The Raven and the Rose (27 page)

“And is now spreading it to anyone who will listen to her,” Julia said with a grimace of distaste.

“It will be common knowledge soon,” Margo said. “Everyone wants to know the details of the passing of a great man.” She studied Julia thoughtfully. “Do you think these murderers will triumph in the end?” she asked.
 

Julia shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. I hope not, such a crime should not be rewarded.”
 

“The rout of the Senate gives Caesar’s allies time to plan their strategy,” Margo said. “Antony is an influential consul, and Lepidus, the Master of Horse, is powerful too, not to mention Demeter and the home legions, all Caesar’s men.”

“But Brutus has a large army at his command as governor of Cisalpine Gaul,” Julia pointed out, thinking about the balance of power distributed between the two sides. Who could possibly predict the outcome?

And where was Marcus? What was he doing? He was so closely identified with Caesar that Julia was sure if he had been with the dictator that morning he would now be dead too.

How much longer could he remain alive if the conspirators gained permanent control?
 

Danuta came into Julia’s anteroom, tears standing in her eyes.

“Livia is summoning all the Vestals to the temple for the prayers to be offered in time of danger.”

Julia nodded and rose.

“She is placing the seven sacred objects on the altar of Vesta right now,” Danuta added.

Julia and Margo exchanged glances. This was serious indeed. The stability of Roman power depended on the security of these icons; chief among them was the Palladium, a crudely carved, archaic statue of the goddess Pallas Athena, said to have been brought by Aeneas from Troy as it burned. The Palladium was only displayed in times of peril, to provide for the preservation of the republic and protection for its people.

If Livia was bringing it out at this time, she considered the situation to be extremely grave.
 

“I’m coming,” Julia said to Danuta, putting aside her personal concerns for the moment. Caesar was dead, Marcus was in danger, and she might be pregnant, but if Livia was displaying the Palladium she needed all of the Vestals to join her in a show of unity.

Julia left her suite and walked toward the temple.

* * *

The granary on the edge of the Suburra was old and in disrepair, used mainly as a warehouse for storing corn in times of bountiful harvest. Marcus, dressed in a plain woolen tunic with a gallic cloak and hood to disguise himself, slipped along the street toward it, moving unobtrusively, taking shelter in overhanging porches and recessed doorways. He used great care to evade the rampaging crowd that thronged the street, screaming epithets and brandishing torches. It was impossible to tell if they were pro or anti Caesar, or a contentious mixture of both. He only knew that if he were recognized he would either be attacked or drawn into the fray, and he had an important mission to accomplish.

Septimus was standing by the street door of the granary, similarly dressed, waiting for him. When he saw Marcus he signaled for him to follow and then went down an alley, waiting until they were well away from the shouting, churning crowd before saying, “There is another entrance in back.”

They found it and went inside, first checking to make sure that no one saw them enter. Once through the door they could hear voices, and they moved toward them as their eyes adjusted from bright daylight to the dim, musty interior of the barn. The air was filled with dust motes dancing in the strips of light seeping through cracks in the walls, and the floor underfoot was thick with spilled stalks and threads of corn silk.
 

“I say we cut their black hearts out,” Tiberius was saying fiercely as the two arrived, his ropy hands balling into fists. “Brutus first.”

Mark Antony, dressed as a peasant, his black fringe of hair dusted with gray at the temples and his face haggard, nodded at their approach.

“Any trouble getting here?” he asked Marcus.

Marcus shook his head.
 

“They deserve the same sort of death they gave Caesar,” Tiberius added.

Marcus looked at him, measuring whether he could control his rage and use it to best advantage. Tiberius was brave, but he was a wild man when bent on vengeance, as he was now. He had to temper his feelings and think, as Marcus himself was trying to do. If all of Caesar’s allies ran into the streets with swords raised they would not last long against the mobs running loose in the city, looting and burning indiscriminately.

Then Brutus and his cohorts would win by default.

“You’ll have to find them to kill them,” Lepidus said disgustedly. “They’re all in hiding, like the sniveling cowards they are.”

“‘Sic semper tyrannis,’
they cried as they stabbed Caesar,” Antony replied quietly. “‘This always for tyrants.’ They expected to be hailed as saviors of the republic. When the Senators bolted after the murder they were taken by surprise and now they’re terrified that we’ll come after them.”

“And we will,” Tiberius said firmly.

Antony held up his hand. “We have to consider what is best for the country, Tiberius. I want their blood as much as you do. They made sure I was detained at the door so they could catch Caesar alone and not have to deal with me. But plunging into another civil war will not serve our cause. The question is: how can we maintain control of the government and at the same time make sure Brutus and the others pay for their crime?”

“Turn the people against the murderers,” Marcus said, speaking for the first time.

Antony looked at him.

“They loved Caesar, as we did. Recall to them how much he loved them in return, how many reforms he enacted for their benefit, how many times he shared the booty of his victories with the people through triumphs and stipends and feasting at the cost of the treasury. The home legions will be with you too. We each got 250 gold pieces upon our return from the Spanish campaign and the grant of a farm, remember? The ranting and raving of Cassius and Brutus about Caesar’s purple gowns and golden thrones and laurel wreaths will not stand against that.”

“If only Octavian were here,” Septimus sighed. “If we could show that Caesar’s nephew endorsed our cause many of those caught in the middle would come over to our side.”

“He is not here, he went ahead to Apollonia with the scouts,” Antony replied shortly. “We must act without him and hope that he remains alive along enough to get back home.”

“They left his body lying on the floor of the Senate Assembly Hall,” Tiberius whispered. “He bled to death there, alone. Finally three of his slave boys carried him home in his litter, one lifeless arm hanging over the side of it, dragging on the ground.”

