Revenge

by Andrew Frediani

  Even further back, the infantry were retreating quickly under the pressure of the enemy legionaries.

  He was alone.

  *

  Veleda cursed herself for not having stopped Octavian’s bodyguards from focusing solely on the frontal area. In their conviction that the enemy would never manage to get past their line and that the legionaries of the other units would stay close to their commander, no one had thought they needed to guard their flanks, but in reality the simultaneous pressure of the two enemy armies was creating breaches, and the tribune who held his blade at the throat of Octavian had taken advantage of one which had opened up there to break through and surprise him from behind.

  “Tell him to release my brother, I said!” repeated Gaius Servilius Casca as he pressed the sword against the young commander’s throat. Octavian looked like a statue carved from ice, and despite the situation, his glacial gaze did not fail him even now. Veleda had to admit that, despite what she thought of the sect’s leader, he had guts.

  “If you kill me, your brother dies too,” hissed Octavian.

  “And the same holds true for you if he dies,” said Casca. “So what are we going to do?”

  Veleda had the impression that the scene she was watching remained frozen in time, while all around them soldiers were leaping into the air, collapsing to the ground, screaming, swinging their swords and lunging, waving their shields and fighting with all the strength they possessed. She turned back towards Ortwin and saw that he too was immobile, one arm firmly gripping the other Casca brother, no opponent daring to touch him lest he kill the tribune. It was a surreal situation – as though they, the actors upon that stage, inhabited some separate world.

  She wondered what Octavian would have done. And what she would soon have to do. She was worried about Ortwin, isolated there behind enemy lines, and wanted to keep an eye on him, but she had to concentrate on the nearest Casca.

  “Veleda, call Ortwin off,” said Octavian, turning to her. “I don’t want him to end up in a sector occupied mainly by enemies. He will bring Casca with him, of course, and once they are here, the two murderers may go back among their own soldiers.”

  “Of course,” replied Gaius Casca, contemptuously. “And once we’re both here, in the midst of your men, you can do with us what you will!”

  “No,” said Octavian, quietly, “I will go with you. Until you are safely behind your own lines.”

  The words of the triumvir left the man momentarily disorientated, and even Veleda asked herself if Octavian had gone mad to thus surrender himself to his enemies. But the triumvir stared at her, a determined expression on his face, and she read in his eyes a peremptory order to do as he commanded. His eyes flicked down to her waist for a moment and then back up to her face. Was he trying to tell her something? Once again, Veleda did not understand. She looked down and saw her dagger. Was that what he was referring to?

  “So be it then. Have my brother brought over,” said Casca to Octavian, and Veleda was forced to move closer to her man and tell him with sweeping gestures to bring the hostage over. Ortwin didn’t bat an eyelid and began to approach, no one daring to hinder him – the soldiers around him either ignored him, if they were engaged with an enemy, or impotently watched him pass. The German arrived near his men and Octavian, and looked carefully at all present, especially the triumvir, who nodded to him to release the murderer of Caesar.

  Veleda, meanwhile, was trying to work out how to carry out the tacit order given to her by her supreme commander. Ortwin released Casca who, in disbelief, walked toward his brother. Veleda moved over to Ortwin and whispered, “Caesar Octavian was staring at my dagger. What do you think he wanted me to do?”

  “He has a plan. Clearly he wants you to throw at one of the two brothers when they start to walk away.”

  “Me?” Veleda was incredulous. And above all, she was incredulous that Octavian would entrust his safety to her. Yes, to her, who he had accused of failing to prevent the death of his mother.

  “You,” confirmed Ortwin. “He wants to prove to you that he trusts you.”

  “But I’ll only kill one, even if I do manage to hit him, and the other will kill him.”

  “No, he won’t, because I will take care of the other,” replied the German, firmly.

  Meanwhile, the bodyguards had moved aside, allowing the two brothers to re-unite. The Cascas stood alongside Octavian, removed his sword, and gestured to him to march towards their lines, squeezing him between their larger bodies and holding their blades to his stomach.

