10th of Januarius - Ravenna
Fronto stood on one of the few points of Ravenna that was high enough to grant a view of anything but swamp and the roiling white blanket of marsh fog and watched the figures moving along the coast road like ghosts in the mist. Maybe thirty men in just tunics and boots, they could easily be fishmongers or wheelwrights or beggars, or even slaves. But if he could see them up close, he knew he would recognise the shape of gladius and pugio under padded linen or jutting from packs.
For these were no common citizens, but men of the Thirteenth Legion in civilian attire, and they were veterans of more than half a decade of brutal war. Each man was the hardest and strongest the republic could breed. They padded off south in small groups, chatting and separating as they moved, some filtering in among merchants with their wagons of vegetables, others stopping by the roadside for bread and cheese. By the time they were half a mile away from Ravenna they would be indistinguishable from the common citizenry on the road.
Just like the three hundred who had already departed in small, nondescript groups that morning. Their centurions and even the tribune assigned to that cohort would be there among them somewhere, making for Ariminium.
Ariminium! Ten miles inside the borders of Italia. Senatorial territory. The first major town south from the border of Cisalpine Gaul. Ariminium had a small garrison – a few military ships in port and a reasonable force of veterans who the town’s ordo could call upon if it felt the need for defence. Certainly if Caesar sent the Thirteenth marching south they would find the place manned against them. But a cohort of veterans filtering into the town as ordinary citizens and then securing it quietly and subtly?
He shivered. Those last few departing men did not look to be much, but they were as good as a spear cast against the senate. They were a declaration of war.
‘What of the rest of the legion?’ Galronus asked quietly at his shoulder.
‘They are armed and ready. They just await Caesar’s order to march. This is it, my friend. What I’ve feared for so long. Despite everything I’ve said for a decade, I find myself solidly on the side of Caesar in defiance of my own republic. And while I should feel like a betrayer and full of guilt and self-loathing for what we’re doing, I actually feel oddly proud.’
‘You could be Remi, with that attitude,’ Galronus chuckled.
‘Where is Caesar?’
The Remi prince shrugged. ‘He rose early and went to the baths as though nothing untoward was happening. He’s held his morning meeting of clients and is going to attend the fights in honour of some local goddess this afternoon.’
‘He’s packing the day full,’ Fronto muttered. ‘What with the banquet tonight.’
Galronus nodded. ‘I am surprised at the number of people who are attending, given the short notice.’
‘The power of curiosity,’ Fronto snorted. ‘All the important folk of Ravenna will know of the senate’s demands by now and will want to know Caesar’s plans. And they will want to look supportive as long as the general remains in town. They will have discarded any other plans and rearranged to be here tonight.’
‘Well,’ Galronus stretched, ‘what are our plans for the day?’
‘Are you packed and ready?’
‘Isn’t everyone?’
Fronto nodded. ‘Well if Caesar is indulging in mundanities to keep the populace unawares, then perhaps we should too. I could certainly do with a massage, and I haven’t seen a good fight for weeks.’
* * *
The room hummed with conversation and the air quivered with strange tension, though that tautness had been gradually relaxing with every cup of wine consumed. Fronto had watched with appreciation as the general carried out the subtlest of manoeuvres, more cunning than any battlefield strategy he had ever carried out.
Incredibly subtle. In every fine detail.
The wine was Rhodian, from a vineyard that was hailed in some quarters and shunned in others, known for the intoxicating strength of their brew – a wine that Fronto’s mother had called ‘the choice of a vulgar drunkard’, often in reference to his father. It was served in smaller jars than usual, so that the jugs of water with which to cut it appeared larger. The drinking vessels were not the best glassware as one might expect, but fine red ceramic, embossed with the forms of gods. Hard to see what proportions were mixed in such a cup. Fronto had watched Caesar’s slaves at work throughout the evening and estimated even conservatively that each guest had already consumed twice the alcohol he believed he had. There was a vagueness to the expressions of the attendees, and many had begun to giggle at times, while others were starting to drool or fall asleep, their gentle, content snores adding to the background noise.
Then there was the seating. Rather than placing his officers at specific tables and separating the groups, Caesar had filtered them in here and there among the important figures of Ravenna, so that the whole was a good mix.
The entertainment, too. A wiry Thracian lyre player accompanied by a flautist at the far end, strumming and tootling in a constant stream of melody. Three Arabian dancers, lithe and sinuous, moving in time to the music before the only blank wall with no door, drawing the hungry gazes of the attendees. Two wrestlers throwing each other around before a third wall. The fourth side empty, drawing no gaze.
