Thus ended an eventful day, and thus began a chain of placid ones, becauseas Pierrette had suspectedPolybius was a perspicacious questioner. As well, he was a prodigious talker, with a wealth of anecdotes. He was, after all, a longtime companion of famous men, and had himself ruled a territory larger than the Athenian empire had been. Now in his last years he had become reflective, and Pierrette, with her own fund of histories read and remembered, was an ideal mirror.
Guihensoon freed from the soldiers who had guarded him, and given the run of the campoften sat silently, absorbing the rough outlines of their conversations. "He's testing you, isn't he?" the sprightly one said, one evening as they walked back to the tent they shared. "He's trying to catch you out."
"He will surely find errors, because my memory isn't perfect. And he will surely disagree with me, because I've read books that aren't even in the great library at Alexandria, so our viewpoints differ greatly. But he'll catch me in no lies, because I tell none."
"This is taking a lot of time. Aren't you worried?"
"If Polybius vouches for me, and Calvinus acts, the time is well spent. If I rush things, and fail, then it's all wasted time."
"I suppose. I wonder how they're doing there." He gestured in the direction of Entremont.
"I try not to."
They took one meal each day with the consul and his advisor, in the small house. That was when Pierrette got her first inkling of a new difficulty. Calvinus had begun to act . . . chivalrous . . . toward her. Unlike many of his officers, he did not have a woman. When Polybius pointedly ushered Guihen away after a sumptuous meal of early lamb seasoned with fresh rosemary, crusty Gaulish-style loaves from the newly built ovens, and steamed fern shoots with wild onions, Calvinus refilled Pierrette's wine cup with a fine golden Tuscan vintage. "I saved this for a special occasion, veleda."
"What might that be, consul? Is today a feast day for a Roman god?"
"Every day is Fortuna's holiday. May she smile on me tonight." He sat down on the same low, hand-built couch she occupied.
Pierrette had few skills as a coquette. Her upbringing had been as a boy, not a girl, because of her father's disputed inheritance, and even her dalliancesas with Alkideshad been transparent and open, her enthusiasms direct and her reticence unfeigned. As soon as she discerned his intent, she spoke out.
"You are an attractive man," she said. "Were I like other women, I would likely spend this night in your bed."
Her open assessment threw him off guard. "It was not my intent to . . ."
"But isn't it your desireand thus quite like my own? Have I embarrassed you? I suppose a Roman woman might bat her eyelashes and simper, then veil her `yes' or `no' with shy pretense."
"I don't remember any Roman women. You have wiped them all from my mind."
She sighed, and edged away even as he shifted closer to her. "You make me regret my profession, consul. Need you taunt me further with what I cannot have? I must remain virgin, or lose the skills I have spent so many years attaining. I know, because a goddess told me."
"So many years? How many is that? Fifteen? Seventeen?" He was condescending to her. But she was not quite the child she seemed. She drew back and turned so she faced him, and her eyes locked to his.
"Look well, Caius Sextius Calvinus. Are these the eyes of a giddy girl? What do you see in them?"
He backed away, his expression unreadable. What had he seen? Pierrette did not know, but it must have been enough. "I apologize, veleda. You are indeed no precocious child. But you are no less beautiful for that, and I have fallen no less in love with you."
"I am . . . infatuated . . . with you also. You are good-looking, powerful, and sometimes charming too. But just as you would not willingly lose a battle for the sake of a pretty face, I won't abandon my cause for a handsome one."
He grinned. "Your facile tongue amazes me. In one breath, you bring me down to callow boyhood, and raise yourself to equal status with a consul of Roma."
"Only regarding this single issue. I am not a commander of warriors, and I know nothing of ballistae, catapults, siege towers, or . . . turtles." A "turtle," testudo, was a close formation of men with shields raised overhead like a roof, to protect rammers or sappers.
"See? You're doing it again. I'd wager you do know what each of those is. You've vanquished mefor now. But Hannibal fought Roma for more than a decade, and there were many battles won and lost on each side. This was only our first."
"We'll fight them in their proper time," she said. "Have you been considering the proper time for your assault on Entremont? I saw a company of your men bring in several great logs today. Are those for the siege machines?"
