Rubicon rsr-7

by Steven Saylor

  I seemed to be trapped in a waking nightmare. Then I chanced to look at Davus beside me. He was grinning from ear to ear. For him, it was all a grand adventure. I gripped his arm.

  "Davus, when we arrive at Pompey's ship, you'll stay behind."

  He furrowed his brow.

  "Davus, I have the information that Pompey wanted. About Numerius. But I shall give it to him only if he agrees to leave you behind."

  "Leave me behind?"

  "Listen, Davus, and try to understand! I shall be going with Pompey, but you shall not. It's the only way I can make this work. We'll leave you behind on the pier. As soon as the ship casts off, you must take off all your armor. Do you understand? Keep your sword to protect yourself, but strip down to your tunic and throw everything else in the water. There must be nothing to identify you as one of Pompey's men. The townspeople are likely to kill you out of spite, if Caesar's men don't kill you first."

  "Stay behind?" Davus still didn't comprehend.

  "Don't you want to go back to Rome? Don't you want to see Diana and little Aulus again?"

  "Of course."

  "Then do as I say! For a while, the city will be in chaos. But you're a big man; no one will bother you unless they have a reason. Don't pick any fights. Try to pass as one of the townspeople, at least until you can hand yourself over to Caesar's men."

  "Hand myself over? They'll kill me."

  "No, they won't. Caesar is doing everything he can to appear merciful. You won't be harmed, as long as you throw down your sword and don't resist. Demand to see Meto. And if Meto should be- if for any reason you can't find Meto, ask for Marc Antony, the tribune. Tell him who you are. Ask for his protection."

  "What about you, father-in-law?"

  "I shall take care of myself."

  "I don't understand. You'll end up with Pompey over in Greece. How will you get home?"

  "Don't worry about me."

  "But Diana, and Bethesda-"

  "Tell them not to worry. Tell them… I love them."

  "This isn't right. I should go with you, to protect you."

  "No! The whole point is to get you away from Pompey and back to Rome. Don't spoil all my efforts now, Davus. Do as I tell you!"

  Suddenly there was a tremendous crash ahead of us. Rubble poured into the street. For a moment I thought Pompey had been struck, but he emerged from the dust cursing and coughing. Someone had set off one of Magius's barricading devices in an attempt to ambush us.

  Pompey's men immediately swarmed over the rubble, looking for the culprits. Shrieks of laughter were followed by shrill screams. The soldiers returned with their squirming prisoners: four boys. The soldiers restrained them by twisting their arms behind their backs and clutching fistfuls of hair. The oldest looked about the same age as Mopsus. The others looked even younger. I was amazed they had the strength to pull down the rubble. Their success was a testament to Magius's engineering.

  For Pompey, this was the final straw. He walked up to the oldest boy and slapped him across the face. The boy's defiance crumbled. He looked terrified. Blood trickled from his nose. He started to weep. So did his companions.

  Pompey snapped his fingers. "Bodyguards! Come! Executing partisans isn't a job fit for soldiers."

  Davus responded at once. I gripped his arm, but he pulled free. I hissed his name. He looked back at me and shrugged, as if to say he had no choice.

  "Tie their arms behind their backs and lay them on the rubble," ordered Pompey. Davus held up his torch while the other bodyguards ripped apart the boys' tunics and used the strips to bind them.

  "Gag them," Pompey ordered. "I don't want to hear any screams for mercy. Then cut off their heads."

  The boys' weeping abruptly turned to shrieks. More cloth was ripped, and the shrieks were abruptly muffled.

  "We'll execute them on the spot and leave them as an example. Let the people of Brundisium see the price for betraying Pompey the Great. Let them think about that, while they await my return."

  It happened so swiftly it seemed unreal. In seconds, the boys were stripped to their loincloths, bound and gagged and ready to be beheaded. Tiro drew back into the shadows, keeping his eyes down. Davus hung back. Pompey noticed.

  "Davus! You'll cut off the head of the ringleader."

  Davus swallowed hard. He glanced in my direction, but quickly lowered his eyes. He handed his torch to a soldier and slowly drew his sword. He shifted nervously from foot to foot.

