Caesar (18 page)

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Curio was watching Fulvia, but he had been doing that for so many years that no one noticed. Admittedly she was eminently watchable, with her ice-brown hair, her black brows and lashes, her huge dark blue eyes. Several children had only added to her charms, as did a good instinct for what clothing became her. The granddaughter of the great demagogue aristocrat Gaius Gracchus, she was so sure of her place in the highest stratum of society that she felt free to attend meetings in the Forum and barrack in the most unladylike way for Clodius, whom she adored.

“I hear,” said Curio, wrenching his eyes away from his best friend's wife, “that the moment you're elected praetor you intend to distribute Rome's freedmen across the thirty-five tribes. Is that really true, Clodius?”

“Yes, it's really true,” said Clodius complacently. Curio frowned, an expression which didn't suit him. Of an old and noble plebeian family, Scribonius, at thirty-two Curio still had the face of a naughty little boy. His eyes were brown and gleamed wickedly, his skin was smothered in freckles, and his bright red hair stood up on end no matter what his barber did to smooth it down. The urchin look was strengthened when he smiled, for he was missing a front tooth. An exterior very much at odds with Curio's interior, which was tough, mature, sometimes scandalously courageous, and ruled by a first-class mind. When he and Antony, always boon companions, had been ten years younger, they had tormented Curio's ultra-conservative consular father unmercifully by pretending to be lovers, and between them had fathered more bastards than, said rumor, anyone else in history. But now Curio frowned, so the gap in his teeth didn't show and the mischief in his eyes was quite missing. “Clodius, to distribute the freedmen across all thirty-five tribes would skew the whole of the tribal electoral system,” he said slowly. “The man who owned their votes—that's you, if you do it—would be unstoppable. All he'd have to do to secure the election of the men he wanted would be to postpone the elections until there were no country voters in town. At the moment the freedmen can vote in only two urban tribes. But there are half a million of them living inside Rome! If they're put in equal numbers into all thirty-five tribes, they'll have the numbers to outvote the few permanent residents of Rome who belong to the thirty-one rural tribes—the senators and knights of the First Class. The true Roman Head Count are confined to the four urban tribes—they don't vote across all thirty-five tribes! Why, you'd be handing over control of Rome's tribal elections to a pack of non-Romans! Greeks, Gauls, Syrians, ex-pirates, the detritus of the world, all of them slaves in their own lifetimes! I don't grudge them their freedom, nor do I grudge them our citizenship. But I do bitterly grudge them control of a congress of true Roman men!” He shook his head, looked fierce. “Clodius, Clodius! They'll never let you get away with it! Nor, for that matter, will I let you get away with it!”

“Neither they nor you will be able to prevent me,” Clodius said with insufferable smugness.

A dour and silent man who had recently entered office as a tribune of the plebs, Plancus Bursa spoke up in his passionless way. “To do that is to play with fire, Clodius,” he said.

“The whole First Class will unite against you,” Pompeius Rufus, another new tribune of the plebs, said in a voice of doom.“ But you intend to do it anyway,” said Decimus Brutus.

“I intend to do it anyway. I'd be a fool if I didn't.”

“And a fool my little brother is not,” mumbled Clodia, sucking her fingers lasciviously as she ogled Antony. Antony scratched his groin, shifted its formidable contents with the same hand, then blew Clodia a kiss; they were old bedmates. “If you do succeed, Clodius, you'll own every freedman in Rome,” he said thoughtfully. “They'll vote for whomever you say. Except that owning the tribal elections won't procure you consuls in the centuriate elections.”

“Consuls? Who needs consuls?” asked Clodius loftily. “All I need are ten tribunes of the plebs year after year after year. With ten tribunes of the plebs doing whatever I command them to, consuls aren't worth a fava bean to a Pythagorean. And praetors will simply be judges in their own courts; they won't have any legislative powers. The Senate and the First Class think they own Rome. The truth is that anyone can own Rome if he just finds the right way to go about it. Sulla owned Rome. And so will I, Antonius. Through freedmen distributed across the thirty-five tribes and the ten tame tribunes of the plebs they'll return—because I'll never let the elections be held while the country bumpkins are in Rome for the games. Why do you think Sulla fixed Quinctilis during the games as the time to hold elections? He wanted the rural tribes—which means the First Class—to control the Plebeian Assembly and the tribunes of the plebs. That way, everybody with clout can own one or two tribunes of the plebs. My way, I'll own all ten.”

Curio was staring at Clodius as if he'd never seen him before. “I've always known that you're not quite right in the head, Clodius, but this is absolute insanity! Don't try!”

The women, who respected Curio's opinions greatly, began to shrink together on the couch they shared, Fulvia's beautiful brown skin paler by the moment. Then she gulped, tried to giggle, thrust out her chin pugnaciously.

“Clodius always knows what he's doing!” she cried. “He's got it all worked out.”

