But with a victory today, all of that would change. The fate of the Belgae would be different. Did the others not understand that their freedom was secured or lost forever depending on their actions of this day?
"My lord!" The lookout called again, pointing across the river. "Look!"
Boduognatus looked up, fully expecting to see yet another legion arriving, but that is not what he saw. He gasped aloud as he gazed at the cloud of dust hanging above the road. Beneath the cloud, teams of mules were emerging from the hedges. The trudging beasts were heavily weighted down with equipment, some bearing their own loads while others drew carts and wagons. One after another, the vehicles came, stretching back on the road as far as visibility would allow. Caesar's impedimenta had finally arrived.
Boduognatus’s spirits surged.
If this train carried the baggage of six legions, it would be long indeed. It would stretch back for miles. The two legions at the rear of the column would be blocked from joining the other six. It was not perfect, but it was salvageable. Six legions was still a formidable force, but the Romans were not ready. In a way the long delay had created an unanticipated advantage. Fully half of the legionaries on the field had doffed the encumbrances of armor and weapons to construct camps. Several bands were even away from their units, chopping away at the distant tree line to gather materials for palisade walls.
The time for the attack had come.
“Tell your lord, the signal is given!” Boduognatus called down to the messenger from the Viromandui. “At the sound of the horn, he is to advance against the Roman center.”
The man looked uncertain. “But, my lord requested that you come – “
“There’s no time for that, damn you! Now, ride!”
As the chastised Viromandui rode off, Boduognatus pointed down to one of his own mounted nobles. “Gerulf, your steed is swift! Ride like the wind, and tell Commius that the signal is given. Tell him, if he leaves the field now, he will be known in the songs of old as the coward who deserted his brethren in the face of the Romans. Go, now!”
Boduognatus took a last look at the Roman lines before climbing down from the tree and mounting his own horse. He and his nobles received helmets and shields from their retainers and then gave tribute to Lugus for the Roman blood they would spill this day.
A dozen men in the treetops bearing large horns looked down at their lord, awaiting his signal. Boduognatus looked back at them, and then solemnly raised one arm, pausing just long enough to mentally steel himself for the death and butchery he would unleash when he lowered it again.
XXIV
"Not a sign of the enemy," Caesar said as he sipped from the waterskin and studied the opposite river bank. "I am afraid there will be no action today, gentlemen. It appears Balbus had me rush these troops here for nothing."
The two senators stood nearby, Valens examining the distant woods, Porcius sighing from the heat of the day. Both men were dressed much like Caesar, in corselets and scarlet cloaks, and while Valens’s armor fit him as though it had molded with his skin, Porcius’s was far too small, and forced his meaty jowls to spill over the neck. All three men were bare-headed, having left their helmets with the squadron of aides that held their horses just far enough away to give the high men privacy.
"This country makes Balbus jumpy, no doubt," Valens said. "I’ve known legates to see a thousand spears where there are only twenty."
"If twenty did that, then I am truly impressed," Porcius said, pointing to the bodies of the skirmishers that had been left on the opposite side of the river to go rigid under the afternoon sun.
"Has the cavalry not tended to them yet?" Caesar snapped to the nearest of his adjutants.
"I believe they are awaiting the carts, Proconsul." The officer offered in explanation.
"Damn the carts, man. Do they wish those corpses to burst before they collect them?"
Caesar studied the far bank of the river. The grassy plain, on which the slain auxiliaries lay, swept up from the river’s edge to a row of low wooded hills. There could be any number of Belgae hiding in those woods. But if the enemy was there, as Balbus’s panicky message had so informed him, then why had they not attacked?
Already annoyed by the delays incurred by the Belgic countryside over the last three days of marching, Caesar was loathe to let a few skirmishers hold up his advance. Judging from the sparse resistance they had seen thus far on the march, he fully expected this campaign to be over quickly. Aside from this day’s skirmish, his army had marched through the Belgic countryside with little harassment. Only a handful of arrows and stones had come at them periodically, the assailants hidden in the brush and gone before the cavalry could respond. It was the work of small bands, not any organized army. He was quite certain that all of the tales of a massing of the Belgic tribes were overinflated. Of course, the coded message kept coming to the forefront of his thoughts, but he just as easily dismissed that, too. It all seemed like such an over-reaction now.
Caesar had received Divitiacus’s scout, the man called Adalbert, late on the previous evening. The Aeduan had presented him with a cipher, and Caesar had eagerly used it to decode the message Divitiacus had taken off of the dead Nervii officer. He had hoped to find something revealing in the text, such as the names of the traitors Divitiacus had claimed were lurking within the army. But the message was quite disappointing. It had contained nothing more than a short description of the marching order of the Roman column. The message had emphasized that the army marched with “baggage separating each legion.” This was rather benign, if of no importance at all. Still, this morning, he had seen to changing the marching order, if only to sow the seeds of doubt among the Belgae, that their hidden informant was unreliable. When the army marched, Caesar had instructed the quartermaster to place all of the baggage between the six and seventh legions in the line. The change had caused so much delay and confusion that Caesar had almost immediately regretted ever giving the order.
The precaution was absurd, really. If the enemy truly did lie in ambush up ahead, why would they have allowed so many legions to take the field unopposed?
Caesar looked beyond the ranks of legionaries. A troop of cavalry sauntered near the river's edge, a hundred paces in front of the army. They were Roman cavalry, rushed up from the rear to take the place of the auxiliary horsemen that had been lost in the skirmish. The Roman horse casually trotted in column along the near bank of the river, riding the entire length of the four-mile Roman line. Upon reaching the end of the line, the officer at their head turned the column about to ride the circuit again.
"Quintus," Caesar said curiously. "Who is that officer driving our horse about in front of our lines as if he were on triumph? If he's going to stay on this side of the river, he might as well retire to his tent. I can observe the field just as easily from here. Why does he not scout those trees on the opposite bank as I have ordered? And where in Jupiter's name is Labienus. I thought he was at their head?"
"General Labienus went back up the road, sir, to bring up the Thirteenth and Fourteenth." The aide then added, uncertainly, "He said it was on your order, sir."
"I gave no such order. I need him here. Ride after him, Quintus, but not before you ask that oaf down by the river if he would be so good as to take his cavalry somewhere that they might be of use."
"Yes, Proconsul," the officer replied, before mounting his horse and clattering off.
"Sometimes I do not know what has come over this army, gentlemen," Caesar said apologetically to the two senators. "They act as though they have never been on campaign."
"Nervous young men often muddle the message, as you well know, Gaius," Valens said consolingly. “I remember when I campaigned in Spain with the great Sertorius. He would often send three or four messengers with the same message, just to ensure it got through, and with the same content as when he sent it. I am sure all is well and that young man down there has a good vantage of the woods. He is probably just showing prudence in light of what happened to the Treveri cavalry."