“We did not speak, Senator. A launch met my squadron at the mouth of the harbor this morning as we were pulling in. One of Lady Calpurnia’s servants, a young eastern woman, came aboard the Remus and delivered a letter addressed to me. In it, Lady Calpurnia stated that, with her father now dead, she wishes to tie up some family business in Rome and visit with her solicitors to see that the family estate is properly distributed. The tyrant has not stooped to waging war on the families of his enemies, at least not yet, so I judged it a reasonable request. I sent my reply back with the messenger.” After seeing the senator’s disconcerted expression, Libo roguishly added, “Certainly, this will not interfere with your mission, will it, Senator? The fleet’s business shall come first, of course. Lady Calpurnia will only be sent ashore when the opportunity allows, and then in some protected cove where the enemy cannot interfere.”
The senator had not been pleased, but there was little he could do about it. The fact that Calpurnia’s presence appeared to bother him to such an extent left Libo puzzled. What animosity could the old man possibly have for the poor, young woman, no matter his opinion of her late father?
As to Postumus’s mission, no further explanation had been given, and Libo had chosen not to press the matter. Libo sensed something in Postumus’s demeanor, something that told him the senator’s mission went beyond state business. Ever since the fleet had gotten underway, the senator seemed to have been continually engrossed in quiet discussions with his adjutant. These did not appear to be casual conversations either, but very animated, as if the two were planning some intricate campaign that hung on a thread.
Libo planned to keep an eye on both of them.
Now, he gazed down at the main deck past a crew of marine artillerymen concluding an exercise of the amidships heavy ballista. Lady Calpurnia and her handmaid strolled nearby, watching with much interest as the muscled marines secured the engine’s canvas covering. Her face carried a somber expression, and Libo could only imagine how she must feel walking the decks where her father had walked in his final days.
In all of the bustle involved with getting the fleet to sea that morning, he had only managed to speak with her briefly. He had expressed his condolences, assured her that she was welcome aboard the Argonaut as long as she wished to stay, and that he hoped to make her journey to Italy as quick and as uneventful as possible.
“Thank you, Admiral,” Calpurnia had replied endearingly. “My father always thought highly of you. Were he still alive, I know that he would have considered his daughter in good hands.” She had then averted her eyes before asking, “You will not be bothered, Admiral, if I wander throughout the ship from time to time? These decks and bulwarks seem familiar to me. They remind me of how much my father cherished this vessel.”
“Not at all, my lady. Please go wherever you wish. If there is anything I or my officers can do to make your trip more comfortable, please do not hesitate to tell us.”
Poor child, Libo thought, remembering how she had left him looking like a wayward dove. She had suffered much in this struggle to save the republic. Now she was alone in the world, with no one to care for her but that handmaid and the pair of female slaves that had come aboard with her baggage. She was to be smuggled into Italy, a most inglorious way for the daughter of a former consul, governor, and admiral to return to her homeland.
Libo thought of his own family, and how his own daughter might have to return to Rome in such a manner, should this fleet not keep Antony’s legions locked in Italy long enough for Pompey to deal with Caesar.
Perhaps it would not take that long. Before the fleet had put to sea that morning, welcome news had reached Corcyra that Pompey’s army was finally on the move. Pompey and Caesar had spent weeks staring at each other across the Apsus River, neither one making a move. While Caesar had watched his own troops dwindle from disease and desertion, across the river, Pompey’s army grew stronger every day. Pompey had assembled nine legions, all at or near full strength, along with a horde of fresh auxiliary and mercenary cohorts arriving from the eastern provinces – some forty thousand men in all. Outnumbered nearly three to one, and not wishing to find himself trapped against the sea, Caesar had left his positions on the south side of the Apsus. He had marched his legions inland, abandoning the coastal plain where he could be easily outflanked for the rocky hills and deep ravines of the interior. Pompey’s army was now in full pursuit, moving to confront the tyrant and bring him to battle.
Within a few days, Libo thought, the war might be decided. The gods allowing, the tyrant would be slain and the republic secure once again. And then, at last, they could all return home.
XVI
The bridge over the rocky ravine had been hastily built by Caesar’s engineers, a patchwork of timbers that had turned an insurmountable gorge into a passage for his legions as they made their way into the heart of Illyricum. Caesar’s army had begun crossing over the creaking structure at the first light of dawn, and only now, in the late afternoon, were the last carts and mules of the baggage train finally trundling across.
Although the bridge had only been erected on the previous day, its use was now finished, and the same engineers who had so swiftly and meticulously built it, now began tearing it down so that the enemy might not benefit from its use.
“That’s the last of them, General,” Publius Cornelius Sulla, the legate of the Tenth Legion, commented from his mount as he and Caesar observed from a nearby hill. The tail end of the baggage train had exited the bridge and now followed the ambling cloud of dust left by the army as it made its way along the winding road into the hills to the north. “All of our men are across, and none too soon. It appears we are but one step ahead of Pompey.”
The legate pointed to the hills beyond the opposite side of the bridge, where another cloud of dust hung in the sky. Both men knew that beneath that cloud a massive host came on at the forced march – nine legions, with the standards of Pompey at their head.
“They cannot be more than ten miles away, General,” Publius commented. “They have gained a day on us, at least.”
“The same obstacle that slowed us will slow them, Publius,” Caesar replied casually.
At that moment, a mud-covered officer approached Caesar and saluted. He was a centurion of the engineer cohort now dismantling the bridge, and he was out of breath from climbing up the hill from the ravine.
“The work is slow-going, General,” he reported. He was helmetless and had the look of exhaustion, as did his men. They had repaired the bridge three separate times that day, after portions of it had given way, sending several legionaries and several teams of mules to their deaths in the rocky crevasse below. “It will be well after sundown before we finish. Even then, sir, I doubt we can salvage all of it.”
“You are the primus pila of the engineer cohort, are you not?” Caesar said, more like an accusation than a question.
“Yes, General,” the tired man replied, standing up a little straighter at Caesar’s unsympathetic tone.
“Who is the second centurion in line?”
“Centurion Tertius Volcula, General.”
“Then you shall carry a message to Centurion Volcula. Tell him he is now primus pila, and he is to disassemble and pack that bridge before the last light leaves the western sky.”
The deflated centurion stared up at Caesar in disbelief, open-mouthed and unmoving.
“If you are as poor at relaying orders as you are at building bridges,” Caesar said contemptuously after seeing that the man did not move. “Then I can certainly have one of my orderlies deliver the message.”