The Ides of March (11 page)

Marcus Brutus’s voice again, scornful: ‘We’re his most faithful men, aren’t we?’

Casca had no desire for banter. ‘Listen, if you don’t feel up to this, say so now,’ he said.

The woman in the room upstairs started, as if she’d been hit by an unseen object.

‘I’ve always spoken the truth,’ replied Brutus. ‘So how dare you insinuate—’

‘Enough!’ shouted Casca. ‘This whole situation has become intolerable. There are already too many of us. The more there are, the greater the chance that someone will lose control, get panicky.’ He turned to Aquila. ‘What do you mean by “outlying territories”?’

‘What I’ve heard,’ answered the other, ‘is that Publius Sextius, the centurion who saved Caesar’s life in Gaul, has been in Modena since the end of last month and he’s going around asking strange questions. Modena, just by chance, happens to be where one of the best informers on the market is based. A man who has no qualms about selling information to just about anybody, without a thought to principle or political alliances. As long as he’s well paid.

‘Anyway,’ continued Aquila, ‘he’s what I mean by faithful. Publius Sextius is incorruptible. He’s not a man, he’s a rock. If Caesar has decided to use him, it means he doesn’t trust any of us. And Publius Sextius may not be the only one.’

A leaden silence fell over the room. Pontius Aquila’s words had reminded each one of them that there were men for whom loyalty to one’s principles and one’s friends was a natural, unfailing quality. Men who were incapable of compromise, men who remained true to their convictions.

None of them meeting here in Brutus’s home, on the other hand, had refused the favours, the help, the forgiveness of the man they were preparing to murder. And this couldn’t help but give rise to an intense, grudging sense of unease – more in some than in others – and deep shame that was becoming more and more unbearable with every day that passed. Certainly, each of them could find noble reasons for the act they were preparing to carry out: stamping out tyranny, restoring faith – that word again! – in the republic. But in reality one true reason stood above all others, like a prickly weed above the prettily mowed lawn: their resentment at owing it all to him – their lives, their salvation, their possessions – after they’d lost everything, after they’d realized that they had been playing at the wrong table.

‘I think it would be better to move soon. Even tomorrow. I’m ready,’ said Aquila.

‘So am I. The sooner the better,’ added Casca, increasingly restless.

Brutus looked into their faces, one by one. ‘I need to know if you are speaking on your own behalf or in the name of the others as well.’

‘Let’s say that most of us are in agreement,’ replied Aquila.

‘But I’m not,’ retorted Brutus. ‘Every last one of us has to agree. When a decision is made, it’s necessary to stick to that decision, no matter what it costs. If there are risks, we will run those risks together.’

‘What’s more,’ added Cimber, ‘we can’t predict how Antony and Lepidus will react. They might become dangerous.’

Just then Brutus noticed that a scattering of fine sawdust had settled to the floor near his feet and he instinctively raised his eyes to the ceiling, just in time to see a fleeting shadow.

The sound of footsteps was heard along the corridor, coming from the back door that led out on to the street. Cassius Longinus soon joined them, his emaciated, pale face appearing at the entrance to Brutus’s study. Right behind him was Quintus Ligarius, along with Decimus Brutus and Caius Trebonius, two of Caesar’s greatest generals.

‘Cassius!’ exclaimed Cimber. ‘I was wondering where you’d got to.’

Cassius appeared no less agitated than Casca. ‘As you know,’ he began, a little breathlessly, ‘Lepidus landed yesterday morning on the Tiber Island and has every intention of staying put. The commander’s standard has been hoisted on the praetorium. That can mean only one thing: Caesar suspects something. We have to act sooner than we planned.’

‘We were just saying the same thing,’ said Casca, nodding approvingly at Pontius Aquila.

‘No,’ shot back Brutus resolutely. ‘No. We will keep to the date we decided on. There will be no discussion. We need time to explore the intentions of Lepidus and Antony.’

‘Lepidus and Antony are not stupid and they’ll adapt,’ replied Cassius. ‘Smite the shepherd and the sheep will scatter.’

‘Sheep?’ retorted Trebonius. ‘I wouldn’t call Antony a sheep. Nor Lepidus. They are fighters and they’ve given proof of their courage and valour on more than one occasion.’

