S. Turney - The Great Revolt

A body he passed was suddenly familiar, and his heart skipped a beat. Was that twisted wreck’s features really little Marcus ? His son’s infant face smeared across the cracked skull of a dead Gaul. And Lucius? Was Lucius here too? A victim of his endless career of murder?

His foot caught something and he tumbled again, rolling across the cold, wet grass. When he finally stopped, shuddering, weak and terrified, his leg was submerged. He seemed to have rolled into the edge of a river or a pond. Panic-driven, he turned to rise.

And there was that raw, crimson face with the burning eyes, snarling as it bore down on him with a skinning knife.

Fronto woke with a lurch that almost stopped his heart. The sheets were wet through and freezing cold, rucked up from his night-time thrashing. His eyes failed to accept that the face had gone, echoing that image even superimposed over the dim, darkened wall of their bedroom. He was shaking uncontrollably as his ears finally returned to life.

‘ Marcus ?’ the voice was panicked. Insistent.

He turned and took long moments to recognise Lucilia, her face a mask of utter concern. Shivering, he shook his head at her with slight movement only and crawled from the edge of the bed, walking shakily across to the twin beds, with their high sides and voluminous covers, which rested by the wall.

Marcus and Lucius dozed happily, the latter turning with a contented murmur. They had changed so much since the last winter. They were babies no longer, but boys with the clear attributes of the Falerii. They were clearly his sons.

And they were alive. Happy. Healthy.

He shuddered again.

‘The same dream?’ Lucilia asked softly, approaching from behind and draping a fresh, warm blanket over his shoulders. Fronto nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

‘Tomorrow we are going to see the herbalists and the priests in town. Someone will know how to stop them. You can’t go on like this, Marcus.’

He nodded again. Still, his voice wouldn’t come. Every night now for weeks. Not more than a few hours’ sleep. It was affecting his waking world, too. Yesterday he’d been to fulfil an order of Formian for one of the city’s council, only to discover he’d ordered and loaded a Caecuban of a far more expensive vintage by mistake, which he’d then been obliged then to let go at the same low price.

The Greeks, even these displaced ones in Massilia, had always held the best reputation for medicine of both body and mind, and it was clearly time to seek help.

How did a man kill the ghosts of his past, though?

His eyes strayed from the sleeping forms of the twins and up to the wall at the far end of the room, where a glittering gladius with an orichalcum hilt hung, delivered against all expectations a month ago by the hand of a veteran centurion from the Tenth heading back to Rome for the winter.

He sighed and supressed another shudder.

How did one kill the dead ?