S. Turney: Conspiracy of Eagles

“You will come too?”

Faleria smiled benignly. “Would you seriously expect Marcus to cope with all the betrothal arrangements himself? No, I think I should accompany you to straighten it all out.”

“I do not wear socks!”

Lucilia glared at Fronto and snatched the woollen garments from his hand, stuffing them back into his pack.

“Yes you do. You’ll be traipsing through soggy swamps above the roof of the world. Do you really want your toes to rot and fall off? Because I do not.”

“I don’t need socks because I wear boots that are perfectly sized and shaped to my feet. They’re closed boots and nice and dry and there’s no room in them for both socks and my feet.”

“You’re not taking your old boots.”

Fronto blinked and straightened.

“Now listen…”

“You cannot take your boots, Marcus. I threw them out last week.”

Fronto tried to say something but it came out only as indignant splutters.

“I saw the manufacturer’s mark on them, Marcus. Those boots were nearly as old as me. And they smelled of stale urine.”

“Of course! That’s how you shape them to your feet. It took me nearly a year’s pissing to make them comfortable enough for a thirty mile march.”

Lucilia shook her head calmly.

“You’re a senior officer from a patrician family and currently the legatus of a legion. You ride; you don’t need to march.”

Fronto stared at her.

“Besides, you have a thoroughbred horse of unsurpassed quality. It would be wasteful not to run him. Now try on the boots over there. They’re light leather with a fleece inner to help you in the harsh climates of Gaul.”

Fronto’s gaze snapped back and forth between the boots on the chair and the woman pointing at them.

“Is there any chance that at some point in the past you have commanded a legion, too?”

Lucilia said nothing, but simply gestured impatiently at the boots.

With a sigh, he capitulated.

Fronto staggered along the deck and reached an empty stretch of rail almost in time to vomit copiously over the side without splattering the deck. His face had been a pale grey for the past two days, with only a brief return of colour during the overnight stop at Antium.

“Did you use the embrocation the nice Greek gave you?”

Fronto spat into the water and tried not to concentrate on the way it moved, undulated, wobbled, oscillated…

After another copious session of dry heaving, Fronto wiped his mouth again and look across at Lucilia at the rail nearby; neatly keeping her sandaled feet out of the mess he had left.

“No I didn’t. It smells like feet. I hadn’t thrown up until I opened the jar and smelled it. That’s what set this whole thing off.”

“Rubbish. And I expect you’ve not had any of the ginger root?”

“It makes me hiccup.”

“And vomiting is preferable to hiccupping, is it?”

“Just leave me alone.”

Fronto draped himself over the rail for just a moment until the additional pressure and movement threatened a whole new session of agony. Hauling himself back upright, he focused his eyes and frowned.

“That’s Ostia.”

“Yes.”

“Why did nobody say we were almost there?”

Lucilia smiled like a patient parent.

“If you’d looked up any time in the past hour you’d have seen it. And everyone on board has been talking about landfall. You’ve just been too wrapped up in your own embrocation-and-ginger-free misery to notice.”

“I hate ships.”

“Of this I am acutely aware, Marcus.”

“When I was a boy, my father took me out fishing in the bay below the villa. I was sick in his lunch basket. He never took me again. Should they even be sailing in this weather? Shouldn’t they wait for a good day, and then I’d have had a better journey.”

Lucilia rolled her eyes as she took in the cloudless blue sky, the slight heat haze that made the approaching dockside of Ostia shimmer, the glassy, reflective surface of the water, broken only by the lowest, friendliest of waves and the wake of various mercantile vessels ploughing back and forth from the dockside.

“It is a dreadful day, I have to admit. I wonder whether Neptune is furious at you for ignoring your medically-prescribed embrocation?”

Fronto glared at her before turning his attention back to the busy town before them, as they approached at speed, a wide dockside presenting a spacious opening for them. More than a hundred merchants, slaves, fishermen and sailors went about their chores on the dock: hauling crates, coiling ropes, arguing and haggling over lists. Beggars and children cut purses, touted their flesh to passing trade, or just called out desperately for a spare coin.

It was chaos but, as they watched, it was clearly a very organized chaos. Ostia was rapidly becoming a more common offloading point for goods bound for Rome than the older ports at Puteoli or Neapolis.

Fronto held his breath as the merchant vessel began to slew sideways towards the concrete and the waiting dockhand. That first bump often knocked him from his feet, with his knees as feeble as they were after a day of being sick over a rail.

His attention, however, was distracted by a sudden glint of blinding light. Squinting, he tried to look past it and suddenly the dazzling beam was gone, leaving the source: a burnished cuirass of golden bronze that had reflected the glorious sun.

“Who are they?” a quiet voice enquired.

Fronto turned to see that Faleria had joined them at his other side. He spun back and examined the small group of men on the dock, trying to get a better view of their faces. It quickly became apparent that the five soldiers on the dockside constituted two separate groups, rather than one large one.

“I don’t know the two centurions, but they’re veterans. You can tell that just from the look of them. I think…”

Fronto’s knuckles whitened as his grip on the rail tightened.

“Their shields! They’d do well to keep the covers on” he growled.

“What is it?” Lucilia asked, her eyes narrowing as she tried in vain to see whatever Fronto had spotted.

“Their shields are still painted in the designs of the 2 ndItalic; one of Lucullus’ legions.”

“So?”

Fronto turned to look at Lucilia as if she were an idiot, an expression he couldn’t hide, despite the warning signs it drew in her eyes.

“That means they served under Pompey in the east against Mithridates. Hell, they might even have been the mutineers that the scheming little prick Clodius paid off, and who nearly screwed up the whole campaign. If they’re waiting to join Caesar’s trireme, I may have to have strong words with the general.”

“But that campaign was what? Ten years ago? They’ve probably been civilians for years in between.”

“Once a shitbag, always a shitbag, Lucilia.”

“Who are the others, then?” Faleria asked, trying to calm her brother.

Fronto tried not to look at the two veterans; heavy set men with bristly faces and iron grey hair and traitorous shields. Instead, he fixed his gaze on the three more senior officers, clad in burnished cuirasses, crimson cloaks, plumed helms and bronze greaves. Their tunics and pteruges were spotless white. They could have been posing for a heroic statue in the forum. They quite clearly had the military bearing of a huddle of lame ostriches.

“The two at the far side I vaguely recognize. Menenius, I think. Can’t remember the other’s name. They’ve been on staff since the Belgae revolted two years ago. Tribunes that were attached to the Eleventh or Twelfth. Possibly both.” He shook his head. “Eleventh. Must be. Only one of the tribunes of the Twelfth survived Octodurus last year.”