FIELDS OF MARS

by S. J. A. Turney

  Titus Labienus, long one of Caesar’s most important lieutenants and a considered and cautious man shook his head. ‘It cannot come to that. Drawing a sword on fellow Romans is a damnable idea. Besides, there is little chance you would manage to launch any campaign against the senate from this province. Ravenna may seem safe, but there are military ships along this coast loyal to the senate rather than you, and politicians here and across the province who have supported you, but will never do so against the senate. No noble or official of Cisalpine Gaul will follow you into a war against Rome.’

  ‘I think you overestimate their loyalty to a senate who cares little for them,’ Caesar replied quietly. ‘Who was it who granted rights and citizenship to their towns? Me. Who arrested the deputation from Comum and stripped them of their citizenship? That same senate. Cisalpine Gaul is not Latium, Titus.’

  ‘Regardless, there will be chaos here if you leave the province and march on Rome. And I for one will not cross that boundary with sword drawn and the names of senators on my killing lips.’

  Caesar rounded on Labienus, and Fronto expected anger, but was surprised to see only sad acceptance. ‘I would not ask you to betray your conscience, Titus. You have been one of the rocks upon which my campaigns have been built. But I would not have you stand in Rome against me, either. Report to the legions in Transalpine Gaul and take command of that force.’

  Labienus nodded and stepped back.

  ‘He’s right about one thing, General,’ Fronto said. ‘If you march away from Ravenna on Rome, this city will be in chaos. Some will support you, but others will not. And for all your munificence, I think you are not seeing the province for what it is. They may have been loyal to you, but thus far, you have been Rome. If you turn on Rome, I would not give a denarius for their loyalty.’

  ‘Then it will have to be done carefully,’ Caesar murmured. ‘But the fact remains that the senate have given me a month, and I cannot accede to their demands. By Februarius, we will be at war with the senate.’

  Chapter One

  10th of Januarius - Ravenna

  Fronto stood on one of the few points of Ravenna that was high enough to grant a view of anything but swamp and the roiling white blanket of marsh fog and watched the figures moving along the coast road like ghosts in the mist. Maybe thirty men in just tunics and boots, they could easily be fishmongers or wheelwrights or beggars, or even slaves. But if he could see them up close, he knew he would recognise the shape of gladius and pugio under padded linen or jutting from packs.

  For these were no common citizens, but men of the Thirteenth Legion in civilian attire, and they were veterans of more than half a decade of brutal war. Each man was the hardest and strongest the republic could breed. They padded off south in small groups, chatting and separating as they moved, some filtering in among merchants with their wagons of vegetables, others stopping by the roadside for bread and cheese. By the time they were half a mile away from Ravenna they would be indistinguishable from the common citizenry on the road.

  Just like the three hundred who had already departed in small, nondescript groups that morning. Their centurions and even the tribune assigned to that cohort would be there among them somewhere, making for Ariminium.

  Ariminium! Ten miles inside the borders of Italia. Senatorial territory. The first major town south from the border of Cisalpine Gaul. Ariminium had a small garrison – a few military ships in port and a reasonable force of veterans who the town’s ordo could call upon if it felt the need for defence. Certainly if Caesar sent the Thirteenth marching south they would find the place manned against them. But a cohort of veterans filtering into the town as ordinary citizens and then securing it quietly and subtly?

  He shivered. Those last few departing men did not look to be much, but they were as good as a spear cast against the senate. They were a declaration of war.

  ‘What of the rest of the legion?’ Galronus asked quietly at his shoulder.

  ‘They are armed and ready. They just await Caesar’s order to march. This is it, my friend. What I’ve feared for so long. Despite everything I’ve said for a decade, I find myself solidly on the side of Caesar in defiance of my own republic. And while I should feel like a betrayer and full of guilt and self-loathing for what we’re doing, I actually feel oddly proud.’

  ‘You could be Remi, with that attitude,’ Galronus chuckled.

  ‘Where is Caesar?’

