Emperor: the field of swords E#3 (48 page)

    The dawn breeze chilled the skin of the centurion as he tore the letter into halves, then quarters, not stopping until the shreds lifted in the wind and flew. It was the first order he had ever disobeyed, and it brought him peace.

CHAPTER 46

   Pompey leaned against the columns of the temple to Jupiter and looked over the moonlit city below the Capitol. Dictator. He shook his head and smiled in the darkness at the thought.

    The city was quiet and already it was hard to imagine the gangs and rioting that had once seemed like the end of the world. Pompey looked over to the new Senate house and remembered the flames and screams in the night. In a few years, Clodius and Milo would be all but forgotten in the city, but Rome went on and she was his alone.

    The Senate had extended his Dictatorship without the slightest pressure from him. They would do it again, he was sure, for as long as he wanted. They had seen the need for a strong hand to cut through all the laws with which they had bound themselves. Sometimes it was necessary, just to make the city work.

    Part of Pompey wished Crassus had lived to see what he had made out of the chaos. The strength of grief Pompey had felt when he heard of his death had surprised him. They had known each other for the best part of thirty years, through war and peace, and Pompey missed the old man’s company. He supposed it was possible to grow used to anything.

    He had seen so many fall in his life. There were times when he could not believe that he was the one to have survived the turbulent years, where men like Marius and Sulla, Cato and Crassus had all gone over the river. Yet he was still there and there was more than one race in life. Sometimes the only way to triumph was to survive while others died. That too could be a skill.

    A feather of breeze made Pompey shiver and consider going back to his home to rest. His thoughts turned to Julius then and the letters he had sent north. Would Regulus take the decision out of his hands? Pompey wished it could be so. The part of him that held his honor felt ashamed at what he had ordered and still contemplated. He thought of Julius’s daughter, heavy with new life inside her. She had a hard edge that had brought her through the pressure of being wife to the most powerful man in Rome. Still, he could not share his plans with one of Caesar’s blood. She had done her duty well and fulfilled an old agreement he had made with her father. There was nothing more he needed from her.

    There could be no sharing of power, now that he understood it. Julius would either be killed in the north, or he would obey his orders and the result would be the same.

    Pompey sighed at the thought and shook his head with genuine regret. Caesar could not be allowed to live, or one day he would come into the Senate and the years of blood would begin again.

    “I will not allow it,” Pompey whispered into the breeze, and there was no one to hear him.

    Julius sat on the banks of the Rubicon and looked south. He wished Cabera or Renius were there to advise him, but the decision was his alone in the end, as so many others before it. His legions stretched away into the night around him, and he could hear the sentries walk their routes in the darkness, calling out the passwords that meant routine and safety.

    The moon was bright under a clear spring sky and Julius smiled as he looked over the men who sat with him. Ciro was there at his shoulder and Brutus and Mark Antony sat on the other side, looking over the bright thread of the river. Octavian stood nearby with Regulus, and Domitius lay on his back and looked up at the stars. It was easy to imagine Renius there and Cabera with him. Somehow, in imagination, they were the men he remembered, before illness and injury had taken their toll. Publius Crassus and his father had gone, and Bericus, too. His own father and Tubruk; Cornelia. Death had followed them all and brought them down one by one.

    “If I take the legions south, it will be civil war,” Julius said softly. “My poor battered city will see more blood. How many would die this year, for me?”

    They were silent for a long time and Julius knew they could barely imagine the crime of attacking their own city. He hardly dared to give voice to it himself. Sulla had done it and was despised in memory. There was no way back for any of them after such an act.

    “You said Pompey promised safe passage,” Mark Antony said at last.

    Brutus snorted. “Our Dictator has no honor, Julius. Remember that. He had Salomin beaten half to death in the tournament, and where was honor then? He isn’t fit to walk where Marius walked. If you go alone, he will never let you leave. He’ll have you under the knife as soon as you step through the gates. You know it as well as any of us.”

    “What choice do you have, though?” Mark Antony said. “A civil war against our own people? Would the men even follow us?”

    “Yes,” Ciro’s bass growl sounded out of the darkness. “We would.”

    None of them knew how to respond to the big man, and a strained silence fell. They could all hear the river whisper over the stones and the voices of their men around them. Dawn was near and Julius was no closer to knowing what he would do.

    “I have been at war for as long as I can remember,” Julius said softly. “Sometimes I ask myself what it has been for if I stop here. What did I waste the lives of my friends for if I go meekly to my death?”

    “It may not
be
death!” Mark Antony said. “You say you know the man, but he promised-”

    “No,” Regulus interrupted. He took a step closer to Julius as Mark Antony looked up at him. “No, Pompey will not let you live. I know.”

    Julius saw the strained features of the centurion in the moonlight and he rose to his feet.

    “How?” he asked.

    “Because I was his man and you were not meant to leave Ariminum. I had his order to kill you.”

