"I think you're perfectly mad" Palmatus grinned. "Let's do it. Just us four and master Balbus? Or do you want to bring any of the hired men?"
"Just a few. Too many would be more of a hindrance than a help, given their likely unfamiliarity with the land - I'll pick four of the most violent looking ones. Now, I think we need to see the women and settle in for a few hours, and then I'll take you up to the Forum Vulcani and show you around while there's still enough light. Has it been half an hour yet?"
As the small party rounded the far corner of the villa and made their way back towards the entrance, they became aware of the sound of raised voices.
"Perhaps we should do another circuit first" winced Palmatus.
As they approached the front, Balbus was blocking the courtyard wall's gateway. Fronto caught sight of Lucilia standing in the middle of the garden. She had a sword in her hand - Balbus' probably, looking at the blade - and was gesturing angrily at her father. The Jewish physician stood behind her, by the door to the villa, holding Balbina's hand and looking on with a concerned expression.
"Get out of the way, father."
"Be realistic, Lucilia!" Balbus snapped. "Where will you go? You think to hunt a pack of murderers? I've always been proud of your self-assurance and strength, but on this occasion it's misdirected. You're being a foolish girl!"
Fronto winced at the comment and Lucilia stepped forward, the gladius point coming up unwavering at her father's chin.
"Don't be childish, Lucilia."
In a move quicker than Fronto could have expected, Balbus reached out and snatched the blade, wrestling it from her hand. Lucilia threw herself at him, her fists balled and hammering on his chest. Calmly, with more emotion showing on his face than Fronto had seen in over a week, Balbus tossed his sword aside into a flower bed and wrapped his arms around the girl, who continued to pound his chest angrily even as he pulled her tighter into his embrace.
Fronto worried that his heart might break as he watched the fight pass out of her. He had never seen Lucilia surrender to anything before. He was becoming used to being the one who would have to do the giving in at any situation but, as he watched, the pounding stopped and Lucilia went limp in her father's arms. As Balbus coddled her, her face buried in his tunic, he reached up, releasing some of the strength in his grip and stroking her hair.
Lucilia began to shake as the sobs wracked her.
By the time Fronto was off his horse and at the gate she was all but a mess in her father's arms. Balbus spotted Fronto approaching and gently-but-firmly stepped back, holding Lucilia up and away in his strong grasp.
The young woman looked at him in befuddlement for a moment and then noticed Fronto. He held out his arms and opened his mouth to speak. Nothing came out; he had no idea what to say, though it appeared that hardly mattered. Lucilia almost fell into his arms and her embrace tightened, restricting his ability to draw deep breaths. For a long moment she squeezed tightly, expressing her loss and her grief and her need all in one crushing embrace.
He took a shallow, shuddering breath and gripped her in return.
* * * * *
Lucilia tapped the wagon and peered at the horses tethered to it. In the back, the two women of the Falerii, mother and daughter, sat along with the strange Jewish physician who seemed to be a rock to which young, silent Balbina clung.
"Nothing I can say is going to persuade either of you, is it?"
Fronto and Balbus, side by side in the villa's garden gateway, shook their heads.
"I'm no soldier, I know, but I'm strong and clever and I know which end of a sword goes in my hand and which goes in the enemy."
"I've lost enough already, Lucilia" Balbus said flatly. "I'll not lose you, and I know your husband is of the same mind."
Lucilia sighed. "How will we know when it's over?"
"When we come and get you. Lucius Tinneius will keep you all safe, and you've got more than a dozen guards with you."
"And what if you don't come and get us?"
Fronto smiled as reassuringly as he could. "Can you imagine anybody standing up to Masgava? And I'm not the feeble fleshpile I was back in Rome, Lucilia. I'm back at my peak. Gods, I'm above the peak and looking down, now. And as well as us five there are four more of the guards staying with us. That's nine. And we're all better than any simple murderer."
"Just be careful."
