The Helvetian Affair Read online

  “Uhr wuhf ifitho, a pen,” Guithiru acknowledged. “Yes, Chief!”

  Athauhnu and I rode forward to meet the scouts. As we approached them, the mounted scout, a rider named Alaw, greeted us: “We found a trail . . . riders moving up the valley.”

  We dismounted and walked over to the scout, who was examining the ground.

  “What is it, Rhodri?” Athauhnu demanded.

  The one called Rhodri rose, “About twenty riders . . . moving northwest . . . not in a great hurry . . . Horses are shod . . . heavy burdens . . . Armored men, I think.”

  “How long ago?” Athauhnu asked.

  Rhodri shrugged, “Not long . . . dawn . . . a little earlier. I’ll follow the trail through the grass. Maybe I can find some fresh droppings.”

  “No need,” Athauhnu said. “Shod horses and armored riders, you said?”

  Rhodri nodded.

  “Not Helvetii,” Athauhnu said to me. “Not all their horses are shod, and most of their cavalry aren’t equipped with heavy armor like the Romans.”

  “Not Helvetii?” I questioned. “Then who?”

  Athauhnu shrugged, “Maybe People of the Dark-Moon . . . a group of Aedui . . . This is their territory. If it were a rich noble’s fintai he would equip his bodyguard with armor and equipment.”

  “There’s no Roman cavalry operating up here,” I affirmed. “We’ll assume they’re hostile, Helvetii or not.”

  Athauhnu nodded.

  “What’s off in that direction?” I asked Athauhnu, gesturing to the northwest where the riders had gone.

  Athauhnu shrugged. “I don’t know. There seems to be a ridgeline leading off to the north. Bibracte, the Dark-Moon king’s fortress is to the northwest . . . I don’t know . . . Our objective is directly north from here . . . maybe another seven or eight thousand passus.”

  I looked up to the northwest where the valley twisted into a heavily wooded ridgeline. “We’re probably under observation out here in the open,” I said to no one in particular.

  “Uhr wuhf uhn cuhtino,” Athauhnu answered. “I agree. We should push on to the village.”

  “We should,” I agreed. “But, I need to send a rider back to the Roman column with a message.”

  Athauhnu nodded; he whistled to get Guithiru’s attention. “Send my cousin up to me!” he called.

  Soon Emlun galloped up to our position. “The decurio has a job for you,” Athauhnu informed him.

  “What is it, Decurio?” Emlun asked.

  “I want you to ride back to the Romans with a message,” I began. “Report to the tribune, Caecina. He’s the officer wearing plate armor with a red plume in his helmet. Tell him we believe there is enemy cavalry operating in the area . . . a group of twenty to thirty, heavily armed, positioned on the high ground to the northwest. Repeat that for me.”

  Emlun did. I continued, “Approach the Roman column carefully. They’ll probably have a contubernium, eight infantry . . . to their front, walking point. Most of them can’t tell the difference between you and a Helvetius . . . and they don’t much care. They’ll unload a few pila at you, then issue a challenge.”

  Emlun laughed. “If I can’t get close to Romans without being seen, I should just go back to my father’s farm and help the plant the summer crops.”

  “Be that as it may,” I cautioned, “just be careful! Some of those troops speak Gah’el, so you’ll be understood. Now, repeat the message again for me.”

  Emlun did, and I sent him galloping down the trail toward the Roman foraging party.

  We saw no sign of any threat for the next hour. Emlun rejoined our column to say that Caecina had acknowledged my message. We were climbing the last ridgeline before reaching our objective. I estimated the Aeduan vicus to be no more than a few hundred passus distant.

  Suddenly, Rhodri appeared at the top of the ridge ahead of us and whistled sharply. Then, he pointed to the northwest. There, in a small clearing at the top of a hill, where our ridgeline twisted up into the highlands, were four riders.

  Athauhnu and I cantered to the top of the ridge to get a better look. The riders remained stationary. They were obviously observing us and felt no need to remain hidden.

  “Who are they?” Athauhnu demanded of Rhodri when we reached the top.

  “Ni Rhufeinig” Rhodri shrugged. “Not Romans . . . Well-armed . . . Dark-Moon warriors, I think . . . king’s men . . . fintai.”

