Suddenly he heard the sound of many footsteps behind him. A large group of men caught up with him and swept past him. Lucius saw a blur of togas, and glimpsed several familiar faces. Some of the senators must surely have recognized him, but not one of them uttered a greeting. They averted their eyes from him. As they hurried on, whispering among themselves, he thought he heard them speak his name. It was very strange.
The senators reached the house of Brutus, rapped on the door, and disappeared inside.
Lucius arrived at the threshold and stared dumbly at the door. What was going on in the house of Brutus? Something was not right. It occurred to him that the senators might have been bringing bad news—something to do with Caesar, perhaps? Lucius gathered his nerve and rapped on the door.
A peephole opened. Lucius gave his name. He was perused by a pair of unblinking eyes. The peephole closed. Lucius was left waiting for so long that he decided he had been forgotten, and was about to leave. Then the door opened. A grim-looking slave admitted him to the vestibule.
“Wait here,” said the slave, and disappeared.
Lucius slowly paced back and forth. He looked at the busts of the ancestors in their niches, paying only scant attention until he saw one that was clearly honored above all the others, placed in a special niche with votive candles in sconces at either side. The mask looked very, very old. It was a famous face, known to every Roman from public statues all over the city.
“That’s only a copy, of course,” said a voice. “Wax masks don’t last forever, and more than one branch of the family lay claim to him, so there had to be duplicates. Still, that mask is very ancient, and very sacred, as you can imagine. The candles are kept lit always, day and night.”
Brutus stood before him. Curious to see if he could detect a resemblance, Lucius looked from the face of Brutus to the face of his famous ancestor and namesake—the man who had been the nephew of the last king, Tarquinius, who had revenged the rape of Lucretia, who had helped to overthrow the monarchy and had become first consul, who had watched his own sons be put to death for betraying the Republic.
Lucius frowned. “You don’t look anything alike, as far as I can see.”
“No? Even so, I think we may share a similar destiny. At any rate, his example inspires me, especially today.”
Was Brutus feverish? It seemed to Lucius that the man’s eyes glittered unnaturally.
“Why have you come?” said Brutus.
“I’m not sure. I happened to be passing. I saw your visitors arriving. It seemed to me that something…that perhaps something was wrong…”
His voice trailed away as another man appeared behind Brutus. Gaius Cassius Longinus was Brutus’s brother-in-law, married to his sister. He was one of the senators who had swept past Lucius in the street. Lucius nodded to him. “Good day to you, Cassius.”
Cassius did not return the greeting. He whispered in Brutus’s ear. He looked tense and pale.
The two exchanged more whispers, and cast furtive glances at Lucius. They appeared to be arguing and trying to come to some decision. Lucius began to find their scrutiny unnerving.
Brutus gripped Cassius’s arm and pulled him to the far side of the room, but his whisper was so loud that Lucius overheard. “No! We agreed already—Caesar and only Caesar. No one else! Otherwise, we show ourselves to be no better than—”
Cassius cast a cold gaze at Lucius, silenced Brutus with a hiss, and pulled him into the next room.
If they were still whispering, Lucius could not hear; his heartbeat was suddenly so loud in his ears that he could hear nothing else. He looked toward the front door. It was blocked by the grim-faced slave. From the atrium, more slaves appeared, followed by Brutus.
“Don’t harm him!” Brutus shouted. “I only want him restrained. We’ll hold him here until—”
There was no time to think. A thrill of panic ran through Lucius and he acted purely by instinct. He bolted toward the door, but hands on his arms and shoulders held him back. He tried to shrug them off, but the hands gripped him more firmly. With all his strength he pulled free, turned around, and swung his fists. His knuckles connected with the hard jaw of one of the slaves and sent a painful shock through his arm. The slave took a swing at him in return and struck a glancing blow across his shoulder. Lucius struck the man square in the face. The slave staggered back, blood pouring from his nose.
Now only the slave barring the door stood in his way. Lucius ran toward him, lowered his head, and butted the man in the stomach. The slave cried out in pain and bent forward, clutching his belly. Lucius pushed him out of the way and managed to slip through the doorway, into the street.
