6. The October Horse: A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra

by Colleen McCullough

  Four days later fifty of the transports Cato had used to move his men, equipment and supplies from Dyrrachium were loaded and ready to go: 1,200 recovered soldiers formed into two cohorts, 250 noncombatant assistants, 250 pack mules, 450 wagon mules, 120 wagons, a month's supply of wheat, chickpea, bacon and oil, plus grindstones, ovens, utensils, spare clothing and arms and, a gift from Gnaeus Pompey that traveled on Cato's own ship, a thousand talents of silver coins. "Take it, I have plenty more," Gnaeus Pompey said cheerfully. "Compliments of Caesar! And," he went on, handing over a bundle of small rolls of paper, each tied and sealed, "these came from Dyrrachium for you. News of home." Fingers trembling a little, Cato told the letters over, then tucked them inside the armhole of his light leather cuirass. "Aren't you going to read them now?" The grey eyes looked very stern, yet clouded, and the generous curve of Cato's mouth was drawn up as if with pain. "No," he said, at his loudest and most truculent, "I shall read them later, when I have the time." Though it took all day to get the fifty transports out of an inadequate harbor, Gnaeus Pompey remained on the little wooden pier until the last ships went hull down over the horizon, until all that was left of them were hair-thin masts, black prickles against the opalescent skies of early evening. Then he turned and trudged back to his headquarters; life would be more peaceful, certainly, but somehow when Cato was no longer a part of things, an emptiness entered. How Cato had awed him in his youth! How much his pedagogues and rhetors had harped on the different styles of the three greatest orators in the Senate: Caesar, Cicero and Cato. Names he had grown up with, men he could never forget; his father, the First Man in Rome, never a good orator, but a master at getting his own way. Now all of them were scattered while the same patterns went on weaving, one life strand entwined with another until Atropos took pity and snipped this thread, that thread. Lucius Scribonius Libo was waiting; Gnaeus Pompey stifled a sigh. A good man who had been Admiral after Bibulus died, then had yielded gracefully to Pompey the Great's son. As was fitting. The only reason this scion of the wrong branch of the Scribonius family had risen so high so quickly lay in the fact that Gnaeus Pompey had taken one look at his dimpled, ravishingly pretty daughter, divorced his boring Claudia, and married her. A match Pompey the Great had abhorred, deplored. But that was Father, himself obsessed with marrying only the most august aristocrats, and determined that his sons should do the same. Well, Sextus was still too young for marriage, and Gnaeus had tried for the sake of harmony until he'd set eyes on the seventeen-year-old Scribonia. Love, Pompey the Great's elder son reflected as he greeted his father-in-law, could destroy the best-laid plans. They dined together, discussed the coming move to Sicily and environs, the potential resistance in Africa Province and the possible whereabouts of Pompey the Great. "Today's courier reported a rumor that he's taken Cornelia Metella and Sextus away from Lesbos, and is island-hopping down the Aegean," his elder son said. "Then," said Scribonius Libo, preparing to depart, "I think it's time that you wrote again." So when he had gone Gnaeus Pompey sat down resolutely at his desk, drew a blank double sheet of Fannian paper toward him, and picked up his reed pen, dipped it in the inkwell.

  We are still alive and kicking, and we still own the seas. Please, I beg you, my beloved father, gather what ships you can and come either to me or to Africa.

  But before Pompey the Great's brief reply could reach him, he learned of his father's death on the mud flats of Egyptian Pelusium at the hands of a torpid boy king and his palace cabal. Of course. Of course. As cruel, as unethical as Orientals are, they killed him thinking to curry favor with Caesar. Not for one moment would it have occurred to them that Caesar hungered to spare him. Oh, Father! This way is better! This way, you are not beholden to Caesar for the gift of continued life. When he was sure he could work without unmanning himself in front of his subordinates, Gnaeus Pompey sent 6,500 more of Cato's wounded to Africa, offering to the Lares Permarini, to Neptune and to Spes that they and Cato would find each other on that two-thousand-mile coast between the Nile Delta and Africa Province. Then he began the onerous task of removing himself, his fleets and men into bases around Sicily. Its few natives unsure whether they were glad or sorry to see the Romans go, Corcyra slowly lost its scars and returned to its sweet oblivion. Slowly.

