Caesar's Women Page 3

  "Naturally."

  He had begun to get up, but sank back into his chair and plucked another pen from the cup, frowning. "She's interesting, that one." His head went to one side. "Her assessment of the Bibulus rumor was astonishingly accurate."

  "If you remember, several years ago I told you she was the most politically astute woman of my acquaintance. But you weren't impressed enough by what I said to want to meet her."

  "Well, now I have met her. And I'm impressed— though not by her arrogance. She actually presumed to patronize me."

  Something in his voice arrested Aurelia's progress to the door; she swung round to stare at Caesar intently. "Silanus is not your enemy," she said stiffly.

  That provoked a laugh, but it died quickly. "I do sometimes fancy a woman who is not the wife of an enemy, Mater! And I think I fancy her just a little. Certainly I must find out what she wants. Who knows? Maybe it's me."

  "With Servilia, impossible to tell. She's enigmatic."

  "I was reminded a trifle of Cinnilla."

  "Do not be misled by romantic sentiment, Caesar. There is no likeness whatsoever between Servilia and your late wife." Her eyes misted. "Cinnilla was the sweetest girl. At thirty-six, Servilia is no girl, and she's far from sweet. In fact, I'd call her as cold and hard as a slab of marble."

  "You don't like her?"

  "I like her very well. But for what she is." This time Aurelia reached the door before turning. "Dinner will be ready shortly. Are you eating here?"

  His face softened. "How could I disappoint Julia by going anywhere today?" He thought of something else, and said, "An odd boy, Brutus. Like oil on the surface, but I suspect that somewhere inside is a very peculiar sort of iron. Julia seemed rather proprietary about him. I wouldn't have thought he'd appeal to her."

  "I doubt he does. But they're old friends." This time it was her face softened. "Your daughter is extraordinarily kind. In which respect she takes after her mother. There's no one else from whom she could have inherited that characteristic."

  As it was impossible for Servilia to walk slowly, she went home at her usual brisk pace, Brutus still toiling to keep up, but without voicing a complaint; the worst of the heat had gone out of the sun, and he was, besides, once more immersed in hapless Thucydides. Julia was temporarily forgotten. So was Uncle Cato.

  Normally Servilia would have spoken to him occasionally, but today he may as well not have been with her for all the notice she took of him. Her mind was fixed on Gaius Julius Caesar. She had sat with a thousand worms crawling through her jaw the moment she saw him, stunned, blasted, unable to move. How was it that she had never seen him before? The smallness of their circle ought to have guaranteed that they met. But she had never even set eyes on him! Oh, heard about him—what Roman noblewoman hadn't? For most, the description of him sent them running to find any ploy which might introduce him to them, but Servilia was not a woman of that kind. She had simply dismissed him as another Memmius or Catilina, someone who slew women with a smile and traded on that fact. One look at Caesar was enough to tell her he was no Memmius, no Catilina. Oh, he slew with a smile and traded on that fact—no argument there! But in him was much more. Remote, aloof, unattainable. Easier now to understand why the women he indulged with a brief affair pined away afterward, and wept, and despaired. He gave them what he didn't value, but he never gave them himself.

  Owning a quality of detachment, Servilia passed then to analysis of her reaction to him. Why him, when for thirty-six years no man had really meant more to her than security, social status? Of course she did have a penchant for fair men. Brutus had been chosen for her; she met him first on her wedding day. That he was very dark had been as big a disappointment as the rest of him turned out to be. Silanus, a fair and strikingly handsome man, had been her own choice. One which continued to satisfy her on a visual level, though in every other respect he too had proven a sad disappointment. Not a strong man, from his health to his intellect to his backbone. No wonder he hadn't managed to sire any sons on her! Servilia believed wholeheartedly that the sex of her offspring was entirely up to her, and her first night in Silanus's arms had made her resolve that Brutus would remain an only son. That way, what was already a very considerable fortune would be augmented by Silanus's very considerable fortune too. A pity that it was beyond her power to secure a third and far greater fortune for Brutus! Caesar forgotten because her son had intruded, Servilia's mind dwelled with relish upon those fifteen thousand talents of gold her grandfather Caepio the Consul had succeeded in stealing from a convoy in Narbonese Gaul some thirty-seven years ago. More gold than the Roman Treasury held had passed into Servilius Caepio's keeping, though it had long ago ceased to be actual gold bullion. Instead it had been converted into property of all kinds: industrial towns in Italian Gaul, vast wheatlands in Sicily and Africa Province, apartment buildings from one end of the Italian Peninsula to the other, and sleeping partnerships in the business ventures senatorial rank forbade. When Caepio the Consul died it all went to Servilia's father, and when he was killed during the Italian War it went to her brother, the third to bear the name Quintus Servilius Caepio during her lifetime. Oh yes, it had all gone to her brother Caepio! Her Uncle Drusus had made sure he inherited, though Uncle Drusus had known the truth. And what was the truth? That Servilia's brother Caepio was only her half brother: in reality he was the first child her mother had borne to that upstart Cato Salonianus, though at the time she had still been married to Servilia's father. Who found himself with a cuckoo in the Servilius Caepio nest, a tall, long-necked, red-haired cuckoo with a nose which proclaimed to all of Rome whose child he was. Now that Caepio was a man of thirty, his true origins were known to everyone in Rome who mattered. What a laugh! And what justice! The Gold of Tolosa had passed in the end to a cuckoo in the Servilius Caepio nest.

