Стивен Сейлор - The Throne of Caesar

Antony swallowed hard and stepped past us into the Senate House. A few moments later he emerged from the chamber. Instead of his consular toga, he wore a plain brown tunic.

Cinna peered at him. “But—where did you get those clothes?”

“From a scribe I found cowering behind Pompey’s statue. He’ll take good care of my toga and deliver it to me later, or else I’ll find him and beat him senseless.”

Antony’s consular toga would make him recognizable at a distance, a possible target. “They have no plans to kill anyone else,” I told him. “So Cassius said.”

“And you believed him?” Antony snorted and hurried down the steps.

“Where are you going?” I said.

“Home to Fulvia!” he shouted, not looking back.

Word of what had happened spread quickly. People began exiting the theater, only a few at first but then a great many at once. Someone fell. There was panic. People screamed and tripped over one another. Those at the front of the crowd saw the assassins with their bloody daggers, flanked by Decimus’s gladiators now openly brandishing their weapons, and turned back in terror, causing even more confusion, more collisions, more screaming.

Then I saw Meto. He must have been in the theater, for he emerged from the churning crowd, stared at the assassins, then ran past them and up the steps .

I said nothing. He read my expression and knew the truth. The look on his face broke my heart. I tried to touch him, to embrace him, but he rushed past me. A moment later, from the open doorway, I heard his anguished cry as it echoed throughout the empty chamber.

XXXVI

Feeling utterly drained, I sat on the steps of the Senate House. In silence, Cinna sat beside me.

For a while, as the Theater of Pompey was emptying, the assassins attempted to address the surging crowd. Brutus and Cassius seemed to have speeches ready to deliver. But the crowd was too loud and disorderly. Shouted rumors of riot and looting drowned out the would-be speakers. Rather than listen, the crowd hurriedly dispersed.

At last the assassins moved on. From the words they shouted to one another, I gathered they intended to station themselves atop the Capitoline Hill, a precinct that could easily be fortified. Centuries ago, when Gauls breached the walls of Rome and ransacked the city, a handful of stalwart citizens made their last stand atop the Capitoline, which was never taken.

With the courtyard below us empty, I saw that Caesar’s golden litter was still there, set on blocks. The four litter-bearers cowered behind it. It was almost comical to see such big, strong men so confused and frightened.

At last Meto stepped out of the Senate House. His face was red from weeping, but his voice was steady. He seemed hardly to notice me as he shouted to the litter-bearers.

“You men, there. Come. Now!”

Reluctantly, with Hipparchus leading, three of the bearers ascended the steps. The fourth ran away.

The bearers followed Meto inside. A few moments later they emerged carrying the body of Caesar in his blood-soaked purple toga. Meto led them down the steps.

“Where are you taking him?” I said, following after him.

“To his house, of course.” Meto’s voice was calm and quiet, almost matter-of-fact. The task at hand—delivering Caesar’s body to Caesar’s widow—had steadied his nerves.

Rather clumsily—the handling of a dead body is never easy—Meto and the bearers managed to load Caesar into his litter. They rearranged the purple cushions so that he lay on his back with his arms crossed over his chest, then they drew the curtains shut. The costly cushions and drapes would all be ruined with bloodstains, I thought. Thus do mundane misgivings intrude on the most extraordinary moments.

With Meto taking the place of the missing bearer, and Hipparchus across from him at the front, the four men lifted the litter and headed back by the route we had taken that morning. Cinna and I walked alongside. Of the grand retinue that had attended Caesar that morning, only we six remained.

Meto stared straight ahead. Occasionally he shuddered as if he wept, but he never made a sound.

People who had thrilled to draw close and get a glimpse of the Dictator that morning now fled before us when they saw the litter approach and realized what was in it. Perhaps they feared that assassins with daggers would follow, or perhaps the idea of confronting Caesar’s corpse filled them with superstitious dread.

At some point, one of Caesar’s arms was jostled and fell past the curtains so that it hung outside the box, limp and lifeless and smeared with blood. I watched it sway this way and that, horrified and strangely fascinated. I didn’t presume to touch it, and neither did Cinna, so there it dangled, all the way across the Field of Mars and through the Forum. Young women, rushing home from their aborted celebration of Anna Perenna, saw the bloody limb and screamed. Men saw it and broke into tears, confronted with the reality of what until that moment had been only a rumor. From windows and rooftops I heard groans and cries of lamentation.

But some who saw the lifeless arm of Caesar smiled and shouted with joy.

“It’s true!” one man cried. “It’s true! The tyrant’s dead! It’s a new day in Rome! Come, everyone, follow me! Come hear the heroes who did this thing—they’ll be speaking soon, at the other end of the Forum. Come hear what the saviors of the Republic have to say!”

Meto ignored the man. He looked straight ahead and said nothing. The litter-bearers pressed on, until at last we came to the Regia.

Calpurnia somehow knew of our approach. She came running out of the house, followed by female attendants. As the litter was set on blocks, she pushed Meto aside. She saw the dangling arm and let out a stifled scream. She pulled open the curtains of the litter, saw the body of her husband, and wailed with grief.

I stepped closer, thinking to comfort her. She turned to face me, then beat her fists against my chest.

“You were supposed to stop this!” she screamed. “He counted on you. I counted on you! Why didn’t you keep him from going this morning? How could you let this happen?”

“Calpurnia, you’re being unfair,” Cinna said quietly. He put his hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t touch me, you filthy beast! I know all about you!” She spun around and slapped his face.

Cinna staggered back. His face turned bright red. He touched his cheek. At every moment during the long walk back to the Regia, he had been close to tears. Now they welled in his eyes and came spilling out.

“You, there!” shouted Calpurnia, glaring at the three litter-bearers. “Don’t stand there sniveling. Take your master inside, at once! I won’t have strangers gawking at him, here in the street.”

She paid us no more attention as she oversaw the conveyance of her husband’s body into the Regia.

“I should go to my house, at once,” Cinna whispered.

“So should I,” I said. “Meto, are you staying here … with Caesar?”

He shook his head, not looking at me. “He’s work for the women now.”

“Then come with me. Bethesda and Diana will need us—”

“No,” he said sharply, and began walking resolutely back the way we had come.

“But where are you going, my son?”

He stopped and turned his head, finally looking me in the eye. “You heard what that fool said. The killers are giving some sort of public address. I want to hear what they say.”

“But Meto—the danger. There’s no telling what may happen.”

“Good! If the mob tears them limb from limb, I want to be there.”

“And what if they incite the mob to join them and start killing Caesar’s supporters?”

“Then I shall put up a good fight.”