  "Great One, no!"

  Pompey turned to see who shouted. "Finder! I should have known."

  "Great One, let the boys go."

  "Let them go? They very nearly killed me!"

  "It was a prank. They're boys, not soldiers. I doubt they even know you were at the head of the retinue."

  "All the worse. How should that have looked in Rome? Pompey the Great killed by accident, by a gang of street rats pulling a prank! They'll pay with their heads."

  "But how would that look in Rome? Boys, mere children, their heads cut off and left for their parents to find. If these were barbarians in the hinterlands, yes- but this is Italy. We could as easily be in Corfinium. Or Rome."

  Pompey bit his lower lip. He stared at me for what seemed a long time.

  "Put away your swords," he finally said. "Leave the boys as they are, bound and gagged. Let the people see that they were captured, and spared. If Caesar can show mercy, so can I. By Hades, let's get out of this godforsaken place!"

  Davus's shoulders slumped forward in relief. Pompey gave me a last furious glance, then held out his arms to his bodyguards, who helped him over the pile of rubble. Davus fell back to resume his post as rear guard. He helped me pick my way step by step over the debris. The last of the barricades and traps was behind us. We pressed on toward the port, saying not another word to each other.

  As soon as we passed through the city gates and onto the boardwalk, one of the soldiers gathered up all the torches, ran to the quayside, and threw them into the water. The port was clearly visible to Caesar's forces ringing the harbor. Darkness was as vital as silence to the success of Pompey's operation.

  The quay was lined with men waiting to board their assigned ships. We hurried past them, heading for the end of the quay.

  The uncanny quiet was suddenly broken by cheering that began ahead of us and spread down the length of the quay. I thought at first that Pompey's arrival had been noticed, and the cheer was for him. Then I heard a shout: "They're through! They've made it!" The first of the transport ships to cast off had passed safely beyond the breakwaters at the harbor entrance and had reached the sea.

  Masts creaked and sails billowed, and more ships cast off. As we neared the end of the quay I had a clear view of the harbor entrance. The breakwaters were as dark as the quay, horizontal smudges that seemed to rise barely above the waterline. A captain without keen night vision might easily run aground, trying to pass between them. I felt more out of my element than ever, plunged into a shadowy world ruled by the likes of Pompey and Caesar, where men manufactured avalanches, moved mountains of earth, built atop water, and made even darkness their weapon.

  At the end of the quay, Pompey's ship waited. It was a smaller, sleeker, faster vessel than the big transport ships. A boarding plank was quickly laid in place. Pompey headed straight for it. I summoned my nerve and quickened my pace to catch up with him.

  "Great One!"

  He abruptly halted and turned about. Without torchlight, it was hard to read his expression. I saw only deep shadows where his eyes should be. The hard line of his mouth turned down sharply at the corners. "Hades take you, Finder! What do you want now?"

  "Great One, my son-in-law- I want you to release him from your service. Leave him behind."

  "Why?"

  "It's the price for what I have to tell you. 'Not here, not now,' you said. On board your ship then, when time allows. I'll go with you. But you must leave Davus here."

  Pompey was silent. He seemed to be staring at me, but I couldn't see his eye
s. Finally he gestured for the rest of the party to commence boarding, then turned back to me. "Finder, why do I have the feeling that this is a trick of some sort- a ruse to trade places with your boneheaded son-in-law? I spared those street rats for trifling with me. I won't do the same for you."

  "It's not a trick, Great One. I know who killed your kinsman, and why."

  "Then tell me now."

  I glanced at Davus, who stood awkwardly by while the others boarded. Tiro also hung back, waiting to see what would happen. "No. I'll tell you after we cast off."

  "After Davus is out of my reach, you mean. Don't you trust me, Finder?"

  "We must trust one another, Great One."

  He cocked his head. "What a peculiar fellow you are, Finder, to dare to talk to me this way. Go on, then, board the ship." He turned about. "You too, Tiro. Stop gawking! As for you, Davus, I'm done with you. Off! Away! To Hades with you!"

