Augustus i-1

by Allan Massie

  The ankle was badly sprained. I ordered the surgeon to instruct that she should be moved as little as possible, and so invited her and Tiberius Nero to be my guests. And that was how it began.

  'Tell me about yourself?' 'What do you want to know?' 'Everything.' 'You can't know everything.' 'But I must' 'Must, Caesar?' 'Must. If we are going to pass our life together.' 'Oh, are we?'

  'I'm working on it.' I took her hand and placed it against my cheek. 'Feel,' I said, 'I've sacrificed my beard. For you. It's the end of one period in my life. I stopped shaving on the day I heard of my father's murder. Now I'm shaving again. You've changed the pattern.'

  'I wish you wouldn't call that man your father. You had a real father, I suppose. What was he like?'

  'An average man. Nothing remarkable. He liked fishing in mountain streams.' 'Very informative, that tells me a lot.'

  She had a quick abrupt way of speaking, a slightly metallic voice. There was some nervousness behind it, some sense of insufficiency. It was quick and decisive and yet it suggested, even from those first days, when just to look at her lying back on the pillows, her pale face with its translucent skin and huge blue-grey eyes framed by the tresses of hair the colour of beech-leaves in autumn forests, sent my blood coursing, pricked me with sharp and anguished desire (and the fear that I might never have her, that she might always in the end deny herself, retain a mysterious and secret part). Her voice, I say, suggested even then a limitation of sympathy, a narrowness of understanding; it was perhaps this that made her so complete, and so completely desirable. She was so certain and yet at the same time so vulnerable because the world was more complicated than she found it to be, and somewhere in the recesses of her spirit she apprehended this, and, for all her courage, feared the knowledge. 'And the Dictator,' she said, 'what was he really like…?'

  I looked away, out of the window. The sun shone on the heights of distant Aspromonte; in the nearer foothills the woods of chestnut glowed with a deep refulgent green; a rose-bush thrust pink flowers in through the window; purple wisteria spread itself over the terrace wall; a lizard basked on the broken masonry.

  I said, 'He had charm. I was afraid of him. I owe everything to him. I didn't like him.'

  She pressed her hand against mine. 'Oh,' she said, 'I am so glad to hear you say that.'

  Her hand was strong, as big as mine (which as you know is rather small); her grip firm and dry.

  I said, 'He was an egoist. He used people shamelessly. There was something cruel and self-regarding in his clemency.' (As I spoke, I thought: Am I describing myself?) Livia said, 'How can you love me? In my condition?'

  'It's what my mother's friends genteelly call "an interesting condition".' 'I'm six months in pig,' she said. 'Oh Livia, as if that mattered…'

  I leant forward. I put my arm round her and raised her head. I kissed her on the lips. It was like burying one's face in rose-petals. There was a faint smell of musk. She leant back, receiving the kiss.

  She breathed: 'You're not one of these boys who just likes pregnant ladies, are you?' 'Will you marry me?' I said. 'Is that a polite command, Caesar?' 'No, Livia, I shall never command you'; and I never have. 'You have a wife, I have a husband.' 'Let's divorce them. They can marry each other…" 'No,' she said, 'not that. Still, you did shave your beard…'

  I kissed her again. This time she responded. Her arms folded round my neck. We lay some minutes in joy, basking in love and desire, like the lizard in sunlight.

  I divorced Scribonia as soon as possible. The timing was unfortunate for the divorce was ratified on the day that your mother, Julia, was born. However, I made it clear from the start that she was my responsibility, not Scribonia's. Tiberius Nero made no difficulties. In fact he said, 'Frankly Caesar, you'll find she has a mind of her own. And quite a temper. I can't say I'm sorry you're taking her off my hands. You'll look after the boy won't you, and whatever's on the way. I'll expect, mind you, that you put a few things in my way yourself.'

  Livia's second son, poor Drusus, was born three days after our wedding. I know some people say I was his father, but this is not true.

  SEVEN

  The rain, blowing on a squally horizontal, reached us even in the shallow cave. Septimus, the thin-faced boy with the cauliflower ear, whom I had taken into my personal service, tried to shield a spluttering fire with his cloak. I drew my own about me and shivered. The gash in my thigh throbbed. I rested my hand on the bandage and it came away damp and sticky. My stomach heaved and my head ached. I laid my helmet aside; there was a dent that ran from the crown down to my left temple. I hadn't realized the Nubian had hit me so hard; no wonder I had a headache.

