Marius' Mules IV: Conspiracy of Eagles

by S. J. A. Turney

  “Very well. Dismissed, gentlemen.”

  Fronto stood and glowered for a moment as Cicero tore away his gaze and, saluting briefly to the general, turned and strode from the tent. Preparing himself for the next barrage, Fronto followed on, Brutus, Volusenus and Galronus immediately behind. As they strode out into the fresh, cool air, Fronto turned and made small, subtle gestures to the three behind him to make themselves absent. As they did so, peeling off and going about their business, Fronto sped off to catch up with Cicero, who had paused next to his two veteran centurions, both of whom stood with scowls on their bristly faces. Carbo and Atenos fell in behind Fronto like bodyguards and the six men came together at the bottom of the hill, away from Caesar’s tent and close to the command quarters of the Seventh.

  “That was damned unprofessional, Fronto!” Cicero snapped.

  “It needed to be said.”

  “If you have a personal issue with me, you should take it up with me in private, not in front of the general and fellow officers.”

  Fronto only partially had to fake his wide-eyed expression of disbelief.

  “You dick! This isn’t personal! I can take a bit of fear or cowardice in a senior officer!” As Cicero went purple in colour, Fronto shrugged. “You’re a politician doing this job as a step on the ladder. It’s nothing new, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. We’re not all cut out to be soldiers.”

  Cicero was starting to splutter angrily and Fronto was having a great deal of trouble not bursting out into a wide grin.

  “No. Not fear. And it’s not even disobedience. Hell, I’ve had to flaunt the rules a few times as you’re well aware, in order to get the right results. Better to be shouted at by the general for disobeying orders than to be wandering around the broken remnants of a dead army, wondering how it got to this.”

  Still, Cicero seemed unable to find voice through his rising fury.

  “I never had issue with you over these past years. I’ve never had a reason to shout at you. It’s not personal. That’s why I brought it up in the headquarters in front of everyone. Because what you do personally is of no interest to me. And what you think of me doesn’t concern me. What concerns me is when your actions – or lack of them – directly endanger the entire army, including my legion. I take very great exception to that. And I will not back down from confrontation over something so serious. When you do things like that it makes you a bad commander and a dangerous one. So you can take your righteous indignation and you can stick it so far up your cushioned, senatorial behind that you can feel it in the back of your throat.”

  Cicero wheezed out a whispered invective – the best his throat seemed able to manage.

  “What?” asked Fronto, cupping an ear dramatically.

  His fellow legate’s mouth clamped shut and Fronto could hear the teeth grinding even then.

  “Well here’s a suggestion. When you can think of something to say that doesn’t just confirm that you’re a dick and a bad officer, come and find me and tell me. I’m going for a walk to cool down.”

  Leaving the spluttering Cicero, Fronto turned and marched off toward the west gate in the temporary camp’s ramparts that were still being constructed.

  The last thing he noticed, with some satisfaction, was the looks of silent anger on the faces of Fabius and Furius.

  By the time he was past the first two rows of legionary tents, Carbo and Atenos were at his shoulders again.

  “Jove’s arse, sir. I thought he was going to explode. You might have pushed him a bit too far there.”

  “Knock off the ‘sir’s. No one’s listening.”

  “Not while we’re in open camp, sir.”

  Fronto shrugged. “Are they following?”

  Carbo ‘accidentally’ let slip his vine staff and had to crouch to pick it up. A subtle glance around and he caught up with the other two.

  “No, but they’re watching where we’re going.”

  “Good. Galronus says there’s a clearing in the wood to the west. Just about every path into the trees leads to it. I’m going there. The ground’s muddy and soft and even a dunce should be able to track me there. You two had best slip off back to the tents. Find Brutus. Tell him I need his help and then wait till those two leave. Follow them and make sure you’re there when they find me.”

  Carbo nodded and grinned.

  “Let’s nail the bastards, sir.”

  “Yup. Now go. They won’t follow if they see you two going with me.”

