The Druid King (16 page)

Caesar needed only a quick look at the young man’s face to know that he was about to snare him.

“A man may be judged by the quality of his enemies, Vercingetorix; therefore, it is right to honor enemies of quality in their passing,” he said. “For, by so doing, you honor yourself.”

Caesar realized that this piece of sophistry might be a bit too Greek for him. Something simpler and closer to home was required.

“Your father never knew me,” he said, “and so he and I never conversed together as we do now. If we had, perhaps things might have gone better for him; perhaps I could have shown him that we shared the same goal. He sought to unite the tribes of Gaul under himself to drive me out. I will unite the tribes of Gaul under the Republic of Rome.”

Vercingetorix turned to glance back at the cohorts of infantry, now slowly bridging the gap they had opened and coming up behind them.

“Conquer us with your legions, you mean,” he said.

“Perhaps, my young friend, but not necessarily in the manner that you mean . . .”

Caesar halted his horse and reared it up on its hind legs while bringing it around to face the oncoming Roman foot soldiers in one continuous motion, a fine piece of horsemanship that Vercingetorix sought to emulate but accomplished with a good deal less grace.

“Look at them, Vercingetorix!” he said. “Be honest with yourself—a fearsome enemy to confront, are they not?”

Vercingetorix certainly had to admit that they were.

Shields strapped to their backs, helmets and short swords across their armored chests, the Roman infantry marched a dozen abreast and scores of ranks deep. Each helmet, each breastplate, each shield and sword were identical, as if forged by the same smith at the same moment. The effect was to make each legionnaire appear identical to every other. There was something not quite natural about it. Facing such an army in battle would be like facing an army of huge metal-clad ants.

Caesar wheeled his horse around again and proceeded up the road very slowly, and Vercingetorix followed suit.

“Now imagine the legions of Rome as your allies,” said Caesar. “As your shield. Imagine yourself not confronting them but riding before them into battle at the side of their commander, as you are doing now.”

Vercingetorix heard the clattering thunder of thousands of marching feet slapping the stone roadway behind him in a regular pounding rhythm. As they drew closer, he breathed the dust they kicked up and smelled sweat on leather. This was but the smallest fragment of the vast forces that Caesar commanded, and yet their passage seemed to shake the world.

“Rather than conquer Gaul by grinding its warriors into the dust with my legions,” said Caesar, “I will use them to conquer the hearts of the Gauls.”

“You are a sorcerer as well as a general and a sometime priest?” Vercingetorix said dryly.

“And a lawyer too!” said Caesar. He laughed. “Not to mention a writer of no little skill, if I do say so myself. But none of these arts are required to win the noble warriors of Gaul to the venture I am proposing, only the politician’s craft. For I know that the surest way to convert enemies to allies is to make your best interest their own.”

Vercingetorix had never met a man who spoke like Caesar, who in one moment made him feel a barbarian and in the next clarified his understanding in a way that raised him up above himself. He sensed that this man was an accomplished liar, and yet also capable of using the most profound truths to his own ends too.

And he also sensed that the might of Rome was rooted in more than its legions, that Caesar wielded another, greater power, whose true nature presently eluded his understanding.

“And what is this venture of yours that will accomplish the seemingly impossible?” he asked.

And now I have you, Caesar thought. “I will lead an invasion of Britain, my young friend,” he said, “a land rich beyond dreams of avarice, yet defended only by primitive barbarians. My invincible infantry and the best cavalry in the world—that of all the tribes of Gaul—fighting side by side to earn fame, glory, and riches. And the Gauls will have half of everything our joint forces seize!”

“You would have us join you in pillaging Britain as you pillage Gaul?”

“Such an ugly word!” said Caesar. “Nor is it just. Think of it, rather, as an orderly system of tribute. The Britons pay a certain amount to Gaul, Gaul pays a certain amount to Rome, in return for which our legions keep the peace, do the collecting, build the roads that make commerce possible, introduce the benefits of our medicine, our arts, our schools. And so is civilization spread, and so does Rome help its friends to help themselves.”

Caesar was pleased to note that Vercingetorix, though clearly intrigued, moderated his enthusiasm with a suspicious stare, for were he a big enough fool to swallow it all whole, his usefulness would surely be limited.

“But at a price, Caesar?” Vercingetorix said. “The Gauls will no doubt be expected to bear the cost of the forces we are invited to raise to support your legions?”

