The October Horse (99 page)

“Who died today?” Brutus asked before the meal was served.

“Young Lucullus,” said Quintus Ligarius, assassin.

“Lentulus Spinther, fighting in the marshes,” said Pacuvius Antistius Labeo, assassin.

“And Quinctilius Varus,” Cimber, assassin, added.

Brutus wept, especially for the unflappable and innovative Spinther, son of a more torpid, less worthy man.

Came the sound of a commotion; young Cato burst into the room, eyes wild. “Marcus Brutus!” he cried. “Here! Out here!”

His tone brought the dozen men present to their feet, then to the door. On the ground just outside, the bodies of Gaius Cassius Longinus and Lucius Titinius lay on a rough litter. A thin scream erupted from Brutus, who fell to his knees and began to rock, his hands covering his face.

“How?” asked Cimber, taking command.

“Some German cavalry brought them in,” young Marcus Cato said, standing stiffly, pose martial; his father would not have known him. “It seems Cassius thought they were Antonius's troopers come to take him prisoner—he and Titinius were on the road at Philippi. Titinius went to intercept them and found out that they were ours, but Cassius killed himself while Titinius was away. He was dead when they reached him. Titinius fell on his sword.”

•      •      •

“And where,” roared Mark Antony, standing amid the ruins of his camp, “were you while all this was going on?”

Leaning on Helenus—he dared not look at the silent Agrippa, whose hand was on his sword—Octavian stared into the small, angry eyes without flinching. “In the marshes trying to breathe.”

“While those cunni stole our war chest!”

“I'm quite sure,” Octavian wheezed, lowering his long fair lashes, “that you'll get it back, Marcus Antonius.”

“You're right, I will, you useless, pathetic ninny! You mama's boy, you waste of a good command! Here was I thinking I'd won, and all the time some renegades from Brutus's camp were plundering my camp! My camp! And several thousand men dead into the bargain! What's the point in killing eight thousand of Cassius's men when I lose men inside my own camp? You couldn't organize a bun fight!”

“I never claimed I could organize a bun fight,” Octavian said calmly. “You made the dispositions for today, I didn't. You hardly bothered to tell me you were attacking, and you certainly didn't invite me to your council.”

“Why don't you give up and go home, Octavianus?”

“Because I am co-commander of this war, Antonius, no matter how you feel about that fact. I've contributed the same number of men—they were my infantry died today, not yours!—and more of the money than you have, for all your bellowing and your blustering. In future, I suggest that you include me in your war councils and make better provision for safeguarding our camp.”

Fists clenched, Antony hawked and spat on the ground at Octavian's feet, then stormed away.

“Let me kill him, please,” Agrippa pleaded. “I could take him, Caesar, I know I could! He's getting old, and he drinks too much. Let me kill him! It can be fair, I'll fight a duel!”

“No, not today,” said Octavian, turning to walk back to his battered tent. Noncombatants were digging pits by torchlight, as there were many horses to bury. A dead horse meant a cavalryman who couldn't fight, as Brutus's soldiers well knew. “You were in the thick of things, Agrippa— Taurus told me. What you need is sleep, not a duel with a vulgar gladiator like Antonius. Taurus told me that you won nine gold phalerae for being the first over Cassius's wall. It should have been a corona vallaris, but Taurus says Antonius quibbled because there were two walls, and you weren't first over both of them. Oh, that makes me so proud! When we fight Brutus, you'll be commanding the Fourth Legion.”

Though he swelled with happiness for the praise, Agrippa was more worried about Caesar than concerned with himself. After that undeserved dressing-down from a boar like Antonius, he thought, Caesar should be black in the face and dying. Instead, the roaring out seemed to act like a magical medicine, improved his condition. How controlled he is. Never turned a hair. He has his own sort of bravery. Nor will Antonius get anywhere if he tries to undermine Caesar's reputation among the legions by mocking him for cowardice today. They know Caesar is ill, and they will think that his illness today helped them win a great victory. For it is a great victory. The troops we lost were our worst. The troops the Liberators lost were Cassius's best. No, the legions won't believe Caesar a coward. It's inside Rome among Antonius's cronies and the senatorial couch generals that men will believe Antonius's lying stories. There, he'll forget to mention illness.

