Emperor: The Blood of Gods (Special Edition) (Emperor Series, Book 5) (8 page)

Maecenas came out, still wearing the long shift he slept in.

‘You let him go alone?’ he said.

Agrippa grinned at seeing the Roman noble so tousled, his oiled hair sticking out at all angles.

‘Let him work up a sweat,’ he said. ‘If he’s ill, he needs it. The gods alone know what he’s going to do now.’

Maecenas noticed Fidolus, who had stayed back with his head down.

‘Get my horse ready, Fidolus – and the carthorse that suffers under my friend here.’

The slave hurried back into the stable block, greeted with whinnies of excitement from the two horses in the gloom. The Romans exchanged a glance.

‘I think I fell asleep about an hour ago,’ Maecenas said, rubbing his face with his hands. ‘Have you thought what you’re going to do now?’

Agrippa cleared his throat uncomfortably.

‘Unlike you, I am a serving officer, Maecenas. I do not have the freedom to make decisions. I will return to the fleet.’

‘If you had bothered to use that fascinating mind you hide so well, you’d have realised the fleet at Brundisium no longer has a purpose. Caesar is dead, Agrippa! Your campaign won’t go ahead without him. Gods, the legions of Rome are there – who will lead them now? If you go back, you’ll be floating without orders for months while the Senate ignore you all. Believe me, I know those men. They will squabble and argue like children, snatching scraps of power and authority now that Caesar’s shadow has gone. It could be years before the legions move again, and you know it. They were loyal to Caesar, not the senators who murdered him.’

‘Octavian said there is an amnesty,’ Agrippa murmured uneasily.

Maecenas laughed, a bitter sound.

‘And if they passed a law saying we should all marry our sisters, would it happen? Honestly, I have grown to admire the discipline of the army, but there are times when the entire board is reset, Agrippa! This is one of them. If you can’t see that, perhaps you should go and sit with thousands of sailors, writing your reports and watching the water grow sour as you wait for permission to take on fresh food.’

‘Well, what are
you
going to do?’ Agrippa demanded angrily. ‘Retire to your estate and watch it all play out? I don’t have a patrician family to protect me. If I don’t go back, my name will be marked “Run” and someone somewhere will sign an order to have me hunted down. I sometimes think you have lived too well to understand other men. We do not all have your protection!’

Agrippa’s face had grown flushed as he spoke and Maecenas nodded thoughtfully. He sensed it was not the time to anger him further, though Agrippa’s indignation always made him want to smile.

‘You are correct,’ he said, gentling his voice deliberately. ‘I am related to enough of the great men not to fear any one of them. But I am not wrong. If you go back to Brundisium, you’ll be picking worms out of your food before you see order restored. Trust me on that at least.’

Agrippa began his reply and Maecenas knew it would be something typically decent and honourable. The man had risen through the ranks by merit and occasionally it showed. Maecenas spoke to head him off before he could vow to follow his oath, or some other foolishness.

‘The old order is dead with Caesar, Agrippa. You talk of my position – very well! Let me use it to shelter you, at least for a few months. I will write letters of permission to have you kept from your duties. It will keep the stripes off your back and your rank intact while we see this through! Think about it, big man. Octavian needs you. At least you have your fleet, your rank. What does he have now that Caesar is gone? For all we know, there are men riding here to finish the job they started in Rome …’ He broke off, his eyes widening.

‘Fidolus! Come out here, you Greek shit-pot! Move!’

The slave was already returning with both mounts. Maecenas slapped his hands off the reins and leapt on, wincing as the cold leather met his testicles.

‘Sword! Bring me a weapon. Run!’

Agrippa mounted as Fidolus raced across the yard and into the house. It was true that his horse was far stockier in build than those of the others. It was tall and powerful and shone black in the morning sun. As it took his weight, the animal blew air from its lips and pranced sideways. Agrippa patted its neck absently, thinking through what Maecenas had been saying.

‘I swear by Mars, there had
better
be some assassins riding around here,’ Maecenas snapped, turning his mount. ‘I’ll be black and blue after half a mile.’

