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

A son, apparently healthy. Caesar is absurdly pleased for an old man who ought to be welcoming the birth of grandchildren. But she has given the child a Greek name, Caesarion. Perhaps it's better. He isn't a Roman and he never can be a Roman. He will be the richest man in the world, and a powerful king. Oh, but the mother is immature! Such an artless letter, vain and vainglorious. Grant her land to build a palace on the Capitol, near the temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest what a sacrilege, were it possible. She is determined to come to Rome, she will not be denied. Let it be upon her own head, then. Caesar, you are too hard on her. No one can be more than the capacity of their mind and talents allow, and her blood is tainted, for all that at heart she is a nice little thing. Her crimes are natural to her background, her mistakes not due to arrogance as much as to ignorance. I fear she'll never have the gift of foresight, so I must offer that our son does. But one thing Caesar has resolved: there will never be any sister for Caesarion to marry. Caesar will not quicken her again. Coitus interruptus, Cleopatra. He sat down and wrote to her, half his attention on the sounds drifting into his room sounds of legions pulling camp, of horses neighing, of men shouting and cursing, Carfulenus bellowing ghastly obscenities at a hapless soldier.

What good news, my dear Cleopatra. A son, just as was predicted. Would Amun-Ra dare disappoint his daughter on earth? Truly, I am very glad for you and Egypt. The gold is welcome. Since emerging into the wide world again, I have come to a better understanding of how deeply Rome is in debt. Civil war brings no booty in its train, and war is profitable only if there is booty. Your contribution in the name of our son will not be wasted. Since you insist upon coming to Rome, I will not stand in your way, only warn you that it will not be what you expect. I will arrange that you have land under the Janiculan Hill, adjoining my own pleasure gardens. Tell Ammonius to apply to the broker Gaius Matius. I am not a man famous for his love letters. Just accept the love and know that I am indeed very pleased with you and our son. I will write to you again when I reach Bithynia. Take care of yourself and our boy.

And that was that. Caesar rolled the single sheet, plopped a blob of melted wax on its junction, and sealed it with his ring, a new one Cleopatra had given him not entirely from love. It was also a sly poke at his reluctance to discuss his past emotional history with her. The amethyst intaglio was of a sphinx in Greek form, having a human head and a lion's body, and instead of the usual abbreviated full name, it simply said CAESAR in mirrored block letters. He loved it. When he decided which of his nephews or close cousins would be his adopted heir, the ring would go to him along with the name. Ye gods, a sorry lot! Lucius Pinarius? Even Quintus Pedius, the best of his nephews, wasn't exactly inspiring. Among the cousins, there were the young fellow in Antioch, Sextus Julius Caesar Decimus Junius Brutus and the man most of Rome assumed would be his heir, Marcus Antonius. Who, who, who? For it could not be Ptolemy XV Caesar. On his way out he gave the letter to Gaius Faberius. "Send this to Queen Cleopatra in Alexandria," he said curtly. Faberius was dying to know if the baby had been born, but one look at Caesar's face decided him not to ask. The old boy was in the mood to fight, not wax lyrical about babies, even his own.

