Chapter Text
Antony remembered Cassius telling him that these survivor types made generals who got the most complaints and the fewest deserters. Because the soldiers liked the idea of staying alive to curse them.
It was self-justifying, which was what Antony said, and it was entirely correct, and Antony told him that too, and since they were sounding like a bunch of fucking philosophers anyway, he told Cassius that any general knew that his true position was the one given by the army, not by whoever happened to be the consul for the day. Or something.
The details were lost in the haze now, and Antony did not want to follow the trail of memory for fear it would lead all the way back to the broken fountain on Esquiline Hill. Instead, he had another trail to follow, a real one, made of beaten sand, well-lit by the moon and starlight.
The guards had been trained well enough not to let Antony slip through, but just then, a messenger rode in, probably bringing Agrippa some belated accounting of their frustrating draw of today. Antony received the salute and marched on without waiting for the message, imperiously nodding his approval, for all the world as if he routinely checked the guard posts at night.
It’s not that the guard knew that he didn’t, and Antony would make sure to greet him again on his return, to do away with any doubts that might have been lingering in the boy’s mind – after all, if the great Mark Antony had been up to something shady, he’d surely have been more secretive.
Now, it was only the desert in front of him, busy with little lights and snippets of conversations, messengers riding in and out, a late supply train plodding along from their own auxiliary camp, well behind the main one, scouts emerging from the shadows and jogging towards the gates. The familiar bustle of an army restocking between the battles hitting Antony with a sharp, searing pain of memory.
It was getting cold already, and he could almost see the frozen river ahead, smell the smoke from the tents behind and feel the utter certainty that he needed but turn around, and Caesar would be standing there, watching Antony’s desperate gamble with a crooked smile that used to be enough for Antony to carry the day.
Antony didn’t turn. Because he knew it was just the wind in the desert and all the ghosts it had carried from Rome, and perhaps, because he wanted to feel that certainty just for another heartbeat before it dissipated into the wind.
His current commander was no Caesar, though he liked to style himself as one, and his business was not with the Gauls, but with Cassius tonight.
With the enemy, who would hopefully be sufficiently intrigued to allow Antony to say his piece, even if at swordpoint. All would have to hinge on Cassius’s decision. Antony was no fool to think that Cassius would be swayed by him, but perhaps, even Brutus’ implacable vengeance would have to take second place if Cassius still put his army first.
Antony needed Cassius to remember Carrhae and Pharsalus, not Rome, and wished that among the multitude of fractious deities there was one dedicated to making hard decisions in order to survive. If only Ulysses had become a demigod, Antony mused, walking past a copse of gnarled trees, considering getting a drink from the spring that would inevitably be there. Then Antony would have someone to pray to, and he was becoming increasingly convinced that he could really use some help from the man of many disguises.
Antony knew he was a rash, determined idiot, just like he’d always been. More likely than not he was going to end up stabbed by a tired legionary before he even got to the negotiations – and if he made it that far, there was a fair chance he’d meet his end at Cassius’s sword.
Antony wasn’t going to agree to be ransomed – he’d rush straight at them, if it came to that. Straight at Brutus, because that would ensure that Cassius would rush him and cut him down on the spot, and then, maybe, just maybe, spare his legions, and that would be success enough. In any case, he doubted Octavian had put any real value on his life, and he wasn’t going to blame the boy for being realistic.
Even though Antony could see the firelight in the Liberators’ camp along the horizon, it was still far enough ahead that he wasn’t really worried about running afoul of a sentinel. The shrubs gave way to a small, pitiful oasis, with a spring barely trickling from a rock. Not enough water, nor shade, for a camp, which explained while the army was stationed still a good half an hour walking ahead, if Antony remembered the maps correctly.
At first, the sound seemed to have come from the black twisted arms of the tangled bushes, and in the eerie light made Antony think of lemures, of unburied shades retracing his footsteps. Even though the day’s battle had taken place on the other side of the plain, Antony had been personally responsible for enough dead to be able to lead a respectable cohort of ghosts. If he turned around as sharp as he could, could he catch a glimpse at them? Was he arrogant or merely pitiful to wish to be haunted?
Before he could try it, the sound resolved itself into a low voice, muttering something unintelligible between muffled sobs.
Antony crept closer, following a narrow path away from the stream, until he saw a hunched figure of a man, kneeling in a clearing barely sufficient to fit him and his sword, which was carelessly thrown to the side. The man’s voice was breaking in a litany of raw grief.
