THE INVASION OF GAUL (17 page)

“
Would you like to do the honours? If they surrender, they’ll be put to work cutting trees and otherwise unharmed.”

Longinus nodded and rode down to the edge of the woods.

Fronto took a heavy breath and wheeled, riding off toward the Tenth.

Reining in on the mud-and-blood-churned plain close to where the Tenth were roping prisoners together at the ankle, Fronto raised his voice and called over the mass.

“
Pomponius. centurion Pomponius, report.”

Gaius Pomponius, the Tenth’s chief engineer stood and stepped forward from where he was teaching a legionary to tie a specific knot.

“
Sir.”

Fronto dismounted. Walking the horse down to where Pomponius stood to attention, he gazed thoughtfully out over the river.

“
Walk with me, Pomponius. And for heavens’ sake come down from attention. You’ll rupture yourself standing like that, and I need you at the moment.”

Pomponius smiled and fell into step beside Fronto, his hands clasped behind his back, clutching his vine staff of office.

“
What can I do for you sir?”

Pomponius was a young man for a centurion, remarkably young to have achieved such an office. He had joined the Tenth not long before Fronto, and the legate could remember the Tenth’s previous chief engineer receiving his honesta missio, and the promotion of the young and endlessly enthusiastic Pomponius to centurion. Still, there was no denying that he was good at his job. He seemed to have a knack for military engineering, bordering on an art form.

“
Pomponius, how many bridges have you built?”

Pomponius scratched his mousy ruffled hair.

“
I dunno sir. Maybe six or seven temporary pontoon bridges and three more permanent wooden structures.”

Fronto smiled. He could remember nine pontoon bridges and four wooden ones himself, and his memory wasn’t that good.

“
What’s your opinion of this place for a bridge?”

As they reached the shore, Pomponius knelt, took a boulder and hurled it out into the river. It disappeared with a satisfying ‘plop’.

“
Somewhere between nine and twelve feet deep in the centre. About fifty feet wide. Current on the surface is negligible; current below is probably quite strong. Good wood nearby. Can’t see it being a problem. We’ve got three legions’ worth of engineers and a lot of helpers.”

Fronto cast an appraising glance at the young engineer.

“
How long do you think, given enough labour and three legions’ worth of experts?”

Pomponius scratched his chin and looked about.

“
I would think half a day, working at a full pace. The men won’t be fit for a full day’s march straight after that though, not after being up most of last night.”

Fronto smiled. “You let me worry about that, Pomponius. I want you to gather all the engineers from all the legions together and start planning a bridge here. I’ll get Priscus and Longinus to sort out all the prisoners as labour for you, and in about twenty minutes all three legions will be reporting to the you and Priscus at the waterfront. Do your stuff, centurion.”

“
Yes sir.”

Pomponius left, rubbing his hands together in a business-like fashion.

* * * * *

The rest of the army arrived just after noon. Caesar rode in the vanguard, with Crassus and the staff officers. Balbus rode at the rear with Crispus and the Eleventh, who came along behind the other two legions as rearguard. It irked Fronto that Crassus and Caesar still seemed to be treating Crispus as an inferior, and only Balbus deigned to join him. They all, to Fronto’s mind, looked far too rested, eager and healthy. While he stood on the hill waiting for the general to reach him, he glanced quickly back down toward the river. The three legions of whom he was about to relinquish command looked like peasants, slaves and lowlifes. Only the centurions and the small groups guarding the prisoners while they worked were wearing their armour. They were covered in mud and sweaty, mostly stripped down to their waist. The difference was vast, though with good reason. The three legions beside the river had managed only about three hours sleep in the last thirty. On top of this, they had marched at high speed into a battle and then immediately begun to construct a bridge.

The crossing was well underway by now. The huge timbers that had erstwhile been some of the largest trees in the riverside woodland now stood vertically in the river, planed straight and flat-topped and stretching out most of the way across. The first of the horizontal beams had just been nailed and roped in place, and a unit of legionaries was bringing flat slats across from the woods in large numbers now. Most of the materials had now been cut and were being shaped and put in place. Three units of legionaries stood on hastily-constructed rafts in the middle of the river, placing beams and piles in place, their rafts roped to the banks on either side and held in place by captive Helvetii. It looked barely started to Fronto’s inexpert eye. He had quizzed Pomponius over it about an hour ago, and the young engineer had replied “With respect sir, you know nothing about bridges. We’re about four hours from complete if work continues at this pace. Let us do our job.”

Fronto had given up at that point and gone up the hill to wait for a sign of Caesar and the army.

The vanguard came to a halt at the top of the hill before Fronto, while the Seventh, Eighth and Eleventh Legions continued on down the hill toward the river.

Ahead of Caesar in the vanguard came Crassus, who drew his horse to a halt in front of the grimy legate of the Tenth and sniffed.

“
Your men are a state, Fronto. A disgrace.”

Fronto’s eyes widened. As the colour crept into his face and he struggled in his tired state to formulate an appropriate reply, Crassus merely wheeled his horse and rode away. Caesar nimbly slipped from his magnificent white steed and landed lightly in front of the legate.

“
Alright Fronto, you got your way. I’m here.”

He snapped his fingers and reached out behind him. A staff officer passed him the standard that Fronto’s army had recovered.

Gesturing at Fronto with it, the general continued.

“
I know you know what this is; otherwise you wouldn’t have sent me it. Tell me everything you know and what you have planned.”

He began to stride purposefully down the hill.

Fronto jogged for a moment to catch up and then fell into step beside him.

