‘I will not let anything harm you, I promise. I can make this place a fortress with fifty men.’
She saw his need to protect her in his eyes. Not love, but the duty of a husband. She’d thought she had grown numb to loss, but to see his face so cold and earnest was worse than anything.
Forcing a smile, Cornelia pressed a hand to his cheek, still warm from the run. A fortress, or a prison, she thought.
When riders were sighted on the road from the city two days later, Julius and Brutus roused the estate in minutes. Renius had brought fifty of Primigenia from their barracks and by the time the riders approached the gates, it would have taken an army to breach their defences. There were archers on every wall and Cornelia was hidden with the others in a new suite of rooms Julius had designated for exactly this purpose. Clodia had taken Julia down without an argument, but precious time had been lost moving Aurelia, who understood nothing of what was happening.
Julius stood alone in the courtyard, watching as Tubruk and Renius took their final positions. Octavian had been sent down with the women, over his furious protests. Everything became still and Julius nodded to himself. The estate was secure.
With his sword sheathed, he climbed the steps to the ledge above the gate and watched as the riders halted at a distance, made wary by the sudden show of force on the walls. A carriage moved up between them, drawn by twin horses who pranced forward a last few reluctant steps, sensing the tension. Julius watched without speaking as one of the riders dismounted and laid a cloth of silk in the dust.
Cato stepped ponderously out onto it, adjusting the folds of his toga with delicate attention. The dust of the road had not touched him and he looked up into Julius’ eyes without expression, before motioning to his men to dismount and approach the gate.
Behind his back, Julius raised his fingers to signal the number of strangers. There were too few for an open attack, but Julius was uncomfortable having such a man anywhere near those he loved. He tensed his jaw as they walked into the shadow of the gate. Brutus had told him about Cato’s son, but there was nothing he could do to change what had happened. Like Brutus, he would just have to see it through.
A fist thumped against the heavy beams of the gate.
‘Who calls on my house?’ Julius said, looking Cato in the eye below. The man stared back impassively, content to wait through the formalities. He would know better than anyone what turmoil was going on in Julius’ mind. A senator could not be refused.
A soldier at Cato’s side spoke loudly enough to carry into the house. ‘Senator Cato desires entrance on a private matter. Dismiss your men and open this gate.’
Julius did not reply, instead descending into the yard and conferring quickly with Brutus and Tubruk. The defenders on the walls were brought down and sent into the buildings to await a call to arms. The others were given tasks that allowed them to remain close. It was farcical to see armed men taking horses from the stables and grooming them in the open, but Julius was not in the mood for risk and, as he opened the gate himself, he wondered if blood would be spilled in the next hour.
Cato passed through the gate, smiling slightly as he saw the numbers of armed men in the area.
‘Expecting a war, Caesar?’ he said.
‘A legion must drill, Senator. I would not like to be caught unprepared,’ Julius replied. He frowned as Cato’s men entered behind their master. He had to allow it, but he thanked his house gods for his foresight in bringing so many of Primigenia out of the city barracks. Cato’s men would be dead in seconds if he gave the order. Their faces showed they understood this as well as anyone as their horses were led away, leaving them exposed in the open courtyard.
Cato looked at him. ‘Are you now the general of Primigenia, then? I do not recall an application having been made at the senate house.’ His voice was light and without threat, but Julius stiffened, knowing he had to watch every word.
‘It has yet to be made official, but I speak for them,’ he replied. Courtesy demanded he offer the senator a seat and refreshment after his journey, but he could not bring himself to utter the fictions of politeness, even knowing Cato would take it as a small triumph.
Renius and Brutus moved to Julius’ side and Cato looked from one to the other, seemingly unaffected by the men he faced.
‘Very well, Julius. I will speak to you of my son,’ Cato said. ‘I have offered gold for him and had it refused. I have come tonight to ask what you do want for him.’
