Caesar's Spies Omnibus

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘Does the tribune know about this?’

  ‘He knows about it, yes. And approves of the use I propose we make of it. But no – he hasn’t been here or actually seen it.’

  ‘Seen it?’ Artemidorus was still reeling from Ferrata’s description of the place as Colchis, home of the Amazons and location of the Golden Fleece, reborn. ‘What is there to see?’

  ‘More than you can imagine, Septem,’ chuckled the old triarius. ‘More than you can imagine…’

  ‘For more than two hundred years my family has followed general after general in the legions. From the year 520 since the founding of the city, generation after generation of my ancestors have fought with men like Scipio Africanus; his son Scipio Aemilianus, Aemilianus Macedonicus, Marius, Sulla, Lucullus, Crassus, Pompey and Caesar all across the expanding empire of Rome’s dominions and out to the edges of the world. Where others sought gold and plunder, brought home Punic artefacts from Carthage or Greek statues from Macedonia, we have sought only to make ourselves the best soldiers it was possible to be. We had no need of money…’ Quintus gestured at the distant walls of the triclinium, the sweep of his arm encompassing not only the dining area but the villa beyond, the gardens beyond that and the groves of pine trees that capped the Esquiline Hill. Which, it seemed, he owned.

  ‘What did we bring back from the wars, then? Knowledge and weapons. Books on warfare copied from the Libraries of Alexandria, Athens, Babylon, Carthage, Thebes… collected from repositories everywhere. Works of poetry on relevant subjects, such as The Iliad of Homer. Books drafted by theoreticians like Archimedes, Onasander and Asclepiodotus. By experienced observers such as Polybius; experienced soldiers such as Xenophon and Tacticus. Weapons experts like Balbus. Generals such as Divus Julius. Treatises in Greek, Punic, Egyptian, Latin… They are all in the library, those that need it with translations.

  ‘And weapons. Then as now, every one of my ancestors who came across any novelty or advance in any kind of weaponry – except for siege machines and such – sent examples of it back. From all over the world. Every theatre of war the legions fought in. Year after year. For the last two centuries. Even in the matter of siegecraft we have illustrations. Archimedes’ mirrors that set the ships in Syracuse harbour alight; the great crane he designed to lift entire vessels out of the water. The recipe for Greek Fire. A treatise on mines; how to dig them under city walls – and how to overcome them. Ramps – how to build them and how to destroy them. Cities – how to defend them and how to overcome them. Siege towers. Rams. Onagers. Scorpios. Catapults. Ballistae. All the rest. We even have a detailed diagram of how Hannibal’s elephants were armed. But it is the actual weaponry that I know will interest you most. For anyone interested in clubs, cestae iron fists, knives, swords, axes, war hammers, battle scourges, armour, headgear, slings, bows, arrows, spears. You name it and this place is, as Ferrata said, Colchis. The land of unimaginable treasures.’

  Quintus finished speaking and took a sip of water. His audience, varyingly entranced, consisted of Artemidorus, Hercules, Puella, Venus and Adonis, because a good deal of time had passed since Ferrata led Artemidorus to the villa – and then departed to keep watch over Caesar Octavius. They lay on couches arranged around a table laden with the remains of cena. The floor around them scattered, as propriety demanded, with the detritus of the meal. Olive pits, egg shells, the bones of larks, geese and a swan. Of a lamb’s shoulder and a pig’s trotters. The knotted ends of sausages. The peel of oranges. A slice or two of lemon. Some crumbs of emmer bread. All of which would be whisked away after the meal by the surprising array of servants overseen by Drusus and Drusilla.

  Antistius – who would probably have been less than edified by the list of lethal weaponry – was tending Cicero. Ferrata – who would have been fascinated by the bits he didn’t already know – was keeping an eye on Caesar Octavius. Enobarbus was on his way to Brundisium with Antony and Fulvia. And Spurinna was at home, seeing to his auguries; his chastity, and communication with the Deities, no longer threatened by the beautiful people currently occupying Quintus’ triclinium dining room.

  vii

  Artemidorus spent the rest of the evening after cena following Quintus through the warlike treasure trove of his villa as darkness gathered and lamps were lit by the ever-assiduous servants. ‘Servants,’ emphasised Quintus. ‘Not slaves. Whenever my family has bought another being, manumission is immediate. They continue to serve because they want to – it is another family tradition. Like collecting examples of the art of war rather than the art of conquered nations.’

