The October Horse: A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra by Colleen McCullough
“Some wine?” Maecenas asked.
“Thank you, but no. I don’t drink wine.”
“Sorry I can’t offer you a chair, Octavius, but I had to move my guest’s chair out to make room for some oaf from Picenum.”
“Quintus Salvidienus, you mean?”
“That’s him. Faugh!” said Maecenas with a moue of distaste. “No money, only one servant. I’ll get no contributions toward decent dinners there.”
“Caesar favors him highly,” Octavius said idly.
“A Picentine nobody? Nonsense!”
“Appearances can be very deceiving. Salvidienus led the cavalry charge at Munda and won nine gold phalerae. He’ll be attached to Caesar’s personal staff when we set out.” How very nice it was to be in a position of superior knowledge when it came to command affairs! thought Octavius, crossing his legs and linking his hands around one knee. “Have you had any military experience?” he asked sweetly.
Maecenas flushed. “I was Marcus Bibulus’s contubernalis in Syria,” he said.
“Oh, a Republican!”
“No. Bibulus was simply a friend of my father’s. We elected,” Maecenas said stiffly, “to stay out of the civil war, so I returned from Syria to my home in Arretium. However, now that Rome’s more settled, I intend to enter public life. My father thought it—er—politic—that I gain additional military experience in a foreign war. So here I am,” he concluded airily, “in the army.”
“But very much on the wrong foot,” said Octavius.
“Wrong foot?”
“Caesar is no Bibulus. In his army, rank has few privileges. Senior legates like his nephew Quintus Pedius don’t travel in the luxury I see here. I’ll bet you have a stable of horses too, but since Caesar walks, so does everybody else, even his senior legates. One horse for battle is mandatory, but more will earn you censure. As will a whole large wagon full of personal possessions.”
The liquid eyes gazing at this most unusual youth were growing more and more confused, the redness beneath the skin was deepening. “But I am a Maecenas from Arretium! My ancestry obliges me to emphasize my status!”
“Not in Caesar’s army. Look at his ancestry.”
“Just who do you think you are, to criticize me?”
“A friend,” said Octavius, “who would dearly like to see you shift from the wrong foot to the appropriate one. If Ventidius has decided that you and Salvidienus are to share, then you’ll continue to share for many moons. The only reason why Salvidienus hasn’t beaten the daylights out of you is because he doesn’t want to earn a reputation as a troublemaker before the campaign begins. Think about it, Maecenas,” said that persuasive voice. “Once we’ve seen action a couple of times, Salvidienus will stand even higher in Caesar’s estimation than he does now. Once that happens, he will beat the daylights out of you. Perhaps under your soft exterior, you are a military lion, but I doubt it.”
“What do you know? You’re only a boy!”
“True, but I don’t live in ignorance of what kind of general—or man—Caesar is. I was with him in Spain, you see.”
“A contubernalis!”
“Precisely. One who knows his place, what’s more. However, I’d like to see peace in our little corner of Caesar’s campaign, which means you and Salvidienus will have to learn to get along. Salvidienus matters to us. You’re a pampered snob,” Octavius said genially, “but for some reason, I’ve taken a fancy to you.” He waved his hand at the hundreds of scrolls. “What I see is a man of letters, not of the sword. If you take my advice, you’ll apply to Caesar when he arrives for a position as one of his personal assistants on the secretarial front. Gaius Trebatius isn’t with him, so there’s scope for you to advance that public career as a man of letters with Caesar’s help.”
“Who are you?” Maecenas asked hollowly.
“A friend,” Octavius said with a smile, and got up. “Think about what I’ve said, it’s good advice. Don’t let your wealth and education prejudice you against men like Salvidienus. Rome needs all kinds of men, and it’s to Rome’s advantage if different kinds of men tolerate one another’s quirks and dispositions. Send all of this except your literature back to Arretium, give Salvidienus half of your quarters, and don’t live like a sybarite in Caesar’s army. He’s not quite as strict as Gaius Marius, but he’s strict.”
A nod, and he was gone.