‘And Cicero, standing atop a step, proclaimed “I was talking to the cow”,’ Caesar said loudly, drawing laughter from those around him, wine bursting from the nose of an unfortunate and rather intoxicated member of the city’s council.
Fronto’s gaze panned around the room. Almost half the seats were now empty, and the growing number of absences had thus far gone entirely unnoticed. Brutus was sitting between an enormously fat man who was already dozing off with his hands folded across his belly, and a strangely angular man who was arguing with his other neighbour, hammering his wine cup on the table repeatedly in a staccato punctuation of the discourse. The younger officer caught Fronto’s eye and gave a miniscule nod.
Unnoticed by the men beside him, Brutus rose from his seat and padded off to a door at the rear of the room, in that bare, unwatched wall. The buzz of social engagement went on. Fronto carefully poured himself another wine, not trusting the slaves who were busily drugging the locals. Despite his prodigious capacity for wine, even he was being relatively careful tonight. This was not a night to be drunk.
He sipped down that cup and the next at a careful, sedate pace, and the next, too, as the hours passed. He watched Hortensius leave quietly and unobserved. And Trebonius too. And Pollio. Galronus had been one of the first to go, and Labienus was not attending, since he was already well on his way back to Gaul and his distant posting. A quick count revealed only four of them left. Still, the guests paid little attention. In fairness, by this time most of them were either asleep or were so deep in their cups you could have driven a siege tower over them and they wouldn’t notice.
Even as he wondered when someone would twig what was happening, he saw Curio, who had so loved this afternoon’s games, rise, stretch, nod slightly and then slip out of the room. Surely someone would soon question this? Certainly when Caesar left, at least?
Just Hirtius, Caesar and himself now.
Another cup of wine.
Hirtius was struggling to lose the attention of an old local who was waffling drunkenly into his ear. Fronto had no such troubles. The men to either side of him had tried to engage him in conversation early in the evening, but Fronto was long practiced at offending people. He had called Cisalpine Gaul a ‘career graveyard’ in conversation with one, following which he’d seen only the man’s back all night. The other had lauded the local fish – he seemed to be some sort of piscine magnate – and Fronto had replied that fish made him fart. To add substance to his argument he had done his best to engulf the man in a cloud of noxious gas numerous times during the night and now the man would not even look at him.
Finally, the noisome local next to Hirtius turned away at some salacious comment about the dancing girls, and as soon as his back was turned, Hirtius rose and slipped from the room unnoticed.
Caesar gave Fronto the merest of nods. With a grin, the former legate glanced at the men to either side, who had not looked at him in over an hour, rose, drained his cup and sauntered from the room. He reached the side door and slipped through into the dim room beyond, where he paused and, his curiosity piqued, glanced back within. Caesar was now the only one of them left in the room, and still the locals revelled drunkenly on, barely conscious, unaware that over a score of men had left the room over the last two hours.
‘Friends,’ Caesar said with a smile, rising from his seat. ‘I have a treat for you, specially to mark the occasion and to give thanks for the hospitality the ordo of Ravenna has shown for my staff and I. Fresh from Tusculum and, before that, Rome, where they have gained an unsurpassed reputation, I give you the “Naked melody of Antioch”.’
A grin slid slowly across Fronto’s face as his attention turned to five stunningly attractive Syrian beauties wearing only jewellery and flimsy netting who wafted into the room gracefully, bending and whirling in a manner that must require a great deal of stretching beforehand. As though attached by strings, every eye in the room moved with those figures. Caesar paused only long enough to make sure the remaining wakeful audience was captivated, then straightened and spoke to the man beside him – something about using the latrines.
A moment later the general passed through the doorway and was suddenly all activity.
‘Marcus, good. Time to move. Come, now.’
Fronto found himself all-but swept along in the general’s wake as the older man hurried through the room and along the short corridor that led to a rear door which opened onto a narrow street that led off the small forum square. They paused briefly there to gather up their cloaks from the table beside the door. The night air was more than a little chilly as the general pulled the door open to admit a blast of winter.
‘All very masterful, General,’ Fronto said as they emerged into the darkness and turned toward the archway next to a bakery across the road, ‘but even dulled as they are, it will buy you only moments. An hour at most.’
Caesar gave him an infuriating knowing grin as they passed beneath the arch to where Pollio and Brutus awaited with the carriage, horses nickering and ready to leave, breath pluming in the cold night air. There was no crowd of a score of officers lurking in the archway. Most of the others must already be on the way. He glanced this way and that, something unseen making his spine tingle.