He raised his head and Julius saw his deep-set eyes were bright. He wondered if this man had ordered the killing of Pompey’s daughter. Would the risk from him be lessened if he handed Germinius back to his father? Or would it be seen as a weakness that Cato would use to scatter his house in ashes?
‘He has taken oath, Senator. There …’
‘You are under strength, are you not?’ Cato interrupted. ‘I can have a thousand men here tomorrow morning. Healthy slaves from my own estate to be the backbone of Primigenia.’
Renius growled suddenly. ‘There are no slaves in the legions, Senator. Primigenia are free men.’
Cato waved a hand as if it was of no consequence.
‘Free them after they have taken your precious oath then. I have no doubt a man like you will find a way, Renius. You are so … resourceful.’ As he spoke, a fraction of his spite gleamed through and Julius knew to give way to him would be to invite destruction.
‘My answer is no, Senator. The oath cannot be bought back.’
Cato looked at them without speaking for a moment.
‘You leave me no choice then. If my son must serve two years with you, I want him alive at the end of it. I will send the men’ – he paused – ‘freed slaves, Renius. I will send them to you to protect my son.’
‘When you have freed them, they may not do what you want,’ Renius replied, matching the senator glare for glare.
‘They will come,’ Cato snapped. ‘Few men are as troublesome to me as you have been.’
‘They will not be your son’s guards if they come to Primigenia,’ Julius said. ‘Believe me when I say I will not allow it.’
‘Will you give me nothing?’ Cato said, his voice rising in anger. All movement in the courtyard changed as hands began to creep towards swords.
‘If the gods allow, I will give you your son two years from now. That is all,’ Julius replied firmly.
‘See that you do, Caesar. If he does not survive …’ Cato spoke through clenched teeth, all pretence at calm gone. ‘Be sure he does.’
Turning on his heel, he signalled to his men to open the gate. The soldiers of Primigenia reached it first and Cato climbed into his carriage without a backward glance.
Brutus turned to Julius as the closing gate hid the view of Cato’s men.
‘What are you thinking? How many of his “freed slaves” will be spies, do you think? How many will be assassins? Have you thought of that? Gods, you have to find a way to stop him.’
‘Don’t you want a thousand more for Primigenia?’ Julius said.
‘At that cost? No, I think I’d rather give Germinius back to his father, or have taken the gold. If it was a smaller number, we could have them watched, but a thousand! A full half of Primigenia we can’t trust. It’s insane.’
‘He’s right, you know,’ Renius added. ‘A hundred would be more than I’d like to take in, never mind this many.’
Julius looked at both of them. They had not been there when he had scoured the coasts for Roman sons, nor when he’d found his veterans in Greece.
‘We will make them ours,’ he said, ignoring his own doubts.
Having slept until the sun rose to its greatest height above the wintry city, Cato suffered with a headache that even hot wine could not shift. It throbbed slightly as he listened to Antonidus, hardly able to bear his posturing.
‘Ten thousand sesterces is high, even for a death, Antonidus,’ he said. He enjoyed watching the prickle of sweat that broke out on the general’s brow, knowing as well as the
man himself that if the money wasn’t paid, a sure death would come from the assassins’ spite. Keeping him waiting was a petty response, Cato knew, but still he let the time drag out, tapping his fingers idly on the arm of his couch. Pompey’s public enmity was to have been expected, of course, even if the assassin hadn’t left a clay token in the little girl’s grip as he had been told to do. Cato could not have guessed the senator would throw away his favours simply to make the point, though he could applaud the subtlety of the move. He had hoped Pompey would act in grief and folly, allowing Cato to have him arrested and removed from the games of power in the Senate. Instead Pompey had shown a restraint that marked him as a more dangerous enemy than he had realised. Cato sighed and scratched the corner of his mouth. If he were judged by his enemies, he was surely a power in Rome.
‘I would be tempted to withdraw my support and my funds from your revenge, Antonidus, if it wasn’t for the matter of this trial of yours. I have hired Rufus Sulpicius to be your advocate.’
