Fronto was momentarily taken aback by the wrap covering his friend’s face until the medicus reached out and removed it, revealing the expression of shock and excruciating pain that had locked on the tribune’s face in the moment of death.
Fronto felt the bile rise again and fought the urge to replace the covering and hide his friend’s face.
“The wrap was used to cover his eyes — presumably to obfuscate the killers so that if something went wrong they could not be recognised.”
“They?” said Fronto sharply.
“There must have been at least two. These marks show that the tribune’s arms were forced against the table while the blade was driven through him. Possibly a third man kept the face covered, although that could have been managed by the man with the sword. After all, the tribune was weakened both by his wounds and by the medication we administered. He could not have fought back very hard. It does appear that the entire attack was over in moments.”
Fronto told himself that at least that was a relief. Tetricus had died very quickly. Somehow it didn’t diminish the pain and anger he felt.
“Anything you can tell me that might give us an idea of the killers’ identities?”
The medicus shook his head.
“All I can confirm for definite is that they were Roman. I’ve treated enough gladius wounds in my life to recognise such a thing. They entered the tent by slitting the leather in the outer wall of this room, and they must have chosen an opportune moment to affect entry and escape, given the number of soldiers who are always milling about around the tents. I’ve already got an optio interrogating everyone to check whether anything was seen, but I hold very little hope. The attack seems very professional to me, and I cannot imagine the assassins making such an obvious error.”
Fronto nodded, a hollow emptiness starting to settle within him.
First Longinus had gone in a cavalry action. Then Velius in the madness of the Belgic campaign. Then Balbus had retired to civilian life. Now Tetricus had been torn from him. The number of people he felt he could trust or rely upon within the army was dropping every year. But somehow this was worse than any other friend he had lost in this bloody war. Because Tetricus had been dispatched by his own compatriots in cold blood.
Something cold and hard formed in the pit of his stomach.
Revenge for this would come, and it would come with the full force of Nemesis behind it.
Nodding along to the rest of the medicus’ report, he hardly heard a word, his eyes taking in every detail of the body before him, memorising every line and shape such that he would be able to recall his friend in minute detail the day he stood with a sword at the killer’s throat.
Finally, the man finished chatting and Fronto nodded, thanked him, and turned, leaving the hospital tent and striding out into the warm, fresh air. Pausing outside, he took a deep breath and paced away across the grass. Briefly he’d considered visiting Cicero and facing down Fabius and Furius, but he was currently in no state to do so. Right now he would very likely run them through before they could get out a word, and that sort of act would hardly help matters.
Striding from the tent, he made for the encampment of the Tenth and the jug of wine that his remaining friends would have waiting for him.
With irritation, he realised that something was flapping on his foot and he bent forward to examine the length of bloody wadding that had stuck to his boot — a chance manoeuvre that saved his life.
He only realised what had happened as he tumbled forward. The whirring noise that accompanied the missile clearly defined it as a lead sling bullet. Certainly it felt like lead as it caught him a glancing blow on the crown of his head, ripping away a tuft of hair and tearing the flesh. He allowed himself to fall forward into the grass, hopefully out of shot of the would-be killer.
For that was clearly the case.
Had he not chanced to duck his head forward, the bullet that had skimmed his crown would now be embedded in his temple, and he would be shuddering out his last breaths as the lead lump lodged in his brain killed him in convulsive seconds.
He lay for a long moment in the warm, springy grass and listened. The optio back by the medical tent had shouted in alarm. Not a warning or command, though. All he’d seen was Fronto pitch forward to the ground, no sign of an attack.
But despite the background sounds of men running to help him, the noise he was half-expecting to hear remained absent. No ‘whoop, whoop, whoop’ of a sling being spun. No further missile would come. The attacker had lost his opportunity with his first miraculous failure and had almost certainly cut his losses and run.
Fronto’s hand closed on the small figure of Fortuna that hung round his neck on a thong. The Goddess was certainly putting in the hours looking after him today. Shame she hadn’t dropped in on Tetricus.
Slowly, carefully, Fronto rose to his feet, his head throbbing and a pain wracking his scalp. Suddenly half a dozen men were around him, hands reaching out to help steady him. He did nothing to stop them.
“Sir?” queried the optio. “Are you alright?”
“Sling bullet” Fronto said quietly, touching his scalp gingerly and pulling away a hand spotted with blood. The optio blinked in surprise.
“A bullet? But from where?”
Fronto glanced around, his eyes coming to rest on a small copse that had remained within the bounds of the camp, gradually reducing in size as the timber was cut from it.
“There. Only place with a clear view where a man could hide. I suggest you detail men to surround it and search it, but I’m sure beyond doubt that you’ll find no one.”
The optio sent men to the small knot of trees and undergrowth, while he and two men remained by the legate.
“Come on, sir. We’ll escort you back to the hospital, just in case.”
“Bugger the hospital. I’m going back to my tent.”
“But sir? Your head?”
“Will feel much better with half a jar of wine in it. Thanks, optio. Let me know if you find anything.”
