Ranging up the steep slopes around were the units of extraordinarii horsemen, scouting the forward line. Mounted on sturdy breeds and advancing in crisscrossing patterns, they covered three or four times the distance the column marched. It was a standard tactic, Julius knew, though anyone who dared to attack a column of their strength would have to be suicidal.
At the head was the vanguard legion, chosen by lot each day. With Primigenia understrength, they could not take part in the changeovers and were permanently stationed ten miles back, lost to view in the center of the column. Julius wondered how Brutus and Renius were finding the march. Cabera was older than some of the veterans who had fought Mithridates with him. Back in Rome, Julius had thought it would be important to be close to Crassus, but he missed his friends. No matter how he strained his eyes, he couldn't pick out the Primigenia eagle standard from the smudge of banners behind. He watched the legion cavalry ranging up and down the column like the soldier ants he'd seen in Africa, always looking outward for an attack, which they would bear while the fighting lines formed.
Julius marched with the vanguard, within shouting distance of Crassus and Pompey, who rode at walking pace with the men they led. With more than four thousand men ahead of them when the night halt sounded, the generals had arranged it so that the main camp was laid out and the tents erected as they reached it. They were able to begin their discussions and meal while the rest dug the huge earthworks around them, creating a perimeter capable of stopping almost anything.
The three camps were marked out with flags in exactly the same way each evening. By the time the sun finally set behind the mountains, the six legions were enclosed in huge squares complete with main roads: towns sprung from nothing in the wilderness. Julius had been astonished at the organization the older soldiers took for granted. Each night, he hammered in the iron tent pegs with the others at the place marked for them. Then he joined the units digging the trench and staking the top of the earthworks that formed the outer wall of the safe ground, unbroken except for four gates complete with guards and watchwords. Though his tutors had taught him a great deal about the legion routines and tactics, the reality was fascinating to Julius, and from the first, he saw that part of their strength came from mistakes learned in the past. If Mithridates had established a border like the one the legions put down, he knew he could still be in Greece, looking for a way in.
The path for the stones of the Via Flaminia had been cut through a narrow gorge between slopes of loose scree. Though the light was already fading, Julius guessed Crassus would keep the soldiers marching until the van reached clear ground wide enough for the first camp. One of the legions would have to move back onto the plains below for safety, which would leave the pass free except for the guards and extraordinarii who stayed on mounted patrol through darkness. No matter what happened, the legions could not be surprised by any enemy, a precaution they had learned more than a hundred years before, fighting Hannibal on the plains. Julius remembered Marius's admiration for the old enemy. Yet even he had fallen in the end to Rome.
Though the land may once have been savage, now the wide capstones of the Via Flaminia cut through the mountains, with guard posts every twenty miles along its length. Villages had often sprung up around these as people gathered under the Roman shadow. Many found employment in maintaining the road and sometimes Julius saw small groups of laborers, on the grass verge, pleased to be idle for once.
At other times, Julius passed merchants forced off the road, who regarded the soldiers with a combination of anger and awe. They could not move toward Rome while the legions marched, and those that carried spoiling goods watched with dark expressions as they calculated the loss to come. The legionaries ignored them. They had built the trade arteries with their hands and backs and had first call on their use.
Julius wished Tubruk were with him. In his time, he had traveled the same route through the mountains and right across the vast plains in the north where Crassus hoped to engage the slave army. The estate manager would not have wanted another campaign, even if Julius could have spared him from the task of keeping Cornelia safe.
His mouth tightened unconsciously as he thought of the parting. It had been bitter, and though he'd hated having to leave with the anger still fresh between them, he could not delay joining Primigenia in the midst of the great host on the Campus Martius, standing ready to march north.
The memories of the last time he had left the city were still raw in him. Rome had burned on the horizon behind him as Sulla's men hunted down the remnants of Primigenia. Julius grimaced as he marched. The legion lived, while Sulla's poisoned flesh was reduced to ash.
The trial had gone some way to restoring Marius's name in the city, but while Sulla's friends still lived and played their spiteful games in the Senate, Julius knew he could not build the sort of Rome that Marius had wanted. Cato was safe enough while his main opponents were in the field, but when they returned, Julius would join forces with Pompey to break him. The general understood the need as few others could. For a moment, Julius considered the fate of Cato's son. It would be too easy to put him in the first rank of every charge until he was killed, but that was a cowardly sort of victory over Cato. He vowed if Germinius died, it would be as any other soldier, at the whim of fate. Pompey's daughter had been found with Sulla's name on a clay token in her limp hand, but Julius would not stoop to killing innocents, though he hoped Cato would be terrified for his son. Let him lose sleep while they fought for Rome.
Long, bitter months of campaign had to come first. Julius knew he'd be lucky to see the city walls again in less than a year, and much longer if the slaves were as well led as the reports claimed. He could be patient. Only an army could take his estate, and Cornelia's father, Cinna, had remained behind to block Cato in the Senate. They had formed a very private alliance and Julius knew that with the strength of Pompey and the wealth of Crassus, there was little they couldn't achieve.
The cornicens blew the halt sign as Julius marched through the pass into fading sunlight. He could see the Via Flaminia stretching down into a deep valley before working up the heights of a distant black peak that was said to be the last climb before Ariminum. He wished Brutus could be with him to see it, or Cabera, who traveled with the auxiliaries even farther down the column. His tribune rank had allowed him to take station close to the front, but the march in battle order was not a place for friends to idle away the time.
With the sun setting, the first watch took positions, leaving their shields with their units from long tradition. Order was imposed on the broken landscape. Ten thousand soldiers ate quickly and bedded down in the miniature town they had made. Through the night, they were woken in turns to stand their watches, the returning sentries taking the still-warm pallets with relief after the mountain cold.
Julius stood his watch in darkness, looking over the wall of earthworks at the harsh land beyond. He accepted a wooden square from the hands of a centurion and memorized the watchword cut into it. Then he was left alone in the dark, with the camp silent at his back. With a wry smile, he understood why the guards were denied shields: it was too easy to rest your arms on the top rim, then your head on your arms, and doze. He stayed alert and wondered how long it had been since a sentry had been found asleep. The punishment was being beaten to death by your own tentmates, which tended to keep even the weariest soldier from closing his eyes.