‘In the meantime, what shall I do about my triumph?’ said Cicero. ‘Now there’s a dilemma.’
‘Your triumph?’ I said, puzzled by the sudden change of subject.
‘Yes, the triumphal procession due to me for my successful military campaigns in Cilicia. In the normal course of things, I should have been voted a triumph by the Senate directly upon my return. I should have entered the city gates in a chariot with blaring trumpets! What’s the point of being a provincial governor if there’s no triumph at the end of it? But of course, this hasn’t been a normal year. I decided to forgo my triumph, in light of the crisis. But now . . . well, I must celebrate it sooner or later. I can’t postpone it forever. But what if Caesar drives Pompey from Italy and then occupies Rome? If I celebrate my triumph while Caesar is in command of the city, it may be read as an endorsement of his tyranny. I suppose I shouldn’t return to Rome at all, not while Caesar’s there. I should make a point of refusing to take my seat in the Senate . . .’
Cicero paused for a sip of wine. Terentia spoke up. ‘It was bad enough that you postponed your triumph, which may never happen now. But what about your son’s toga day? Marcus turns sixteen this year. All the best families mark their sons’ coming of age during the feast of Liberalia, just after the Ides of March. Will we be back in Rome by then to celebrate Marcus’s majority, or not?’
From the way the children cringed, I sensed this was an ongoing family argument. Cicero released a heavy breath. ‘You know that would be impossible, Terentia. The Liberalia is only twelve days off. Why must you bring this up? You know how fervently I hoped for Marcus to celebrate the donning of his manly toga in Rome, with all the best people in attendance. But it cannot be. For one thing, the best people are scattered to the four corners of the earth. For another, I can’t return to Rome with honour, not yet. And wherever we celebrate his toga day, arrangements can’t possibly be made in time for the Liberalia.’
‘But the Liberalia is the proper day,’ insisted Terentia. ‘On the feast of Father Freedom, the priests carry the phallus of Dionysus from the fields into the city streets, and the young men in their manly togas follow behind, singing bawdy songs. It’s a religious act, the symbol of a boy’s emergence to manhood in the company of his peers.’
‘It’s all right, Mother, really,’ said Marcus, turning red and frowning at his plate. ‘We’ve discussed this before. It doesn’t have to be the Liberalia. Another day will do. And we can do it in Arpinum instead of Rome. It is the family’s hometown.’
‘Hometown to your father’s family, Marcus,’ said Terentia, with frost in her voice. ‘We can hardly expect your relatives on the Terentius side to trek all the way to Arpinum, with brigands and runaway soldiers stalking the highways. Besides, the villa at Arpinum is in no condition to receive visitors. The roof leaks, the kitchen’s too small, and there aren’t enough beds. At least here in Formiae I’ve managed to get the household up and running.’
‘Surely you’re not suggesting that we celebrate his toga day here?’ protested Cicero. ‘We’ve no family in the area. I scarcely know the members of the local town senate. No, if not Rome, then Arpinum.’
‘I don’t see why we can’t just go back to Rome tomorrow.’ Tullia sighed and looked to her mother for support. ‘Everyone else is. Your cousin Gaius returned, and my friend Aufelia and her husband are on their way back. Father’s friend Atticus never left.’
As the table talk degenerated into a family squabble, I waited for a pause in the conversation to excuse myself. Domitius, I noticed, paid no attention. He held an asparagus spear between his thumb and forefinger and seemed to be interrogating it. How pathetic the man seemed, with his delusions of military glory and his obsessive jealousy of Caesar. Yet he seemed to me no more pathetic than Cicero, the great orator reduced to agonizing over his postponed triumph and his son’s toga day. How irrelevant, even ridiculous, they both seemed.
But as I lay in bed that night, kept awake by a disagreement between the fish-pickle sauce and my stomach, I wondered uneasily if I was not as deluded in my own way as Cicero and Domitius. What was the exact relationship between Julius Caesar and my son? Once, I had thought I understood it, but it appeared there might be a complicating factor which I had not accounted for. In such parlous times, I could not afford such a miscalculation. As we continued the journey, and grew closer to the camps of Caesar and Pompey, I could afford it even less.
