Marius' Mules V: Hades' Gate (31 page)

"I would suggest you step aside, sunshine, and let the lady and I out before we cause you any trouble." He smiled. "She's a biter."

The mountain of muscle and bone stayed put, but Fronto felt his heartbeat ease as the big man suddenly became a silhouette, the door opening behind him to admit the streaming sunlight. Of course, Berengarus was a guard, not a doorman. It had not occurred to him to lock the portal after letting in the visitors.

"Step aside or your dominus will be pulling splinters from your spine until the day the Styx runs dry."

Fronto could just make out the ebony skinned legs of Masgava between the tree trunks of the barbarian's own. As Berengarus moved to the side - not in obedience, but rather to avoid having his back to this new potential enemy - Fronto grinned at the Numidian in his service who stood in the doorway, hefting a makeshift weapon formed of a narrow wooden plank sheared off at a diagonal halfway its length, leaving a nasty, jagged, splintered tip.

"I am truly sorry for Julia and for your loss, Pompey. I think you need to consider your accusations before you level them, but grief does stupid things to people so we'll go now and leave you to your mourning."

As the general's eyelid flickered in irritation, Fronto turned to the Germanic thing by the door. "And you and I are going to part ways now too. I pray it will be the last time we meet, but I don't like to be threatened. Bear that in mind in case it isn't."

Turning his back on the tableau, he guided Lucilia gently but firmly by the arm, out into the street and towards the hired litter, where the four slaves waited to hoist it to their shoulders. As he passed, he nodded gratefully at Masgava, who returned the gesture, made some arcane gesture at the barbarian by the door and then casually tossed his makeshift weapon into the atrium before backing away and joining the Falerii.

The door stood open, the Germanic giant watching with angry eyes, as Lucilia mounted the litter and it lifted and moved off down the street, Fronto electing to walk alongside with his Numidian companion.

As they turned a corner and made for the Capitol, the bulk of Pompey's new theatre disappearing from view, Lucilia pulled aside the litter's curtain and leaned out, regarding her husband and his retainer.

"Are we safe? Should we run?"

"He's not stupid enough to send someone to stop us in the streets."

"And later?"

Fronto and Masgava exchanged a look. The latter shrugged and Fronto rolled his shoulders. "He'll probably begin to calm down and see it for what it is: terrible misfortune. If he doesn't, then he's going to have a bad time bottling it all up."

"And the elixir of Faleria's?"

"He can have any physician or herbalist look at it and they'll all tell him it's harmless. He can suspect what he likes, but there's no evidence that we had anything to do with Julia's death. There can't be, given that we
didn't
have anything to do with it."

Lucilia seemed a little happier at that and disappeared inside to be alone with her thoughts. At a gesture from Masgava, the two men slowed their pace, falling slightly behind, out of earshot of the litter.

"Do you really think the general will calm down and see sense?" the Numidian asked quietly.

"Why?"

"I saw his face from the doorway. It was not the face of reason."

Fronto thought back on everything he had learned of the general and came quickly to the inescapable conclusion that Masgava's fears were far from unfounded.

"I think he will have trouble letting go of this. It will drive such a wedge between him and Caesar that their differences will be irreconcilable and he still thinks of Caesar and I as close. With Crassus out east and half Rome bought by Pompey, he has virtual autonomy in the city. I think he will try and revenge himself on Faleria and myself."

"Will he send men?"

"Doubtful. His position is too public. Such an act, if it were uncovered, would ruin his popularity. He is the noble victor and the benefactor of Rome's people with only Caesar to rival him. He will try to ruin things for us, but it will all be by legal means."

Masgava gave him a meaningful look. "Respectfully, dominus, would you wager your wife and sister's lives on that?"

Fronto glanced at his companion, wondering how he would be coping with things had he not employed the outspoken, forthright Numidian. It was almost like having Priscus at his side again. He had missed martial companionship more even than he'd realised. But most important of all, the man had raised a vital point. He
was
sure of Pompey's need to stay clean, but not sure enough to bet Lucilia and Faleria on it.

