As he reached open space, he risked glancing over the rim and immediately ducked back as two arrows thudded into the wood and leather.
“Adcantuannus!”
There was a pause during which the only sound was the occasional thud of arrows against shields and then slowly the firing stopped. Galronus risked another look. The archers stood ready with their arrows nocked, tensing.
“What is it, Roman?”
With a smile, Galronus switched to his native tongue.
“There is nowhere to go, Adcantuannus. The cavalry have you penned in outside. I have more than twice your number here…” a lie, though the man couldn’t know, “and your countrymen are being treated with honour and care. Stop this madness while you can.”
The warrior with the gleaming bronze helm appeared above the crowd, standing high on something unseen. He stood silent for a long moment as, not far behind him, the advance group of warriors had unbarred the gate and were heaving it open.
Adcantuannus turned, gesturing expansively with his outstretched arm. Galronus couldn’t see too much detail but would be willing to bet that the man was grinning.
“See, Roman, how we have a secret exit, unseen from without. Your troops will not be on us before we melt into the landscape and disappear. You will see us again, though, soon enough.”
Galronus smiled.
“I fear you are mistaken, my chief.”
As the gate swung open, a roar erupted outside. The Remi officer couldn’t see past the occupants of the street, but that battle cry from the unseen force beyond the gate was all too familiar to the man who had taught it to the auxilia. Somehow, though he’d not seen the gate on their earlier foray, someone had.
The roar died away, but not the noise, as the cavalry’s voices were replaced by the ground-shaking thunder of their hooves. Galronus almost chuckled as he could see, at the far end of the street, the warriors desperately forcing the gate shut once again, panicked urgency gripping them.
Adcantuannus turned back to him.
“We will still take the head of every man here before we fall.”
Galronus ground his teeth. What was it with these lunatics? There was everything to be said for pride, bravery and honour, but to throw oneself away in the face in hopeless odds was far more suicidal than brave.
Taking a deep breath, he dropped the shield.
He could almost hear the strain of the bows as the archers fought their own instincts to fire.
“Adcantuannus? Don’t be wasteful and short sighted. If Rome is destined to take Aquitania, then the sacrifice of your soldurii will do little to prevent it, other than leaving your wives alone and your children fatherless. If this gathering of warriors in the mountains is destined to stop us, then they can do it without you and the soldurii will still be here when we are gone.”
He sighed.
“Use your head, man!”
There was a thickness to the atmosphere that one could almost cut with a sword.
“There can be no going back for us now. We have denied your terms and your commander will not be lenient. The name of Crassus, the hammer of Armorica, is known to us.”
Galronus took a relieved breath. The tone of the man had shifted barely perceptibly from defiance to defeat. A Roman would not have been able to pick up on it, but a native speaker could spot it in the language, and if they felt defeated, he had them.
With a smile, he looked back down at the shield he had discarded and threw his sword down to join it.
“I give you my word as both a commander in the army of Rome under the praetor Julius Caesar, and as Galronus, a chieftain of the Remi tribe in the lands of the Belgae. I will speak to the legate on your behalf and I promise to secure you the same terms as your brethren who you have spurned, if you will halt this violence and join the other townsfolk in their disarming.”
Adcantuannus paused again and Galronus could still hear the strain of the bow strings.
“You are of the Belgae? It is said the Belgae surpass all the northern peoples in battle?”
“We do” Galronus said in a matter of fact voice. “Now give me your word and I won’t have to tear your men limb from limb with my bare hands!”
The enemy chief barked out a genuine laugh.
“Very well. You secure those terms for us and we will march out and take your oath. If the Belgae can live with the shame, then I suppose we can.”
The creaking stopped as the arrows were removed and the bows lowered. Galronus sighed again.
“Thank you Adcantuannus.”
Turning his back and sauntering away in a deliberate show of trust, the Remi officer collected the fallen sword and shield and returned to his men, passing the shield to its owner.
“Thank you sir. Thought you was a goner for a minute.”
Galronus smiled.
“Me too, soldier. Me too. I must find the man who located that gate outside and buy him a shipload of wine!”
The centurion close by smiled at him.
“I suppose that’s it for now then, sir. We’ll be making camp and securing the land for a few days before we move on?”
Galronus shook his head and clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder, causing the harness full of phalerae to jingle and clink against the mail beneath.
“Hardly, centurion. We are now in a race against possibly the entire population of Hispania. I suspect the preparations to march are already underway.”
He glanced past the disarming rebels in the street, on past the low town wall and to the distant, hazy, blue-grey peaks of the mountains that separated the Celts of Gaul from their brothers in Spain.
“Mountains full of howling defiance await us yet.”
Chapter 17
(Quintilis: The foothills of the Pyrenees.)
Crassus strode through the tent’s doorway, brushing the leather flap aside without taking his eyes from the fortification ahead.
“Well, commander? What have the scouts found?”
The army had arrived at the foothills of the mighty mountain range that separated the tribes of Spain and Gaul two days ago, following rumours and reports of the massing of tribes gathered from scattered farmers by the scouts. Then, yesterday afternoon, as the Seventh and their support entered the lowest channels of the passes into the peaks, they had made a disquieting discovery.
The confederation of tribes, or at least a part of it, had constructed a camp on a high ridge that stood above a fork in the valleys and commanded a powerful position. This in itself was hardly a surprise, but the form of the camp and its defenders was startlingly familiar.
Now, as Galronus stood before the legate, his eyes turned to follow the man’s gaze, falling on the fortifications opposite. The tribes had constructed a camp of a perfectly Roman form, with ramparts, ditches, gatehouses and towers and even from this distance the two men could see the rows of ordered tents within, gathered around a central headquarters area. They might as well have been looking at their own camp.
Galronus drew a deep breath.
“It’s very much as you feared, legate. Their fort is well constructed on a perfect Roman model and sizeable enough to hold at least twice our number. As yet it seems to be half empty, so presumably they’re still expecting many more reinforcements from across the mountains, but my scouts have spotted nothing so far. I’ve set them keeping watch on every pass and valley for eight miles, so we’ll have plenty of warning before they arrive.”
“And what of the fort’s defences? Anything I can use?”
The Remi commander shrugged.
“The rampart and palisade are perfectly Roman, so you know exactly what to expect. I would guess that any leader who has adopted your ways that far probably doesn’t stop at the walls. The camp seems to be laid out in Roman fashion and I heard calls being issued by a great horn. The only slight advantage we can identify is the southern side. The camp is surrounded by a triple ditch on all the other approaches, but only by one half-cut ditch on the south, due to the nature of the rocky ground there. Problem is that the approach to the south is a narrow spur with a frightening drop at either side; what Fronto calls a ‘killing ground’.”