S. Turney: Conspiracy of Eagles

“Help me!” he yelled, hammering on the shutter with his fists. “Help!” But the noise inside was immense and no one was paying any attention to him.

“Hel…” Curiatius’ voice tailed off as he looked down in surprise at the foot of tapering Noric steel projecting from his chest. He gasped, a gobbet of blood bursting from his mouth to spatter the shutter. With a meaty sound the blade withdrew. Surprise somehow overcoming the shocking pain that was already beginning to build to unbearable levels, Curiatius collapsed to the dung-stained pavement and fell, rolling onto his back, blood pumping from the exposed and exploded heart both up and down through the hole, spreading out in rivulets between the cobbles.

His killer bent low, engaged in light conversation with his partner, and wiped the blade — an exquisite gladius with an ivory grip and orichalcum hilt embossed with divine images — clean on his finest toga.

The young, ambitious equestrian felt the life ebb from him and wished with his last few ounces of strength that he’d never even heard the name Caius Julius Caesar.

(Puteoli, near Neapolis, on the Campanian coast)

Marcus Falerius Fronto, confidante of Caesar, legate of the Tenth Equestrian Legion, Roman citizen, Patrician and hero of the Gaulish wars, sulked and dragged his feet.

“Come on or we’ll be late for the meal.” Lucilia Balba rolled her eyes as she cast a despairing look at her man. There were times when Fronto appeared not to have passed his seventh year of childhood.

Amid the hum of nature, Fronto gave her a cantankerous frown and glanced over his shoulder as he adjusted the new silken tunic that clung all too tight to his scarred, lean frame and, to his mind, made him look a little too feminine.

The Forum Vulcani loomed almost a mile distant, the ring of jagged rock standing high around a white-yellow crater that jetted and fumed continually with spurts of steam and sprays of hot mud. Despite his almost legendary pragmatism, the Forum Vulcani continued to hold a certain unspoken trepidation for Fronto. He knew the gurgling mud and jets of steam were simply the work of Vulcan’s forge beneath the world but in the stories of his youth, told by the elders and menfolk of coastal Campania, the great bubbling, steaming horseshoe was the entrance to Hades. His childhood best friend Laelius had once sworn he saw a great three-headed dog prowling amid the jets. It was impossible to shake off the dread, despite his adult practicality.

And this infuriating woman had brought him here to lounge in the steam and slap stinging hot mud on his more scarred and ugly patches of skin in the crazed belief that being thoroughly coated with grey-brown sludge was somehow ‘healing’. It certainly hadn’t made his bones ache less or removed the burgeoning hangover, though the faint scalding sensation that had reddened much of his flesh had at least taken his mind off the left knee that had started to give these days if he walked up and down hills too often.

“The meal can wait for us. I’m the patriarch of the house, remember?”

“Yes, dear. You’re a fine patriarch, but you’ll be a fine patriarch with a charred meal and a furious sister if we don’t hurry.”

Fronto gave the great steaming mountain a suspicious frown — he thought he’d seen it move for a moment — and turned back to face the mass of Puteoli ahead and below, not quite in time to avoid treading in a large pile of dung deposited by one of the numerous trade caravans that had come here from the other great port nearby, at Neapolis.

“Shit!”

“Indeed, my love. Horse-shit, I fear.”

Fronto grumbled and hoisted the leather bag with their wet clothes higher onto his shoulder so that he could concentrate on wiping his rough military-issue sandals on the kerb to remove the worst of the ordure.

Lucilia gave him an odd smile and then turned away, humming a happy little tune as she picked up the pace a little, strolling down the hill toward the expansion work on the small amphitheatre — pride of the council of Puteoli.

Briefly, Fronto cast a longing gaze down the slope. Spring had come to Puteoli, bringing a bounteous spray of flora, whose scent almost managed to mask the salt tang of the sea. Bees buzzed and cicadas chirruped, birds sang and unidentified wildlife rustled all along both sides of the road that led from Neapolis to Puteoli via the Forum Vulcani. But it was not the bounty of nature or the sheer joy of spring that drew his hungry gaze.

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 side 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.