“Get in there. Go to the cold room at the far end and hide in the bath. The complex is not active, so there’s no water. Don’t come out until I shout you.”
“What if you don’t” she asked pointedly.
“I will. Go hide.”
Faleria held his gaze for a moment and then nodded painfully and scurried off down the passageway. Fronto looked around the room, taking in his options as the fight drew ever nearer. The room was virtually empty. A mosaic covering the floor and displaying Thetis and Peleus coddling the infant Achilles was a new addition, as were the multitude of fascinating fish painted on the walls. Other than that there were three niches for clothes and a single labrum bowl on a stand at waist height. Unlike the great marble dishes of the public baths or the sizeable granite one in the steam room, this one was perhaps eighteen inches across and of carrara marble. Large enough for a single person to wash their hands in.
It would offer little protection, and as yet no water flowed into it.
What was it with these baths? Last year he and Priscus had fought two gladiators in the damned complex. Now, refurbished and looking like a different place entirely, here he was waiting for swordsmen again.
There was a thump against the bath complex door and instinctively Fronto ducked behind the labrum and tried to disappear in the shadow.
The door opened with a crash and Furius almost fell into the room, staggering backwards all the way across the mosaic until his back hit the wall opposite. Hortius came limping in after him, dragging a leg down which a torrent of blood flowed. As the two met again at the wall, their blood-slicked blades clashed and rang, both fighting for their lives and both badly wounded. Fronto looked from the pair to the door and back, wondering whether he’d have time to get Faleria out, when Menenius backed into the room, lurching left and right, awash with blood. Fabius staggered in after him, slashing wildly and clutching his bloodied face with his free hand.
What to do?
Slowly, Fronto stood, his weak knee giving slightly and causing him to grasp the labrum and put his weight onto it. The bowl wobbled where the cement had not quite taken properly. He steadied himself and straightened in time to see a killing blow.
Furius, backed against the wall, plunged his gladius through the tribune Hortius, straight into the sternum, pushing until the blade emerged from his back in a gout of blood. The tribune staggered, spasming, the blade falling from his twitching fingers, but Furius was in no condition to stand on his own and, all his weight thrown into the strike, the two men collapsed to the floor together, where the centurion let go of his sword and rolled away onto his back, breathing in shuddering, heavy gasps as blood trickled from a dozen wounds.
Fabius, meanwhile, was having less luck. Menenius, even with his broken jaw, was easily better than him, and was driving him back across the room, inflicting cut after small cut, gradually bleeding the strength out of the centurion.
The centurion staggered back, cursing noisily, wiping the blood from his face where it ran in torrents from a vicious cut that had ruined his left eye. Fabius was almost done, and he clearly knew it. Furius would be of little help, lying on the floor and trying to hold on to his consciousness without expiring. And Fronto would hardly be able to hold a sword in his right hand or swing it convincingly with his left.
His fingers gripped the edge of the labrum with seven good fingers and his knuckles whitened with frustration.
It took him only a moment to realise that he’d actually lifted the marble dish from the stem, jagged and cracked cement hanging from the bottom.
A slow grin spread across his face as he watched Fabius being driven across the room towards the far wall, Menenius intent on the kill. Almost silently in his soft leather shoes — thank you again, Lucilia — Fronto padded around the room’s edge, gripping the labrum as best he could. Once he was directly behind the tribune, he began to step slowly and silently forwards, raising the bowl to strike.
His grin fell away as Menenius stabbed the centurion in the shoulder, causing him to yell and stagger away, and then turned to face Fronto and the raised labrum bowl.
The tribune tried to say something, but his jaw would not allow it, and instead he winced, his eyes flashing angrily as he readied his sword and stepped forward to lunge at Fronto.
The legate screwed his eyes tight, waiting for the blow he could do nothing about, but all that happened was a dull thud. After another heartbeat he opened his eyes to see Menenius toppling to the floor, Fabius standing behind him, sword raised and the ash pommel coated with matted hair and blood.
“Sorry we’re late” the centurion managed, grinning through the blood pouring out of his face before collapsing to his knees, breathing heavily.
Fronto stared down at the two men. The centurion was rocking slightly on his knees, reaching up to his lost eye gingerly with a blood-slicked hand. Menenius was groaning as he lay on the floor, blood running from the fresh wound on his scalp.
His own eyes narrowing, Fronto dropped painfully to a crouch, casting the bowl heavily to one side where it cracked several tesserae of Achilles’ shoulder, and wrapping the fingers of his left hand around the hilt of the tribune’s magnificent sword. His hand closed on the ivory grip and he lifted it slowly, feeling its reassuring weight. It really was a stunning piece of work. Much too good for a murderer, however uncommon he may be.
His mouth set in a firm, unyielding line, Fronto shuffled across to the fallen tribune and turned him over. The man had his eyes closed, groaning and probably concussed from the pommel-bashing.
“Wake up, you vicious bastard!”
Menenius opened his eyes a crack, but they refused to focus.
“Come on” Fronto urged him. “Wake up!”
Less than gently, he gave the tribune a prod in the neck with the point of the gleaming, crimson blade, drawing a bead of blood. Menenius’ eyes shot open and his vision resolved itself.
