by Peter Tonkin
The general and his wife were pacing almost apprehensively. The soldier stood at ease, his helmet beneath his right arm. His jaw set. His eyes narrow. The scar above his left eye pulling the dark wing of his brow upwards. Giving his set face a quizzical look. Which actually matched his inner thoughts. Disturbed that he had fulfilled his orders and brought Caesar Octavius directly to Antony, only to find the general’s door locked against him. Shocked to see these usually insightful people making such an error of judgement. But still unable to find a way of convincing them that Caesar Octavius was a force to be reckoned with. That even the name Caesar seemed more powerful than either Antony or Fulvia imagined. That a man called Caesar was at least deserving of courtesy. Understanding that he had, in fact, inherited a great deal more than just a name. And doing all this immediately. Before their time ran out.
‘He’s brought three thousand men with him, General. My Lady,’ he tried one last time. ‘They’re making camp on the Field of Mars now. While he is standing waiting right outside your door. Eager to make contact. To start planning an alliance to oppose the so-called Libertores. And when his men call him Caesar they mean it,’ he persisted. ‘They don’t see a sickly boy. They see Divus Julius reborn.’
Artemidorus’ concern was growing into a dull certainty that he was losing this argument. Antony and his wife were relentlessly joining the numbers of people all too willing to underestimate Caesar Octavius without actually having got to know him. ‘He has two large wagons loaded with gold – taxes and gifts,’ he persisted. ‘And you know that money is power. He’s now promised his followers five thousand sestercii each if they stay loyal. They believe him. Many of them are Divus Julius Caesar’s veterans. Tried and tested. Armed and ready to follow him anywhere. Against anyone he proscribes. He has contacts with Lucius Cornelius Balbus – who has yet more of Caesar’s gold. And he has brought Caesar’s relative, the General and Triumphator Quintus Pedius along with him. Who has promised not only his support but the money Caesar left him in his will. And Quintus Pedius says the other beneficiary Lucius Pinarius Scarpus is willing to do the same!’
He drew an unsteady breath. Persisted in the face of the ill-disguised hostility of his temperamental general and his wife. ‘Caesar Octavius may still be young but he is by no means the callow youth who accompanied the Divine Julius in Spain and went to Apollonia to study. He has grown in power and standing, General. And you need to understand this fact whether you like it or not. Your aims are the same as his, though his plans involve more direct action. The moment he arrived in Rome he came to see you, expecting a welcome and some sort of agreement between you. And he has been waiting outside your door for too long already. You must invite him in. Talk to him. Better to be friends than enemies.’
‘This is ridiculous!’ snapped Antony. ‘If I didn’t know you better, Septem, I’d suspect that some of the gold the boy has stolen has found its way into your purse!’
‘As you say, General. You know me better than to suspect that. And, you may recall, that I am bringing him to you and suggesting that you see him under direct orders that you issued to me yourself.’ The soldier fought to keep the anger out of his voice. Not very successfully.
‘I, however, do not know you better than that!’ snapped Fulvia. ‘No matter what you think your orders were you have exceeded your authority! You are dismissed Centurion!’
Artemidorus waited a heartbeat until Antony, frowning, nodded. He slammed to attention. ‘Faciemus quod iubet… We will do what is ordered and at every command we will be ready,’ he grated. Then he turned on his heel, putting his headgear back in place, and marched out of the atrium.
On his way along the vestibulum entrance hall, he met Enobarbus who had just entered. ‘I think Antony is making a bad mistake, Tribune,’ he said in a half-whisper, pausing, apparently to lace his cheek flaps together under his chin. ‘You must convince him to see Caesar Octavius. Treat him with some respect.’
‘I’ll do what I can,’ said Enobarbus as he strode past. ‘But I wouldn’t wager on my success. Particularly as the boy seems to have run out of patience with all this hanging around.’
