That, to Fronto, summed up what he was rapidly coming to see as Pompey's personality. While the Caesarian blood tended towards Spartan and austere wealth, the Pompeian blood was the boiling red of violent rage, covered or masqued with a thin public veneer of calm white. A dozen times or more now Pompey had socialised with him, always skirting the subject of Fronto's future - something that had occurred during that visit to the Carcer had put the general off the subject apparently. Every time, he felt he knew the general that little bit better. Pompey was as much the soldier as Caesar - that much was plain and clear. But their paths and purposes could not be further removed from one another.
Caesar, as Fronto was well aware these days, had taken to military command like a duck to water. But his love of the campaign, of war and of battle - his sheer ability and comfort in the role - were all born from the need to advance in political and personal circles. Caesar became the perfect soldier in order to climb the ladder to - what? Godhood? A martial man by necessity.
Pompey was very much the opposite, Fronto suspected. He had not taken military service in order to build his stature in Rome or advance his cause - after all, he was of a better family than Caesar to begin with. He had little real need to do more than achieve one victory. But Pompey was a solider for the love of war - for the love of the fray; for the desire of blood? Far from using military service to gain position, he had repeatedly used his political weight to secure himself military campaigns. Much of what he did in Rome seemed to be an attempt to get back into the field once again. Fronto recognised the trait in much the same way as he had long recognised it in himself.
But even then there was a difference between Pompey and himself, despite their love of the martial life. Fronto loved the simplicity and the camaraderie; he appreciated the sense of order and discipline that came from the life as well as the freedoms it granted. Pompey, he was sure, fought because his blood demanded it. His temper showed sometimes when he was tested and Fronto had, in fleeting moments, seen something in the man's eyes that bore more resemblance to the crazed battle-lust of the Celtic warrior than to anything Roman.
Whether all this was a good thing or bad, he was still trying to weigh up. In the last year he had come to believe that Pompey was the pleasant, popular - even liberal - character that was Caesar's antithesis. He had thought Caesar to be a cruel shadow of Rome's celebrated pirate-killer. Now, he was beginning to reform his opinion. Could it be that for all Caesar's treatment of people like tools and his cold calculating attitude, he was still actually the more human and reasonable of the two. Fronto found himself wondering what opinions he would have been forming of the third member of this powerful triumvirate had he decided to make for Syria and serve under Crassus?
"Lucilia! Marcus!" the lady Julia beamed, waddling uncomfortably from a doorway off the atrium, one hand beneath her swollen belly, lending extra support. Fronto notched up his 'I am greeting someone who is pleasant and yet I hardly know' smile, but it was largely unneeded as Lucilia and Julia were already rushing into close conversation. It had been this way the last few times they had visited.
As often as Fronto met with Pompey out in the city, the couple met with Julia at her house. Pompey's young wife was now in the advanced state of pregnancy and her movements were necessarily restricted. She had stopped leaving the house at all weeks ago and welcomed every visitor as a chance to relieve the boredom and ennui of the same surrounding walls every day. Faleria and Galronus were alternating visits in order to give her all the more social time.
The girls had started wandering off towards the first of the house's two spacious gardens, totally ignoring Fronto as usual, and he pottered along behind, half-listening to their conversation as he studied the walls and images of Pompey's house.
Closer inspection of the decor revealed something else telling about the house's owner: Every scene seemed to have some relevance, now that he paid attention to the individual - very well executed - wall paintings.
The atrium displayed scenes of a lush valley and its surrounding countryside. It was only when one really peered at the detail, though, that one could make out the tiny figures of the Roman legionaries and their foes. Pompey's victory over the gladiators of Spartacus' army in the north: a small victory, but one that the general had blown up enough to claim responsibility for ending the whole damn war. The whole atrium told the story of the battle, but only if you knew what you were looking at. At first glance, they were peaceful country scenes. He wondered whether Julia had not noticed or whether she rather indulged her older husband's militaristic whims.
"The midwife says it is a boy" Julia was announcing to Lucilia. "She's absolutely certain of it, she says. Gnaeus is blissfully happy, of course. He already has his two strapping sons, but what man doesn't want another, eh? Besides…" her voice fell to a loud whisper, "he confided in me that he never truly loved Aemilia or Mucia, and a son made between us would have all of his favour."
Fronto grunted. He remembered the marriage celebrations to Mucia Tertia, back in the day. As he remembered it, that was supposedly a true match of love after the death of his previous wife.
Lucilia shot him a warning glance, but Julia either had not heard or had ignored his grunt.
"Personally," the waddling mother-to-be added, "I think it to be a girl. There is nothing but difficulty and discomfort. Only girls are this difficult, or so my mother told me!"
The two ladies laughed and Fronto turned his gaze to the décor once more, rolling his eyes at the ridiculous conversations of women. The corridor that led through into the first garden was painted with delightful views of the city in all its glory. Suspiciously, he leaned close and examined it. What he saw made him grin.
At first open glance, it was most definitely a series of views of Rome. When one examined the images close-up, though, one could see that they depicted the route of a victorious general's triumph. Every time Pompey stepped from his atrium into the garden he relived the triumph over and over again. Were three real ones not enough for him?