  Veleda watched the three men walking side by side away from her, and instinctively grasped the handle of the knife in her belt and pulled it out – but she hesitated before throwing. Octavian was too close to her targets and, above all, the Cascas had him at sword point: even if she managed to hit one of them and not him, any sudden move on her part could cause the triumvir’s death.

  “I’ll take the one on the right, you take the one on the left,” whispered Ortwin, who did not seem worried. With a deep sigh, she prepared to throw. Her man did the same. At that moment, Octavian, with a quick movement of the arm, seemed to hit the Casca to the right of him, who slumped even as the dagger left Ortwin’s hand. The knife flew over the tribune’s head, missing him. The other Casca stood bewildered for a moment, then took half a step away from Octavian – and it was at that moment that she threw.

  Hitting him in the neck, just above the edge of his armour.

  A moment later, both of the murderers were on the ground and Octavian, in a fit of rage, had recovered his dagger and was stabbing them frantically and repeatedly, doing to them what they had done to Caesar.

  Eventually, the triumvir’s fury seemed to be spent. He walked over to Veleda and Ortwin and, looking at the woman, said, “I knew I could count on you, Veleda. You did exactly what I expected.”

  “But, sir,” stammered the woman, still not quite understanding what had happened, “I did not know that you…”

  “That I had a dagger and intended to use it? Sometimes wearing four tunics under your armour against the cold is an advantage: you can hide a weapon in them,” he said, with a broad smile. The first that Veleda had seen him give in a long time.

  XXV

  Agrippa made a gesture of annoyance and once again gave up his hopes of killing Tillius Cimber. He could not afford to lose Popillius Laenas nor his centuria, so he therefore put the murderer out of his mind and continued along the ditch until he reached him, by which time the officer was surrounded by enemy legionaries. Laenas was screaming wildly at his men to resist, but large gaps had opened up in the circle of shields his unit had formed and the centurion was forced to close the line continuously.

  Agrippa took advantage of those who had fallen into the ditch to provide him with a way of getting across it, and, still at the head of his column, he threw himself upon the soldiers fighting Laenas. The enemy, who were putting increasing pressure upon the cult member’s men, found themselves in turn under pressure, and Laenas’s men started fighting them off with fresh courage, crushing in a pincer movement the opponents who a moment before had been crushing them. At the same moment Agrippa stabbed one in the back the tip of another sword emerged beside the hilt of his own, almost running him through, and when his victim fell to the ground, the figure of Popillius Laenas appeared behind him: he pulled his sword from the same body Agrippa was extracting his own from and gave a coarse laugh as he realised the identity of the man he had almost crossed blades with.

  Agrippa could see nothing funny about the situation, though he realised that if he had found himself in front of Gaius Chaerea and not Popillius Laenas he might have laughed at the absurdity of it. He turned and began to swing his sword, making sure in the meantime that the rest of the cohort managed to get over to this side of the moat.

  “When you kill someone or see a corpse on the ground, throw it in there!” he shouted to them. Meanwhile, his sword held out towards his opponents, he pushed the body of the man he an
d Laenas had killed towards the ditch with his foot. He broke free of his nearest enemy, thrusting his sword into his neck until it slid out of the back, knocking his helmet off his head as it did so, then crouched down and pushed the body into the hole. The soldiers had been obeying his orders, and now the ditch could be crossed – in fact, almost all of his units had already done so, and their enemies were now between two fires. Agrippa had re-joined Laenas’s column and could now force their opponents onto the front line of his own legion. But first there was one thing that needed be done.

  “Laenas!” he called to the centurion. “Take your men and guard the praetorian gate of Brutus’s camp! They will try to get back inside to escape being encircled and we have to stop them!”

  The centurion frowned, visibly displeased at having to obey an order that brought him no glory, but Agrippa ignored him: after all, Laenas had set off on the attack without respecting orders.

