Conn Iggulden - Emperor - The Blood of Gods

The crowd stilled as they heard singing coming from the House of Virgins, straining to catch the first glimpse of the Vestal virgins. Mark Antony suppressed a smile as he saw them, more aware than most of the power of pageantry in the city. They bore small cymbals on their fingers and wrists and clashed them together with every step so that the discordant sound rose above their voices. He watched as the procession formed in front of the temple and the song built to a climax followed by total silence. Disappointingly, the young women revealed almost nothing in their stola dresses and long palla robes that concealed their legs. The priestess had shown more flesh when he visited her before and he had to smile at the adolescent part of him. Each one had been chosen for physical perfection, but they had vowed thirty years of celibacy before they could leave the temple. Looking at some of the faces, Mark Antony could not help thinking it was a shocking waste.

He waited through a ritual of thanks to Minerva and Vesta, only sighing as the sun rose and the heat built. After what seemed an age, they brought a wooden platform from the temple, draping it with dark red cloth. Quintina Fabia stepped up to it and her eyes met those of Mark Antony, perhaps recalling that he too had stood and spoken to Rome not long before. The effects could still be seen around them. He saw cold amusement in her eyes, but he was interested only in the carved cedar box brought out from the temple. It was both locked and sealed, so that two of the women had to strike the binding with hammers before they could open the lid. From inside, they raised a square block of wax tablets, wrapped around in strips of lead and then marked in a great disc of wax sealed by Caesar himself. Mark Antony shuddered at the thought of his friend’s hand being the last to touch it before that day.

They handed the block up to the priestess and she used a knife to cut away the wax, showing everyone there that it remained untouched. With care, she bent back the lead strips and passed them down. What remained were five wooden tablets with a thin sheen of wax on their surfaces. Mark Antony could not see the words inscribed there, but he inched forward with everyone else, suddenly desperate to know what Caesar had written.

Untouched by the impatience of the crowd, Quintina Fabia handed four of the tablets back to her companions and read the first to herself, nodding slightly at the end. When she had finished, she looked up at the massed crowd.

‘“For the honour of Rome, hear the will of Gaius Julius Caesar,”’ she began. She paused and Mark Antony groaned quietly at the theatrical impulse.

‘Come on,’ he muttered.

She glanced over to him as if she had heard before continuing to read.

‘“Gaius Octavian is my heir. I acknowledge him as blood of my blood and, by these words, I claim and adopt him as my son.”’

The crowd murmured and Mark Antony saw the small group of four stiffen almost as one, looking at each other in shock and wonderment. The simple words were typical of the man who had written them, without ornament or fanciful rhetoric. Yet Caesar had written and lodged the will before his return from Egypt, perhaps even before he had left Rome to fight Pompey in Greece. He had not known then that the Egyptian queen would bear him an heir. Mark Antony breathed slowly as he thought it through. It would have been better to have some foreign whelp as the main inheritor, one who could never come to Rome and contest for what was legally his. The consul had met Octavian a few years before, but he had been little more than a boy and Mark Antony could not even recall his face. He looked up as the priestess continued.

‘“All that I have is his, beyond the sums and properties I allocate here. Of those, the first is the garden estate by the river Tiber. That is my first gift to the people of Rome, in perpetuity, that they may take their ease there as public land.”’

As the crowd muttered in wonderment, she handed down the tablet and took up two more. Her eyebrows rose as she read silently before speaking the words.

‘“As well as a place to walk in the sun, I give each citizen of Rome three hundred sesterces from my estate, to be spent as they see fit. They were my champions in life. I cannot do less for them in death.”’

This time, the reaction from the crowd was a roar of excitement. Three hundred silver coins was a huge sum, enough to feed a family for months. Mark Antony rubbed his forehead as he tried to work out the total. The last census had recorded almost a million inhabitants of the city, though only half of those would be citizens. Wryly, he acknowledged that the riots would have reduced the number, yet still they swarmed like ants and they would all demand their money from the treasure houses controlled by the Senate. Caesar could not have known, but that simple bequest was a blow against the Liberatores. They would not be able to walk the streets without the shout of ‘Murderers!’ going up, not after this. He closed his eyes briefly in memory of his friend. Even in death, Julius had struck back at his enemies.

Quintina Fabia continued, listing the individual sums left to clients. Many shouted for quiet so they could hear, but the chattering went on even so, all around them. They would have to apply to the temple to read the tablets in private if they wanted to hear those details, Mark Antony thought. Remembering his own meeting with the priestess, he wished them luck.

She worked her way through to the last of the five tablets, allocating gold and land to members of his family and all those who had supported Caesar. Mark Antony heard his name and bellowed for those around him to be silent. His voice succeeded in crushing the noise of the crowd where others had failed.

‘“… to whom I give fifty thousand aurei. I give an equal sum to Marcus Brutus. They were, and are, my friends.”’

Mark Antony felt the gaze of the crowd on him. He could not hide his shock at hearing Brutus given the same amount. Mark Antony had lavished gold on the lifestyle of a consul and his own clients. Although the legacy was generous, it would barely cover his debts. He shook his head, aware of the awe in those who looked on him and yet bitter. Fifty thousand was not so much for the man who had roused the crowd on Caesar’s behalf. It was certainly far more than Brutus deserved.

‘“The rest is the property of Gaius Octavian, adopted as my son, into the house of Julii. I leave Rome in your hands.”’

Quintina Fabia stopped speaking and handed the last tablet down to her waiting followers. Mark Antony was astonished to see the gleam of tears in her eyes. There had been no grand words, just the business of recording Caesar’s legacies and responsibilities. It was, in fact, the will of a man who did not truly believe he was going to die. He felt his own eyes prickle at the thought. If Julius had lodged the will with the temple before leaving Rome, it was the year he had made Mark Antony governor of the city, trusting him completely. It was a window to the past, to a different Rome.

As the priestess stepped down, Mark Antony turned away, his men moving smoothly with him so that the crowd was forced to part. They did not understand why he looked so angry. Behind him, a clear voice rang out. As Mark Antony heard, he stopped and turned to listen, his men facing outwards to counter any threat.

Octavian remembered Mark Antony very well. The consul had changed little over the intervening years, whereas Octavian had gone from a boy to a young man. As the consul arrived at first light, Maecenas had marked his presence first. Agrippa used the breadth of his shoulders to come between them, relying on the crowd to hide Octavian. It was their second day in the city, after a ride of three hundred miles from Brundisium. They had been forced to change horses many times, almost always losing quality in the mounts. Maecenas had arranged for their own horses to be stabled at the first stopping place, but at that point none of them knew if they would be going back to the coast.