•      •      •

Brutus's camp was full to overflowing; perhaps twenty-five thousand of Cassius's soldiers had made it to haven inside. Some of them were wounded, most were merely exhausted from laboring in the marshes and then trying to fight. Brutus had extra rations broken out of Stores, made the noncombatant bakers work as hard as the soldiers had in the swamps, laid on fresh bread and lentil soup laced with plenty of bacon. It was so cold, and firewood was hard to come by because trees felled from the hills behind were too green to burn yet. Hot soup and bread-and-oil would put some warmth into them.

When he thought of how the troops were going to react to the death of Cassius, Brutus panicked. He bundled all the noble bodies into a cart and secretly sent them to Neapolis in the charge of young Cato, whom he instructed to cremate them there and send the ashes home before returning. How terrible, how unreal to see Cassius's face leached of life! It had been more alive than any other face he had ever set eyes on. They had been friends since school days, they became brothers-in-law, their lives inextricably intertwined even before killing Caesar had fused them together for better or worse. Now he was alone. Cassius's ashes would go home to Tertulla, who had so wanted children, but never managed to carry them. It seemed a fate common to Julian women; in that, she had taken after Caesar. Too late for children now. Too late for her, too late for Marcus Brutus as well. Porcia is dead, Mama alive. Porcia is dead, Mama alive. Porcia is dead, Mama alive.

Then after Cassius's body had gone, a peculiar strength flowed into Brutus; the enterprise had entirely passed to him, he was the one Liberator left who mattered to the history books. So he wrapped a cloak around his thin, stooped frame and set out to do what he could to comfort Cassius's men. They felt their defeat bitterly, he discovered as he went from one group to another to talk to them, calm them down, soothe them. No, no, it wasn't your fault, you didn't lack valor or determination, Antonius the unprincipled sneaked up on you, didn't behave like a man of honor. Of course they wanted to know how Cassius was, why it wasn't he visiting them. Convinced that news of his death would utterly demoralize them, Brutus lied: Cassius was wounded, it would be some days before he was back on his feet. Which seemed to work.

As dawn neared, he summoned all his own legates, tribunes and senior centurions to a conference in the assembly place.

“Marcus Cicero,” he said to Cicero's son, “it is your job to confer with my centurions and attach Cassius's soldiers to my legions, even if they go to over-strength. But find out if any of his legions survived intact enough to retain their identities.”

Young Cicero nodded eagerly; the most painful aspect of being the great Cicero's son was that he ought by rights to have been Quintus Cicero's son, and young Quintus the great Cicero's. For Marcus Junior was warlike and unintellectual, whereas Quintus Junior had been clever, bookish and idealistic. The task Brutus had just given him suited his talents.

But having comforted Cassius's men, the peculiar strength drained out of Brutus to be replaced by the old despondency.

“It will be some days before we can offer battle,” said Cimber.

“Offer battle?” Brutus asked blankly. “Oh no, Lucius Cimber, we won't be offering battle.”

“But we must!” cried Lucius Bibulus the noble blockhead.

The tribunes and centurions were exchanging glances, looking sour; everyone, it was clear, wanted a battle.

“We sit here where we are,” said Brutus, drawing himself up with as much dignity as he could muster. “We do not—I repeat, we do not!— offer battle.”

•      •      •

Dawn saw Antony lined up for battle, however. Disgusted, Cimber summoned the Liberator army to do the same. There was actually an attempt at an engagement, broken off when Antony withdrew; his men were tired, his camps in dire need of much attention. All he had intended to do was to show Brutus that he meant business, he was not going to go away.

The day after that, Brutus called a general assembly of all his infantry and addressed them in a short speech that left them feeling winded, wronged. For, said Brutus, he had no intention of giving battle at any time in the future. It wasn't necessary, and his first priority was to protect their precious lives. Marcus Antonius had bitten off more than he could chew because all he had to chew was air; there were no crops or animals in Greece, Macedonia and western Thrace, so he was going to starve. The Liberator fleets controlled the seas, Antonius and Octavianus could bring supplies from nowhere!

“So relax and be comfortable, we have plenty to eat until next year's harvest, if necessary,” he concluded. “However, long before then, Marcus Antonius and Caesar Octavianus will be dead from lack of food.”

“That,” said Cimber between his teeth, “went down very badly, Brutus! They want a fight! They don't want to sit comfortably and eat while the enemy starves—they want a fight! They're soldiers, not Forum frequenters!”

