Marius' Mules VIII: Sons of Taranis

by S. J. A. Turney

  The Roman’s hopes of getting Irenaeus’ mark before any opposition got to him were almost shattered in that realisation. The only chance was that Hierocles and his fellow arseholes were equally unaware of the new arrival. And that the squint-eyed Levantine currently sealing a deal had not filled the hold with a proposed cargo already.

  ‘Make sure we’re not interrupted as soon as that Phoenician leaves, alright?’

  Masgava nodded and flexed his muscles. A moment later, Fronto was standing a disrespectful three feet behind the intricately-bearded merchant, hovering and trying to catch the eye of Irenaeus. The Levantine had clearly finished his actual business and was now passing the time of day with the Greek captain, and Fronto’s impatience was rising at a dangerous rate. His business was urgent and, while he had no intention of further alienating himself from the city’s Greek populace, he had no trouble arguing with another foreigner who got in his way.

  Noisily, he cleared his throat and the Levantine looked around in surprise. As he turned, his face creased into an angry scowl ready to unleash his feelings on Fronto, but the sight of Masgava, looming a foot taller than Fronto and more than a foot wider at the shoulders, all muscles and teeth gleaming in the sun, seemed to rip the invective from his tongue and leave him with a weak apologetic smile.

  ‘I shall be moving on, sirs. Good day to you captain, and to you, sir.’

  Fronto nodded impatiently and waited for the man to be out of the way by only the narrowest of margins before stepping into his place.

  ‘Irenaeus, you’re early.’

  ‘Good winds for this time of year, my Roman friend. And your motherland has been almost as kind to me as Poseidon these past weeks.’

  His tone was affable, but Fronto was enough of a student of humanity to spot the underlying tension. Something unsaid. Something disquieting. There was a faint troubled look to the man’s eyes, which kept flicking downward.

  ‘What’s the matter, Irenaeus? You’ve sold off the last of your hold space?’

  The Greek’s eyelid twitched as he shook his head.

  ‘Good, ‘cause I have a shipment of Falernian costing me warehouse fees in Puteoli, and I need to get it here as soon as possible. Your next trip, yes?’

  Again, there was a shifty discomfort in the Greek’s expression. ‘How big a shipment?’

  ‘Forty amphorae, roughly eighty talents in weight, all well-sealed and stamped by the producer. A good shipment, but small enough still to leave room in your hold.’

  ‘Can we agree on twenty deka?’

  Fronto actually stepped back with a blink. Irenaeus had the decency to look rather embarrassed.

  ‘Two hundred drachma?’ Fronto gasped. ‘For a shipment of forty amphorae? Gods, man. That’s five drachma per jar. I could buy slaves to carry them back from Puteoli for about the same! That’s ridiculous.’ The Roman’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘Has Hierocles been sniffing around? Did he put you up to this?’

  ‘It’s the best I can do, Fronto.’

  The former legate, seething, glanced down at the document still open on the rickety wooden desk. ‘Bet you can do better for Levantines, eh?’ But his roving eyes picked out what looked like an unreasonably high price on that agreement too and the fire died in the furnace of his anger. Irenaeus looked genuinely unhappy, and the same unreasonable terms had apparently been directed at the unknown easterner who had just left. ‘What’s this all about, Irenaeus? You and I are friends, aren’t we?’

  The Greek sighed. ‘It’s the new tax, Fronto.’

  ‘New tax?’

  ‘It went up this morning. A thirty percent tax on all import and export matters involving non-citizen merchant concerns.’

  ‘Thirty percent?’

  ‘It seems some influential group of local businessmen managed to persuade the city’s boule that traders such as yourself are bringing in and taking out goods without a single obol going into the city treasury throughout. Massilia runs on trade, Fronto. The boule will have listened very intently and jumped on the idea.’

  ‘Irenaeus, twenty dekadrachm will make the entire trade worthless. I might even lose on the deal.’

  The Greek sighed. ‘I feel for you, Fronto. You know it’s not me, and this is going to hit a lot of Roman, Judean, Gallic and Hispanic merchants. If there was a way I could waive the tax, you know I would. But I have to pass on the tax to the city, so if I help you, I’ll lose on the deal instead, and I’m a businessman too. You have to understand.’