When the secret agent stepped into the street outside Antony’s villa he was struck at once by how quiet it was. When he entered to report to Antony, the broad via roadway had been crowded with boisterous supporters all grouped round Caesar Octavian Octavius, Agrippa and Rufus. They were all gone now. Frowning, he ran down the empty roadway until he reached the Temple of Tellus which stood nearby. And there, in the middle distance, he saw Octavius and his two friends walking swiftly at the side of Marcus Fulvius Nobilitor. On their way, no doubt, to see what sort of welcome Lucius Balbus would offer them.
ii
Some hours later, Artemidorus was seated in the tent he shared with the other centurions of the Seventh Legion’s First Cohort. Which he used as an office when they were out on duty. Bitterly nursing a sense of failure to which he was unaccustomed. Like a general who has lost a battle for the first time. He heard the approach of Tribune Enobarbus by the sound made by the legionaries he passed. As they crashed to attention, one after another, barking his name and rank. The noise growing louder and louder.
The spy knew the news his tribune was bringing was unlikely to be good. Only something out of the ordinary would have brought Enobarbus here in person. He was rising warily to his feet, therefore, when the tribune raised the tent flap and stooped to enter. The movement of his head and shoulders made a leather bag swing clear of his hip. ‘So, Tribune,’ he said grimly. ‘I see one of us at least has joined the general’s speculator courier service. I wonder which it is?’
‘He wants you out of the city for a while Septem,’ said Enobarbus, standing erect and shrugging the bag off his shoulder.
‘He does?’ Artemidorus raised one eyebrow quizzically. The left one, which was already pulled higher than the right by the scar on his forehead. The effect was enough to make Enobarbus shake his head ruefully.
‘You’re right. She does. But the general’s happy to give you something worthwhile to do while you’re away.’
‘Carrying letters?’
‘Carrying very much more than letters, Septem. Looking like a speculator military courier perhaps, but using that as a cover, for speculators can also be spies, can they not?. Do you still have the pass he gave you directing anyone who read it to do anything in their power to help you?’
‘I have.’
‘Good. You may need it. But use it sparingly.’
‘That goes without saying if I’m working undercover. My name and rank are written in the first line. And my contubernium? My nest of spies?’
‘I’m keeping them here,’ said the tribune. ‘I have work for them to do. But you can take one companion. To watch your back.’
‘It will need watching, will it?’
‘From what you’ve told me about the stranger with the sôlênarion bow, Septem, I’d say it certainly does. And so do you. Back, front and sides.’
‘In that case, I’ll take Quintus if you can spare him.’
‘He’s the one I can spare most easily,’ admitted Enobarbus. ‘He’s the only one I can’t use for undercover work. It’s all too obvious what he is. He’ll never change. And at the moment I have no mission for a tough, experienced, bloody-minded, occasionally insubordinate triarius.’
‘But he might make the perfect companion for a courier,’ mused Artemidorus. ‘Ex-legionary. Bodyguard. Ten a sestercius. Unremarkable. As good as a gladiator. Better, in fact…’
‘Just so! Right. That’s settled then. Let’s sit down and I’ll brief you with the general’s thoughts and plans…’
iii
The bireme was called Aurora. She was a handy trading vessel. The crew, including the forty-eight oarsmen seated in two twelve-line decks, the twelve replacement oarsmen, ten deckhands and the militari officers who crewed her, were all freedmen. Like Lucius their praefectus captain. Earning varying quantities of the profits garnered from voyaging
mainly in the Tyrrhenian Sea up and down the coast between Massalia and Neapolis. Occasionally venturing across the Bay under Vesuvio to Pompeii, as captain Lucius planned to do on this occasion. But rarely heading further south than that.
Aurora’s home port was Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber. And that was where Artemidorus and Quintus joined her as she began a trading voyage southward. Promising to come to port in Antium as well as Neapolis and Pompeii. Where many of the letters in Antony’s pouch were due to be delivered. And many of the messages passed on by Enobarbus during the briefing, were due to be discussed. The vessel was laden with Celtic cloth and jewellery as well as stone and other building materials – mostly wood from the forests in the north. The cloth and jewellery were destined for the markets inland behind Antium. The building materials were destined further south – Neapolis, Herculaneum and Pompeii, like Rome itself, were burgeoning. And in Pompeii they planned to pick up more building materials – mostly marble from the regions further south – that would be transported back to Rome. Together with anything else they could purchase and stow. Lucius was hopeful for some southern wines from the vines growing on the rich slopes of Vesuvio that he would take back on his way up to Massalia.