‘But,’ Cassius chimed in, ‘exploring their intentions would mean widening the circle of those who know even further, increasing the risk of a leak, which would be fatal. I say leave them where they are. Too dangerous.’

Brutus started to reply, but Cassius shot him a look and he stopped.

‘Perhaps Brutus is right,’ said Cassius after a while. ‘A few days more or less won’t make any difference. The situation has generated a lot of anxiety and so we’re naturally tending to exaggerate, to fret about perils that in all likelihood don’t exist. At least not yet. Let’s maintain the date we decided on. Changing it would be complicated. I still have to see a few people and I’m hopeful these meetings will clear the air, eliminate any doubts we may still have.

‘What matters is that you are still determined – that we all are. Sure of doing the right thing. Certain that what we’re preparing to do is just and proper. Once this is over with, we’ll be freed of a weight that has been burdening our conscience as free men. No doubt, no hesitation, no uncertainty. We have the right to do what we are doing. The law is on our side, the tradition of our fathers who made us the great, invincible people we are. Caesar triumphed in the blood of his fellow citizens, massacred at Munda. He committed a sacrilege that he must pay for with his life.’

Caius Trebonius, who had listened silently to Cassius’s impassioned speech, came forward. He was a veteran of the Gallic War, had commanded the siege of Marseilles and had conducted the repression three years before in Spain against the Pompeians.

‘Cut the crap, Cassius,’ he said. ‘Spare us your patriotic exhortations. We – all of us – have been his faithful companions or the faithful executors of his orders. We all accepted his nominations to become praetors, quaestors, tribunes of the plebs. Some of you were pardoned by him but none of you took your own lives as Cato did. Quintus Ligarius was pardoned twice: a true record. Where are you, Ligarius? Show your face.’

The man advanced, scowling. ‘So what?’ he said. ‘I’ve remained loyal to my convictions. I never asked Caesar to pardon me. It was his decision to spare my life.’

‘He would have spared Cato’s as well had he been given the chance, but Cato preferred suicide to putting himself in that situation. Tell me, friends, is there anyone here who feels animated by the noble sentiments that Cassius has just expressed? Are those really good reasons? I think not. And yet we all want him dead. Some of you because you were faithful to Pompey and Pompey no longer exists. Not that Caesar was the one who killed him. The dirty work was done by a little Egyptian king, a puppet who wouldn’t have lasted three days without our support. Others claim they want to defend republican values. But each of us has a deeper, truer reason. Each of us thinks that Caesar doesn’t deserve what he has, that he owes it all to us, that without us he would have achieved nothing. He has all the glory, the love of the most fascinating woman on earth, power over the entire world, while we have to be happy with the crumbs that fall from his table. We’re like dogs he tosses bones to after he’s finished gnawing at them. And that’s why he must die!’

No one said a word, not Casca, nominated praetor a year before, not Cassius Longinus, whom Caesar had welcomed among the officers of his army after he had opposed him at the Battle of Pharsalus, not Ligarius, twice-pardoned, not Decimus Brutus, who would soon be governor of Cisalpine Gaul and who held his tongue, frowning. Nor any of the others.

Marcus Junius Brutus, who perhaps could have spoken, said nothing because he knew he was at the centre of that eye staring down on him from the middle of the ceiling.

He knew who was watching him.

The enquiring eye, which sparkled with a light that was almost manic, belonged to Porcia, his wife. The daughter of Cato, the republican hero who killed himself at Utica rather than accept the clemency of the tyrant. Porcia, whom he’d kept in the dark about everything. Porcia had first guessed and was now certain of what he was plotting.

He remembered what had happened just a few days before. It was the middle of the night and he was sitting in his study wide awake, tormented by his own thoughts, nightmares, doubts and fears and remorse. She’d appeared in the open doorway, a vision advancing from the other side of the
atrium
. She was barefoot and seemed to be walking on air. She moved like a ghost, white in the dim glow of a single lamp.

She’d never looked so beautiful. She wore a light nightgown, open at the sides. Her thighs, white and perfect as ivory, and her girlish, shapely knees, were bared with every step as she came closer. She was brandishing a stylus and she had that light in her eyes, fixed and trembling at the same time, the feverish light of a state not unlike madness.

‘Why are you hiding your plans from me?’