When Maecenas got his breath back, he stared at his furniture through a veil of tears. Several fell when his eyes reached his big, comfortable bed, but Gaius Maecenas was no fool. The lovely lad had exuded a strange authority. No arrogance, no hauteur, no coldness. Nor the slightest hint of an invitation, though Octavius had revealed a degree of perception about behavior that must surely have informed him that Gaius Maecenas, lover of women, was also a lover of men. He hadn’t referred to this by word or look, but he definitely understood that the principal reason Maecenas had tried to eject Salvidienus lay in a need for privacy above and beyond mere literary pursuits. Well, on this campaign it would have to be women, none but women.
So when Salvidienus returned several hours later, he found the room stripped of its trappings, and Gaius Maecenas seated at a plain folding table, his ample behind on a folding stool.
Out came a manicured hand. “I apologize, my dear Quintus Salvidienus,” said Maecenas. “If we’re to live together for many moons, then we’d best learn to get along. I’m soft, but I’m not a fool. If I annoy you, tell me. I’ll do the same.”
“I accept your apology,” said Salvidienus, who understood a few things about behavior too. “Octavius visited, did he?”
“Who is he?” Maecenas asked.
“Caesar’s nephew. Have you been issued orders?”
“Oh, no,” said Maecenas. “That’s not his style.”
The fact that Caesar didn’t arrive in Apollonia toward the end of March was generally blamed on the equinoctial gales, now blowing fitfully. Stuck in Brundisium, was the consensus.
On the Kalends of April, Ventidius sent for Gaius Octavius.
“This just came for you by special courier,” he said, his tone disapproving; in Ventidius’s catalogue of priorities, mere cadets didn’t receive specially couriered letters.
Octavius took the scroll, which bore Philippus’s seal, with a stab of alarm that had nothing to do with his mother or his sister. White-faced, he sank without permission into a chair to one side of Ventidius’s desk and gazed at the trusty muleteer, a helpless agony in his eyes that silenced Ventidius’s tongue.
“I’m sorry, my knees have gone,” he said, and wet his lips. “May I open this now, Publius Ventidius?”
“Go ahead. It’s probably nothing,” Ventidius said gruffly.
“No, it’s bad news about Caesar.” Octavius broke the seal, unfurled the single sheet, and read it laboriously. Finished, he didn’t look up, just thrust the paper across the desk. “Caesar is dead, assassinated.”
He knew before he opened it! thought Ventidius, snatching the letter. Having mumbled his way through it in disbelief, he stared at its recipient in numbed horror. “But why to you, news like this? And how did you know? Are you prescient?”
“Never before, Publius Ventidius. I don’t know how I knew.”
“Oh, Jupiter! What will happen to us now? And why hasn’t this news been conveyed to me or Rabirius Postumus?” Tears gathered in the muleteer’s eyes; he put his face upon his arms and wept bitterly.
Octavius got to his feet, his breath suddenly whistling. “I must return to Italy. My stepfather says he’ll be waiting for me in Brundisium. I’m sorry that the news came to me first, but perhaps the official notification was delayed by events.”
“Caesar dead!” came Ventidius’s muffled voice. “Caesar dead! The world has ended.”
Octavius left the office and the building, went down to the quays to hire a pinnace, laboring over the short walk as he hadn’t labored for months. Come, Octavius, you can’t suffer an attack of the asthma now! Caesar is dead, and the world is endin
“I’m for Brundisium today,” he told Agrippa, Salvidienus and Maecenas an hour later. “Caesar has been assassinated. Whoever wants to come with me is welcome, I’ve hired a big enough pinnace. There won’t be any expedition to Syria.”
“I’ll come with you,” Agrippa said instantly, and left the common room to pack his single trunk, call his single servant.
“Maecenas and I can’t just leave,” said Salvidienus. “We’ll have work to do if the army is to be stood down. Perhaps we’ll meet again in Rome.”
Salvidienus and Maecenas stared at Octavius as if at a total stranger; he had walked in looking blue around the mouth and wheezing, but absolutely calm.
“I haven’t time to deal with Epidius and my other tutors,” he said now, producing a fat purse. “Here, Maecenas, give this to Epidius and tell him to get everybody and everything to Rome.”
