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

by Deborah Davitt

  One by one, the rebellious legionnaires knelt as he stepped forward. Their eyes were blank and dazed. They’d lost one whole legion to the snow—six thousand men, swept away entirely by the east gate. And they’d lost all but two thousand of the other. They’d been subjected to a worse punishment than decimation; they’d been utterly defeated and humiliated. They’d seen wonders and miracles worked. And knew that they should expect no mercy at his hands at all.

  But I said no more Roman lives today. His gaze flicked to Lucius Tillius Atacinus, the leader of these forces, who staggered forward now, propelled by a soldier of the Seventh, his hands bound before him. But perhaps just one.

  “What are your intentions?” a tribune of the rebels asked, his voice resigned, but not shaking.

  “By all rights,” Alexander said at Caesarion’s elbow, his voice utterly cold, “you should crucify every damned one of them, and the Vascones, too. They’re not Romans anymore. They rebelled. Their nobles have been proscribed, and the men lost their rights the moment they aided and abetted the proscribed men.”

  Caesarion glanced to his right, and saw the fury in his brother’s eyes, in spite of that chill, calm voice. “You want me to line the road back to the valley with their corpses on crosses?” he asked.

  “It would be a clear message,” Alexander replied, still leaning on the standard of the Seventh.

  “Yes,” Caesarion agreed. “But who would be left to hear it?” He looked at the tribune who’d spoken. “You’re the one who said that my sister saved you and yours.”

  A bare nod. “Your lives belong to her. I’ll let her decide what to do with you when she wakes up. In the meantime? You can prove your loyalty to Rome.” He jerked his head at Lucius Tillius Atacinus, former Senator. Toga-wearing prince of Rome, in times of peace. “Execute the man who ordered you and yours to come to this place. To ally with the enemies of Rome against her Senate and her people.”

  The tribune, a young man of perhaps twenty-two, stood, drawing his sword. His face pale and set, he walked towards the man who’d been his general.

  “You can’t do this!” Tillius blurted. “I am a patrician of Rome! I demand my right to kill myself—”

  “You’ve been proscribed,” Caesarion replied remotely. “You’re no man of Rome. You’re a traitor who got twelve thousand men killed today. Tribune, do your duty.”

  The sword swung back, and as it started forward again, Caesarion rapped out, “Stop!”

  The tribune’s sword halted, and the young man looked back over his shoulder at Caesarion in relief. “That will do. I needed to see that your loyalties had been properly aligned. But I won’t ask you to execute a man to whom you once were sworn. Step back.”

  The tribune obeyed. And Caesarion turned his head to look at Alexander. Who stood straight, and once again handed off the standard of the Seventh to another man. “Tribune Julius,” Caesarion said formally. “Do your duty.”

  “Yes, dominus.” Alexander drew his sword and stepped forward. And Tillius showed that he had some honor left, no longer pleading or begging, but standing resolutely as the fifteen-year-old son of Caesar drove his gladius through his traitorous throat.

  Chapter XIII: Eagle and Hawk

  Iunius 9, 17 AC

  Caesarion never really remembered the whole trek down the mountainside. He remembered ordering people to dig—carefully—for survivors in the snow. They even found a few, though all had nearly suffocated, and the rest were half-frozen. He remembered someone asking him before they left the site of the massacre, “What should we do with that woman’s body?”

  He recalled staring at the god-born woman’s limp form blankly. Someone else like me. But warped and twisted on the inside by hate and vengeance. “I’d say leave her to be picked over by her own crows,” he’d said. “But I don’t want to take the chance that her gods could come along and wake her back up again. Burn the body before we leave. Commend her spirit to whatever god wants to claim it.”

  He remembered seeing the look in the Gallic priests’ eyes at those words. Hatred, but also . . . grudging respect. They’d seen what he was capable of this day. And he’d seen what they could do.

  He’d carried Eurydice over his shoulder the entire way, not allowing his men to set up a litter for her. She’d never regained consciousness, not once in the whole damned miserable climb. He remembered snatches of the journey—the groans of the wounded on their litters, being carried by the Tillii legionnaires, who’d been offered parole. He remembered having to detour around sections of trail that had been wiped out by the avalanche, and his men having to cut down trees away from the fall area, and drag the trunks over to try to build bridges so that everyone could make their way down this section or that slope more easily.

