The Horse Changer Read online

  The royal palace sits on a spur of land along the eastern perimeter of the harbour. A temping jewel on view, seemingly for anyone to take, it is surrounded by water on three sides. Because the outer walls plunge down into the sea, access to the palace comes only from within the harbour. The first of these access points is a long and easily defended stairway that snakes its way up a steep incline from the harbour to the palace gates. This makes an attack on the palace quite costly, if not thoroughly impractical. A second point of access is the boulevard that connects the palace complex to the city of Alexandria. Like the stairway leading up from the harbour, this boulevard only appears open and inviting. For all its luxury and spaciousness, it is, in reality, a narrow defile designed for trapping and killing an invading force.

  Thorough as these defences of the royal palace are, the city itself is also protected by a high wall and numerous towers. Alexandria’s chief fortification, however, is nature itself. There are no harbours close to the city. To the south and east one encounters the Nile Delta, swampy ground filled with fast running streams over which only a few roads and bridges afford access. To the west the pastel green fields soon fade into an inhospitable desert landscape. All of which has given Alexandria a relatively uneventful history during its three centuries of existence. In fact the only significant disturbances have arisen from internal unrest, the most recent being the civil war between Queen Cleopatra and her younger brother. This was the conflict that Julius Caesar famously settled, though he lost a fleet of ships in the process.

  As we were Roman soldiers, our ships entered the imperial harbour without first being boarded by agents of the harbourmaster, but we were not permitted to disembark until I had presented my passport to a Roman freedman. This fellow was nominally in the service of our legions, but, as I quickly discovered, there were no legions in Alexandria. They had withdrawn to Memphis at Queen Cleopatra’s request.

  Once this freedman had examined my passport, he asked my business. I informed him that I had a letter from Claudius Nero, who had asked me to deliver it in person to Aulus Allienus. This excited some curiosity, but I would not explain my business to anyone but Allienus. The freedman promised my request would be passed on to Allienus. He then suggested we stay on our ships until he could arrange accommodations for us within the palace compound. I answered him bluntly that we were coming off our ships with or without invitation. This was not well received but, having no rank, he would not quarrel with me.

  Caesar had put Roman soldiers in the country. Any attempt to control or impede the Roman army was the same as open revolt, punishable by crucifixion. Accordingly, I ordered our men and supplies off the ships. We met no resistance from either the citizens or the Queen’s Guard.

  I took up a defensive position in one of the basilicas close to the harbour. For the sake of our equipment and the great number of rowers and sailors in our company, we ended up commandeering three additional buildings, all of them adjacent to one another. This is the sort of activity that turns locals against standing armies, but I had no choice in the matter. I did not care to build a camp outside the city, lest we be locked out. While we were yet unloading our gear I sent men to collect food and supplies from the local merchants, writing promissory notes rather than parting with the meagre cash Dolabella had given me for payroll.

  X

  CLEOPATRA

  One of Queen Cleopatra’s eunuchs came to us at sunset, begging forgiveness for not coming sooner. He offered me and my staff a suite of rooms within the palace. The invitation came with a certain degree of flattery to our high station and a report of the queen’s enthusiasm for our cause. In those days I had no understanding of the Macedonian’s innate talent for duplicity. What stopped me from accepting the offer was the impracticality of it. I had arrived in the full expectation of finding some part of my army in Alexandria. Had that been the case, I might well have enjoyed the comforts of palace life while my army made ready for its march. As matters stood, I needed to stay close to my men. We had too much work to accomplish for me to waste even a part of each day in luxury. Had I accepted Cleopatra’s invitation and made my residence in the palace I am sure I would have been poisoned.

  My first order of business was to turn my rowers, sailors, and marines into infantrymen. I also recruited nearly a hundred men from the city’s teeming Jewish population. I then commandeered the city’s stadium, which offered a magnificent field for a force of about a thousand men.

