‘For the love of life itself don’t do that!’ Fronto gasped.
Masgava was merely studying Fronto and his gaze led the Roman to look down. In the golden glow of the doorway the swathe of drying blood across his chiton was rather prominent, and the sword in his grip was still oily red with spots of coagulation. He must look a sight.
‘I say again,’ the big man said quietly, ‘what happened to you?’
Fronto brushed the question aside. ‘Is everyone alright?’
Without waiting, Fronto rushed into the doorway, Masgava turning to follow, the other three behind.
‘Of course they are.’
‘Why is the front door open?’
Masgava tutted. ‘Fronto, it’s exceedingly warm. You have a headstrong wife and two young children. A through draft was required.’
Fronto turned to see the three behind him: Cavarinos, Biorix and Aurelius. ‘Shut that door. Aurelius, you stay and keep watch. Biorix, head round the villa and make sure every door and window is secured.
‘You think they’re coming?’ Masgava murmured.
Fronto indicated the crimson spray on his chiton. ‘Not all of them. We met one in the town. But that means there are eleven unaccounted for. I had assumed they were here. The one we met knew me by name and knew that I was a wine merchant, so we can assume they are well aware of the villa. Somewhere down in town they will have found directions for the villa. Get everyone on full alert and make sure all staff are accounted for.’
Masgava inclined his head.
‘Who’s at the back door?’ Fronto added.
‘Arcadios.’
The former legate felt his heart begin to slow as he made his way through the villa, tutting irritably at the open shutters he passed time and again. The rear door was as open as the front and lit by an oil lamp in the shape of a giant winged phallus. Like Masgava at the front, Arcadios was bright enough not to be standing presenting a tempting silhouette in the doorway. The Greek archer was seated on a marble bench to the left of the door, outside. True to professional form, his bow was strung and leaning against the wall a foot from his hand, and five arrows stood vertical from the raised flower bed into which he had pushed them for easy access. Unless they had very sharp eyes, anyone coming for the back of the villa would be pinned to the sheds before they even knew there was a man in the shadows there. Fronto nodded his satisfaction. For an archer, the glow of the door would provide a useful distraction to dazzle any on-comer. The back door was safer open than closed with Arcadios there.
As he turned and made his way back towards the atrium, Lucilia appeared from a side door.
‘What is…’
She stopped mid-sentence as she took in the state of her husband. ‘I assume none of that blood is yours, my love?’
Fronto smiled reassuringly. ‘Not a drop. Well, the bit on my forehead, but that’s just a scratch from a water jug.’
She looked him in the eye and reached out, rubbing his upper arms soothingly. ‘This was no bar fight?’
‘No. They’re here and they know about me. The good news is that one of the twelve is already gone and won’t be bothering us again.’ He lifted the mask he had taken from Biorix, and Lucilia shuddered as she peered into the lifeless, humourless clay face. ‘The bad news is that eleven more of them are still out there, and even the youngest one was a beast in a fight.’
Lucilia shivered. ‘What do you want us to do?’
Fronto smiled warmly. Lucilia might oft-times treat him like a recalcitrant child and she would never tire of trying to change him, but the simple fact was that for all her wilfulness – inherited from her military sire – she was clever and understanding enough to know exactly when to defer to his experience. Fronto was now completely in control and she would not argue.
‘Keep the children at your side at all times. Keep away from the windows and for preference somewhere unexpected. In fact, get the spare bedding and cushions and so on and set up a temporary home in the wine store. Most of the stock is down at the warehouse, so there’s plenty of room. We can’t ignore the possibility that they know the basic layout of a villa and their initial targets will be the places where they will think to find us. Keep the most trusted of the servants in there with you, and Pamphilus and Clearchus will stand by the door. They’re impulsive and a little bit thick, but they’re strong and loyal.’
His wife nodded.
‘And what will you do, Marcus?’
‘Fortify this place and wait. If they haven’t already been here, then they must be coming. They know a former legate lives in a villa on this hill.’
Lucilia stopped dead in the process of turning to organise things.
‘Two, you mean.’
Fronto frowned. ‘What?’
