After The Ides (Caesar's Spies Thriller Book 2)

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘Are we going to precipitate anything then?’ asked Puella. Not that she cared, thought Artemidorus. She was bored and itching for action. And she was by no means alone in that.

  ‘Not if we can avoid it,’ said Artemidorus decisively. ‘We’re just going over to poke around. Listen outside a few tents. Get the lie of the land as they say. Test the breeze. Check the atmosphere.’

  ‘Right,’ said Puella. ‘Just so long as I don’t have to sleep with anybody. Keeping on top of you two is more than enough for me as things stand.’

  Somehow, although she was still besotted by Artemidorus, Mercury’s calf-love seemed to weaken her resistance every now and then. That and a good deal of pity for the state of his face. Certainly, they all concurred, no other woman would ever have him. Unless he agreed to wear a sack over his head at all times.

  Artemidorus stepped down into the icy rush of the water and waded out towards midstream. The brightness of the fires behind him coming from Antony’s encampments and that ahead coming from Lepidus’ was augmented by a low moon hanging in a clear spring sky. Wishing he had thought to bring a pole with him to test the water depth immediately ahead, he proceeded slowly and carefully. Miraculously remaining upright, leading the others in a steady line. At last he felt the riverbed begin to slope away and he leaned forward, careful to make a minimum of noise. As, like Horatius having kept the Bridge, he swam in full armour towards the far bank.

  But he need hardly have bothered. There were no sentries. No sign of any security at all, in fact. Away to his right, upstream as he pulled himself ashore, he could just make out the black square of a palisade that no doubt surrounded the camp of Lepidus’ Praetorian bodyguard, his senior officers and the governor himself. But down here there were only leather-roofed tents, campfires, and the relaxed banter of several thousand soldiers with nothing much to worry about. In fact, as he stood shivering amid the bankside reeds, he was able to make out a surprising number of figures coming and going across the river from one camp to the other. Not spies, he reckoned. Certainly not counterspies. For these would have to come from his own contubernium.

  Just friends fraternising.

  As the other six came ashore behind him, they split into pairs. Puella as Ghost Warrior, would watch his back. Mercury would watch hers. Then Kyros and Hercules would go one way and Quintus and Ferrata another. All to meet back here by moonset. To swim back to camp and prepare a report to give to Antony at his morning briefing tomorrow at dawn.

  vi

  ‘Here?’ said Antony next morning. ‘We cross here?’

  ‘Yes, General,’ answered Artemidorus. ‘It’s where we crossed last night.’

  Antony scratched his chin through his thick black beard. ‘What do you think, brother Lucius?’

  ‘Looks all right to me, Antony.’

  ‘And Septem here has never let you down yet,’ added Bassus. ‘Has he, Tribune?’

  ‘No, General,’ answered Enobarbus at once.

  ‘Right then,’ decided Antony. ‘Over we go.’ He waded into the water. ‘Better clench your scrotums, boys. This water’s cold enough to freeze your testes bollocks off.’

  ‘It was colder than this last night,’ said Artemidorus quietly. ‘And I’ve still got mine.’

  ‘As Puella can attest,’ observed Enobarbus drily.

  ‘But there are no guards!’ said Bassus, his sense of professionalism outraged. ‘And you say there were none last night, Septem?’

  ‘None, General. We wandered around the camp without even being challenged.’

  ‘Outrageous!’ huffed Bassus. ‘Divus Julius would have had them decimated!’

  ‘Don’t complain too loudly, Bassus,’ called Antony. ‘It’s all working out to our advantage after all! As long as we’re still able to fornicate when we get out of this freezing water.’

  *

  No one tried to stop the little group as they heaved themselves out of the river and onto the far bank. There were no real lines here – just a city of tents. Outside which men were sitting cooking or eating jentaculum breakfast.

