by Ben Kane
It was as if she sensed his confusion. ‘Aren’t you glad?’
Romulus didn’t know how to answer her. ‘Partly,’ he muttered at last.
‘What more proof do you need?’ Fabiola spat. ‘Mother to rise from her grave and identify him for you?’
‘Of course not,’ answered Romulus defensively. ‘But it’s complicated, sister. He freed me from slavery. If you’d killed him a few years ago, I wouldn’t be standing here now.’ He imagined someone else as the editor of the games that day. Killing the rhinoceros would have merely delayed his death. ‘I ended up as a noxius, you know. But for Caesar, my bones would be lying on the Esquiline Hill.’
Fabiola did not respond.
Mattius came hurtling back from the entrance. ‘A crowd is starting to gather,’ he announced.
Romulus came alive. ‘They’ll want blood when they see what’s been done. Let’s go.’
Leaving Caesar lying beneath the statue of his great rival, they made their way to the entrance. Romulus and Fabiola did not speak. Each was reeling from the enormity of what had happened and the gravity of what lay unsaid between them. Tarquinius’ dark eyes were on them both, but he did not interfere. For his lot, Mattius was too young to notice the strained atmosphere.
The guards had also fled in the panic, leaving the unconscious bodies of their companions sprawled by the massive doors. No doubt they and the innocent senators had spread the word that Caesar had been murdered, thought Romulus. His hunch was correct. At the foot of the steps, a large rabble had already gathered. Still too fearful to climb the steps and see for themselves, they were shouting and wailing, egging each other on. Romulus had seen the frenzy of an uncontrolled mob before. It developed rapidly and was terrifying to behold. No one would stop to hear that he had been attempting to save Caesar’s life, and even Mattius would not be spared.
‘Walk right behind me. Do not look at anyone,’ he ordered. ‘Tarquinius, you take the rear.’ Raising his sword menacingly, Romulus walked down the steps. The others followed.
Members of the crowd soon saw them. Angry shouts rose at once. ‘Is it true?’ shouted a bearded man in a workman’s tunic. ‘Has Caesar been murdered?’
‘He has,’ Romulus replied, still descending.
An inarticulate sound of anger rose from the gathered citizens, and Romulus sensed Fabiola flinch. ‘Keep moving,’ he hissed.
‘Who did it?’ shouted the workman.
‘A group of senators,’ answered Romulus. ‘You’ll have seen them running off with their clothes covered in blood.’
‘I saw some,’ yelled a voice.
‘So did I!’ howled another.
The workman’s face twisted with fury. ‘Which way did they go?’
‘Down there,’ came the answering cry.
In an instant, the rabble’s attention had switched from Romulus and his companions to a side street which led off towards Pompey’s exotic gardens and then the city. ‘After them,’ bellowed the workman. Responding to his shout, the mass of citizens moved off at speed, with a sea of fists and weapons waving above it.
‘Gods help whoever they catch,’ said Tarquinius.
Fabiola shuddered, remembering the mob that had swept her away after Clodius Pulcher’s murder.
Romulus ignored her obvious distress. Now was not the time to settle their differences either. ‘We’ll head that way,’ he said, pointing at the arena. ‘Then we can enter the city by a different gate.’
They had only covered a short distance before a small group of figures emerged from a door in the wall of the amphitheatre. Squinting to make them out, Romulus stiffened. The men were gladiators. Instinctively he increased his pace to get away.
It was pointless. Seeing them, the party broke into a sprint, angling to cut them off from the street towards the city. ‘Stop,’ Romulus ordered. He and Tarquinius moved protectively in front of Fabiola and Mattius, and they waited. Soon they could make out four fighters: two murmillones and a pair of Thracians. All were helmeted and carrying swords and shields. Who the hell are they? Romulus wondered, wishing he had more than just a gladius. Behind the fighters trotted a man in a fine white toga. It was Decimus Brutus. Romulus shot a glance at Fabiola. She seemed delighted, which pleased him. Fighting four fully armed gladiators was not what he wanted to think about right now.
‘I thought it was you, my love,’ Brutus cried as he drew near. ‘Thanks be to Jupiter you’re safe. Where did you go?’
She looked surprised. ‘Inside, to make sure Caesar was dead.’
Brutus winced. ‘I’ve come with these fighters of mine to carry his body away. Treat it with the dignity it deserves.’
