Cavarinos shook his head. ‘No. They’d wait for daylight to begin if it was darkness that was hampering them. This is different. There are maybe three or four of them out there… so where are the rest?’
Fronto’s eyes widened. ‘A ruse? A decoy?’
Cavarinos nodded. ‘How well protected is your rear?’
Fronto noted sourly the presence of Arcadios. Without the expert archer at the back door, the answer was: a lot less protected than he’d like. Arcadios had been called from his bed to the front door because of the archers.
‘Who’s looking after the rear door?’
Arcadios frowned. ‘Zeno and Evagoras.’
Fronto gestured to Catháin and Arcadios. ‘You stay here. Keep trying that little trick every now and then and keep them busy. You two,’ he pointed at Pamphilus and Clearchus, ‘stay with them. Let no one in.’
With a beckoning finger to Masgava, Aurelius, Cavarinos and Balbus, Fronto raced through the villa, heading for the rear door. As he rounded the final corner, his heart in his throat, he was dismayed, though far from surprised, to see the door wide open and the two Massiliot mercenaries sprawled across the threshold in a wide pool of their own blood.
‘Shit!’
He looked at the four men with him.
‘Masgava, you stay here. Don’t let anyone in or out. You are my rock, alright?’ The Numidian nodded, drawing his blade at last and standing, implacable like a colossus, at the door’s side. Fronto turned to the others. ‘Balbus, can you check the private suites. That’s where they’ll have made for straight away, but they’ve probably found them empty by now. Cavarinos, look after my father-in-law.’
Despite Balbus’ sour look at the command, he nodded and Cavarinos gave Fronto a supportive squeeze of the shoulder before running off to check the family’s rooms.
‘Aurelius? You’re with me. Let’s hope the wine store’s still secure.’
* * * * *
The wine store was a large, brick-vaulted room built into the substructures of the villa proper where the hill began to slope away with a view of the sea. It had two doors: one down a short flight of steps from a corridor in the rear of the house, and a second from the grassy slope outside. Yet despite it having an external door Fronto had deemed it a safe location, partially because the enemy would naturally seek them out in the living areas of the house, but also because that rear door was as secure as the villa’s walls unless opened from the inside. The outer door was wide and high and formed from oak planks over a hand-width thick, reinforced with cross spars also of oak. For this door, when opened, came down rather than swinging out, forming a shallow ramp, up which to move heavy loads of amphorae. It was one of Catháin’s modifications to the business and had sped up movement of the huge jars no end. But with the enemy inside the villa now, such external security measures were immaterial.
Fronto and Aurelius hurtled round the corner at a run and the former legate felt his heart leap as he saw the open door at the top of the stairs. For a heartbeat or two he found himself wondering in a panic where Pamphilus and Clearchus, who were supposed to be guarding the door, were and then he remembered them emerging from that room by the front door. The idiots! They had heard the troubles and run towards it, abandoning their position here. He made a mental note to beat them black and blue for that, once he had control of the villa again.
Furious, he turned into the doorway. He could hear swearing in Latin in an elegant female voice, which could only mean that Lucilia was still alive. His heart in his mouth, he took the steps three at a time, Aurelius right behind him.
His worst fears were realised as his gaze took in the room. Pamphilus and Clearchus had given that large external door a little extra security when they had moved his wife’s living quarters down here, in that they had shifted all the racks of heavy amphorae and propped them against the door. Of course, in doing so they had also effectively cut off the only escape route from the room if it were breached from the inside…
The far side of the bare brick room held his wife’s well-appointed bed and the smaller ones of the two boys, as well as temporary cots for the four women on the house’s staff. A table and two chairs and a single chest completed the furnishings, the whole lit by three oil lamps in niches on the walls.
Close to the stairs entrance, Fronto could see four cloaked figures with their backs to him. There had clearly already been a brief altercation as two of the villa’s slave women lay in the middle of the floor in a spreading pool of blood. Beyond that stood Lucilia and Andala, his wife holding his glorious orichalcum-hilted gladius defensively as she let forth a stream of curses and invective that would make a centurion blush, while the Bellovaci girl brandished his second best sword in a very purposeful manner. Behind the two women, the remaining two slave girls sat on the bed, holding back Balbina and little Lucius and Marcus and brandishing small eating knives desperately.
Rage threatened to take hold of Fronto. He’d felt it happen a couple of times before in his life – the ferocity that took him so thoroughly that he lost all sense of time, place and self, simply surrendering to the killing fury until there was no one left to fight. Britannia had been the worst. Not here! With immense difficulty, he forced it back down. This was no time for unchecked rage – he had to remain in control and make sure the women were safe.
As he stepped into the room, Aurelius coming up beside him, three of the four cloaked men turned their eerie, expressionless masks on him. For a moment, Fronto wondered why the four men had stopped in their attack in the first place. Even though Andala was whirling the sword as though born to it – and had clearly struck well with it, from the blood running down the tallest enemy’s free arm – they could still have easily overwhelmed the remaining women if they’d so wished. He realised rather sourly that they had held off killing the women so that their screams – or curses in his wife’s case – might draw their true prey to them. They might delight in killing Roman women and children, but it was Fronto they were here for.
Even as the three men facing him raised their weapons and stepped forward to strike, Fronto was bringing his own sword up. The centre one, tall and thin and willowy and with the wounded arm, stepped aside despite the press, twirling, and brought his wide blade across in a sweep that would have bitten deep into Fronto’s side had Aurelius not been there instantly, smacking the blow away with his gladius before whipping it back in an attempt to skewer the attacker, but the short, bull-shouldered man to the side was there immediately, blocking that blow.
Fronto’s sword lanced out forwards in a practised lunge, but the third, lithe, figure to the right simply turned sideways and the blade tore through his cloak alone. Not only was the man exceedingly fast, but Fronto was still largely unused to this long Gallic weapon and the weight and balance for such a thrust was all wrong.
Steel clashed and grated as he and Aurelius and the three men facing them danced their lethal jig, whirling, lunging, stabbing and swiping. Despite the two Romans’ skill and experience, they were still doing little more than defend their selves, holding off the three men. The Gauls were good at what they did and they outnumbered Fronto and Aurelius. It couldn’t go on like this. The Romans would tire first.
In brief snatches Fronto caught a glance of the room beyond their clash. Lucilia was still standing protectively in front of the children with the sword brandished, cursing the attackers like a foul-mouthed sailor, but Andala was weighing into the fray like a gladiator, her blade flashing and whirling as she parried and fought off the man facing her with far more style and skill than Fronto could have imagined her having.