  ‘I’d have been fighting for a share of that a week or so ago,’ observed Antony as he led them up the riverbank towards the palisade that formed the only proper defensive position in the entire camp. ‘I’d probably have been happy to eat the leather of the tents. But have I told you how Cleopatra has whole boars roasted, crispy skin and all? Divus Julius used to say he sometimes found it hard to choose between her dining room and her bedroom…’

  It was surprising how quickly the general had filled out now that he was able to eat properly again, thought Artemidorus. His Herculean stature was almost fully re-established. But for some reason he had resisted the urge to see the legion’s tonsors, so his beard was beginning to bush out. His black hair was falling in waves towards his shoulders, its ends beginning to form virile curls. And, judging from his conversation, women of all sorts were beginning to replace food in his thoughts and dreams.

  But even Cleopatra and her culina kitchen could not entirely fill his dreams, thought the spy. For Antony was also dreaming of revenge. And the men on whom he planned to visit his Nemesis formed a long and lengthening list. In a strange, subtle way, this Antony was different from the Antony who had led the Larks, the Sabines, the XXXVth and all the others into the mountains. He was certainly very different from the man who had crossed the Rubicon heading north to shake Decimus Albinus out of Cisalpine Gaul. It was as though, somewhere in the long journey he had made since leaving Rome soon after Divus Julius’ murder, one of the Friendly Ones had crept into his soul and taken up residence there. And the comparison suddenly shocked him. Antony was fast becoming the masculine equivalent of the vengeful Cyanea.

  Antony led the group behind him through Lepidus’ camp, turning the heads of the soldiers he strode past, almost as though he were the ghost of Divus Julius himself. By the time he reached the gate of the governor’s palisade, he had acquired quite a following. Needless to say, the gate into the simple fortification was standing wide open. But at least there was a guard.

  ‘Qui est ibi? Who goes there?’ he challenged nervously as the cohort led by the gigantic figure swept towards him.

  ‘The hostis outlaw General Marcus Antonius and his senior officers,’ Antony answered. ‘Here to see Governor Marcus Aemilius Lepidus.’

  The guard looked around in a panic, but there was no one nearby to help. And Antony had no intention of stopping. So he strode on into the makeshift fort and followed the familiar layout of the paths to Lepidus’ command tent. Even when he got there, he did not hesitate. With Bassus at one shoulder, Artemidorus and Enobarbus at the other, Antony swept the leather door wide and strode on in.

  Lepidus and his senior officers were grouped around a table, surrounding a map that appeared to Artemidorus to show most of the land between Hispania Posterior and the Rubicon. The area from which a competent leader could control the whole of Italy. Pieces of fruit and bits of bread were placed on top of it. Breakfast serving as battle plan.

  Lepidus glanced up, frowning at the unexpected interruption. His face went blank for an instant. Then a strange combination of dawning recognition and sheer horror swept across it. ‘Antony!’ he said. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

  ‘I’ve come to discuss the terms of surrender,’ answered Antony cheerfully.

  ‘Surrender? Surrender!’ Lepidus’ expression was almost comical in its utter confusion. He glanced down at the food-covered map then up at his equally horrified companions. ‘You’re surrendering?’ he demanded, as though utterly unable to believe what was happening here. ‘You’re surrendering? To me?’

  Antony gave a huge bellow of laughter, then he spoke as though addressing a backward infant. ‘No, Marcus Aemilius! No! You. Are. Surrendering. To me!’

  Epilogue

  i

  Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, Pro-praetor and Governor of Gallia Cisalpinus, favourite of Cicero and the Senate, late defender of the besieged city of Mutina, murd
erer of Divus Julius Caesar and enemy to the death of Marcus Antonius, leaned forward in the saddle to ease his aching buttocks. One day, he thought, someone will do something to a saddle that will allow the rider to take some of his weight on his feet. He tensed his weary thighs and rocked towards his horse’s neck until the saddle-horn dug into his lower belly. Reminding him he had not relieved himself in several hours. Not since they left yet another makeshift camp, in fact. Easing back a little, he kicked his heels into the sides of his ambling mount. Without noticeable effect. Decimus and his horse were exhausted, like his ten centurion bodyguards and their animals. After so many days in the mountains, the only ones there who seemed active and sprightly were the Gallic guide and his sturdy mountain pony.

