Marius' Mules VIII: Sons of Taranis

by S. J. A. Turney

  Fronto watched the parade arrive and his eyes widened in shock as he spotted the man following the prisoner. The two who were jostling him to the centre of the wide circle were obviously men from the carcer. The third was Lucius Curtius Crispinus, Marcellus’ centurion, who commanded at the prison. And in his hand was a scourge!

  ‘No,’ Fronto whispered under his breath. ‘Surely not?’

  The same reaction struck throughout the crowd and there was an audible hiss of mass-indrawn breath. Beyond the scene unfolding, Marcellus climbed the steps, his lictors spreading out, keeping the circle at the centre of the forum free of observers, guarding the rostrum and its occupant. The man from Comum had turned and seen what the guard commander carried and now he cried out – his accent as Gallic as it was Roman – and struggled against the two guards. There were no punishment posts here such as a legion might erect and despite the man’s feeble protests and struggles, the two guards slipped leather leashes over his hands, yanking them so tight they bit into his flesh and drew blood. As he cried again and ran out of fight, turning into a blubbering mess, the two guards walked apart, wrapping the other end of the leashes around their own forearms and pulling them so tight that the decurion was jerked straight, his arms pulled taut, so much so in fact that his shoulders almost separated. While the guards held him in position and their commander unfurled the scourge, Marcellus cleared his voice.

  Fronto missed the opening of his address. In his head he was revisiting every scourging he had watched in his time with the army, and there had been a few. One or two to the death, many others in multiples of three or five. Few went above twelve, for that was almost certainly a death sentence anyway. And Crispinus was a centurion with no small amount of muscle and will. He would not stint on punishment, Fronto knew, and what he held was a proper military scourge with bone wheels on it. He swallowed. Not only did he feel for the poor bastard down there who had done absolutely nothing to deserve this but to have been connected to the wrong man, but what he was witnessing here went way beyond law and punishment.

  This was a statement.

  This was, in fact, a declaration of war.

  The public might not see it yet, but this was a direct challenge to Caesar by one of the duly elected consuls of Rome, a man with ties to Pompey. Even if they could not bring a prosecution against the general while he remained Proconsul of Gaul or when he took up his consulship, his enemies were today making their statement clear. Fronto could picture Caesar’s face when he heard about this. In a mad, fleeting moment, he pictured Caesar, incensed beyond all reason, finishing mopping up the last of the rebel spirit in Gaul and then sweeping down against Rome with twelve legions. It was a mind-blowing thought. And not impossible. Sulla had done just that, after all.

  What were these mad men doing? What was Marcellus doing? Trying to start a war with Caesar?

  ‘…and so with the support of the Senate of Rome, I sentence this Gaul to six lashes with the scourge for the crime of impersonating a citizen of the republic. He will then be returned to the carcer until he is well enough to travel, following which he will be returned to Comum there to show his scars to a proconsul who thinks he can ride roughshod over the senate.’

  ‘Shit,’ Fronto said to himself, drawing some murmurs of agreement from the few crowd members around him, though his comment was not directed at the scene in the forum, where Crispinus was shaking out the scourge. In fact, he had been cursing himself for getting caught up in the action and forgetting to keep his eyes on what he was actually here for. He glanced around the forum again, failing to spot anyone but Aurelius by the rostrum and the brothers on the steps of Concord’s temple. His gaze rose once more to the slope, where the crowd had melted away, following the action down to the forum. He could see two figures that had to be Procles and Agesander from their size and shape, standing by the side of the road up there. At least nothing had happened there so far. That was a relief. It was only now striking him that the carcer was currently manned by half its staff right now, while most of Fronto’s men were in the forum. Damn it. He threw a prayer up to Fortuna that the carcer stay secure for now and returned his attention to the crowd.

  He almost missed it. In fact, he did the first time.