With a last hard look at Fronto and her father, Lucilia turned and mounted the wagon, taking a seat opposite the two Falerii women and next to her sister and the Jew, her back to Posco on the driver's bench. The large party of hired muscle settled their blades in the sheaths and stretched muscles before nodding at the driver.
Posco turned and smiled unhappily at Fronto.
"Fortuna, Dominus."
"Hope she's with you too, Posco. Keep them safe."
"With my life, sir."
Fronto stood statue-like, trying not to let any of the nerves he was beginning to feel show in his face as the cart creaked and began to roll away towards the city proper and the road that would follow the curve of the bay past some of the world's most astounding places and up to the great acropolis of Cuma, where the Tineii had their villa, nestled close to the entrance of the Sibyl's cave. Behind them, the force of mercenaries trod the road in the chilly breeze. As the cart and its escort disappeared out of sight around the curve, Fronto turned to Balbus.
"They'll be safe in Cuma. No one would expect them to be there and we're the only people who know where they are. Let's go."
Balbus stood for a moment, watching the empty road and the bend around which his daughters had disappeared, and nodded. For the first time since Corvinia's death in Rome, Fronto noted something of the determined positivity of his old friend returning to Balbus' eyes.
"Show me the killing ground, Marcus."
* * * * *
The 'Forum Vulcani' was well named - a mortal could quite imagine the great blacksmith of the Gods at work here.
As the party of nine warriors crested a rise covered with scrub grass and a few sparse scrub bushes, they received their first view of the place that was to be their stand against the killers from the Carcer. The five friends gathered in a small knot, the four hired swords waiting respectfully and patiently to the side to hear their orders.
The sky was bright, if grey - the wind fast and cold, whipping along the high blanket of cloud at a remarkable pace, and yet the gate to Hades was still shrouded in clouds of its own.
A crater perhaps half a mile across had been scooped out of the land by the hand of some ancient Titan, leaving the most astounding depression. Despite the greenery of the surrounding hills and even the scrubby vegetation on this slope, everything below the lip in that wide bowl was unearthly and desolate. The whole crater glowed with an unnatural yellow-white colour and the ground was chalky and pale, spotted by patches of darker grey and rocks coloured yellow through to orange.
Smoky steam sat in the hollow like low-lying cloud, the product of bubbling pools and jets issuing from small cracks and crevices.
Galronus shuddered. "Pleasant" he said with a snort. "And what in the name of precious Taranis is that smell?"
"Get used to it" Fronto said quietly. "It's the smell of the very ground and everything that comes from it."
"Smells like Hades has a stomach complaint to me. But the steam could be useful" Balbus noted. "Particularly if we know where we're going and they don't."
"That's only half of it, Quintus. The central area - you can see where it's lower and darker - is where most of the steam comes up from. The whole area's a maze of narrow tracks you can walk along surrounded by bubbling pools of mud. You slip into one of those and you'll be wishing someone had stuck you with a gladius instead. One of my pals when I was a boy got his leg in one of them. Had to have it removed at the knee. Nasty, it was."
"So you get lost in that mist and don't know the ground and you're buggered" Palmatus whispered. "Not sure my memory's up to that."
"That" F
ronto replied, "is why we'll all be bringing a good stout walking pole with us to test the ground in front of us. We should have time to familiarise ourselves, but I'd like to avoid any accidents."
"Me too" the former legionary added fervently, peering down at the unearthly mist.
"Tell us about the place then" Masgava said, pointing down into the crater. "What can we use? What benefits does it give us?"
Fronto nodded.
"Well Balbus and Palmatus have spotted the first thing. And the worse the weather, the better for the cloud - if it rains the steam gets worse and you can hardly see a thing down there. We find a nice defensive spot in that central area and they'll have an evil task getting to us. Hopefully they'll lose a few in the process."
"Agreed. Not enough to rely upon for a victory, though."
"No. I'll show you what else there is. From here we have about the best view to plan it all; that's why I brought you the way I did. When the enemy come, they'll follow the track straight from the villa and appear on that ridge over there." He pointed.