‘Two former legates live in villas on this hill. Don’t forget my father.’
Fronto felt the colour drain from his face. Not only would Balbus be there, but his youngest daughter, Lucilia’s sister too! Why had he not considered that straight away? There was every chance that the Sons of Taranis might get the wrong villa. In fact, Balbus’ residence was actually closer to the city and would probably be the first they came across. Unless their information was incredibly thorough…
He turned, panic beginning to rise in him. Masgava had already heard the exchange and was bellowing the names of his men. As guards came rushing in, including Arcadios from the back door, the big Numidian reeled off a list of names and positions for them to take up. The four who were left joined he, Fronto and Cavarinos. ‘Sorry, Fronto. Not enough men to protect this place and go to master Balbus’ in force. If you take Aurelius and Biorix again, can you manage with eight of you?’
‘I will.’ He clasped Masgava’s giant, lined hand tight. ‘Thank you, my friend. Keep this place safe. We’ll be back.’
Leaving the big Numidian to take control of the villa, Fronto gestured to the others to follow, picking up Biorix in the atrium and Aurelius at the door. Along with the three of them and Cavarinos, he had four of Masgava’s recent recruits: Agesander the former boxer, a huge Greek marine called Procles and two mercenaries – Zeno and Evagoras. Good men all, from what Fronto had seen. Would they be a match for eleven trained murderers?
He would soon find out.
Opening the door, they forged out into the darkness. Behind them Masgava shut the door tight and it took a few moments for their eyes to adjust to the darkness. The night was becoming stifling, the day’s heat trapped beneath that low, thin layer of cloud that held no rain but effectively cut out almost all moon and starlight.
By the time they were fully aware of their surroundings they had passed through the gate once more, making for the faint looming shape of his father-in-law’s villa. Balbus’ home was a copy of his own, having been the one from which the design for his was taken. It was sited just close enough to be visible from his own, but far enough away to provide a sense of separateness.
He could see pinpricks of gold around the villa, indicating that the lamps were lit. More importantly, there was no huge column of roiling black smoke above it, as he’d half expected. Their weariness all-but forgotten, the eight men ran at speed across the springy turf, avoiding the bare rocky patches that rose from the green here and there.
Balbus’ villa was similarly surrounded by a low perimeter wall with a high gate in the front. The wooden portal stood open as they approached and Fronto noted with sinking spirits that his friend’s front door was thrown back, issuing a golden glow from within. Not a good sign.
He turned as they ran, and gestured to Agesander and Procles to peel off and skirt the villa proper, securing the grounds and coming at the back door once they were content that they were not in further danger from outside. Fronto’s eyes scoured every bush and hollow in the immaculately-tended garden as he and his small force ran for the door, the two assigned men veering off to their own tasks. He saw no signs of movement. The night was still, with not a breath of wind to move the layer of cloud that had set in, which a
t least meant that he was not jumping at the sound of leaves rustling in the wind.
What would he tell Lucilia if…?
His worst fears were confirmed as they reached the threshold and the first body. To the right of the door was one of Balbus’ prized climbing rose beds, but the trellis was lying flat on the grass atop the broken and felled flowers. The body of a man in a Roman tunic lay in the mess. His head lay a short distance away, and three black-shafted arrows protruded from his back. Fronto prayed on his behalf that the arrows had been lethal before the blow that had taken off the head had landed.
He wouldn’t be able to show her her father’s body. Or her sister’s.
He might not be able to look at them himself.
Balbus had been as close as a father to him even before he had met and been wooed by the man’s daughter. He was as close a friend as Fronto had ever had – one of a very diminished circle, these days. And Balbina was so young – had witnessed so many horrors in her short life, yet had been starting to recover, they’d thought. Panic was starting to give way now to anger.
He pushed in through the door, knowing now what he was going to find and hoping against hope that he could catch a few of these bastards and gut them in the name of Nemesis – the lady of vengeance.