"When we get back to the house, I'm going to go speak to the girls. I need to persuade them that now is a good time to go back to the villa in Puteoli and visit mother. If they are out of the city, I don't have to worry about them."

"Will they be safe there?"

"Galronus will accompany them and there's some good men at the estate, and plenty of strong arms for hire at the port of Neapolis. A little coin and they could be as safe as a legion in a fortress."

"And what of you, dominus?"

Fronto smiled. The big Numidian had been rebellious in his tone when first they met, using the word 'dominus' - in the manner of a weapon, coated with bile - to address Fronto. Since becoming a paid, trusted member of the household, he had been advised that he could be informal with Fronto when they were alone, and yet he had continued with the word, though now infusing it with a surprisingly amount of respect.

"Me" Fronto replied. "I will continue to train and heal, with your help. I fear I have broken my bridges with this general now, too. First Caesar and then Pompey. I am becoming an island in a sea of dangerous fish, Masgava. I had best learn how to fight them off or how to swim damn fast!"

"Then perhaps it is time you began to hire a small guard of trustworthy men?"

Fronto shook his head. "Gangs of thugs never improve the situation, they just exacerbate things. We've done nothing wrong and I intend to go on as though that's the case. We devote this afternoon to seeing the ladies packed and prepared to leave in the morning with Galronus and most of the staff. Then you and I get back to the routine."

Masgava nodded and the pair picked up their step, falling in alongside the litter as it turned once more, heading for the Forum Boarium that lay between them and home.

* * * * *

The early afternoon sun beat down mercilessly, baking the life out of the gardens, wilting the flowers and draining the energy from the two men in the wide peristyle garden.

"We should train with the wooden swords" Masgava reproached, two of the heavy practice weapons in his hand, eyeing Fronto with a strange, unreadable expression.

Fronto smiled and drew the blade from the sheath, raising it so that it caught the bright sunlight and sent blinding flashes around the garden as he turned it. The perfect, Noric-steel blade with the straight fuller showed no sign of wear or neglect. The perfect orichalcum hilt with the figures of the Capitoline triad was polished to mirror brightness. The ivory handle was now wrapped with burgundy-coloured felt to negate the slightly mis-sized hand-grip. Fronto had continually toyed with the idea of having the hilt replaced. A new ivory grip that better matched his hand and a new hilt that displayed Fortuna and Nemesis perhaps?

Masgava pursed his lips.

"That's not a soldier's weapon."

"No. But it's perfectly weighted and formed, nonetheless. Its former owner was a master swordsman. It's a special piece of equipment."

"You will train with the wooden swords now, though."

"I don't need to build up my arm muscle so much, Masgava, so I don't need the weight. And the added danger of a real cut might improve my reflexes."

"We start with the wooden swords for a week and more. You think your arm muscles are strong? Bulky? I see what looks like a purse drawstring with a knot in it. There is much more muscle to be had and a lot more strength. If you need the extra edge, we will then move to real swords soon, but not your pretty toy."

"One gladius is much the same as another, and I want to get used to this one. It's sort of special to me. It has a lot of evil history to make up for."

"No" Masgava said, stepping forward and knocking aside the raised blade with the practice weapons. "You will begin with wooden swords and then you will move on to whatever blade I place in your hands. It will like as not be a different blade each day. You will train with the Thracian sica and the Gallic broad-blade. You will train with the Dacian falcata and the Arcadian Xiphos and Kopis. You will train with every type of sword I can lay my hands on. And sometimes also with axes, tridents, forks, spears, javelins… the dagger, the cestus, the naked fist. Sometimes you will learn how to down a man with an elbow or a thumb. And when we have exhausted weapons and body parts, you will train with chairs and vases, amphorae and" his eyes roved around the garden. "And anything that comes to hand."

Without warning, the big Numidian spun, his foot connecting sharply with a small statue of a nymph that stood at the corner of the garden's pool, shearing it neatly at the base and sending it with staggering accuracy straight at Fronto's face. The pupil, startled, raised his perfect sword just in time to stop the marble nymph breaking his nose, though the lovely orichalcum hilt took a dent in the process. He glared angrily at the former gladiator.

