Emperor: The Blood of Gods (Special Edition) (Emperor Series, Book 5) (25 page)

‘He is too young, Pansa, and much too inexperienced to rule Rome. The ridiculous fiasco at the forum showed that. I suspect he will fall on our necks with gratitude, but if he doesn’t, we have both the rank and the men to enforce the Senate will. His men are not fanatics, remember, for all their talk of a new Caesar. They did not offer to fight to the death when they thought Mark Antony was returning to Rome. Not them! Instead, they charged away in the opposite direction. Legionaries are practical men, Pansa – and so am I.’

Arretium had grown up on the Via Cassia, a town made prosperous by the ease with which trade goods could reach it and travel from it to other regions. Neither Hirtius nor Pansa knew the area well, but their extraordinarii riders kept a wide ring around them as they went north, reporting back in a chain so that they were informed of all that lay ahead. Before the sun reached the western hills on their flank, their riders came back accompanied by strangers, seeking out the consuls and reporting with all the formality they might require. Hirtius accepted the messages of welcome and safe passage as if they had been expected all along, though he could not resist a smug glance at his co-consul.

‘It is too early to stop for the night,’ Hirtius said in an aside to his colleague. ‘I would rather take the legions into Arretium and make sure the Senate orders have been properly … understood.’

Pansa nodded immediately, already cheerful at the thought of a return to civilisation. Hirtius seemed to thrive on sleeping out, but at sixty years of age, Pansa’s bones ached each morning.

The legions had not stopped for their consuls to receive messages. They marched on without expression as the orders came down the line. It mattered little to them whether they slept in tents by the road or in tents by a Roman town. At the end of the day, they were the same tents.

Manoeuvring such large numbers required a fair level of skill and both consuls were happy to leave the deployment to their subordinates. As they came within a mile of the walled town, a dozen extraordinarii and three of Octavian’s tribunes came out to help them organise the halt without adding to the problems of the legions already in the vicinity. The best places were all taken, of course, but Hirtius and Pansa cared nothing for that. They accepted the invitation to meet Caesar in a fine provincial home outside the walls. Both men rode in with their lictors and personal guards, so that they made an impressive group. They had been offered a truce to approach and Hirtius did not expect treachery, but he still had enough men to fight his way out if necessary. In any case, his new rank demanded such a following and he enjoyed the sight of stern lictors watching for the slightest insult to his person.

The estate was small compared with those around Rome, but Hirtius approved of the taste and wealth that had gone into its creation. The main house was reached through open gates and a wide courtyard, where servants scurried to take their horses. Hirtius looked to the pillared entrance and saw Octavian waiting there. He stood with no sign of tension and Hirtius realised with prickling irritation that the young man was handsome, with broad shoulders and long hair tied into a club at his neck. It was the first time they had ever met, but there was no mistaking the confidence in the grey eyes watching the consuls.

Hirtius and Pansa walked up the steps together. The evening was soft and warm and the air smelled of cut hay. Hirtius took a deep breath of it, feeling some of his tension ease.

‘This is a splendid house, Caesar,’ Hirtius said. ‘Is it yours?’

‘It belongs to a friend, Consul,’ Octavian said. ‘You will meet him tonight and you can tell him then, though he is already too proud. You are welcome here. I give you my oath and my protection while you remain in Arretium. There are rooms for your lictors and followers if you wish. If you’ll follow me inside, I have had food laid out for you.’

Pansa stepped forward immediately at the thought of a meal. Hirtius looked askance at his companion but walked in behind, sending the waiting lictors away with a flick of his fingers. There were times when a man had to trust his host and constant suspicion insulted them both. He reminded himself that Octavian could have slaughtered the Senate but had not.

The legates had gathered in the banqueting hall to greet the consuls from Rome. When Hirtius and Pansa entered, all the men rose, including Maecenas and Agrippa. They stood like soldiers in the presence of senior officers and Hirtius nodded to them, accepting Octavian’s invitation to sit at their table. He and Pansa had been placed together at the head and he wasted no time in taking his seat. As nobody had been sure when the consuls would arrive, the meal was cold, but it was still much better than they had eaten on the road north.

‘Sit, sit, gentlemen,’ Hirtius said. ‘Your manners do you credit, but we have much to discuss.’ He hesitated at the sight of Pansa already heaping thin slices of cured ham onto his plate, but the other consul was oblivious.

A slave approached with a jug of wine and Hirtius noticed the delicate glass vessels on the table. He raised his eyebrows slightly, aware that he was being treated as an honoured guest. He sipped the wine and his eyebrows went further up.

‘Excellent,’ he pronounced. ‘I prefer the table to couches. It feels … delightfully barbaric. I take it, then, you have received the missive from the Senate?’

‘Yes, Consul,’ Octavian replied. ‘I can tell you it was something of a relief to be offered formal rank.’

Consul Pansa nodded, smacking his lips and draining his cup of wine.

‘I imagine it was, Caesar. Whatever our differences in the past, I’m sure the news of a true mutiny, by no less a name than Mark Antony, was as shocking to you as it was to the senators.’

‘As you say, Consul,’ Octavian replied, inclining his head to Pansa in agreement as the man began to work his way through a plate of melon slices sprinkled with ginger.

Hirtius spent a moment cleaning a fingernail with one of the others. He would have preferred outright command, of course, but Pansa was theoretically his equal and not easily dismissed. Either way, the young rebel seemed to bear no animosity towards his guests. Hirtius nodded stiffly, choosing dignity over rubbing Octavian’s face in his failures. He cleared his throat as Pansa dug in to the main dishes, spearing the carcasses of some small birds fried in olive oil.

