The City War by Sam Starbuck

Author:Sam Starbuck [Starbuck, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Riptide Publishing

The days passed slowly at the villa rustica. The men spent their time discussing philosophy, or rode and hunted. Brutus managed to catch two sinewy hares—not much meat to them, but tasty enough when roasted over a fire they kindled on the spot. Cassius kept his peace about the treason he’d proposed, for which Brutus was grateful. It was on his mind often enough already.

No matter how he turned it over in his head, it only made him feel sick and hollow. Cassius was a politician who understood power and hated its ill use, so perhaps he had the right of it. But Caesar was Princeps, and murder was murder. Brutus had killed often enough as a soldier and he’d sent men to die in war as a senator, but the city should have been safe from all that. Rome was inviolable.

And Caesar was Rome. And therein lay the problem.

He was out in the yard one afternoon, watching Tiresias exercise the horses, when Cassius appeared with a leather-wrapped bundle and a pair of clay lids from the big terracotta jars that held grain and olives and pickled fish in the kitchen storage room.

“What on earth have you got there?” Brutus asked, and Cassius grinned, laying the flat round lids aside. He unlaced the leather binding and rolled out two wooden practice swords and a pair of wooden pugio daggers, weapons of the kind young boys trained with before military service.

“I thought you might like a mock battle,” he said, tossing one of the swords to Brutus, who caught it by the thick, dull blade and flipped it around so the leather-bound grip smacked into his palm. Across the yard, Tiresias slowed his horse to a walk, neck craning to see what they were doing.

“Been a while since I handled one of these,” Brutus said, hefting the wooden sword from hand to hand, getting the weight of it—lighter than the bronze and steel gladii he’d carried over the years, with the balance closer to the hilt. He reached for one of the short daggers, falling into the classic defensive pose, sword arm raised, dagger cocked in his left hand. Cassius swung his wrist around, turning the sword casually to get the feel of it, and picked up one of the lids to use as a makeshift shield.

A pair of kitchen servants leaned out of the window, and a few more crowded the doorway of the side entrance to the villa, watching their masters. Tiresias had brought the horse to a stop, rising out of the stirrups; now he turned her back toward the stable, eyes never leaving Brutus and Cassius in the yard.

“Do you remember training together in the legions?” Cassius asked as Brutus circled one way and he moved the other.

“I remember everyone getting half-rations when you were caught buying sweet cakes from a prostitute when you should have been on patrol,” Brutus replied.

“I remember you were primipilus of the trainees, and you gave that order.”

Brutus grinned. “Be fair; I ate half-rations myself as well.

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