Caesar (3 page)

Like a lamp that's drunk all its oil... The words on the paper were blurred again; Caesar had to wait until his unshed tears went away. I ought not to have done it. He was so vulnerable, and I traded on that fact. He loved his father, and he was a good son. He obeyed. I thought I'd smoothed balm on the wound by having him to dinner and demonstrating not only the breadth of my knowledge of his work, but the depth of my literary appreciation for it. We had such a pleasant dinner. He was so formidably intelligent, and I love that. Yet I ought not to have done it. I killed his animus, his reason for being. Only how could I not? He left me no choice. Caesar can't be held up to ridicule, even by the finest poet in the history of Rome. He diminished my dignitas, my personal share of Roman glory. Because his work will last. Better he should never have mentioned me at all than to hold me up to public ridicule. And all for the sake of carrion like Mamurra. A shocking poet and a bad man. But he will make an excellent purveyor of supplies for my army, and Ventidius the muleteer will keep an eye on him. The tears had gone; reason had asserted itself. He could resume his reading.

I wish I could say that Julia is well, but the truth is that she's poorly. I told her there was no need to have children—I have two fine sons by Mucia, and my girl by her is thriving married to Faustus Sulla. He's just entered the Senate—good young fellow. Doesn't remind me in the least of Sulla, though. That's probably a good thing. But women do get these gnats in their minds about babies. So Julia's well on the way, about six months. Never been right since that awful miscarriage she had when I was running for consul. The dearest girl, my Julia! What a treasure you gave me, Caesar. I'll never cease to be grateful. And of course her health was really why I switched provinces with Crassus. I'd have had to go to Syria myself, whereas I can govern the Spains from Rome and Julia's side through legates. Afranius and Petreius are absolutely reliable, don't fart unless I tell them they can. Speaking of my estimable consular colleague (though I do admit I got on a lot better with him during our second than our first consulship together), I wonder how Crassus is doing out there in Syria. I have heard that he pinched two thousand talents of gold from the great temple of the Jews in Hierosolyma. Oh, what can you do with a man whose nose can actually smell gold? I was in that great temple once. It terrified me. Not if it had held all the gold in the world would I have pinched as much as one sow of it. The Jews have formally cursed him. And he was formally cursed right in the middle of the Capena Gate when he left Rome on the Ides of last November. By Ateius Capito, the tribune of the plebs. Capita sat down in Crassus's path and refused to move, chanting these hair-raising curses. I had to get my lictors to shift him. All I can say is that Crassus is storing up a mighty load of ill will. Nor am I convinced that he has any idea how much trouble a foe like the Parthians will give him. He still thinks a Parthian cataphract is the same as an Armenian cataphract. Though he's only ever seen a drawing of a cataphract. Man and horse both clad in chain mail from head to heels. Brrrr!I saw your mother the other day. She came to dinner. What a wonderful woman! Not least because she's so sensible. Still ravishingly beautiful, though she told me she's past seventy now. Doesn't look a day over forty-five. Easy to tell where Julia gets her beauty from. Aurelia's worried about Julia too, and your mama's not usually the clucking kind. As you know.

Suddenly Caesar began to laugh. Hirtius and Faberius jumped, startled; it had been a long time since they'd heard their crusty General laugh so joyously.

“Oh, listen to this!” he cried, looking up from the scroll. “No one's sent you this item in a dispatch, Hirtius!”

He bent his head and began to read aloud, a minor miracle to his listeners, for Caesar was the only man either of them knew who could read the continuous squiggles on a piece of paper at first glance.

“And now,” he said, voice trembling with mirth, "I have to tell you about Cato and Hortensius. Well, Hortensius isn't as young as he used to be, and he's gone a bit the way Lucullus did before he died. Too much exotic food, unwatered vintage wine and peculiar substances like Anatolian poppies and African mushrooms. Oh, we still put up with him in the courts, but he's a long way past his prime as an advocate. What would he be now? Pushing seventy? He came late to his praetorship and consulship by quite a few years, as I remember. Never forgave my postponing his consulship by yet another year when I became consul at the age of thirty-six.

Anyway, he thought Cato's performance at the tribunician election was the greatest victory for the mos maiorum since Lucius Junius Brutus— why do we always forget Valerius?—had the honor of founding the Republic. So Hortensius toddled around to see Cato and asked to marry his daughter, Porcia. Lutatia had been dead for several years, he said, and he hadn't thought to marry again until he saw Cato dealing with the Plebs. That night after the election he had a dream, he said, in which Jupiter Optimus Maximus appeared to him and told him that he must ally himself with Marcus Cato through a marriage.