"Was that strictly necessary? That's my mother's ornamental fountain!"

"Would you try and argue a murderer out of such a tactic?"

"Of course not" Fronto snapped.

"Then accept it and learn. Everything is a weapon. The dust that blinds when thrown; the position of the sun to discomfort an attacker; the loose rock that can be turned into a missile. Any object, in fact, can become a missile, a blade or a club. To be prepared for any fight is mostly a matter of mental attitude rather than skill. See everything around you not for what it is, but for what it could be."

Fronto nodded, glancing guiltily at the broken nymph lying on the gravel. His mother would certainly make him pay for that.

"I shall need a lot of money" Masgava said in his flat, matter-of-fact voice.

"Oh yes?"

"I need to procure weapons and armour of various types, and not cast-offs that are brittle and damaged. If you wish to learn properly, it is not a thing to try and do cheaply."

Fronto sagged.

"Look, Masgava, I'm not really sure just how necessary all of this is? I mainly wanted to get fit and to improve my skills after letting them slide for a year or more. I'm too old to start training as a gladiator."

"Really?" the Numidian asked scathingly, walking slowly around him in a circle, eying him like a purchaser at the slave block.

"Well, when am I ever going to need to know how to kill someone with a marble nymph, no matter how pretty and full-breasted?"

Masgava stopped once more in front of him and folded his arms. "You do not listen to your own tales, dominus."

"What?"

"In two years alone, you have fought a gang of men through your own burning house, been set upon by gladiators in your bath, been taken on by assassins in your camp and hunted through these very rooms by murderous officers."

Fronto blinked. Had it happened that often?

"And that is without considering the dangers you faced against the Celts. And if you go east to join Crassus, you will face the Parthians and their desert allies who know how to kill better than any Roman and who revel in the joy of blood. And if you sign up to serve in Africa in the expectation of rebellions, you will have to face
my
people. Do you relish
that
thought? How long would you last against five of me? Fifty of me? Five hundred of me?"

Fronto spread his free hand in a conciliatory gesture, noting with irritation how three of the fingers were slightly raised from the rest after being broken last year and not quite setting correctly. In cold, wet weather they ached as badly as his knee.

"Very well. I have a habit of getting eight shades of shit kicked out of me. You've made your point."

"I do not think I have" Masgava replied and crouched. Fronto eyed him suspiciously, shifting his grip on the sword hilt.

The Numidian messed with the ties on his sandal, refastening it, and stood again.

"See that the nerves are making you twitchy. Instead of pouring all your concentration into being ready with the blade to counter whatever I am doing, pay better attention to what exactly that is, and then you will be more able to counter appropriately."

"But you just retied your sandal strap."

"Did I?"

In a blur, faster than Fronto could have imagined possible, the Numidian flicked his foot forwards and up. The sandal-boot, the same style as worn by the military, came free, the tie having been loosened enough. The hobnailed sole flew with once again unerring accuracy for Fronto's face. Fast as he could, and proud of his speed, Fronto jerked his blade to the side and knocked the flying boot out of the way.

In the blink of an eye, as he looked down, a smug grin plastered across his face at so outwitting the manoeuvre, the big Numidian's bare foot kicked him in the bad knee, having continued upwards after flicking off the sandal.

The blow was clearly a 'pulled' one, deliberately light, so as to cause no real damage. Still the gentle strike was enough to crumple Fronto's leg, causing him to collapse, smug grin still forming, in a jellied heap on the floor.

"Still think I'm overdoing things?"

Fronto stared up at the Numidian, trying to ignore the throbbing in his knee which, he was fairly certain, would have been utterly shattered had Masgava wished it. He'd barely had the time to react to the flying shoe that would have bruised and disoriented him, but even that had been simple distraction while the foot came in to do the damage. The man was a marvel!

"Fine. Your point has been adequately made. And now that you've undone a few weeks' work on my knee, what do you propose we do for the afternoon."