Colleen McCullough - 5. Caesar

LARINUM TO BRUNDISIUM

It was much nicer existing without the senatorial watchdogs, Pompey had discovered. From Titus Labienus he received nothing except sound military sense delivered minus homilies, rhetoric or political analysis; Pompey began to think that he might be able to salvage something out of this hideous shipwreck. All his instincts told him that it was futile to try to halt Caesar in Italia, that his best and cleverest course was to retreat across the Adriatic and take Rome's government with him. If there was no government left in Italia, Caesar wouldn't have the opportunity to shore up his position by bluffing, bullying or bludgeoning the government into officially sanctioning his actions. He would look what he was, a treasonous conqueror who had driven the government into exile. Nor was retreating across the Adriatic a true retreat; it was the breathing space Pompey desperately needed to get his army into shape, to see his own legions shipped to him from Spain, to levy client kings in the East for additional troops and the masses of cavalry he lacked. "Don't count on your Spanish legions," warned Labienus. "Why ever not?" "If you leave Italia for Macedonia or Greece, Magnus, don't expect Caesar to follow you. He'll march for Spain to destroy your base and your army there." "Surely I'm his top priority!" "No. Neutering Spain is. That's one reason why he won't bring all his legions to this side of the Alps. He knows he'll need them in the West. By now, I imagine, Trebonius will have at least three legions in Narbo. Where old Lucius Caesar has everything in perfect order as well as thousands of local troops. And they'll be waiting for Afranius and Petreius to attempt the land route to Rome." Labienus frowned, shot Pompey a look. "They haven't marched yet, have they?" "No, they haven't. I'm still waiting to see how best to deal with Caesar himself. Whether I should go north to Picenum, or east across the Adriatic." "You've left your run too late for Picenum, Magnus. That ceased to be an alternative a nundinum ago." "Then," said Pompey with decision, "I'll send Quintus Fabius to Ahenobarbus in Corfinium today with orders that Ahenobarbus is to abandon the place and transfer himself and his troops to me." "Good thinking. If he stays in Corfinium, he'll fall. It's Caesar will inherit his men, and we need them. Ahenobarbus has two properly formed legions and another fifteen-odd cohorts." He thought of something else. "How are the Sixth and the Fifteenth?" "Surprisingly tractable. Largely due to you, I suspect. Since they learned you're on our side, they've been more prone to think ours is the side in the right." "Then I've accomplished something." Labienus got up and paced across to an unshuttered window, through which blew a cold, ominously wintry blast from the north. The camp was located on the outskirts of Larinum, which had never recovered from the treatment Gaius Verres and Publius Cethegus had doled out to it in Sulla's wake. Nor had the Apulian countryside. Verres had torn out every single tree; without windbreaks or roots to hold down the topsoil, what had been a reasonably verdant and fertile land had gone to dust and locusts. "You're hiring seaworthy transports in Brundisium?" asked Labienus from the window, gazing out, indifferent to the cold. "Yes, of course. Though shortly I'll have to ask the consuls for money. Some of the captains refuse to sail until they've been paid the difference between a legitimate war and a civil one, I presume. Normally they're content to run an account." "Then the Treasury is in Capua." "Yes, I imagine so," Pompey answered absently. A fraction of a moment later he was sitting in his chair rigid with shock. "Jupiter!" Labienus swung around immediately. "What?" "Labienus, I can't be sure that the Treasury isn't still in Rome! Jupiter! Oh, Hercules! Minerva! Juno! Mars! I don't remember seeing any Treasury wagons on the road to Campania!" He writhed, glued his fingers to his temples, closed his eyes. "Ye Gods, I don't believe it! But the more I think about it, the more certain I am that those prize cunni Marcellus and Crus skipped from Rome without emptying the vaults! They're the consuls it's their duty to deal with the money!" Face a pasty grey, Labienus swallowed. "Do