As he trudged on up the hill, Fronto couldn’t stop his eyes searching every face in the camp, peering in through tent flaps and checking every shadow. Suddenly it was beginning to feel quite dangerous being an officer in Caesar’s camp.
Fronto was quite clearly very late and, as usual, couldn’t care less. Aulus Ingenuus stood with his men on guard by the entrance to Caesar’s headquarters tent, his horse guard positioned all around, the prefect rubbing the stumps of his missing fingers, as was his habit. The young commander of Caesar’s bodyguard raised an eyebrow questioningly at the dishevelled figure approaching the tent.
Fronto knew what he must look like and pondered for only a moment what it said about his reputation that turning up to Caesar’s briefing in a wine-stained, rumpled tunic and muddy boots and with spatters of blood across his temple and forehead warranted only a raised eyebrow. Once upon a time, not so long ago, he’d taken pains to look his best for command briefings.
But then, with this as with everything else, today he’d likely be given more leeway than most.
Ingenuus gave him a nod and the two guards stepped aside, allowing him entry to the command tent. The briefing and conversation was already in full swing as he slipped in through the tent flap. The speech halted instantly, all eyes turning to the new arrival. All around the edge of the tent burnished, shining armour and neat crimson cloaks did their best to amplify the effect of his dishevelled appearance.
“Fronto?” Caesar didn’t look angry quite so much as confused and concerned.
With a visible lack of effort, Fronto threw out a half salute and slumped into a chair near the door.
“Fronto?” the general repeated, slightly quieter and with… trepidation? “Is something amiss?”
Varus, his arm bound once more in the tight sling, stepped out from the tent’s edge, the wound at his hip making the move jerky and uncomfortable.
“Symptoms of mourning, Caesar.”
Caesar’s brow f
urrowed.
“Mourning, Marcus?”
Fronto slumped deeper in the chair, but something in the general’s voice drew him out of his shell a little.
“For Tetricus, Caesar.”
“Ah yes. I noticed his name in the medical reports. I have to admit to some surprise, since I was led to believe that his wounds were far from life-threatening.”
It was now Fronto’s turn to frown. “His wounds, Caesar?”
Varus was stepping forward again. “Caesar, the tribune did not pass from his wounds, but from the attack.”
Fronto’s eyes zipped back and forth between Caesar and Varus. Had the medicus assumed that speaking to him, as a senior legate, would suffice for reporting the incident, and not mentioned it to the general?
“An attack?”
Fronto, despite the bleariness of having spent the previous afternoon and the whole night drinking away unhappy hours with a succession of friends and companions as their sleep-patterns and shifts allowed, suddenly perked up.
“Tetricus was murdered, general. Yesterday morning, in the hospital.”
A stony hardness fell across Caesar’s face, but Fronto swore that for just a tiny moment a flash of panic flitted through the general’s eyes as his gaze flicked to one side. Fronto peered over to the left, in the hope of identifying to what or whom Caesar had turned in that strange, unguarded moment but saw nothing out of place.
“That is entirely unacceptable” Caesar said quietly and angrily. “I will not have valuable officers dispatched in such a manner in my camp.”
Fronto leaned forward, a dozen warning triggers firing in his head at the strange reaction. What was more worrying? That it seemingly applied only to ‘valuable officers’? That just for a fraction of a second, Caesar seemed to have lost his iron control and given way to an element of fear? That he’d cast an intense momentary glance at someone or something that Fronto couldn’t identify? That only the manner of dispatch apparently mattered?
No. What worried — or, more correctly, irked and worried — Fronto the most was this virulent reaction to the death of an officer with whom Caesar had been passingly acquainted at best, while a couple of months ago the information that his own nephew had been brutally murdered in an inn in Vienna had warranted merely the word ‘inconvenient’.
Fronto glared at the general with genuine disgust for a moment before forcing a nondescript expression across his face and nodding.
“I presume, then, that no one has informed you of the attempt on my own life. An added ‘inconvenience’, at the very least, I’m sure you’ll agree.”
He narrowed his eyes, watching for Caesar’s reaction, but the general seemed genuinely shocked.
“This is harrowing news indeed. Ingenuus!” he bellowed.
The commander of his bodyguard pushed open the tent flap.
“Caesar?”
“After this briefing, put yourself and your best men at Fronto’s disposal. It appears we have a traitor in the ranks who is intent on picking off my best officers. I want the matter resolved before we move out to the Rhenus.”
Fronto scratched his head, wincing as he accidentally rubbed off a newly-formed scab.
“We’re moving out already? What of the cavalry across the Mosella?”
Caesar nodded calmly. “I understand why you missed the first part of the meeting, Marcus, and how you may have been out of the loop a little over the past day. Let me give you a quick rundown of what has occurred.”
He stepped out from behind the desk and began to pace back and forth across the tent, one hand behind his back and the other gesturing in the air with his words.
“I have had a report from the scouts that the remaining enemy cavalry were somehow informed of our victory over their tribe. Rather than come and face us in honourable battle or offer a sensible surrender, they fled across the Rhenus somewhere to the south and have allied with a Germanic tribe called the Sigambri, to whom they are in some way related. I am still hoping to find out how they crossed the river” he added with a hint of irritation. “There must have been a fleet of boats miraculously waiting for them, or someone on this side of the Rhenus gave them aid.”
