Julius chuckled at the memory.

“I was pleased to see you on the plain. I can’t tell you,” Brutus said.

Julius looked sharply at him, sensing the question. A smile played about his lips as he called for the scout to be summoned, and Brutus raised his eyebrows when he saw the miserable Roman with his hands tied as tightly as the prisoners. The young man had been forced to march with the legions, an optio’s staff thudding into his back every time he slowed. Julius was pleased he had survived, and with the glow of victory on him, he decided against having the man whipped as he almost certainly deserved.

“Untie him,” Julius said to the scout’s optio, who did so with a swift jerk of a knife. The scout looked as if he was close to tears as he struggled to stand to attention before his general and the winner of the sword tournament in Rome.

“This young gentleman brought me a report that the enemy had taken the hill I ordered you to climb. In the darkness, he mistook two good Roman legions for a mass of tribesmen.”

Brutus broke into a guffaw of delighted amusement. “You didn’t fall back? Julius, that is…” He broke off to laugh and Julius turned a mock severe expression on the desolate young scout.

“Have you any idea how difficult it is to build a reputation as a tactical genius if I am seen retreating from my own men?” he asked.

“I am sorry, sir. I thought I heard Gaulish voices,” the scout stammered. He was flushed with confusion.

“Yes, that would have been my lot,” Brutus said cheerfully. “That is why you carry a password, son.

You should have called before haring home.”

The young scout began to smile in response and Brutus’s expression changed instantly.

“Of course, if you’d delayed the attack much longer, I would be taking a skinning knife to you.”

The sickly grin died on the scout’s face.

“Three months’ pay docked and you scout on foot until your optio is certain you can be trusted with a horse,” Julius added.

The young man breathed out in relief, not daring to look at Brutus as he saluted and left. Julius turned to Brutus and they shared a smile.

“It was a good plan,” Brutus said.

Julius nodded, calling for a horse. As he mounted, he looked over the battlefield, seeing the beginnings of order return as Roman wounds were stitched and splinted and bodies readied for funeral pyres. He would have the worst of the wounded taken back to the Roman province for treatment. The armor of those who had died would be sold off for replacements. The gaps left by dead officers would be filled by promotions from the ranks, signed by his hand. The world was turning the right way up and the heat of the day was beginning to fade.

CHAPTER 24

Julius sat on a folding stool in the great tent of the Helvetii king and drank from a golden cup. The mood was light amongst the men he had summoned. The Ariminum generals in particular had been drinking heavily from the king’s private stores, and Julius had not stopped them. They had earned the right to rest, though the work ahead was still daunting. Julius had not appreciated at first how large a task it would be simply to catalogue the baggage, and the night was loud with the sound of soldiers counting and piling the Helvetii possessions. He had sent Publius Crassus with four cohorts to begin retrieving spears and weapons from the battlefield. It was not a glorious task, but the son of the former consul had gathered his men quickly and without fuss, showing something of his father’s ability for organization.

By the time the sun was edging toward the far west, the spear shafts of the Tenth and Third had been returned to them. Many of the heavy iron heads were twisted into uselessness, but Crassus had filled Helvetii carts with them, ready to be repaired or melted down by the legion smiths. By a twist of fate, one of the cohorts had been commanded by Germinius Cato, promoted after Spain. Julius wondered if the two men ever considered the enmity of their fathers behind their polite salutes.

“Enough grain and dried meat to feed us for months, if it doesn’t spoil,” Domitius said with satisfaction.

“The weapons alone are worth a small fortune, Julius. Some of the swords are good iron, and even the bronze ones have hilts worth keeping.”

“Any coin?” Julius asked, eyeing the cup in his hand.

Renius opened a sack at his feet and brought out a few rough-looking disks.

“What passes for it here,” he said. “A silver and copper mix. Hardly worth anything, though there are chests of them.” Julius took one and held it up to the lamp. The circle of tarnished metal had a piece cut out of it, reaching right to the middle.

“A strange thing. Looks like a bird on the face, though with that slice out of it, I can’t be sure.”

The night breeze came into the tent with Brutus and Mark Antony.

“Are you calling the council, Julius?” Brutus asked. Julius nodded and Brutus put his head back out of the flap, shouting for Ciro and Octavian to join them.

“Are the prisoners secure?” Renius asked Brutus.

Mark Antony answered. “The men are tied, but we don’t have nearly enough soldiers to stop the rest of them from leaving in the night if they want to.” He noticed the sack of coins and picked one up.

“Hand stamped?” Julius asked as he saw his interest.

Mark Antony nodded. “This one is, though the larger towns can produce coins as good as anything you’ll see in Rome. Their metalwork is often very beautiful.” He dropped the coin back into Renius’s outstretched palm. “Not these, though. Quite inferior.”

Julius indicated stools for the two men and they accepted the dark wine in the cups from the king’s private hoard.

Mark Antony tilted his up and gasped with satisfaction. “The wine, however, is not inferior at all. Have you thought what you will do with the rest of the Helvetii? I have a couple of suggestions, if you will allow me.”

Renius cleared his throat. “Like it or not, we’re responsible for them now. The Aedui will kill them all if they go south without their warriors.”

“That is the problem,” Julius said, rubbing tiredness from his eyes. “Or rather this is.” He hefted a heavy roll of skin parchment and showed them the leading edge, marked with tiny characters.

“Adàn says it is a list of their people. It took him hours just to get an estimate.”

“How many?” Mark Antony asked. They all looked to Julius, waiting.

“Ninety thousand men of fighting age, three times that amount in women, children, and the elderly.”

The numbers awed them all. Octavian spoke first, his eyes wide.

“And how many men did we capture?”

“Perhaps twenty thousand,” Julius replied. He kept his face still as the rest of them broke into amazed laughter, clapping each other on the back.

Octavian whistled. “Seventy thousand dead. We killed a city.”

His words sobered the others as they thought of the mounds of dead on the plain and on the hill.

“And our own dead?” Renius asked.

Julius recited the figures without a pause. “Eight hundred legionaries with twenty-four officers amongst them. Perhaps the same again in wounded. Many of those will fight again once we’ve stitched them.”

Renius shook his head in amazement. “It is a good price.”

“May it always be so,” Julius said, raising the king’s cup. The others drank with him.

“But we still have a quarter of a million people on our hands,” Mark Antony pointed out. “And we are exposed on this plain, with the Aedui coming up fast to share in the plunder. Do not doubt it, gentlemen.

By noon tomorrow, there will be another army claiming a part of the riches of the Helvetii.”

“Ours, by right, such as they are,” Renius replied. “I haven’t seen much in the way of actual riches apart from these cups.”