  Had Decimus been less fatigued, he might have appreciated the grandeur of the country he was riding through. The high Alps in summer were a feast for the senses of almost Lucullan proportions. The mountain peaks towered like the fangs of gigantic bears, angular and sharp-pointed. Their tips dazzling white with snow. Their lower slopes carpeted with wild flowers all in full bloom. And, between, tall green stands of trees. Whose heady scent came and went on the breezes blowing up and down the valleys. Intermixed with the aroma of those countless blossoms. None of which made any impression on the increasingly desperate man.

  He looked back over his shoulder. As he had done ever more nervously during the last week, surrendering to the eerie certainty that someone, somewhere, was watching his every move. Following every footstep he had taken since Caesar Octavius refused to help or support him and his legions had leached away. Ultimately forcing the governor to leave his command and run eastwards through the mountains in hope of reaching the other Libertores. Far distant though they were and in spite of the fact that he was still in command of the entire province as far as Cicero and the Senate were concerned. Therefore he remained oblivious to the multi-coloured slopes and blazing peaks outlined against a cloudless cerulean sky stretching away behind him. But when he looked forward, up ahead, the heavens were grey and darkening far too rapidly for his taste. There was a bad storm coming. ‘Hey,’ he called to no one in particular, ‘ask the guide if there’s any shelter nearby.’

  The guide was the only Gaul amongst the Roman soldiers and Decimus Albinus did not trust him. There was good reason for that. Even beyond the fact that the promised three- or four-day journey had almost doubled in length. During his term as Pro-praetorial Governor of Cisalpine Gaul, which included the area he had been riding through for so long, he had trained and motivated his legions by letting them have free rein to loot the local countryside. To fight the local men and rape the local women. Steal the local livestock and enslave the local children.

  It was a strategy he had been forced into, he told himself, because the Senate, who appointed and supported him, swayed by Cicero’s eloquence, were fatally slow to pay him. They sent messengers when they should have sent money. Good wishes instead of gold. And he had needed that gold desperately. For, Decimus was bitterly forced to admit, he was not the sort of leader men would follow for love. He was no Mark Antony. He was no Divus Julius. Though he had defeated the former in battle last April. And murdered the latter in Pompey’s Curia thirteen months before that. He looked around. And saw the proof of his failing leadership. Of all the legions he had commanded, all the thousands upon thousands of soldiers, he only had ten men left.

  But letting his legions loose up here was a strategy he bitterly regretted now. And regretted more keenly with every burned-out farm and deserted village they passed. For it had ultimately made matters so much worse. The legions he commanded simply made unforgiving enemies of the local tribes. To little or no purpose. Instead of winning pitched battles, booty and glory, they ended up besieged and mutinous in Mutina. Confined. Afraid. Starving, towards the end.

  And even when the siege was lifted, they had been slow and unwilling to pursue the man who besieged them. In spite of the prompting of Cicero and his puppet senators. Mark Antony. Who retreated into the icy mountains and apparently to certain death, followed faithfully by men who trusted – almost worshipped – him. As he had led his legions, seemingly defeated in the Battle of Mutina, in good order up the Via Aemilia and its less imposing extension north past Placentia, Castra Taurinum and into the Alps. At the bitter end of a lingering winter when many of the passes were still blocked with snow and provisions non-existent. And, miraculously, they had survived. Burgeoned, in fact. Had been joined by three more legions en route and then merged with the legions of Gallia Narbonensis, Transalpine Gaul and Hispania.

  His own legions, however, knew the reputation they now had in the mountains. And were very wisely unwilling to put themselves between Antony’s well-ordered retreating Vth, Divus Julius’ deadly Alaudae Larks, the IInd Sabines and the XXXVth and the vengeful Gaulish warriors who called these oft-ravaged mountains home.

  Decimus had hoped for help and backing from young Octavius, who called himself Caesar now. But Caesar did not see him as an ally. The arrogant boy made it all too plain that he saw Decimus Albinus only as the man who led his adoptive father to the slaughter. Literally. By the hand. Overcoming the advice of his friends who warned him exactly what was going to happen. Friends like Tribune Enobarbus, centurion Artemidorus, code-named Septem, the augur Spurinna and the rest. So, in the absence of the money and support he had been promised to keep his men loyal, Decimus found his disgruntled troops sneaking away to join the boy Caesar’s legions. As the young commander waited in the warmth around relieved and grateful Mutina. Promising fortunes to everyone just for serving with him. Some other of Albinus’ ex-legionaries even following the charismatic Antony’s legions further into Gaul, hoping for fame before fortune; glory rather than gold. Leaving the increasingly pathetic governor his meagre bodyguard and his guide.