Marcus closed his eyes, trying not to picture it. It was clear that Tiberius had been rehearsing the grisly details over and over with the group, as if they needed more fuel to fire their outrage.

“If we prevail in this I’ll make sure those slaves are freed as their reward,” Antony replied.

“Artemidorus gave Caesar a note warning him of the danger as he passed in the street, but he didn’t take time to read it before he went inside,” Septimus said. “It was found with his papers after his death.”

“He had many warnings,” Marcus replied. “He chose to ignore them, just as he chose to go around without a guard when he knew plots were daily being hatched against his life. It seemed he was tired of taking precautions and wanted to tempt fate and see if it would favor him.”

“Casca said he was careless because he thought he was a god,” Lepidus said darkly.

“Casca!” Tiberius exploded. “I’ll throttle the life out of that snow topped old crook, we’ll see how his fine clothes look when they’re wrapped around his neck.”

Marcus looked down, thinking anxiously about Julia, hoping that her status as a Vestal would protect her from whatever befell her grandfather. How could he get to her? The Vestals were in seclusion, on Antony’s order.

“Tillius Cimber, that snotrag, pretended to ask Caesar a question and then grabbed his shoulders, holding him still for the others to butcher him,” Tiberius said darkly.

“Tillius always was a spineless sea creature,” Antony said disgustedly. “He’ll surface when this is over and claim to have been in Capua when it happened.”

“I know he was there, and I’ll remember,” Tiberius replied quietly. “The physician Antistius who did the
post mortem
said that none of the wounds was mortal but the second one in the chest, yet there was so much blood the slaves are cleaning the floor of the assembly hall still. They hacked at him relentlessly until he fell, those pig stickers.” His mouth became a grim line. “I’ll introduce them to the ferryman myself.”

Antony held up his hand. “Enough, Tiberius. Beating it into the ground will not help Caesar’s cause now. We must act to preserve what he left us. I think Corvus is right, an appeal to the people is what we need. They are already rising, it seems that the mobs are mostly pro-Caesar. I think I’ll give them a little push. Maybe they’ll do our work for us.”
 

“What do you mean?” Lepidus asked.

“I’ll speak at the funeral, remind the crowds what a friend to them Caesar was. If the environment for the murderers becomes ...inhospitable... we won’t have to lift a finger against them. They’re all rats, they’ll scatter and desert their sinking ship.”

“I want to lift a finger against them,” Tiberius shouted. “I want to crush their heads myself!”

“You will do what I say!” Antony snapped, in a tone which brooked no argument. Tiberius stared back at him, and the others exchanged anxious glances. Antony was the senior military man there, and they did not question that he was in charge, but Tiberius could be a problem when incensed.
 

They all waited, as the silence grew.
 

Tiberius finally looked away from Antony, his expression indicating that he disagreed but would obey.

“We must sacrifice our thirst for the satisfaction of personal vengeance in order to gain the greater good,” Antony, the consummate strategist, said in a milder tone. “My first objective, as Consul, is to convene the Senate. They will be much more difficult to convince than the populace. After all, the Senators had become so disenchanted with Caesar that these murderers thought they could kill him and be rewarded for it, right?”

Marcus nodded dolefully as the others looked on, waiting for their instructions.

“I will meet with opposition there, but I think I can win them to my side. Self-interest is the governing emotion for most people, and Caesar appointed the majority of the Senators, either directly or through elections which he influenced or controlled. If his edicts are declared invalid they will lose their seats. They won’t want new elections; with Caesar gone they won’t be guaranteed to prevail, will they?”

Marcus listened admiringly. He had always been in awe of Antony’s manipulative turn of mind; he himself was an excellent solider and military strategist, but Antony’s grasp of politics was beyond his, and rivaled Caesar’s.
 

Caesar was dead, but his side might yet triumph.

“Now listen to me,” Antony said, putting his left foot up on a storage box and leaning forward on his upraised knee, “this is what we’re going to do.”

* * *

Larthia was saying goodbye to the
capum
, or chief, of the Tanner’s guild when she heard a disturbance in the crowd behind her. She had spent the afternoon of the previous day in the tanner’s booth at the festival of Minerva, and had returned this morning to sign the sponsorship book to conclude the fiscal year for the guild. When she looked around a distraught man was running amok through the forum stalls, screaming, “Caesar is dead! Caesar is dead! He was murdered in the Senate this morning!”

Larthia stared at him, aghast, thinking that he must be deranged. Verrix, who had been standing outside the booth, took a few steps closer to Larthia.

“What’s going on, Lady Sejana ?” the guild chief said to Larthia.

“This madman is shouting that Ceasar is dead,” Larthia replied, as the people standing near her all turned to look at the intruder.

The capum dropped his book and ran into the street, grabbing the arm of the runner.

“Is this true?” he demanded.

“It’s true, it’s true!” the man replied. “Down at the Capitol mobs are storming the curia, they’re on their way here.”

“Who?” Larthia said. “Who did it?”

“Brutus and Cassius and old Casca,” the messenger replied.

“They stabbed him all at once to share the blame. Oh, the father of our country is dead!” He broke free and ran on, still shouting, as Larthia stood rooted, stunned.

Verrix muttered something under his breath and moved to her side as a dull roar escalated in volume at the other end of the forum. They both looked in that direction and saw what seemed like hundreds of people streaming down from the surrounding elevation, all incensed, some screaming, some shaking their fists, many of them carrying tapers although it was broad daylight.

“Let’s get out of here,” Verrix said to Larthia in an undertone, steering her in the other direction.

“Did you hear what he said?” Larthia whispered. “That man said my grandfather murdered Caesar.”