The conversation stopped as everyone was aware of a low growling noise. All eyes turned to Fronto.
“This is like being at a meeting of the bloody senate! Everyone talking about their own agendas, no one sticking to the matter at hand. Just squabbling like chickens. The point of this whole meeting was Clodius! What are we going to do about the little shit head?”
“If you’ll pardon me throwing in my lot”
All heads turned again to face Cestus.
“You are faced with two options. Either you find a way to put an end to Clodius, and this is my speciality, or you work on a method to remove his power. It seems to me that this is a disparate group. Half of us are committed to, and suitable for, one path and the other half to and for the other. The question is which way to go?”
Caesar shook his head.
“If Clodius turns up dead in a sewer, it will merely raise ugly questions, many of which will be levelled at myself, Pompey and even you, Fronto. Careers could be ruined, exiles considered, or even prosecutions made. The solution is to make Clodius trip himself up.”
Cicero and Rufus nodded.
“The first step” the younger officer said “is to form a faction: a gathering of like-minded people, and to bring all those who waver on to our side. We need to convince my brother to abandon his attacks on Caesar in the senate. I can do this. We need to try and discourage the same with Cato and Ahenobarbus.”
He turned to Fronto.
“We need to make sure of our allegiances. The noble Crassus and the great Pompey should be drawn into the matter and, where their allegiances are shaky, they should be redirected, forcibly if necessary.”
Milo frowned.
“You seem to be edging around saying something about Pompey?”
Fronto leaned toward him.
“Look, it’s not generally known and I’m not even sure whether we should be speaking to you about it, but there is considerable, though circumstantial, evidence that Pompey has been having dealings with Clodius in secret, while condemning him publically.”
Milo shook his head and leaned back.
“I have spoken to the man myself. He would rather bed a snake than throw in his lot with Clodius. Whatever he is doing, you can be sure it is not for the benefit of your enemy.”
Caesar glared at Fronto.
“Was that really necessary? Is this the time to start levelling accusations among the people who supposedly have a mutual enemy?”
He turned to Milo and made conciliatory gestures.
“I would appreciate it, given the nature of rumour and the uncertainty of everything here, if you would do us the honour of not passing on these spurious accusations to Pompey. I will speak to him myself in due course.”
The other man frowned for a long moment, but nodded.
“If I were to report every unsavoury rumour I heard to him, I would be running in and out of his house like a courier. If you hold your tongues about this and remain open minded until you are in a position to confirm their truth or falsehood, so will I.”
Fronto grumbled irritably.
“This is getting us no closer to a solution.”
“On the contrary, I feel that this little meeting has been of great importance and use” the general smiled. “I have had certain fears allayed and am satisfied that all here are of a like mind. We all want to see Clodius declawed.”
“Dead” corrected Fronto.
“Declawed… or more if the opportunity arises, yes.”
“Dead” repeated Fronto flatly.
“More important now is to decide how to progress from here. Clearly I will need to arrange a meeting with Crassus and Pompey. Not a great public meeting like the one I attended early in the year, though; a more private affair. In the meantime, Cicero can begin trying to calm things in the senate, though I fear you will have great difficulty with the irrepressible Cato. If you, Milo, will simply keep your own mind open and observe the moves of both Pompey and Clodius, hopefully you will be able to arrive at a definite conclusion as to the truth of any complicity.”
He smiled at Cestus.
“In the meantime, it would be a good idea that no one with a grudge against Clodius go out in public without adequate defensive measures. His enemies do tend to end up bobbing along the Tiber with no head.”
He leaned back.
“Does anyone have any suggestions as to how we can prod Clodius in the direction of tipping his hand and perhaps putting a foot wrong?”
On the far side of the triclinium, Fronto stood, angrily.
“It seems that you all have the situation well under control. I am therefore currently entirely superfluous to this discussion. Please feel free to stay and partake of the food and drink. My mother would be horrified if you left unsatisfied.”
Casting a baleful look around his companions, he strode from the room.
Galronus made to rise, but Priscus put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down.
“Leave him to stew. If he has anyone to rant at, he’ll just wind himself up even further.”
The two men settled back into their seats as the conversation resumed in depth.
Fronto stormed down the street angrily, ignoring the fine misty drizzle that had begun to fall. He had not even bothered to stop and wrap a toga about him or throw on a cloak, and tramped down the paving in an increasingly soggy white tunic.
It never ceased to amaze him how the cleverest and most powerful people in the world would talk themselves in ineffectual circles without being able to spot the plain truth of the matter, though it was hanging plainly in the air before them.
“Pointless.”
He ignored the questioning look the old woman threw at him from the side of the street.
They would argue for another hour and the conclusion would inevitably be that they should do nothing and simply wait to see it something miraculous happened and Clodius fell down a sewer and drowned.
He looked up irritably in the drizzle. Ahead stood the temple of Bona Dea, lonely and surrounded by a peaceful garden. Often there would be stalls or at least beggars in the street close by, hoping for a tossed crust from the citizens descending the streets from the Aventine, but the chilling wet had driven them indoors, possibly even into the temple itself.
On a day like this…
Fronto’s thoughts whirled in panic as everything went black, a bag thrust over his head and muscular arms were suddenly around his elbows and his midriff.
His mind reeled, but his body was already reacting like the soldier he was. He stamped down hard on the foot of a man and then raked his heel down the shin of another, all the while lunging and struggling this way and that.
Had he been able to free his arms, he might have stood a chance, but the grip on his elbows was spectacularly tight and painful, other hands grasping him as he was pulled sharply to his left.
His mind began to calm despite the circumstances and he noted the creak as an outside gate was opened. Waving his fingers as best he could, he felt the edge of a brick and mortar wall and then felt the brush of a large garden plant with waxy leaves.
Then he was being bundled unceremoniously through another door and out of the weather. A doorway, eight paces within, and then a right turn. Twelve paces along the corridor and then a left. Two paces and suddenly he was thrust violently to the floor.
Before he could find his senses and struggle to his knees, however, huge hands clamped themselves around his elbows and shoulders and pushed him down to what felt like a pile of rough sacking. While he struggled in vain, the bag was whipped from his head and he blinked as his eyes adjusted.
He was in a bare room, reasonably well lit by a leaded window opposite. The room was clearly in the process of decoration or restoration from the workmen’s detritus around him: piles of brick and plaster, sacks of goods and tools strewn here and there. The shape blotting out a large portion of the window slowly resolved itself into the shape of a tall man in a grey cloak and tunic, thin and bordering on dangerously so. It was not until the figure turned to the side and nodded at the men holding Fronto that he saw the pronounced jaw and hook nose silhouetted against the white.