The general's tent was not the largest. Nor the most ornate. But no one doubted which one it was. It stood at the center of the camp, guarded by a double line of sentries and with a wooden table set up beneath a side awning. On it lay maps, stones, notes, quills, and a half-broken stylus.
Julius Caesar was not sleeping.
Neither were his officers.
Titus Labienus held a bowl of wine he hadn't touched, standing, observing the valley's movements from a small rise a few paces away. Caesar himself reviewed a map in silence, marking the estimated positions of the Helvetian tribes and the placement of his own legions with a bronze pointer.
"They've camped with discipline," Labienus finally said, without turning around. "They're not disorganized. And they've placed their women and wagons at the center. They don't intend to flee."
"That's what I want," Caesar replied. "For them to fight with everything. To lose everything. Only then will this migration end."
To his right, the legate Quintus Tullius Cicero cleared his throat. He was younger, less hardened than Labienus, but no less attentive.
"We estimate they still have more than sixty thousand men capable of bearing arms, general. We have... what? Twenty-five thousand?"
"Twenty-eight," Labienus corrected.
"And better trained," Caesar added. "With a clearer purpose. They fight to survive. We fight for the Republic. For Rome."
Silence returned for a moment.
"And if they win?" Cicero asked, his tone not fearful, but dutiful.
Caesar lifted his eyes from the map.
"They won't."
"And if they do?"
"Then they'll win tomorrow. And die the next day. No one survives Rome."
Labienus set the bowl on a rock without having tasted it.
"What do we do at dawn?"
Caesar stepped closer to the table, drew three lines, and pointed to the flanks.
"The XIII and the VIII will press from the rear. You'll lead them, Labienus. I'll take the center with the X and XI. We'll align in front of their vanguard, without waiting for them to come. We attack."
"Head-on?"
"Head-on. Fast. Like a dagger to the heart."
Cicero nodded, but still had something on his mind.
"And if they entrench? Lock themselves behind their wagon circle?"
Caesar raised an eyebrow.
"Then we surround them. I don't want nomadic tribes vanishing into the forests. This war ends here. Not dragged out for months."
Labienus smirked with a hint of pride.
"Spoken like a consul of Rome."
Caesar looked toward the hill where the XIII Gemina waited.
"Tomorrow, whether they remember us or not, they'll know we were here. That we stopped chaos with order. That we did what was needed."
Then, in a lower tone:
"I'd rather be feared by barbarians than mourned by senators."
No one added anything more.
Night fell over the camp with the silence of those who know that history is written in blood. And atop the ridge, beneath the standard of Rome, Caesar remained standing.