‘I can argue against Caesar myself, Senator. It is a simple enough case,’ Antonidus responded in surprise.
‘No, I want that young cockerel humiliated. From what I have seen, he is young enough and rash enough to be brought down easily. A public embarrassment in front of the magistrates and the plebeians should remove some of the fresh gloss of his tribune rank. We may even demand his death for the wrongs you have suffered.’ Cato rubbed his forehead with his eyes closed, his full mouth pursing. ‘There is a price for my son and he must pay it. Use Sulpicius. There are few better minds in Rome than his. He will appoint the jurists for you and find the precedents in custom. I have no doubt that this Caesar will be well prepared. Have you sent the summons?’
‘No, I was waiting for a date to be set. I have applied to the praetor, but there has been no reply as yet.’
‘That, Antonidus, is why you need a man like Sulpicius. Meet with him and let him handle the case. He will secure a date for trial in a month or less. That is his business, you know. Your precious house will be back in your hands, for which I expect you to be suitably grateful and indebted to me.’
‘I am, Senator. And the money?’
‘Yes, yes,’ Cato said waspishly, ‘you will have your funds, both for the court and … the other matter. Now leave me to my rest. The day has been long and tiring.’
Even in the privacy of his own home, he did not speak without care, taking pleasure in the forms of conspiracy that forced him to employ men like Antonidus. He knew that many of the senators saw him as a man only of words, preferring the cut of a reply to their martial posturing. The assassins were a delicious departure from his usual intrigue and he found the power it gave him quite intoxicating. To be able to point to any man and call down a death on him was a thrill even for a palate as jaded as his own. As the general left, he called for a cool cloth to drape over his face.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The trial began as the sky lightened to the east of Rome, the false dawn that woke the workers and sent the thieves and whores to their own beds. The area in the forum that was set aside for legal proceedings was still torch-lit from the night and a large crowd had gathered at the boundary, held back only by the solid line of soldiers from the city barracks. Under the direct command of the praetor who would oversee the trial, these were charged with keeping the peace in the event of an unpopular verdict, and the crowd were careful not to come within range of the staffs they carried. Unusually for a case concerning such an apparently minor matter, the benches on either side of the advocates’ square were also full. Many of the people Julius knew from the Senate had come to listen, either at his invitation or the call of Antonidus. His own family had stayed at the estate outside Rome. Cornelia and his daughter had to remain under the protection of Primigenia and Julius did not want Tubruk anywhere near Antonidus or the senators, for all his assurances that he could not be recognised.
Julius’ searching gaze found Brutus in the second row of three, sitting next to a woman who raised her head to look back at him. There was something disturbing in her cool appraisal and he wondered how she seemed to stand out against the crowd around her, as if she was sitting fractionally closer than anyone else. In a timeless moment, she leaned back slowly, arresting his attention. Her hair was unbound and before he summoned the will to break the contact, she raised a hand to pull a tendril back from where it had fallen loose over her face.
Forcing himself to relax and concentrate, he breathed in the warm air, going over the points he had prepared with his jurists in the weeks after the formal summons. If the case was judged fairly, he knew they had an excellent chance of winning, but if any of the three magistrates was in the pay of his enemies, the trial could be a mockery, with everything won but the final verdict. His gaze swept over the gathering crowd, all of them oblivious to what was at stake. They had come for the entertainment of oratory, to cheer or curse clever points of debate. Julius hoped too that some had come because of the rumours his jurists had started around the city, that the trial was to be nothing less than a defence of Marius. There did seem to be a lot of the plebeians in attendance and the sellers of baked fish and steaming bread were doing a fine trade already as the people waited patiently for the magistrates and the praetor to make their entrance.
Julius looked again at the draped shields that Alexandria had completed and noticed that many of the crowd craned their necks for a glimpse of them as well, pointing and talking amongst themselves. Only Alexandria, Tabbic and himself knew what was under the thick folds of cloth and Julius felt a touch of excitement at the response they would get when he unveiled them at last.