  He remembered reaching the valley floor by nightfall, his men still trailing behind him. Finding the rough camp that they’d left with a skeleton guard to protect their baggage—half wiped out by the avalanche. Not enough tents. He definitely remembered turning his own tent over to the medici for use as a hospital, and bedding down, wrapped in his cloak, with Eurydice’s limp form in his arms for warmth, and so that if she awoke, he’d know.

  She hadn’t. The next day, he’d allowed the medici to look her over, and permitted them to put her on a litter, on the grounds that it would be gentler on her unconscious body. Hammering at the back of his mind was the overwhelming worry that she might not wake up. That he might have left it too long to bring her back from death. And her name whispered as a mockery in his mind: Eurydice, wife of Orpheus, the greatest musician who’d ever lived. When she died, her husband had gone to the underworld to bring her home, and Pluto and Proserpina had agreed—on condition that on the journey home, he didn’t look back. And Orpheus, not hearing his wife’s steps behind him on the pathway out of Tartarus, had looked back. And in so doing, had lost her forever.

  Back at the castra, he had the various prisoners taken thrown in the quaestorium. Even with twenty-four hours in which to consider it, he hadn’t come to a decision about them. The two druids . . . he wanted to question them. At length. The degree of severity to the questioning, he suspected, would rely heavily on how quickly Eurydice recovered.

  The Iberian and Cantabrian prisoners, he gave to the tribunes to sell as slaves, with men who’d conducted themselves particularly well either receiving one of the enemy prisoners as a reward, or the coin from their sale as slaves to put in their purses. A small guerdon sometimes went a long way, though he privately thought the men of these tribes would probably be destined for the lead mines, being ill-suited for any more trustworthy work. A few centurions reported that the Cantabri had to be separated from the Vascones and Ilergetae, who viewed the destruction of their village as a betrayal by their erstwhile allies.

  All of these things seemed very distant to Caesarion as he went about life in the wooden command headquarters once more, with their perpetual smell of sap and sawdust. He reviewed the status of the Fourth—missing full half its men, and acknowledged the death of Sextus Caesius, legate of that legion. “Who’s left that’s senior?” he asked Antyllus—his brother by virtue of his mother’s marriage to Mark Antony.

  Antyllus grimaced in Caesarion’s office. “I am,” he replied grimly. “We lost most of the command staff. I have two very junior tribs left—they’re not much older than Alexander and Tiberius.” Antyllus, just past twenty, was almost precisely Caesarion’s age. “They shout an order, their voices crack, and the centurions try not to smirk.”

  “Reinforce the men’s respect for the chain of command,” Caesarion replied leadenly, making a note where he sat at his desk. “You’re legate of the Fourth now. I’m sending to Rome to get some reinforcements. Fill in the missing men of all three legions.”

  “We’re staying?” Antyllus asked in mild surprise.

  “For the time being. We’ll be pushing westward, through Cantabri territory.” Caesarion’s voice was taut. “Punitive expedition. They don’t get to kill that many Romans and not
feel a sting in return. After that, push to the sea. Get a buffer zone set up. And then we’ll see. I meant it when I said I wasn’t much interested in conquest,” he added, giving Antyllus a brief, direct stare. “I’m not Alexander the Great. I’m not even one of his descendants. I’m the descendant of one of his generals, the men who were left behind to try to pick up the pieces and keep order when the great man died without an heir old enough to hold onto his lands.” He grimaced. “It’s not glorious. But duty rarely is.”

  Antyllus cleared his throat, clearly rattled by those words. “Victory has a way of making the Senate most tractable,” he noted politely.

  “So Alexander reminds me daily. I said that we’d see. I’d still like to ascertain if trade and engagement can create alliances for us that don’t leave conquered provinces calling us rapists and murderers.” Caesarion felt his jaw set again.

  Antyllus shrugged a little. “Don’t take one woman’s ravings too much to heart—”

  “She was god-born,” Caesarion said evenly. “She was what I am. Born by the will of her gods to defend her people. Against us.”