  Fronto sucked on his teeth. ‘Can you not grant me even the tiniest bit of leeway? If I promise to try and find a more lucrative deal for you next time?’

  ‘Fronto, there will be no more lucrative deal. You’ll not get anything better if you continue to operate through Massilia. If you want to make a niche, you’d be better heading down the coast to Narbo and setting up there.’

  ‘Can’t do that. Family all live here. Besides, Narbo already has Roman wine merchants galore serving the provincial communities down there. Massilia is the only largely-untapped port, and one of the biggest on the whole Hispanic-Gallic-Roman coast.’

  Irenaeus scratched his head. ‘Look,’ he said, glancing around furtively. ‘I’ll help you this once. It’ll have to be the last time, though. Mark your manifest down on here.’ He proffered the vellum document beneath the one just completed by the Levantine. Fronto frowned in suspicion, but filled the spaces with his cargo details, including supplier, warehouse number, weight and quantity. The Greek then turned the vellum around and scribbled his section in spidery Greek text before handing it back, tapping his finger on the price.

  ‘One hundred and thirty drachma?’

  Irenaeus nodded.

  ‘That would lift my nuts back out of the fire. Might even keep me going for a while. How can you do it? Will you get into trouble?’

  The Greek tapped the top of the sheet. ‘No.’ Fronto followed the finger and spotted the date that had been freshly added. Yesterday’s date. ‘We sealed the deal late last night at the Dancing Ox, mere hours before the tax came in. Do you understand? If you gainsay that in any way at any time, I will be penalised and therefore so will you. You with me?’

  Fronto stepped forward and wrapped his arms around the Greek. ‘Thank you, my friend. You just saved me.’

  ‘I’m not going to make a habit of it, Fronto. You’re going to have to find a solution to your trouble, ‘cause next time I’ll have to add the full weight of the tax.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Now get out of here. Since we made the deal last night, it would be better if you’re not seen here this morning.’

  Fronto nodded, squeezed the man in an uncharacteristically grateful hug and then stepped back. With a last nod, he turned and slipped back among the crowd, Masgava following. Even as he stepped away he caught sight of Hierocles and his small cadre of rodents making straight for the jetty that held Irenaeus’ black-sailed ship.

  ‘Too late, you slimy bastard,’ he snapped with a malicious grin. For a moment he was tempted to stay close enough to watch the Greek wine merchant fume and rant when he learned that Fronto’s deal had not gone sour, but the ship captain was right. Better not to be seen anywhere near.

  ‘You were lucky today,’ Masgava noted, somewhat redundantly.

  ‘Thanks. I noticed.’

  The big Numidian blew out a tired breath. ‘I was trying to draw your attention to the fact that even without your little Fortuna doll…’

  ‘Doll?’

  ‘Without Fortuna around your neck, you still managed on the strength of friendship.’

  ‘I don’t think I can land the credit of that with Fortuna. Just a little desperate begging. The longer I stay in this trade the better I’m getting at begging. Handy, really, since that’s probably going to be my sole source of income by high summer!’

  ‘The Greek was right, Fronto. You’re going to have to find a solution to this, else you’re just going to slide into poverty, and then you won’t be able to pay me!
’

  Fronto looked aside at the gleaming white grin of his friend and rolled his eyes. ‘Thank you for your heartfelt support, you big Numidian ox.’

  ‘Speaking of ox, shall we go for a jar?’ the former gladiator chuckled. ‘My treat.’

  ‘Thanks. That sounds good. You’ve got more money than me at the moment anyway! Then, this afternoon I’m off to the street of the goldsmiths. Time Fortuna was appropriately honoured again. It’s a start, eh?’

