Leon Garfield's Shakespeare Stories

by Leon Garfield

  “O Antony,” protested Brutus, much moved by the young man’s grief, “beg not your death of us!” and he promised that, when the frightened people had been calmed, he would satisfy him with good reasons for Caesar’s death.

  Antony nodded; and, on a sudden impulse that was the mark of his nature, he shook each man by his bloody hand, as if to enrol himself among the givers of liberty. Brutus’s wish was gratified. Mark Antony was their friend. All he asked in return, was leave to speak at Caesar’s funeral. A small request.

  “You shall, Mark Antony,” said Brutus warmly.

  “Brutus, a word with you!”

  It was Cassius. He beckoned Brutus away.

  “You know not what you do,” he warned. “Do not consent!”

  He did not trust Mark Antony and feared what he might say. But Brutus brushed his fears aside. He had foreseen that danger and was prepared. Antony would speak only after he himself had addressed the people and given them the reason for Caesar’s death. He was not to blame Brutus and his companions, nor was he to say more in praise of Caesar than was proper for a friend. If Antony did not agree to these conditions, he was not to speak at all.

  “Be it so,” murmured Antony when Brutus told him. “I do desire no more.”

  “Prepare the body, then, and follow us,” said Brutus; and, with a reassuring smile at the still troubled Cassius, led the way outside to face the people of Rome.

  Antony was alone in the silent building. Around him, the pale columns grew upward, losing themselves in shadows; and on the floor, like the track of a hunted deer, were smears and spots and puddles of blood.

  Antony knelt. With trembling hands he uncovered Caesar’s face. He stared at it long and hard, as if to engrave each savage wound upon his memory for ever. Then he looked up; and with eyes that blazed with grief and rage, he vowed so terrible a revenge for the foul crime that all Italy would bleed for it!

  The news of Caesar’s death rushed through the city like a wind, whipping up excitement, fear and bewilderment. The great man, the fixed star that had held all in place, was gone! The world was in darkness, even at noon!

  But to Brutus, the world was already a brighter and a nobler place now that the danger of Caesar’s ambition had been cut off. He stood on the steps of the Capitol with all Rome crowding to hear him.

  “Romans, countrymen, and lovers,” he shouted, striving to calm the huge tide of people that rose and fell before him like an unruly sea, “hear me for my cause!”

  He told them why Caesar had been killed; and they cheered. He told them they were free; and they cheered. He told them they were proud Romans, and they cheered till the very air was dazed; not for what he said, but because he was the noble Brutus who would tell them what to do. Then, when Mark Antony appeared, with two servants bearing Caesar’s sheeted body, which they laid upon a hastily prepared bier, he waved his dagger, still bright with Caesar’s blood, over his head and cried that even as he had killed Caesar for the good of Rome, he would kill himself if Rome should ever need his death!

  “Live, Brutus, live, live!” roared the crowd. “Let him be Caesar!”

  Brutus stared at them, amazed. Was it possible that they wanted another tyrant so soon after they had been saved from one?

  “My countrymen—” he pleaded, but they would not listen; and he was compelled to beg them, over and over again, to stay and hear Mark Antony before they let him depart, with “Let him be Caesar!” still ringing in his ears.

  Brutus and the conspirators had gone. Antony was alone before the people of Rome. He came forward. The crowd stirred impatiently. After the success of Brutus, Antony was a slight figure on the steps. He began to speak, humbly. He said he spoke by permission of Brutus and his friends; but the crowd, catching only the name, angrily warned him to speak no ill of the noble Brutus. Antony bowed his head.

  “You gentle Romans—” he began again; but the crowd was still restless. Suddenly he took a step towards Caesar’s bier. The dead man’s arm had slipped from the shroud and was hanging down, like butcher’s meat. Quickly, Antony took it up, and, kissing the half-clenched hand, laid it across Caesar’s breast. It was simply done, and with perfect naturalness; but, like the artless gesture of a skilful actor, it caught every eye.

  “Friends, Romans, countrymen,” he shouted, in a voice that shook the very stones of Rome, “lend me your ears!”

