This was new.
Tetricus’ world went white.
Panic gripped him as he jerked his head to one side, causing a fresh wave of pain to shoot through his back and shoulder. The curtain of white — linen apparently — slipped away from one eye and he had a momentary glimpse of a muscular arm coated in fine brown hairs, the wrist enclosed in a bronze vambrace embossed with a protective image of the medusa head. Even as the white veil slipped over his eyes again, he felt his arms thrust down against the bed by powerful hands while another pushed a vinegar-soaked rag, likely gathered from the hospital floor, into his mouth, stifling his cry before he could even issue it.
At least two people; his arms held down and his mouth gagged and eyes covered. Panic rose to a crescendo. He tried to kick out, but the agony in his wounded leg caused him to slump back, his breathing horribly restricted by the linen and the rag that covered his face.
Surely such a thing couldn’t happen in a hospital? Where were the orderlies? Where was the medicus? Was he not due another dose of the drug?
No amount of struggling would free his arms; he was simply too weak. His chest heaved with the difficulty of breathing through the white cloth. Was this what they were trying to do? Smother him? Why?
Officers of Caesar’s army killing other officers? What was happening to the world?
Despite the gag, he did manage a sharp squeak and a whimper as a long, tapering blade crunched down through his breastbone and slid deep into his chest, severing blood vessels and piercing organs before grating between ribs at the back and punching into the bed itself.
Tetricus gasped at the killing blow. Despite the wounds he’d taken from the dagger and the pilum and the half dozen other injuries he’d suffered these past three years since Geneva, nothing could have prepared him for this white-hot agony.
He could feel the grey closing in around him almost instantly. His voice wouldn’t respond. He could do little but shudder and shed a silent tear. His last breath issued as a simple wheeze with a crackle and a rattle. He barely recognised the feeling as the blade ripped back out of his chest, grating on the bone and releasing the flow of blood. His heart had already stopped, two inches of steel driven through the centre with professional accuracy.
Tetricus passed from the world of men precisely half a minute before the orderly arrived with a small vial of henbane and mandragora solution, finding only the body of a tribune in a lake of blood and a large slit in the tent wall.
Fronto stomped across the grass, his eyes burning with a fire so hot that legionaries and officers alike scrambled to get out of his way. There was that something about his appearance which challenged anyone to stand in his way.
The hospital tent stood gaunt and bleak at the bottom of the slope by the river and at the downstream end of the camp for the sake of hygiene. Two contubernia of legionaries stood guard around its perimeter, as they did at the other two hospital tents and, as the legate approached, the optio by the tent’s doorway stepped aside and saluted.
“Legate Fronto. The medicus is waiting for you.”
Fronto, acknowledging the man’s very existence with only the merest of nods, strode into the tent and fixed his eyes on the man in the white robe, standing deep in conversation with one of his orderlies.
“Ah, legate. Come.”
The man handed his wax tablet to the orderly and stepped through a divide into one of the partition rooms. Fronto, his heart a lead weight in the base of his stomach, followed, steeling himself.
Tetricus had been left as found and, despite his preparations, Fronto found a small volume of bile rising into his mouth, his flesh falling into a cold sweat.
The tribune, dressed only in tunic and undergarments, lay on the waist-height bed, the sheet that had covered him rucked up, presumably during his death throes. A white linen wrap lay draped across his face and a bloody, brown rag protruded from his mouth. The chest of his russet-coloured tunic glistened black, soaked with the blood that had run in torrents down both sides of the man’s torso, pooling on the bed around him before dripping onto the floor and creating a dark red lake.
Fronto was momentarily taken aback by the wrap covering his friend’s face until the medicus reached out and removed it, revealing the expression of shock and excruciating pain that had locked on the tribune’s face in the moment of death.
Fronto felt the bile rise again and fought the urge to replace the covering and hide his friend’s face.
“The wrap was used to cover his eyes — presumably to obfuscate the killers so that if something went wrong they could not be recognised.”
“They?” said Fronto sharply.
“There must have been at least two. These marks show that the tribune’s arms were forced against the table while the blade was driven through him. Possibly a third man kept the face covered, although that could have been managed by the man with the sword. After all, the tribune was weakened both by his wounds and by the medication we administered. He could not have fought back very hard. It does appear that the entire attack was over in moments.”
Fronto told himself that at least that was a relief. Tetricus had died very quickly. Somehow it didn’t diminish the pain and anger he felt.
“Anything you can tell me that might give us an idea of the killers’ identities?”
The medicus shook his head.
“All I can confirm for definite is that they were Roman. I’ve treated enough gladius wounds in my life to recognise such a thing. They entered the tent by slitting the leather in the outer wall of this room, and they must have chosen an opportune moment to affect entry and escape, given the number of soldiers who are always milling about around the tents. I’ve already got an optio interrogating everyone to check whether anything was seen, but I hold very little hope. The attack seems very professional to me, and I cannot imagine the assassins making such an obvious error.”
Fronto nodded, a hollow emptiness starting to settle within him.
First Longinus had gone in a cavalry action. Then Velius in the madness of the Belgic campaign. Then Balbus had retired to civilian life. Now Tetricus had been torn from him. The number of people he felt he could trust or rely upon within the army was dropping every year. But somehow this was worse than any other friend he had lost in this bloody war. Because Tetricus had been dispatched by his own compatriots in cold blood.
Something cold and hard formed in the pit of his stomach.
Revenge for this would come, and it would come with the full force of Nemesis behind it.
Nodding along to the rest of the medicus’ report, he hardly heard a word, his eyes taking in every detail of the body before him, memorising every line and shape such that he would be able to recall his friend in minute detail the day he stood with a sword at the killer’s throat.
Finally, the man finished chatting and Fronto nodded, thanked him, and turned, leaving the hospital tent and striding out into the warm, fresh air. Pausing outside, he took a deep breath and paced away across the grass. Briefly he’d considered visiting Cicero and facing down Fabius and Furius, but he was currently in no state to do so. Right now he would very likely run them through before they could get out a word, and that sort of act would hardly help matters.
Striding from the tent, he made for the encampment of the Tenth and the jug of wine that his remaining friends would have waiting for him.
With irritation, he realised that something was flapping on his foot and he bent forward to examine the length of bloody wadding that had stuck to his boot — a chance manoeuvre that saved his life.
He only realised what had happened as he tumbled forward. The whirring noise that accompanied the missile clearly defined it as a lead sling bullet. Certainly it felt like lead as it caught him a glancing blow on the crown of his head, ripping away a tuft of hair and tearing the flesh. He allowed himself to fall forward into the grass, hopefully out of shot of the would-be killer.