  2

  Cato had decided to use his soldiers and noncombatants as oarsmen; if he didn't push them too hard, splendid exercise for convalescents, he thought. Zephyrus was blowing fitfully from the west, so sails were useless, but the weather was tranquil and the sea flat calm, as always under that gentle breeze. Hate Caesar with implacable intensity he might, but he had pored over those crisp, impersonal commentaries Caesar himself had written about his war in Gaul of the Long-hairs, and not allowed his feelings to blind him to the many practical facts they contained. Most important, that the General had shared in the sufferings and the deprivations of his ranker soldiers walked when they walked, lived on a few scraps of ghastly beef when they did, never held himself aloof from their company on the long marches and during the terrible times when they huddled behind their fortifications and could see no other fate than to be captured and burned alive in wicker cages. Politically and ideologically Cato had made great capital out of those same commentaries, but though his inwardly turned passions drove him to deride and dismiss Caesar's every action, a part of his mind absorbed the lessons. As a child Cato had found it agony to learn; he didn't even have his half sister Servilia's ability to remember what he had been taught and told, let alone possess anything approaching Caesar's legendary memory. It was rote, rote, rote for Cato, while Servilia sneered contempt and his adored half brother Caepio sheltered him from her viciousness. That Cato had survived a hideous childhood as the youngest of that tempestuous, divided brood of orphans was purely due to Caepio. Caepio, of whom it had been said that he was not his father's child, but the love child of his mother, Livia Drusa, and Cato's father, whom she later married; that Caepio's height, red hair and hugely beaked nose were pure Porcius Cato; that therefore Caepio was Cato's full, not half, brother, despite the august patrician name of Servilius Caepio he bore, and the vast fortune he had inherited as a Servilius Caepio. A fortune founded on fifteen thousand talents of gold stolen from Rome: the fabulous Gold of Tolosa. Sometimes when the wine didn't work and the daimons of the night refused to be banished, Cato would recall that evening when some minion of Uncle Drusus's enemies had thrust a small but wicked knife into Uncle Drusus's groin and twisted it until the damage within could not be repaired. A measure of how deadly the mixture of politics and love could become. The screams of agony that went on and on and on, the lake of blood on the priceless mosaic floor, the exquisite succor that the two-year-old Cato had felt enfolded within the five-year-old Caepio's embrace as all six children had witnessed Drusus's awful, lingering death. A night never to be forgotten. After his tutor finally managed to teach him to read, Cato had found his code of living in the copious works of his great-grandfather Cato the Censor, a pitiless ethic of stifled emotions, unbending principles and frugality; Caepio had tolerated it in his baby brother, but never subscribed to it himself. Though Cato, who didn't perceive the feelings of others, had not properly understood Caepio's misgivings about a code of living which did not permit its practitioner the mercy of an occasional failure. They could not be separated, even served their war training together. Cato never envisioned an existence without Caepio, his stout defender against Servilia as she heaped scorn on his auburn head because he was a descendant of Cato the Censor's disgraceful second marriage to the daughter of his own slave. Of course she was aware of Caepio's true parentage, but as he bore her own father's name, she focused all her malice on Cato. Whose progeny he actually was had never worried Caepio, Cato thought as he leaned on the ship's rail to watch the myriad twinkling lights of his fleet throw dissolving gold ribbons across the black still waters. Servilia. A monstrous child, a monstrous woman. More polluted even than our mother was. Women are despicable. The moment some haughty beautiful fellow with impecc
able ancestors and tomcat appeal strolls into view, they scramble to open their legs to him. Like my first wife, Attilia, who opened her legs to Caesar. Like Servilia, who opened her legs to Caesar, still does. Like the two Domitias, the wives of Bibulus, who opened their legs to Caesar. Like half of female Rome, who opened their legs to Caesar. Caesar! Always Caesar. His mind strayed then to his nephew, Brutus. Servilia's only son. Undeniably the son of her husband at the time, Marcus Junius Brutus, whom Pompeius Magnus had had the gall to execute for treason. The fatherless Brutus had mooned for years over Caesar's daughter, Julia, even managed to become engaged to her. That had pleased Servilia! If her son was married to his daughter, she could keep Caesar in the family, didn't need to work so hard to hide her affair with Caesar from her second husband, Silanus. Silanus had died too, but of despair, not Pompeius Magnus's sword. Servilia always said that I couldn't win Brutus to my side, but I did. I did! The first horror for him was the day that he found out his mother had been Caesar's mistress for five years; the second was the day Caesar broke his engagement to Julia and married the girl to Pompeius Magnus, almost old enough to be her grandfather and Brutus's father's executioner. Pure political expediency, but it had bound Pompeius Magnus to Caesar until Julia died. And the bleeding Brutus how soft he is! turned from his mother to me. It is a right act to inflict punishment upon the immoral, and the worst punishment I could have found for Servilia was to take her precious son away. Where is Brutus now? A lukewarm Republican at best, always torn between his Republican duty and his besetting sin, money. Neither a Croesus nor a Midas too Roman, of course. Too steeped in interest rates, brokerage fees, sleeping partnerships and all the furtive commercial activities of a Roman senator, disbarred by tradition from naked moneymaking, but too avaricious to resist the temptation. Brutus had inherited the Servilius Caepio fortune founded in the Gold of Tolosa. Cato ground his teeth, grasped the rail with both hands until his knuckles glistened white. For Caepio, beloved Caepio, had died. Died alone on his way to Asia Province, waiting in vain for me to hold his hand and help him cross the River. I arrived an hour too late. Oh, life, life! Mine has never been the same since I gazed on Caepio's dead face, and howled, and moaned, and yammered like one demented. I was demented. I am still oh, still demented. The pain! Caepio was thirty to my twenty-seven; soon I will be forty-six. Yet Caepio's death seems like yesterday, my grief as fresh now as it was then. Brutus inherited in accordance with the mos maiorum; he was Caepio's closest agnate male relative. Servilia's son, his nephew. I do not grudge Brutus one sestertius of that staggering fortune, and can console myself with the knowledge that Caepio's wealth could not have gone to a more careful custodian than he. I simply wish that Brutus was more a man, less a milksop. But with that mother, what else could I expect? Servilia has made him what she wanted obedient, subservient, and desperately afraid of her. How odd, that Brutus actually got up the gumption to cut his leading strings and join Pompeius Magnus in Macedonia. That cur Labienus says he fought at Pharsalus. Amazing. Perhaps being isolated from his harpy of a mother has wrought great changes in him? Perhaps he'll even show his pimple-pocked face in Africa Province? Hah! I'll believe that when I see it! Cato swallowed a yawn, and went to lie on his straw pallet between the miserably still forms of Statyllus and Athenodorus Cordylion shockingly bad sailors, both of them.