The light was suddenly blotted out and he looked up ahead, frowning, to the garden doorway. Julia and Lucilia were gone, wandering out among the flowers, talking of children and menfolk. But the light was now blocked by a hulking figure.
"You?" Fronto whispered, straightening and looking up into the eyes of the enormous barbarian that he had last seen behind the bars of the carcer on the slopes of the Capitol.
The figure remained silent, but the very fact that he all-but blocked the exit from the corridor spoke of violent intent. Fronto closed his eyes for a moment and tried not to panic. He bore no weapon of course. He was a nobleman in the city of Rome, in a toga that Lucilia had insisted he wear, visiting a friend with his wife. The thing in front of him bore no blade but with arms like that, who needed a sword? Fronto had the horrible suspicion that if he turned around, he would see a second figure blocking the other exit behind him, but to look around would announce his fears and that would do no one any good.
Would the barbarian really try anything? In the house of Pompey?
Unless, of course, if was by Pompey's will…
"Marcus. Falerius. Fronto. Legatus." Four separate words. Spoken as if they were unfamiliar and at the same time horribly distasteful.
"Listen…" Fronto's voice came out slightly cracked with nerves and he cursed himself for it. "I don't know what I've done to you, but I am here in peace to visit with Pompey's wife. You serve Pompey now, I presume? I remember you understand Latin, if not courtesy."
The bulky barbarian shifted slightly.
"You are worst of Roman."
Finally! Something other than platitudes and vague threats. Something annoying enough to snap him out of the nerves and warm his blood.
"Oh don't be so bloody dramatic. If you know many Romans, then you'll know there's a damn sight worse than me!"
"Not to kin of men who die in river."
Fronto shook his head irritably. "What river? Make sense!"
"
Great river. You call Rhenus."
Fronto paused. "The Rhenus?" Something clicked. "You were there last year? When we fought on the banks? You're of the Suevi?"
"I hear you fight and build bridges. But Berengarus remember much before. Long memory, I. Three years in Rome, in chain. And still I know you."
"Three years? So, Ariovistus then? You fought us back then? You've been a slave since our first year in Gaul?"
The giant's glowering silence was confirmation enough.
"Look… Berengarus, was it? You can blame who you like, but remember that you were invading Gaul yourselves. Battle's battle. I hold no grudge against the Suevi who fought us."
The huge man stepped forth and leaned forward, almost nose-to-hairline with Fronto. "That because Suevi not kill Roman children; Roman woman."
"I seem to remember the Suevi rather differently" Fronto snapped. "I think they'd snap a baby in half if they were in the right mood."
"Wife murdered by Roman horse."
"Condolences" Fronto snapped angrily.
"Son drown in river in escape."
The irritated Roman took a step back and folded his arms indignantly, and with some difficulty, given the toga. "Alright, so you had it bad. Tough. War is no walk in the woods for anyone, you idiot. You think the young men I led last year who were pinned with arrows near the river deserved to die? You don't want women and children to suffer? Well here's an idea, you giant genius: don't bring the poor bastards to the battle! Then they won't get killed. I've precious little bloody sympathy for any of your kind. I've met your women before. Four years ago one of them took a bite out of my pissing heel! Blame who you like, but my conscience is clear."
He realised with some surprise that he had become so angry he was jabbing his finger into Berengarus' chest and withdrew it, slowly, so as not to appear timid. The German was actually shaking.
"Get out of my way you shambling heap of pointless horse dung."
Without looking the barbarian in the eyes, he ducked to the side and pushed past him, out into the corridor beyond. Striding off, he emerged into the light and stood in the doorway actually shaking slightly himself, half with nerves and half with anger. How dare that big thing accuse him of being a murderer of women and children?
He momentarily glanced around and realised with a start that Berengarus had turned and followed him.
"Never turn back on Berengarus again" the Barbarian growled. "You do: I kill. Simple."
"Oh just piss off and leave me alone" Fronto snapped, deliberately and provocatively turning his back on the brute and stomping out across the flags into the garden, where Lucilia and Julia reclined on a bench in the sunshine while a slave served them chilled fruit juice.
"Marcus! There you are." Lucilia announced as she spotted him approaching. "Where did you get to?"
"Just reliving old campaigns with one of Pompey's guards."
"Someone you served with?" Lucilia smiled.
"After a fashion." He turned to the slave with the jug. "Do you have anything stronger?"
"At this time of the morning?" his young wife disapproved.
"Old campaigns sometimes need dulling a little."
Julia nodded calmly. "My dear husband says much the same sometimes." She peered around the garden and then smiled and waved. "Berengarus? Be a darling and fetch an amphora of wine and a jug of water."
Fronto felt his pulse speed up just a little at the lightness in Julia's voice as she turned a conspiratorial smile on Lucilia.
"He's big and hairy, but he's such a kitten really."
The sound of Fronto's grinding teeth echoed dully across the patio.
