As they raced around the corner toward the garden, Priscus appeared.
“The rear entrance is completely ablaze, Marcus.”
“Front too. We’re going to have to try the outside gate.”
As they pushed on past the garden corridor, slaves and servants were now rushing around in the increasingly smoky house with buckets of water. Pushing open the side door and gulping down precious fresh air, Fronto glanced left and right. The stable and sheds were already catching alight from the rear rooms and he could hear the horses whinnying in fear and crashing around in their pens. To the right, the outer gate stood firm and solid.
Taking a moment, he stood Lucilia on the step.
“Breath deep and stay here for a minute.”
She nodded and he ran toward the gate, where Priscus was already beginning to lift the latch.
Fronto dived on him and pushed the latch back down, cupping his hand to his ear. The two men leaned forward to the crack between the gates. At least a dozen men stood outside, armed in contravention of the law, and the familiar hawk-like figure of Philopater stood at the far side of the street, arms folded. As Fronto stared, his heart thumping, the men steadied grips on their weapons and stepped purposefully toward the gate.
“Shit!”
The two men turned and ran back to the side door.
“Come on.”
Grabbing Lucilia, they rushed in, slamming and bolting the door behind them before turning and running into the garden.
Slaves were now at work around the house, trying desperately to quench the flames, but fighting a losing battle. The officers and ladies stood in the centre of the small garden, a small force of Cestus’ men with them. The rest would be in other parts of the house, trying to help the slaves put out the conflagration.
“We have company! Armed men are coming in.”
Cestus immediately began giving orders to his men while Faleria helped their mother across towards him, Caesar taking her other arm gently.
“What are the options, Marcus?”
Fronto shrugged.
“Both doors are infernos. The outer gate’s alright, but that’s where they’re coming in. If we can hold the outside for a while, the civilians can climb onto the stable roof and maybe cross it and drop into the next street, assuming he hasn’t got men there too?”
Caesar nodded.
“Then we’ll have to put steel to steel. Do you have a spare sword in storage, Marcus?”
Fronto threw the door open and stepped inside. Behind him, Caesar walked into the room in a strange silence. Priscus whistled through his teeth.
“What sort of a man” Caesar asked quietly “keeps an
Fronto reached over to a chest against the wall and drew his gladius from its sheath, examining the glinting point.
“There’s my campaigning gear here, as well as that that used to belong to my father and my uncle. There’s stuff here that was gifts from Verginius and other family friends. You know how it is… one tends to hoard things.”
He turned and threw a gladius, still in its sheath, across to the general, who caught it in a deft hand and drew it, examining the blade.
“This was your father’s?”
“Yes. Priscus, Milo, Galronus and Cicero, help yourself to anything you can find. Cestus, get your men armed.”
Priscus grinned, lifting a lengthy cavalry blade from a shelf, decorative and likely never before used.
“This’ll surprise the buggers.”
“Come on.”
As Cestus shouted his men and pointed them toward the armoury, Fronto stopped in the garden and looked around until he saw Posco issuing commands to a group of slaves.
“Posco? Get into the stables with a few men. See if there’s anyone in the back street. If not, break the wall down and get Bucephalus and the other horses out of there. Start getting the guests out too, beginning with Lucilia and the family.”
Posco nodded and grabbed three of the men gathered around him, running off toward the house’s storage and stabling area. A crash outside announced that the attackers had broken down the outer gate.
“Come on! We’ve got to move.”
Fronto quickly doglegged around the corridor to the exterior door, ignoring the slaves and servants rushing desperately to their tasks, Priscus, Galronus, Milo, Caesar and Cicero at his heels as he ran.
The bolt was thrown back and the six men burst out of the villa, weapons brandished and yelling defiance. The attacking gang had already spread out in the passageway outside, perhaps seven or eight between them and the stable door, countless others in the yard between them and the gate. The house’s occupants, almost entirely military trained, fell into a defensive position without the need for commands and before the milling attackers even realised their victims were among them. Fronto found himself facing the gate, Priscus to his right and Caesar his left, while Galronus, Milo and Cicero formed a line behind them, facing the stable. The open door to the house stood between the rows of defenders and, realising that a means of egress had come available, the thugs of Clodius turned and launched a violent assault on the six men.
Fronto lunged at the first man to close on them, a tall, muscular man with a curved sica blade that suggested his origins lay in the arena. The man grinned, a section of his jaw missing, along with half a dozen teeth, evidence of an almost crippling wound long ago. With a deft flick of the curved blade he knocked Fronto’s gladius aside. The man was good, and unconventional.
Fronto took a deep breath, wincing as he reached for the dagger at his belt with his bad hand, two fingers bound tightly to the others in order to heal correctly. Fortunately, despite the pain, the fingers the thugs had chosen to break would not prevent him from holding a hilt.
The gladiator swept a surprisingly fast and odd stroke, the sica dipping down and then coming back up, the concave edge angled perfectly for a lethal strike to the upper leg near the groin. Fronto was forced to leap back, momentarily inconveniencing Milo who stood behind him. His gladius dipped down to catch the deadly stroke, only just turning it away so that the point scored a jagged line across his leg above the knee.
He drew air through his teeth in pain as his bad hand fumbled the dagger’s hilt, trying to draw it in the press. Beside him, Priscus was locked in a violent embrace with a man a foot taller than him, both too close to bring their weapons to bear. Caesar parried and struck repeatedly, almost perfectly evenly matched with a man that showed all the hallmarks of a veteran legionary. Had he had time to watch, Fronto would have been impressed with the strength and skill the general was displaying.
Instead, he was forced once again to suck in his gut as that swift curved blade made to hook his liver. Gods, the man was fast. Taking the brief opportunity afforded him, he lashed out with his gladius, but the man somehow had his sica in the way in the blink of an eye, pushing Fronto’s blade up into the air. As Fronto marvelled at the sheer skill of this gladiator, the man took the opening he saw, head-butting the wounded legate.
Fronto’s world exploded in pain and for a moment he went completely blind with agony. His skull was already cracked and tender and the man had, likely purposefully, managed to hand his blow on the already broken and bruised area.
He staggered, white light suffusing his world, and felt excruciating pain as that sharp point jabbed into his upper arm, slicing into muscle. Only his unpredictable staggering had saved him from the blow’s intended fatal target.
His vision began to return and he could see the broken-jawed man grinning at him as he drew the sica back to repeat his blow, this time with a more certain aim. As the man lunged forward, however, his eyes locked on his opponent, the dagger that Fronto had drawn and just managed to turn outwards slid into the man’s belly with ease. The gladiator gasped, his eyes dropping to the hilt in his belly.