Naturally Cato couldn't say yes, not after the fuss he created when I married Julia, aged seventeen. Porcia's not even that old. Besides which, Cato's always wanted his nevvy Brutus for her. I mean, Hortensius is rolling in wealth, but it can't compare to Brutus's fortune, now can it? So Cato said no, Hortensius couldn't marry Porcia. Hortensius then asked if he could marry one of the Domitias—how many ugly freckledy girls with hair like bonfires have Ahenobarbus and Cato's sister had? Two? Three? Four? Doesn't matter, because Cato said not a chance of that either!"

Caesar looked up, eyes dancing.

“I don't know where this story is going, but I'm riveted,” said Hirtius, grinning broadly.

“Nor do I yet,” said Caesar, and went back to reading.

“Hortensius tottered away supported by his slaves, a broken man. But the next day he was back, with a brilliant idea. Since he couldn't marry Porcia or one of the Domitias, he said, could he marry Cato's wife?”

Hirtius gasped. “Marcia? Philippus's daughter?”

“That is who Cato's married to,” said Caesar solemnly.

“Your niece is married to Philippus, isn't she? Atia?”

“Yes. Philippus was great friends with Atia's first husband, Gaius Octavius. So after the mourning period was over, he married her. Since she came with a stepdaughter as well as a daughter and a son of her own, I imagine Philippus was happy to part with Marcia. He said he gave her to Cato so he'd have a foot in both my camp and the camp of the boni,” said Caesar, wiping his eyes.

“Read on,” said Hirtius. “I can't wait.” Caesar read on.

“And Cato said YES! Honestly, Caesar, Cato said yes! He agreed to divorce Marcia and allow her to marry Hortensius— provided, that is, that Philippus said yes too. Off the pair of them went to Philippus's house to ask him if he'd consent to Cato's divorcing his daughter so she could marry Quintus Hortensius and make an old man happy. Philippus scratched his chin and said YES! Provided, that is, that Cato was willing personally to give the bride away! It was all done as quick as you can say a phrase like ”many millions of sesterces.“ Cato divorced Marcia and personally gave her to Hortensius at the wedding ceremony. The whole of Rome is flat on the floor! I mean, things happen every day that are so bizarre you know they have to be true, but the Cato-Marcia-Hortensius-Philippus affair is unique in the annals of Roman scandal, you have to admit that. Everybody—including me!—thinks Hortensius paid Cato and Philippus half of his fortune, though Cato and Philippus are denying it vigorously!”

Caesar put the scroll on his lap and wiped his eyes again, shaking his head.

“Poor Marcia,” said Faberius softly. The other two looked at him, astonished.

“I never thought of that,” said Caesar.

“She might be a shrew,” said Hirtius.

“No, I don't think she is,” Caesar said, frowning. “I've seen her, though not since she came of age. Near enough to it, thirteen or fourteen. Very dark, like all that family, but very pretty. A sweet little thing, according to Julia and my mother. Quite besotted with Cato—and he with her, so Philippus wrote at the time. Around about the moment I was sitting in Luca with Pompeius and Marcus Crassus, organizing the preservation of my command and my provinces. She'd been betrothed to a Cornelius Lentulus, but the fellow died. Then Cato came back from annexing Cyprus with two thousand chests of gold and silver, and Philippus—who was consul that year—had him to dinner. Marcia and Cato took one look at each other and that was that. Cato asked for her, which caused a bit of a family ruction. Atia was horrified at the idea, but Philippus thought it might be smart to sit on the fence—married to my niece, father-in-law of my greatest enemy.” Caesar shrugged. “Philippus won.”

“Cato and Marcia went sour, then,” said Hirtius.

“No, apparently not. That's why all of Rome is flat on the floor, to use Pompeius's phrase.”

“Then why?” asked Faberius.

Caesar grinned, but it was not a pleasant thing to see. “If I know my Cato—and I think I do—I'd say he couldn't bear to be happy, and deemed his passion for Marcia a weakness.”

“Poor Cato!” said Faberius.

“Humph!” said Caesar, and returned to Sextilis.

And that, Caesar, is all for the moment. I was very sorry to hear that Quintus Laberius Durus was killed almost as soon as he landed in Britannia. What superb dispatches you send us!

He put Sextilis on the table and picked up September, a smaller scroll. Opening it, he frowned; some of the words were smeared and stained, as if water had been spilled on them before the ink had settled comfortably into the papyrus. The atmosphere in the room changed, as if the late sun, still shining brilliantly outside, had suddenly gone in. Hirtius looked up, his flesh crawling; Faberius began to shiver. Caesar's head was still bent over Pompey's second letter, but all of him was immensely still, frozen; the eyes, which neither man could see, were frozen too—they would both have sworn to it.

“Leave me,” said Caesar in a normal voice. Without a word Hirtius and Faberius got up and slipped out of the tent, their pens, dribbling ink, abandoned on their papers.