  * * * * *

  The squeaking drew Fronto’s eyes upwards again and he squinted into the dark rafters until he picked out the two bats wheeling and flittering in the shadows, playing their odd nocturnal games. He smiled to himself, remembering Aurelius’ first encounter with the warehouse’s resident chiroptera when the superstitious ex-legionary had been busy attaching ropes to the rafter pulleys, had suddenly exploded into a shrieking mass of flapping black hairy beasts, and had ended up hanging from his own ropes by one foot, screaming, while the rest of the former singulares howled with laughter.

  That had been a good day.

  Fronto had still been positive then.

  His gaze dropped once more to the ledgers on the table before him. The numbers added up alright. They added up to one huge steaming turd of a business future. He’d seen criminals being led bound into the arena where angry bears waited, who had longer life expectancies than his business. He really couldn’t face looking at those lists any more. In fact he’d not really needed to in the first place. There were servants at the villa who could easily have totted up lists and run inventories without the need for Fronto to get personally involved. But the sad fact was that although the task was as depressing as the year was long, at least it kept his mind busy. While he was fretting about lines of unpleasant numbers, he was not writhing around in his sleep, soaking the sheets with sweat and dreaming of faceless lemures coming to tear him apart.

  And there was the added bonus of being alone. Although Masgava would be irritated with him for going off on his own, the big Numidian would almost certainly guess where he’d gone. And here, the twins were not crying. Here, Lucilia was not trying to be helpful. Here, Aurelius was not arguing with the other staff and the former singulares were not dropping amphorae and blaming each other. Here, Balbus was not being supportive with an air of quiet concern. Here he could be alone with his headache.

  ‘Piss,’ he announced with feeling, sweeping the ledger across the table. With a deep sigh, he slumped forwards across the cluttered surface, his arms out and hands drooping at the far side.

  ‘Blargh!’ he added, trying to load one sound with every ounce of feeling in his tortured body. His mind began to fill with images of dead legionaries clawing up at him from a sea of smashed wine amphorae and he shook his head to dislodge the unwanted visions.

  He had no idea how long he’d been asleep, but he awoke with a start to discover that his drool had formed a huge damp patch on the vellum below him. He could feel it, though not see it, since the oil lamp that had lit his work area had long since expired. Some time, then. Best sleep he’d had in ages. Shame it couldn’t continue. What had woken him again?

  The gong rang with nine deep booms over in the temple of Apollo, announcing the ninth hour of the night across the dark cityscape. So the gong must have disturbed him. He’d been asleep five hours. Amazing that Masgava hadn’t come for him yet. Lucilia would be livid when he got back. He decided it might be a good idea now to cut his losses and spend the rest of the night in the warehouse.

  He frowned.

  Wait a moment. He’d heard the nine gongs for the hour. If he’d been woken by an earlier clang, that would make it the tenth hour at least, if not the eleventh. And he’d spent enough nights in this warehouse over the winter to know that by the tenth hour, the first faint stain of morning light was starting to show through the upper window, highlighting some of the beams in the roof.

  Above was just as dark as below.

  Logic began to tug at his tired brain. It was still dark, so from experience it could not be later than the ninth hour. And he had heard nine clangs, so that confirmed the precise time. Which meant that there had been no earlier gong. And that meant that something else had woken him.

  Fronto the soldier was suddenly in charge again, pushing down the tired, miserable Fronto the Merchant and taking his place, alert and concerned. The hairs stood proud on the back of his neck.

  The warehouse was pitch black and utterly silent. So silent he could hear the padding paws of that mangy animal Trojan, who belonged to a family across the road but had taken to the habit of urinating on the warehouse doors at every opportunity.

  And something else.

  He was not alone in the warehouse.

  Thoughts ran through his head swiftly. Intruders. Clearly, it was intruders. Anyone official or friendly would have opened the door and called out, bearing a lamp or torch. Anyone skulking around in the darkness was up to no good. He listened carefully and was sure he could pick out more than three distinct footsteps at the far end of the warehouse. They were creeping around, but they seemed to be wearing heavy leather boots, and so even creeping they made plenty of noise. Fronto carefully, silently, reached down to his sandals, which had been unfastened for comfort, and slipped them off. With a nimbleness which he still owed to Masgava’s ongoing training and exercise program, he slipped out from the seat without nudging the table or the chair. He’d not made a single noise as he rose in the darkness. On the balls of his feet, he padded over to roof support, where he knew Masgava kept a handy length of ash for poking stuck pulleys in the ceiling. His fingers closed on the reassuringly seasoned wood.

