Faleria watched him leave the room and turn the corner before smiling that weak smile again.
‘I’m not convinced about that, my brother.’
Fronto stormed through the house, grumbling. Since waking with a start to hear about Priscus’ near miss in the forum, his mood had slowly slipped from disgruntlement into a deeper anger, but the fresh knowledge that Lucilia was prying into areas that were none of her business and causing Faleria pain, whatever she said, had pushed him into borderline fury. He ground his teeth as he slapped across the marble. Even the very air smelled angry and acrid.
Dithering for a moment, realising that goose pimples were rising on his flesh in the cold of the night and that his bare feet were not helping, he detoured by his room, slipped on his boots and gathered his scarf and a cloak before heading out toward the triclinium.
As he strode in through the door, a heated debate was in progress and the voices tailed off slowly, the occupants looking up at him.
Had his mood been lighter, he would have turned his surprise at the presence of Caesar and young Cicero into a quip. Instead, he continued to issue the low rumble of discontent that had begun back in his room.
‘Fronto? I was given to believe you were recovering and would not be joining us?’
He glared at the general.
‘Frankly, this is my house, Caesar. When plots are being hatched in it, I like to be involved.’
He nodded to Priscus and Galronus, sitting wearily back on a couch next to Milo. The Belgic officer was tending to a patch of bloody, matted hair with a damp cloth.
‘I hear Clodius actually had the nerve to attack you in the streets?’
Priscus nodded.
‘There were plenty of people about to start with, but I think you’d have trouble finding a witness if you tried. He organised it well: after dark, but during the early lull when most people are indoors eating. I’m afraid we lost some good men tonight.’
Fronto shook his head and then winced at the pain that brought, striding across the room to the flask of wine on the table and taking a swig directly from it.
‘I told you we had to deal with him directly.’
Caesar shook his head.
‘It’s still not the time. Besides, after tonight every gang and private force the senators can muster will be out in the streets. It looks extremely bad for the government if one man’s force is allowed to effectively control the streets. They will have to do something about it, and that means fielding their own gangs to try and maintain order.’
Milo leaned forward.
‘But that’s just asking for trouble; an escalation. Clodius has the edge on the streets. He has the largest gang in Rome and everyone knows it. If other people start trying to muscle him out, there’s going to be trouble.’
Fronto smiled.
‘And that gives us the chaos we need to deal with him unnoticed.’
Again, Caesar shook his head.
‘He has an army, Fronto. You’ll never get near enough.’
‘I’m not having a repeat of the last discussion we had here.’
Caesar sighed.
‘The streets are becoming too dangerous for a man to walk alone. The senate cannot keep control, and as soon as there are more gangs out in the night, eruptions will occur. If we sit back out of the way, Clodius is likely to make a slip. With the increase in violence, something will happen, and he will be named. Then there will be a trial, and he can be dealt with in the correct manner.’
Fronto shook his head.
‘Banishment is not good enough. I want his head on a spike, pecked by crows.’
‘But once he is tried and banished and out of the city, a great many options open up, Fronto. He will lose his land and his money. Without the money he won’t be able to pay his thugs.’ He smiled unpleasantly. ‘And outside the pomerium, there are no weapon laws and soldiers can be soldiers, if you follow me?’
Fronto blinked.
‘You would actually consider open war against him?’
‘As I said, there are many options out there, but not within the city. He is just too powerful in Rome. Let things progress naturally and wait until he becomes a viable target, Marcus.’
Fronto sighed.
‘I…’
He stopped and frowned.
‘What time is it? I assume I slept through the evening meal?’
Priscus nodded.
‘Hours ago. So what…’
But by now they were all frowning.
‘Smoke!’ shouted Cestus, and rose hurriedly from his couch, rushing to the door. ‘That’s smoke. Something’s burning!’
