Marius Mules III: Gallia Invicta (Marius' Mules) (65 page)

* * * * *

He opened his eyes again, with all the discomfort and pain that brought and slowly focused on the figure of Lucilia by his side. A second shape beyond resolved into that of his sister.

“I…”

He tried to rise but his world exploded with white pain.

“Lie still.” The voice of Faleria. “Lucilia here has treated your wounds with the consummate skill of a professional, aided by Posco, but it will be hours before you should sit up, let alone go about your ordinary business.”

“You were dumped at the front door in a large grain sack. What in the name of seven stupid Gods were you thinking, leaving the house on your own?”

Fronto winced and Faleria waved a finger.

“He’s too weak and bleary for recriminations and anger, Gnaeus. Wait until he’s stronger before you beat him with the stupidity stick.”

“My left hand feels like it’s been under the wheel of a cart. My ribs are aching, as are my shoulders and neck. But my face feels like I fell off the Tarpeian Rock head first.”

“Good.”

“Good?” he enquired in astonishment.

“Yes,” Lucilia replied. “If you can feel the pain then there is no permanent damage to your system. If you
couldn’t
feel the pain, I would have panicked. And you have only mentioned the wounds we had already located.”

“Well at least that’s something. The gathering are long gone, but Milo has stayed on for a while. We’ve been knocking about a few ideas.”

Fronto clenched his good hand and turned his head painfully to look at them.

“Here’s an idea: get out there with a bunch of men and find Clodius and Philopater. Follow them and see if there’s any hope of getting them alone. If you get the chance, bag ‘em up like they did to me and bring them here.”

“Hardly, but where we live there is not a great deal of access to a proper medicus and I have grown up taking care of the horses at the villa. The shape may be different, but the principle is the same.”

Fronto blinked.

“You’re a
horse
doctor?”

“After a fashion.”

She leaned closer.

“You had a narrow escape there, Marcus. That blow to your head could very easily have killed you, or at least left you blind, deaf, or a gibbering lunatic. Faleria has told me about what’s happening.”

“You cretin.
You
drew her into this when you agreed to bring her to Rome. I’m just giving her appropriate warnings. She cannot be expected to look out for herself if she is unaware of the dangers. Really, Marcus; there are times when I wonder how you command a legion, when you don’t seem to have even the tiniest fragment of common sense.”

“It feels like I’ve been
kicked
by a horse!”

“I must go and speak to Posco about the arrangements for the evening meal. And before you argue, you’re eating alone in here, where you can rest.”

Lucilia nodded and patted him gently on the chest.

“Absolutely right. I’ll keep you company while you eat.”

The wicked little knowing smile on Faleria’s face was not lost on him as she turned and left the room. Fronto sagged and closed his eyes.

* * * * *

Priscus nudged Milo and nodded to Galronus. The three men ducked back behind the temple of the Penates and Priscus glanced around himself once more. Dusk had descended less than an hour ago and now the last of the light was threatening to vanish, oil lamps, braziers and torches springing to life all around the forum behind them and up on the Palatine hill to their right. The temple was closed now and no lights flickered in the window.

The dozen men they had brought with them as protection lurked between the buildings back down the slope, ready to rush out and engage if needed, but conveniently out of sight otherwise. The occasional passing figure gave them all a curious glance, but no more; too much interest in gangs of thugs in Rome was an unhealthy thing to have.

“It
is
just a little too convenient.”

The three men, shadowed by their hired help, had located Clodius in the early afternoon outside the entrance to the theatre, a great timber structure in the Velabrum so tall that it almost matched the heights of the Capitol. The man had spent the next few hours visiting a number of houses, spending no longer than twenty minutes in each, most of his large bodyguard remaining outside on each occasion.

His shadowing pursuers had almost given up following him when, beside the house of the Vestals, Clodius and his guards had met up with Philopater and a second gang. Priscus had strained his eyes trying to get a good look at the Egyptian’s face. He’d have loved to have seen that smashed nose, but the light was too low and the distance too great.

Just as the three men were about to gather their own hirelings and leave, there had been a brief altercation between Clodius and his chief enforcer. The nobleman had sent most of his men with Philopater, who had taken the large force and left toward the Subura, heading back to the Clodian residence. The half dozen men that remained with him were the biggest and most disciplined-looking of the bunch, and the group headed off past the slopes of the Velian ridge and away from the forum.

“I’d give good money to know where he’s going. Either Philopater disagreed with him going there, or he doesn’t want that Egyptian scum with him. Either way, it’s an interesting development.”

“Fronto wants him dead. There’s seven of them. The
three
of us could take them down even without your men.”

They became aware that moment of a cacophony of bangs, thuds and shouts back among the buildings on the lower slope of the Velian. Cries of dismay marked the location of Priscus and Milo’s gang as Philopater’s much larger force fell on them from the rear, clearly intent on murder.

“Are you
mad
? There must be fifty of them.”

Galronus growled angrily, but a voice cut through the early evening air from down by the edge of the marsh beyond the Via Sacra and distracted them.

The situation was worsened with the sound of the brief struggle among the buildings behind them coming to a close. The dozen men they had brought along had hardly bought them enough time to argue their course, let alone pursue it.

Without waiting for conversation or argument, Priscus ducked out around the temple and ran down the slope, his lame leg giving him a peculiar and ungainly gait, across the white paving of the Via Sacra, where he disappeared into the shadows around the shrine of Jupiter on the far side.

He stopped, catching his breath, heaving in air, as Galronus and Milo followed suit, pelting down the hill at breakneck speed and across the open ground in between. Priscus looked up, to the left and right, trying to decide what to do, as he rubbed his hip vigorously. His leg felt as though it were on fire. He couldn’t keep this up for long. He couldn’t tell the other two, but there was no hope of him getting back as far as the house of the Falerii.

Philopater’s men were emerging between the buildings on the Velian hill, looking down the slope, trying to spot their prey. Other small groups of men, almost certainly another part of the Egyptian’s force, were slowly stalking down the Via Sacra from the forum, converging on their current location. To the other side, Clodius and his half dozen burly thugs were closing the net. The members of the general public had, to a man, vanished, making themselves conveniently absent in the face of such danger.

“We’re hemmed in on three sides.”

The shrine in whose shadows they lurked unseen was small, nothing more than an ancient altar surrounded by a brick wall as high as a tall man and with an iron gate; hardly a place to hide or defend against a large force.

“We’re going to have to make a break for it and head up the Palatine.”

The others nodded their agreement and, taking a deep breath, Priscus sprang out of the darkness, the other two men hot on his heels, and, ignoring the screaming pain in his hip and thigh, loped in his strange manner as fast as he could up the cobbled street that led up to the heights of the Palatine, closed shops lining it as it ascended into the gloom. Here and there, at the top, lights flickered among the houses of those wealthy enough to afford land on the hill that was the very heart of Rome.

Panting with the ascent, they passed the shattered pylons to either side of the street that marked the ruins of one of the city’s most ancient gates, disused for centuries, and finally crested the top. The road led to a wide open space with an ornamental fountain at the centre, ornate decoration around the edges. From here half a dozen smaller roads led off among the wealthy villas, but Priscus focused on the one straight ahead that would take them across the plateau and which opened into the great stairway that led down toward the end of the Circus and the Porta Capena.

“That way!”

The three men took a desperate breath, becoming aware in the sudden quiet of the noises of close pursuit back down the street. Sharing a quick, desperate glance, they ran on into the open space. Already, the former centurion’s leg was juddering, threatening to collapse under the strain and he was starting to fall behind the others. By the time they crossed the Palatine, he would be flat on his face.