The Horse Changer Read online

  It was Caesar’s cry I mistook for a girl’s. I knew this because he was at it again. Maecenas, the larger of the two but a very soft man, was pulling his friend by the hand. Caesar begged him to stop. It was over, he panted. They were dead men! Maecenas whispered to him that there was still hope, but Caesar was having none of it. ‘We’ve lost!’ he cried. ‘I only wish I had the courage to kill myself!’

  Maecenas started to answer, but at that moment they saw me. I had come to my feet without even thinking. I fixed my gaze on Caesar. My heart was brimming with a terrible passion for revenge. The slick little thief, sending thugs to murder honest men that he might claim their fortunes! I cannot explain how thoroughly my emotions seized me. He was alone for the taking, or practically so, at any rate. Maecenas was certainly no protection.

  Caesar begged me or some imagined god for mercy, but for a long beat he did not move. I must certainly have presented a terrifying sight. I was covered in mud, an officer of the cavalry, with a gladius in each hand. When I stepped toward them, both of them shrieked in terror and turned to run.

  They were thirty paces from me, neither really capable of running full out at this point, nor armed with anything more than a dagger. I smiled at my prospects. With the head of young Caesar I hoped to own all of Tuscany.

  At just that moment the man I had been pursuing came up out of the tall grass. He was a step behind me when I saw his shadow. He carried a large boulder, which he threw at me as I turned toward him. I ducked under his assault but the rock hit my back and shoulder, and I went down under the force of it.

  I heard the drawing of his dagger from its sheath. Then, only half-conscious of what was happening, I rolled toward him. I brought the gladius in my right hand under his leather skirt. The blade plunged into soft flesh. The legionary howled. I gave a twist of the blade as I pushed up and then pulled the sword free. Blood washed across his thighs as he swayed over me. Then he collapsed beside me, his dagger useless in his hand. For all that, he was still alive when I took his head.

  Maecenas and Caesar had vanished in the high grass by the time I had got to my feet again. I sheathed one of my swords and took the head of the man I had killed in my free hand. Scaeva waited for me where the first man lay. I took the second fellow’s head and carried them like a couple of gourds with my fingers locked into their open mouths. I meant to show my men I was as good as my promise. When I did, the Thracians stared at me as if I were some kind of monster. Which I suppose I was.

  Five decades on I still curse the fool who came out of the grass for me. Had he only stayed hiding, he could have kept his head, and I would have taken Caesar’s instead!

  XV

  JUDGEMENT

  Philippi, Macedonia: 3rd October, 42 BC

  Antony had secured his road through the marsh with several redoubts. Each was guarded by a century of infantry and several squads of artillerymen. Rather than battle through each fortification, I took our men toward the last of the redoubts, the one closest to Antony’s camp.

  Before we were out of the marsh the enemy hit us with a volley of spears, arrows, and slung stones. Up went our shields and then our legionaries were soon coming out of the water, meeting the enemy head-on, exactly as the legions are trained to fight. Our Thracian auxiliaries swarmed around the enemy flanks, as cavalry are taught to do. Antony’s men had the superior position, but we outnumbered them and were soon pressing them back. Once I had secured the redoubt against those centuries farther down the road, I turned the remainder of our cohort against the camp ditch.

  I went in the vanguard with our legionaries, racing toward perhaps a hundred defenders. We caught a volley of spears, but kept our formation as we raced up the bank of the ditch. I threw myself against a man directly before me and heard the men to either side of me cracking shields at the same time. My opponent reached around my shield with a deadly thrust. Anticipating him, I slashed at his arm with my shield. As he fell back with a broken arm, I cut at the tendons of the man to my right then struck the back of the leg of the defender to my left.

