Caesar (35 page)

"Foolery," I said again. "Who released the birds?"

"Does that matter?" Octavius said. "They flew."

"Something else you should know," Agrippa spoke for the first time. "We're going to rescind the amnesty offered Caesar's murderers. You've had it. Your number's up."

"More wine?" Octavius pushed the jug towards me, and smiled.

"You know what else Cicero said?" Maecenas laid his hand on my arm, resisting my effort to shake it off. "He asked, 'What god has given this godlike youth to the Roman people?'"

"So you see," the godlike youth smiled again, "the game is going my way, Mouse. I don't think you have anything to offer me."

Hope all but left me then, but I struggled on. Antony marched against me, forced me into Mutina, where we withstood a terrible siege that winter. His success alarmed Octavius, who persuaded the Senate to declare him a public enemy. In his alarm he made a new overture towards me. I responded as if I trusted him. But trust had died in the early autumn sunshine in the hills above Orvieto. Yet an alliance was constructed, an alliance of shifting interest, nothing more. The consuls-elect, Hirtius and Pansa, marched against Antony, compelling him to raise the siege. My ragged, half-starved soldiers emerged from the city where we had waited for death.

If I had had cavalry, if my poor legions had not been so weakened by their privations, if, if, if . . . Then I would have pursued Antony, and might still have snatched victory. But all I could do was urge Octavius to cut off Antony's jackal, Publius Ventidius, as he marched from Picenum with three veteran legions; but the boy failed, or chose to fail . . .

My last hope was to effect a union with Lucius Munatius Plancus, governor of Gallia Comata. I knew him for a time-server, but he had written to me deploring the state of the Republic and describing Antony as "a brigand". I pushed north over the pass of the Little St Bernard. At every stage of the march deserters slipped away. Food was in short supply, likewise money. A courier came from Cicero, addressing me as the last hope of the Republic in the West. He inveighed against Antony, against Octavius, against Fate. I read his missive as hope tumbled from me like the rocks that clattered down the Alpine hillsides.

I reached Grenoble and found Plancus there. He received me with smiles and soft words. His troops were fat; they looked on my scarecrows with wonder, horror and contempt. Plancus smiled as he insulted my enemies. "Young Caesar was a monster of odious ingratitude and ambition; Antony an unprincipled scoundrel; Lepidus a vain buffoon whose word was as worthless as a Greek whore's."

Or as Plancus' own. How can you rely on a man who will speak well of no one but himself ?

On the eighth day trumpets sounded. They heralded the arrival of Caius Asinius Pollio with two legions. Pollio was an old comrade. He had been with me when we crossed the Rubicon, had fought by my side in Spain. When I greeted him, he said:

"I come from Antony."

"Oh," I said, "and Plancus has been waiting your arrival." "Just so."

"I am sorry," Plancus said, "but I really have no choice but to ally myself to Antony and Octavius."

I tried to argue my case. They would have none of it. When I said that Antony and Octavius had come together in a criminal conspiracy against the Republic, Pollio said:

"That's enough."

I withdrew to my camp, surprised that they permitted me that liberty.

That night, I slipped away, under cover of darkness, wind and rain. Only two centuries would follow me. The rest received my orders with dumb insolence and I was powerless to punish them.

My remnant of a plan was to make a wide circuit through the Alps and then head for Macedonia where Cassius was assembling an army. You know how it ended. Unable to deploy scouts (for I feared they too would desert) we were surprised, encircled, taken. The Gauls, when they learned who I was, looked on me with amazement.

Chapter 25

An
d so night closed upon me. I have written to both Antony and Octavius, but am reconciled to death. My last wish is to avoid dishonour; therefore I have penned this history of my engagement in the death of Caesar. Should it survive, I am confident that posterity will judge me a true servant of the Republic.

I warned Antony to beware of Octavius. "The boy will be your master," I said, "and you only his accomplice in the destruction of liberty which alone gives meaning to life."

My last flicker of hope is to sow dissension. Accordingly I reminded Octavius that Antony had described him as "a mere boy who owes everything to a name".

If only it were true . . . but the boy is no shadow of Caer " More careful, more judicious, he will exceed him in tyranny. We thought to save liberty; we leave Rome threatened with a closer confinement, a more degrading slavery.

I have had no word from Longina. I do not even know whether our son lives.

It does not matter how a man ends. What matters is how he has lived, and I have lived honourably.

I have charged Artixes with the safekeeping of this memoir. I do not think he will fail me, though he cannot understand the importance I attach to it.

This morning he ushered in a messenger whom I recognised as one of Lepidus' men. I experienced a surge of hope, which was grotesque: how could a thing like Lepidus offer hope?

His master, he said, had come together with Antony and Octavius. They were convening on an island in the river near Bologna. There they would arrange matters of State. There would be no clemency. All were agreed that Caesar's policy had been mistaken. Instead they would draw up a list of proscribed persons.

So I received my death warrant. I asked Artixes for wine. "I take it," I said, "that your father has received the same message."

He nodded, unable to speak.

"Tell him," I said, "that I understand and accept my fate." He looked at me with horror and admiration.

Fa
rewell to my few fait
hful attendants. I have given th
e most trusted a letter for Longina, assuring her of my love, and thanking her . . .

E
ven as I wrote it I wondered
if she had not already found a l
over. Yet I feel her lips on mine.

Artixes brought me a case containing my own jewelled dagger. He brought also a message from his father. I have till dawn. This is more honourable conduct than I had expected from a barbarian. But then I know he has been impressed by the dignity with which I have borne my misfortunes. There is something in the barbarian soul which responds nobly to nobility.

Death is the extinction of a candle; nothing more.

I do not believe the poets who promise . . . but it is not good to brood on these matters. It serves nothing.

I also wrote again to Octavius, for my mind was full of him:

Do you recall that dinner at Cicero's where we first met? (Incidentally, I wager that Cicero is included, at Antony's insistence, on your list of those proscribed and that you have washed your hands of his fate; am I right?) On that occasion you said: "A man is but a man; he should not see himself as a tragic figure." I agree.

And do you recall how we talked of the danger that the pursuit of self-interest portended for the Republic?

Think of that now that you are about to be assailed by the temptations which lured Caesar to his death. Recall your friend and lover whose only crime was to care more for the Republic than for himself or Caesar. Reflect that other Brutuses will arise, if virtue and the love of liberty have not been extinguished in Rome.

You will destroy Antony. You will be wiser than Caesar and not assume the appearance of absolute power.

Yet you will possess it.

Will its exercise corrupt and obliterate the boy I loved?

I beg you to care
for my wife Longina. As the da
ughter of Gaius Cassius and the spouse of Decimus Brutus she suffers from connections that may do her harm. Pray see to it that neither she nor our son is afflicted on my account.

It is hard to end, hard to
finish all, confess
ing failure. Yet, Crassus, Pompey, Caesar, the great men of my youth and manhood, all met inglorious death.

Beware the jealous gods, Octavius . . .

Remember me, while the flesh is on you. In time you too will be spilt on air.

The grey morning is touched with rosy fingers. At the door of my hut, I have breathed free air, soft for the mountains. Cocks crow in the valley.

What were Clodia's words?

"The cold grey clutch of death . . ." Something like that. "We cannot play gods," she said. When we slew Caesar we dared all that a man is fit for.

The dagger with which I stabbed him is to hand. There is no more to be said.