Oh, Caesar, how can I bear it? Julia is dead. My wonderful, beautiful, sweet little girl is dead. Dead at the age of twenty-two. I closed her eyes and put the coins on them; I put the gold denarius between her lips to make sure she had the best seat in Charon's ferry. She died trying to bear me a son. Just seven months gone, and no warning of what was to come. Except that she had been poorly. Never complained, but I could tell. Then she went into labor and produced the child. A boy who lived for two days, so he outlived his mother. She bled to death. Nothing stopped that flood. An awful way to go! Conscious almost until the last, just growing weaker and whiter, and she so fair to start with. Talking to me and to Aurelia, always talking. Remembering she hadn't done this, and making me promise I'd do that. Silly things, like hanging the fleabane up to dry, though that is still months away. Telling me over and over again how much she loved me, had loved me since she was a little girl. How happy I had made her. Not one moment of pain, she said. How could she say that, Caesar? I'd made the pain that killed her, that scrawny skinned-looking thing. But I'm glad he died. The world would never be ready for a man with your blood and mine in him. He would have crushed it like a cockroach. She haunts me. I weep, and weep, and still there are more tears. The last part of her to let go of life was her eyes, so huge and blue. Full of love. Oh, Caesar, how can I bear it? Six little years. I'm fifty-two in a few days, yet all I had of her was six little years. I'd planned that she'd let go of me. I didn't dream it would be the other way around, and so soon. Oh, it would have been too soon if we'd been married for twenty-six years! Oh, Caesar, the pain of it! I wish it had been me, but she made me swear a solemn oath that I'd not follow her.

I'm doomed to live. But how? How can I live? I remember her! How she looked, how she sounded, how she smelled, how she felt, how she tasted. She rings inside me like a lyre. But this is no good. I can't see to write, and it's my place to tell you everything.

I know they'll send this on to you in Britannia. I got your middle Cotta uncle's son, Marcus—he's a praetor this year—to call the Senate into session, and I asked the Conscript Fathers to vote my dead girl a State funeral. But that mentula, that cunnus Ahenobarbus wouldn't hear of it. With Cato neighing nays behind him on the curule dais. Women didn't have State funerals; to grant my Julia one would be to desecrate the State. They had to hold me back, I would have killed that verpa Ahenobarbus with my bare hands if I could have laid them on him. They still twitch at the thought of wrapping themselves around his throat. It's said that the House never goes against the will of the senior consul, but the House did. The vote was almost unanimously for a State funeral. She had the best of everything, Caesar. The undertakers did their job with love. Well, she was so beautiful, even drained to the color of chalk. So they tinted her skin and did those great masses of silvery hair in the high style she liked, with the jeweled comb I gave her on her twenty-second birthday. By the time she sat at her ease amid the black and gold cushions on her bier, she looked like a goddess. No need with my girl to shove her in the secret compartment below and put a dummy on display. I had her dressed in her favorite lavender blue, the same color she was wearing the first time I ever set eyes on her and thought she was Diana of the Night. The parade of her ancestors was more imposing than any Roman man's. I had Corinna the mime in the leading chariot, wearing a mask of Julia's face—I had Venus in my temple of Venus Victrix at the top of my theater done with Julia's face. Corinna wore Venus's golden dress too. They were all there, from the first Julian consul to Quintus Marcius Rex and Cinna. Forty ancestral chariots, every horse as black as obsidian.

I was there, even though I'm not supposed to cross the pomerium into the city. I informed the lictors of the thirty Curiae that for this day I was assuming the special imperium of my grain duties, which did permit me to cross the sacred boundary before I accepted my provinces. I think Ahenobarbus was a frightened man. He didn't put any obstacle in my way. What frightened him? The size of the crowds in the Forum. Caesar, I've never seen anything like it. Not for a funeral, even Sulla's. They came to gape at Sulla. But they came to weep for my Julia. Thousands upon thousands of them. Just ordinary people. Aurelia says it's because Julia grew up in the Subura, among them. They adored her then. And they still do. So many Jews! I didn't know Rome had them in such numbers. Unmistakable, with their long curled hair and their long curled beards. Of course you were good to them when you were consul. You grew up among them too, I know. Though Aurelia insists that they came to mourn Julia for her own sake. I ended in asking Servius Sulpicius Rufus to give the eulogy from the rostra. I didn't know whom you would have preferred, but I wanted a really great speaker. Yet somehow I couldn't, when it came down to it, nerve myself to ask Cicero. Oh, he would have done it! For me if not for you. But I didn't think his heart would have been in it. He can never resist the chance to act. Whereas Servius is a sincere man, a patrician, and a better orator than Cicero when the subject's not politics or perfidy. Not that it mattered. The eulogy was never given. Everything went exactly according to schedule from our house on the Carinae down into the Forum. The forty ancestral chariots were greeted with absolute awe; all you could hear was the sound of thousands weeping.