Colleen McCullough - 5. Caesar

I write in Greek because they have Latin. Urgent. Under attack from Nervii for thirty days. Water sour, latrines infested. Men sick. Holding out, don't know how. Can't much longer. Nervii have Roman gear, shooting fireballs. Food up in smoke. Get help to us or we're dead men. Quintus Tullius Cicero Legatus.

The Nervian serf belonging to Vertico was a perfect warrior type; had his station in life been higher, he would have been a warrior. But serfs were a superior kind of slave, could be put to torture, and would never be allowed to fight for the tribe. Their lot was to farm; they were lowly enough to use a plough. Yet the man stood calmly and looked unafraid. Yes, thought Quintus Cicero, he would have made a good warrior. More fool the Nervii for not allowing their lowly to fight, but lucky for me and the Ninth. He'll pass muster. "All right," he said, "we've got a chance to get this to Caesar, but how does Caesar get his message to us? I have to be able to tell the men that help is coming or they might go under from sheer despair. It will take Caesar time to find enough legions, but I must be able to say that help is coming." Vertico smiled. "Getting a message in isn't as difficult as getting one out. When my serf returns, I'll tell him to attach one yellow feather to the spear bearing Caesar's answer." "It'll stick out like dog's balls!" cried Pullo, aghast. "So I would hope. However, I don't think anyone will be looking too closely at spears flying into the camp. Don't worry, I'll tell him not to attach the yellow feather until just before he throws," said Vertico, grinning.

Caesar got the spear two days after the Nervian serf passed through the Nervian lines. Because the forest to the south of Quintus Cicero's camp was too dense for a man on an urgent mission to negotiate, the serf had no choice but to travel on the road to Samarobriva. It was so heavily guarded that it was inevitable he would be stopped sooner or later, though he did well, evaded the first three watches. The fourth watch detained him. He was stripped, his orifices probed, his hair, his clothes. But the webbing on the spear was perfect; the message lay beneath it undetected. The serf had lacerated his forehead with a piece of rough bark until it looked like the result of a blow; he swayed, mumbled, rolled his eyes, endured the search ungraciously and tried to kiss the leader of the watch. Deeming him hopelessly concussed, the leader let him go south, laughing. It was early evening when he arrived, utterly exhausted; Samarobriva was immediately plunged into a disciplined frenzy of activity. One messenger went at a gallop to Marcus Crassus, twenty-five miles away; he was ordered to bring the Eighth on the double to garrison Samarobriva in the General's absence. A second messenger galloped for Portus Itius and Gaius Fabius, who was ordered to take the Seventh and march for the lands of the Atrebates; Caesar would meet him on the Scaldis River. A third messenger galloped for the camp of Labienus on the Mosa to apprise him of developments, but Caesar didn't order his second-in-command to join the rescue mission. He left that decision to Labienus, who he privately thought might be in like case to Quintus Cicero. At dawn the whole of Samarobriva could see Marcus Crassus's column in the distance. Caesar left with the Tenth at once. Two legions, each a little under full strength; that was all the General could bring to the relief of Quintus Cicero. Nine thousand precious men, veterans. There could be no more of these stupid mistakes. How many Nervii? Fifty thousand had stayed to die on the field several years before, but it was a very populous tribe. Yes, there could be as many as fifty thousand more around the beleaguered camp of the Ninth. Good legion. Oh, not dead! Fabius made good time to the Scaldis; he met up with Caesar as if they were engaged in a complicated drill maneuver upon the Campus Martius. Neither man had needed to wait an hour for the other. Seventy more miles to go. But how many Nervii? Nine thousand men, no matter how veteran, wouldn't stand a chance in the open. Caesar had sent the Nervian serf on ahead in a gig as far as he dared, since he couldn't ride, under instructions to send the spear back into Quintus Cicero's camp with a yellow feather tied to it. But he was a serf, not a warrior. He did his best, hoping to get the spear over the breastworks into the Roman camp. Instead it buried itself in the junction between the breastworks and the log wall, and there undetected it remained for two days. Quintus Cicero got it scant hours before a column of smoke above the trees told him that Caesar had arrived; he was on the point of despair because no one had seen a spear with a yellow feather on it, though every pair of eyes had searched until they watered, fancied yellow in everything.