you mean we've embarked on this enterprise without a war chest?" "It's not my fault!" wailed Pompey, hands clenched in his thick, gone-to-silver hair. "Do I have to think of everything? Can those mentulae in Capua think of nothing! They've hemmed me in for months, squawking and clucking, yammering in my ears until I can hardly hear my own thoughts picking, carping, criticizing, arguing oh, Titus, how they argue! On and on and on! It's not a right act to do this, it's a wrong act to do that; the Senate says this, the Senate says that it's a wonder I've got as far into this campaign as Larinum!" "Then," said Labienus, understanding that now was not the moment to castigate Pompey, "we'd better send a man at the gallop for Capua with instructions for the consuls to hustle themselves back to Rome and empty the Treasury. Otherwise it's Caesar who will pay for his war out of the public purse." "Yes, yes!" gasped Pompey, stumbling to his feet. "I'll do it this instant I know, I'll send Gaius Cassius! A tribune of the plebs who distinguished himself in Syria ought to be able to make them understand, eh?" Off he reeled, leaving Labienus to stand by the window and stare at the bleak landscape with leaden heart. He's not the same man, Pompeius. He's a doll that's lost half its stuffing. Well, he's getting old. Must be pushing fifty-seven. And he's right about that clutch of political theorists Cato, the Marcelli, Lentulus Crus, Metellus Scipio. So militarily inept they couldn't tell their arses from their swords. I've chosen the wrong side, unless I can keep closer to Magnus than the senatorial leeches. If it's left to them, Caesar will eat us. Picenum has fallen. And the Twelfth has joined the Thirteenth Caesar possesses two veteran legions. Plus every one of our recruits he's managed to get his hands on. They know. I'll see Quintus Fabius myself; I must reinforce the message he's got to get through to that pigheaded verpa in Corfinium, Ahenobarbus abandon the place and join us! Money. Money . . . There's bound to be some around here somewhere, even after Verres and Cethegus. They were thirty years ago. A few temple hoards, old Rabirius's house ... And I'll see Gaius Cassius myself too. Tell him to start borrowing from the Campanian temples and towns. We need every sestertius we can find. A wise decision on Labienus's part, one which would enable Pompey to sail. By the time Lentulus Crus answered Pompey's curt order (the senior consul, Marcellus Minor, was sick as usual), the army had quit Larinum and was at Luceria, well south; the delighted Metellus Scipio had bundled himself off importantly with six cohorts to Brundisium under instructions to hold it, and secure in the knowledge that Caesar was a long way from Brundisium. While Labienus watched, Pompey deciphered Lentulus Crus's letter. "I don't believe it!" he gasped, chalk-white, eyes swimming with tears of sheer rage. "Our esteemed junior consul will get up off his pampered podex and proceed back to Rome to empty the Treasury if I advance into Picenum and prevent Caesar any access to Rome! Otherwise, he says, he's staying right where he is in Capua. Safe! He goes on to accuse Gaius Cassius of impertinence and as punishment has sent him to Neapolis one of my legates! to gather a few ships in case the consuls and the rest of the government have to evacuate Campania in a hurry. He ends, Labienus, by informing me that he still considers it a mistake on my part to refuse to let him make a legion out of Caesar's gladiators. He's convinced they'd fight brilliantly for us and he doesn't think us military men appreciate the prowess of gladiators. Therefore he is mighty miffed that I ordered them disbanded." Pushed beyond rage, Labienus giggled. "Oh, it's a gigantic farce! What we ought to do, Magnus, is put the whole show on the road and play every pig-shit town and village in Apulia. The yokels would deem it the funniest troupe of traveling mimers they've ever seen. Especially if we trick Lentulus Crus out as a raddled old whore with a pair of melons for tits." But at least, thought Labienus privately, young Gaius Cassius will be raiding every temple from Antium to Surrentum. I doubt an order from the likes of Lentulus Crus to save the Senate's bacon at the expense of the army will impress that particular Cassius!