The October Horse (67 page)

The deed was done. All twenty-two men had wounded Caesar somewhere, Decimus Brutus twice. Face and legs covered, Caesar lay beneath Pompey's statue, the creamish-white toga sliced to ribbons around his chest and back, soaking up the brilliantly red blood spreading over the white marble of the platform until it seemed there couldn't possibly be more blood to come, there was so much of it pouring everywhere. Everywhere. Some skipped to avoid it, but Decimus didn't notice it until it flowed around his shoes and percolated inside; he whimpered, sure it burned him.

Sobbing for breath, the Liberators stared at one another, eyes wild, Brutus absorbed in trying to staunch his bleeding hand. As if by instantaneous yet unvoiced consent, they turned and ran for the doors, Decimus as panicked as the rest. The pedarii who had witnessed the deed were already outside, screaming that he was dead, Caesar was dead! The panic became universal as the Liberators emerged into the garden, togas bloody, knives still in their sticky fists.

Men fled in all directions save into the Curia Pompeia; senators, lictors and slaves took to their heels, howling that Caesar was dead, Caesar was dead, Caesar was dead!

All their grand plans for speeches and thundering oratory forgotten, the Liberators fled too. Who among them could ever have believed that the reality would be so different from the dream, that staring at Caesar dead was such a terrible end to ideas, to philosophies, to aspirations? Only after the deed was done did any of them, even Decimus Brutus, truly understand its meaning. The titan had fallen, the world was so changed that no Republic could ever spring fully armed from its brow. The death of Caesar was a liberation, but what it had liberated was chaos.

By sheer instinct the Liberators ran for asylum to the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, legs driving like mill shafts across the grass of the Campus Martius, up the back steps of the Capitol on to Romulus's original Asylum, then up the final slope and all those steps to the temple. There, inside, groaning for breath, knees given way, the twenty-two men fell to the floor. Above them reared fifty feet of the Great God in gold and ivory splendor, his bright red terra-cotta face smiling that asinine, shut-mouthed, ear-to-ear smile.

•      •      •

As soon as the first pedarius bolted out of the Curia Pompeia shrieking that Caesar was assassinated, Mark Antony let out a yelp and began to run as well—out of the peristyle in the direction of the city! Staggered by Antony's utterly unexpected reaction, Trebonius ran in his wake, shouting at him to stop, return and convene the Senate. But it was too late. Dolabella and his lictors were fleeing, all the senators, stool slaves—and the Liberators. All Trebonius could do was attempt to catch Antony.

Inside was absolute silence. Unable to look down at what lay at its feet, the statue of Pompey gazed up the chamber at the open doors, its pupils already pinpoints against the blinding glare because the artist had wanted an overwhelming blueness. Caesar huddled partly on his right side, his face veiled by a fold of toga, the flow of blood finally come to a halt forming a tiny cascade over one side of the dais. Sometimes a small bird flew in, fluttered vainly around the honeycombed roses of the ceiling until the light drew it out again into freedom. The hours dripped on, but no man or woman ventured inside. Caesar and Pompey did not move.

•      •      •

It was well into the afternoon when Calvinus's steward came into his master's study, where the invalid, very much better, was talking to Lucius Caesar and Lucius Piso. On the steward's heels came the Egyptian physician, Hapd'efan'e.

“Not another examination!” Calvinus exclaimed, feeling so much like himself that he could resent medical interruptions.

“No, domine. I asked Hapd'efan'e to be here just in case.”

“Just in case of what, Hector?”

“The whole city is buzzing with a horrible rumor.” Hector hesitated, then blurted it out. “Everyone is saying that Caesar has been murdered.”

“Jupiter!” Piso cried as Calvinus leaped off the couch.

“Where? How? Speak, man, speak!” Lucius Caesar snapped.

“Lie down, lord Calvinus, please lie down,” Hapd'efan'e was beseeching Calvinus while Hector answered Lucius Caesar.

“No one seems to know, domine. Just that Caesar's dead.”

“Back on the couch, Calvinus, and no arguments. Piso and I will investigate,” said Lucius Caesar, halfway out the door.

“Keep me informed!” Calvinus yelled.

“It can't be, it can't be,” Lucius Caesar was muttering as he went down the Vestal Steps five at a time, Piso keeping up.

They burst into the Pontifex Maximus's reception room, the first room inside, to find Quinctilia and Cornelia Merula pacing about; Calpurnia sat limply on a bench with Junia supporting her. When the men entered, all the women ran to them.

