The Horse Changer (18 page)

‘He is in Memphis, Dominus. As I understand it, he is quite ill. If you want to see him, perhaps you should travel to him.’

‘I will see Allienus in Alexandria tomorrow by sunset, or I will burn every book in your museum. As for these scrolls, do with them as you please; my business is with the museum and nothing else.’

Fairly sure I had made myself the mortal enemy of the queen, I withdrew from the palace and took up arms with my men, half-expecting a breakout from the palace. The queen had an armed force sufficient for the fight. What she lacked was a foothold from which to launch her attack. And if she tried to gain it, she risked her museum and the million books within it.

I received word next morning that Allienus would be in Alexandria by evening. Concluding this note was a plea for patience in case he arrived an hour or so after sunset. I had, at last, the queen’s complete attention. Lest she was readying an attack at sunset, I put our men on alert that evening. As for the scholars, they were still hostages within the compound. Once I received word that Allienus was on his way, I sent Scaeva and three centuries of our auxiliaries on the road to Memphis. Scaeva had orders to build a camp midway between the two cities and have it ready for the rest of us.

At sunset I received word that Allienus had arrived, if I cared to visit him. I proceeded at once. I took my slave, Nicolas, and the head of Gaius Trebonius: otherwise I was alone. As before, when I left our camp, I gave orders to our legionary cohort’s prefect to burn the museum if I did not return within the hour.

Allienus was a considerably older man than I had anticipated, in his late sixties as it seemed to my young eyes, though I never learned his exact age. He was ill, but the illness had overcome him after my arrival in Egypt, the result of a mild case of food poisoning. Cleopatra’s work, or so I have always believed.

The hundred-mile journey from Memphis had left Allienus physically exhausted, and I worried that he might not be able to make the return trip with us. Still, I had no choice but to use him as best I could, even if it killed him. As per my instructions I handed Allienus the letter from Claudius Nero. When his slave had read it aloud to him he asked to see the head. I signalled to Nicolas, who broke the seal on the amphora. The head came out dripping red wine, blood and bile. Allienus studied the head with the aid of a torch. He seemed curious about the features, for they were quite deformed from the kicking, but once satisfied he nodded.

‘Very well,’ he told me. ‘I relinquish my command. You must understand something, however. Caesar left three legions in Egypt. Another joined us after he departed. They were to be paid from the queen’s treasury. This she did faithfully until last year. Since Caesar’s death the pay has stopped. Over the past year, I’d say we’ve lost more than half the men.’

‘I want you to send a courier to Memphis tonight letting your men know you have handed authority over to me; make sure they understand that I intend to pay them their back wages and add, as well, five times every man’s annual salary in advance of service for the coming year. To any man returning to the legions during the next two months, I will pay a year’s salary and add as well the promise of no disciplinary action. Any men refusing my offer can stay in Egypt and pray Dolabella does not come looking for them.’

The old man blinked. He cleared his throat. ‘I’ll give you some advice about the ways of the world, lad. When you talk about paying a man, you had better have the money at hand when he shows up to receive it.’

I did not care for the advice and disliked even more being called a lad. I have more sympathy for Allienus these days. He had surely seen his share of fresh-faced beauties like myself grow old and get slow and learn wisdom by degrees. I am sure he only meant to help. I advised him to mind his own business and to take care how he addressed me in the future; I was no one’s lad. I left him at that point and went to find someone who might arrange an audience with the queen. With Cleopatra’s museum under threat of destruction I got my meeting at once. She came to me in the garb of a slave again. I let her pretend she was not the queen of Egypt; I hardly cared what games she played, but I made sure she knew to deliver forty talents of gold by next evening. She protested her nation’s poverty and spoke of a famine in the land. She was lying or exaggerating; I could not tell which. Nor did I care.

‘Deliver the gold I ask for and you will see me depart for Memphis,’ I answered. ‘Give me anything less, and I will destroy every book in the city. The choice is entirely yours.’

I sold our ships next morning to a wealthy merchant. I used the proceeds to pay off my promissory notes in the city and to acquire, among other necessities, lumber, wagons, and sheets of the leather used for tents. Finally, I purchased several mules. When Cleopatra’s gold arrived that evening I had it repacked and loaded on the mules.

At midnight I gave the order to leave the city, just as Caesar would have done. I arranged a carriage for Allienus, who was still unfit for riding. The few horses I possessed I used to scout the road ahead and to keep watch on the road behind our formation. My officers and I marched with the veteran legionaries, who were divided at the front and rear of our column. I had no cavalry to cover the column’s flanks, but there was not as much danger in this as one might expect. Through most of the journey that first night the marshlands and waterways shielded us from surprise attacks.

We finished our march through the delta at just after dawn. This was a thirty-mile journey in about eight hours. Exhausted as we all were, we took an hour for a breakfast of hardtack and spring water. It was at that point I realised we had lost my slave Nicolas. I made enquiry at once but no one had seen him since the beginning of the journey. I had no time to worry about the matter, though a slave of his value was a considerable loss of fortune. To put his value in perspective, think of it in this way. I could have sold him at market for an amount equal to the yearly salary of a
primus pilus
centurion.

There was a chance he would be coming along, a chance as well he had fallen into the river at some bridge; but in my heart I knew Cleopatra had tempted him to leave me. I had sent him to her often enough for her to have recognised his value and persuaded him to stay under her protection with promises of freedom and a life of luxury, all so she might cut me deeply.

