It took all day for the Nervii to assemble outside the camp, while the Ninth hammered and sawed frantically; the wall and its raised breastworks were quite finished, but the extra sixty towers were still rising and the many thousands of sharpened stakes were still hardening in a hundred charcoal fires wherever there was enough vacant ground.
"Good, we'll work all night," said Quintus Cicero, pleased. "They won't attack today, they'll have a proper rest first."
A proper rest for the Nervii turned out to be about an hour; the sun had set when they stormed the walls of the camp in their thousands, filling up the ditches with leafy branches, using their gaudy, feather-bedecked spears as hand holds to haul themselves up the log walls. But the Ninth was up on top of the walls, each two men with one of the long siege spears to take the Nervii in the face as they climbed. Other men stood atop the partially finished towers, using this additional height to launch their pila with deadly accuracy. And all the while from within the camp the ballistae lobbed two-pound river rocks over the walls into the boiling masses of warriors.
Full night brought a cessation to the hostilities, but not to the battle frenzy of the Nervii, who leaped and shrieked and howled for a mile in every direction around the camp; the light of twenty thousand torches banished the darkness and showed up the capering figures wielding them, bare chests coppered, hair like frozen manes, eyes and teeth flashing brief sparks as they turned and reeled, bounced into the air, roared, screamed, flung up their torches, caught them like jugglers.
"Isn't this terrific, boys?" Quintus Cicero would shout as he bustled about the camp, checking on the charcoal fires, the artillerymen toiling stripped of their mail shirts, the baggage animals snorting and stamping in their stalls at so much noise. "Isn't it terrific? The Nervii are giving us all the light we need to finish our towers! Come on, boys, buckle down to it! What do you think this is, the harem of Sampsiceramus?"
Then his back began to ache, and came an agonizing pain which shot down his left leg and forced him to limp. Oh, not now! Not an attack of that! It sent him crawling to his bed for days on end, a moaning rag. Not now! How could he crawl off to his bed when everyone depended on him? If the commander succumbed, what would happen to morale? So Quintus Cicero clenched his teeth and limped onward, finding from somewhere the resolution to unclench his teeth, smile, joke, tell the men how terrific they were, how nice it was of the Nervii to light up the sky ...
Every day the Nervii attacked, filled up the ditches, tried to scale the walls, and every day the Ninth repulsed them, hooked the leafy branches out of the ditches, killed Nervii.
Every night Quintus Cicero wrote another letter in Greek to Caesar, found a slave or a Gaul willing to carry it for a huge sum of money, and sent the man off through the darkness.
Every day the Nervii brought the previous night's courier to a prominent spot, brandished the letter, capered and shrieked until the courier was put to a fresh torture from the pincers or the knives or the hot irons, when they would fall silent and let the courier's screams rip through the appalled Roman camp.
"We can't give in," Quintus Cicero would say to the soldiers as he limped his rounds; "don't give those mentulae the pleasure or the satisfaction!"
Whereupon the men he addressed would grin, give him a wave, ask about his back, call the Nervii names big brother Cicero would have fainted to hear, and fight on.
Then came Titus Pullo, face grim. "Quintus Cicero, we have a new problem," he said harshly.
"What?" asked the commander, keeping the weariness from his voice and trying to stand straight.
"They've diverted our water. The stream's dried up."
"You know what to do, Pullo. Start digging wells. Upstream from the latrines. And start digging cesspits." He giggled. "I'd pitch in and help, but I'm afraid I'm not in a digging mood."
Pullo's face softened: was there ever such a cheerful and unquenchable commander as Quintus Cicero, bad back and all?
Twenty days after that first assault the Nervii were still attacking every morning. The supply of couriers had dried up along with the water, and Quintus Cicero had to face the fact that not one of his messages had got through the Nervian lines. Well, no other choice than to continue resistance. Fight the bastards off during the day, use the nights to repair the damage and make a supply of whatever might come in useful the following dawn—and wonder how long it would be before the dysentery and the fevers commenced. Oh, what he'd do to the Nervii if he lived to get out of this! The men of the Ninth were still unbroken, still in good spirits, still working frantically when they were not fighting frantically.