  But there was no need. He had already seized attention by the throat; and he held it fast! The vast crowd stood motionless; wives turned from their husbands, young men from their loves, and even the ever-running children stopped, stared, and listened as Mark Antony spoke of the dead.

  Cautiously at first, and ever-mindful of the need to please his hearers with praise for Brutus, he began to conjure up the Caesar they had lost: a Caesar men might weep for, a Caesar who was good and just; a Caesar whose only ambition was for his country, and in whose mighty heart there was room enough for love of every soul in Rome.

  He spoke as a simple, honest man to simple, honest men. As Cassius had feared, he spoke not to their reason, but to their feelings—

  “Bear with me,” he cried, his eyes fiery with tears, “my heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, and I must pause till it come back to me!”

  A murmuring of pity sprang up, ruffling through the crowd and shivering it, like a sudden change of wind. Swiftly, he began to work upon it, until the shivering became a heaving and swelling, like the breathing of a giant beast. He showed the people a parchment. It was Caesar’s will. The crowd pressed forward. Antony drew back. It was wrong for the people to know that their Caesar had loved them so well that he had made them all his heirs. It might turn them against the ‘honourable men’ who had stabbed Caesar to death!

  “They were villains, murderers!” shouted the crowd, enraged with grief and greed. “The will! Read the will!”

  But still Antony held off, knowing that each time he dammed the ever-increasing tide it would gather in strength.

  “If you have tears, prepare to shed them now!” he cried, and held up, for all to see, Caesar’s robe, torn and bloody from dagger-thrusts, as if wild beasts had been rending it; and then, with one fierce movement, he snatched away the shroud and showed the people Caesar himself, the man who had loved them, hacked and mangled by his friends!

  Only then, when the people’s fury had mounted to its utmost pitch, did he read the will. For every man, a sum of money, and Caesar’s orchards and gardens and walks had been left to the people for them to enjoy for ever!

  “Here was a Caesar!” shouted Antony, as the crowd roared and howled for vengeance on the cruel murderers. “When comes such another?”

  “Never, never!” came the huge reply; and there was scarcely time for Antony to cover the body for decency’s sake, before, like a bloody banner, it was borne triumphantly aloft!

  “Mischief, thou art afoot,” whispered Antony as he hastened away. “Take thou what course thou wilt!” and the maddened multitude, like a monstrously swollen river, burst its banks!

  It rushed through the city, smashing windows, tearing out the frames and sweeping all to destruction in its path, with the dead Caesar, like a piece of wreckage on a raging tide, tossed this way and that, now down, now bolt-upright and grinning horribly at his revenge!

  There was a man walking peaceably in a street. He was a quiet, humble fellow, a poet, a dreamer of sweet dreams, who had never done the world any harm. Suddenly the crowd came upon him. Fiercely, they demanded his name. By ill-luck, it was Cinna—

  “Tear him to pieces!” screamed the crowd. “He’s a conspirator!”

  “I am Cinna the poet! I am Cinna the poet!” pleaded the poor wretch; but his name was still Cinna so they tore him, shrieking, limb from limb. Tyranny was dead; and so was Cinna the poet.

  Then with howls and yells and blazing brands, the crowd, more terrible by far than the wild apparitions that had stalked the streets in the prophetic storm, rushed away to wreak its vengeance on the conspirators!
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  In Mark Antony’s house, three men sat at a table that was coldly laid for death. One was Antony himself; another was Lepidus, a sturdy soldier with valuable legions at his command; the third was a pale, precise young man, younger, even, than Antony, who glanced with thin-lipped disapproval at the empty bottles and faded remembrances of ladies that littered the room. He was Octavius, grand-nephew of Caesar and heir to his mighty name.

  “Prick him down, Antony,” he murmured, nodding towards a list of names that lay upon the table between them.

  Antony looked down and, with a careless stroke of his pen, condemned yet another man to death. Not for such men as these was there the foolish magnanimity of a Brutus who had once spared Antony’s life! It needed but the faintest shadow cast on a man’s loyalty for him to be dragged from his bed, his throat cut, and his possessions seized.

