Conspiracy of Eagles

flitted through the general’s eyes as his gaze flicked to one side. Fronto peered over to the left, in the hope of identifying to what or whom Caesar had turned in that strange, unguarded moment but saw nothing out of place.

“That is entirely unacceptable” Caesar said quietly and angrily. “I will not have valuable officers dispatched in such a manner in my camp.”

Fronto leaned forward, a dozen warning triggers firing in his head at the strange reaction. What was more worrying? That it seemingly applied only to ‘valuable officers’? That just for a fraction of a second, Caesar seemed to have lost his iron control and given way to an element of fear? That he’d cast an intense momentary glance at someone or something that Fronto couldn’t identify? That only the manner of dispatch apparently mattered?

No. What worried — or, more correctly, irked and worried — Fronto the most was this virulent reaction to the death of an officer with whom Caesar had been passingly acquainted at best, while a couple of months ago the information that his own nephew had been brutally murdered in an inn in Vienna had warranted merely the word ‘inconvenient’.

Fronto glared at the general with genuine disgust for a moment before forcing a nondescript expression across his face and nodding.

“I presume, then, that no one has informed you of the attempt on my own life. An added ‘inconvenience’, at the very least, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

He narrowed his eyes, watching for Caesar’s reaction, but the general seemed genuinely shocked.

“This is harrowing news indeed. Ingenuus!” he bellowed.

The commander of his bodyguard pushed open the tent flap.

“Caesar?”

“After this briefing, put yourself and your best men at Fronto’s disposal. It appears we have a traitor in the ranks who is intent on picking off my best officers. I want the matter resolved before we move out to the Rhenus.”

Fronto scratched his head, wincing as he accidentally rubbed off a newly-formed scab.

“We’re moving out already? What of the cavalry across the Mosella?”

Caesar nodded calmly. “I understand why you missed the first part of the meeting, Marcus, and how you may have been out of the loop a little over the past day. Let me give you a quick rundown of what has occurred.”

He stepped out from behind the desk and began to pace back and forth across the tent, one hand behind his back and the other gesturing in the air with his words.

“I have had a report from the scouts that the remaining enemy cavalry were somehow informed of our victory over their tribe. Rather than come and face us in honourable battle or offer a sensible surrender, they fled across the Rhenus somewhere to the south and have allied with a Germanic tribe called the Sigambri, to whom they are in some way related. I am still hoping to find out how they crossed the river” he added with a hint of irritation. “There must have been a fleet of boats miraculously waiting for them, or someone on this side of the Rhenus gave them aid.”

He turned and paced back, waving his finger.

“Thus our enemies have fled our clutches and believe themselves safe across the river. They make the fig sign at us from their theoretical safety. At the same time, the Ubii, who control lands on both sides of the Rhenus, have sought an alliance with us and, while I had been set on refusing such alliances with these tribes, the line blurs a little with the Ubii, since they traditionally occupy both banks. They have offered us boats, manpower and gold if we will aid them in protecting their tribe’s territory across the river from these vicious Suevi that have been pushing the tribes west.”

Fronto rubbed his temple. It was everything the general had intended anyway, but the flight of the cavalry and the request of the Ubii had provided him with the excuses he’d needed to make the whole thing legitimate.

“So crossing the Rhenus is no longer a matter of discouraging those tribes on the other side from ever coming here again, but is now actively a campaign against the enemy cavalry and the Suevi? I hope you realise, Caesar, that this could be every bit as long, protracted and costly as Gaul has been?”

Caesar’s eyes flashed angrily for a second before control was reasserted.

“I do not intend to launch an invasion, Fronto. We will chastise the cavalry and the Sigambri for sheltering them, and we shall consolidate the frontier of Ubii lands, but go no further. We need to impose our strength on them just enough to make them aware that we are both capable of this and willing to do so at any future time we deem necessary.”

Fronto’s eyes slipped to Labienus and Cicero and their small group, including the two centurions who made his blood boil at their very presence. Labienus had the defeated look of a man who had argued until he was blue in the face and knew he’d lost. Suddenly Fronto was rather grateful that he’d not been here for the start of the meeting.

Caesar leaned back against his table, palms flat down on it.

“That’s all for most of you for now, I think. It might be prudent in the circumstances to draw this meeting to a close. I will require a few of you to stay behind and consult with me on the logistics of our move to the Rhenus — Labienus, Mamurra, Priscus, Sabinus and Cita, if you five would remain. The rest of you feel free to go about your business. Fronto? I would suggest you wash, get some sleep and then find Ingenuus and get to work on finding your tribune’s killer.”

Fronto watched the general as the men began to salute and file out. Once again, Caesar’s gaze flicked to the side for a fraction of a second and Fronto tried to follow it. Somehow he’d half expected it to rest on Labienus or Cicero, or Fabius and Furius. But no. Whatever or whoever he had looked at Fronto couldn’t tell, but it was not who he’d thought.

Something was definitely going on with the general, though: something strange and unsettling.

Chapter 9

(On the west bank of the Rhine)

Caesar scratched his chin.

“It truly is one of the greatest rivers in the world, as they say. I have rarely seen its like in width, depth or current. It is a matter of supreme amazement to me that a tribe of backward lunatics managed to cross and even to bring their worldly goods and their cavalry with them.”

Labienus pursed his lips. “I suspect it is that very lunacy of which you speak, Caesar, which is the only thing that would lead a man to try to cross it. It will take days to construct the boats and even then I’ll be making a very hefty offering to every God who listens this far north before I go out on those waters.”

“It may be an impressive one, but it’s still a river” muttered Fronto sullenly.

“You’re in good humour, Marcus.” The general turned back to the group of a dozen or more officers. “The Ubii have offered us a score of boats that they use to cross the Rhenus on a regular basis. It is small help, admittedly, but a useful gesture regardless. Fortunately, I do not believe that such use will be necessary.”

Mamurra, the renowned engineer, stepped a little closer to the bank and frowned. “The feasibility is still a matter for debate, general.”

“The chief engineer and surveyor in the Eighth are both experienced in such matters and they inform me that it cannot be done. A ‘matter for debate’ is an advance on impossible. Talk to me.”

The engineer tapped his lips thoughtfully as his eyes roved across the surface, taking in the banks and the whole length of the river visible from this point.

“No bridge like it has ever been attempted.”

Fronto, his surly mood punctured by a dart of surprise, wheeled on Mamurra.

“A bridge? Are you mad?”

“May I point out, Marcus” the general said quietly “that the idea is mine.”

“I’ve seen near a hundred bridges thrown over a hundred rivers in the past two decades. Some have been simple and small and taken a few hours. Some have been grand affairs across wide flows that have taken days. No