Ave, Caesarion (The Rise of Caesarion's Rome Book 1)

by Deborah Davitt

  Disappointment curled her lips downwards like a child’s. “But—”

  “You have to see if you can end the vision on your own. And without pain.” He put enough sternness in his voice that he suddenly heard their father in his own tones, and blinked.

  She shuddered and closed her eyes. And when Eurydice opened them again, her eyes were dark once more. “She’s gone now,” she told him dully, and then looked at her hand, clasped by his, but didn’t pull away.

  “Perhaps you’ll fly with her again someday,” Caesarion told her gently. “Does your head hurt? Any nausea?”

  She frowned consideringly and then shook her head. “No, but I’m so warm.” She fanned herself with one hand, vigorously. “And though I just ate?” Eurydice looked desperately embarrassed. “I’m ravenous.”

  Caesarion stifled a snort. “Perhaps inner sight is like any other work. When used, it taxes the body’s reserves. I’ll have the servants bring you something. Salted fish, perhaps.”

  She nodded rapidly as he stood, taking his hand away from hers. “Brother,” she called after him, and Caesarion paused at the flap of the inner tent, his mind already at his table of maps, where he’d need to annotate her latest reports, and see how they tallied with the scouts’ on their return. “Thank you.” Eurydice chewed on her lower lip. “You’re so composed,” she finally blurted. “It made it easier for me to be calm. To . . . find a way back to myself.” She glanced around the tent, her lips turning down at the corners again briefly.

  He read that expression, and thought he understood it. And she hates where she is? “Don’t run away to fly with them too often,” Caesarion cautioned her. “Not till we know why you had so much pain the last time.”

  Her lips quirked faintly. “As to yesterday . . . I hadn’t taken a midday meal. The carruca’s ride was so jolting, I didn’t wish to eat if it meant the indignity of vomiting it all up into Mother’s lap. She’d be most displeased with me if I did that.”

  A frown. “More evidence that using your gifts seems to require energy from your body.” He shifted his shoulders, adding diffidently, “When I heal someone’s wounds, it leaves me good for little else till I’ve had my next meal. So perhaps this is similar.” He took a step back towards her and caught her chin with two fingertips, lifting her face upwards. “When I’m not so pressed for time, we’ll have a conversation, you and I. About why you want to fly away.” He searched for words. “You and I . . . we might be the same, if the gods are feeling particularly kind. And if so, it’s a duty and a responsibility to use what’s been given to us, yes. But it also means that neither of us needs to be alone.” Bracing words of encouragement, the same as he might have given to any young soldier on the line, but couched in a gentler tone.

  Her chin rose, and he could see a flicker of something in her eyes that looked like hope. “I won’t fly away with them on purpose,” she promised. “Not without telling you first. It’s happened by accident before, though, so I’ll . . . try not to let it happen.”

  “Good.” He gave her a little pat on the shoulder, awkward and distant, and then headed for his maps, the locations and ballistae numbers she’d given him burning in his mind.

  And when the scouts returned near sundown, and were able to confirm almost every detail of his sister’s visions, Caesarion had already had time to assemble a working plan in his mind. “Here’s what I intend,” he told his father’s old generals as they gathered in the command tent that evening. “We’re going to decline the gracious invitation of Gaius Cassius Lupinus and his forces. They want us to come and knock on the front gates. Instead, we’re going to be very bad guests.” He exhaled. “We’ll set their fields on fire, letting us see where their spiked pits are, split our forces in half, and march around to opposite sides of the harbor. We’re going to take their siege weapons, which are mostly guarded by the entrenchments around them and a handful of guards. They’ll have a difficult time sending reinforcements, because they have one land-facing gate—and they’ll have to make their way through their own entrenchments to reach us.”

  “They have archers in those towers,” Lepidus cautioned. “They should have sufficient range to cover the northernmost of each of the siege weapon emplacements.”

  “Which is why we need to hit them hard enough and fast enough that we can take their ballistae and turn them back on the archers in that tower.” Caesarion grimaced. “Then, once we have their siege engines, we can start hammering on their walls. When we see a breach on either side, we’ll have the men bring up boats the legions carry in the supply train—the ones we’ve used to bridge rivers in Germania when we haven’t had time to sink supports. Timber. The wagons themselves, if need be.” He paused, feeling his face tighten. “And we build bridges across the lagoon to the city walls. We should be able to do that in less than a day, given that so much is pre-assembled.” He exhaled.

  “Would you like us to bridge the Hellespont at the same time?” Antony quipped, and Caesarion could see that his brother Alexander, who was at this meeting to take notes, lifted his eyes, wide with amazement now.

  “Herodotus tells us that Xerxes crossed successfully. Though if a storm brews and breaks our bridges, I can’t see beheading the engineers or having the water whipped for disobeying my will.” Caesarion grimaced. And there’s the difference between this particular despot of Rome, and the despots of old Persia. God-born or not, I know that I’m but a man. Caesarion leaned back from the table himself now. “The smoke from their burning fields will help shield our forces from their sight initially, giving us some measure of surprise, especially if we move at night. Speed . . . will depend on how fast we can move across the terrain once it’s been burned, and how thick their sea-ward walls actually are.”

