Free The Ides of March by Valerio Massimo Manfredi, Christine Feddersen-Manfredi Page B

shot back Rufus.
    ‘See you when this is all over,’ Vibius promised.
    ‘If worse comes to worst,’ snickered Rufus, ‘there’s always Pullus. His mother must have been a goat. He’ll reach us wherever we get stuck.’
    He touched his heels to the horse’s flanks and set off along a barely visible trail that descended the mountainside, leading to the valley and the footbridge that crossed the Reno, which was glinting like a sword under the moon.
    Vibius went straight up the slope instead and headed towards the ridge, where he would find the short cut through the mountains that led towards Arezzo.

6
    Romae, a.d. VII Id. Mart., hora sexta
    Rome, 9 March, eleven a.m.
Titus Pomponius Atticus to his Marcus Tullius, hail!
I received your letter the other day and have meditated at length on what you’ve told me. The thoughts which trouble you in this crucial moment are many and of a complex nature. Nonetheless I feel that you cannot shun the role that the best men of this city have ascribed to you. You must not let it worry you that your merits in the course of past events have gone unacknowledged in Brutus’s writings, which I myself have read recently. What he says is dictated by the love he feels for his wife, a woman who is as wise as she is charming, but above all the daughter of so great a father, whom she held in such high esteem. Whoever loves his homeland and is grateful to those who defend it certainly knows what a debt of gratitude is owed to you and knows that you are a model to be held up to the new generations that will one day succeed us.
If I can, I will pay you a visit shortly after you have received this letter, entrusted to the messenger you know so well.
Take care of yourself.
    M ARCUS T ULLIUS C ICERO placed his friend’s letter, which he’d received the day before, in a drawer with others and sighed. He hoped the promised visit would take place soon. He’d never felt such a great need to speak to Titus Pomponius in private, to have the comfort of his opinion, his advice. He knew that his friend had long ago decided to keep out of the civil conflict and in the end he couldn’t blame him. The confusion had been enormous, decisions difficult and consequences almost always unpredictable, and the situation had certainly not improved with Caesar assuming full powers.
    The conqueror of Gaul had seized upon completely marginal events as a pretext for invading the metropolitan territory of the republic at the head of an army, committing an act that violated every law, tradition and sacred boundary of Rome. At first Cicero had seen Caesar’s assumption of power as the lesser evil and had even gone so far as to declare, in one of the last sessions of the Senate, that if Caesar were in danger the senators themselves would be the first to defend his life. But now he understood that discontent was rife and he realized that the defence of civil liberties could not be subordinated to the desire – no matter how legitimate and understandable – for peace and tranquillity that most of Rome’s citizens yearned for.
    Just then his secretary walked in. Tiro had been his right hand for many years and now, at the age of fifty-nine, he enjoyed Cicero’s complete and unconditional trust. Nearly bald, he walked with a limp because of arthritis in his right hip and appeared older than he was.
    ‘Master,’ he began.
    ‘You’ve been a free man for a long time now, Tiro, you mustn’t call me master. I’ve always asked you not to.’
    ‘I wouldn’t know how else to address you. The habits of a lifetime become part of us,’ the secretary replied calmly.
    Cicero shook his head with the hint of a smile. ‘What is it, Tiro?’
    ‘Visitors, sir. A litter is approaching from down the road. If my eyes don’t deceive me, I would say it is Titus Pomponius.’
    ‘At last! Quickly, go to meet him and bring him here to my study. Have the triclinia prepared. He’s sure to stay for lunch.’
    Tiro bowed and went towards