Brutus and his own party had watched from the summit of his hill, able to see today because the dust stayed confined within the heaving, densely packed bodies. When it was obvious that the battle was lost, the tribunes of his four senior legions came to him and asked him what they should do. "Save your lives," said Brutus. "Try to get through to the fleets at Neapolis, or else try to get to Thasos." "We should escort you, Marcus Brutus." "No, I prefer to go alone. Leave now, please." Statyllus, Strato of Epirus and Publius Volumnius were with him; so were his three most cherished freedmen his secretaries Lucilius and Cleitus and his shield bearer, Dardanus plus a few others. Perhaps twenty in all, including the slaves. "It is over," he said, watching Agrippa's Fourth assaulting his walls. "We had better hurry. Are we packed, Lucilius?" "Yes, Marcus Brutus. May I beg a favor?" "Ask." "Give me your armor and scarlet cape. We're the same size and coloring, I can pass for you. If I ride up to their lines and say I am Marcus Junius Brutus, it will delay pursuit," said Lucilius. Brutus thought for a moment, then nodded. "All right, but on one condition: that you surrender to Marcus Antonius. On no account let them take you to Octavianus. Antonius is an untutored oaf, but he has a sense of honor. He won't harm you when he finds out he's been deceived. Whereas I think that Octavianus would have you killed on the spot." They exchanged garb; Lucilius mounted Brutus's Public Horse and rode off down the hill toward the front gate, while Brutus and his party rode off down the hill toward the back gate. The light was fading, the camp walls were still being torn down by Agrippa's men. So no one saw them leave, enter the nearest defile and negotiate it and others until they emerged on the Via Egnatia well to the east of the Neapolis road, which Antony had captured a few days after First Philippi. With darkness closing in, Brutus chose to leave the road inside the Corpilan Pass, ascend the heavily forested slopes below the gorge escarpment. "Antonius will surely have cavalry out looking for escapees," Brutus said in explanation. "If we settle on this ledge for the night, we can see our best course in the morning." "If we put someone on lookout, we can have a fire," Volumnius said, shivering. "It's too cloudy to see without torches, so we need only douse the fire when our lookout sees approaching torches." "The sky is clearing," said Statyllus, sounding desolate. They gathered around a briskly blazing fire of dead wood to find that they were too thirsty to eat; no one had remembered to carry water. "The Harpessus has to be nearby," said Rhascupolis, getting up. "I'll take two spare horses and bring water back, if I can empty the grain out of these jars and store it in sacks." Brutus hardly heard, so abstracted that the activity went on around him as if seen through a thick mist and heard through ears stuffed with wadding. This is the end of my road, the end of my time on this awful, tormented globe. I was never cut out to be a warrior, it isn't in my blood. I do not even know how the military mind works. If I did, I might have understood Cassius better. He was so dedicated and aggressive. That's why Mama always preferred him to me. For she is the most aggressive person I have ever known. Prouder than the towers of Ilium, stronger than Hercules, harder than adamas. She's doomed to outlive all of us Cato, Caesar, Silanus, Porcia, Cassius, and me. She will outlive all save perhaps that serpent Octavianus. It was he who forced Antonius to persecute the Liberators. Had it not been for Octavianus, we would all be living in Rome, and be consuls in our proper year. This year! Octavianus owns the guile of a man four times his age. Caesar's heir! The roll of Fortuna's dice we none of us took into consideration. Caesar, who started it all when he seduced Mama shamed me tore my Julia away to marry her to an old man. Caesar the self-server. Shuddering, he thought of a line from the Medea of Euripides, cried it aloud: " 'Almighty Zeus, remember who is the cause of so much pain!' " "What was that?" asked Volumnius, trying to store everything up until he could next make an entry in his diary. Brutus didn't answer, so Volumnius had to wrestle with the quotation until Strato of Epirus enlightened him. But Volumnius assumed Brutus referred to Antonius, didn't even think of Caesar. Rhascupolis came back with the water; everyone save Brutus drank greedily, parched. After that they ate. Somewhat later a noise in the distance made them stamp out the fire; they sat rigid while Volumnius and Dardanus went off to investigate. A false alarm, said the pair on their return. Suddenly Statyllus leaped to his feet, clapping his hands around himself to generate a little warmth. "I can't stand it!" he cried. "I'm going back to Philippi to see what's happening. If I find the hill inside the camp deserted, I'll light the big beacon fire. From this height, you should see it well after all, it was designed to warn the guards in both passes if the Triumvirs outflanked Neapolis. What is it, five miles? You should see it in about an hour if I hurry. Then you'll know whether Antonius's men are doing more sleeping than hunting." Off he went, while those left behind huddled together to ward off the cold. Only Brutus remained aloof, sunk in thought. This is the end of my road, and it was all for nothing. I was so sure that if Caesar died, the Republic would return. But it didn't. All his death accomplished was the unleashing of worse enemies. My heart's strings are the binding of the Republic, it is fitting that I die. "Who," he asked suddenly, "died