  As Fronto strode on ahead toward the gate, his two centurions dipped to the side, into the ranks of the Tenth’s temporary camp. Keeping his eyes straight ahead, he fought the urge to turn and look at Cicero and his men.

  Near the command section, Cicero snapped a few commands at his centurions and Furius and Fabius exchanged hurried, urgent words before separating, the former strolling slowly down the road toward the west gate, the latter rushing off toward their tents.

  * * * * *

  Fronto kept his face forward as he strode into the woods, following a beaten path – presumably a hunter’s trail. Despite the fact that Galronus and his men had briefly scouted the immediate surroundings of the Roman camp, they had only had time for a quick scan and it now occurred to Fronto how potentially dangerous it was to stride off into the woodland where native warriors or hunters could be lurking in the bushes, even watching their enemy.

  In the safe knowledge that, if he was being followed as he hoped, the pursuers were far enough behind to be out of earshot, he slowed so as not to blunder into any unfortunate situation. His hand reached down for the gladius at his side and he drew it, just in case, pacing along the path into the heart of the unknown forest.

  Still, a thrill ran through him.

  At last.

  After months of watching friends and acquaintances fall prey to the murderers’ blades, he would have a chance to confront them. And if things went just right there would be no need for protracted trial and interrogation. They would prove their guilt in front of an independent witness. Execution would be guaranteed after that. Knowing that, of course, the pair would probably try and fight. But with Fronto, Carbo, Atenos and Brutus present, he really didn’t fancy their chances, no matter how good they were with a blade.

  With very little warning, Fronto rounded the bole of a birch cluttered about the base with bushes and undergrowth and found himself looking into a clearing some twenty yards wide. All across it, the scattered stumps of trees in varying degrees of decay told of the reason for the clearing’s size. A dark, charred patch marked where the unnecessary foliage and thinner branches had been deposed of.

  Nodding to himself in satisfaction, he began to pick his way among the stumps towards the centre. He couldn’t guarantee that Fabius and Furius would take exactly the same path and there was the possibility they could come across the clearing from any angle, so for safety he would need to be at the centre.

  Finding a particularly large tree stump – a sycamore by the look of the remnants – he took a quick look around and sank gratefully to the time-and-weather-smoothed surface, taking care to fold his cloak beneath him first to keep the dampness away.

  Reaching down, he began to rub his knee. While such an act was probably unnecessary in terms of explanation for his pause, the joint was still weak and giving him some difficulty after a long walk, so the massaging felt good.

  A silence descended on the woodland, broken only by the occasional cawing of a crow or the faint rustling of a ground-dwelling forest creature, the latter making Fronto peer into the gloomy eaves each time. And in the background: muffled by distance and flora, the noise of ten thousand men making camp and settling in for the day.

  It was so inordinately peaceful that he found himself involuntarily relaxing and almost forgetting why he was here. For some reason life was so busy and fraught that he never seemed to find the time to simply sit in the country and enjoy the peace. A rare image of his father flashed into his mind as the two of them had made the laborious cli
mb up Vesuvius when he was eight years old. “Life is not worth living if you can’t make time occasionally to appreciate the bounty of what’s around you, Marcus” his father had said. Good words to live by which he’d not even thought about in years.

  “You’d probably like it here, father” he said to the sky in general. “It’s a bit colder and wetter than home, but everything’s so green and lush. You’d have worn your gardening hat a lot more here.”

  Another image flashed into his head: this time of his good friend Balbus, wearing just such a gardening hat, his face ruddy and healthy with an outdoor glow.

  “Am I getting too old for this stuff? Oh, Quintus, you may have been right about Caesar, but you have no idea what the army has descended into since you left.”

  “Talking to yourself, Fronto?”

  He looked up at the interruption to see two figures at the edge of the clearing, beginning to move towards the centre. Fabius and Furius wore voluminous wool cloaks that billowed around them as they moved, their heads bare to the air. No sign of crested helmets. No obvious sign of vine staffs either. They had come without the trappings of office.