    All of them came to their feet and Brutus put himself solidly between Regulus and Julius.

    “You
bastard
. What are you talking about?” Brutus demanded, his hand resting on his sword hilt.

    Regulus didn’t look at him, instead holding Julius’s gaze. “I could not obey the order,” he said.

    Julius nodded. “There are some that should not be obeyed, my friend. I’m glad you realized that. Sit down, Brutus. If he was going to kill me, do you think he would have told us all first? Sit down!”

    Reluctantly, they settled back onto the grass, though Brutus glared at Regulus, still unsure of him.

    “Pompey has only one legion guarding Rome,” Domitius said speculatively. Julius glanced at him and Domitius shrugged. “I mean, it could be done if we moved too quickly for him to reinforce. We could be at the walls in a week if we pushed the pace. With four veteran legions against him, he couldn’t hold the city for even a day.”

    Mark Antony looked appalled at this and Domitius chuckled as he saw his expression. There was already more light as dawn approached, and they looked at each other guardedly as Domitius continued, raising his hands.

    “It could be done, that’s all. One gamble for the whole pot. One throw for Rome.”

    “You think you could kill legionaries?” Julius asked him.

    Domitius rubbed his face and looked away. “I’m saying it might not come to that. Our soldiers have been hardened in Gaul and we know what they can do. I don’t think Pompey has anything to match us.”

    Brutus looked at the man he had followed from childhood. He had swallowed more bitterness in their years than he would ever have believed, and as they sat together, he did not know if Julius even understood what he had been given. His pride, his honor, his youth. Everything. He knew Julius better than any of them and he saw the glitter in his friend’s eyes as he contemplated another war. How many of them would survive his ambition? he wondered. The others looked so trusting, it made Brutus want to close his eyes rather than be sickened. Yet despite it all, he knew Julius could bring him with a word.

    Domitius cleared his throat. “It’s your choice, Julius. If you want us to go back to Gaul and lose ourselves, I’m with you. The gods know we’d never be found in some of the places we’ve seen. But if you want to go to Rome and risk it all one last time, I’m still with you.”

    “One last throw?” Julius said, and he made it a question for all of them.

    One by one, they nodded, until only Brutus remained. Julius raised his eyebrows and smiled gently.

    “I can’t do it without you, Brutus. You know that.”

    “One last throw, then,” Brutus whispered, before looking away.

    As the sun rose, the veteran legions of Gaul crossed the Rubicon and marched on Rome.

HISTORICAL NOTE

    As with the previous two books, I think an explanatory note can be useful, especially when the history is sometimes more surprising than the fiction.

    I have mentioned Alexander the Great throughout the book as a hero for Julius. Certainly the Greek king’s life would have been well known to all educated Romans, complementing their interest in that culture. Though the setting was Cadiz rather than a deserted Spanish village, the first-century biographer Suetonius provides the detail of Caesar sighing in frustration at the foot of Alexander’s statue. At the age of thirty-one, Julius had achieved nothing in comparison. He could not have known that his greatest victories would come after that point.

    Apart from his wives, Julius is reported as having had a number of prominent mistresses, though Suetonius said Servilia was the one he loved most of all. Julius did buy her a pearl valued at one and a half million denarii. Perhaps one of the reasons he invaded Britain may have been to find more of them.

    He was quaestor in Spain before he returned as praetor, which I have not gone into for reasons of pace. He was a busier man than any writer can hope to cover, and even a condensed version fills these books to bursting point.

    He did stage a gladiatorial combat in solid silver armor and ran huge debts pursuing public fame. It is true that at one point he had to physically leave the city to avoid his creditors. He became consul with Bibilus and chased his colleague out of the forum after a disagreement. In Bibilus’s absence, it became something of a joke in Rome to say a document was signed by Julius and Caesar.

    As a minor point, the Falernian wine Julius poured into his family tomb was so expensive that a cup of it cost a week’s salary for a legionary. Unfortunately, the grapes grew on Mount Vesuvius, by Pompeii, and in A.D. 79 the taste was lost forever.

    The Catiline conspiracy was as important in its day as the Gunpowder Plot in England. The conspiracy was betrayed when one of them confided in a mistress, who reported what she had heard. Julius was named, probably falsely, as one of the conspirators, as was Crassus. Both men survived the upheaval without stains on their characters. Catiline left the city to take command of the rebel army while his friends were to help create chaos and rioting in the city. Part of the evidence against them showed that a Gallic tribe had been approached for warriors. After a heated debate as to their fate, the lesser conspirators were ritually strangled. Catiline was killed in the field.