  Soon we had pushed the last of Antony’s men back into their camp. Rather than drive into the camp with my entire force, I sent three centuries forward to loot and burn what they could. I led the remainder along the perimeter bank. We caught another fight but soon drove the enemy back into the ditch. After that we got to the corral and caught up fifty horses. We did not bother with saddles, and many times used only a halter and a lead line instead of bridle and reins. Most of us grabbed up javelins and lances but I made sure some of the squads also got hold of lit torches. We rode through one legionary camp, setting fire to the tents as we went, but a quarter of an hour after we had taken the horses, Antony’s rearguard began pouring into the camp. Taking what small victory we had, I ordered our cohort’s immediate retreat.

  We used those on horseback to guard our rear. The rest advanced in tight formation down Antony’s road. The redoubts were built to protect the camp from external attack. With an enemy at their backs, the defenders of the redoubts simply fled into the marsh. Two miles on, we found the broken palisade where Antony had crossed that morning; after that we were safe.

  Philippi, Macedonia: 4th to 22nd October, 42 BC

  I rode forward with a handful of my officers, calling out the day’s password to one of the sentries. This let us enter the fortified area, where we discovered two legions belonging to Cassius now defending our camp’s southern perimeter. They were of course twelve hours late for the party, but no matter. At least we were ready to turn back a second attack.

  Once I knew our army still possessed the camp, I sent for my men and asked the prefect of the Night Watch to take me to Cassius.

  ‘Cassius is dead. He killed himself an hour ago,’ came the answer.

  ‘Killed himself? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Nobody does. They’re saying he thought we lost the battle.’

  I looked at the smouldering ruins that had been our camp. ‘Didn’t we?’

  ‘While we were getting battered about, Brutus’s legions broke through Caesar’s line. They destroyed the better portion of four of his legions. After that they looted Caesar’s camp, including his payroll.’

  ‘How bad was it for Cassius’s legions?’

  ‘The camp is completely destroyed, and Antony made off with our payroll. As for the legions, we took heavy casualties across the line, but we can still turn out nine legions tomorrow morning – assuming Brutus is willing to pay us.’

  Food for our evening meal came from the hardtack tied to every man’s belt, the food of last resort. After that we went looking for the ruins of our tents, but with no landmarks to guide us and the roadways blocked by rubbish, we were as disoriented as the rest of the army. Finally, Scaeva put our men to work clearing an area. We were all barefoot and suffering with bruised and cut feet; I don’t think a single man had made it through the marsh with his sandals still on his feet, but no matter. We were alive.

  By midnight we collapsed close to one another around small campfires. There were no bathhouses remaining and in the chilly night no one cared to bathe in the river; so we slept as we were, covered in blood and mud; the worst of it was that we stayed in our armour. We feared the enemy might attempt to take our palisade under the cover of another moonless night. Some of the men wrapped themselves in half-burned blankets. I recall I slept covered by a charred leather tarp.

  At dawn, neither army bothered to turn out for battle formations. Instead, following a breakfast of hardtack, the legionaries set to work clearing the camp of debris in earnest. The auxiliaries retrieved the dead from the battlefield. From these, my men and I found footwear.

  Brutus’s camp had survived without any damage, and although my men had pierced the membrane of Antony’s camp and burned perhaps a hundred tents, that damage was more symbolic than actual. Antony still possessed his payroll, plus the one he took from Cassius. Brutus owned his own great fortune and Caesar’s too. The critical issue on both sides of the battlefi
eld was money. Antony, once he learned Caesar still lived, offered to pay Caesar’s legions from his own purse.

  Bankrupt though he was, Caesar would not allow it. Instead, he borrowed money from Antony, and you can be sure Antony arranged the interest rates to his advantage. Not coin exactly but power, which amounts to the same thing in the end. They did not make a formal arrangement – not without Lepidus, who was in Rome – but the agreement was settled nonetheless. Antony would take possession of upper Gaul, Greece, Macedonia, Asia and the biggest prize, Cleopatra’s Egypt. Lepidus would have western Africa, Spain and Sicily, as before. That left Caesar with Narbonne, the southernmost province of Gaul – asliver of the empire, in other words. As before, the spoils of Italy still belonged to all three men. Their bargain left Antony preeminent, assuming they were victorious, but Caesar had no choice. Without a payroll for his men he knew they would abandon him and join Antony.

