Caesar's Spies Omnibus

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘And could such a case be made?’ probed Antony.

  ‘That is not a question I could answer immediately,’ answered Cicero guardedly. ‘It would turn around the evidence of witnesses, for instance. A prosecution in the proper forms…’ His voice tailed off. As he realised with a lift of his spirits that nearly all of the men who had actually heard Caesar’s last words were among the murderers themselves. And they had fled the city, almost to a man. Putting themselves beyond even Antony’s reach.

  ‘But you could answer it?’ probed Fulvia impatiently. ‘Eventually. If we can supply a witness or two…’

  ‘It would depend on the standing and probity of the witnesses, of course. If a senator would stand up, for instance, his evidence would carry much more weight than that of, say, a slave…’ he said. ‘But in any case, I would have to consult some other jurists, both in person and through their writings. That could take time and may even require travel. To Athens, for instance. Or even, I suppose, to Alexandria… The library… What of it is left after Caesar set fire to the Museum of Ptolemy four years ago.’

  ‘But you could do it?’ demanded Antony.

  ‘Perhaps… Perhaps…’

  ‘Very well,’ said Antony. ‘Get started as soon as you can, then. My men will see you home…’

  ‘Ah,’ said the elderly jurist, his eyes brightening. ‘If I might avail myself of your latrine before I go. And, perhaps if Tiro…’

  ‘Of course,’ said Antony.

  Fulvia clapped her hands and a slave hurried in. Cicero rose and hobbled after him on stiff legs with his secretary solicitously at his side.

  As soon as they left the atrium, the atmosphere changed. Antony and his brothers stood, shoulder to shoulder. ‘So,’ said the general, including his wife, his brothers, the consuls-elect and his secret agents in his plotting. ‘We have a well-laid trap. For Brutus at least. And when he goes down he’ll likely pull Cassius down with him. We need to discuss this further. Enobarbus, Septem.’ He focused his most powerful stare on his spymaster and his spy. ‘Rebuild your team,’ he commanded. ‘Recruit anyone you need to support the testimony of the slave you’ve questioned so far. Plan to go after anyone who could be made to stand up beside him and swear to Caesar’s dying words. The more powerful and influential the better. But even the fact that Cicero is looking into the matter will start rumours at the very least! Excellent!’

  ‘Yes, General,’ said Enobarbus. ‘But Septem here is also working on establishing exactly what was done as well as what was said. Precisely what was done. By whom. In what order.’

  ‘To give us a list of the men we want to go hunting for first,’ added Artemidorus.

  ‘First after those spuria bastards Trebonius and Decimus Albinus. The one fooled me and the other fooled Caesar. That makes it personal. For both of us!’

  ‘But don’t let your focus on those two distract you from any others chance might throw your way…’ added Fulvia, icily.

  Like Minucius Basilus, thought Artemidorus. Basilus, whose perverted games and enjoyment of humiliation and agony had gone much of the way to making his lover Cyanea break down and betray them all.

  ‘Look for more witnesses and don’t make any secret of it either,’ said Antony. ‘Find out the truth of the matter. In as much detail as you can.’ He paused. Rubbed his hands. ‘That was an excellent notion of yours, Septem. Patricide! It would never have occurred to me! Even if it comes to nothing in the Senate it will terrify Brutus. Shock all his friends and associates. And stir the pot in a way that murderous crew won’t like at all.

  ‘And, talking of stirring the pot,’ he continued. ‘Aulus Hirtius, I think it’s time for you to go to Decimus Albinus and make one or two things very clear to him. One – Caesar may have put him down as Proconsul for Cisalpine Gaul for the legislative year that begins with your appointment as Co-consul in Januarius. But two – Caesar didn’t know what a treacherous little blatta cockroach Albinus was when he did it. Therefore, three – if Albinus thinks I’m going to let him take over the entire north of Italy with three full legions under his command, he had better think again, no matter what Caesar proposed and the Senate has decided! And, come to that, he’d better get out of Rome as quickly as he can or I’ll send people after him who will simply chop their way through his gladiators until they can take his traitorous head and spike it in the Forum for everyone to see!’

  The group had split up by the time Cicero returned. Tiro a step or two behind him. The tablets full of his dangerous legal wisdom clutched safely to his breast.