  As for him, now that things seemed to be going well in his part of the battlefield he could resume the hunt for Tillius Cimber, and together with a column of his men, he returned to where he had last seen him. He wandered through the fighting, ignoring the individual battles and clashes between small groups, seeking only the detachment of a tribune. When he finally located him, Cimber was facing in the other direction. Unwilling to stab an opponent in the back in a duel, Agrippa ran at him, shouting at him to turn round. And when he was almost upon him, the man did, and Agrippa saw that he was not Caesar’s killer. But he had to take him down, even though the real Tillius Cimber was only a few steps away, had noticed his hunter and was attempting to make his way through the crush to escape the confrontation.

  Agrippa swung blow after blow at the man, upon whom he could ill afford to waste time, but the man seemed to know his stuff – he nether retreated nor let him pass, blocking him blow for blow. Agrippa began to grow impatient. Tullius Cimber was getting further and further away. He pressed his opponent but in his haste lowered his guard, and the other man slashed his thigh, creating a deep cut. Agrippa reacted to the burning in his leg with a roar, followed by a tremendous number of blows into which he put all his strength. He realised that he had broken the enemy’s shield, which the man now cast away, and was ready to deliver the decisive thrust when his injury made him trip, and he fell to his knees in the mud. The enemy soldier could hardly believe his luck at finding his opponent at his mercy, and made a jab at him which the young man parried with his shield before swinging an upwards blow that cut cleanly through the tribune’s arm.

  He wasted no time finishing him off, then climbed to his feet with great effort and limped off as fast as he was able towards Tullius Cimber. Cimber was fleeing, but when he saw Agrippa hobbling towards him he gave an evil smile, paused, and turned to face him, encouraged by his enemy’s wound. Agrippa was immediately subjected to a hail of blows that forced him to retreat, until his leg gave way and he collapsed again into the mire. Cimber shouted in joy and attacked, but Agrippa dodged, rolling out of the way in the mud, and Cimber’s sword struck the ground where he had lain a moment earlier. Agrippa pulled his shield from his arm and hurled it along the ground at the tribune’s shins. Cimber collapsed forward and Agrippa threw himself at him, holding his arms down with his own body weight.

  Cimber squirmed and kicked, like a wrestler pinned to the floor, but was unable to get to his feet. With his right hand, Agrippa grasped Cimber’s sword hand. The men’s two blades were touching now, and moving now towards Cimber’s face, now towards Agrippa’s ribs. Agrippa decided to risk letting go and striking a blow, hoping he would be quick enough to pre-empt his opponent, who would certainly try to stab him.

  He released the other man’s arm and swung his sword to the left, in the direction of Cimber’s face, and the blade entered the tribune’s mouth. Cimber’s eyes widened and he stiffened, then vomited blood onto the mud and lay still. But not before his sword had pricked Agrippa’s side.

  The young man lay there for a few moments on the lifeless body of the murderer, trying to catch his breath, and then with great difficulty rose to his knees and, eventually, to his feet, forcing himself to ignore the pain in his thigh. He had lost a lot of blood but could not afford to stop. He looked around him, and saw that the situation had changed. The enemy were retreating from his legion and moving towards the sector occupied by Rufus’s units. He asked one of his soldiers what had happened and the man informed him that the men of his fellow member of Mars Ultor had succumbed and that now all of Brutus’s men nearby were pursuing them.

  Losing any residual cohesion, from what he could see.

  Perhaps the battle could be won there. They needed men, though, and they didn’t have enough. But then he remembered what Octavian had said: “We’ll let Antony win for us.”

  And it was clear what would be the next move. Involuntarily, Rufus would act as bait.

  *

  Gaius Chaerea was struggling but he saw that Rufus was struggling even more. The legion was broken up, with some parts retreating, and they were isolated behind enemy lines. It had been easy to predict that this would have happened, but the tribune had not wanted to listen to reason. And now he was more exposed than anyone else to a counter attack from Brutus.

  He had to help him.

