The Blood of Gods A Novel of Rome - By Conn Iggulden Page 0,71

was rough with stubble. He was in no mood to be challenged by Legate Buccio that morning.

‘Why have you countermanded my orders and called a halt?’ he demanded. ‘You can rest when we reach the city.’

Four legions continued to march doggedly down the last miles of the Via Appia, while Buccio’s legion stood with their heads down in ranks, looking shattered. They had marched all night, passing another twenty-two of the milestones after the thirty they had managed the day before.

The legate saluted properly, though his eyes were red with exhaustion.

‘I did try to warn you, sir. I did not want to go sneaking off in the night.’ He took a deep breath. ‘My legion will not go further with you, sir.’

Mark Antony gaped at him, unable to understand at first what the legate was saying so calmly. When he took it in, the consul’s jaw firmed and he dropped his hand to the sword hilt sticking up by his right thigh.

‘I have four legions I can call back, Legate Buccio. Obey my orders or I will see you strung up.’

‘I regret, Consul, that I cannot obey that order,’ Buccio replied. To Mark Antony’s shock, the man smiled as he went on. ‘The Ninth Macedonia will not take arms against a Caesar.’

Mark Antony became aware that their conversation was being closely watched by Buccio’s men. As his gaze drifted over them, he saw they were standing like dogs on a rope, ready to lunge forward. Their fingers moved on the hafts of spears and they did not look away. He could not order his guards to take Buccio into custody. The barely checked aggression of the legionaries made clear what would happen if he tried.

Mark Antony leaned down from his saddle, dropping his voice so that it would not carry to the waiting men.

‘No matter how this turns out, Buccio, no matter what happens at the city, there is no force in Rome that does not punish mutiny and treason. You will not be trusted again. The Ninth Macedonia will be struck from the Senate rolls and disbanded, whether by me or by the Senate themselves. Will you have your men become brigands, homeless traitors unable to sleep anywhere without the fear of attack? Think about that before you go too far along the path and I can no longer save you from your own foolishness.’

The words struck Buccio like blows, but his mouth tightened to a pale line.

‘They and I are of one mind, Consul. They can be pushed only so far and then they must be led, just as you told me.’

Mark Antony glared to have his own words repeated to him.

‘Then I hope we meet again,’ he said, ‘in better times.’

The consul turned his horse and jerked his head for the guards to follow him. He had lost two legions and he could read the wind well enough. He clenched his jaw as he rode after the ones he still had left.

By the time Buccio’s legion marched up the Via Appia, some hours later, Mark Antony had left the road to head north, taking a wide line around the city. The legate halted briefly at the signs of their passing, a great swathe of trampled and muddy grass showing the tracks of twenty thousand men disappearing into the distance. Buccio nodded to himself, then summoned his own extraordinarii rider.

‘Ride ahead, to Caesar. Let him know the Ninth Macedonia are with him. Tell him Consul Mark Antony no longer comes to Rome. And if you see Legate Liburnius, tell him he owes me a drink.’

As the rider galloped off on the stone road, Buccio’s tribune came up. Patroclus was a young noble, barely twenty years of age, and from one of the better families in Rome. He watched the rider dwindling into the distance.

‘I hope Caesar appreciates what we’ve risked in his name,’ Patroclus said. The man had a pink lump with a white head on his eyelid that had swelled his eye almost closed. He scratched irritably at it as he spoke.

‘You can have that steamed out in Rome, Patroclus,’ Buccio said.

‘I am not worried about my eye, sir, just the rest of me. My mother will collapse when she hears I’ve mutinied.’

‘You have mutinied for Caesar,’ Buccio said softly. ‘You have placed your faith in him, for the man and his adopted son, over the Senate that murdered him. That is not the same thing at all.’

The atmosphere in Pompey’s theatre was sulphurous, filled with panicky