by Sam Starbuck
“No denying.” Diocles gave him a narrow look. “How are you? Enjoy yourself out in the farmlands?”
“Oh, yes. It’s peaceful, you know.” Brutus raised a hand to rub his face. “Good pastoral living. And you? How’s the city?”
“Too hot, but that’ll fade soon enough.”
“Summer seems to last longer each year.”
“You’ll pray for the heat when you’re my age and your joints won’t bend in the cold,” Diocles said, grinning. “But Rome carries on, whether old men creak or not.”
Brutus glanced around, eyes only, not turning his head.
“Does it?” he asked quietly.
Diocles heaved a sigh, wiping his face with his hands. “I take it you’ve heard the latest decrees.”
“The gist of them.”
“And your thoughts?”
Brutus chose his words carefully. “Caesar is well-known for his reforms.”
“Reforms is one word, I suppose.” Diocles leaned forward, lowering his voice. “Let’s not circle each other, Brutus. Neither of us likes it. You might be a young man still—”
“Perhaps to Diocles I’m a young man, but not to the young men of Rome.”
“Still. I knew your father, that’s young enough for me. But you do him credit, and you don’t flit about like these new boys. You belong with us in the old guard, and we know this is no way to run a republic. It’s the way to run an empire.”
Brutus nodded, lacing his fingers together. “I know it.”
“So?”
“So I’m home barely a day, Diocles. But I think . . .”
Brutus glanced up as a handful of other men entered and sat near them—the sons of patricians, young and indiscreet.
“I think it’s time I moved on,” Diocles said, standing. Brutus followed him to the door leading from the tepidarium to the caldarium, and a few feet into the corridor. They had a clear view of both doorways from here, and Diocles turned back when Brutus rested a hand on his shoulder. Brutus bent to speak in Diocles’s ear, chin brushing his temple.
“You know the temper of the city,” he said quietly. “You know what the Senate thinks, down to the last man. The last who matters, anyway. You can tell me who feels as we do.”
Diocles acknowledged it with a nod. “I can make a list—”
“No. Nothing written down. And I don’t need specifics, not yet. But if I were to come to you for guidance, you could send me to men of a like mind?”
“Yes. That, I could do.” Diocles turned his head to look at him. “What sort of mind do you have, Brutus?”
“How do you mean?”
“Is this a mind to depose the Princeps, or to reason with him?”
Brutus fell silent.
“Or something more?” Diocles asked.
“Don’t make me say it,” Brutus pleaded.
Diocles nodded again. “No, perhaps not. Not yet, at any rate.”
“Not yet.”
“Well. I can’t say you’re alone, even with plans like that. But then I assume you’ve already sounded out Cassius.”
“The less you know about Cassius—”
“Yes, of course.” Diocles hesitated. “You’d need to keep my name out of it. I’m too old to be involved in a scandal.”
“I wouldn’t have any reason to bring you into it. Though if you feel the same as I do, eventually . . .”
“Eventually is a long way off, Marcus Brutus.”
“I know. But better to be prepared now.”
“Prepared for what?” Diocles’s tone was mild, but his eyes were sharp.
“I wish I knew. No, Diocles, I honestly do. These things aren’t in my hands yet.”
Diocles smiled faintly. “I’ve never known you to be less than a leader of men. Who do you think you follow?”
“I know who I can’t follow further.”
“Then we’re of one mind. Go and get some more steam. Shall I wait for you in the portico when I’m done? Or do you have other men to inquire of?”
“If they happen by. Don’t wait for me; I’ll come to you when I need you. Thank you, Diocles.”
“Don’t thank me yet. You might not like where this road leads.”
“I don’t like it even now,” Brutus sighed and let Diocles go, returning to the tepidarium.
The room began to fill slowly, more men entering than leaving, and Brutus sat and sweated and thought. The first time he’d come to the baths with his father, he’d been almost unable to tolerate the uncomfortable warmth, the sweating, and the smell of other sweating men, but he’d grown used to it over the years. He’d begun to feel like he was purging his body while he waited to dive into the hot water of the caldarium, getting rid of poisonous thoughts as well as the poisons of the flesh, sweating it all out.
