Caesar frowned.
“I have scouts out far and wide. They were last reported about twenty miles distant… They can’t be anywhere near yet? We’d have had reports.”
Fronto shook his head and pointed at the tent’s doorway.
“They’re out there. What looks like half a million of them to me. And they’re so close that if you pissed off a high ladder you could probably hit them!”
The general’s frown deepened and he leaned forward, placing the flats of his palms on the table.
“How close?”
“Two miles. Maybe a little further. And I can tell you this: there are a bloody lot of them.” He turned to the prefects behind him.
“How many d’you reckon, Decius?”
The prefect frowned.
“I reckon their camps cover about eight miles or more.”
Fronto nodded.
“Something like that. And they’ve burned everything they’ve come across between Bibrax and here. I think you’ve got a big fight waiting for you just out of sight.”
Caesar growled.
“Then either my native scouts are defecting to the Belgae or the enemy have caught and killed every last one of them.”
He smashed his fist on the table.
“How can I have been so blind?”
Fronto smiled.
“Simple. I wasn’t here.”
The general gave him a weak and humourless smile.
“What’s the terrain like between here and there, do you know? I’m planning blind, here.”
Fronto shrugged.
“A couple of low grassy humps and the odd belt of trees, and then a wide plain.”
Galeo shook his head and stepped forward.
“If I may, sirs?”
The general and his legate nodded at him.
“Well it looks like a plain at first glance from a distance, where we marched past, but I saw tell-tale signs. That plain’s a marsh at the moment. I think it probably gets flooded by the Aisne over winter and spring and stays swampy until high summer. There’s reeds in clumps and there are herons perching and flying around. It’s never quite dry, I’d say. In fact, I think that’s why the Belgae made their camp where they did: the marsh lies between us.”
Decius made a sour face.
“Got to be plagued by insects there.”
A nod.
Fronto frowned.
“How come you noticed all this? Looked like a green plain to me.”
Galeo smiled.
“I come from the wetlands at the coast near Aquileia, sir. And I know my birds, sir.”
Caesar nodded.
“Then there’s no clear field of battle near the enemy. They’ll have to come round the edge of the marsh. That should even up the odds a little.”
He stood silently for a moment, tapping his thumb on his lower lip absently and then looked up suddenly, as though he’d forgotten the officers were there.
“Mmm? Oh yes, sorry Fronto. I think you four had best go bathe, change and get some rest. I’ll be calling a general meeting of the staff some time this afternoon, but I’ll send for you then.”
He frowned again.
“On your way out, have someone go and find Varus and send him to me. I have a job for the cavalry.”
Fronto nodded and, saluting, the four officers filed out of the tent.
Bees buzzed and added their gentle hum to the background noises of a military camp at rest. Fronto smiled. It was a nice time of year. Better savour the next hour or two, since the next few days promised to be busy.
“Well I don’t know about you three, but I’m looking forward to rinsing out my mouth with some good, old-fashioned Roman wine for a change. Care to join me, relaxing in the laconicum with a nice wine?”
“Laconicum?” Decius raised an eyebrow.
“Alright,” Fronto grinned, “the river, if you must know!”
* * * * *
Quintus Atius Varus inhaled deeply, sucking down the warm fragrant air of early summer. Barbarians the Gauls and the Belgae might be, but they had some lovely land up here in the north. The air seemed to be fresher than it was back home in Italy; lighter and cleaner. He glanced around him at the cavalry, two alae of regulars.
His orders were clear. Examine the terrain between the two armies and report back, preferably without engaging enemy scouts or outriders. Oh, a job like this could be done by scouts for the Romans, but from what Caesar had said, his scouts kept mysteriously disappearing, so the task needed a little more force this time.
Varus smiled.
And, of course, he and his men would be able to report the terrain with a soldier’s eye, rather than the basic geography relayed by a native scout.
The crest of a hill loomed ahead, crowned by a thin row of poplar trees as if nature’s own crest surmounted the helmet of the land. Steering the steed with his knees, he made for the avenue of trees. They were spaced evenly, planted by the design of some unknown hand, rather than naturally seeded.
As they approached the rise, Varus gave commands using hand and arm motions. The two alae peeled off to either side and came to a halt in formation. Off to the left, a large thicket cut off the view of the plain stretching away, and a similar knot of tangled trees lay to the right. Motioning to the officers, he walked his horse gently toward the crest. The two cavalry prefects trotted up to join him as they reached the top.
Varus whistled through his teeth quietly.
“Shit, that’s a lot of Belgae!”
The three riders, largely sheltered from view by the thin avenue of trees, looked down the slope with a growing sense of awe. A sizeable marsh began at the foot of the slope and stretched away to within a few yards of the Belgae. The swampy ground was enclosed off to the left by a ridge, along which Fronto and his men must have come this morning. The other end, however, meandered off to the edge of the Aisne River with which it was almost level. Varus’ trained military eye spotted the possibilities. That area looked marshy, for certain, but it was the area that had now dried out and sealed off the water inland. It would be easily crossable by cavalry and would probably present no great problem for infantry, but you wouldn’t want to actually fight there, just in case.
The impressive thing, though, that seized Varus’s gaze and held it, was the camp of the Belgae. He’d been sceptical of the reports from Fronto that the force covered a width of eight miles. It sounded such a long way.
And yet, looking down from here, the line of camps stretched from the river bank to the crest and was perhaps two miles thick as well.
“What would you say, Casco? Does that look like three hundred thousand Belgae?”
The prefect beside him shrugged.
“Respectfully, sir, it’s damn near impossible to tell when they have no formation.”
The prefect on the other side of him shook his head.
“Not that many, sir. They’re spread out.”
Varus turned and raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, there’s a lot, sir, don’t get me wrong, but not a third of a million. Remember seeing Ariovistus’ army at Vesontio last year? Well I reckon there’s about twice as many here. Ariovistus had about seventy thousand men.”
Varus frowned.
“D’you know? I do believe you’re right. It’s a huge camp, but they’re well spaced. I wonder whether they’re trying to look bigger than they are? Must be… what? A hundred and fifty thousand at the most. Maybe half the Belgae we’re expecting!”
Casco shook his head.
“Careful there, sir. Might be that they’ve left room for the other half, and there’s more on the way.”
“Hmm.” Varus’ frown deepened. Casco was right. This army could double in size any time and the only way they’d know is if they kept a permanent eye on it.
“Maybe that’s why they’re killing off Caesar’s scouts. They don’t want the general to know where they are until they’ve met up with the other half of the army.”
He shook his head.
“Shit. That means we need to do something about this, and fast. Let’s get back to camp.”