  There were just six of us crowded in the cave which was really little more than a depression in the rock-face. The wind blew hard out in the bay. The ship that might have taken us off swayed like a drunken man on the jagged rock which it had struck. I watched it toss for a long time in the gathering gloom of the October afternoon. The last push of the year, I thought to myself, and it has come to this. It was a long time since the last desperate boat, launched from the ship, had disappeared from sight. Another had been carried round the point; it was possible it might be swept to land. But for a long passage we had gazed at the heads bobbing in the water. They were no more than sixty or seventy paces out to sea. We could hear their cries clearly; even, over the wind, identify the Gods whose aid they implored and who were deaf to them. And then there had been no voices, only the cry of gulls.

  The light began to die. The sea still growled against the rocks away to the right, but below us, as the beach darkened, it was hard to tell where water stopped and sand began. A pall of grey-black enveloped everything. Then Septimus conjured his fire into being. The flames danced on the men's streaked and stricken faces. Eyes glinted red. Nobody spoke. All huddled as close to the fire as they could.

  I could not give any orders. It was Septimus who took charge, sending a couple of the men back to the camp we had been forced to abandon. They were to seek out food and wine. They demurred, afraid; surely Pompey's men would have occupied it? 'Surely we'll starve if you don't,' Septimus said. They sat a long time in silence. Septimus crossed and whispered to them. I caught dark glances directed at me; my stomach quivered, my head throbbed and my mouth felt dry and sour. There was nothing to stop them seeking glory and riches by asking for Sextus Pompey himself. For a moment I was near commanding Septimus to keep us all together.

  Then the two got to their feet, without talking, and slipped out of the cave. Septimus crossed over to me:

  'It's all right, General,' he said. 'They'll do well enough. The camp will be full of looters. There's no one will know they're your men.' 'Are they?' I said.

  He whistled a few bars of a tune, shrugged his shoulders, looked out to the invisible sea. 'What about your wound, General?' he said. 'It's in the heart,' I replied. 'I could do with a glass of wine,' he said. 'Do you want me to have a look at your thigh?' I shook my head. 'We were betrayed,' I said. 'The scouts…' 'Maybe so,' he said, 'we walked into it anyway…'

  Night closed impenetrably about us, in a profound silence but for the sea's swell.

  'Reckon they've scarpered,' said one of the two remaining unknown soldiers.

  'Or had their throats cut,' his companion said. Through the firelight they fixed their eyes on me, and I had nothing to say.

  Time passed. I longed to sleep. I drew my cloak tighter about me, but the ache in my head did not diminish, my thigh still throbbed, and I felt a new dull but persistent pain in my heart. My mouth was dry and my tongue touched salt-caked and broken lips. At such moments, men say, the mind flies to happier places. Broken soldiers are reputed to dream of home. But I had no thought of Livia, no longing for her. I felt emptiness. My attention was held by the dying flames, but there were no patterns in them. When I moved my leg it was like trying to lift the hoof of an unwilling horse.

  One of the soldiers started to snore. He had stretched out like a dog and gave no more thought to the futur
e than a dog gives. His companion slipped his hand under his tunic and began to masturbate. My gaze was held by the pumping movement, and I felt envy of the pair of them, then shivered. The screech of a hunting owl broke the night. I crawled to the entrance of the cave. The rain had stopped at last. The moon, emerging through breaking clouds, laid a pale yellow hand on the still sea. Behind us, somewhere on the island, Pompey's troops slumbered. I felt a hand on my shoulder. 'Can you walk, General?' Septimus said.

  I shook my head doubtfully. He flicked a glance back into the cave. Both our companions now seemed still. The first still snored deeply. The other now lay, with his hand still under his tunic, and his legs curled up, but his head now rested on his comrade's chest. Septimus crossed light-footed and shook him gently. The only response was a deep and incomprehensible muttering.

