Fronto turned to Palmatus and Galronus and used what he hoped were clear and obvious gestured instructions for them to circle the mausoleum, check out the rear and then meet him and Balbus at the door, effectively trapping the intruder within. To Masgava he gestured a need to protect the women. The former gladiator nodded and took up a defensive position next to Lucilia, Balbina and Faleria, his eyes darting around the street, taking in every tiny movement.
Fronto watched the pair of warriors edge around the corner of the columbarium, and once they were out of sight, he and Balbus began to creep quietly towards the doorway and the open iron gate. Fronto found himself smiling with satisfaction despite everything. A year ago he would have been grumbling about his joints and muscles and making more noise than a triumphal parade as he snuck across the garden. Ha. Who was he kidding? A year ago he’d still be two miles further back, sat on a bench, rubbing his knee and almost in tears. He’d never even have got here. Masgava had done a damn good job getting him back into shape.
With perfect timing, just as Fronto and Balbus reached the near corner of the building, Galronus and Palmatus emerged at the far corner, signing that they had found nothing. Good. Whoever it was would still be inside, then.
While none of them bore weapons, even though they were now outside the city boundary, all four would be able to make good account of themselves if trouble arose. Fronto flexed his muscles and nodded.
The four men closed on the door. The padlock hung open, suggesting that the intruder either had access to a key or was skilled at opening locks. A faint orange flicker danced on the darkened portal’s stonework and Fronto squinted, narrowing his eyes against the daylight as he approached, so as not to find himself all-but blind when he peered into the gloomy entrance.
Stepping into the doorway, he opened his eyes wide again — fast, in case anyone was lurking close to the exit — his hands coming up ready to defend or attack as required. Even as he took in the scene before him, he was automatically stepping inside and sideways so that the other three could enter.
The occupant appeared to be alone.
Fronto blinked.
The orange glow illuminated a single figure — a young man of perhaps ten or eleven summers, standing by the altar with a silver cup in his hand. The light glinted off the surface of a fresh wine libation in the bowl atop the stone, and the crumbs and pieces of several cakes sat beside it.
While the other three moved in beside him and shuffled around the edge as the figure turned to face them, Fronto stepped forward so that the small oil lamp on the shelf would light his face. The young man seemed entirely unafraid.
His hair was clearly blond, though the shade was hard to tell in the dancing orange glow. He wore a well-tailored and expensive tunic of some pale colour and light calf-skin shoes. He was slightly built — one might even say spindly — and short for his age, which was apparent from his face, but something about him carried a power that defied his physical presence.
‘If you are here to cause damage or thieve goods, I would remind you who owns this columbarium. There is nowhere you could hide from the Julii after such dishonour, as I’m sure you will realise. So if you are here on ill business, I recommend you move on immediately.’
He tipped the last of his cup’s contents into his mouth, swallowed, and placed the vessel on the altar top. ‘But you’re no intruders, are you?’
Fronto felt, rather than saw, Balbus relax and take a step forward.
‘We could be.’ the older man said quietly. ‘Dangerous for a boy of breeding to be abroad in the city alone. Where are your escort?’
‘At home,’ the young man replied nonchalantly. ‘Probably searching the house for me at the behest of my tutor. But I know this city, old man, and how to traverse it safely. I am in no danger.’
‘Not even from us?’
‘Hardly!’ the boy gave a humourless laugh. ‘Four men — three of them wearing studded military boots — all reeking of fresh sea salt, one of them a Gallic nobleman and another wearing a Gaulish torc?’
Fronto blinked. How had the lad picked all that out so quickly, especially in near darkness?
‘How is my uncle?’ the lad asked genially. ‘Send him my regards when next you see him.’
‘We could have been Pompey’s men’ Fronto suggested with just a hint of irritation.
‘I think not. He has no active legions now that he’s signed over the First to my uncle, and in any case, he would hardly countenance an army in whose ranks a Gaul served with authority. That’s my uncle’s kind of decision. Wine?’
Fronto was still shaking his head in surprise as Balbus stepped forward. ‘Octavian? Atia’s boy?’
‘That I am. Are you men returned from Gaul, or bound for there?’
‘On our way north,’ Fronto said quietly. ‘We thought to stop by and honour your great grandmother, since it is Parentalia and your great uncle is trapped so far away with the army. The same occurred to you, perchance?’
‘After a fashion,’ Octavian smiled. ‘Suffice it to say that I was unimpressed with the devotions I had witnessed thus far, and felt the balance had to be redressed.’ He straightened and flexed his shoulders. ‘However, it is time now for me to return and allay the fears of my womanish tutor. Do avail yourself of the rest of the wine in this jug. I shall leave it here, and it is a Caecuban of the Opimian vintage, worth more than a centurion’s yearly pay. It would be a crime to waste the rest.’
Fronto realised that he was still shaking his head and stopped, scratching his chin instead.
‘Would you like an escort back to your house?’
‘That will not be necessary. Pay your respects, soldier, and good luck to you all. Help my uncle as best you can, and you could urge him to finalise matters with his new province as soon as possible? Whatever his plans for the governorship, he cannot afford to leave Rome to its own devices much longer. The city becomes more of a festering pit of lunacy with every passing month. Soon it will be safer in northern Gaul with nothing but a spoon and a tunic than in the forum surrounded by guards.’
He gave a pleasant, slightly lop-sided smile and with a nod of acknowledgement stepped out past Fronto and Balbus and into the light, where they heard him exchange pleasantries with the ladies.
The four occupants of the tomb shared glances.
‘I don’t know about you three, but that lad seems to resemble his great uncle disturbingly closely.’
Balbus nodded. ‘Of Caesar’s nieces, Octavian’s mother was always the clever one — the best of the brood. She’s a distant cousin of mine, of course.’
Palmatus shook his head with a curled lip. ‘In my experience nearly every noble in Rome is a little too closely related, if you know what I mean? Pale, with bulging eyes, a throat-apple the size of a cabbage and all the mental flexibility of a donkey with the shits.’
He turned and noticed in the low flickering light the glowering looks Fronto and Balbus were casting at him.
‘Present company excepted, of course.’ He grinned a wicked grin. ‘Anyone else itching to try the lad’s special wine?’
Fronto maintained his scowl for a moment longer before cracking and chuckling at the irreverent humour that he’d come to expect from the plebeian ex-legionary.
‘Why not. Let’s make libations to Aurelia Cotta and young Julia and drink a toast to the general and his great nephew’s generosity.’
As he crossed to collect the jar of rare and extraordinary wine the young Octavian had left them, he mused on family. Curiously, now that he’d tied himself by marriage to Balbus, and Balbus was Atia Caesonia’s cousin, that meant — he supposed — that there was a very distant familial connection between him and the general. He almost laughed at the realisation.
The morning would carry them north again towards war. But for today, the group would relax and enjoy what they could of Rome.