The dysentery and the fevers started, but suddenly there were worse problems to cope with.
The Nervii built a few siege towers—not a patch on Roman siege towers, naturally, but fully capable of wreaking havoc when they were close enough to serve as platforms for Nervii spears. And for a bombardment of Nervii boulders.
"Where did they get their artillery from?" cried the commander to Vorenus. "If those aren't trusty Roman ballistae, then I'm not the great Cicero's little brother!"
But since Vorenus didn't know any more than Quintus Cicero did that the artillery came from the abandoned camp of the Thirteenth Legion, the appearance of Roman ballistae was simply an additional worry—did it mean all Gaul was in revolt, that other legions had been attacked and defeated, that even if the messages had gotten through, no one was alive to answer?
The stones were bearable, but then the Nervii became more innovative. At the same moment as they launched a fresh assault on the walls, they loaded the ballistae with blazing bundles of dry sticks and shot them into the camp. Even the sick were manning the walls, so there were few to put out the fires which began all over that town of wooden houses, few to blindfold the terrified baggage animals and lead them into the open. Slaves, noncombatants and Vertico's people tried to split themselves in two and cope with this new horror while doing all the other things they had to in order to keep the Ninth fighting atop the walls. But so strong was the Ninth's morale that the soldiers never even turned their heads to see their precious possessions and food go up in flames, fanned by a bitter early winter wind. They stayed where they were and fought the Nervii to a standstill.
In the midst of the fiercest attack, Pullo and Vorenus took a bet that each was braver than the other, and demanded that the Ninth be the judges. One of the siege towers was pushed so close that it touched the camp wall; the Nervii began to use it as a bridge to leap onto the defenders. Pullo produced a torch and flung it, rising from behind the shelter of his shield; Vorenus produced another torch and rose even higher from behind his shield to fling it at the siege tower. Back and forth, back and forth, until the siege tower was blazing and the Nervii fled, their stiffened hair in flames. Pullo grabbed a bow and quiver of arrows and demonstrated that he'd served with Cretan archers by nocking and shooting in one fluid movement and never missing. Vorenus countered by stacking pila and throwing them with equal speed and grace—and never missing. Neither man sustained a scratch, and when the attack ebbed the Ninth shook their heads. The verdict was a draw.
"It's the turning point as well as the thirtieth day," said Quintus Cicero when the darkness came and the Nervii wandered off in undisciplined hordes.
He had summoned a little council: himself, Pullo, Vorenus and Vertico.
"You mean we'll win?" asked Pullo, astonished.
"I mean we'll lose, Titus Pullo. They're getting craftier every day, and from somewhere they've got hold of Roman gear." He groaned and beat his fist on his thigh. "Oh, ye Gods, somehow we have to get a message through their lines!" He turned to Vertico. "I won't ask another man to go, yet someone has to go. And right here and now we have to work out a way to make sure that whichever man we send can survive a search if he's apprehended. Vertico, you're the Nervian. How do we do it?"
"I've been thinking," said Vertico in his halting Latin. "First of all, it has to be someone who can pass for a Nervian warrior. There are Menapii an
d Condrusi out there too now, but I don't have access to shawls of the right pattern. Otherwise it would be better to pass the man off as one of them." He stopped, sighed. "How much food survived the fireballs?"
"Enough for seven or eight days," said Vorenus, "though the men are so sick they're not eating much. Maybe ten days."
Vertico nodded. "Then it will have to be this. Someone who can pass for a Nervian warrior because he is Nervian. I'd go myself, but I'd be recognized immediately. One of my serfs is willing to go. He's a clever fellow, thinks on his feet."
"That's well and good!" growled Pullo, face filthy, tunic of metal scales ripped from neck to sword belt. "I see the sense of it. But it's the search worries me. We put the last note up the messenger's rectum, but those bastards still found it. Jupiter! I mean, maybe your man will get through without being accosted, but if he is accosted, he'll be searched. They'll find a note no matter where it is, and if they don't, they'll torture him."
"Look," said Vertico, wrenching a Nervian spear out of the ground nearby.
