It occurred to me that I might possibly escape with my neck intact if I kept doggedly proclaiming my identity— but only if I betrayed Tiro. How else to explain the passport? Once he was known to be Tiro, higher ranking officers could probably be called forward to identify him, despite his disguised appearance; as Cicero's secretary, Tiro was well known in the Forum. What would be done to him? Would he be released, as Domitius had been released, and sent back to Cicero unharmed?
I doubted it. Tiro was not Domitius. He was a citizen and a member of a senator's household, but only by dint of having been manumitted by Cicero. What would be done to a former slave traveling incognito as a spy, who had brazenly lied to a Roman officer? I couldn't believe that he would simply be set free.
This vexing train of doubts and apprehensions served at least to keep my mind off the more and more frequent stumbling from behind, the tug of the tether at my neck, and the raucous laughter of the marching soldiers. I was weary and thirsty. My head buzzed as if there were a swarm of bees inside it.
Down and down we trudged, until at last we arrived at a broad, high meadow that overlooked the coastal plain and the glimmering Adriatic in the distance. The meadow appeared to be the site of the previous night's camp. A single large tent was still standing. We passed the staging area where the last cohort was assembling in ranks to begin the march up the mountain.
In my dazed state, I wondered how many soldiers I had seen in the last few hours. If the army consisted of Domitius's entire force from Corfinium, they amounted to thirty cohorts in all, with six hundred men in each cohort, and I had passed every one of them. Now I knew what a body of eighteen thousand armed men looked like. How many men did Caesar have in Italy, that he could spare so many troops for Sicily?
Otacilius led us toward the tent, where a team of camp-strikers had begun to pull up stakes. A young officer in splendid armor stepped out, carrying under his arm a helmet with an elegant horsehair crest. There was no copper disk with a lion's head on his breastplate. He was not one of Domitius's men, yet Otacilius was quick to jump from his horse and salute him as a superior.
"Numa's balls!" I heard Tiro mutter behind me.
I peered at the officer more closely. It must have been fear and fatigue that kept me from recognizing him at once, for there was no mistaking his curiously brutish yet babyish face. His profile was the brute: seen from the side, his dented nose, jutting chin and craggy brows made him look like an angry boxer. Seen straight on, his full cheeks, gentle mouth, and soulful eyes made him look like a homely poet. At every angle between, his face was a mixture of contradictions. It was a face women found fascinating, and men trusted or feared instinctively.
Otacilius conferred with him in a low voice. I heard my name spoken. The man looked toward me. His eyebrows registered surprise, then shock. He shoved Otacilius roughly aside and strode toward us, casting aside his helmet and drawing his short sword from its scabbard. He grabbed my shoulder and put the blade to my neck. I sucked in a breath and closed my eyes.
An instant later, his bearish arms were around me, crushing me to his barrel chest. The tether that had been around my throat lay on the ground, cut in two.
"Gordianus!" he bellowed, pulling back to give me the full effect of his homely features at close quarters.
"Marc Antony," I whispered, and fainted to the ground.
• • •
I heard voices, and gradually realized that I was in an enclosed space— not a room exactly, but a shelter of some sort, full of soft light.
"A citizen his age, led by his neck on a forced march!"
"The prisoners had to be bound, Tribune. Standard procedure for suspected insurgents and spies."
"It's a wonder you didn't kill him! That wouldn't mark an auspicious beginning for you in Caesar's army, cohort commander— killing Gordianus Meto's father."
"I only followed regulations, Tribune."
I realized I was in a large tent, and remembered the tent in the meadow from which Antony had emerged. I lay on a hard pallet with a thin blanket over me.
"He's waking up."
"A good thing for you! You're dismissed, Marcus Otacilius. Go back and rejoin your cohort."
"But—"
"The sight of you is likely to send him straight to Hades! You've made your report. Get out."
There was a rustling noise, a flicker of light from a parted tent flap, and then the face of Marc Antony abruptly loomed over me. "Gordianus, are you all right?"
"Thirsty. Hungry. My feet hurt."
Antony laughed. "You sound like any soldier at the end of a hard march."
I managed to sit up. My head whirled. "I fainted?"