Two more bodies lay in the vestibule. One – a guard with a sword – had knocked over the shrine to the household gods as he had taken his fatal blow and fallen. The thoroughness of these Roman-haters was evident in that the attackers had wasted time pausing to grind the figures of the villa’s spirit protectors into dust and broken shards under their heels. The other corpse was a young serving girl, the blow that had killed her smashing her spine in the lower back as she ran from the intruders. Fronto reached up to the twin figurines hanging at his neck.
Fortuna give me your blessing in my sword arm tonight. Nemesis, give me the bastards to use it on.
As he paused in the atrium, taking in the pile of bodies that had been dumped in a tangled pile in the central impluvium pool, Cavarinos appeared at his side. The Arvernian noble looked every bit as angry and vengeful as he and Fronto gave thanks to Fortuna for bringing him a Gaulish friend on whom he felt he could truly rely in his time of need.
‘Not there?’ Cavarinos murmured.
Fronto peered at the pile, the once-delicate square pool with its mosaic floor now filled with dark crimson liquid, obscuring the pattern beneath. There were seven of them, accompanied by the odd separated limb, but none of them wore the good clothes that would mark out Balbus, nor could he see the bald head, framed by faint wisps of grey hair. No children either, thank the gods.
‘Doesn’t look like it.’ He tried not to think about what Cavarinos had told him – about how the killers tended to take Roman officers and torture them to death, displaying their broken bodies in an almost ritualistic fashion. Of course they wouldn’t just heap Balbus – a former legate – in a pile with the servants.
He didn’t even need to give the orders. Zeno and Evagoras disappeared through doors to the left, searching, while Aurelius and Biorix did the same to the right. Balbus was a semi-regular visitor to Fronto’s villa, and all the staff and guards knew him well enough to recognise him.
‘They’ve been and gone,’ Fronto said through gritted teeth.
Cavarinos nodded. ‘This is a tomb, not a fight.’
Fronto let out a low grunt. Nemesis was taunting him.
‘Come on.’
Leaving the others to search, Fronto led Cavarinos off to the farther rooms. A quick glance found no Balbus in the old man’s chamber, triclinium or office, though the latter held the villa’s chief servant – the master’s favoured man – draped over the table with his arms removed at the shoulders and a gladius driven down through his neck and the table top, emerging beneath, where the dripping into the dark lake had almost stopped. It had been some time since the attack, then.
‘Unless he tried for the servants’ quarters, he probably ran for the baths and he’ll have had Balbina with him. She’d be his first concern.’
Leading the Arvernian through the side passage into the bath suite, he was surprised to find the place partially-filled with choking smoke. Baffled, he blinked away the grimy itchy soot, bending low to avoid the worst, which fugged the room from chest to ceiling height. Two rooms revealed nothing, but the third was fascinating. The warm room had been damaged. A wide heavy basalt labrum had stood on a pedestal, filled with cold water to complement the heated floor, but that labrum lay on its side, the bowl chipped and broken. For a moment Fronto simply believed that the water had evaporated from the floor with the warmth, but then he realised that the heat in the floor was mediocre at best. And one of the square stone slabs that formed the floor had clearly been moved. The surrounding stones were still a little wet, but this one was dry. His heart leaping with hope, Fronto pointed at it.
‘Help me.’
Using his hard-won Gallic sword somewhat ignominiously, he used the tip to lever up the edge of the stone square until Cavarinos slid his fingers beneath and heaved, nodding. Fronto joined him, casting aside the sword and lifting the stone enough to drop it back.
A gleaming blade lanced out of the darkness and scored a narrow line across Fronto’s forearm before he could leap back.
‘Pax!’ he shouted. ‘It’s me!’
As he edged towards the lip of the hole and peered down, his vision still poor with the smoke above, he spotted the most welcome sight of his day. Balbus sat, painful and blackened in the stunted space below floor, where the heat from the furnace circulated to warm the floor. The youngest daughter sat beside him, soot-black but wild-eyed. The old man’s sword wavered for a moment.
‘Marcus?’
Fronto cast a thousand simultaneous thanks to Fortuna, promising her an altar for this, and grinned down at his father-in-law. ‘At least you had the sense to hide.’
‘I saw what they did to my best men. I’m a soldier, not an idiot, Marcus.’
