Marius' Mules IV: Conspiracy of Eagles (3 page)

Somewhere, down beyond the oval amphitheatre and past the various baths and temples, right down toward the port, looking out over the water to the distant hump of Baia and the mound of Misenum on the far side of the bay, stood the small building that drew his thoughts. The ‘Leaping Dolphin’ was a tavern that served wine of questionable quality, allowed some of the more unsavoury types to abuse its hospitality, hosted theoretically-fair dice games, and showcased some of the cheaper exotic women in the region.

That tavern had drained his purse every winter since he’d been of age to join the military. And yet this year, he’d not put a foot across its threshold.

Regretfully, he tore his gaze from the glorious landscape and the lowbrow establishment hidden somewhere at its centre and turned off on the side road, following Lucilia.

Despite some regret that resided at a deep level and was chiselled into his heart, he had to admit that he’d not really missed the carousing until he’d actually had cause to think on it - not in the company he’d kept over the winter.

It had been nice. It had been an… adjustment, but it had certainly been nice. He’d found himself a number of times over the colder months wishing that the young lady who had apparently captured him without the use of net or spear could have helped warm his bed rather than sleeping in a resolutely virginal chamber on the far sde of the villa, adjacent to Faleria’s room ‘just in case’.

The nights after his wine intake had been higher and less watered than met Faleria’s approval had been particularly difficult.

He watched Lucilia’s figure sway alluringly down the gravelled road toward the complex of villa buildings that clung to the hillside, overlooking the azure sea and the ships arriving from every corner of the world. It was almost hypnotic.

He winced as he remembered that night after the Saturnalia celebrations when the sway of those hips had taunted him just too much and he had found himself, insulated by a thick layer of wine, standing in just his underwear and trying to lift the latch to Lucilia’s room with a paring knife. His hands had slipped repeatedly from the target in a pleasant haze, carving furrows in the surrounding wood and leaving scratches on the iron plate.

He had spent almost ten minutes trying and had finally drawn a deep breath ready to call to the room’s intoxicating occupant when he had become aware of his sister, standing outside her own door, watching him with an expression that would have split a block of marble or sent a thousand Gallic horse galloping for the hills.

He had dropped the paring knife in alarm and it had punctured his foot. Just another reminder of how far his influence as patriarch really stretched when Faleria was in residence. His mother had ruled the family with an iron fist after his father’s death, until the death of Verginius in Hispania had left Faleria preparing for a wedding with a deceased man. The girl had hardened that day into a classic Roman matron and had immediately surpassed their mother in her rigid and humourless control of the house for all too many years.

He shook his head again.

But Faleria had changed again since he’d been away campaigning in
Gaul
. She had softened once more to something resembling the Faleria of his youth. Certainly the addition of Lucilia to the household seemed to have had a powerful effect on her.

‘Softened’, but not ‘weakened’.

Fronto sighed. It had taken him only a few weeks to realise that in signing away his soul to this girl, he had simply added a third headstrong female to the list of those who thought they could rule and control him. Sadly, it appeared that they were correct in that assumption. Caesar, Pompey and Crassus could learn a thing or two from the three women commanding the house of the Falerii these days.

“I’ve been thinking…”

Lucilia turned slightly to regard him curiously as they closed on the villa.

“You should watch that, Marcus. Such activity rarely leads to good things.”

Another deep sigh.

“I wonder whether it’s time to start edging Faleria toward…” he swallowed nervously. This was like addressing the senate and asking for a favour. “Toward perhaps looking at a new match?”

Lucilia shook her head.

“She says she’s too old.”

“You’ve
discussed it with her
?” Fronto was seriously taken aback. He’d been trying to work out a way to broach the subject for two years now.

“At some length. I tried to persuade her that thirty is still an acceptable age and that she has a few years to bear children yet.”

“You said
what
?”

“Faleria is, I think, happy with her station. I think she will never love another like her lost husband, and so she is happy not to try. She knows that at her age, with the lineage and value of the Falerii, she will likely only attract leery old men or greedy young nobodies hungry for power and station. Given that it is now more than possible that you will be able to continue the line, your mother is happy to leave Faleria to her own devices.”

Fronto stopped in a squelch of horse dung and dropped the sack of wet clothes with a similar noise.

“You even spoke to
mother
about this?”

“Oh calm down. You’ll do yourself an injury. Women talk, Marcus. I’m sure you’re aware of this. What did you think we did while you and your pet servants went down to the races or sat in the cellar playing Latrunculi, draining your father’s carefully stocked wines?”

Fronto stared at her as something she had said clicked in his head.

“’
Continue the line’
?”

“Children, Marcus” she said, rolling her eyes as she stooped to lift the bag of clothes and throw it over her shoulder. “I’m sure you’ve heard of them. Small people who cry a lot and fall over regularly.”

She set off along the road again, leaving Fronto standing, baffled, until he shook his head and ran after her.