  I looked toward the group. They were carrying no standards or pennants, but the sun glinted off their armor. “They seem interested in us,” I said to no one in particular.

  “Indeed, they do!” Athauhnu agreed. “And that village we’re trying to reach.”

  “Edruhch, a pen!” Rhodri said suddenly, pointing east into our line of march. “Look, Chief!”

  When I looked, I could see a smudge of grayish-black smoke staining the sky about where the village should be.

  “That can’t be good,” I muttered. Then, I whistled back to our main column. “Send up Emlun!”

  Athauhnu’s cousin soon joined us. “I have another message for the Romans,” I told him.

  Emlun acknowledged me, and I began my report, “Tell Caecina that we have made visual contact with an unidentified force of cavalry approximately one thousand passus to the northwest on the high ground . . . four riders, well-armed and armored. Also, there is evidence of hostile activity at our objective. Repeat that back to me.”

  He did, so I continued, “Take an escort with you . . . another warrior for security. Be careful! We’re under enemy observation. Don’t get ambushed!”

  Emlun nodded vigorously. “I’ll take Idwal with me, if you approve, Chief,” he said. He was excited to be in contact with the enemy.

  Athauhnu grunted in the affirmative.

  “Repeat the message again!” I ordered.

  Emlun did. “Redi guhvluh!” I told him. “Ride quickly, but keep your eyes open!”

  Emlun flashed me a wide grin. Then, he was off down the hill.

  “He still thinks this is a game,” Athauhnu commented.

  This time I grunted in the affirmative. Emlun and I were of an age, but somehow I had changed.

  “Rhodri!” I called to get the scout’s attention. “You and Alaw get as close to that village as you can without being detected. Then, get back to us. I want to know what we’re riding into.”

  Rhodri quickly glanced over to Athauhnu, who nodded. Then, he rode off toward the vicus.

  Athauhnu whistled down the hill and gestured the column to join us.

  “I didn’t mean to ‘ride your horse,’” I told him, “with Emlun and Rhodri, I mean.”

  Athauhnu just shrugged, “You’re a warrior . . . uhn pen . . . a chief . . . You’re doing your job. You must be able to act without the approval of others. You must be willing to take responsibility for what happens. Emlun’s a good choice. He rides light, and if we get into a mess down the trail, he’s better out of it. And Rhodri knows his job. If the poblo r’avon or any of their cuun almaeneg, German dogs, are waiting for us down the road, he’ll see them before they see him.”

  “Poblo r’avon?” I questioned. “Gentes fluminis . . . River People?”

  “That’s what we call the Helvetii,” Athauhnu said. “Poblo r’avon. When this is over, I’ll be glad to drown every last one of them in that bloody river of theirs, the Rhenus.”

  We rode forward down the ridge, toward the Aeduan village. The smudge of dark smoke in the sky became increasingly larger as we approached. We had covered about two-thirds of the distance when Alaw met us on the trail.

  “Report!” I snapped, not waiting for Athauhnu.

  “We rode to a spot overlooking the village,” Alaw said. “The smoke is from the large round house in the center. It’s been burned . . . yesterday . . . no earlier . . . still smoldering. No sign of any enemy activity in the village. Can’t tell what’s going on in the hills to the north, but it seems quiet up there too.”

  “Where’s Rhodri?” I asked.

>   “He’s watching the village from concealment,” Alaw answered. “If anything happens, he’ll get back to us before we ride into it.”

  “What do you think?” I asked Athauhnu.

  He was about to respond, when Emlun rode up to us from the column.

  “Did you report to Caecina?” I asked him.

  “I did!” Emlun said. “The Roman chief says we continue with the mission unless prevented.”

  I looked up toward the northwest. Our watchers had disappeared. I wondered if Agrippa and the rest of Madog’s riders had spooked them—or maybe they were up to something else.

  Athauhnu brought me back from my musings. “Arth Bek! I want to see that village with my own eyes before our band arrives. We should ride forward with Alaw.”

  I nodded to Athauhnu, then said to Emlun, “Diolkh! Thanks! Rejoin the column! Send Guithiru up to us!”

  Again, Emlun flashed his boyish smile and turned back toward the column. I heard his whistle and his calling out to Guithiru. So much for operational security! Now every Helvetian and Kraut within two hundred passus knew we were there.

