It was tempting to gather a few horses and go back to the city, but Julius was wary of the changes that could have occurred in his absence. Without consular immunity, he would be vulnerable to his enemies there. Even if the Senate had left him the rank of tribune, it would not save him from the charges of killing Ariovistus or exceeding his orders over the Rhine. Julius was owed more than one Triumph by the Senate, but he doubted Pompey would be pleased to see him lauded by the citizens. Marrying Julius’ daughter should have been a rein on his temper, but Julius knew him too well to trust his goodwill, or his ambition.
The winter passed in slow comfort. They rarely talked of the battles they had fought, though when Brutus was drunk, he would arrange bread rolls on the table and demonstrate to Ciro what the Helvetii should have done.
When the winter solstice came, the legions celebrated with the city, lighting lamps on every house so that the promise of spring could be seen in the streets. Ariminum shone like a jewel in the darkness and the whorehouses ran double shifts all night. From that point on, the atmosphere changed subtly. With the longest night over, the reports of damage and brawls came with greater frequency to Julius’ desk, until he was half tempted to send the lot of them out to the plains to camp in the barren fields. Slowly, he began to spend more and more of each day on the business of supply and pay, falling back into the routines that had sustained him all his adult life.
He missed Renius and Cabera more than he could believe. It had come as a surprise for Julius to realise that he was the oldest of the men who shared Crassus’ house with him. Where the others seemed to expect him to provide order in their lives, he had no one, and the habits of war were too strong to lightly lay aside. Though he had known some of the men in the house for years, he was the commanding officer and there was always a slight reserve in their manner around him. At times, Julius found the busy house strangely lonely, but the coming of spring went some way to complete the restoration of his goodwill. He took to riding around the outskirts of the city with Brutus and Octavian, building up their fitness. Ciro watched him closely whenever they were together, smiling as touches of the old Julius were visible, however briefly. Time healed what did not show and though there were dark days still, all the men felt the rise of spring in their blood.
The bundle of letters that came on a bright dawn looked like any other. Julius paid the carrier and shuffled them into piles. He recognised Servilia’s handwriting on one for her son and was pleased to find another for himself towards the bottom. His mood was one of pleasant anticipation as he took his letter into the front room of the house and lit a fire, shivering as he broke the seal and opened it.
As Julius read, he rose from his seat and stood in the full glare of the rising sun. He read the letter from Servilia three times before he began to believe it and then he sank back, letting the letter fall.
The merchant prince had fallen.
Crassus and his son had not survived the attacks of the Parthians in Syria. Most of the legion Julius had trained had fought clear, but Crassus had led a wild charge when he saw his son unhorsed and the enemy had cut him off from the rest of his men. The legionaries recovered their bodies and Pompey had declared a day of mourning for the old man.
Julius sat and stared out at the sun until the glare was too much for him and his eyes stung. All the old names were gone now and, for all his faults, Crassus had been a friend to him through the darkest days. Julius could read Servilia’s own grief in the neat lines as she described the tragedy, but Julius could not think of her. He rose and began to pace the room.
As well as the personal feelings of loss, Julius was forced to consider how Crassus’ dying would change the balance of power in Rome. He did not like the conclusions he drew. Pompey would suffer least. As Dictator, he was above the law and the triumvirate and would miss only Crassus’ wealth. Julius wondered who would inherit the old man’s fortune now that Publius was dead with him, but it hardly mattered. Far more important was the fact that Pompey no longer needed to have a successful general in the field. He might well view such a man as a threat.
As Julius thought through the implications, his expression became bleak. If Crassus had lived, some new compromise could have been hammered out between them, but that hope had died in Parthia. After all, Julius knew if he had found himself in Pompey’s position, he would have been quick to clear the field of anyone who could be a danger. As Crassus had once told him, politics was a bloody business.
With a sudden dart, he stepped over to the table and opened the rest of the letters, looking only at the first lines of each until he froze, and took a deep breath. Pompey had written to him and Julius felt fury surge as he read the pompous orders. There was not even a mention of Crassus in the lines and Julius threw the letter down in disgust as he began to pace once again. Though he knew he should have expected no more from the Dictator, it was still a shock to read his future in the lines.
The door to the room slammed open and Brutus entered, holding his own sheaf of letters.
‘Have you heard?’ Brutus said.
Julius nodded, plans forming in his mind.
‘Send men out to collect the legions, Brutus. They’ve grown fat and slow over the winter and I want them out of the city by noon tomorrow to begin manoeuvres.’
Brutus gaped at him.
‘Are we heading back to Gaul, then? What about Crassus? I don’t think …’
‘Did you hear me?’ Julius roared at him. ‘Half our men are near useless with their whores and wine. Tell Mark Antony we are leaving. Have him start at the docks and round them up.’
Brutus stood very still. Questions came to his lips and he throttled them, his discipline forcing a salute. He left and Julius could hear his voice rousing the others in the house.
Julius thought again of the letter from Pompey and the betrayal. No sign of the years they had known each other had been present in the words. It was a formal order to return to Rome – alone. To return to the one man in the world who might fear him enough to kill him.