His heart jumped as he realised they were not alone. Shadowy figures were emerged from the alleyways nearby. Two of them – career criminals, Fronto decided from the look of them – bowed. Neither looked trustworthy, like the worst resident of the Subura, and Fronto’s hand automatically went to his pouch at the sight of them.
‘All is ready?’ Caesar asked the two men.
‘It is.’
‘Then look to your tasks. For Rome. For the future. And, of course, for the money.’
Teeth flashed in grins in the gloom as the men melted away.
‘Insurance?’ Fronto asked quietly.
‘I think the local ordo will be disorganised and confused until the morning anyway,’ Caesar replied. ‘Then they will find none of the ships in port ready to sail and no sign of the city’s usual couriers. Any message sent by road is extremely unlikely to make it past the first milestone. Effectively, no news will travel faster than us.’
‘This is why I don’t like to play you at Latrunculi, General.’
‘Unprepared men lose wars, Fronto, and that is what this now is. Since the First Cohort of the Thirteenth wandered south this morning dressed as farmers, this became a war. And the moment we cross into Italia it becomes official. Now is the time to back out if you cannot countenance such a thing, for the Italian border is only twenty miles to the south.’
Fronto swallowed as he climbed into the carriage alongside the others and slid into the seat next to Brutus. ‘I think the time for doubt has now passed, Caesar,’ he declared, reaching down by his seat to where his military boots sat along with his belt and the sword with the beautiful embossed orichalcum hilt. Gripping the handle the truth sank into him that unless something unexpected happened, in the coming days he might be required to push that point into the soft flesh of a fellow Roman.
‘Agreed,’ Caesar nodded. ‘Now let us hope that when faced with our advance, the senate sees sense and offers terms. I have no wish to march into Rome like Sulla, though I will do so if pushed into it.’
The driver geed the horses and the carriage creaked forward, emerging from the archway into the street. Fronto could see already dark figures at work destroying one of the wooden walkways that connected the islands. If the general’s hired criminals were working like this everywhere, within the hour Ravenna would be a mess, unable to function. Caesar would be able to amble slowly across the border like a man out for a stroll and still stay ahead of the tidings of his advance.
He had burned his bridges – figuratively speaking, and almost literally too – with Ravenna. The ordo would be unlikely to support him now, but that was immaterial. In the coming days either Pompey would crush any advance and their little insurrection would be over, or Caesar would stand triumphant in Rome, at which point Ravenna would hurriedly backtrack and claim they had always supported him.
The game had begun.
* * *
‘Are we not going the wrong way?’
Caesar turned his infuriating expression on Fronto in reply – that expression the former legate knew all too well and which seemed to say “Really, Fronto, have you not figured it out yet?” It was an expression Fronto had seen often enough in his life that he was able these days to resist rising to the bait. He waited, and Caesar rolled his eyes.
‘Misdirection and misinformation, Marcus. If you learn anything from daily dealings with the senate and men like Pompey, Cato and Crassus it is never to meet their expectations. Always misinform and surprise. This morning, while the cohort was moving off slowly to the south, I sent messages via the couriers to Aquileia to prepare my villa. No one would admit to infiltrating the courier system, of course, but I will give you your body weight in denarii if the information in my letters wasn’t known to the council of Ravenna by noon at the latest.’
‘How do you play more than one game at a time without getting confused,’ Fronto grumbled.
‘Always have more than once dice, Marcus. The messages served three purposes. Firstly, they kept the ordo’s spies busy looking at my correspondence and therefore away from the camp where the soldiers were leaving. Secondly, it gave context to tonight’s social engagement. They believe it was intended as a fond farewell as I prepare to depart Ravenna…’
‘Which it was.’
‘Which it was, yes, though not in the way they suspected. And thirdly it adds to the confusion of the next twenty four hours. When they know we have slipped out of town, they will not immediately worry. Even Pompey’s spies in the town – and it would be naïve of me indeed to presume that there were none – will simply think I tired of the party and returned to Aquileia, just as my missives suggested. Some suspicion will naturally fall on me when it transpires that no ship will be ready to sail for hours, their captains and helmsmen and musicians are all missing or drunk or both, and that the port records have vanished into the bargain.’
‘Your lowlifes were clearly busy during our gathering.’
‘I could not possibly comment,’ Caesar smiled. ‘When it becomes clear that the sea is of little use, my opposition will look to land exits and will discover that many bridges have collapsed during the night and that banditry is suddenly rife in the surrounding countryside. Again, suspicion will fall on me, but there is no concrete evidence. And word will be that the only coach to leave Ravenna at the appropriate time made off north along the Via Popilia in the direction of Aquileia.’
‘Does your brain ever ache,’ Fronto muttered.
