He nodded.
‘And what then, Caesar?’ asked Marcus Antonius, sitting over to one side with his ubiquitous flask of wine. ‘When you have crushed all the tribes Ambiorix would rely upon?’
The general’s brow furrowed and his eyes glinted.
‘Then we will trap the fox and tear him to pieces. Fronto will have had far more than the time I offered him, and I will not see this season end with that animal free to cause further trouble. I have vowed his death and I will have it.’
Priscus took a deep troubled breath and glanced towards the closed door. A couple more weeks, then. A month at most, before Fronto’s hunt was to be consumed by Caesar’s vengeance — surgical strike replaced by the mallet of the general’s wrath.
He turned back to the general, who was moving on with his briefing.
Fortuna be with you, Fronto.
Chapter Thirteen
Deep in the forest of Arduenna
‘Where the hell are we now?’ Fronto gave Samognatos a dark stare, and Masgava and Palmatus shared a look and braced themselves for the latest attack of Fronto’s bad mood.
‘The oppidum of Atuatuca.’
Fronto shook his head. For the past week or more, they had moved back and forth through the more major tracks in the oppressive forest of Arduenna, even to the point where the hill regions ended and they looked down to the north over Menapii territory, where Fronto had almost expected to see Belgic armies massing against them. They had maintained a steady easterly direction, but roved a great deal at a nerve-gratingly slow pace in the process, covering Eburone territory and the heart of the great forest. Rarely had they come across any real settlement, and when they had, Fronto had kept the main force with him, while Samognatos and Magurix had gone ahead along with Biorix, the Gallic engineer, to investigate and pick up any information.
News was scant. Apart from the rumours that Caesar was now laying waste to the Menapii — near where they had been five days ago, Fronto noted with irritation — they had picked up precious little of Cativolcus. Rumour suggested that the second king of the Eburones was trying to obfuscate and keep himself as far from worldly events as possible, still harbouring a deep-in-the-bone loathing of his brother king, along with a very real fear that Rome would soon rage through his lands like a forest fire, destroying all in its path.
It was a very accurate fear, and Fronto could hardly blame the man for hiding himself, but the fact remained that as well as keeping him from harm’s way, it also kept him out of reach of those who would provide any kind of aid, such as seeing his hated brother removed from the world.
During more than a week of travel, only twice had they heard rumours of the old king’s whereabouts. The last had proved to be complete fiction, and they had arrived at Avendura to find it dull, lifeless and miserable, the few occupants eking out a hard life after the death of many of the working menfolk in the previous year’s rebellion. Though the inhabitants were approached by what had appeared to be three natives, the townsfolk were hardly forthcoming, apart from snarling that Ambiorix had ruined them by taking their men off on a pointless uprising and that the old Cativolcus was no better and, no, he had not set foot in Avendura within living memory.
And so they’d moved on in search of more useful information. Fronto had argued forcefully that this was a fool’s errand that they’d been sent on by druids, of all people, and so it should hardly be a surprise that they were finding nothing of use, wandering endlessly and slowly in a dangerous forest. He’d even advocated returning to Condrusi lands and skinning a few of the druid bastards to find out where the old King and his young brother might actually be — after all, the bloody druids had failed to mention in their grand suggestion for Fronto’s journey that the old king might be hiding and could be harder to find than Ambiorix himself.
Samognatos had patiently reminded him that the locals they were speaking to were genuinely displaying no love of either Eburone king, and that whatever trouble they were having finding Cativolcus, Ambiorix would likely be having just as much difficulty, if not more. And while Brannogenos was out there somewhere, they’d heard nothing of him and experienced no difficulties other than a few minor scuffles with bandits. What his objectives were was anybody’s guess, but it seemed unlikely he was connected to Cativolcus. Instead, he had probably gone in search of Ambiorix.
Searching this damned endless mountain forest with its taciturn, recalcitrant occupants for two men was like searching the Mare Nostrum in a rowing boat for two particular flatfish. Fronto’s mood had been on the descent for many days now, and his two officers had stopped voluntarily conversing with him some time ago.
And now here they were, at the second location rumour held to be the hiding place of Cativolcus.
Or rather, as far as Fronto could see, they weren’t.
‘This,’ Fronto said with an exaggerated patience that they all knew was not a true representation of his mood, ‘is not Atuatuca. I’ve been to Atuatuca. It’s a big walled place where the Sambre and the Mosa rivers meet. And if we were there, I’d be able to see the lumps and bumps of all our camps and ramparts from when we besieged the place, burned it to ashes and enslaved the entire population.’
He took a deep breath as something he should have thought of before occurred to him for the first time. ‘Anyway, Atuatuca is the oppidum of the Aduatuci! Nothing to do with the Eburones. Why are we going there? We’re outside Eburone lands, then? Samognatos, what the hell is going on?’
The Condrusi scout hoisted up his perpetual smile to contain a notch of genuine humour.
‘Aduatuca of the Aduatuci. Atuatuca of the Eburones. It is a fine distinction, certainly, but an important one, for they are different places.’ As Fronto opened his mouth to shout yet again, Samognatos shrugged. ‘The Aduatuci were linked to the Eburones. They were…’ he searched for an explanation that might suit Fronto. ‘Think of them as cousins to the Eburones. Both tribes descend from the blood across the Rhenus, which separates their whole race from ours. Aduatuca — or Atuatuca equally — is a Germanic term for a ‘fortress’. The Aduatuci were the ‘fortress’ people and, as you can see, this oppidum of the Eburones deserves just such a term.’
Fronto sagged. Samognatos certainly knew his stuff, though his explanations tended to go off on tangents occasionally or spill over into rambling accounts of tribal history and politics. Instead of continuing the debate, he looked up at the great ridge that ran north-south to a spur which looked particularly unassailable.
‘We’re all going in, then,’ Fronto said flatly.
‘Sir?’
‘Look, we’ve visited numerous of these places and everything Roman that might put them off talking has stayed out of sight with me. I think we’ve now agreed that the locals have no love of their kings. So if neither Cativolcus nor Ambiorix are there, we shouldn’t have any trouble. And if he is there, then I want to speak to the old goat anyway. Now how do we get in?’
Samognatos shrugged and pointed to the western side of the huge ridge with a plateaued top. ‘There is a path you can see from here that winds to the top.’
‘Come on, then.’
Fronto started to walk his tired horse across the wide valley, the rest of the singulares falling in behind. The mountain loomed as they approached, and Fronto had to admit to a startling geographical similarity in some respects to that other ‘Aduatuca’ where Priscus had almost died four years ago. Throw in an approach road at the narrow end and heavy walls and the place would be horribly familiar. In fact, where he was riding right now was about where he’d stood with Tetricus and learned how to measure a cliff’s height. Strange — this year seemed filled with startling reminders of times long gone and people he’d lost.