Conspiracy of Eagles mm-4

by S. J. A. Turney

  Safer than he had any intention of being, the legate moved his shield slightly to gain a better idea of what was going on amid the chaos of fleeing Britons, hefting it sharply back into position just in time to take the blow of the sword he’d fleetingly seen coming. The point of the long, Celtic sword slammed through the layered boards and leather of the shield, stopping alarmingly close to his sternum and then ripping back out, tearing pieces of shield with it.

  Concerned, Fronto risked rising momentarily to peer over the very top of the shield.

  He blinked in shock.

  The man before him was a druid!

  There could be no doubting it. The grey-white robe and the feathers and bones braided into his hair and long beard that tapered to twin forks spoke volumes about the man’s status. What surprised Fronto more, though, was the martial aspect of this druid. While he’d seen their kin in Gaul bearing swords, he’d never imagined them as true warriors. This one, though, looked thoroughly at home with his heavy sword as he drew it back with a muscular arm for another blow. His other hand held no shield, but a short stabbing spear, which he was raising for a thrust over the top of Fronto’s shield. The big man’s hair was held back by that appeared to be a plain iron crown.

  Like all druids, he was arrogant and sure of himself. Like all Celts, he fought as though attack was all. Like all their kind, he overextended and opened himself up to quick attack by a trained soldier of Rome. Fronto raised his shield and angled it slightly to ward off the spear thrust as he lunged with his gladius. The tip tore through the dirty robe of the druid but to Fronto’s surprise met the unyielding metal of a finely-forged mail shirt beneath, striking sparks as it skittered across and past the man’s ribs, becoming lost in the voluminous folds of the man’s robe.

  Almost in a panic, Fronto felt himself overbalanced and falling forward with the momentum. Just as surprised, the druid tried to step back to allow this Roman room to fall gracelessly forward where he could easily deliver the killing blow, but the press of his fleeing countrymen around him prevented the move. Desperately, Fronto toppled like a falling tree — his soft, useless boots unable to find purchase in the soaking mud — and was suddenly jerked straight as some unseen hand grasped the back of his cuirass and hauled him upright.

  The druid had already recovered and had both spear and sword raised and pulled back ready to strike. That bubbling seething feeling in the pit of Fronto’s stomach began to boil. Anger coursed through him, vying with embarrassment.

  He had been effectively babysat by his own legion, prevented from getting himself into trouble and, determined to do his part like a spoiled child — something he was beginning to recognise in himself, much to his irritation, he had found a way to involve himself in the fight only to seriously underestimate his opposition and have to have his arse hauled out of the fire by the same damn babysitters, proving them, beyond a shadow of a doubt, right!

  Furious at himself, his men, this damn druid and his irritating people, this drizzly, wet and hopeless island, the endless bickering, backstabbing and uncertainty of Caesar’s army, his own limitations and even his apparent abandonment by Fortuna, Fronto snarled, his ire and anger forging a white hot spear in his brain.

  He snapped.

  Two hours later, lying propped up on a raised bench with a relatively soft pallet beneath him as the medical staff worked on him, he talked to Atenos, who, it turned out, was the man who had grabbed him and hauled him back up.

  The huge man shook his head with a disbelieving grin.

  “I’ve never seen anything quite like it!”

  “What happened? I seem to remember punching that druid a few times.”

  Atenos laughed out loud as the medicus stitched the cut on Fronto’s shoulder. “You really don’t remember? I honestly thought you might take them all on yourself!”

  Fronto could feel himself flushing and knew he should be angry, but somehow there was not enough anger left in him. He just felt exhausted.

  “It was like the great berserk rages of the heroes of our legends. You actually threw your shield at him.”

  “You should have stopped me then. That’s stupid enough in itself. If a legionary did that, you’d have him beaten for his negligence.”

  “I did try to stop you, legate. How d’you think I got this black eye? A Briton?”

  Again, Fronto flushed.

