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“Marcus!”
The wail of a woman in pain shot through the house. Marcus Rutilius knew that painful wail. He had been expecting it. He rolled together the scrolls littering his desk and stood up to answer it.
The door to his chamber opened. Dieter Straightback stood there, the commander of his Guard.
“The midwife says it is time, lord,” the Batavian said. “Come quick.”
“Guard this chamber,” Rutilius ordered. Then he was out of the door and bolting down the hall to where his wife lay panting and wailing with pain.
He arrived moments later. His wife was on her back off to the right of their bed, while their two little boys- her Quintus and his Publius- each held one of her hands. The midwife looked up from her station at the foot of the bed, between his wife’s legs, and nodded.
“Any moment now, lord,” she reported. “She is widening to where I can almost see the crown.” A moment and a gasp later, she cried out, “There! The crown. Now, my lady, once more. Push!”
Claudia wailed once again and pushed with all her might. A mighty pain pierced her body, then blessed relief. Another voice joined hers in screaming- a tiny voice emerging from a tiny body. The midwife worked furiously, then stood proudly, bearing a tiny human in her arms. This she presented to the panting mother a few minutes later, after she cleaned and wrapped it. It quieted once it was inside the warm swaddling cloth.
“Your son, lord,” she said to Rutilius, then turned and placed the baby by his mother’s breast. “A good delivery. Quick, and not too painful. Both mother and son will be fine.”
Claudia Sacra nodded, though she was still panting. “Aye, Eadwina, this one went much smoother than with Quintus.” She looked up to her husband. “Our son, Marcus. What shall his name be?”
This question ran through his mind countless times over the last six hours, ever since the first pains hit his wife. Six hours! That was unbelievably quick, even by second-birth standards. His father was Lucius. He was Marcus, his first son Publius, and that meant his second son would be Decius or Sextus, by the family standard. Yet he saw himself as more than a simple Roman. He might have been that once, but his time in Germania has changed him. He was now a bridge between two worlds, one Roman and the other German. Thus the dilemma. “I want to name him Aelric, after the Guard who died freeing me from the barbarians across the river.”
She groaned. “You know how I feel about barbarian names,” said the woman who was descended from Germans herself. But she was a noblewoman of the Ubii, who called themselves Agrippensi after a Roman warlord, and was herself a Roman citizen, despite her blood. “Aelric Rutilius sounds bloody silly. Can we not name him Marcus, after yourself? Marcus Rutilius Junior- it suits him well.”
“It will be confusing later to those with whom I have dealings,” Rutilius replied. “We shall name him Decius. Decius Rutilius.”
“Decius,” she moaned softly. “A good name.”
The midwife finished her chores as little Decius began suckling. Claudia was already half-asleep, and would be fully asleep within minutes. The midwife gathered her things and quietly departed, making room for Milika, the head maid of the household, to take her place beside her friend’s bed.
“He is adorable,” she whispered to Claudia.
“Yours will be too,” Claudia whispered back, reminding Milika of her own child soon to be born. “Just after the autumn equinox. I look forward to taking care of you, Milika, as repayment for the kindness you show me now.”
“Then I shall try extra-hard not to make any mistakes!” the maid laughed, “else they shall come back to haunt me!”
Rutilius exited the room quietly. It was time for girl talk then rest- and his wife needed both right now. He, on the other hand, had his own work to finish.
Dieter was still outside the door to his chamber. A simple gesture from the Batavian ensured Rutilius that nobody had entered the room since he had left. He entered, and went back to work. Dieter, standing in the doorway, marveled at the way this Roman watches the birth of his son then goes back to work as if nothing special had just happened.
“Do you mind?” Rutilius said, noticing his Guard captain out of the corner of his eye.
“May I ask what is so important that only the birth of your son could interrupt it?” Dieter asked, then added, “And what draws you back to it so soon thereafter?”