  Brutus, having no partner remaining, was the real winner of the first battle at Philippi, and though he talked about restoring the Republic, even an idealist knows when he suddenly owns the world, which would be the case if he defeated Antony and Caesar. All Brutus had to do was embrace the legions and auxiliaries that had formerly pledged themselves to Cassius. No one competed with him for the command of these forces because no one but Brutus had the money at hand to pay them. To seal his new contract with the legions of Cassius, Brutus issued a thousand denarii bonus to every fighting man in our camp, regardless of his rank or nationality. That his own forces might not grow discontented, Brutus awarded the same bonus to them. We received our bonuses promptly next day, but of course the men who had formerly been under the command of Cassius could not help but think that they had lost everything when their tents were looted and burned, while the men who served Brutus still possessed the money they had already earned. In fact, the legionaries and auxiliaries in Brutus’s camp suddenly had more money than most of them had seen in their entire lives.

  By such small matters are armies ruined. For his part Brutus proved incapable of understanding the problem. To his mind he had been even-handed in his generosity. His army had seized a fortune, and he paid out a bonus to everyone; Cassius had lost his camp, and Brutus would assume responsibility for feeding and paying these men going forward. What more could anyone expect of him? It was not his fault we had lost our money.

  Had Brutus been less even-handed about the distribution of money, had he given his officers something like half-a-year’s salary for a bonus and provided less to the legionaries and less still to the auxiliaries, his officers would certainly have quelled the mutinous rumblings. As it was, resentment came chiefly from the officers, who complained about the foreign auxiliaries getting the same bonus they received. As with all armies the attitudes of the officers soon trickled down through the ranks. Before any of us saw his next payday, every man in the legions Cassius had once commanded cursed the name of Junius Brutus. More to the point, they did it openly and without fear of disciplinary action.

  Cassius’s legions lost ten thousand men. Caesar lost almost twice that number, fully a third of his army. Antony and Brutus, in contrast, kept their legions intact, counting fewer than a thousand dead on either side. A week after the battle, we learned that on the same day we had fought at Philippi, Caesar lost an armada of transport ships in a storm off the Peloponnese. Two legions, bound for the Hellespont, gone. Had they succeeded they would have cut off our supply lines and left us poorly placed. As it was, Brutus now possessed every advantage.

  With news of the disaster, Brutus took heart and spoke to his officers of our coming victory over the tyrants. ‘Even the gods hate tyranny!’ he told us. A confirmed atheist, I could name a great many tyrants whom the gods permitted to thrive, but I was happy nonetheless. I thought Brutus would take courage from the news and press forward. But no, he refused to change from his defensive strategy. In fact, he now insisted his legions stay behind the camp palisade. ‘No need to risk another battle,’ he said. ‘We will wait for Antony and Caesar to make a second attack on our camp, and when they fail to breach our defences, we will turn our cavalry loose on their retreat!’

  Brave words and fine policy – if only the enemy had behaved as halfwits. Instead, Antony had his men construct a siege camp between our southern camp’s palisade and his own fortifications. He set it close to the marsh for defensive purposes and then arranged for a low wall to connect the new camp to his old one. By this means, he meant to keep his advance position well stocked with artillery. This new wall included several redoubts. These were all bristling with artillery, though the effort was wasted. Brutus made no attempt to stop the construction of Antony’s new camp or the wall connecting it to the old camp. Once it was established, Antony’s artillery began sending stones into our southern camp. Brutus’s answer was to order us to move our bedrolls back half-a-furlong; in that way the stones landed harmlessly on vacant ground.