“Don’t you think you’re getting a little ahead of things there? We’ve yet to even ask your father if he’ll agree to the match. You may think your mother will persuade him, but I’m not so sure. And then there’s Caesar. The Agonia Martialis is already passed and the legions will be starting to move in
Gaul
. If I don’t hear from the general by the end of Aprilis I shall have to ride to
Rome
and prepare for the coming season. I’ll only be around for another month or so. Caesar has a plan, I think, to expand his horizons ever further. I will be gone for the whole campaigning season, probably for years yet.”/font>

This time it was Lucilia who stopped dead and it took Fronto another five flustered steps to realise and draw himself to a halt.

“You don’t
need
to serve, if you don’t wish to” she said, quietly, but with a dangerous edge.

Fronto shook his head.

“Caesar is our patron. My family and yours, both. And I am one of his senior officers. If he needs me then I shall have to…”

“Tripe. Drivel. My father supports Caesar and maintains his patronage out of loyalty. He owes nothing to the man. And you? If I understand what your mother tells me, it is Caesar who theoretically owes the Falerii a small sum, and not the other way round. You run at his beckon because you live for the legions. That will change.”

Fronto thrust an angry finger towards her, but she smiled and walked past him once more on her way to the villa.

“Come on. We’ll be late for the meal.”

Fronto stood amid the buzz of bees and the chatter of birds, the hazy blue of the bay providing a strange background to the seething, roiling churn of emotions that held him fast. After a few moments he realised how foolish he must look – standing and angrily gesturing to the open air – checked for any passing observers and, finding none, hurried after the beautiful Lucilia.

* * * * *

Two days later, Fronto hurried out into the courtyard before the villa, taking no time to breathe in the joyous warm evening air, with a scent of jasmine and roses. His sandals flapped around him, the straps loose and untied, threatening to trip him with every step.

“What bloody time do you call this?”

Galronus, noble of the Remi tribe, beloved of Lug and Taranis, lord among the fierce Belgae, dismounted easily from his roan mare and alighted smoothly, dusting himself down as he released the reins. Fronto looked him up and down with an unabashed grin of happiness.

A second winter in
Rome
had wrung even more changes to the rough figure of Galronus the
Gaul
. Though he still wore the traditional moustaches of his people, his long hair, once wild and untamed, now had that lustrous sheen and smoothness that only comes with regular attention from an expensive barber and was plaited down before one ear and tied back at the nape of his neck. His skin had that clean smooth look of a man who had managed at least three visits a day to the baths. His sole concessions to his native dress seemed to be the continued wearing of the braccae – the Gallic trousers that bulged at the thigh and reached to the ankles – and a torc around his neck, although even that had an unmistakable look of Roman metalwork.

“Marcus!” The big
Gaul
left his reins hanging and ran across the courtyard to enfold the dishevelled Roman in a great bear hug. Fronto issued an involuntary squeak at the pressure, but grinned as Galronus let him go. The Belgic nobleman even smelled of scented bath oils. Good job there’d be no chance for him to attend such grand bathhouses back in
Gaul
; else his tribe would tear him to pieces for womanliness.

“You have spent the winter in a comfortable villa with your own baths and slaves and servants?” Galronus enquired with a furrowed brow.

Fronto nodded as one of those slaves hurried across to take the reins of the visitor’s horse.

“Why then does your hair stand up like this and why do you smell like old amphorae, and why is your tunic stained and creased?”

Fronto rolled his eyes.

“I think I miss the Galronus who had never even heard of a heated bath. Come on.”

Grasping his shoulder, Fronto guided him towards the door that led into the decorative atrium.

“What draws you away from the delights of
Rome
?”

Galronus shrugged off the leather bag that hung over one arm and stopped in the atrium as it dropped to the marble floor with a thud. Stooping, he rummaged in it for a moment and then straightened, holding out a wooden writing tablet.

“This.”

Fronto took the item, frowning, and snapped it open. His brow rose as he recognised the handwriting.

“Caesar gave you this? It’s not sealed or anything.”

Galronus shrugged.

“Perhaps he trusts me.”

Fronto eyed him askance. “Or perhaps you broke the seal and had a good read before you left
Rome
.”

Galronus blinked his innocence, his face devoid of expression, and Fronto shook his head as he snapped it shut.

“I’ll read it when we’re settled. For now, it’s late. We’ve had an evening repast, but I daresay we can rustle you something up. And I’ve just broken the seal on some nice Sicilian wine. How’s the house?”

Galronus had taken up residence during autumn in the burned out shell of the townhouse of the Falerii on the Aventine hill, keeping the place occupied as the workmen continued to return it to a liveable state after the fs and fires of the previous year.

“Less than half complete, I’d say. There was more structural fire damage than originally anticipated, and the winter weather has made it difficult for the workmen. It may be another year before it resembles your home again.”

Fronto nodded. It came as no surprise to him. At least the family could spend the year in Puteoli and not worry about it yet.

A sudden flurry of activity announced the arrival of the girls and Fronto glanced over his shoulder before raising his eyes skywards again.