Retribution: The Centurions III by Anthony Riches

Author:Anthony Riches [Riches, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Action & Adventure, Ancient, Fiction, Historical, War & Military
ISBN: 9781473628809
Google: fX4lDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1473628806
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2018-04-18T23:00:00+00:00

Gallia Belgica, May AD 70

‘He’s going to fight? I thought you told the fool to retreat to join us, and to give the legions nothing but empty country on which to vent their wrath?’

Classicus shook his head.

‘My messages were more than clear on the subject, but it seems that events have pushed Tutor into a corner. Events and that young fool Valentinus he’s allowed to take command of his army. They’ve fortified Rigodulum, it seems, and intend fighting the Romans there rather than allowing them to besiege Augusta Trevorum.’

Kivilaz’s eyes narrowed, rimmed with red from the exertions of eight days of marching through the deep forest between Atuataca and Augusta Trevorum, in their dash to join up with the threatened Treveri before Cerialis’s army could bring them to battle.

‘Valentinus? He’s barely more than a child! What was his part in this idiocy?’

Classicus poured himself a cup of wine before replying.

‘He and Tutor were unwise enough to leave the Treveri ungoverned, Tutor to go recruiting men from the smaller tribes and Valentinus to attend the conference of the Gauls that the elders of the Remi seem to have thought would be a good idea.’

The Batavi prince shook his head in disgust.

‘The Remi? I’ll settle matters with those cowards when Rome’s attempt to put us back in our box has been broken. They’ve always been nothing better than puppets of the empire!’

Classicus shrugged.

‘Persuasive puppets, it seems. Valentinus argued like a man possessed for war with Rome, but found himself isolated when Julius Auspex of the Remi spoke in favour of peace and received the plaudits of every tribe present except for the Treveri, the Lingones and my own people, curse them. Gaul, it seems, is already rolling over for the Romans.’

Kivilaz spat on the ground at his feet.

‘They’ll think again, once I have the Twenty-first’s standard and Cerialis’s head to throw onto their conference table. So, this fool Valentinus has decided to fight.’

His co-conspirator nodded.

‘He returned to Augusta Trevorum to discover that the legions whose oath of loyalty to the Gallic empire I administered had thought better of the idea, sworn an oath to Vespasianus, folded their tents and stolen away in the night.’

Kivilaz laughed.

‘What did the idiot expect? Did he really believe that men who have already sworn loyalty to Nero, to Galba, then to Vitellius and after all that to Vespasianus, were going to stay loyal, now that Vespasianus’s legions have their boots in the Treveri’s soil?’

‘He knows that he’s made a fool of himself, which led him to rant and rave at anyone who would listen until he had the Treveri stirred up to fight. It seems he’s made an example of the two legati he was holding …’

Classicus stopped talking as Kivilaz put his head in his hands.

‘He murdered the only prisoners he had of any value? That’s his death warrant signed, if the ink wasn’t already dry. And now he plans to take on the Twenty-first Legion without waiting for us?’

‘He plans to defend Rigodulum, to prevent the Romans laying siege to Augusta Trevorum itself.

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