Romulus’ blood began to boil. ‘It’s a bit late for that,’ he growled. ‘Might have been better if you’d stood by his side instead of keeping Antonius outside.’
‘How dare you?’ Brutus snapped. ‘It’s not that simple.’
Romulus was so angry that he forgot the difference in their status. ‘Really? Perhaps you’d care to explain how it’s possible to swear service to someone and then plan their murder.’
Brutus’ lips pinched with fury. ‘I answer you only because Fabiola is your sister. He’d become a tyrant who treated the Republic with contempt.’
‘Caesar ended decades of strife and civil war,’ Romulus retorted, contemptuous that the noble had succumbed to Fabiola’s charms when he had had the strength not to. ‘He was the best future for this country and you know it. Not forgetting that you were his sworn follower.’
‘Romulus,’ Fabiola said, stepping forward. ‘Please.’
Uncaring, Romulus let all of his fury out. Subconsciously, he knew he was transferring some of his anger at Fabiola – and himself – but he didn’t care. ‘Call yourself a soldier? Fucking coward, more like.’
‘Scum,’ Brutus shouted. ‘You’re nothing but a freed slave!’
‘Scum, eh?’ screamed Romulus. ‘At least I stood up for Caesar, while you didn’t even have the balls to stick a knife in him.’
Apoplectic now, Brutus stabbed a finger towards Romulus. ‘Kill that whoreson! And his friend.’
With malevolent grins, his gladiators shuffled forward. They didn’t care who the young soldier and his companion were.
‘He’s my brother!’ Fabiola cried.
‘I don’t care who he is,’ Brutus replied, the veins on his neck bulging. ‘No lowlife speaks to a nobleman in that way and lives to tell the tale.’
‘Get out of the way, Fabiola,’ said Romulus urgently. ‘No.’ Fabiola raised her hands in supplication towards Brutus. ‘Please calm down, my love. The tyrant is dead. That’s what matters. There’s no need for further bloodshed.’
‘Listen to you,’ Romulus snarled, his rage boiling over at his sister now. ‘The “tyrant”, was he? What did you care about that? All you wanted was revenge on the man who raped our mother.’
Brutus’ face went white. ‘That was your motive?’
Fabiola lifted her shoulders proudly. ‘It was. That’s why I picked you rather than any of the other fools who visited the Lupanar.’
Brutus looked stunned. ‘I chose you first.’
‘Maybe so,’ Fabiola replied. ‘After that, though, it was all my making. You were my path to Caesar, and I did absolutely everything to make sure that you preferred me above all others.’
Brutus raised a hand, trying to push away the words. ‘No,’ he muttered. ‘You’re lying.’
‘Why would I do that?’ Fabiola spat. Spittle flecked her lips. ‘Revenge is the only thing that kept me sane while I whored myself with you and a thousand others. I was right all along about the bastard too.’
Her distress pierced Romulus to the core.
Brutus reeled away, overcome by Fabiola’s confession.
Things started to happen very fast.
The gladiators made a rush for Romulus and Tarquinius. Four against two, and better armed, they had an excellent chance of ending the fight before it had even begun. Drawn forward by her outbur
st, Fabiola was standing between the two sets of adversaries. Romulus darted in desperately, trying to shove her out of harm’s way. He succeeded, but in doing so left himself open to attack. Tarquinius swept in alongside, wielding his axe in a blur of motion which slowed three of the fighters down. The last, however, saw a golden opportunity and struck Romulus in the chest with his metal shield boss. Delivered with the force of a running man, it knocked him in a heap to the ground. Winded, Romulus could do nothing more than look up dully at the murmillo.
With a satisfied growl, the gladiator swept back his right arm to deliver the death blow.
‘NO!’ Fabiola screamed, throwing herself into the blade’s path.
To the end of his days, Romulus would remember the sight of his sister’s body arcing through the air above him, and in slow motion, the sword tip come shoving through the side of her ribcage. Warm spatters of blood covered his face, and then Fabiola landed on him, a warm, immobile heap. For a moment, Romulus couldn’t comprehend what had happened. Then the terrible truth hit him. He wrapped his arms around Fabiola, and an inchoate bellow of pain left his lips. It went on and on, until his throat was raw. Lost in a sea of grief, he was vaguely aware that the murmillo hadn’t finished him off, and that people were shouting.
