The Horse Changer Read online

  I waited for him at the stable nearly an hour before he joined me. When we were alone and could not be heard, I told him Nero would provide him with the Spartan cavalry he coveted in exchange for the promise of a praetorship. ‘Happy to do it,’ he answered, and I knew him well enough to know he was lying. He had no more praetorships to give away.

  ‘You will want to give Nero what he asks for,’ I told him.

  ‘I’ll do anything I please, Dellius, and mind that you take care before you give me instructions again.’

  ‘In addition to the Spartans, Nero offers me command of the four legions stationed in Egypt.’

  Dolabella brought his horse to a halt. ‘Offers you?’

  ‘That is the condition of the gift, that I command them. But as I serve you, I will naturally remain under your authority.’

  ‘Nero asks you to command four legions? And he actually has them to give away, just like that?’

  ‘His wife makes the offer actually. With one condition.’

  Now he laughed. ‘Livia is offering it! Yes, well, she does have her way with the old boy. Pray, tell me, Dellius, what is her condition? A good tupping?’

  ‘She insists I take the severed head of Gaius Trebonius to Egypt. Once I present it to the Roman commander in Alexandria the legions will be mine to command.’

  Before that moment I had never seen Dolabella speechless. He was pre-eminently the man with a clever riposte. Not on this occasion. Perhaps he imagined I was joking and did not want to appear the fool; perhaps he was adjusting his understanding of the world. Whatever his thoughts, they were his own; then, quite suddenly, he burst out laughing. ‘That delicious little tart! I wonder what Trebonius did to her?’

  ‘I didn’t ask.’

  ‘Nor should you have done. No, we’ll ask Trebonius, while he still has tongue to answer. I’m sure he’ll be glad to confess.’

  ‘You agree to the conditions?’

  ‘For four legions, Dellius, I would give the girl every head in the senate, save my own.’

  Returning from our ride, we found Nero waiting for us. I feared the man as I had not previously done, but he did not bother looking in my direction. He handed Dolabella a letter. ‘Have Dellius take this letter under seal to Egypt along with his package. I’ll send your Spartan auxiliaries directly to the Hellespont to await your arrival. And I should like to be elected the urban praetor, if you don’t mind, next in power to the consuls. There won’t be a problem with that, will there?’

  IX

  LEGATUS

  Smyrna, Asia Minor: February, 43 BC

  Gaius Trebonius, Governor of Asia, assassin of Caesar, old friend to Cornelius Dolabella: I see him still in the torch-lit hall of his palace at Smyrna.

  There was such laughter that evening it was difficult to remember we had come to murder these men. Such was my strange mood I could almost believe they had somehow divined our intentions. The hilarity seemed unreal. Perhaps, I thought, they dissembled just as we did.

  I reminded myself that Trebonius had not bothered with security, but it was no good. I was sure they suspected us. There were only two men guarding the entrance to the Triclinium. They were there to keep out unwanted intrusions. Trebonius brought all his senior officers to the feast. Like our own officers, they were young gentry and nobility, every one of them in his fighting prime. None of us was armed for the banquet, of course, but knives naturally lay on the tables.

  In the weeks leading up to that night, Dolabella had crossed the Hellespont and marched south through Troy. From there he continued as far as Attalia, which is guarded from open water by the enormous island of Lesbos. There he made camp. This was fifty miles north of Smyrna. He then sent one of his two legions along with his Spartan cavalry to lay siege to Sardis. Sardis lies on the Hermus River, fifty miles east of Smyrna. Having Smyrna now threatened from the north and east, Dolabella gathered his officers together and boarded two warships that he might sail into Smyrna’s city harbour.

  Those legionaries escorting Dolabella surrendered their weapons as they left the ships. Dolabella and his officers came forward dressed in togas, which is to say completely unarmed. Presenting a passport that declared him Proconsul of Syria by authority of the Roman senate, Dolabella requested an audience with the Governor of Asia. Nor did he make any demands for hostages. In other words he put himself at the governor’s mercy. We walked under an armed escort into the city. There were no chains on us, but we were prisoners all the same.

