Steven Saylor - Rubicon

"Gordianus," Tiro whispered behind me. "When we arrive, wherever they're taking us-"

"Silence!" Otacilius looked over his shoulder and glared down at us. A crueler man might have given a wrench to the tether around my throat for good measure, but I saw that his gaze was clouded by doubt. If I was the man I claimed to be, then I was the father of a personal confidant of Caesar, a man Otacilius knew. On the other hand, I had lied about the courier's passport, which linked us directly to Pompey, and if the wagon driver was truthful, Tiro was not my slave Soscarides, but the actual leader of our little traveling party. Had I lied about being Meto's father, as well? Otacilius faced a dilemma. His soldier's instinct was to pass the dilemma along to someone higher up.

It occurred to me that I might possibly escape with my neck intact if I kept doggedly proclaiming my identity- but only if I betrayed Tiro. How else to explain the passport? Once he was known to be Tiro, higher ranking officers could probably be called forward to identify him, despite his disguised appearance; as Cicero's secretary, Tiro was well known in the Forum. What would be done to him? Would he be released, as Domitius had been released, and sent back to Cicero unharmed?

I doubted it. Tiro was not Domitius. He was a citizen and a member of a senator's household, but only by dint of having been manumitted by Cicero. What would be done to a former slave traveling incognito as a spy, who had brazenly lied to a Roman officer? I couldn't believe that he would simply be set free.

This vexing train of doubts and apprehensions served at least to keep my mind off the more and more frequent stumbling from behind, the tug of the tether at my neck, and the raucous laughter of the marching soldiers. I was weary and thirsty. My head buzzed as if there were a swarm of bees inside it.

Down and down we trudged, until at last we arrived at a broad, high meadow that overlooked the coastal plain and the glimmering Adriatic in the distance. The meadow appeared to be the site of the previous night's camp. A single large tent was still standing. We passed the staging area where the last cohort was assembling in ranks to begin the march up the mountain.

In my dazed state, I wondered how many soldiers I had seen in the last few hours. If the army consisted of Domitius's entire force from Corfinium, they amounted to thirty cohorts in all, with six hundred men in each cohort, and I had passed every one of them. Now I knew what a body of eighteen thousand armed men looked like. How many men did Caesar have in Italy, that he could spare so many troops for Sicily?

Otacilius led us toward the tent, where a team of camp-strikers had begun to pull up stakes. A young officer in splendid armor stepped out, carrying under his arm a helmet with an elegant horsehair crest. There was no copper disk with a lion's head on his breastplate. He was not one of Domitius's men, yet Otacilius was quick to jump from his horse and salute him as a superior.

"Numa's balls!" I heard Tiro mutter behind me.

I peered at the officer more closely. It must have been fear and fatigue that kept me from recognizing him at once, for there was no mistaking his curiously brutish yet babyish face. His profile was the brute: seen from the side, his dented nose, jutting chin and craggy brows made him look like an angry boxer. Seen straight on, his full cheeks, gentle mouth, and soulful eyes made him look like a homely poet. At every angle between, his face was a mixture of contradictions. It was a face women found fascinating, and men trusted or feared instinctively.

Otacilius conferred with him in a low voice. I heard my name spoken. The man looked toward me. His eyebrows registered surprise, then shock. He shoved Otacilius roughly aside and strode toward us, casting aside his helmet and drawing his short sword from its scabbard. He grabbed my shoulder and put the blade to my neck. I sucked in a breath and closed my eyes.

An instant later, his bearish arms were around me, crushing me to his barrel chest. The tether that had been around my throat lay on the ground, cut in two.

"Gordianus!" he bellowed, pulling back to give me the full effect of his homely features at close quarters.

"Marc Antony," I whispered, and fainted to the ground.

I heard voices, and gradually realized that I was in an enclosed space- not a room exactly, but a shelter of some sort, full of soft light.

"A citizen his age, led by his neck on a forced march!"

"The prisoners had to be bound, Tribune. Standard procedure for suspected insurgents and spies."

"It's a wonder you didn't kill him! That wouldn't mark an auspicious beginning for you in Caesar's army, cohort commander- killing Gordianus Meto's father."

"I only followed regulations, Tribune."

I realized I was in a large tent, and remembered the tent in the meadow from which Antony had emerged. I lay on a hard pallet with a thin blanket over me.

"He's waking up."

"A good thing for you! You're dismissed, Marcus Otacilius. Go back and rejoin your cohort."

"But-"

"The sight of you is likely to send him straight to Hades! You've made your report. Get out."

There was a rustling noise, a flicker of light from a parted tent flap, and then the face of Marc Antony abruptly loomed over me. "Gordianus, are you all right?"

"Thirsty. Hungry. My feet hurt."

Antony laughed. "You sound like any soldier at the end of a hard march."

I managed to sit up. My head whirled. "I fainted?"

"It happens. A forced march, no food or water- and from the marks on your neck, it looks like that fool Otacilius half-strangled you."

I felt my throat. The flesh was tender and bruised, but not bleeding. "For a moment, up at the pass, I thought he was going to execute me."

"He's not that big a fool. We'll talk about it later, after you've had something to eat and drink. Don't get up. Sit on the cot. I'll have something brought to you. But eat quickly. The tent needs to come down. I intend to set out within the hour."

"What about me?"

"You'll come with me, of course."

I groaned. "Not back up the mountain!"

"No. To Brundisium. Caesar needs me, to close in for the kill."

Antony's company consisted of a hundred mounted soldiers. He had been dispatched by Caesar to escort the troops bound for Sicily as far as the foot of the Apennines, then to rejoin the main force. His contingent was kept small so that he could move swiftly. Every man was a battle-hardened veteran of the Gallic Wars. Antony boasted that his hand-picked century was the equal of any two cohorts.

He invited me to ride alongside him at the head of the company. The slaves were allowed to ride in the baggage wagon. Fortex he presumed to be my personal bodyguard. Tiro he failed to recognize, even at close quarters. This surprised me, because there was no man in Rome whom Antony hated more than Cicero, and I feared that he might recognize Cicero's secretary even disguised, but Antony accepted the explanation that Tiro was Meto's old tutor Soscarides with hardly a glance. 'Antony isn't simple,' Meto had once told me, 'but he's as clear and plain to read as Caesar's Latin.' Apparently he expected others to be equally transparent.

As for the wagon driver, the poor slave had arrived at the meadow exhausted and feverish from his shoulder wound, too delirious to answer questions or to speak for himself. He was loaded into the baggage wagon along with Tiro and Fortex. I found it convenient to pretend that his delirium preceded our encounter with Otacilius. "The wretched slave caught a fever coming over the mountains," I told Antony as we rode out. "I think he must have been out of his wits from the moment he woke up this morning. All that nonsense he told the cohort commander- he was raving."