Just as I was reaching for the latch, he called to me. “Are you so anxious to die, Pullus?”
That caught me by surprise, I can tell you.
I turned to look at him, curious and disturbed at the same time. “No, Caesar, I'm not anxious to die. Why do you ask such a question?”
“Surely you have to know that as soon as Verres is put to death, your men are going to feel that you betrayed them. We have some hard fighting yet to do, and it's highly likely that someone in your Cohorts will see an opportunity to take their vengeance. Not to mention you'll have earned the undying hatred of Verres Rufus.”
I wondered if he ever got tired of being right, but I did not say anything that would betray my thoughts.
“It had occurred to me,” I spoke carefully, but said nothing more.
“And what was your plan to stay alive?”
Caesar being sardonic was not a dish I cared for much.
“To be honest, I hadn’t given it much thought.”
“Perhaps an offering to Nemesis to stay the hand of your assassin might be a good idea.” His tone was so neutral I could not tell if he was being sarcastic. After all, he had once been flamen dialis, so perhaps he was being serious.
“I prefer to rely on this.” I tapped the hilt of my sword.
Caesar gave a great sigh, then replied, “Even you can be bested, Pullus. You don’t have eyes in the back of your head, and you don't have the same bond with these men that you did with the men of the 10th. Is there anyone you trust sufficiently to stand at your back among the men of the 6th?”
I considered, then shook my head. Despite developing a friendship with Felix, I was not confident that it was strong enough that I would trust my life to him, at least in these circumstances. In the face of the enemy, without a doubt I would trust him, but against his own comrades, men he had marched with for many years longer than we had known each other, I could not be so sure.
“As difficult a circumstance as you've put me in, I can't afford to lose you, Pullus. I need you where you are, especially now. For that reason, I'm going to do nothing about Verres, and neither are you.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but the words died in my mouth, such was the look he gave me.
Another thought occurred to me, and I asked, “But what about Verres Rufus? As you said, you can’t have him thinking that you're sparing his brother because of his threats.”
In all reality, I cared less about the damage to Caesar’s prestige than to mine, but I could not very well say that to him.
At the mention of Verres Rufus, his lips compressed into a thin line, his blue eyes glittering with anger. “Don't worry about Verres Rufus,” he said tightly. “I'll deal with him, in my own way.”
“What am I supposed to do now?” I asked. “I’m going to go back to the 6th and maybe I won’t have to watch my back, but now the men are going to think that I’m nothing but talk.”
“That's your problem,” he replied, looking at me the way a parent looks at a wayward child. “Think of it as your punishment for not coming to me before now. You'll just have to figure something out.”
With that, the audience ended and I left headquarters, deciding to take the long way back to our sector as I tried to decide how I was going to handle the gift that Caesar had given me.
~ ~ ~ ~
We were still in a precarious position, particularly after the defeat on the Heptastadion. All the men knew it, and it was their preoccupation with our overall situation that I credit for making my announcement that Verres would not be held accountable for the murder of Plautus somewhat anticlimactic. Oh, there was a certain amount of gloating to be sure, which I endured with gritted teeth, although I was surprised that Cornuficius was not one of them. When I made the announcement to the assembled Centurions and Optios, most of the men looked relieved while a couple of them smirked triumphantly, happy to see me humbled. However, Cornuficius just regarded me thoughtfully. In fact, I may have been mistaken, but my impression was that he was not altogether pleased that Verres was not going to be punished, though I could not figure out why. Regardless, I was not in a position to question such a gift from the gods, and after a day or two, the larger events of our situation seemed to erase any difficulties that I would have encountered otherwise.
After the defeat at the Heptastadion, there was a period where things lulled into an uneasy truce between the Egyptians and the Roman forces. I cannot help thinking that if Achillas had still been alive, he would have seen this as the opportunity to continue pressing and we may have been wiped out. Ganymede was clever enough, but his inexperience in military matters was evident in a number of ways, including his lack of activity immediately after our defeat. I am thankful that he was as green as he was, because even without taking advantage of our defeat, he caused us innumerable problems. One of them became evident a few days after our defeat when Caesar was approached by a delegation of Egyptians, supposedly to talk about peace between the two forces. We never learned what prompted this move by the Egyptians. Given what happened, it is likely that Ptolemy’s advisors were in contact with Ganymede and they concocted the whole thing between them. Whatever the case, the delegation claimed that they had endured enough of Ganymede and Arsinoe, and asked that Ptolemy be released and restored to his throne, making the argument that he would then promptly order his army to lay down arms to submit to Caesar. I was not present at the meeting that Caesar held with his generals to discuss the Egyptian proposal, but through Appolonius, I learned that his generals were unanimously against the idea. Caesar even admitted that he knew that the Egyptians were deceitful, untrustworthy people, yet he said that it would be politic to accede to their request. Subsequently, Caesar called Ptolemy to his presence, where from all accounts, the young king put on a performance worthy of the greatest Greek actor. He cried, tearing his fancy robes, swearing to all of his gods that he would rather die than leave Caesar’s side. He claimed that Caesar had become like a father to him, and he could not bear the thought of being forced to part from his father. This display of emotion apparently moved Caesar a great deal, and he embraced the young king, promising him that they would be reunited the moment Ptolemy returned to his people and convinced them to give up making war on us. Ptolemy swore that he would do that very thing, so Caesar released him, along with Theodotus and Dioscorides, the latter having survived having his throat cut by Achillas and was now fully recovered. I do not believe a full day passed before we learned that Ptolemy, true to the faithless nature of all Egyptians, had assumed command of his army and instead of ordering them to lay down their arms, exhorted them to complete our destruction. His troops needed no prodding, and before that night fell, we were under assault at a number of different points along our lines. Not content with pressing the attack on land, Ptolemy ordered the Egyptian fleet out of the Inner Harbor and out to sea. We did not know for sure why he did so, but the most logical explanation was that he had gotten word that more relief was headed our way across the water. It also could have been a trick, which to us in the ranks seemed likely, given that we felt that Caesar had already been tricked once. Nevertheless, Caesar could not afford to take the risk that it was a ruse, immediately giving orders for our own fleet to sail in pursuit of the Egyptian fleet. I cannot fault Caesar for making this decision, but I do find fault with sending Nero as commander, instead of Hirtius or Pollio. At the very least, Caesar should have given Nero explicit instructions that he was in command in name only, allowing Euphranor, the Rhodian, who had led the four ships in the previous naval battle, to actually control the tactics of the fleet, but that was not Caesar’s way with members of his own class. This meant that when our fleet closed with the Egyptians and Euphranor engaged with the enemy, he did so unsupported, because Nero did not follow Euphranor into the battle. Euphranor rammed and sunk one Egyptian vessel, yet without any support from the rest of the fleet was quickly surrounded then rammed himself, going down with the ship. The only positive was that it stopped the Egyptian fleet, which turned around and came back to Alexandria. Actually, that is not completely true; while the fleet was out, a courier ship caught up with them to let us know what the Egyptians had learned and why they had sailed. Help was on the way.