He looked gangly and disheveled, but unhurt, and so fucking young. Not yet of age for a quaestorship, but more than old enough to kill and die. Perhaps a recent recruit to yet another civil war, after who knows how many members of his family had perished in the ones that had preceded it.
Antony had led so many of them into battle. Some of them had even made it out alive. Some of those, now, were among his most trusted soldiers.
Antony’s own cloak got entangled on some spiky succulent, and he must’ve made a sound while trying to free it, because the kneeling man stopped crying in an instant, jumping up and in one liquid movement grabbing his sword and swinging it towards Antony in a perfect arc, almost knocking him over before he clumsily parried with his own blade.
“I.. didn’t… mean to… disturb you,” Antony spat out between blocking vicious lunges. His opponent must’ve been embarrassed, but was it really reason enough to immediately try to kill Antony? Admittedly, he wasn’t half bad at swordfighting; and, though certainly younger than Antony, not actually that young despite the slender frame.
He was also holding himself back.
There was a time when Antony used to spar often enough that he could gauge the skill of his opponent almost before the first attack. That time was long in the past and far in the North, but some of the skill had remained, and Antony was becoming increasingly sure that if his opponent had deigned to bother, he’d be one step away from getting skewered.
Instead, Antony was winning, slowly and inexorably – and not at all how he typically won his fights.
Antony ducked once again and pretended to move into an overhead cut, instead turning sideways to step behind a bush.
“Stop!” he panted. “Stop – I, I didn’t mean to overhear. My business isn’t with you…”
“Mine is,” growled the man, his face so puffy with crying that Antony could see it even in moonlight, and attempted another straightforward slash easily deflected by Antony.
Finally, Antony saw an opening, and sprang backwards, disentangling himself.
“If you want to die that much, take care of it yourself!” he shouted in frustration. He wanted to grab the idiot by the shoulders and shake him until he crumbled apart.
He half-wanted to cry, without any clear reason, except that it was becoming obvious that something irreparable had happened, and it was going to crash down on Antony any moment now.
The young man froze, his face finally resolving in the moonlight.
“You,” Antony growled, stepping back.
“What the fuck are you doing here? Came to gloat?” the man – Messalla – spat back at him.
Of course this had to be fucking Messalla, Antony clearly remembered his name on a proscription list, did he put it there? Did Octavian?
Messalla with his pretenses at being a great orator, if not a poet, with his endless speeches in imitation of his beloved Cicero, and, Antony had to admit, half a chance at making a decent commander, after a decade or so. Men trusted this Messalla, and even Antony didn’t bother hunting him down once he had heard of his defection.
“Can’t see how that’s your business,” Antony growled to gain time.
Now that he thought of it, he didn’t really have an explanation. Goint into an enemy camp to conduct negotiations? His plan appeared increasingly absurd as soon as he had to put it in words.
What had really driven him here, across the desert?
On second thought, perhaps the gods had decided to back yet another half-assed plan of Antony’s.
Messalla may have been prone to belabored poems, but he didn't have the reputation of a weakling. He must’ve lost someone important to grieve this much. A lover? A family member? Antony had no idea if anyone in Messalla’s family was still alive. Which was irrelevant – the important part was that Messalla could become Antony’s guide straight to the command tent, if Antony played him right, and Antony wouldn’t even need to lie.
“Anyway, what’s to gloat about? Last I heard, we’ll be back to the same fucking field tomorrow. Which is why I’m here, in a way...”
“To demand your ransom?” Messalla drew himself up and looked straight into Antony’s eyes. “You vulture, do you want to be paid in blood?”
Messalla turned to pick up his sword, but Antony was faster in grabbing his wrist with his left hand and punching straight under the ribcage with his right. As the young man bent down heaving, Antony grabbed his other arm and pushed him in front of himself, locking his own elbows.
Messalla was pure muscle and bone, the leanness of hunger and desperation, so different from Antony’s heavier frame.
“What ransom? What blood? Why would I bother -” Antony hissed, feeling as if the whole world had taken a step backwards, dislodging him, and he was beginning to slide into confusion.
Last he checked, they’d neither captured nor lost anyone important. Was Messalla thinking that he was someone else? Had he become someone else, on the way between the camp and this decrepit shrubbery?
“Didn’t you take his body?” Messalla continued.