  “They’ll send out triremes and quinqueremes to attack the bridge,” Antony warned, leaning back at the table, his eyelids heavy, though his voice wasn’t slurred by wine tonight. “I would.”

  “Probably only triremes. They won’t want to risk the fivers here in harbor, where they’ll lose maneuverability.” Lepidus rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “Though if we can take some of them, instead of sinking them, we can turn their weapons against the city’s walls, too. Perhaps even build them into part of the bridge.”

  “You’re not going to suggest building sambucae for them, are you?” Antony asked in a nettled tone. “They’ve never worked in all of history.” Sambucae were shipboard siege ladders, meant to unfold from an upright position to a lateral one, permitting men to cross from one ship to another in combat.

  “Early engineers used bronze hinges. I think that with iron fittings they’d be sturdier,” Lepidus returned mildly, not taking the bait of what appeared to be a very old argument. “But no, there’s no reason for that, unless we planned to take the ships, and with the ships, circle around and take the harbor itself.”

  “My legionnaires are many things,” Caesarion cut in dryly. “Seasoned sailors, they are not. They won’t man the oars, and holding a sword to the neck of every oarsman on a captured ship would be a very inefficient use of the men’s time. We can hold the harbor attack as a feint, to get them away from the walls where we’ll be working the breach. Bitumen and pitch loads, over as much of the harbor as we can reach, and then flaming arrows until it’s well alight.” He leaned forward again, planting his elbows on the table and leaning his chin on his hands. “The real problem with this plan,” he added musingly, “is that coordination between the two attacking forces will be difficult.”

  “Horns,” Lepidus returned with a tight nod. “Sending scouts far enough south to wave flags across the harbor at one another—while staying out of range of the south towers that guard the mouth of the harbor—could be possible. But yes. Dividing our forces is risky.”

  “But it does force the defenders to spread their own men out,” Antony returned just as tautly. “They can’t defend in every direction, and they’ve spent their time and effort to prepare in the direction that they want us to attack. Once
we’re in the city . . . it’s not a foregone conclusion. But it will be a matter of time.” He reached for his wine cup, but only took a meditative sip.

  He’s at his best when he has a war to fight, Caesarion thought. He’s a sword who’s gone to rust, because my father hung him up and gave him no more use. Admittedly, Father could have had him exiled to somewhere on the Black Sea for making advances on his wife, but . . . the fact remains that Antony is better when he has something constructive to do.

  Planning battles gave him pleasure, too, Caesarion had to admit. Looking at a parchment or a sand table map, it all seemed so neat and clean. Just the pure play of ideas. And that pleasure tended to persist as he rode alongside the men, he knew. A brotherhood, a kinship between men, no matter what their origins, though many commoners in the legions disdained the patricians, and many patricians disdained the common soldiers. But when combat started, they were all one. One hand, one body, working—hopefully—in harmony with each other. And that pleasure usually persisted for him, but it entwined uneasily with a kind of commensurate guilt. Because for him, there was little risk from the other soldiers’ blades and spears and arrows. His skin turned edged weapons like Achilles’ once had. So what he did on the battlefield was usually little better than murder. It’s not courage, he’d often thought, when there is so little fear to overcome. Every man who fights beside me is surely more courageous than I am. And yet, I exist to reverse routs. To change the tide of battle. As I did in Germania.

  Ballistae stones could cave in his skull; he’d been tagged by one of the stone bullets last year, a case of friendly fire, and he’d spent a week or two recuperating from the broken ribs and right shoulder. Most other men would have been dead from the impact. Fire could certainly kill him. He could be drowned or suffocated by smoke. All the means and methods that he hoped that his enemies wouldn’t think of, because a fire that killed him would almost certainly wipe out his whole family, too. But still, he’d rarely faced any opponent who was his absolute equal, or even superior.

  Except the damned dragon. Caesarion shook off the chill with the memories. “Am I missing anything from the plan?” he asked his closest advisors candidly.

  Alexander raised a hand tentatively. “If I may?” he asked softly. At the amused glances from the other generals, the young man flushed, visible even in the flickering light of the oil lamps in the tent. “Many men will die taking the siege engines. Many more will die crossing the bridges. Even more will die crossing into the city through any breach. Why not assemble a picked team of men, have them swim across the harbor at night, use grappling hooks and ropes to scale the walls, and have them make their way to the front gates, and throw them open from the inside?” He looked around, and Caesarion bit the inside of his own lips, not wanting to change expressions. “It could work,” Alexander added, his voice rising in a defensive lilt.

  Antony chuckled outright. Lepidus sighed, his lined face appearing weary for an instant. “You’ve read the Odyssey too many times,” he chided gently. “Say that our men swim across. How will they do that in armor and carrying weapons? A soldier without either is no better off than a shepherd.”

  “Perhaps a rowboat, then?” Alexander ventured.

  “Then you’re making noise with the splashing of the oars in the water,” Antony put in, still chuckling. “And you’re nicely visible once you’re within range of the walls, too. So, we have our dripping wet, unarmed, probably naked men scale the walls. Perhaps they frighten whichever sentries are on patrol into silence by waving their phalluses at them and threatening to rape their asses if they make so much as a sound?”