  We drilled and marched and trained from dawn until sunset. Two weeks is hardly enough time for recruits to become soldiers, but it is a start. I spent most of my days supervising this process. I was especially interested in finding men of talent among our recruits. These I soon promoted to the ranks of junior officers who would answer to a centurion. By this means I hoped to retain the potency of my one cohort of legionaries. Otherwise, I would be removing a great many of the best legionaries for command in the auxiliary units.

  During all this time I did not neglect my own training. I was planning on leading hard marches through a merciless land; so I ran and rode hard in the hours before dawn or late into the evening, after the others retired. I also spent a part of each day training with the gladius and shield, like a common legionary, for in a desperate battle a commander needs to lead at the front. I worked opposite my staff for my own combat training until I discovered that none of them could stand against me in a fight. After that I began calling out centurions and legionaries to train with me. This got me a few good fights, and so I continued the practice until one morning I asked my primus pilus, Cassius Scaeva, to stand down from training for an hour or so, that he might give me a contest.

  Scaeva had everyone’s respect. He had been a rank-and-file centurion in Caesar’s legions through most of his career, but Caesar had promoted him to first centurion after a desperate battle against Pompey Magnus at Dyrrachium. In that battle, some weeks before the decisive engagement at Pharsalus, Caesar’s army nearly broke and ran, which would have been the end for Caesar and his army. As it happened a lone century led by Scaeva had stopped the Pompeian thrust. Scaeva had lost an eye early in that fight and yet continued on, rallying his men against the enemy and holding a line that ought to have crumbled before an entire legion but refused to do so.

  Every man in our cohort knew the story and gave the old centurion nearly the respect of a divinity, one of Caesar’s best men. Scaeva was somewhat surprised by my request, no one ever sought to train opposite him, but he took the request in good humour. I must say up front I was not looking for the man to teach me any new fighting skills. I quite frankly thought I was extremely talented with a sword. I was more curious to learn how much fight the old Cyclops still had in him. To that point I had not seen him lift either shield or sword. I wore armour and carried a heavy wicker training shield and a wooden gladius. For his part Scaeva tossed aside his vitis and grabbed a couple of training swords, saying as he did, ‘Come on then.’

  I stepped in to strike, using my shield to block his right arm and got stabbed for my troubles with the gladius in his left. I stepped back to try it again. This time I trained my attention on the sword in Scaeva’s left hand and got hit by the right. We ran a few more contests in this manner, and when it was clear to me that I could delay my demise but not overtake the old centurion, I tossed my shield aside and took up a second training sword myself.

  Scaeva was a born fighter and proved nearly impossible to beat. Once I had managed it a couple of times, this after several days of attempting it, he suggested we might do well to take on some number of legionaries together, if I cared for a proper challenge. At that point we began inviting three and then four men to come strike a ‘mortal’ blow against us. After that it was five or six, and so forth until we were overwhelmed; usually seven would do it.

  I will not call what we had a friendship, not at that time, but after we began training together, we talked more freely with each other. That led to a few cups of wine late one night and finally to the wily
veteran’s wise counsel.

  This came after a fortnight had passed and we still had no word from Allienus. When I consulted my senior staff on the matter, their advice had been that we must be patient. ‘It’s the Egyptians, General,’ the cohort’s prefect told me. ‘They’re just slow to get down to business.’ The Egyptians, of course, had nothing to do with it. The delay came from Queen Cleopatra, a Macedonian Greek.

  After thinking about the matter a few days more, I said to Scaeva, ‘I need your opinion on a matter of some importance.’

  ‘I’ll give it if I have one,’ Scaeva answered.

  Rather than ask at once, I invited him to dine with me that evening. We were well into our meal and had enjoyed several cups of wine before I finally broached the subject. ‘Why do you think I haven’t heard from Allienus?’

  ‘That’s easy enough. The queen has either detained him, or she hasn’t told him you’re here.’

  ‘For what reason?’ I asked.