  The others soon tired of watching him demonstrate one ancient or unusual weapon after another and drifted away. All except Puella. And Artemidorus came to understand several things about her. First that her interest was less on the weapons than upon himself. But secondly, although the weaponry was only her lesser interest, her wide dark eyes seemed to soak up everything Quintus was demonstrating. The neat little ears beneath the serpentine curls of her hair took in every word he spoke. And, somewhere behind that broad, ebony forehead it was all being assimilated. Every now and then, her fine nostrils would flare with excitement and the full lips would part as she asked an insightful question or requested a repetition of some particularly obscure or complicated move. Once in a while she would relieve the proud triarius of the weapon he was demonstrating. Her long, slim fingers would fasten purposefully around it. And her arms, body and legs would become one graceful, almost fluid movement while the dangerous end of the weapon whispered through the silent air. The tendons in her thighs and calves would tense. Her toes would spread for purchase even as her legs parted for balance. The stuff of her sheer tunic moulding itself to every curve. And, most strikingly of all, she seemed equally competent with the weapons regardless of whether she was wielding them with her right hand or her left. Artemidorus had never come across anyone before who was completely ambidextrous. In that regard – as in many others – Puella was a revelation.

  But, as she moved with liquid grace, the spy was forcibly reminded of the night he freed her from Brutus’ house. During the night watches before the fatal Ides of Mars dawned. The storm that they fled through then was so fierce it had burst open the menagerie behind the Circus Maximus. For a time they had been hunted by a black panther. Puella’s elegant movements – especially with the big, two-handed Egyptian swords, put him forcefully in mind of that sleek, beautiful, utterly lethal creature.

  ‘She’s a natural,’ said Quintus proudly, as she whirled an ancient Iberian falcatta round her head, its deadly two-cubit blade coming within a finger’s width of decapitating him. ‘Almost the best I’ve ever seen.’

  Artemidorus didn’t ask the obvious question. But then he didn’t think he needed to.

  ‘With a bit of practice she could be as deadly as Cyanea,’ Quintus elaborated. ‘Perhaps even more so. You will have noticed that she is as deadly with her left hand as she is with her right.’

  As far as the secret agent was concerned, that was that. But Quintus mentally continued, though his mouth remained closed and silent. Though neither of them will ever be quite as lethal as you, my boy. Dexterity, elegance and grace are one aspect. But you have speed, brutality and the best tactical brain – even one-on-one – I have ever encountered.

  After they had exhausted Quintus’ main weapon collection, it was time for bed. Though there were several more rooms of even more arcane hardware to examine. And they hadn’t even got as far as the library. But there was at least one more surprise in store for Artemidorus. The novel experiences of the last few hours had come so thick and fast that he hadn’t really thought beyond them. It came almost as a shock, therefore, to find that he had a suite of rooms already given over not only to his bed but to all the personal clothing, equipment and armour that had been so thoughtlessly left in his tent on Tiber Island. When he went down to Pompeii – before the VIIth was officially disbanded. All of it carefully laid out on chests and stands, recently cleaned and polished, gleaming und
er the light of tens of lamps.

  Quintus led his protégé to the first of these chambers and, as Artemidorus stood gaping with surprise, he vanished. Silently.

  So that when Artemidorus turned, saying, ‘But this is…’ he found that only Puella remained with him. She came towards him without hesitation, coiling her arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his. Tongue-tip coyly exploring. Grinding the entire length of herself against him. The contact almost as intimate as if they were already naked. He felt himself responding at once. The scent of her. The power of her. The simple burning heat of her. With the last of his self-control, he placed his hands on the muscular fullness of her hips and gently pushed her away. Her lips reluctantly parted from his and she stepped back. Her eyes, huge in the lamplight, wide and questioning. Her breath, like his, shortened with desire as though they had run a marathon together. ‘There is no need for this,’ he said gently. ‘Like everyone else in this strange household, you are free. You must only do what you want to do.’