  It was a dangerous time. The murder of Caesar had split the land and unleashed the terror of war. Brutus and Cassius had fled from the wrath of the people and were, even now, gathering armies beyond Rome. More and more money was wanted for soldiers to march against them. With a wave of his hand, Antony despatched Lepidus to Caesar’s house to fetch his will. The promised legacies would have to be cut off. Everything was needed to pay for the war.

  “This is a slight unmeritable man,” said Antony contemptuously, when Lepidus had gone; and he proposed that, once the fellow had served his turn, he and Octavius should rid themselves of him.

  “But he’s a tried and valiant soldier,” protested Octavius.

  “So is my horse,” said Antony.

  Octavius let it pass. He had no wish to quarrel with Antony. Young as he was, he was already politician enough to know better than to mingle feelings with policy. Nothing must be allowed to deflect them from their chief purpose, which was the destruction of Brutus and Cassius and all who had inclined to them. He stood up, and, looking over Antony’s shoulder, observed with cold satisfaction that the list of names was black with spots of death.

  Brutus, encamped near Sardis in far-off Asia Minor, also needed money for war. He had sent to Cassius; but had been denied. Now, with his huge army stretched out across the fields like a monstrous harvest of steel, waving and glinting as far as the eye could see in the setting sun, he waited outside his tent for some explanation from his friend.

  His old calmness had forsaken him. His heart, already heavy with bad news from home, had been stirred to anger by Cassius’s doubtful behaviour, not only in denying him money, but because he had dared to plead for a man that he, Brutus, had punished for taking bribes. Even in war, their hands must be clean and their hearts unspotted.

  “Most noble brother, you have done me wrong!” were Cassius’s first words when they met, and spoken loud.

  He had come with his officers, ahead of his marching legions, and now confronted Brutus. He, too, was an angry man; and, unlike his friend, made no effort to hide it. He had not liked the manner in which Brutus had reproached him for seeking to defend his guilty officer. He stood, breathing deeply, his brow dark and his fists clenched; and saw himself reflected, Medusa-like, in Brutus’s too-bright breastplate: a frowning fellow in armour that was worn and soiled from hard fighting, very like the man himself.

  Quietly, Brutus bade him come inside his tent. It was not wise for discord between generals to be in the public gaze. Accordingly, they dismissed their officers and, with an outward show of harmony, retired into Brutus’s tent. But once the heavy, dim interior had enclosed them and shut them away from curious eyes, the division between them sprang wide apart.

  The cause was money: money denied, and money got from bribery, which Brutus hated and despised. Private grief and the multiplying troubles of war had so stiffened his pride and encased him in the armour of his honour, that he could not forgive even the smallest falling away from honesty, least of all when he saw it in his friend.

  “Let me tell you, Cassius,” he said, as if to an underling, “you yourself are much condemned to have an itching palm . . .”

  “I an itching palm!” cried Cassius, unable to believe that Brutus could address him so contemptuously.

  “Remember March, the Ides of March remember. Did not great Julius bleed for justice’ sake?” went on Brutus, as if careless of the deep hurt he had inflicted. “Shall we now contaminate our fingers with base bribes? . . . I had rather be a dog and bay the moon, than such a Roman.”

  “Brutus, bait not me,” Cassius pleaded, striving with all his might to control his outraged heart. “You forget yourself. I am a soldier, I, older in practice, abler than yourself to make conditions!”

  “Go on! You are not, Cassius.”

  “I am.”

  “I say you are not.”

  “Urge me no more!” warned Cassius, his hand going helplessly to his sword. “Have mind upon your health!”

  “Away, slight man!” jeered Brutus; and, while Cassius spent himself in useless rage, he pricked and stabbed and hacked him with words as cold and sharp as steel, never giving him rest, ever accusing, ever condemning, until Cassius, staggering even as Caesar had staggered under the dagger-thrusts, could endure no more.