  Despite the near-complete darkness, his eyes were starting to pick out the faintest shapes of things. He heard a whisper of muttering in Greek across the warehouse, and then a crescent of golden light bloomed behind the racks of amphorae. He could see the shadows of two people thrown onto the wall in that warm glow. There were at least two more, still.

  He hefted the staff, wishing he could twirl it to get the measure of its weight and balance, but that would be risking clattering it on a shelf or the floor or ceiling and giving the game away. Masgava had insisted that he learn as many different weapons as possible over the past three years, and it was moments like this he found himself once again grateful to the former gladiator for his enforced lessons.

  Almost silently, he padded three shelf-bays towards the glow, ducking sideways into the gloom and protection of the aisle just as the golden glow filled the main hall of the warehouse, right to the table and chair where he’d so recently been in repose.

  Thank you, decades of military instinct.

  Damn it. At least five of them, he now reckoned as they moved in. The intruders seemed to have decided that the place was empty, and now they began to speak and a second lamp bloomed into life. Fronto was no past master at the Greek language. He couldn’t have written poetry or translated the great Gortyn codes, or suchlike. But his basic written and spoken Greek was as good as any high-born Roman with years of tuition under his belt.

  ‘Three each side,’ a hushed voice commanded, and Fronto felt his heart lurch. Six! No… seven. Even in an indistinct whisper, that was not a voice used to including himself in the action. That was a man giving orders to six others. He could hear faint muttering among the others. Some of them had strange accents, telling him that they were not native Massiliot, but probably Sicilians or Cretans or some such, come to Massilia for work. They were thugs or hirelings. Nothing more.

  His deductions proved slightly askew as he heard a second strong voice telling the others to shut up. So… at least one other proper fighter. They would be the two to take down first, given the chance.

  ‘Check every aisle. Make sure we’re alone. Then get to work, but make sure you take only the valuable stuff. This has to look like a genuine theft.’

  Fronto felt his blood surging and boiling. No name had been mentioned, but given that little slip, there was absolutely no doubt in
his mind who was behind this ‘incident’.

  He pressed himself back against the roof support, the ash pole vertical and pulled in tight. He watched the first two men pass, peering in half-heartedly, making only a cursory check for lurking figures and completely missing the Roman hidden behind the thick wooden pillar. On the assumption the three at the other side were moving at roughly the same speed, that would leave three men at the rear still to come. It was tempting to wait until everyone passed and then strike, but that was too dangerous. While moving now risked landing himself with enemies on both sides, if he waited, the more experienced men might well see him and he’d lose the element of surprise, ending up trapped in this aisle.

  It was fifty-fifty whether that second authoritative speaker would be on this side of the warehouse or the other. He counted under his breath and heard the footfalls of the third man behind the pillar. Taking a silent breath, he stepped out from the support, levelling the staff as he moved. As the figure of the third man came into view, the iron-hard butt of the staff hit the man in the stomach, hard enough to burst organs. There was an explosive rush of air from the man’s mouth, almost masking the grunt of pain as the figure fell away with a clatter to the darkened floor.

  He knew that the thug in charge would not be so foolish as to walk into the same position – that commanding voice belonged to a man who knew his business. And so, keeping as much of the initiative on his side as he could, he stepped around the corner into the main hall of the warehouse. The leader turned out to be too far away to attack, since he had stayed close to the entrance.

  Fronto momentarily weighed up the value of running over and taking down the leader anyway, against the likelihood that the result would be him being brought low by the other five interlopers in short order and then beaten to death. Instead, he decided upon a path of creating as much chaos and confusion as possible. When a legion lost cohesion, men stopped listening to the calls of their cornicen and to their centurions’ whistles, and there was a true danger of complete failure. Such was all the worse when a force did not have the discipline of a legion to begin with. If he could keep them off-balance, the leader could not control them and Fronto would have a chance.