Caesar laughed. “Spoken like a Roman!” he said. “Rome may be many things, but a dispenser of alms isn’t one of them!”

He then summoned up a great sigh. “What a pity!” he moaned.

“Pity . . . ?”

“I like you,Vercingetorix, son of Keltill, I sense you would be worthy of being the son that, alas, I do not have. It vexes me that you cannot take part in our grand and glorious adventure.”

“And why not?” demanded Vercingetorix.

“In a word, Gobanit,” said Caesar.

“Gobanit?” said Vercingetorix.

“The vergobrets of all the major tribes of Gaul, and most of the minor ones, have eagerly agreed to join us. All save the slothful and cowardly Gobanit, who would deny the warriors of the Arverni their fair share of the riches and glory.”

“I have no love for Gobanit!” snapped Vercingetorix. “He will not tell
me
what I may do or not!”

“Indeed?” said Caesar in the manner of a purring cat, feigning a surprise so obviously false that his equally feline grin acknowledged that he knew that Vercingetorix knew it. “My sentiments exactly.”

The chill that pierced Vercingetorix’s heart at these last words was like a knife of ice, for, though he remembered not where or when, he knew that his father had spoken them. Could it be possible that in this moment the spirit of Keltill was using the mouth of Caesar to speak to him?

“Gobanit lit the fire that burned my father,” said Vercingetorix, sensing that he was telling Caesar something he already knew.

“So I have heard,” said Caesar. “And so you ride to Gergovia to avenge your father’s foul murder and regain your birthright. As a loyal son must do. But how?”

Vercingetorix touched the hilt of his sword.

“You intend to ride into Gergovia alone and through the city and plunge your sword through the fat and into the black and cowardly heart of the vergobret of the Arverni?”

Vercingetorix nodded.

“Will you now?” said Caesar.

“It is my destiny, and I have seen it in the Land of Legend,” said Vercingetorix. “I cannot—”

Vercingetorix stayed himself, for he had been about to say,
I cannot
be slain on the soil of Gaul.
And this was surely more than Caesar should know. “I will stop the thought that slows the mind,” he said instead.

“And
you
called
me
a sorcerer?” said Caesar.

They were now approaching a crossroads where the dusty and winding earthen Gallic road to Gergovia intersected the arrow-straight Roman road of stone.

“Our paths diverge now,” said Caesar. “But I think not for long. I sense in you a man of destiny.”

“Like yourself, Caesar?”

Caesar laughed. “Indeed,” he said. “And so, as one man of destiny to another, as one sorcerer to another, allow me to arm you with a bit of
my
magic.”

And his mien became earnest. He reared his horse, whirling it around, once, twice, thrice, with his right hand upraised.

Behind them, for as far down the road as the eye could see and perhaps more, the ranks of Roman legionnaires ceased their thunderous marching, one rank after another like a wave magically moving backward out to sea, and, in their thousands, were in a few moments standing still and silent, flesh-and-metal trees in a human forest.

Then Caesar took off his bright crimson cloak and draped it around Vercingetorix’s shoulders.

“Wear my crimson cape as you ride my horse into Gergovia,” he said, “for no other Roman in all my legions may wear one of this hue, and so all will know that the young man in Arverne orange riding the white horse of a Roman general is cloaked in the mantle of Gaius Julius Caesar. They must either believe that you have taken them from me, or that you stand very high in my favor indeed.”

Caesar laughed, but his eyes were as hard and cold as polished metal. “No one is likely to move against you without knowing
which.
That should be enough to . . . raise the thoughts that slow the mind, and perhaps open the way for you to work your own sorcery, my young friend.”

He clasped forearms with Vercingetorix in the Roman manner.

“If you succeed, you may return the cloak to me when you arrive at the head of an army of Arverne warriors,” he said. “If not, you can give it back to me in your Land of Legend when we are both dead. For, one way or the other, I am sure we will both get there.”

“As am I,” Vercingetorix told him. “But who is to say what part each of us will play in the other’s legend?”

And he reared his horse and rode away alone toward Gergovia.

Caesar sat there on his horse, watching the boy he had cloaked in his own colors disappear up the primitive Gallic road, and wondering exactly what he had just done, wondering who was using whom for what purpose.