Julius felt light-headed and weak as he considered the implications. Pompey had no rivals except one and Julius didn’t trust his promise of safe passage for a moment. Yet to disobey would launch a fight to the death that could very well destroy the city and everything Rome had won over centuries.
He shook his head to clear it. The city was stifling him and he longed for the breezes of the plains. There he could think and plan his answer. He would gather the men on the banks of the Rubicon river and pray for the wisdom to make the right choice.
Regulus stood alone in the little courtyard of Crassus’ home, looking at the letter in his hands. An unknown hand had written the words on the parchment, but there could only have been one author. Just two words sat like spiders in the centre of the blank page and yet he read them over and over, his face tight and hard.
Take him, it said.
Regulus remembered how he and Pompey had spoken the last time they had been in Ariminum. He had not wavered then, but that was before he had been to Britain with Julius and seen him fight at Avaricum, Gergovia, Alesia. The last most of all. Regulus had seen Julius lead legions past the point when any other would have fallen and been destroyed. He had known then that he followed a greater man than Pompey and now he held an order to kill the general.
It would be easy, he knew. Julius trusted him completely after so many years together and Regulus thought there was friendship there between them. Julius would let him come close and then it would be just another life to add to those Regulus had taken for Rome. Just one more order to obey as he had obeyed so many thousands before.
The dawn breeze chilled the skin of the centurion as he tore the letter into halves, then quarters, not stopping until the shreds lifted in the wind and flew. It was the first order he had ever disobeyed and it brought him peace.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Pompey leaned against the columns of the temple to Jupiter and looked over the moonlit city below the Capitol. Dic
tator. He shook his head and smiled in the darkness at the thought.
The city was quiet and already it was hard to imagine the gangs and rioting that had once seemed like the end of the world. Pompey looked over to the new senate house and remembered the flames and screams in the night. In a few years, Clodius and Milo would be all but forgotten in the city, but Rome went on and she was his alone.
The Senate had extended his Dictatorship without the slightest pressure from him. They would do it again, he was sure, for as long as he wanted. They had seen the need for a strong hand to cut through all the laws with which they had bound themselves. Sometimes it was necessary, just to make the city work.
Part of Pompey wished Crassus had lived to see what he had made out of the chaos. The strength of grief Pompey had felt when he heard of his death had surprised him. They had known each other for the best part of thirty years, through war and peace, and Pompey missed the old man’s company. He supposed it was possible to grow used to anything.
He had seen so many fall in his life. There were times when he could not believe that he was the one to have survived the turbulent years, where men like Marius and Sulla, Cato and Crassus had all gone over the river. Yet he was still there and there was more than one race in life. Sometimes, the only way to triumph was to survive while others died. That too could be a skill.
A feather of breeze made Pompey shiver and consider going back to his home to rest. His thoughts turned to Julius then and the letters he had sent north. Would Regulus take the decision out of his hands? Pompey wished it could be so. The part of him that held his honour felt ashamed at what he had ordered and still contemplated. He thought of Julius’ daughter, heavy with new life inside her. She had a hard edge that had brought her through the pressure of being wife to the most powerful man in Rome. Still, he could not share his plans with one of Caesar’s blood. She had done her duty well and fulfilled an old agreement he had made with her father. There was nothing more he needed from her.
There could be no sharing of power, now that he understood it. Julius would either be killed in the north, or he would obey his orders and the result would be the same.
Pompey sighed at the thought and shook his head with genuine regret. Caesar could not be allowed to live, or one day he would come into the Senate and the years of blood would begin again.
‘I will not allow it,’ Pompey whispered into the breeze and there was no one to hear him.
Julius sat on the banks of the Rubicon and looked south. He wished Cabera or Renius were there to advise him, but the decision was his alone in the end, as so many others before it. His legions stretched away into the night around him and he could hear the sentries walk their routes in the darkness, calling out the passwords that meant routine and safety.
The moon was bright under a clear spring sky and Julius smiled as he looked over the men who sat with him. Ciro was there at his shoulder and Brutus and Mark Antony sat on the other side, looking over the bright thread of the river. Octavian stood nearby with Regulus, and Domitius lay on his back and looked up at the stars. It was easy to imagine Renius there and Cabera with him. Somehow, in imagination, they were the men he remembered, before illness and injury had taken them. Publius Crassus and his father had gone, and Bericus, too. His own father and Tubruk; Cornelia. Death had followed them all and brought them down one by one.
‘If I take the legions south, it will be civil war,’ Julius said softly. ‘My poor battered city will see more blood. How many would die this year, for me?’
They were silent for a long time and Julius knew they could barely imagine the crime of attacking their own city. He hardly dared to give voice to it himself. Sulla had done it and was despised in memory. There was no way back for any of them after such an act.
‘You said Pompey promised safe passage,’ Mark Antony said at last.
