‘Now.’
Without further pause, he dropped into the narrow walkway between the decks. Only as he landed and his knee reminded him that it would never be truly right again did he realise quite how far down ten feet was. He paused long enough to whimper, wipe the tear from the corner of his eye and test the strength of his leg, and then he was moving again. He had jarred it, but his knee would hold up. The thuds behind him announced the arrival in the walkway of Salvius, Galronus, Masgava and Aurelius.
Fronto was running. It was perhaps forty feet to the stairs and the poop deck where the tribune waited. A gauntlet to run. With his companions following on, the legate pounded along the timbers between the rows of oar benches toward his target at the rear. His nailed boots slipped and skidded across the sodden, slick timbers, but momentum kept him pressing forward. With a scream, a legionary fell into the narrow walkway, clutching a bloody rent in his chest, links of chain and gouts of blood falling through the air in his wake. The body hit the walkway and Fronto hurdled the thrashing shape without pause. Twenty feet…
With a defiant roar, a legionary dropped into the gap, shieldless but brandishing a sword and bracing himself. Fronto raised his own blade to try and remove the obstacle at speed, but the legionary suddenly sprouted an arrow from his face and fell backwards with a shriek and a gurgle. Arcadios had found his vantage point, then.
Moments later arrows were flying as though a whole unit of archers were present, the impressive speed of the little Greek putting shaft after shaft into the enemy. It was still not enough to clear the way. Ten feet from the stairs and the gauntlet had finally closed in. Here, the enemy legionaries to each side were from their rear ranks, not busy fighting Fronto’s men and, as they became aware of the five men pounding along the walkway below them, they began to react.
Swords lashed out, swung downwards, mostly too high to hit home, but close enough to cause concern and make the runners duck instinctively. And men were starting to drop into the gap again. The first disappeared with a cry and an arrow in the throat, but there was already a snarling legionary immediately behind him. Fronto didn’t stop. His sword lashed out. He missed, but barged the man aside and Salvius, savage that he was, stabbed the man twice in the gut before running on. The stairs were just a couple of paces away now.
A legionary hit the deck before Fronto and the legate feinted left. The man was still a little disoriented from the drop and fell for the slight jig, not watching Fronto’s eyes or feet. The legate dodged right at the last moment, slammed the point of his gladius into the gap beneath the raised sword arm and felt it punch through flesh into the vital space inside. The man gurgled and fell aside. Fronto reached the first step and began to climb. For just the blink of an eye, he risked a look back.
Salvius and Galronus were with him. Aurelius and Masgava were snarled up in the walkway, cutting a bloody swathe through the ever-increasing mass of enemies there. Fronto turned back in time to see a big man with expensive mail and an elaborate helmet appear at the top of the stairs, roaring. Before Fronto could consciously react, the soldier was punched back with an arrow to the chest. Bless you, Arcadios.
Fronto slipped and slithered up the treacherous steps and emerged onto the deck with his two close companions hurrying to catch up.
The tribune stood facing him, his two bodyguards at his flanks. A fair proposal under most circumstances, but the rear ranks of the legionaries on either deck were now turning to face the threat to their commander. Any moment the three of them would be swamped by soldiers.
‘How many can you kill?’ Salvius shouted at him.
‘Er… two?’ hazarded Fronto.
‘Good. Get to it.’
Even as Salvius spoke, he leapt forward. One of the bodyguards bellowed and stepped forward to meet him, but the young tribune was quick as a striking cobra. His sword seemed to whisper past the guard’s head harmlessly, and then he was turning and racing back across the deck to hold off the tide of legionaries. Taking his cue from the blood-mad Salvius, Galronus dipped across to the other side and began to swing his long, Gallic blade, holding off the legionaries on that deck.
The side decks narrowed at the end to accommodate the stairs between them. As long as Salvius and Galronus were careful, they could hold the tide of humanity for the precious moments Fronto needed.
He faced the cadaverous tribune and his bodyguards.
Three. He’d said two, hadn’t he?
