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

Brutus had spent the whole of that frightful afternoon on top of his hill, trying vainly to see the field. He had no idea what was happening, had no idea that several of his legions had taken matters into their own hands and won a victory, had no idea what Cassius expected him to do. Nothing, was what he presumed, and "Nothing, I presume" was what he told his legates, friends, all those who came badgering him to do something, do anything! It was the disheveled and breathless Cimber who told him of his victory, the spoils his legions had dragged across the Ganga River whooping in jubilation. "But but Cassius didn't didn't order that!" said Brutus with a stammer, eyes dismayed. "They did it anyway, and good for them! Good for us too, you doleful stickler!" Cimber snapped, patience tried. "Where's Cassius? The others?" "Cassius and Titinius rode for Philippi town to see if they could discern what's happening in this fog. Quinctilius Varus thought all was lost, and fell on his sword. About the rest, I don't know. Oh, was there ever such a mess?" Darkness fell, and slowly, very slowly, the dust cloud began to settle. No one on either side would be able to assess the results of this day until the morrow, so those Liberators who had survived it gathered to eat in Brutus's wooden house, bathed and changed into warm tunics. "Who died today?" Brutus asked before the meal was served. "Young Lucullus," said Quintus Ligarius, assassin. "Lentulus Spinther, fighting in the marshes," said Pacuvius Antistius Labeo, assassin. "And Quinctilius Varus," Cimber, assassin, added. Brutus wept, especially for the unflappable and innovative Spinther, son of a more torpid, less worthy man. Came the sound of a commotion; young Cato burst into the room, eyes wild. "Marcus Brutus!" he cried. "Here! Out here!" His tone brought the dozen men present to their feet, then to the door. On the ground just outside, the bodies of Gaius Cassius Longinus and Lucius Titinius lay on a rough litter. A thin scream erupted from Brutus, who fell to his knees and began to rock, his hands covering his face. "How?" asked Cimber, taking command. "Some German cavalry brought them in," young Marcus Cato said, standing stiffly, pose martial; his father would not have known him. "It seems Cassius thought they were Antonius's troopers come to take him prisoner he and Titinius were on the road at Philippi. Titinius went to intercept them and found out that they were ours, but Cassius killed himself while Titinius was away. He was dead when they reached him. Titinius fell on his sword."

"And where," roared Mark Antony, standing amid the ruins of his camp, "were you while all this was going on?" Leaning on Helenus he dared not look at the silent Agrippa, whose hand was on his sword Octavian stared into the small, angry eyes without flinching. "In the marshes trying to breathe." "While those cunni stole our war chest!" "I'm quite sure," Octavian wheezed, lowering his long fair lashes, "that you'll get it back, Marcus Antonius." "You're right, I will, you useless, pathetic ninny! You mama's boy, you waste of a good command! Here was I thinking I'd won, and all the time some renegades from Brutus's camp were plundering my camp! My camp! And several thousand men dead into the bargain! What's the point in killing eight thousand of Cassius's men when I lose men inside my own camp? You couldn't organize a bun fight!" "I never claimed I could organize a bun fight," Octavian said calmly. "You made the dispositions for today, I didn't. You hardly bothered to tell me you were attacking, and you certainly didn't invite me to your council." "Why don't you give up and go home, Octavianus?" "Because I am co-commander of this war, Antonius, no matter how you feel about that fact. I've contributed the same number of men they were my infantry died today, not yours! and more of the money than you have, for all your bellowing and your blustering. In future, I suggest that you include me in your war councils and make better provision for safeguarding our camp." Fists clenched, Antony hawked and spat on the ground at Octavian's feet, then stormed away. "Let me kill him, please," Agrippa pleaded. "I could take him, Caesar, I know I could! He's getting old, and he drinks too much. Let me kill him! It can be fair, I'll fight a duel!" "No, not today," said Octavian, turning to walk back to his battered tent. Noncombatants were digging pits by torchlight, as there were many horses to bury. A dead horse meant a cavalryman who couldn't fight, as Brutus's soldiers well knew. "You were in the thick of things, Agrippa Taurus told me. What you need is sleep, not a duel with a vulgar gladiator like Antonius. Taurus told me that you won nine gold phalerae for being the first over Cassius's wall. It should have been a corona vallaris, but Taurus says Antonius quibbled because there were two walls, and you weren't first over both of them. Oh, that makes me so proud! When we fight Brutus, you'll be commanding the Fourth Legion." Though he swelled with happiness for the praise, Agrippa was more worried about Caesar than concerned with himself. After that undeserved dressing-down from a boar like Antonius, he thought, Caesar should be black in the face and dying. Instead, the roaring out seemed to act like a magical medicine, improved his condition. How controlled he is. Never turned a hair. He has his own sort of bravery. Nor will Antonius get anywhere if he tries to undermine Caesar's reputation among the legions by mocking him for cowardice today. They know Caesar is ill, and they will think that his illness today helped them win a great victory. For it is a great victory. The troops we lost were our worst. The troops the Liberators lost were Cassius's best. No, the legions won't believe Caesar a coward. It's inside Rome among Antonius's cronies and the senatorial couch generals that men will believe Antonius's lying stories. There, he'll forget to mention illness.

