The Judgment of Caesar

by Steven Saylor

  So set was the captain on reaching calmer waters that he took no notice of the several ships that lay dead ahead of us, their sails as bright as ivory in the glaring sunlight. Some of the vessels appeared to be warships. Such a group, encountered closer to Alexandria, would have given no cause for alarm, for there the harbor and its guardian fleet would have offered protection from vagabonds and pirates. But our location appeared to be far from any port or harbor of consequence, so that we might as well have been on the open sea. We were acutely vulnerable to robbery and attack. Even as I was considering this, the captain finally appeared to take notice of the vessels ahead of us. He gave an order to veer southward, toward land, even though that arid, featureless strip of shoreline appeared to offer very little in the way of succor or concealment.

  But the other ships had already spotted us, and whatever their intentions, seemed unwilling to let us go without an encounter. Two smaller vessels struck out toward us.

  The captain maintained a cool expression, only a slight squint betraying his anxiety as he peered toward the pursuing ships; but in his command to the rowers to accelerate, a note of fear rang out as clearly as a trumpet’s call. They doubled their speed so abruptly that the deck gave a slight lurch beneath us.

  “Rupa!” I said, intending merely to gain his attention; but the hulking mute anticipated my query, and reached into his tunic to discreetly show me that his dagger was readily at hand. Little Mopsus, seeing the glint of Rupa’s blade, swallowed hard. His younger brother seized the occasion to give him a teasing nudge. I found myself jealous of Androcles’s naive courage. There are few fates more dreaded by travelers than the prospect of being boarded at sea by hostile sailors, far from any prospect of rescue. Even the mercy of the gods is rarely known to be dispensed at sea; perhaps the glint of sunlight on water obscures their view from the heavens. I reached into my tunic to test the grip of my own dagger. If worse came to worst, I might at least be able to spare Bethesda the degradations of capture at sea. With streaks of silver in her black hair, she might no longer be young, but even in her weakened state she was still desirable, at least to my eyes.

  We made good speed, but the pursuing ships were faster. As the shoreline drew only slightly closer, the pursuers bore down on us, their white sails full of wind. Armed men populated the decks. They were warships, not trading vessels.

  It was no use attempting to elude them, but the captain panicked. Having kept a cool head throughout the storm, which might have cap-sized the ship and killed us all in an instant, he lost his head when confronted with a human menace. I scowled at his misjudgment; if an encounter was inevitable, forcing the pursuers to give chase would only stir excitement in their blood, making even men with innocuous intentions more dangerous to deal with. He would have been wiser to trim sail and turn about to meet them with whatever dignity and bravado he could muster, but instead he gave a hoarse order to row at full speed.

  The shoreline grew nearer, yet showed no more features than before; it was little more than a dun-colored smudge along the horizon, without even a palm tree to betray any sign of life. That hopeless shore mirrored the hopelessness I felt at that moment; but Bethesda squeezed my hand and whispered, “Perhaps these are Caesar’s ships, Husband. Didn’t you say that Caesar himself might head for Egypt next, if the reports of his success in Greece were true?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Caesar has always been your friend, hasn’t he, Husband—even when you’ve been less than friendly to him?”

  I almost smiled at this sardonic jibe; Bethesda was still capable of needling me, despite the malady that plagued her. Anything that gave evidence of her old spirit was cause for hope.

  “You’re right,” I said. “Those fellows pursuing us have the look of Levantines, but they could well be Caesar’s men, or men he’s won over from Pompey, if in fact Pompey is vanquished or dead. If that fleet does belong to Caesar, and we’ve encountered him on his way to Alexandria, then . . .”

  I left the thought unspoken, for Bethesda knew what I was about to say, and to actually speak his name aloud would be too painful; if he had survived the travails of battle, very likely my adopted son Meto would be by Caesar’s side. I had seen him last in Massilia, in Gaul, where I had upbraided him and publicly disowned him for the intrigues and deceits he had practiced on Caesar’s behalf. No one in my family, least of all Bethesda, quite understood why I had turned my back on a son I had adopted, who had always been so dear to me; I myself did not quite comprehend the violence of my reaction. If these were Caesar’s ships, and if Caesar was among them, and if Meto was with Caesar—what a jest of the gods that would be, to snatch me from a quiet arrival in Alexandria and set me down in the midst of Caesar’s fleet, faced with a reunion I could not bear to contemplate.