Brutus snorted. ‘Our Dictator has no honour, Julius. Remember that. He had Salomin beaten half to death in the tournament and where was honour then? He isn’t fit to walk where Marius walked. If you go alone, he will never let you leave. He’ll have you under the knife as soon as you step through the gates. You know it as well as any of us.’
‘What choice do you have, though?’ Mark Antony said. ‘A civil war against our own people? Would the men even follow us?’
‘Yes,’ Ciro’s bass growl sounded out of the darkness. ‘We would.’
None of them knew how to respond to the big man and a strained silence fell. They could all hear the river whisper over the stones and the voices of their men around them. Dawn was near and Julius was no closer to knowing what he would do.
‘I have been at war for as long as I can remember,’ Julius said softly. ‘Sometimes I ask myself what it has been for if I stop here. What did I waste the lives of my friends for if I go meekly to my death?’
‘It may not be death!’ Mark Antony said. ‘You say you know the man, but he promised …’
‘No,’ Regulus interrupted. He took a step closer to Julius as Mark Antony looked up at him. ‘No, Pompey will not let you live. I know.’
Julius saw the strained features of the centurion in the moonlight and he rose to his feet.
‘How?’ he asked.
‘Because I was his man and you were not meant to leave Ariminum. I had his order to kill you.’
All of them came to their feet and Brutus put himself solidly between Regulus and Julius.
‘You bastard. What are you talking about?’ Brutus demanded, his hand resting on his sword hilt.
Regulus didn’t look at him, instead holding Julius’ gaze.
‘I could not obey the order,’ he said.
Julius nodded. ‘There are some that should not be obeyed, my friend. I’m glad you realised that. Sit down, Brutus. If he was going to kill me, do you think he would have told us all first? Sit down!’
Reluctantly, they settled back onto the grass, though Brutus glared at Regulus, still unsure of him.
‘Pompey has only one legion guarding Rome,’ Domitius said speculatively. Julius glanced at him and Domitius shrugged. ‘I mean, it could be done if we moved too quickly for him to reinforce. We could be at the walls in a week if we pushed the pace. With four veteran legions against him, he couldn’t hold the city for even a day.’
Mark Antony looked appalled at this and Domitius chuckled as he saw his expression. There was already more light as dawn approached and they looked at each other guardedly as Domitius continued, raising his hands.
‘It could be done, that’s all. One gamble for the whole pot. One throw for Rome.’
‘You think you could kill legionaries?’ Julius asked him.
Domitius rubbed his face and looked away.
‘I’m saying it might not come to that. Our soldiers have been hardened in Gaul and we know what they can do. I don’t think Pompey has anything to match us.’
Brutus looked at the man he had followed from childhood. He had swallowed more bitterness in their years than he would ever have believed and as they sat together, he did not know if Julius even understood what he had been given. His pride, his honour, his youth. Everything. He knew Julius better than any of them and he saw the glitter in his friend’s eyes as he contemplated another war. How many of them would survive his ambition, he wondered. The others looked so trusting, it made Brutus want to close his eyes rather than be sickened. Yet despite it all, he knew Julius could bring him with a word.
Domitius cleared his throat.
‘It’s your choice, Julius. If you want us to go back to Gaul and lose ourselves, I’m with you. The gods know we’d never be found in some of the places we’ve seen. But if you want to go to Rome and risk it all one last time, I’m still with you.’
‘One last throw?’ Julius said and he made it a question for all of them.
One by one, they nodded, until only Brutus remained. Julius raised his eyebrows and smiled gently.
‘I can’t do it without you, Brutus. You know that.’
‘One las
t throw, then,’ Brutus whispered, before looking away.
As the sun rose, the veteran legions of Gaul crossed the Rubicon and marched on Rome.
HISTORICAL NOTE
As with the previous two books, I think an explanatory note can be useful, especially when the history is sometimes more surprising than the fiction.
I have mentioned Alexander the Great throughout the book as a hero for Julius. Certainly the Greek king’s life would have been well known to all educated Romans, complementing their interest in that culture. Though the setting was Cadiz rather than a deserted Spanish village, the first century biographer Suetonius provides the detail of Caesar sighing in frustration at the foot of Alexander’s statue. At the age of thirty-one, Julius had achieved nothing in comparison. He could not have known that his greatest victories would come after that point.
Apart from his wives, Julius is reported as having had a number of prominent mistresses, though Suetonius said Servilia was the one he loved most of all. Julius did buy her a pearl valued at one and a half million denarii. Perhaps one of the reasons he invaded Britain may have been to find more of them.
He was quaestor in Spain before he returned as praetor, which I have not gone into for reasons of pace. He was a busier man than any writer can hope to cover and even a condensed version fills these books to bursting point.
He did stage a gladiatorial combat in solid silver armour and ran huge debts pursuing public fame. It is true that at one point he had to physically leave the city to avoid his creditors. He became consul with Bibilus and chased his colleague out of the forum after a disagreement. In Bibilus’ absence, it became something of a joke in Rome to say a document was signed by Julius and Caesar.
The Emperor Series: Books 1-5 Page 135