Through the walls he heard men out in the ball court, shouting and swearing in competition. From the frigidarium came the splashes of bathers leaping into the water, and he felt the occasional cool draft as they passed into the room. The young men on the benches joked with each other, laughter raucous and untempered, a few of the more energetic ones showing off for the others. Perhaps some of them showed off for the older men too, who sat or lay limply in the steam.
Brutus watched under his brows, not too obvious. There was no harm in looking, anyway. Most were too young to have much muscle, some still growing out of gawky adolescence, but a few were either dedicated athletes or hard workers. The smooth caps of their shoulders angled down into rounded biceps, their pectorals slimmed into hard bellies patterned with muscle, and their calves led up to thick thighs, rounded asses. One of them kept glancing his way, which was enough to make Brutus close his eyes and lean back, avoiding the boy’s curiosity.
Instead he drifted in the warmth, half-drowsing, relaxing muscle by muscle, nerve by nerve. He wasn’t certain how long it had been, though he was conscious he probably should move into the caldarium soon, when he heard Cassius’s voice above him and his eyes snapped open.
“Thought I might find you here,” Cassius said, arms crossed over his chest, looking down at him in amusement. “Useless layabout.”
“You’re one to talk,” Brutus replied, sliding over to make room for him on the bench.
Cassius sat and leaned back, scratching at a scar on his chest. “I thought you might come to my townhouse today,” he said, turning his head against the wall to regard Brutus. “We need to talk about certain news.”
“Seemed a little hasty, and I had information to seek out,” Brutus replied, keeping his voice quiet. “Porcia agrees with you. So does Diocles; I spoke with him. Didn’t mention your name,” he added, when Cassius’s eyes widened. “I asked if he could give me the names of men who are . . . worried.”
“What did he say?”
“That he would, but we had to keep his name out of it. I didn’t want to say any more until I knew what this plan of yours was.”
“And I’ll tell you, but not here,” Cassius said. “Come dine with me after the baths, and we’ll talk.”
“I think that would be prudent.” Brutus patted Cassius on the thigh, a friendly gesture, and stood up. “I’m off to the hot room. I’ll wait for you in the portico after. Try not to linger for a massage, would you?”
Cassius grinned. “Life without pleasure isn’t life, Brutus.”
“So I hear,” Brutus said as he passed into the corridor leading to the caldarium.
Junia wasn’t at Cassius’s town house when they arrived there after the bath; she was more social than Brutus and had a wider network of friends than even Cassius, and Brutus rarely saw her unless he was at the villa urbana for a party. She was younger than him and a half-sister; he loved her, but they’d never been particularly close.
He and Cassius ate lightly, refreshed and skin-raw from the baths. Cassius had sent the servants away, closing the doors and shuttering the windows that looked out on the street. They were as alone and private as they were ever going to be in Rome.
“You do understand t
his is murder,” Brutus said. “No matter your plan, no matter what we call it, it is murder.”
“You keep saying that, but I don’t know that I agree,” Cassius replied. “For you this is murder we’re discussing. I don’t consider it such. And I think if we do this correctly, the people won’t either. What you feel in your heart about the act, Brutus, won’t be relevant when the time comes, unless it prevents you from carrying it out.”
Brutus leaned forward, scrubbing his hands through his hair. “Then you might as well tell me what you’re planning.”
Cassius nodded. “I’m pleased you spoke to Diocles, actually. It’s exactly what we’ll need to know—who will stand firm with us, who will waver, and who would try to stop us. I think you may weigh the balance of that, somewhat. Men will follow you, Brutus.”
“Only so far.”
“Further than you think. But the point is that a senator can fall, two senators can be put on trial for conspiracy, but if enough senators commit to an act, it’s nothing but good governance. You can’t put twenty men on trial for one murder, and you can’t take twenty of the most powerful men in the Senate, even a Senate of nine hundred men, without upsetting the balance of power. Nobody wants to risk that. Especially if the Princeps was dead.”