  Brutus winced, wrenched out of his preoccupation; his mother had ground her teeth as she strode along, a hideous sound which caused all who heard it to blanch and flee. But Brutus couldn't flee. All he could hope was that she ground her teeth for some reason unconnected with him. So too hoped the slaves who preceded her, rolling terrified eyes at each other as their hearts pattered and the sweat suddenly poured off them.

  None of this did Servilia so much as notice, her short and sturdy legs opening and closing like the shears of Atropos as she stormed along. Wretched Caepio! Well, it was too late for Brutus to inherit now. Caepio had married the daughter of Hortensius the advocate, of one of Rome's oldest and most illustrious plebeian families, and Hortensia was healthily pregnant with their first child. There would be many more children; Caepio's fortune was so vast even a dozen sons couldn't dent it. As for Caepio himself, he was as fit and strong as were all the Cato breed of that ludicrous and disgraceful second marriage Cato the Censor had contracted in his late seventies, to the daughter of his slave, Salonius. It had happened a hundred years ago, and Rome at the time had fallen down laughing, then proceeded to forgive the disgusting old lecher and admit his slave-offspring into the ranks of the Famous Families. Of course Caepio might die in an accident, as his blood father, Cato Salonianus, had done. Came the sound of Servilia's teeth again: faint hope! Caepio had survived several wars unscathed, though he was a brave man. No, it was bye-bye to the Gold of Tolosa. Brutus would never inherit the things it had purchased. And that just wasn't fair! At least Brutus was a genuine Servilius Caepio on his mother's side! Oh, if only Brutus could inherit that third fortune, he would be richer than Pompeius Magnus and Marcus Crassus combined!

  Some few feet short of the Silanus front door both slaves bolted for it, pounded on it, vanished the moment they scrambled inside. So that by the time Servilia and her son were admitted, the atrium was deserted; the household knew Servilia had ground her teeth. She therefore received no warning as to who waited for her in her sitting room, just erupted through its entrance still fulminating about Brutus's ill luck in the matter of the Gold of Tolosa. Her outraged eyes fell upon none other than her half brother, Marcu
s Porcius Cato. Brutus's much-beloved Uncle Cato.

  He had adopted a new conceit, taken to wearing no tunic under his toga because in the early days of the Republic no one had worn a tunic under his toga. And, had Servilia's eyes been less filled with loathing of him, she might have admitted that this startling and extraordinary fashion (which he could prevail on no one to emulate) suited him. At twenty-five years of age he was at the peak of his health and fitness, had lived hard and sparingly as an ordinary ranker soldier during the war against Spartacus, and ate nothing rich, drank nothing save water. Though his short and waving hair was a red-tinged chestnut and his eyes were large and a light grey, his skin was smooth and tanned, so he contrived to look wonderful in exposing all of the right side of his trunk from shoulder to hip. A lean and hard and nicely hairless man, he had well-developed pectoral muscles, a flat belly, and a right arm which produced sinewy bulges in the proper places. The head on top of a very long neck was beautifully shaped, and the mouth was distractingly lovely. In fact, had it not been for his amazing nose, he might have rivaled Caesar or Memmius or Catilina for spectacular good looks. But the nose reduced everything else to sheer insignificance, so enormous, thin, sharp and beaked was it. A nose with a life of its own, so people said, awed into worship.