“Where is he?” Lucius Caesar demanded.

“No one knows, Chief Augur,” said Quinctilia, a fat, jolly woman who was Chief Vestal. “It's just that the whole Forum is saying that he's been murdered.”

“Did he come home from the meeting at the Curia Pompeia?”

“No, he didn't.”

“Has anyone of authority been here?”

“No, no one.”

“Piso, hold the fortress,” Lucius Caesar commanded. “I'm off to the Curia Pompeia to see if anyone's still there.”

“Take some lictors with you!” Piso shouted.

“No, Trogus and some of his sons will do.”

Lucius moved at the double through the Velabrum—run, trot, walk, run, trot, walk—with Gaius Julius Trogus and three of his sons. People were clustered in groups everywhere, some wringing their hands, some weeping, but no one he barked a question at knew anything more than that Caesar was dead, Caesar had been murdered. Past the Circus Flaminius, out to the theater, into the hundred-pillared colonnade; clutching at a stitch in his side, Lucius paused to get his breath back. No one, but there were many signs that a large number of men had left in a hurry.

“Stay here,” he said curtly to Trogus, walked up the steps and into the Curia Pompeia.

He smelled it before he saw it: unmistakable to a soldier, the smell of old, congealing blood. The ivory chair was in small pieces around the purple-and-white marble floor, a folding table had come to rest against the bottom tier on the right side—they had attacked from the left, then—there were scrolls scattered for many feet around, and a body lay on the bare curule dais, absolutely still. When he bent over it he could see that Caesar had been dead for some hours, but he peeled the fold of toga gently away from the head, gasped, choked. The left side of the face was a ruin of blood and flesh, white bone glistening, the eye a runny mess. Oh, Caesar!

“Trogus!” he screamed.

Trogus came running, started to wail like a child.

“There's no time for that, man! Send two of your sons to the Forum Holitorium and commandeer a hand cart. Go on, man, do it! Cry afterward.”

He heard two of the young men run off; when Trogus and his remaining lad came into the chamber, Lucius waved them away.

“Wait outside,” he said, and slumped on to the edge of the curule dais where he could see his beloved cousin, so still, in such a welter of blood. To have produced so much of it, the wound that killed him must have been among the last.

“Oh, Gaius, that it should have come to this! What will we do? How can the world go on without you? It would be easier to lose our gods.” The tears began to pour down his face; he wept for the years, the memories, the joy, the pride, the sheer waste of this luminous, peerless Roman. Caesar reduced all others to insignificance. Which was why they had killed him, of course.

But when Trogus came to say that the barrow had arrived, Lucius Caesar arose dry-eyed.

“Bring it in,” he said.

It came, an unpainted old wooden cart perched on two wheels, its flat tray very narrow but long enough to take a body, two handles at one end to push it. Lucius absently plucked a few scraps of leaf out of it, brushed some particles of soil away with his hands, made sure that the wrecked face was covered.

“Pick him up gently, lads, lie him on it.”

He hadn't begun to stiffen yet; now that he was lying on his back, one arm and hand refused to stay by his side, insisted upon flopping off the barrow. Lucius shrugged himself out of his purple-bordered toga and spread it over Caesar, tucked it in all around. Let the arm and hand dangle free; they would tell the world what kind of burden the old hand cart carried.

“Let's take him home.”

•      •      •

Trebonius ran after Antony frantically, shouting at him to calm down, help deal with the situation, call the House into session. But Antony, who could move like the wind despite his size, tore through the Forum with his lictors and kept on going.

Angry and frustrated, Trebonius gave up trying to catch him. Striving to collect himself, he instructed his stool slave to return to the Curia Pompeia and find out what was going on there, then come to report to him at Cicero's house; that done, he ascended the Palatine and asked to see Cicero.

Who wasn't in, but was expected back at any moment. Trebonius sat down in the atrium, accepted wine and water from the steward, and prepared to wait. His stool slave came first, to inform him that the Curia Pompeia was deserted, and that the Liberators had fled en masse to seek asylum in Jupiter Optimus Maximus's.

Stupefied, Trebonius put his head in his hands and tried to work out what had gone wrong. Why had they sought asylum when they ought to be on the rostra proclaiming their deed?

“My dear Trebonius, what is it?” boomed Cicero's golden voice some time later, alarmed at nothing more than the sight of Gaius Trebonius with his head in his hands; he had been playing marriage counselor with Quintus's wife, Pomponia, and had heard no rumors.