“Whose body?” Antony barked in frustration. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Instead of getting in a good kick, Messalla abruptly ceased to struggle, swallowing hard and giving Antony a look of such pure vehemence that he almost dropped his hold.
“Our commander’s body,” he said, his voice hitching at the end. “Cassius.”
Corpus imperatoris nostri.
The words kept ringing in Antony’s skull, looking for the exit, as a part of his mind calmly registered him dropping Messalla, stepping backwards, stumbling over a rock, catching himself and sitting down, hard, straight on the ground.
Didn’t he feel like the world no longer fit around him, a moment ago? Perhaps he was dead, and this was a torment devised by the shades.
Perhaps he will be, soon, now that Messalla was free to grab the sword and run him through.
Imperator noster.
It simply didn’t make any sense. Antony knew his troops didn’t manage to cut through anywhere close to Cassius. Anyway, if Cassius were killed, all his camp would be drinking in triumph, and Octavian would be composing a letter to Brutus demanding surrender.
Meanwhile, Antony would be –
He would be –
Somehow, it wasn’t that he couldn’t imagine himself doing anything, it was that he couldn’t imagine himself at all.
There was no reason to dwell on this mad idea, anyway. Had Messalla’s brain been addled by the battle? It happened sometimes to green recruits, but Messalla must’ve had seen more than enough death before even coming here.
“Look, I’m damned sure we didn’t kill – your commander, because of all people, I should know if we did! Brutus made sure to keep us pretty well occupied.”
“I suppose you can thank me for that,” Messalla said, with just a shadow of a smile crossing his lips. “He told me to stay with Brutus.”
“Then how did he –“ Antony’s voice broke off.
Morituri vos salutant, he wanted to shout instead, into the night.
Those about to die salute you, and every day of the battle each of them could’ve died, but it was supposed to be a glorious charge, with all battlefield honors from the enemy commander, a burial of purple and flame, not a whispered rumor somewhere in the ass end of the world.
All Antony could see was a single branch of some tall shrub that kept swaying in the wind, blocking out the moon and Messalla’s face and revealing them to the silvery dusk again.
“He mistook our auxiliary for the enemy,” Messalla said, every word hitting with a dull thud that Antony could feel in his stomach.
“He thought that he’d lost, that it was time for a last stand. So he – he -”
Messalla didn’t seem to be able to say the word. It fell to Antony, then. It fell to him to say his name, too, the name he had whispered and he had moaned, and had tasted his own name in the mouth that was now filled with sand on the field of Philippi.
“So Cassius fell on his sword,” Antony finished the sentence.
That wasn’t a guess.
Antony could see him, tasked with saving yet another army, and knowing that the best he could offer them was a clean defeat. A surrender with honor, without the need for last stands. That’s what Cassius must have thought.
And him being completely, utterly, disastrously wrong did nothing to change the fact that he was dead, and Antony had to learn of his death this way.
“The fucking idiot,” Antony snarled, feeling the thinness of the sudden burst of rage.
He watched Messalla draw a dagger and swerve towards him.
So Carrhae had caught up with Cassius at last. The blind trust of the troops mixed with the fear of being abandoned, and images of fate that would await his army if he were captured. Except that Cassius knew Antony. Did he truly believe Antony would order his legions to butchery?
Well, what Cassius believed was useless speculation. Because Cassius was dead. And now Antony knew that there was no reason to sue for a truce. Because they would win the next encounter, and the next, and as many as it would take to win the war.
Antony stayed where he was, not even making a move to block the dagger, staring past Messalla’s face into the darkness hiding the horizon.
“You can avenge him,” he said.
Messalla caught himself in such a sudden halt that he swayed backwards.
“What was it that you told me, earlier?” he said. “Take care of it yourself.”
Imperator noster.
How would you wish to be remembered?
The moon had barely moved in the sky since Antony had first seen this little oasis, but time here seemed not as much to slip as to step aside, waiting for the conversation to finish.
And the next morning they would ride out to battle, and the armies would stand across from each other, and Antony would be on the right with Agrippa on the left, and Brutus would be on the right while on the left, facing Antony –
He doubted there would be any ghosts. The desert was too harsh for them, all sharp rocks and jagged shadows. Too far from home.
“I am going to win,” Antony felt proud of how his words came out, clear, crisp, well-measured.
“We’ll face each other again tomorrow, and the day after, the entire month, if we need to, but I am going to win, and you should join me. Afterwards.”