  ‘I want you,’ she said simply. ‘I have wanted you since I first saw you in Lord Brutus’ villa disguised as a freedman, wearing that silly hat and that ridiculous red beard.’

  ‘Even then?’ he smiled.

  ‘Even then – and ever since,’ she whispered. ‘And now I have you. All to myself.’

  She came to him once more. And this time he did not push her away.

  Later, as she lay smiling and satisfied, deeply asleep at his side, he looked down at her face gilded by the light of the last lamp. And he thought about the last spy he had taken as a lover.

  And how completely she had betrayed him.

  viii

  Marcus Tullius Cicero rose stiffly and a little unsteadily to his feet. Pulling his recalcitrant body erect, he surveyed the white-robed ranks of the Senate. Took a deep breath and, as he had rehearsed with Tiro almost ceaselessly since the departure of the physician Antistius from his villa – not to mention the departure of Antony himself from Rome – he began. Raising his voice above the raving of a gale outside that threatened to be almost autumnal in its ferocity.

  ‘Conscript Fathers. Before I say anything about our Republic – which I think myself bound to say at the present time – I will explain to you briefly why I recently left the city and then why I returned.’ He paused for a heartbeat. Actor as much as orator, ensuring the rapt attention of his audience.

  ‘While I believed that the Republic at last was feeling proper respect for your wisdom and authority, I thought that it was my duty to remain as a sort of sentinel. A duty which was imposed upon me by my positions as a senator and an ex-consul. I did not go anywhere, nor did I ever stop watching out for the Republic, from the day on which we were summoned to meet in the Temple of Tellus; two days after the death of Gaius Julius Caesar. In that temple, as far as I could, I laid the foundations of peace, and renewed the ancient precedent set by the Athenians. I even used the Greek word meaning bear no malice, which that city employed in settling political disputes. And I gave my vote to the motion that all memory of the controversy that existed then ought to be wiped out forever…’

  Sitting in his usual place among the Senate secretaries, Adonis recorded every word that the great orator declaimed, secretly thankful that the old man was clearly still unwell. And speaking, therefore, more slowly than usual. For his expertise with Tiro’s shorthand was enabling him to make one verbatim record for the Senate and another, secretly, for the Centurion Artemidorus and his Tribune Enobarbus. The second record to be elaborated more accurately still by his almost perfect memory of every tone and inflection in Cicero’s voice as he spoke.

  Getting into his stride, now, the great lawyer took hold of the folds of his toga nearest his left shoulder with his left hand, drew himself up even further and continued as the gale raved outside, ‘The speech made by Marcus Antonius at that time was also a thoroughly admirable one.’ He gestured grandly, reasonably, forgivingly, with his right hand and continued…

  But then, over the next hour as measured by the water clocks beside the secretaries, the tone of Cicero’s speech began to change. In content as well as in delivery. When Antony and his Co-consul Dolabella had behaved according to the wishes of the Senate as interpreted by Cicero himself, they had been good and upright leaders. But, little by little, they had altered. Lists of Caesar’s notes and plans as accepted by the Senate had been added to – he did not say forged – and unica by unica inch by inch the two consuls had begun to leech power away from the Senate and into their own grasp. Their focus had moved away from performing their constitutional duties and towards grasping more and more naked power. Where was Antony now? Not leading the debate as was his duty but hurrying towards Brundisium to make sure of the legions landing there! And so what had started out as a constitutional friendship between the two arms of government was now marred by growing distrust. And even fear.

  Adonis felt his blood run cold as he recorded what the orator was saying: ‘I wish you could remember your grandfather, Antony. You have often heard me speak about him. Do you think that he would have been willing to seek even immortality at the price of being feared? What he considered life, what he considered prosperity, was being equal to the rest of we citizens in freedom. And first among equals only in worthiness. I should prefer that most bitter day of his death to the domination of Lucius Cinna which you are trying to reproduce yourself. Cinna, by whom your own grandfather was most barbarously murdered!’

  The general’s not going to like this! thought Adonis, his stylus busily recording the words as his ears noted the sneering tone. This amounts to a declaration of war! What is the old man up to?