  Zephyrus continued to blow from the west, but veered around just sufficiently to the north to keep Cato's fifty transports heading in the general direction of Africa. However, he noted with sinking heart, far to the east of Africa Province. Instead of sighting first Italy's heel, then Italy's toe, and finally Sicily, they were pushed firmly against the west coast of the Greek Peloponnese all the way to Cape Taenarum, from whence they limped to Cythera, the beautiful island that Labienus had intended to visit in search of troops fleeing from Pharsalus. If he was still there, he didn't signal from the shore. Suppressing his anxiety, Cato sailed on toward Crete, and passed the stubby sere bluffs of Criumetopon on the eleventh day at sea. Gnaeus Pompey had not been able to provide a pilot, but had sent Cato to spend a day with his six best men, all experienced mariners who knew the eastern end of Our Sea as well as had the Phoenicians of old. Thus it was Cato who identified the various landfalls, Cato who had an idea of where they were going. Though they had sighted no other ships, Cato hadn't dared to stop and take on water anywhere in Greece, so on the twelfth day he anchored his fleet in unsheltered but placid conditions off Cretan Gaudos Isle, and there made sure that every barrel and amphora he owned was filled to the brim from a spring that gushed out of a cliff into the wavelets. Cretan Gaudos was the last lonely outpost before he committed them to the empty wastes of the Libyan Sea. Libya. They were going to Libya, where men were executed smeared with honey and lashed across an ant heap. Libya. A place of nomad Marmaridae marble people and, if the Greek geographers were to be believed, perpetually shifting sands, rainless skies. At Gaudos he had himself rowed in a tiny boat from one cluster of transports to the next, standing up to shout his little speech of cheer and explanation in that famously stentorian voice. "Fellow voyagers, the coast of Africa is still far away, but here we must say farewell to the friendly breast of Mother Earth, for from now on we sail without sight of land amid the streams of tunnyfish and the whoofs of dolphins. Do not be afraid! I, Marcus Porcius Cato, have you in my hand, and I will hold you safely until we reach Africa. We will keep our ships together, we will row hard but sensibly, we will sing the songs of our beloved Italy, we will trust in ourselves and in our gods. We are Romans of the true Republic, and we will survive to make life hard for Caesar, so I swear it by Sol Indiges, Tellus and Liber Pater!" A little speech greeted by frenzied cheers, smiling faces. Then, though he was neither priest nor augur, Cato killed a bidentine ewe and offered it, as the Commander, to the Lares Permarini, the protectors of those who traveled on the sea. A fold of his purple-bordered toga over his head, he prayed: "O ye who are called the Lares Permarini, or any other name ye prefer ye who may be gods, goddesses or of no sex at all we ask that ye intercede on our behalf with the mighty Father Neptune whose offspring ye may or may not be before we set out on our journey to Africa. We pray that ye will testify before all the gods that we are sincere as we ask ye to keep us safe, keep us free from the storms and travails of the deep, keep our ships together, and allow us to land in some civilized place. In accordance with our contractual agreements, which go back to the time of Romulus, we hereby offer ye the proper sacrifice, a fine young female sheep which has been cleansed and purified." And on the thirteenth day the fleet weighed anchor to sail to only the Lares Permarini knew where. Having attained his sea legs, Statyllus abandoned his bed and kept Cato company. "Though I try valiantly, I can never understand the Roman mode of worship," he said, now enjoying the slight motion of a big, heavy ship riding a glossy sea. "In what way, Statyllus?" "The legality, Marcus Cato. How can any people have legal contracts with their gods?" "Romans do, always have done. Though I confess, not being a priest, that I wasn't exactly sure when the contract with the Lares Permarini was drawn up," Cato said very seriously. "However, I did remember that Lucius Ahenobarbus said the contracts with numina like the Lares and Penates were drawn up by Romulus. It's only the late arrivals like Magna Mater and" he grimaced in disgust "Isis whose legal agreements with the Senate and People of Rome are preserved. A priest would automatically know, it's a part of his job. But who would elect Marcus Porcius Cato to one of the pontifical colleges when he can't even get himself elected consul in a poor year of dismal candidates?" "You are still young," Statyllus said softly, well aware of Cato's disappointment when he had failed to secure the consulship four years ago. "Once the true government of Rome is restored, you will be senior consul, returned by all the Centuries." "That is as may be. First, let us get ourselves to Africa."