The journey was among the first of the season, for the weather was only just becoming reliable enough to make commercial voyages possible. Even so, Captain Lucius Silus and his pilot Otho kept their vessel within sight of the shore at all times. Otho the pilot standing at the massive helmsman’s Herculean shoulder counting off the bays and estuaries where they could run for cover if the weather turned foul on them.
Like most Romans, Quintus hated the sea. And with good reason. For, even in a near calm, he was uncontrollably seasick. ‘If he offers any more sacrifices to Neptune and Poseidon,’ observed Lucius Silus as he watched Quintus heaving over the side, ‘he’ll assure us of the calmest and most successful voyage ever.’
Artemidorus grunted his agreement, unwilling to be amused by his friend’s distress. Or the wry humour of such a new acquaintance. He himself loved ships and sailing. He had spent some of his youth and young manhood aboard vessels ranging from Cilician pirate liburnian raiding galleys to the massive quinquiremes with their five banks of oars that Pompey sent to stamp piracy out in the days when he and Caesar had been friends. Not to mention the naval actions in which he had been involved as part of the civil wars that started when the two of them fell out.
The breeze was gentle but persistent and from the north – as usual this time of year. So the labours of the oarsmen were soon replaced by the full belly of the big square-rigged sail. With its fanciful depiction of the rising sun as a beautiful goddess. And even though the oarsmen were able to take a welcome rest from their labours, Aurora was making as good time as a horse might, moving between a canter and a gallop. But her route was directly from port to port to port without the need to follow roads. Even ones as straight as the Via Appia. And, of course, courtesy of the system of faros lighthouses spreading southward along the coast, she would continue running at this speed through the night as well as the day. Allowing for rest periods for the oarsmen when they began to row again.
But the distance between Ostia and Antium was little more than thirty Roman military miles. And even staying in sight of the coast, Aurora’s course was as straight as any Roman road. Having sailed with the morning tide soon after jentaculum breakfast, Aurora should be docked and unloading soon after prandium lunch. Which would put Artemidorus and Quintus – if he recovered in time – at their first destination by the early afternoon.
Artemidorus and Quintus ran ashore as soon as the ship came into harbour and the work of unloading her began. The legionary recovering with astonishing rapidity the moment he stood on solid ground. Their destination sat on a clifftop overlooking the bay. They could have walked with little trouble – but the spy wished to arrive with the pomp that might be expected of Antony’s personal emissary. And so they hired a pair of showy horses and rode. They clattered up the paved approach to the villa, therefore, and slid to the ground at the foot of a wide flight of marble steps as an ostiarius doorkeeper came out of the porticoed entrance to greet them and discover their business. Followed by a couple of house slaves who ran forward to take their mounts.
‘I have come directly from Consul and General Mark Antony,’ said Artemidorus with all the impatient swagger to be expected of the character he played at Trebonius’ villa. ‘I bring letters and messages by word of mouth for the two senators and senior judges staying here. Your master Praetor Peregrinus Gaius Cassius Longinus and his guest Praetor Urbanus Marcus Junius Brutus.’
‘They are both at home,’ said the ostiarius, bowing. ‘Please accompany me and wait in the atrium while I advise them of your arrival and find out if they will see you.’
‘They’d better,’ whispered Artemidorus under his breath to Quintus as they strode into the vestibulum. ‘Unless they want to start a war at once.’
iv
Unlike Caesar Octavius dancing attendance on Antony, Artemidorus and Quintus were not kept waiting at all. Quite the reverse. No sooner had Cassius’ ostiarius doorkeeper whispered to the atriensis major-domo and the latter vanished into an adjoining room, than Cassius and Brutus both appeared. Their wives Tertulla and Portia beside them. And, indeed, Brutus and Tertulla’s mother, Caesar’s still-lovely ex-mistress Servilia.
Servilia’s presence set off a chain of association in the spy’s mind. One that took him straight back to the conversation Antony had had with Marcus Tuillius Cicero about Caesar’s dying words. Here were Brutus and his mother. What had become of the legal case turning upon the possibility that Caesar himself was Brutus’ father?
