S. Turney - The conquest of Gaul

As the various officers passed the orders on to their subordinates, Ingenuus kicked his heels and started the units moving. Once more he looked down at his bandaged and blood-soaked hand. The more he thought about it, the more he wished he hadn’t. The loss of the fourth and fifth fingers on his right hand would create a few problems for him in the future, but he’d still be able to carry out most tasks with reasonable ease. The main problem, and it was the brutal problem that he was trying to come to terms with, was that the loss of those two fingers would seriously reduce his effectiveness with a sword. Those two fingers gave you balance and stability with a sword swing, and the loss of that ability would make him considerably less effective in mounted combat. It was a painful possibility that his life in the cavalry was over.

On reflection, he hadn’t quite realised how meteoric his rise through the ranks had been this year. A few months ago he’d been a cavalry decurion with little prospect of advancement. After a split-second decision to go to the aid of a fellow officer, he’d been raised to prefect, in charge of an entire ala of regular cavalry. Normally there would be no realistic place for him to go after that but perhaps into a non-cavalry role. Instead, however, some of the senior officers and even the General himself seemed to have taken to him. Here he was now, ordering prefects around with an authority granted by Caesar. Oh, he wouldn’t make it to controlling the entire cavalry force in this campaign, as there were Crassus and Varus both in line ahead of him, but one day he might have. Not now though. Once a medicus had pronounced him useless, he might as well sell his horse.

Muttering, Ingenuus tried hard to pull himself together. He was dangerously close to actual tears and that would be enormously embarrassing in front of so many hardened cavalrymen. He straightened in the saddle and drew his cavalry long sword. The agony as the sword dipped and pulled at his hand was intense and this time tears did come; tears of sheer pain. Gritting his teeth, he laid the sword across his thighs and unwrapped the bandage. Blood trickled from the sodden scarf and ran onto his leg and the horse’s flank. For a moment, he thought he might pass out, but his focus came back. Slowly and carefully he reached with his wounded hand and gripped the hilt. Fresh blood ran from the stumps of fingers as he applied pressure and, once more, he almost fainted. Sighing, he sheathed the sword, shook the excess damp out of the scarf, and reapplied it to his hand.

Looking up, the copse was now only a few hundred yards away. Holding up his maimed hand, he gave the signal and the auxiliary cavalry separated, riding out from both sides of the column to surround the wood. At his second bellowed command, the regulars reined in. For the next few minutes they could be seen all around the area, tying their steeds to the branches of lone trees or bushes. Once they were assembled again, he gave the third order and the dismounted regulars moved in, splitting off in much the same way in order to surround the wood a few yards forward of the cavalry. Ingenuus waited patiently for them to deploy into position. Once they were ready, two concentric circles surrounding a knot of Germans of unknown size, the prefect put his hands to his mouth and called out.

“This is prefect Aulus Ingenuus of the Eighth Legion. If any of you can understand me, I am offering you the chance to surrender. If you surrender peacefully, your warriors will be taken as slaves, but your women, children and old folk will be allowed to return across the Rhine. If you defy us, we will move in to take prisoners by force. If you understand, answer me now.”

The prefect sat tensely waiting. He’d much rather they came out freely and he could let the women and children go. If the army had to move in, there would be a lot of unnecessary deaths. He listened intently, the whispering leaves in the trees masking any conversation that went on within.

Suddenly, he was sure he heard a voice begin to call out in Latin before being silenced quickly. Why did he always get to make decisions in an instant, when others got so much time to plan?

“Damn the consequences. Any German warrior to be killed on sight. Women and children are not to be harmed, but sent back to the cavalry as prisoners. Advance!”

The regulars moved into the trees in perfect order, as the auxiliaries behind them closed slightly to prevent escapees. Ingenuus sat for long moments, still tense, waiting for sounds of battle. After almost two minutes, a shriek echoed through the woods. It had begun.

For several sickening minutes there were loud cries, shrieks and clashes of metal from deep in the thicket. Ingenuus shook his head sadly, for clearly not all the cries were male voices. The prefect found that he was actually holding his breath when the first of his men appeared at the edge of the trees.

A few more men followed, and then a small group of a dozen came crashing through the undergrowth. Behind them others brought out the Germans taken alive, mostly women, but a few men, even ones of a fighting age. They would fetch a reasonable sum in the markets of Rome and would boost the already sizeable booty Caesar had squeezed out of the Tribes through defeat or protection. The individual soldiers of the legion would have made their own small profits from the battlefield before they received any gratuity from the commander. In all, a lot of people would be wealthy this winter, and the troops wintering in forts would have plenty of cash for women and wine.

All this flashed through Ingenuus’ mind for only moments. He was too busy staring at the dozen or so soldiers that had come out together. They had separated once they were in the safety of open grass and the presence of the Auxilia. Between them, sheltered and harboured among allies, stood a man in a military tunic and boots. Fashionable Roman hair style now ravaged and wild, boots worn, tunic dirty and torn, he still looked every inch the Roman Patrician.

As the men moved out of the way and the prefect got a better view of the prisoner, he realised that the man’s hands were shackled behind him. Dangling down by the side, Ingenuus could make out a triple-thickness chain, the three strands wound around one another. They hadn’t meant him to escape. Ingenuus drew himself up and saluted, his bloody bandaged hand dripping onto the horse and the turf.

“Aulus Ingenuus, prefect of the Eighth.”

The Roman officer nodded, unable to raise his hand.

“Gaius Valerius Procillus, officer of Caesar’s staff. Forgive me for not returning the gesture. No…” he interrupted as Ingenuus lowered his arm, “you’d be better keeping that up. You’ll lose a lot of blood with it down.”

Ingenuus grinned.

“Procillus. Amazing, sir. How long have you been held by them? Must be weeks now. And you’re still alive and relatively well.”

The ragged officer smiled wearily.

“Relatively, yes. Borderline starvation I think, but I’m lucky. They won’t do anything without the say so of their Gods and the old crones checked the auspices three times but still said no. Good job, really. They were going to burn me to death. I think they were trying to take me back across the Rhine to bargain with later.”

Ingenuus nodded.

“Seems likely. I take it that was your voice that I heard silenced in the woods then, sir?”

“That’d be me, yes. I need to get back to camp. Can you give me a horse?”

Ingenuus grinned.

“I’ll do better than that. Caesar’s only ten minutes away, so I’ll take you to him. Then we’ll get someone to crack those chains for you and I’ll escort you back to camp personally. I need to have a medicus look at my hand, anyway.”

Several miles away, Varus kicked his horse to a greater turn of speed. Around him his own unit and one of the auxiliary alae raced for the river. They could see the small group of refugees ahead of them at the river’s edge, pushing off in three small boats. Other, more desperate Germans were leaping into the strong, dangerous currents of the wide, powerful Rhine and trying to swim across. A few were making it; most were not. He could still hear the clash of weapon on weapon and the cries of the wounded and dying not far behind.