  The Remi prince shrugged. ‘He rose early and went to the baths as though nothing untoward was happening. He’s held his morning meeting of clients and is going to attend the fights in honour of some local goddess this afternoon.’

  ‘He’s packing the day full,’ Fronto muttered. ‘What with the banquet tonight.’

  Galronus nodded. ‘I am surprised at the number of people who are attending, given the short notice.’

  ‘The power of curiosity,’ Fronto snorted. ‘All the important folk of Ravenna will know of the senate’s demands by now and will want to know Caesar’s plans. And they will want to look supportive as long as the general remains in town. They will have discarded any other plans and rearranged to be here tonight.’

  ‘Well,’ Galronus stretched, ‘what are our plans for the day?’

  ‘Are you packed and ready?’

  ‘Isn’t everyone?’

  Fronto nodded. ‘Well if Caesar is indulging in mundanities to keep the populace unawares, then perhaps we should too. I could certainly do with a massage, and I haven’t seen a good fight for weeks.’

  * * *

  The room hummed with conversation and the air quivered with strange tension, though that tautness had been gradually relaxing with every cup of wine consumed. Fronto had watched with appreciation as the general had carried out the subtlest of manoeuvres, more cunning than any battlefield strategy he had ever carried out.

  Incredibly subtle. In every fine detail.

  The wine was Rhodian, from a vineyard that was hailed in some quarters and shunned in others, known for the intoxicating strength of their brew – a wine that Fronto’s mother had called ‘the choice of a vulgar drunkard’, often in reference to his father. It was served in smaller jars than usual, so that the jugs of water with which to cut it appeared larger. The drinking vessels were not the best glassware as one might expect, but fine red ceramic, embossed with the forms of gods. Hard to see what proportions were mixed in such a cup. Fronto had watched Caesar’s slaves at work throughout the evening and estimated even conservatively that each guest had already consumed twice the alcohol he believed he had. There was a vagueness to the expressions of the attendees, and many had begun to giggle at times, while others were starting to drool or fall asleep, their gentle, content snores adding to the background noise.

  Then there was the seating. Rather than placing his officers at specific tables and separating the groups, Caesar had filtered them in here and there among the important figures of Ravenna, so that the whole was a good mix.

  The entertainment, too. A wiry Thracian lyre player accompanied by a flautist at the far end, strumming and tootling in a constant stream of melody. Three Arabian dancers, lithe and sinuous, moving in time to the music before the only blank wall with no door, drawing the hungry gazes of the attendees. Two wrestlers throwing each other around before a third wall. The fourth side empty, drawing no gaze.

  ‘And Cicero, standing atop a step, proclaimed “I was talking to the cow”,’ Caesar said loudly, drawing laughter from those around him, wine bursting from the nose of an unfortunate and rather intoxicated member of the city’s council.

  Fronto’s gaze panned around the room. Almost half the seats were now empty, and the growing number of absences had thus far gone entirely unnoticed. Brutus was sitting between an enormously fat man who was already dozing off with his hands folded across his belly, and a strangely angular man who was arguing with his other neighbour, hammering his wine cup on the table repeatedly in a staccato punctuation of the discourse. The younger officer caught Fronto�
�s eye and gave a miniscule nod.

  Unnoticed by the men beside him, Brutus rose from his seat and padded off to a door at the rear of the room, in that bare, unwatched wall. The buzz of social engagement went on. Fronto carefully poured himself another wine, not trusting the slaves who were busily drugging the locals. Despite his prodigious capacity for wine, even he was being relatively careful tonight. This was not a night to be drunk.

  He sipped down that cup and the next at a careful, sedate pace, and the next, too, as the hours passed. He watched Hortensius leave quietly and unobserved. And Trebonius too. And Pollio. Galronus had been one of the first to go, and Labienus was not attending, since he was already well on his way back to Gaul and his distant posting. A quick count revealed only four of them left. Still, the guests paid little attention. In fairness, by this time most of them were either asleep or were so deep in their cups you could have driven a siege tower over them and they wouldn’t notice.