“There’s a gale coming,” Maecenas said anxiously.
“Gales never stopped Caesar. Why should they stop me?”
“You’re not well,” Maecenas said courageously, “that’s why.”
“Whether I’m on the Adriatic or in Apollonia, I won’t be well, but sickness wouldn’t stop Caesar, and it isn’t going to stop me.”
He went off to supervise the packing of his trunk, leaving Salvidienus and Maecenas to look at each other.
“He’s too calm,” said Maecenas.
“Maybe,” Salvidienus said pensively, “there’s more of his uncle in him than meets the eye.”
“Oh, I’ve known that since the moment I met him. But he does a balancing act on a nervous tightrope that nothing in the history books says Caesar did. The history books! How terrible, Quintus, to think he’s now relegated to the history books.”
“You’re not well,” said Agrippa as they walked down to the quays in the teeth of a rising wind.
“That subject is forbidden. I have you, and you’re enough.”
“Who would dare to murder Caesar?”
“The heirs of Bibulus, Cato and the boni, I imagine. They won’t go unpunished.” His voice dropped until it became inaudible to Agrippa. “By Sol Indiges, Tellus and Liber Pater, I swear that I will exact retribution!”
The open boat put out into a heaving sea, and Agrippa found himself Octavius’s nursemaid, for Scylax the body servant Octavius chose to go with him succumbed to seasickness even faster than his master did. As far as Agrippa was concerned, Scylax could die, but that couldn’t be Octavius’s fate. Between his shivering bouts of retching and an attack of the asthma that had him greyish-purple in the face, it did look to the worried Agrippa as if his friend might die, but they had no alternative save to go westward for Italy; wind and sea insisted upon pushing them in that direction. Not that Octavius was a troublesome or demanding patient. He simply lay in the bottom of the boat on a board to keep him clear of the foul water slopping there; the most Agrippa could do for him was to keep his chin up and his head to one side so that he couldn’t aspirate the almost clear fluid he vomited.
Agrippa now discovered convictions in himself that he hadn’t known he possessed: that this sickly fellow scant months younger than he wasn’t going to die, or disappear into obscurity now that his all-powerful uncle was no longer there to push him upward. At some point in the distant future, Octavius was going to matter to Rome, when he had grown to maturity and could emulate the earlier members of his family by entering the Senate. He will need military men like Salvidienus and me, he will need a paper man like Maecenas, and we must be there for him, despite whatever happens during the years that must elapse between now and when Gaius Octavius comes into his own. Maecenas is too exalted to be a client, but as soon as Octavius improves, I am going to ask him if I may become his first client, and advise Salvidienus to be his second client.
When Octavius fought to sit upright, Agrippa took him into his arms and held him where his feeble gestures indicated that he could breathe easiest, a sagum sheltering him from the rain and spume. At least, thought Agrippa, it’s not going to be a long passage. We’ll be in Italy before we know it, and once we’re on dry land he’s bound to lose the seasickness, if not the asthma. Whoever heard of something called asthma?
But landfall when it came was a bitter disappointment; the storm had blown them to Barium, sixty miles north of Brundisium.
In charge of Octavius’s purse—as well, for he had no money of his own—Agrippa paid the pinnace owner and carried his friend ashore, leaving Scylax to totter in his wake supported by his own man, Phormion, who to Agrippa represented the difference between utter penury and some pretensions to gentility.
“We must hire two gigs and get to Brundisium at once,” said Octavius, who looked much better just for leaving the sea.
“Tomorrow,” said Agrippa firmly.
“It’s barely dawn. Today, Agrippa, and no arguments.”
The asthma improved only a little on the journey, over the sealed Via Minucia but behind two molting mules, but Octavius refused to stop for longer than it took to change teams; they reached the house of Aulus Plautius on nightfall.
“Philippus couldn’t come, he has to stay closer to Rome,” Plautius said, showing Agrippa where to put Octavius, “but he’s sent a letter at the gallop, and there’s one from Atia too.”
Breathing easier with each passing moment, Octavius lay propped on pillows on a comfortable couch and extended his hand to the anxious Agrippa.
