(Roman camp near the Rhine)
Galronus nodded. “Lentulus is the obvious choice.”
“No, no, no, no, no” Fronto grumbled, the wine — less watered than anyone else’s in the tent — sloshed over the side of his cup and added a fresh spatter on the legate’s breeches. “Lentulus let his men go berserk chasing down the fleeing tribesmen. Possibly on Caesar’s orders, but a cavalry commander needs to have full control.”
Varus leaned back against a prop of cushions, his sling undone and resting the rigidly-splinted arm on a padded pillow. Despite the argument and concerns of the medicus, he’d been in the saddle again the morning after the battle, unarmed of course, and wincing with every thud of the horse’s hooves, but where he belonged. Between rides, however, he seemed to be mollycoddling the break. He shared a look with Galronus and pursed his lips.
“Marcus, Lentulus was in full control. It was a command decision, whether his or Caesar’s, to sacrifice mercy and potential slaves in order to allow that cavalry wing their revenge. I honestly can’t say whether I’d have tried to rein them in myself. You agreed with him in the debrief! What would you do if the Tenth were hacked to pieces and then given the opportunity to take it out on their attackers?”
“I’d restrain them.”
“No you damn well wouldn’t, and you know it. What is all this about, Marcus. You’re all over the place at the moment. One minute you’re standing up for Caesar and supporting any amount of bloodshed he might suggest, and the next ranting about him over the deaths of enemy civilians. I realise that you’ve always had your differences with the general, but I can’t figure out what’s going on in your head. Sometimes you’re starting to sound like Labienus.”
Fronto glared angrily down into his cup.
“I don’t know, Varus. I’ve never really been able to figure Caesar out. Sometimes he’s the very model of a generous, merciful commander and a good man; other times I see things in him that really worry me; twisted things.”
“Nobody is simply good or bad, Marcus” Galronus shrugged. “That’s a very simplified way of looking at the world.”
“If it hadn’t been for what happened in Rome — the gladiators and Clodius and his men — I don’t know whether I’d even be here this summer. Caesar saved my family, and that’s hard to forget and let go. But something Balbus said to me a couple of months back has really stuck in my head. And then there’s all these divisions in command, and new men drafted in that I wouldn’t turn my back on, just in case.”
Varus shook his head. “I have to admit that the army does seem to be drifting into factions. It’s Caesar’s army, and he pays the men and gives his patronage to the officers. But…” he lowered his voice, “there are clear pockets of men who are plainly anti-Caesarian. It shouldn’t be worrying, but, let’s face it, Caesar wouldn’t be the first praetor to have an army turn against him.”
“You think Labienus would wrest command from the general? You even think he could?”
Varus sighed. “I’ve heard how the tide of opinion flows in Rome, Marcus. Caesar’s got the mob in his pocket, but that’s only so much use. Pompey wouldn’t fart to help Caesar if he needed it and Crassus is busy flouncing about in the east trying to emulate Alexander the Great and building up to invade Parthia. The senate are well-stacked against Caesar and only favours and threats are keeping them from hauling on the leash and dragging him back to Rome.”
Fronto stared at him. “I didn’t realise you were so politically minded, Varus?”
“I just keep my eyes and ears open, Marcus. The thing is: Caesar is balanced on a knife edge these days. If things went wrong, we might find the senate rescinding Caesar’s position and command. They could even prosecute him… hell, if Cicero has his way they’ll declare him an enemy of the state. It sounds so ridiculous and unlikely, but it really isn’t that fantastic.”
Galronus frowned as he thought it through. “And if the senate ends Caesar’s command, Labienus has the authority to turn around and take the army off him; maybe even assume the governorship. Is that really likely?”
“As I say, it all depends on the amount of support Caesar can maintain in Rome. As long as the senate either supports him or is frightened enough not to cross him, he’ll be fine. He still has enough influence, money and men to assure both, I believe. The people love him for his victories, so he’s never short of loyal muscle to hire, if you get my drift.”
Galronus scratched his chin. “It’s maybe worth noting that Caesar hasn’t put Labienus in command of a single action so far this summer. I would guess the general has thought this through to the same end. How long do you think it’ll be before Labienus ends up attached to Cicero’s Seventh and all the other untrustworthy dissenters? I just don’t understand why he hasn’t sent Labienus and Cicero home just to be certain.”