Wondering whether King Philip of Macedon might have had a moment like this regarding the boy Alexander riding off into his own destiny. There was something in this youth’s eyes, in his illogical certainty in himself and his destiny, that Philip must have seen in the son who would so surpass him.

And, ludicrous as it seemed, Caesar felt a pang of jealousy.

“The cloak too, Caesar? What next, your standard?”

Gisstus had ridden up behind him to interrupt his reverie as no one else would have dared, and just as well.

“I have others,” Caesar told him. “And other horses. A horse and a cloak wagered against the replacement of Gobanit with a leader with good reason to be loyal to me . . .” He shrugged. “The odds may be long, but the stakes are favorable. I want you to find out everything there is to know about this boy. I do not want an unbroken, wild horse among us. Find me his bridle.”

“Do you
really
believe he can just ride alone into Gergovia and capture the city?” asked Gisstus.

“By force, of course not, Gisstus. But by . . . a certain kind of sorcery . . . ? Somehow, I believe I do!”

VIII

THE CLOSER HE GOT to Gergovia, the more crowded the road became, but even when it passed through lands that were once his father’s, no one hailed Vercingetorix as the son of Keltill. That no one recognized him was hardly magic, but that no one dared meet his eye must be the mantle of the spell cast upon him by Gaius Julius Caesar.

He could well understand their unease, their fear, and their hope as they beheld a youth in Arverne orange, wearing neither armor nor helmet and armed with an ordinary sword, but riding a white horse festooned with the trappings of a Roman general, and a crimson cloak of the hue reserved for Caesar himself.

Though no one would speak to him, Vercingetorix heard the murmuring voices; though no one would meet his own eye, he felt the weight of a multitude of eyes upon him. He knew a procession was forming behind him, for, even when he slowed his horse to a pace slower than that of a heavily laden cart, no one would pass him.

And as the road began to mount the hill, he quickened the pace of his horse to a fast walk, so that the carts and wagons and peasants afoot behind him followed at a clattering, rattling, dust-raising pace, approaching the city like the vision of his future army.

Baravax, captain of Gergovia’s city guard, customarily assigned only two warriors on the ground to guard the gates by day, when they were opened, but stationed six more, armed with lances, atop the ramparts between the two towers flanking them, where they could easily cut down any troublemakers attempting to enter.

Though this might seem excessive, Baravax was the third son of a poor shepherd family who had become a guard to escape a grinding life of poverty, and he was determined to guard his position as carefully as he guarded the city.

Baravax was surprised and dismayed when Milgar shouted down from the wall that a mob, or perhaps even an army, was approaching the city. He scrambled up the nearest ladder to the walkway atop the wall, where Milgar was pointing down the road with his lance.

Baravax shaded his eyes against the bright sun with his hand, but still had to squint to see clearly. At first, all he could make out was a cloud of dust approaching the city gates at an unusually rapid pace. Then he was able to discern that Milgar’s “army” consisted of a crowd of the usual wagons and carts, but moving so rapidly, for some reason, that the crowd of people afoot had to trot to keep up. Then he saw a man riding a white horse leading them. And more people, arriving in dribs and drabs across the open plain, falling in behind him, joining his procession.

Still, this was certainly no “army,” or even a “mob,” just what one would expect on the way to market, except for the man on the white horse. But then he brought his horse up to a gallop and quickly outdistanced his followers, and as he galloped up to the gates, Baravax saw that his horse was draped in the red and gold of a Roman general.

The rider was a youth of no more than twenty years in a plain tunic of Arverne orange. He had a sword, but wore neither armor nor helmet, and bore no shield or standard. Around his shoulders swirled the crimson cloak of Gaius Julius Caesar.

At the approach of this disquieting apparition, Baravax’s men did as they were schooled to do: the guards on the ground stepped toward each other and crossed their lances to bar his way, and those on the wall above their gates raised theirs threateningly, announcing their readiness to hurl them down if need be.

Baravax scrambled back down the ladder to confront the horseman on the ground.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

The blond youth on the white horse sat still and silent as a statue.

“Who are you?” Baravax demanded again.

He did not like this at all. His duties had become more complex since Gobanit had replaced Keltill. In Keltill’s day, it was simple enough: his duty was to keep the peace, see to it that fights were broken up before serious harm was done, apprehend thieves, or, better yet, keep them from entering the city. Now, though, there were factions among the Arverni. Gobanit’s supporters. Young bloods who hated Gobanit for burning Keltill. Enemies of Rome. Friends of Rome. Old Critognat and his comrades, who knew not what they liked, but knew they did not like things as they were now. A captain of the guard was hard put not to be drawn into the swirl and eddies of these dangerous currents, but Baravax knew that if he could not stay clear he could be swept away.