Behind him, his three jurists shuffled through their papers and notes one more time, their heads bowed in low mutters. Hiring Quintus Scaevola to help him prepare the case had cost him two talents of gold, but there were few men in Rome with a better command of the twin laws of custom and the Twelve Tables. It had taken a vast fee just to tempt him out of retirement, but despite his arthritic stiffness, the brain behind the heavy-lidded eyes had turned out to be as sharp as Julius had been told. Julius watched Quintus as he scribbled a footnote to the papers for the trial and caught his eye as he looked upwards in thought.
‘Nervous?’ Quintus asked, waving the sheaf at the court and the shadowed crowds beyond.
‘A little,’ Julius admitted. ‘There is a great deal at stake.’
‘Remember the point of value. You always leave that one out.’
‘I remember, Quintus. We’ve been over it enough times,’ Julius replied. He had grown to like the elderly jurist, although the man seemed to live only for the law and cared nothing for the other concerns of the city. As a joke in their first week of preparation, Julius had asked him what he would do if he found one of his sons setting fire to a house in the city. After a great deal of silent thought, Quintus had said that he would not be able to take the case as the law forbade calling himself as a witness.
Quintus pressed the notes into Julius’ hands, his expression stern. ‘Do not be afraid to consult, remember. They will try to make you speak without thought. If you feel the arguments are slipping from you, turn away and I will advise as best I can. Do you remember the passage from the Twelve Tables?’
Julius raised his eyes in exasperation. ‘The one we all memorised as children? Yes, I know it.’
Quintus sniffed at the sarcasm. ‘Perhaps you should recite it again to be sure,’ he said, unmoved.
Julius opened his mouth to reply, but a light cheer from the crowd interrupted him.
‘It’s the magistrates … and the praetor. Only an hour late, Master Scaevola,’ one of the younger jurists hissed to Quintus. Julius followed their gaze and saw the group come out of the senate building where they had been preparing.
The crowd fell silent in anticipation as the group of four men walked slowly with their guards into the court area. Julius scrutinised them carefully. The praetor was unknown to him, a short red-faced man with a bald crown. He walked with his he
ad bowed as if in prayer, taking his seat on the raised platform that had been assembled for the trial. Julius watched as the praetor nodded to the centurion of the guards and signalled for the magistrates to take their seats next to him.
These men were familiar enough and Julius breathed a silent sigh of relief as he saw none of them were faces he recognised from the factions in Senate. His worst fear was that they would be Cato’s creatures, but he brightened as one of them smiled at him. The people’s tribune took his place last as the most senior of the magistrates. The crowd let out a ragged cheer for their representative and the man smiled back at them, raising his hand briefly in acknowledgement. His name was Servius Pella, which was just about all Julius could call to mind about him. His hair was white and cropped close to an angular skull with deep-set eyes that seemed black in the dim light of the torches. Fleetingly, Julius wished he had taken the time to meet the man at one of the Senate meetings, but shoved the thought aside. It was pointless to worry about the magistrates, he knew. If he could deal with the posturing of Antonidus’ advocate Rufus, he had a strong enough case. If he were humiliated, he would lose not only the house that had belonged to Marius, but also a great deal of his status in the Senate and the city itself. He could not regret the risks he had taken in forcing the trial. Marius would have expected no less.
Julius glanced over to where Cato sat and found the heavy gaze fastened on him with interest. Bibilus was there at his side as always, and Catalus. Julius saw that Suetonius was sitting with his father, the same supercilious smile on each face. Their expressions would have marked them as kin even if he hadn’t known it already.
Julius looked away rather than show his anger. Cato’s supporters would learn to fear in time, as he removed the pillars of their influence, one by one.
Quintus patted Julius’ shoulder and sat down with the other jurists. The crowd shuffled and whispered as they sensed the trial was about to start. Julius glanced again at the shields, checking the drapes hadn’t slipped to reveal even a part of them.
The Emperor Series: Books 1-5 Page 72