"It happens. A forced march, no food or water— and from the marks on your neck, it looks like that fool Otacilius half-strangled you."
I felt my throat. The flesh was tender and bruised, but not bleeding. "For a moment, up at the pass, I thought he was going to execute me."
"He's not
that
big a fool. We'll talk about it later, after you've had something to eat and drink. Don't get up. Sit on the cot. I'll have something brought to you. But eat quickly. The tent needs to come down. I intend to set out within the hour."
"What about me?"
"You'll come with me, of course."
I groaned. "Not back up the mountain!"
"No. To Brundisium. Caesar needs me, to close in for the kill."
• • •
Antony's company consisted of a hundred mounted soldiers. He had been dispatched by Caesar to escort the troops bound for Sicily as far as the foot of the Apennines, then to rejoin the main force. His contingent was kept small so that he could move swiftly. Every man was a battle-hardened veteran of the Gallic Wars. Antony boasted that his hand-picked century was the equal of any two cohorts.
He invited me to ride alongside him at the head of the company. The slaves were allowed to ride in the baggage wagon. Fortex he presumed to be my personal bodyguard. Tiro he failed to recognize, even at close quarters. This surprised me, because there was no man in Rome whom Antony hated more than Cicero, and I feared that he might recognize Cicero's secretary even disguised, but Antony accepted the explanation that Tiro was Meto's old tutor Soscarides with hardly a glance. 'Antony isn't simple,' Meto had once told me, 'but he's as clear and plain to read as Caesar's Latin.' Apparently he expected others to be equally transparent.
As for the wagon driver, the poor slave had arrived at the meadow exhausted and feverish from his shoulder wound, too delirious to answer questions or to speak for himself. He was loaded into the baggage wagon along with Tiro and Fortex. I found it convenient to pretend that his delirium preceded our encounter with Otacilius. "The wretched slave caught a fever coming over the mountains," I told Antony as we rode out. "I think he must have been out of his wits from the moment he woke up this morning. All that nonsense he told the cohort commander— he was raving."
"Still, he was right about that courier's passport, wasn't he?" Antony looked ahead, showing me his fierce boxer's profile.
"Ah. Yes. That's a bit embarrassing. I told my man Soscarides to hide it until the troops passed. Foolish of me, perhaps, but I thought I might save myself some trouble. Instead, I was caught lying. I can't blame the cohort commander for being suspicious of me after that."
"But Gordianus, how in Hades did you ever get your hands on such a document? Signed by Pompey himself!"
I decided to evade, rather than lie. "I don't know how else I could have obtained fresh horses at every stop along the way. I was able to take advantage of it ... thanks to Cicero." That was not a lie, exactly. "I stayed at his villa at Formiae for a couple of nights."
"That piece of cow dung!" Antony turned to face me. His features straight on had grown as fearsome as his profile. "Do you know what I'd most like to see come out of all this? Cicero's head on a stake! Ever since the bastard murdered my stepfather, putting down Catilina's so-called conspiracy, he's made a career of slandering me. I don't know how a fine fellow like yourself can stay friends with such a creature."
"Cicero and I aren't exactly friends, Tribune ..."
"You needn't explain. Caesar is the same. Every time the subject of Cicero comes up, we argue. He tells me to stop ranting. I ask why he coddles such a scorpion. 'Useful,' he says, as if that won the argument. 'Some day, Cicero may prove useful.' " Antony laughed. "Well, he proved useful to you, I suppose, if he gave you that courier's passport from Pompey! But it landed you in trouble in the end, didn't it? You rode up one side of Italy, but you had to walk down the other! You're lucky Marcus Otacilius brought you straight to me, or you might very well have lost your head. But you've always been lucky, to live as long as you have. Imagine, the father of Gordianus Meto suspected of spying for Pompey! The world has become a strange place."
"Perhaps stranger than you think," I said under my breath.
"Well, we shall sort everything out when we reach Brundisium." He seemed relieved to be done with the subject, but his words left me unsettled. What remained to be sorted out, if Antony had accepted my story?
There was the problem of the wagon driver, of course. What would happen when his delirium receded? And what if Tiro were recognized? How could I explain my complicity in his masquerade as Soscarides? Betraying Tiro now was out of the question. He could not possibly fall into worse hands. I could all too easily imagine Antony taking out his hatred of Cicero against Cicero's right-hand man.
