‘Make no mistake, gentlemen,’ Caesar said quietly. ‘This is not like the Bituriges or the Carnutes. Once more we face a sizeable army of strong warriors. This is serious business, and upon it rests the peace of all Belgae lands. But we have achieved so much in recent years and Gaul is on the cusp of being settled permanently under the law of the republic. I will not allow all our success to backslide at this point. The war will be over this year. Time to finish it.’
Varus nodded to himself. Certainly in four days’ time someone would be finished.
Chapter Six
Fronto leaned forward in his seat and peered around the doorway. Andala the Bellovaci woman – slave, he tried to remind himself – turned to look at him with some odd instinctive awareness and he ducked back feeling guilty, although not entirely sure what about. He could hear Lucilia deep in conversation with the Belgic woman – slave – and tried not to concentrate on what they were saying, but it kept insisting itself on him, over and above his own business.
‘I must apologise to you, Andala…’
No. You don’t apologise to slaves, Lucilia. Even if they fascinate you.
‘No insult, lady. I know Roman thoughts.’
‘I had been led to believe that your people were averse to bathing. There is so much we don’t understand, sadly. You are welcome to use the villa’s bath house whenever you wish. I would ask that you make sure it is unoccupied first, and if the floors are cold just let Bocco know and he will stoke the furnace for you.’
No, Lucilia. You don’t pamper the help.
‘Do I take it you’re uninterested in business today?’ Catháin said with a strange smile. Fronto ripped his attention from the annoying exchange out in the atrium and back to his new employee. The factor of Fronto’s business was always giving him odd little knowing smiles. Sometimes they seemed to convey sympathy, sometimes admonition, and sometimes curious humour. Fronto simply couldn’t quite get the man straight in his head. He seemed capricious, irreverent, totally disrespectful when in private, inscrutable and downright odd at times. And yet there was something unexpectedly likeable about him. Despite the vast gulf in their backgrounds and careers, the man reminded him in strange ways of Priscus, and each time he felt that familiarity there was a small twinge of guilt and loss.
Catháin was quite the most unusual companion Fronto had worked alongside, including Masgava. In fact, if there could be a direct opposite of Masgava, Catháin was probably it, and yet the pair had quickly formed a solid, if unlikely, friendship. The strange fellow was an inhabitant of the isles of Britannia, though he seemed not to think so. His homeland, which he called Īweriū, seemed to be only describable in terms of mystical beauty and belligerent bloodshed, from what Fronto could gather. Its people sounded a lot like the Belgae – all punch-ups over honour and too much drink.
Indeed, Catháin had been involved in a small scuffle over a woman – a half-sister, Fronto had discovered with fascinated interest – and had beaten a cousin to death with a drinking vessel. Before the brawl erupted into full-scale tribal warfare, which from what Catháin said seemed to be a national pastime, the young man had scurried down to the seafront of his settlement and had stowed away on board a visiting Phoenician trader. That had been almost a decade ago, and since then the man had been to ports in exotic places that Fronto had only heard of.
But despite a decade of maturity and a world-wisdom settled deep into the man’s being, nothing seemed to have removed the impulse of violence that clearly ran in his blood.
‘Business?’ he said with more acid than he intended.
‘Yes, business,’ smiled Catháin.
‘I thought we might talk about yesterday’s incident and how it might impact on my trading.’
‘Incident?’
Fronto rolled his eyes. ‘Gods, but you can be infuriating, man. You punched a Greek trader between the eyes.’
‘It was a good punch.’
‘I’m not denying that. It was an excellent punch. I’ve never seen someone go down so quick and heavy from one punch. Maybe when Atenos hit someone once, actually. But still – an excellent punch. Though that’s not the issue. Business would probably go much smoother if you didn’t punch other traders into next year. The man probably hasn’t woken up yet.’
‘Ah, for the love of bilgewater, the bastard had it coming. He called me a runt. Men have died for less. And the poor fool was a nobody. Just a visitor, else he’d have known me and known not to rile me.’
‘You have a very high opinion of yourself, Catháin.’
‘I know what I’m worth. And if you stop messing around and listen, so will you.’
Fronto frowned, his attention finally fully committed to his factor. Despite the ongoing fuzziness he felt from months of poor sleep, he felt brighter than usual this morning, perhaps due to the fact that it was today he was due to pick up his replacement Fortuna pendant. ‘Go on,’ he asked with keen interest.
‘How much are you paying for that old shed in the Street of the Oil Traders?’
‘I don’t know. Can’t remember exactly. About twenty drachma a month, I think, more or less.’
‘Thought so. You know a friend of Hierocles would get it for eight or nine?’
‘I’ll bet. But there’s no chance of that happening for me. A friend of Hierocles would sooner bed the Lernaean hydra than cut me a deal.’
Catháin grinned. ‘That’s because you don’t know the right people or the right things to say, and even when you do speak Greek, you speak it like a Roman. But think on this: there are other people in Massilia who’ve had their noses bent by that Greek prick in the past, who will happily help put him in his place. Cancel your premises with half a month’s notice if you can. I’ve got you a secure warehouse two streets back from the port in the Street of the Brazen Carters and you’ll need half a month to move everything across, get it secured away and clear out your previous premises. The new one’s almost twice the size, comes with its own security, as it’s part of a conglomerate, and will cost you eleven a month. Twelve if you want to use the conglomerate’s own carts and muleteers, which I would recommend. I know you have your own wagon, but you can only ever deal with one shipment at a time like that.’
Fronto boggled.
‘That’s… I can’t… did you really? Eleven?’
‘Twelve, with the carters.’
‘I hardly need a team of carts and muleteers to hand, Catháin. I can only afford to manage one shipment at a time, anyway.’
‘In which case, my dear Fronto, you might as well sign your business over to Hierocles now. Grow or go under, my friend. Grow or go under.’
‘And how do you suggest I do that?’ Fronto rubbed his tired eyes. ‘Grow, I mean. Not go under. I seem to be quite adept at that part already.’
Catháin shrugged. ‘I know a few people. Let’s try and streamline your current process, and then we’ll look at alternate sources and routes and customers. You’d be surprised how many people will help an enemy of Hierocles if you know who to ask. And if it’s not a Roman doing the asking, too.’
Fronto leaned back again. ‘You realise this might start a war. And not just a trade war. That bastard’s already tried to take me down more than once. If he thinks I’m actually a proper threat to his business, he’ll go all out to kill me, let alone ruin me.’
‘Let the bastard come, Fronto. I grew up in the ale pits of the black lake and the fighting dens along the banks of the Oboka. I learned to flatten a man’s nose and rip out his groin before I had my second teeth.’
Fronto rolled his eyes again. Where did he pick these people up? He had only the vaguest idea of even the location of this strange Celtic isle which apparently did a good trade with southern merchants despite having no contact with Rome, but the more he heard about the place from his new employee, the less he wanted ever to go there.