  Our real worry was the road Antony and Cassius had built through the marsh, for it connected us with Antony’s camp and could not be easily destroyed. Even after it had become impassable for cavalry because the hard-packed mud washed away in the rain, it still functioned for infantry. The only answer was to build a palisade along the southern perimeter of our camp.

  Antony’s and Caesar’s camps did indeed turn into mud pits, and supplies grew progressively more difficult for them to acquire. None of this mattered. With Brutus cowering behind his camp palisade, our men were the ones who lost heart. The desertions began with our sentries fleeing to Antony’s new camp. When Antony happily received these men, entire cohorts of auxiliaries began going over. Then even the legions lost courage. With reviving fortunes, Caesar came from his sickbed and began to appear each morning on the battlefield. And still Brutus preferred to keep his army behind the camp palisades. As for himself, he rarely left his commander’s tent except to attend his staff meetings.

  Within a fortnight Brutus had lost five thousand men to desertions, though no one would admit such a number. Some of these men rode as a complete cohort into Antony’s camp with their officers in the lead. They took whatever grain and supplies they could carry as a bribe. Others, like the Thracians I commanded, slipped away into the east, going back home with their thousand denarii bonuses wrapped in their packs and whatever goods they could steal. A patrol might be sent out and never come back. Sentry posts were routinely abandoned overnight. Those officers foolish enough to make a search for deserters would often lose the search party as well. The stones Antony sent into our camp now carried notes promising amnesty to every deserting officer and money paid to him at once if he brought his men along. Those who refused such generosity were told not to hope for mercy later. And of course every day it rained. Without a tent, and no one in the southern camp had one, high ground is only slightly better than low. I can still recall shivering in the dark as I listened to rocks falling out of the sky, each with a promise of amnesty or death.

  Brutus’s staff of legates pressed for a fight while they could still put an army in the field. Brutus’s speeches, which became more convoluted as time went on, assured us we had only to wait for our victory. I will not say the man rambled or that he seemed to be growing mad as time passed. He had come to his conclusion half-a-year before. Unable to admit the dynamics had changed, he argued the old opinion in the face of new evidence. To his thinking, nothing in the plan was faulty. Why adjust a perfectly logical strategy? We were winning this war! Body counts had given us all some assurance in the beginning, but after the desertions no one cared to hear about our splendid advantages. In the end, Brutus still argued that our moral superiority would answer, but I must tell you the word freedom, so lovely in the abstract when Brutus had said it in the early days, very soon came to sound like ‘death-by-sword’.

  Brutus compared himself to Pompey Magnus at Pharsalus, pressed by his staff to fight when waiting would have meant victory. His history was accurate, but the situation he faced was quite different. At Pharsalus. Caesar was
trapped and vastly outnumbered. Hubris and a lust for Caesar’s blood caused Pompey’s staff to insist on finishing matters at once. Here we enjoyed the advantage of high ground in a potential fight, but our numbers were dwindling and our legions were in a mutinous mood. There was no certainty of winning anything without a fight. When Brutus finally relented and turned his army out for a battle, he still insisted we would be better off waiting for winter. He said he acted against his better judgment. It was a sorry way for an army to take the field.

  Philippi, Macedonia: 23rd October, 42 BC

  The day was cold and cloudy, but there was no rain. Rain might have given us an advantage had we come to fight in earnest. We had been told we were going to fight if the enemy answered, and of course Antony and Caesar came out to dance.

  My Thracians now gone, I commanded a cohort of our Spartan lancers, these in the service of the very legions I had recruited in Egypt. We were grouped with several thousand other auxiliary cavalry at the northern reaches of the battlefield. We had a forest and hills to our right. It was not good land for a flanking attack but I thought we might see skirmishes if Caesar sent archers to harass our wing. I was well placed to have a look at the enemy, and without the dust of summer to hinder my vision, I could see Caesar’s legions as they formed for battle, with Caesar riding a fine white horse. He was a proud boy with that great army at his back; no tears for Maecenas to wipe from his cheeks on this fine morning.