Rome: Tempest of the Legion (Sword of the Legion Series)

by R. Cameron Cooke

  “If this is true,” Libo said quickly, “then we must send a detachment of marines to storm the island. Antony must be captured or killed.”

  Postumus shook his head vigorously. “No such action must be attempted, Admiral. As much as I despise the rogue and wish evil upon him, Antony must not be harmed. We will meet with him. We will pretend to be agents of the Raven, and we will pretend to accede to his every wish.”

  “To simply make off with the money?” Libo asked incredulously.

  “Yes, Admiral. The treasury gold is our objective.”

  Libo shifted in his seat. “Antony is among Caesar’s inner circle, Senator. Caesar has appointed him Master of Horse, for the love of Neptune. It seems to me that Fortuna has placed a golden opportunity in our hands. We should take it. We can strike a powerful blow against the tyrant if Antony is killed. Besides, bartering with that traitor goes against every oath I have sworn to uphold.”

  “We won’t be bartering with him,” Postumus said impatiently. “Not candidly, in any event. The Senate cares little what title Antony thinks he has. Tell him whatever he wants to hear, declare him King of Bactria, for all we care, but we must secure that gold. It is the key. Deprive Caesar of the stolen treasury – deprive him of the only thing that keeps the people amenable and his army obedient – and his whole world will crumble around him. Without it, his legions will desert, and this whole nasty war can be brought to a quick conclusion.” Postumus paused for a moment, presumably waiting for any further arguments from Libo, before proceeding. “Now that you have been apprised of the mission, Admiral, I believe it would be advantageous for you to accompany us when we meet with Antony. Your presence will only give us greater credibility in Antony’s eyes. He will think the Raven truly controls the affairs of the Senate and the Roman fleet. I will conduct the negotiations…”

  As Postumus continued to outline his plan for the morrow, Lucius studied the faces around the room. Flavius looked anxious, as if he knew that the senator must share this information in order for the plan to succeed, but at the same time wished it to be kept secret. Libo listened intently, but Lucius detected something in his manner, something Lucius’s years as a centurion had made him keen to detect – that moment when a soldier silently nods and accepts the orders of a superior while inwardly he broods and knows he will take the first opportunity to disobey them. Calpurnia also listened, but Lucius could see that something still distracted her thoughts. Marjanita evidently saw it, too, and watched her mistress with great concern. She caught Lucius looking at her, and shot him a poisonous glance, but Lucius only smiled back.

  They all had their own agendas, as Lucius had his own.

  XXIV

  After the meeting had adjourned, Libo directed Lucius to join him in his quarters. He waved away the servants and the bodyguard, and waited for the screen to close before he spoke.

  “I wish to know something, Centurion, once and for all. Come over here.”

  Libo directed him over to a table where several scrolls were stacked. One scroll lay in the center of the table, partially open, its weathered paper exposed. But this was not what Libo directed his attention to. Behind the table sat a chair from which hung a sword belt with a sheathed gladius. To Lucius’s surprise, the admiral grabbed the hilt of the sword, drew out the bare steel, and pointed it toward Lucius. As the polished blade glimmered in the dim lamp light, Lucius forced himself to refrain from any defensive move. Something in Libo’s demeanor told him this was not meant as a threat. His deductions were confirmed when Libo tossed the blade onto the table.

  “There!” he said, raising his hands. “Here is your chance to strike a blow for Caesar, if that is what you wish. We are alone, and you are my superior at swordplay. Do as you will, Lucius.”

  “I do not understand, sir.” Lucius eyed him with a circumspect glance.

  “Is my meaning not clear? If you are Caesar’s man, slay me now.”

  Lucius never once considered reaching for the blade.

  “I need to know that I can trust you, Lucius. That you truly are a man of Rome and not some mindless adherent of the eloquent tyrant. Caesar will surely promise you the heavens, if only you obey him. Is it the promise of riches that decides the loyalties of Lucius Domitius? If so, then he is not the man I thought he was. Either way, I need to know right now, at this moment. Tell me, what kind of a man is Centurion Lucius Domitius?”