  “By the time I’d recovered,” the centurion grinned “so had the druid. You’d confused him a bit, I think, when you threw your shield at him, but that was nothing to his expression when you kicked him between the legs.”

  “I did what?”

  “Went down like a sack of grain, he did. I swear his eyes even crossed. I think you beat him about half a mile past the point of death. He looked more like a lamb stew than a man by the time you’d finished with him. All we could do was put a shield wall around you and stop you getting trampled as they fled.”

  “Oh for the love of Juno!”

  “Legionary Palentius tried to haul you off him. The other medicus is looking at him now to see if you broke his jaw.”

  Fronto rubbed his head in a mix of embarrassment and tiredness.

  “Anything else I need to know?”

  “Not really, sir. After that you just sort of started laying about you among the fleeing Britons. I hate to think how many of them you sent to Elysium this afternoon. They only got you four times, and none of them bad — miraculous, really. Of course the men were around you as best they could manage, but it wasn’t easy. You were like a damned hedge-pig with that sword.”

  “I honestly remember very little. I think I saw Galronus, but the first thing I really recall with any clarity was when you hauled me up off the floor. I think the enemy had gone.”

  “It was over. I think you’d blacked out.”

  Fronto leaned close to the huge Gallic centurion. “I’d take it as a personal favour if you tried to stamp on this before it becomes common knowledge?”

  Atenos grinned. “I’ll do my best, legate, but you were in the middle of the army, and a bit of a sight. I suspect the story’s already spreading round the campfires.”

  Fronto leaned back and winced as the suture the medicus was tying off pulled tight.

  “Sit up, legate.”

  Fronto looked across at the surgeon. “I’m trying. So tired. Sorry. Atenos, I think I’ll stay in the hospital for the night. You know… just in case.”

  The big centurion nodded sympathetically.

  “I’ll leave you in peace, sir. Get some sleep.”

  Fronto was unconscious before the centurion had reached the door.

  Chapter 19

  (Beachhead on the coast of Britannia)

  The ships looked distinctly unseaworthy to Fronto. He sat on a folding campaign stool on the beach under the shelter of a large leather awning watching the relentless driving rain batter the sea, the pebbles, the ships and everything in sight — which was not a great distance in these conditions. The sky was a leaden grey and the weather had not let up for more than an hour at a time in the three days since the battle had ended.

  Kicking a pebble down the beach in irritation, he realised he was brooding on his actions in that conflict yet again, in spite of himself.

  In the aftermath of the fight, Fronto’s reputation seemed quickly to have reached almost legendary status. Every time he heard the story of his frenzy the tale grew in magnificence and by rights he should probably be deified by now. Gradually, pieces of the struggle had returned to him, and the medicus had confirmed, much to his relief, that he’d received a blow to the head during the fight that was the most likely cause of his fragmentary memories of the attack rather than a simple complete loss of control and wit.

  Still, despite Atenos and Carbo swearing to try and suppress the tale, it had exploded, and the legate had the sneaking, though unprovable, feeling that the two centurions may well be at the heart of its speedy spread.

  By the end of that first day, he’d taken to closeting hi
mself away, and by the afternoon of the second he’d been forced to go in search of new places to hide from people. If anyone had ever suggested that he might spend days hiding from people who wanted to buy him a drink, Fronto would have laughed in their face, but that time had somehow come.

  In the end, this cold and blustery location was one of the few where he was almost guaranteed peace. Due to the value of the ships, the fortified beachhead was under constant guard, and only those with business here were allowed through the gate, meaning that the only soldiers the legate stood any chance of bumping into on the beach were sailors, engineers or other officers, all of whom had their own business to attend to.

  It was not the most comfortable of places, though. The shelter had been erected days ago for the duty officer and his staff to oversee the repair and loading of the ships and, while it held off the rain from above, it did not keep the ground below dry or prevent the biting winds from along the beach or off the sea from whipping at him.