“You see?” he asked, his smile as beautiful as Caesar’s. “I knew I’d be safe with Marcus Agrippa. Thank you.”
“When did you last eat?” asked Plautius.
“In Apollonia,” said the famished Agrippa.
“Where are my letters?” Octavius demanded, more interested in reading than eating.
“Hand them over for the sake of peace,” Agrippa said, used to him. “He can read and eat at the same time.”
Philippus’s letter was longer than the brief note sent to Apollonia, and included a full list of the Liberators as well as the news that Caesar had named Gaius Octavius as his heir, and had also adopted him in his will.
I cannot understand Antonius’s toleration of these loathsome men, let alone what seems to be implied approval of their act. They have been granted a general amnesty, and though Brutus and Cassius have not yet appeared on their tribunals to resume their praetorian duties, it is being said that they will do this very shortly. Indeed, I imagine that they would already be back at work, had it not been for the advent of a fellow who appeared three days ago at the spot where Caesar’s body was summarily burned. He calls himself Gaius Amatius, and insists that he is Gaius Marius’s grandson. Certainly he has considerable oratorical skill, which argues against a purely peasant origin.
First he informed the crowds—they continue to gather every day in the Forum—that the Liberators are utter villains, and must be killed. His anger is directed at Brutus, Cassius and Decimus Brutus more than at the others, though my own opinion is that Gaius Trebonius is the biggest villain. He didn’t participate in the actual murder, but he masterminded the plot. On that first day Amatius inspired the crowd to anger: it began, as happened at the funeral, to howl for Liberator blood. His second appearance was even more effective, and the crowd grew really ugly.
But yesterday’s appearance, Amatius’s third, was worse. He accused Marcus Antonius of complicity in the deed! Said that Antonius’s accommodation of the Liberators (oddly enough, Antonius did use the word “accommodation”) was deliberate. Antonius was publicly patting the Liberators on the back, rewarding them. They walk around as free as birds, yet they murdered Caesar—Antonius was thick as thieves with Brutus and Cassius, hadn’t the people seen that for themselves? All this, and more. So the crowd grew riotous.
I am leaving for my villa at Neapolis, where I will meet you, but I have just heard that some of the Liberators have decided since the appearance of this Gaius Amatius to leave Italy. Cimbe
The Senate met to discuss the provinces, and Brutus and Cassius attended, expecting to hear where they would be sent to govern next year. Instead, Antonius discussed only his province, Macedonia, and Dolabella’s province, Syria. No talk of pursuing Caesar’s war against the Parthians, however. Antonius has laid claim to the six crack legions encamped in western Macedonia, insists they are now his. For war against Burebistas and the Dacians? He didn’t say so. I think he is simply ensuring his own survival if things come to yet another civil war. No decisions were taken about the other nine legions, which have not been recalled to Italy.
The Senate, aided and abetted by Cicero—who was back in the House the moment Caesar died, praising the Liberators to the skies—is busy starting to unravel Caesar’s laws, which is a tragedy. There’s no thought behind it. They remind me of a child getting its hands on mama’s sewing halfway through shaping a sleeve.
One other subject I must mention before closing—your inheritance. Octavius, I beg you not to take it up! Come to an agreement with the one-eighth heirs whereby the estate is more equitably split up, and decline to be adopted. To take up your inheritance is to court death. Between Antonius, the Liberators and Dolabella, you won’t live out the year. They will crush you, an eighteen-year-old. Antonius is beside himself with rage at being cut out of the will, especially by a mere lad. I do not say he did conspire with Caesar’s assassins, for there is no proof of it, but I do say that he has few scruples and no ethics. So when I see you, I will expect to hear you say that you have decided to decline Caesar’s bequest. Live to be an old man, Octavius.
Octavius put the letter down, chewing hungrily on a chicken leg. Thank all the gods, the asthma was lifting at last. He felt curiously invigorated, able to deal with anything.
“I am Caesar’s heir,” he said to Plautius and Agrippa.
Working his way through the very generous meal as if it were his last, Agrippa paused, the eyes beneath that jutting, thick-browed forehead gleaming. Plautius, who evidently knew this already, looked grim.