Divitiacus suspected he would have better luck locating the Scythian, since he was well-known throughout the camp, and if he found the Scythian, then perhaps he would also find Lucius. With this in mind, he had spent most of the morning asking around, everyone from tribunes to traders, but at every turn he had come up with nothing. Frustrated, he had finally sent Adalbert to ride to the village to see if the merchant was there, or if the villagers knew anything of his or Lucius’s whereabouts.
Now, hours later, as Divitiacus followed Adalbert’s mount weaving through the thickening trees, he suspected that errand had also turned up nothing.
“I assume the merchant was not in the village?” he asked.
“Not in the village, no,” the scout replied, and then brought his mount to an abrupt halt. He pointed to a small mound of earth that appeared to have been freshly made. Something had been buried there recently but was now only half-covered. Divitiacus’s eyes then registered the bluish hand sticking out of the mound. Several strips of orange silk, stained with blood, were strewn nearby.
“I might not have found him, if the night wolves hadn’t dug him up and left him like that,” Adalbert said.
“The Scythian?” Divitiacus guessed.
Adalbert nodded. “Part of him, anyway.”
“Any sign of the legionary?”
“No, but I did find other tracks. There were several men here last night – three, by my count, other than the Scythian. Your man could have been among them. All three wore Roman boots. Two had fairly new soles and hobnails. The other man’s were frayed. Worn down to almost nothing.”
“The boots of an infantryman.”
“Probably,” Adalbert nodded. “I found a large pool of dried blood over there.” The scout pointed to a spot a few paces away. “I suspect that’s where they killed the Scythian.”
“Or, that’s where Lucius Domitius killed him.”
Adalbert shrugged, and then pointed off into the forest. “Whoever killed him, they left on horseback in that direction.”
Divitiacus considered for a moment. Lucius Domitius had met with the Scythian last night, he had no doubt of that. The disappearance of the legionary could not be mere coincidence. The fact that Lucius’s body was nowhere to be found meant that he was possibly still alive. Had this merely been a deal gone badly, in which the Scythian had been killed and Lucius had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, or was there more to it? The tracks led north. If there were Romans here last night, and two of them were either nobles or cavalry, why would they have headed north towards the Nervii lands, instead of back to the camp? A pestering thought began to creep over Divitiacus. Was Senator Valens somehow involved in this? Was this further proof that he was in communications with the Belgae? Divitiacus had seen Valens and the portly senator riding with Caesar that morning, as the army pulled out. The two senators had been smiling and chatting cordially with the proconsul while the entourages of all three men followed close behind. At the time, Divitiacus had noted that Valens’s staff seemed somewhat diminished. Only now, upon reflection, did it occur to him that the four nobles – the ones he had seen hanging on the senator’s heels all week, the ones conspicuous in their new cloaks and glimmering breastplates, fresh from Rome – had not all been present. Two of the nobles had not been there.
“Adalbert,” Divitiacus said after a few more moments of internal deliberation. “Can you track this group?”
The scout grinned. “Like following a herd of farting pigs, my lord.”
“Good. Then we will join our troops later, Adalbert. We will follow these tracks, for the time being, and see where they lead us.”
As he followed Adalbert’s lead, Divitiacus unconsciously rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. He was fairly certain he knew exactly where the tracks would lead.
XIV
The last few hours – or were they days – Lucius had drifted in and out of consciousness. He was moving, always moving, and one moment he had the wherewithal to realize that he was slung over the back of a horse like a sack of grain, with his hands and feet bound. Every step of the horse sent a pounding pain through his head. The blood vessels around his eyes bulged from hanging in that position for so long. He heard at least two men chatting jovially in Latin. They talked about trivial things, as if they were on their way to market. There was another time when the gait of the horse stopped, and for once the pain in his head diminished such that he was able to sense the dried blood mingled with his close-cropped hair. He heard voices again, but there were new voices as well, and they spoke in a mix of Latin, Celtic, and Gaulish. Craning his head ever so slightly that he might not be seen to be awake, Lucius saw a cluster of men several paces away, dismounted and talking formally. Two of them were Roman nobles, judging from their costly cloaks and armor, and they appeared to be bargaining with three other bearded men, almost certainly Belgae, dressed in mail and wearing an assortment of bronze helmets.
Lucius got the sense that he was far from camp, because both parties spoke as though they were not concerned about being overheard. From where he hung, he could hear the conversation clearly.
"…is that understood, now?" one of the Romans said in the Celtic tongue, of which Lucius understood a little. "The legions will march in column, each separated by the baggage train of the one before it. You are to wait in the forest opposite the river ford. When the first legion arrives, do nothing. Allow it to deploy on the river bank. When the baggage comes into view, fall on the single legion with your full force.”
“What if the legion does not deploy?” asked one of the Belgae, a powerfully built gray-haired man who appeared to be a chieftain. “What if it keeps marching and crosses the river?”
“There is little chance of that,” the Roman said dismissively. “But, if it does, then all the better. You will be in a better position to annihilate it. That is the key. The first legion must be destroyed to send a panic into the others.”
“Will there be vedettes?”
“Of course there will be vedettes. What army marches through an enemy country without vedettes? Find some way to distract them, but you must not engage them with your main body. If you do, the ambush will fail.”
The chieftain mumbled something, as if he was not fully in agreement with the plan, and then finally spoke again loud enough that Lucius could hear. "I still question the wisdom of attacking now. The Aduatuci have not yet joined us. That’s fifteen thousand spears I will not have.”
“It cannot be helped, My Lord Boduognatus,” the Roman said without much conviction. “The senator has done all he could. There can be no further delays. Caesar is marching north rapidly. The rest is up to you. If you retreat inside your oppida now, you will be isolated and annihilated piecemeal. But if you strike Caesar first, with your full force, while you have the advantage – “
“Advantage? Against eight legions?” the chieftain said incredulously. Apparently he was the one the Roman had addressed as Lord Boduognatus. “What kind of wine did the senator bring with him from Rome? For I think he has been drinking quite a lot of it."
Boduognatus chuckled at his own jest, as did the warriors with him.
“You will not be facing eight legions,” the Roman said with forced patience. “Only one – or two at the most. You have more than enough men for that. If you annihilate the first two, the rest will flee. The senator will see to that."
“And Caesar will just stand by and do nothing while we slice up the front of his column?” Boduognatus said skeptically. “Caesar is known for pulling victory out of defeat."
"You give him far too much credit, I think. His deputy is the real mind behind the so-called genius.”