“’Bastards’?” enquired Atenos with a frown, noting the plural.
Fronto shrugged. “I’d wager a fortune on who the culprits were, and there’s two of them.”
“Fabius and Furius of the Seventh” Galronus said quietly. “How sure are you?”
“Pretty convinced. No evidence, though. I can accuse them all I like, but Cicero will back them to the hilt and it’s no secret that those two and I have a mutual dislike. It’ll just look like me being vindictive if I make any kind of accusation without evidence. I had a look at the weapons they used, but they’re bulk legionary issue with no way to distinguish them.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I’m beginning to wonder if the world might be a brighter place if those two wake up dead in their tent one morning.”
“You’d not sink to that level, Marcus. If you were the kind of man who did, the Tenth would have done away with you years ago.” Priscus shook his head. “But it’s a mess, Marcus.” he announced wearily. “This whole thing is a mess. Labienus has been sounding people out, you know? He came to see me; ostensibly it was a perfectly acceptable enquiry for the camp prefect, but he asked me some pretty telling questions.”
Fronto narrowed his eyes at his old friend.
“And you said?”
“I said I was Caesar’s camp prefect. That seemed to shut him up.”
Another knock at the tent door drew their gaze and attention.
“You invited anyone else?”
Fronto shook his head. “Who’s there?”
“Message for the legate of the Tenth, sir.”
Struggling to his feet, Fronto hobbled over to the door and pulled aside the flap. A legionary stood outside, looking nervous.
“Well?”
The soldier held out a cylindrical case; small and made of wood. “This arrived by courier a few minutes ago at the gate, sir, with instructions to be passed to yourself.”
Fronto nodded and waved the soldier away, taking the case and retreating into the tent. Unstoppering the end, he slid out a small roll of expensive parchment. The wax seal that held the scroll tight bore his family’s signet, marking its source as either Faleria or his mother.
“Letter from the missus?” Priscus grinned.
“From home” Fronto said absently, snapping the seal and unrolling the short missive. His eyes strayed back and forth along the lines, his expression undergoing a number of changes as he read, and darkening as he neared the end.
“The bastard!”
The tent’s occupants looked at one another and then at him.
“What?”
The legate thrust the parchment angrily at Priscus, who ran his eyes down the text until he reached the bottom.
“Maybe she’s mistaken?”
“No. No mistake. I should have known when we confronted him in Rome that Caesar would get his talons into the man.”
“What?” Galronus was half-raised from the floor now.
“Caesar’s got Clodius Pulcher working for him now, running gangs of thugs from his niece’s house to frighten those daft old buggers in the senate who chunter about this campaign. After everything Clodius did to us last year! Caesar stood with me and fought the cheap little bastard and his men, and then he hires the prick? Clodius is as treacherous as a snake and as slippery as an eel. The little bastard needs to be filleted and dumped in the Tiber, not employed!”
“Remember what I told you, though, Marcus” muttered Varus, wincing as he carefully tightened the sling around his arm once more. “Caesar’s only maintaining his command and his position because the senate are scared of him. That’s what Clodius is: a cestus. An armoured glove of the general closing on the throat of the senate.”
“Still, if that little prick is swanning about in Rome when I get back, Caesar or no Caesar, I’ll gut him myself.”
Galronus’ brow furrowed. “Why in Rome but not here?”
“What?”
“Why would Caesar have hired men frightening the senate into supporting him — which is extremely dangerous and could land him in court or prison — and yet leave those who disagree with him in important places in his army? I know you say Labienus is worth too much as a commander, but if the general would go so far as to threaten patrician class senators, would he really stop at his officers?”
“Caesar has always been a man of the army. His legions love him because he’s one of them. He’d lose their love and respect pretty damn quick if he started doing away with officers he didn’t like.”
And yet, even as he spoke, in his gut Fronto couldn’t escape the feeling that perhaps there was some truth in Galronus’ words. His mind conjured up pictures of Paetus — the former camp prefect whose family Caesar had allowed to die needlessly, turning him against the general. Of Salonius — a tribune who had stirred the legions against Caesar three years ago and who had disappeared without trace. Of the Fourteenth who had spent two years repeatedly being given the more ignominious duties in the army due to their Gallic nature. Of the Seventh, who now contained all the general’s ‘bad eggs’.
Caesar could be a hard man and an unforgiving one. Would he really allow potential enemies to stay in command in his own army?
Fronto reached for the wine again, ignoring the jug of water nearby.
Tetricus winced and lowered his head back to the cold, crisp bed. It never ceased to amaze him how the legion’s medical staff could erect a fully working hospital in the middle of a muddy field. He smiled and allowed his eyes to close.
The wound in his back sent shock waves through him every time he lifted his head or turned over, meaning that he’d moved remarkably little in the eternity he’d spent lying here. Still, he had to consider himself lucky. Between that wound and the one in his leg that had been brutal, true, but had managed to narrowly avoid completely severing a muscle; he was in discomfort most of the time, even despite the medication the staff had him on that made him weak and filled his head with fluff. But he only had to concentrate to hear the moans and constant shrieks of those who fared worse in other parts of the hospital. Or to imagine that silent tent at the far end where those who were not expected to pull through lay in stupefied and putrefied agony.
No, he could have been in a far worse position.
And, of course, his rank had afforded him a private ‘room’ — a section of the large ward tent that was partitioned off with internal leather sections. Four such rooms existed and he knew from listening to the activity around him that two centurions and an optio occupied the others. The optio was recovering from a spear wound to the neck that had left him unable to speak, and the centurions had various lost a hand, suffered a head wound, and taken a blade in the gut, though who and in what combination, he had so far been unable to determine.
A sigh escaped his dry lips. Perhaps soon an orderly would come and he could request some water. Or maybe even something a little stronger.
The medicus and his assistants had been extremely non-committal when he’d asked how long he would be bed-ridden. Fronto had come to see him, of course, as had Priscus, Carbo, and the other tribunes of the Tenth as a mark of appropriate respect. And Mamurra, Caesar’s senior staff engineer and a personal hero of Tetricus’.
Mamurra represented the major reason he was twitching to get up and about. The man had intimated that Caesar was considering something big — something that made Mamurra’s eyes glint with that heart-deep excitement an engineer felt when presented with a challenge. The world-famous engineer was almost vibrating with eagerness, and had alluded to the possibility of Tetricus being in on the task if he was returned to duty in time.
And so he must be.
Somewhere beyond the leather walls of his small world there was a tearing sound, like a medical dressing being ripped open, though louder. Tetricus frowned in his strange and sterile compartment. Sounds had been his main companions these many past hours, and he’d become used to every sound the hospital had to offer.