  Irritably, he pulled the cloak tighter around him, shivering into the damp, cold wool.

  Soon.

  Soon, they would return to Gaul, and then the legions could be settled into winter quarters if Caesar meant to continue this madness, or settled if not.

  Despite his earlier concerns, the legate would have to admit now that he was almost past caring about Caesar’s motivations and future plans. This constant search for a new war was fraying him round the edges, and every place the army moved seemed to be less inviting and less worthwhile than the one before. All he wanted to do now was get back to Rome and to Puteoli; to see Balbus, Faleria, Lucilia.

  With a sigh and another sickened glance around at the rain falling like rods from a lead sky, he took a swig of the wine in his clay beaker and huddled tighter still.

  “Wishing yourself thirty miles south, legate?”

  Glancing up in surprise, Fronto was relieved to see the hard, bristly face of Fabius looking down at him from beneath the awning. Furius appeared at the other side. Without further comment or requesting permission, the two centurions unfolded camp stools and sat to either side. Fabius produced two cups from his sodden cloak and a small jar of watered wine, while Furius withdrew a bowl of steaming stew that he must have carried extremely carefully to avoid spilling it down his front.

  “You need this. You’ve been on this beach for two hours now without warmth or food. If you’re trying to make yourself ill, you’re going about it the right way.”

  Fronto eyed the bowl of warm, appetising food uncertainly for a moment and then accepted it with a nod and took a mouthful, blowing round the hot meat to cool his mouth. Strange how things turn out, he thought to himself. Never, since that journey from Ostia, could he have imagined himself actually grateful to see the two former Pompeian officers, let alone for them to be trying to look after him.

  “Actually I’m wishing myself several hundred miles south. I know you two are new to this campaign, but I’m starting to get quite sick of it, myself.” He cocked his head curiously. “You two got no pithy remarks about my conduct the other day? No one else seems able to stay quiet.”

  Fabius shrugged. “You lost it. You were damn lucky not to be cut down. I’ve seen legionaries do it when they’ve been pushed far enough to snap. We keep our men drilled under the harshest conditions to inure them to anything so their breaking point is considerably higher than most, but when it does happen, it endangers every man near them. If you’d been one of my men, legate, I’d have put you down myself.”

  “Good.”

  “I suspect there’s a little more pressure on you than on the average soldier, though?” Furius hazarded. “Carbo’s a little concerned.”

  Fronto turned a sour, angry look on the centurion. “What’s that shiny pink bastard been saying now?”

  “Oh nothing like that, legate. He still worries that there will be attempts on your life, and yet you take every opportunity that comes along to stay outside his protection. He’s trying to keep you intact. It’s one of the jobs of the chief centurion. He thinks you’re stuck in a turbulent position, between Labienus’ liberal dissidents and Caesar’s die-hard supporters, too. He seems to think that somehow you’re a bit of both. I’m not sure I disagree.”

  “It’s so gratifying to know how much people discuss me when I’m not there.”

  “Take it as a complement, Fronto. Your men value you too highly to risk you. That’s an uncommon thing for a legate.”

  The three men lapsed into a silence that was instantly filled with the insistent hiss of heavy rain on the shale of the beach.

  “Well the season is almost over” Fabius finally said with a sigh and took a swig of his wine.

  “If we don’t sail soon” Fronto muttered, eyeing the ships, “the weather will trap us on this shithole island for the winter. Don’t know about you but I really don’t fancy that.”

  Furius nodded, but with a smile. “Of course, you weren’t there this morning. It’s been decided. We sail the day after tomorrow on the first tide. We’ve taken all the hostages from the local tribes that Caesar realistically feels we can safely fit aboard the ships, even with the four ships we’ve ‘obtained’ from the Cantiaci. There’s enough impounded goods and loot that every soldier’s going to board his ship weighing twice what he did when we arrived. I hope the vessels can take it. He’s even planning to take the new Atrebate cavalry back with us.”

