Marius' Mules V: Hades' Gate (26 page)

Masgava's eyes locked on hers. "Because, domina, if you do not, the master here will be little more than a soft cheese with feet by the end of the year."

Fronto turned an indignant face to the big Numidian behind him, shocked at the sheer insubordination of which the man appeared capable. What he saw was the wide grin crease Faleria's face.

"I like him, Marcus. He's going to work you hard."

* * * * *

Fronto peered down the running track, trying to ignore the stares from the athletes oiling themselves. Next to him Masgava crouched, tying the single support bandage tight around the knee and knotting it below. The chilly morning air blew around parts of him that were rarely open to its caress, adding to his self-consciousness. He looked down at his slightly overweight form and sighed. Years of serving in the military had left him with a reasonable weathered tan on his arms and legs and face, but his torso and pelvis were almost translucent they were so pale, darkened only slightly by the hair. And even that was starting to go grey.

He was horribly aware of how underdressed he was. Gods, he was underdressed for a brothel! There was actually more material covering his bad knee than the rest of his body.

"Tell me again why I'm almost naked?" he asked the Numidian bitterly. The big man seemed to have taken his new role very seriously and roused Fronto from sleep blearily almost an hour before sunup. In fact, by the time Aurora had tickled the horizon with her rosy fingers they had already swum at the baths and done some knee bends, arriving at the track just as it became light enough to see the far end. Fronto glanced once more longingly at the pile of his clothes that lay on the bench.

"You are baring flesh because this is not about modesty, but about strength and endurance. Because you need to be committed and not go at this with only half a care. Because I want the added incentive to keep running - if you fall over naked on this grit the result will sting you for days. Because a bit of air and sun on the skin is good and healthy for you. Because you'll sweat out the fat. And, of course, because I told you to."

Fronto took a deep breath. He had quite literally asked for this, but that didn't make it any easier. He'd had this idea of a long-term training program that would slowly build up over the year or more to put him back in condition. Not so Masgava. The Numidian had been insistent from square one that barring unmissable engagements every day would involve at the least eight hours of training. Moreover, he had imposed a limit on dining and drinking. Fronto had been shown the chart, devised by the Numidian and written up by Posco, early this morning and had resolved to purchase and hide at least five amphorae of wine and half a roast hog each month. There
were
limits, after all.

"In the first run I will allow you one rest break for the sake of your knee. Savour it. The second and third will have no such respite. For every unscheduled break you take, I will add one run to the day's total, even if it takes us until sunset to complete them."

"Juno! You should serve with the legions' interrogators."

"And you should try training as a gladiator. There is no such thing as pain. It is a fantasy of the weak mind. Do not allow yourself that weakness and you will train yourself to ignore all pain. Be the master of your own body. If you do not, your body will master you and you will be little more than a bloated sack of organs."

"Nice. Did your own tribe sell you into slavery by any chance?"

"Take three slow, deep breaths to steady the beat of your heart. This run is not about speed - that will come in a week or so. This run is about endurance. It is about finishing the track without falling and collapsing. Three breaths and then go from a standing start, picking up speed as you feel you can. Anything above a walk is acceptable for the first run."

Fronto stood miserably and dutifully took three deep, slow breaths, the third of which fetched with it a wracking cough brought on partially by the foul tainted gusts from the tanneries in the street beyond the stadium. Recovering, he took another three and squinted at the track stretching out beneath his feet towards the brick wall at the far end. As before, it seemed half a world away.

It came as more than a mild surprise when Masgava gave him a ringing slap across the bare buttock next to his extremely skimpy loincloth, and he was already twenty paces down the track before he could think of anything other than running, his red, heated fleshy backside steadily cooling in the breeze even as the muscles strained.

He was running.

