Emperor: The Blood of Gods (Special Edition) (Emperor Series, Book 5) (31 page)

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s see what he wants.’ He climbed in and sat against the wooden rail of the skiff, his gaze already focused on their destination. ‘Cast off, or row, or whatever the command is,’ he said.

Agrippa looked pained, but the rowers pushed away from the bank and the boat turned into the current. With four oars stroking through the water, it accelerated quickly towards the island. Octavian was surprised to find he was enjoying himself. Agrippa saw his expression change and smiled.

‘There is a magic to small boats,’ he said. ‘But galleys are better still.’

Octavian’s smile slipped at the reminder of the massive fleet that had vanished from Brundisium. His co-consul Pedius had pushed through a vote to remove the authority of Sextus Pompey, but that did not bring the ships back.

‘When I am finished here,’ Octavian said, ‘I will need my own fleet.’

‘You’re
in
your fleet at the moment,’ Maecenas replied blithely.

Octavian snorted. ‘I have been thinking about that. Sooner or later, I must take Sextus Pompey on. Without control of the seas, we will never be able to take legions against Cassius and Brutus.’

Agrippa rubbed his chin, nodding.

‘It will cost fortunes,’ he replied. ‘Sextus has, what, two hundred galleys? To build even half that number would cost tens of millions of sesterces – and the time to retrain legionaries.’

‘What good is a deal with Mark Antony if I can’t leave Rome for fear of pirates?’ Octavian said. ‘I will find the money – and the men. You have a free hand, Agrippa. Build me a fleet.’

When they reached the island, the three passengers climbed out. Without a word, the rowers began to pull on legionary armour that could have drowned them before. Octavian waited impatiently, his fingers rubbing the hilt of his gladius.

Mark Antony himself strolled down to the sandy landing place, watching their preparations with something like amusement. He looked healthy and strong, standing almost as tall as Agrippa and with the trim frame of a soldier despite his years.

‘Welcome, Consul,’ he said. ‘You’ve come a long way since I held the title you bear now. As I wrote to you, my honour guarantees your safety here. We meet under truce. I would like to introduce you to my companions, so will you walk with me?’

The man Octavian had last seen riding hard for Gaul seemed to have no fear of the armed soldiers with Octavian. He looked as relaxed as any noble Roman enjoying an afternoon on the river. Octavian smiled at his manner, playing along.

‘I’ll walk with you,’ he said. ‘We have a great deal to discuss.’

‘Now that he’s decided to listen,’ Maecenas muttered.

The group of six accompanied Mark Antony to where a tent and tables had been laid out on the grass. From that side of the island, Octavian could see the Gaul legions on the opposing bank much more clearly. It was almost certainly no accident that the river was narrower on that side. A dozen scorpion bows and two centuries of archers watched him in turn, ready for the first hint of treachery. Strangely, it pleased Octavian that he too was considered a threat. He did not want to be the only one tying himself into knots with worry.

Mark Antony was in an ebullient mood as host. He saw Octavian looking at the standing legionaries.

‘These are difficult days, Caesar, are they not? Lepidus here thought so, when I arrived in Gaul. I give thanks that he saw no conflict in handing over command to a consul of Rome.’

‘An ex-consul of Rome,’ Octavian said automatically. He saw Mark Antony begin to frown and went on quickly. ‘But still a man Julius Caesar called a friend and, I hope, an ally in these times.’

‘As you say. I find the more legions I have, the easier it is to find allies,’ Mark Antony replied with a booming laugh. ‘Lepidus? Let me introduce the new Caesar and the latest consul.’

The man he brought forward with a hand to his shoulder looked awestruck and out of place in that gathering. Octavian did not know Lepidus personally, only that he had been prefect of Gaul and appointed by Caesar after the Imperator’s return from the east. Lepidus was not an impressive figure at first glance. He had a slight stoop that made him look like a scholar rather than a senior officer, though his nose had been broken many times and one of his ears had been battered badly in some old conflict. It was little more than a flap of gristle, pink and without the usual curves. His hair was full but completely white. Against them, Octavian felt his youth as a strength rather than a weakness.

‘I am honoured to meet you, Caesar,’ Lepidus said. His voice was low and firm and gave some sense of the man behind the ageing exterior.

