The general took a few steps forward into the centre of the arc of men.
‘Men of the legions… soldiers of Rome… conquerors of Gaul. Thank you.’
There was a mix of confusion and pleasure at this odd profession of gratitude, apparent in every face, and yet not a voice broke the silence, such was the discipline of the veterans.
‘You face hardships with the stoic acceptance of true Romans. For that is what you are. Some of you have been drawn from my provinces and from underprivileged societies, regardless of the standing senatorial orders for the raising and manning of a legion. But every man here is now a citizen of Rome — a chosen son of the republic. And you make your nation proud with your manner.’
As pre-arranged, Marcus Antonius stepped up from the back, carrying a tray of small bags. Caesar took the first from the tray.
‘Our allies have been requested to supply us with extra grain and, though their attempts to send us goods seem to have been waylaid by the enemy, this is naught but a setback. You have faced the hunger of halved rations with strength and dignity, and I salute you for it. I am told that conditions worsen, and am sure that rumour of this will already have reached you. Rations will have to be cut again unless our convoys reach us.’
He paused, waiting for the groan, though only a few small voices murmured, their optios jabbing them with staffs to keep them quiet.
‘I will not ask any of you to suffer in a manner that I am not willing to experience myself. In order to drag out our supplies as best we can, as of this morning, the officers are all moving to quarter rations to help stretch the food supplies.’
He cast the small bag into the crowd, where a legionary caught it with ease.
‘This is the officers’ rations. Good white flour. The finest milled. It will be added to your supplies today.’
There was a cheer as Antonius began to fling the small bags of flour out into the mass of men, Plancus and Fronto stepping forward with two more trays and joining the display of largesse. It would make little real difference in terms of hunger, but the gesture would be more than appreciated.
‘In order to bring matters to a close here,’ Caesar announced, while the distribution continued, ‘it is my intention to construct a ramp. The work will cross the dip and the marsh and will deliver us dry to the walls, allowing us to complete our siege in the usual manner of a Roman army. Vineae will be placed as we work to keep enemy missiles from your heads.’
He paused, a sly look passing across his eyes, unnoticed by the crowd.
‘But I will never carry out such a work at the expense of my legions. If you are feeling the pinch of hunger too deep to commit to such work, then I understand. If we reach the point at which you can no longer go on and it becomes critical for us to return to our supply bases, I will raise the siege without further comment, and the army will break camp and move away.’
‘Piss on that!’ came a voice from the crowd, and the statement brought a small chorus of agreement and no ding on the head from his optio.
‘You would have us continue?’
A man in the press of legionaries looked left and right and, seeing no reason not to, rose to his feet. His ochre-coloured scarf identified him as an engineer, and he cleared his throat noisily.
‘We can have that ramp up for you in two weeks. Three at most.’
Caesar frowned — he’d planned on not more than a week. The legionary noted the look of surprise on his general’s face and pursed his lips. ‘It’ll need to be maybe four hundred paces long and upward of eighty feet in height. And the width will have to be a lot more than that of a simple siege tower to provide adequate stability. Two to three weeks to be sure of success.’
Someone nearby muttered something Caesar couldn’t catch, but which earned him a clout with an optio’s staff.
‘Don’t you worry sir,’ shouted another man. ‘We’ll get it done fast. We’ve never abandoned a siege yet, all through this piss-poor land, an’ we ain’t going to start doin’ it now.’
‘Yeah,’ threw in another. ‘Remember the mounds at Cenabum? Those poor bastards! For them.’
Caesar bowed his head in response. At least a week longer than he’d expected, then, and possibly more. A week or two more of starvation and hardship, and yet his men were unbroken, prepared for the troubles ahead and undaunted. It was what Pompey always missed in his aloof separateness from his army: the sheer humbling nobility of the ordinary soldier.
‘For the victims of Cenabum,’ he said quietly, but loud enough to be heard across the space. ‘For all those who have fallen in the name of Gaul’s pacification, we will crack Avaricon and bring the Bituriges to heal and by the kalends of Aprilis we will stand in their halls eating their bread and drinking their wine.’
He closed his eyes and basked in the roar of approval.
* * * * *
The days wore on in privation and poor weather. The rain had set in as a constant — that early spring rain that battered the land with misery rather than a winter chill and dragged down the spirits of the men off whose armour and shields it pinged and clattered.
The rough turf of the hillside became a mire of sucking and oozing mud, with brown streams and rivulets carrying the mess down into the dip before the city, adding to the burgeoning swamp at the bottom.
Caesar took one more look through the interminable rain at the ramp, already impressive and marching out across the soggy dip, lined with the roofed vineae through the tunnels of which men moved constantly, carrying baskets of rocks and earth or lengths of timber. Occasionally one of the more hopeful of the Bituriges would loose an arrow at them, but they rarely struck, the defenders having discovered early on the protective power of the timber-and-hide sheds. There seemed nothing to do for either force but to watch the ramp’s gradual rise as it approached the walls.
‘Caesar?’
He turned at the voice and registered again the Aedui scout standing patiently waiting for debrief. ‘Speak.’
‘There is much to tell, Caesar.’
‘Go on.’ The general clasped his hands behind his back, rocking on his heels as he watched Fronto stomping angrily up the ramp with his engineer, Pomponius, in tow, and slapping a legionary around the back of the head, at which the man dropped his basket of rocks, earning him another hard slap.
‘We have located the enemy’s camp, general. I and my companion came across a single warrior separated from their army, scouting in the same manner as us. I persuaded him to answer a few questions, and then left his body hidden and we rode out to confirm the truth of his words.’
Caesar nodded, his mouth turning up at the corner as the legionary, struggling to pick up his rocks, dropped one on Fronto’s foot, bringing forth a stream of invective that could be heard even at this distance, followed by a fresh bout of head-slapping.
‘It seems,’ the scout continued, ‘that Vercingetorix had positioned his camp on the moors some fifteen miles east of here, back towards Aedui land. It was from that place that he sent out his raiders but, having burned all that could be burned within easy reach and effectively cut off all our supply routes, he broke camp two days ago and is now in position on the far side of Avaricon, less than five miles distant. He seems to have now positioned himself close to the supply route our wagons from the north would take.’
Caesar’s stomach gave an involuntary and rather loud growl. He had stood by his word, the officers rationing themselves along with the men. He coughed to hide his irritation.
‘Cunning, isn’t he,’ the general murmured. ‘He has effectively removed all the forageable goods within our conceivable reach and now he moves in force to blockade any supplies. He is well informed, too, apparently. Less than a week since, I sent riders to Labienus and Trebonius, asking that they send well-defended columns with grain. Such a column would get through his usual raids, but not a large interception force.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘I cannot believe this is his full army, however. He will have left men in the east to prevent supplies from the Aedui and the Boii reaching us. Perhaps he has split his army in two. Do you have any estimate of the camp’s numbers?’