A Delivery to Caesar

Lucious lifted haggard eyes as Tiberius approached.

"I heard you lost Caesar’s cargo,” said Tiberius, sinking to the ground beside the fire.

Lucious scowled, snorted and swore under his breath. He was not feeling sociable.

Tiberius produced a heavily annotated wax tablet. "Three hundred iron cuirasses. Sixty bronze spears. A gladius for every man in Caesar’s legion," Tiberius listed. "By the Gods, what happened?"

Lucious dug thick fingernails into his palm. "We stacked everything into flat-bottom rafts. Not my idea,” he muttered, “My orders. Strapped fourteen horses to the rafts, seven on each side of the Meuse, pulling against the current.”

Lucious grasped an iron rod and dragged a heavy tankard of rust-colored ale from the fire’s embers. He drained the foul-smelling drink in two gulps.

“The river was swollen, pregnant with last night's rains. The slaves were sloppy—the towlines were poorly fastened. At a fierce bend, one set snapped free. Horses on the far bank were dragged to the dirt under the strain.” He belched. “The raft tipped—everything was lost. A fine offering to the river spirit.”

Tiberius put aside the wax tablet. "Flee, Lucious. Caesar will make an example of failure.”

“To where? Barbaric Britain? Enslaved Gaul? Egypt, where Mithra is unknown and so-called men bow before a fertility goddess? What of my honor, my dignitas?”

Tiberius leaned forward, solemn. “Then you must find some way to redeem yourself in Caesar’s eyes.”

#

The entrance to the Emperor’s tent opened, and the Parthian courier entered. Marching past the Praetorian Guard, he unfastened a linen sack and let the Roman head fall to the ground. Flakes of dried blood scattered before Caesar’s feet.

"I've never seen anything like it," cackled the courier. “A pathetic assassin. You have no right to ask for peace.”