Gallia Invicta

“Look, Marcus, I am not unsympathetic, but you are a soldier. You know how this has to be done, and if you were thinking like a soldier right now, it would be you saying these things and not me. You are angry, tired, worried and saddened by both Balbus and your family’s plight. However, your place is with me and with the Tenth until the campaign is at an end for the year.”

Fronto opened his mouth again, but Caesar held up his finger.

“You can be of no help to Balbus right now. In fact, your presence and involvement is more likely to cause him further discomfort than to relax him. As soon as my personal medicus says he can travel, I will send Balbus home with the best doctors we have to offer, a small group of helpers and an escort of veterans from Ingenuus’ guard. Likely the Eighth will want to send an escort too. And then, when the time comes and we are done in Gaul, you and I shall both visit Balbus and his lovely wife on our journey back.”

Fronto grumbled, but kept his mouth shut.

“Your sister and mother are in the best hands available, Fronto, as you well know. Priscus is not going to let anything happen to them. Your mother has suffered, I know, but now Priscus will be looking after her and making sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Again, Fronto grumbled, but said nothing.

“Marcus, we have to be sure here first. Logical. Methodical. Certain. Go and find your close friends, drink yourself into a comfortable stupor, get some good solid sleep, visit Balbus in the morning, and then we’ll talk again. I can’t spare you until the campaign’s over and you know that, but in the morning you’ll be rested and thinking straight.”

The general smiled slyly.

“How often do I actually advocate your binges, Marcus? Look on this as an opportunity, as I will not expect you at the staff meeting in the morning.”

Fronto sagged. The problem was that the general was correct in everything he said. His presence would only make Balbus try harder and strain himself, when he should be lying back and relaxing. Priscus would have taken the attack on his mother rather personally and would tear Rome to pieces to stop it happening again. And most of all, if the army did not complete the job here in Gaul, they would end up coming back again later in the year, or early in the next, to put down yet another rebellious tribe.

It galled him, but he couldn’t fault the reasoning. Of course, he didn’t feel very reasonable, right now.

“I’ll do just that. Try not to be too surprised if I’m not here tomorrow, though.”

It was a stupid and petty thing to say, and he knew it. His gaze refused to rise to meet that of Caesar. The general smiled as though he saw plainly through the childishness.

“Drink, relax and sleep, Marcus. Tomorrow is a new day.”

Fronto glared up at him, but nodded despondently and then turned and scuffed his feet angrily on the way out of the tent.

By now, all the Veneti prisoners had been processed and were safely locked away in guarded stockades. The commotion had died down considerably, the Roman fleet moored in the bay, and much of the army organising themselves ready to move into the oppidum, leaving large vexillations of troops outside in camps. Fronto marched past them, ignoring the activity as he made his way back to the gate with its grisly decoration and the street beyond with the tavern sign that marked the location of his friends.

As he rounded the gate entrance and entered the main thoroughfare, his gaze fell on four men making their way down the centre of the road toward him and he frowned.

The two men in the centre were staggering, supported by legionaries at their shoulders. They appeared to be Gauls, dirty and unkempt; perhaps refugees who had hidden in a pig pen or a…

He blinked as he realised that the brown, stained and torn tunics that the men wore beneath the fresh woollen cloaks about their shoulders had once been the crimson tunics of Romans. The two men were Romans. His eyes refocused. They were Romans, but they had beards and long hair. Dirty and disfigured.

No… not disfigured, but walking with limps and cradling weakened or broken arms.

“Who’s that?”

The legionaries, startled by the sudden attention from a legate, almost jumped to a salute, remembering at the last minute to hold on to the men they escorted. One of the hairy, unkempt figures looked up in surprise.

“Fronto?”

The legate frowned.

“Who the hell are you?”

The man opened his mouth and grinned, three missing teeth making a conspicuous hole in his smile.

“Quintus Velanius.”

“Velanius?”

He knew the name, but couldn’t place it.

“Oh come on, Fronto. We played dice often enough last year? Senior tribune of the Eleventh.”

Fronto’s eyes widened.

“Velanius? I thought you were dead. Everyone thought you were dead. It’s been months!”

The legate came to a halt as the groups met and he looked the tribune and his companion up and down. They had clearly been brutalised and tortured, but nothing that wouldn’t mend. He couldn’t believe it.

“Stop shaking your head, Fronto. You look like there’s something wrong with you.”

“But how?”

“We were kept in a cellar; a virtual dungeon. It’s like the tullianum. We’ve been shouting for hours, since we heard the Veneti leave, but these lads only just found us.”

Fronto grinned, feeling a little of the weight of anger and sadness fall away.

“You need a shave.”

The tribune next to Velanius, whose name escaped Fronto, laughed.

“Not just shave, but scrape months of crud from the skin. I feel like I’ve been living in a latrine… a cramped latrine.”

“And then” Fronto added, “after you’ve had a bath, you need to report to the general, get yourself debriefed as quickly as possible, and then get back here and make for that building over there, with the hanging sign.”

Velanius shook his head, smiling.

“You never change, Fronto. We’ll join you tomorrow, perhaps. Today, we need to recuperate and sleep.”

Fronto shrugged.

“Suit yourself, but my purse only stays open for so long.”

“Yes, until you’ve lost it all at dice.”

“Sod off” he said, grinning madly.

The officers continued to smile at one another for a while, and then Velanius sighed.

“Come on. We need to go. See you later, Fronto.”

The legate nodded, smiling, as the two men limped off with their escort. He watched them until they passed through the gate and out of sight, and then turned and crossed the street, entering the tavern. To his surprise, no one else had yet joined the other three occupants.

“Fronto. How’d it go?”

As he entered, he strode across to the seat he’d left around an hour ago as he’d finished reading Priscus’ letter, and sank gratefully into it. As he exhaled slowly, Crispus placed a mug in front of him. Fronto eyed it and then looked up at this friend, an eyebrow raised.

“No wine?”

“Drink that. It will do you good. I’ve tested three or four now, and I think I can safely say that this is the one you need tonight.”

Reaching forward, he sniffed the mug and recoiled before grasping it and tentatively taking a sip.

“Juno’s arse… that tastes like… well, I suppose it tastes like Juno’s arse, probably.”

“Get it down you.”

Opposite, Brutus, grasping a cup of wine that Fronto eyed enviously, sat back.

“I assume that Caesar said no?”