Caesar smiled irritatingly. ‘By the time anyone who opposes me in Ravenna has any idea what is happening and manages to mobilise, even if they do not immediately go the wrong way, we will be well and truly set on our course. I do not like to leave things to chance if I have the option to prepare.’
Fronto shook his head. He was a soldier, straightforward and blunt, if clever in his own way, but no twisted politician like Caesar. As soon as it had been decided that they would move and that the time had come to stand against those bloody minded enemies in the senate, Fronto had expected Caesar to call the Thirteenth to order and march south with trumpets blaring, announcing his intention for all the world to hear. It was the soldier’s way. And it was known to work. For a start, it displayed your determination and set any less-than-confident enemy to quaking in their boots.
Not so, Caesar. He had looked at things and decided that he would need to secure his route as he went. The most important – indeed, the critical – bastion would be Ariminium. That large coastal port town thirty miles south would be a necessary peg in the works. It marked a meeting point of roads, where the Via Aemilia, Via Popilia and Via Flaminia met. As such, it was a hub of communications. It was a garrisoned town at the edge of senatorial territory, and it often played host to a number of military ships.
If Caesar had marched south and Ariminium had taken against him, closing its gates, he would either have to march on, leaving a defended enemy strongpoint at his rear, or get bogged down in a probably lengthy siege. Neither would be a good way to start the campaign, just having crossed the border and declared war.
No. Caesar had decided that Ariminium had to fall swiftly and without a fight. That would give him a good supply base, and would present an example to the other towns on their route. Caesar could allow news to move ahead as to how easily the bastion of senatorial power on their northeast border simply fell into Caesar’s hands. It would make many a councillor of other towns think twice about resisting.
The general was ever a dozen steps ahead of his opponents.
Fronto gazed out at the dark fields to their left and right. Low-lying farmland that periodically became too soggy to work. And the marshland only became more prevalent as you travelled north. Pollio began to hum a happy little tune, which seemed rather ill-fitting to Fronto in the circumstances and had a teeth-grindingly repetitive refrain. Fronto was almost reaching the point where he would have to ask the rodent-like officer to kindly shut up when the carriage suddenly veered off the main road and onto a rough track. The jerky, bouncing motion made it impossible for Pollio to carry his ditty, and the four men were silent as the vehicle lurched for a moment before reaching a gravelled section and settling down once more. Fronto caught sight of a sign marking the road as a route to a country estate, and a moment later the lake that lay just inland from Ravenna, a stagnant lagoon four miles long and two across, appeared on their left. They were turning now. Out of sight of Ravenna and two or three miles north of its extremities, they had now turned west. They would then veer south, following the lake on small roads, crossing another minor road, passing through the village of Sabis, and then making for Ariminium on a secondary route.
He watched from the carriage window as the view gradually changed, the position of the cold winter moon showing their rough orientation at all times. They gradually rounded the lake, Ravenna lying like a shadowy spider at the far end, reflected in the rather still surface of the water. They crossed several tracks and roads and, perhaps an hour after leaving the party, they passed through the village of Sabis, little more than a collection of a dozen houses surrounding a mansio, bath house and temple to Mercury, and then they were off on a good, paved road for a change, clattering toward Ariminium. It did not escape Fronto’s notice that the village shared a name with the river where eight years ago he and Caesar had fought side by side with desperate legions against a Belgic ambush. They had won that day against all odds. Was that a sign, Fronto wondered?
He settled in with a sigh to welcome the onset of a headache as Pollio once again took up his jolly refrain, humming the same melody over and over again. Brutus was too busy peering out of the window to notice, and Caesar sat with arms folded and eyes closed. Anyone who didn’t know him would think he was asleep. Fronto was under no such illusion.
They passed through another small community, which Brutus noted as Ad Novas, and a couple of miles further on Fronto was just working up to telling Pollio how irritating his humming was when Brutus suddenly sat upright, his face still at the window, and whistled through his teeth.
‘Well now, there’s a sight.’
Fronto, interested, leaned forward to look past Brutus out of that window. He blinked.
The men of the Thirteenth Legion, gleaming in the moonlight, all shadowy red and glinting silver, stood formed in a column across the fields to the side of the road. Behind them, their baggage train sat waiting, the artillery packed aboard for transport. The other officers who had been party guests were waiting here, too, including Galronus on his steed. A smattering of fog drifted among them from the frosted breath of four thousand men and half a thousand beasts. But the truly impressive and shiver-inducing thing was that they waited in absolute silence. Not even the jingling of a harness or the mutter of a cold soldier.