It was a moment of elation to realise that it wasn't as bad as he had been expecting. His knee felt sore, and his muscles were already complaining, but he was applying a trick of Velius'. The grizzled centurion from the Tenth - may he reside happy in Elysium - had taught his men to
count
the steps,
feel
the steps and
live
the steps. That way all else became background. And he was entirely correct: as Fronto jogged at the comfortable, mile-eating pace taught the legions, he was able to suppress and push down the pain in his knee and his muscles with the force of his will. His mind had no time to dwell on them - his mind was locked on not only counting each footfall, but naming each one for a city where he had lived, served or fought or a person he had lived or fought with. Perhaps it should be alarming that there were enough of them to cover a full stadium run, and impressive that he could remember enough.

Whatever the case, it was helping. Of course, it was also helping that he was keeping a steady pace and not sprinting as he had tried last time he was here.

And then, with little warning, it became too much. The footfall that was 'Ampurias', or 'one hundred and sixty-seven' saw the temporary end of his endurance. For some reason on that step his foot came down seemingly harder than the others, jarring his bad knee enough that the shock of white pain broke through his counting and attacked his senses.

He managed, despite the agony, to slow and come to a steady halt rather than stumbling and rolling naked in the painful grit. He coughed and spat on the track, wheezing in deep breaths, and glanced over his shoulder to see Masgava nodding his approval and holding up his index finger - not as a gladiator's plea for life, but to remind Fronto that he was to have only one stop.

It irked him. It actually irritated him that he was subject to the harsh rules of Masgava, and by his own design, too.

He looked up angrily at the track ahead and blinked.

He was no more than ten paces from the wall - just two paces from the end of the track itself. His running pace must have been longer than he had expected. With a grin, he turned back to the Numidian, his heart warming with the realisation that the raised finger had not been a reminder of stops, but a count of completed runs. Or was it the fiery breaths and rising bile that warmed the heart? Either way he couldn't wipe the grin from his face.

If he could finish the run first time, he could finish anything.

"It's not…" he paused for breath, "It's not just a fitness thing… though!" he bellowed at the dark-skinned figure at the far end of the track. "I want you… to teach me the rest too!"

Masgava pointed at him.

"Two more runs without a break and I'll slide in a little weapons practice tonight.

Fronto's grin widened.

* * * * *

Faleria and Lucilia smiled warmly at their hostess as Julia moved her considerable bulk slightly on the couch to achieve a more comfortable position. It was becoming more of a chore by the week. While the young wife of Pompey was blissful at the thought of being a mother and doing her best with the pregnancy, it was quite clear that her frame was not naturally given to such labour, and the midwives fussed around her continuously. Faleria had introduced the poor girl to an infusion the elder lady Faleria swore by, based heavily on raspberries but, if the draught was working at all, it was having an inadequate effect.

"So your husband is training under a gladiator? My husband will laugh himself sick when he learns of it - rest assured he shall not hear it from me - though I suspect my father will think it a stroke of genius."

"He is finding it harder work that he expected, I fear" Lucilia smiled. "Every time he speaks of it, the poor dear puts on this manly look that so clearly barely covers his weariness and pains. As he walks in through the door, you should see his legs shaking. But every day he is looking more like his old self. By the time winter sets in, he'll be at his peak again."

Julia threw her head back laughing, and then wished she hadn't, pulling herself forward once more, wincing and cradling her belly.

"Perhaps after Marcus is finished with this gladiator he will lend the man to Gnaeus. He's putting on a little too much weight for my liking. I saw him the other day standing in his office, staring at his cuirass from the days in Pontus. I don't know whether it was a wistful look - probably was - but it was also quite clear that it would barely go round him these days. All his extra stomach would squeeze out of the sides."

The mistress of the house gave a pleasant, loving chuckle and her guests joined in.

"Marcus is missing the military life also" Faleria put in. "Why do we always find ourselves with men whose love of battle surpasses their love of the home?"

"The alternative is hard to find in Rome."