  ‘Tribune,’ boomed Antony, in his cheerfully ebullient offspring-of-Hercules persona. ‘Would you and the centurion kindly escort our revered guest home. I have slaves with torches ready and waiting to accompany his litter of course, but I would feel happier if you who brought him here took him back again. Make sure that no harm comes to him…’

  The two soldiers stooped, retrieved their helmets and stood, armour creaking. Making enough noise to cover the final word of their general’s order.

  ‘…yet…’

  II

  i

  Artemidorus sprang awake as the morning tubae trumpets sounded across the encampment of the Seventh Legion. For the first time in what seemed like weeks he found himself in the centurions’ tent which was his usual home. When he was not on secret assignment. On the camp bed which was his accustomed resting place. As a soldier. As opposed to as a spy. For much of the previous month he had been working undercover, bivouacked in Antony’s villa. Required to attend the general at any hour of the day or night. Ready to come and go on secret and increasingly dangerous assignments at a moment’s notice. Before, during and after Caesar’s murder. Which it had been his mission to prevent at any cost. For which he still felt almost personally responsible. As, just like Caesar, trusting the treacherous Decimus Albinus as his closest friend, the spy had trusted his lover Cyanea. Who had betrayed them all in the end.

  Last night, however, he had returned to camp after escorting Cicero’s litter home. Marching through the benighted city allowed him to satisfy himself that the VIIth’s patrols at least were keeping things quiet. Even if the aediles’ watchmen preferred to linger round their watchfires.

  The centurions’ substantial leather tent was pitched in the grounds of the Temple of Aesculapius right at the southern end of Tiber Island. A carefully negotiated financial arrangement with the keepers of the temple allowed not only living and cooking within the grounds but also access to the roomy temple itself when the weather was unusually inclement. An agreement that suited all involved. Negotiated in the final analysis by Antistius, the physician. A leading member of the order of Aesculapius. Who was also a member of Artemidorus’ contubernium unit of spies. And the man who had performed an autopsy on Caesar. The first recorded in history as far as the secret agent knew.

  One of the centurions’ servants bustled in with a bowl of steaming water, a polished bronze mirror and a phial of scented oil. Bringing the light of a grey dawn behind him with the chill wind through the tent’s wide flap. Although these were far better quarters than the simple legionaries’, it was agreed among the centurions that they would remain in eight-man unit contubernium tents. Though there were six centurions assigned to a cohort. Seven in the First Cohort’s case as Septem had a replacement to stand in for him when he was working undercover. And, just like a legionary’s eight-man contubernium, they had two servants per tent. Tribunes and legates, of course, had quarters in city villas. Often owned by themselves or their families. Fully staffed with the usual range of slaves, therefore. Such senior officers were important men politically as well as militarily. Men who were usually climbing the Cursus Honorum ladder to supreme power. Their absence from the camps, however, was the main reason why the centurions – and their council – wielded so much influence in the legions.

  The dawn light was beginning to fill the tent which Artemidorus shared with the First Cohort’s other centurions, including Oppius, his replacement. All of
whom were still asleep, having spent the night patrolling Rome’s restless streets. Artemidorus, however, felt full of decisive energy. He flung his cloak back with a flourish. The heavy mud-coloured woollen garment, which had acted as a blanket during the cold night, billowed up off the truckle bed. Allowing the spy to step out onto the carpet which was the tent’s floor. He pulled his sleeping tunic up over his head and dropped it on the cloak. Naked, he strode across the flooring, pausing at the foot of his bed to pull his dagger from its sheath on his uniform belt. Which, with his red sagum uniform cloak was folded neatly at the bed-foot.

  The pugio was not a standard-issue dagger such as the majority of the legionaries wore. This was the dagger whose almost magical blade had dispatched Gaius Amiatus and the nameless leader of the mob pursuing Cicero. And he had not bought it. He had stolen it. In fact, this was the second time it had fallen into the spy’s possession. The first time, he had purloined it from the household shrine of Marcus Junius Brutus on the night before Caesar was murdered. While he was also liberating Puella, a slave who had overheard several crucial meetings between Brutus and the men plotting to murder Caesar. In the hope that her evidence, combined with everything else his cadre of spies had learned, would convince Caesar to spend the Ides safely at home. On that occasion, he had left it wedged in the neck of Brutus’ ostiarius doorkeeper who had tried to recapture the escaping slave girl.