Fronto mentally mapped the area and realised that the legion must have set off not long before their own carriage, but the camp lay to the southwest of the town anyway. They could slip out of the far side and move off with little chance of observation, especially with Caesar’s various lowlifes running interference for him.
‘Where are we?’ Fronto muttered, sitting up as the carriage rumbled to a halt.
‘The place doesn’t have a name,’ Pollio replied. ‘Just two farmhouses and a bridge. But unimpressive as it may be, it is somewhat auspicious.’
Fronto frowned, and Caesar nodded. His smile had gone and been replaced with a serious, even grave, expression.
‘This, Fronto, is a small river – a stream, really – called the Rubicon.’
‘We’re at the Rubicon already?’ Fronto said, his heart suddenly picking up pace. ‘So soon?’
Caesar simply nodded again and opened the carriage door, slipping out and stepping down to the road. The others followed suit and peered at the bridge. Wide enough for a single cart and of old, pre-Roman stone, it was an ancient edifice, existing here long before some unnamed bureaucrat planned the road to cross it. And flowing beneath it, from right to left, a sluggish stream narrow enough that Fronto could comfortably plant a foot on either side and not stretch his groin. As a provincial border, it was unimpressive. As a declaration of war it was even less so.
The army waited on the north bank, a matter of paces from senatorial lands. The carriage sat eight horse-lengths from the crossing. And the gathering of four officers stopped short of the bridge, as though it might burn their feet.
A tribune walked his horse across from the lead elements of the Thirteenth and dismounted, approaching Caesar respectfully. The broad stripe on his sleeve marked him as the legion’s senior tribune and, therefore, currently the de facto commander. The man had pale skin, made almost alabaster by the moonlight, dark, shining eyes, and severe, white-blond hair, which receded to either side, to leave an arrow of hair pointing down at his nose.
‘Caesar,’ the tribune greeted his proconsul.
‘Salvius.’ The general turned to the other three. ‘Lucius Salvius Cursor, gentlemen, my adjutant and current commander of the Thirteenth. Salvius, this is Brutus, Pollio you know, and this is Fronto.’
The pale officer nodded, with not a hint of warmth about him, but then none of them were exactly grinning right now. There was a growing tension in the air you could almost chew. It was as though all the gods had stopped what they were doing and were watching this small bridge over an insignificant stream. Across the grass, and with some small relief, Fronto could see Galronus walking his horse toward them too.
‘The men are ready to move on your command, General,’ Salvius said. ‘All wagons have been double-tethered for speed. Might I recommend your cavalry guard take the lead and the Thirteenth follow along behind your carriage? Your officer Ingenuus has been twitching at not being by your side.’
Caesar waved a hand as if to shush the man.
‘General?’
‘Patience, Salvius. We will move in due course. Give me a moment.’
‘This is it, Caesar,’ Fronto said quietly as Galronus arrived and slipped from his mount to stand beside them. The general simply nodded. ‘Across that river,’ Fronto went on, ‘we are not only up against Pompey, but against the current senate, the consuls, and any nobiles and governors who choose to side with old knob-nose.’
Again, Caesar just nodded.
‘Can we yet go back?’ the general asked quietly.
‘Sir?’ Pollio frowned.
‘I asked if we can yet go back,’ the general repeated. ‘Once we cross that little bridge, years of strife and conflict will come to a head, and it will only be settled with the sword. I know we all hope that the senate and the people will see sense and back down – capitulate and accede to my requests. And some might. It may even be that the consuls can be persuaded and the senate cowed. But as long as Pompey stands and breathes, he and I will be irreconcilable now. There will be no peace between us. So no matter who accedes, the decision will end on a blade. I ask one last time: Can we yet go back?’
Fronto bit his lip. He would love to have answered with a positive.
‘Only by placing your neck in Pompey’s hands,’ Brutus said quietly.
‘And subjecting yourself to prosecutions,’ Pollio added.
Fronto sighed. ‘That was not a real question, Gaius. If you believed there was even a chance this could be avoided, you would not have done what you’ve done. We are as committed to our course hovering here on the north bank as we will be when we stand on the far side.’
Caesar was nodding as Tribune Salvius coughed. ‘The Thirteenth stand ready, Caesar. They thirst for action. Give them blood, General.’
Caesar’s head snapped round.
‘Blood? Not if it can be avoided, Salvius. Remember that the blood you advocate spilling is that of Romans, not some nameless hill tribe.’ The fire went out in the general’s eyes as quickly as it had kindled. ‘But you are right. If we are to move, then we must move. The time has come.’
‘The game proceeds, Caesar,’ Fronto said quietly, his eyes raising momentarily to the sky where the gods watched.
