The City War

by Sam Starbuck

  Brutus glanced at him. “Aristus was my teacher, and he is my friend.”

  “And he wants to be the shadow guiding you from behind a curtain. He doesn’t particularly like the company you keep.”

  Brutus couldn’t deny the latter, at any rate. Aristus was civil, but he hadn’t bothered to hide his dislike for Cassius’s influence on him.

  “You know what I’ve said about Caesar is true,” Cassius pressed.

  “I fear what you’ve said is true. I hope it isn’t.” He pushed away and stood, walking deeper into the water to rinse the mud away. “I need time to consider this, Gaius.”

  “We have time. Days here, and weeks before the Senate convenes again. But we don’t have years, Brutus, not even one. Caesar won’t allow that much time. He knows there are wolves watching him.” Cassius went to him, wrapping his arms around his chest from behind and resting his face against the nape of his neck. “You used to admire me when I was dangerous.”

  “I was an awestruck boy then.”

  “And now you’re a man, and nothing I do strikes awe in you,” Cassius said, sounding amused. “Don’t be afraid to show Rome your power, Marcus. You wear it more lightly than any other man in the Senate.”

  His hands dropped to Brutus’s waist, holding him gently. Brutus stood and watched the river flow past, felt the solid warmth of Cassius’s body behind his.

  How he had wanted this when he was young. How many risks had he taken for it over the years? His wife knew why he came here. His own sister sent him letters giving Cassius over to him. How much more could he do to preserve it?

  “I need to think,” he repeated, and Cassius exhaled against his neck. “I’ll tell you when I know. If you’re asking me to kill, give me that much.”

  “I would give you everything,” Cassius replied, but he let him go, and when Brutus turned he was already pulling on his tunic.

  The kitchen was bustling when they returned, but Brutus wasn’t hungry; he left Cassius to his foraging and went out to the yard instead to give orders for an afternoon’s riding and to look in on Tiresias.

  He found him cleaning out stalls, shoveling dung and mud into buckets to be carried away by another servant he’d apparently bullied into helping. Brutus watched the muscles in his arms flex as he worked. They weren’t thick, but they were developed enough to be the result of wrestling and hunting: man’s work. Tiresias was probably older than Brutus had thought—a full-grown woman, but a small young man.

  He’d heard stories of women who fought as men. The Amazons, of course, and there was Minerva, the masculine goddess of war. Tiresias’s namesake had been a prophet who, for a while, had been transformed into a woman. Bacchus, the old Greek Dionysus, was said to be able to change gender when he wished. His female devotees could rip a man to shreds when they were caught in his frenzied thrall.

  But those were all stories. Some might be true, but not in a way you could confirm, nothing you could touch or see. The boy before him wasn’t a story, he was a boy cursed by the gods of women to bear the wrong body. Brutus believed in the gods, but he rarely got the chance to see their handiwork for himself.

  Perhaps there was something divine about the boy, then. He should tread carefully. Keep him in the household, protect him. Who knew what kinds of blessings he might confer.

  He kept watching, shadowed in the barn doorway, as Tiresias leaned against the stall door and wiped sweat from his forehead, then wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands. Brutus realized the stall he’d been cleaning was the one where his horse had been kept, the big war charger he’d broken for his own. A shame to lose such a high-bred beast, but there were bigger prizes at stake.

  “When I was a young soldier, I had a fine horse like that,” he said, and Tiresias started, hastily wiping the last of the tears away while trying to look like he wasn’t. “I hadn’t raised him—he was a gift from my father—but he saw me through two campaigns before he took an archer’s arrow in the neck, here,” he said, and tapped his throat, high up near the jaw. “I didn’t let my men see it, but I cried for three nights over that horse.”

  “I wasn’t crying,” Tiresias said.

  “No, of course not,” Brutus agreed. “You understand it had to be done.”

  “Because he was stolen, or because he would have drawn my father here eventually?” Tiresias asked. Good to see the previous night’s encounter hadn’t cowed him; Brutus rather enjoyed his sly, clever ways.