  Then it had found him again. Half a day later. Wedged in the groin of Caesar’s corpse. Left there by Brutus as he fled in horror from the Curia of Pompey’s Theatre. To hide with the other Libertores in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. Protected by the treacherous Decimus Albinus’ gladiators while news of their terrible deed began to speed round Rome. And, at the earliest opportunity the spy now knew, to discuss Caesar’s dying words to him with Brutus’ friend and lawyer Cicero.

  ii

  Artemidorus held out his left hand, cupped. The servant poured a little warm, fragrant oil into it. The spy smoothed this over his stubbled cheeks, chin and throat. Then he used the dagger to shave himself. Watching his reflection in the bronze mirror held by the servant. Measuring the face reflected back at him with calm, calculating eyes. The bronze gave them a golden cast he knew they did not possess. They were grey eyes. Cyanea once told him they were coloured somewhere between smoke and steel. Her eyes had been bright blue-green. And it hurt him to remember them. The blue-green eyes of a liar and traitor he had loved. His were Greek eyes in any case. To go with the Spartan brain behind the high, clear forehead. Though his eyebrows and unruly hair were as dark as any Roman’s. As any Iberian’s in fact. And the red cast given by the bronze mirror simply emphasised what was already there. The unruly fringe fell forward in scarce-controllable curls. One of which at least covered the white line of a scar running like a military road straight from his hairline to his left eyebrow. Lifting it slightly into a permanently quizzical tension with the right one. The lean face beneath was all cheekbone and nose. The nose was long and narrow, like a blade. Tending towards the Roman aquiline as much as to the straight Greek. The nostrils, too, were narrow. Like an eagle’s. Apt enough for a man who followed the Eagle of the Seventh Legion, perhaps. There was no doubt about the straight slash of his mouth, though. Which, even at rest, looked brutal. Or the breadth of the jawline reaching into the square chin he was about to shave. A chin on which the stubble, like his hair, glinted with shades of red-gold.

  But one glance was enough reflective introspection for today. He was in action almost immediately. Revelling in the way the cold steel seemed to glide across his oiled skin like a zephyr of breeze across a stream. Thinking that the edge was keener than any razor wielded by the legion’s tonsors. By the tonsors on the street corners in the city itself. Even by Antony’s own tonsor, who had been in charge of his shaving and barbering since he had removed the fox-red beard disguising him as a workman. Employed to fix some damage to the roof of Brutus’ villa. And to discover what the traitor was planning – and whether anyone in his household was witness to it.

  By the time the sun was a dull silver denarius behind the thinning cloud above the pines of the distant Quirinial Hill, Artemidorus was shaved. Washed. And dressed in full armour. Casila helmet on his head. Blood-red sagum swinging from his shoulders as though he was one of Leonidas’ three hundred Spartan warriors. One of the Spartan king’s cryptaia cadre of deadly special agents. Like Caesar, he took his jentaculum breakfast as he went about his business. Sipping a cup of posca vinegar and water flavoured with rosemary and thyme. Washing down a mouthful of coarse lentaculum emmer bread still warm from the legion’s ovens. As he marched through the stirring camp, slave trotting at his side. Handing the cup back as they reached the riverbank and replacing it with a handful of dates. Then, alone, out onto the Pons Fabricius towards the Campus Martius. Pausing halfway across the bridge to eat the dates as he thought through his plans for the day. Spitting their stones into the green-black swirl of the Tiber.

  On the Campus Martius Field of Mars, the cavalry alae division of the VIIth had their camp and the pen for their horses. Close by the massive funeral pyre that had been erected for Caesar near the tomb of his beloved daughter Julia. A pyre that had been dismantled because the dictator’s body had been immolated in the Forum itself. Between the horse pens and the vacancy left by the pyre there was an exercise area where the cavalry practised their manoeuvres. Or, when they were not occupying it, the legionaries used as a parade ground. And, beside it there was a wooden-walled area set aside for weapons training. Usually, this was where legionaries sharpened up their skills with the swords, daggers and spears they all carried. The archers practised their archery. Though the truth of the matter was that most Roman cavalry and the majority of their archers left much to be desired. Which was why generals like Caesar took auxilia auxiliaries into battle, the centurion mused. Alae wings of Numidian and Gallic horsemen. Cohorts of Cretan and Thracian archers.

