The room went silent, the three other Roman officers averting their gaze as Balventius looked back and forth between them. Galronus frowned.
“I not understand. Maybe too private for me, eh?”
Balbus noticed the Remi nobleman for the first time with surprise.
“It’s a little complicated, my friend, but there are people in Rome and even here in the army that would like to see Caesar fail. And a particularly nasty individual in Rome has just killed one of our men’s wife and children.”
Galronus nodded.
“Like Nervii. I was tell Fronto about them. Nasty.”
Fronto sighed.
“I’ll tell him, Balventius.”
The primus pilus shook his head.
“I wasn’t serious, Fronto. This is my job…”
The legate cut him off with a low growl.
“I’m not going to face Caesar right now. If I do, there’s a distinct possibility I might re-enact the death of a King in the hands of the Nervii. I wonder what the general would look like without his skin?”
Balbus grabbed his wrist.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Fronto. If you’re going to see Paetus, just do that. Tell him everything, but try to keep both of you calm and be sympathetic. And stay the hell away from Caesar for a few days. I’ll tell Caesar about it.”
Fronto nodded unhappily and turned to Priscus.
“You’re in command of the Tenth for the moment. I have other duties. If Caesar wants to see the legate of the Tenth, that’s you. Understand?”
Priscus nodded as he reiterated Balbus’ words.
“Stay calm and don’t do anything stupid, Marcus.”
“I am calm,” Fronto growled as he stood and retrieved his belt and scabbard from the cot. “I am calm like death.”
Without a glance back at them, he strode purposefully out of the tent.
* * * * *
The legions had been on the march again for eight hours and Priscus was starting to worry that Fronto had snapped. While the officers had attended Caesar’s campaign meeting and the legions themselves had prepared to break camp, Fronto had gone off to find the camp prefect. Paetus had been extremely busy and it had taken a great deal of dragging to get him away from his tasks. After that, Fronto and the prefect had disappeared into the man’s tent, where they had remained for the night, the only sign they were still alive being the request for alcohol sent to the quartermaster.
The next morning, Priscus had formed up the Tenth and started them moving with the rest of the legions and still Fronto had been nowhere to be seen. With thousands of men to command and get moving, Priscus had had no time to enquire of his superior. Fronto had put him in temporary command of the Tenth, and the primus pilus knew that meant that Fronto would be absent for a while.
But now? Eight hours travel and no sign of him?
He really was beginning to worry. Priscus knew his commander better than any other man and Fronto, for all his practical, worldly attitude, was actually a lot more soft and emotional than most people realised. Priscus had always suspected that was what lay behind the fact that Fronto was still single and uninvolved in anything political. He was so damn prey to his emotions that he deliberately steered clear of things that he knew would mess him around.
“Sod this” he announced to nobody in particular. Turning to the signifer of the First Cohort, he made a sour face.
“Keep going. I’m dropping back for a few minutes.”
Without waiting for a nod or salute, Priscus fell out of line and strode back past the marching column at a brisk pace. The men moving past like a sea of tramping feet gave the impression that he was running, though in truth he maintained only a fast march.
Behind the First and Second Cohorts, he passed the various mounted tribunes attached to the Tenth, including Tetricus, who raised an eyebrow at him. He ignored them and marched on. No time to chat, and the tribunes had been as busy as him this morning, so they’d be no help. Besides, he’d seen them several times and, if they’d known anything about Fronto, they’d have commented.
Back past the rest of the cohorts, and Priscus continued to ignore the engineering detail with their artillery on the carts.
“Aha!”
Up ahead, the command section of the Eighth Legion marched, with a break of just fifty yards or so from the rear of the Tenth to allow the dust to drop below shoulder height. Legate Balbus sat astride a horse, keeping pace with his men. The tribunes of the Eighth rode just behind and accompanying their commander, with Balventius behind them, his face indicating how much he enjoyed staring at the rear end of a tribune’s horse for eight solid hours.
Priscus came to a halt and opened his mouth to speak to Balbus, before quickly remembering the proprieties of addressing a senior officer in front of his tribunes. Time and circumstance had drawn some of them closely together across traditional rank divides, but it was not wise to advertise that.
“Legatus?”
Balbus looked down in surprise to see Priscus turning to keep pace with him.
“Can I help, centurion?”
“I’m trying to locate legate Fronto, sir. Haven’t seen him since he… ah… left the meeting last night.”
Balbus frowned.
“Really? I just assumed he returned to the Tenth.”
Balbus turned to a tribune beside him.
“Adrattus? Take my horse and walk on. I have something to attend to.”
As he dropped from his horse with a litheness that belied both his age and his frame, the tribune took the reins in surprise.
“So,” Balbus frowned as the two men turned and began to stride back along the line once again. “Someone will have seen either Paetus or Fronto this morning.”
He laughed, though Priscus noted the lack of genuine humour in it. “Knowing how Fronto can put it away, I expect he and Paetus are grey and unconscious and draped over a supply cart. Let’s go find out.”
Unconvinced, Priscus nodded and the two men marched on, past the Ninth, Eleventh and Twelfth legions. Despite their nature as new and largely untested legions, the Thirteenth and Fourteenth had been placed as rear guard, partially for protection, but largely, once again, to keep them separate from the non-Gallic legions.
Priscus shook his head as he thought about it. It still pissed him off that non-citizens with braided hair and yellow beards who spoke a language that sounded like a sink emptying could march with pride in the name of Rome and collect the same pay, shares of booty and benefits as men born in Latium of longstanding Roman families.
And yet, these men had saved Sabinus and his men by the Aisne. Though he’d not been there to see it, he’d observed the aftermath, and tales had passed round about both the ingenuity and bravery of those men. He growled again. How could he expect the legions to treat them appropriately when he couldn’t even think about it himself without his prejudices getting in the way.
And there were still incidents. Only yesterday, a legionary from the Thirteenth had been caught in the temporary latrines by an unknown group and had been beaten within an inch of his life. Priscus had seen the man making his report. He’d been a mess, his bronze-coloured beard and hair stained further red by the blood that poured from his mouth and two or three cuts on his head. His arm had clearly been broken and his uniform, up to the waist, was a colour that clearly indicated he’d been thrown in the latrine ditch afterwards. And yet the man in good Latin, though with a noticeable accent, had claimed to have not seen any of their faces.
Pride. It was, more than anything, the backbone of the legions. Pride. And these Gaulish recruits had enough of it that they were willing to accept a near-fatal beating to preserve it.