"You look pensive, Gordianus." Antony reached over and squeezed my leg. "Don't worry, you shall see Meto soon enough! After tonight, we'll have three days of hard riding to reach Brundisium. If your luck holds, we should arrive just in time to witness Pompey's last stand!"
• • •
We camped that night half a mile off the road, in a shallow valley amid low hills. Antony pointed out the site's defensibility.
"Is there really any danger of attack, Tribune?" I asked. "The mountains are to our right, the sea to our left. Behind us is Corfinium, securely garrisoned by Caesar's men. Before us is Brundisium, which I presume to be surrounded by Caesar's main force. I should think we're as safe as a spider on a roof."
"Of course we are. It's all my years in Gaul. I can never pitch camp without thinking something unseen might be lurking in plain sight."
"In that case, could I have my dagger back? The one that Otacilius confiscated? He took daggers from my slaves, as well."
"Certainly. As soon as we've made camp."
The men shucked off their armor and set to work pitching tents, digging a pit for the latrine, kindling a fire. I went in search of the baggage wagon. A small knot of men surrounded it, looking down at something on the ground, talking.
"The fever must have taken him."
"It can happen that quickly, with a wound like that. I've seen stronger men bleed less and die faster."
"He was just an old slave, anyway. And from what I heard, a troublemaker."
"Ah, here's the tribune's friend. Let him through!"
The crowd parted for me. I stepped closer and saw the body of the wagon driver on the ground. Someone had crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes.
"He must have died during the day," explained a soldier who stood over the body. "He was dead when we came to unload the wagon."
I looked about. "Where are the others? The two slaves who were in the wagon with him?"
Tiro and Fortex stepped into sight. Neither said a word.
The soldiers were summoned to another duty and dispersed. I knelt beside the body. In death, the slave's face was even more haggard than in life, his cheeks sunken around his toothless mouth. I had never even asked his name. When I wanted something from him, I had simply called him "driver."
I rolled him over. Besides the wound at the shoulder, there were several others, where he had been poked and prodded during the march, but they appeared to be superficial. His shoes were thin, his feet blistered and bloody. The tether had worn the skin around his ankles. There appeared to be faint bruises around his throat as well; in the fading light it was hard to tell. Instinctively, I felt my own throat, where the tether had chafed it. But there had been no tether around the slave's throat.
Tiro and Fortex stood over me. I looked up at them. I spoke in a low voice. "He was strangled, wasn't he?"
Tiro raised an eyebrow. "You heard the soldiers. He died of fever, from his wound. He was old and weak. The march down the mountain killed him. That was his own fault."
"These discolorations at his throat—"
"Liver spots?" said Tiro.
I stood and looked him in the eye. "I think he was strangled. By your hand, Tiro?"
"Of course not. Fortex is trained for that type of thing."
I glanced at Fortex. He wouldn't meet my gaze.
"It had to be done, Gordianus," whispered Tiro. "What if he had recovered, and started talking again?"
I stared at him.
"Don't judge me, Gordianus! In times like these, a man has to do things against his own nature. Can you say that you wouldn't have done the same?"
I turned away and walked toward the campfire.
Antony never questioned the untimely death of the wagon driver. He was used to seeing men die suddenly, from wounds that did not appear fatal. He had other things on his mind.
The next morning, the soldiers threw the body into the latrine pit and covered it. The death of a slave merited no more ceremony than that.
As we rode out, Antony's only comment was that I might contact the slave's owner when I had the chance, to let him know what had become of his wagon and driver. "If you suspect he's the litigious type, you could offer him a token settlement; the slave obviously wasn't worth much. And since the owner was honoring your courier's passport, technically you don't owe him anything. Let him sue Pompey!" Antony laughed, then shook his head. "Civilians always suffer losses in wartime— property ruined, slaves running off. In a place like Gaul, the locals have to patch things up for themselves. Here in Italy it'll be different. Once things get back to normal, there'll be a flood of litigation— suits for damages, pleas for reparations, petitions for tax relief. The courts will be jammed. Caesar will have his hands full."