‘Then let the die be cast,’ sighed Caesar. ‘Bring me my horse. If I am to invade the republic, I will do it in honour and glory and at the head of my column, not skulking in a wagon any longer.’
An equisio hurried forward with the officers’ horses. Pollio waved his away. ‘I will stay in the carriage for the good of my rump,’ he said with a half-smile. ‘I’m not as young as I was and I appreciate every opportunity to not tan my arse to leather on the back of a horse.’
Brutus nodded. ‘I too.’
Fronto reached for Bucephalus’ reins. ‘I for one am sick of the carriage and its endless melody.’ He gestured to Caesar. ‘I shall be at your back, sir, as always.’
‘I can think of no one better to have there,’ smiled Caesar. ‘Very well then. Salvius? Look to the legion and send Aulus Ingenuus up front, but tell him no more than six riders. I do not want to be swamped by my own guard.’
They mounted as the others moved off. There was a long, pregnant pause during which Fronto, his breath pluming, rubbed Bucephalus’ mane and neck lovingly, the ebony beast nickering quietly. He nodded to Galronus, wondering if the Remi noble felt the same ominous sense of fate as his Roman companions. The lead element of Ingenuus’ Praetorian cavalry moved forward, half a dozen men following the young prefect as he approached and bowed to Caesar, expertly controlling his own horse with his knees and his three-fingered hand.
Fronto had to correct himself as he looked over the professional cavalry veteran. Ingenuus was no longer a young prefect. Almost a decade had passed since he had been blooded during the war against the Helvetii.
The Thirteenth began to move into position with a light jingling and a steady thump of feet on turf. Finally, they were all ready.
‘The dubious honour is yours, Caesar,’ Fronto said breathlessly.
The general nodded and, hesitantly, stepped his horse out onto the bridge. As they passed the narrow, snaking stream and moved on along the road from the south bank, making for the last ten mile stretch to Ariminium, Fronto felt the world shift subtly around him. He had spent his entire life serving Rome. In Hispania and in Gaul. He had upheld the republic’s values and laws his whole life. Now, as an ageing officer, he was turning his back on all that in favour of a man he had more than once accused of megalomania. But whatever he might think of Caesar, the man was in the right here. He had been manoeuvred into a corner with only one path open to him. What man could do anything else?
Biting down on the feeling that a dozen generations of Falerii were glaring disapprovingly from their funerary urns, he walked his horse on into Italia at the head of their small army.
* * *
Ariminium was truly a fortress. Fronto had expected something powerful for he knew, as did every Roman who’d held a sword, that for two centuries Ariminium had been Rome’s fortified north-eastern bastion against the Gauls. For much of that time it had been a city, and had been a powerful, walled one, too.
Ariminium was a stronghold. Positioned by the sea and in the crook of two rivers, it was entirely surrounded by water, reached by three bridges, facing north, west and south. The most impressive of these was the one that faced the travellers as they arrived – a huge long span of white arches marching across the blue torrent and leading them to a solid gatehouse in impressive heavy walls. Caesar’s instincts had been correct. If they had to lay siege to this place it would be the work of months.
Fortunately, things seemed to be more welcoming than that.
The sun had begun to make an appearance, though as yet it was but a glow on the horizon, still the light was enough to show that the city gate lay open and that crowds thronged the walls. Not soldiers – evocati and garrison men armed with spears and catapults – but bakers and gardeners and scribes and slaves.
It was forced, clearly, and yet given the alternatives, the sight was as welcoming to Fronto as if it had been genuine.
‘They seem happy,’ Galronus noted, pointing at the waving figures on the battlements.
‘You would wave with delight had you a sword point at your back. This is the work of the cohort Caesar sent here yesterday. The entire population of Ariminium on the walls to welcome us before dawn? Hardly. This is a show of loyalty from a populace who know their fate relies upon one man’s goodwill.’
The column rode, trundled and stomped across the bridge slowly to the cheers and adulation of the crowd above. It could only logically have been happy accident that the sun chose that very moment to peek over the briny horizon just as Caesar was halfway across the bridge, catching his gleaming cuirass, white hair, red cloak and white horse and making him look like a hero straight out of legend. And yet Fronto could easily imagine the old bugger sitting in the carriage at midnight working out the time of the sunrise and planning his approach accordingly. Certainly the effect raised an ‘ooooh’ from the crowd.
Lucius Salvius Cursor had contrived to move ahead of the legion so that he was among the riders at the front with Caesar and his officers, which was fortunate as the general turned as they neared the walls and gestured to him. ‘Have the Thirteenth form in cohorts in the forum.’
