“Where do we hide? And how do we attack themen they send from the city without having to retake the fortressall over again?” Flaminius asked, and I could see he was trying tohide his doubts.
“That’s what we have to determine,” Iallowed. “But we can start by clearing out that rubble pile andjust leave the breach.”
“Won’t that arouse suspicion?” Libo had beensitting quietly with the other Tribunes to that point.
“It might,” I conceded. “But then again,we’re Romans, and everyone knows that we like things tidy andorganized. If we remove the rubble, and put it off to the side, sayat the bottom of the hill near the roadway, I’m willing to wagerthat the Thracians may scratch their heads, then just shrug and say‘We always knew those Romans were crazy. Who else would move rocksfrom one pile to the next?’”
There were some snickers at my jest, yet myintent was serious, for I believed that was exactly what wouldhappen. The rest of the world has a hard time understanding ourobsession with cleanliness and order, and there are more examplesof that obsession than can be counted. I moved on, trying toarticulate the plan even just now forming in my mind.
“That will leave a hole in the wall thatcan’t be closed, since the gate is destroyed and there won’t betime to patch the breach. But we should only rely on that as a lastresort. The trick will be to catch them out in the open, beforethey get to the fortress. Or to be waiting for them as they enterthe fortress.”
“And how are we going to make that happen?”Primus demanded, and it was a good question.
“We can’t kill the advance party thatthey’ll send before the main body,” Macrinus put in.
“No, we can’t,” I agreed, my mind racingthrough the problem. “But we can after they’ve given the signalthat all is well.”
“Meaning we’d have to have men hidden in thefortress, waiting,” Macrinus mused. “But they’ll undoubtedly searchthe fortress just to make sure that we don’t have any trickeryplanned.”
“They’ll search, but they’ll search theplaces that they’d expect men to be. How much time do you thinkthey are going to spend looking through every nook and cranny ofthe place?”
“Do you have someplace specific in mind?”Flaminius asked.
“I do. The barracks are obviously offlimits, because that will be one of the first places they look, ifonly to try and find anything worth taking. And the stables, I’dwager. But I seriously doubt they are going to check the storagebuildings.”
I snapped my fingers, another idea coming tome.
“Or the cisterns. They’d never think to lookin the cisterns. How many are there?”
I asked this of Flavianus, whose job it wasto take inventory of these kinds of things.
“Five,” he replied.
“But those are full of water,” Primusprotested.
“They are now,” I replied. “But not forlong.”
The men were put to work, divided betweencleaning up the rubble pile, moving it stone by stone down thetwisting road and away from the fortress, or hauling water out ofthe cisterns, dumping the contents outside the walls. In bothcases, it was brutal, backbreaking work, but the men wereaccustomed to working hard and, once they knew what it was for,they did it without more than the usual complaining. The hardestpart was disguising the fact that most of the men were back at thefortress instead of in the new camp. To help with the ruse, we hadthe bucinator sound calls all day, and moved the auxiliariesinto the camp under the cover of night to act as Legionaries. Thismade the men of the Legions understandably nervous to haveauxiliaries running free, essentially with a license to steal and,for a short period, it appeared that the men would mutiny. Toassuage their concerns, we left a Century from each Cohort in thecamp to keep an eye on the auxiliaries. Unfortunately, twoauxiliaries were caught in a tent with a number of possessions notbelonging to them. Before the provosts could be called, they werebeaten severely by the comrades of the men who had been victimized.This of course did not sit well with the other auxiliaries, causinga near riot in the camp, but ironically, it helped since itcertainly caused the kind of distraction we were hoping for. Thecisterns were emptied as much as possible, but there was still atleast three inches of water in the bottom. Each cistern was largeenough to hold about fifteen men, if they crammed together tightly.It would not be comfortable, and it would be cold standing in thewater. Hopefully, they would not be there long. The storagebuildings were windowless, with only narrow slits cut high on thewalls to let in some light. This was not a good thing, becausethere would be no way for the men inside to know when it was timeto burst out of hiding and go on the attack. Neither could the menin the cistern, for that matter, so to give the men the warningthey would need, I called on Caldus, our beleagueredcornicen.
“I need you for a very important mission,” Itold him. “But it’s also very dangerous.”
I was proud of the boy, because he did nothesitate for a moment.
“What is it that I need to do?” was his onlyquestion.
Taking him to a rundown small woodenbuilding that had clearly served as a smithy, I pointed to a woodenbox attached to the side where tools for the smith were stored. Thebox was empty, and he would just fit inside, along with his horn.By keeping the lid wedged open with a stick, he could see out ontothe parade ground, and more importantly had a view of the rampartfacing Serdica, where I was sure the signal would be sent from bythe scouting party. The instant he saw the signal, he would blowhis horn, giving the men inside their hiding places the order toswarm out and overwhelm the Serdi. I had no need to tell