He meant to run in the direction of Caesar’s house, but there were already men in the street, blocking his way. He turned about and ran in opposite direction, away from the Forum, away from the Field of Mars and the Theater of Pompeius.
Lucius was young and quick, and he knew the streets of the Palatine well. He gained a good lead on his pursuers. He rounded a corner, and then another, and could not see them behind him at all. But he was growing weary; he needed refuge. He realized that he was near the house of Publius Servilius Casca. Surely he could trust Casca, who was deeply indebted to Caesar. The rotund, red-cheeked, bumbling Casca was something of a buffoon. It was impossible to imagine him as a menace to anyone.
Lucius paused for a moment to get his bearings, then sprinted to the end of the street and rounded a corner. There was Casca’s house—and Casca himself standing in the open doorway, evidently on his way out but pausing to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. He was reaching into the folds of his voluminous toga, searching for something and looking befuddled.
Exhilarated by the run and by his narrow escape, Lucius drew a deep lungful of air. Casca, startled by his sudden approach, gave a jerk and stumbled against the doorjamb.
“Casca! What are you looking for?” said Lucius, gasping. “If you can hide me half as well—”
Even as Lucius spoke, Casca produced the thing he had been searching for. In his fist he held a short but very sharp dagger. The look in his eyes raised the hackles on Lucius’s neck.
Lucius heard shouts behind him. He had not escaped his pursuers after all. He bolted, but Casca grabbed his arm. The man was stronger than he looked. He called for slaves to come and help him. Lucius struggled. As he sprang free, he felt a searing pain across one forearm. Casca’s blade had scraped him, just deeply enough to drawn a line of blood. Lucius felt sick, but he did not dare to stop running.
The flight continued across the valley of the Circus Maximus and up the winding streets of the Aventine. Near the Temple of Juno, Lucius was sure he had lost them. He hid in a doorway, his heart pounding and his lungs on fire. The trail of blood had thickened on his forearm. The shallow wound burned as if he had been seared by a brand.
Where was Caesar? He must be on his way to the meeting of the Senate by now. Antonius would be with him, surely, along with others who would defend him. But could even Antonius be trusted? And what if Caesar insisted on leaving his bodyguards behind? Lucius thought of the risk the two of them had taken the previous night, walking alone across the Palatine, and trembled.
He must reach Caesar and warn him, but how? Lucius was a fast runner, but even if he sprouted wings and flew, Caesar would almost certainly arrive at the Theater of Pompeius ahead of him, and if Brutus and the rest were already waiting for him…
Lucius had to try. He took a deep breath and began to run again.
Down the Aventine he ran, around the fountain of the Appian Aqueduct and past the Ara Maxima. He was suddenly very weary. His legs turned to lead and his chest seemed to have a tight band of iron across it. There were blisters on his feet. The shoes he had put on that morning were not good for running.
Still he ran, faster than he had thought possible.
At last, the massive facade of the theater loomed before him. To avoid accusations of decadence, Pompeius had dedicated the complex not as a theater but as a
temple. By a clever architectural trick, the rows of theater seats also served as steps leading up to a sanctuary of Venus at the summit. Branching off from the theater itself were several porticos decorated with hundreds of statues. These arcades housed shrines, gardens, shops, and public chambers, including the large assembly room where the Senate was to meet.
The public square and the broad steps leading up to the main portico were empty. Lucius had hoped to see the area awash with red and white; here the senators in their crimson-bordered togas were accustomed to mill about before going inside. They had gone inside already.
But no—not quite all of them were inside yet. Lucius spied two figures on the steps, near the top. They stood close together, apparently engaged in a serious conversation. Lucius hurried across the square and reached the bottom of the steps. Looking up, he could see that one of the men was Antonius. The other was a senator he vaguely recognized, a man named Trebonius.
Lucius bounded up the steps. The men saw him approaching and broke off their conversation. Lucius drew near, dizzy and gasping for breath. He staggered. Antonius seized his arm to steady him.