  “Of course I will not harm you, sir. There is an agreement between us, is there not?”

  “Yes, that is the point. You have provided me with the information that I needed, and your services are no longer required. Had my mother not raised a man of honor, I could have you killed now, and then I would not have to bother with my end of the bargain. Postumus told me to do as much. Did you not see him lean over to whisper in my ear as we were leaving?”

  Libo then chuckled at the ambiguous look on Lucius’s face.

  “Have no fear, Lucius.”

  “Then you fully intend to release me?” Lucius asked, his eyes shooting once to the sword, a gesture that deflated the admiral’s smile and appeared to give him a brief moment of pause.

  “That is what I wished to discuss with you, Lucius. Is your motivation simply to escape, or is it to do your duty? Most centurions I have encountered in my career, held duty and honor higher than life itself.”

  “I’ll wager most of them are dead, sir.”

  The admiral sighed heavily. “Then, perhaps I am pursuing the wrong course with you. Now that you know Antony was intentionally sending you to your death, do not the fires of revenge burn within your heart?”

  “Antony has had it out for me for some time, sir.” Lucius shrugged. “But if I live long enough, and the fates allow, I will see that he gets his due recompense.”

  “Forget the fates, Lucius. What if I can give you that chance tomorrow?”

  Lucius looked at him sideways.

  “You see, Lucius, it was not clear to me until that meeting tonight what we must do. Postumus, and his allies in the Senate, see this as nothing more than an opportunity to enrich themselves. They will claim they prevented the treasury from falling into the tyrant’s hands, but I suspect that, when this war is over, very little of it will ever make its way back to Rome. You are a man of the campaign, Lucius. You see what is going on here. Disease is rampant throughout my fleet. My captains throw more dead men to the sharks every day. The simple facts are, I am running out of food, and I am desperately short on water. I do not know how much longer I can stay at sea. As if that is not enough, the seas are especially wild this year. At any moment, a sudden storm might decimate my fleet and turn the tables in Antony’s favor. But tomorrow, Lucius – tomorrow I will have Antony under my hand. How can I accept the risk of letting him go? How can I gamble on Postumus’s plan working? And what is the underlying motivation for that plan, if not mere gold?”

  “What do you wish me to do, my lord?”

  “You know, Lucius, it is strange,” the admiral said, in an amiable tone that instantly put Lucius on his guard. “It truly is strange. Your name meant nothing to me, the first time I heard it. It wasn’t until the clerk called you Lucius Domitius of Spain that it dawned on me. I had seen your name before, though it was not until late last night, poring over these, that I made the connection.” Libo gestured to the stack of scrolls on the table. “Do you know what these are?”

  “No, sir.”

  “They are Caesar’s reports from the wars in Gaul and Britannia. You look surprised, Lucius. Yes, I have read them all many times over. It is wise for a commander to study his opponent. I found these particular copies in Bibulus’s own library. Knowing how much he loathed Caesar, I imagine he used them for the same purpose.” Libo then picked up the open scroll and looked it over. “This is the one. You are mentioned by name in it.”

  “In there, sir?” Lucius was astonished.

  “Where is it now?” The admiral scanned over the lines with one finger, stopping on one passage. “Ah, yes, here
it is! From the report on the campaign against the Iceni in Britannia. In his simple prose, Caesar writes The Iceni made a spirited assault upon Caesar’s works, but were repulsed in due order. Centurions Vorenus and Pullo distinguished themselves at the threshold of the praetorian gate where they slew twenty of the enemy single-handedly. Later that same day, a legionary of the Seventh, one Lucius Domitius of Spain, slew the Iceni general with an arrow from a scorpion at a distance of over one hundred paces…and so forth and so on.” He looked up. “You had no idea that you had achieved such renown, did you? That you had earned a line in Caesar’s reports?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Is it true then?”

  “More or less,” Lucius smiled slyly. “That was many years ago. It might have been an enemy knight, not the general. And it’s possible it was eighty paces, not one hundred.”

