"I don't understand, my lord," Marcellus said suddenly, breaking Lucius away from his thoughts, and Lucius realized that the legate had been studying the medallions adorning the front of his armor. “Why this man?”
Antony furrowed his brow. "What’s there to understand? You have been gnawing at my bloody ear all day to give you a bodyguard. Well, here he is!" Antony was speaking in an oddly artificial manner, but Lucius could not discern the reason, nor if the poor actor of a general realized that Lucius was wise to it.
"Yes, of course," the legate said, eyeing Lucius uncertainly. "But, sir, I have misgivings about…"
"I don’t give a hyena’s testicle about your misgivings, man!” Antony said, suddenly angry. “This is the man I spoke to you about. One like Centurion Domitius will be enough. Besides, too many know about this, already."
“Might I speak with you for a moment in private, General?” Marcellus said rather abruptly, glancing once uncomfortably at Lucius.
Antony sighed, but nodded, and then, as Lucius waited, the two retired to the couch where Orestes sat, and all three men proceeded to exchange words in whispers, obviously not intended for Lucius’s ears. The naked Antony and the clothed legate did most of the talking, some of it appearing heated, while Orestes chimed in from time to time, never taking his eyes off of the moving flesh all around the room. Eventually, the legate appeared to concede on some crucial point, and then he rose and approached Lucius.
“My apologies, Centurion,” Marcellus finally said, his misgivings still visible on his face if not in his voice. “You are quite qualified to perform this task. I meant no insult to you.”
“Anything I need to know about, sir?”
“No.” The legate shook his head. “The general and I had a disagreement over a private matter – a matter quite separate from this one. You had best go prepare your kit. We will leave in the morning. Meet me at sunrise outside the Capena gate. And, please, do not tell anyone where you are going.”
Before he left, Lucius cast one look at Antony, who was still conversing with the distracted eunuch. The general caught his gaze and smiled back at him, but the earlier twinkle of merriment was now gone from Antony’s eyes. The smile was artificial and the eye malevolent, as it had looked years ago when Lucius crossed ways with him in Gaul.
Two days later, Lucius and Marcellus stood on the wharf in Brundisium Harbor waiting to board the galley that would carry them on the day-long journey across the sea to the Epirus shore.
"It should be a simple thing, Centurion." The legate assumed a stalwart tone, but it was a poor attempt to hide the trepidation he still felt. "Just over there, and then a day's ride, perhaps two."
The seemingly nerve-wracked Marcellus was garrulous, as if he still needed further convincing to go through with the mission. It made Lucius curious enough to probe.
"Quite a few ships fitting out for this, sir," Lucius said, gesturing at the activity in the harbor, where four dozen vessels of varying size were being loaded to the gills with troops, pack animals, and equipment – four cohorts from the Thirteenth Legion.
"Oh, they are not part of this," Marcellus was quick to say. "General Antony wishes to reinforce Caesar as soon as practicable. We are merely along for the ride."
More likely, Lucius thought, Antony needed a good story in case this venture went awry. Lucius surmised that Caesar knew nothing about it, and Antony was playing a dangerous game, using the pretense of sending a resupply convoy just to deliver his private message to …who? Jupiter only knew. Was he in communication with the Senate-in-exile? The message had not been written down and had existed only in Marcellus’s head.
Now, only a day later, Marcellus was dead. And now, the message Marcellus had been entrusted with lived only in Lucius’s head. As Lucius pulled and pushed on the oar, his brute strength added to that of four hundred others to thrust the Argonaut along on the dark sea, he pondered the meaning of the words Marcellus had whispered in his final breaths. In those last moments, the legate had revealed two items, one of which was perfectly logical, and the other perfectly meaningless, but Lucius was certain that neither had been mere gibberish brought on by loss of blood.
“I rejoice… at this change of events, Centurion,” Marcellus had said between lips painted red, as the gore-covered Lucius had knelt beside him on the corpse-laden deck. The legate had struggled to talk with the Greek captain’s javelin buried in his chest. “You are an upright soldier, Centurion, and I did not wish any harm to come to you… Upon my life, I did not… Forgive me, will you?”
Lucius had held the legate’s head in his bloody hands, hoping to glean more before the observers on the Optimates flagship had a chance to interfere. “Say on, sir.”
“Antony is a traitor… I leave it to you to carry my message… to whomever you deem worthy of it.”
“What message, sir?”
“Basada on the Ides, Centurion,” Marcellus strained to whisper.
Lucius leaned in closer, unsure that he had heard the words correctly. “I’m sorry, sir. What did you say?”
“Basada on the Ides,” he whispered again. “Tell him that, Centurion… Tell him.”
“Tell who, sir? To whom do I give this message?”
“The Raven.”
Marcellus smiled at the confused expression on Lucius’s face, and then violently coughed up a mixture of blood and saliva before his eyes rested on Lucius again. “Do not be deceived… Antony bears you ill will… You are a mighty warrior, my young friend. You have fought so valiantly to protect me today… but that is not the reason you were chosen for this task.”
“What was the reason?” Lucius demanded hurriedly, seeing that the legate was slipping away. He wanted to grab Marcellus and shake him, but he was afraid such an act might send the legate to the afterlife sooner. “And what is this Raven you speak of?”
“I bore instructions… to have you slain… once we reached Epirus… forgive me, Centurion… forgive me…”
The legate had said no more. His next breath had been his last, his hollow eyes staring into Lucius’s as one who had just touched another in a game of tag.
Lucius was not shocked to learn that Antony had wanted him dead. The bastard had been acting too amiable, considering their past. Years ago, Lucius had saved a Gallic slave girl from becoming another of the lecherous general’s conquests. The incident had caused Antony some embarrassment under the eyes of Caesar, and though Antony had never exhibited any outward signs of hatred toward Lucius over the slight, rumors had reached Lucius’s ears more than once that the general, in his drunker moments, cursed Lucius’s name. Lucius was only surprised that Antony had chosen to get his retribution now, in such an elaborate manner, and as a sideshow to what appeared to be an intrigue of much larger proportions.
Antony was clearly communicating with someone in Greece, but what exactly did Marcellus mean when he said that Antony was a traitor? Had he been referring to the plot against Lucius, or something much larger? A betrayal of Caesar, perhaps? Who, or what, was this Raven who waited in Epirus for the message Basada on the Ides? Lucius had never heard of any man that went by such a name.
After the storm, when Marcellus had lain sick in his hammock from the tossing seas, he had summoned Lucius and had given him a brightly-colored orange pennant which he instructed Lucius to have run up the transport’s mast. Lucius had complied, and had given the confused captain the same explanation Marcellus had given him, that the flag would ensure them safe passage should they run into any Optimates ships. Evidently, it had not worked. Whatever agreement Marcellus believed existed had not been communicated to the ships that had captured the transport. That was why Lucius had bristled when the naval officer in the blue cloak, the one who called himself Libo, took such an interest in him. There was something there, and Lucius suspected this Libo knew the significance of the orange flag, and thus something of the message Lucius carried in his mind. Was the message intended for him? Was he the one called the Raven? Perhaps, had this Libo succeeded in taking Lucius aboard his own ship, Lucius might have used the message to bargain for his freedom.