  Although the training area was his final destination, Artemidorus marched past it, heading towards Pompey’s massive theatre with its fire-damaged Curia. Burned by the mobs revenging the man who had been slaughtered there. Not far from the theatre another of the men who had fought so hard to keep Caesar alive was about his daily ritual. A man who, like Artemidorus, had warned the doomed dictator of specific threats against him. Too little, however. Too late. Spurinna, augur and haruspex, Equestrian and Etruscan both in his standing and bloodline, was assessing the auguries for the day. As revealed in the entrails of a ram. Particularly in its liver. The creature had already been blessed and sacrificed. Spurinna, red to the elbows, his toga tied back in the ritual Gabine knot, was sorting through the animal’s steaming viscera. As presented on a great gold bowl. Which sat on a stand at one end of the altar. Where the dead ram’s belly gaped emptily.

  Around Spurinna stood his acolytes and priests. And, on the outskirts of the crowd, a strikingly beautiful young woman. Her figure, features, hair and colouring revealed Ethiopian ancestry. Her smile on seeing Artemidorus revealed a lot more besides. The young woman’s name was Puella. Girl. That was all she had ever been called in the household of Marcus Junius Brutus where she had been a slave. Until Artemidorus stole her and took her to Antony as living proof of the conspiracy against Caesar. Too late, as things turned out. She was currently in Spurinna’s household. The safest place to keep her as a runaway. Though, to be fair, Brutus currently had a lot more to worry about than the whereabouts of a missing slave.

  iii

  ‘Ah, Septem,’ called Spurinna, looking up from the ram’s liver. ‘The day augurs well. Whatever undertakings you are considering are likely to prosper if you begin them before the sun sets.’

  ‘You know what I have been ordered to undertake,’ answered Artemidorus. ‘And how I propose to go about it.’

  ‘My villa would be a good place to start, then,’ said Spurinna. ‘Especially as your little aulus lark is sitting in a cubicula storeroom terrified out of his mind, explaining at length to anyon
e who’ll listen what Caesar’s last words were.’

  Artemidorus nodded. Puella was not the only runaway hiding in Spurinna’s ample villa. A record keeper to the Senate and slave to the Censor Gaius Trebonius was also there. A Greek boy of disturbing beauty called Adonis. Who had been unlucky enough to catch Artemidorus’ eye as the spy ran into the Curia immediately after the assassination. The first to come into the murder scene as the boy was the last to leave it. Adonis had not been too hard for Septem’s contubernium of agents to track and kidnap. Without even alerting the boy’s owner, who was currently hurrying away from Rome, in any case. Like the rest of the conspirators. Soon to head eastwards planning to take up his promised post of Proconsul for Asia as soon as practically possible. And certainly in no mind to worry about a missing slave. The unfortunate youth was now languishing in Spurinna’s house, until such time as his evidence could be checked further and recorded in legal form. In case this ever brought Brutus to trial – as Antony clearly planned that it would.

  ‘If your duties allow you, come to me at about noon,’ suggested the soothsayer. ‘We will examine the boy Adonis further. Then we can eat and plan. I can send my slaves to summon anyone you wish to see. A couple of hours should be enough to set things in motion. And then we can bathe and dine at our leisure. Perhaps you might stay the night.’

  ‘That does sound like a well augured day,’ agreed Artemidorus, his gaze lingering on Puella’s wide brown eyes and shy smile. ‘And it does occur to me that our caged songbird may have a good deal more to tell us. If we apply a little further pressure. He heard Caesar’s last words. And I’d bet he may well have seen exactly whose dagger went where as they slaughtered him. Though of the two areas of knowledge, the latter is likely to be by far the more dangerous. As the boy will have realised, of course. Naming names. Especially names of incredibly rich and powerful, deadly dangerous and deeply frightened men. That could be flirting with an untimely and probably unpleasant death. Remember poor Telos. Beaten to a pulp and crucified. Eyes and tongue ripped out. Before his throat was cut. All for getting too close to Brutus’ and Cassius’ plans for the Ides. In the meantime I have an appointment. And I do not dare be late.’