The Blood of Gods A Novel of Rome - By Conn Iggulden Page 0,17
was there, his mouth sagging open.
‘Publius Servilius Casca sliced this wound across the first,’ Mark Antony went on. With a savage movement, he sawed at cloth and wax with his blade. He was already panting, his voice a bass roar that echoed from the buildings all around. ‘His brother, Gaius Casca, stepped in then as Caesar fought! He thrust his dagger … here.’
Over by the senate house, the Casca brothers looked at each other in horror. Without a word, both men turned away, hurrying to get out of the forum.
Sweating, Mark Antony pulled back the sleeves of the toga, so that the mannequin’s right arm was revealed. ‘Lucius Pella made a cut here, a long gash.’ With a jerk of his blade, Mark Antony sliced the wax and the crowd moaned. ‘Caesar still fought! He was left-handed, and he raised his bloody right arm to hold them off. Decimus Junius slashed at him then, cutting the muscle so that the arm fell limp. Caesar called for help on the stone benches of Pompey’s theatre. He called for vengeance, but he was alone with these men … and they would not stop.’
The crowd surged forward, driven almost to madness by what they were seeing. There was no logic in it, simply a growing, seething mass of rage. Just a few senators still stood by the senate house and Mark Antony saw Cassius turn to go.
‘Gaius Cassius Longinus stabbed the Father of Rome then, shoving his thin arms into a gap between the others.’ With a grunt, Mark Antony punched the blade into the wax side through the toga, leaving the cloth torn as the knife came out. ‘The blood poured, drenching Caesar’s toga, but still he fought! He was a soldier of Rome and his spirit was strong as they struck and struck at him!’ He punctuated his words with blows, tearing ribbons from the ruined toga.
He broke off, gasping and shaking his head.
‘Then he saw a chance to live.’
His voice had dropped and the crowd pushed even closer, driven and wild, but hanging on every word. Mark Antony looked across them all, but his eyes were seeing another day, another scene. He had listened to every detail of it from a dozen sources and it was as real to him as if he had witnessed it himself.
‘He saw Marcus Brutus step onto the floor of the theatre. The man who had fought at his side for half their lives. The man who had betrayed him once and joined an enemy of Rome. The man Julius Caesar had forgiven when anyone else would have had him butchered and his limbs scattered. Caesar saw his greatest friend and for a moment, for a heartbeat, in the midst of those stabbing, shouting men, he must have thought he was saved. He must have thought he would live.’
Tears came to his eyes then. Mark Antony brushed them away with his sleeve, feeling his exhaustion like a great weight. It was almost over.
‘He saw that Brutus carried a blade like all the rest. His heart broke and the fight went out of him at last.’
Centurion Oppius was standing stunned, barely holding the figure of wax. He flinched as Mark Antony reached over and yanked a fold of the purple toga over the figure’s head, so that the face was covered.
‘Caesar would not look at them after that. He sat as Brutus approached and they continued to stab and tear at his flesh.’
He held his dark blade poised over the heart and many in the crowd were weeping, men and women together as they waited in agony for the last blow. The moaning sound had grown so that it was almost a wail of pain.
‘Perhaps he did not feel the final blade; we cannot know.’
Mark Antony was a powerful man and he punched the blade up where the ribs would have been, sinking it to the hilt and cutting a new hole in the ragged cloth. He left the blade there, for all to see.
‘Set it down, Oppius,’ he said, panting. ‘They have seen all I wanted them to see.’
Every pair of eyes in the crowd moved to follow the torn figure as it was laid down on the platform. The common people of Rome visited no theatres with the noble classes. What they had witnessed had been one of the most powerful scenes of their lives. A sigh went around the forum, a long breath of pain and release.