  Of course. All the easier to disappear or slip by without being recognised. He wondered how they had left the camp without recognition, but remembered how easily he had crossed the half-built rampart without being questioned. Going out was always easier than getting back in.

  Furius, the owner of the voice, was scratching his chin as he walked. Fabius kept both hands within the folds of his cloak.

  “I have to say I’m not entirely surprised to see you” Fronto said lightly.

  “I’m sure” Furius rumbled.

  “Very dangerous business” Fabius added menacingly, “coming off into the woodland all on your own. Not even a shield, I see.”

  “Nor you.”

  Fabius shrugged and Fronto could see with the movement how something solid and held tightly within his hidden grip lifted the cloak slightly.

  Casually, so as not to make it obvious, Fronto lifted his eyes to the clearing’s edge behind them. It took a moment for him to spot Carbo and Atenos in the undergrowth by the path from which they’d all entered. Beside and just behind them he could just make out the shape of Brutus and even from here, he got the feeling that the young officer was distinctly unimpressed and unhappy with the situation.

  With irritation, it occurred to him that if the three of them were going to lurk in the scrub, he could very well be dead by the time they managed to get involved in any fight.

  He would have to string things out so they could get close enough to help.

  Ever closer Furius and Fabius moved. Finally, only five yards away, Furius removed his cloak and draped it over his shoulder, his hand falling to the pommel of his gladius where it sat comfortably.

  “I’m not an easy target” Fronto said levelly.

  “I imagine not” Furius shrugged, his face twisting into what he might have believed was a smile.

  “And not an easy kill” the legate went on. “I’m no wounded officer on a medical bed or drunken fop in an inn.”

  The two centurions came to a halt some seven or eight feet from Fronto and his hand dropped to the pommel of his own sword.

  “Plainly” Furius replied, his eyebrow raising slightly.

  Behind him, Fabius threw back his cloak, his hand lancing out with lightning speed. Fronto had drawn his gladius an inch from the scabbard before his racing, confused brain registered that the long, narrow object in Fabius’ hand and which he’d been concealing beneath his cloak was actually a long, narrow terracotta jar – a mini amphora.

  “What…?”

  “Call it a salute to the only man who would jump in the water with me” Furius shrugged. “The time has come, legate, to bury the hatchet, so to speak. A peace offering? What you did at the beach… well let’s just say I seem to have misjudged you.”

  Fronto was suddenly aware that he had his sword partially drawn while Furius was unhooking a leather wine bag from his belt and Fabius began to heave the stopper out of the jar. With a frown, he slid the sword back as unobtrusively as he could manage.

  The two centurions heard the rasp and caught the movement, sharing a tense look.

  “I hope that the division between us has not widened to the extent that we’re unable to repair it” Furius said, leaning against a tall stump. “It would appear that we have thrown our weight and support behind a fool, while allowing rumour and hearsay to blind us to the real soldiers in this army.” As Fronto shook his head in confusion and eyed the wine suspiciously, Furius glanced at the leather container and shrugged. “I fear I may have been a little short-sighted in my accusations. Serving under some of these lunatics would drive anyone to dip into a jar every now and then.”

  With a sigh of relief, Fabius sank to one of the nearby stumps and, gripping the jar’s handle and laying it across his forearm, he tilted the container and supped deeply of the wine within.

  “I thought…” Fronto floundered for a moment.

  “What?”

  “I assumed you two would be…” he frowned. “You’re not pissed at me?”

  “What for?”

  “I called your legate a coward and a prick.”

  “And in a very forthright and timely fashion, I’d say. We’ve done our damn best to keep him on the right path – it’s part of the job of a centurion to keep their senior officers out of trouble – but the man has the leadership skills of an Illyrian goat herd and will not listen to reason. He seems intent on leading his men to the very brink of destruction in his desire to defy Caesar.” Fabius made an exasperated sound, proffering the jar to Fronto as he wiped his mouth with his scarf.

  “This is a whole different army from Pompey’s you know, Fronto.”

