The oppidum of Uxellodunon sat rigid and unlovely in the winter cold, with rime coating every surface and the muddy furrows hardened to the consistency of iron, threatening twisted ankles and falls at every turn. As high and powerfully defensive as a smaller Alesia or Gergovia, Uxellodunon was far less advanced within, its organisation owing little to the influence of foreign design, and more resembling the settlements of the tribes centuries ago. Houses were mostly of mud-daub and timber-frame, built upon a bed of two or three stone courses. Farmland covered much of the interior and animals roved the plateau arbitrarily, mixing with the few people about on such an unforgiving day. Grass and mud. No paved streets here.
The beauty of such a basic layout was that anything unusual stood out, and Cavarinos was quite surprised he hadn’t spotted the stockade when he’d first arrived, let alone during the days he had wandered around the oppidum. Down towards the south-western gate, which stood at a sharp point in the defences on a spur of rock, a timber ring had been installed in recent months, the tips of the posts still sharp and pale.
Wandering across the rutted track, Cavarinos untied the reins of his horse from the hitching post and threw his bag across its back, then began to walk the beast down towards the southwest gate. It was not a natural way to leave the oppidum when heading east, but it would serve two purposes. Firstly, he could have a glance at the prisoners on the way, and secondly, if Lucterius realised he had overheard the conversation and decided that that was a bad thing, a false trail might be of some help.
Slowly, apparently unconcerned, he descended the slope, sticking to the rutted frozen mud and making for that gate. Before he reached it, however, he pulled his scarf up over his nose – a mode not uncommon in this sort of weather, but with the added benefit of hiding his shaven features. Veering off the path, he made for the stockade. The gate to the prison was a simple timber affair held shut with a bar and presenting no hole large enough for a man to pass through. The two locals who were apparently set to guard it looked cold and bored, and neither even bothered to challenge him as he stepped towards the gate, motioning a greeting at them.
Slowing his horse, he bent and peered through the wooden posts of the entrance. The locking bar was clearly unnecessary, which partially accounted for the lax attitude of the pair outside. He could count twenty three Romans in the circular stockade, each filthy and most freezing and naked, a few clinging to the rags of their russet coloured tunics for warmth if not modesty. Each man within was tethered by the wrists to an iron ring driven into the heavy timber posts of the stockade. None of them would be able to move more than a few feet, and they clearly had no hope of escape. Many of them had clearly been beaten, burned and tortured, but his eyes fell specifically on a bull-shouldered bald man sitting opposite. His attire was no different from the rest, but one look at his defiant, solid posture and the strength and complete lack of fear and surrender in his eyes told Cavarinos what he was: he was a centurion. The Arverni noblemen had seen enough of them in his time. The hardest bastards in the Roman world, bar none, gladiators included. They bent their knee to no one except their commander and the gods. The man had clearly been beaten and torn to within an inch of his life, but his eyes remained clear and defiant as he locked them on the visitor at the gate.
Cavarinos sighed, heaved in a deep, cold breath, and turned to his horse.
Poor bastards.
Not his problem, though. He had enough of them without adopting more. With a last glance up at the oppidum’s centre, he turned to the gate and left Uxellodunon and Cadurci lands. Cavarinos was going home.
Chapter Two
Varus squinted into the grey blurry morning, the world lit by a watery, inefficient sun. This oppidum of the Bituriges – the latest in a long list – had a name, but he’d long since stopped bothering to commit such names to valuable memory, given that they flew by in a steady stream of campaigning. The low, elongated hill sat between two narrow stream valleys, its northern and southern edges protected by a wide ditch below the walls, the eastern and western by the valleys themselves.
On the Kalends of Januarius, Caesar had responded to a plea from the loyal factions of the Bituriges who had been ousted by rebels of their own tribe, and he had led out Varus’ cavalry wing, collecting the Thirteenth from Avaricon and the Eleventh from their own camp, heading west. The column of ten thousand men and horses had waded into Bituriges territory with, in Varus’ private opinion, a less-than-discriminate manner, and in the ten days since the army had marched, eleven such settlements had fallen. The rebellious nature of their early targets had been somewhat uncertain as far as the cavalry commander was concerned, for few men raised any kind of resistance to their attacks.
The enemy had been suicidally optimistic, attempting revolution in lands this close to Roman winter quarters. They had so few warriors among them anymore that a Roman action against them was like pitting hungry bears against condemned criminals in Rome’s entertainment pits. The two legions had barely broken a sweat, which was something to be grateful for, given that winter still had Gaul firmly in its icy grip and that none of the men were thrilled at leaving comfortable winter quarters and marching out into the wilds before the campaigning season had even appeared on the horizon.
But here they were.
Laniocon – that was the place’s name, he seemed to remember – stood defiant and proud on its turf mound with its strong Gallic walls surrounded by ditches and narrow defiles. And yet that defiance was mere show at best, if that. For atop those ramparts a spear point gleamed every few hundred paces. Five years ago, when Gaul had still been a wild and unexplored land for the legions, this place would have blinded onlookers with the number of shining bronze weapons and helms visible above the parapet. Now, after eight years of exhaustive war, most of its defenders were old men and children, and even they would be too few to hold back a scout party, let alone two legions and a wing of cavalry. It was almost laughable that one rider in twenty in this mounted force had been drawn from these very Biturige settlements over the years, though now their allegiance was tied strongly to Caesar, who had made them wealthier men than many of their former leaders could ever hope to be.
Laniocon was ripe for the picking.
A cavalry prefect rode towards him from the southern fields, freezing dew settling on his helmet and mail and giving him a strangely ethereal sparkle in the misty grey. Beside the prefect, three of the Gallic princes who commanded the native levies waited hungrily. And well they might, for each oppidum that fell made those men richer and more influential. Even the native auxiliaries knew that Caesar’s time as proconsul was almost up and that soon he would return to Rome. When he did, Gaul would become the command of some fat politician and things would settle into status quo, so every man who sought advancement in the land was currently jostling for position and gain in order to secure a better future in what would clearly soon be a Roman province. And those who weren’t thinking like that – the few who still laboured under the impression that Gaul would return to being a tribal land – would be disappointed, disenfranchised and poor when the inevitable happened.
The Bituriges in the last oppidum they had advanced on had seen their future clearly enough, and had delivered to Caesar the half dozen men they claimed had taken control in defiance of Rome. The six rebel leaders had sneered at their Roman captors and spat at the countrymen who had sold them out, but in response Caesar had been generous, and that oppidum had suffered no ill effect other than the expense of feeding the legions for a night before they moved on west towards Laniocon.