I Am Livia (2 page)

For answer, he kissed me on the forehead. “Run along, child.”

I started out of the study, but another thought came to me. I turned. Father was leaning over his writing table, looking down at some document—a muscular man with iron-gray hair, our family’s rock.

I knew I ought to keep silent. I had already given him cause to reproach me. Fear gnawed at me, though, and I ached for reassurance, so I walked back and whispered in his ear, “Father, who will govern Rome when Caesar is dead?”

“The Senate.
Who else?”

“But you always say the Senate has failed to govern.
We have had bloodshed for nearly a hundred years.
Won’t there be more of that if Caesar dies?”

“The Senate will govern justly now and command the people’s loyalty. Marcus Brutus is an able and upright man. He will lead us.”

Brutus was an important figure in the Senate. Moreover, he was directly descended from the man who, centuries ago, had led the successful revolt against Rome’s evil king, Tarquin. His ancestor had, more than anyone, been responsible for the founding of the Republic. It was natural that Caesar’s opponents looked to him for leadership now.

“No more talk of this. Now run along, Livia.”

I started to go, but then turned. The more personal meaning of the day had just begun to seem real. “Tiberius Nero—is it absolutely necessary that I marry him?”

“Why, I’ve promised you to him, child.”

“You could tell him you changed your mind. Couldn’t you?”

“I’ve given him my word.”

“Father, I don’t like him.”

“Don’t like him? You don’t even know him. You’re beginning to make me truly angry, Livia. Now—” He made a shooing motion with his hands.

I ran out to the garden. Tears burned my eyes. How could Father give me to Tiberius Nero? I’d felt an immediate distaste for the man. He had gazed at me as if he were inspecting a slave, and when I had returned his stare, he glanced away, giving me no personal acknowledgment at all.

What did Father mean by saying Tiberius Nero was a fine fellow? Father’s exact words were
A fine fellow, of excellent birth.
As far as I could tell, if his birth was excellent, nothing else about him was. Not his looks, not his manner. I remembered the snatch of conversation I had overheard. The man had been advocating proscriptions, hadn’t he? He would condemn men for their associations and opinions, just to protect himself.
How many killings would satisfy you, Tiberius Nero?
he had been asked. His answer:
As many as it takes to make us safe
.
Was that how a fine fellow spoke?

Our garden was like a huge courtyard, the heart and focal point of the house, which surrounded it on four sides. Here, where no street noises penetrated, one could almost believe one was not in Rome but in some bucolic setting. Now, early in March, a few flowers had begun to bud, hinting at the garden’s coming springtime glory. I had sought this place as a refuge. At least for a few moments, I could be by myself and sort out my feelings.

Nothing that had happened before to me had prepared me for the blow I had just suffered. It seemed Father had told me I did not matter to him. He had bartered me away, and then dismissed me. The only worse fate than finding out that Father did not care
about me was losing him entirely—and I risked that if the plot against Caesar was discovered.

A statue of Diana stood by the little pool near the garden’s north side. The sculptor had depicted the goddess as a huntress and had painted her in lifelike colors, with hair the shade of wheat and eyes the gray of storm clouds. She looked like a girl of my age graced with divine freedom
.
W
earing a tunic that stopped above her knees, she stepped forward, holding a bow in her hand.

People said that of all the Olympians, Diana had the most tender love for the people of Rome. She never seemed as remote and out of reach to me as other gods and goddesses.

I glanced around to make sure that I was alone in the garden, then approached Diana’s statue and held out my hands, palms up in supplication. I whispered, “Goddess, I have no sacrifice to give you. But I promise you a gift—soon, very soon. I beg you, whatever happens to Caesar, please, please keep my father safe from harm. And please make it so I don’t have to marry Tiberius Nero.”

A moment later, a slave came looking for me, sent by my mother to fetch me to dinner. I knew Mother would be angry if I did not hurry, and so I went inside and paused only to wash my hands in the copper bowl at the entrance to the dining room. The first course had been set on the central table. My mother and father reclined on couches, already eating. My eleven-year-old sister, Secunda, perched on the dining room’s third couch. I sat down beside her.

Mother, as always, was impeccably dressed for dinner. She wore an emerald necklace that my father had bought her at great cost, and she had her flame-colored hair piled on her head in a crown of ringlets. She possessed a natural poise and a gift for always arranging her body in an attractive way when she reclined, so her
stola fell in elegant folds. People said I looked like her, though only our coloring was the same. I certainly had not inherited her grace.

“Well, daughter,” she said, “your father says he has told you the news.”

I glanced at Father. His jaw tightened, and he gave me a meaningful look. I felt he was silently reminding me of my promise not to speak of the plot to kill Caesar.

