“Varus? Galronus? Just how detailed is your knowledge of your commands?”
Varus smiled, immediately latching on to Fronto’s point. “Good enough, I’d say. Let’s just stop off and pick up Piso on the way. He’s with the quartermaster.”
Fronto smiled. It was petty. It was childish in the most pathetic way, to sidetrack Furius and delay him, while he himself supplied Caesar with the information directly from the commanders of the three cavalry units. And yet it gave him a little thrill of happiness to drop the obstinate centurion in the dung heap.
Two weeks passed in drudgery at the Divoduron camps. Spring began to blossom into early summer with a brief play of storms that cleared the air and brought a fresh blue-skied world to northern Gaul. The cavalry had mounted patrols that ranged over the few miles around the encampment and across the ridge onto the far plain, though the Germanic aggressors remained steadfastly out of reach toward the Rhenus.
The legions champed at the bit each and every day, feeling the need to move and exercise their sword arms as opposed to sitting in camp digging latrines and carrying out routine guard duties. The men asked of their centurions and optios when the army would move, and those officers in turn asked their legates and tribunes when the march would begin. And inevitably, since few dared question the permanently-busy general, most senior officers asked the same question of the camp prefect.
Priscus pushed aside the flap of the tent without asking for admittance or preamble of any sort, ignoring the surprised look from Fronto who stood shaving with a specially sharpened knife in front of a bronze disc. As the legate turned at the unexpected and unorthodox interruption, Priscus unfastened his helmet as he crossed the large tent and flung it angrily at the wall, where it hit, bounced, and rolled under the bed.
“Come in.”
The prefect turned a glare on Fronto that carried so much raw irritation that the legate accidentally jumped a little and nicked a neat red line above his Adam’s apple.
“Don’t start with me, Marcus. Your tent was the nearest place I knew I could drown my sorrows.”
“Bad day again?”
“I’d never have accepted this commission if I’d known what it involved. Morons, donkey-brains, thieves, wastrels, layabouts and flatheads all badgering me day and night for details I don’t have, supplies I can’t get, tasks that no one will do and shite-knows what else. I swear the next person who asks me when the army marches is going to be visiting the medicus with a gladius hanging out of his arse, only probably hilt-upwards.”
Fronto grinned. “So when…”
“Knob off. Get the wine out and don’t bother with the water. I’ll go down your route today.”
Fronto looked at the patchy bristles on his face in the bronze disc, shrugged and, turning, collected two cups and a wine jug from the table by the bed — a location for keeping wine that had practical benefits of which his sister wholeheartedly disapproved. He’d even joked about digging a personal latrine on the other side, too, so he wouldn’t need to get out of bed until he was called for.
“So what’s especially troubling you today?”
Priscus sighed as he gratefully accepted a proffered cup. “The simple answer is that the army will be moving in the next few days, and every hour it gets closer brings more work and more idiots.”
He gestured expansively with his free arm, sloshing the wine over the edge of his cup onto Fronto’s bed, the legate noted with dismay.
“We currently have in supply enough grain to keep the entire force in the field for four weeks. Caesar seems to think that the amount is ample and that, if the campaign stretches more than a month, we can start foraging and rely on the supply train reaching us from Vesontio and beyond.”
“And we can’t?”
“One thing I’ve learned in this job is that quartermasters are disorganised and lazy and that Cita is the biggest, fattest, laziest blob of grease that ever wore a helmet. We’d probably be better relying on buying it from local tribes if it weren’t for the fact that the local tribes won’t have any because of the bloody stinking Germanics!”
Fronto opened his mouth, but Priscus was in full flow. “And we’ve got several thousand new cavalry coming in later today, which will stretch those supplies slightly thinner too. Plus for some unknown reason it’s become my job to organise the redistribution of the cavalry between Varus, Piso and Galronus. As if they couldn’t do it themselves.”
Fronto grunted and let his friend barrage on.
“I’ve decided on the quick answer to that anyway. Galronus’ lot will be split to bolster the other existing units and our Remi friend can have all the new raw cavalry for his own.”
“That’s hardly fair on Galronus.”
“Varus will argue against having them and take it to Caesar, and Piso has a good rep, but I don’t know him well enough yet. At least Galronus can mould them into a unit and I don’t have to do any splitting up and moving about.”
Fronto smiled and took a quick pull of the wine, the last jar of good stuff that he’d brought in his personal baggage. After this it was a matter of relying on whatever Cita had in stock.
“Well at least you’ll be able to relax once we’re on the move.”
“It doesn’t bloody work like that, Marcus. When we move, I just have to start working on the next night’s camp.”
“You’ll just have to train up some of the men Caesar gave you and then…”
His helpful suggestion tailed off as the door flap swept open once again and Carbo ducked in through the door.
“Sir?”
“Does nobody in this camp knock any more?”
Carbo, the primus pilus of the Tenth, held his helmet beneath his arm, the feathery transverse crest tickling his armpit as he gestured breathlessly with his vine staff.
“Sorry, legate… no time.” He gulped in a deep breath. “Need help, sort of urgent-ish!”
Fronto framed his question, but Carbo had already ducked back outside the tent. The legate and the camp prefect shared a confused and concerned frown. Carbo was not a man to rush or be jumpy for paltry things. Grateful he’d already strapped on his boots, Fronto stood, dropping the cup to the table and grasping the hilt of his gladius. If something had made Carbo jumpy, he wanted to be prepared.
Priscus was at his shoulder as he stepped outside to find Carbo waiting impatiently on the main roadway, his usual pink features flushed to an almost beetroot colour.
“What the hell is it?”
Carbo gestured down the road and started to jog with the gait of a man who has just sprinted to his own speed record and needs a breather. As he ran, the two senior officers keeping pace with him, he spoke in brief staccato bursts between heaving breaths.
“Centurion in… the Seventh. He’s… he’s sentenced a man… to death.”
Fronto and Priscus shared a surprised glance again. It was an unpleasant thing, but hardly unknown, and nothing to do with anyone outside the Seventh.
“Carbo, what is the actual problem?”
The centurion realised they’d stopped and pulled up short, heaving in a huge breath.
“Man fell out of step during drill. Now he’s to be beaten to death!”
Fronto’s eyes widened. “That’s insane!”
Carbo, his breath spent, simply nodded and pointed onwards, in the direction of the distant camp of the Seventh.
Priscus narrowed his eyes. “But this is the province of their legate. Where’s Cicero. You should have gone to him first.”
Carbo shook his head wildly. “Legate Cicero is in with Caesar and not to be disturbed, like most of the seniors. One of their lesser centurions found me and asked me to help. He was one of ours til he got reassigned over winter.”
Fronto and Priscus began to run.
“I have a sinking feeling. The centurion who’s in charge of the punishment. Would it be a certain Furius by any chance?”
Carbo shook his head. “Name’s Fabius.”