  ‘Whatever your business, it can’t be good for her. She won’t oppose you openly, but if she lets the summer drift by and nothing happens, that’s all to her advantage.’

  ‘I was under the impression she despises the men who murdered Caesar.’

  ‘I suppose she does, but whatever happens between Mark Antony, Dolabella, and the rest of them, the queen wants to have her head on her shoulders when it’s all finished. If she chooses sides too early and by chance chooses incorrectly, she won’t survive. She’s got a sister locked away in the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus. They can put her on the throne in Cleopatra’s place if they care to. After that, they can pack Cleopatra off to her mausoleum; so long as a Ptolemy is running the show the local aristocrats aren’t going to complain.’

  ‘She risks the wrath of Rome.’

  ‘The woman is a Macedonian, General. If she is not playing some deep game it means she is already dead.’

  ‘You’re telling me I’m not going to see Allienus?’

  ‘Not until things are settled up north between Cassius and Dolabella.’

  I gave this some thought before I asked him if he thought we had the manpower to burn the city to the ground. ‘You can burn it easily enough,’ he answered simply. ‘If you mean can you threaten to burn it if she doesn’t send Allienus to you, that’s a different matter. The longer our men stand around making a threat like that, the more likely it is the city will rise up against us. Once you make the threat, you might burn some of the city, but you won’t get out alive. The same is true if you threaten to destroy the Temple of Serapis or Alexander’s mausoleum. You won’t just have the Queen’s Guard to worry about. The people won’t stand for it.’

  ‘I need to force the queen to send Allienus to me.’

  ‘What you might do is threaten to burn her museum with all her bright fellows locked inside it. Folks in the city aren’t going to care about a few million books gone to ash – they can’t read anyway, and I never heard of anyone mourning a dead philosopher.’

  I spent several hours in conversation with Scaeva that night. What he suggested had a beautiful logic, but of course, as we discussed the matter, I found there were a great many problems. Once we had worked these out, I called my staff from their beds and gave them their orders.

  By dawn our legionaries had taken control of the harbour’s artillery installations. We also held the gate from the palace to the harbour as well as the gate from the palace to the city. The remainder of my force waited until the museum was filled with scholars, at which point I closed the gates and began building ‘altars to Prometheus’. These makeshift stations provided fire and pitch, which we could take inside once I gave the order to burn the museum. Having arranged these matters, I sent Nicolas to deliver a note to the queen. Half-an-hour later one of the queen’s eunuchs, the same I had dealt with previously, came scurrying out in his long skirts. ‘The queen,’ he declared, ‘desires to speak with you at once.’

  ‘Perhaps I should start a decent blaze so she will know I mean what I say.’

  ‘Please, General. Hear what Her Majesty has to say before you do anything that cannot be undone.’ I gave the order to destroy the museum if I was not back within the hour. Then I walked to the palace grounds with only Nicolas to escort me.

  I expected to be taken into the hall where the queen met with foreign dignitaries. Instead, I was led into the royal residence. The rooms in this wing of the palace were extensive, all gorgeously decorated, full of curiosities and books. Some of the books were bound tomes of parchment; the greater number were scrolls, which is the more ancient form of bookmaking.

  After a long walk I came to a room in which a great number of the Queen’s Guard stood at attention along the walls, effectively encircling the room. Additionally, there were perhaps a dozen domestic servants also at attention. At the centre of the room was a battered cauldron, the sort used for burning refuse out-of-doors. It was half-filled with scrolls. A lone female slave was busy pulling scrolls from the shelves and carrying these to the cauldron. As I entered the room this same slave began speaking to me in Latin, even as she continued her work. ‘If Dominus feels compelled to burn the treasures of Egypt, he ought to begin in this room. Look!’ She waved a scroll at me impertinently, as no Roman slave would dare to do. ‘Here is a copy of Hesiod’s work that Caesar himself sent to the queen from Pontus. It was in the library of Mithridates for many years. It is imagined by some to be the earliest copy in existence.’ She tossed this scroll into the cauldron as carelessly as one might discard a broken toy. ‘Certainly that will do for your sacrifice. Oh, and here is some of Homer’s nonsense brought from Sparta, where it was preserved as the oldest copy in existence.’ Again, into the cauldron. ‘And here is the poetry of Sappho. Ptolemy Soter acquired it even before he had begun building the museum. Some believe this manuscript is written in the lady’s own hand. Let it taste the flames, Dominus, before you burn humanity’s lesser achievements.’