‘I’m not hiding anything from you, my love.’

‘Don’t lie. I know you’re hiding something important.’

‘Please, love, don’t torment me.’

‘I know why you won’t tell me. It’s because I’m a woman. You’re afraid that, if I were tortured, I’d reveal the names of your comrades. Isn’t that so?’

Brutus shook his head in silence, trying to hide his glistening eyes.

‘But you’re wrong. I’m strong, you know. I’m Cato’s daughter and I have his temperament. Pain means nothing to me. No one could force me to talk if I didn’t want to.’

The stylus glittered in her hand like a cursed jewel. Brutus couldn’t tear his eyes away from it.

‘Watch!’ she exclaimed, turning the stylus against herself.

Brutus had shouted, ‘No!’ and run towards her, but Porcia had already stuck the stylus deep in her left thigh, digging the tip into the wound so it tore cruelly into her flesh. Blood surged out and he fell to his knees before her, ripped the iron out of her hand and covered the wound with his mouth, licked it with his tongue, weeping.

He shook when Trebonius’s voice exclaimed, ‘The day of the final reckoning will be the day we decided upon: the Ides of March!’

8

In Monte Appennino, Taberna ad Quercum, a.d. VI Id. Mart., hora duodecima

The Apennine Mountains, the Oak Tavern, 10 March, five p.m.

T
HE MAN IN
the grey cloak arrived out of breath, his horse exhausted and wild-eyed in fright at the lightning and thunder so loud the whole mountain seemed to shake. An angry wind whistled through the bare branches of the old oak trees, each new blast tearing away the last remaining leaves and carrying them off in a spin to the bottom of the dark valley. The high snowy peaks were barely visible against the black sky.

He found himself in front of the inn unexpectedly, after a bend in the road, and had to yank at the reins to avoid crashing into the doorway, which was already bolted against the approaching storm and the dark night. Another flash lit up the figure of the rearing horse and its rider for a moment, casting their shadow on the ground that was already drinking in the first heavy drops of rain. The odour of wet dust saturated the air, mixed with the metallic scent of the lightning bolts searing the face of the sky.

The horseman jumped to the ground and pounded hard on the door, using the knocker and then the hilt of his sword. The great oak tree that gave the inn its name loomed at its side, its gnarled boughs reaching to the roof of the building.

A stable boy came to answer the door. He took the horse by his reins and covered him immediately with a blanket.

The man dressed in grey entered and pulled the door shut behind him, bolting it as if he were in his own home. He walked towards the tavern as the rain began to pour, instantly filling all the cracks in the stony courtyard.

The inside of the tavern was a smoky hole. Crookedly placed beams held up a low ceiling and a round hearth in the middle of the room shot fumes and sparks towards an opening in the roof from which the rain dripped in, sizzling on the embers. An old man with a long white beard and eyes veiled by cataracts, wooden spoon in hand, was mixing some concoction bubbling in the copper pot. The newcomer took off his soaked cape and placed it on the back of a chair near the fire.

‘There’s spelt-meal mush and red wine,’ coughed out the old man without turning.

‘I have no time to eat,’ replied the other. ‘I have to get to—’

‘Mustela, it’s you, isn’t it?’

‘You can’t see a damned thing, old man, but your ears are holding out.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I have to get to the House of the Cypresses as fast as I can.

Matter of life or death.’

‘We’ve got a good horse for you, Mustela. Yours must be done in.’

‘Don’t make me waste time. You know another way to get there.’

‘The short cut.’

‘Not fast enough. Faster.’

‘It’ll cost you.’

‘How much?’

‘Two thousand.’

‘I have less than a third of that, but if you tell me how to get there fast, I’ll give you double what you’re asking as soon as this is over.’

‘Why such haste?’

‘Do you want the money or don’t you? I guarantee you’ll get the full four thousand.’

‘All right.’

Mustela reached over to his cloak and pulled out a bag. ‘Shall I dump them here or should we go into the back?’ he asked.

The old man left the spoon in the pot and led his guest to the larder, which was dimly lit by a smoky tallow-burning lamp. Mustela poured the contents of the bag on to the table: all silver coins, looking newly minted.

‘Count them. There are five hundred, more or less. I’ll keep as little as possible for myself, but let’s get moving, damn it!’