"Will Fortuna smile on me if I say they are?"
Pierrette concealed her dismay. She had not intended to imply anything like that, but the way one subject had followed so swiftly upon the other, Calvinus had made a connection between them. But was that all bad? If he thought that pressing toward honest battle with the Gauls advanced his cause with her . . . but how far did she dare let that proceed, and once started, how could she stop it?
"I'll walk you to your tent," he said, rising. "Tomorrow, I'll introduce you to my engineers, who will show you anything you want to know about ballistae and the rest."
That night it rained again, and the next day hardly dawned at all. The gradual transition from black night to gray day crept over the camp unnoticed even by the birds, which forgot to announce the new day at all. When at last the guard captain could distinguish a black thread from a white one, he ordered a horn blown, and sodden men emerged from their tents, then struggled to light fires under water-soaked faggots, to break their fasts.
True to his promise, Calvinus introduced Pierrette to his chief engineer, but as there was little to show her but unhewn logs, she did not spend much time with him, in the drizzling rain. She soon sought out Polybius, who had sensibly stayed in the snug stone house, and had lit several lamps to ward off the gloom.
"I've been giving your ideas a good going-over," he said, as they sipped hot barley-and-bean soup. "When I consider my own books again, one flaw that rises up and beats me is the nature of fate, and its proper relationship with history. If my successors find aught to criticize but my inconsistencies regarding Tyche's roleor Fortuna's, to use her Roman namethey will have plenty to say."
"Calvinus believes in the goddess," Pierrette reflected, remembering the light in his pale blue eyes.
"All soldiers worship her," Polybius responded, "because no one has bothered to define just what is meant by luck, chance, fate, and caprice. That, too, is my own failure. When a great general succeedsas did Hannibal, bringing his men and thirty-seven elephants all the way from Iberia to the outskirts of Roma, we say Fortuna aided himbut was the goddess even consulted?"
"I think that careful planning, like researching his possible routes, and the alliances he made in advance with the Gallic tribes whose territory he had to cross, were more important," Pierrette stated.
"Exactly! His `good fortune' was his own doing, and Roma's subsequent `bad luck' resulted from that. But some `lucky' events are less subject to analysisthe flash flood that delays an army, for instance, and changes the outcome of a battle. Must we attribute such to the goddess's hand at work?"
The discussion of fate occupied them for much of the gloomy day, and resulted in a short list of examples. Polybius praised Pierrette's fine handwriting, which was much neater than his cramped, elderly style, "Though you have an odd way of making your `sigmas,' when they occur at the end of a word." Pierrette's Greek was the cursive style, used for manuscripts, not the rectilinear capitals seen on monuments, and it had been learned from documents recopied and "updated" many times since they were first written.
At last the old man pleaded fatigue, and Pierrette did not regret itshe had not really convinced him of anything, or persuaded him to throw the weight of his opinion behind her demand that Calvinus engage the Gauls without delay, but she was sure Polybius now considered her a mind worth reckoning with, and when the time was right, she would test his own mind's flexibility, but hopefully not beyond its limits.
With Guihen, she ate yesterday's bread, dipped in a stew of dried beans and lentils, flavored (ever so slightly) with salted pork. The elfin one, slipping in and out of the camp with almost-supernatural ease, had found an entire ham in the smoky rafters of a Gaulish farmstead not a mile from the Roman gate. Gaulish hams had been famous for centuries, even in Roma. It would keep indefinitely, even though it would begin to mold in the rainy weather. The mold would not penetrate, and could be scraped off. So it made sense to ration it.
"Well?" he demanded, his interrogative erupting mushily around his mouthful of bread and beans. "What have you told the old Greek?"
"Not much, yet. I need more time, to get him to trust me. The truth is not exactly self-evident, you know. I'd never be able to convince the consul of any of itespecially that I need to remain . . . intact."
"Is that going to be a problem? It is, isn't it?" His large, luminous violet eyes did not miss a thing, even the slight turning-away of her head. "What are you going to do about that?"
"I'll have to wait and see."