Sleep finally came, and with it, nightmare. There was no narrative, only a series of wrenching horrors. I had misunderstood something and made a terrible mistake. Someone was dead. I was covered with blood. Bethesda and Diana wore shrouds and wept. The ground shook and the sky rained fire.
I woke drenched with sweat, and swore never to touch fish-pickle sauce again.
XIV
We set out before dawn. I was tired from lack of sleep and my stomach was out of sorts, but Tiro was in high spirits.
‘I take it you didn’t have the fish-pickle sauce last night,’ I said.
‘Did Cicero break open a new jar? He must have been trying to impress Domitius. No, I ate simple fare. Nothing but millet porridge and roast pork off the spit.’
‘You ate outside with Domitius’s men?’
‘Of course. How else could I have gathered information from them? I posed as a freedman attached to the villa.’
‘You spied on Domitius? I thought he was Cicero’s ally.’
‘I didn’t spy on him. I simply talked to his men. They had a lot to say about the morale of Domitius’s former troops, the size of Caesar’s forces, the condition of the roads, and so on.’
‘What about the ambush Caesar supposedly set for Domitius after letting him go?’
Tiro smiled. ‘According to the men, there was an incident. A mail carrier passed them on the road just outside Corfinium.’
‘A mail carrier?’
‘Yes, a lone man on horseback. Domitius panicked. He made his men hide in the bushes. They thought he might die of a heart attack. The ambush was entirely in his imagination!’
‘Rather like the welcome that’s waiting for him in Massilia, I suspect.’
A sphinxlike expression crossed Tiro’s face. ‘I wouldn’t be too surprised if the Massilians welcome him with open arms. Open hands, anyway.’
‘What do you mean?’
Tiro slowed his mount and let Fortex ride ahead. ‘I appreciate your discretion last night, Gordianus. You said nothing to Domitius about me, even when my name was mentioned.’
‘I only did as you asked.’
‘And I thank you. I would appreciate it if you could be just as discreet about Domitius’s visit to Cicero.’
‘Cicero wants it kept secret? Why?’
‘He has his reasons.’
I snorted. ‘Cicero won’t join Pompey, he doesn’t want it known that he’s hosted Domitius – is he so fearful of offending Caesar?’
Tiro grimaced. ‘It’s not that. All right, I’ll tell you. Domitius didn’t leave Corfinium empty-handed.’
‘He was stripped of his legions.’
‘Yes, but not of his gold. When Domitius arrived in Corfinium, he deposited six million sesterces in the city treasury. Most of it was public money he brought from Rome, for military expenses. Caesar could have seized it for himself, but I suppose he doesn’t want to be seen as a thief. He returned the entire amount to Domitius when he set him free.’
I sucked in a breath. ‘You mean Domitius and that ragtag retinue are transporting six million sesterces?’
‘In trunks, loaded in wagons. You see now why he was so suspicious of Caesar and so fearful on the road.’
‘What will he do with all that money? Return it to the treasury in Rome?’
Tiro laughed. ‘He’ll use it to go to Massilia and win over the Massilians, of course. But you see why Cicero doesn’t want his visit made public. If the money vanishes – and who knows what might happen in the coming days? – and the trail leads back to Formiae, someone might presume that Dom
itius left it here with Cicero, for safekeeping. These are desperate times. That kind of rumour could draw cut-throats like grasshoppers to the green leaf. Whole households have been slaughtered for considerably less than six million sesterces, Gordianus. Cicero isn’t ashamed of playing host to Domitius, and he isn’t fearful for himself. But he has his family to think of. Surely you can understand that.’
That day we rode forty-four miles and reached Capua. The next day we covered thirty-three miles and stopped at Beneventum. At various stables along the way Tiro exchanged our horses, always producing his courier’s passport signed by Pompey. Some stablers honoured it without question. Others treated us with barely concealed contempt and tried to give us inferior mounts. One stabler refused to deal with us at all. He took a long look at the document, gave us a cold stare, and told us to move on. Tiro was furious. ‘Do you realize the penalty for flouting a document issued under the Senate’s Ultimate Decree?’ he asked the man. ‘The penalty is death!’ The stabler swallowed hard but said nothing. We went in search of another stable.
