Marius' Mules IV: Conspiracy of Eagles (60 page)

Fronto afforded himself a quick glance around as the century raced on toward the mass of the enemy pressing on the defensive circle of Roman steel. In the manner so reminiscent of Celts everywhere their army was fighting as a thousand individuals rather than a homogenous whole. Gods help the world if these bloodthirsty lunatics ever managed to achieve discipline under a capable tactician. It would be like the sack of
Rome
by Brennus all over again.

Fortunately, these Britons were no tacticians.

The cavalry were already fleeing the scene, racing away down other paths into the forest. The chariots rushed away around the edge, keeping out of the reach of the pursuing cohorts while remaining close enough to be available for their masters when required.

Even the infantry, where they were involved in deep and desperate combat with the men of the Seventh, were now starting to break away at the rear and race for the safety of the trees.

The disposition of spent bodies told the story eloquently enough for Fronto. Hardly anywhere around the enormous clearing’s periphery could a native figure be seen, while in places the glassy-eyed corpses of legionaries lay so close as to be touching. The Britons had come out of the forest with a hail of spears and arrows, routing the Romans and driving them back to the centre of the clearing where they were trapped and formed a circle that had been steadily diminishing for almost an hour.

“They’re getting away” a legionary shouted angrily, watching a sizeable chunk of the native force peel away and race for the woodland.

“Forget them!” Carbo cried. “Concentrate on saving the Seventh!”

With the exception of the four centuries securing the clearing’s edge and driving the chariots before them, the entire force of the two cohorts bore down on the main army at the centre, paying no heed to the fleeing Britons, intent on breaking the throng pinning the Seventh down.

The yards passed in a blur of discomfort, the sharp stubble of the field scratching Fronto’s shins and calves as he ran, keeping pace with the men of the first century, hoping he didn’t fall or collapse with shortness of breath.

And suddenly the old familiar battle calm fell over him. Despite the lack of a disciplined Roman shield wall – the Tenth discarding conventional tactics in favour of speed and terror-inducing fury – it was familiar and simple. As always the worries of the world – of the rightness of their campaign, of the intrigues within the army and the nobles, of his own ageing and deteriorating stamina, even of Lucilia back in that nest of vipers that was Rome – they all went away, pushed down and sealed into a casket as the immediacy of battle took over.

A warrior who had turned to flee with a couple of his friends found himself staring into the advancing visage of an aging Roman demon with fiery eyes. Desperately he raised his axe, haft sideways. Fronto feinted with his gladius, causing the man to sweep the axe handle to the side to stop a blow that would never come. As he was overbalanced and ing to his left, Fronto slammed into him with the large, curved shield, smashing his arm and several ribs and driving the startled barbarian back into the press of his compatriots.

Beside Fronto, a legionary helpfully put six inches of sword into the falling Briton’s armpit before moving on to another of the fleeing men. Fronto had lost sight of Carbo, but could hear his reassuring voice denouncing the man he faced as a cross-breed of a number of unlikely animals.

The native force was now breaking up all across the rapidly widening front of legionaries, groups of men some twenty or thirty strong taking to their heels and racing for the treeline. A man who had likely arrived on a chariot suddenly pushed his way through the throng, spotting Fronto and recognising the crest and cuirass as indicative of a commander. He bellowed something that sounded as though it was probably a challenge. The warrior wore a mail shirt that looked as though it might have been of Gallic manufacture, a decorative helmet with a stylised rearing boar on the crown, a shield, oval in shape, and a sword that was probably the pride of a whole family.

The only good thing that could be said about his personal appearance, however, was that his straggly and bulky moustache at least hid half his grotesque pig-like features, though the hare-lip even marred
that
.

Fronto grinned at him.

“Come on then, pretty boy.”

The man swung the sword with surprising speed, though little cunning, over his shoulder and down. Fronto neatly sidestepped, almost falling into the press of men in the attempt. The warrior made a strange surprised sound as his heavy long sword cleaved only empty air and dug deep into the body of an already fallen warrior below. Fronto shook his head in mock dismay as he stepped forward and jabbed the man in the throat with his gladius.

Too easy; just too easy.

A spray of crimson erupted from the shocked noble’s neck, spraying Fronto in the face and forcing him to look away for a moment. The warrior released his grip on the jammed sword and clutched at his throat, temporarily stemming the spray so that the blood merely ran in torrents between his fingers.

“Sweet Venus you are an ugly bugger aren’t you?” Fronto grinned as he knocked the dying noble aside with his shield.

“That you, legate Fronto?”

Looking up in surprise, Fronto could just see Fabius over the heads of half a dozen natives, his helmet gone and blood streaming down his head, giving him the look of a red-painted man.

“Got yourself in a bit of trouble, I see!”

“Nothing we can’t handle, of course, but thanks for the timely assistance.”

Fronto laughed.

“Looks like they’ve broken.”

Indeed, even as Fronto cut another man down, the press between the two speakers was thinning out. The attacking force at the far side of the circle had taken the opportunity to flee the field before the Roman cohorts could get to them, freeing up much of the Seventh to reform and start pushing back. Already, the number of barbarians still committed in the clearing had fallen from perhaps three thousand to four or five hundred, those now being trapped between the men of the two legions. No longer even attempting to fight, the Britons were pushing bodily through the attacking Romans, heedless of wounds, in an attempt to escape the field and melt into the woodland.