  “Both. If he had found you out because of a horse, it’d only be just punishment for the theft. All the world is a balance, Tiresias, and the only way to maintain it is to be strong and correct.”

  Big words from the man considering killing a dictator to please his lover.

  “Yes, Dominus,” Tiresias said, not a hint of mockery in his tone, and squared his shoulders. “Will the Senator or his guests go riding today?”

  “I don’t know about the others yet. Look sharp and don’t stray too far. I’ll want my horse ready after the noon meal.”

  Tiresias nodded. “Anything else, Dominus?”

  Brutus smiled. “That will be all, Tiresias—oh, do you know where Aristus is?”

  “I think he’s in the atrium, Senator,” Tiresias said, and Brutus left him to his cleaning.

  Aristus wasn’t in the atrium when he reached the house, but it didn’t take long to find him in the peristylium among the plants and the mosaics. He was studying one of them—a battle scene—twisting his head to look up at the mounted men and the archers on a high, verdant rise of hill.

  “I hear you were bathing with Cassius this morning,” he said.

  “I was,” Brutus answered neutrally, unwilling to pick another fight over Aristus’s dislike of his friendship with Cassius.

  “I wish you would be careful.”

  “I’m always careful, Aristus. You taught me that.”

  “I suspect there’s more I could have taught you, but you’re too old and stubborn now. Or perhaps I am,” Aristus said, smiling to take the sting out of his words. “Is that you?” he continued, indicating a figure in the mosaic, central to the battle, fair hair finely wrought in tile.

  “Yes. That was Cyprus, when we annexed it. There’s Cato,” Brutus added, pointing out an older man who seemed to guide the battle from the rear. “A few other friends are in there somewhere, I think, but I’ve never paid it much attention. Porcia saw to all the decoration.”

  “It’s a decent likeness, anyway.”

  “Do you think? I never like to think I looked that clean in war,” Brutus said with a smile.

  “Well, politics is a dirtier business, and you seem clean enough now,” Aristus replied, ruffling his still-damp hair.

  “There’s nothing dirtier than war,” Brutus said quietly, ducking away. “Not even the meanest politics, Aristus.”

  “I suppose, but it’s a fine line. One begets the other.”

  “Perhaps.” Brutus shrugged. “They’ve both been my business in their time, though, and I prefer politics.”

  Aristus glanced at him. “I hope you’re not tempting fate, saying so.”

  Brutus looked back up at the rough mosaic portrait of himself: younger, stronger, probably a good deal stupider, and in the midst of war.

  “So do I,” he said.

  The days passed slowly at the villa rustica. The men spent their time discussing philosophy, or rode and hunted. Brutus managed to catch two sinewy hares—not much meat to them, but tasty enough when roasted over a fire they kindled on the spot. Cassius kept his peace about the treason he’d proposed, for which Brutus was grateful. It was on his mind often enough already.

  No matter how he turned it over in his head, it only made him feel sick and hollow. Cassius was a politician who understood power and hated its ill use, so perhaps he had the right of it. But Caesar was Princeps, and murder was murder. Brutus had killed often enough as a soldier and he’d sent men to die in war as a senator, but the city should have been safe from all that. Rome was inviolable.
r />   And Caesar was Rome. And therein lay the problem.

  He was out in the yard one afternoon, watching Tiresias exercise the horses, when Cassius appeared with a leather-wrapped bundle and a pair of clay lids from the big terracotta jars that held grain and olives and pickled fish in the kitchen storage room.

  “What on earth have you got there?” Brutus asked, and Cassius grinned, laying the flat round lids aside. He unlaced the leather binding and rolled out two wooden practice swords and a pair of wooden pugio daggers, weapons of the kind young boys trained with before military service.

  “I thought you might like a mock battle,” he said, tossing one of the swords to Brutus, who caught it by the thick, dull blade and flipped it around so the leather-bound grip smacked into his palm. Across the yard, Tiresias slowed his horse to a walk, neck craning to see what they were doing.