After a good night’s sleep in Beneventum, Tiro decided that we should leave the Appian Way and strike out on an old mountain road that cut directly west to east across the Apennines. ‘A shortcut,’ Tiro called it. He insisted that we exchange our horses for a wagon and a slave to drive it. The stabler in Beneventum wrinkled his nose when he saw Pompey’s seal on the document. He tried to resist the trade, but Tiro was in no mood to haggle. At last the man gave us a wagon with a canvas top and a toothless slave to drive it.
The wagon seemed unnecessary to me. Saddlebags were adequate for our provisions, and our progress on steep, winding roads would be faster on horseback. As we set out that morning, I said as much to Tiro. He shook his head and pointed towards the dull grey clouds that wreathed the mountaintops. Later that day, his judgement was confirmed. A few miles into the foothills, the sky opened and poured rain, then sleet, then hail. While we sat in the covered wagon, bundled in dry blankets, the miserable driver shivered and sneezed and urged the horses on.
The storm grew worse, until at last we had to stop at a little inn beside the road. We spent the night there – and the next three fretful days as well, as the storm continued to howl and bluster. Recriminations were pointless, but I still felt obliged to suggest to Tiro that we would have done better to stay on the Appian Way. He said the same storm would likely have trapped us no matter what route we took, and we were lucky to have found a snug place to pass the time. To combat the tedium, the innkeeper had a small library of well-worn scrolls (trashy Greek novels and dubious erotic poetry) as well as a supply of board games. After three days, I decided I could die happy if I never read another story of shipwrecked lovers. I envied Fortex and the wagon driver, who both seemed content to sleep day and night in the stable, like hibernating bears.
Occasionally, over a game of Circus Maximus or Pharaohs Down the Nile, I sensed that Tiro was trying to draw me out, following Cicero’s instructions to discover my intentions and any secrets I might know about the death of Numerius Pompeius. As subtly as I could, I always deflected him and changed the subject.
At last, the storm passed. A full day of travel brought us to the eastern slopes of the mountains. We slept that night at an inn nestled amid rocky bluffs and pine forests. The following morning, watching the sunrise from the window of our room on the upper floor, I glimpsed a smudge of silver and blue in the distance that Tiro declared to be the Adriatic. It was our eleventh day out of Rome.
The sky was cloudless. We set out with the wagon uncovered. After an hour or so, descending through a narrow mountain pass, we encountered the soldiers.
We heard them first. The low booming of marching drums echoed up through the folds of the mountain. Tiro told the wagon driver to stop. I listened closely. Along with the drums I heard the stamp of feet and a muffled clatter of armour. Tiro and I left the driver and Fortex in the wagon. We climbed to the top of a rocky knob and gazed down.
Thousands of men were marching up from the coastal plain. Their helmets in the morning sunlight merged into a glittering ribbon that snaked sinuously up the mountainside, over crests, through saddles, around bends, filling the width of the road as water fills a river channel.
‘Caesar’s men, or Pompey’s?’ I said.
Tiro squinted. ‘I’m not sure. I know the insignia of every cohort and legion, but they’re not close enough for me to tell.’
‘They soon will be, at the speed they’re marching. There must be thousands of them! The column goes on for miles. I can’t see the end of it.’ I looked back at the wagon. ‘I suppose we’ll have to pull off the road as best we can and wait for the whole army to pass. That could take all day.’
Tiro fretfully shook his head. ‘What does it mean? They don’t have the look of a defeated army, that’s for sure. Too disciplined. Too many of them! If they’re Pompey’s men, they can’t have reached the mountains without encountering Caesar. That can only mean that Caesar’s been defeated. Pompey’s crushed him, and now Pompey and the senators who fled are heading back to Rome. The crisis is over – if this is Pompey . . .’
