Eporedirix felt the world shift slightly beneath him. The Aeduan capital had declared for the rebel? Then everything was changing. Caesar was already on the defensive, but with the Aedui adding to his enemies, his time in this land must be coming to an end. A thrill of excitement flowed through him.
‘An alliance is being negotiated between our tribes,’ the man said quietly. ‘And those bastards out there herding their horses and stacking their grain sacks know nothing about it.’
‘Why wait then?’ came a voice from the corner. Eporedirix turned in surprise to see his companion standing.
‘What?’
‘Why wait for the magistrate and his friends to send out the word? We know what’s happening, and Taranis knows, you and I are aware what’s at stake, Eporedirix. We’ve seen it first-hand. Do we want this mess they’ve made here to become the new standard for Aedui towns? Bollocks to them. Time to throw the Romans out.’
There was a murmur among the locals. The man at the bar narrowed his eyes. ‘If we start something before our leaders are ready, we might bring the Romans right to our door.’
‘So what? Bring them. I’m not afraid of them. Caesar’s failed now. He’s beaten. The Arverni are smaller than us and poorer than us, and they beat him. If the Arverni can rout Caesar, think what the Aedui can do!’
‘There are enough supplies here to keep an army in the field for a year,’ Eporedirix noted. ‘We could see that just on the way through. Better they belong to us than to Caesar.’
Viridomarus nodded. ‘Take the supplies. Send them to Bibracte. Put the garrison and the Roman merchants here to the sword. Strike the first blow.’
‘That’s what the Carnutes did at Cenabum,’ replied the barman quietly. ‘And look what that brought down upon them. Cenabum’s gone. Ash and bone and nothing more.’
‘Then give them nothing to revenge themselves upon,’ Viridomarus snapped. ‘Take all your people to Bibracte with the supplies and burn the place. It’s ruined now anyway. Half of it’s a Roman fort.’
The man at the bar was shaking his head, but there were encouraging nods around the room. Eporedirix took a steadying breath. They were talking about breaking their oath, betraying Caesar, and starting a war. But it made sense. And even those who lived here were in agreement.
‘You know what else is here?’ the man at the bar said in a low whisper.
‘What?’
‘All of Caesar’s hostages.’
Eporedirix blinked. ‘All of them?’
‘All of them. Every noble taken from every tribe as a means of securing loyalty. All here. If they found their way to Bibracte, half the tribes who are carefully staying out of the conflict to save their own would have no more reason to hesitate.’
The bar fell silent, each man looking around expectantly, nervously, eager to make a move, but waiting in trepidation for someone else to do so first. With a half-smile, Eporedirix reached into his tunic and withdrew the sealed parchment he had been given by Caesar himself. Leaning along the bar, he dipped the top of the scroll into one of the tallow candles that lit the interior and watched it catch light. Stepping back, he tilted it so that the flames raced up one edge, reaching the wax seal, where the Roman bull began to contort and change shape, dark red drips falling to the rush-strewn floor like blood.
‘What’s that?’ the barman asked in puzzlement.
‘That,’ Eporedirix smiled unpleasantly, ‘is my oath to Rome.’
* * * * *
The tired scouts who had brought the news roamed the bank ahead, and Fronto leaned back in his saddle, a sense of dread flowing through him. Across the southern hill they had seen a few tendrils of smoke and he had hoped to discover that they rose from the content chimneys and smoke-holes of the Aedui houses. But it seemed that the news that had reached the army two days ago, and which had been so tumultuous as to divert Caesar from his original course of action, was true.
Across the river, where all that remained of the new Roman bridge was a series of blackened stumps rising from the swift, deep current, stood what was left of Noviodunum. A circuit of walls with no gates encircled a pile of charcoal half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. No horses — the huge herds brought from Hispania and Narbonensis to supply the army. No grain — all the huge supply they had taken at Cenabum and Vellaunoduno. No arms and armour — the majority of the army’s spares brought down from Agedincum. No Romans, military or civilian, and no hostages. No locals. No sign of life at all, in fact. Noviodunum was gone and with it Caesar’s main supply base in Gaul.
‘I had a bad feeling about letting those two Gauls go,’ Fronto sighed. ‘And since the rumours about what happened here are true, then I think we can safely believe the ones about Bibracte having given themselves to the rebels. We have lost the Aedui.’
Caesar was nodding, his face as bleak and stony as ever.
‘General, we’re in ever-increasing danger. The Aedui can still field probably six or seven thousand men. More if they have the time to call up their allies. And if the news of all this has reached Gergovia, be sure Vercingetorix is on the move again somewhere behind us. With due respect, the very idea of drawing him to us is starting to look more than a trifle dangerous.’
Antonius, on the general’s far side, nodded. ‘Gaius, there are perhaps forty or fifty thousand men with us here, all in. If we stay in Aedui lands, we’re going to end up with eighty thousand Gauls — at the last estimate — chasing us down from Arverni lands, and another…’ he glanced at Fronto, ‘… seven thousand Aedui at the minimum from the east. Trapped between two pincers and seriously outnumbered, and all without adequate supplies.’
The general was nodding, or so Fronto thought, but after a moment he realised the man was shaking slightly — actually shuddering with rage. As Caesar turned to him, the man’s aquiline face might be stony cold, but his eyes danced with furious fire.
‘We need Labienus and his legions. It’s time to combine the army once more and put an end to this.’
‘That might not be so simple,’ Antonius said carefully. ‘They’ve burned the bridges again and word is that large groups of enemy horse rove the lands north of here, disrupting communications and any further attempts at supply.’
‘I do not care, Antonius. Find me a ford shallow enough to cross. No small warband will face us on the far side. And for the first time in this entire campaign, we are moving ahead of our enemies, so the lands north of here have not been burned clear of crops and farms. We can forage as we go. Communications may be impossible with the north, but Labienus will still be in contact with Agedincum as his home base. We make for there. And as soon as we have the army whole, I will have this Arvernian king’s head on a spike.’
* * * * *
Cavarinos rode his horse up the steep slope to Bibracte’s western gate with a curious sense of disjointed familiarity. He had been here several times this year, but always in disguise or with some kind of subterfuge, effecting entry with the aid of rebellious elements and fearing what might happen if he were revealed as Arverni to the populace. To be riding towards that wall with his serpent arm-ring in evidence, the standards of the Arverni wavering about them and the rebel king at his side felt distinctly odd. He felt as though he ought to be shrinking down and hiding himself.
‘And so begins a new chapter in our land’s history, eh, Cavarinos?’ Vercingetorix smiled as they approached the gate to the cheers of Aeduan citizens by the roadside.
‘I really hope so. We have Caesar on the defensive now, and we mustn’t let up. Give that man a breather, and you know he’ll recover.’
‘Then we must continue to push him,’ the king smiled, earning an encouraging nod from Vergasillaunus and Critognatos at the far side. Behind them rode the other leaders of the army, including two of Bibracte’s greatest heroes: Teutomarus of the Nitiobriges, who had lost everything in the battle, but had managed to sound the alarm and save the day, and Lucterius of the Cadurci, whose incredible cavalry advance down a slope thought too steep for horses had all but demolished the Eighth legion.