For a change, the day was clear and sunny, though still unseasonably chill. Pierrette dubiously observed the progress of the engineers. Several siege engines were under constructionbut they did not look like much, mostly unassembled parts that bore little relationship with what they might someday become. When the chief engineer told her they had to be assembled, tested, then taken apart to be dragged up the hillsides and defiles, then reassembled before they could be brought to bear against Entremont's walls, she became even more discouraged. There would not be enough time.
"Come," Calvinus said, attempting to lighten her mood. "The legions are being mustered this morning. I want you to see the might of Roma at its best."
The muster took place in the two-hundred-foot-wide space between tents and the south wall, and Calvinus, offering his arm, led Pierrette in front of the foremost rank. Centurions and signifers, the latter holding their gleaming standards, were bright red-plumed accents among the masses, who were mostly dun and dirty beige, their helmets a variety of shapes, some iron, some bronze. This, she reminded herself, was not the army of the Roman Empire, professional soldiers, but a citizens' army, troops levied for a season or a year. But each man had an identical black plume atop his helm that made him seem much taller.
The soldiers were grouped in maniples of two "centuries," each "century" ten men wide and six deep. "But that's only sixty men," Pierrette protested. "Doesn't a `century' mean a hundred?"
"It used to be so," her escort said. "A legion originally had forty-two centuries. It still has forty-two hundred men, but the way it's organized has changed. Now there are ten maniples of hastatithose foremost troopsand ten of principes, the ranks behindyou can see them through the intervals in the hastati maniples. Principes are, as a rule, older and more experiencedand better armored."
"Why are the less experienced men in front? Is it that way in battle, too?"
"Elegant speeches can energize young men, and they'll fight for honor and patriotismso we put them in front, where their fires burn hotly." He chuckled.
"What's funny?"
"By the time they're smart enough not to pay much attention to speeches, those who survive are made principes. They are often ordered up when the hastati have borne the brunt of the initial conflict. The third rankstriariiare mostly older still, and sometimes see no fighting at all. They are held in reserve, but when they do fightlet the foe beware! Their centuries are only thirty men each, but are worth sixty of the others."
Pierrette observed that the hastati and principe maniples were each backed up by two rows of men who wore no chain mail or breastplates, and who had the skins of wolves, foxes, and other creatures on their helmets instead of plumes. Only their swords and shields were like the rest. "Those are velites, young men who have never soldiered before. Traditionally, they fought with the mature men to gain experiencewhich they still do, of course, but we've recently been using them to good effect by having them out front at the onset of battle, to throw javelins, then retreat behind the others. In camp, they serve the older soldiers and maintain their equipment, and often their betters become quite protective of them, and thus see to their further training on their own."
"Are the spears the front ranks carry hastae? I thought hastae were long lances."
Calvinus eyed her curiously. "You have an odd fund of knowledge, especially being so young. No, hastati used to carry long spears, but now all they have is pili, throwing spears, and the triarii carry hastaeit's something like `centuries' no longer having a hundred men."
On both ends of the ranked maniples of hastati, principes, and triarii were the cavalry, in ten squadrons of thirty men and horses, called turmae, each man armed with a long, heavy lance with a spike on its butt end. The men wore short breastplates, and mail armor. Their swords were longer and slimmer than the gladii the infantry carried. "They require a greater reach, from their horses," said Calvinus.
By the time the consul expressed his approval of the troops' condition, and left the field with Pierrette, she had a bewildering amount of information. Each maniple had two centurions, and the one commanding the rightmost centuries was senior. Each officera tribunecommanded three maniples, usually one each of the three age groups, with their assigned velites. Together, they formed a cohort. The two remaining tribunes (there were twelve) served the consul as staff, and as replacements for casualties.
Consuls, Pierrette had learned, were elected by the Senate from among the nobility, and tribunes by the plebeians, the Roman commoners, from among their own. Tribunes divided the levied soldiers into centuries, and the principes, triarii, and hastati maniples each elected first a senior and then a junior centurion from their numbers. Most often, these were proven men. The centurions then appointed others as optionesclerks, supply officers, and paymastersand chose signifers, standard-bearers. "Of course things aren't entirely rigid," Calvinus said. "In fact, the election of tribunes has gone the way of hundred-man centuriesbut the principle remains."