Then, suddenly, as the right hand of the two guards turned his head slightly, the gash in his neck opened up and a jet of crimson burst from it across the deck. Salvius had far from missed, after all. Horrified, the big bodyguard dropped his sword and clutched at the wound, the blood spraying out in fine jets between his fingers. He was out of the fight, and not long for the world.
The other bodyguard – a bulky man with an old-fashioned helmet and torcs and medals hanging all over him – stepped forward. His sword flickered out a few times, experimentally. Fronto stood still, facing him. A few months ago in Hispania, the goading bitter words of the young officer now fighting with him had driven Fronto into trying to prove himself, to prove he was still vital and strong. Realisation had come slowly, but it had come. He was vital and strong. He just wasn’t young any more, and no amount of exercise and danger was going to solve that problem. But where he lacked the spry agility of the tribune and could no longer leap into the fray as Salvius had done, experience and wisdom filled the gaps left by youth.
He watched the bodyguard’s blade.
Lance… lance… dance… twist… lance…
The blade moved left in the next part of this repetitive sequence and Fronto simply stepped inside the reach of it and slammed his blood-slick sword into the man’s throat. As the bodyguard, astonished and in agony, staggered, his eyes wide and his sword falling away from desperate fingers, Fronto almost casually jerked his hilt first left and then right, then withdrew it, the ruination of the initial wound adequate to prevent sucking flesh fighting the pull. Gore and blood poured through the jagged hole and the man fell instantly, his legs thrashing and hammering on the timber.
Fronto stood silent, watching the tribune. Around him, the incessant downpour hammered the timber deck, washing the pools of blood into one great greasy pink lake across the whole ship. One thing to be grateful for with the storm was that the rain suppressed the stink of offal and bowel that accompanied any real fight. All he could smell was the salty air and the tinny overtone of the storm. A flash illuminated the tribune and made him look more skeletal than ever. Even as the crash of thunder rolled above them, Fronto found his conscience entirely clear. This wasn’t a man. This was a spirit of the restless dead who had somehow found a body.
‘I have information your general will want,’ the tribune said quietly. He didn’t looked afraid. It was a reasoned negotiation, not desperation.
‘No.’ Fronto was not a force of reason right now.
‘Then come, so I can kill you.’
The tribune drew his weapon finally. It was a nice sword – decorative hilt, but a proper soldier’s blade. The way he held it suggested he knew well how to use it.
Fronto felt an odd chill run through him. He was facing a Roman, preparing to kill him. Not in the cause of war, but in a very personal way. The conditions could hardly be more different, yet it dragged him back momentarily to another time. A chilly day here, in the battering rain, on a ship. Last time it had been hot and dry and sunny, in a quarry. He had been sorely wounded last year, and still felt the effects of it. Last year he had allowed it to happen, in a way. Verginius had been a friend. This was not. The tribune was a vicious bastard who burned men to death. Oh, Fronto had done terrible things in the prosecution of a war, but this had been during a truce. The men who had died in that tower had been innocent and settled in for the night. This had been murder, pure and simple.
The tribune’s blade sat still in his hand. No fancy plays. Nothing. Just ready to react.
There was somethin
g about the man’s eyes, though. Fronto squinted through the rain and realised that the tribune was not looking at him, but over his shoulder. He turned sharply. The legionary’s sword was already lashing out. It was the man with the arrow protruding from his torso, who had been at the top of the stairs, and there was no time for Fronto to bring his sword up in response.
He was going to die.
The legionary, teeth bared as he swung down for his kill, was suddenly thrown aside as a second arrow hit him, punching him left and sending him to the deck. Fronto stared. Right behind where the legionary had been about to kill him a moment earlier was Salvius Cursor with his sword lowered. The blood-soaked young tribune nodded.
‘Now we’re even.’
Fronto stared as Salvius swung his blade up to block an attack from another legionary. Masgava and Aurelius were emerging from the walkway now, the latter sporting a nasty wound to the upper arm. They filtered off to either side, Aurelius coming to support Salvius, and Masgava falling in beside Galronus, where the Remi prince was reminding the legions of Rome just how much reach a Gallic long sword had. A small pile of bodies was already mounting up before him.