“Because you can’t waste talent on suspicions” Fronto said with a shrug. “Labienus may be arguing a lot and disagreeing with Caesar, but the man has obeyed Caesar’s every command regardless. Disagreement is a long, long way from mutiny, and Labienus is still one of the half-dozen most talented military strategists on this side of the Mare Nostrum. Can’t afford to let a top man go because he’s argumentative.”
“And Cicero?”
“Would you want to send him back to Rome in disgrace where he can join his brother and stir up even more trouble? No. Cicero is safer under Caesar’s nose.”
A knock at the wooden frame of the door interrupted the conversation and Fronto made ‘shush’ing motions at the other two.
“Who is it?”
“How many people are you expecting?” barked the irritable voice of Priscus. Fronto relaxed back to the cushion and refilled his cup, adding the slightest dash of water for modesty. “Come on in.”
The door flap swung out to reveal the figures of Priscus, Carbo and Atenos.
“You said there’d be dice” Priscus noted hopefully, “and wine.”
“Help yourself to the wine. Now that you’re here I’ll dig out the dice. We were just discussing the divisions in command. Labienus, Cicero, Caesar, the senate and so on. Any opinions?”
“My opinion is that it’d be a better discussion without me” grumbled Priscus, slumping to a cushion and pouring himself a generous cup of wine, watering it healthily.
“I wonder who’s going to be left in command of the winter quarters once we’ve rounded up the rest of the invaders” mused Carbo, reaching for a dark, earthenware cup.
“Not Labienus, for sure” replied Atenos with a grin.
“I think you’re getting ahead of yourself” Fronto said quietly. “This isn’t the end of things. I argued with Balbus back at Massilia, but I’m more and more convinced he was right as the weeks roll on.”
He glanced up at the silence and realised the other five men were frowning at him in incomprehension.
“He feels that Caesar will continue to push even when there’s no reason. For glory and the applause of the mob in Rome. The senate are never going to root for him, so he needs the support of the people, and that means he can’t stop conquering and winning glory for Rome. He won’t waste the campaigning season when he could be drumming up popular support.”
“So you mean the general is going to spend the rest of the season ploughing into the lands across the Rhenus? All to please the poor and the homeless back in Rome?”
“That would be my guess.”
“Any news about the tribune?” Carbo asked quietly, deftly changing the subject.
Fronto sat up a little straighter. “He’s recovering nicely apparently. Not as quick as the invincible horseman over there” he gestured at Varus, who grinned. “Looks like Tetricus was very lucky; the wounds could have been that much worse if just a fraction of an inch different. I think he’s lucky he was moving and there was a big fight on. If the bastards had cornered him in an alley, it would have been a different matter.”
“’Bastards’?” enquired Atenos with a frown, noting the plural.
Fronto shrugged. “I’d wager a fortune on who the culprits were, and there’s two of them.”
“Fabius and Furius of the Seventh” Galronus said quietly. “How sure are you?”
“Pretty convinced. No evidence, though. I can accuse them all I like, but Cicero will back them to the hilt and it’s no secret that those two and I have a mutual dislike. It’ll just look like me being vindictive if I make any kind of accusation without evidence. I had a look at the weapons they used, but they’re bulk legionary issue with no way to distinguish them.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I’m beginning to wonder if the world might be a brighter place if those two wake up dead in their tent one morning.”
“You’d not sink to that level, Marcus. If you were the kind of man who did, the Tenth would have done away with you years ago.” Priscus shook his head. “But it’s a mess, Marcus.” he announced wearily. “This whole thing is a mess. Labienus has been sounding people out, you know? He came to see me; ostensibly it was a perfectly acceptable enquiry for the camp prefect, but he asked me some pretty telling questions.”
Fronto narrowed his eyes at his old friend.
“And you said?”
“I said I was Caesar’s camp prefect. That seemed to shut him up.”
Another knock at the tent door drew their gaze and attention.
“You invited anyone else?”
Fronto shook his head. “Who’s there?”
“Message for the legate of the Tenth, sir.”
Struggling to his feet, Fronto hobbled over to the door and pulled aside the flap. A legionary stood outside, looking nervous.
“Well?”
The soldier held out a cylindrical case; small and made of wood. “This arrived by courier a few minutes ago at the gate, sir, with instructions to be passed to yourself.”