  “I suppose you’ve noticed that our friends on the hill have left us,” I said to Athauhnu.

  He nodded and said, “A while back.”

  Guithiru approached us.

  “The decurio and I are going forward to scout the village,” Athauhnu told him. “When we send back to you, I want you to bring the rest of the band up to us.”

  “Uhr wuhf ifitho, a pen,” Guithiru acknowledged. “Yes, Chief!”

  “Take us in, Alaw!” Athauhnu said.

  Alaw nodded and turned his horse back up the trail.

  We followed Alaw at a slow trot for about five hundred passus down the winding trail. The forest closed in on both sides. When we came to some rising ground, Alaw pulled up. He looked around for a few heartbeats and seemed to see what he was looking for.

  “We dismount here,” he told us, hopping down from his horse. “Rhodri’s just ahead.”

  We pulled our mounts off the trail, and I saw Rhodri’s bay. We dropped our reins. The horses were trained to war. They would not move. Alaw led us up the hill, along an almost invisible path. We were just about to the top when Rhodri’s voice challenged us.

  “Rhodri,” Alaw answered, “I have the chief with me.”

  Rhodri suddenly appeared out of the brush. “Come! Look!” he said and gestured us forward.

  Rhodri led us to his well-concealed observation point. “Helmets,” he hissed at us.

  We removed our helmets so they would not betray our presence by reflecting sunlight. Then, we looked down into a small valley. In the middle, along a running stream, was the village. In its center stood a blackened, smoldering ruin of what had once been a large round-house—a chief’s hall or a storage barn. There were other, smaller round-houses and huts in the complex, but they seemed untouched. The cluster of huts was surrounded by a barrier of brush and bracken. I could see the outline of what had once been a defense ditch around the entire settlement; it had eroded into a grassy indentation by seasons of wind and rain. Beyond that, the village fields and grazing lands stretched to the edges of the forest.

  “I’ve seen no movement down there,” Rhodri hissed at us. “No signs of life . . . no cattle or fowl . . . not even dogs . . . nothing.”

  “If they were massacred, there’d be bodies,” Athauhnu mused. “We’d see those . . . and the dogs. They never get all the dogs. They’d be back to feed on . . . feed on the leavings.”

  “Any activity to the north?” I asked Rhodri.

  He shrugged. “Too many trees. Anything could hide in that forest. The birds show no alarm. This time of day, they like to stay close to the nest.”

  “Our orders are to bypass the village and screen it,” I said to Athauhnu. “Do you see any reason why we shouldn’t continue?”

  Athauhnu was silent. He was scanning the treetops to the north. Suddenly, he grabbed Rhodri’s arm and pointed to the northwest, “Look, there!”

  I looked in the direction that Athauhnu was pointing, but saw nothing.

  “Something’s disturbed them,” Rhodri agreed with Athauhnu.

  “What do you see?” I asked.

  “A flock of birds rose from the trees there,” Athauhnu pointed out over the village. “It’s too far for an ambush on the village. Could be nothing. But, that is where we should look.”

  I nodded, then said, “Alaw! Ride back to the troop and have Guithiru bring the men forward!”

  Without a word, Alaw moved back to where we left the horses.

  Athauhnu was talking, “I think we should bypass the village to the west and work around it. It’s the long way round, but it will position us uphill from whatever’s spooking those birds.”

  “Uhr wuhf uhn cuhtuno!” I nodded. “Agreed!”

  Guithiru soon brought the rest of the men up. I left two troopers behind— Emlun and his friend, Idwal—to lead Caecina and the foraging detail into the village. The rest of us worked our way around the village to the west.

  It was not cavalry country. We had to dismount and lead our horses up along narrow paths through the woods and brush. As we moved through the forest, the horses snorted; they were reluctant to move forward; their eyes darted about, examining the forest around them. Athauhnu said that horses had an innate fear of the forest. Somehow, they knew wolves hunted among the trees in packs. And, big cats, rarely seen but deadly killers, lurked in the shadows. On open ground, wolves were no match for horses. But here among the trees, the wolves were the masters.

  We were making so much of a racket, trying to work our way around the village, I doubted any self-respecting wolf would be caught within a thousand passus of us. As far as cats big enough to take down a horse, I didn’t want to think about that.