  Davus looked to me. I stepped forward, reached into my tunic, and pressed my moneybag into his hands. He looked down at the pouch and frowned. It was heavy with silver. Thanks to Tiro's largesse I had spent almost nothing during the journey. There was more than enough to see him safely home.

  "But father-in-law," he whispered, "you can't give me all this! You'll need it."

  "Just take it, Davus, and go!"

  He looked into my eyes, then at his pouch in his hands, then into my eyes again. His shoulders rose and fell as he drew a deep breath. Finally he turned, but still hesitated.

  "Go, Davus. Now!"

  Without looking back he began walking down the quay, back toward the city.

  Tiro boarded the ship. I waited for Pompey, but he gestured that I should go first. He followed after me. The boarding plank was withdrawn.

  Orders were given in hushed voices. The sails snapped and billowed. The deck moved under me and the quay wheeled away.

  I peered back the way we had come, and saw a figure I thought must be Davus, standing alone at the far end of the quay, framed by the gateway into the city. Then the ship turned and I lost sight of him.

  XXII

  I quickly lost sight of both Tiro and Pompey on the dark, crowded deck. No one questioned my presence. No one seemed to take any notice of me at all.

  The soldiers were ordered into battle formation, but there was considerable confusion, with frantic movements back and forth and a great deal of arguing and cursing. After all Pompey's careful planning and what had appeared to be a perfect evacuation, I thought how ironic it would be if all his ships should escape except his own, for want of adequate naval drills among his hand-picked elite.

  But the confusion was only temporary. Catapults and ballistic machines were rolled into position and clamped in place, then loaded and cocked by means of large wheels with ratchets. Infantrymen sheathed their swords, took up spears, and formed a tight cordon along the rail, their shields creating an unbroken barricade. At elevated positions behind them, archers took their places. Other soldiers attended the archers, standing by to shield them and supply them with arrows.

  I found a place to stand atop an elevated platform amidship. All around us in the darkness loomed the big transport ships. Some were sailing for the harbor entrance while others hung back. Such a coordinated operation, without benefit of lights or other signals, meant they were following a precise order of evacuation determined beforehand.

  The acoustics on the harbor were baffling. I heard indistinct shouts and the faraway clatter of battle, but couldn't tell which noises came from the city and which echoed across the water from the harbor entrance.

  Ship after ship sailed past the breakwaters and into the open sea. I thought I could see exchanges of arrows and missiles between the ships and the men on the breakwaters, but the darkness and the distance made it impossible to discern any details.

  As Pompey's ship drew nearer to the harbor entrance, queuing up to run the gauntlet, the incendiary assault began. From both breakwaters, catapults hurled flaming missiles toward the ship passing between. By their illumination, I saw a bizarre sight: Caesar's men were frantically dismantling their own defenses on the breakwaters, tearing down the towers and mantlets and casting the debris into the water.

  The missiles fell short. More incendiary missiles were fired. These, too, fell short, but the terrific splashes created great explosions of steam. At the same time, some of the debris cast into the waves caught fire, dotting the harbor entrance with points of flame.

  The wrack of smoke and steam posed a hazard to the ship ahead of us, obscuring the captain's sightlines. He sailed off course, veering sharply toward the northern breakwater. I heard a loud curse behind me and looked over my shoulder. Pompey was only a few paces away. He seemed not to notice me. All his attention was on the battle.

  The ship ahead of us veered farther off course, bedeviled now by a sudden change in the wind. It sailed directly toward the tip of the northern breakwater until, from our perspective, a collision appeared imminent. I heard Pompey suck in a breath.

  But there was no collision. The ship skimmed past. For a moment, because of the confusion of the smoke, the ship appeared to have sailed safely outside the breakwater, on the seaward side. Then I heard a groan from Pompey, and realized the truth. The ship was still inside the harbor, sailing close alongside the breakwater, barely managing to avoid a scraping collision and apparently unable to pull back into the open harbor. It came to a standstill, held in place by the change in the wind, trapped against the breakwater, easily within range of arrows and missiles from Caesar's men, who let out a cheer that echoed across the water.

