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

The fact that Caesar didn't arrive in Apollonia toward the end of March was generally blamed on the equinoctial gales, now blowing fitfully. Stuck in Brundisium, was the consensus. On the Kalends of April, Ventidius sent for Gaius Octavius. "This just came for you by special courier," he said, his tone disapproving; in Ventidius's catalogue of priorities, mere cadets didn't receive specially couriered letters. Octavius took the scroll, which bore Philippus's seal, with a stab of alarm that had nothing to do with his mother or his sister. White-faced, he sank without permission into a chair to one side of Ventidius's desk and gazed at the trusty muleteer, a helpless agony in his eyes that silenced Ventidius's tongue. "I'm sorry, my knees have gone," he said, and wet his lips. "May I open this now, Publius Ventidius?" "Go ahead. It's probably nothing," Ventidius said gruffly. "No, it's bad news about Caesar." Octavius broke the seal, unfurled the single sheet, and read it laboriously. Finished, he didn't look up, just thrust the paper across the desk. "Caesar is dead, assassinated." He knew before he opened it! thought Ventidius, snatching the letter. Having mumbled his way through it in disbelief, he stared at its recipient in numbed horror. "But why to you, news like this? And how did you know? Are you prescient?" "Never before, Publius Ventidius. I don't know how I knew." "Oh, Jupiter! What will happen to us now? And why hasn't this news been conveyed to me or Rabirius Postumus?" Tears gathered in the muleteer's eyes; he put his face upon his arms and wept bitterly. Octavius got to his feet, his breath suddenly whistling. "I must return to Italy. My stepfather says he'll be waiting for me in Brundisium. I'm sorry that the news came to me first, but perhaps the official notification was delayed by events." "Caesar dead!" came Ventidius's muffled voice. "Caesar dead! The world has ended." Octavius left the office and the building, went down to the quays to hire a pinnace, laboring over the short walk as he hadn't labored for months. Come, Octavius, you can't suffer an attack of the asthma now! Caesar is dead, and the world is ending. I must know it all as soon as possible, I can't lie here in Apollonia gasping for every breath. "I'm for Brundisium today," he told Agrippa, Salvidienus and Maecenas an hour later. "Caesar has been assassinated. Whoever wants to come with me is welcome, I've hired a big enough pinnace. There won't be any expedition to Syria." "I'll come with you," Agrippa said instantly, and left the common room to pack his single trunk, call his single servant. "Maecenas and I can't just leave," said Salvidienus. "We'll have work to do if the army is to be stood down. Perhaps we'll meet again in Rome." Salvidienus and Maecenas stared at Octavius as if at a total stranger; he had walked in looking blue around the mouth and wheezing, but absolutely calm. "I haven't time to deal with Epidius and my other tutors," he said now, producing a fat purse. "Here, Maecenas, give this to Epidius and tell him to get everybody and everything to Rome." "There's a gale coming," Maecenas said anxiously. "Gales never stopped Caesar. Why should they stop me?" "You're not well," Maecenas said courageously, "that's why." "Whether I'm on the Adriatic or in Apollonia, I won't be well, but sickness wouldn't stop Caesar, and it isn't going to stop me." He went off to supervise the packing of his trunk, leaving Salvidienus and Maecenas to look at each other. "He's too calm," said Maecenas. "Maybe," Salvidienus said pensively, "there's more of his uncle in him than meets the eye." "Oh, I've known that since the moment I met him. But he does a balancing act on a nervous tightrope that nothing in the history books says Caesar did. The history books! How terrible, Quintus, to think he's now relegated to the history books."

"You're not well," said Agrippa as they walked down to the quays in the teeth of a rising wind. "That subject is forbidden. I have you, and you're enough." "Who would dare to murder Caesar?" "The heirs of Bibulus, Cato and the boni, I imagine. They won't go unpunished." His voice dropped until it became inaudible to Agrippa. "By Sol Indiges, Tellus and Liber Pater, I swear that I will exact retribution!" The open boat put out into a heaving sea, and Agrippa found himself Octavius's nursemaid, for Scylax the body servant Octavius chose to go with him succumbed to seasickness even faster than his master did. As far as Agrippa was concerned, Scylax could die, but that couldn't be Octavius's fate. Between his shivering bouts of retching and an attack of the asthma that had him greyish-purple in the face, it did look to the worried Agrippa as if his friend might die, but they had no alternative save to go westward for Italy; wind and sea insisted upon pushing them in that direction. Not that Octavius was a troublesome or demanding patient. He simply lay in the bottom of the boat on a board to keep him clear of the foul water slopping there; the most Agrippa could do for him was to keep his chin up and his head to one side so that he couldn't aspirate the almost clear fluid he vomited. Agrippa now discovered convictions in himself that he hadn't known he possessed: that this sickly fellow scant months younger than he wasn't going to die, or disappear into obscurity now that his all-powerful uncle was no longer there to push him upward. At some point in the distant future, Octavius was going to matter to Rome, when he had grown to maturity and could emulate the earlier members of his family by entering the Senate. He will need military men like Salvidienus and me, he will need a paper man like Maecenas, and we must be there for him, despite whatever happens during the years that must elapse between now and when Gaius Octavius comes into his own. Maecenas is too exalted to be a client, but as soon as Octavius improves, I am going to ask him if I may become his first client, and advise Salvidienus to be his second client. When Octavius fought to sit upright, Agrippa took him into his arms and held him where his feeble gestures indicated that he could breathe easiest, a sagum sheltering him from the rain and spume. At least, thought Agrippa, it's not going to be a long passage. We'll be in Italy before we know it, and once we're on dry land he's bound to lose the seasickness, if not the asthma. Whoever heard of something called asthma? But landfall when it came was a bitter disappointment; the storm had blown them to Barium, sixty miles north of Brundisium. In charge of Octavius's purse as well, for he had no money of his own Agrippa paid the pinnace owner and carried his friend ashore, leaving Scylax to totter in his wake supported by his own man, Phormion, who to Agrippa represented the difference between utter penury and some pretensions to gentility. "We must hire two gigs and get to Brundisium at once," said Octavius, who looked much better just for leaving the sea. "Tomorrow," said Agrippa firmly. "It's barely dawn. Today, Agrippa, and no arguments."

The asthma improved only a little on the journey, over the sealed Via Minucia but behind two molting mules, but Octavius refused to stop for longer than it took to change teams; they reached the house of Aulus Plautius on nightfall. "Philippus couldn't come, he has to stay closer to Rome," Plautius said, showing Agrippa where to put Octavius, "but he's sent a letter at the gallop, and there's one from Atia too." Breathing easier with each passing moment, Octavius lay propped on pillows on a comfortable couch and extended his hand to the anxious Agrippa. "You see?" he asked, his smile as beautiful as Caesar's. "I knew I'd be safe with Marcus Agrippa. Thank you." "When did you last eat?" asked Plautius. "In Apollonia," said the famished Agrippa. "Where are my letters?" Octavius demanded, more interested in reading than eating. "Hand them over for the sake of peace," Agrippa said, used to him. "He can read and eat at the same time." Philippus's letter was longer than the brief note sent to Apollonia, and included a full list of the Liberators as well as the news that Caesar had named Gaius Octavius as his heir, and had also adopted him in his will.