  Caesarion gave Antony a direct look. “You shouldn’t mock my brother,” he told the older man coolly.

  “I’m not mocking him,” Antony defended himself, spreading his hands. “A legionnaire uses whatever he has to hand. As it were.” Malicious merriment danced in his eyes for a moment.

  “They could slip by unseen—” Alexander rallied.

  “All it takes is one man seeing them before they see him,” Lepidus cut him off, but gently. “Our men are good. Let’s say that this picked squad somehow gets up the walls, takes a sentry or two down without a sound, puts on their armor and arms. They then make their way to the gates, where they encounter the gate guards.” He paused. “And what happens then?”

  “They’re challenged for the password,” Caesarion supplied. “Which they won’t know.”

  Alexander looked disheartened. “I still think that there might be a better way,” he insisted. “Send some of our men into the city disguised as farmers. Get them to ingratiate themselves with the locals.”

  “And in the course of just a few weeks or months, somehow work their way into a position of trust, when they’re unknown in the city? When all outsiders will be viewed with suspicion as possible spies?” Lepidus chided again. “Your heart is in the right place, Alexander. But there’s no cunning plan that will save thousands of lives here. Your brother’s plan keeps our men out of the trap they’ve set for us.” He awarded Caesarion an odd glance. “Thanks to your sister, the sibyl.”

  “And to think I’d considered asking your father, assuming I ever found myself in his good graces again, to consider a match between my son Antyllus and his eldest daughter,” Antony muttered. “You should give her to the Vestals. It’s a position of great honor.”

  Caesarion grimaced. He’d successfully not thought about that for several hours. But part of him recoiled entirely from giving his sister to the Vestal Virgins. Yes, they had enormous power in Rome—they were the essence of integrity and probity in a society in which corruption ran rampant. They held all wills and other important documents in trust. But if he sent Eurydice to them, she wouldn’t . . . be his sister anymore, in a very real sense. And while she seemed something of a stranger, she was also . . . like me. “She’s too old to become a Vestal,” Caesarion replied brusquely. “She’ll be examined by priests of Rome and mage-priests of Thebes to ascertain if she’s god-born, like I am,” he added tautly. “Even if she were young enough to be sent to Vesta’s temple, until it’s determined which god, if any, favors her, it would be premature to make her a Virgin. It might sorely offend Venus, for example, if it is her hand that rests on my sister’s shoulder.”

  This piece of truth made Antony shift his own shoulders uncomfortably before gathering maps hastily. “By your leave?”

  “Go,” Caesarion dismissed him. And when he and Alexander were alone, his younger brother turned to look at him. “What?”

  “I don’t like Antony,” Alexander admitted.

  “We don’t have to like him,” Caesarion returned, his voice a little curter than he intended. “At the moment, he is a damned effective military leader and a political ally. We need his support.” He saw his brother’s grimace, and sighed. “Your feelings are hurt because he dismissed your ideas.”

  “A little.” Alexander’s tone was glum.

  “Keep thinking of them. I might have to put you in charge of intelligence gathering.” It wasn’t entirely a joke. His brother’s mind was very sharp. “Father complained for years that our use of informants and spies in the military has been haphazard and disorganized. He said that every legate had one or two men who had a talent for it, or would recruit local disinherited princes in foreign lands and press them for information. But never in any concerted way.” Caesarion grimaced, and then added, very quietly, “After the attempt on his life, Father did look into creating a group of men who’d report rumors to him. He thought the frumentarii might do the trick.”

  Alexander frowned, puzzled. “The . . . wheat collectors?”

  Caesarion nodded. “Yes. Since they collect taxes in the provinces, and people tend not to want to pay their taxes, they’re pretty adept at ferreting out secrets. Who’s hiding wealth. Who has more rebellious sentiments. We have a few earning their pay in precisely this way, but they’re not exactly omniscient. Which is why we had indications that Octavian and others would likely try to kill m
e before I took Father’s offices, but not . . . precisely when, or where, or whom.” He winced as his brother’s hand moved to rub the scar over his heart, where the assailants’ blade had struck. “You and Lepidus almost paid the price for our lack of information.”

  “I like the idea of knowing things before they happen,” Alexander admitted. “I like the idea of stopping people before they even strike.” His face had gone as cold as Caesarion had ever seen it. “Bastards.”

  “I’m sure they considered themselves fair-born patriots,” Caesarion countered, but gently. “You’re not quite ready to take charge of our very limited spy network, but learning from them might be an option.” Then he shook his head. “All right, I’m going to bed, where I will stare into the darkness for at least an hour before I sleep.” Seasoned soldiers, he knew, could sleep before battle. Could sleep anywhere, some of them even while standing upright. He hadn’t mastered that particular skill yet. “But if we’re going to start before dawn tomorrow, I should rest.”

  “Will I get to fight—”

  “No.” The single word crushed his brother, and Caesarion rested a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “You’re my heir for now. We can’t both go into battle at the same time. One of us has to stay back.” He snorted. “Lepidus wants me to stay back behind the lines. Be a proper general.”