“Thank you. And fuck you.”
With every ounce of strength he could muster, Fronto drove the blade down through the tribune’s sternum, hearing it crack and then groan as the widening blade forced the split bone apart. He felt the blow ease as the tip found organs to tear through and then slow again at the spine — though it punched through without too much difficulty — creating a shudder-inducing sound as it screeched on the mosaic tesserae beneath.
Menenius gasped and almost bucked like a panicked horse, pinned to the floor with his own blade.
Fronto leaned over him and watched for almost a hundred heartbeats until the light went out in the tribune’s eyes and he passed away. He then reached down and found a coin from his belt purse with his good hand and carefully slid it into the man’s mouth.
“What the hell did you do that for?” Fabius asked quietly. “He doesn’t deserve to pay the ferrymen.”
Fronto looked up at the centurion and grinned lopsidedly. “Well I don’t want his malevolent spirit knocking about this side of the Styx. Besides, if he passes to Elysium I’ll get the chance to gut the bastard again when I get there.”
Fabius laughed, a trickle of blood issuing from his mouth as he did so.
“What in the name of Juno’s knockers are you two doing here?”
The centurion sighed and sagged.
“Priscus thought you might need some looking after. He’s a bit busy, but he seemed to think we might be able to help.”
“You were the ones on that liburna at Ostia?”
“Mm-hmm” the centurion confirmed.
“Well I’m damn glad you came.”
Fabius struggled to get to his feet and Fronto leaned over to help. The two men aided each other to make it upright, swaying a little as they stood. As the centurion staggered over to the heaving form of Furius, Fronto bent and drew the blade from the tribune’s body with some difficulty, admiring it as it came free.
“I don’t normally like to loot the dead, but… well, it’s not like he needs it.”
He grinned at the look on Fabius’ r
uined features and hurried over to help him lift Furius. He was no medicus but he’d seen plenty of wounds in his time. Fabius would live, for all the loss of his eye, but it was touch and go whether Furius would survive his belly wound. The next day or two would tell.
“Do you suppose you can make it out to the storehouse in the yard?”
“I doubt it. Why?”
“Because there should be a jar of wine out there and I’m in sore need of a drink.”
Fabius laughed painfully.
“First, I think we need to retrieve your sister and try and send for a medicus of some kind.”
Fronto shrugged and almost fell as his knee wobbled.
“I feel I might be about ready to give this knee that month or two’s rest now.”
Epilogue
The slave opened the door and started in surprise at the gathering outside.
“Tell your master that Marcus Falerius Fronto is here to see him.”
The slave nodded and closed the door, scurrying off inside. Fronto turned to those who’d accompanied him.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Balbus said quietly.
“Positive.”
“And you don’t want me there?”
Fronto shook his head. “I’m fine, Quintus. In fact, you should go and see Faleria and tell Galronus to break the seal on that amphora. I’m certainly going to need a drink when I get back.”
Lucilia narrowed her eyes at him and squeezed his arm. “Do you want me to stay, Marcus?”
“No. Go with your father. I’ll see you all back at the house. We’ve got things to arrange, and I want to be there when Galronus pops his question. I will piss myself if she says no.”
Lucilia smiled warmly. “That’s not going to happen, Marcus. Get used to the idea.”
Fronto laughed quietly and watched as Balbus and his daughter turned to head back to their house on the Cispian. At the bottom of the street, a respectable distance away, half a dozen of Balbus’ newly-hired guards waited for them. No longer was the older man willing to risk the ladies on the streets of Rome without a suitable escort. Things had changed in the city, and not for the better. Still, things would be better for them next week when they left along the Via Appia for the winter at Puteoli; Balbus, Corvinia, young Balbina and their retinue included. After all, how else would they gather the families together for the wedding ceremony that was now looming on the horizon.
“Stop smiling like a dazed girl-child” Fabius admonished him from behind. “You’ll look like an idiot.”
Furius, at his other shoulder, laughed for a moment until the pain of his belly-wound stopped him.
“I don’t really need you two either.”
“I think that experience suggests otherwise, don’t you?” the shorter centurion grinned.
Fronto opened his mouth to deliver a suitably cutting reply that he wasn’t sure of yet when the door opened again and the servant stepped aside.
“Please follow me, gentlemen.”
Fronto stared across the threshold. It had been almost two weeks since the death of the tribunes and he’d done little more exerting since then than stroll down to the bakery — or the circus when Lucilia was unaware — and his knee was already beginning to feel stronger and easier. Fabius had had his various wounds tended and Fronto had to admit he was impressed with the tall centurion’s stamina. He was already beginning to exercise again, retraining himself with his sword in the courtyard of the villa to fight with only one eye, which altered his perception.
Furius would pull through, the Greek medicus said. After four days of monitoring the bad wound, he’d noted no putrefaction and announced that he’d succeeded in saving the centurion. It would be months before the shorter officer could take even the lightest exercise, but the man was willing himself better and refused to stay still.
And so here they were, out in the city.
The three men stepped through the door. Despite the austerity of the exterior wall, the inside of the house was well appointed. Tasteful, yes, but displaying great wealth and power.