Coming. Only nine thousand men. Can't just rush in. Need to scout and find a piece of ground where nine thousand can beat many thousands. Bound to be an Aquae Sextiae here somewhere. How many of them are there? Get a message to me with details. Your Greek is good, surprisingly idiomatic. Gaius Julius Caesar Imperator.

The sight of that yellow feather sent the exhausted Ninth into paroxysms of cheers, and Quintus Cicero into a fit of weeping. Wiping his indescribably dirty face with an equally dirty hand, he sat down, aching back and crippled leg forgotten, and wrote to Caesar while Vertico got another spear and serf ready.

Estimate sixty thousand. Whole tribe here, serious muster. Not all Nervii. Notice lots of Menapii and Condrusi, hence the numbers. We will last. Find your Aquae Sextiae. Gauls getting a bit careless, got us burning alive in the wicker cages already. Notice more drinking, less enthusiasm. Your Greek isn't bad either. Quintus Tullius Cicero Legatus Superstes.

Caesar got the letter at midnight; the Nervii had massed to attack him, but darkness intervened, and that was one night the messenger detection squad forgot to operate. The Tenth and the Seventh were spoiling for a fight, but Caesar wouldn't oblige them until he found a field and built a camp similar to the one at which Gaius Marius and his thirty-seven thousand men had beaten a hundred and eighty thousand Teutones over fifty years before. It took him two more days to find his Aquae Sextiae, but when he did, the Tenth and the Seventh trounced the Nervii and accorded them no mercy. Quintus Cicero had been right: the length of the siege and its fruitless outcome had eroded both morale and temper. The Nervii were drinking heavily but not eating much, though their two allies, having come later to the war, fared better at Caesar's Aquae Sextiae. The camp of the Ninth was a shambles. Most of its housing had crumbled to ashes; mules and oxen wandered hungrily and added their bellows to the cacophony of cheers which greeted Caesar and his two legions when they marched inside. Not one man in ten was without a wound of some kind, and all of them were sick. The Tenth and Seventh set to with a will, undammed the stream and sent good clean water through, cheerfully demolished the log wall to build fires and heat water for baths, took the Ninth's filthy clothing and washed it, stalled the animals in some measure of comfort, and scoured the countryside for food. The baggage train came up with enough to keep men and animals content, and Caesar paraded the Ninth before the Tenth and the Seventh. He had no decorations with him, but awarded them anyway; Pullo and Vorenus, already possessed of silver torcs and phalerae, got gold torcs and phalerae. "If I could, Quintus Cicero, I'd give you the Grass Crown for saving your legion," said Caesar. Quintus Cicero nodded, beaming. "You can't, Caesar, I know that. Rules are rules. The Ninth saved themselves; I just helped a bit around the edges. Oh, but aren't they wonderful boys?" "The very best."

The next day the three legions pulled out, the Tenth and the Ninth headed for the comfort and safety of Samarobriva, the Seventh for Portus Itius. Even had Caesar wanted to, it wasn't possible to keep the camp among the Nervii going. The land was eaten out where it wasn't trampled to mud, and most of the Nervii lay dead. "I'll sort out the Nervii in the spring, Vertico," said Caesar to his partisan. "A pan-Gallic conference. You won't lose by helping me and mine, so much I promise. Take everything here and what we have left; it'll tide you over." So Vertico and his people returned to their village, Vertico to resume the life of a Nervian thane, and the serf to go back to his plough. For it was not in the nature of those people to elevate a man above the station he was born to, even as thanks for great services; custom and tradition were too strong. Nor did the serf expect to be rewarded. He did the winter things he was supposed to, obeyed Vertico exactly as before, sat by the fire at night with his wife and children, and said nothing. Whatever he felt and thought he kept to himself.