Lake Tatta was a huge, shallow body of bitterly salty water; perhaps, thought Caesar, studying the conglomerate shores, it was the remnant of some past inland sea, for ancient shells were embedded in the soft rock. Despite its desert nature, it was strikingly beautiful to behold; the scummy surface of the lake glowed with greens, acid yellows, reddish yellows, ribbons of one color coiling through another, and the sere landscape for many miles reflected some of that vivid spectrum. Never having been in central Anatolia, Caesar found it both bizarre and splendid; the Halys River, the great red waterway that curled like an augur's lituus staff for hundreds of miles, lay in a narrow valley between high red cliffs that gave off extrusions and towers he thought reminiscent of a tall city. In other stretches of its course, the attentive Deiotarus told him, it flowed through a broad plain of fertile fields. The mountains began again, high and still smothered in snow, but the Galatian guides knew all the passes; the army weaved its way between them, a traditional Roman snake eight miles long, the cavalry dotting its flanks, the soldiers striding out singing their marching songs to keep the pace. Oh, this is more like! A foreign foe, a true campaign in a strange new land whose beauty is haunting. At which moment King Pharnaces sent his first gold crown to Caesar. This one resembled the Armenian rather than the Parthian tiara: mitered, not truncated, and encrusted with round, starred rubies all exactly the same small size. "Oh, if only I knew someone who could buy it for what it's worth!" Caesar breathed to Calvinus. "It's heartbreaking to melt this down." "Needs must," Calvinus said briskly. "Actually those little carbunculi will fetch an excellent price from any jeweler in the Porticus Margaritaria I've never seen stars in them before. The gold hardly shows, there are so many. Like a cake rolled in nuts." "Do you think our friend Pharnaces is becoming worried?" "Oh, yes. The degree of his worry will show in how often he sends you a crown, Caesar." Calvinus grinned. One every three days for the next nundinum, all the same in form and content; by that time Caesar was only five days' march from the Cimmerian camp. The count at three crowns, Pharnaces sent an ambassador to Caesar with a fourth crown. "A token of his regard from the King of Kings, great Caesar." "King of Kings? Is that what Pharnaces has taken to calling himself?" Caesar asked, aping astonishment. "Tell your master that it's a title bodes ill for its holder. The last King of Kings was Tigranes, and look what Rome did to him in the person of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. Yet I defeated Pompeius Magnus, so what does that make me, Ambassador?" "A mighty conqueror," said the ambassador, swallowing. Why didn't Romans look like mighty conquerors? No golden litter, no traveling harem of wives and concubines, no bodyguard of picked troops, no glittering garments. Caesar wore a plain steel cuirass with a red ribbon knotted around its lower chest, and looked, save for that ribbon, no different from a dozen others around him. "Go back to your king, Ambassador, and tell him it's time he went home, said Caesar in businesslike tones. "But before he goes, I want sufficient gold bullion to pay for the damage he has done in Pontus and Armenia Parva. A thousand talents for Amisus, three thousand for the rest of those two countries. The gold will be used to repair his ravages, make no mistake. It is not for the Treasury of Rome." He paused to turn his head and stare at Deiotarus. "However," he went on urbanely, "King Pharnaces was a client of Pompeius Magnus's, and did not honor his cliental obligations. Therefore I fine King Pharnaces two thousand gold talents for not honoring his cliental obligations, and that will go to the Treasury of Rome." Deiotarus went purple, spluttered and choked, but said not a word. Did Caesar have no shame at all? Ready to punish Galatia for obeying its cliental obligations, equally ready to punish Cimmeria for not obeying its cliental obligations! "If I do not hear from your king today, Ambassador, I will continue my advance across this beautiful valley." "There isn't one-tenth that much gold in all of Cimmeria," said Calvinus, smothering his laughter at Deiotarus's outrage. "You might be surprised, Gnaeus. Don't forget Cimmeria was an important part of the old king's realm, and he amassed whole mountains of gold. Not all of it was in those seventy fortresses Pompeius stripped bare in Armenia Parva." "Did you hear him?" Deiotarus was squeaking to Brutus. "Did you hear him? A client-king can't do right, whichever course he elects! Oh, I don't believe his gall!" "There, there," Brutus soothed. "It's his way of getting the money to pay for this war. He's right, he did have to burgle Rome's Treasury, which has to be paid back." The mournful eyes grew hard and minatory; Brutus stared at the King of Galatia like a father at a naughty son. "And you, Deiotarus, have to pay me back. I hope that's understood." "And I hope you understand, Marcus Brutus, that when Caesar says ten percent simple interest, that's what he means!" Deiotarus said savagely. "That I'm willing to pay if I keep my kingdom but not one sestertius more. Do you want Matinius's books open to Caesar's auditors? And how do you think you can collect debts now that you can't commandeer legions for that purpose? The world has changed, Marcus Brutus, and the man who dictates how the new world will be run is not enamored of usurers, even among his own class. Ten percent simple interest if I keep my kingdom. And keeping my kingdom may well depend upon how lyrically you and Gaius Cassius plead my cause at Nicomedia after we meet Pharnaces!"