  Horses weren’t the only creatures made nervous by these dark, northern forests.

  We finally reached a position we believed to be directly above where we suspected human activity. The village was invisible, down the sloping ground to our southwest. We had cleared most of the perimeter around the village, so I was confident that Caecina and the foraging detail weren’t marching into a trap. But, we had to ensure there was no enemy threat to our front. I sent Alaw and Rhodri ahead on foot to scout the area.

  Alaw soon returned. “There’s a clearing about fifty passus down the hill. We can see people—”

  “People?” I interrupted. “Enemy soldiers?”

  “No,” Alaw said. “Mostly women and children . . . some old men . . . The missing villagers, I think.”

  “No sign of weapons . . . armor?” I pressed.

  Alaw shrugged, “They have planting tools.”

  “I think we should move forward,” I said to Athauhnu. “But, we need to be careful. These woods could hide an army. They may be using the women and children to bait us.”

  Athauhnu nodded, and we moved forward.

  Alaw guided us to the edge of the clearing where Rhodri was waiting. I was just about to begin to deploy the ala to sweep into the clearing when we heard a voice from down below.

  “Are you oafs going to snap every shaggin’ branch and crack every shaggin’ twig you can find in those damned woods before you show yourselves? I could smell you and your shaggin’ horses a thousand passus away. Show yourselves, and get your arses out here!”

  I stood up and exposed myself. Luckily, I wasn’t greeted with an arrow in the chest. I saw a large man standing in the clearing below me. He sported bushy, gray Celtic mustachios that reached down to his chin—rather a cascade of descending chins—and he was wearing an old-fashioned domed helmet that floated on an aureole of bushy gray hair. His leather lorica struggled to contain his belly. There was, however, nothing comic about the sword he was holding, a long, Gallic spatha, whose recently honed edges caught the sunlight; it glowed like Durn Gwin White-Hilt, the lightning sword Lugus.

  “So, who the hell are you?” he challenged me in Gah’el.

  I puffed out my chest and
tried to channel all my Roman dignitas, answering, “I am Gaius Marius Insubrecus, decurio of the praetorian cavalry of Caesar, imperator—”

  “You look like a shaggin’ Roman, alright,” he interrupted. “But, those wankers standing next to you are no more Roman than my hairy bottom! By their colors, they look like Soucanai to me! What the hell is a Roman puppy and a gang of Soucanai sheep-shaggers doing on my lands?”

  “Are you chief here?” I asked him.

  “Chief? I’m the king around here . . . twice over, you Roman pup!” he spat back. “I am Cuhnetha mab Cluhweluhno, buch’rix of these lands and pobl’rix of the Wuhr Tuurch!”

  I understood the words ‘cattle king’ and ‘clan king.’ Buch’rix meant that Cuhnetha was the leader of this settlement, which was prosperous enough to have at least a modest herd of cattle. I wasn’t at all sure about the meaning of the pobl’rix of the Wuhr Tuurch, the clan king of the Descendants of the Boar.

  “Who are the Wuhr Tuurch?” I asked him.

  Cuhnetha looked at me as if I were something nasty that just dropped from a tree into his path. “Tuurch Mawr was the first king of the Aineduai, the Dark-Moon People—Aedui to you Romans. He led the people down from the Land in the Skies into these valleys in the time before time. He defeated the Pobl oh Danu, the People of the Dark God, and took these lands for the Aineduai. He rode as a chief at the right shoulder of Arth Mawr when the Gah’el rubbed the noses of uh Chellinai, the Greeks, and you Romans as well, in dog shit. Now, he feasts with the gods in the Land of Youth! Enough of your questions, Pup! What are Romans and these Soucanai dog-turds doing in my lands?”

  Athauhnu answered, “After we Soucanai have destroyed the River People and the Almaenwuhra that you Aiduai run from, even in your own lands, and the Romans go back to their grape farms, we are going to make dogs of your women and shit on the heads of your sons, oh pobl’rix of cows and sheep!”

  “Our women alone are enough to drive you sheep-shaggers back into your shit-ridden swamps!” Cuhnetha laughed. “What are you called?”

  “Athauhnu mab Hergest,” he answered. “Pen cefhul of Madog mab Guuhn, pobl’rix of the Wuhn clan of the Soucanai and Dux of the Roman Caesar.”