As the room burst into activity, Fronto wheeled and ran from the room, stopping in the open peristyle garden outside. Spinning around in panic, he saw smoke rising from the rear rooms of the house, where the wall backed on to another street, a second column from the roof around the bath house, and a third from the atrium area at the front.
He shook his head desperately.
‘Priscus? Cestus? Get your men out and check the house over. Get the slaves onto putting out any fires they can find.’
Paying them no further attention, he ran around the corner and into the main area of the house, his head snapping this way and that. The vestibule was filling with roiling smoke and orange flame licked at the front door and danced along the wall, mocking the altar to the house’s guardian spirits. The room where he had so recently been indisposed was empty; he could see directly through the doorway.
Ignoring the thumping in his head, he turned to his right and ran toward the apartments. As he entered the darker corridor that led to them and to the baths beyond, Faleria appeared from a side door, helping their mother, who was coughing and shaking.
‘Marcus! What’s happened?’
Fronto took a deep breath. Without even checking, he knew damn well what had happened.
‘The house has been fired, Faleria. The front door’s impassable, so get mother out into the garden where she can catch her breath. The servants and slaves will be coming through there too, and Priscus and Cestus are around.’
Without waiting further, he ducked past them and saw a half dozen of Cestus’ men come racing around the corner from their bunk room near the baths.
‘Try to put the fires out’ he yelled at them
Pushing past them, he approached the door at the corner, wondering for a moment whether a polite knock was a good idea before settling on his course of action. He started to run and had to make a sudden adjustment as he realised that his left shoulder was a bad choice and turned, just in time to hit the door with his right, sending it smashing inwards with a crack. Lucilia sat bolt upright at the sudden intrusion.
‘Come on!’ Fronto yelled and grasped her wrist, hauling her out of bed and to her feet. She was, fortunately, merely resting while fully dressed and made panicky noises as he hauled her out of the room and into the smoke that was beginning to fill the corridors.
‘What’s happening?’
‘Clodius is happening!’
As they raced around the corner toward the garden, Priscus appeared.
‘The rear entrance is completely ablaze, Marcus.’
‘Front too. We’re going to have to try the outside gate.’
As they pushed on past the garden corridor, slaves and servants were now rushing around in the increasingly smoky house with buckets of water. Pushing open the side door and gulping down precious fresh air, Fronto glanced left and right. The stable and sheds were already catching alight from the rear rooms and he could hear the horses whinnying in fear and crashing around in their pens. To the right, the outer gate stood firm and solid.
Taking a moment, he stood Lucilia on the step.
‘Breathe deep and stay here for a moment.’
She nodded, and he ran toward the gate, where Priscus was already beginning to lift the latch.
Fronto dived on him and pushed the latch back down, cupping his hand to his ear. The two men leaned forward to the crac
k between the gates. At least a dozen men stood outside, armed in contravention of the law, and the familiar hawklike figure of Philopater stood at the far side of the street, arms folded. As Fronto stared, his heart thumping, the men steadied grips on their weapons and stepped purposefully toward the gate.
‘Shit!’
The two men turned and ran back to the side door.
‘Come on.’
Grabbing Lucilia, they rushed in, slamming and bolting the door behind them before turning and running into the garden.
Slaves were now at work around the house, trying desperately to quench the flames, but fighting a losing battle. The officers and ladies stood in the centre of the small garden, a small force of Cestus’ men with them. The rest would be in other parts of the house, trying to help the slaves put out the conflagration.
‘We have company! Armed men are coming in.’
Cestus immediately began giving orders to his men while Faleria helped their mother across toward him, Caesar taking her other arm gently.
‘What are the options, Marcus?’
Fronto shrugged.
‘Both doors are infernos. The outer gate’s alright, but that’s where they’re coming in. If we can hold the outside for a while, the civilians can climb onto the stable roof and maybe cross it and drop into the next street, assuming he hasn’t got men there too?’
Caesar nodded.
‘Then we’ll have to put steel to steel. Do you have a spare sword in storage, Marcus?’