Fronto turned back to the tribune.
The officer’s blade came up ready. Fronto took a step forward. He reckoned, just from looking in the man’s eyes, that they would be something of a match. The tribune was not young, but he was clearly a veteran who knew what he was doing. Fronto closed his eyes for a single heartbeat. This was now the work of the gods. He was not a legate of Caesar but a vessel for the wrath of Nemesis. He would have to trust to their care.
Another step forward. Careful. Slow.
The enemy sword came out sharply, in a sudden jerk. Fronto stepped forward, taking the blow and praying that Fortuna and Nemesis still favoured him. The sword was well-aimed. It struck just below the bronze edging at the bottom of his cuirass. A bowel-opening blow. The sword sliced through two of the hanging leather pteruges and struck the second layer of them below. The angle was just slightly oblique and, unless a blow hit pteruges dead-on, boiled leather can turn a point. The blade, instead of lancing deep into Fronto’s gut as intended, sliced a long, angry line across the top of his hip and then slid off harmlessly to the side.
Fronto was not trying anything graceful. He was revenge now, pure and simple. His own sword slammed into the tribune’s corpse-like face, hilt first, breaking teeth and nose. As the enemy officer staggered back in shock, Fronto dropped his sword. He turned and grabbed the man’s extended sword arm, pulling it down as he brought up his knee and breaking it permanently at the elbow.
The tribune howled in agony through his broken teeth, lurching this way and that in the driving rain, his sword dropping. Fronto bent and swept up both the tribune’s sword and his own discarded one. Blade in each hand, he approached the tribune.
‘Ugh…’ snarled the man, unable to form proper words with his crippled face. Fronto jabbed out with the swords. The tribune leaned back out of the way, but Fronto had not been attempting to wound with them. As he leaned, the tribune collided with one of the steering oars and fell. Fronto strode like the shadow of Nemesis herself over to the prone man, who was gagging and trying to rise with his non-shattered arm. Using a sword point, Fronto pushed him back down to the deck. Once the man was prone again, Fronto raised his foot. There was another flash of bright white and a crack of thunder that hid the dreadful sound as Fronto stamped his hobnailed boot down on the tribune’s other elbow. The man screamed and rolled around, unable to stand without the aid of his two broken arms.
‘Those are for Catháin and for the men in the tower.
Straightening, he stamped once more, this time on the man’s knee, which shattered with a horrible bony crack.
‘That one’s for Nemesis.’
And then the final joint. The other knee splintered with an unforgettable noise. The irreparably crippled tribune howled unintelligibly through his ruined face as he jerked, unable to do anything else.
‘But the last one was for me, you piece of shit.’
He turned. The fight had gone out of the enemy. More than half were dead already, but the rest were dropping their weapons and raising their arms.
‘You’re a cold bastard, Fronto,’ Salvius Cursor said, eying the broken tribune.
‘From you, I’ll consider that a compliment.’
Salvius gave him a horrible smile and then turned to address the soldiers. ‘Get these captives to the agora with the others.’ He turned back to Fronto. ‘I’m going to see what happened on the other ship.’
Fronto nodded. He looked at Aurelius, who was bleeding well but seemed to be content and whole otherwise. ‘Make sure this one doesn’t die. I want him treated so that he’ll live as a cripple and delivered to the general. He said he had information.’
Aurelius shook his head as he walked past to the ruined man. ‘He’s right, Fronto. You’re a cold bastard.’
* * *
Marcus Falerius Fronto stood on the tower top above the harbour entrance with Salvius and Galronus. In the distance, Ahenobarbus’ ship was little more than a dot now, white sail against a dark grey sky, periodically lit by the flashes of lightning that were now moving out to sea. Brutus’ ships were pursuing, but there was clearly no chance of them ever catching the trireme, without the prior warning that Catháin had apparently been providing over the weeks. It seemed that Brutus had won two of the most unlikely sea victories in the history of the republic because he had been prepared in advance. Fronto doubted Catháin’s name would make it into records, but the man deserved recognition from him, at least.