  Once Dolabella stood before Trebonius he announced that he had come to Smyrna to surrender his army to his old friend. He offered his own life in return for the safety of the two legions under his command. He said his officers had served him faithfully, that he alone deserved to be punished for betraying ‘the principles of the Republic’. By this, of course, he meant that Caesar was a tyrant and had deserved to die.

  I recalled the face of Trebonius. I had seen him at one of Dolabella’s parties, though we had never been introduced. He was a young man, in many respects very much like Dolabella, especially with his fondness for good wine, cruel wit, and pretty boys. Trebonius played the grim-faced magistrate as he listened to Dolabella’s plea for the lives of his officers and men. He watched imperviously as Dolabella fell to his knees in supplication on our behalf. Finally, with a theatrical flair worthy of Dolabella himself, Trebonius rose from his curule and walked toward his old friend. Only as he pulled Dolabella to his feet and threw his arms around him did Trebonius finally smile. He called Dolabella brother. Dolabella’s eyes filled with tears, his cheeks suddenly streaked, as if his friend’s magnanimity was entirely unexpected. At this, Trebonius scolded him for imagining he might not be welcome. Were they not old friends? Not good friends still?

  We all took an oath to serve Trebonius and his allies, Cassius Longinus in Syria and Junius Brutus in Greece. The blood of a pig was spilt, followed by vows taken in the name of Artemis, the supreme and most ancient cult deity on the Ionian coastline.

  Afterwards, Trebonius and his staff played host to Dolabella and his officers. Our sailors, marines, and rowers bivouacked on the ships; our legionary escort was quartered elsewhere in the palace, but as they had also taken an oath they were not kept under lock and key.

  At midnight, while the officers still celebrated their newly formed alliance, certain of Dolabella’s legionaries slipped away and eliminated the guards at the city gate. After that it was a simple matter of letting our Spartan cavalry into the city. The Spartans had left the siege at Sardis early in the morning that same day and arrived in Smyrna at midnight. Once inside the city, they eliminated every soldier they encountered then surrounded the barracks of Trebonius’s Guard.

  At the first cry of alarm inside the city, Trebonius seemed vexed. Before either he or his officers could work through the matter, Dolabella’s men took up carving knives and struck at those closest to them. Smiling one moment, cutting a throat the next. One or two of our party failed his task, and the fight was on. All the same, it was bad odds for Trebonius’s men, and the room soon belonged to us.

  Trebonius seized a knife when I came at him. His men were either down or backed into corners and outnumbered. I came at him boldly, eager for the fight. I grabbed the handle of a long-necked amphora and smashed the vase against his wrist as he threatened me. Bone broke. The knife clattered across the marble floor. I stepped up and pummelled Trebonius’s ribs with a flurry of punches. Trebonius had served as an officer in the legions of Caesar and was a veteran of a great many fights, but he had not spent the past year training for his next encounter, as I had done. He was at my mercy after only a few blows, but I kept at it. I meant to soften his resolve. In his pain Trebonius cried out to Dolabella. What was going on? What about the oaths we had sworn?

  Dolabella gave a careless shrug. ‘No truer, I’m afraid, than your oath to Caesar.’

  Before Trebonius could speak of Caesar’s tyranny, as he seemed about to do, I slammed my fist into his nose. I required him to focus on me; I
had no interest in hearing his justifications for murdering Caesar. I wanted him to answer my questions. I wanted to hear what terrible thing he had done to Livia. I ached to know the details so his death might be all the sweeter when it came. After he was broken and bloodied and straining to stay conscious I picked up the knife he had tried to use against me. I began cutting him. These were light quick slashes that soon awakened his attention. Finally I spoke. I told him I wanted the truth. He said he would give it, but when I asked him about Claudia Livia Drusilla he claimed not to know the girl. I cut him for his ignorance; I slammed my fist into his ribs hard enough to break more bones. ‘She is the bride of Claudius Nero. Do you know him?’ This confused him, or perhaps he was simply too stunned to think quickly.

  Dolabella had watched my performance up to this point without interfering. He was half in the bag with drink, letting me ‘earn my legions’ at the cost of his friend’s life. Now he told Trebonius it did not pay to be slow about answering. ‘Not with earnest young Dellius here. Tell the lad you deflowered the girl, and we can all have a good laugh about it.’