  “Yes, I’m sure” Fronto replied weakly, wondering what in the name of Fortuna was going on.

  “In Pompey’s legions there was no argument among the officers. What Pompey said was law and his officers just jumped about trying to please him. Of course, all the work was done by the centurions. The legates and tribunes were really just there to make up the numbers and to look impressive to the natives.”

  Furius laughed. “You remember that knob from Antium? What was his name, Lucius?”

  “Postumius Albinus. Cocked things up so often that, in the end, he stayed in his tent most of the time and just let us get on with it.”

  Fronto couldn’t help but smile at the image. So many of the men who’d served on Caesar’s staff fell into a similar mould. An image of Plancus surfaced in his mind.

  “Until the bastard turned on us” Furius added darkly.

  Fronto frowned and the two centurions exchanged a look. With a shrug, Furius tugged his scarf aside to show the white scar above his collar bone. Fronto had entirely forgotten about the strange wound, but his curiosity swelled anew.

  “Albinus had us up in front of the senior officers for ‘overstepping our authority’ and sentenced us without trial. I’d be under a mound in Anatolia with half a dozen others if Pompey hadn’t ordered the bloody disgrace stopped. I was about two seconds from the blade going through my heart. It’s a reminder never to step too far outside the boundaries when stylus-pushers are watching.”

  Fabius nodded. “Pompey always had to keep a tight rein on his men.”

  “But the thing is” Furius said, wagging a finger, “this army is different. Caesar’s a brilliant general, but he’s also bright enough to appreciate the opinions of his officers while not giving them enough room to cock it all up. I didn’t see that at first. All I saw was people arguing with him in a way that would have had Pompey calling for the executioner’s sword. But it works here. It actually works. When people like you disobey, you pull the old man’s chestnuts out of the fire when he’d have made a bloody awful mistake otherwise. Like at the beach.”

  “At the beach…” repeated Fronto, still trying to wrap his mind around this unexpectedly convivial conversation.

  “Caesar was fool
ish to commit only one legion. I know why he did it, mind: I’m not daft. But in the circumstances it was stupid and short sighted. And then Cicero – who we’ve tried to push into actually commanding his legion – well he compounds things by sitting back and refusing to act. If you and I hadn’t dropped into the water we’d all have been screwed over.”

  Fronto nodded slowly.

  “That,” Furius grinned, “was the most reckless, insubordinate, and almost unbelievably sensible thing I’ve seen in a long time. You’re an odd bugger as a legate, but you actually do the work, instead of relying on your centurions.”

  Fronto’s eyes flicked up to the treeline and he realised that his centurions and Brutus had vanished. Perhaps they’d decided the situation was safe, or perhaps they had moved to better overhear the conversation. He couldn’t help hoping they were still there somewhere, though.

  “But your loyalty to Caesar…” Fronto blurted. He’d been thinking it, but had had no intention of actually voicing his thoughts. He bit down on the words, but it was too late.

  Furius shook his head sadly. “Is unquestionable. I’m a centurion, legate Fronto. Once I’ve taken the oath, I’m the general’s man. The soldier’s oath is sacred, you know that.” He grinned slyly. “I’m afraid you’ll have to look elsewhere for the solution to your problem.”

  With a sigh, Fronto sagged. “Half a dozen times these past months people have been telling me I’m letting my prejudices cloud my judgement. Sorry, but Pompey’s been a real arsehole in Rome, right down to putting my family in danger. I never used to have anything against him, but when his men set fire to my house, things changed. When I see a Pompeian shield, it gets my blood up.”

  “All I can say is that he’s a good man to serve under in war” Fabius shrugged. “What he’s like in Rome I couldn’t guess, other than to state for the record that I’ve yet to find a straight politician. They’re all bent and dodgy. Comes with the territory.”

  Fronto took another swig from the jar and then passed it over to the centurion, scratching his chin reflectively.

  “It would appear that I’m back to square one with whoever killed Tetricus and the others, then.”