today?" "Hemicillus," Rhascupolis said into the darkness. "Young Marcus Porcius Cato, fighting very gallantly. Pacuvius Labeo, by his own hand, I believe." "Livius Drusus Nero," said Volumnius. Brutus burst into tears, wept into the silence while the rest stayed very still, wishing they were elsewhere. How long he wept, Brutus didn't know, only that when the tears dried, he felt as if he had emerged from a dream into a far wilder, more beautiful and fascinating dream. On his feet now, he walked to the middle of the clearing and lifted his head to the sky, where the clouds had dissipated and the stars shone in their myriads. Only Homer had the words to describe what his eyes and his dazzled mind took in, awestruck. " There are nights, " he said, " 'when the upper air is windless and the stars in heaven stand out in their full splendor around the bright moon; when every mountain top and headland and ravine starts into sight, as the infinite depths of the sky are torn open to the very firmament.' "3 It marked a transition, all of them knew it, stiffening and pricking as their round eyes, long adjusted to the inky gloom, followed the shadow of Brutus walking back to them. He went to the bundles of belongings, picked up his sword and pulled it from its scabbard. He extended it to Volumnius. "Do the deed, old friend," he said. Sobbing, Volumnius shook his head and backed away. Brutus held out the sword to each of them in turn, and each of them refused to take it. Last was Strato of Epirus. "Will you?" asked Brutus. It was over in an instant. Strato of Epirus took the weapon in a blur of movement, seemed to prolong the gesture in a sudden lunge that saw the blade go in up to its eagle hilt under Brutus's rib cage on the left side. A perfect thrust. Brutus was dead before his knees hit the leafy ground. "I'm for home," said Rhascupolis. "Who's with me?" No one, it seemed. The Thracian shrugged, found his horse, mounted it and disappeared. When the wound had done bleeding a very little only there was a leap of flame in the west; Statyllus had kindled the camp beacon. So they waited as the constellations wheeled overhead and Brutus lay very peacefully on the pungent carpet, his eyes closed, the coin in his mouth a gold denarius with his own profile on its obverse side. Finally Dardanus the shield bearer stirred. "Statyllus is not coming back," he said. "Let us take Marcus Brutus to Marcus Antonius. He would wish it so." They loaded the limp body across Brutus's own horse and, as dawn broke faintly in the east, commenced the plod back to the battlefield of Philippi.
A prowling cavalry squadron conducted them to Mark Antony's tent, where the victor of Philippi was already up and about, his robust health more than equal to the feast of last night. "Put him there," said Antony, pointing to a couch. Two German troopers carried the very small bundle to the couch and laid it down gently, straightened its limbs until once more it assumed the form of a man. "My paludamentum, Marsyas," said Antony to his body servant. The scarlet cape of the general was brought; Antony shook it out and let it flutter to cover all but Brutus's face, stark and white, the scars of those decades of acne pitting its skin, the lank black curls crow
ning his scalp like silky feathers. "Have you money to go home?" he asked Volumnius. "Yes, Gaius Antonius, but we would like to take Statyllus and Lucilius too." "Statyllus is dead. Some guards caught him in Brutus's camp and thought he was there to loot. I've seen his corpse. As for the false Brutus I've a mind to keep Lucilius in my own service. Loyalty is hard to find." Antony turned to his body servant. "Marsyas, arrange passes for any of Brutus's people who wish to go to Neapolis." Which left him alone with Brutus, mute company. Brutus and Cassius dead. Aquila, Trebonius, Decimus Brutus, Cimber, Basilus, Ligarius, Labeo, the Casca brothers, a few more of the assassins. That it should have come to this, when it all might have blown over and Rome gone on in its same old slipshod, imperfect way! But no, that hadn't satisfied Octavianus the arch-manipulator, the nightmare Caesar had conjured up out of nowhere to exact a full and bloody revenge. As if the thought were father to the reality, Antony looked up to see Octavian standing in the light-filled triangle of the tent flap, with his impassive, stunningly handsome coeval Agrippa right behind him. Wrapped in a grey cloak, that hair glittering in the lamp flames like the tumbled surface of a pile of gold coins. "I heard the news," Octavian said, coming to stand beside the couch and gaze down at Brutus; a finger came out, touched the waxen cheek as if to assess its substance, then withdrew to be wiped fastidiously on the grey cloak. "He's a wisp." "Death shrinks us all, Octavianus." "Not Caesar. Death has enhanced him." "Unfortunately that's true." "Whose paludamentum is that? His?" "No, it's mine." The slight frame went rigid, the big grey eyes narrowed and blazed cold fire. "You do the cur too much honor, Antonius." "He's a Roman nobleman, the commander of a Roman army. I'll do him even greater honor at his funeral later today." "Funeral? He deserves no funeral!" "My word rules here, Octavianus. He'll be burned with full military honors." "Your word does not rule! He's Caesar's assassin!" Octavian hissed. "Feed him to the dogs, as Neoptolemus did Priam!" "I don't care if you howl, whine, screech, whimper or mew," Antony said, little teeth bared, "Brutus will be burned with full military honors, and I expect your legions to be present!" The smooth, beautiful young face turned to stone, suddenly so much the face of Caesar in a temper