As the two men reached down and lifted the young girl to freedom, then helped the old man out of the cramped space, Balbus straightened with a hiss of pain, rubbing his sore back.
‘That was a stroke of genius,’ Fronto laughed. ‘You used the labrum of water to extinguish the furnace?’
Balbus nodded, coughing in the thick atmosphere. ‘I hadn’t quite counted on the quantity of smoke. We almost expired from that alone.’
‘Ha.’ Fronto turned as Biorix appeared. ‘They’re safe. Round up the men and get ready to head back. We’ll deal with all this mess in the daylight.’
As the big former legionary hurried off, Fronto looked his father- and sister-in-law up and down. ‘Let’s get a horse and get you over to my place. Then we can get you in the bath and cleaned up.’
Balbus gave him a sour look. ‘If it’s alright with you, I’ll just dunk myself in the horse trough here before we leave. I’ve had quite enough of bath suites for one night.’
* * * * *
Fronto sat with Balbus, the old man busily cleaning out a sooty ear with a square of linen. Cavarinos and Masgava also occupied the room, every other available able-bodied man in an assigned position around the villa keeping watch while a few lucky ones caught up on sleep. In a couple of hours the sun would begin to make its presence felt, and in just under an hour the rota would change, different men going to rest and those relatively refreshed rising to take their place.
Lucilia had been ecstatic at her family’s return and Fronto had found himself musing that if they all lived through the next day or so, his home life would be considerably more relaxed for a while. Indeed, despite his bloody exertions the previous afternoon and the soulless horror of what he’d seen in his father-in-law’s house, he felt blessed and immensely relieved that everyone he really cared for in Massilia was now under one roof with a very watchful guard, Balbina safe with Fronto’s own boys
Balbus had repeatedly refused Fronto’s insistence that he bathe to remove the layer of grime and dirt that even a dip in
a horse trough had done little to remove, but a brief sharp word from his daughter had put paid to that and the old man had emerged from the baths refreshed and clean, dressed in Fronto’s clothes. Fronto and Cavarinos had also changed, their own bloodied apparel sitting in a washing pile. It had made Fronto chuckle to see the Arvernian in a Roman officer’s spare tunic and belt, though Cavarinos had looked less than pleased with the change, and had insisted on retaining his trousers, despite their state.
‘Will they really try again?’ Balbus asked quietly, excavating his other ear. ‘If their goal is to get to Rome urgently and they have a ship waiting, will they waste the time?’
Cavarinos shrugged and glanced across at Fronto. ‘How long until your treasure fleet sails?’
Fronto pursed his lips. ‘A day or two. No, definitely two. It won’t be today.’
Cavarinos turned back to Balbus. ‘They will want to be away from this place before the fleet, else they might fall foul of Roman marines at sea. But that still gives them today. I expect them to sail tonight, at the last real opportunity. They will stay as long as they can and try as hard as they can. They may have a goal to achieve, but these men are fanatics, legate Balbus. They are rabid haters of your officers. I have seen what they have done before now. And if they have been thwarted once tonight, they will try all the harder. Molacos will not want to lose face with his men.’
‘I have to say, prince Cavarinos, that your arrival was gods-sent. Thank you. But for you, I would likely have died and so would Marcus here.’
Fronto saw Cavarinos wince at the use of a title. There was an unintentional bitterness in the Arvernian that coloured everything in his life now. It was why he could not wear his face and hair as a Gaul, yet would not dress himself as a Roman. It was why, despite clearly hating every morsel of his soul for doing it, he killed his own people in saving a nominal enemy. It was why he would never stay, no matter how persuasive Fronto thought he might be. It saddened him to see the Arvernian brought so low. A year ago, at a strange native sacred spring, he and Fronto had spoken privately and had discovered in each other a kindred spirit, abhorring the nature of the protracted war that was ruining Gaul and wishing there was any way to end the matter peacefully. And now Gaul was lost and Cavarinos was a ghost. A slight change in fortunes at Alesia and it might have been a whole different matter.
Marius' Mules VIII: Sons of Taranis Page 36