A fresh clatter of hooves sounded outside the grounds, getting louder with every moment. Octavian rode back through the gate, his face pale. He looked surprised to see his friends mounted and Fidolus rushing out with swords clasped awkwardly in his arms.

Octavian’s stare snagged on Maecenas, whose shift had ridden up so that his bare buttocks were revealed.

‘What are you doing?’ he said.

Maecenas tried to stare back haughtily, but he couldn’t summon his dignity in such a position.

‘Don’t you know all young Romans ride like this now? Perhaps it has not spread to the provinces yet.’

Octavian shook his head, his expression bleak.

‘I came back to tell you both to pack up your belongings. We need to get to Brundisium.’

Agrippa’s head jerked up at the word, but it was Maecenas who spoke first.

‘I was just explaining to the keen sailor why that is the last place we would want to go, at least until the city settles down. It will be chaos out there, Octavian. Believe me, every Roman family is doubling their guards right now, ready for civil war.’

‘You’re right,’ Octavian said. ‘The legions are at Brundisium as well.’

‘So tell me why that isn’t the last place in the world we should visit,’ Maecenas said.

He saw Octavian’s gaze turn inward, his eyes shadowed as he lowered his head. There was silence in the yard for a moment before he spoke again.

‘Because those men were loyal to Caesar – to
my
family. If there is anyone left who wants to see revenge for his murder, they will be in that camp by the sea. That’s where I must go.’

‘You realise there could also be men there who would think nothing of killing you?’ Maecenas asked softly.

Octavian’s gaze flickered to him.

‘I have to start somewhere. I can’t let them wipe their hands clean and just go on with their lives. I
knew
him, Maecenas. He was … a better man than the snapping dogs in Rome, every one of them. He would want me to walk into their houses and show them the mercy they showed him.’

Agrippa nodded, rubbing a hand through his beard.

‘He’s right,’ he said. ‘We have to get back to Brundisium. Out here, we’re too far away to know anything.’

Maecenas looked from man to man and for once there was no wry humour in his expression.

‘Three men?’ he said. ‘Against the legions of Rome?’

‘No, not against them,
with
them,’ Octavian replied. ‘I know those men, Maecenas. I have served with hundreds, no, thousands of them. They will remember me. I know them better than the greyheads of the Senate, at least.’

‘I see. That is … a relief,’ Maecenas said.

He looked to Agrippa for some sign that he wasn’t going along with this madness, but Agrippa was watching Octavian with a fierce intensity. The young man who dropped lightly from his horse and strode across the yard had impressed him from the first time they met, two years before. It was not just that Octavian was a blood relative of Caesar, or had seen the great cities of the east. The young Roman was a man who saw through the febrile twitching of merchants, nobles and soldiers to what really mattered. Agrippa remembered watching him hold court at a party, speaking so well and fluently that even the drunks were listening to him. Octavian had offered them pride in what they could bring to the world, but Agrippa had heard the other strand woven into the words – the cost and burden that they
must
shoulder to represent the city. He’d listened in awe to concepts and thoughts that had never intruded upon his father’s endless quest for more wealth.

One of the drunkest nobles had laughed at Octavian. With a quick jerk, Agrippa had tossed the man over the balcony. He grinned as he remembered the amused shock on Octavian’s face as half the crowd rushed past them both. It had been enough to begin a friendship neither man had been looking for. They’d drunk and talked until dawn and Agrippa thanked his gods he’d chosen to go out that night at his father’s urging. He’d found no new deals to make, nor rich daughters to court, but the following morning he’d gone to the docks and joined his first legion galley. His father hadn’t spoken to him since that day.

Sweat patches stood out on Octavian’s tunic and his horse was already lathered in strings of spit. Yet his orders were clear and precise to Fidolus as they walked back into the house to pack.

‘You did not mention the sickness that struck him last night,’ Agrippa observed in a low voice. Maecenas glanced at him.

‘It didn’t happen. Or if it did, he’ll be the one to bring it up.’

Maecenas dismounted and flicked his reins over a post before walking inside to dress. Agrippa watched him go and, when he was finally alone, allowed a smile to spread across his face. He liked them both, a constant wonder for a man who did not make friends easily. For all his studied cynicism, Maecenas had been willing to ride out with his buttocks in the wind the moment he thought Octavian was in danger.