"You haven't said yet how we're going to get them here" Galronus noted, folding his arms.
"Isn't that obvious? Someone is going to have to stay at the villa and be seen. He'll then have to outrun them to the Forum Vulcani - lure them in."
The rest of the group spent a few heartbeats glancing at one another. None of them relished the opportunity.
"Relax" Fronto smiled. "It would have to be Quintus or myself. Has to be someone they know by sight and who's important enough to them to devote their attention to. They wouldn't bother chasing the rest of you… and I'm afraid, Quintus, that despite the fact you're about to volunteer, it has to be me."
Balbus opened his mouth to object but closed it quickly. Fronto was right and they all knew it. He was the very centre of Berengarus' attention - the man the enemy had been assembled and set to kill. He was the only one who they would definitely follow en masse. Moreover, with the exception of Masgava, Fronto was now the fittest man, sporting muscles long unseen and capable of a turn of speed unusual for his age.
"I will bring them over that lip. I'm the one here most familiar with the crater and I'll lead them a merry little dance. Now…" he peered around the crater, cradling his chin in his hand. "As well as the mud pools, there are two or three other things we can make use of."
He pointed to the northern slopes.
"See that low building there?"
The group nodded as they peered off towards the incline of yellow-grey scree from which half a dozen small jets of steam issued. Nestled up against the slope was a single-room building, perhaps eight feet across in both directions, with no windows and a single low door that was currently shut. The room was pierced all around just below the flat, flagged roof with small holes, each of which threw out a continual jet of steam.
"That's the Laconium - the sauna room. Lucilia's taken me in for my health. It's as hot as Vulcan's scrotum in there and almost suffocating. Smells ten times worse than this too. I can't stay in there even a moment when they shut the door. Some people stay in for maybe a count of a hundred with the door closed and the vents open like they are now. The standard treatment, though, is to leave both the vents and the door open and stay inside for a quarter of an hour. Longer than that just isn't safe."
"I think I see where you're going with this" Balbus smiled grimly.
Fronto nodded. "Some poor sod on a health visit from Neapolis a few years back went in there with the door shut and a random tremor in the ground dropped the lever and sealed the vents. They found him an hour later and he'd been cooked. Quite literally. Horrible way to go. Since then, there's been a safety catch on the vent system and the city ordo removed the catch from the door. Pretty sure we could put them back as they were, though."
Galronus shuddered, imagining being stuck in the dark in that hell of boiling steam. It didn't bear thinking about.
"What else" Balbus nudged.
"There's the steam jets at the east end, just down there."
They followed his pointing finger to see an area of the lower slope where narrow jets of steam shot high into the air with tremendous pressure from the ground. As they watched, their eyes widened in fascination as the jets altered. Some died away and vanished while new ones burst from the ground in unexpected places.
"This place is full of lovely surprises" Palmatus boggled. "How does that happen?"
"I've no idea, but it's been doing it forever. Thing is, while the jets change all the time, there are two or three safe routes through it. I know them by heart - stupid and dangerous games kids play, eh? Could have been flash-boiled a hundred times when I was eight. Fortuna's always been my lady, though. I can tell you that if one of those jets actually gets you it'll be like having burning pitch poured over you in a siege. I've heard horror stories of other boys who got the routes wrong."
"Anything else?"
Fronto continued to cradle his chin as he scanned the crater, musing over what he could remember.
"There are a few other surprises it holds, though we'd have to work out how best to use them to our advantage: hot water springs that boil continually, yellow rocks that burn to the touch - that kind of thing. I'm sure Masgava's devious mind will come up with some inventive uses."
"So" Galronus said, sitting on a smooth boulder and scanning the crater before him, "what's the plan? You're going to lead them here from the villa and then basically draw them into the various traps? That means that we'll have to have men ready everywhere to spring them?"