  "I was just about to go," Cato announced in a loud, harsh, unmusical voice.

  "A pity you hadn't," said Servilia through her teeth (which she did not grind, though she wanted to).

  "Where's Marcus Junius? They said you took him with you."

  "Brutus! Call him Brutus, like everyone else!"

  "I do not approve of the change this past decade has brought to our names," he said, growing louder. "A man may have one or two or even three nicknames, but tradition demands that he be referred to by his first and family names alone, not by a nickname."

  “Well, I for one am profoundly glad of the change, Cato! As for Brutus, he isn't available to you."

  "You think I'll give up," he went on, his tone now achieving its habitual hectoring mode, "but I never will, Servilia. While there is life in me, I'll never give up on anything. Your son is my blood nephew, and there is no man in his world. Whether you like it or not, I intend to fulfill my duty to him."

  "His stepfather is the paterfamilias, not you."

  Cato laughed, a shrill whinny. "Decimus Junius is a poor puking ninny, no more fit than a dying duck to have supervision of your boy!"

  Few chinks in his enormously thick hide though Cato had, Servilia knew where every one of them was. Aemilia Lepida, for example. How Cato had loved her when he was eighteen! As silly as a Greek over a young boy. But all Aemilia Lepida had been doing was using Cato to make Metellus Scipio come crawling.

  Servilia said, apropos of nothing, "I saw Aemilia Lepida at Aurelia's today. How well she looks! A real little wife and mother. She says she's more in love with Metellus Scipio than ever."

  The barb visibly lodged; Cato went white. "She used me as bait to get him back," he said bitterly. "A typical woman—sly, deceitful, unprincipled."

  "Is that how you think of your own wife?" asked Servilia with a broad smile, eyes dancing.

  "Atilia is my wife. If Aemilia Lepida had honored her promise and married me, she would soon have found out that I tolerate no woman's tricks. Atilia does as she's told and lives an exemplary life. I will permit nothing less than perfect behavior."

  "Poor Atilia! Would you order her killed if you smelled wine on her breath? The Twelve Tables allow you to do so, and you're an ardent supporter of antique laws."

  “I am an ardent supporter of the old ways, the customs and traditions of Rome's mos maiorum," he blared, the nose squeezing its nostrils until they looked like blisters on either side of it. “My son, my daughter, she and I eat food she has personally seen prepared, live in rooms she has personally seen tended, and wear clothing she has personally spun, woven and sewn."

  "Is that why you're so bare? What a drudge she must be!"

  "Atilia lives an exemplary life," he repeated. "I do not condone farming the children out to servants and nannies, so she has the full responsibility for a three-year-old girl and a one-year-old boy. Atilia is fully occupied."

  "As I said, she's a drudge. You can afford enough servants, Cato, and she knows that. Instead, you pinch your purse and make her a servant. She won't thank you." The thick white eyelids lifted, Servilia's ironic black gaze traveled from his toes to his head. "One day, Cato, you might come home early and discover that she's seeking a little extramarital solace. Who could blame her? You'd look so pretty wearing horns on your head!"

  But that shaft went wide; Cato simply looked smug. "Oh, no chance of that," he said confidently. "Even in these inflated times I may not exceed my great-grandfather's top price for a slave, but I assure you that I choose people who fear me. I am scrupulously just—no servant worth his salt suffers under my care!—but every servant belongs to me, and knows it."

  "An idyllic domestic arrangement," said Servilia, smiling. "I must remember to tell Aemilia Lepida what she's missing." She turned her shoulder, looking bored. "Go away, Cato, do! You'll get Brutus over my dead body. We may not share the same father—I thank the Gods for that mercy!—but we do share the same kind of steel. And I, Cato, am far more intelligent than you." She managed to produce a sound reminiscent of a cat's purr. "In fact, I am more intelligent by far than either of my half brothers."

  This third barb pierced him to the marrow. Cato stiffened, his beautiful hands clenched into fists. "I can tolerate your malice when it's aimed at me, Servilia, but not when your target is Caepio!" he roared. "That is an undeserved slur! Caepio is your full brother, not my full brother! Oh, I wish he was my full brother! I love him more than anyone else in the world! But I will not permit that slur, especially coming from you!"

  “Look in your mirror, Cato. All of Rome knows the truth."