  “Could you do it again?” The admiral was suddenly serious.

  “To kill Antony?” Lucius replied, suddenly comprehending what Libo had in mind. “Under a flag of truce?”

  Libo sighed heavily, and then sat down in the chair, pausing as if still not convinced of his mindset. “What I ask of you, Lucius, goes against every code I have ever sworn to live by. My personal honor can scarcely bear the thought of it, but I am afraid there is no other way. What are true leaders, if not those who must make decisions when there are no good decisions to be made? What does a man do when all of the choices that remain are bad ones, and every path leads to dishonor? If my name and memory are to be forever tainted by this one act, then so be it. If I am to be branded liar and duplicitous, then it is a small price to save our precious republic.

  “It is clear to me that Postumus and whoever else he represents in the Senate have allowed themselves to be distracted from our one, true aim. This negotiation with Antony is more about securing the treasury than it is about saving our republic. I do not know who this Raven is, nor do I care. Whoever he is, he does not have Rome’s best interest at heart, so I fail to see why Postumus and the Senate have latched onto his plot hoping to capitalize on it. In my mind, it is very simple. Why negotiate when we can strike a strategic blow for the republic. The lewd Antony is second only to Caesar. If he dies, both the treasury and the legions will remain in Italy. Antony’s legions will lose heart.”

  “Or be emboldened,” Lucius interjected, and then saw the admiral’s uncertain look. “Understand, my lord, I despise Antony for personal reasons, but the common soldiers, they adore him. Soldiers like to be amused, and they find his lewdness very amusing. Not to mention, they’ll regard this as an act of treachery.”

  Lucius noticed that the mere mention of the word made the admiral wince perceptibly. He appeared to be undergoing great inner turmoil about his decision.

  “It does not matter!” he snapped. “I did not arrange this meeting, nor did any legitimate representative of the Senate! Antony is an enemy of the republic, and when I encounter an enemy, I strike him down without mercy. I need to know only one thing, Centurion Domitius. Are you willing to kill Antony? Are you willing to kill the man who had planned the same for you?”

  “I have no love for Antony, sir,” Lucius replied jovially. “I suppose if I don’t kill him now, he’ll try to have me killed again someday.”

  “Quite right, Lucius,” Libo said more placidly this time and extended a hand. “We are agreed then. I assure you, my friend, it is for the good of Rome.”

  “If you say so, sir.” Lucius somewhat reluctantly took the admiral’s hand. “But it will not be easy. Antony will have a bodyguard with him and, more than likely, many more soldiers nearby. He’s a bastard, but he’s not daft.”

  “I have given it long consideration.” The admiral gave him an appreciative glance. Gesturing for Lucius to come closer, he unraveled a chart and laid it out on the table. It showed the port of Brundisium with its triangular harbor, the narrow waterway leading inland where the two land-bound sides of the triangle met, and the dozen tiny sand spits that lay scattered across the seaward side. The largest of these was annotated Basada – the place where the meeting would take place. Lucius could see that the little islet was a good choice for neutral ground. It was beyond the reach of the towers protecting the approaches to the harbor and would allow either party a clear path of escape should a hasty retreat prove necessary.

  “We will land here.” Libo pointed to the seaward side of the islet. “Our delegation will arrive aboard a bireme which will beach at this location. The rest of the fleet will remain on the open sea, but within sight of the harbor.”

  “Just one ship, sir? Antony will be sure to bring more than that.”

  “To bring more ships close to these sand spits only invites disaster. A wayward wind might beach them or drive them within range of the towers. Besides, our aim is to kill Antony, not to defeat him. Once he is dead, our priority will be to escape.” He said this in a half-hearted tone, as if he knew the prospect of such an escape was slim, as if he had already mentally committed himself to a one-way trip. The reason for keeping the fleet in the open made sense now. This was a suicide mission. It was the one way of preserving Libo’s honor. If he sacrificed his own life in the name of the republic, the treachery of his last act would be forgotten, and perhaps the story of this little assassination mission would find its way onto the lips of the bards and acted out in theaters for generations to come – like the tale of Mucius Scaevola, the Roman patriot of old that tried to assassinate the evil king Lars Porsena. Lucius remembered, once upon a time, when he was a boy in Gades, when his station in life had him on the path of an equite, his Greek tutor had often taught him the tale of Mucius the left-handed one. He knew it well. But if Libo was to play the part of Mucius in tomorrow’s drama, and Antony the part of Lars Porsena, then had Lucius been chosen to play the part of Mucius’s right hand that was ultimately sacrificed to the flames?