  “Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come,” he wept, sinking to his knees, “revenge yourselves alone on Cassius, for Cassius is aweary of the world . . .” He drew his dagger and offered it to Brutus. “Strike as thou didst at Caesar,” he begged; “for I know, when thou didst hate him worst, thou lov’dst him better than ever thou lov’dst Cassius.”

  They stared at one another, these two friends who had come so far together since the Ides of March, and marvelled that it should have come to this: that one should now be begging his death of the other.

  “Sheathe your dagger,” muttered Brutus, suddenly ashamed; and, with an effort, thrust aside his private sorrow and confessed that he had been ill-tempered.

  At once, Cassius, as quick to forgive as he was in everything, smiled. “Give me your hand!” he cried.

  “And my heart too,” answered Brutus gladly; and their hands were clasped once more in friendship. He called for his servant Lucius to bring a bowl of wine.

  “I did not think you could have been so angry,” murmured Cassius, as they waited.

  “O Cassius,” sighed Brutus, “I am sick of many griefs;” and then, unable any longer to hide the aching desolation in his heart, he told Cassius that Portia was dead.

  Cassius drew in his breath sharply. “How ’scaped I killing when I crossed you so?” he whispered, in a rush of pity for his friend. “O insupportable and touching loss! Upon what sickness?”

  No sickness but fear: fear for her husband, and fear of Antony and Octavius’s growing strength. She had killed herself.

  “Speak no more of her,” pleaded Brutus, as Lucius came in with wine and with lighted tapers that changed the dark tent into a solemn golden cave.

  The friends drank. There was a sound of voices outside. Lucius departed and a moment later, brought in two officers, Messala and Titinius. Brutus bade them be seated . . .

  “Portia,” sighed Cassius, his thoughts still with the lively lady whose dear love and sweet honesty had lightened Brutus’s life, “art thou gone?”

  “No more, I pray you!” whispered Brutus urgently; and, turning to the officers was, in a moment, his calm, unshaken self.

  He had letters from Rome. Mark Antony and Octavius, with their armies, were marching towards Philippi. Messala nodded. He also had had letters confirming it. In addition, he had heard that a hundred senators had been put to death. Brutus had heard the same.

  “Had you your letters from your wife, my lord?” asked Messala gently.

  Brutus shook his head. Messala asked if his letters had contained any news of his wife? Again Brutus shook his head. Messala glanced quickly at Titinius, and in that glance it was plain that he knew of Portia’s death and dreaded telling Brutus of it. Cassius scowled and turned away. His heart ached for his friend.

  “Then like a Roman bear the truth I tell,” said Messala steadily
, “for certain she is dead . . .”

  Brutus bowed his head. “Why, farewell, Portia,” he murmured, and Messala and Titinius marvelled at his fortitude; but Cassius knew that such fortitude was paid for with a sea of inward tears.

  “Well, to our work,” said Brutus, abruptly dismissing all grief for the immediate necessity. “What do you think of marching to Philippi presently?”

  Cassius was against it. It was wiser, he reasoned, for the enemy to come to them, and so waste himself with journeying. But Brutus knew better. The enemy was more likely to gain in strength from marching through a friendly countryside, whereas they themselves were already at the height of their power and could only decline.

  “There is a tide in the affairs of men,” he said, “which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and miseries.” He paused; then went on: “We must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.”

  There was silence. Then one by one, his companions, their faces glowing in the tapers’ yellow light, nodded. It was agreed. Tomorrow they were to set out for Philippi and the battle that would decide their fates. Quietly they took their leave.

  Presently Brutus was alone. All but one of the tapers had been extinguished and the camp was quiet; but he could not sleep. He called for Lucius to play some music to him. The boy came, stumbling and clutching his lute, still half in his dreams.

  “This is a sleepy tune,” smiled Brutus as the music began. Then it ceased; the boy was fast asleep. Brutus gazed at him, enviously; but did not wake him. Gently he took the instrument from his hands and put it aside, lest it break in falling to the floor. He drew his seat close to the taper and tried to read; but the flame was sickly: it shook and trembled like a fevered spirit.

  “How ill this taper burns!” he muttered, and laid his book aside.