* * * * *
Fronto threw the door open and stepped inside. Behind him, Caesar walked into the room in a strange silence. Priscus whistled through his teeth.
‘What sort of a man’ Caesar asked quietly ‘keeps an armoury in a private house in Rome?’
Fronto reached over to a chest against the wall and drew his gladius from its sheath, examining the glinting point.
‘There’s my campaigning gear here, as well as that that used to belong to my father and my uncle. There’s stuff here that was gifts from Verginius and other family friends. You know how it is… one tends to hoard things.’
He turned and threw a gladius, still in its sheath, across to the general, who caught it in a deft hand and drew it, examining the blade.
‘This was your father’s?’
‘Yes. Priscus, Milo, Galronus and Cicero, help yourself to anything you can find. Cestus, get your men armed.’
Priscus grinned, lifting a lengthy cavalry blade from a shelf, decorative and likely never before used.
‘This’ll surprise the buggers.’
‘Come on.’
As Cestus shouted his men and pointed them toward the armoury, Fronto stopped in the garden and looked around until he saw Posco issuing commands to a group of slaves.
‘Posco? Get into the stables with a few men. See if there’s anyone in the back street. If not, break the wall down and get Bucephalus and the other horses out of there. Start getting the guests out too, beginning with Lucilia and the family.’
Posco nodded and grabbed three of the men gathered around him, running off toward the house’s storage and stabling area. A crash outside announced that the attackers had broken down the outer gate.
‘Come on! We’ve got to move.’
Fronto quickly doglegged around the corridor to the exterior door, ignoring the slaves and servants rushing desperately to their tasks, Priscus, Galronus, Milo, Caesar and Cicero at his heels as he ran.
The bolt was thrown back, and the six men burst out of the villa, weapons brandished and yelling defiance. The attacking gang had already spread out in the passageway outside, perhaps seven or eight between them and the stable door, countless others in the yard between them and the gate. The house’s occupants, almost entirely military trained, fell into a defensive position without the need for commands and before the milling attackers even realised their victims were among them. Fronto found himself facing the gate, Priscus to his right and Caesar his left, while Galronus, Milo and Cicero formed a line behind them, facing the stable. The open door to the house stood between the rows of defenders and, realising that a means of egress had come available, the thugs of Clodius turned and launched a violent assault on the six men.
Fronto lunged at the first man to close on them, a tall, muscular man with a curved sica blade that suggested his origins lay in the arena. The man grinned, a section of his jaw missing, along with half a dozen teeth, evidence of an almost crippling wound long ago. With a deft flick of the curved blade he knocked Fronto’s gladius aside. The man was good, and unconventional.
Fronto took a deep breath, wincing as he reached for the dagger at his belt with his bad hand, two fingers bound tightly to the others in order to heal correctly. Fortunately, despite the pain, the fingers the thugs had chosen to break would not prevent him from holding a hilt.
The gladiator swept a surprisingly fast and odd stroke, the sica dipping down and then coming back up, the concave edge angled perfectly for a lethal strike to the upper leg near the groin. Fronto was forced to leap back, momentarily inconveniencing Milo who stood behind him. His gladius dipped down to catch the deadly stroke, only just turning it away so that the point scored a jagged line across his leg above the knee.
He drew air through his teeth in pain as his bad hand fumbled the dagger’s hilt, trying to draw it in the press. Beside him, Priscus was locked in a violent embrace with a man a foot taller than him, both too close to bring their weapons to bear. Caesar parried and struck repeatedly, almost perfectly evenly matched with a man that showed all the hallmarks of a veteran legionary. Had he had time to watch, Fronto would have been impressed with the strength and skill the general was displaying.
Instead, he was forced once again to suck in his gut as that swift curved blade made to hook his liver. Gods, the man was fast. Taking the brief opportunity afforded him, he lashed out with his gladius, but the man somehow had his sica in the way in the blink of an eye, pushing Fronto’s blade up into the air. As Fronto marvelled at the sheer skill of this gladiator, the man took the opening he saw, head-butting the wounded legate.
