The Gods of War. Conn Iggulden
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу The Gods of War - Conn Iggulden страница 19
Название: The Gods of War
Автор: Conn Iggulden
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Приключения: прочее
isbn: 9780007321780
isbn:
‘You are right. We must lessen the coup of having Brutus go over to them. Pompey will trumpet it far and wide if he has any sense, but if we can sow distrust, Pompey could well waste our precious general. Do the men know yet that he has left?’
‘Some will, though they may not guess he has gone to Pompey,’ Mark Antony replied. ‘It is beyond belief for any of us. They would not think of it.’
‘Then a loyal man will suffer the worst agonies to undo this betrayal,’ Julius said grimly. ‘It is the first of what he will owe us. Whoever we send cannot know the truth. It would be burnt out of him. He must be told that Brutus is still one of us, but playing a subtle game. Perhaps we can have him overhear the secret, so he does not become too suspicious. Who can you send?’
The generals looked at each other reluctantly. It was one thing to order men into a battle line, but this was a dirty business and Brutus was hated in that room.
Mark Antony cleared his throat at last. ‘I have one who has worked for me in the past. He is clumsy enough to get himself caught if we send him alone. His name is Caecilius.’
‘Does he have family, children?’ Julius asked, clenching his jaw.
‘I don’t know,’ Mark Antony said.
‘If he has, I will send a blood-price to them when he is clear of the city,’ Julius said. It did not seem enough.
‘I will summon Caecilius here, with your permission?’ Mark Antony asked.
As always, the final order and the final responsibility rested with Julius. He felt annoyed that Mark Antony would not take the burden with a few easy words, but Brutus would have and Brutus had turned traitor. It was better to be surrounded by weaker men, perhaps.
‘Yes. Have him come here. I will give the orders myself,’ Julius confirmed.
‘We should send an assassin with him, to be certain,’ Octavian said suddenly. All eyes turned to him and he faced them without apology. ‘Well? Regulus has said what we are all thinking. Am I the only other one who will say it? Brutus was as much my friend as any of you, but you think he should live? Even if he tells Pompey nothing, or this spy weakens his position, he must be killed.’
Julius took Octavian by the shoulders and the younger man could not look him in the eyes. ‘No. There will be no assassins sent by me. No one else has the right to make that decision, Octavian. I will not order the death of my friend.’
At the last word, Octavian’s eyes blazed with fury and Julius gripped him harder.
‘Perhaps I share the blame for Brutus, lad. I did not see the signs in him until he had gone, though they trouble me now. I have been a fool, but what he has done changes nothing, in the end. Whether Pompey appoints him general or not, we must still go to Greece and fight those legions.’ He paused until Octavian looked up. ‘When we do, if Brutus is there, I shall order that he is kept alive. If the Gods kill him with a spear or an arrow, then my hands are clean. But if he lives through the war to come, I will not take his life until I have spoken to him, perhaps not even then. There is too much between us to think otherwise. Do you understand?’
‘No,’ Octavian said. ‘Not at all.’
Julius ignored the anger, feeling it himself. ‘I hope you will in time. Brutus and I have shared blood and life and more years than I can remember. I will not see him dead at my order. Not today, for this, nor at any other time. We are brothers, he and I, whether he chooses to remember it or not.’
Seeing Brundisium without the usual bustle of merchant and legion galleys was strange for such a key port in the south. When Brutus crested the last hill with the exhausted guard cohorts, he was disappointed not to find anything larger than a lobster boat tied to the quays. He tried to remember if he knew the quaestor of the port and then shrugged to himself. Whatever small contingent of Roman soldiers was stationed there would not be able to interfere. Outside of Rome herself, there was nothing in the south to trouble them.
The guards followed him down to the port, ignoring the stares and pointing fingers of the workers there. It was a strange feeling for most of them, but Brutus was familiar with hostile territory and fell back into the attitudes of Gaul without really thinking about it. The sight of soldiers would have brought a sense of peace and order only a short time before, but with a looming civil war they would be feared as much as any other band of scavengers. It was unpleasant to see the faces of those who stepped aside for the two cohorts of guards. Even with all his experience, Brutus could not ignore a subtle discomfort and found himself growing increasingly irritable as he led the column through to the import buildings on the docks. He left them there in the sun as he dismounted and strode inside.
The quaestor’s clerk was on his feet, arguing with two burly men. All three turned to face him as he entered and Brutus saluted lazily, knowing his arrival had been the subject of their debate.
‘I need food and water for my men,’ he said abruptly. ‘See to that first. We will not trouble you for long, gentlemen, so put yourselves at ease. I want to find a ship to take me to Greece.’
As he mentioned his destination, he noticed the clerk’s eyes flicker to a piece of parchment on his desk and then back up, guiltily. Brutus smiled, crossing the room. The dockworkers moved to block him and he dropped a casual hand onto his sword.
‘You are unarmed, gentlemen. Are you certain you’d like to try me?’ he asked.
One of the men licked his bottom lip nervously and would have spoken, but his companion tapped him on the arm and they both edged away.
‘Very good,’ Brutus said to them, letting his hand fall. ‘Now then; food, water and … a ship.’
He reached down to the desk and gripped the clerk’s bony hand, moving it firmly off the papers. Brutus took the sheaf and scanned them quickly, letting each fall until he came to one midway through the pile. It was a record of a legion galley that had landed at the port just the day before to replenish its fresh-water barrels. There was little detail to be gleaned from it. The captain had returned from the north according to the record and set sail after only a few hours in Brundisium.
‘Where was he heading?’ Brutus demanded.
The clerk opened his mouth and closed it, shaking his head.
Brutus sighed. ‘I have a thousand men standing on your docks. All we want is to leave here without trouble, but I am not patient today. I can give the word to set fire to this building and anything else you value. Or you can just tell me. Where is this galley?’
The clerk bolted for a back room and Brutus heard the clatter of his sandals as he rushed up a flight of stairs. He waited in uncomfortable silence with the two dockworkers, ignoring them.
A man wearing a toga that had seen better days came down the steps behind the clerk. Brutus sighed at the quaestor’s appearance.
‘Provincials,’ he murmured СКАЧАТЬ