  These thoughts, as gloomy as they were, at least served to distract me from imagining a more dreadful alternative—that the ships pursuing us were not from Caesar after all. These men could be pirates, or renegade soldiers, or something even worse. . . .

  Whoever they were, they were practiced sailors with considerable skill at pursuit and capture. Coordinating their movements with admirable precision, they drew apart so as to pull alongside us both to starboard and port, then slowed their speed to match ours. They were close enough now so that I could see the leering faces of the armed men on deck. Were they bent on our destruction, or merely exhilarated by the chase? From the ship to our starboard, an officer called out, “Give it up, Captain! We’ve caught you fair and square. Raise your oars, or else we’ll get rid of them for you!”

  The threat was literal; I had seen warships employ just such a maneuver, drawing alongside an enemy vessel, veering close, then withdrawing their oars so as to shear off the other ship’s still-extended oars, rendering it helpless. With two ships, such a maneuver could be executed on both sides of us simultaneously. Given the skill our pursuers had so far displayed, I had no doubt that they could pull it off.

  The captain was still in a panic, frozen to the spot and speechless. His men looked to him for orders, but received none. We proceeded at full speed, the pursuers matching us and drawing closer on either side.

  “By Hercules!” I shouted, tearing myself from Bethesda to run to the captain’s side. I gripped his arm. “Give the order to raise oars!”

  The captain looked at me blankly. I slapped him across the face. He bolted and moved to strike back at me, then the glimmer of reason lit his eyes. He took a deep breath and raised his arms.

  “Lift oars!” he cried. “Trim sail!”

  The sailors, heaving with exertion, obeyed at once. Our pursuers, with flawless seamanship, mimicked our actions, and all three ships remained side by side even as the waves began to brake our progress.

  The ship to our starboard drew even closer. The soldier who had ordered us to stop spoke again, though he was now so close that he hardly needed to raise his voice. I saw that he wore the insignia of a Roman centurion. “Identify yourself!”

  The captain cleared his throat. “This is the Andromeda, an Athenian ship with a Greek crew.”

  “And you?”

  “Cretheus, owner and captain.”

  “Why did you flee when we approached?”

  “What fool wouldn’t have done the same?”

  The centurion laughed. At least he was in good humor. “Where do you sail from?”

  “Ostia, the port city of Rome.”

  “Destination?”

  “Alexandria. We’d be there now if not for—”

  “Just answer the questions! Cargo?”

  “Olive oil and wine. In Alexandria we’ll be picking up raw linen and—”

  “Passengers?”

  “Only one party, a fellow and his wife—”

  “Is that him, beside you?”

  I spoke up. “My name is Gordianus. I’m a Roman citizen.”

  “Are you now?” The centurion peered at me. “How many in your party?”

  “My wife, a bodyguard, two slave b
oys.”

  “Are we free to sail on?” said the captain.

  “Not yet. All ships without exception are to be boarded and searched, and the names of all passengers passed on to the Great One himself. Nothing for you to be alarmed about; standard procedure. Now turn about, and we’ll escort you to the fleet.”

  I cast a wistful glance at the bleak, receding shore. We had not fallen into the clutches of Caesar, or pirates, or renegade soldiers. It was much worse than that. Only one man in the whole world presumed to call himself Magnus, Great One: Pompey. The Fates had delivered me into the hands of a man who had vowed to see me dead.

  CHAPTER II

  The “fleet,” as the centurion had called it, was a more ragtag assembly than it had appeared to be at a distance. There were a few warships, to be sure, but all seemed to be in varying degrees of disrepair, with thread-bare sails, battered hulls, and mismatched oars. The other ships were transports. The soldiers loaded on their decks had the distracted, ill-disciplined look of conscripted slaves; I had seen enough of those since the outbreak of the war, for both sides in desperate bids for advantage had drafted gladiators, farmhands, and even clerical slaves into their ranks. These soldiers, with their squints and blank expressions and dented armor, were certainly not the crack troops whom Pompey had gathered for his campaign in Greece; those presumably had vanished at Pharsalus, either slain by Caesar’s legions or else pardoned and absorbed into Caesar’s ranks.