  The vulnerable ship easily might have been deluged with incendiary missiles, but the enemy apparently preferred to take it intact. As we discovered in the next moment, they had the means to do so.

  The officer Scribonius came running to Pompey. "Imperator, look behind us, back toward the city!"

  The last of the transport ships had set sail, which meant that the last of Pompey's covering guard had safely withdrawn from the city walls and taken flight. But that also meant that the city was now completely open to Caesar's men. Given the barricades and traps in the streets, it was reasonable to assume that they should still be making their way through the city, yet the quays behind us glittered with torchlight. Not only had Caesar's men already taken the port, but some had manned fishing vessels and were boldly sailing toward the breakwater, evidently planning to board the trapped transport ship.

  Scribonius gripped Pompey's arm. "Imperator, shall we turn about and engage them? We might fend them off and buy more time for the ship trapped against the breakwater."

  "No! We can't risk running afoul of the breakwater ourselves. That ship is lost to us now. There's no saving it. If I could, I'd set fire to it myself, to keep Caesar from having it. Sail straight on!"

  Scribonius withdrew.

  "How can he do it?" Pompey pounded his fist against the mast. "How can he move so fast? What sort of pact has Caesar made with the gods? It isn't humanly possible! Even if the damned townspeople showed his soldiers safely past every barricade and trap, how can so many of them already be at the port? And what madness impels them to set out after us in those small ships? Caesar himself must be there, urging them on."

  I gazed back at the port and imagined Caesar standing at the end of the quay, in the very spot where Pompey had stood only moments before, his red cape fluttering in the breeze, gazing out at Pompey's ship as we vanished into the clouds of smoke and vapor at the harbor entrance. I shut my eyes and prayed that Meto was there with Caesar, safe and whole, and that Davus was there as well, regretting not too bitterly that he had done as I told him. I imagined my son and my son-in-law together and safe on the quay, and clung to that image.

  "Damn you, Finder!"

  I opened my eyes to see Pompey glaring at me. Flames from burning flotsam in the water all around us pierced the smoke and lit up his eyes.

  "You're Caesar's man, aren't you?"

  I shook my head, not understanding.


  Pompey scowled. "That slave you adopted, your precious son, Meto- he's been Caesar's cozy tentmate for years. And you're one of Caesar's spies. He's always had your loyalty. Admit it! Not even Caesar could have gotten so many men through the city so quickly, without spies to help him. How long have you been in contact with the townspeople? How well did you know those street rats who almost killed me? Was it you who put them up to it? No wonder you begged for their lives!"

  "Great One, you're mistaken. What you're suggesting is impossible. Ask Tiro. He came with me all the way from Rome-"

  "Yes, you managed to leech onto Tiro, and fool even him. Davus! He must have been your inside man, spying on me all this time! And I thought he was an idiot."

  "Great One, this is madness."

  Firelight danced across Pompey's face. I would not have recognized him. He seemed to be possessed by something not human- a god or a demon, I couldn't tell which. Hackles rose on the back of my neck.

  Ahead of us loomed more smoke and flames. I heard shouting from either side, taunts and curses from the men on the breakwaters. I heard the creak and snap of catapults and ballistic engines. Fireballs hurtled toward us, shrieking like harpies. Scribonius screamed orders: "Catapults, return fire! Archers, return fire!"

  Pompey stared at me, oblivious to the battle commencing around us.

  "Great One, I haven't deceived you. There's no plot. I'm not Caesar's man."

  He clutched my throat. In his grip I felt all the fury that must have been growing in him day by day ever since he fled Rome. My vision dimmed. His face swam before my eyes. Above the pounding blood in my ears the screams and shouts around us seemed hardly more than whispers.

  A fireball landed so close that we were doused with cold water, followed by steaming mist. Soldiers cried out, broke ranks, and hastily reformed. Pompey's grip never loosened. I struggled to pry his fingers from my throat.

  "If you're not Caesar's spy, then tell me what you came to tell me! Who murdered Numerius?"