Fronto’s world exploded in pain, and for a moment he went completely blind with agony. His skull was already cracked and tender and the man had, likely purposefully, managed to land his blow on the already broken and bruised area.
He staggered, white light suffusing his world, and felt excruciating pain as that sharp point jabbed into his upper arm, slicing into muscle. Only his unpredictable staggering had saved him from the blow’s intended fatal target.
His vision began to return, and he could see the broken-jawed man grinning at him as he drew the sica back to repeat his blow, this time with a more certain aim. As the man lunged forward, however, his eyes locked on his opponent, the dagger that Fronto had drawn and just managed to turn outwards slid into the man’s belly with ease. The gladiator gasped, his eyes dropping to the hilt in his belly.
To his credit, he came on with the blow, ignoring the fatal thrust to his gut, but Fronto was recovering from the stun quickly now and ducked in underneath the man’s sword, ripping the dagger out of the man’s gut and then striking again and again, repeatedly hammering the blade into the tunic, the brown linen filling with blood that ran down from beneath and soaked his legs.
The gladiator was dead before he fell back, the curved blade toppling away to fall on the ground. Next to him, he saw Priscus still struggling in a bearhug with his opponent. Caesar was now beginning to lose the edge in his fight and, watching the next man bearing down on him, Fronto took advantage of the opportunity to strike a side blow at the general’s attacker, thrusting his gladius into the man’s ribs and whipping it back out in time to turn and face the next man.
Behind him there was a grunt, and he felt Milo collapse at his feet, the slumping form almost pushing him forward into his enemy. More men were coming at them from the gate; a seemingly endless supply of hired killers.
The smaller, wiry man before him made a textbook military thrust with
a gladius and Fronto turned it with his own blade with only a little difficulty, wincing at the pain in his chest and arm as he did so. Again, his dagger lashed out, but the man danced back out of the way. Suddenly devoid of his target, Fronto took the opportunity to change his footing. Milo, below him, was in a pile and bleeding, but groaning and alive. As the man before him made another strangely acrobatic leap forward and thrust with the gladius, Fronto ducked to the side and brought the pommel of his own sword down on the man’s lunging wrist, smashing the bones so that the blade fell away helplessly to the floor.
The man stared at him in surprise, but Fronto had no time to savour the moment as the next man behind thrust with a long sword. Fronto grinned and shifted the prone, panicked and disarmed man into the path of the blow. The small attacker gasped as his companion behind drove the long blade through his back, the tip bursting from the man’s rib-cage and coming dangerously close to continuing on and into Fronto.
A quick jerk turned the man by forty five degrees and ripped the impaling long sword from the next man’s hand and Fronto let the body fall away, blade still projecting from him, as he lunged at the new target. Next to him he heard a yelp as Caesar, having just dispatched another attacker, suddenly succumbed to a blow from a man he’d not seen at the periphery. Behind, Galronus staggered against a wall, clutching his elbow.
‘Get inside and close the door.’
Galronus looked like he might argue for a moment, but nodded, ducked through the door they were defending, and began to bolt it closed from within.
Behind them, the attackers that had become cut off from their main force had been dispatched, Cestus and his men issuing forth from the stables and stores and falling on them from behind. Now they faced only the attackers at the gate, though there were still many of them to come.
Fronto stepped back.
‘Fall back. Defend the passage!’
As he stepped back again, Priscus disengaged from the huge man, and the two brought their weapons to bear. Caesar clutched his side and fell back in line with them, his sword point running with blood. The enemy rallied over the bodies of their fallen companions and two men stepped out from the crowd, one armed after the fashion of a Samnite gladiator and massively-built, moving in a crouch, the other lithe and reedy with a sword in each hand, both spinning in circles like the sails of a mill. The pair stalked forward, slowly and menacingly.
Marius' Mules Anthology Volume 1 Page 148