  ‘I tell you I don’t even know her!’ Trebonius cried. His eyes were wet with tears. He was in pain, but I think the shock of Dolabella’s betrayal had broken his courage. He seemed sincere in his protest, but every man under torture begins with sincerity.

  ‘Of course you know her,’ Dolabella answered. ‘When she married that old bore Claudius Nero last summer you had plenty to say about it. Don’t play coy!’

  ‘I made jokes about it! But I don’t know the girl. I only said I pitied her.’

  ‘By Dis!’ Dolabella cried. ‘He’s telling the truth.’ I stared at my patron uncertainly. ‘He just told you! He pitied the poor girl having to lie under a tub of guts like Nero! That’s what you said, wasn’t it?’ Trebonius nodded without enthusiasm. ‘So kill him and be done with it,’ Dolabella muttered.

  By this time our men had fetched weapons from the armoury. One of the other prefects, as I recall, handed me a long sword. Trebonius, seeing it, suddenly begged for his life, but I paid no attention. ‘This is from Livia,’ I told him. I expect I hurried my stroke. I was a bit drunk as well. At any rate, my aim was faulty, and I cracked open his skull. He gasped and groaned, still alive. I pried the sword from bone and heard a cry of mortal pain. He lay on the marble, blood pouring from his scalp. At least the begging had stopped.

  I used both hands this time as I brought the sword down and through his neck. The sword itself shattered. The head rolled across the floor like some kind of ball. I sloshed through the pooling blood after it. I gave it a vicious kick. I followed the thing as it tumbled along a macabre serpentine path, blood and brains spilling in its wake. I slipped and nearly fell before I kicked it again. Even then I was not finished but started after it once more.

  ‘Easy, Dellius,’ Dolabella called. He was laughing at the great mess of it all. ‘Allienus needs to recognise the face. Mash it up too much and you won’t get your legions.’

  I stared uncertainly at the head, then back at its bleeding corpse. Finally I focused on my patron. I was like a man who awakens from a nightmare, no longer capable of distinguishing reality from dream. I grabbed the head by its ear and carried it over to one of the palace slaves who had been serving us when the carnage began. He was twelve or thirteen, quite small for his age. I dropped the bloodied pulp in his lap. ‘Put it in a jar of wine and seal the lid shut with wax,’ I told him. The boy looked at the face of his last master in perfect terror, his breathing fast and shallow. The poor lad seemed incapable of speaking, but at least he did as he was told.

  After all these years I am still not sure if Livia sent me to kill Trebonius for the sake of revenge or to see if she could accomplish a murder simply by asking for it. I expect she hardly knew herself; she was only a child acting the part of an adult. For me, however, the real curiosity has always been the inexplicable rage I felt after taking the man’s life. Was it for the sake of the murdered Caesar or for Livia’s hurt pride that I kicked that head? I cannot answer with certainty. I am even inclined to wonder if something else excited my emotions, a feeling of having betrayed my own principles, perhaps.

  I realise that, as a rational creature, I ought to be able to explain myself, but there it is. I am lost for a reason or had too many to understand my true motive. This much I can say, for I remember that evening in every detail. After handing the severed head to the boy I walked out of the governor’s banquet hall and ordered a weeping slave girl to draw a bath for me. I settled into a smooth stone tub of hot water and called for more hot water at once. When that cooled I demanded more. After I had soaked away whatever emotions stirred my rage, I pulled the girl into the water and tore away her tunic.

  Later, I sent her to fetch fresh clothes for me from the governor’s wardrobe, his and no one else’s. I dressed myself in a handsome long-sleeved scarlet tunic cut in the Greek style. I had never before worn such a gorgeous costume; such airs in Tuscany and Rome would win a man scorn. In the orient such finery was customary, assuming one could afford it. After dressing, I fitted the governor’s ceremonial long sword and scabbard at my belt. Finally, I appropriated the finely woven wool mantle Trebonius had worn when he greeted us. Only then did I study my figure in a brass panel. By a trick of light the man staring back seemed a perfect stranger.

