Neither was the voice of Fronto, both speaking in a southern Gallic dialect, confirming to Galronus that at least two murderers were waiting for them.
Suddenly, Fronto staggered out into view again, one hand clutching his throat where he’d been momentarily strangled, the other reaching down for his sword as he backed towards the swinging body.
Without waiting for Fronto, Galronus stepped into the room, turning to face the men behind the door. One was clutching his belly, blood pouring between his fingers and down to the floor just as it drained from his face. In his other hand, he held a hunting and skinning knife, clean-bladed and unused. A few feet from him a second man held a similar blade, but was edging away towards the window.
“No you don’t.” The Remi officer turned with the man’s movement and sprang like a wildcat, his sword coming back up as he leapt. The would-be assassin made a split-second decision between fleeing for the window and trying to protect himself from this madman. Figuring that he would never reach the window in time, he turned and lashed out with the knife as the cavalryman came down on him, sword descending in time with his body.
Fronto watched in horrified fascination as the world seemed to slow to a crawl.
Galronus hit the assassin feet first, both heels slamming into the man’s knee and smashing his leg beyond hope. At the same time, his blade came down and even as the knee turned backwards the heavy blade bit deep into the man’s torso at the angle between neck and shoulder, cleaving a foot deep into him.
Simultaneously, the hopelessly outclassed assassin had struck with the knife. Galronus’ arm had come up protectively to save his face from the blow at the last minute and the knife hammered home into his forearm, neatly slipping between the two bones and driving straight through his arm up to the hilt.
The would-be-murderer was dead before his body settled to the ground. Fronto stared as Galronus stood, gritting his teeth and, wincing, drew the blade out of his arm with a splash of blood.
“I could have done with questioning him.”
“What about the other one” Galronus asked casually, but realised as he looked across the room that the man had driven his heavy knife deep into his own heart to end the torment of the belly wound that would take perhaps a day to kill him.
“Now we have no idea why all this.”
Galronus shrugged. “It occurs to me that your friend the barman will know; he must have been in on this. Perhaps we should ask him?”
“I think not” Fronto said quietly, sheathing his sword and hoisting his kit back onto his shoulder. “If he knows, probably half the people down there do. No one looks too concerned with Silvanus’ absence, and he’s only been dangling there less than a day. Half a day, I’d say. Unless we want to find ourselves facing off against every lowlife in Vienna, we’d best make a sharp exit and get somewhere way south of town for the night.”
As they peered down the corridor and confirmed no one was watching, Fronto locked the door once more and started to climb out of the window. Galronus cleaned his blade on a piece of the assassin’s tunic he’d ripped off, and sheathed it.
“You think it’s your tribune friends?”
“I can’t really think who else it could be. This was deliberately targeted at us; not just aimed for the first Roman officer that came past. They even put an amphora of expensive Sicilian in plain view just to occupy my thoughts and stop me noticing things out of place or wondering about Silvanus. Of course he wouldn’t have gone to Nemausus for stuff — he’d have sent someone. Come on.”
Fronto padded across the roof of the extension and slid down, dropping to the courtyard.
Galronus followed suit with more dexterity, landing easily as Fronto winced in pain and rubbed his knee.
“You’ve got to sort that out” Galronus scolded him.
“The first chance I get to give it a month’s rest I’ll do just that. Now let’s get the horses and get out of Vienna before we discover that Menenius and Hortius bought every thug in the place.”
Fronto and Galronus slowed their tired mounts and reined in outside Poseidon’s Palace, the most grandiosely named inn in Massilia. The large building with two wings of accommodation had done its Greek owner extremely well since Caesar’s push into Gaul, being selected as the official stopping point for all officers and couriers passing through the independent city and boarding or disembarking ships. In fact, the Roman traffic through the inn, for which the owner was paid a healthy monthly stipend, had all but driven the free trade from its doors as few locals or merchants could afford to rent a room. Even the decor and the food and drink were now thoroughly catered to Roman tastes.
The groom, a young man with one leg slightly longer than the other, lurched from the wide gateway of the stables and greeted the two officers pleasantly, his accent that strange mix only found in the former Greek trading colonies of the west.
The two men nodded and handed their reins over to the servant, patting the steaming flanks of the beasts that had carried them the last leg from Glanum and wishing them well as they ended the horseback segment of their journey. It had been ten days of tense desperation, saddle-sores, constantly changing mounts and rough cots in the small, stockaded way-stations set up by Cita to provide the enormous supply system that flowed from Narbonensis, Massilia and Cisalpine Gaul.
Ten days of trepidation.
The incident at Vienna had pushed them to a new turn of speed, having gained them a night with no rest and therefore a further thirty miles under their belts. Neither man had spoken of the attack after they had left the Vienna area almost three days earlier, hurrying through the night to be free from the danger of assassins. That the two tribunes were prepared to take the risks and spend the money paying off local bandits and even murdering settled veterans spoke eloquently of the lengths to which the men were willing to go in removing Fronto from the picture.
Though neither man voiced it, both Fronto and Galronus had come quickly to the conclusion that the tribunes would have been successful had they themselves sprung the trap, and the fact that they did not and instead entrusted it to the unknown quantity of paid killers suggested that they were otherwise engaged in a task that was too important to delay even for that. Such a task was worrisome indeed.
His bag of personal kit slung over his shoulder, Fronto strode into the ‘Palace’, Galronus at his heel. The main chamber of the inn, mostly given over to tables for eating, with a fire at the more open end that warmed the room, was thriving, though here and there were spaces still available at tables.
Their eyes strayed across the occupants — more than ninety per cent of whom were Roman, and rested on the long bar with the innkeeper and his slave working like mad to tend to the custom. They had a more urgent appointment than that, though. Feeling their muscles loosen at the warm and cosy atmosphere, the two officers strode across to the table close to the fire which was stacked with tablets, sheaves of writing wood, styluses and the endless accoutrements of the bureaucracy. The man sitting on the only chair at the desk was the mirror of every mid-level administrator across the Republic: well-dressed above his station and full of self-importance. And yet who could deny him deference, given the vital role he played in the support of Caesar’s campaign?
Flavius Fimbria was the man with a stranglehold on all travel and goods in or out of Massilia, a man with a plethora of slaves and functionaries, to whom every Roman who passed through the city must speak if he wished to arrange sea passage, horses, a cart, or supplies.
“Master Fimbria” Fronto greeted him formally, approaching the table.
“Can I help you, soldier?”
Fronto felt Galronus stiffen at his side, bridling at the lack of deference to officers of their rank. The legate himself knew that despite their lofty positions they resembled nothing more than a travel-worn legionary or junior officer and a somewhat Romanised Gaul.