Nobody Loves a Centurion(63)

We rode out through the Porta Principalis Sinistra in the eastern wall of the camp. We rode until we were out of sight of both camp and rampart, then Lovernius called a halt near a small clump of trees.

“There will be no Helvetii to chase this morning,” he said, dismounting. “Let’s make ourselves comfortable.”

“That sounds good to me,” I said, feeling the accumulated soreness of the night’s activities as I heaved myself from the saddle. One of the men took our horses to picket them among the trees. We all sat in the shade. Lovernius had thoughtfully brought along a fat skin of native wine and we began passing it around our circle.

When it came to me, I leaned back against the bole of a tree and directed the pale stream into my mouth. For native stuff it was excellent, or else my tastes were coarsening. I didn’t try to rush things. The turf was springy and comfortable beneath me. Lovernius would tell me what he had to say when he was ready and I had run out of people to badger in the camp.

“I do not want you to think,” Lovernius said at last, “that we who are loyal to Rome are in any way in sympathy with these Helvetii.”

“I would never think it,” I assured him, not insincerely. In truth, while we Romans tended to lump all Gauls together, they had only the sketchiest sense of national kinship. In no way did they feel that they were taking sides with foreigners against their brothers. A member of another Gallic tribe was as foreign to them as a Syrian is to a Roman.

“We do not allow the Druids to dominate us,” he asserted. “Not as they do the Helvetii and others. But we still regard them with respect.”

“Quite understandable.” I took another pull at the wine. Not bad at all, really. I passed it to Lovernius, feeling that he needed a little more lubrication. He had almost worked himself up to saying what he had to say. He took a couple of sizable swallows and passed it on. Then he sat in silence for a while. Then, with an effort, he spoke.

“Titus Vinius was triple-slain.”

I knew, at last, I was onto something. “What does that mean?”

“You recall that you told me Vinius had been strangled, stabbed, and axed on the head?”

“More like clubbed on the head, but I recall telling you.” I also remembered the distressed reaction of his men. At the time he had said that they were upset at the defiling of a sacred pond.

“Well, that is a Druid thing. For some sacrifices, the victim is triple-slain; he or she may be hanged or throttled. In either case the noose is left around the neck. Then the victim may be stabbed or the throat cut, then smashed on the head, then thrown into a pond or sunk in a marsh. Sometimes only hanged and stabbed or axed, the drowning being the third death.”

I remembered now the triple-headed god on Badraig’s staff and the Gallic habit of doing things by threes. “You think the Druids killed Vinius as a sacrifice?”

“They must have! Who else could have done it, and why?”

“The why of it is a major question,” I said, my mind speeding for a change. “But I know that Vinius had some sort of dealings on the side. He was amassing wealth from somewhere, and it certainly wasn’t from the army. Might he have been dealing with the Druids? If he somehow betrayed them—and this would certainly be in character—they might have done away with him in revenge.”

“But to do this without a festival of the people?” he objected. “That is terribly irregular.”

“In time of war,” I said, “we often simplify our religious rituals. Perhaps that is what they did. Am I correct in believing that the Druids never use arms?”

“Except for the instruments of sacrifice, they never even touch them. It would be polluting.”

“There,” I said, spreading my hands, “what could be more sensible? They can’t use swords or spears, so they used what they had.” It didn’t answer everything, but I liked the sound of it.

“Well, perhaps,” he said, still very uneasy.

“But there is more, isn’t there?” I prodded.

“Yes. What we saw last night.”

“That had the look of a sacrifice as well,” I said. “But you said that is never the way a Druid is sacrificed.”

“It is not,” he said, taking another pull at the skin.

“Then tell me, Lovernius: Who sacrifices their victims by hanging alone?”

“The Germans!” he said, vehemently. “In their sacred groves, they hang their victims in oak trees. At one great festival held every twelve years, they sacrifice twelve of every living thing: men, beasts, even birds and fish. Hundreds of corpses hanging in a huge oak grove near the Northern Sea.”