I understood that Mother referred to my coming betrothal, nothing else. Returning her gaze, I said, “Father has told me that I must marry.” I could not keep myself from adding, “But I hope he will change his mind.” I spoke in a mild voice and looked down at my plate, into which a slave was ladling fish stew.

“And why do you hope he will change his mind?” Mother asked.

“Because I do not like Tiberius Nero,” I said.

Beside me, my sister gave an uneasy giggle.

“Alfidia,” my father began, addressing Mother.

“No, please, Marcus, why not let Livia talk? Usually her chatter pleases you. Livia, I’m sorry to hear that you do not like your future husband. Can you tell me how he has fallen shor
t
?”

“I don’t think he is a man of character,” I said. “He switched sides, and that doesn’t speak well for his loyalty. And he talks like a coward.”

“You misjudge him,” Father said. “To see one’s error and come to follow better counsel in politics is not disloyalty but wisdom. You are right that Tiberius Nero is cautious, but who can blame him in these times? He is a courageous man, a fine soldier.”

“I don’t believe it.” I kept my eyes lowered, but I was contradicting Father on the basis of no knowledge at all.

“Why, Caesar has repeatedly commended him for his bravery in battle. And Caesar—whatever else we might say of him—knows how to judge men.”

“Does he?” I raised my eyes. “Is that why he keeps Brutus at his right hand?”

Father looked stricken. Probably for an instant he thought I was about to speak of Brutus’s involvement in the plan to kill Caesar. Mother saw his dismay but did not understand its cause. “You see?” she said to my father. “This is what comes of spoiling her. Forgive me, but you have only yourself to blame. You talk to her of great matters and puff up her pride. And you make excuses when she disobeys me. Is it any wonder that she feels she can even speak rudely to her father at the dinner table?”

“Father,” I said, “you taught me that without honesty there can be no honor. I’m only speaking the truth.” I added, with more humility, “What seems to me to be the truth.”

“Go to bed,” Mother said. “You don’t deserve dinner.”

I looked at my father in appeal. I didn’t care about dinner. Food would have sat in my stomach like a stone. But I wanted him to defend me.

He said nothing.

“Go,” Mother said.

I rose and ran to my bedchamber, where I threw myself across my sleeping couch and wept.

Gradually, the sunlight entering from the small window in my chamber faded. By the time night came, I had stopped crying. I sat on my bed and looked out the window at the crescent moon, wondering how long I would be able to live at home before I had to marry Tiberius Nero. I hoped our betrothal would be lengthy, but I doubted that it would be. Many girls married at just my age.

The idea of marriage was not in itself frightening. But nothing about Tiberius Nero appealed to me, and I dreaded marrying him. I asked myself if there was a way for me to escape
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hat if at the wedding I raved like a madwoman or fell to the ground and began frothing at the mouth as if I had the falling sickness? Surely Tiberius Nero would not want to marry me then. Or suppose I refused to say the words of consent at the ceremony, or spat the consecrated cake out of my mouth? Then there could be no marriage. I thought of these possibilities to comfort myself, and tried to convince myself that the marriage was not inevitable. Then I lay down and cried myself to sleep.

I had a very strange dream.

I climbed up steps of polished red stone and heard, of all things, a chicken clucking. At my feet was a hen that gazed up at me with bright, curious eyes. Though she had blood on her feathers, she seemed unhurt. She disappeared, and I found myself walking down a curving path into an enormous, lush garden filled with flowers in full bloom. In the center of the garden stood a huge statue of Diana. As I watched, the statue turned into a being of flesh and blood and leaped down from its pedestal, moving with the grace and strength of a lioness.

Diana’s living face was far more beautiful than any sculpture, and it shone like a lantern. “I am the protector of the Roman people,” the goddess said. “You promised me a gift. Do you know what it will be?”

I shook my head. “Perhaps a lamb?”

She stroked my hair. “Wait. In time you will know.”

The next evening my parents attended a dinner party at the home of friends, and my sister and I ate alone. I picked at my food. Even the oysters I ordinarily loved had lost all flavor. Seeing how miserable I was, Secunda said, “Think, when you marry you’ll be in charge of your own house just as Mother is. You’ll like that.”

“I won’t like being married to Tiberius Nero,” I said.

Later in my bedchamber, I reviewed part of Aristotle’s
Politics,
which I had begun to study with my tutor. I lay down the parchment scroll on my little writing table only after I heard Mother and Father arrive home. Mother always scolded me if I stayed up late reading by the light of an oil lamp. Thinking of what Secunda had said, I imagined being a married woman, able to read until dawn if I wanted. But no, I would have to go to bed with my husband, wouldn’t I?