Salvius saluted, his glassy dark eyes playing across the defences as though working out how to breach or hold them as required. The vanguard passed through the gates to find several centuries of the Thirteenth in civilian dress but formed up on the sides of the street at attention. A junior tribune who had led the insurgents, along with the senior centurion commanding, were clearly such, even dressed the same as the others, and the tribune stepped forward as Caesar reined in his horse.
‘This way, General.’
Quarter of an hour later, the new arrivals had passed through the packed streets of Ariminium, through a tense, cheering crowd, and to the forum. Fronto followed Caesar, along with the other officers, as they moved up the steps and into the basilica off one side of the square. Inside, more soldiers in just tunic and boots had clearly secured and emptied the grand edifice. Caesar was escorted to a large office, where he sank into a seat. The tribune cleared his throat.
‘It is my pleasure to report that Ariminium is yours, General, and is secure.’
Caesar nodded. ‘And what of its councillors and commanders? They are not here to greet us?’
A nervous look crossed the face of the tribune. He was young and inexperienced but he had clearly done well, heavily reliant no doubt upon that senior centurion.
‘The centurion and I differed in opinion, General. I gave orders that the ordo, who were extremely resistant to our arrival and the imposition of military law in the city, be locked up in a secure location, along with the garrison prefect and the evocati commander who had been identified to us.’
Fronto rolled his eyes. Excellent!
‘The centurion advocated freeing the civilians to follow their own course and quartering the officers pending your arrival.’
‘And where is this secure location?’ Salvius Cursor asked his junior tribune. Again the man swallowed nervously.
‘I’m afraid I acceded to the will of the senior centurion, sir. He is a veteran of some standing, and I felt would more correctly anticipate the wishes of the proconsul through familiarity than I who have only served with the Thirteenth a few months.’
Salvius huffed and slapped his hands on the table. ‘Unacceptable, Tribune. Now those civilians, frightened mice that they are, will be running straight to the forces of Pompey and the senate and telling them where we are and what we have done.’
‘And that is as it should be,’ Caesar interrupted, raising a silencing hand to Salvius. ‘You have shown leniency, which is exactly what I would have done.’ He caught the look of disbelief on the face of the senior tribune and nodded at the man’s hands, still resting on his table. Salvius straightened and Caesar continued. ‘We are pitted against Pompey, who is popular and strong, but whose ire forever rides in his veins. He marches and fights on the whim of his anger and it drives him. Many do not see that, but I have no doubt it will become abundantly clear in the coming days. And as Pompey is anger and violence, so we must be seen to be sense, forgiveness and honour.’
He sighed at the scepticism still on Salvius’ face. ‘News needed to be suppressed in Ravenna, so that Ariminium could fall the way it has without a fight. Now, however, let the news spread. Let the cities across Italia hear that towns open their gates to Caesar and that he respects and honours their leaders and their people. A reputation like that can save us a hundred sieges.’
Grudgingly, Salvius nodded. ‘Fair enough, Caesar. What of the garrison?’
‘The garrison hold Ariminium in the name of the senate and the people of Rome. When I have healed this rift, I will once more be a part of that senate and a part of that people, so these men are not my enemies. Only those who take up a sword and follow Pompey will be my chosen enemy and even then only if they will not throw off their yoke and join us. The garrison will stay, though they will be supplemented by three centuries of the Thirteenth, for the sake of security, and Tribune Portius here, who I saw something in early enough to make me assign him this critical duty, will take over command of the city’s military. Well done, Portius. You have earned yourself this role, and I am sure you will do well.’
A centurion appeared in the doorway and cleared his throat, saluting. ‘Apologies for the interruption, General, but the legion is assembled awaiting your pleasure.’
‘Good.’ Caesar waved the man away. ‘Now, gentlemen, I must clarify our position for the men, in just such a way that the people of Ariminium cannot help but overhear. In the meantime, Salvius, I want you to locate the mansio, find couriers and send to Vienna for the legions I have in the Rhodanus valley. The die is now cast and bringing in soldiers can no longer do any harm. We will be moving south along the Via Flaminia and then the Adriatic coast road for some time. We will leave messages at every official post we pass so that they can follow on. With luck at a forced march they can be with us swiftly.’
‘The coast road?’ Fronto asked in confusion. ‘I thought we were bound for Rome?’