  “I know this islet well, Centurion,” Libo continued. “It is flat and spans no more than five hundred paces in any direction. Our ship will be beached with its prow high in the air. As you know, there is a hawser hole for handling the anchor through which a man might peer to view the beach. Concealed properly, a scorpion might be mounted there such that the man operating it would not be visible to those on the shore. I will arrange for such a weapon to be mounted and stowed beneath a canvas at this location. I will tell the captain that I am doing this simply as a precaution, in the event of treachery by Antony. I will also command that, once the ship is beached, the crew is to remain clear of the bow so that Antony does not suspect similar such treachery on our part. You, however, will take up position at this vantage point. I do not know how long you will have to align your shot, but you must do it quickly. Can it be done?”

  Lucius considered the chart. Many circumstances impossible to predict would have to be accommodating. The wind, the distance to Antony, the size of the hawser hole, the life left in the sinews of the torsion springs, but he detected that the admiral was well-aware of these things. “Assuming the gods favor us with fair weather, then yes, it can be done. I will need to exercise the scorpion tomorrow morning while we are still out to sea, to gauge its strength.”

  “Good, Lucius. It will be arranged just as you say. After we land, I will go with the delegation to meet with Antony on the strand. Look for me to touch my brow as if to wipe off the perspiration there. That will be your signal to loose. You must do it quickly, and your dart must fly straight and true. Antony must not rise again, for I may not be close enough to finish him off.”

  “Few men struck by a scorpion bolt ever get up again, sir,” Lucius said confidently.

  “May Mars make it so tomorrow.” Libo’s face then assumed a solemn expression. He turned to face Lucius and looked him squarely in the eyes, as if to search out his true intentions. “I cannot offer you riches, Lucius, as Caesar or some others might. I will promise, however, that when all of this is over, and the republic is restored, I will do all that I can to see you appointed to a prominent position in her
legions – or her navy, if you so choose. I appeal to you, to see this through. I appeal to you as a fellow son of Rome. I appeal to the centurion of the Tenth Legion who pledged to serve the Senate and the people. I appeal to the man who stood on that battlement at the frozen edge of the known world and did his duty. I ask you, Lucius, finally and on your honor, will you see it through?”

  XXV

  The crews’ berthing was in the forward sections of Argonaut’s massive bulk. After leaving Libo’s quarters, Lucius made his way through the dark passages, feeling the fatigue of the day wearing on him. The creak of a hundred tholepins swiveling in their sockets filled the night air as the oars dipped and rose.

  Lucius mulled over the problems he had just walked into. He had agreed to Libo’s proposal, more as a way of buying time than anything else. For he knew Libo’s plan to be complete madness. It was reckless and preposterous and would only end up getting all of them killed. Did the admiral think Antony’s men would quietly walk away when they saw their general skewered by a two-foot dart? Libo would probably be the first one killed by Antony’s angry bodyguards, and while that was probably acceptable to the duty-oriented fool, the rest of the delegation and everyone else would soon follow him in death. Lucius knew Antony would never agree to such a meeting without having an ambush waiting. A part of him wished death to them all. Death to Antony for betraying him, and death to the Optimates for the devious behavior he had seen their legions use in Spain. But, deep within him, Lucius knew Libo could not be counted with these. Libo was an upright man, and in spite of his many misguided values, Lucius was fond of him. He did not relish seeing the admiral’s blood mingle with the likes of Antony. There had to be a way of heading off this disastrous plot before it was too late, and they were all corpses on the beach.