The man on the white horse did not speak or move until the people and wagons and carts rumbling and rushing up the hill had spread out expectantly behind him.

“Who are you?” Baravax said again. “Speak, depart, or be slain!”

The Arverne wearing Caesar’s cloak reared his horse. “I am Vercingetorix, son of Keltill!” he shouted. “I have returned to claim my birthright! And I come offering riches and glory!”

The crowd behind him gasped in surprise.

It was all that Baravax could do to stifle his moan of dismay. Surely he had no right to bar entry to the son of Keltill. Surely if he did there would be trouble from these people. But, just as surely, Gobanit, who was even now meeting with his “Senate” in the Great Hall, would not be pleased. But surest of all was that Baravax had to act now. And act cautiously.

So he signaled to the gate guards to lift their lances and allow Vercingetorix to ride into the city. But as he did, and the people poured in behind him, Baravax summoned Milgar down from the wall and ordered him to gather a squad of guards from within with which to follow close behind Vercingetorix.

Vercingetorix had not ridden far into Gergovia when he noticed that the guard captain and about a dozen warriors were following him at a discreet distance. The market was under way, and the avenue leading into the main plaza was crowded, so he was forced to walk his horse very slowly, and forced thereby to observe the changes wrought by time since he had last been in Gergovia. By time and by Rome.

Here and there, white-painted wooden columns supported porticoes that ludicrously embellished the fronts of ordinary dwellings of graying wood and brownish wattle. Many roofs of thatch had retained their conical shapes while the reeds had been replaced by reddish tile. There were a few new buildings crafted entirely of square reddish-brown bricks. He saw women in flowing Roman robes with elaborately coiffed hair held up by tiaras and combs of silver or some iridescent gray stuff with a rainbow sheen. There were warriors wearing Roman helmets, breastplates, bearing Roman swords, and men whom he took for merchants wearing white Roman togas—one, ridiculously enough, wearing his over orange Arverne pantaloons.

When he reached the plaza, he saw that it was now paved with stones set in cement. There was a stone fountain in the center, where water sprayed from the mouths of four crudely carved bears standing on a round pedestal facing the quarters of the wind.

Stalls offered the usual local goods—dressed carcasses of boar and sheep, live fowl, turnips and carrots, barrels and jars of beer, orange-and-gray plaid cloth, silver jewelry in the good old style, ironwork, whole hides and crafted leathers, herbs and roots and mushrooms from the forest. But some stalls, overhung with colorful fringed awnings, purveyed goods that could only have come from afar—amphorae and casks of wine, cloths in colors never seen in Gaul, Roman clothing, dried brown fruits on strings, stools of carved wood, little thrones of wood and leather, wondrous translucent goblets, leather cylinders containing rolls of white cloth, and stranger things Vercingetorix’s eye could not identify. All of the merchants presiding over these stalls wore Roman garb, and most of them, by their short stature and dark hair and complexions, seemed to be Romans. And they were assisted by slaves, a few of whom had skin darker than heavily tanned ox hide.

There were the usual bards and jugglers and musicians, but some of the musicians played harps of unfamiliar design, some produced piercing and haunting sounds by blowing through sets of reeds of different lengths. There were new odors in the air: some savory, some florally sweet, some sickeningly so.

Gergovia had been touched by Caesar’s “civilization,” and though Vercingetorix found much of it distasteful, it would be impossible to contend that
all
of the changes were for the worse, for the city seemed cleaner, and the stink of the sewage gutters was notable for its absence.

But the manner in which the Great Hall at the far end of the plaza now sought to mimic that “civilization” was truly a desecration. The sand-colored stone and the gray wood facings had been painted white, obliterating the venerable floral carvings. Stone columns flanked the entrance now, supporting a white-painted wooden roof over a low flight of broad stone stairs.

A fitting lair for the likes of Gobanit.

Vercingetorix rode very slowly through the crowded market, spiraling inward toward the fountain, making three full circuits before he got there, saying nothing, meeting no eye, gazing steadfastly straight ahead, drawing the crowd of the curious with him. And all the while, he heard his name whispered and murmured and passed among the people. By the time he reached the fountain, the area around it was thronged, and trading in the surrounding market had all but ceased.