‘I have no wish to enter Rome at the head of an army like Sulla the dictator. No. When we enter Rome it will be as peaceful citizens to settle matters. But to do that we need to remove Pompey from the board. Latest intelligence has it that Pompey has been raising levies across Latium. If he hopes to stand against me without calling his legions back from Hispania, there will not be enough men available in Latium to raise a large enough army. He will not call the legions back across the sea, because of my presence on the Hispanic border near Narbo. And he cannot move north of Rome to recruit his levies for that brings him closer to me and he needs time to raise, equip and train an army. So he will have moved south. He will be in Campania perhaps. But more likely in Samnium or Apulia, where there is more than adequate population to create his legions, and they are hardy hill folk rather than soft, wine-soaked farmers.’
Fronto tried hard not to be offended at the description of his native Campania, but when he looked up, he saw that Caesar was looking at him with a twinkle in his eye. Damn the man.
‘So,’ Caesar went on, ‘Pompey will be in the south, raising legions, and it is there we must face him, preferably while his army is still small and poorly-formed. And so we move with speed and trust to the veteran legions, hardened by a decade of war against the Gauls, to catch up with us before their help is needed too desperately. In the meantime, we must look to the spirit of the Thirteenth upon whom we rely and see that our reputation is fine and spreads well and fast. Come.’
And the general was up, striding from the room, all business and waiting for nobody. The officers scurried off after him and emerged into the glow of a cold dawn, with an ice blue sky and frost hanging on everyone’s breath. The Thirteenth were gathered before them, excluding two centuries who maintained control of the gates and walls.
As they stood atop the basilica steps, looking over the heads of the men, Fronto was interested to see a group of older men and a century or so of neat-looking men in blue tunics. The garrison and the evocati, clearly, despite the lack of armour and weapons. They stood neatly to attention just like the Thirteenth.
‘Greetings, men of the Thirteenth Legion, veterans of Ariminium and men of the garrison. It is a sad day when a loyal son of Rome is forced to defy the rulings of the senate and bring himself under arms into the heart of the republic, and I realise that there will be many among you who disapprove of my actions. Let me explain myself, and attempt to put your hearts at ease.’
There was an expectant ripple across the crowd.
‘Despite my loyalty to Rome, the money I have spent, the blood I have shed and the years of my life I have given to forever remove the threat of Gaul from our doorstep, that bane of all good men, Pompey Magnus, has turned the senate and the consuls against me. Me! Rome’s most faithful servant! They deny me the right to serve her further and would prosecute me for strengthening the republic and conquering Gaul!’
There was a collective rumble of disapproval and Fronto could see the balance already tipping toward Caesar. He really was a master of the oratorical art.
‘And so I am driven to the only course left open to me. To call out Pompey for his vile actions and to remove his tainted influence from the government of Rome. This I vow to do. I shall take arms against my enemy, Pompey Magnus, and cow him. Not, you note, against Rome. I do what I do to save the republic, not to destroy it. Not to control it. I would have the senate in control, but not doing Pompey’s will as they now do. I will free them from him, and they will make things right with me.’
He had them. Fronto could feel it in the air, even without their solemn nods.
‘And any man who serves me faithfully will not find me ungenerous.’
Ah… loyalty, Rome, and a fat purse. Throw in looting, and they would march into the maw of Cerberus himself for the general.
‘But I have no wish to come between a man and his conscience,’ Caesar went on. ‘The city’s ordo has been allowed to depart to their country estates. It is my fervent hope that they will return in time, but that is their choice. I make the same offer to you all. If any man here owes his loyalty to Pompey and does not feel they can follow me, they may leave the city now. I will grant safe passage to any man wishing to do so.’
There was a strange, low murmur. A few of the garrison and the evocati were exchanging quiet words and looks, but no one moved as yet. Galronus frowned. ‘Isn’t that dangerous?’ he whispered to Fronto. ‘What happens if half the legion deserts? And certainly the locals have every reason to.’
Fronto smiled. ‘You don’t think that any man who might favour Pompey was weeded out of the Thirteenth long ago? And the garrison and evocati? They’ll mostly have wives and family here. Maybe business interests, too. Property, very likely. Few if any are going to want to leave their home just because Caesar is now the one making the rules and not the senate.’
Sure enough, as the silence stretched out, not one figure left the throng in the forum. Caesar threw out his arms exultantly.
‘Your loyalty and honour humbles me. I shall see an extra month’s pay delivered to every man in Ariminium for their display of Romanitas. And now, centurions assign your camps and watches. Centuries are to be granted furlough in the city on rotation, on the condition that they comport themselves respectably.’
As the officer began shouting out orders and the columns and files of legionaries began to move out of the forum square in good order, Fronto watched and, more importantly, listened, to the crowd. Locals were drifting away alone or in pairs or small groups, their conversation hushed, excitable, urgent. He was not watching the dispersal of citizens. He was watching news of Caesar’s munificence spreading.