I gave the order to push on at double-time and got grumbling even from the veterans. I was tired too, but I did not care to die from laziness, so I rallied the men with promises of wine and women at journey’s end. We continued on the road south, the river guarding our eastern flank, our mounted scouts now keeping watch at the rear and on our western flank. By late afternoon we encountered Scaeva’s scouts, who promised us an open road and a camp already in place. Scaeva’s auxiliaries had travelled with less equipment and with considerably more speed than our own party. According to orders, which I had developed in concert with the wily old Cyclops, Scaeva had built a camp fortified by dirt ramparts and ditches, there being no available timber in the region. My wagons carried the lumber for the gates, as well as the leather used for tents. We had several barrels of pitch as well. As soon as we arrived, Scaeva’s men went to work erecting four gates with a makeshift tower guarding each. I appointed two additional centuries of our auxiliaries to erect tents inside the camp.

When all was ready, I toured it with Scaeva. I commented on the stink of pitch. His squads had painted the stuff everywhere. Scaeva thought the night breeze ought to take the worst of it off. Otherwise, it was perfect, and I commended him for his work. I left a squad of Scaeva’s bravest auxiliaries to defend the towers and tend the campfires, every man to win a purse of gold for the risk he ran. As for the rest of us, we withdrew to the trenches Scaeva’s men had dug for us. These were located in flanking positions about a mile away from the camp. The trenches proved sufficiently deep for us to hide both our men and animals.

The men newly-arrived ate hardtack again. Fires were not permitted. They rested through the afternoon and evening, sleeping if they could. Those of Scaeva’s auxiliaries not inside the camp pulled sentry duty for the men in hiding. I sent no scouts out to watch the countryside, however. I did not care to let the enemy know I anticipated an attack. About two hours before dawn we heard a mass of riders coming at a gallop. Our men, who had slept in their armour with their weapons at hand, had sufficient time to come awake and ready themselves for an attack. As they did this, the enemy cavalry, which ran to some five thousand men, swarmed around our camp’s four gates.

Scaeva’s auxiliaries within the camp raised a shout of alarm, as if we all waited inside. They quickly manned the towers for a fight, simulating a determined resistance with archers and slingers, and adding fellows to the fight as it progressed. There were others below whose job was to shout orders, though there was no one around to obey them. The fight went on for only a short time before our men abandoned the defence of the gates and fell back into the camp, calling out to ready against incursion.

Once the enemy had broken down the main gate and started through in force, Scaeva’s men set fire to the pitch. The enemy no doubt saw thin lines of fire racing along tracks of pitch, but it was difficult in the dark to understand what it meant. They rode heedlessly into the centre of camp, looking for men to kill and bringing fire to burn us out of our tents. Meanwhile, all four gates erupted in flames, closing off any hope of escape. We had caught perhaps a thousand men, less than one in five, but for those inside there was no hope. At least none they could discover. In fact, the camp contained several carefully concealed tunnels by which our squads escaped the smoke and flames that quickly engulfed the entire camp.

The explosion of light at the gates served as our command to attack. We ran across the field on foot quickly and quietly, hitting the enemy cavalry at each gate simultaneously. While the bulk of the enemy had gathered at the main gate on the camp’s northern perimeter, large groups of horsemen also waited at each of the other exits. These men hoped to slaughter us as we fled the camp. We overpowered the smaller groups, killing them in many cases before they understood we were at their backs. Where it was possible we took the horses of the fallen men but did not mount them, lest our own men be mistaken as enemy combatants.

The darkness and suddenness of the attack gave only a few of the enemy the chance to escape. Those gathered at the main gate were in a better position to fight and soon rallied against our forces there; here we took the majority of our casualties. Even so it was more skirmish than battle, with the enemy soon retreating. This is easily accomplished in a fight between cavalry and infantry. Nor did we give chase. Instead we formed a line to receive them should they turn and attempt a second charge on our position, but these were not regular cavalry in the Queen’s Guard. They knew nothing about turning flight to their advantage with a sudden reversal. Beaten in a skirmish, they ran without looking back.

At dawn, using legionaries on the captured horses to scout the area, I determined that the enemy had truly gone and gave the order for the men to build fires and bake fresh bread. Some of my Jewish auxiliaries assisted me in the interrogation of those we had captured, many of whom spoke only some local dialect of the indigenous Egyptian population. Our prisoners claimed no one had sent them; they had heard about the gold in Alexandria. Their captains thought to steal it from us and had recruited them with the promise of easy money.

They were probably telling the truth, they suffered enough for the sake of their stories, but I had no doubt that Cleopatra’s agents had arranged matters, letting the forty talents of gold we carried serve as bait. At noon, I ordered our dead loaded into wagons. Any man with wounds also had the use of a wagon if he wanted. The rest of the cohorts formed into a column, infantry and officers alike. Using the river to guard our eastern flank and a screen of some three hundred cavalry to the west of the road, we marched south. We met no more resistance and continued through the night, arriving at the legionary camp outside Memphis late afternoon next day.

Once we had secured ourselves at Memphis I ordered funeral rites performed for our dead. Afterwards, I issued the pay I had promised. Then we feasted and drank, exactly as Caesar had treated his men in Spain after our long march. For my part, I slept more than I had done previously. When I was awake, I spent all my time preparing for our advance into Judaea.

As for the deserters, they came in slowly over the next few weeks, sometimes singly, sometimes in squads that had no doubt survived by means of banditry. When the first of them received their salary promptly and without punishment the rest began pouring in. With the arrival of the summer solstice I had gathered my forces and ordered an advance on Ashkelon. This is the first fortified Judaean port beyond the Egyptian border. We hadn’t the four full legions that Livia had promised me, but I could call them four legions. With auxiliaries and the non-combatants in our baggage train we numbered something like ten thousand souls; four half-legions, if you will.