Almost as if on cue, the door swung open to a cacophony of voices and bodies. Artorius, the head of Pompey's household guard, hurried in, shouting for water and towels. Behind him Berengarus, huge and hulking, dragged an unconscious togate man in each hand, both spattered with blood and displaying battered heads. Three other men in white togas were in the group, followed by half a dozen guards.

What drew the sharp, terrified gaze of the three women though, was Pompey. Surrounded by his guards and retinue of sycophants, it took them a moment to notice that he was being helped inside, and a moment longer to focus on the crimson stains and marks all over the chest and belly of his toga.

Faleria was on her feet immediately, adding her voice to the call for water and towels, a surgeon or medicus and a priest. Lucilia, her own focus more on Julia, rushed across to the couch just in time to catch Pompey's young wife as she fainted dead away at the sight of her husband, slumping from the recliner. Had Lucilia's reaching hands not been there, the mother-to-be's head would have connected hard with the floor.

"What in the name of sacred Vesta happened?" Faleria demanded of the guards. Artorius took one look at her, frowning at this guest who seemed immediately to have taken it upon herself to assume the role of matron of the house, and his gaze slid past her to Julia, lying at an awkward angle, cradled in the arms of the other houseguest.

"What the…?"

His face a mask of panic, Pompey suddenly pulled his arms free of the men supporting him and leapt forward from the group.

"Julia?"

Faleria stared at the former general, covered in blood splashes and yet now apparently vital and urgent as he almost ran across the room to take his wife from Lucilia's arms and lift her gently back to the seat.

"What happened?" Lucilia asked, shocked.

As Pompey continued to concentrate on his unconscious wife, Artorius crossed the room to her. "Fear not, my lady. The blood is not the master's. There was a disagreement at the Aedile elections that got out of hand. There was some trouble, though Berengarus helped sort it out." He gestured at the big thug, who still held a battered, unconscious man in each hand.

Faleria turned a sharp look on the general. "My lord Pompey, your wife is heavily pregnant and delicate. The last thing she needs at a time like this is a shock!"

Pompey - conqueror of the pirates of Cilicia, vanquisher of Spartacus, victor over Mithridates and the most powerful man in Rome, recoiled at the tone of her voice and found his mouth was opening and closing with no sound emerging.

Faleria turned back to Artorius.

"Fetch the midwives and slaves. Have the lady Julia taken to her bed and made comfortable. Do not attempt to bring her round until then, unless she surfaces on her own."

Artorius dithered, glancing across at Pompey, seeking permission, but the general was entirely focussed on the woman in his arms. When Faleria spoke again, the steel in her voice could have cut Artorius in half.

"Fetch. The. Midwife."

As the head guard ran off, the rest of the entourage dispersing so as not to become part of this uncomfortable scene and the hired thugs scurrying about their business, Faleria turned back to Pompey and Lucilia.

The general looked up at Faleria, his face ashen.

"I fear the midwives may be too late."

Her heart in her throat, Faleria's gaze slid past Pompey to the woman in his arms and to the spreading stain of red on the pale blue stola at her pelvis.

"Merciful Venus!"

Chapter Eight

Priscus sat in his tent, trying to ignore the sounds that filtered through the thick leather from the camp outside. The Tenth was packing up to head inland, along with most of Caesar's army. Everything was busy - chaos of the most organised kind. Ships were pulled up on the gravel while men patched, repaired and tended them as though they were wounded legionaries - men from the mixed cohorts that would be staying at the beachhead. Other ships had remained intact or were already repaired and had been beached further along the gravel slope. The ones beyond any hope had been torn apart and now formed three enormous heaps of timber waiting to be reused for construction, ship repair, or campfires. A small squadron had been sent back across the sea to Labienus to request the construction of further vessels to supplement the damaged fleet, and the senior officer over in Gaul had confirmed that he had begun the task, sending the squadron back to Caesar immediately.

Ten days had passed since the routing of the Britons at their rampart-encircled hill, and the beach fortifications were now complete, the fleet well on its way to repair, the legions in high spirits; as high as one might expect, anyway.