Agrippa took a deep breath of Greek air, deliberately filling his lungs and releasing it slowly. He was a man who valued Roman order, the stability and predictable nature of military life. His childhood had taken him to a dozen different cities, watching his father close a thousand deals. The fleet had saved him from that boredom and given him a home where he felt he was part of something that mattered at last. The talk of chaos worried him more deeply than he would ever say. He hoped Maecenas was wrong, but he knew enough to fear that his noble friend had told the future well. The divine Julius was gone and a thousand lesser men would be rushing to fill the gap he had left. Agrippa knew he might see the Republic torn to pieces as men like his father struggled for advantage. He dismounted and rolled his heavy shoulders, feeling his neck creak. At a time like that, a man should choose his friends with care, or be swept away.

He could hear Maecenas yelling orders inside the house and Agrippa grinned to himself as he tossed the reins over the holding post and followed. At least he would be swept towards Brundisium.

Brutus looked out over a city lit by speckles of fire. The flickering yellow and orange resembled a disease ruining healthy skin, spreading too fast to control. The window brought a warm breeze into the little room, but it was no comfort. The house was in the perfume district, a mile east of the forum. Three floors up from the ground, Brutus could still smell the destruction of the previous days. The odour of rich oils mingled unpleasantly with wet ash and he wanted a bath to rid himself of the scent. He was sick of smoke and the roars of distant clashes. As soon as darkness fell to hide the seething masses, they came out again, in greater and greater numbers. Those with guards had barricaded themselves to starve in their homes. The poor suffered worst, of course. They always did, easier prey to the raptores and gangs than those who could fight back.

Somewhere close by, Brutus could hear the tramp of marching soldiers, a sound as familiar to him as anything in the world. The legions in the Campus Martius had not mutinied, at least so far. The Senate had drafted rushed orders to bring them in, a thousand men at a time. Two separate legions had spread through the city, hard-pressed even so as the mobs gave ground step by bloody step. Brutus rubbed a spot on his forearm where a thrown tile had caught him a glancing blow earlier that day. He had been protected by a century of men, but as they escorted him to his house on the Quirinal hill, the roofs nearby had filled with rioters and a rain of stones and tiles had come arcing over. Had they been waiting for him, or was it just that nowhere was safe?

He clenched his fist at the memory. Even a century could be overwhelmed in the narrow streets. The Senate had reports of soldiers hemmed in on all sides, battered from above, and even one atrocity where oil pots had been thrown and set alight, burning men alive.

With tiles and stones shattering all around, he’d given the order to take a side street. They’d marched away from the location, intending to double back quickly on parallel streets to kick in doors and trap their assailants. He recalled the hooting jeers of lookouts above their heads, watching every step. The roofs had been empty by the time his men reached them, just a litter of broken tiles and scrawled messages. He’d given up on reaching his house and gone back to the safe area around the forum, where thousands of legionaries patrolled.

‘I think it’s getting worse, even with the new men in from the Campus,’ Cassius said, dragging Brutus back to the present. Like him, the senator was staring out over the city.

‘They can’t go on much longer,’ Brutus said, waving his hand in irritation.

The third man in the room stood to refill his cup with rich red wine. The two at the window turned at the sound and Lucius Pella raised his white eyebrows in silent question. Cassius shook his head, but Brutus nodded, so Pella filled a second cup.

‘They are drunk on more than wine,’ Pella said. ‘If we could have saved the senate house, I think it would be over already, but …’ He shook his head in disgust. A stone building should not have fallen just because wooden benches burned inside. Yet as the fire reached its height, one of the walls had cracked from top to bottom. The great roof had come crashing down, collapsing with such speed that it actually extinguished the fires within.

‘What would you have me do, Lucius?’ Cassius asked. ‘I have brought in legions. I have secured the permission of the Senate to kill those who ignore the curfew. Yet it goes on – no, it spreads! We have lost whole districts of the city to these cattle with their clubs and iron bars. A million citizens and slaves cannot be stopped by a few thousand soldiers.’