“How exactly are you going to implicate twenty men in a murder?” Brutus asked.
“Twenty men should commit it.”
“You can’t be serious. It’d be a melee.”
Cassius shrugged. “Then it’s a melee. Better you know now. There can be no shrinking once the thing is underway.”
“Is this necessary, Cassius? Isn’t there any other way?”
“Try and reason with Caesar,” Cassius said, and bit into a dried apricot. “See how far it gets you. He’s not interested in Rome, just in what Rome can give him. You know that. It’s this or defeat. Very much like war.” He chewed, swallowed, licked his thumb. “Marcus. This will take time. I need to know you won’t lose your faith in what we have to do. You need to decide, here and now. All in, or all out. If you’re out . . .” He shrugged. “I’ll do what I can with the others.”
Brutus looked at him. “That’s unkind, Cassius.”
“How so?”
“Either I join or you fall?”
“I’m determined to act. Act with me, or let me fall. I’ve never given you any sort of ultimatum, and I wouldn’t now, but this is bigger than us. Rome is asking you to serve her. You have to decide how you will.”
Brutus inhaled. He let the air out slowly, counting back the years he’d known Cassius, remembering when he would have done anything just to seem worthy of the wild young man’s attention.
“I can’t abandon Rome,” he said finally. “I can’t abandon you, either.”
Cassius smiled warmly. “In that case, you’d better get those names from Diocles.”
The winter was a long one, and a busy one too. With the first chill of autumn they said farewell to Aristus, who was heading for the warmer climes of Athens. “And perhaps safer,” he added to Brutus with a warning look, but said nothing else on the matter. They’d barely recovered from the feast to send him off when they had to begin preparing for the ludi Romani, the celebratory games in which Brutus was expected to participate, if only as a spectator and sponsor these days. The harvest came after that, and Brutus was kept busy with his financial interests, the farms in which he’d invested and the merchants with whom he’d partnered. At the end of the harvest season were the chariot races and the sacrifices to Mars that officially ended military maneuvers for winter (thankfully; Caesar would not go after the Parthians until spring if he went at all), and in December were the feasts and social calls and celebrations of the Saturnalia.
The business of state, such as it was, had to be dealt with—and the secret business of state, as well. The festival season was a good excuse to go calling on men in the Senate who might share his views but didn’t know him well, and Brutus spent many hours with many different men, circling the topic, dancing around the idea of what they would have to do. It was a delicate business, and one that Cassius was better suited to than he himself.
“But don’t you understand?” Cassius asked him one morning in the early days of the new year. The Senate had convened but they weren’t yet fully assembled, and Cassius loitered in the outer chamber, waiting for him. “You know what men say when I talk to them? Either they ask, Is Brutus involved in this, or they say, Well, if Brutus backs it.”
“You don’t find their asking a little suspicious?”
“I make sure not to answer until I know their mind. Listen to me, it’s just as I said it would be: men think that if you support an action, it must be the wisest course. I agree with them, but I know you. They only know your reputation, and they’d still follow you.”
“Into murder,” Brutus said, keeping his voice low. Cassius studied him for a moment, and then pulled him into a little shadowed alcove off the Senate floor.
“Many men would follow you further. If Rome revolts, you’d have the chance to raise an army.”
“If Rome—!” Brutus stared at him in horror. “I’m not marching on Rome the same way Caesar did!”
“Rome won’t revolt. But if they do, we have support now. Trust me, Marcus,” Cassius said, and lowered his eyes in a way he knew damn well Brutus had trouble resisting. “Believe me.”
Brutus sighed and ducked his head. “I’m committed to this path now. I’ll see it through, I promised you that. I just . . . I want it to be done, so that whatever is to come can happen.”
Cassius smiled. “Soon. When the time is right . . . but soon.”
Brutus, unusually reassured by his words, swayed forward to kiss him; Cassius put a hand on his chest and held him back, eyes dark and sad.