  His gaze had passed across the dark figure and fell upon Aurelius and it had been that hackle-raising sixth sense that had made him double-take and look back across the curia behind the scene. The scourge blows were being delivered now, and the Comum man was screaming and shrieking fit to shake the gods. The crowd were in that curious mix of disgust and fascination, Pompey’s partisans cheering it on, Caesar’s supporters – notably fewer – yelling their disapproval. But past that scene and past the rostrum with its unpleasant consul and his lictors, a figure moved. Almost hidden by the shadows of the arcade that was all that remained of the senaculum, the figure was well hidden.

  Fronto held his breath at the sight of the hooded cloak and waited. Sure enough, the figure turned and he caught a momentary glimpse of light shining on a glazed surface within. The bastards were here. In broad daylight and in their cloaks!

  His desperate gaze picked out Aurelius nearby and he realised that the former legionary was intent on the scourging and had not noticed the figure so close to him. Fronto started to move. It would be a struggle to get through the crowd.

  As if that same sixth sense that had so alerted Fronto was at work for the enemy too, the cloaked figure turned for a moment and looked straight at him. Then the Gaul was moving, running past the entire complex towards the Subura where he could easily lose pursuit in the maze of streets and alleys. Fronto cursed. He would never get there in time to stop the bastard.

  Damn, damn, damn, damn. He pushed against the crowd but someone pushed him back and he thumped painfully against the column.

  ‘Aurelius!’ he bellowed. Such was the volume desperation lent his voice that many of the crowd turned towards him, despite the graphic scene playing out before them as the fifth of six blows was delivered to the shuddering, weeping man standing at the centre of a spray and pool of his own blood and flesh, a puddle of vomit by his foot.

  ‘For the love of Venus look at me, Aurelius,’ he yelled again. After a few tense heartbeats in which he watched the cloaked figure retreating from the scene, finally Aurelius caught sight of him and waved an acknowledgement.

  ‘Get him!’ Aware that his words would not carry that far, Fronto climbed onto the decorative lip of the column base. It wasn’t much, but it pushed him another half-foot above the crowd. Clinging to the column with one hand he gestured desperately with the other, pointing at the near-invisible figure, motioning for Aurelius to turn round. As the legionary dithered, apparently unsure what the gestures meant, Fronto felt his frustration rising.

  His eyes darted to the side and he spotted Pamphilus and Clearchus moving. Even the dimwits had understood.

  Finally, Aurelius turned, scratching his head. For a moment, Fronto thought he’d lost the man, for the cloaked figure had dipped out of sight. Then, in a stroke of luck, the clouds parted for just a heartbeat and a rare gleam of sunlight picked out the cloaked shape moving to the next building. Aurelius was running immediately.

  ‘Thank you, Fortuna.’

  Cavarinos, Dyrakhes, Balbus and Biorix were moving now, having spotted him, everyone converging on the edge of the forum where the road ran up past the carcer and other ways led into the Subura. Aurelius was out of sight in moments and Fronto could do little but offer up another prayer to Fortuna and trust to Aurelius’ abilities. But if one had been here, perhaps there were others…

  Casting his gaze around the forum even as the execution ended and Marcellus harangued the crowd with anti-Caesarian politics, Fronto could spot no others. Cavarinos and Balbus were now at the place from where Aurelius had been watching. Fronto fought through the crowd and as he converged on the group, he spotted Pamphilus and Clearchus emerging from the press on the left. His eyes widened in disbelief.

  Pamphilus’ hand emerge
d from his voluminous cloak, and gripped tight in the fist was a gladius, unsheathed.

  ‘No!’

  The fool. What was he doing?

  As he turned to try and stop the idiot, a murmur of anger rippled through the throng. Fronto struggled, trying to push between two of the crowd to get to them, but a man in a dark blue tunic with the muscles of a blacksmith and a lantern jaw beat him to it. The man yelled something at Pamphilus and the Massilian idiot reacted instinctively, lancing out with the sword. He managed to cut a deep line along the big Roman’s arm and the man roared and threw himself at the Massilian.

  Pamphilus dodged the big man and started to run the other way. Fronto burst from the crowd, but was clearly too late to prevent chaos erupting. His spirits sinking even further, he watched Clearchus also draw a sword from his cloak and run to the defence of his brother. The last he saw of either of them was both brothers disappearing with a shout and a flurry of tunics amid the press of angry citizens who piled onto them, kicking and punching. Fronto turned to see Balbus shaking his head in disbelief and jogged over towards them.