“In private,” said Trebonius, rising.

“Well?” asked Cicero, shutting the door quickly.

“A group of senators killed Caesar in the Curia Pompeia four hours ago,” Trebonius said calmly. “I wasn't one of them, but I was their commanding officer.”

The aging, shrunken face lit up like the Alexandrian Pharos; Cicero whooped, clapped his hands together in wild applause, then wrung Trebonius's hand ecstatically. “Trebonius! Oh, what wonderful, wonderful news! Where are they? On the rostra? Still in the Curia Pompeia talking?”

Trebonius wrenched his hand away. “Hah! I should hope!” he snarled savagely. “No, they're not at the Curia Pompeia! No, they're not on the rostra! First that dolt Antonius panicked and ran for the Carinae, I imagine, as he certainly didn't stop in the Forum! He was supposed to spearhead the campaign to extol Caesar's elimination, not scuttle home as if the Furies chased him!”

“Antonius was a part of it?” Cicero breathed incredulously.

Remembering to whom he was speaking, Trebonius tried to mend this fence at least. “No, no, of course not! But I knew he wasn't very fond of Caesar, so I thought I could talk him into seeing the sense in smoothing the killing over once it was a fact, that's all. When he wouldn't stop running, I came to find you, which was what I planned to do anyway. Thinking that you'd lend us your support.”

“Gladly, gladly!”

“It's too late!” Trebonius cried despairingly. “Do you know what they did? They panicked! Panicked! Men like Decimus Brutus and Tillius Cimber panicked! My trusty band of tyrannicides came charging out of the Curia Pompeia and fled to Jupiter Optimus Maximus's, where they're cowering like whipped dogs! Leaving four hundred pedarii to fly in all directions screaming that Caesar was dead, murdered, then presumably rush home to lock themselves in. The ordinary folk are down in the Forum milling about, and there's no one in authority to tell them anything.”

“Decimus Brutus? No, he'd never panic!” Cicero whispered.

“I tell you, he panicked! They all did! Cassius—Galba—Staius Murcus—Basilus—Quintus Ligarius—there are twenty-two men up there on the Capitol praying to Jupiter's statue and shitting themselves in fear! It all went for nothing, Cicero,” Trebonius said grimly. “I thought that bringing them up to the mark would be the hard part–I never even took into account what might happen afterward! Panic! The scheme's in ruins, no one can retrieve our position now. They did the deed, yes, but they didn't hold their ground. Fools, fools!” Trebonius groaned.

Cicero squared his shoulders and patted Trebonius's. “It may not be too late,” he said briskly. “I'm off to the Capitol at once, but I suggest you round up some of Decimus Brutus's troupe of gladiators—they're in Rome for some ancestor's funeral games—or at least that's what he told me the other day. With this in the wind, perhaps he brought them in as bodyguards for after.” He extended a hand to Trebonius. “Come, my dear fellow, cheer up! You go and find them some protection, and I'll get them down to the rostra.” He whooped again, chuckled with glee. “Caesar is dead! Oh, what a gift for liberty! They must be extolled, they must be praised to the skies!”

•      •      •

It was late afternoon when Cicero walked into the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, his beloved freedman Tiro in his wake.

“Congratulations!” he roared. “Fellow senators, what a feat! What a victory for the Republic!”

That huge voice had them jumping, squawking, scrambling into the corners of the cella. Eyes adjusting to the gloom, Cicero told them over in astonishment. Marcus Brutus? Ye gods! How had they managed to talk him into this? But how terrified they were! Killing Caesar had utterly unmanned them, even Cassius, even Decimus Brutus, even that wolfshead Minucius Basilus.

So he settled to talk them out of their panic, only to find that nothing he said could persuade them to emerge from the temple, declaim upon the rostra. Finally he sent Tiro to buy wine, and when it came he dished it out in the rude clay beakers the vendor had supplied, watched them drink it so thirstily that it was gone in a trice.

When Trebonius walked in he was still trying to jolly them. “The gladiators are outside,” Trebonius said briefly, then snorted in disgust. “As I feared, Antonius ran home and has bolted himself in. So has Dolabella and every member of the Senate who knows.” He turned on the Liberators in exasperated anger. “Why did you panic?” he demanded. “Why aren't you down there on the rostra? People are gathering like flies on a carcass, but there's no one to tell them what's happened.”