But then his thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of another unexpected guest. Another soldier and senator. Pontius Aquila. The solid-bodied, square-faced, senator who had taken offence when Caesar had divided up his estate nearby, giving some of it to Servilia. And then mocked him for his refusal to stand during a triumph. He had never forgiven the theft or the humiliation. And was, therefore, one of the most fervent of the assassins. He glowered at Antony’s messengers now from beneath one long, thick eyebrow, as though adding them to the list of men he wished to murder next.
Artemidorus frowned as he met Aquila’s hostile gaze. But not through any emotion other than surprise. Aquila was supposed to be with Decimus Albinus up in Cisalpine Gaul. His visit here must be fleeting. And probably political in nature; bringing messages from one element of the divided Libertores to another.
Cassius, his relatives and guests had recently risen from a late lunch in the triclinium dining room, by the look of things. Cassius stopped now, and stared, narrow-eyed at Artemidorus. His expression a match for Pontius Aquila’s. ‘Do I know you?’ he snapped.
‘I am a member of Consul and General Mark Antony’s staff,’ answered Artemidorus easily. ‘You may well have seen me.’
‘Perhaps that’s it.’ Cassius didn’t sound convinced. Nor should he, thought Artemidorus. For he and Cassius had stood face to face before. During the hours after Caesar’s murder. But his closest dealings with the leaders of the so-called Libertores had been from behind another careful disguise. In that case, a thick, red, bushy beard. From beneath a freedman’s leather cap. His face occasionally further covered by the metal mask of a Samnite’s gladiatorial helmet. As he spied on the murderers in the Temple of Jupiter during the hours after their crime. And occasionally carried messages between them, Cicero and Antony. He had worked undercover in Brutus’ Roman villa as well. Not to mention kidnapping Brutus’ favourite body-slave the lovely Puella. But the family had been far too important – and preoccupied – to pay a mere workman much attention.
‘Come,’ snapped Cassius and turned. He led the family group, the messenger and his fully armed bodyguard through the tablinum office area and into the peristyle. Whose far wall had been removed so that the garden opened onto a veranda. Floored and balustraded with the sort of white marble the Aurora was due to bring no
rth from Neapolis and Pompeii. While the family took their ease on cushion-covered benches, Artemidorus took Antony’s letters out of his bag. Then he passed them into the imperiously raised hands of Cassius and Brutus, who broke the seals. Unrolled the papyrus sheets and more or less laboriously read the beautiful script written by Antony’s secretary.
As they did this, the two soldiers stood at attention while the women and Pontius Aquila talked quietly. Their conversation informing the spy that they had enjoyed a light lunch. That they were planning on bathing later. And that they were all due to visit Aquila’s villa, where Servilia was currently staying, later still, for a formal cena dinner. Servilia and Aquila clearly having come to some sort of accommodation over Caesar’s gift of Aquila’s estate to his long-time lover. While his ears were busy, Artemidorus let his gaze wander apparently innocently over the gathering frowns on the faces of Brutus and Cassius. Then out over the edge of the balustrade to the blue calm of the sea. Out of the corner of his eye he could just see the dock where Aurora was still being unloaded.
‘You know what is in these letters?’ demanded Cassius abruptly. His tone silencing the social chit-chat.
‘The basis, Praetor. Not the details.’
‘Antony says in my letter that you have further suggestions to add, which he does not wish to commit to paper at this time.’
‘Says that in mine, too,’ added Brutus.
The frowns on both men’s faces spread to those of their wives. Portia, noted Artemidorus, still looked pale and sickly. Caesar’s murder had been almost as hard on her as it had been on the victim.
‘The general suggests that it is not yet time for you to consider returning to Rome…’ Artemidorus began.
‘But…’ spat Brutus at once.
‘Even though you both still hold the posts of Praetor Senior Justice,’ he persisted. ‘And therefore have many duties and responsibilities. Not least the Ludi Cerialis games which Tribune Critoinius is overseeing. And the Ludi Apollonaris Apollo’s Games for which you are personally responsible Lord Brutus, as Praetor Urbanus Senior Law Officer in the city. But which Lord Antony is pleased to inform you his brother Gaius will organise if it is still too dangerous for you to return to the capital in person.’