  “It’s been a lucrative campaign” Fronto sighed bitterly.

  “And that’s bad? The men don’t think so.”

  “If it’s lucrative enough it’ll just push the general into trying something similar as soon as the seasons grant the opportunity. Where will he go next, d’you think? Back here? Back to Germania? Maybe off past Illyricum and into the wilds of the Pannonii? Conquest breeds conquest.”

  He sagged in the chair and spooned some of the hot stew into his mouth, talking between chews. “It’s not that which is driving me mad, though. It’s the damn politics. If it was just the army campaigning for the senate and the Republic I’d be happy with it, but you just can’t separate the politics from the army these days. After all that business with Sulla, Marius and Sertorius, I really thought that the Republic would settle under the guidance of men like Caesar, Pompey and Crassus, but if anything it just gets worse.”

  “That’s why men like us serve in the army, legate, rather than trying to serve in Rome. Better to be given a sword and pointed at a barbarian than to get involved.”

  “But we are involved, Fabius” Fronto snapped, spitting meaty juice onto the pebbles. “In the early days, when we marched out against the Helvetii, I could easily tell myself that Caesar was campaigning for the good of the Republic. And then the Belgae revolted, and then the coastal tribes and others. And we put them down, because they’d revolted against us. It needed doing. You see? There was a reason for everything — until now! Germania, even. I could just about delude myself that our little jaunt across the river was a necessity.”

  “But this?” he swept a hand angrily around at the beach. “This is a publicity stunt, pure and simple. This is his way of saying to Pompey and Crassus: ‘I’m better than you and stronger than you and more important than you’. And saying it to Rome, too. To strengthen his support among the mob, along with the added loot that will help him maintain a stranglehold on the weaker senators and raise new troops, despite the injunctions against him doing just that.”

  “Legate, that’s very dangerous talk. You sound like certain other officers who…”

  “But they’re right! Don’t you see that? I’ve argued against it, but they’re right. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying Caesar’s anything unusual in that. Crassus is doing exactly the same thing. Rumour has it that he’s going to invade Parthia. Do you think he’s spending all that money raising new legions and disappearing into an endless desert for the good of Rome? No! He’s trying to beat Caesar at his own game: popularity and loot. And Pompey? Well he’s just sitting in Rome, tugging strings and
building webs and trying to undermine them both.”

  “Fronto…” Furius hissed his warning, his eyes strafing the beach to make sure they were all out of earshot.

  “It’s true, though. I know that you served with Pompey and that he’s a great general. And now you serve Caesar and he is, too. But it’s not their military prowess I’m condemning. It’s their dabbling in the control of Rome itself. This is a damn dangerous time to be a citizen, I can tell you.”

  With a sigh, he ate another spoonful of stew. “It won’t bother you, I suppose. You’ve been given a sword and pointed at a barbarian. And you’re the top two centurions now in the Seventh. You effectively run the legion, so you’ll have your work cut out turning them into a proper fighting force again over the winter.”

  Furius and Fabius exchanged a strange glance and the latter shrugged. “Hopefully. We’re on detached duty for a while, though, so it might have to wait. The men will need to settle into their winter quarters anyway and our training officers can get the work started.”

  Fronto frowned and glanced back and forth between the two men. For a moment some of his earlier fears for the two centurions returned. They were clearly hiding something, but he knew now from experience that with these two, confrontation over anything was hardly likely to be productive.

  It was another added worry, though. In a brief flash he remembered Caesar’s face as they stood talking on the rampart of the nearby camp around a fortnight ago, the general wearing a look of guilty secretiveness as he neatly evaded and parried all Fronto’s more important questions.

  “This whole thing is pissing me off. All this politics.”

  “Then concentrate on what’s important.”

  “Getting home” Fronto said flatly, and then clenched his teeth. “And dealing with Hortius and Menenius.”