“There!” he said, raising his hands. “Here is your chance to strike a blow for Caesar, if that is what you wish. We are alone, and you are my superior at swordplay. Do as you will, Lucius.”
“I do not understand, sir.” Lucius eyed him with a circumspect glance.
“Is my meaning not clear? If you are Caesar’s man, slay me now.”
Lucius never once considered reaching for the blade.
“I need to know that I can trust you, Lucius. That you truly are a man of Rome and not some mindless adherent of the eloquent tyrant. Caesar will surely promise you the heavens, if only you obey him. Is it the promise of riches that decides the loyalties of Lucius Domitius? If so, then he is not the man I thought he was. Either way, I need to know right now, at this moment. Tell me, what kind of a man is Centurion Lucius Domitius?”
“Of course I will not harm you, sir. There is an agreement between us, is there not?”
“Yes, that is the point. You have provided me with the information that I needed, and your services are no longer required. Had my mother not raised a man of honor, I could have you killed now, and then I would not have to bother with my end of the bargain. Postumus told me to do as much. Did you not see him lean over to whisper in my ear as we were leaving?”
Libo then chuckled at the ambiguous look on Lucius’s face.
“Have no fear, Lucius.”
“Then you fully intend to release me?” Lucius asked, his eyes shooting once to the sword, a gesture that deflated the admiral’s smile and appeared to give him a brief moment of pause.
“That is what I wished to discuss with you, Lucius. Is your motivation simply to escape, or is it to do your duty? Most centurions I have encountered in my career, held duty and honor higher than life itself.”
“I’ll wager most of them are dead, sir.”
The admiral sighed heavily. “Then, perhaps I am pursuing the wrong course with you. Now that you know Antony was intentionally sending you to your death, do not the fires of revenge burn within your heart?”
“Antony has had it out for me for some time, sir.” Lucius shrugged. “But if I live long enough, and the fates allow, I will see that he gets his due recompense.”
“Forget the fates, Lucius. What if I can give you that chance tomorrow?”
Lucius looked at him sideways.
“You see, Lucius, it was not clear to me until that meeting tonight what we must do. Postumus, and his allies in the Senate, see this as nothing more than an opportunity to enrich themselves. They will claim they prevented the treasury from falling into the tyrant’s hands, but I suspect that, when this war is over, very little of it will ever make its way back to Rome. You are a man of the campaign, Lucius. You see what is going on here. Disease is rampant throughout my fleet. My captains throw more dead men to the sharks every day. The simple facts are, I am running out of food, and I am desperately short on water. I do not know how much longer I can stay at sea. As if that is not enough, the seas are especially wild this year. At any moment, a sudden storm might decimate my fleet and turn the tables in Antony’s favor. But tomorrow, Lucius – tomorrow I will have Antony under my hand. How can I accept the risk of letting him go? How can I gamble on Postumus’s plan working? And what is the underlying motivation for that plan, if not mere gold?”
“What do you wish me to do, my lord?”
“You know, Lucius, it is strange,” the admiral said, in an amiable tone that instantly put Lucius on his guard. “It truly is strange. Your name meant nothing to me, the first time I heard it. It wasn’t until the clerk called you Lucius Domitius of Spain that it dawned on me. I had seen your name before, though it was not until late last night, poring over these, that I made the connection.” Libo gestured to the stack of scrolls on the table. “Do you know what these are?”
“No, sir.”
“They are Caesar’s reports from the wars in Gaul and Britannia. You look surprised, Lucius. Yes, I have read them all many times over. It is wise for a commander to study his opponent. I found these particular copies in Bibulus’s own library. Knowing how much he loathed Caesar, I imagine he used them for the same purpose.” Libo then picked up the open scroll and looked it over. “This is the one. You are mentioned by name in it.”
“In there, sir?” Lucius was astonished.
“Where is it now?” The admiral scanned over the lines with one finger, stopping on one passage. “Ah, yes, here it is! From the report on the campaign against the Iceni in Britannia. In his simple prose, Caesar writes The Iceni made a spirited assault upon Caesar’s works, but were repulsed in due order. Centurions Vorenus and Pullo distinguished themselves at the threshold of the praetorian gate where they slew twenty of the enemy single-handedly. Later that same day, a legionary of the Seventh, one Lucius Domitius of Spain, slew the Iceni general with an arrow from a scorpion at a distance of over one hundred paces…and so forth and so on.” He looked up. “You had no idea that you had achieved such renown, did you? That you had earned a line in Caesar’s reports?”
“No, sir.”
“Is it true then?”
“More or less,” Lucius smiled slyly. “That was many years ago. It might have been an enemy knight, not the general. And it’s possible it was eighty paces, not one hundred.”
“Could you do it again?” The admiral was suddenly serious.
“To kill Antony?” Lucius replied, suddenly comprehending what Libo had in mind. “Under a flag of truce?”
Libo sighed heavily, and then sat down in the chair, pausing as if still not convinced of his mindset. “What I ask of you, Lucius, goes against every code I have ever sworn to live by. My personal honor can scarcely bear the thought of it, but I am afraid there is no other way. What are true leaders, if not those who must make decisions when there are no good decisions to be made? What does a man do when all of the choices that remain are bad ones, and every path leads to dishonor? If my name and memory are to be forever tainted by this one act, then so be it. If I am to be branded liar and duplicitous, then it is a small price to save our precious republic.
“It is clear to me that Postumus and whoever else he represents in the Senate have allowed themselves to be distracted from our one, true aim. This negotiation with Antony is more about securing the treasury than it is about saving our republic. I do not know who this Raven is, nor do I care. Whoever he is, he does not have Rome’s best interest at heart, so I fail to see why Postumus and the Senate have latched onto his plot hoping to capitalize on it. In my mind, it is very simple. Why negotiate when we can strike a strategic blow for the republic. The lewd Antony is second only to Caesar. If he dies, both the treasury and the legions will remain in Italy. Antony’s legions will lose heart.”
“Or be emboldened,” Lucius interjected, and then saw the admiral’s uncertain look. “Understand, my lord, I despise Antony for personal reasons, but the common soldiers, they adore him. Soldiers like to be amused, and they find his lewdness very amusing. Not to mention, they’ll regard this as an act of treachery.”
Lucius noticed that the mere mention of the word made the admiral wince perceptibly. He appeared to be undergoing great inner turmoil about his decision.
“It does not matter!” he snapped. “I did not arrange this meeting, nor did any legitimate representative of the Senate! Antony is an enemy of the republic, and when I encounter an enemy, I strike him down without mercy. I need to know only one thing, Centurion Domitius. Are you willing to kill Antony? Are you willing to kill the man who had planned the same for you?”