  But then things got even worse as Cicero continued relentlessly, his voice echoing in the hushed, horror-stricken chamber.

  ‘But why should I try to make an impression on you by merely speaking? For, if the death of Gaius Caesar cannot scare you into choosing the love of the people rather than their fear, no speech of mine will do any good.’ The right hand made that sweeping gesture once again. Encompassing Dolabella and the tiers of Antony’s supporters sitting opposite. ‘And those men who think you are happy wielding power through fear are miserable themselves,’ he boomed. ‘No one is ever happy if he lives on such terms that he may be put to death not merely with impunity, but even to the great glory of his killer!’ Again that dramatic pause. The heartbeat of rhetoric as studied by every patrician boy. But rarely wielded as effectively as this.

  ‘Therefore, Antony, who I address even in your absence, change your mind, I beg you. Look back upon your ancestors. Govern the Republic in such a way that your fellow citizens may rejoice that you were born. No one can live a long life and be happy or famous otherwise.’

  ‘By Jupiter Optimus Maximus,’ said Adonis to himself, watching the point of his stylus write the words down twice. Faintly surprised that it wasn’t trembling more than it was. ‘The old man has just threatened Antony with the same fate as Caesar! In public. In front of the Senate!’

  ix

  ‘Has he run mad?’ asked Artemidorus rhetorically, a little later in the office of Quintus’ villa. ‘You’re sure he said this, Adonis? And in the way you acted it out?’

  Adonis nodded. Venus, at his, side nodded automatically. The mimicry of expression and movement between the almost identical twins was disturbing until you got used to it, thought Artemidorus. Which in his case was not yet. But it echoed the equally disturbing manner in which Adonis had brought Cicero and his bitter words to life. He leaned forward and continued.

  ‘Then we have a problem. Several, in fact. First, do we take this to Antony in Brundisium at once? Secondly, if we decide to do so, who should be the messenger? Because, thirdly, Cicero seems to have put the general on some kind of death list with these words. Therefore, fourthly, someone has to go through his villa checking the security. Seeing whether the other Praetorians are all they’re cracked up to be…’

  ‘You don’t need to worry about the first and second problems,’ s
aid Quintus wisely. ‘Adonis, you said the Senate was full?’

  Venus and Adonis nodded.

  ‘Then if Dolabella hasn’t sent word yet, someone else certainly will have.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Artemidorus. ‘And, now I think of it, word will have gone to Caesar Octavius as well. I’ll check with Ferrata when I see him. That reminds me. Hercules. Can you relieve him? Keep an eye on Caesar and the comings and goings around him. And try to stay dry. There’s quite a storm…’

  The giant nodded amenably and vanished. Though just how he was going to make his enormous frame both waterproof and unremarkable in the streets round Agrippa’s family home, the secret agent could hardly guess.

  He caught Puella’s eye. But nothing in her gaze or expression moved away from the serious consideration she was giving their problem. It was as though she was two people, he thought. Out here she was a mixture of Athena and Artemis – the wise huntress. As focused as the light from one of Archimedes’ ship-burning mirrors. In the bed chamber, she was Aphrodite, astonishingly inventive and limitlessly wanton.

  Later that afternoon, in a dry spell, Artemidorus and Quintus made their first assessment of the security at Antony’s villa. Possibly because the general was away in Brundisium, possibly because of the suddenly autumnal weather, the Praetorians were relaxed. The guards lined along the via were more interested in each other and their conversations than in the comings and goings of strangers. The pair of spies reached the door without being challenged. Even here, the password remained Hercules. Which was their second guess after Fulvia. The guard was not unduly worried by the first incorrect attempt. ‘That was yesterday’s,’ he explained amenably. ‘It’s one or the other. You just have to remember which.’

  Neither the centurion nor his associate was impressed by any of this, but they made no fuss about it at the moment. Instead, having been admitted to the villa, they came back out again immediately and went down the side to the posticum servants’ entrance. Where they employed the keys they bought from the housebreakers in Pompeii. The second one unlocked the door and they walked straight into the unguarded areas beside the culina kitchen.