“Good. Galronus says there’s a clearing in the wood to the west. Just about every path into the trees leads to it. I’m going there. The ground’s muddy and soft and even a dunce should be able to track me there. You two had best slip off back to the tents. Find Brutus. Tell him I need his help and then wait till those two leave. Follow them and make sure you’re there when they find me.”
Carbo nodded and grinned.
“Let’s nail the bastards, sir.”
“Yup. Now go. They won’t follow if they see you two going with me.”
As Fronto strode on ahead toward the gate, his two centurions dipped to the side, into the ranks of the Tenth’s temporary camp. Keeping his eyes straight ahead, he fought the urge to turn and look at Cicero and his men.
Near the command section, Cicero snapped a few commands at his centurions and Furius and Fabius exchanged hurried, urgent words before separating, the former strolling slowly down the road toward the west gate, the latter rushing off toward their tents.
Fronto kept his face forward as he strode into the woods, following a beaten path — presumably a hunter’s trail. Despite the fact that Galronus and his men had briefly scouted the immediate surroundings of the Roman camp, they had only had time for a quick scan and it now occurred to Fronto how potentially dangerous it was to stride off into the woodland where native warriors or hunters could be lurking in the bushes, even watching their enemy.
In the safe knowledge that, if he was being followed as he hoped, the pursuers were far enough behind to be out of earshot, he slowed so as not to blunder into any unfortunate situation. His hand reached down for the gladius at his side and he drew it, just in case, pacing along the path into the heart of the unknown forest.
Still, a thrill ran through him.
At last.
After months of watching friends and acquaintances fall prey to the murderers’ blades, he would have a chance to confront them. And if things went just right there would be no need for protracted trial and interrogation. They would prove their guilt in front of an independent witness. Execution would be guaranteed after that. Knowing that, of course, the pair would probably try and fight. But with Fronto, Carbo, Atenos and Brutus present, he really didn’t fancy their chances, no matter how good they were with a blade.
With very little warning, Fronto rounded the bole of a birch cluttered about the base with bushes and undergrowth and found himself looking into a clearing some twenty yards wide. All across it, the scattered stumps of trees in varying degrees of decay told of the reason for the clearing’s size. A dark, charred patch marked where the unnecessary foliage and thinner branches had been deposed of.
Nodding to himself in satisfaction, he began to pick his way among the stumps towards the centre. He couldn’t guarantee that Fabius and Furius would take exactly the same path and there was the possibility they could come across the clearing from any angle, so for safety he would need to be at the centre.
Finding a particularly large tree stump — a sycamore by the look of the remnants — he took a quick look around and sank gratefully to the time-and-weather-smoothed surface, taking care to fold his cloak beneath him first to keep the dampness away.
Reaching down, he began to rub his knee. While such an act was probably unnecessary in terms of explanation for his pause, the joint was still weak and giving him some difficulty after a long walk, so the massaging felt good.
A silence descended on the woodland, broken only by the occasional cawing of a crow or the faint rustling of a ground-dwelling forest creature, the latter making Fronto peer into the gloomy eaves each time. And in the background: muffled by distance and flora, the noise of ten thousand men making camp and settling in for the day.
It was so inordinately peaceful that he found himself involuntarily relaxing and almost forgetting why he was here. For some reason life was so busy and fraught that he never seemed to find the time to simply sit in the country and enjoy the peace. A rare image of his father flashed into his mind as the two of them had made the laborious climb up Vesuvius when he was eight years old. “Life is not worth living if you can’t make time occasionally to appreciate the bounty of what’s around you, Marcus” his father had said. Good words to live by which he’d not even thought about in years.
“You’d probably like it here, father” he said to the sky in general. “It’s a bit colder and wetter than home, but everything’s so green and lush. You’d have worn your gardening hat a lot more here.”
Another image flashed into his head: this time of his good friend Balbus, wearing just such a gardening hat, his face ruddy and healthy with an outdoor glow.
“Am I getting too old for this stuff? Oh, Quintus, you may have been right about Caesar, but you have no idea what the army has descended into since you left.”
“Talking to yourself, Fronto?”
He looked up at the interruption to see two figures at the edge of the clearing, beginning to move towards the centre. Fabius and Furius wore voluminous wool cloaks that billowed around them as they moved, their heads bare to the air. No sign of crested helmets. No obvious sign of vine staffs either. They had come without the trappings of office.
Of course. All the easier to disappear or slip by without being recognised. He wondered how they had left the camp without recognition, but remembered how easily he had crossed the half-built rampart without being questioned. Going out was always easier than getting back in.
Furius, the owner of the voice, was scratching his chin as he walked. Fabius kept both hands within the folds of his cloak.
“I have to say I’m not entirely surprised to see you” Fronto said lightly.
“I’m sure” Furius rumbled.
“Very dangerous business” Fabius added menacingly, “coming off into the woodland all on your own. Not even a shield, I see.”
“Nor you.”
Fabius shrugged and Fronto could see with the movement how something solid and held tightly within his hidden grip lifted the cloak slightly.
Casually, so as not to make it obvious, Fronto lifted his eyes to the clearing’s edge behind them. It took a moment for him to spot Carbo and Atenos in the undergrowth by the path from which they’d all entered. Beside and just behind them he could just make out the shape of Brutus and even from here, he got the feeling that the young officer was distinctly unimpressed and unhappy with the situation.
With irritation, it occurred to him that if the three of them were going to lurk in the scrub, he could very well be dead by the time they managed to get involved in any fight.
He would have to string things out so they could get close enough to help.
Ever closer Furius and Fabius moved. Finally, only five yards away, Furius removed his cloak and draped it over his shoulder, his hand falling to the pommel of his gladius where it sat comfortably.
“I’m not an easy target” Fronto said levelly.
“I imagine not” Furius shrugged, his face twisting into what he might have believed was a smile.
“And not an easy kill” the legate went on. “I’m no wounded officer on a medical bed or drunken fop in an inn.”
The two centurions came to a halt some seven or eight feet from Fronto and his hand dropped to the pommel of his own sword.
“Plainly” Furius replied, his eyebrow raising slightly.
Behind him, Fabius threw back his cloak, his hand lancing out with lightning speed. Fronto had drawn his gladius an inch from the scabbard before his racing, confused brain registered that the long, narrow object in Fabius’ hand and which he’d been concealing beneath his cloak was actually a long, narrow terracotta jar — a mini amphora.
“What…?”
“Call it a salute to the only man who would jump in the water with me” Furius shrugged. “The time has come, legate, to bury the hatchet, so to speak. A peace offering? What you did at the beach… well let’s just say I seem to have misjudged you.”