Conspiracy of Eagles

Lucilia frowned and the two women made for the doorway to the triclinium, while Fronto collected Galronus’ bag and led him off toward the far end of the villa, where he was wont to pass the time.

“You read the message?”

“I did. He moves earlier than I expected.”

From across the room, a sharp female voice snapped out.

“What?”

Fronto turned in surprise and realised that the two ladies had not yet fully left the room, pausing instead to chat in the doorway. He cursed inwardly for having spoken openly and too soon.

“Nothing, Lucilia. We’ll be along shortly.”

But the dark haired girl had already torn herself from Faleria’s grasp and was storming across the atrium so resolutely Fronto feared she would walk straight through the impluvium pool in the centre without noticing.

“Lucilia…”

“No! You’re leaving? It’s too early. You said you wouldn’t go until the end of Aprilis. My father is going to Rome in a few weeks. I was going to take you there to meet him. We need to speak to him.”

Fronto quailed and stepped back as the whirlwind of furious womanhood approached.

“It’s just a few more months, Lucilia. I’ll be back before winter, and then…”

“No. I will not spend a whole extra summer as a guest with no formal ties to the house. You persuaded me not to travel in winter, else we’d have seen father sooner. You’ll not delay our betrothal any further.”

“Lucilia, I have to go. I have been summoned to my post by the Proconsul of Gaul. It’s only half a year. I’ve waited this long, after all…” he regretted the words almost before they’d left his tongue and the colour draining from the face of the young lady threatened a violent disagreement and likely some thrown crockery.

Galronus opened his mouth and took a pace forward, but Lucilia held a hand up, palm facing him.

“No. You find somewhere to make yourself comfortable. Marcus and I are going to have a talk.”

Fronto cast one desperate, pleading look at Galronus as Lucilia grabbed his arm and, yanking, turned him back to the door before dragging him through it. The large Gaul carefully avoided meeting his gaze and then turned back to the atrium, wondering whether it would be possible to follow them and ask for his travelling bag. Prudence won out and he decided against it.

“Galronus, it has been too long.”

He smiled at Faleria and stepped around the small pool towards her.

“Have they been like this all winter?”

Faleria nodded. “I think he missed male company. You should have come earlier.”

Galronus cast an embarrassed eye down to the floor. ”I had… other pursuits. The games; the racing; I even watched one of your plays, although it lacks the power of the storytellers among my people. The masks are funny, though. And some of the singing made me laugh,”

Faleria nodded encouragingly. She daren’t ask what play he had attended; she was almost certain it would have been a tragedy. Certainly with Galronus in the audience laughing like a gurgling drain.

“How long will you be here? Are you taking him straight away?”

Galronus shrugged. “I think we can squeeze a few days out. The traders in Rome say that the sea is remarkably calm even for the time of year, so we will make good time, especially if we take a ship straight from Neapolis or Puteoli, rather than riding back to Rome.”

Faleria smiled wickedly. “Marcus does so love to travel by sea. I think we can defuse the situation between the two young lovebirds. If you travel to Gaul by ship, you will make landfall at Massilia. Lucilia and I will accompany you thus far, where we can meet with Balbus, her father, and sort this mess out.”

“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.”