I nodded, wondering what that would mean to Davus, to Meto. The tramping and clattering grew louder moment by moment, booming and bouncing across the rarefied mountain air until it seemed to emanate from the empty sky like constant thunder.
‘And if they’re Caesar’s men?’ I asked.
Tiro shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Maybe Pompey escaped from Brundisium before Caesar could reach him, and now Caesar has turned back, empty-handed. Or did Caesar trap him there, annihilate his forces, and then turn back towards Rome? But there can’t have been time enough for a siege. It makes no sense. These must be Pompey’s men . . .’
He sucked in a breath. ‘Numa’s balls!’ Tiro cursed so rarely that I stared at him in wonder. His face was ashen. ‘Of course! Not Pompey’s men, and not Caesar’s either!’
‘Tiro, you’re making no sense.’
‘There, do you see those advance scouts riding ahead of the rest? See the band of polished copper around their helmets?’
I squinted. ‘I can’t quite –’
‘I’m sure of it: a copper band. And the officers will have copper discs on their breastplates, showing a lion’s head. Domitius owns copper mines. These are his cohorts, the men who betrayed him in Corfinium.’
‘Coming after Domitius to claim lost pay?’ I suggested.
Tiro was not amused. ‘Perhaps they’ve turned against Caesar. But no, surely they’d be marching to join Pompey, if that were the case.’ He looked frantically back at the wagon, where the driver and Fortex stared up at us, perplexed. ‘Infernal Pluto! There’s no way we can hide the wagon – the road’s hemmed by boulders and trees, and we haven’t passed a branch road for miles.’ He shook his head. ‘I should have traded the driver and wagon for horses this morning. On horseback, we might have had some chance to hide ourselves.’
‘Does it matter? We could simply be innocent travellers crossing the mountains.’
‘On this road, Gordianus, there are no innocent travellers.’
He seemed close to panic. I tried to calm him. ‘We’ll hide among the rocks, Tiro. The driver can stay with the wagon and tell them he’s travelling alone.’
‘The driver would tell them everything at the first rattle of a sword.’
‘Take the driver with us, then.’
‘And leave an abandoned wagon by the side of the road? That would be even more suspicious. They’d be sure to search for us then, and they’d find us in minutes. How would that look – four men with something to hide, skulking in the woods?’
‘You’re right. We have no choice but to stay with the wagon. When the advance scouts arrive, we’ll wave and smile and remark on what fine weather we’re having.’
Tiro took a deep breath. ‘You’re right. We must simply brazen it out. You’ll be the master and I’ll be your slave. Why shouldn’t you be heading for Caesar’s camp? You have a son unde
r his command.’
‘Yes, that’s the story, all the better because it’s partly true. First, I suggest we leave this hilltop. Peering down at them like this – it makes us look like spies, don’t you think?’
He managed a crooked smile. ‘Start back without me. I need to relieve myself.’
‘Go ahead. Don’t be shy.’
He winced. ‘No, Gordianus, it’s not my bladder. A fright like this – it goes straight to my bowels.’
Tiro hurried into the woods. I cast a final look at the endless stream of men pouring up the mountain, then scrambled down the hillside and rejoined the others.
Tiro arrived at the wagon just before the first scout on horseback came through the pass. The soldier rode slowly towards us, warily scanning the trees and boulders behind us. He stopped several paces away.
He noted the iron ring on my finger. ‘Who are you, citizen? What business do you have on this road?’
‘My name is Gordianus. I’m travelling from Rome. Are you one of Caesar’s men?’
‘I’ll ask the questions, citizen. Who are these others?’
‘The driver comes with the wagon. I hired both from his master, at an inn on the other side of the mountains. We weathered a nasty storm, let me tell you. May the gods grant you fairer skies than we had.’
‘And these others?’
‘Slaves. That one’s a bodyguard, as you can tell by the look of him. A good thing I brought him along. We weren’t a mile out of Rome when some bandits attacked us; would have killed us if they had the chance, I’m sure. But we haven’t had a bit of trouble since.’
‘And the dark one?’
‘Another slave. A philosopher. His name is Soscarides.’
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