Leaving their jetty, Salvius had confirmed that the only senior officer on the other ship in port had been an auxiliary prefect who had surrendered with little trouble. Some of his men had put up a fight, but most had capitulated with their commander. Ahenobarbus had fled Massilia and slipped their grip, racing away to join his master, the lone Pompeian senior officer to make it out of Massilia.
But they had to savour the moment anyway, despite losing Ahenobarbus. Ten months ago, they had been in Ravenna with Pompey in command of Rome, the man’s legions in Hispania holding it for him, and Massilia treating with the senate in their favour. Now, as the season drew to a close, Italia, Gaul and Hispania were all settled in support of Caesar, with legions in position to maintain that situation. Pompey controlled the east with a massive army, but from being an outcast on the northern border with the enmity of the Roman aristocracy, Caesar was now the undisputed master of the west, legitimised by the senate.
And the unnamed tribune had claimed to have important information, so perhaps there was another victory yet to be savoured. The medicus had said it would be days before the man could be safely interrogated, but he was stable, and would live to talk to the general.
Victory.
‘Will you stay in Massilia now?’ Galronus asked quietly.
Fronto shook his head. ‘Tarraco, I think. And one day back to Puteoli and Rome, but not while Pompey’s shadow is still cast across Italia. In Hispania we are all as far away from the war as we can be. And you’ll be coming presumably? For Faleria?’
‘We’ll stop now? Go home?’ The Remi sounded surprised.
Fronto nodded. ‘I’ve no stomach for fighting Romans. We were lucky this year. We took almost all our victories without mass slaughter. But that time is coming. When Caesar meets Pompey it will be brutal, and nothing will stop oceans of blood flowing.’
Galronus nodded, but Fronto could see Salvius regarding him sidelong.
‘You disagree?’
Salvius Cursor shrugged. ‘I will fight until I hold Pompey’s still-beating heart in my hand.’
‘What did he do to you?’
Salvius ignored the question and returned his gaze to the grey sea.
Epilogue.
15th of October - Massilia
‘No. I am going home. Back to my family.’
Caesar shook his head. ‘I still need you, Fronto. This is not over yet.’
‘I don’t care, Caesar. I’ve done my time and more.’
‘You forget, Fronto, that you owe me.’
‘I’ve paid that debt.’
‘You’ve paid that debt when I say you have, Fronto. You came to me an exile with nothing. I have rebuilt your life and saved your family. I will have at least another year for that. Curio took Sicilia but has run into numerous problems in Africa. Gaius Antonius struggles in Illyria with Pompey so close. We hold the west and Rome is safe, but the threat in the east grows each month.’
‘My family need me.’
‘They do, I’m sure. Winter with them in Tarraco. Or bring them to Rome for the cold season. All will be safe there now. And then come tubilustrum in Martius, we turn east and take the war back to Pompey. I will be consul then and Rome will be behind me.’
The tired legate locked Caesar with a steely glance.
‘Fronto, I have lost Labienus to arms of the enemy. Only Marcus Antonius and you are a match for him in the field. I will not relinquish one of my greatest resources to the mundanities of retirement. You will march with us next spring. Do not press me on this. I would hate to have to revise my support of your situation.’
‘You would threaten me?’ Fronto said coldly.
‘To save Rome and settle the republic, I would threaten my own family. Nothing must be valued higher than the republic, Marcus. You know that. You have always held to that, as have I.’
Fronto glared, still, but he had lost and he knew it. Because the general could ruin him and destroy his family. Because perhaps he did still owe Caesar. Because he could never support the animal Pompey. But mostly because Caesar was right. He could never sit quiet and bounce his son upon his knee while Rome was being torn apart around him.
‘One more season,’ he acquiesced with a sigh. ‘We defeat Pompey, and then I am free. I owe you nothing.’
One more season…
FIELDS OF MARS Page 47