Colleen McCullough - 6. The October Horse - A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra

Having heard the news of Caesar's assassination as he passed through Veii, not far north of Rome, Lepidus arrived at Antony's house at dawn. Grey with shock and fatigue, he accepted a goblet of wine and stared at Antony. "You look worse than I feel," Lepidus said. "I feel worse than I look." "Odd, I didn't think Caesar's death would hit you so hard, Antonius. Think of all that money you're inheriting." Whereupon Antony began to laugh insanely, walking back and forth, slapping his thighs, stomping his huge feet on the floor, "I am not Caesar's heir!" he hollered. Jaw dropped, Lepidus gaped. "You're joking!" "I am not joking!" "But who else is there to leave it to?" "Think of the least likely candidate." Lepidus gulped. "Gaius Octavius?" he whispered. "Gaius Cunnus Octavius," said Antony. "It all goes to a girl in a man's toga." "Jupiter!" Antony collapsed on to a chair. "I was so sure," he said. "But Gaius Octavius? It makes no sense, Antonius! What is he, about eighteen or nineteen?" "Eighteen. Sitting across the Adriatic in Apollonia. I wonder did Caesar tell him? They were mighty thick in Spain. I didn't read that far, but no doubt he's been adopted." "More important," said Lepidus, leaning forward, "what's going to happen now? Shouldn't you be talking to Dolabella? He's the senior consul." "We'll see about that," Antony said grimly. "Did you bring any troops with you?" "Yes, two thousand. They're on the Campus Martius." "Then the first thing is to garrison the Forum." "I agree," Lepidus was saying when Dolabella walked in. "Pax, pax!" Dolabella cried, holding up his hands, palms out. "I've come to say that I think you should be senior consul now Caesar's dead, Antonius. This shock changes everything. If we don't present a united front, the gods know what might brew up." "That's the first piece of good news I've heard!" "Go on, you're Caesar's heir!" "Quin taces!" Antony snarled, swelling. "He's not Caesar's heir," Lepidus explained. "Gaius Octavius is. You know, his great-nephew? The pretty pansy?" "Jup-i-ter!" said Dolabella. "What are you going to do?" "Stall the bloodsuckers for the moment, and get some money out of the Senate. Now that Caesar's dead, his dictate about who can pull money out of the Treasury will have to go you do agree, I hope, Dolabella?" "Definitely," Dolabella said cheerfully. "I owe money too." "And what about me?" Lepidus asked ominously. "Pontifex Maximus, for a start," Antony said. "Oh, that will please Junilla! I can sell my house." "What are we going to do about the assassins? Do we know yet how many of them there are?" Dolabella asked. "Twenty-three, if you include Trebonius," Antony said. "Trebonius? But he " "Stayed outside to keep me out, and therefore you out. No lictors inside. They carved the old boy into mincemeat. Why don't you know any of this? Lepidus has come from Veil, and he knows." "Because I've been shut in my house!" "So have I, but I know!" "Oh, stop arguing!" said Lepidus. "Knowing Cicero, he's been to see you already, am I right?" "You're right. Now there's a happy man! He wants an amnesty for all of them, of course," Antony said. "No, a thousand times no!" Dolabella shouted. "I'm not going to let them get away with murdering Caesar!" "Calm down, Publius," said Lepidus. "Think, man, think! If we don't handle this in the most peaceful way possible, there's certain to be another civil war, and that's the last thing anybody wants. We have to get Caesar's funeral over and done with, which means convoking the Senate he'll have to have a state ceremony. Have you seen the crowds in the Forum? They're not angry, but the numbers are growing in leaps and bounds." He got up. "I'd best get out to the Campus Martius and deploy my men. When for the Senate meeting? Where?" "Tomorrow at dawn next door in Tellus. We'll be safe," said Antony. "Pontifex Maximus!" Lepidus said gleefully. "Wasn't it odd?" he asked at the door. "When we were talking about the way to die at my dinner. 'As long as it's sudden,' he said. I'm rather glad he got his wish. Can you imagine Caesar dying by inches?" "He'd fall on his sword first," Dolabella said gruffly, and winked away tears. "Oh, I shall miss him!" "Cicero told me that the assassins they call themselves the Liberators, can you believe it? are wrecks," said Antony. "That's why we ought to go easy on them. The more we try to persecute them, the angrier men like Decimus Brutus might get he can general troops. Softly, softly, Dolabella." "For the time being" was as far as Dolabella was prepared to go. "When I have half a chance, Antonius, they'll pay!"