  A second inspection of the people in the room suggested to me that this was no slave but Cleopatra herself, though to be honest I was not really sure. The woman was in her mid-twenties, which tallied with the facts. She was, however, a bit too slender for nobility. In fact, she looked like one who lives in constant want of enough to eat. She was also a grey-eyed blonde, like one of the race of Celts who over-populate our slave holdings, not the famous black-haired Egyptian queen I had heard about in Rome. She certainly had none of the regal bearing one encounters in nobility. In fact she possessed such a nervous energy she seemed quite incapable of commanding respect. I learned in later years this agitation came and went, according to the drugs she used or avoided. With the proper amount of medication the woman could look like stone itself. Her show this morning, dressed in slave garb and without her customary wig, was for the sake of a Roman legate of no great importance; she meant to embarrass me. She had no other weapon at hand. Even a barely literate Roman ought to know better than to destroy the sacred writings of Homer and Hesiod. ‘I ask only to meet with Aulus Allienus, Majesty. Give me Allienus and we will burn nothing.’

  ‘Majesty? No, no, no, Dominus! I am the slave of General Quintus Dellius. Please, do not employ such grand titles for your slaves.’

  ‘Where is Allienus?’

  ‘He is in Memphis, Dominus. As I understand it, he is quite ill. If you want to see him, perhaps you should travel to him.’

  ‘I will see Allienus in Alexandria tomorrow by sunset, or I will burn every book in your museum. As for these scrolls, do with them as you please; my business is with the museum and nothing else.’

  Fairly sure I had made myself the mortal enemy of the queen, I withdrew from the palace and took up arms with my men, half-expecting a breakout from the palace. The queen had an armed force sufficient for the fight. What she lacked was a foothold from which to launch her attack. And if she tried to gain it, she risked her museum and the million books within it.

  I received word next morning that Allienus would be in Alexandria by evening. Concluding this
note was a plea for patience in case he arrived an hour or so after sunset. I had, at last, the queen’s complete attention. Lest she was readying an attack at sunset, I put our men on alert that evening. As for the scholars, they were still hostages within the compound. Once I received word that Allienus was on his way, I sent Scaeva and three centuries of our auxiliaries on the road to Memphis. Scaeva had orders to build a camp midway between the two cities and have it ready for the rest of us.

  At sunset I received word that Allienus had arrived, if I cared to visit him. I proceeded at once. I took my slave, Nicolas, and the head of Gaius Trebonius: otherwise I was alone. As before, when I left our camp, I gave orders to our legionary cohort’s prefect to burn the museum if I did not return within the hour.

  Allienus was a considerably older man than I had anticipated, in his late sixties as it seemed to my young eyes, though I never learned his exact age. He was ill, but the illness had overcome him after my arrival in Egypt, the result of a mild case of food poisoning. Cleopatra’s work, or so I have always believed.

  The hundred-mile journey from Memphis had left Allienus physically exhausted, and I worried that he might not be able to make the return trip with us. Still, I had no choice but to use him as best I could, even if it killed him. As per my instructions I handed Allienus the letter from Claudius Nero. When his slave had read it aloud to him he asked to see the head. I signalled to Nicolas, who broke the seal on the amphora. The head came out dripping red wine, blood and bile. Allienus studied the head with the aid of a torch. He seemed curious about the features, for they were quite deformed from the kicking, but once satisfied he nodded.