  The enemy were dispersing in pursuit of his fellow soldiers further back, and this allowed him to manoeuvre his column diagonally without attracting enemy pressure on their flanks. They only had to deal with a few isolated group of soldiers who had been tardy setting off, and his men stayed in formation. On the other hand, their opponents were more interested in attacking those with their backs to them than a solid unit ready to resist: if they met opposition they didn’t insist too much and simply took another direction. Only a few of the units in front of Brutus maintained their positions, but Chaerea, unlike Rufus, had no intention of attacking the enemy commander for the moment. It would have been suicide.

  Rufus was trying to wriggle his way out of the forest of legionaries in which he found himself, but his steed, like those of many of the horsemen who had accompanied him, could find no space to move. The tribune was swinging his sword to keep off the soldiers around him, but there were too many of them and, sooner or later, he would be done for. Some of his subordinates had already seen their horses killed beneath them and had fallen to the ground, only to find themselves struck by a dozen swords moments later. Which was what would happen to Rufus too, unless Gaius intervened quickly. He led the column straight towards Rufus as the tribune was knocked from his horse and fell to the ground.

  Chaerea immediately commanded his men to break through, bearing down upon the soldiers who were about to finish off his comrade. Some noticed his arrival and turned in time to face him and his men, but others, busy with Rufus, let themselves be surprised from behind. The column arrived solid and compact, and even those who had prepared for them were unable to resist – Chaerea and his men engulfed them, slamming the enemy legionaries to the ground and slaughtering them with their swords. Some fell onto Rufus, who found himself buried beneath more than one corpse. When he eventually managed to regain his feet, he gave Gaius a fleeting nod of thanks and turned to look in the direction of Brutus.

  At that very moment, the enemy commander was urging his horse on, and, along with his bodyguards and some of the units closest to him, was leaving that part of the battlefield. Where he was going, Gaius had no idea, but then he noticed several enemy contingents appearing from the sector entrusted to Agrippa, and knew that Brutus was running away. He saw their tribune leading the newcomers and, along with Rufus, went over to meet him.

  “What happened?” asked Rufus, as soon as they met. “Why are you here?”

  “I could say that I have come to give you a hand because I saw that you were in trouble,” said Agrippa. “But the truth is that I noticed the enemy were busy pursuing you so I thought I’d take the opportunity to attack them from the side and from behind. I convinced Antony to take advantage of the situation, and he sent a c
ontingent with my unit and I rushed over here.”

  Rufus didn’t attempt to hide his annoyance. “You needn’t have bothered,” he said bitterly, “everything was under control here.” But Chaerea knew that the front there had collapsed, and that it took one as brazen as Rufus not to admit it. Agrippa’s appearance was providential.

  “If you say so… Let’s say that we are working to inflict a decisive blow upon the enemy,” said Agrippa, philosophically.

  Rufus muttered something unintelligible and went off to round up his horsemen and get himself a horse from among those who had survived.

  “You did right to come, Agrippa” said Gaius, once the tribune had left. “Shall I come after them with you?”

  “No. I’d prefer you to supplement my sector, I had to leave it undefended,” said the tribune. “We weren’t in trouble. In fact, we’d virtually surrounded the enemy. But I took a cohort with my legion when I came to your aid, and wouldn’t want there not to be enough men to force them to surrender.”

  Chaerea nodded, then motioned to his unit, which in the meantime had reconstituted its ranks, and went where Agrippa had ordered him. He passed the enemy ramparts and saw that the encirclement manoeuvre had almost been successful. Some of the enemy had actually already laid down their arms in surrender. Others, however, resisted and, in some cases, had proven themselves capable of breaking through the blockade.

  He was distributing his own men over the sectors most at risk when he heard his name being called. He turned and saw Popillius Laenas gesturing for his attention, and went to him. Laenas was just below the embankment, near the praetorian gate, along with other soldiers, and together they were forming a sort of tortoise for protection against the projectiles arriving from the stands.

  “What do you want?” he asked, as soon as he was within earshot.

  “Change places with me! I’ve been here for ages now stopping enemy troops from getting back in, and I’ve already lost three men!”