  “Been a while since I handled one of these,” Brutus said, hefting the wooden sword from hand to hand, getting the weight of it—lighter than the bronze and steel gladii he’d carried over the years, with the balance closer to the hilt. He reached for one of the short daggers, falling into the classic defensive pose, sword arm raised, dagger cocked in his left hand. Cassius swung his wrist around, turning the sword casually to get the feel of it, and picked up one of the lids to use as a makeshift shield.

  A pair of kitchen servants leaned out of the window, and a few more crowded the doorway of the side entrance to the villa, watching their masters. Tiresias had brought the horse to a stop, rising out of the stirrups; now he turned her back toward the stable, eyes never leaving Brutus and Cassius in the yard.

  “Do you remember training together in the legions?” Cassius asked as Brutus circled one way and he moved the other.

  “I remember everyone getting half-rations when you were caught buying sweet cakes from a prostitute when you should have been on patrol,” Brutus replied.

  “I remember you were primipilus of the trainees, and you gave that order.”

  Brutus grinned. “Be fair; I ate half-rations myself as well.”

  “Yes, that was why the men loved you,” Cassius said, making his first move, a feint with his sword that almost left Brutus open to a bludgeoning from the shield in Cassius’s left hand. He brought his own sword up and swung his dagger around, blocking the shield and trying to land a hit. Fighting shieldless was harder, required more dexterity and caution, but gave him twice the opportunity for doing injury.

  “You were so proud to fight for Rome,” Cassius continued, glancing Brutus’s blade off his shield and twisting to avoid the dagger. “I thought you must have thought me a child. Even as a young man, you seemed old and wise.”

  “I’m very good at faking it,” Brutus agreed, laughing as he dodged another feint and turned to catch Cassius in the ribs with an elbow. He tapped more gently than he would have in battle, but Cassius still grunted and retreated far enough to regroup. Brutus saw, over his shoulder, that Aristus had joined the servants. He sidestepped carefully, trying to get the sun out of his eyes, and caught a glimpse of Tiresias, currying the mare he’d been exercising out in front of the stable so he could still watch the fight.

  Cassius pushed in close, using the makeshift shield to his advantage. Brutus wrapped an arm around his neck, pinning him and pressing the tip of the dagger blade to his ribs. He couldn’t have thrust even if it had been real, since Cassius’s sword was blocking him, but it was a definite hit.

  “The things I did to prove myself to you,” Cassius murmured, too soft for anyone else to hear. He ducked out of the stranglehold, catching Brutus a glancing blow on the hip with the shield.

  They engaged earnestly in battle then, hits landing on both sides, and had no more breath for talking. It was good just to move, the simple give-and-take of combat so much less complicated than thinking, even less complicated than sex, all violence and instinct. Thrust, deflect, feint, shove, and retreat.

  Cassius landed an especially strong hit across Brutus’s thigh and he staggered, the muscle seizing up; he dropped the dagger and clutched his leg with his left hand, grunting.

  “All right, enough horseplay,” he said as Cassius tossed the shield aside, concern in his face. “There’s a reason old men get to be senators instead of soldiers, you know.”

  “Hardly old,” Cassius said. “Let me have a look.”

  “It’s fine, just a cramp.” Brutus hobbled to a nearby tree, leaning against it as he massaged the muscle. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Tiresias abandoning the horse to come running across the yard. “I’m all right, lad,” he called, and Tiresias skidded to a stop nearby, face turning pink.

  “Ah, the horse-boy has some liniment for you, I don’t doubt,” Cassius said mockingly. “Ever tended a war horse like him?”

  Tiresias shot a look of utter contempt at Cassius and knelt by Brutus’s leg. “Shall I fetch something for it?” he asked.

  “It’s fine, Tiresias,” Brutus said. “Get back to your horses.”

  “No, let’s see if he handles a sword as well as he does a gelding,” Cassius said, picking his wooden sword out of the dust. “You’re the son of an equestrian, aren’t you? Surely you’ve played at soldiering before.”

  “Cassius, don’t bother him. You’re two of him easily.”

  “I’ve been taught not to strike my elders,” Tiresias said over top of Brutus.