* * * * *
Fronto rolled the leg of his faded military issue breeches down over the padding around the knee, where they rucked up a little and failed to reach the full length to just below the joint. There were still some officers and men in the legions who preferred to go all natural and airy under their tunic the way everyone had back in Hispania, but with the weather further north, every year saw more men adopt the Gallic tradition. Soon, they'd probably be wearing the full length wool things and damn the consequences. It was better than your legs turning blue in winter.
Stretching the leg, he winced once again. The Greek medicus had told him to wrap it as tightly as he could to get the greatest level of support, while still allowing reasonable movement.
It felt peculiar and looked worse, but he had to admit that, as he put pressure on the floor with his foot, the knee pained him less than usual. The medicus - he had finally relented yesterday and visited the quack practitioner - had carefully checked him over and announced that, despite the pain, there was actually nothing wrong with the joint. It was simply a bad 'sprain' or something that should have healed long ago, but instead of strengthening it, Fronto had been favouring the other leg and allowing it to weaken yet further.
It had actually surprised Fronto when the man had measured his legs and showed him the comparison. His good leg was considerably bigger and more muscular. His weak one had seemed spindly and stringy by comparison. Half a year of neglect and his leg was pathetic. It was that more than anything that had made him decide he had hit the bottom of the trough and it was time to start climbing up again.
He was not a young man, and he knew it, but he had always had a level of fitness well below his age. He had used to outrun the young raw recruits. Now he wheezed when he climbed out of the bath.
No more.
He looked the length of the running track. It seemed impossibly far. The sounds of laughter and splashing from the Piscina Publica - a wide open swimming reservoir - saturated the area. Here, alongside the public pool where the children frolicked, a private running track and small palaestra stood for the exercise of the Roman physique.
Fronto tried to ignore the perfect specimens of manhood that used the park, all rippling muscles and firm abdomens, oiled and tanned in the early summer sun. He tried to ignore the fleshy folds he knew were safely hidden inside his faded military tunic and peered at the hairy, less-than-muscular leg.
All this would change.
Nearby a man grunted as he lifted a bar of weights that looked to Fronto impossibly heavy. Behind him, a man vaulted over a low wall again and again, sometimes spinning or somersaulting in the air. Fronto called him some unkind things and stood, wincing.
Fixing his gaze on the far end of the track, which looked like it might be halfway to Syria, he took a deep breath. One glance and then he dropped to a crouch, his mind replacing that featureless brick wall at the far end painted with rude graffiti, with an image of a nice bowl of pork loin and buttered flatbread. Mmmmm.
He ran.
The first hundred paces were fine. In fact, he began to wonder what all the fuss had been about and why he had been putting all this off for so long.
And then, suddenly, the pain leaked through his euphoria and into his brain. The only reason he didn't collapse in a rolling ball of tangled limbs was the sheer confusion as to the pain's source. Clearly, the sharp, shooting agony was the knee, but it appeared to be fighting for prominence with the feeling that apparently someone had extricated his lungs and was grilling them while they were still in use. The burning was so intense he panicked and stumbled to a halt.
His hands dropped to his knees and he felt at the wad of bandaging.
It was intact. And apparently his lungs were still on the inside, despite the pain.
Still, it was the first time he had done more than amble across a tavern room in half a year. Not bad.
Turning, his face fell. The starting line from which he had set off was nightmarishly close. Turning back he frowned irritably. The end wall was still so far away he couldn't pick out individual bricks or bits of graffiti. He had made it barely a third of the way along the track! It had felt like a thousand paces, but in the old days he could have spat this far.
With a clenched jaw, he realised that this was one of those make-or-break moments, like the ones he had faced in so many battles. Ei
ther he would succumb to the pain and discomfort and the laziness, accept that he was getting too old, give up and go home - or… he would take the failure as a challenge and learn from it. Use it in a manly fashion to challenge himself and push through the limits, seeking to run a little further each time until he was sprinting the track with no trouble.
The guilt repeatedly smashed him in the face as he stooped to collect his belongings by the starting line and left the complex.
Perhaps there was a third option: a sensible and timely withdrawal to marshal his forces and bring forward the reserves.
He would come back tomorrow.
In the evening.
When all the Hercules wannabes would not be there to watch him flounder and fail.
With a sense of having neatly sidestepped failure with a spurious plan for future attempts, he strode toward the slope of the Aventine and home. At the corner of the street that led up towards the house of the Falerii, where a popular bakery stood, a wall was given over to the display of public notices. While the majority of these were private and sometimes cryptic, interspersed with the crude and rude comments scribbled or illustrated by the few commoners who could write, this was one of four cardinal points in the city where inscribed copies of the 'acta diurna' - the official public daily notices - were posted for those few who could read. Every hour or two a helpful priest from the small Temple of Picumnus across the road would pop out and read aloud the acta diurna for the rest.
Fronto approached with interest, noting the two servants of the state hanging the latest news on the wall and then pushing their cart off back into the city. The higher strata of society present milled around before the wall, running through the notices, and Fronto joined them. It was always worth catching up on the news before Faleria or Lucilia chided him for not paying attention. Besides, there might be the latest tidings from Gaul or Syria on there.
Marius' Mules V: Hades' Gate Page 14