As Vercingetorix halted, the warriors who had been tracking him emerged from the crowd to form a circle around him—whether to hold back the crowd to protect him or in preparation for seizing him, he could not tell. Perhaps they did not know either, for their swords remained undrawn, and some of them faced outward like guards, others faced inward, and still others craned their necks and twisted their bodies in indecision. An expectant silence fell upon the plaza, and all eyes were upon him as everyone waited to hear the words of the silver-tongued Vercingetorix.

But the only public speech the silver-tongued Vercingetorix had ever delivered had been a few simple words in praise of his father, and then he had been quite drunk. For the first time since he had ridden into the city, Vercingetorix knew fear.

Still . . .

“I am Vercingetorix, son of Keltill! You know my name but you do not know
me,
for I was forced as a boy to flee when Gobanit violated the sanctity of the Great Hall of the Arverni to seize my father and steal all that Keltill had save that which he held most dear, his name and his honor!”

At this there were scattered shouts of “Keltill!” but also much low, guttural murmuring. The Arverne warriors surrounding Vercingetorix moved their hands to the hilts of their swords.

“See what the man who set the torch to the pyre that burned Keltill has done to the heart of our people and our city,” Vercingetorix declaimed, indicating the Romanized façade of the Great Hall with a wave of his arm. “Gobanit feigns the glory of Rome with white paint and stone fakery, but it is all a sham, for he has not the stomach to emulate Caesar’s singular virtue and ride at the head of the warriors of the Arverni into battle!”

The cries and shouts became ugly now. The captain of the guard nodded and drew his sword, and his men followed suit. When he made a signal with his hand, they all turned to confront Vercingetorix with a fence of pointed steel.

“This horse I ride was given to me as a token by Caesar himself,” Vercingetorix declared. “A token of his promise that all Gauls who join in his invasion of Britain will divide half of the spoils among them. This you already know. Gobanit will not lead you in joining this grand adventure, and this too you know already.”

He grabbed onto the edges of the crimson cloak and spread his arms wide to display it like the wings of an eagle.

“But know this too! This is Caesar’s own cloak! This you know to be true because all others are forbidden to wear a cloak of this color. But Caesar has given it to me to wear. To be returned to him when I exchange it for a cloak of Arverne orange and ride to his encampment at the head of an Arverne army! I was forced to flee as a boy, but now I am returned as a man to recapture the birthright which was stolen from me! To lead all who would follow me to glory and fortune and slay the slayer of my father!”

“That’s enough!” cried the guard captain. “Seize him!”

The warriors rushed inward at Vercingetorix. As they did, turning their backs on the crowd, the front ranks of that crowd surged forward amidst shouts, curses, shoving, the outbreak of chaotic empty-handed fighting.

Vercingetorix drew his sword and reared his horse, whirling his mount round and round in a bounding hind-legged circle, its front hooves pawing the air, causing the warriors to fall back in disarray as he swiped at them with his sword. He felt destiny smile on him, allowing him to control the horse with a skill that had eluded him on the Roman road.

Vercingetorix leapt from his horse onto the back of the guard captain, knocking him to the stone-paved ground. He then pulled him back to his feet with one hand and laid the edge of his sword across his throat with the other.

No more than a few moments had passed. No killing or maiming blows had yet been struck. Four of the warriors had been disarmed by the crowd and were being held with their arms twisted behind their backs while their comrades threatened their captors with their own swords uncertainly.

“Stop!”
Vercingetorix shouted as loudly as was able.
“As I would not
slay this brother Arverne, so let no other Arverne here harm another!”

But the thuds and shouts of fistfights within the body of the crowd could still be heard along with screams and shouts of fear and rage and confusion.

Vercingetorix saw that words were not enough.

Sword to his neck, he marched the guard captain backward to the fountain, up over its rounded stone lip, into the shallow water, to its center, where streams of water flowed from the mouths of the stone bears, and forced him up on their round pedestal beside him.

Then he withdrew his sword from the throat of the guard captain and handed it to him.

The guard captain stood there, holding the sword loosely, utterly dumbfounded. The silence was sudden and profound, and Vercingetorix spoke into it.

“Slay me if you will,” he said. “Slay honor and glory in the service of dishonor and scorn! Slay riches in the service of cowardice!”