  Dolabella’s Spartans had taken possession of the city. The only opposition remaining had withdrawn to the citadel. This meant it would be safe for my party to go at once to the harbour. Dolabella wrote out my passport in his own hand and impressed his signet ring into hot wax at the bottom of the letter. The parchment declared my name, my rank as a legate, and the authority under which I travelled, Cornelius Dolabella, proconsul of Syria. When he had passed the document to me he said, ‘Caesar once told me a legate does well to act exactly as his most experienced centurion advises, but if he is absolutely convinced he has a better idea, then he must “grit his teeth, pull his sword, and kill every son of a bitch who stands in his way!” I’ve found it the best advice I ever received. I suggest you follow it as well.’

  I left the governor’s palace in the company of those officers who had helped me murder Trebonius and his staff. Also in our party was the slave boy to whom I had entrusted the head of Trebonius. I claimed the slave as my property by right of conquest. To my delight, once young Nicolas began speaking again, he demonstrated a rare talent for language, being fluent in Latin, Greek, and Aramaic, the popular language of the East. Like most Roman officers newly arrived in the East, I had studied the Greek of Homer and Plato, which is to say the ancient and classical dialects. I was still some years from being comfortable with modern Greek, called koine. Having an interpreter at my side would make my life easier.

  At an island just west of Chios next evening our ship joined up with five transport ships in the service of Dolabella’s fleet. These carried a cohort of veteran legionaries, the horses of our officers, payroll for the men under my command and an armoury of weapons. I did not take inventory at once. I was eager to get on to Egypt. I simply assumed Hannibal was on one of the ships. I learned he was missing in Kos, when we were forced to take shelter from a storm and unloaded our livestock in the dead of night.

  With so few horses making the journey it did not make sense that Hannibal had been forgotten. I knew a legate’s horse is never misplaced or overlooked; a general’s horses are accorded nearly the respect of the general himself. I could only conclude that Hannibal remained in Asia on Dolabella’s orders. Dolabella of course had no intention of keeping Hannibal as his own; of that I am quite sure, but he knew how I loved that horse and could not resist playing the prankster. And of course, since the horse was in Asia while I was in Africa, he took care to give the animal some exercise. Funny though it may have seemed from his perspective, I can tell you this: I found no humour in it.

  Our fleet carried water and supplies capable of sustaining us a fortnight at sea. It was enough, with good weather, for us to sail directly to
Egypt. Between Smyrna and Alexandria, Cassius Longinus and his allies in Judaea owned the islands and the entire coastline. Any stop was dangerous, but a storm we encountered close to Kos obliged us to find harbour and cost us a fight with the Roman garrison there. In fact, we used up almost a week of our supplies. With our scant forces we could not take the fortifications on the island, but before we left we damaged their ships so they could not give chase or warn Cassius’s allies on the mainland.

  Three days more got us to Cyprus. There we stopped for fresh water and supplies with only a minor skirmish as we left the harbour. Afterwards, it was five days and nights against the wind to Egypt.

  Alexandria, Egypt: May, 43 BC

  We saw what looked to be a second Venus in the night sky. It hung low on the horizon, shimmering like a star that none of us had seen before, but our pilot knew it for what it was. By first light we could see the faint outlines of Alexandria’s famous lighthouse under the great flame. It had been a long haul without coming to port, and the men began cheering. Egypt and land at last.

  The lighthouse of Alexandria is situated on the island of Pharos, which is about a mile distant from the city. Pharos is a long, thin rectangular strip of ground that serves as the harbour’s primary breakwater. It also functions as the city’s outer fortress. A mile-long causeway had been constructed between the island and mainland, this perhaps a century after the city’s creation. Militarily, the effect was perfect. The island could be fortified with men and supplies; should it fall to the enemy the causeway was easily closed off from the city. As a result of the causeway, Alexandria enjoyed two large harbours, one for ships on imperial business, the other for commercial traffic. To either side of these harbours the land had been extended into the sea and fortified with artillery. The effective encirclement of each harbour, much as one finds at Brindisi, makes the city quite safe from attack by sea.