‘Romulus.’ Tarquinius’ voice was very gentle. ‘Let her go. Sit up.’
Like a sleepwalker, Romulus obeyed, feeling Fabiola being rolled off him. Pulling himself upright, he saw that his tunic was totally saturated in his sister’s blood. She lay across his knees now, as beautiful as ever, but her mouth hung open slackly, and her piercing blue eyes had already gone dull. She was dead. ‘Why?’ Romulus whispered. ‘Why did you do it?’
‘You were her only family,’ Tarquinius replied. ‘Wouldn’t you have done the same for her?’
‘Of course,’ Romulus sobbed.
‘Well, then.’ Tarquinius put his arm around his shoulders. ‘She was a woman, but possessed the heart of a lion.’
‘Fabiola?’
Romulus looked up to see Brutus standing over them. He took in the rest of the scene too: one Thracian was down, screaming, clutching at the stump of his right arm, which must have been removed by Tarquinius’ axe. Two of the others were ministering to him, while the murmillo who’d killed Fabiola lay nearby with Brutus’ dagger buried to the hilt in his back. Steadfast to the last, Mattius was beside him, his kitchen knife ready. ‘She’s dead,’ Romulus snarled at Brutus. ‘No thanks to you.’
This time, Brutus didn’t react to his taunt. His face contorted with grief, he knelt down and lifted Fabiola’s bloody corpse off Romulus’ legs. Rocking her to and fro, he began to keen.
Romulus’ anger faded when he saw the depth of Brutus’ grief. Clearly he had loved Fabiola, which made him easy prey to her wiles. After all, manipulation had been her main weapon. Romulus’ sorrow grew even greater. His sister had not been like that as a child. Before, he had not really appreciated what Fabiola had been forced to become, but her confession had brought it all home. To endure the Hades of men using her body day after day, she had focused all her energy on imagining revenge upon Caesar. It was all that had kept his twin sane.
While his life experience had also been brutal, Romulus knew that he’d made the right decision not to join Fabiola. He’d killed men in cold blood at the behest of others before, but would do it no more. Furthermore, while Caesar’s crime had been great, his grant of manumission rivalled it as an act of kindness. Fabiola had not received such a gift, though – instead, the dictator had tried to rape her, his own daughter. Was it any surprise that she had become twisted and bitter?
Then Romulus remembered how Fabiola had freely given her life for his, which proved that she’d had another motive to survive the hell of prostitution. Him. At this example of simple family loyalty, he broke down and wept again. The thought of Fabiola was what had carried him through the horrors of Carrhae and beyond. How alike they had been without even knowing it.
Tarquinius stood over the two sobbing men and Fabiola’s body for long moments. When he spoke, his voice was low and urgent. ‘The crowd is coming back.’
Romulus lifted his head and listened. Sure enough, angry shouts could be heard approaching from the main way which led to the city. He looked down at himself, covered in blood. Brutus did likewise. ‘They’ll kill us for sure,’ said the noble. He called over the two unhurt gladiators. ‘Carry her back to the arena,’ he ordered.
Romulus knew it was time to leave. In more ways than one. With Caesar dead, he owed the Republic nothing. Octavian was reputed to be the dictator’s heir, but that didn’t mean Romulus wanted to fight a civil war for him, or anyone else. Standing, he stared at Brutus.
The noble sensed his question. ‘Her funeral will be in eight days.’
Romulus nodded once. Despite his earlier fury, he could tell that Brutus would tolerate his presence as Fabiola was buried. The noble owed him that much.
Brutus gathered his men and was gone. Having lost too much blood, the injured Thracian was left to die.
Without further ado, Romulus and his companions headed for the nearest alley. It would be easy enough to work their way past the crowd and back into the city. Tarquinius handed over his cloak. ‘Best not to advertise where you’ve been.’
His mind spinning, Romulus donned the garment. Eight days afforded enough time to tidy up his affairs. What would he do after that? With Caesar dead, there would be no campaign to Dacia and Parthia. Yet the thought of going back to his farm was wholly unappealing. The bugle of an elephant in the nearby arena carried through the air, and suddenly Romulus knew that he could never be happy in Italy while the slightest chance of Brennus being alive remained. He caught Tarquinius’ eye and saw that the haruspex had read his mind. What about Mattius, though? There was no need to break it to him immediately, thought Romulus.
