Marius' Mules IX: Pax Gallica

by Turney, S. J. A.

  Fronto rolled his eyes. ‘Should have known he’d be moving fast too. Was he looking for me?’

  ‘Looking? Hardly. He seemed to be quite sure you were already here. He asked all about you. I asked him if he’d like me to pass a message, and he told me that lips twisted messages. He didn’t trust me, I think. Told me only lifeless lips held true words. No idea what that meant, but that’s what he said. ’

  ‘Parella, you’re a treasure.’

  ‘You said something about coin. Rather a lot of coin, if I remember.’

  Fronto smiled. ‘And I’m good for it. I’m waiting on word of something tomorrow morning, and I’ll be sending for substantial funds. I believe the governor here might even be persuaded to advance me some. I shall drop by later tomorrow and make good. You trust me?’

  ‘Trust you?’ snorted Parella. ‘ Wandering hands Fronto? Hardly. But I know you’re good for the money. Alright. Tomorrow. ’

  With a smile, Fronto left the inn and strode over to Galronus, grabbing the reins of his horse.

  ‘Verginius knows I’m here. I’d put a wager on him having been watching us yesterday. So much for not playing his game. He told Parella only lifeless lips could carry his message. Cryptic, eh?’

  ‘He’s left a message in a mausoleum?’

  ‘Not that sort of lifeless,’ Fronto said. ‘In the old days, when we wanted to pass messages to each other and didn’t want to leave a verbal trail, we’d use a messenger of marble or bronze.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Statues, Galronus. And there’s only two or three in the city that would work. Come on.’

  Leading their horses again , the two men strolled through the streets of Tarraco until they reached the port at the bottom end . Now the sun was starting to rise properly and the heat of the day was beginning to insist itself upon the city. Where the road emerged opposite the docks, a great statue of some reclining river god lorded it over a wide marble basin full of clear, clean looking water.

  ‘ Tuclius – g od of the river that runs down here from the hills. He’s a hit and miss god. Half the year the Tuclius has no water in it, just a dry dusty bed. Luckily, the aqueduct brings water from higher up in the hills to supplement it. Ah, turds.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘The engineers have been at old Tuclius.’ He gestured to the god’s face, where a lead pipe emerged from the mouth, spewing the clean water into the basin. The pipe was surrounded by a concrete fill. ‘In the old days his mouth was open and water just jetted from a hole inside. We used to push folded vellum into the back of the mouth behind the spout. Tuclius is no use now . Come on.’

  In the increasing heat of the day, they struggled back up the sloping streets of the city toward the local forum . At the entrance , where a grand arch invited them into the thriving heart of Tarraco, a statue of the great Scipio, founder of the Roman city, stood proud and armoured. Attracting disapproving looks from the citizens, Fronto clambered up onto the podium and stretched up to the mouth, just at the top of his reach. Where most statues would be tight-lipped, Scipio’s teeth were just slightly parted .

  ‘Never seen a Roman statue with his mouth open,’ Galronus muttered from below.

  ‘It’s rare. The Greeks occasionally did it, so some of the older statues are like that, but it i s rare. Maybe they don’t like to carve teeth. Gah, nothing here,’ Fronto grumbled, dropping back down. ‘Well , of the statues we used to use there’s only the Dioscuri left. Come on.’

  ‘I’m sure you could have planned this better,’ Galronus grumbled . ‘We seem to be zigging and zagging all over the city, and the whole place is one big slope.’

  ‘Stop moaning,’ Fronto said, starting uphill once more toward the southern edge of the city. ‘You could ride your horse, but you’d forever be dismounting to get round market stalls .’ After some slogging through the streets , each of which was already lined with stalls selling food, cookware and all manner of local produce, the two men reached the end of their current thoroughfare, where it became a series of hairpin bend steps leading down to the sea. At the edge of the steep hill, two statues stood guard, each a heroic naked male gripping the reins of a noble-looking steed. As they came to a halt, Fronto and Galronus looked up at the divine pair with their horses, and then at each other, gripping their reins, and burst out laughing. Once the hilarity over the humorous comparison had died away, Fronto handed his reins to Galronus and examined the open mouths of the horses, each forced apart by the ir bit. On the second one he gave a bark of triumph and returned with a folded piece of vellum.