He swallowed hard.
“Try to stay alive, until the truce is signed. Keep your men alive, as much as you can. Even if it’s a defeat, it doesn’t have to be a slaughterhouse. Cassius kno… would’ve known that well. Cassius would’ve wanted you to -”
Cassius had clearly valued Messalla, if he had commanded him to take Brutus’s side. That was the one cohort that was bound to make it through, if anyone had.
Messalla sheathed the dagger and sat down on the sand within Antony’s reach.
“How are you so sure of that?” he asked with a different kind of desperation this time. Not fury, not denial, but the faintest trace of hope. That Antony was telling the truth.
All that had awaited Antony tonight was a walk back to his camp, and to his own tent, and a few unpleasant hours spent grilling the messengers about the battle reports he had missed, including, what had happened to Cassius’s body. He didn’t expect any actually useful information, and was in no hurry to begin the questioning.
There would have to be a celebration, something to inspire his troops. He’d ask Agrippa to take care of that.
Messalla was still waiting for a response. Tentatively, Antony stretched out his hand and gripped the young man's shoulder, steadying him, and, perhaps, finding a purchase point for himself too.
“Have you heard about Carrhae?” he asked. “Crassus’s great campaign, cost him his eagles and his life. Cassius was there too. Only, he came back...”
Messalla’s eyes, still swollen with tears, were fixed on Antony as if nothing more important existed in the entire sweep of the desert.
Antony kept talking.
He was no orator like his grandfather, his speeches after Caesar’s death notwithstanding – in those days he had been bursting with words that had remained, would forever remain unsaid, and he had turned them into a rallying cry. But he had heard enough from Cassius himself to paint a picture of a lost, defeated army on its endless way home. Alive, and fighting, and winning in the end, a bitter victory amidst the shadows of their dead. He spoke of Carrhae and of Pharsalus too, the last battle in a civil war that Messalla had been too young to fight, and another defeat, this time followed by a pardon, not victory.
Somewhere in the pauses between Antony’s sentences, the dark back alleys of Rome might have crept in, and the blood under the statue of Pompey, and the bitterness of being subjected to inescapable choices.
After a while, Messalla lifted his own hand and gently brushed Antony’s right cheek, just under his eye. His fingers came out wet, glistening in the pearlescent light.
Antony stopped halfway through a sentence to stare at Messalla, his mouth working around the words that he couldn’t quite voice.
After Messalla pulled him into an embrace, Antony’s shoulders shook for a long time.
They had been the children of proscriptions and civil wars, a generation of survivors, tossing around the bright spark of power until it burned them all. Brutus and Cassius, and Decimus Brutus too, and Curio and Trebonius who had once had a share in Antony’s affections, and Caelius, and Catullus with his scandals of poems, and Clodius the biggest headache of them all – and Mark Antony himself.
Now Trebonius was dead, and so were Curio and Caelius and Clodius and Catullus, and Cassius was dead, and Brutus was as good as dead, and Antony was the coward that would outlive them all, dragged into battle after battle like an aging gladiator in the arena, and wouldn’t even be allowed to mourn them openly. At the thought the tears came harder, and Antony could vaguely feel Messalla clutch him tighter, lost in his own private grief.
In the end, there was no need for words. They straightened their tunics, now soaked through at the shoulders, bowed to each other, clasped hands, held a little too long.
A small cloud was passing over the moon, now lying much closer to the rim of the endless horizon in this desert.
Antony gave Messalla a smile, feral and bitter and entirely forced, and turned around so that he wouldn’t have to see Messalla’s face.
Before dawn Antony was back in camp, where the messenger had been waiting him with glorious news of Cassius’s death.
Vici, Antony said, the syllables falling sharp enough to cut. I have won.
---
Twenty days later, Octavian was nonplussed when Antony went out into the field looking for Brutus’s body, brought it back wrapped in his own cloak, and demanded a burial with full honors.
Messalla had defected to Antony after the victory, and stood across from Antony at Brutus’s funeral pyre.
“How would you wish to be remembered?” Antony’s voice was drowned out by the crackle of the flames, and his eyes started tearing from the smoke.
“You told me that once, even if you’ve forgotten all about it afterwards. So this is for you too. For both of you. I hope they have some wine in Hades, and if they do, save some for me. Because it looks like I'll have to do a whole lot of remembering.”