‘Mattius, I have another job for you.’
‘What is it?’
‘Go to the Mithraeum and tell Secundus what has happened,’ said Romulus. ‘Caesar’s heir may need some muscle in the coming days.’
Mattius repeated his words perfectly; nodding determinedly, the boy turned and ran off.
Romulus watched Mattius until he was lost to sight. Great Mithras, watch over his path, he prayed. Jupiter, Optimus Maximus, keep him from harm. He’d need to see the lawyer whom Sabinus had recommended and have his will made out in favour of the boy and his mother. Romulus’ heart ached that he would have to be left behind, but Parthia and Margiana were no places for a child. Here in Rome, under the guidance of Secundus, Mattius had a chance of a future – which was more than life had offered him and Fabiola.
The haruspex looked up at the banks of scudding cloud overhead. Within a few heartbeats, a smile worked its way across his scarred face. ‘I am destined to travel east again,’ he announced.
Romulus looked sadly at the gladiators carrying Fabiola, and then towards the temple where Caesar’s body still lay. He had lost his sister and father in the space of an hour. It was a devastating blow, yet his mother had been avenged. What had happened turned Tarquinius, and Brennus, if he was still alive, into his only family. In a strange way, that set him completely free.
At a stroke, Rome had lost its position as the centre of his world.
It mattered less than Romulus thought.
‘I’ll come too,’ he said.
Author’s Note
No doubt many readers will be familiar with the civil war and the events which led to Caesar’s death. Where possible, I have stuck to the historical record. I would feel remiss in not doing so: the rich detail of the time lends itself so well to a novel. The night battle in Alexandria and Caesar’s dramatic swim to safety, holding his documents in the air, is recorded. While he had the depleted Twenty-Seventh Legion with him, not the Twenty-Eighth, I needed Romulus to be a part of a legion that was at Ruspina too (and the Twenty-Eighth was), therefore I changed the one present in Egypt. Pharnaces’ soldiers are noted to have castrated Roman citizens w
hom they captured. Although the use of scythed chariots at Zela is accurate, we do not know the composition of the rest of the Pontic army. I have therefore used troops common to the area and the time. Typically, peltasts and thureophoroi were skirmishers, not soldiers who would have tackled legionaries head on. Given Pharnaces’ troops overwhelming numerical superiority, however, I have taken the liberty of having them attack en masse. The manner of Caesar’s victory was as rapid as I described.
Rome in the late Republic was not the clean and tidy city depicted in many modern films and TV programmes. Few houses had indoor sanitation. Instead most people used public toilets, or flung the contents of their ‘waste’ pots on open-air dung heaps. All but two main avenues were less than 3.1 m (10 ft) wide, and most were unpaved. Buildings of three, four and even five storeys would have produced a dim twilight at street level for much of the day. Unlike Imperial times, when the city quarters were somewhat divided by social class, the rich and poor in Republican Rome lived cheek by jowl with each other. Inscribing a curse upon an enemy on a lead square and offering it to a god was commonplace, as anyone who has visited the amazing Roman baths in Bath, England, will know. Dozens of the metal squares have been retrieved and translated, opening a vivid window on the past.
Contrary to popular opinion, most of Alexandria’s massive library survived the night battle in the port, thanks mostly to its two sites in the city. Unfortunately, a zealous Christian mob succeeded four centuries later in razing the lot to the ground. By doing so, they destroyed the most incredible collection of information ever seen in ancient times.
To my knowledge, the Sixth Legion did not accompany Caesar back to Italy after Zela, nor were there large games in celebration so soon after his victory in Asia Minor, but the astonishing manner in which the general dealt with the mutinous legionaries is accurate. Rhinoceroses were captured and transported to Rome at that time, and were referred to as ‘Ethiopian bulls’. Noxii often died by being thrown in with such creatures. It’s difficult to assess how a rhino might be killed with only a spear, and my efforts in trying to find out naturally did not go far. Try typing ‘kill rhino spear’ into Google and not very much comes up! Even a book by a big game hunter wasn’t much use. Eventually I decided to rely on my veterinary training: virtually all mammals’ hearts lie behind the left elbow, so it is a place where a spear blade can be shoved in. Whether a man can actually kill a rhino in such circumstances is a moot point, of course, but I think it is possible!