He saw a sudden flair of pain in the general’s face. Almost as quickly as it arrived, it was gone.
‘Thank you, Marcus. All is well? Did you see Atia?’
Fronto shook his head. ‘We had our little meal and made our offerings. Atia had apparently visited earlier. But we had the fortune to cross paths with your great nephew.’
‘Octavian was there?’ the general frowned. ‘Why?’
‘It seemed he felt that the ladies and your ancestors required a little more devotion than had already been given them. He gave them Caecuban wine. A vintage. The vintage!’
Caesar nodded and a slow, knowing smile began to reach his face for the first time. ‘He is a good boy, that one. Had Julia had children, they would have been like that, I think.’
‘He’s far too damn worldly-wise for his age in my opinion,’ Fronto said with a sly smile. ‘He reminds me dreadfully of you.’
And Caesar laughed. Just once — and for a moment, Fronto was newly arrived in Gaul once more, with his ambitious general, sharing a joke. The feeling passed in the blink of an eye, but it had astounding cathartic effect. Somehow, it felt as though an obstacle had been overcome.
‘Are we…’ Fronto couldn’t decide what word it was that he sought. Friends? They had been friends. And confidantes. Compatriots. Sword-brothers even, at times. But he couldn’t quite put his finger on the word he needed.
Caesar simply nodded. ‘I won’t renege on a vow to the Goddess, Marcus. I give you time to bring me Ambiorix, but once the Gallic assembly is done with, I will move. Find me the villain.’
Fronto stepped back to the doorway and gave a salute. Suddenly he felt like a soldier again, for the first time since he had returned. It felt good. ‘I will, General. Good luck.’
‘And to you. Fortuna seems to coddle you, Marcus. Let us hope she continues to do so. I think I will call a meeting of the officers and make the plans known.’
* * * * *
Fronto approached the tent cautiously. He had no real reason to see Antonius, given that he would be leaving before the council was convened, and certainly not attending the meeting of the general’s staff that was about to be called. In fact, he had plenty to do. But for some reason, the way he’d left things with Antonius after Asadunon was preying on his mind. The two officers had not spoken on the return journey, since they had travelled with different forces.
But, before he and his singulares went off on their insane quest to hunt Ambiorix, he felt it might be important to settle matters with the officer.
Antonius’ own singulares guard stood to either side of the door, their dark skin sheened with sweat in their heavy armour. The men wore a scarlet, eye-piercing red, their cuirasses burnished to mirror brightness. Their helms were of a strange, eastern design, and both men eyed him with hard, unflinching stares. Syrians. Apparently, Antonius had brought them back from their own land. They’d been with him for years.
He’d heard the other officers talking about Antonius’ guards. They were not popular.
‘I need to see Marcus Antonius.’
‘What yo business.’
‘That is between he and I.’
‘No business. No go.’
Fronto ground his teeth. ‘Listen, you weird, tunic-lifting, inbred easterner: I am a staff officer of the army, as is Antonius. He is also a friend. I will speak to him and I see no reason to pass my business though your greasy, dubious hands. Your job is to stop assassins or the unwanted bothering Antonius. Nothing more. Feel free to go in and announce me, but that’s as far as your remit extends, soldier.’
The Syrian who’d spoken stepped forward, his friend coming to join him. Their air of menace was palpable.
‘Get… out… of… my… way!’ Fronto growled at him slowly.
‘What… yo… business?’ Equally forcefully. The second Syrian, he noted, had his hand on the hilt of a slightly curved sword.
‘Is there a problem?’ Fronto jumped as the sudden voice behind his right ear almost made him soil himself. Recovering as best he could, shaking like a leaf, he saw Palmatus and Masgava step past him to confront the Syrians.
‘I jus’ ask he business.’
Palmatus grinned unpleasantly. ‘Perhaps ‘he business’ is ‘he own’? Get out of the way, you sickening catamite.’
Next to him, Masgava flexed something that made every muscle across the upper half of his body dance, even through a mail shirt, and Fronto almost laughed at the expression that passed across the Syrians’ faces. The second guard stepped back into place, and the first lingered only a moment — long enough to realise he was without support — and then saluted and stepped back.
Fronto turned a smile on his friends.
‘Thank you. I was just on my way to see you two. Have you got everything ready?’
‘Getting there. We still need a lot of supplies and equipment and some spare horses. You’ve cleared it with the general, sir?’
‘Yes. We go as soon as we’re ready. Go back and get everyone assembled in my tent.’
‘And these catamites?’
Fronto gave the second — less sure — Syrian a nasty look.
‘I once tore out a Gaul’s eyeball with my hand while he was trying to cut me to shreds. I’m not frightened of this knob.’
Paying no further heed to the Syrians or his own men, he knocked on the wooden tent frame.
‘Antonius?’
Silence.
‘Antonius?’
Still silence. Fronto took a deep breath. If the man wasn’t here, his Syrians would not have been so vehement, would they? Reaching out, he pushed aside the door and stepped into the tent.
As the leather flap fell back into place, returning the tent to its Stygian gloom, his eyes began to adjust slowly. His nose adjusted considerably faster.
The smell of vomit filled the front room of the subdivided structure, having apparently been trapped within for some time. Fronto could feel his own gorge rising, but was determined not to make a big thing of it. If he walked out now, he would lose face to the Syrians outside.
A bed. The room was a complete state, with clothing and armour scattered among the overturned tables and chairs, cushions and blankets. It looked as though the tent had been trashed by burglars, but for the shape under the blanket on the bed — which was clearly a human figure — and the rhythmic snoring.
‘Antonius!’ he yelled. Nothing moved. For a strange moment, Fronto worried the man might have been murdered. After all, stranger things had happened in the legions’ camps in Gaul. But in his experience the dead rarely snored, so he soon put away that thought.
Carefully, he took a couple of steps into the room, avoiding a puddle of something yellow and viscous, which may or may not have been the source of the smell. He lifted his leg high over an upturned chair and consequently almost tripped over a fallen table obscured by a rumpled blanket. He had a momentary flashback of his room back in Rome when he’d been young — just old enough to take the toga virilis and just old enough to have acquired a drinking habit. He had always thought his mother had been over-critical of his untidiness. Now, looking at Antonius’ tent, he could perhaps finally see it through her eyes.
‘Antonius, you daft bugger. Get up.’
With increasing care, slipping on occasional ‘things’, he approached the bed and peered down. A pale bare foot poked out from the bottom of the blanket. A surge of childish delight vanished as quickly as it came and instead of tickling the sole of the foot, he reached down and grasped the corner of the blanket, yanking it back and whipping it from the bed.
He grinned like a sadist.
His grin vanished.
The two naked girls in the bed untwined slowly, like a flower opening for the sun. The pair, apparently exhausted, looked up at their torturer. There was no shame or panic about them. Just a sense of mild surprise. As Fronto stared, wondering whether it would be politic to look away, the two girls embraced, kissed briefly, and returned to their entwined sleep.