S. Turney: Conspiracy of Eagles

Carefully, he lifted aside the hanging sheet that separated the completed part of the house and slipped past, lowering it gently so that it hardly moved with his passage. Past the sheet he could just make out the shape of a man with a sword silhouetted on the wall in the atrium, moving towards the impluvium pool at its centre.

Quickly, he moved back to his mother’s room and passed within, feeling the first twinges of pain in his knee and willing it to hold as long as he needed. With a fresh speed, he danced across the room, dropping the sack next to Faleria and covering her with the sheet, so that she resembled at first glance one of the piles of rubbish the workmen had left.

Her eye opened for a moment and, though he couldn’t be sure she’d see him or that she’d comprehend, he held a finger to his lips as he crouched and collected his sword.

He’d done all he could do now, other than what he’d trained for all his life.

Gripping his sword’s handle, he padded back out of the room, turned towards the atrium and strode purposefully forward, throwing the sheet dramatically aside.

Tribune Menenius stood almost ghostly in the pale light

There was no preamble. Fronto, surprised by the tribune’s presence when expecting Clodius’ thugs, had faltered for a second and Menenius was on him instantly. In a flurry of blows, Fronto was driven back through the sheet, blocking as best he could and ducking and dancing out of the way of the flickering strikes that were coming so fast he could hardly credit it. Back in Germania Cantorix had described the tribune as ‘fast as a snake’, and now Fronto could see what the man had meant.

Menenius was no novice with a blade; indeed, he was quite clearly the finest swordsman Fronto had ever seen, his movements lithe and economical. Wherever Fronto moved, Menenius was already there, that shining blade lancing out, swiping, sweeping, descending, rising, lunging, never even needing to block; Fronto simply didn’t have time to try and strike back, spending every heartbeat desperately trying to prevent himself from being skewered.

His breath was coming in gasps already, while Menenius seemed to be hardly winded, a malicious grin plastered across his face.

Strangely, despite the desperate circumstances, Fronto couldn’t help but notice the sword in the tribune’s hand. No legionary sword, this. Menenius’ gladius was a perfect blade. Noric steel with straight fuller running down the centre, the hilt formed of orichalcum and embossed with the images of deities. The handle, where he could see flashes of it moving, was of perfectly carved ivory. The sword was worth more than the damned ebony door. It was not the sort of sword carried by an ordinary soldier.

Who was this Menenius?

Back he moved again. Drawing his opponent past the open door to the room where his sister lay, Fronto kept his eyes on the man, desperately watching that dancing blade and barely reacting in time. His knee gave a warning wobble and he almost fell as he rounded the corner, heading towards the rooms where he, Priscus and Galronus had stayed the previous year.

“You’re better than I thought, Fronto.”

Menenius’ voice was light, as Fronto remembered, but mature and steady, lacking all the frivolity and foppishness he’d heard before.

“You too.”

“I’ll end it quickly for you if you don’t make me work for it. A proper soldier’s death?”

Fronto sneered. “A proper soldier dies in battle, not submitting to a murderer. Is that the blade that killed Tetricus?”

“Why yes, Fronto. It so happens it is.”

The tribune was suddenly under his reach, slashing with the razor edge of the beautiful blade. Fronto felt it skitter across his ribs and hissed with the pain as he danced to the side and almost fell on his weakened knee.

“So that will be your end, Fronto. Your knee can’t hold you when you have to move sharply left. Best keep your guard to the right, then, eh?”

In a flash — a fraction of a heartbeat — the sword was withdrawn and then stabbed again, before Fronto could even bring his own gladius down in the way. The blade bounced off a rib again, only an inch below the previous cut, and he involuntarily moved away, his knee buckling and almost bringing him down. Panicked, he staggered a few steps away, realising with a sinking sensation that, not only was he hopelessly outclassed, he was backing into the corner, and when that happened it was all over.

“Very good, you know?” Menenius complemented him. “Despite your weakness, you’re still the best I’ve faced all year.”

“Not difficult” Fronto snapped, “given that the rest of them were sleeping or unawares.”

The tribune laughed and the sound chilled Fronto to the bone.

“You have no idea, Fronto. If you only knew the scale of my year’s work.”

Fronto’s mind raced. Overconfidence? Perhaps he could trick Menenius into doing something foolish? The man was clearly supremely confident. No. He recognised instantly how dangerous such an attempt could be. The tribune was certainly confident, but also totally in control. Every move he made was calculated beforehand, faster than Fronto could credit. Menenius was not a man who would fall into the trap of overreaching himself.

Which left only the unexpected.

He saw the door to his room as he passed and realised he was almost at the corner and running out of time. The tribune’s blade lashed out again, this time higher, scarring a line across his bicep, though not enough to wound or incapacitate. Lurching left and wobbling on his knee, Fronto realised that Menenius was playing with him like a cat with a mouse. The bastard could have killed him ten moves ago or more. He was forcing him to put his weight on his weak knee and smiling maliciously every time that leg shook.

With a sudden flash of realisation, Fronto knew what he could do; the only thing he could do. But it relied on Menenius moving first.

The legate gave a pained hiss and his left leg trembled slightly.

The blow came, exactly as Fronto expected, to his right hand side and high, to score across his shoulder. He allowed it to connect. If he was seen to feint, the tribune would know and counteract instantly. The man was simply that fast. Instead he had to play into Menenius’ expectations.

As the blow drew blood, Fronto staggered on his bad left knee and fell. Even in the heartbeat it took, the tribune’s glorious sword came back for another blow, rising to drive down at his fallen opponent.

But Fronto was not falling. His leg screaming agony at him, he pushed on his bad knee and rose again, coming up unexpectedly at the tribune’s side, out of the reach of his weapon.

Swordplay forgotten, Fronto’s free fist lashed out and landed a skull-fracturing blow to the side of Menenius’ head. There was an audible crack and for a moment Fronto wondered whether he’d broken the man’s neck. But Menenius, stunned by the blow, simply folded up and fell to his knees, his broken jaw misshapen and hanging down at one side, blood gushing from his lips and his cheek where the Falerii signet ring had imprinted the Ursus symbol into his flesh.

The tribune’s sword skittered away across the marble from numb fingers as his knees cracked to the floor.

“I’d love to take the time to go through your crimes with you one by one” Fronto grunted as he stepped in front of the murdering tribune. Raising his sword, he reversed his grip and made ready to stab downwards. “I’m not playing your games though. Say hello to Hades for me.”

The bulk-issue military gladius, pitted with marks from battles long past, a blade that had been with Fronto for two decades, descended towards the point in Menenius’ neck where his collar bones met; a killing blow.