“
We caught maybe a quarter of the tribe on this side of the river. They must have been ferrying their men across for days in their little boats. We’ve got prisoners now and we’re using them to help build a bridge. We should have the thing finished by mid afternoon, and I figure the entire army could be across the river and in close pursuit of the Helvetii by dusk.”

Caesar stopped suddenly, and Fronto had to pull himself up short, as he almost kept walking.

“
Also, we’ve searched all the tribal baggage we captured and have found a wealth of items that have been taken from Roman military hands. Some of it’s directly attributable to the army of Lucius Cassius. Most of it’s of indeterminate origin, though it seems very likely that all of it comes from that source. I think you could say that Cassius is avenged, sir.”

Caesar frowned and looked down toward the baggage train.

“
The Helvetii may have destroyed Cassius’ army and murdered the man himself, but it was one of their cantons; their sub-tribes that was directly responsible: the Tigurine.
The
standard that you captured was of that people. I want to confirm this with some of the surviving prisoners.”

Fronto nodded.

“
If you’d like to follow me sir, down to the waterfront, you’ll find all the prisoners have been put to work.”

Caesar, once they were on their own and out of earshot of the staff officers, leaned closer to Fronto and spoke in low tones.

“
The Tigurine are not to be trusted or bargained with. My father-in-law’s grandfather was Lucius Piso, one of Cassius’ chief officers, and he also was murdered by the swine.”

As they arrived at water’s edge, the largest group of prisoners, over a hundred in all, sat cross-legged on the grass, stripping branches of their leaves and shoots. They continued to do so as Caesar and Fronto stood looking down on them, surrounded by legionaries with their swords out.

Caesar cleared his throat. In a deep, loud and clear voice, he spoke to the prisoners.

“
You are the Tigurine.” Not a question. A statement.

Mutters of confirmation greeted him from the seated group.

“
You were the last to cross, caught unawares by a sizeable Roman army under a great general. Fortunate for your fellow tribesmen that they were on the other side and out of danger. Not for long, though. By the end of today or early in the morning we will be chasing them down like dogs on the hunt. I am a man who does not like to waste men or resources and generally despises unnecessary brutality. Sometimes, however…”

He turned his back on the tribesmen and stepped next to Fronto. In a voice loud enough to be heard by every man present, he spoke.

“
Kill them all. Every last one of them, but don’t do it too quickly. I want them to have time to appreciate it.”

As the tribesmen behind him dropped the branches and stood, trying to move toward Caesar, but held at bay by guards with swords and shields, the general raised his voice above the shouting and hollering of the crowd.

“
Replace them with proper men drawn from the Seventh, Eighth and the Eleventh. I want the other legions involved, and the current three can stand down for two hours and rest.”

“
Yes sir.”

As the General strode away and the legionaries began to carry out his orders, Fronto tried to keep his eyes on Caesar and not watch the gruesome activity taking place over his shoulder. He could keep his eyes away, but he couldn’t shut out the screams or the sounds of carving meat. He was a soldier and could deal with any horror that battle could throw at him, but this simple butchery and torture was not to his taste. Turning his back, he was grateful to follow Caesar away from the scene. Once again he wondered how far the general would be prepared to go for personal ambition.

Balbus found Fronto in the woods, seated on a stump left by one of the workers. He had been looking for his fellow legate for almost an hour. No one had seemed to know where he was, until he eventually tracked down a centurion he recognised, called Velius. Velius had seen his legate disappear into the woods with a large jug and had thought better than to ask.

Fronto hadn’t seen Balbus enter the man-made clearing and gave a start when the older man coughed politely. Looking up, he recognised the shape and movement of his colleague in the dusk.

“
Quintus. What’re you doing here? I tried hard to find a place no-one would find me.”

Balbus smiled and sat on a stump opposite.

“
I gathered that from how hard you were to find. I brought more wine, though I’m not at all sure you really need it.”

Fronto’s head slipped forward again.

“
He had no call to do that. No reason at all. I can appreciate as much as anyone that you can’t always hold prisoners and that death can be the only option on occasion. But not like that. Not carving people up for the sake of bitterness. They were warriors who lost a battle. I doubt that these so-called ‘barbarians’ would treat Roman prisoners that way. As far as I can remember, they put an end to Cassius and his army in a swift, no-nonsense way. Caesar had no call to do it.”

Balbus frowned.

“
I agree, but we’re not the ones who have to live with that decision. From what I hear the General’s done as bad or worse before. You must have seen things like that serving with him in Spain. He was tried for crimes after that campaign.”

Fronto shook his head.

“
He was more subtle about it in Spain. He knew some of us didn’t approve, so it was always done quietly and while many of us were absent. Spain was too well-known to Rome. Stories get back too easily. I figure he thinks out here no one will ever find out. He’s got a free hand. I just don’t know whether he made it so overt purely to make a point to me, or to demonstrate his resolve and power to the army in general. I don’t think he’s prey to his emotions enough to have done it for revenge. With him there’s
always
an ulterior motive.”

Balbus shrugged. “And I think you’ve chosen a bad spot to sit and sulk in. It smells like a dead pig here.”

Fronto gestured to the edge of the clearing.

“
That’s because their burial pit is just the other side of those trees. Five hundred and seventeen bodies. I counted them. Not to mention the thousands we killed on the field.”

He took a pull at the wine flask, only to discover that it was empty.

“
What about Caesar. What’s
he
doing?”

Balbus smiled a sympathetic smile.

“
The general’s a very happy and generous man tonight. He’s sat in his tent with most of the officers, drinking and laughing. He honoured Longinus, Priscus and Galba in front of the other officers, and praised you in your absence.”