Rutilius sighed and pushed the scrolls away. He beckoned the German in, and bade him close the door.
“Plans for the summer offensive,” he explained. “I have not heard anything yet, mind you, but the Bructeri are very convinced that we are going. And as they have a friend in Rome while I do not, I think they might be right. So I am preparing some plans for the governor.”
Dieter nodded at the wisdom, then looked over the four large scrolls upon the table. “That is an awful big plan, Marcus. I think I should let you in on a secret: The more complicated a thing is, the easier it breaks. This applies to plans as well- the bigger and more complex it is, the easier it is to wreck. Or in the Batavian way, keep it short and simple, and you will find success more often than not.”
“Good advice,” Marcus agreed. “But this is not one big plan. It is four sets of guidelines- each to a separate plan.” To his Guard captain’s confused look, he added, “I am creating four very feasible, very believable, and very different plans for the summer. We choose one to follow, and from the other three, one to send to Rome.”
Dieter smiled, then laughed heartily. “Very well done, lord. Are you sure you are not Batavian?”
“Chatti on my mother’s side, pure Roman on my father’s.”
“You must have some Batavian,” Dieter insisted. “I have seen you ride, and this... This, lord is pure Civilis. Sending a plan to Rome so that it can be stolen and sent to the enemy, who will plan their best to counter it, leaving them open to the true plan. Devious!”
Rutilius shrugged. “They started it. I simply intend to finish it. And them.”
Dieter nodded. “You are indeed Batavi, lord, in spirit if not by blood. A worthy reason to continue so soon after your little one came into the world.”
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Gnaeus Cornelius Clemens cursed when he read again the letter from his colleague in the lower province. Cordinus wrote sorrowfully of the losses incurred by the Thracian ala Cornelius had lent him, but also fairly bragged about the glowing report he had received from the survivors and his quaestor. He had numbers, he had locations, he had routes. He even had the location of the missing legionary eagle of the V
Alaudae- and had recovered the other! If ordered across this summer, he would have it very easy indeed.
Cornelius crumpled the letter and threw it away in disgust.
“Problems, Gnaeus?” asked his quaestor, Quintus Lutatius Catullus.
“Bad news for our legions,” Clemens admitted. “Worse news for me personally. It seems Cordinus managed to get his intelligence report confirmed. He has a new map, updated, and all the information an expert arcanus could give him.”
“So?” asked Catullus. “He is still the buffoon that got his sorry ass kicked hard last year. Thirty slaves, for three thousand casualties! The man is not going across again this year. That is for sure.”
“You are wrong, Quintus,” Clemens cursed. “He will go across. He got thrashed last year due to poor intelligence. His quaestor solved that problem.”
“He had his chance and blew it,” Catullus snorted. “We have our troops in peak condition, with lots of cavalry, infantry auxilia, and even some of those Pannonian irregulars that were so effective in Moesia. We have nineteen more auxilia cohorts than when we came here. Of course we are going across. It is in the stars- and the deployment of the auxilia.”
“He is definitely going,” Clemens snarled. “Look at that scroll there, the one with Vespasian’s seal. From the Imperator himself! It orders us to send eight auxilia cohorts to Vetera- four cavalry, four infantry. The only argument I had to prevent that transfer was that he would lose it as he had those worthless Thracians because the bloody fool did not know a damned thing about Germania across the Rhenus. Now he does- in brilliant detail. Damn it!”
“We have to send him eight cohorts?” Catullus gasped. “You are correct, lord. He will be going across.”
“I intend to send him more Thracian cavalry, and those petulant Spaniards as well- useless horsemen! For the infantry, three cohorts of the Raetian auxilia, coupled with those worthless Britons we have been saddled with,” Clemens replied. “At least then I will no longer have to deal with their problems, or their poor discipline, or their useless whining.”
