Cavarinos straightened, his eyes dark. ‘It is. But if you wish to discover more and perhaps damage them, this may be your only opportunity.’
Fronto gave him a meaningful look. ‘This is not your fight, Cavarinos.’
‘Oh it is.’
‘You know what I mean. You shouldn’t kill your own people.’
‘You Romans seem to do it often enough. Civil war seems to be a Roman sport.’
‘That was decades ago. Listen, are you sure you want to take part in this?’
Cavarinos placed both hands on the table. ‘These are not good people, Fronto. These are maniacs, set on prolonging the agony for all the tribes. They have to be put down if my people are ever to flourish again in any form.’
Fronto nodded. ‘Aurelius? Biorix?’
The two men strolled over, pausing at the table.
‘The cloaked man that came in… he’s one of them. Cavarinos saw him go upstairs.’
Aurelius slapped his head in irritation. ‘I thought he looked odd in his cloak on such a hot day, but it slipped straight from my head with all that Glykon crap.’
‘I think we need to go upstairs and have a little chat with the young fellow,’ Fronto muttered. ‘But we also need to be prepared to run like rats from an aqueduct if that door opens and we find all twelve of them in there. It’s risky.’
Aurelius reached up and tugged at his protective, white and blue eye pendant, muttering his prayer, then set his face hard. ‘Wish I had my sword,’ he muttered, then patting his stick resignedly, he added ‘let’s go rip the runt a new bum hole.’
Fronto grinned and momentarily caressed his own Fortuna pendant before rising from the table and crossing the room, the other three at his back as he neared the bar. The innkeeper finished serving the two Greek sailors with an off-colour joke and then turned to them.
‘I would like to know what room that fellow that just went upstairs is in.’
The innkeeper’s expression darkened. ‘I don’t want no trouble in my place.’
‘Then you’re letting rooms to very much the wrong people. That’s a known killer up there, as are his friends.’
‘No trouble,’ repeated the innkeeper, and Fronto rolled his eyes.
‘Biorix, give this man five obols for the room number and another five for his conscience.’
As the big Gaul counted out the coins in a surprisingly threatening manner, the innkeeper’s expression wavered. Fronto glared at him. ‘Greed usually leads to trouble, and you said you didn’t want that.’
The man sighed. ‘Up the stairs and at the end of the corridor. Last door. It’s my bunk room. Usually caters for the crews of small trade boats.’
‘Thank you,’ Fronto replied quietly. ‘I would heartily recommend that you forget this conversation ever happened.’
‘Gladly,’ the innkeeper grumbled and scurried off to the other end of the bar.
Fronto turned to the others. ‘Come on.’ With Cavarinos, Biorix and Aurelius following close behind, he approached the stairs and began to climb them. The wood creaked alarmingly beneath his soft boots and he automatically shifted to the edge of the stairs as he climbed, reducing the noise as best he could.
A moment later he emerged in the corridor above, with two doors to each side and one at the end. Taking a deep breath, Fronto stalked along the passage, coming to a halt outside the bunk room. As the others stopped behind him, he pressed an ear to the door. He could hear movement inside but no conversation, which suggested low occupancy. With relief, he crouched and looked through the keyhole, which was large to accommodate the bulky iron key that would keep the room secured against intruders.
His relief increased as his view turned out to be unobstructed. No key in the lock likely meant that it remained unlocked. Moreover he could see the young Gaul, now de-cloaked, standing by a window and looking down at the street. The light was fading outside, and no lamps had been lit, so the room was dim and monochrome. Swivelling his eye to get the best view he could, despite the restrictions, Fronto picked out the edges of double-tier bunk beds to either side of that window. And, interestingly, two long Gallic swords resting against the end of one of them, their tips downward. Rising again, he turned and used his fingers to explain that he could see only one man and that there were at least two swords to the right as they entered.
The other three nodded and stepped lightly forward, crowding him as he reached for the ringed handle. Given the creak of the stairs and the poor condition of the door’s ironwork, subtlety was no longer required. Even if the handle didn’t creak loudly, the hinges would. Fronto gripped the handle and, nodding a count of three in his head, turned and pushed in one move. He felt panic rise for a heartbeat as the door didn’t budge, but then it gave suddenly, the mechanism tight and badly-kept. As the portal swung inwards, he barrelled straight across the floor at the man in front of the window.
The young Maponos turned in surprise as Fronto burst into his room and powered towards him. The Roman officer sensed rather than saw Aurelius and Biorix split off to either side, making sure the rest of the room was empty and securing whatever blades they could find. Cavarinos was still following him and despite everything Fronto felt a tiny thrill of fear at the knowledge that the man right behind him had been every bit as much his enemy as the one in front only a year ago. What if Cavarinos had always harboured a flame of revenge?
But he had no time to ponder on his doubt, for the young Gaul before him had turned and, as Fronto hit him full on, thudded back against the windowsill with a gasp.
The Roman immediately reached up and grabbed the young Gaul by the throat, but was surprised as Maponos easily knocked his grasping hand aside and delivered a sharp punch to his ribs that almost felled him immediately.
Oddly, despite the danger and trouble of the sudden turnaround in the fight, what struck Fronto most of all was how embarrassed he was and how glad he was that Masgava wasn’t here to see what a monumental cock-up he’d made of such a simple attack.
As he reeled, he backed into Cavarinos and the Arverni was forced to stagger back to keep his footing. The young rebel was quick to act, grabbing a ceramic jug from the table by the window and, as Fronto made another lunge for him, slamming the thing into the Roman’s face. Fronto was blinded. Partially by the ceramic surface being squashed into his face and partially by the mix of sweat and blood trickling into his eyes from some cut the jug had delivered to his brow… but mostly by rage.
Ignoring the jug, the pain and the stinging blindness, he roared and grasped with both hands. He felt his left achieve a grip on a wide swathe of wavy hair. Satisfied with this, he yanked downwards and was rewarded with a yelp and a change of scenery as the jug vanished from in front of his eyes. Still gripping and pulling the hair, he used his other hand to wipe away the sweat and blood and focused on the Gaul.
His world exploded in pain again as Maponos stamped on his foot and then punched him in the gut. He reeled backwards again, halted by both the close presence of Cavarinos behind him and his grip on the Gaul’s hair. Finally, the long locks gave way and tore free with an unpleasant sound, accompanied by another scream.
As Fronto cast aside the hair and straightened, trying to breathe through winded lungs and ignore the pain in his midriff, the Maponos figure lurched back against the windowsill. For just a moment he tottered, his point of balance dangerously close to the level of the window. Then Fronto’s hand shot out and grabbed the man’s neck again, tightening instantly, given what had happened with his first attempt.
‘Oh no you don’t,’ he growled, squeezing until the young warrior gasped.
A sword hilt appeared next to him and he glanced aside to see Biorix proffering the blade to him. He took it with his free hand and stepped back, letting go of the man’s neck just as he brought the point of the blade up to tickle the Gaul’s throat apple. Maponos remained quite still, aware that even the tiniest move might well open his windpipe.