“Not in Rome,” he said softly. “You know the rules.”
“Right,” Brutus sighed. “Not in Rome.”
“When it’s done, when the city has calmed down, we’ll go away for a month. Two. We’ll sail to Byzantium, or go north overland. Somewhere nobody knows us, and nobody cares.”
Brutus nodded. “When it’s done.”
Cassius glanced around, then risked tracing his fingers down Brutus’s cheek. “My bravest one,” he murmured, and then brushed past Brutus back out into the Senate chambers.
By then, the two of them were too deep to extract themselves if Caesar did hear word of the plot. Porcia, too, was involved heavily enough that Brutus despaired of even being able to send her safely to the country if Caesar came after them. He hadn’t spoken to Porcia about Cassius’s plans at first, reasoning that if he couldn’t protect himself, at least he could protect his wife.
That had worked for about two weeks.
Porcia could be a persuasive, bullheaded woman when she wanted, and she’d learned rhetoric at her father’s knee. On reflection, he hadn’t stood a chance, and he’d felt better once he’d confessed their plot. All throughout the winter she made social calls on other patrician wives, sounding them out on how their husbands felt, sometimes convincing them to persuade their husbands to hear Cassius or Brutus about the conspiracy. She’d go out in the morning, while Brutus saw to his correspondence or went to the baths, and in the evening she’d return, kiss him on the cheek, and whisper a name or two in his ear. For something so dangerous, it was oddly domestic.
Tiresias, too, was busy that winter. He seemed to be everywhere at once, trailing the steward with a wax slate or poking his nose into the kitchen, learning the city bartering techniques from the slaves sent to market, running through the house to carry messages with the ends of his belt flying out behind him, his long tunic always looking more rumpled than it should. Brutus didn’t speak to him often—had no reason to—but he saw Tiresias watching him sometimes, and occasionally the boy would bring up fresh fruit from the market for his Dominus and Domina to sample.
It was Tiresias who came to fetch him late at night, shaking him out of a deep sleep but careful not to wake Porcia on the other side of t
he bed, with a hoarse message that Senator Trebonius would like to speak to him.
“What about?” Brutus asked, whispering as he sat up. He saw Tiresias glance down at his bare chest, then carefully look away.
“He wouldn’t say, but he looks concerned,” Tiresias whispered back. “I’ve left him in the triclinium.”
“Good lad. Fetch some wine for us,” Brutus said, shrugging into his tunic.
“Yes, Dominus.” Tiresias disappeared again, leaving Brutus to make his yawning, blinking way to the triclinium on his own.
“This had better be of vital importance,” he said as he entered. Trebonius, seated on one of the couches, hunched his shoulders and gave him a guilty look, face lit by the lantern Tiresias must have left on the table. Brutus hesitated in his grumblings. “What happened?”
“I may have done something foolish,” Trebonius said.
Brutus narrowed his eyes.
“I spoke to Marcus Antonius about our cause.”
“You did what?”
“I thought he might be sympathetic.”
“He’s Caesar’s right hand! He owes everything to the man. What were you thinking?”
Trebonius shook his head. “I was thinking that those closest see flaws clearest, and he’s not been as friendly to Caesar lately as he used to be. I don’t know. Maybe I wasn’t thinking at all.”
Brutus ran a hand over his face. “How many names did you give him?”
“None! None. Only mine. I implied I wasn’t alone, but he doesn’t know of anyone but me who might be plotting. I was circumspect, I swear. I said nothing incriminating, at least not outright.”
“Do you think he even understood what you were saying?”
“That’s why I’m here,” Trebonius said, then broke off sharply as Tiresias came in with a jug of watered wine and two glasses. He set them on the table, poured, and bowed out of the room. Brutus offered Trebonius what seemed to be a badly needed drink.
“Go on,” Brutus said, seating himself.
“He clearly won’t participate,” Trebonius said. “But he seemed to understand our point of view. I think he took it as a warning.”