  'Reckon that's all right,' Septimus said. 'But I don't trust these two no more. I didn't like the way they put their heads together a while back when you were dozed out. We'd best get out of here, General. Can you slide down the rock to the beach, if I go first and get ready to hold you at the bottom?'

  Septimus unbuckled his sword and threw it down on the sand. Then he went back into the cave and collected mine, and a shield and the knapsack which, alone among us, he had retained in flight. These followed the sword. He slipped down to the sand himself. The fall was perhaps the height of three men, and I hesitated before lowering my body. My foot searched for a toehold. My nails dug into the loose earth. I felt myself giving way. For a moment my left heel found a hold. I shifted my hand to grab a scrubby bush that grew out of the rock-face. I lowered myself a little. Then, with my right arm at full stretch, the bush began to tear itself out of the rock. My foot slipped off its hold. For an instant I dangled in the air. Then the bush ripped away and I tumbled to the beach. I fell awkwardly and knew at once that my thigh-wound had opened again and was bleeding.

  Septimus helped me to my feet and hooked my arm round his neck. We began to hobble along the beach. Every step was painful. We had hardly gone more than fifty paces before I felt faint. He turned towards me, his face swimming in my eyes. 'This'11 never do,' he said. 'I maun get you on my back.'

  He crouched down before me and got his arms round my legs. My own flopped round his neck, and he straightened his legs, and, at first waveringly, like a drunken man, started to march along the beach. Gradually he found his rhythm, I hung there, helpless and dependent, like old Anchises when Aeneas brought him out of burning Troy.

  I do not know for how long he carried me, or how far, nor whether he paused to rest, for I fainted, and was therefore borne, a mere sack of flesh and bone and guts, through the night and even into the morning. The dawn was up when I recovered consciousness, and I lay under a thorn-bush, with dew glistening, and Septimus lying at my feet, as a dog might sleep. He awoke as abruptly as a dog, on sensing that I was stirring.

  'I didn't like to leave you, General,' he said, 'for fear that you'd wake and think I'd deserted you. But if we're to get out of this I've got to find something for us to eat and drink. I think you're safe here for the moment.'

  He laid his hand on my shoulder and let it rest there a moment, even giving me a squeeze, as to a comrade. There was a wind blowing and I watched the sea-grasses slap his ankles as he marched off. He turned once and waved to me. I remained in wonder, pain and bemusement.

  I do not know how long he was gone, for despite my danger and my determination to watch lest I be surprised by the enemy, I drifted into unconsciousness again. I had no dreams, though my sleep must have been fitful for I found on waking that I had torn up and shredded a plant growing by my side and I had no awareness of having done so.

  I lay for some time. The clear weather promised by the moon had disappeared and the sky was low, grey and heavy. A sour wind blew through the scrub and rushes of a world empty but for a few sea birds. There was no sound or sign of man. It was as if the legions which had met yesterday had been swallowed up. It had been a sad helter-skelter affair after our ships had been driven to shore and Pompey's men, a legion of cut-throats and troops of Numidian cavalry, had swept down on us before we had time to recover our organization. It had hardly been a battle; no more than a melee; and I had received my wounds in a vain attempt to rally a group of fugitives.

  Away to the left, on the edge of a promontory I could now discern the columns of a temple. I could not believe the Gods inhabited it. Then below the temple two figures descended a winding track: a man and a horse. They moved very slowly as if the going was rough, or as if they were old or tired. When they reached the bottom of the track, they turned towards me. I eased my hand round my sword hilt, and waited, my eyes fixed on the black shapes moving across the grey sands. Then I relaxed; the horse was only a donkey; and then I saw that it was Septimus who led it.

  He said, 'Things are looking up, General. I've found a farm up in the hills. They've run away from it, whoever's it is, but I found some wine and a sort of biscuit and some olives. Here,' he began pulling them out of a bag strung round his neck. 'Have a bite and a drink. Not too much now on an empty stomach.' He crouched down beside me. 'I haven't seen a soul,' he said. He picked up the goatskin and handed it to me. The wine was thin and sour, but I forced down two mouthfuls. He rubbed his palm over the lip of the goatskin and swallowed deeply himself. 'We're going to be all right, General,' he said, 'just you see.'