Brutus's camp was full to overflowing; perhaps twenty-five thousand of Cassius's soldiers had made it to haven inside. Some of them were wounded, most were merely exhausted from laboring in the marshes and then trying to fight. Brutus had extra rations broken out of Stores, made the noncombatant bakers work as hard as the soldiers had in the swamps, laid on fresh bread and lentil soup laced with plenty of bacon. It was so cold, and firewood was hard to come by because trees felled from the hills behind were too green to burn yet. Hot soup and bread-and-oil would put some warmth into them. When he thought of how the troops were going to react to the death of Cassius, Brutus panicked. He bundled all the noble bodies into a cart and secretly sent them to Neapolis in the charge of young Cato, whom he instructed to cremate them there and send the ashes home before returning. How terrible, how unreal to see Cassius's face leached of life! It had been more alive than any other face he had ever set eyes on. They had been friends since school days, they became brothers-in-law, their lives inextricably intertwined even before killing Caesar had fused them together for better or worse. Now he was alone. Cassius's ashes would go home to Tertulla, who had so wanted children, but never managed to carry them. It seemed a fate common to Julian women; in that, she had taken after Caesar. Too late for children now. Too late for her, too late for Marcus Brutus as well. Porcia is dead, Mama alive. Porcia is dead, Mama alive. Porcia is dead, Mama alive. Then after Cassius's body had gone, a peculiar strength flowed into Brutus; the enterprise had entirely passed to him, he was the one Liberator left who mattered to the history books. So he wrapped a cloak around his thin, stooped frame and set out to do what he could to comfort Cassius's men. They felt their defeat bitterly, he discovered as he went from one group to another to talk to them, calm them down, soothe them. No, no, it wasn't your fault, you didn't lack valor or determination, Antonius the unprincipled sneaked up on you, didn't behave like a man of honor. Of course they wanted to know how Cassius was, why it wasn't he visiting them. Convinced that news of his death would utterly demoralize them, Brutus lied: Cassius was wounded, it would be some days before he was back on his feet. Which seemed to work. As dawn neared, he summoned all his own legates, tribunes and senior centurions to a conference in the assembly place. "Marcus Cicero," he said to Cicero's son, "it is your job to confer with my centurions and attach Cassius's soldiers to my legions, even if they go to over-strength. But find out if any of his legions survived intact enough to retain their identities." Young Cicero nodded eagerly; the most painful aspect of being the great Cicero's son was that he ought by rights to have been Quintus Cicero's son, and young Quintus the great Cicero's. For Marcus Junior was warlike and unintellectual, whereas Quintus Junior had been clever, bookish and idealistic. The task Brutus had just given him suited his talents. But having comforted Cassius's men, the peculiar strength drained out of Brutus to be replaced by the old despondency. "It will be some days before we can offer battle," said Cimber. "Offer battle?" Brutus asked blankly. "Oh no, Lucius Cimber, we won't be offering battle." "But we must!" cried Lucius Bibulus the noble blockhead. The tribunes and centurions were exchanging glances, looking sour; everyone, it was clear, wanted a battle. "We sit here where we are," said Brutus, drawing himself up with as much dignity as he could muster. "We do not I repeat, we do not! offer battle."