Fronto nodded and waved the soldier away, taking the case and retreating into the tent. Unstoppering the end, he slid out a small roll of expensive parchment. The wax seal that held the scroll tight bore his family’s signet, marking its source as either Faleria or his mother.
“Letter from the missus?” Priscus grinned.
“From home” Fronto said absently, snapping the seal and unrolling the short missive. His eyes strayed back and forth along the lines, his expression undergoing a number of changes as he read, and darkening as he neared the end.
“The bastard!”
The tent’s occupants looked at one another and then at him.
“What?”
The legate thrust the parchment angrily at Priscus, who ran his eyes down the text until he reached the bottom.
“Maybe she’s mistaken?”
“No. No mistake. I should have known when we confronted him in Rome that Caesar would get his talons into the man.”
“What?” Galronus was half-raised from the floor now.
“Caesar’s got Clodius Pulcher working for him now, running gangs of thugs from his niece’s house to frighten those daft old buggers in the senate who chunter about this campaign. After everything Clodius did to us last year! Caesar stood with me and fought the cheap little bastard and his men, and then he hires the prick? Clodius is as treacherous as a snake and as slippery as an eel. The little bastard needs to be filleted and dumped in the Tiber, not employed!”
“Remember what I told you, though, Marcus” muttered Varus, wincing as he carefully tightened the sling around his arm once more. “Caesar’s only maintaining his command and his position because the senate are scared of him. That’s what Clodius is: a cestus. An armoured glove of the general closing on the throat of the senate.”
“Still, if that little prick is swanning about in Rome when I get back, Caesar or no Caesar, I’ll gut him myself.”
Galronus’ brow furrowed. “Why in Rome but not here?”
“What?”
“Why would Caesar have hired men frightening the senate into supporting him — which is extremely dangerous and could land him in court or prison — and yet leave those who disagree with him in important places in his army? I know you say Labienus is worth too much as a commander, but if the general would go so far as to threaten patrician class senators, would he really stop at his officers?”
“Caesar has always been a man of the army. His legions love him because he’s one of them. He’d lose their love and respect pretty damn quick if he started doing away with officers he didn’t like.”
And yet, even as he spoke, in his gut Fronto couldn’t escape the feeling that perhaps there was some truth in Galronus’ words. His mind conjured up pictures of Paetus — the former camp prefect whose family Caesar had allowed to die needlessly, turning him against the general. Of Salonius — a tribune who had stirred the legions against Caesar three years ago and who had disappeared without trace. Of the Fourteenth who had spent two years repeatedly being given the more ignominious duties in the army due to their Gallic nature. Of the Seventh, who now contained all the general’s ‘bad eggs’.
Caesar could be a hard man and an unforgiving one. Would he really allow potential enemies to stay in command in his own army?
Fronto reached for the wine again, ignoring the jug of water nearby.
Tetricus winced and lowered his head back to the cold, crisp bed. It never ceased to amaze him how the legion’s medical staff could erect a fully working hospital in the middle of a muddy field. He smiled and allowed his eyes to close.
The wound in his back sent shock waves through him every time he lifted his head or turned over, meaning that he’d moved remarkably little in the eternity he’d spent lying here. Still, he had to consider himself lucky. Between that wound and the one in his leg that had been brutal, true, but had managed to narrowly avoid completely severing a muscle; he was in discomfort most of the time, even despite the medication the staff had him on that made him weak and filled his head with fluff. But he only had to concentrate to hear the moans and constant shrieks of those who fared worse in other parts of the hospital. Or to imagine that silent tent at the far end where those who were not expected to pull through lay in stupefied and putrefied agony.
No, he could have been in a far worse position.
And, of course, his rank had afforded him a private ‘room’ — a section of the large ward tent that was partitioned off with internal leather sections. Four such rooms existed and he knew from listening to the activity around him that two centurions and an optio occupied the others. The optio was recovering from a spear wound to the neck that had left him unable to speak, and the centurions had various lost a hand, suffered a head wound, and taken a blade in the gut, though who and in what combination, he had so far been unable to determine.
A sigh escaped his dry lips. Perhaps soon an orderly would come and he could request some water. Or maybe even something a little stronger.
The medicus and his assistants had been extremely non-committal when he’d asked how long he would be bed-ridden. Fronto had come to see him, of course, as had Priscus, Carbo, and the other tribunes of the Tenth as a mark of appropriate respect. And Mamurra, Caesar’s senior staff engineer and a personal hero of Tetricus’.