‘Very well, then. To the task at hand. Mark Antony is perhaps a week on the march ahead of us. We know his path and his destination. We know his strengths very well – I believe some of you were with him in Brundisium?’ Buccio and Liburnius nodded uncomfortably. ‘Then you may have some insight worth hearing. I will send men to record your thoughts, though I doubt there is anything new to say. I have known Mark Antony for many years. He is an impressive speaker, but if you remember, Caesar did not trust him with many men in Gaul. He is more suited to governing a city. I do not expect his four legions to cause us too much difficulty.’ Hirtius looked around the table as he spoke, drawing them all into his confidence.

‘Do we know what forces Decimus Junius has at his disposal?’ Flavius Silva asked.

Hirtius smiled at his contribution, sensing they were trying hard to work in the new structure his presence had created.

‘The region by the Alps is hardly bristling with soldiers. There are a dozen legions in Gaul, but up in the north, no more than a few thousand men. It is not an impossible obstacle for Mark Antony, if we were not here to oppose him. However, I think he will be unpleasantly surprised to see eight legions and new consuls to bring him to justice.’

Hirtius leaned forward, tapping a single knuckle on the table as if he did not already have their full attention.

‘My orders are simple enough, gentlemen. For a short time, you have all found yourself outside the law. This is your chance to wipe the slate clean. From this moment, this is a lawful assembly, under command of the Roman Senate.’ He paused, but when there was no reply from the men at the table, he nodded, satisfied. ‘We will march at dawn and make the best speed possible north. When we are in range of Mark Antony, we will engage and either force an immediate surrender or destroy his legions with superior numbers. I would prefer him to be brought back to Rome for trial and execution, but I will not complain if he fails to survive the fighting. Is all that understood?’

The men around the table nodded and Hirtius glanced at Octavian.

‘I hope it is as clear that Decimus Junius is our ally. His life is under the protection of Senate authority and he will not be touched. Those are my terms.’

‘I understand, Consul,’ Octavian said. ‘Though you have not said what part I will play in this. I accept my rank of propraetor, but it is a civil position. My legions will expect to see me command.’ His grey eyes glinted dangerously and Hirtius raised his palms, fending off the objection.

‘I am here to bring you back into the Roman fold. It would not serve to reduce a Caesar to the ranks. However, you will appreciate the perils of a split command. Pansa and I will give joint orders to the eight legions. You will be praefectus of two legions in the vanguard. You will march under our orders, in good formation, until you have met the enemy.’ His voice hardened subtly then. ‘You will give no orders of your own, not against Mark Antony. Your men have a history of independent thinking and I cannot afford to indulge their taste for it.’

Being first into the line of battle was an honourable position, but Octavian could not help the suspicion that the older man would be happy to see him fall. Even so, it was as much as he had hoped. There had never been a chance that the consuls would leave him in charge of half the army they commanded.

‘Very well,’ Octavian said. ‘And after the battle is won?’

Hirtius laughed. He had not yet touched his food, but he sipped his wine again, sucking it over his tongue with a hissing sound.

‘I appreciate your confidence, Caesar! Very well,
when
the battle is won, we will have order restored. Pansa and I will return to Rome, of course, with the legions. I do not doubt you will be honoured in some way by the Senate. They will give you your Lex Curiata, and if you are a man of sense, you will stand for election as senator in the new year. I imagine you will have a long and successful career. Between you and me, I would enjoy seeing a little younger blood in the Senate.’

Octavian smiled tightly in response, forcing himself to eat a few mouthfuls. The consul was working to be charming, but Octavian could see the hardness in him, the personification of Roman authority. He reminded himself that the consuls had denied him everything when they thought he was powerless. Four legions had bought him a place at the table, but they were not true allies.

‘I will consider it, Consul …’ he said. Octavian saw Hirtius frown and decided he was offering too little resistance and making the man suspicious. ‘Although you will appreciate how difficult it is for me to imagine sitting at peace with men like the Liberatores.’

‘Ah, I understand your reluctance, Caesar. The name says it all. Yet we are practical men, are we not? I would not waste my youth railing against enemies beyond my reach.’

Hirtius sensed the sentiment was not echoed in the cold-eyed young man across from him. The meeting had gone better than he had hoped and he struggled to find something else to smooth over the moment of ill-feeling.

‘If I have learned anything, Caesar, it is that nothing is certain in politics. Enemies become friends and vice versa, over time. Those who sit around this table are proof enough of that. However, it is also true that men rise and fall. Who knows where we shall find ourselves in a few years? It may be that when enough time has passed, once powerful men will find their stars have set and others are on the rise.’

He snapped his mouth shut then, rather than make promises he could not possibly keep. He had intended to raise a little hope in the young Roman. Hirtius had lived long enough to know that a brief and careless mention of promotion would keep some men working for years without reward. Yet words were just wind until they were written down and sealed. He was pleased to see Octavian’s expression ease and Hirtius raised a cup of the Falernian in a toast, the gesture quickly copied around the table.

‘To victory, gentlemen.’

‘To victory,’ Octavian repeated with the rest. He had learned a great deal over the previous months and no trace of his thoughts showed on his face. Yet it was strange to drink a toast with dead men.

Mark Antony shivered in a wind which came straight from the mountains looming over him. The cloak that had seemed so thick in the south felt threadbare, no matter how he wrapped and folded it. He could see his own breath and the ground itself was covered in a constant dusting of frost. Even his horse was shod with leather on each hoof to protect its feet.

From first light, he had set men to constructing catapults and scorpion bows, assembling the massive weapons of wood and iron from the train of carts he had brought with him. The cold made injuries unavoidable and he already had two men with crushed fingers being tended by healers.