Octavian took his outstretched arm and gripped it.

‘As I am honoured to meet you both, gentlemen. As consul of Rome, I suppose I have the most senior rank. Shall we sit?’

He gestured to the long table, deliberately moving towards it rather than letting Mark Antony set the pace. Maecenas and Agrippa came smoothly with him, taking positions at his back as he chose a chair at the head of the table.

Mark Antony looked irritated, but he gave way with good grace and seated himself opposite Octavian, with Lepidus at his side. Four more of their men stood far enough back not to present an obvious threat, though their purpose was clear. Octavian glanced behind him to his rowers, who had taken position automatically, facing the others. They made two clear groups across from each other and the tension was suddenly present once more as Mark Antony rested his arms on the wood.

‘Shall I begin?’ Mark Antony said. He went on before anyone could reply. ‘My proposal is simple. I have fifteen legions at my command in Gaul, with Lepidus. You have eight, Caesar, as well as a consular year to come. You want the forces to bring down the Liberatores and I want rank and power in Rome, rather than as an outsider in Gaul. We should be able to come to an agreement, don’t you think?’

Octavian gave silent thanks for Roman bluntness. In that at least, he and Mark Antony shared a similar dislike for the games of the Senate.

‘Where does Prefect Lepidus stand in this?’ he asked, giving no sign of a reaction.

‘Lepidus and I speak as one,’ Mark Antony said before the man could reply. ‘Rome has known a triumvirate before. I propose that we share power between us, with the aim of breaking the Liberatores in the east. I do not think you can accomplish that without my legions, Caesar.’

Octavian felt his mind whirling. It was a good offer, if he could trust it. With Crassus and Pompey, Caesar himself had created the first triumvirate. He hardly had to mention how badly it had ended for two of them. He looked deeply into Mark Antony’s eyes, seeing the tension there. The ex-consul seemed to have a strong position, but there was something bothering him and Octavian searched for the right words to reveal it.

‘It would have to be recognised in the Senate, for it to be legal,’ he said. ‘I can offer that much, at least. I have enough clients there now to win any vote.’

As Mark Antony began to relax, Octavian looked past him to the legions encamped on the river bank.

‘Yet it strikes me that I gain very little from this. I am consul, with a Senate who do not dare to cross me. Yes, there are enemies to be faced, but I can raise new legions.’

Mark Antony shook his head. ‘I have reports from Syria and Greece that tell me you don’t have that kind of time, Caesar. If you wait much longer, Brutus and Cassius will be too strong. What I offer is the strength to break them before they reach that point.’

Octavian thought deeply as both men stared at him, waiting. Consuls were limited in authority, for all the semblance of power they wielded. Like a temporary dictatorship, what Mark Antony proposed would put him above the law, beyond its reach for crucial years while he built his fleet and his army. Yet he thought he had not yet found the weakness that had brought Mark Antony to negotiate and it nagged at him. He looked again past those at the table, to the legions on the river bank.

‘How are you paying your men?’ he asked idly.

To his surprise, Mark Antony flushed with something like embarrassment.

‘I’m not,’ he said, the words dragged out of him. ‘Part of our agreement must include funds to pay the legions I command.’

Octavian whistled softly to himself. Fifteen legions amounted to seventy-five thousand men, with perhaps another twenty thousand camp followers. Octavian wondered how long they had gone without silver. Poverty was a harsh mistress and Mark Antony needed him, or at least the funds in Rome and from Caesar’s will.

Octavian smiled more warmly at the two men he faced.

‘I think I understand the main arguments, gentlemen. But what sort of a fool would I be to accept battle against Cassius and Brutus and lose Gaul for lack of soldiers there?’

Mark Antony dismissed the point with a gesture.

‘Gaul has been peaceful for years. Caesar broke the back of their tribes and killed their leaders. There is no High King to follow Vercingetorix, not any more. They have fallen back into a thousand squabbling families and will remain so for generations. Yet I will not take every Roman. I can leave two or three legions to man the forts for a few seasons. If the Gauls rebel, I will hear very quickly. They know what to expect if they do.’

Octavian looked dubiously at the older man, wondering if he overreached himself. The last thing Octavian wanted was a battle on two fronts. Mark Antony played a dangerous game in stripping Gaul, for all it had brought him to the negotiating table.