Mamurra represented the major reason he was twitching to get up and about. The man had intimated that Caesar was considering something big — something that made Mamurra’s eyes glint with that heart-deep excitement an engineer felt when presented with a challenge. The world-famous engineer was almost vibrating with eagerness, and had alluded to the possibility of Tetricus being in on the task if he was returned to duty in time.
And so he must be.
Somewhere beyond the leather walls of his small world there was a tearing sound, like a medical dressing being ripped open, though louder. Tetricus frowned in his strange and sterile compartment. Sounds had been his main companions these many past hours, and he’d become used to every sound the hospital had to offer.
This was new.
Tetricus’ world went white.
Panic gripped him as he jerked his head to one side, causing a fresh wave of pain to shoot through his back and shoulder. The curtain of white — linen apparently — slipped away from one eye and he had a momentary glimpse of a muscular arm coated in fine brown hairs, the wrist enclosed in a bronze vambrace embossed with a protective image of the medusa head. Even as the white veil slipped over his eyes again, he felt his arms thrust down against the bed by powerful hands while another pushed a vinegar-soaked rag, likely gathered from the hospital floor, into his mouth, stifling his cry before he could even issue it.
At least two people; his arms held down and his mouth gagged and eyes covered. Panic rose to a crescendo. He tried to kick out, but the agony in his wounded leg caused him to slump back, his breathing horribly restricted by the linen and the rag that covered his face.
Surely such a thing couldn’t happen in a hospital? Where were the orderlies? Where was the medicus? Was he not due another dose of the drug?
No amount of struggling would free his arms; he was simply too weak. His chest heaved with the difficulty of breathing through the white cloth. Was this what they were trying to do? Smother him? Why?
Officers of Caesar’s army killing other officers? What was happening to the world?
Despite the gag, he did manage a sharp squeak and a whimper as a long, tapering blade crunched down through his breastbone and slid deep into his chest, severing blood vessels and piercing organs before grating between ribs at the back and punching into the bed itself.
Tetricus gasped at the killing blow. Despite the wounds he’d taken from the dagger and the pilum and the half dozen other injuries he’d suffered these past three years since Geneva, nothing could have prepared him for this white-hot agony.
He could feel the grey closing in around him almost instantly. His voice wouldn’t respond. He could do little but shudder and shed a silent tear. His last breath issued as a simple wheeze with a crackle and a rattle. He barely recognised the feeling as the blade ripped back out of his chest, grating on the bone and releasing the flow of blood. His heart had already stopped, two inches of steel driven through the centre with professional accuracy.
Tetricus passed from the world of men precisely half a minute before the orderly arrived with a small vial of henbane and mandragora solution, finding only the body of a tribune in a lake of blood and a large slit in the tent wall.
Fronto stomped across the grass, his eyes burning with a fire so hot that legionaries and officers alike scrambled to get out of his way. There was that something about his appearance which challenged anyone to stand in his way.
The hospital tent stood gaunt and bleak at the bottom of the slope by the river and at the downstream end of the camp for the sake of hygiene. Two contubernia of legionaries stood guard around its perimeter, as they did at the other two hospital tents and, as the legate approached, the optio by the tent’s doorway stepped aside and saluted.
“Legate Fronto. The medicus is waiting for you.”
Fronto, acknowledging the man’s very existence with only the merest of nods, strode into the tent and fixed his eyes on the man in the white robe, standing deep in conversation with one of his orderlies.
“Ah, legate. Come.”
The man handed his wax tablet to the orderly and stepped through a divide into one of the partition rooms. Fronto, his heart a lead weight in the base of his stomach, followed, steeling himself.
Tetricus had been left as found and, despite his preparations, Fronto found a small volume of bile rising into his mouth, his flesh falling into a cold sweat.
The tribune, dressed only in tunic and undergarments, lay on the waist-height bed, the sheet that had covered him rucked up, presumably during his death throes. A white linen wrap lay draped across his face and a bloody, brown rag protruded from his mouth. The chest of his russet-coloured tunic glistened black, soaked with the blood that had run in torrents down both sides of the man’s torso, pooling on the bed around him before dripping onto the floor and creating a dark red lake.
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 furrowed.
“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.