Caesar sat in his triclinium, an untouched platter of fruit at his side, a great map laid out on the table before him. He looked up, his face betraying no surprise at the three men’s arrival.
“Fronto? What can I do for you?”
The legate of the Tenth legion walked across to face his patron and folded his arms, the two centurions falling in behind him.
“First thing’s first, Caesar. Tell me about Clodius.”
“Hmm?”
“Clodius. What did you do?”
The general frowned as though trying to recall the name. “Oh yes. Clodius. I expressed my displeasure to him.”
“And that’s all?”
“I am not about to smash a useful tool, Fronto, because I accidentally nicked myself with it. Yes. I expressed my displeasure. He will not overstep his bounds so again.”
“I see.”
The general scratched his chin idly. Fronto’s eyes fell on the map.
“Britannia? Trying to figure out what went wrong?”
“Hardly. I am trying to decide how best to deal with them when the sailing season opens again.”
“You’re going back?” said Fabius from Fronto’s shoulder, his voice betraying his surprise.
“Indeed I am. The task is not yet complete.”
Fronto snorted. “I hear that the senate has voted you twenty days of thanksgiving. I suspect your task is complete, unless twenty days isn’t enough?”
Anger flashed across Caesar’s eyes. “Have a care, Fronto. You may think you command independently, but I am still the praetor of the army and you serve me.”
“Not any more.”
Caesar’s brow furrowed as he sat back in his seat and reached for the fruit.
“Do tell…”
“You go too far, Caesar. I simply cannot stand there and deny everything that Cicero accuses you of, gainsaying Labienus and his supporters when I can see plainly and with my own eyes just how right they are.”
“Fronto…”
“And the thing is that I’d be willing to support you, even then, in your insane endeavours to the very edge of the world in search of glory and prestige if it weren’t for the company you insist on keeping and the little regard you show for common decency.”
“I’ve almost had enough of this Fronto.”
“And so have I.”
Fronto stepped forward and leaned on the table, his face only two feet from the general’s.
“Your man abducted and held my sister and you have the temerity to give him a mild ticking off? And your two new pet tribunes, who you may not see around as much in the future, spend the better part of a year carving their way through some of the best men in your army, and all you can muster is mild disappointment.”
He straightened again.
“I’ve had enough of the politics, the uncertainty and the infighting. I’ve had enough of bringing war to ever more distant peoples simply to gain you a little political advantage over Pompey and Crassus. I’ve had enough of my family living in danger because of my allegiance to you. In short, Caesar, I hereby sever all ties to the Julii. I no longer consider you my patron and you can cross me off your client list. You can keep your campaigns and you’re welcome to them. Good luck in your future endeavours.”
Without even a nod, Fronto turned his back on the general and strode from the room. He felt the presence of the two centurions at his shoulders as he strode away and, though he was aware of the general demanding he turn round, he felt lighter and freer with every step towards the street. By the time he stepped from Caesar’s door into the crisp, late autumn blue of the Subura he felt happier than he had in years.
“Well I think that calls for a drink. Are you too coming to share a wine with a former colleague?”
Fabius laughed. “I don’t know about ‘former’ yet. We’re signed away by Priscus until after Saturnalia now. And after a winter in your company I’m not convinced of our fitnes
s for service in the legions again.”
Fronto gave a slightly manufactured laugh. While he could treat such comments lightly, Fabius must be thinking hard in truth about his fitness for command now, given the impairment of his missing eye. Such a thing had been known in centurions, but it would make everything a tiny bit more difficult.
He sighed and felt the happiness flood through him..
“Have either of you two ever sampled the delights of beautiful Puteoli?”
Full Glossary of Terms
Amphora (pl. Amphorae): A large pottery storage container, generally used for wine or olive oil.
Aquilifer: a specialised standard bearer that carried a legion’s eagle standard.
Buccina: A curved horn-like musical instrument used primarily by the military for relaying signals, along with the cornu.
Capsarius: Legionary soldiers trained as combat medics, whose job was to patch men up in the field until they could reach a hospital.
Contubernium (pl. Contubernia): the smallest division of unit in the Roman legion, numbering eight men who shared a tent.
Cornu: A G-shaped horn-like musical instrument used primarily by the military for relaying signals, along with the buccina. A trumpeter was called a cornicen.
Curia: the meeting place of the senate in the forum of Rome.
Cursus Honorum: The ladder of political and military positions a noble Roman is expected to ascend.
Decurion: 1) The civil council of a Roman town. 2) Lesser cavalry officer, serving under a cavalry prefect, with command of 32 men.
Dolabra: entrenching tool, carried by a legionary, which served as a shovel, pick and axe combined.
Duplicarius: A soldier on double the basic pay.
Equestrian: The often wealthier, though less noble mercantile class, known as knights.
Gladius: the Roman army’s standard short, stabbing sword, originally based on a Spanish sword design.
Immunes: Soldiers excused from routine legionary duties as they possessed specialised skills which qualified them for other duties.
Labrum: Large dish on a pedestal filled with fresh water in the hot room of a bath house.
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