  ‘What does it say?’ Gal r onus asked as Fronto unfolded the missive and began to scan the contents.

  ‘I’m afraid you have to leave me for this.’

  ‘Not going to happen, Marcus.’

  ‘Listen, he’s telling me to go to the theatre, but he warns me to come alone. I tell you , he’s been watching us. He probably is right now. If he wants me alone, he has to get that. I need to face him, and I think he’s unwilling to do that with you present. Take the horses and go back to the villa. I’ll find you there this afternoon.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Galronus, this is not an optional thing. I need you to go, or Verginius will just go to ground once more and I’ll have to start looking all over again. Take Bucephalus. I’ll get back somehow. Go.’

  The Remi noble stood by the statue, almost a mirror image of the Pollux in marble above him, his disapproving glare following Fronto as the Roman turned and began to march off down the street toward the wooden theatre that occupied a hollow between two high rows of insulae.

  Fronto felt the past coming forward to meet the future in a heart-stopping collision. He was ge tting closer to Verginius with every footstep, and who knew what the result would be ? Only after he’d made the first two turns did he remember that his sword was wrapped up in a roll on Bucephalus’ saddle. Damn it. That was short - sighted, but he could hardly go back and retrieve it now.

  As he rounded another corner and the theatre came into sight at the far end, he entirely missed the figure of Galronus following on , one street behind, both horses clopping along the stones, their hooves drowned out by the sound of Tarraco’s lively populace.

  * * *

  Tarraco’s theatre was much l ike the wooden affairs that were raised in Rome for important occasions and then taken down afterwards – the senate had placed a blanket ban on permanent theatres long ago as being far too Greek and inappropriate , or some such rubbish. Except, of course, that Tarraco was not Rome, and so the theatre stayed and would do so until the day some wealthy benefactor rebuilt it in stone like the one in Fronto’s home town of Puteoli. In the meantime, the wooden structure stood, hemmed in by tall insulae and sturdy warehouses , creaking and faintly dilapidated, spars, boards and seats replaced on a monthly basis.

  Fronto had fallen asleep in those seats more times than he could count on his hands. After being ejected from some dive or other, one of his various companions in liquor – no t friends , since all his friends had gone by then, while fellow drunks were plentiful – would get a hankering for a ribald comedy, or maybe it would be raining and they just had to find somewhere with a roof to wait out the downpour. Either way they would end up at a play and Fronto would often then be ejected from that establishment in turn for snoring loudly during the performance.

  Little of the theatre itself had changed since those days. The great canvas roof sagged a bit and would need tightening by the deck hands from the port before the next performance which, signs outside said, would be The Eunuch by Terentius. Fronto’s eyes rolled as he stepped into the auditorium. Terentius was far from the worst of the comedians, yet like all playwrights he seemed to think a clever play on rude words was the height of humour. For Fronto’s coin, Plautus was funnier any day, with his tendency toward slapstick , but none of it was really funny. It was all yawn-worthy crap when put against the excitement of a chariot race or a fight between two master gladiators.

  The thea
tre could accommodate maybe a thousand people at a push , in row upon row of wooden benches all facing the orchestra and the stage , which was backed by a high wooden scenae decorated with colourful paint and slightly faded hangings. Despite the sun of the day, the surrounding blocks of warehouses and insulae, combined with the heavy canvas roof that kept both sun and rain off the audience’s heads , led to the interior being surprisingly gloomy, deep shadow s f i lling the corners. Fronto waited for a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the light.

  ‘Sit down,’ said a voice from somewhere toward the stage. Fronto squinted into the gloom, but there was no sign of a figure. ‘Anywhere will do,’ the voice came again. ‘For a simple wooden theatre it has surprisingly good acoustics. I am not required to raise my voice.’

  Fronto felt his heart flutter at the sound of that voice. There was something in it of the p atrician tone he remembered, though this was not quite the Verginius of old. A barbaric edge inflected his Latin, reminiscent of the sharp tongue spoken in the mountains.