  Pompey had escaped from Pharsalus with his life, but not much else. Rumor had it that his defeat had caught him completely by surprise. The engagement had begun at daybreak; as the battle commenced, so certain had Pompey been of victory that he withdrew to his command pavilion to relax and enjoy a midday repast. But Caesar’s forces abruptly overran the opposition and sent them fleeing. When they reached Pompey’s position, they stormed the ramparts and went streaming into the camp. Caesar himself was the first to reach Pompey’s pavilion; when he entered, he found sumptuous furnishings strewn with pillows still warm to the touch, a banquet table set with silver plates piled high with steaming delicacies, and amphorae of fine Falernian wine not yet un-sealed. If Pompey had intended a victory banquet, the celebration had been premature; at the last moment, learning that all was lost, the Great One threw off his scarlet cloak and the other badges of his rank, mounted the first horse he could find, and rode through the rear gate of the camp, barely escaping with his life.

  And now, here was Pompey with a ragtag fleet of warriors anchored off the coast of Egypt; and here was I, in Pompey’s power.

  My stomach growled, and I realized that I had grown hungry pacing the deck of the little ship and waiting for word from the centurion, who had diligently recorded my name before rowing off to his commander’s ship for further orders. The Andromeda’s captain sat nearby, giving me sidelong looks. At last he cleared his throat and spoke up.

  “Look, Gordianus, you’re not . . . I mean to say, you’re not dangerous—are you?”

  I smiled. “That depends. Do you think I could take you in a fair fight, Cretheus? We’re about the same age, the same build—”

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

  “Am I dangerous to know, you mean? Am I dangerous cargo?”

  He nodded. “This is Pompey we’ve run into. I’ve never had dealings with the man myself, but everyone knows his reputation. He’s used to getting what he wants, and stopping at nothing to get it.”

  I nodded, remembering a famous comment from early in the Great One’s career, when he ran roughshod over the Sicilians. They complained of his illegal tactics in bringing order to their island. Pompey’s response: “Stop quoting laws to us; we carry swords!” Pompey had always done whatever was necessary to prevail, and throughout his long career he had never tasted defeat—until now.

  “Considering what happened at Pharsalus, I imagine the Great One must be in a rather foul mood,” I said.

  “So you do know him, Gordianus?”

  I nodded. “Pompey and I are acquainted.”

  “And will he be pleased or displeased when that officer tells him you’re on my ship?”

  I laughed without mirth. “Displeased to learn that I’m still breathing. Pleased that he has a chance to do something about that.”

  The captain wrinkled his brow. “He hates you that much?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because you’re a partisan of Caesar?”

  I shook my head. “I am not and never was in Caesar’s camp, despite the fact that my son—my disowned son . . .” I left the sentence unfinished.

  “You have a son who fights with Caesar?”

  “They’re closer than that. Meto sleeps in the same tent, eats from the same bowl. He helps write the propaganda Caesar passes off as memoirs.”

  The captain looked at me with fresh eyes. “Who’d have thought . . .?”

  “That such a common-looking fellow as myself would have such a close connection to the world’s new lord and master?”

  “Something like that. What did you do to offend Pompey, then?”

  I leaned against the rail and stared into the water. “That, Captain, is my own business.”

  “My business, if it means Pompey decides to confiscate my ship and throw me overboard, to punish me for taking you as a passenger. I’ll ask you again: What did you do to offend the Great One?”

  “Even as Caesar was marching on Rome and Pompey was scrambling to escape, a favorite young cousin of Pompey’s was murdered. Just before he left Rome, Pompey charged me with finding the killer.”

  “And you failed to do so?”