“By Hercules, you look a fright!” Antonius smiled. He seemed more amused than alarmed by Lucius’s appearance. “What’s the matter, young man?”
Lucius was so out of breath it was difficult to speak. “Caesar…” he managed to say.
“Inside, along with everyone else,” said Antonius.
“But why—why are you not with him?”
Antonius raised an eyebrow. “Trebonius here drew me aside—”
“To discuss an important matter—privately.” Trebonius gave Lucius a stern, threatening look.
“But we’re done with that, aren’t we, Trebonius? We really should go in. They haven’t shut the doors yet, have they?” Antonius looked over his shoulder, toward the entrance to the assembly hall. In front of the massive bronze doors, which stood open, priests were clearing blood and organs from the stone altar where auspices were taken before the start of each day’s business. Antonius, whose buoyant mood seemed unshakable, smiled and laughed.
“You wouldn’t believe the slaughter that just went on over there,” he said to Lucius. “One poor creature after another sacrificed and cut open, to take the omens. The first chicken had no heart, which rather alarmed the priests. Caesar ordered another sacrifice, and another, but the priests kept telling him that the entrails were twisted and all the omens were contrary. He finally told them, ‘To Hades with this nonsense, the omens before the battle of Pharsalus were just as bad. Let the Senate get on with its business!’”
Antonius grinned. Why was he in such a jovial mood? Lucius stepped back from the two men. Could even Antonius be trusted?
Lucius felt faint. Spots swam before his eyes. The moment seemed unreal and dreamlike. He stared at the nearby altar, where a priest was mopping up remains. The sight of the rag, saturated with blood and dripping gore, sent a thrill of panic through him. He pushed past the two men and raced toward the entrance.
The hall was an oval-shaped well, with seats on either side descending in tiers to the main floor. The session had not yet commenced. There was a low hubbub of conversation. Most of the senators had taken their seats, but others were milling about on the main floor in front of the chair of state—no one yet dared to call it a throne—on which Caesar was seated. How serene Caesar looked, how confident! In one hand he held a stylus, for marking documents. He turned the stylus this way and that with nimble fingers, the only sign of the nervous excitement he must be feeling on such a momentous day.
One of the senators, Tillius Cimber, stepped toward him, bowing slightly as if importuning Caesar for a favor. Caesar apparently found the request inappropriate. He shook his head and waved his stylus dismissively. Instead of withdrawing, Cimber stepped closer and clutched Caesar’s toga near his shoulder.
“No!” Lucius shouted. His voice rang out high and shrill, like a boy’s. Heads turned toward him. Caesar looked up, saw him and frowned, then immediately returned his attention to Cimber.
Caesar spoke through clenched teeth. “Take your hand off me, Cimber!”
Instead, Cimber yanked at the toga, so forcefully that Caesar was almost pulled from his chair. His toga was askew. The naked flesh of his shoulder was bared.
Holding fast to Caesar’s toga, Cimber looked at the others nearby. As Caesar tried to pull free, Cimber’s expression became frantic.
“What are you all waiting for?” cried Cimber. “Do it! Do it now!”
The portly Casca stepped forward. His forehead was beaded with sweat. A grimace bared his gums. He raised his dagger high in the air.
The sight elicited gasps and exclamations from all over the hall. Only Caesar appeared not to realize what was about to happen; he was still staring at Cimber, looking angry and confused. He turned his head just as Casca plunged the dagger downward. His face registered shock as the blade struck the exposed skin below his neck. There was a sickening sound of metal cutting into flesh.
Caesar let out a roar. He seized Casca’s wrist with one hand. With the other he stabbed his stylus deep into Casca’s forearm. Casca bleated in pain, withdrew his bloody dagger and scurried back.
Others stepped forward, baring their daggers.
Caesar jerked free from Cimber’s grip. His toga was in such disarray that he tripped on it. He was bleeding profusely from the wound at his neck. The look on his face was of outrage and disbelief.
