“Gnaeus, what do you think of the General.” He cast the other man a sidelong glance.
“Off the record, I mean.”
Priscus hesitated a moment, not because of whom he was with, but watchful for anyone else within earshot.
“You’re only asking me that because you’ve already made your mind up about something and you want me to confirm it for you. Are you sure you really want me to answer?”
Fronto nodded, still not facing his second in command.
“Well, sir, I think he’s a political weasel. Vicious, heartless and cold. He’ll use any resource he can find to in order to achieve his goals.”
“Much my thoughts on the subject. He’s trying to groom me into the position of some kind of senior strategist for the staff, which will mean removing me from the command of the Tenth.” He growled. “And I’ve had it up to here with senior staff.”
Fronto made a throat-cutting motion.
“I don’t trust him and, if I remain on his staff, he’ll stop trusting me pretty soon too. Once that happens, I’ll be in serious trouble, and the Tenth could suffer too. I’m not good at this political game. If I was, I’d have made more of a try for the Cursus Honorum. I actually do need your advice, not just confirmation.”
Priscus coughed gently, as the smoke of the pyre had shifted in their direction. They began to walk, side by side and hands clasped behind their backs, away from the smoke.
“You may be right. You could be in trouble. We could be in trouble. Frankly, I wouldn’t worry about that. We’re deep in hostile territory, chasing a pretty nasty enemy with unsure allies around us, possibly with years of blood and guts campaigning ahead of us and you’re worrying about political squabbles?”
Priscus took a deep breath, a look of concentration on his face and Fronto knew what that meant: his primus pilus was about to say something offensive, ignoring any proprieties of rank.
“Don’t be bloody stupid, Marcus! You can’t go running away from responsibility every damn time. You’ve backed out of everything you’ve ever done that could secure your future. Unless you want to end up like us in the centurionate: dead at forty, or lying in a ditch in Rome with one leg begging for a coin, or living out your last years as a farmer on a soldier’s pension, you damn well take everything Caesar offers you.”
Fronto stopped, turned on his primus pilus and raised a warning finger. Priscus gave him no opportunity to interrupt.
“No, Marcus. You wanted a straight opinion, and you’ll get it. I’d jump at the chance to make such a position in the world. One day my kids might inherit a shop or an inn. If I had what you’re being offered, they might inherit an estate in Umbria. They might even have been a Consul for Gods’ sake. If Caesar asks you to be his personal arse-wiper, you do it. You owe it to those of us who’ll never get the chance.”
Fronto frowned.
“But I disagree with him. I think he’s wrong more than half the time.”
“All the more reason! As one of his senior officers you’re in the position to at least have a say in what happens, and the higher up you get, the more say you’ll have. If you hadn’t been where you are, d’you think we’d have found and beaten the Helvetii last time? No. ‘No’ is the answer you’re too wrapped up in your own uncertainty to see. The problem is: you’re one of us. Maybe too much one of us for your own good. You’ll never be a proper commander, because you think too much like your men. It means you’ll never be comfortable and happy, but it serves us well. Our lives get better, safer and more comfortable with people like you tempering Caesar’s decisions. I can’t understand how a high-ranking noble family managed to bear someone like you. You’d have been more at home with my family, baking bread in Nola. Now go and see the general and wipe his arse!”
Fronto smiled at Priscus.
“You have a strange way, Gnaeus. You can be deferential when you need to, but you could make a King feel like an irresponsible child when you chastise him.”
The smile was returned. Priscus patted his superior officer on the shoulder as if mollifying a minor.
“Never mind sir, one day you’ll look back on this and sob like a small boy.”
Priscus stopped in his tracks and saluted Fronto before turning and making his way back to the Tenth, who were assembling on one side of the grassy depression that had been chosen for the funeral. The legion gathered around the packs and wagons, securing ropes and tightening the straps on their equipment.
Fronto wandered off in the direction of the command unit. Caesar and his staff officers stood upwind of the smoke on the bank, watching the legions making their preparations. Already the burial detachment was formed up next to the pyre; the tombstone, urn and tools at the ready, waiting for the mass to finish its slow collapse.
As Fronto approached the colour party, Balbus came jogging toward him, carrying the cavalry spear from the night before. Stopping in his tracks, Fronto turned to face the older legate. Balbus was fighting for breath and, as he came to a halt, he thrust the spear into the ground and bent over forwards with his hands on his knees, breathing heavily.
Fronto smiled. Balbus complained often about the restrictions his age placed on his physical involvement with the army, but Fronto could only hope that he were as fit and active when he reached that age. There were a number of legionaries and lesser officers in the Tenth that Fronto knew would have trouble making that distance across the field in the time the Eighth’s legate had made it.
“Out of breath? Why didn’t you send a runner? That is what they’re there for.”
Balbus straightened up, still puffing heavily.
“I … I don’t think this is a … messenger job.”
He indicated the spear.
“Have a look.”
Fronto looked in puzzlement.
“I’ve seen it Quintus. Quite close, remember?”
The older man nodded impatiently.
“Yes, yes. But did you really have a proper look at it?”
Fronto shook his head.
“It’s a cavalry spear. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen a thousand.”
Balbus shook his head and wrenched the spear from the turf, slamming it back in inches from Fronto’s foot.
“Use your eyes man.”
Fronto leaned forward, making a close examination of the spear. It was a normal, ordinary, dull cavalry spear.
Except for the marks.
The marks.
He bent his head closer.
“What the hell are they?”
Balbus shrugged.
“My guess is some kind of Gaulish markings, maybe religious, or political, or even just a curse or something. I didn’t want to take it to one of Longinus’ Gaulish men; after all, we don’t want to alert the man that we’re on to him. I have a couple of men in the Eighth that can speak their language with reasonable skill; the result of being stationed in Transalpine Gaul for so long. I do remember seeing marks similar to that though, carved or painted in various places like graffiti.”
Fronto smiled.
“So we want to find out what it says, and maybe see if we can find the matching one of the pair among Longinus’ men.”
Balbus nodded and, once more, pulled the spear from the ground.
“I’ll speak to a couple of people about it tonight while things are quieter.”
Fronto smiled.
“Thanks, Quintus. We’ve got to get this psychopath. Can’t have Gaulish assassins hiding in the legions.”
The two clasped hands and then went their separate ways.
* * * * *
Aulus Ingenuus was a lesser cavalry officer, a decurion, who had volunteered for this duty because it got him out in the open. Who could have preferred to be back in that hollow with the choking smoke of burning flesh filling his throat and making him gag? Better by far to be out here, even if it meant the danger of meeting the Helvetii, and the constant smell of Gaulish auxiliaries who seemed unable to grasp the most rudimentary concepts of bathing.