  "Our mother was part Rutilian—Caepio inherited his coloring from that side of her family!"

  "Rubbish! The Rutilians are sandy-fair, on the short side, and quite lacking the nose of a Cato Salonianus." Servilia snorted contemptuously. "Like to like, Cato. From the time of your birth, Caepio gave himself to you. You're peas from the same pod, and you've stayed as thick as pea soup all your lives. Won't be parted, never argue— Caepio is your full brother, not mine!"

  Cato got up. "You're a wicked woman, Servilia."

  She yawned ostentatiously. "You just lost the battle, Cato. Goodbye, and good riddance."

  He flung his final word behind him as he left the room: "I will win in the end! I always win!"

  "Over my dead body you'll win! But you'll be dead before me."

  After which she had to deal with another of the men in her life: her husband, Decimus Junius Silanus, whom she had to admit Cato had summed up neatly as a puking ninny. Whatever was the matter with his gut, he did have a tendency to vomit, and he was inarguably a shy, resigned, rather characterless man. All of his goods, she thought to herself as she watched him pick his way through dinner, are on his countertop. He's just a pretty face, there's nothing behind. Yet that is so obviously not true of another pretty face, the one belonging to Gaius Julius Caesar. Caesar... I am fascinated with him, by him. For a moment there I thought I was fascinating him too, but then I let my tongue run away with me, and offended him. Why did I forget he's a Julian? Even a patrician Servilian like me doesn't presume to arrange the life or the affairs of a Julian....

  The two girls she had borne Silanus were at dinner, tormenting Brutus as usual (they deemed Brutus a weed). Junia was a little younger than Caesar's Julia, seven, and Junilla was almost six. Both were medium brown in coloring, and extremely attractive; no fear they would displease their husbands! Very good looks and fat dowries were an irresistible combination. They were, however, already formally betrothed to the heirs of two great houses. Only Brutus was uncommitted, though he had made his own choice very clear. Little Julia. How odd he was, to have fallen in love with a child! Though she did not usually admit it to
herself, this evening she was in a mood for truth, and acknowledged that Brutus was sometimes a puzzle to her. Why for instance did he persist in fancying himself an intellectual? If he didn't pull himself out of that particular slough, his public career would not prosper; unless like Caesar they also had tremendous reputations as brave soldiers, or like Cicero had tremendous reputations in the law courts, intellectuals were despised. Brutus wasn't vigorous and swift and outgoing like either Caesar or Cicero. A good thing perhaps that he would become Caesar's son-in-law. Some of that magical energy and charm would rub off, had to rub off. Caesar ...

  Who sent her a message the following day that he would be pleased to see her privately in his rooms on the lower Vicus Patricii, two floors up in the apartment building between the Fabricius dye works and the Suburan Baths. At the fourth hour of day on the morrow, one Lucius Decumius would be waiting in the ground-floor passage to conduct her upstairs.

  Though Antistius Vetus's term as governor of Further Spain had been extended, Caesar had not been honor-bound to remain there with him; Caesar had not bothered to secure a personal appointment, just taken his chances of a province in the lots. In one way it might have been enjoyable to linger in Further Spain, but the post of quaestor was too junior to serve as the basis for a great Forum reputation. Caesar was well aware that the next few years of his life must be spent as much as possible in Rome: Rome must constantly see his face, Rome must constantly hear his voice.

  Because he had won the Civic Crown for outstanding valor at the age of twenty, he had been admitted to the Senate ten years before the customary age of thirty, and was allowed to speak inside that chamber from the very beginning instead of existing under the law of silence until he was elected a magistrate of higher rank than quaestor. Not that he had abused this extraordinary privilege; Caesar was too shrewd to make himself a bore by adding himself to a list of speakers already far too long. He didn't have to use oratory as a means of attracting attention, as he carried a visible reminder of his near-unique position on his person. Sulla's law stipulated that whenever he appeared on public business, he must wear the Civic Crown of oak leaves upon his head. And everyone at sight of him was obliged to rise and applaud him, even the most venerable consulars and censors. It set him apart and above, two states of being he liked very much. Others might cultivate as many influential intimates as they could; Caesar preferred to walk alone. Oh, a man had to have hordes of clients, be known as a patron of tremendous distinction. But rising to the top—he was determined he would!—by bonding himself to a clique was not a part of Caesar's plans. Cliques controlled their members.