Colleen McCullough - 5. Caesar

Well based on the island of Corcyra, Bibulus was faring much better against Caesar than the timorous Pompey. It had hurt badly to learn that Caesar had successfully run his blockade wasn't that typical of Caesar, to send a captive Pompeian legate to inform him of it? Ha ha ha, beat you, Bibulus! Nothing could have spurred Bibulus on more energetically than that derisive gesture. He had always worked hard, but from the time of Vibullius's visit he flogged himself and his legates remorselessly. Every ship he could lay his hands on was sent out to patrol the Adriatic; Caesar would rot before he saw the rest of his army! First blood was empty blood, but tasty blood for all that. Out on the water himself, he intercepted thirty of the transports Caesar had used to cross, captured them and burned them. There! Thirty less ships for Antonius and Calenus to use. One of Bibulus's two objectives was to make it impossible for Antony and Fufius Calenus in Brundisium to obtain enough ships to ferry eight legions and a thousand German horse to Epirus. To ensure this, he sent Marcus Octavius to patrol the Adriatic north of Brundisium on the Italian side, Scribonius Libo to maintain a station immediately off Brundisium, and Gnaeus Pompey to cover the Greek approaches. Whether Antony and Calenus tried to get ships from the northern Adriatic ports, or from Greece, or from the ports of the Italian foot on its western side, they would not succeed! His second objective was to deprive Caesar of all seaborne supplies, including those sent from Greece through the Gulf of Corinth or around the bottom of the Peloponnese. He had heard a fantastic tale that Caesar, alarmed at his enforced isolation, had tried to return to Brundisium in a tiny open boat, and in the teeth of a terrible storm off Sason Island. In disguise to avoid alarming his men so the story went Caesar revealed his identity to the captain when a decision was made to turn back, appealing to the man to continue because he carried Caesar and Caesar's luck. A second attempt was made, but in the end the pinnace was forced to return to Epirus and deposit Caesar unharmed among his men. True? Bibulus had no idea. Just like the man's conceit, to make that appeal to the captain! But why would he bother? What did he think he could do in Brundisium that his legates two good men, Bibulus admitted could not? Nevertheless, legends like this one caused Bibulus to push himself even harder. When the equinoctial gales rendered a breakout from Brundisium impossible, he ought by rights to have taken a rest. He did not. No one save the admiral-in-chief was available to patrol the Epirote coast between Corcyra and Sason Island. So the admiral-in-chief patrolled it, out in all weathers, never warm, never dry, never comfortable enough to sleep except in snatches. In March he caught cold, but refused to return to Corcyra until the decision was taken out of his hands. Head on fire, hands and feet frozen, chest laboring, he collapsed at his post on his flagship. His deputy, Lucretius Vespillo, ordered the fleet to return to base, and there Bibulus was put to bed. When his condition failed to improve, Lucretius Vespillo took another executive decision: to send to Dyrrachium for Cato. Who arrived in a pinnace much like the one in the legend about Caesar, tormented by the fear that once again he would be too late to hold the hand of a beloved man before he died. Cato's ears told him that Bibulus still lived before he entered the room; the whole snug little stone house on a sheltered Corcyran cove reverberated with the sound of Bibulus's breathing. So tiny! Why had he forgotten that? Huddled in a bed far too big for him, his silver hair and silver brows invisible against skin gone to silver scales from exposure to the elements. Only the silver-grey eyes, enormous in that sunken face, looked alive. They met Cato's across the room and filled with tears. A hand came out. Down on the edge of the bed, that hand enfolded between his own two strong ones; Cato leaned forward and kissed Bibulus's brow. Almost he leaped back, so hot was the skin, fancying that as the slow tears trickled from the outer corner of each eye toward the temples, he would hear a hiss, see steam rise. Burning up! On fire. The chest was working like a bellows in loud dry rasps, and oh, the pain! There in the weeping eyes, shining through their liquid film with a simple, profound love. Love for Cato. Who was going to be alone again. "Doesn't matter now you're here," he said. "I'm here for as long as you want me, Bibulus." "Tried too hard. Can't let Caesar win." "We will never let Caesar win, even if by our dying." "Destroy the Republic. Has to be stopped." "We both know that." "Rest of them don't care enough. Except Ahenobarbus." "The old trio." "Pompeius is a pricked bladder." "And Labienus a monster. I know. Don't think about it." "Look after Porcia. And little Lucius. Only son I have now." "I will take care of them. But Caesar first." "Oh, yes. Caesar first. Has a hundred lives." "Do you remember, Bibulus, when you were consul and shut yourself up in your house to watch the skies? How he hated that! We ruined his consulship. We forced him to be unconstitutional. We laid the foundation for the treason charges he'll have to answer when all this is over...." That innately loud, unmusical, hectoring voice continued to talk for hours so softly, so tenderly, so kindly and even happily, gentling Bibulus into the cradle of his final sleep with the same cadences as a lullaby. It fell sweetly upon the listening ears, provoked the same rapt and permanent smile a child will maintain while listening to the most wonderful story in the world. And so, still smiling, still watching Cato's face, Bibulus slipped away. The last thing he said was "We will stop Caesar." This time was not like Caepio. This time there was no huge outpouring of grief, no frantic scrabble to deny the presence of death. When the last rattle faded away to nothing, Cato got up from the bed, folded the hands across Bibulus's breast and passed his open hand across the fixed eyes, brushing their lids down and closed. He had known, of course, from the moment he got the message in Dyrrachium, so the gold denarius was there in Cato's belt. He slipped it inside the open mouth, strained still by the effort of that last breath, then pushed the chin up and set the lips back into a faint smile. "Vale, Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus," he said. "I do not know if we can destroy Caesar, but he will never destroy us." Lucius Scribonius Libo was waiting outside the room with Vespillo, Torquatus and some others. "Bibulus is dead," Cato announced at a shout. Libo sighed. "That makes our task harder." He made a courteous gesture to Cato. "Some wine?" "Thank you, a lot of it. And unwatered." He drank deeply but refused food. "Can we find a place to build a pyre in this storm?" "It's being attended to." "They tell me, Libo, that he tried to trick Caesar by asking Caesar to a parley in Oricum. And that Caesar came." "Yes, it's true. Though Bibulus wouldn't see Caesar personally. He made me tell Caesar that he didn't dare be in the same room with him for fear of losing his temper. What we hoped was to get the wretched man to relax his vigilance along the coast he makes it difficult for us to victual our ships by land." "But the ploy didn't work," said Cato, refilling his cup. Libo grimaced, spread his hands. "Sometimes, Cato, I think that Caesar isn't a mortal man. He laughed at me and walked out." "Caesar is a mortal man," said Cato. "One day he will die." Libo lifted his cup, splashed a little of the wine in it onto the floor. "A libation to the Gods, Cato. That I live to see the day it happens." But Cato smiled and shook his head. "No, I'll not make that libation. My bones tell me I'll be dead first."

6

The distance across the Adriatic Sea from Apollonia to Brundisium was eighty miles. At sunrise on the second day of April, Caesar in Apollonia entrusted a letter to the commander of a kind of boat he had grown very attached to during his expeditions to Britannia the pinnace. The seas were falling, the wind out of the south no more than a breeze, and the horizon from the top of a hill showed no sign of a ship, let alone a Pompeian fleet. At sunset in Brundisium, Mark Antony took possession of the letter, which had had a swift, uneventful voyage. Caesar had written it himself, so it was easier to read than most communications; the writing was scribe-perfect though distinctive, and the first letter of each new word was indicated by a dot above it.