He turned and paced back, waving his finger.
“Thus our enemies have fled our clutches and believe themselves safe across the river. They make the fig sign at us from their theoretical safety. At the same time, the Ubii, who control lands on both sides of the Rhenus, have sought an alliance with us and, while I had been set on refusing such alliances with these tribes, the line blurs a little with the Ubii, since they traditionally occupy both banks. They have offered us boats, manpower and gold if we will aid them in protecting their tribe’s territory across the river from these vicious Suevi that have been pushing the tribes west.”
Fronto rubbed his temple. It was everything the general had intended anyway, but the flight of the cavalry and the request of the Ubii had provided him with the excuses he’d needed to make the whole thing legitimate.
“So crossing the Rhenus is no longer a matter of discouraging those tribes on the other side from ever coming here again, but is now actively a campaign against the enemy cavalry and the Suevi? I hope you realise, Caesar, that this could be every bit as long, protracted and costly as Gaul has been?”
Caesar’s eyes flashed angrily for a second before control was reasserted.
“I do not intend to launch an invasion, Fronto. We will chastise the cavalry and the Sigambri for sheltering them, and we shall consolidate the frontier of Ubii lands, but go no further. We need to impose our strength on them just enough to make them aware that we are both capable of this and willing to do so at any future time we deem necessary.”
Fronto’s eyes slipped to Labienus and Cicero and their small group, including the two centurions who made his blood boil at their very presence. Labienus had the defeated look of a man who had argued until he was blue in the face and knew he’d lost. Suddenly Fronto was rather grateful that he’d not been here for the start of the meeting.
Caesar leaned back against his table, palms flat down on it.
“That’s all for most of you for now, I think. It might be prudent in the circumstances to draw this meeting to a close. I will require a few of you to stay behind and consult with me on the logistics of our move to the Rhenus — Labienus, Mamurra, Priscus, Sabinus and Cita, if you five would remain. The rest of you feel free to go about your business. Fronto? I would suggest you wash, get some sleep and then find Ingenuus and get to work on finding your tribune’s killer.”
Fronto watched the general as the men began to salute and file out. Once again, Caesar’s gaze flicked to the side for a fraction of a second and Fronto tried to follow it. Somehow he’d half expected it to rest on Labienus or Cicero, or Fabius and Furius. But no. Whatever or whoever he had looked at Fronto couldn’t tell, but it was not who he’d thought.
Something was definitely going on with the general, though: something strange and unsettling.
Chapter 9
(On the west bank of the Rhine)
Caesar scratched his chin.
“It truly is one of the greatest rivers in the world, as they say. I have rarely seen its like in width, depth or current. It is a matter of supreme amazement to me that a tribe of backward lunatics managed to cross and even to bring their worldly goods and their cavalry with them.”
Labienus pursed his lips. “I suspect it is that very lunacy of which you speak, Caesar, which is the only thing that would lead a man to try to cross it. It will take days to construct the boats and even then I’ll be making a very hefty offering to every God who listens this far north before I go out on those waters.”
“It may be an impressive one, but it’s still a river” muttered Fronto sullenly.
“You’re in good humour, Marcus.” The general turned back to the group of a dozen or more officers. “The Ubii have offered us a score of boats that they use to cross the Rhenus on a regular basis. It is small help, admittedly, but a useful
gesture regardless. Fortunately, I do not believe that such use will be necessary.”
Mamurra, the renowned engineer, stepped a little closer to the bank and frowned. “The feasibility is still a matter for debate, general.”
“The chief engineer and surveyor in the Eighth are both experienced in such matters and they inform me that it cannot be done. A ‘matter for debate’ is an advance on impossible. Talk to me.”
The engineer tapped his lips thoughtfully as his eyes roved across the surface, taking in the banks and the whole length of the river visible from this point.
“No bridge like it has ever been attempted.”
Fronto, his surly mood punctured by a dart of surprise, wheeled on Mamurra.
“A bridge? Are you mad?”
“May I point out, Marcus” the general said quietly “that the idea is mine.”
“I’ve seen near a hundred bridges thrown over a hundred rivers in the past two decades. Some have been simple and small and taken a few hours. Some have been grand affairs across wide flows that have taken days. No idiot in the history of bridge building has ever crossed something like that. It’s the reason boats exist.”
Mamurra gave a noncommittal shrug. “It will be difficult. There’s no denying that. But I don’t believe it to be impossible. I wish your engineer was here though. He was very good with bridges.”
The older engineer became aware too late of Caesar making shushing motions. Fronto’s expression darkened once again as the image of Tetricus splayed out bloody on a table smashed aside his thoughts. Despite Caesar’s vehemence that the matter be investigated and resolved immediately, Fronto and his associates had, unsurprisingly, been unable to glean anything beyond the obvious. Another brief conversation with Furius and Fabius had once again turned into a sour slanging match that had left no proof, only a bitter and angry legate. Fronto grunted.
Mamurra turned back to the river and immediately switched to a professional tone.
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