Brutus's answer was to open his war chest and give each and every soldier a cash donative of five thousand sesterces as thanks for their bravery and loyalty. But the army took it as a bribe, and lost whatever respect they might have felt for Marcus Brutus. He tried to sweeten the gift by promising them a lucrative, short campaign in Greece and Macedonia after the Triumvirs had scattered to eat straw, insects, seeds—think of sacking Spartan Lacedaemon, Macedonian Thessalonica! The two richest cities left untouched.

“The army doesn't want to sack cities, it wants to fight!” said Quintus Ligarius, furious. “It wants to fight here!”

But no matter who said what to him, Brutus refused to fight.

•      •      •

By the beginning of November, the Triumviral army was in severe trouble. Antony sent foraging parties as far afield as Thessaly and the valley of the river Axius far above Thessalonica, but they came back with nothing. Only a sally into the lands of the Bessi along the river Strymon produced grain and pulses, for Rhascus, smarting because he hadn't remembered the goat track in the Sapaean Pass, offered to show them where to go. The presence of Rhascus hadn't improved relations between Antony and Octavian: the Thracian prince refused to deal with Antony, insisted on talking to Caesar. Who handled him with a deference Antony could not have summoned up. Octavian's legions returned with enough edibles to last another month, but no longer.

“It's time,” said Antony shortly thereafter, “that you and I conferred, Octavianus.”

“Sit down, then,” said Octavian. “Confer about what?”

“Strategy. You're not a commander's bootlace, boy, but you're definitely a crafty politician, and maybe a crafty politician is who we need. Have you any ideas?”

“A few,” said Octavian, maintaining an expressionless face. “To begin with, I think we should promise our troops a twenty-thousand bonus.”

“You're joking!” Antony gasped, sitting upright in a hurry. “Even with our losses, that would amount to eighty thousand silver talents, and there isn't that much money this side of Egypt.”

“That's absolutely true. Nevertheless, I think we should go ahead and make that promise. Sufficient unto the day, my dear Antonius. Our men aren't fools, they know that we don't have the money. However, if we can take Brutus with his camp in one piece and the road to Neapolis closed, we'll find many thousands of silver talents. Our troops are clever enough to realize that too. An extra incentive to force a battle.”

“I see your point. All right, I agree. Anything else?”

“My agents inform me that there's a great deal of doubt in Brutus's mind.”

“Your agents?”

“One does what one's physical and mental equipment make it possible to do, Antonius. As you constantly reiterate, neither my physical nor my mental equipment makes me a general's bootlace. However, there's a strong streak of Ulysses in me, so, like that interestingly devious man, I have spies in our own Ilium. One or two quite high up the command chain. They feed me information.”

Jaw dropped, Antony stared. “Jupiter, you're deep!”

“Yes, I am,” Octavian agreed blandly. “My agents say that it preys on Brutus's mind that so many of his troops once belonged to Caesar. He's not sure of their loyalty. Cassius's troops also worry him—he thinks they have no faith in him.”

“And how much of Brutus's state of mind is due to the whispers of your agents?” Antony asked shrewdly.

Caesar's smile dawned. “A little, for sure. He's vulnerable, our Brutus. A philosopher and a plutocrat all in one. Neither half believes in war—the philosopher because it's repulsive and destructive, the plutocrat because it ruins business.”

“What's that to the point you're obviously trying to make?”

“That Brutus is vulnerable. He can be pressured into giving battle, I think.” Octavian leaned back with a sigh. “As to how we provoke his men into insisting upon battle, I leave to you.”

Antony got up, looked down at the golden head with a frown. “One more question.”

“Yes?” asked Octavian, looking up with lambent eyes.

“Do you have agents in our army?”

Another of Caesar's smiles. “What do you think?”

“I think,” Antony snarled, peeling back the tent flap, “that you're warped, Octavianus! You're too crooked to lie straight in bed, and that's something no one could ever say about Caesar. He was straight as an arrow, always. I despise you.”

•      •      •

As November wore on, Brutus's dilemma grew. No matter which way he turned, every face was set against him, for every man wanted one thing, and one thing only—a battle. To compound his woes, Antony marched his army out every day and lined it up, whereupon those in its front ranks began to howl like hungry curs, yammer like rutting curs, whine like kicked curs. Then they shrieked insults at the Liberator soldiers—they were cowards, spineless weaklings, afraid of a fight. The din penetrated every inch of Brutus's camp, and all who heard what the Triumviral troops were screaming gritted their teeth, hated it—and hated Brutus for not consenting to battle.