  “And she lost.” Another shrug, but Antyllus’ gaze dropped to the floor.

  She damned near didn’t.

  Now, clearing his throat again, Antyllus glanced to the camp bed that had been set up beside the desk, where Eurydice still slept. “The men asked me to bring something here,” he said quietly. “The Fourth couldn’t really offer it. But the Seventh and the Tenth . . . they asked me to bring this for her.”

  He’d been holding it under his cloak the whole time, out of sight. A crown, made of woven bits of grass and leaves. He settled it on Eurydice’s pillow, and added, quietly, “Can’t give her a triumph. She’s a woman. Not legate of the legion. And it’s damned irregular to even give her this. But they insisted.”

  Caesarion nodded woodenly, and continued to take notes on his wax tablet. “Was that all?” he asked, as if nothing momentous had just occurred at all.

  Antyllus tried for a smile. “I’d say that I was planning to ask for her hand again,” he offered, “except that it’d be terribly embarrassing to be married to a woman who’d won the grass crown, when the best I’ve ever done was not piss myself when a mountain fell down.”

  Caesarion looked up. He didn’t know what his face looked like, but Antyllus’ expression froze. “She’s betrothed to the Eagle,” he replied shortly.

  “Yes,” Antyllus said contemplatively. “Am I dismissed?”

  “Go.”

  At the door, Antyllus turned and asked, his brows lowered thoughtfully, “If memory serves, you were given the grass crown in Germania, weren’t you, brother?”

  Caesarion looked up again from his desk. “Out, Marcus Antonius Antyllus.”

  “As you command, Lord Aquilus.” Antyllus vanished through the doorway with that very Parthian shot sent out behind him.

  Caesarion trained with those men who weren’t excused duty due to wounding. Ate his dinner mechanically at his desk, checking on Eurydice’s breathing from time to time. Watched as Nesa dripped water into her mouth from a cloth. Lay in his own camp bed, and let sleep claim him only reluctantly. Got up in the morning, and allowed Salatis to shave his face, noting absently the concern on the old Egyptian servant’s face. “Pharaoh,” Salatis said, startling Caesarion a little. He’d never been addressed that way by his body-servant before. “Your sister—she will be well?”

  “I hope so. But I do not know when or how. She used too much of herself to save the men.” Caesarion swallowed, his eyes drifting to the pugio on his bed, beside all the rest of his gear. The temptation to visit the prisoners in the quaestorium was acute. But what would he do once he got there? Demand that the priests heal her? They could do nothing more for her than he’d already done.

  A rapid tap at his door—newly hung, it had replaced the wool curtain in his absence. “Dominus? It’s Lurio.” A centurion of the Tenth popped his head through the doorway. “There’s a problem with Malleolus, sir.”

  Caesarion wiped the rest of the oil from his face with a length of damp cloth. “I meant to check on him and heal that bite wound to his face. It looked infected, last I saw. Medicus said it should heal, though—”

  Lurio made a little agitated gesture, clearly unwilling to interrupt, but needing to do so. Caesarion cut his own words off, raising his eyebrows. “He’s slit his wrists,” Lurio said unhappily. “And told us to fuck off when we tried to bind the cuts.”

  Caesarion lurched to his feet. “Watch my sister,” he ordered Salatis, and followed Lurio out of the office at a run.

  Reaching the barracks of the household guards, he stormed through the door, finding a number of men standing around, clearly not knowing what to do, and shoved through them till he found the room shared by Lurio and Malleolus, as senior centurions. Shoved past the curtain, saw the blood pooling on the rough wood floor. And grabbed Malleolus by the arm where he lay on his bed, his mangled face covered by a light bandage on one side. A quick invocation to Isis in his heart, and Caesarion pushed healing through the centurion, repairing the damage to face, body, and wrists. “What the fuck are you doing, centurion?” he rapped out harshly. “On your feet when a superior officer enters the room!”

  Malleolus staggered to his feet, wearing little beyond his sleeveless undertunic. Weakened from blood loss, he nearly toppled, but jerked himself back upright, standing as close to attention as someone in his condition could. “Yes, dominus.”