  Only desperation forced Decimus to trust the Gaulish guide Gretorex without holding his wife or children hostage. For, although he had served here on more than one occasion and even spoke Gaulish, he did not know the mountain passes. Nor did the centurions who formed his bodyguard. And he was relying on sneaking slowly but anonymously through the mountains and down to the coast. Because his only hope of salvation now was to take the first available passage to the East. So he could join the Libertore army in Illyria. Help Brutus move down from Macedonia in the north as Cassius moved up from Syria in the south to crush the treacherous Dolabella in the central province of Asia. Caught in the middle between them as he was, like a nut in a nutcracker. To take vengeance for what he had done to Gaius Trebonius nearly six months ago.

  A brutal wind came blustering down the valley. It felt like knives against Decimus’ cheeks. Set his squinting eyes to streaming. Blew his hood back onto his shoulders. Brought his thoughts back to the present. It did not smell of Alpine forests or flowers. It smelt of the snow and ice in the high peaks. The roaring it made lingered, echoed, became part of a low snarl of thunder. ‘Shelter,’ bellowed Decimus. ‘What does he say?’

  ‘Up ahead,’ came the answer. ‘There’s some kind of building. Cattle byre or stable…’

  The black thundercloud came spilling over the valley head at that moment, streaming forward on the storm wind like the smoke of a burning city. A wall of hail hung beneath it like chain mail made of ice. The exhausted horses pushed onward without prompting. Lowering their heads and speeding almost to a trot. As though they knew where shelter lay as clearly as the guide did. Decimus pulled his hood up once again, to cover his thinning hair, and leaned further forward. Taking the lashing hail on bowed shoulders. As though it was some kind of scourge. Following the guide, the Romans fell into single file as they veered to the right and mounted a narrow path up the valley side.

  ii

  The mountain slope up which the path led became a cliff wall reaching skywards on their left. At least it cut the wind, thought Decimus. Though the hail continued relentlessly. And the thunder became deafening. But after a few moments, the path widened into a considerable rock shelf. At
whose back, someone had erected a big strong-looking building. Using the cliff face itself as its rear wall. The other walls were roughly fashioned of boulders wedged in place with smaller stones. And those made sound with slate and gravel. The roof was slate. The stable doors were made of unfinished pine planks. As, no doubt, were the roof beams.

  The guide reined in before the double doors and gestured. Chilled to the marrow, Decimus dismounted, staggering a little on legs that felt like wood. Handed his reins to one of the guards and entered the building. Swinging the heavy wooden door wide then letting it slam behind him. It was disorientatingly calm inside the stable. That was the first thing that struck him. No wind. No hail. The stillness of the air made it seem warm. He blinked his streaming eyes and realised there was more to the warmth than still air. There was a fire in a makeshift grate at the very back of the place. Giving a little light as well as warmth. With no further thought, he crossed towards it.

  There was a rough table in front of it surrounded by crude stools. On one of which sat a man, very much at his ease. As Decimus’ vision cleared, he saw that the stranger was dressed in simple Gaulish clothes. His hair was wild, but not long. His cheeks and chin were stubbled, not bearded. He wore it all like a disguise; not like a native.

  ‘Storm coming,’ observed Decimus in his best Gaulish.

  ‘More than a storm,’ answered the stranger in liquid Latin. ‘Much more than a storm. Please take a seat, Governor.’

  Decimus turned at that, every nerve alert as he realised that this was a trap. Simple but effective.

  ‘Please sit down,’ repeated the stranger gently. ‘It’s far too late to think of running anymore. Besides. You are quite alone.’

  ‘My guards…’

  ‘Gone, I’m afraid. Without even an obol beneath their tongues to pay the ferryman. Off the cliff, likely as not. It’s a good deal higher than the Tarpeian Rock.’