  “Oh, whelp, you’ll pay for that one.” Cassius tossed him the other sword. Tiresias caught it and, to Brutus’s horror, scooped up the jar lid Cassius had been using as a shield, charging the other man fearlessly. Cassius, laughing, dodged around him and smacked him lightly across the shoulders with his sword . . .

  Except Tiresias ducked and twisted, avoiding the brunt of the blow, rolling in the dust and reclaiming his feet as lightly as an acrobat as he fell into a fighting pose.

  Cassius tilted his head thoughtfully. Brutus outright stared. Cassius kept one eye on the boy while he picked up the dagger Brutus had dropped, turning it to get a solid grip. He lunged, and Tiresias darted aside, swinging his sword up and around but missing, barely, when Cassius shot an arm back to deflect it with his own.

  There was a fierceness to this fight that had been lacking in the one between himself and Cassius. Cassius was condescending but not indulgent in his fighting, and Tiresias seemed to be battling for his honor if not his life. Brutus rubbed his thigh and watched, concerned, as Cassius used size and experience to push the boy back. Tiresias staggered into a defensive crouch, but he couldn’t hold his ground; he was struggling just to stay upright when Cassius caught him on the side of the head with the grip of his dagger, and Tiresias yelped in pain. Brutus started forward, but Tiresias ducked and drove into Cassius’s belly, arms going around his waist as he pushed him to the ground. Tiresias rolled up first, but Cassius swung a leg around, knocked him flat, and stole the sword out of his hand, holding both of them to his throat as he straddled his waist.

  Brutus expected either Cassius to lean back triumphantly or for Tiresias to call an end to the fight, but neither happened. He saw Cassius’s shoulders strain lightly, and Tiresias tip his head back, trying to draw in air.

  “Cassius! Gaius Cassius!” Brutus bellowed, because Cassius was choking the boy, keeping him from giving a proper surrender. Cassius jerked in surprise, looked over his shoulder at Brutus, and then eased off, tossing the swords aside. He stood, then bent and offered Tiresias his hand up, not quite apologetically but without menace. Tiresias took it warily, hoisting himself to his feet. A red cross-hatch on his throat showed where the swords had pressed in.

  “He doesn’t fight too badly, for a horse-boy,” Cassius remarked to Brutus.

  Tiresias was bent over, hands on his knees, coughing and panting; when he realized both men were watching him, he straightened and pulled his shoulders back, chin raising.

  “And that’s why you don’t strike your elders,” Brutus said, and Tiresias’s lips turned up in a smile.

  “Lesson duly learned,” he s
aid hoarsely, rubbing his throat. “Thank you for the lesson, Senator Cassius. I’ll go back to the horses now, Dominus.”

  Brutus wanted to tell him to go easy, to find somewhere to rest and nurse his bruised throat, but Tiresias had already started walking toward the stables, one hand pressed to his chest.

  “I didn’t mean to do that,” Cassius said, not entirely regretfully.

  “He knew what he was getting into. That wasn’t the boy’s first fight, I think,” Brutus replied, watching Tiresias go.

  “Tough little thing. Why hasn’t he enlisted?”

  “Perhaps he prefers being a stable groom to a soldier,” Brutus said, thinking reservedly of the army—of mass bathing in the rivers, wrestling matches, the casual nudity even the officers engaged in.

  No, a boy like Tiresias wouldn’t do too well in the army of Rome. A shame; he was a fierce fighter.

  “If you boys are done showing off,” Aristus said as he pushed through the servants, who scattered before him, “A messenger from the city has just arrived.”

  To my beloved husband, Marcus Junius Brutus, Senator,

  Marcus, this letter is difficult to write, but my father’s spirit bids me take up the task of conveying unpleasant news to your ears. Do not worry about your wife; I am fine. I hope you are as well at the villa rustica as we are here in the city. Though I miss the comforting consistency of your person, I could not begrudge you a few days away from the heat and bustle of Rome. This is no summons from a nagging wife, my love; this is an affair of state.

  I trust that the news I have to share, while not unknown in the city and particularly to those of the Senate, will be locked behind your teeth and not spoken of until you return, as likewise the cares I confess I associate with it.