  ‘There is no need for all this drama,’ Fronto said quietly, then realised that the acoustics only worked the other way round, from the stage out wards . He opened his mouth to repeat himself louder, but Verginius had clearly heard him anyway.

  ‘Drama. Very droll, Fronto. Your humour is as blunt as ever. Ategnio told me not to come. Not to find you. He advocates a simple arrow in the neck from a distance. He is Arenosio to the core, though loyal to me beyond reason. I have had to stop him killing you several times already. I am less concerned about your companion, though. I might let Ategnio put an arrow through him, especially if he doesn’t stop lurking around up there at the back.’

  Fronto blinked and turned sharply. The figure of Galronus, a blade in each hand and a strange unreadable expression on his face, stepped out from the doorway at the back .

  ‘And armed for the fight too. You Gauls are every bit as belligerent as the A quitanii, you know?’

  ‘Belgae,’ Fronto said almost automatically. ‘Galronus is Belgae, of the Remi.’

  ‘Beware, Galronus of the Remi,’ Verginius said quietly. ‘Those who cleave too close to Fronto have a very limited life expectancy. And when the furies are closing and the light grows dim, he will choose his own skin over yours.’

  ‘Verginius…’ Fronto began.

  ‘ Be quiet, Marcus. I have waited long years to see you. And through all that time I was never sure what I would think or do when it happened. I heard you had become a drunk like your father. Then I heard you went and re- joined that arrogant self-serving prick Caesar. I thought perhaps that your heart still ached for what you’d done, but it seems that I am easily replaced. And with a native, no less. How interesting.’

  ‘Listen…’

  ‘No, Marcus. You’ll get your chance in due course, but this is my time. ’

  ‘Why did you not come back. Come find me?’ Fronto forged on , regardless.

  There was a prolonged silence and Fronto wondered for a moment whether his old friend had gone. Then with a throaty rasp, the voice started up once more.

  ‘Let me tell you a story, Marcus. This one’s not a comedy though. Definitely a tragedy I’d say.’

  ‘Verginius…’

  ‘Verginius is dead , Marcus . He died on a battlefield against the Ilergetes . His men deserted him and his friend left him to die. I did die, Marcus. I felt it happen. I knew it all, and felt everything, but I never reached the river and the boatman. I was too valuable to the Ilergetes, you see. They had a magic man with them. Sort of a druid, I suppose, but they have different approaches up in the hills here. He took a look at me and decided he could save me. Why should he, you ask? Because I was dressed like a Roman officer. They value their slaves, especially if they’re noble. Capturing Roman nobles brings prestige among the tribes. My equipment and a dead Roman noble were worth taking, but if they could have me alive…?’

  There was an uncomfortable silence and Fronto was about to fill it when Verginius started again somewhere in the dark.

  ‘I lost an organ. There’s a thing shaped like a wine-sack in your side that’s important, but it seems you have two of them. I don’t know medicine, so I cannot explain, but somehow that cadaverous bastard who had me carried from the field managed to start my heart up again. Then, while I was aware but too weak to fight back, they opened up my body like a kit bag and cut out the wine-sack organ, burning the ends of the bits that bled with sizzling pitch . I saw the damn organ as it was removed . The sword had gone straight through it. It was the most painful, horrifying thing you can imagine. But removing it saved me. He saved me , that evil old bastard . ’

  Another awkward pause.

  ‘ Betatun , he called his goddess. She is a healer. And you know what, Fronto? Unlike the petty, untouchable gods of Rome, I think Betatun exists. I am the proof. It was months before I could stand and walk and move properly. Even then my muscles had all w asted away and I was a ragged, r eedy thing , moving like a child ’s string puppet . The old magic man smiled the first day I walked out of my cell. He was still smiling as I cut his throat with the stick I’d been sharpening for a week. I cared not, you see. I was a dead man and a slave, and I had nothing to lose. I killed the old man that saved me, and when the Ilergetes found me bathed in his blood, laying his heart at the base of the statue of Betatun, they didn’t know what to do. They couldn’t kill me, you see. In some odd way I had become sacred, blessed of Betatun. But I had killed their magic man, and they couldn’t let that pass. One of their warriors, a big bastard, looked down at the gutted old man – at the wide smile still on his face from seeing me walk – and he took his knife and gave me a smile to match. I took my ruination stoically, silent through the agony. I could manage agony – I’d done it so many times by then. But although they’d defaced me , they couldn’t kill me. There was a big argument and in the end they sold me on to another tribe to be rid of me. ’

  Fronto waited patiently for the next words, trying not to imagine Verginius’ torment.