  Aware of the eyes peering in the doorframe behind him, Caesarion turned and glared at the men. “If you don’t have cleaning tools in your hands, you don’t have any business being here. Clear off!” His words promptly scattered the onlookers, and he turned back to Malleolus, giving him almost the same glare as he’d awarded the men outside. “Suicide’s the noble option when your honor’s been irremediably sullied, centurion, but I don’t see any honor here.” Cold, terse words, trying to snap the man out of whatever fit of melancholy had struck him. Did one of the spirits from the mountain take possession of him? Drive him to this? Or is this something festering deep in his soul?

  Stung, Malleolus lifted his head, and made eye-contact for a moment, before remembering himself and looking directly ahead, shoulders squared as if on review. “Do you have something to say for yourself?” Caesarion invited coldly of the older man.

  Malleolus swallowed. “I failed in my duty,” he said hoarsely. “Twice. First your brother. Now your sister.” His eyes didn’t flicker as he continued to stare into the mid-distance. “The woman, the Briton? She knew what I was by my face. Half-Gaul.” He swallowed again. “She said . . . undoubtedly born to a Gallic woman raped by a Roman man. Called me her brother.” A muscle twitched along his jaw. “And asked me what kind of man I was. Not to avenge my mother.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I decided this morning that I’d lived as a Roman for thirty-six years. And that I might as well die like one.”

  Caesarion repressed the urge to swear. Loudly. He knew all too well that there were still inquisitive ears outside the curtain, straining to hear what he had to say to the centurion. And his worry about Eurydice, his uncertainty about what to do with his prisoners, his concerns over tarrying here in Hispania too long balanced against the political cost of not mounting a punitive expedition, all came to a boil in his chest, mixing with his anger at this, his most trusted Praetorian, trying to kill himself, when Caesarion needed him. Boiled, and then foamed over as words, nearly hissed: “You thought you’d die like a Roman? Better than living as one. Certainly easier.” He took a step, pacing around Malleolus now, not caring that his boots took the man’s blood and left it as tracks across the floor. From behind him, Caesarion added, coldly, “Last I checked, it wasn’t the responsibility of a soldier to decide when he’s failed. That is the provenance of his superior officers.” He stopped behind Malleolus’ left shoulder and rapped out, “You may be certain that I will inform you when you’ve failed. You may be certain that I’ll inform you when your s
ervice—or your life—is no longer required. Until the day you retire—and your term isn’t up, centurion—your life belongs to Rome. The people. The Senate. And me. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

  “Yes, dominus.” No inflection in Malleolus’ voice.

  “You will do your duty. As we all do.” Even me.

  “Yes, dominus.”

  More softly now, Caesarion added, for his ears alone, “Gods damn it, Mal. I need you. I trust you. How many of us don’t have horrors in our families? Go back a few centuries, and in my family, you’ll find a Hellene general who smelled of horse, whose Egyptian wife was probably not the most willing woman ever wed. And brothers killing brothers every other generation since.” He gripped Mal’s shoulder. “Your mother’s a freedwoman these days. It’s in the past. Let it stay there. A master begot you and she birthed you, but you made yourself the man you are today.” He paused. “A better man than your father, I suspect.”

  Malleolus’ head slumped forward, and for a moment, Caesarion feared that the man would pass out from the blood-loss. Finally, he said, “Thank you, dominus.”

  “You don’t thank the truth,” Caesarion said more loudly. “Also, you’re damned well out of uniform. I was planning to tell you this at a more celebratory occasion, but I’ve decided to split a thousand men out of the Tenth to become the formal household Praetorians. You’ll command them. Immediate increase in rank to prefect. That is, if you’re not intending to make a journey across the Styx tonight.”

  Malleolus’ head snapped around to stare at Caesarion incredulously, the bandage across his face distorting with the motion. “What—why?” As an afterthought, he added hastily, “my lord.”

  “Because I never bring all six thousand of you to Rome when I’m staying in the city. Because those of you on detached duty in the city are a loss to the legion when the legion’s in the field, and I need men to stay with my family at all times, thanks to the unrest caused by the Octavianite faction. And because I want to recognize the service of those who’ve been with our family the longest, and who damned well deserve it, including you.” Caesarion threw up his hands. “Of course, you can decline the promotion—”