“Not that I could tell,” again, a look at Valens, who seemed to be intently listening.
Caesar laughed. “Then he will be the one. Let the legions hear of his gallantry, and of his reward, and they will all wish to emulate him. Just the thing we need before setting off into the Nervii lands.” Caesar then cast an apologetic look at Valens. “Forgive me for having such thoughts just now, Valens, in light of your nephew’s condition, but this really is the kind of thing we have been waiting for. You understand, I must be a general first.”
“Rome expects nothing less, Gaius,” Valens replied.
Divitiacus could see that this last was said through gritted teeth, but Caesar seemed oblivious to it.
“If you will excuse me, Caesar,” Valens said cordially. “I must see to my nephew.”
Valens then left the tent, but not without casting a glance in Divitiacus’s direction. Perhaps the senator was wise enough to detect his little scheme. But, no matter. His hunch was confirmed. Whatever the nature of this plot against Lucius, the senator was involved, and the nephew, more than likely was only acting at the behest of his uncle.
“Will you march with us, Divitiacus?” Caesar offered him a cup of wine and a chair, and he accepted both gratefully.
“I am afraid my men are getting anxious, Caesar. They long for their wives, and worry about their fields. They have been marching with you since the spring thaws. They have helped you subdue much of the Belgic lands.”
“And no one could ask any more of them, my friend – or of you.”
“I speak for them, Caesar, not for myself. I ask you to release them, that they may carry their plunder home and tend to their farms.”
“It will be regrettable to see them go, but I cannot hold them here. You and your men are free to go, Divitiacus. Besides, I believe the Treveri have provided us with sufficient horse for the coming campaign. We should be safe in their hands.”
Divitiacus took a sip of wine, and then eyed the proconsul. “I would advise you to be careful, my friend.”
Caesar chuckled mildly at the remark.
“Something is not right, Caesar,” Divitiacus continued gravely. “I can sense it, like an itch in my balls. I can’t put my finger on it, but it is there, nonetheless. Call it the intuition of an old warrior, but I feel that you are being carefully led into a trap. These senators from Rome, they have the smiles of vultures and the eyes of snakes.”
“Valens and Porcius? Of course they do. They would love nothing more than for this whole campaign to meet with disaster. But that is the nature of a civilized republic, my friend. Everyone has something to gain from the failure of another. I assure you, they are quite harmless. They are merely spies, sent by the optimates to seek out some fault in my management of the province. I’ve never known either one to cause any serious trouble.”
Divitiacus then produced the rolled paper from his belt and gave it to Caesar. “Then perhaps this is nothing serious either.”
“And what is this?”
“Read it, Caesar, if you can.”
“The characters are Greek,” Caesar said, after briefly glancing over the document. “But they are gibberish. There are no words here – none that I can make out.”
“They were not intended for you to make out. I took that letter off a dead Nervii officer. He was with the group that waylaid your men.”
“It is a code then?”
“Precisely, Caesar. Now, why would a Nervii have in his possession a message written in Greek code? The Belgic tribes don’t use Greek to communicate with each other, and that group was too small to be a war band.”
“Truly, it is a mystery,” Caesar said dismissively, tossing the letter onto the table.
“I suspect they were meeting someone, Caesar, or had already met someone, and came upon your men merely by chance.”
“And by someone, you mean a Roman?”
Divitiacus shrugged. “It is a theory. Are you certain these senators came here straight from Geneva? Is there a chance they might have taken a circuitous route, perhaps to meet up with this band of Nervii?”
Caesar laughed. “Valens and Porcius could hardly find their way from Rome to Brundisium, let alone navigate their way through the forests of Gaul. Fortune smiled on them to make it even this far. I hardly think they could be involved in such a plot. It really is beyond either of their faculties. Besides, do you realize what that would imply? That the senate is conspiring with Rome’s enemies purely for my demise. I simply cannot believe it. You’ve been listening to too many stories of our wilder days, Divitiacus. The conspiracies and civil wars of Sulla’s time are over, my friend.”
Divitiacus smiled and nodded knowing full well that was not true. News flowed freely between the Aeduan and Roman lands, as it had for generations. Divitiacus knew of the corruption and infighting that had consumed Rome during Gaius Julius Caesar’s consulship. He had also heard of the pact Caesar had struck with the great men Pompey and Crassus in order to keep the Roman senate in check. Now, rumors abounded that Pompey was being wooed by the senate in an effort to create a schism in the alliance. Caesar was surely staying abreast of such developments, in spite of his outward flippancy.
The senator, the one called Valens, was up to something, even if Caesar wanted to deny it. Divitiacus had seen the shifty eyes of a conspirator in Senator Valens. He was astute at smelling out such men. As with all chieftains, he had encountered many traitors in his life, including some from his own family. Once, his own brother even conspired with another tribe to usurp him and sever the Aeduan ties with Rome. He remembered all too well the disbelief on his brother’s face when the conspiracy came to light, as if he, too, were surprised by the revelation. Valens had that same look, the well-trained facade of a traitor. But a traitor to who – to Rome or to Caesar? How deep did the plot go? And what, if anything, did Piso’s attempt to do away with the common legionary Lucius Domitius have to do with it?
VII
An hour later, Senator Valens was in his tent, gazing upon the broken body of his nephew, dying on the litter. Piso resembled nothing human. He was covered in dried blood and bandages. In some places the skin had torn such that the bandages could not hold it together. A piece of his scalp hung loosely back. No one had yet dared to replace that bandage, as the young man shivered and moaned from the unending pain.
“Did the Nervii do this?” The senator asked evenly, not taking his eyes from his nephew.
“No – no, sir,” Amelius stuttered, in a weak voice. He stood a few paces behind Valens. “It was the dogs.”
“Of course it was the dogs, you imbecile! I want to know who loosed the dogs on him!”
“Yes, Senator. It was that scoundrel Lucius Domitius. He did it. We were about to carry out your wishes, when -”
“That is a lie! You were off whoring, you and my halfwit nephew, when you should have been seeing to your duties, to the one task I had entrusted you with. You were off humping a whore, and you let that common soldier get the better of you. Had you any sense at all, you would have left my nephew to die and raced back here to report to Caesar, personally. Instead you let that Aeduan get to him first. Now Lucius Domitius is to receive a golden crown.”
“But he was arrested!” Amelius said, incredulously. “He will face charges!”
“He will face nothing! Do you think the legate of the Seventh will seriously consider punishing a man whom Caesar has denoted for a golden crown?” Valens then sighed and looked on Piso’s shivering body. “Not only has my dear nephew chosen poorly in life, he has chosen a fool for a companion. I send the two of you to kill a single soldier, and this is the result.”
“But we did what we could,” Amelius pleaded. “Surely he will pay for this. If those incompetent fools we paid off had killed him the first time, this never would have happened. Oh, Jupiter, look at him! Poor, poor Piso. Can he hear us? He must be able to hear us. Oh, uncle, what shall we do?”