It was not a Roman weapon, but it was workmanlike; a long wooden shaft with a large leaf-shaped iron head. As the long-haired Gauls loved color and decoration, it was not naked. At the place where the thrower held it, the shaft was covered by a woven webbing in the Nervian colors of moss green and earthy orange, and from the webbing, secured by loops, there dangled three goose feathers dyed moss green and earthy orange.
"I understand why the message has to be in writing. Caesar might not believe a message from the mouth of a Nervian warrior. But write your message in the smallest script upon the thinnest paper, Quintus Cicero. And while you write, I'll have my women unpick the webbing on a spear which looks used but not warped. Then we'll wrap the message around the spear shaft and cover it with the webbing." Vertico shrugged. "That's the best I can suggest. They search every orifice; they search every scrap of clothing, every strand of hair. But if the webbing is perfect, I don't think it will occur to them to take it off."
Vorenus and Pullo were nodding; Quintus Cicero nodded to them and limped off to his wooden house, unburned. There he sat down as he was and took the thinnest piece of paper he could find. His Greek script was tiny.
I write in Greek because they have Latin. Urgent. Under attack from Nervii for thirty days. Water sour, latrines infested. Men sick. Holding out, don't know how. Can't much longer. Nervii have Roman gear, shooting fireballs. Food up in smoke. Get help to us or we're dead men. Quintus Tullius Cicero Legatus.
The Nervian serf belonging to Vertico was a perfect warrior type; had his station in life been higher, he would have been a warrior. But serfs were a superior kind of slave, could be put to torture, and would never be allowed to fight for the tribe. Their lot was to farm; they were lowly enough to use a plough. Yet the man stood calmly and looked unafraid. Yes, thought Quintus Cicero, he would have made a good warrior. More fool the Nervii for not allowing their lowly to fight, but lucky for me and the Ninth. He'll pass muster.
"All right," he said, "we've got a chance to get this to Caesar, but how does Caesar get his message to us? I have to be able to tell the men that help is coming or they might go under from sheer despair. It will take Caesar time to find enough legions, but I must be able to say that help is coming."
Vertico smiled. "Getting a message in isn't as difficult as getting one out. When my serf returns, I'll tell him to attach one yellow feather to the spear bearing Caesar's answer."
"It'll stick out like dog's balls!" cried Pullo, aghast.
"So I would hope. However, I don't think anyone will be looking too closely at spears flying into the camp. Don't worry, I'll tell him not to attach the yellow feather until just before he throws," said Vertico, grinning.
Caesar got the spear two days after the Nervian serf passed through the Nervian lines.
Because the forest to the south of Quintus Cicero's camp was too dense for a man on an urgent mission to negotiate, the serf had no choice but to travel on the road to Samarobriva. It was so heavily guarded that it was inevitable he would be stopped sooner or later, though he did well, evaded the first three watches. The fourth watch detained him. He was stripped, his orifices probed, his hair, his clothes. But the webbing on the spear was perfect; the message lay beneath it undetected. The serf had lacerated his forehead with a piece of rough bark until it looked like the result of a blow; he swayed, mumbled, rolled his eyes, endured the search ungraciously and tried to kiss the leader of the watch. Deeming him hopelessly concussed, the leader let him go south, laughing.
It was early evening when he arrived, utterly exhausted; Samarobriva was immediately plunged into a disciplined frenzy of activity. One messenger went at a gallop to Marcus Crassus, twenty-five miles away; he was ordered to bring the Eighth on the double to garrison Samarobriva in the General's absence. A second messenger galloped for Portus Itius and Gaius Fabius, who was ordered to take the Seventh and march for the lands of the Atrebates; Caesar would meet him on the Scaldis River. A third messenger galloped for the camp of Labienus on the Mosa to apprise him of developments, but Caesar didn't order his second-in-command to join the rescue mission. He left that decision to Labienus, who he privately thought might be in like case to Quintus Cicero.
At dawn the whole of Samarobriva could see Marcus Crassus's column in the distance. Caesar left with the Tenth at once.
Two legions, each a little under full strength; that was all the General could bring to the relief of Quintus Cicero. Nine thousand precious men, veterans. There could be no more of these stupid mistakes. How many Nervii? Fifty thousand had stayed to die on the field several years before, but it was a very populous tribe. Yes, there could be as many as fifty thousand more around the beleaguered camp of the Ninth. Good legion. Oh, not dead!