    The conquests of Gaul and Britain comprise most of the second part of this book. I have followed the main events that began with the migration of the Helvetii and the defeat of Ariovistus. It is worth mentioning that Julius Caesar himself is sometimes the only extant source for the details of this campaign, but he records mistakes and disasters as faithfully as his victories. For example, he tells quite candidly how a mistaken report made him retreat from his own men, believing them to be the enemy. In his commentaries, he puts the number of the Helvetii and allied tribes at 386,000. Only 110,000 were sent home. Against them, he had six legions and auxiliaries-35,000 at most.

    His battles were rarely a simple test of strength. He formed alliances with lesser tribes and then came to their aid. He fought by night if necessary, on all terrains, flanking, bribing, and outmaneuvering his enemies. When Ariovistus demanded only cavalry at their meeting, Julius ordered the foot soldiers of the Tenth to mount, which must have been a sight to see.

    I did worry that the sheer distances he covered must have been exaggerated until my cousin took part in a sixty-mile trek. She and her husband completed it in twenty-four hours, but soldiers from a Gurkha regiment completed it in nine hours, fifty-seven minutes. Two and a third marathons, nonstop. One must be careful in this modern age where pensioners seem able to ski down Everest, but I think the legions of Gaul could have matched that pace and, like the Gurkhas, have been able to fight at the end.

    It was not such a great stretch to suppose that Adŕn might have understood the language of the Gauls, or even the dialect of the Britons, to some extent. The original Celts came across Europe from an unknown place of origin-possibly the Caucasus Mountains. They settled Spain, France, Britain, and Germany. England only became predominantly Romano-Saxon much later and of course maintains much of that difference into modern times.

    It is difficult to imagine Julius’s view of the world. He was a prolific reader and would have known Strabo’s works. He knew Alexander had traveled east and Gaul was a great deal closer. He would have heard of Britain from the Greeks, after Pytheas traveled there two and a half centuries before: perhaps the world’s first genuine tourist. While we have lost Pytheas’s books, there is no reason why they should not have been available then. Julius would have heard of pearls, tin, and gold to lure him over from Gaul. Geographically, he thought that Britain was due east of Spain rather than to the north, with Ireland in between. It could even have been a continent as big as Africa, for all he could be sure on that first landing.

    His first invasion of Britain in 55 B.C. was disastrous. Storms smashed his ships and ferocious resistance from blue-skinned tribes and vicious dogs were almost his undoing. The Tenth literally had to fight their way through the surf. He stayed only three weeks and the following year brought eight hundred ships back, this time forcing his way through to the Thames. Despite this vast fleet, he had stretched himself too far and would not return a third time. As far as we know, they never paid the tribute they promised.

    Vercingetorix would hold a similar place in history and legend as King Arthur if he had managed to win his great battle against Julius. He united the tribes and saw that scorching the earth and starving the legions was the only way to defeat them. Even his great host was eventually broken by the legions. The High King of Gaul was taken in chains to Rome and executed.

    The exact details of the triumvirate with Crassus and Pompey are not known. Certainly the arrangement benefited all three men, and Julius’s term in Gaul went on for many years after his consular year had ended. Interestingly, when Pompey sent the order for him to return alone after Gaul, Julius had very nearly completed the ten-year hiatus the law demanded between seeking a consul’s post. If Julius had secured a second term at that point, he would have been untouchable, which Pompey must have feared.

    Clodius and Milo are not fictional characters. Both men were part of the chaos that almost destroyed Rome while Julius was in Gaul. Street gangs, riots, and murder became all too common, and when Clodius was finally killed, his supporters did indeed cremate him in the Senate house, burning it to the ground in the process. If you go to the forum in Rome today, the Senate house is one they rebuilt after the fire. Pompey was elected sole consul with a mandate to establish order in the city. Even then, the triumvirate agreement might have held if Crassus had not been killed fighting the Parthians with his son. With the news of that death, there was only one man in the world who could have challenged Pompey for power.

    Finally, I have made one or two claims in the book that may annoy historians. It is debatable whether the Romans had steel or not, though it is possible to give a harder sheath to soft iron by beating it in charcoal. Steel, after all, is only iron with a fractionally higher carbon content. I do not think this was beyond them.

    I did worry that having Artorath, a Gaul, described as close to seven feet tall would be too much for some, but Sir Bevil Grenville (1596-1643) had a bodyguard named Anthony Payne who was seven feet four inches tall. I daresay he could have put Artorath over his shoulder.

    There are hundreds more little facts that I could put in here, if there were space. If I have changed history in the book, I hope it has been deliberate rather than simple error. I have certainly tried to be as accurate as I could be. For those who would like to go further than these few pages, I can recommend
Caesar’s Legion
by Stephen Dando-Collins, which is fascinating, and also
The Complete Roman Army
by Adrian Goldsworthy, or anything else by that author.
The Twelve Caesars
by Suetonius should be required reading in every school. My version is the translation by Robert Graves, and apparently which of the emperors you like the most is quite revealing about your own character. Lastly, for those who want more of Julius, you could do no better than to read Christian Meier’s book
Caesar
.