After a long, tense moment while the others watched him, he nodded.

‘Very well, gentlemen. I can see you have had time to consider how such a triumvirate might work. Tell me how you see it and I will consider what is best for Rome.’

Three days of negotiations had left Mark Antony exhausted, while Octavian seemed as fresh as the first moment he had sat at the table. He returned each dawn to the same spot, once the island had been checked for hidden men by Maecenas and Lepidus. There was no treachery and Octavian was filled with a sense that the agreement might actually work. Even so, he argued and discussed every point with great energy, while the two older men wilted.

Octavian offered the passage of a law making their arrangement legitimate. In return, Mark Antony promised him complete control of Sicily, Sardinia and all of Africa, including Egypt. It was a barbed gift, with the fleet of Sextus Pompey controlling the western sea, but Octavian accepted. Mark Antony was to keep Gaul as his personal fiefdom, while Lepidus would gain the region in the north where Decimus Junius had ruled for such a short time. Spain and the rest of Italy would be their joint domain. Octavian arranged for three million sesterces to be sent over the river in boats and had the pleasure of seeing Mark Antony relax and look young for a while, before they lost themselves in the details once more.

On the third day, the agreement was written to be sealed by all three men. Together, they would form ‘A Commission of Three for the Ordering of the State’, an ugly and unwieldy title that went some way to hide what it really was – a temporary truce between men of power to gain what they truly wanted. Octavian had no false hopes on that score, but Mark Antony had never been his enemy, for all the man’s Roman arrogance. His true enemies grew stronger by the day and he needed legions and power to take them on.

The final part of the agreement caused more argument than the rest of it. When Cornelius Sulla had been Dictator of Rome, he had allowed what he called ‘proscriptions’ – a list of men condemned by the state. To be named on such a list was a sentence of death, as any citizen could carry out the charge, handing over the head of the named man for the reward of part of his estate, while the rest was sold for Senate coffers. It was a dangerous power to wield and Octavian felt the lure of it from the beginning and struggled to resist. The only names he allowed on his behalf were the nineteen remaining men who had taken part in the assassination of Caesar in Pompey’s theatre. Lepidus and Mark Antony added their own choices and Octavian swallowed nervously as he read the names of senators he knew well. His colleagues were settling old scores as their price for the agreement.

For another two days, they wrangled over inclusions, vetoing each other’s choices for personal reasons and negotiating them back onto the list one by one. In the end, it was done. The proscriptions would create chaos in Rome, but when those men had their estates put up for auction, he would have the funds he needed to build a fleet and fight a war. He shuddered at the thought, reading the list yet again. Brutus and Cassius were the first ones on it. The eastern half of Roman lands were not mentioned anywhere in the agreements. It would have been a fantasy to parcel them out while they were still held by those men. Still, it was a mark, a line drawn. Cassius and Brutus would be declared enemies of the state, where once they had been protected by law and amnesty. It was not a small thing to see them heading the list.

Six days after he had first landed on the tiny island, Octavian was there again. Mark Antony and Lepidus were glowing with their achievement, brought back into the fold by the only man with the power to do it. There was still little trust between them, but they had developed a grudging respect for each other in the days of argument. Mark Antony breathed slowly and calmly as he watched Octavian seal the triumvirate agreement and readied his own ring to add his family’s crest.

‘Five years is enough to put right the mistakes of the past,’ Mark Antony said. ‘May the gods smile on us for that long at least.’

‘Will you come back with me to Rome now, to see this made law?’ Octavian asked him, smiling curiously.

‘I would not miss it,’ Mark Antony said.

The coast of Sicily was a perfect location for a fleet of raptores. The high hills close to the coast allowed Sextus Pompey to read flag signals, then send out his galleys in quick dashes, the oar-slaves straining until the prows cut white through the sea. He squinted against the glare to read the flags as the sun came up, showing his teeth as he saw the red cloth like a distant drop of blood against the mountain peak. It was almost hidden behind the pall of smoke from the volcano on the massive island, the grumbling monster that shook the earth and caused dead fish to float to the surface, where his delighted men could spear them and find them already cooked. At night, they could sometimes see a dim glow from the peak, as molten rock bubbled and spat.