Cicero was pleased with everything except the sad performance of the Liberators in oratory. Twice that day he had persuaded Brutus to speak, the first time from the rostra, the second from the steps of the temple dismal, doleful, ineffectual, silly! When he didn't ramble in circles about privately owned land being given to the veterans, but how much he loved the veterans, he was maintaining that the Liberators had not forsworn their oaths to safeguard Caesar, because the oaths were invalid. Oh, Brutus, Brutus! Cicero's tongue itched to take over, but his instinct for self-preservation was stronger, and kept him silent. He was also, truth to tell, miffed that they hadn't taken him into their confidence beforehand if he had known, this shocking mess would not exist, and most of the First Class would not be locked inside their Palatine houses fearing revolution and murder. What he did do was spend a lot of time talking to Antony, Dolabella and Lepidus, pushing them gently into admitting that, after all, the assassination of Caesar Dictator wasn't the worst crime ever committed. When the Senate met in the temple of Tellus on the Carinae at dawn of the second day after Caesar's death, the Liberators were not in attendance; they were still living in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, still refusing to come out. Most other senators were there, but not Lucius Caesar, not Calvinus, and not Philippus. Tiberius Claudius Nero opened proceedings by asking that special honors be granted to the Liberators for freeing Rome from a tyrant, which provoked howls of outrage from the pedarii. "Sit down, Nero, no one asked you for your opinion on anything," Antony said, and swept on into a very reasonable, dulcetly phrased speech that acquainted the conscript fathers with the way the Roman wind was going to blow from the curule dais: the deed was done, the deed could not be undone, and yes, it was misguided, but no, there could be no doubt that the men who slew Caesar were as honorable as they were patriotic. By far the most important aspect, Antony kept hammering, was that government should continue with himself, the senior consul Marcus Antonius, in command. If some stared at Dolabella in astonishment, Dolabella simply nodded agreement. "That is what I want, and that is what I must insist upon," Antony said in no-nonsense tones. "However, it is essential that the House should confirm Caesar's laws and dictates, including those he intended to pass, but didn't." Many grasped the tenor of that: that whenever he needed to do something, Antony would pretend that Caesar was going to bring it into law later, hadn't gotten around to it before he died. Oh, how Cicero yearned to dispute that! But he couldn't, he had to devote his speech to a plea for the Liberators, who were well intentioned and honorable, must be excused their zeal in killing Caesar. Amnesty was essential! His only reference to Caesar's unpromulgated laws and dictates came at the end, when he protested that he didn't think it was wise to consider things Caesar had not yet mooted. The meeting broke up with the resolution that government should continue under the aegis of Marcus Antonius, Publius Cornelius Dolabella and the praetors; and a senatus consultum that the Liberators, all patriotic men, should go unpunished. From the temple of Tellus the senior magistrates, together with Aulus Hirtius, Cicero and some thirty others, walked to the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. There Antony informed the dirty, unshaven Liberators that the Senate had decreed a general amnesty, that they were perfectly safe from retribution. Oh, the relief! Then the whole party ascended the rostra and publicly shook hands with each other under the sullen eyes of the enormous crowd, watching silently. Not for, but not against. Passive. "To cement our pact," said Antony as they left the rostra, "I suggest that each of us ask one Liberator to dinner today. Cassius, will you be my guest?" Lepidus asked Brutus, Aulus Hirtius asked Decimus Brutus, Cicero asked Trebonius, and so on, until every Liberator had an invitation to dinner that afternoon. "I can't believe it!" whooped Cassius to Brutus as they toiled up the Vestal Steps. "Home free!" "Yes," said Brutus absently; he had just that moment remembered that Porcia might be dead. This was the first moment since he had left the slave to walk into the Curia Pompeia that he had even thought of her name. But of course she was alive. Were she dead, Cicero would have been the first to tell him. Servilia met him just beyond the porter's lodge, standing as Klytemnestra must have done just after killing Agamemnon. All she lacked was the axe. Klytemnestra! That is who my mother is. "I've locked your wife up," she greeted him. "Mama, you can't do that! This is my house," he bleated. "This is my house, Brutus, and it will be until the day I die. That monstrous incubus is no concern of mine, including at law. She drove you to murder Caesar." "I freed Rome from a tyrant," he said, wishing with every fiber of his being that he could just this once! gain the better of her. Wish on, Brutus, that will never happen. "The Senate has decreed an amnesty for the Liberators, so I am still the urban praetor. I still have my wealth and estates." She started to laugh. "Don't tell me you believe that?" "It is a fact, Mama." "The murder of Caesar is a fact, my son. Senatorial decrees are not worth the paper they're written upon."