  The donkey was a bony ride, with an awkward gait. We hadn't gone far before I grew dizzy and Septimus had to place his hand against me to hold me steady on its back. This'll never do, General,' he said, 'you're as weak as a kitten.'

  And I was; but Septimus, this peasant from the Sabine Hills, with his ungrammatical Latin and long vowel sounds, was not only strong; he knew what to do in a crisis where I found myself lost. Of course, even at the time, I could excuse myself on account of my wound, of my battered head and the little fever that afflicted me. Yet the old saying is true: whoever makes excuses for himself, accuses himself. The fact was: our disaster – the wreck of the ships, the scattering of my legions by a numerically inferior enemy – had for the moment at least annihilated my faculties. I was incapable of thought, decision, action. I was reduced to a state of utter dependency on this nineteen-year-old farmboy.

  He got me to the farm and dressed my wound and I slept while he kept watch. I woke again in the dark night and he was sitting on a barrel by the doorway gazing into the rustling vacancy of the macchia.

  'Have you slept?' I said, and he shook his head, abruptly, even angrily, as if I had been accusing him of dereliction of duty. I placed my hand on his shoulder. 'Where have they all gone?' I said. 'We might be alone.'

  'We're not alone. There have been rustlings and sounds of distant movement, and before the light failed, I saw a troop of horse ride out of the next valley and turn to the coast. But we're safe enough for the moment.'

  'Safe?' I said. 'There are no stars,' and by that, I meant that my own star was invisible; for the first time since Caesar died.

  He said, 'I would it would rain. You were bleeding the last few miles. They could follow us by the blood.'

  He fell silent, and fell asleep. Poor boy. The donkey shifted in the room behind me. The boy's words echoed in my ears: 'They could follow us by the blood.' So might anyone tracing my career work, following me by the blood shed. Yet none was shed for joy of killing; only for necessity. But, I thought in that night which seemed already Stygian, as I imagined Pompey's cavalry ranging the valleys in search of me, if I died now, if it ended here, then all that blood was shed to no purpose. The Proscriptions, Philippi, Mutina, would have served Rome not at all, and my soul would descend blood-stained and worthless to the world below. I had believed myself a man of destiny – I had told that group of soldiers among whom I first encountered Septimus, as they huddled round a camp-fire, fearful of battle, that I knew my destined work for Rome – and here I was, wounded and dizzy with defeat, hiding in an abandoned farm on a Sicilian hillside, with my fleet scattered and my only
companions a thin boy with a fighter's ear and a lame donkey. 'We have to pray to the Gods Agrippa comes,' the boy had said, but my messenger might never have reached Agrippa.

  Towards morning the wind dropped. Cocks crew from higher up the valley, alarming me lest the evidence of life there might attract Pompey's soldiers. I hobbled back into the room and took a swig of wine from the goatskin. Septimus muttered and shifted in his sleep. I thought, for the first time since the disaster, longingly, of Livia. Was I failing her as well as Rome?

  All my life I have lived much in my own mind. Yet at the same time I have little experience of solitude. We are a social people, our households tumbling over with slaves and family; our business taking us to the forum, the law-courts, the Senate House and the camp. Thoughts are pursued in the midst of chattering distraction; Cicero hated to be alone. His mind worked at its most agile in the press of men. Caesar too detested solitude; he used to say that one should never trust the lonely man; who knows what he is brooding? Only Virgil of all my acquaintances knows how to hearken to the long silences of lonely places; his senses vibrate in tune with the numinous. I now found the stillness of that Sicilian hillside oppressive, and -for I have vowed to myself that I shall tell the truth and conceal nothing however shaming in these confessions – fearful. I longed to wake Septimus merely to hear his rough and homely tongue. Some pride restrained me; let the lad have his necessary sleep, I told myself. But my hands shook, and little needles of fear or apprehension darted up my arms.

  We rested in that cottage for two days. On the second morning the intermittent bleeding of my thigh-wound ceased. Gradually my headache dulled. The feeling of nausea never quite left me, though Septimus found more wine with which we calmed our stomachs. I could not but admire his composure, as I still was disturbed by the little tremors in my hands and arms. It was easy to tell myself that he had nothing but life to lose, nothing but death to fear – whereas I… but at that time I stopped; Rome was far off.