Moments later Fronto emerged from the house with his men at his back. A quick glance confirmed that they’d taken a few bruises and that Pamphilus had broken two fingers, but they had escaped successful and essentially unscathed.
With a chuckle, Fronto pulled the figurine of Nemesis from his neck, lifted it and kissed her full on the face. ‘Thank you, lovely goddess.’ Swiftly, he planted a second kiss on Fortuna and then tucked them back in his clothes.
‘Home time, lads. I’m in the mood for a small party and I know where there’s a good stock of wine.’
Chapter Eleven
Cavarinos stood in the side street and looked about with a strange mix of sadness and nostalgia. At the lower end of the dusty road he could see the heavy ramparts, and beyond that only bright, cloudless sky and the tips of the blue hazy mountains to the south. Lining the street on both sides were stone and timber buildings that were painfully, hauntingly familiar, and mostly derelict. And to the north, the road met the main street of the oppidum that ran from the west gate to the public square near the eastern end.
For a moment he considered strolling down to the walls and looking over at the slopes and the lesser hills at the foot of the oppidum, but the thought that he would be looking down on the site of the greatest victory the Arverni would ever claim somehow made that unpalatable, and he turned his gaze from the south back to the house where his uncle had lived and where he had spent so many summers as a boy.
Indeed, he had resided in this very house during his time at Gergovia as the great revolt picked up pace and the war progressed. He’d not been back since Alesia and, though some of his personal effects were almost certainly still inside, despite losing the war and his prolonged absence, somehow it felt wrong to open that door – like disturbing a tomb.
Gergovia was very much a tomb.
It stood as a monument to the last great hope of the peoples against Rome. It was a cenotaph – the empty tomb. And yes, the oppidum itself had stood empty for so many months, but a veritable legion of the dead from both sides lay under mounds down past that wall, staring up at the fortress with dead, accusing eyes. And now, despite the tribes’ attitude to this strangely hallowed place, life was coming back. A Roman prefect with an auxiliary force of spearmen from Narbonensis, along with a few regular clerks and quartermasters had taken up residence in Gergovia, in the house where Vercingetorix had planned the war against them. The prefect was a ‘resettlement officer’, tasked with repopulating the oppidum with what was left of the Arverni – which was more than most tribes, given Caesar’s galling sparing of the tribe from slavery after Alesia. And so now almost a thousand Arverni were camped on the heights out past the west gate, awaiting the allotment of property for their new life as subjects of Rome. There was even talk that in due course Rome would relocate the tribe to a Roman style settlement on the plains below, though that would be years away yet, when ‘Gaul’ had a governor and a garrison and paid taxes and worshipped Roman gods.
Perhaps a hundred people had so far been set up in the better houses – the ones that had not fallen to wrack and ruin since their abandonment. Cavarinos was not one of them, of course. He was merely a visitor to this place that had once been his home – a pilgrim to the site of that last victory. In fact, since the Romans were being their usual officious and immovable selves and not granting access to anyone until they had been assigned a place, Cavarinos had slipped in among a family being escorted to their new home, and had easily peeled off inside and disappeared into the empty streets to find his old house.
He wasn’t even really sure what he was doing here, other than that he had felt a curious pull all the time he had been in the region and had, in the end, found himself powerless to resist. And where he would go when he left here was an equal mystery. Soon he would have to leave the lands the Romans called Gaul. He was a spirit from a bygone age, drifting among the wreckage of his world, and every day here tarnished his soul a little more. But where he would go he did not know. To Rome was unthinkable, somehow. To the land of the tribes across the northern sea? Perhaps, but he was a warm-blooded southerner and that island was a cold and rugged place, even less forgiving than Belgae lands, and it did not really appeal. To Iberia perhaps? Though there had ever been a cultural gulf between the peoples of that land and the peoples of this, as though the high, serrated mountains that separated them physically also divided them in their hearts.
And so he continued to wander as a ghost of a war long since lost.
Angry with himself, he turned away from the house and caught movement from the corner of his eye. Frowning at the unaccustomed sight, he stepped back into the shadow at the side of the street, his instincts warning him to remain unobserved. The small group passed along the main thoroughfare at the end of the street, unaccompanied by Romans. Odder still, they were no Arverni family heading for their resettlement. The cloaks they wore bulged at the waist where belted swords ruffled the material, and their hoods were pulled forward, hiding their features.
As the last of the dozen or so figures passed, it paused for a moment and turned to look down the street. The head came up and, as the hood fell back, Cavarinos noted the strange glazed cult mask that covered the face, glinting in the sunlight. The figure studied the alley for some time and Cavarinos remained still, perturbed by the mask and cloak, despite himself. Then, silently, the figure moved on and disappeared from view. Cavarinos paused for a count of ten heartbeats and then began to move quietly up the road towards the main street. At the corner he stopped again, peering cautiously out into the thoroughfare. The main street sloped up, but at a barely visible incline. The public square was visible from here, though it had undergone changes since it had fallen into Roman hands. The open space was now enclosed with a wall that utilised the surrounding buildings and sealed or gated off the streets that met there. It had become the Roman depot, with the houses of the wealthy Arvernian nobles now barracks for the Narbonese spearmen and the few legionaries. Three Romans – regular soldiers in their russet coloured tunics and gleaming bronze helmets – guarded the entrance to the compound. Most of the occupying ‘resettlement’ force would be busy in various places around the oppidum sorting out housing and repairing buildings and walls, fences and sheds in preparation for their granting to native families. A skeleton guard only would remain in the compound. After all, the only folk in the town were those dejected families that the Romans had rehomed. They had nothing to fear in Gergovia.
But clearly they did.
The dozen – and now he could see them clearly there were precisely twelve of them – cloaked figures were striding up the street as bold as orichalcum, making straight for that guarded gate as though it were they in command here and not the Romans.
Cavarinos turned and looked down the street, willing himself to be able to see the west gate, even though he knew the curvature of the street and the slope would not allow it. Somehow in his mind’s eye he could picture the two spearmen who guarded the west gate, riddled with stab wounds and tossed carelessly aside like a child’s doll. These dozen people had not entered Gergovia with such care as he. They would have left bodies in their wake, he was certain.
He was equally certain over the coming fate of the three men at the compound gate.
Trying to suppress his natural urge to shout a warning, he slipped from doorway to doorway and alley to alley, shadowing the newcomers at a safe distance – close enough to see what was happening, but safely unnoticed. He was quiet and agile, and he knew it.