The tribune’s sword skittered away across the marble from numb fingers as his knees cracked to the floor.
“I’d love to take the time to go through your crimes with you one by one” Fronto grunted as he stepped in front of the murdering tribune. Raising his sword, he reversed his grip and made ready to stab downwards. “I’m not playing your games though. Say hello to Hades for me.”
The bulk-issue military gladius, pitted with marks from battles long past, a blade that had been with Fronto for two decades, descended towards the point in Menenius’ neck where his collar bones met; a killing blow.
And suddenly Fronto’s world exploded in agony. He’d been so intent on the strike that he’d not heard the tell-tale whup… whup… whup… of the sling. The lead bullet struck his hand where he gripped the hilt and he felt three fingers break under the blow, the sword almost launched from his hand to clatter across the floor, coming to rest next to the tribune’s own beautiful blade, and almost parallel.
Fronto gasped with the astounding pain and stared down at his bloody, misshapen hand.
How had he not anticipated this?
Idiot!
Tribune Hortius strolled calmly from Fronto’s own room, the perfectly oiled and silent door now standing open.
“What a fool. I said we should just have jumped you together from the start, but my poor, dear friend has always had such a flair for showmanship. And a total self-belief. He simply could not conceive of a way you could beat him. I argued, but what can you do? He’s a friend.”
The tribune had discarded the sling, allowing it to fall to the floor, drawing his sword as he moved into the room.
“I would humbly say that I have a less inflated ego than dear Menenius. I may not be quite the swordsman he is, but I suspect you’d find that I’m still considerably better than average. And not quite so prone to showing off.”
Fronto glanced across the floor at the swords and made to rise, his knee screaming at him in pain. Energetically and with impressive speed, Hortius danced across the room, placing a foot heavily over the fallen sword.
“Oh, no. I’m not so subject to my own ego that I have to let you re-arm first. Step away from Menenius.”
Fronto did so, slowly and quietly, backing shakily towards the side corridor and its guest rooms. The tribune gestured to his friend with his free hand. “Are you alright? Can you stand?”
Menenius nodded, wincing at the pain in his unhinged jaw, standing slowly. Hortius scooped up the fine sword with his foot and flicked it towards his fellow tribune. Menenius caught the hilt and changed to a comfortable grip, reaching up with his free hand and touching his jaw tenderly, almost crying out in pain.
“I do believe my friend would like to carve you into slices for that.”
“Why?” Fronto said as he backed into the corner.
“Because of his jaw, you fool.”
“No… why all this? Why Tetricus? Why me? Why Pinarius or Pleuratus?”
“Or any of the others? Are you blind, Fronto? For Caesar. All for Caesar.”
The bottom seemed to fall out of Fronto’s world.
“Caesar?” he croaked in shock.
“Sometimes the general doesn’t even know what’s good for him. You yourself have said that. He needs protecting from himself. It’s only right to repay people for the good they’ve done you and Caesar’s looked after us.”
Fronto’s mind raced. If the pair weren’t removing those close to Caesar, what was going on? The realisation struck as his mind furnished him with the image of the general when he’d received the news about his nephew. A problem solved. And Pleuratus? He’d carried sensitive messages about Clodius and all-but revealed that to Fronto. And he and Tetricus? Well it was quite possible to see Fronto as a problem for the general. And… ‘the others’? He wondered just how many corpses the tribunes had left across Gaul, Britannia, Germania and even Rome itself.
“You made a mistake with Tetricus though. You just took a dislike to him, didn’t you? And if you hadn’t murdered him, I’d never have bothered looking into the matter as deeply.”
Menenius made a painful mumbling noise and Hortius leaned close to his friend, nodding.
“He’s right: what difference does it make? I’m afraid the time’s come, but I will make it quick for you, since you were once one of Caesar’s closest. Perhaps we’ll even lie you next to your poor sister.”
Fronto realised with a shudder that whatever else he might have done, Clodius had delivered Faleria to her house unharmed, where she’d come across the tribunes lurking in wait. The bastard tribunes had done this to her.
The two killers stepped forward, blades coming up.
“Tsk, tsk” came a voice from the corridor behind them.
Fronto blinked and peered off into the gloom. The shape of a heavy, squat man with a blade in his hand was silhouetted against the light from the atrium. As the tribunes turned to the new arrival, a taller, thinner man stepped out next to him. Fronto’s heart pounded.
Fabius and Furius?
Fronto watched in stunned disbelief as the two centurions stepped forward, raising their swords.
“You two are a disgrace to the army of Rome” Furius growled as he stepped to the side, flexing his arm ready for the coming fight.
“Pompous fool” Hortius snapped and leapt at them, Menenius right behind him despite the broken jaw paining him.
Fronto watched the opening flurry of moves in tense silence. Menenius was slower and more deliberate than before, his cocky speed absent as his face sent waves of pain through him with every pulse of his blood. And yet, Fronto had to admit, he was still very much a match for any ordinary swordsman. Fabius and Furius were quickly driven back to the corner. Fronto glanced around and saw his sword lying unattended. Scrabbling over to it, he picked it up in his left hand, the fingers of his right still pointing off at unpleasant angles.
He would not be able to wield the damn weapon. He had long ago learned that wielding a sword with his off-hand was more of a danger to him than to the enemy, and there was no hope of him gripping it with his right. With deep regret, he dropped the blade again. This fight would have to be up to the two veteran centurions.
The four combatants were now out of sight, back around the corner towards the atrium. His skin prickled again as he realised there was every possibility the fight might range into the room where Faleria lay under her sheet. He could ill afford to let that happen, when even a stray footfall might be the end of her, weakened as she was.
Rounding the corner, he could see the two centurions being pushed back into the atrium through the hanging sheet, which was now shredded with sword cuts. His eyes fell on the door to the right hand side and he scurried across to it.
His sister was on her knees her head held in her hands.
“Faleria!”
She looked up sharply, her one good eye wide and blood-tinted.
“Marcus?”
His heart pounding in his chest, weak knee threatening to give way any moment, Fronto ran across the room and dropped to envelop his sister in an embrace.
“Are you alright?”
“I… headache!” she said quietly.
“Come on. It’s not safe here.”
Almost as if to confirm his words, the sounds of fighting increased in volume and he could see the shadows of fighting men on the corridor wall opposite the bedchamber’s door. As slowly as he dared, Fronto helped his sister to her wobbly feet and crossed the room.
“Maybe we should lock ourselves in” he mused, but decided against it. Better to find somewhere to hide her than trap themselves where the tribunes already knew to look.
“The baths. Come on.”
Almost carrying her, tears running down his face at the pain in his broken fingers and from biting his lip against it, he hurried her from the room, past the ongoing fight at the edge of the atrium and back towards the house’s small bath complex. A quick glance told him that things were not going so well for his would-be saviours. Furius was already moving at a lean, his free hand clutching his side as he fought, and Fabius was limping and leaning against the wall. Worse still, the fight seemed to have spun around in the atrium and the centurions were now backing towards them, retreating into the bed-chamber corridors again… and the bath complex.