Fabius made good time to the Scaldis; he met up with Caesar as if they were engaged in a complicated drill maneuver upon the Campus Martius. Neither man had needed to wait an hour for the other. Seventy more miles to go. But how many Nervii? Nine thousand men, no matter how veteran, wouldn't stand a chance in the open.
Caesar had sent the Nervian serf on ahead in a gig as far as he dared, since he couldn't ride, under instructions to send the spear back into Quintus Cicero's camp with a yellow feather tied to it. But he was a serf, not a warrior. He did his best, hoping to get the spear over the breastworks into the Roman camp. Instead it buried itself in the junction between the breastworks and the log wall, and there undetected it remained for two days.
Quintus Cicero got it scant hours before a column of smoke above the trees told him that Caesar had arrived; he was on the point of despair because no one had seen a spear with a yellow feather on it, though every pair of eyes had searched until they watered, fancied yellow in everything.
Coming. Only nine thousand men. Can't just rush in. Need to scout and find a piece of ground where nine thousand can beat many thousands. Bound to be an Aquae Sextiae here somewhere. How many of them are there? Get a message to me with details. Your Greek is good, surprisingly idiomatic. Gaius Julius Caesar Imperator.
The sight of that yellow feather sent the exhausted Ninth into paroxysms of cheers, and Quintus Cicero into a fit of weeping. Wiping his indescribably dirty face with an equally dirty hand, he sat down, aching back and crippled leg forgotten, and wrote to Caesar while Vertico got another spear and serf ready.
Estimate sixty thousand. Whole tribe here, serious muster. Not all Nervii. Notice lots of Menapii and Condrusi, hence the numbers. We will last. Find your Aquae Sextiae. Gauls getting a bit careless, got us burning alive in the wicker cages already. Notice more drinking, less enthusiasm. Your Greek isn't bad either. Quintus Tullius Cicero Legatus Superstes.
Caesar got the letter at midnight; the Nervii had massed to attack him, but darkness intervened, and that was one night the messenger detection squad forgot to operate. The Tenth and the Seventh were spoiling for a fight, but Caesar wouldn't oblige them until he found a field and built a camp similar to the one at which Gaius Marius
and his thirty-seven thousand men had beaten a hundred and eighty thousand Teutones over fifty years before.
It took him two more days to find his Aquae Sextiae, but when he did, the Tenth and the Seventh trounced the Nervii—and accorded them no mercy. Quintus Cicero had been right: the length of the siege and its fruitless outcome had eroded both morale and temper. The Nervii were drinking heavily but not eating much, though their two allies, having come later to the war, fared better at Caesar's Aquae Sextiae.
The camp of the Ninth was a shambles. Most of its housing had crumbled to ashes; mules and oxen wandered hungrily and added their bellows to the cacophony of cheers which greeted Caesar and his two legions when they marched inside. Not one man in ten was without a wound of some kind, and all of them were sick.
The Tenth and Seventh set to with a will, undammed the stream and sent good clean water through, cheerfully demolished the log wall to build fires and heat water for baths, took the Ninth's filthy clothing and washed it, stalled the animals in some measure of comfort, and scoured the countryside for food. The baggage train came up with enough to keep men and animals content, and Caesar paraded the Ninth before the Tenth and the Seventh. He had no decorations with him, but awarded them anyway; Pullo and Vorenus, already possessed of silver torcs and phalerae, got gold torcs and phalerae.
"If I could, Quintus Cicero, I'd give you the Grass Crown for saving your legion," said Caesar.
Quintus Cicero nodded, beaming. "You can't, Caesar, I know that. Rules are rules. The Ninth saved themselves; I just helped a bit around the edges. Oh, but aren't they wonderful boys?"
"The very best."
The next day the three legions pulled out, the Tenth and the Ninth headed for the comfort and safety of Samarobriva, the Seventh for Portus Itius. Even had Caesar wanted to, it wasn't possible to keep the camp among the Nervii going. The land was eaten out where it wasn't trampled to mud, and most of the Nervii lay dead.