Pleuratus nodded, his face slightly sour.
“It does not sit well with me, I must admit. I agreed to act as a courier for personal missives with the general’s family, not to carry messages for thugs and lowlifes.”
The tribune glanced up at Fronto as if suddenly realising that he had said something he shouldn’t. “Still, at least I won’t have to traipse into the forests of Germania and share a sponge stick with anyone, and that has to be a bonus.”
Fronto nodded and plastered a smile across his face as, behind it, his mind raced back and forth between the general and his ‘special’ courier, Clodius in Rome following senators around, and his sister, his sort-of-betrothed, and his old friend in the depths of the city’s intrigues. His spine began to itch at the thought.
“Can you do me a favour, Pleuratus?”
“What would that be?”
“When you get back to Rome, find the house of Quintus Lucilius Balbus on the Cispian hill and deliver a message for me?”
“Of course, Fronto. I’ll come and see you to collect it before I leave. It may be a few days yet, hopefully.”
Fronto nodded absently. Something about the way Caesar had reacted to the letter suggested strongly that Clodius had once again overstepped the mark. The very thought that Faleria, Lucilia and Balbus were caught up in the affair make the hair stand proud on his arms.
Fronto stood on the ramp and took a deep breath.
The earth embankment rose from the downward-sloping turf near the bank to a full height of some ten feet, where it gave onto the first sections of the bridge.
Four days of construction and the beast of a structure now spanned some twelve yards of the water. For four days Fronto had managed to avoid having to set a single foot on the thing. In the selfish corners of his soul he was grateful that Caesar had given the bulk of the construction work to the Seventh and not the trusted Tenth.
No matter the numerous and high-quality libations and offerings the officers and men of the legions made to every Roman and native God they could name, progress was slow and dreadfully dangerous.
Each of the last three evenings, the reports had come in with fresh and wearying results: legionaries crushed by falling timbers, tipped into the swift flow and carried away screaming toward the sea, succumbing to a myriad of insane accidents. It was almost as though the construction was cursed.
Fronto eyed the timber with suspicion and nervousness.
What was already built certainly looked solid enough, but the thing still put the shits up him beyond all thought and reason. He had the horrible feeling that something nasty was lined up by the fates to happen to him today.
The legates were taking turns on duty at the bridge construction site and, fight it all he could, today was Fronto’s turn. He’d woken with a feeling of dread and disgust, only to discover that the thong on which his Fortuna pendant hung had broken and the lucky charm itself had vanished somehow, despite never having left his person outside his tent.
It was a bad omen.
As was being summoned by the centurion of the works, via a tired looking legionary with a bruise on his face the size of his hand — the result of yet another accident.
With pulse racing, Fronto stepped the last few yards of the great turf and rubble embankment and placed a foot warily on the timber walkway of the bridge.
Eleven deaths and twenty eight wounds — seven of them crippling — in just four days of work. Fronto had been determined not to add his own name to that grisly list, and had had a small tent erected near the bridge from which he could watch the work in the safety and comfort of the shelter.
And now, despite all his precautions, ill luck and the actions of others had conspired to bring him to this point: standing on the recently cut and shaped timbers, watching the grey-brown torrent rushing past below, visible through the side-rail. The bridge wanted him, of that he was beginning to become convinced.
With a deep breath and a nervous swallow, he took a step forward, alarmed at how the beam bowed very slightly beneath his foot. Lifting it urgently, he retreated a pace. The legionary beside him, sweating from his exertions and wiping away blood from a narrow cut on his forehead, frowned.
“It’s alright, sir. It’s just settling very slightly. There’s going to be a small amount of give until it’s properly bedded-in. Once a few carts have been across it it’ll be solid as a rock.”
“And in the meantime, I’m supposed to trust my weight to wood that bends?”
“Look, sir.” The legionary grinned as he jumped up and down heavily on the plank, his hobnailed boots leaving small indentations, clouds of sawdust billowing out from beneath the walkway. Fronto grasped the rail in horror, holding on for dear life.
“Stopthatstopthatstopthatdstopthat!” he rattled out nervously.
“Safe as houses, sir.”
“I’ve been in houses that have fallen down. Come on.”
Swallowing his nerves, he took three quick steps before allowing himself a breath. The bridge seemed unnaturally high, and the far bank distant enough that the woodlands covering much of it blurred into a single mass of green.
Tearing his gaze away from the far side and the river rushing beneath him, Fronto fixed his eyes on the centurion standing close to the current work site at the far end of the walkway, a small group of workmen and engineers gathered around him. Avoiding thinking further on the planks beneath him, he concentrated instead on the men.
They stood in a knot around a small mound that was barely recognisable in shape — just a grey-brown lump on the timber surface.
“Legate?” the centurion saluted as he approached. Most of the workers turned and followed suit, others unable to do so due to the burdens they bore.
“Your man tells me we have another fatality to add to the list.”
The centurion gestured to the men around him and, saluting, they scurried off past Fronto toward the landward end of the bridge, their passage shaking the timbers worryingly. Fronto gripped the rail until his knuckles whitened and frowned as he looked down at the dirty lump that lay between the two of them. The last workmen lowered their burdens and moved off out of earshot at the centurion’s gesture. Once they were alone, the centurion crouched by the body.
Fronto couldn’t help but notice with a heart-stopping realisation just how close to the open end of the bridge the man crouched. A strong gust of wind might just blow him back into the water. He resisted the urge to tell the centurion to come away from the edge. Gingerly, he crouched to join the strange conspiratorial tableau.
“Well?”
“I tried not to let too much on to the men, sir, but we fished him out from the debris where the next pile was being settled half an hour ago. He’s been in the water a day or two now at least.”
The centurion reached out and rolled the bloated, discoloured thing onto its back so that Fronto could see what he was explaining. The legate felt the bile rise in his throat and had to swallow it and steady himself with his fingertips on the timber floor. The body was barely recognisable as a human, the skin blue-grey and bloated, with a waxy sheen. A green tint of algae had mixed in with the black, curly hair, along with scum and weed. The man’s white tunic had been stained an unpleasant grey-green.
“Not pretty, is it, sir.”
Fronto shook his head, trying not to breathe too deeply.
“We’ll have to try and check into missing soldiers — see if we can identify him.”
“That shouldn’t be hard, sir.”
Fronto frowned in incomprehension. “Meaning?”
The centurion reached out with a pointing finger and jabbed the stained tunic. “A white tunic, sir. Not a red one. He’s an officer, not a legionary.”
Fronto blinked. How had he missed something so obvious? A white tunic. His eyes ran down from the face, past the shoulder and to the upper arm. Yes. There it was: a broad stripe. A senior tribune.