The October Horse Read Online Free PDF Page A

shouted, keeping his vessel at a hailing distance.
    “The right of any man who comes in peace to buy water and provisions!” Caesar called, mouth twitching.
    “There's a spring seven miles west of the Eunostus Harbor—you can find water there! We have no provisions to sell, so be on your way, Roman!”
    “I'm afraid I can't do that, my good man.”
    “Do you want a war? You're outnumbered already, and these are but a tenth of what we can launch!”
    “I have had my fill of wars, but if you insist, then I'll fight another one,” Caesar said. “You've put on a fine show, but there are at least fifty ways I could roll you up, even without any warships. I am Gaius Julius Caesar Dictator.”
    The aggressive fellow chewed his lip. “All right, you can go ashore yourself, whoever you are, but your ships stay right here in the harbor roads, understood?”
    “I need a pinnace able to hold twenty-five men,” Caesar called. “It had better be forthcoming at once, my man, or there will be big trouble.”
    A grin dawned; the aggressive fellow rapped an order at his oarsmen and the little ship skimmed away.
    Publius Rufrius appeared at Caesar's shoulder, looking very anxious. “They seem to have plenty of marines,” he said, “but the far-sighted among us haven't been able to detect any soldiers ashore, apart from some pretty fellows behind the palace area wall—the Royal Guard, I imagine. What do you intend to do, Caesar?”
    “Go ashore with my lictors in the boat they provide.”
    “Let me lower our own boats and send some troops with you.”
    “Certainly not,” Caesar said calmly. “Your duty is to keep our ships together and out of harm's way—and stop ineptes like Tiberius Nero from chopping off his foot with his own sword.”
    Shortly thereafter a large pinnace manned by sixteen oarsmen hove alongside. Caesar's eyes roamed across the outfits of his lictors, still led by the faithful Fabius, as they tumbled down to fill up the board seats. Yes, every brass boss on their broad black leather belts was bright and shiny, every crimson tunic was clean and minus creases, every pair of crimson leather caligae properly laced. They cradled their fasces more gently and reverently than a cat carried her kittens; the crisscrossed red leather thongs were exactly as they should be, and the single-headed axes, one to a bundle, glittered wickedly between the thirty red-dyed rods that made up each bundle. Satisfied, Caesar leaped as lightly as a boy into the craft and disposed himself neatly in the stern.
    The pinnace headed for a jetty adjacent to the Akron theater but outside the wall of the Royal Enclosure. Here a crowd of what seemed ordinary citizens had collected, waving their fists and shouting threats of murder in Macedonian-accented Greek. When the boat tied up and the lictors climbed out the citizens backed away a little, obviously taken aback at such calmness, such alien but impressive splendor. Once his twenty-four lictors had lined up in a column of twelve pairs, Caesar made light work of getting out himself, then stood arranging the folds of his toga fussily. Brows raised, he stared haughtily at the crowd, still shouting murder.
    “Who's in charge?” he asked it.
    No one, it seemed.
    “On, Fabius, on!”
    His lictors walked into the middle of the crowd, with Caesar strolling in their wake. Just verbal aggression, he thought, smiling aloofly to right and left. Interesting. Hearsay is true, the Alexandrians don't like Romans. Where is Pompeius Magnus?
    A striking gate stood in the Royal Enclosure wall, its pylon sides joined by a square-cut lintel; it was heavily gilded and bright with many colors, strange, flat, two-dimensional scenes and symbols. Here further progress was rendered impossible by a detachment of the Royal Guard. Rufrius was right, they were very pretty in their Greek hoplite armor of linen corselets oversewn with silver metal scales, gaudy purple tunics, high brown boots, silver nose-pieced