  ‘Idiots,’ the old man said, rather unnecessarily. Fronto nodded. ‘In a way I hope the poor bastards get kicked to death down there. If they make it through, that scourge will come out again for the backs of two Massilians.’

  ‘And they work for you,’ added Cavarinos.

  ‘Gods, yes. I can’t wait for the backlash from this to land at my front door. Our one consolation from all this is that Aurelius left the forum on the trail of one of the Sons. With luck we’ll have a lead on their location shortly, so long as Aurelius is careful and doesn’t get himself killed. Come on. Let’s go speak to the others up at the carcer.’

  ‘What about them?’ Cavarinos gestured to the brawl with a thumb.

  ‘Nothing we can do for them. If it was an ordinary fight I’d weigh in, but they’ve broken both the city’s sacred laws and their vows to me. They’ve brought this on themselves and they’re beyond help now.’

  As they moved up the hill to meet up once more with Procles and Agesander, Fronto found himself praying as hard as he ever had that Aurelius be careful.

  * * * * *

  Fronto had been pacing back and forth across the tablinum, nervous and impatient, almost since they had returned to the house. He’d half expected some heavy handed mob of angry citizens to turn up at his door baying for blood from the man whose hirelings had broken the most sacred laws of Rome. Or a deputation from the consul inviting him to a lengthy and dangerous court appearance for the same. But aside from the things he worried over, the thing he’d really waited for was his missing man, and so when he heard the front door opened and closed by Glyptus with muttered conversation and then the striking of hobnails on the marble floor, he almost collapsed with relief.

  Aurelius appeared in the doorway of the office where the other five men waited – Dyrakhes and Biorix were on watch at the tavern – and there was a collective catching of breath. What had happened with the brothers in the forum suddenly paled into unimportance. Aurelius was limping, gripping the doorframe to remain upright. His left leg was soaked through with dark, sticky crimson and a rent in his tunic at the upper thigh told why. From the amount of blood, he was clearly lucky to be using the leg at all and not lying in a ditch somewhere. His face, correspondingly, was so pale as to be almost translucent. Blood dripped in a slow but regular patter from his right hand which hung loose at his side, and there was an area of his scalp that was matted and torn, the flesh cut and blood snagging his hair together.

  As Fronto’s eyes flitted hither and thither over his friend, assessing the damage, they widened.

  Aurelius’ right hand dripped blood, but his left was intact and clutched in the whitened, tightened fist were two cult masks, one with a piece missing from the mouth slit down, both spattered with blood.

  ‘Hope you don’t mind,’ Aurelius murmured with a smile, ‘but I started the party without you.’

  Balbus was there as Aurelius collapsed, grabbing his arm to stop him falling and lifting him, supporting him by the shoulders. Cavarinos was there a moment later at the other shoulder and the two men gently helped the former legionary across to the nearest couch and lowered him to it.

  Fronto looked up to see the concerned face of Glyptus in the doorway.

  ‘You know of any local medicus?’ he asked the caretaker.

  ‘There’s a Greek down near the Porta Lavernalis who people say is good but extortionate, and there’s a Jew near the circus who sorted my gammy leg out and is a bit easier on the purse.’

  Fronto didn’t even need to think or look at Aurelius. ‘Go get the Greek. If he’s busy, tell him I’ll pay double, but get him here as soon as you can.’

  Balbus was looking Aurelius over. ‘I wish my medicus was here,’ his face darkened at the memory of the servant’s body lying with the pile in the atrium of his villa. ‘I owe these scum for that among many other things.’ He gently probed and moved Aurelius’ right arm, causing gasps and whimpers. ‘Grip my finger.’ Aurelius did so, a weak grin spreading across his face. ‘If you tell me to pull it, I might have to punch you, sir.’

  ‘What with?’

  Aurelius’ fingers wrapped feebly around the old man’s finger.

