Balbus shook his head. ‘It’s very colourful and religiously significant I suppose, but does it have a bearing on the matter?’
‘I think so. Those we’ve killed correspond with their god. Toutatis, Rudianos and Dis were the ones you fought in the villa. There was one who looked thin and death-like, who would be Dis. One was a big, bull-necked man, who would be Rudianos the war god and taker of heads. Not sure about Toutatis. I wasn’t there for the fight, but I’d be willing to wager there is a connection. Abellio is a hunter and forest god, and Aurelius said the man had a bow. Belenos is the shining one. Blond. Young. You see what I mean? Perhaps knowing who the others are will give us an advantage?’
Fronto nodded. ‘Go on, then.’
‘Well we can assume that Molacos is Taranis, the Thunderer, who you’d call Jupiter I guess.’ He paused, pinching the bridge of his nose with his eyes shut and mouth working as he turned slowly in a circle, pointing at stones he could only see in his mind’s eye. ‘Belisama. Bright huntress, sister of Belenos.’
‘She’ll be spitting teeth now then, after Aurelius butchered her brother. Might be easy to bait into doing something stupid.’
‘That’s a fair assumption,’ Procles murmured. ‘When my brother died, I tore half a ship apart in revenge.’
‘Cernunnos,’ the Arvernian went on. ‘The forest lord. Beloved of the druids.’
‘Could he be a druid?’
‘Very possibly. They are not averse to taking action. They don’t usually get involved in battles, but they have no qualms about killing, and plenty of them are still around, bitter at having raised a rebellion that failed. Next would be… Mogont.’ He nodded. ‘I remember him. I saw him before I came to Massilia. Big man. Huge. Like an ox in a man suit.’
‘Wonderful. At least he should be easy to spot.’
‘And the last one is… Catubodua. The battle crow. She’ll be vile and tough to handle.’
Fronto nodded as his friend straightened and opened his eyes. ‘Molacos, a druid, a vengeful sister, a giant and a vile woman. Lovely. The Cadurci breed them odd, don’t they?’
‘They won’t all be Cadurci,’ Cavarinos replied. ‘There’ll be Arverni in there, no doubt, and maybe Carnutes. All those mad and disaffected left over from Alesia have a stake in this.’
‘I remember you telling me you hated druids and didn’t believe in the gods and all that,’ Fronto mused. ‘You were quite scathing about the whole thing, if I recall. How come you know so much about them?’
Cavarinos shrugged. ‘My brother was an obsessive on the subject, as well as a moron. I grew up around it. I’ll bet you know all about how your engineers build aqueducts even though you’ve never done it.’
Fronto shook his head. ‘No one knows the mind of an engineer. Peculiar bunch.’ He straightened. ‘Alright, lads. Grab a staff and a knife and let’s go clear the rats out of this nest.’ Aurelius made to rise and Fronto placed a hand on his shoulder, gently pushing him back down. ‘Not you. You wait for Glyptus and the medic.’
* * * * *
Fronto kicked the sleeping mat irritably, watching it skitter across the floor and the cockroaches scatter from beneath it.
‘Should have guessed they’d have run for it as soon as they were located.’ He reached down to the wooden bowl filled with some miscellaneous stewed meat. ‘Still warm, so they’d only just gone when we got here. And now we’re back to square one.’
‘Not quite,’ Procles muttered. ‘Now there are seven of us and only five of them. The odds have changed.’
‘Not for the better, though,’ added Balbus, who had been excavating a pile of refuse in the corner and now rose with something in his hand, holding it out for Fronto, who took it. Dirty and scratched as it was, the inscribed bark chitty was clear enough.
‘It’s from the graecostadium,’ he sighed, rubbing his hair and sucking his teeth irritably.
‘The what?’ Procles asked.
‘The slave market behind the forum. Someone in this house bought fourteen Gauls yesterday for a bargain price. Paid in Massiliot drachma, too.’
‘So now instead of ten against seven, we’re seven against nineteen? Shit.’
‘The only bonus is that the slaves will have come in recently from Massilia, probably in the same bloody fleet we joined. They were probably being unloaded as we disembarked. You remember those slaves – they weren’t in top condition. They’d walked from Belgae lands to Massilia, then were loaded into ships for a shaky voyage. They’ll be wasted and weak for a long while yet.’
‘They’ll have fire in their hearts, though,’ Cavarinos noted.
‘True. Well here’s the situation as I see it. We don’t know where they are again. We’re outnumbered and they know we’re onto them, so there’s no chance of us making an attack on them or springing any kind of surprise anymore.’
‘So,’ Agasander asked, frowning, ‘if they aren’t here now, where are they?’
‘No idea. Lurking in an alley somewhere?’
‘Nineteen Gauls, some cloaked and masked, some clearly slaves with brands, all armed and one with a ruined face. There’s no alley in Rome dark enough to hide that lot at this time of day,’ Balbus said.
‘Might they have a second safe house?’
‘If they did, why keep this one?’ Fronto felt a cold stone settle in his belly. ‘They’re not hiding, are they?’
Cavarinos caught his look and chewed his lip. ‘No. They’re making they’re move. We’re busy dithering here and they’re on their way to free the king. We’ve triggered it, too. Aurelius killed two of them, and they know their time’s up. They had to go now or they’d miss their chance altogether.’
‘They’re probably already at the carcer,’ Fronto breathed. ‘Shit.’
A heartbeat later, the seven men were out of the house and running. ‘They can’t be far ahead of us,’ Procles huffed as he ran. ‘Quarter of an hour? Half at most.’
‘That’s long enough,’ Fronto said, breathing heavily and, as they turned into the Vicus Longus a few streets later, he turned to Cavarinos, running alongside him. ‘Are you comfortable with this?’
The Arvernian turned a surprised look on him. ‘Comfortable? Of course not.’
‘Want to go home and stay out of it? Last chance.’
Cavarinos simply shook his head and ran a little faster.
Chapter Nineteen
Molacos of the Cadurci stepped out of the side alley, his breath fogging his eyes, funnelled by the sweaty inside of the ceramic mask and kept locked in by the thick woollen hood of the cloak.
‘What in Hades are you supposed to be?’ the salesman snorted. ‘Something for the festival?’
The tip of Molacos’ long, Gallic sword appeared between the folds of his cloak.
‘Listen,’ the man said, nerves now inflecting his voice, ‘tell Rubio that I know I’m late with the money, but I’ll have it by the kalends. Don’t do anything…’
His words trailed off into a soft exhalation as the blade slammed home into his throat just above the notch where his collar bones met. Molacos instinctively stepped aside, maintaining his grip as the jet of crimson splashed through where he’d been standing. Blood on the cloak would attract far too much attention. Quickly he wrenched the blade out, unable to twist it from this angle, and so fighting the suction of the ravaged flesh. As the man fell away, shaking and gurgling, blood bubbling and spurting, surrounding him with a red lake, Molacos stepped back, wiped his blade on a rag and tossed the scrap onto the shaking body.
‘Who buys shit like this,’ big Mogont murmured, stepping out of the shadows and picking up a lamp in the shape of a phallus from the laden cart.