Despite such caveats, Pierrette was profoundly impressedmore so even than with the ferocious Gauls. For all their élan and warlike spirits, how could theyindividual warriors, who fought in whatever manner they wished, with any weapons they chosestand up against the Romans' stolid, organized might? She had a silly thought: the Gauls were like thick, solid oxcart-wheels loosed down a hill, bouncing and rolling wildly, smashing everything they struck, while the Roman legions were a war-chariot, a smoothly functioning construct of different partsaxles, hubs, naves, spokes, felloes, and tires, springs, frames, linchpins, harnesses, reins, and horsesthat worked together for a purpose, as directed by the consul, the charioteer.
"With just the men you have," she said, "you can defeat the Gauls. You don't need more."
He shook his head. "Only if the battle site is perfectly chosen, with a hill, cliff, or unfordable stream on each flank of our force, never so far apart that I have to spread the maniples thinly, or reduce the depth of their ranks. My Massilian allies were to have as many infantry as I already possess, and more importantly still, nine hundred more horsemen to anchor our flanks if no natural obstacles were available. That is critically important, because if the flank is turnedif the foe gets behind usall advantage is lost. Even disciplined soldiers are then no better than a mob. If they have to fight enemies behind themselves as well as in front, they are unable to protect their fellows, shoulder to shoulder, as they are trained to do."
"But I know just the place!" Pierrette said. "Beyond the north rampart of Entremont, there is a forest of tall pines and upland oaks, the preserve of the goddess Nematona. Though not impassable, the trees are close enough to break up an enemy charge. Then, no more than three hundred paces distant, across flat ground that rises like a ramp to the city wall, is a dense copse of scrub oaks and young pines far too dense to swing even a short sword in. Those will . . . anchor your flanks . . . perfectly, I think."
His eyes were wide. "You amaze me again. Can you show me that place?" Pierrette pondered it. She had seen it from atop the rightmost bastion of Entremont's north wall, at the juncture of the low and high towns. Was there a place where Calvinus could see itwithout himself being seen, or captured by the enemy?
"Let me ask Guihen. If anyone can find such a place, and guide you there with great stealth, it is he."
"Tomorrow night," said Guihen emphatically, glancing at the sky, where thick, puffy cumulus clouds alternated with patches of brilliant sapphire blue. "I know just the place Pierrette's thinking of."
"Why not tonight?" asked the consul. "Have you sought an omen about it?" His tone was sarcastic.
"There is your omen," Guihen said, brightly oblivious, pointing at an eastward-marching cloud. "Tonight's sky will be like today'smostly clouds. Tomorrow will be clearer, but there will still be a few clouds, and the moon will rise soon after sunset, and will be almost fullwe will have long moments of darkness, to skulk amid the rocks and trees, and equally long ones of bright moonlight, to see what we can see."
Calvinus nodded. "Tomorrow night, then."
"Wear something dark," Guihen said. "And if you must carry all that iron"Calvinus was still dressed in his shiny parade armor, and wore both sword and dagger"blacken it with soot, and wrap your clanking ornaments in leather or soft cloth, or we'll end up explaining ourselves to Teutomalos in the high city . . . or you will, at least."
"I know how to skulk, little man. When I was a boy, I stalked rabbits, and caught them by their ears."
"Hmm," Guihen mused, as if taking that boast completely seriously. "Can you do that with a squirrel?"
The consul chose to accept that as a joke, and only smiled. "Be ready at tomorrow's sunset."
Guihen looked himself up and downhe was already clad in dark and light green, and wore soft shoes, not hard-soled caligae like the Romans. "I am ready now."
Pierrette guessed that Calvinus, at that moment, decided he would never have the last word with the diminutive Ligureand was not going to try. He turned to go.
"May I come with you tomorrow night?" Pierrette asked.
"No," said Calvinus.
"No!" said Guihen.
Then each man looked at the other, and broke into laughter. "One person can be a feeding mouse," said Guihen, "and the next, he can be a slippery stoat, or a perched owl. Two men dare not make a single sound, crushing a twig or turning a pebble. Three together . . ."
"Never mind," said Pierrette, resignedly. "I understand."
The next evening she saw them to the gate, and when she retired to the tent and her bed, she fully intended to remain awake until they returned.