  ‘Nothing permanent, by the looks of it, and the wounds have all begun to clot. You’ll be alright until the medicus gets here. Unless there’s something I’m not seeing, you should be fine in time.’

  The former legionary snorted and threw the two masks across the floor, where the broken one hit the leg of the table that held the model and shattered. ‘I’ll be fine. Them, less so.’

  Fronto leaned close to him. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Let him rest, Marcus,’ murmured Balbus, but Aurelius shook his head.

  ‘I’m alright. The man in the cloak spotted me following him at the forum. I saw him slip into the metalworker’s market in the Subura. I guess he thought all the noise and clutter would save him. Problem is, my dad used to sell pots and pans there and I know the place well.’ He paused, wincing, as the effort of talking took its toll, and finally breathed slowly three times and despite Balbus’ protestations continued. ‘There are three other entrances to the place, but one comes out near where he went in and one is usually closed because the horse traders are across the road and the smell is appalling. So I just went round the outside to the Vicus Longus entrance and waited there until he emerged, thinking he’d lost me.’

  ‘Good man,’ Fronto nodded. ‘So what happened?’

  ‘There’s a house in the shadow of the temple of Salus on the Quirinal where they’re staying. The one I followed went in and I slipped into a doorway opposite. I saw another one appear at a window. It was a woman, without a mask on, and she closed the shutters as soon as they went in. I asked one of the locals about the house, wondering who rented it to the Gauls, but apparently the owner died a month back with a missing will and his twin sons are in litigation over the house’s ownership, so it’s been empty for weeks. Perfect hiding place for the Gauls.’

  Fronto nodded. ‘No one up in that area is going to ask too many questions either. Proper gang territory round there.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Aurelius nodded. ‘Anyway, I was just moving around the other side of the house, trying to listen in at a window when the shutters opened and this young lad with blond hair saw me and yelled. Next thing I know I’m belting through streets and alleys on the Quirinal with three of the bastards chasing me. I lost one of them soon enough, and the other two caught me in the knife-workers’ street. Good luck for me, ‘cause as soon as I was armed, I stopped running. I had to empty my purse to a bunch of street kids to dispose of the bodies for me, so I might need a bonus this month, boss. That head’s weight in denarii you offered, maybe?’

  Fronto snorted. ‘You took two of them down on your own? Impressive.’

  Aurelius shrugged modestly then groaned with pain at the movement. ‘The tall one I took by surprise as he rounded the corner. I
left him with a fork sticking out of his eye, so he didn’t get much chance to do anything, let alone unshoulder his bow. Imagine that! The pisspot had a bow and a sheaf of arrows within the pomerium, the brazen tossbag. Anyway, the other one was a bit tougher – the blond lad. He gave me a real run for my money. Took some putting down, I can tell you.’

  He frowned and then smiled as he recalled something and fished in the pouch at his belt. With an exhale of breath, he slumped and held out a hand. Cavarinos took the scraps of wool from it.

  ‘From their cloaks,’ Aurelius muttered.

  ‘A tree beneath a haloed sun,’ Cavarinos noted, examining the designs marked into the wool. ‘That’s probably Abellio. And the other sun alone will be Belenos.’ He frowned as though hunting something among his memories. Slowly something surfaced as he tapped his lip. ‘Trying to remember who you’ve removed so far.’

  Fronto crossed the room to his still mostly-packed kit bag and dug around in it until he removed a fabric pouch, which he tossed to the Arvernian. Cavarinos fished out the collected and saved scraps of material, laying them out on the couch. His brow furrowed as he worked, changing the order they were in again and again until he was satisfied. ‘Toutatis, Belenos, Maponos, Dis, Sucellos, Rudianos and Abellio. I thought it looked familiar. There was a nemeton at Gergovia where the first pact was made between my king and the druids. I remember it well. It was one of the most sacred sites outside Carnute lands, until after the war. The Romans in charge of resettlement pulled it down and used the stones in rebuilds. There were twelve menhir dedicated to the gods who had been heard to speak there. I’m trying to remember which five are missing.’

  Balbus shook his head. ‘It’s very colourful and religiously significant I suppose, but does it have a bearing on the matter?’