “Dumnorix, vergobret of the Edui, would address his men and give them their orders!”

The gate guards neither moved nor spoke.

“It’s all right,” said the centurion. “It’s Caesar’s orders he’ll be giving. We’re finally going to board the Gauls. And when that’s done, we can close down this place for good, and get in out of the slop ourselves!”

The guards slipped the bar and opened the gate.

Dumnorix strode through with his Roman escort, through the muck and rain, and into the Eduen camp, where his men hunkered miserably in the mud and rain under cloaks and blankets pressed into pathetic service as makeshift tents. He sought out his standard-bearer, had the boar standard planted in the middle of the encampment, ordered a trumpeter to blow a summons, and stood there beside it in the pouring rain until as many of his warriors as possible had gathered within earshot.

It was a sullen and grumblesome gathering that Dumnorix found himself facing, and not without justice. Had he not led them into this disaster, however unwillingly? And now here their vergobret stood, facing them in muck and rain, guarded, or so it appeared, by three Romans. Were I one of you, I would not have much use for the vergobret of the Edui either, Dumnorix thought bitterly. Well, I led you into it, and honor demands I lead you out of it. Even at the cost of honor.

“I have been ordered by Caesar to lead you out of this storm and onto the boats,” he began, gesturing floridly with his left arm to mask the manner in which he let his right hang loose at his side, close by the pommel of his sword.

This was greeted with just the groans of dismay and mutters of anger he had anticipated. He raised his left hand high, palm outward, in a demand for silence, and his right caressed the sword pommel in a natural completion of the gesture. This did little to silence the protests. But it was not supposed to.