that Antony took an involuntary step backward, appalled. "My legions can do as they please. And if you insist upon your honorable funeral, then conduct it. But not the head. The head is mine. Give it to me! To me!" Antony looked on Caesar at the height of his power, saw a will incapable of bending. Thrown completely off balance, he found himself unable to tower, to roar, to bully. "You're mad," he said. "Brutus murdered my father. Brutus led my father's assassins. Brutus is my prize, not yours. I will ship his head to Rome, where I will impale it on a spear and fix it at the base of Divus Julius's statue in the Forum," said Octavian. "Give me the head." "Do you want Cassius's head too? You're too late, it's not here. I can offer you a few others who died yesterday." "Just the head of Brutus," Octavian said, voice steel. The advantage lost, he didn't honestly know how, Antony was reduced to pleading, then to begging, then to exhortations in his best oratory, then to tears. He ran the gamut of the softer emotions, for if there was one thing this joint expedition had shown him, it was that Octavianus the weakling, the sickly ninny, was impossible to cow, dominate, overwhelm. And with that shadow Agrippa always just behind him, unkillable too. Besides, the legions wouldn't condone it. "If you want it, then you take it!" he said in the end. "Thank you. Agrippa?" It was done in the time it took lightning to strike. Agrippa drew his sword, stepped forward, swung it and chopped through the neck clear to the cushions beneath, which parted and spat a shower of goose down. Then Octavian's coeval caught the black curls in his fingers and let the head hang by his side. His face never changed. "It will rot before it reaches Athens, let alone Rome," said Antony, nauseated and disgusted. "I commandeered a jar of pickling brine from the butchers," Octavian said coolly, walking to the tent flap. "It doesn't matter if the brain melts to a runny mess, as long as the face is recognizable. Rome must know that Caesar's son has avenged his chief murderer." Agrippa and the head disappeared, Octavian lingered. "I know who's dead, but who has been taken prisoner?" he asked. "Just two. Quintus Hortensius and Marcus Favonius. The rest chose to fall on their swords it's not hard to see why," Antony said, flicking one hand at Brutus's headless body. "What do you intend to do with the captives?" "Hortensius gave the governorship of Macedonia to Brutus, so he dies on my brother Gaius's tomb. Favonius can go home he's completely harmless." "I insist that Favonius be executed immediately!" "In the name of all our gods, Octavianus, why? What has he ever done to you?" Antony cried, clutching at his hair. "He was Cato's best friend. That's reason enough, Antonius. He dies today." "No, he goes home." "Execution, Antonius. You need me, my friend. You can't do without me. And I insist." "Any more orders?" "Who got away?" "Messala Corvinus. Gaius Clodius, who murdered my brother. Cicero's son. And all the fleet admirals, of course." "So there are still a few assassins to bring to justice." "You won't rest until they're all dead, eh?" "Correct." The flap parted; Octavian was gone. "Marsyas!" Antony bellowed. "Yes, domine!" Antony plucked at the scarlet cape to twitch a fold over the grisly neck, oozing fluid. "Find the senior tribune on duty and tell him to have a funeral pyre prepared. We burn Marcus Brutus today with full military honors and don't let anyone know that Marcus Brutus no longer has his head. Find a pumpkin or something that will do, and send ten of my Germans to me now. They can put him on his bier inside this tent, put the pumpkin where the head ought to be, and pin the cape down firmly. Understood?" "Yes, domine," said the ashen Marsyas. While the Germans and the shivering body servant dealt with the corpse of Marcus Brutus, Antony sat turned away, nor said a word. Only after Brutus was gone did he stir, blink away sudden, inexplicable tears. The army would eat until it got home, there was so much food in the two Liberator camps, and more by far in Neapolis; the admirals had sailed the moment they heard the result of Second Philippi, leaving everything behind. A house full of silver one-talent sows, stuffed granaries, smokehouses of bacon, barrels of pickled pork, a warehouse of chickpea and lentil. The haul would amount to at least a hundred thousand talents in coin and sows, so the promised bonuses could be paid. Twenty-five thousand of the Liberator troops had volunteered to join Octavianus's legions. No one wanted to join Antonius's, though it was Antonius had won the two battles. Calm down, Marcus Antonius! Don't let that cold-blooded cobra Octavianus sink his fangs into you. He's right, and he knows it. I need him, I can't do without him. I've an army to get back to Italy, where the three Triumvirs have it all to do again. A new pact, an extended commission to set Rome in order. And it will give me great pleasure to dump all the dirty work on Octavianus. Let him find land for a hundred thousand veterans and feed three million Roman citizens with Sextus Pompeius owning Sicily and the seas. A year ago I would have said he couldn't do it. Now, I'm not so sure. Agents, for pity's sake! He's hatched a small army of snakelets to whisper, and spy, and promulgate his causes, from the worship of Caesar to securing his own position. But I can't live in the same city with him. I'm going to find a more congenial place to live, more congenial things to do than wrestle with an empty Treasury, hordes of veterans, and the grain supply.
6. The October Horse: A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra Page 87