“You might want to keep the Spaniards and those Raetians, lord,” Catullus said suddenly. “The Spanish are wild and light- useless in open battle, but perfect for the forests. If you give him those, he will have a better chance at success than without, whereas if we are to rescue him, we will need just those kind of horsemen. And the Raetians, lord, are forest-dwellers- you give him what he needs because they are barbarians too.”
“You have a point, Catullus,” Clemens agreed after a moment’s contemplation. “We’ll send that rowdy Galatian cavalry cohort in place of the one of the Spaniards, though those Thracians are still going! For the third, maybe the Moesian horsemen. Their prefect can’t seem to keep his men in line, and he himself is the worst offender. Our army is better of without them.”
“And the fourth cavalry unit?”
Clemen cursed lowly. He had not others except his beloved Gauls, and the Spaniards who might be excellent in the words. He did have a cohort of heavy Gallic cavalry- the Tauriana. Heavy Cavalry in the forests? Ha! That decided him.
“We’ll send them the I Gallorum Tauriana,” he decided.
“Excellent!” laughed Catullus. ”Horsemen he cannot use. Now, who do you intend to send as infantry in place of the Raetian auxilia?”
Clemens thought it over. He could never part with his Gauls- he had worked quite long with them now and understood them well. They were very close. That left him with the Italian auxilia- too close to his own legionaries and of Roman citizens, so they stay. And the Raetians, his forest experts as Catullus pointed out. The Britons can go- disloyal, argumentative, poorly equipped- they were simply not meant for his army. That left him with a cohort of Dalmatians, two of Illyrians, the Greek Sagitarii, and the Moesian irregulars to choose between.
“I think I will send the Greeks and the Illyrians with the Britons,” he finally decided. “The Greeks lose their advantage in the woods- the ranges are too short by far. I want to keep the Moesians for their agility and flexibility, and the Dalmatians for their solidity. Did you know that their tribune taught them the ancient phalanx? Just for show, of course, but still. Remarkable.”
“So you would send him half-civilized British auxilia,” Catullus concluded, “Greek archers who cannot see what to aim at, and then two cohorts of Illyrians known to be light troops from forested hills, and have trained and worked together for almost a year now. These you send to a colleague you do not wish to see succeed?”
“Merda,” Clemens said bitterly. “When you put it like that, it does seem contradictory. Let’s keep the Illyrians for our own use, and replace them with the Dalmatians. Really, what use is a phalanx in the woods? So the Dalmatians, the troublesome Britons and useless Greeks will go. And I’ll even throw in the wildly irregular Moesian bandits. Thank you, Quintus.”
“Moesians... Bandits or worse, but good in the woods. We might need them ourselves, lord.”
“What are you planning?” Cornelius Clemens said, gaining a sudden insight into the depths of his quaestor. Cordinus is not the only one with a rising star. “Surely you do not intend to send my Gauls, or my Romans. And breaking up the winning team of the twin Illyrian cohorts does not sound like a good idea.”
“We have other infantry, lord. I suggest sending a cohort of them. Classiani. Several of them have been asking to be transferred to Germania Inferior. Well, let’s do just that.”
Clemens roared in laughter. “Classiani? River rats? Oh Quintus, that is brilliant.”
“When does the Old Owl say they have to report for duty?”
“They are to be at Vetera ready for duty on the Kalends of Junius. Why do you ask?”
Quintus Catullus grinned cruelly. “They are based near Augusta Trevorum now. If you send them up the Rhenus Road, they will be seen, expected, and give your colleague time to plan them into his attack. If you send them first to Bibracte, then up the back road, they arrive literally out of the forest. Your colleague will then have to evaluate them before working them into his plan, or simply adapt. And you saw how well he can do that.”
Cornelius Clemens laughed heartily. “So true, Quintus, so true. Cut the orders. Give him our troublemakers- and little time to do anything with them.”
The best part of that idea, my little worm, is that those forces come nowhere near Colonia. Rutilius will not be able to save his namesake lord this time.
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