Curio shrugged. “Be it on your own head, then, Clodius. I still think you're mad. And I'm warning you, I'll oppose you.”

Back came the overindulged, atrociously spoiled youth Clodius had been; he gave Curio a look of burning scorn, sneered, slid off the couch he shared with Decimus Brutus, and flounced out of the room, Fulvia flying after him.

“They've left their shoes behind,” said Pompeius Rufus, whose intellect was on a par with his sister's.

“I'd better find him,” said Plancus Bursa, departing too.

“Take your shoes, Bursa!” cried Pompeius Rufus.

Which struck Curio, Antony and Decimus Brutus as exquisitely funny; they lay flat out and howled with laughter.

“You shouldn't irritate Publius,” said Clodilla to Curio. “He'll sulk for days.”

“I wish he'd think!” growled Decimus Brutus. Clodia, not as young as she once had been but still a most alluring woman, gazed at the three men with dark eyes wide. “I know you're all fond of him,” she said, “which means that you really do fear for him. But should you? He's bounced from one mad scheme to another all his life, and somehow they work to his advantage.”

“Not this time,” said Curio, sighing.

“He's insane,” said Decimus Brutus. But Antony had had enough. “I don't care if they brand the mad sign on Clodius's forehead,” he growled. “I need to be elected quaestor! I'm scratching for every sestertius I can find, but all I do is get poorer.”

“Don't tell me you've run through Fadia's money already, Marcus,” said Clodilla.

“Fadia's been dead for four years!” cried Antony indignantly.

“Rubbish, Marcus,” said Clodia, licking her fingers. “Rome is full of ugly daughters with plutocrat fathers scrambling up the social ladder. Find yourself another Fadia.”

"At the moment it's probably going to be my first cousin, Antonia Hybrida.

"They all sat up to stare, including Pompeius Rufus.

“Lots of money,” said Curio, head to one side.

“That's why I'll probably marry her. Uncle Hybrida can't abide me, but he'd rather Antonia married me than a mushroom.” He looked thoughtful. “They say she tortures her slaves, but I'll soon beat that out of her.”

“Like father, like daughter,” said Decimus Brutus, grinning.

“Cornelia Metella is a widow,” Clodilla suggested. “Old, old family. Many thousands of talents.”

“But what if she's like dear old tata Metellus Scipio?” asked Antony, red-brown eyes twinkling. “It's no trouble dealing with someone who tortures her slaves, but pornographic pageants?” More laughter, though it was hollow. How could they protect Publius Clodius from himself if he persisted in this scheme?

* * *

Though his beloved Julia had been dead now for sixteen months and his grief had worn itself out to the point whereat he could speak her name without dissolving immediately into tears, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus had not thought of remarriage. There was actually nothing to prevent his relocating himself in his provinces, Nearer and Further Spain, which he would be governing for another three years. Yet he had not moved from his villa on the Campus Martius, still left his provinces to the care of his legates Afranius and Petreius. He was also, of course, curator of Rome's grain supply, a job which he could use as an excuse for remaining in the vicinity of Rome; but in spite of Clodius's free grain dole and a recent drought, he had brought the grain supply so tidily into running itself that little was required of him. Like all publicly conducted enterprises, what it had needed was someone with a genius for organization and the clout to ride roughshod over those ghastly ditherers the civil servants. The truth was that the situation in Rome fascinated him, and he couldn't bear to leave until he had sorted out his own desires, his own priorities. Namely, did he want to be appointed Dictator? Ever since Caesar had departed for Gaul, the political arena of Rome's Forum had become steadily more undisciplined. Yet what that had to do with Caesar, he didn't honestly know. Certainly it wasn't Caesar causing it.

