During those days the vicinity of the Holy Mountain, where a large
number of fugitives had taken refuge, was full of busy life, and from
the north, the quarter not threatened by the Romans, reinforcements
were constantly arriving from other provinces.
The Tribune's efforts to discover the retreat of the fugitives had been
baffled hitherto; neither those in the marshes nor on Odin's Mountain
had been overtaken by the spies and reconnoitring parties of the Roman
General. Marshes and impenetrable primeval forests surrounded the Roman
camp on the Idisenhang on every side except southward toward the lake.
In the last few days, after a tremendous thunder storm, a southwest
wind had sprung up, bringing on its dripping wings pouring torrents of
rain; then the forests became absolutely impassable for the heavy tread
of the legions: the few fords were buried in marshes or overflowed; the
tiniest rivulet became a raging river. Sulky and shivering, the
intruders, principally natives of the south, remained in the camp under
plank roofs and leather tents, fanning day and night the flames of huge
fires which, however, as all the wood was wet, diffused more smoke than
warmth.
For long distances from the foot of the mountain the few and narrow
openings which led to the interior of the immense forests were blocked
and barricaded by felled trees. Huge oaks, ashes, and pine-trees had
been felled and piled one above another more than the height of a man,
strengthened by earth and turf, and held together at regular distances
by enormous posts driven into the ground or by trees which had been
left standing. Thus an almost insurmountable breastwork was formed, on
whose summit, and in the tops of the trees towering above it, the best
archers were stationed. Similar lines of defence were repeated, one
behind another, wherever the locality permitted. The legions would have
needed many more days than the brief time still remaining before the
end of August--they always finished their short summer campaigns in
Germany before the commencement of the autumn rains--to storm all these
fortifications; they could scarcely find it possible to make a circuit
of them, on account of the marshes. But even if they succeeded in
penetrating all the barricades to the foot of the mountain, they would
then be forced to begin the inexpressibly toilsome siege of this
natural fortress.
All the entrances were covered by several tiers of logs; while, on the
mountain itself, rising one behind another, was a whole system of "ring
walls." These extremely powerful and extensive fortifications dated
principally from Celtic times, but had been considerably strengthened
and enlarged in scope by the Alemanni during their occupation of the
country for more than the past century: they had been forced to seek
refuge here from the Roman troops often enough.
These walls were made of heaped up earth, turf, palisades, and so
called Cyclopean walls: that is, rocks, so closely joined together
without mortar or bricks, by a skilful use of their points, edges, and
fissures that fire, tearing asunder, and the blows of the ram seemed
equally ineffectual.
Each one of these rings, which rose in stories, like terraces, required
to be stormed as a separate fortress. Each lower one was protected not
only by its own garrison, but by all those above, since they were so
constructed that stones, logs, spears, and arrows from all the upper
walls could strike the enemy without injuring the combatants on the one
beneath. Seven such defences girdled the mountain, the topmost one
surrounding the summit, which concealed Odin's altar in the heart of an
ash forest.
Those unable to fight, the women, children, old men, and slaves, were
scattered through all the stories of the mountain fortress. The herds
had been driven to the rear on the northern side, where their lowing,
neighing, and bleating would be as far as possible from the enemy. The
fugitives rested at night in huts built of thick green foliage, often
with the skin of some animal fastened among the branches, which the
Alemanni had great skill in constructing. Nor was there any lack of
cellarlike subterranean passages where stores of grain and valuables
were concealed.
The fighting men garrisoned all the entrances, reconnoitred in small
bands, especially at night, beyond the barricades close to the
neighborhood of the Roman camp. They spent the day in feats of arms or
drilling, impatiently enduring the long delay in giving battle, and
grumbling at the incomprehensible procrastination of their white-haired
Duke. For the latter, Adalo, and other leaders, huts of leaves had been
built on the summit of the mountain with the tents of their followers
scattered around them.
Before one of these huts (a stag's antlers had been cut on the central
post for a house mark) on the day after Bissula's capture, a bright
fire was burning late in the evening, fed with pine cones which had
been protected from the wet under the stone closing the opening of a
cellar. It was supplied by a man about forty years old, whose cropped
hair showed that he was a slave; while the shape of his short face, his
dark eyes, high cheek bones and snub nose denoted that he was not of
German lineage. Suomar had bought him many years before in Vindonissa;
cheap enough, for Valentinian--or the slave dealer--had brought
countless captives from the Jazyge war.
In front of the fire, sheltered from the wind and smoke, old Waldrun
lay on a bearskin, her feet covered with another. Adalo was kneeling
beside her. Mirthfulness and wrath had vanished; deep sorrow clouded
his handsome face. He gave the blind woman some wine to drink from a
silver goblet. Both beaker and wine were booty wrested from the Roman.