  Even as he wondered when someone would twig what was happening, he saw Curio, who had so loved this afternoon’s games, rise, stretch, nod slightly and then slip out of the room. Surely someone would soon question this? Certainly when Caesar left, at least?

  Just Hirtius, Caesar and himself now.

  Another cup of wine.

  Hirtius was struggling to lose the attention of an old local who was waffling drunkenly into his ear. Fronto had no such troubles. The men to either side of him had tried to engage him in conversation early in the evening, but Fronto was long practiced at offending people. He had called Cisalpine Gaul a ‘career graveyard’ in conversation with one, following which he’d seen only the man’s back all night. The other had lauded the local fish – he seemed to be some sort of piscine magnate – and Fronto had replied that fish made him fart. To add substance to his argument he had done his best to engulf the man in a cloud of noxious gas numerous times during the night and now the man would not even look at him.

  Finally, the noisome local next to Hirtius turned away at some salacious comment about the dancing girls, and as soon as his back was turned, Hirtius rose and slipped from the room unnoticed.

  Caesar gave Fronto the merest of nods. With a grin, the former legate glanced at the men to either side, who had not looked at him in over an hour, rose, drained his cup and sauntered from the room. He reached the side door and slipped through into the dim room beyond, where he paused and, his curiosity piqued, glanced back within. Caesar was now the only one of them left in the room, and still the locals revelled drunkenly on, barely conscious, unaware that over a score of men had left the room over the last two hours.

  ‘Friends,’ Caesar said with a smile, rising from his seat. ‘I have a treat for you, specially to mark the occasion and to give thanks for the hospitality the ordo of Ravenna has shown for my staff and I. Fresh from Tusculum and, before that, Rome, where they have gained an unsurpassed reputation, I give you the “Naked melody of Antioch”.’

  A grin slid slowly across Fronto’s face as his attention turned to five stunningly attractive Syrian beauties wearing only jewellery and flimsy netting who wafted into the room gracefully, bending and whirling in a manner that must require a great deal of stretching beforehand. As though attached by strings, every eye in the room moved with those figures. Caesar paused only long enough to make sure the remaining wakeful audience was captivated, then straightened and spoke to the man beside him – something about using the latrines.

  A moment later the general passed through the doorway and was suddenly all activity.

  ‘Marcus, good. Time to move. Come, now.’

  Fronto found himself all-but swept along in the general’s wake as the older man hurried through the room and along the short corridor that led to a rear door which opened onto a narrow street that led off the small forum square. They paused briefly there to gather up their cloaks from the table beside the door. The night air was more than a little chilly as the general pull the door open to admit a blast of winter.

  ‘All very masterful, General,’ Fronto said as they emerged into the darkness and turned toward the archway next to a bakery across the road, ‘but even dulled as they are, it will buy you only moments. An hour at most.’

  Caesar gave him an infuriating knowing grin as they passed beneath the arch to where Pollio and Brutus awaited with the carriage, horses nickering and ready to leave, breath pluming in the cold night air. There was no crowd of a score of officers lurking in the archway. Most of the others must already be on the way. He glanced this way and that, something unseen making his spine tingle.

  His heart jumped as he realised they were not alone. Shadowy figures were emerged from the alleyways nearby. Two of them – career criminals, Fronto decided from the look of them – bowed. Neither looked trustworthy, like the worst resident of the Subura, and Fronto’s hand automatically went to his pouch at the sight of them.

  ‘All is ready?’ Caesar asked the two men.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Then look to your tasks. For Rome. For the future. And, of course, for the money.’

  Teeth flashed in grins in the gloom as the men melted away.

  ‘Insurance?’ Fronto asked quietly.

  ‘I think the local ordo will be disorganised and confused until the morning anyway,’ Caesar replied. ‘Then they will find none of the ships in port ready to sail and no sign of the city’s usual couriers. Any message sent by road is extremely unlikely to make it past the first milestone. Effectively, no news will travel faster than us.’

