‘What in the name…’ came the second commanding voice from nearby, and Fronto reappraised. Two men down but only injured. Four men still intact, and the leader by the rear exit. Soon they would pull together and he would be in trouble.
Leaping towards the two at the head of the group, who had initially passed him while he hid, he smacked one of them in the centre of the back with the staff, hearing ribs break. The second man jumped lithely out of the way, and two others were now closing on him. Three down, but three well-prepared men now tightening in an arc around him. All three had clubs a good two feet long. He had the reach, of course, but the moment those men got inside the span of his staff, his weapon would be rendered ineffective and he would have to fight off clubs with his fists. The situation was beginning to look rather dire.
Buying himself time to think, Fronto began to twirl his staff around him in a very showy fashion, passing it from hand to hand behind his back with each rotation, making sure to keep himself far enough from walls and shelves to avoid catching the sweep of the weapon. He could almost have laughed. Masgava and he had argued for several hours over why the big man had bothered teaching him such a clearly decorative move. He’d not been able to see any circumstance in which being able to do this would be of benefit.
Yet here he was, spinning the thing like an acrobat and holding off three thugs in the process.
Time. He had a moment to think. Could he get out of the nearer of the doors?
But that would leave these men with free rein in his warehouse. An escape, but hardly a win.
His spin faltered for a moment as the staff caught the hand of one of the men who’d tried tentatively edging closer. It hadn’t been his weapon hand, sadly, but certainly that appendage would not be useful for some time, if ever.
A cry of dismay at the far end of the warehouse changed everything. The second sound, which followed quickly on the first, was a familiar voice.
‘Fronto?’
Not Masgava, after all. In fact, it was the slightly pinched tone of Glykon, the local recruit to his business. He’d found early on that there was something that unsettled him about Glykon, but right now he had to admit that he’d rarely been more grateful to hear his name called.
‘Here!’ he replied, noting the sudden sounds of a scuffle at the warehouse’s far end. He heard the distinctive rasp of a sword leaving a scabbard’s collar and flinched for a moment. His spinning staff went slightly astray and he lost his spin-rhythm. Fortunately, the three men facing him had turned their attention away from their prey, focusing on the new activity at the far end.
‘Fronto! I’m coming,’ Glykon yelled, and then: ‘get out of my way you greasy anus!’
There was a sound that Fronto recognised as sharpened iron being turned aside by hard wood, and the interlopers’ leader yelled ‘pull out!’
Fronto watched the three men turn and run, happy to get out of the range of his staff. The one with the broken ribs was on his feet now, arms huddled round his aching midriff, but running for his life with the rest. One of them was helping up the last man – the one Fronto had first winded. The Roman winced as the escaping troublemakers paused long enough to smash a few amphorae and grab a couple of the smaller, more portable, vases, and then they were gone.
Fronto leaned on his staff for a moment, heaving in grateful breaths. One of the now-fled thugs had helpfully placed their small lamp on the table while they’d faced him and had left it there when they ran, the light continuing to throw the room into golden visibility. As he stumped towards the table and then slid his feet into his sandals, he turned to see Glykon limping down the warehouse towards him. The local employee’s stubbled face and close-shorn black hair gleamed in the lamplight. He was holding one arm tight across his chest, blood from some small wound soaking into his chiton, and he’d clearly taken a blow to the leg that had caused the limp but not drawn blood. A lucky man, or else Glykon was more martially-skilled than Fronto had thought. The Greek had held only a short club and had survived a run in with a veteran criminal armed with a blade.
‘You alright, Domine?’
The Roman mode of address formed within a Greek sentence seemed extremely odd, but the tone was respectful and concerned, and Fronto found himself warming to the odd man.
‘Remarkably, I seem to be entirely unharmed,’ he glowered at a mass of pot sherds further along the warehouse and a growing pool of dark red around them. ‘My stock does not seem to have borne up quite so well. I think that’s the Chian busy running out into the gutters.’ He shook his head, turning to more immediate concerns. ‘And you? I see you’re bleeding. Is it just a flesh wound? We’d best get you seen to. It’s a bit early for the physicians to be open in town, but Balbus’ major domo is a former field medic, and he knows a thing or two about wounds.’
Glykon smiled. ‘Your wife is beside herself with worry, sir. I can walk on to master Balbus’ house, or even stitch the wound myself. First thing’s first: let’s get you home, sir.’
Fronto nodded slowly. ‘If you’re really alright. I cannot thank you enough for your timely arrival. My business concerns would have been the last of my worries in another quarter of an hour.’
Glykon gestured to the door. ‘I’ve brought the spare keys, sir. Go ahead and sluice down in the fountain outside and I’ll lock up and meet you there. You could do without being spattered with other people’s blood when the domina sees you. It would raise difficult questions, sir.’
Fronto nodded. ‘Quite right. Sage advice, there, my friend. I’ll see you outside when I’ve cleaned up. And when we get home I want to set a two-man armed guard in the warehouse each night. Hierocles has just shifted his game up a notch. I’m going to make him sorry for this.’
* * * * *
‘I still don’t like this.’
Lucilia nodded patiently. ‘I know dear. You’re startlingly un-Roman in your outlook sometimes, you know, my love? But bear in mind that these people will soon have a roof over their head, a warm home, good meals and even a few coins. Better than the free but poor of Rome. And every slave you buy is someone you save from fieldwork or the mines, if you’re feeling philanthropic again. They won’t understand their good fortune after spending their youth living in mud huts and washing in streams.’
Fronto snorted. ‘Sorry, Lucilia, but that’s the sort of blinkered Romanitas that only afflicts those who haven’t fought alongside the Gauls. Don’t forget that many of them served in Caesar’s army. They have their own world that’s in some strange ways more civilised than ours. And they don’t live in mud huts. They have stone- and timber-built houses with windows and doors and rugs and furniture.’
‘And there’s little chance of another servile war,’ Lucilia went on as though he hadn’t spoken. ‘The Spartacus debacle taught people a lesson.’
‘Balls! It taught people a lesson for a couple of years. A few people have shunned slaves, but the rest stopped treating them so badly for a few months until the horrors were forgotten, then they went straight back to beating the boys and humping the girls like a good Roman pater familias.’
‘Then you be an exception to the rule.’
‘You don’t understand, Lucilia. The majority of the slaves at the market will be Gauls of one tribe or another. It’s possible I was even commanding the fight when some of them were taken. And even if not, they were once free men with a sense of nobility and they’re hardly likely to view a new Roman master with any level of acceptance. If you buy a Gaul and speak Latin, watch for a makeshift knife in the night.’
‘Then just be choosy about who we buy. I am quite capable of selecting good house slaves. You can steer us right in terms of Gauls, and Glykon knows the trade world, so he can advise us well on who to take on for your business.’