  ‘The Bergistanii were related to the Ilergetes, ’ the voice picked up again, ‘ but were also closely linked to the mountain people of Aquitania. The Bergistanii weren’t sure what to do with me either. When they discovered that I had been marked by a goddess, I was fought over by the nobles of the tribe, and the king’s cousin won me. I killed him a week later with a dagger I’d fashioned from a goat’s bone I took from a feast table and sharpened. I took out his heart and gave it to Betatun. When they found me , they beat me near to death, but stopped sensibly just short. They shut me in a wooden cage to keep me out of trouble. I spent a year in that cage, barely big enough to sit up in, fed on scraps and slops, sitting in my own filth. But for all my confinement, I constantly shifted and moved and tensed my m uscles to prevent the atrophy happening again.’

  Another pause with a strange sigh.

  ‘One night, the king had a feast . When it was over they were all drunk, most of the nobles draped snoring around his hall. A little boy came to my cage, curious. I noticed that he was wearing my old fascines pendent – the one Faleria had given me for luck. He came too close and I managed to grab it through the bars of my cage. The boy tried to scream for help, but I twisted the pendant on the thong, throttling him, cutting off all sound. I killed the boy there and then with my own pendant. Pulling the body over to the bars I found a small eating knife on him and with half an hour’s hard work I cut the bindings on my cage so that some of the timber could be forced apart. For the first time in a year I was free. ’

  ‘What I did that night in that hall would shock Hades himself. I swam in blood. I killed them all, individually, personally, slowly, and silently. While their brethren slept, drunk, I removed them one by one. And each one’s heart I cut out and piled up in the fire as an offering to Betatun so that the whole hall began to smell like roasting meat, choking and thick . And then, because I knew that with my fascines back my luck had returned, I began to cut off their manhood. I hung them from a standard I found
near the throne for luck. And you know what, Marcus? It worked.’

  There was silence again for a moment, and Fronto and Galronus exchanged sour looks.

  ‘When I emerged, drenc hed in blood and carrying a stan dard covered in noble’s cocks, I happened to come face to face with the king of the Arenosio, who was half a day l ate for the feast, held up by snow in the passes but determined to attend . I’m not sure whether they thought I was some kind of god or some kind of demon, but they were clearly in awe of me . My luck was holding, too. There had been something of a schism among the ruling families of the Arenosio. Two or three of their chiefs who were related to the king thought their master weak and coveted his throne. There had been fights and while the little war was over there were many nobles dissatisfied with the result. The Arenosio king had the hall checked and, when it had become clear what I had done, he ordered me killed. No one would do it. Then Ategnio stepped forward. He was a cousin of the king, too, and he looked me up and down and told the king I could not be killed. When the king demanded that Ategnio be slain too, it erupted into a fight. Half an hour later the king and his followers lay dead and Ategnio and his companions were the surviving power in the tribe. Ategnio had me hailed as the new leader . He saw something in me and he has been my loyal second ever since.’

  ‘So you’ve been living as king of the Arenosio for what? Eight or nine years? Why not contact the authorities in that time, tell them you were alive ?’

  There was a snort in the darkness. ‘ I told you: Verginius was dead . He died on that field. But more than once in the horror that followed I vowed vengeance on both Caesar and you for what you had done. Caesar for sending us, unprepared, to our doom, and you for leaving me there and saving your own skin. I think Betatun heard my vows. It is why she saved me time and again and why even now, when the Areno sio are beaten, I am still here facing you.’

  ‘So are you going to kill me, Verginius?’