  “Not exactly. But the Great One was not pleased with the outcome.” I thought of Pompey as I had last seen him—his hands around my throat, his eyes bulging, determined to see me dead. He had been in the process of fleeing Italy by ship, disembarking from the port of Brundisium even as Caesar stormed the city. I’d barely managed to escape, wrenching free from Pompey’s grip, diving into deep water, surfacing amid flaming flotsam, dragging myself to the shore while Pompey sailed off to fight another day.

  I shook my head to clear it. “You’ve done nothing to insult the Great One’s dignity, Captain. He has no reason to punish you. If Pompey confiscates your ship, it’ll be because he needs more room for that sad-looking bunch of soldiers crowded on these transports. But he’ll need someone to sail this ship, so why throw you overboard? Ah, but perhaps we’ll know the Great One’s intentions soon enough. I see a skiff approaching, and I believe it’s carrying our friend, that centurion who detained us.”

  The skiff pulled alongside. The centurion called up to us. “Ahoy, Captain.”

  “Ahoy, yourself. Your men finished searching my cargo an hour ago. What now? Am I free to go?”

  “Not yet. That passenger you’re carrying . . .”

  I leaned over the rail to show my face. “Are you referring to me, Centurion?”

  “I am. Are you the same Gordianus who’s called the Finder, who lives in Rome?”

  “I suppose there’s no point in denying it.”

  “You must be a rather important fellow, then. The Great One himself would like a word with you. If you’ll join us here in the skiff, we’ll escort you to his galley.”

  Bethesda, who had been standing to one side with Rupa and the boys, drew near and gripped my hand.

  “Husband—”

  “I’ll be alright, I’m sure,” I said.

  She squeezed my fingers and averted her eyes. “We’ve come so far, Husband.”

  “All the way back to where we first began, you and I. Well, almost all the way. We didn’t quite make it to Alexandria, but we did see the lighthouse, didn’t we?”

  She shook her head. “I should never have insisted on this journey.”

  “Nonsense! These days, no place is safer than any other. We came to Egypt so that you could bathe in the Nile and cleanse yourself of the malady that plagues you, and so you must. Promise me you will, no matter whether I’m there to see it or—�
��

  “Don’t say such a thing!” she whispered.

  I took both her hands, but only for a moment. “The Great One doesn’t like to be kept waiting,” I said, reluctantly letting her fingertips slip from mine. “Look after her while I’m gone, Rupa. And you boys, behave yourselves!” Androcles and Mopsus both looked at me uncertainly, sensing trouble.

  A man of my years should never be obliged to climb down a rope ladder into a skiff, but I managed the difficult descent with more grace than I thought possible. Perhaps the gods were watching after all, and thought it fitting to allow an old Roman to retain a shred of dignity on the way to meet his destiny.

  “A beautiful day,” I said to the centurion. “Not a sign of that storm that blew us here. You’d never know it happened. Nothing but blue skies.”

  The centurion nodded but did not speak. His reserves of bonhomie were apparently spent. His face was grim.

  “Not a very cheerful group,” I said, looking at the rowers. They kept their eyes straight ahead and made no response.

  We rowed past warships and transports to the center of the little fleet. Pompey’s galley stood out from the rest. Its sail was trimmed with crimson, its armored hull gleamed in the sunlight, and the soldiers on the deck were by far the best outfitted of any in sight. It was clearly the handsomest ship in the fleet, and yet, in some intangible way, the gloomiest. Was I only imagining the air of dread that seemed to thicken around us as each stroke of the oars brought us closer?

  I was spared the challenge of attempting an ascent by ladder, for the galley was equipped with a ramp that unfolded from the deck. I stepped onto it, swaying a bit. When the centurion gripped my elbow to steady me, I turned to thank him; but the way he averted his eyes, as if the very sight of me might contaminate him, unnerved me. Mustering my courage, I turned and ascended the ramp.

  The moment I stepped onto the deck, I was searched. My dagger was discovered and taken from me. I was told to remove my shoes, and those were taken as well; I suppose an enterprising assassin might find some way to conceal a deadly weapon in his shoe. Even the cord I used to belt my tunic was taken. Armed guards escorted me to the cabin at the stern of the galley. Its door stood open, and well before we reached it, I heard Pompey’s raised voice from within.