for the Future. I replied that I had nothing to forgive, and that I would ever value his counsel as I had always valued it, that he stood where he had always stood in my esteem and gratitude, and that I hoped the sea air would correct his disorders. I never saw him again. He was the saddest of men, one who had seen greatness beckon and failed to grasp the God's proffered hand. He failed because he disdained the true source and nature of power, and thought cleverness a substitute for vision; in the end he had no faith in his own destiny.
THREE
Agrippa never knew a day's illness (till he died). In contrast, as he told it, I spent my youth sneezing and expectorating, coughing, wheezing like a pair of holed bellows, shivering with ague sweating with fever, stricken by migraine, oppressed by bile, frequently unable to sit a horse or carry on a conversation that wasn't interrupted by nose-blowing, nose-bleeds or nausea. He exaggerated; he wasn't far wrong. I spent my first three weeks as consul and Caesar with a tortured throat, a runny nose, spots before the eyes and a high temperature. I was working eighteen hours a day. It is hard to concentrate when your shoulders are heavy with lassitude and your whole body trembles. But it was work I could not leave to my secretaries.
We advanced by slow stages north. Most of the march I had to be carried in a litter, and that experience taught me something about my relationship with the legions that I have never forgotten. Had I been Julius, or even Antony, they would have chanted ribald songs about my condition and mode of transport. As it was, they marched past the litter in respectful silence. I knew they trusted me, admired me even, were amused by what they regarded as my cunning – 'He's a smart bugger, our general,' they would say – but they did not love me. There was hardly a man except those I kept round my person at Headquarters who would die for me. The magnetism of my personality does not operate at any distance, as Julius' did. I mention this because success in great endeavours depends so much on a just appreciation of one's assets and defects. Neither of you, my dear boys, suffers in this way. But you have other peculiar problems and weaknesses; are you aware of them? 'Know thyself is the wisest of philosophical advice.
Yet – there is always a 'yet', a 'nevertheless' – such self-knowledge can be inhibitory. The man who has never examined his own mind and spirit acts with a spontaneity denied me.
(On the other hand Maecenas used to say that I was able to deceive others because I had first deceived myself. I don't think he was right. I record his view merely as evidence of that diversity of interpretation that makes judgement of our fellows so difficult.)
We halted in a plain on the south bank of the Po. The men, grumbling, pitched camp in the discomfort of a thin rain driving down from the mountains. With night the wind dropped and the river mist seeped through the camp. I sat wrapped in furs and sipped hot wine, aromatic with nutmeg, and still shivered. A slave read Homer to me till I sent him away. All round me the cold bustle of the camp made my tent's silence more acute. I called Maco to me. 'Are there lights across the river?' 'Too foggy to see, sir.' 'What's the men's mood?'
'Not good, sir. Puzzled like and apprehensive. They're afraid, that's what, sir, afraid of a battle, afraid of it all starting over again.' 'There will be no battle by my will.' 'Ah, sir, will… many a battle starts by accident… you should go to bed, sir, you really should…' 'I can't sleep…'
Waiting is always the worst. It was cockcrow when a cry came that a punt was edging across the river, and by then there were few voices in the camp, only the occasional challenge of a sentry or the cry of a man whose sleep was disturbed by fear. There came the swish of boots in the wet grass, the tent flap was thrown back and Agrippa and Marcellus came in.
'Lord,' said Agrippa, 'I'm tired, and I'll have a head tomorrow. It's all right though. The meeting's on. We held out for the island as the venue. The only point we gave way: he insists on Lepidus being there, wouldn't take no.'
'I see. He can control Lepidus, and the pair of them will always outvote me. Nevertheless, we accept. When is it fixed for?'
The day after tomorrow. Well, that's tomorrow by this time. At breakfast. That was a facer for Antony, breakfast, but he rallied.'
'As for Lepidus,' Marcellus said, 'your interpretation's obviously right. But there's one other factor, Antony doesn't fancy being alone with you. You ought to think of that, brother-in-law.'
'Thanks,' I said, 'I already had. You have done well, both of you. Now we can sleep.'
I almost called the meeting off. I had after all been denied sleep and my fever was worse. The doctor gave me a draught of some herbal concoction, which brought on immediate nausea, but then to my surprise calmed my pulse and dulled my headache. I still felt weak as a sick kitten, as my old nurse used to describe it. 'A half- drowned weak rat' she would also call me.
At first light Maco presented himself at my tent to find me still in my dressing-gown. He urged me to eat some bread, but one of the slaves brought me a sort of gruel, thin corn porridge mixed with honey, and I found that sufficiently reviving to dress.
The punt was poled out by a couple of Gallic mountaineers who didn't seem to mind being half-naked in the raw morning. In midstream it was still thick mist and the bow had almost touched the bank of the island before I was aware of land. Maco and the half-dozen guards we had agreed should make up the escort disembarked first. I followed with Agrippa, Maecenas, Marcellus and Rufus; we had left Philippus behind. My stepfather had served his purpose. There was no place for him in a conference of the leaders of Caesar's party.
Antony had not yet arrived – 'such a surprise' sighed Maecenas – but Lepidus was already waiting in the tent that would serve as reception centre and ante-chamber to the smaller one where we three principals would bargain. I had never met Lepidus before, as it happens, but I recognized him easily. He was quite remarkably handsome, with smooth utterly regular features and dark hair hardly touched with grey, that curled on his temples as if arranged for a sculptor to copy. He greeted us with ceremonious affability.
'So this,' he said to Marcellus whom he knew well, 'is the wondrous boy who has surprised us all.'
His voice was light, trilling and ingratiating; I disliked it intensely, and not merely for its note of patronage. I recalled that Cicero had described him to me as the most sordid and base of fellows: 'He takes hold of your elbow and mutters dishonourable filth in your ear.' I could well believe it and was glad to observe that the blandness he strove to display incompletely marked a lack of true ease. He couldn't stop talking and his hands fluttered from man to man, a press here, a squeeze there, a light deprecating touch on the next shoulder.
'We can't expect our great Antony on time, that's for sure,' he said. 'I wonder whom he tumbled last night… not Fulvia, that's for sure… though he's scared stiff of her, I have that on the very best authority… and how did you leave Rome, my dear Caesar… do you know it's over two years since I saw the city… I pine for it, that's for sure… but I'll tell you something, old boy,' he leaned over me, disgorging an unattractive scent of musk, 'not half as much as Markie Brutus must. You see, old boy, I know I'll feast on the Palatine again. He must be beginning to fear he never will, and serve him right, the poor sod.'
Yes, you see, my sons, he was a horrible man, and I am ashamed to have been associated with him for so many years.
I was on edge myself, wondering, as I had during the night, how Antony would greet me. Would he be embarrassed (as I was) by certain memories of Spain and by the insults we had traded for the last year? He had of course shown no sign of embarrassment in Rome? still it was different now. Would he resume the elder-brother tone he had first adopted when I joined Caesar's staff? Would he aim at being cold and statesmanlike?
He arrived in a swirl of purple and no apologies for his lateness. He embraced Lepidus and turned to me: 'You look ill,' he said, 'and not the pretty boy I knew in Spain. Well, we've put the last year's nonsense behind us and we'll soon put the roses back in your cheeks. You've done remarkably… I hadn't thought you had it in you.' He was intending to throw me off balance. I smiled and acceded to his proposal that we should cut the preliminaries short and get down to business. There was, as I said, a small tent set aside for the three of us. We would converse first in private and then summon slaves to whom we would dictate a statement. Though an agenda had been prepared by our aides, both Antony and I had been firm that the negotiations should be restricted to the three principals,