“They’re running” a legionary bellowed. “Come on!”

“Leave them!” Fronto shouted at him, simultaneous with Carbo’s cry of “Let them go!”

The field was theirs.

The remaining five hundred or so men of the Seventh were safe, and the Roman force lacked the manpower and horses to chase down the fleeing Britons. Besides, no sensible commander would ever commit to pursuing them in unfamiliar territory that the Britons would know as well as their own hand.

“Come on” Fronto sighed, leaning down to rub his knee as he watched a few of the fleeing men fall to careful parting strikes. “Let’s get this grain back to the camp and settle in. It’s about to piss down.”

ROME

Quintus Lucilius Balbus strode across the Via Nova and began to ascend the slope towards the
Palatine
and the ancient piers of the ruined Porta Mugonia, a look of cold, calm and collected determination written into his features. In defiance of
Rome
’s most ancient laws and his own personal codes, the polished, decorative-hilted gladius that had graced his uniform for years as legate of the Eighth legion was gripped so tightly in his right hand that his knuckles were white and the veins stood out purple like a map of unknown rivers.

An elderly man with a broad stripe on his expensive and high quality toga paused in the street off to one side; his brow furrowed, his nostrils flaring and eyes flashing with righteous indignation as he realised that the similarly togate muscular man was wielding a naked military blade in the hallowed ancient city centre.

“How dare you!”

Balbus barely acknowledge the man, turning his head slightly and delivering a withering glare of pure malice that had the elderly man stepping back down the street nervously.

Three men hurried along behind the former officer, each of them wearing their own toga, and each bearing a well-kept military blade. Two nephews and a cousin of Balbus’ who resided in the city and owed him a favour had brushed aside any need for persuasion to the task once Balbus had explained what he was about.

After all, Clodius had the reputinto hiof a poisonous snake among all good citizens of breeding, and Gaius Lucilius Brocchus, former tribune in the Eighth, had already encountered the man’s venom in business circles. To discover that they also held a noble Roman lady of a good house against her will and had kidnapped their dear Lucilia – despite her daring escape – was too much for the three young men to countenance and they had been reaching for their blades before Balbus had even tried to persuade them to join him.

The crowd that invariably filled the Via Nova surged back in to occupy the street in the wake of the small armed party for whom they had made way. Armed gangs were far from unusual in the city these days, but they were almost always base thugs with concealed knives or cudgels. To see four noblemen in fine togas with naked military blades was a new and worrying sight in broad daylight in the urban centre.

The privately-hired guards who stood outside the street-front entrances to a few of the more exclusive houses in the area took a quick look at the group and studiously averted their gaze. Such was not their concern unless the four men should descend on their door.

The crowd thinned out as they climbed the narrower street to the hill where the houses of many of the wealthier families stood. Not here the hawkers of products of dubious meat, the beggars and pickpockets, the stallholders or lurkers. The presence of so many private forces of guards kept the streets here clear of the lower rungs of society. Indeed, by the time Balbus reached the small square with the benches and the apple tree, the only life to be seen was a small family group hurrying to some event in their best clothes. They and an incongruous single young man in a dusty tunic collecting the fallen as-yet-unripe apples and bagging them in large sacks.

Paying no heed to anyone, Balbus led his three companions to the right and along the narrow side-street, the four men lowering their blades but not sheathing them as they came to a halt in front of the residence of Atia – niece of Julius Caesar.

Reaching up, Balbus rapped three times on the studded wooden door and then clattered the bell to the side for good measure. There was only the briefest of pauses before a small hatch opened in the door at eye height, protected by an iron grille.

“Yes?”

“Be so good as to ask the lady of the house to attend.”

The slave frowned, taken aback by this breech of etiquette. “I will most certainly do nothing of the sort, sir. If you state your name and business, I will consult my mistress.”

Balbus leaned sharply forward so that his eye was suddenly only inches from that of the slave, separated by a thin iron strip. The man instinctively ducked back nervously.

“I am Quintus Lucilius Balbus. Former legatus of the Eighth Legion. I have brought the fortresses of countless Celtic tribes down to rubble and enslaved their people. If you think for one minute I will be inconvenienced by a simple door, you are sadly mistaken. Open this door and fetch lady Atia.”

The hatch slammed shut and the three younger men behind Balbus all lunged forwards.

“The swine!”

“We can break the door!”

“For Jove’s sake…”

Balbus, his face still stony cold, reached out an arm and held them back. “Wait.”

As he stood, the three men impatiently straining to move against the house, Balbus took a deep breath. The number of thugs within the building could determine the course of the next ten minutes. At least Lucilia was safe, having been delivered to the
temple
of
Vesta
by Balbus and half a dozen of his most trusted slaves and servants that morning. The priestesses would watch over her until he collected her, and even the city’s most depraved thugs would refuse to enter Vesta’s compound.

After half a minute, there was a click and the door swung open wide. Lady Atia Balba Caesaonia – a relation of his, incidentally, though by the most distant and tortuous route imaginable – stood in the corridor that led to the atrium, her porphyry-toned stola hanging licentiously from one shoulder, her makeup perfect in every way and her smile as manufactured and calculated as every other facet of her appearance.