Even then, Lucius thought that disaster might be averted. Caesar was wounded, but on his feet. He had a weapon of sorts—his stylus. If he could hold the would-be assassins at bay long enough for the other senators to rush to his assistance, all might be well. If only Lucius had a weapon!
And where was Antonius?
Lucius looked back toward the entrance. Antonius had just appeared. He stood in the doorway with a puzzled look on his face, realizing from the sudden uproar that something was terribly wrong.
Lucius called to him. “Antonius! Hurry! Come quickly!”
But when Lucius looked back toward Caesar, he lost all hope. The assassins had converged on their victim. Caesar had dropped his stylus. He held up both arms, desperately trying to fend off his attackers. They stabbed him again and again. In all the confusion, a few of them appeared to have stabbed one another by accident.
Blood was everywhere. Caesar’s toga was drenched with it, and the togas of the assassins were spotted with red. There was so much blood on the floor that Casca slipped and fell.
Amid the flashing daggers, Lucius caught a glimpse of Caesar. His face was barely recognizable, contorted with agony. He let out a scream that seemed to come from an animal, not a man. The sound chilled Lucius to the marrow.
Caesar broke free from the men surrounding him. He reeled backward, tripping on his toga and stamping his feet as he staggered past the chair of state, toward the wall, where a statue of the hall’s founder stood in a place of honor. Caesar fell against the pedestal of Pompeius’s statue. He slid downward, smearing the inscription with blood. He ended up slumped on the floor, his back against the pedestal, his legs outstretched.
His disarray was indecent; his undertunic was twisted and pulled aside so as to bare a patch of flesh where his thigh met his groin. Jerking like a spastic, flailing grotesquely, he seemed to be trying with one hand to cover his face with a fold of his toga, and with the other to cover his nakedness. Caesar was dying, yet he still sought to preserve his dignity.
Some of the assassins looked horrified at what they had done. Others looked exhilarated, even jubilant. Among the latter was Cassius, who was covered with blood. He strode toward Brutus, who stood at the edge of the group and had not a drop of blood on him. Nor was there any blood on the dagger in his hand.
“You, too, Brutus!” said Cassius.
Brutus looked numb. He seemed unable to move.
“You have to do it,” insisted Cassius. “Each of us must strike a blow. Twenty-three brave men; twenty-three blows for freedom.
Do it!”
Brutus stepped slowly toward the twitching, bloody figure at the base of Pompeius’s statue. He seemed horrified by Caesar’s appearance. He swallowed hard, clutched his dagger, and knelt beside him.
With blood spilling from his mouth and running over his chin, Caesar managed one last utterance. “You, too…my child?”
Brutus appeared emboldened by the words. He gritted his teeth, pulled back his dagger, and plunged it into the exposed place where Caesar’s thigh met his groin. Caesar thrashed and convulsed. Blood bubbled from his lips. He stiffened, uttered a final grunt, and did not move again.
Lucius, watching from a distance, saw everything. He was transfixed with horror, oblivious to the stampede of senators rushing to the exit. He felt a hand on his shoulder and gave a start. It was Antonius. The man’s face was ashen. His voice trembled.
“Come with me, Lucius. You’re not safe here.”
Lucius shook his head. He was rooted to the spot, unable to move. He had come to warn Caesar. He had failed.
Brutus walked slowly and calmly toward them. The feverish glimmer had left his eyes. His held his shoulders back, his chin up. He had the look of a man who had done a difficult thing and done it well.
“No one will harm you, Lucius Pinarius. You have nothing to fear. Neither do you, Antonius, as long as you don’t raise your sword against us.”
The chamber was almost empty. The only senators who remained were those too old to run.
Brutus shook his head in disgust. “This wasn’t the reaction we anticipated. I meant to give a speech after it was done, to explain ourselves to the others. But they’ve all run off, like frightened geese.”
“A speech?” said Antonius, incredulous.
Brutus reached into his toga and produced a scrap of parchment. His fingers smudged the document with blood. He frowned, displeased that he had marred it. “I was up all night working on it. Well, if not today, then I’ll deliver it tomorrow, when the Senate resumes normal business.”
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