"Pretty much, yes. Although it might be nice if we can split them up as soon as we get them over the lip. Lure some off to the steam jets, one or two maybe to the sauna and others elsewhere. Then we can gather at the mudpools in the centre and use it as our last stand - watch them fall as they get near us and then we'll hopefully only have to fight a hardcore few who manage to get to us. We don't know how many men they'll have. There can't have been too many in the carcer, but there's every possibility that Berengarus has been hiring lowlifes off the street too."
He turned to the four hired swords. "I think you four can cover the steam room vents and…" he frowned in deep thought. "Any of you good with a sling?" One of the men nodded and another shrugged. "I can shoot a bow pretty well" he said.
"Good. Well, that's you men sorted then. We'll get you two in good positions. Might even be able to use some of those burning-hot rocks with the sling. The other two can take the steam room and then come and join the rest of us when you're done."
Palmatus cleared his throat meaningfully. "There is one problem you've not mentioned."
"Go on."
"We're going to have to set all this up without you."
Fronto frowned. "Why?"
"Because you need to be at the villa for when they turn up. You can't sleep or rest until they do any time you're on your own, else they might just arrive and gut you in your bed and never come near this place."
"Shit. Never thought of that."
Masgava shrugged. "We'll all stay at the villa during the night and sleep in shifts. Then everyone but you can spend the daytimes getting used to this place and working out where everything is. We'll spend the rest of today with a wax tablet or two marking all the paths through the mud and the vents. Maybe we can actually mark them on the ground with coloured rock or something. Once we know the safe paths, we can do the rest without you. You'll just have to twiddle your thumbs and keep yourself busy at the villa while we wait for them."
"What if they don't come?" Palmatus frowned. "What if they never hear about this place?"
"They'll come" Fronto said. "Even if it weren't for the fact that half Rome's nobility know where the Falerii come from, I can feel it in my bones. The bastards are coming. And they're coming soon.
* * * * *
Four days had passed since the wagon had carried the ladies and their escort from Puteoli and the spectacular family villa up to the equally luxurious house of the Tineii at Cuma, north of the bay, on the wes
t coast. The first three days had been torture for Lucilia. Faleria and her mother seemed to have achieved a stoic calmness that was at odds with the general situation and were going about their life as though on a vacation, chatting with their hosts and strolling in the gardens, visiting the great acropolis and the forum, talking of a trip to consult the Sibylline oracle… Lucilia shuddered; no help there - she'd met the Sibyl before.
But for Lucilia it was imprisonment and nothing less. Her husband, for whom she cared more than she would ever admit publically - and without whom she could not even imagine a life - was preparing for a battle against a most brutal and unpredictable enemy. Her father was with him, too - her father who had a weak chest and had been close to death already once in recent years. The exertion alone might kill him. Galronus, soon to be her brother in law, was there too. Lucilia was still not sure how to deal with Galronus. He seemed as Roman as any of them, yet there was something about him that threw her expectations occasionally - a Celtic nobility that seemed to leak through his façade of Roman civility. But she would hate to lose him before she came to understand him.
Three men she cared about - as well as others her husband seemed to regard as good friends - all facing a threat of unknown intensity and danger. And leading that enemy was the man who had murdered her mother and apparently unhinged her younger sister's mind, no matter what Elijah might say about her chances of recovery.
It was simply too much to bear; too much to expect her to bear.
She had argued that they could be a part of it, of course. Even if the menfolk wouldn't let them bear arms and take an active part in the fight, they could keep watch or even perhaps throw stones. Posco would not hear of it though and, despite the fact that he was a slave, he had Fronto's full authority to do what he must to keep them safe. Besides, neither of the Falerii women seemed to believe involvement was a good thing. But then they had not had their mother murdered by the swine.
She had finally given up the argument the previous evening. Her dreams during the night, however, seemed to be directing her to disobedience and to fleeing the safety of their hosts in order to take a role in the defence that their men were planning. She had contemplated running, but in the end she knew deep down that her presence would merely distract Fronto and her father from their business and that could be a fatal mistake.
Marius' Mules V: Hades' Gate Page 43