  ‘This is why I don’t like to play you at Latrunculi, General.’

  ‘Unprepared men lose wars, Fronto, and that is what this now is. Since the First Cohort of the Thirteenth wandered south this morning dressed as farmers, this became a war. And the moment we cross into Italia it becomes official. Now is the time to back out if you cannot countenance such a thing, for the Italian border is only twenty miles to the south.’

  Fronto swallowed as he climbed into the carriage alongside the others and slid into the seat next to Brutus. ‘I think the time for doubt has now passed, Caesar,’ he declared, reaching down by his seat to where his military boots sat along with his belt and the sword with the beautiful embossed orichalcum hilt. Gripping the handle the truth sank into him that unless something unexpected happened, in the coming days he might be required to push that point into the soft flesh of a fellow Roman.

  ‘Agreed,’ Caesar nodded. ‘Now let us hope that when faced with our advance, the senate sees sense and offers terms. I have no wish to march into Rome like Sulla, though I will do so if pushed into it.’

  The driver geed the horses and the carriage creaked forward, emerging from the archway into the street. Fronto could see already dark figures at work destroying one of the wooden walkways that connected the islands. If the general’s hired criminals were working like this everywhere, within the hour Ravenna would be a mess, unable to function. Caesar would be able to amble slowly across the border like a man out for a stroll and still stay ahead of the tidings of his advance.

  He had burned his bridges – figuratively speaking, and almost literally too – with Ravenna. The ordo would be unlikely to support him now, but that was immaterial. In the coming days either Pompey would crush any advance and their little insurrection would be over, or Caesar would stand triumphant in Rome, at which point Ravenna would hurriedly backtrack and claim they had always supported him.

  The game had begun.

  * * *

  ‘Are we not going the wrong way?’

  Caesar turned his infuriating expression on Fronto in reply – that expression the former legate knew all too well and which seemed to say “Really, Fronto, have you not figured it out yet?” It was an expression Fronto had seen often enough in his life that he was able these days to resist rising to the bait. He waited, and Caesar rolled his eyes.

  ‘Misdirection and misinformation, Marcus. If you learn anything from daily dealings with the senate and men like Pompey, Cato and Crassus it is never to
meet their expectations. Always misinform and surprise. This morning, while the cohort was moving off slowly to the south, I sent messages via the couriers to Aquileia to prepare my villa. No one would admit to infiltrating the courier system, of course, but I will give you your body weight in denarii if the information in my letters wasn’t known to the council of Ravenna by noon at the latest.’

  ‘How do you play more than one game at a time without getting confused,’ Fronto grumbled.

  ‘Always have more than once dice, Marcus. The messages served three purposes. Firstly, they kept the ordo’s spies busy looking at my correspondence and therefore away from the camp where the soldiers were leaving. Secondly, it gave context to tonight’s social engagement. They believe it was intended as a fond farewell as I prepare to depart Ravenna…’

  ‘Which it was.’

  ‘Which it was, yes, though not in the way they suspected. And thirdly it adds to the confusion of the next twenty four hours. When they know we have slipped out of town, they will not immediately worry. Even Pompey’s spies in the town – and it would be naïve of me indeed to presume that there were none – will simply think I tired of the party and returned to Aquileia, just as my missives suggested. Some suspicion will naturally fall on me when it transpires that no ship will be ready to sail for hours, their captains and helmsmen and musicians are all missing or drunk or both, and that the port records have vanished into the bargain.’

  ‘Your lowlifes were clearly busy during our gathering.’

  ‘I could not possibly comment,’ Caesar smiled. ‘When it becomes clear that the sea is of little use, my opposition will look to land exits and will discover that many bridges have collapsed during the night and that banditry is suddenly rife in the surrounding countryside. Again, suspicion will fall on me, but there is no concrete evidence. And word will be that the only coach to leave Ravenna at the appropriate time made off north along the Via Popilia in the direction of Aquileia.’