But sometimes in the midst of a white night he found himself wondering whether, were Caesar still here, it would have come to pass. And that was an enormous worry. When he had married Caesar's daughter he hadn't thought very much about her father, except as a consummately clever politician who knew how to get his own way. There were many Caesars in the public eye, tremendously wellborn, canny, ambitious, competent. How exactly Caesar had outstripped them all escaped him. The man was some kind of magician; one moment he was standing in front of you, the next moment he was on the far side of a stone wall. You never saw how he did it, it was so fast. Nor how he managed to rise, a phoenix from its ashes, every time his formidable coterie of enemies thought they had burned him for good. Take Luca, that funny little timber town on the Auser River just on the Italian Gaul side of the border, where three years ago he had found himself huddled with Caesar and Marcus Crassus and more or less divided the world. But why had he gone? Why did he need to go? Oh, at the time the reasons had seemed mountainous! But now, looking back, they seemed as small as ants' nests. What he, Pompey the Great, had gained from the conference at Luca he could have achieved unaided. And look at poor Marcus Crassus, dead, degraded, unburied. Whereas Caesar had gone from strength to strength. How did he do that? All through their association, which extended back to before his own campaign against the pirates, it had always seemed that Caesar was his servant. No one gave a better speech, even Cicero, and there had been times when Caesar's voice had been alone in supporting him. But he had never thought of Caesar as a man who intended to rival him. After all, Caesar had done things the proper way, everything in its time. He had not led legions and forced a partnership with the greatest man in Rome at a mere twenty-two years of age! He had not compelled the Senate to allow him to be consul before he so much as had membership in that august body! He had not wiped Our Sea clean of pirates in a single summer! He had not conquered the East and doubled Rome's tributes!So why now did Pompey's skin prickle? Why now did he feel the cold wind of Caesar's breath on the back of his neck? How had Caesar managed to make all of Rome adore him? Once it had been Caesar who drew his attention to the fact that there were stalls in the market devoted to selling little plaster busts of Pompey the Great. Now those selfsame stalls were selling busts of Caesar. Caesar was breaking new ground for Rome; all Pompey had done was plough a fresh furrow in the same old field, the East. Of course Caesar's remarkable dispatches to the Senate had helped—why hadn't it occurred to Pompey to keep his short, riveting, a kind of chronicle of events shorn of the slightest excess verbiage? Unapologetic? Full of mentions of other men's deeds, centurions and junior legates? Caesar's swept through the Senate like a briskly invigorating wind. They earned him thanksgivings! There were myths about the man. The speed with which he traveled, the way he dictated to several secretaries at once, the ease with which he bridged great rivers and plucked hapless legates from the jaws of death. All so personal!Well, Pompey wouldn't be going to war again just to put Caesar in his place. He'd have to do it from Rome, and before Caesar's second five years governing the Gauls and Illyricum was over.

He, Pompey the Great, was the First Man in Rome. And he was going to remain the First Man in Rome for the rest of his life, Caesar or no Caesar. They had been begging him for months to let himself be made Dictator. No one else could deal with the violence, the anarchy, the utter absence of proper procedure. Oh, it always went back to the abominable Publius Clodius! Worse than a parasite under the skin. Imagine it! Dictator of Rome. Elevated above the Law, not answerable for any measures he took as Dictator after he ceased to be Dictator. From a practical aspect Pompey had no doubt that he could remedy what ailed Roe; it was simply a question of the proper organization, sensible measures, a light hand on government. No, execution of dictatorial powers did not dismay Pompey in the least. What dismayed him was what being Dictator might do to his reputation in the history books, his status as a popular hero. Sulla had been Dictator. And how they hated him still! Not that he'd cared. Like Caesar (that name again!), his birth was so august that he hadn't needed to care. A patrician Cornelius could do precisely what he pleased without diminishing his prominence in the history books of the future. Whether they portrayed him as a monster or a hero mattered not to Sulla. Only that he had mattered to Rome. But a Pompeius from Picenum who looked far more a Gaul than a true Roman had to be very, very careful. Not for him the glory of patrician ancestry. Not for him automatic election at the top of the polls just because of the family name he bore. All that he was, Pompey had had to carve out for himself, and in the teeth of a father who had been a considerable force in Rome, yet was loathed by all of Rome. Not quite a New Man, but certainly not a Julian or a Cornelian. And on the whole, Pompey felt vindicated. His wives had all been of the very best: an Aemilia Scaura (patrician), a Mucia Scaevola (ancient plebeian), and a Julia Caesaris (top-of-the-tree patrician). Antistia he didn't count; he'd married her only because her father was the judge in a trial he hadn't wanted to take place. But how would Rome regard him if he consented to be Dictator? The dictatorship was an ancient solution to administrative woes, designed originally to free up the consuls of the year to pursue a war, and the men who had been Dictator down the centuries had mostly been patricians. Its official duration was six months—the length of the old campaign season—though Sulla had remained Dictator for two and a half years, and had not been appointed to free up the consuls. He had forced the Senate to appoint him instead of consuls, then proceeded to have tame consuls elected. Nor was it senatorial custom to appoint a dictator to deal with civil woes; for that, the Senate had invented the senatus consultum de re publica defendenda when Gaius Gracchus had tried to overthrow the State in the Forum rather than on the battlefield. Cicero had given it an easier name, the Senatus Consultum Ultimum. Infinitely preferable to a dictator because it did not, theoretically at any rate, empower one single man to do as he liked. For the trouble with a dictator was that the law indemnified him against all his actions while dictator; he could not afterward be brought to trial to answer for some action his fellow senators found odious. Oh, why had people put the idea of becoming Dictator in his head? It had been running round there now for a year, and though before Calvinus and Messala Rufus had finally been elected consuls last Quinctilis he had firmly declined, he hadn't forgotten that the offer had been made. Now the offers were being renewed, and part of him was enormously attracted to the prospect of yet another extraordinary command. He'd piled up so many, all obtained in the teeth of bitter opposition from the senatorial ultra-conservatives. Why not another one? And it the most important one? But he was a Pompeius from Picenum who looked far more a Gaul than a true Roman.