“And I am his sword. When I look calmly at what he has done, it staggers me, Cabera. Are they fools in Rome not to see his ambition? Julius told me of the bargain he made with them, and I still can’t believe it.
Does Pompey think he had the best of it, I wonder? The man may have the city, but he sits like a tenant waiting for the owner to come home. The people know it. You saw the crowds that came out to the Campus to see us off. Pompey must be a fool if he thinks Julius will be satisfied with anything less than a crown.”
He broke off then, looking around automatically to see if anyone was within hearing. The two men leaned against the fortification that had taken months to build. Twenty miles of wall and earth and never less than the height of three tall men. It towered over the river Rhone and dominated its course around the northern border of the Roman province. It was as solid a barrier as the Alps to the east.
Enough stone and iron had been gathered on the wall to sink any army that tried to cross the river. The legions were confident as they maintained their watch, though not a man there believed Julius would be satisfied with a defense, not with the document he had brought.
Julius had shown it to the praetor of the tiny Roman province that crouched at the foot of the Alps, and the man had paled as he read, touching a reverent finger to the seal of the Senate. He had never seen such a vaguely worded command and could only bow his head as he considered the implications. Pompey and Crassus had not quibbled over the details; indeed, Brutus knew Julius had dictated the letter to Adàn and then sent it to them for their seals and the Senate vote. It was brief and complete in the powers it gave Julius in Gaul, and every legionary with him knew it.
Cabera rubbed the loose muscles on the side of his face and Brutus looked at him in sympathy. After healing Domitius, the old man had suffered a weakness that left his face slack on one side and half his body almost useless. He would never draw a bow again, and on the march across the Alps he had been carried in a litter by the men of the Tenth. He had never complained. Brutus thought that only the old man’s intense curiosity kept him alive. He simply would not die while there were things to see, and Gaul was as wild and strange to him as to any of the others.
“Are you in pain?” Brutus asked.
Cabera shrugged as best as he was able and dropped his hand from his face. One eyelid drooped as he returned the look, and occasionally he would dab at the left corner of his mouth to clean it of spittle before it could fall. The gesture had become a part of his life.
“I am never better, beloved general of Rome, whom I knew as a snot-faced little boy. Never better, though I would like to see the view from the top and may need someone to carry me up. My weakness is upon me and the climb calls for a pair of strong legs.”
Brutus stood. “I was going to go myself, now that the Helvetii are gathering on the far bank. When they hear Julius will not let them through our little province, there may be an interesting scene. Up, old man.
Gods, you are no weight at all.”
Cabera suffered himself to be lifted onto Brutus’s back, the general’s powerful arms holding his legs tight while he kept his own grip with his right arm. The other dangled uselessly.
“It is the quality of the burden you must consider, Brutus, not the weight,” he said, and though the words were blurred by his illness, Brutus understood and smiled.
Julius stood at the top of the rampart, looking across the fast-running water of the Rhone, churned white in places by the force of the spring flood. On the other side of the wide river, the horizon was filled with people: men, women, and children. Some sat and dangled their feet in the water as if they were contemplating nothing more serious than an idle afternoon. The children and the elderly were dressed in simple clothes, belted or drawn with cord. Amongst them, he saw hair of yellow and red as well as the more common brown. They drove oxen and asses along with them, carrying the vast amount of food and supplies needed to keep an army of that size on the march. Julius understood their difficulties, considering the problems he had found in feeding the legions under his own command. With so many hungry mouths, it simply was not possible to stay in one place for long, and every living thing would be stripped out of the lands they passed through, depleting the stocks for generations. The Helvetii left poverty in their wake.
Their soldiers stood out, wearing some sort of dark leather armor. They moved amongst the crowd, calling to those who stepped too close to the river. Julius watched as one drew a blade and used the flat to clear a space for the boat they were bringing through. It was a chaotic scene and Julius could hear the notes of a tune carry over the cool air, the musician hidden from view in the mass.
The Helvetii lowered the boat with a rhythmic chanting and held it steady in the shallows while a team of rowers took their places. Even with three men to a side, Julius saw they would have to work hard against a current that threatened to sweep them downriver. The idea of an invasion to follow it was ludicrous, and there was no tension amongst the Romans who watched them.
Even a rough estimate by centuries was impossible. Julius had been told the Helvetii had burnt their land behind them to come south, and he didn’t doubt it. Unless they could be stopped, their path lay right through the narrow Roman province at the base of the Alps.
“I have never seen such a migration,” Julius said, almost to himself.
The Roman officer at his side glanced at him as he spoke. He had welcomed the legions Julius brought with him, especially the veterans of the Tenth. Some of those in the trading outpost had resented the shift in authority that Caesar had brought, but for others it was like a sudden immersion in the energy of their old city. When they talked amongst themselves, it was with restrained glee and a new confidence in their dealings. No more would they have to suffer the scorn of Gaulish merchants and know they were tolerated but never accepted. With only one legion, the outpost was barely acknowledged by Rome, and without the trade in wine, the province might have been abandoned completely. Those who still dreamed of promotion and a career welcomed Caesar with open arms, and none more so than their commander, Mark Antony.
When Julius had presented him with the orders from the Senate, the general could not help the slow grin that spread across his face.
“At last we will see action, then,” he had said to Julius. “I have written so many letters and I was beginning to lose hope.”
Julius had been prepared for dismay, even the threat of disobedience. He had come into the Roman town with a face like thunder to impose his will, but at this response, the tension had vanished and he had laughed aloud at Mark Antony’s honest pleasure. They weighed each other up and both men found something to like. Julius had listened in fascination to the general’s summary of the region and the uneasy truce with local tribes. Mark Antony held nothing back of the problems they faced, but he spoke with a deep insight and Julius had included him immediately in his councils.
If the others resented the sudden rise of the new man, it did not show. Mark Antony had been in the province for four years and painted a detailed picture of the web of alliances and feuds that were the mire of trade and the bane of efficient administration.
“It is not so much a migration as a march of conquest, sir,” Mark Antony said. “Any smaller tribe will lose its women, its grain, everything.” He was in awe of the man Rome had sent, but he had been told to speak freely and he enjoyed the new status it had given him, especially amongst his own men.