I Am Livia (28 page)

I nodded. Then, because Tavius looked so grave, I said, “It’s an omen of victory, isn’t i
t
? It has to be!”

“It’s an omen of victory. For you.”

“But dearest, ‘Where thou art Gaius, I am Gaia.’ It’s for both of us, surely.”

“A
hen
with a laurel twig, dropped in
your
lap? No, that doesn’t sound like an omen for
me,
Livia.”

I stared at him in dismay.

“Don’t misunderstand,” he said. “I’m pleased. This is a very fortunate omen.”

He did not sound pleased, however
.
W
e rode back to the villa, neither of us saying a word, me clutching the hen all the way. I think we both felt somewhat chastened. I remembered the days I had spent holding an egg in my hands, wanting so much to hatch a rooster chick, harbinger of a son. Now the gods had deposited a hen in my lap, in her beak the laurel of victory. Could there be a rebuke in tha
t
?

Later, Tavius seemed happier about the omen. “I’ll publicize it, of course,” he told me over dinner. “And all the sophisticates will be sure I made it up. But the simple folk will believe and be awed. This can only add to our stature.” He had already sent a messenger racing to Rome, to consult the College of Augurs as to the omen’s exact meaning.

The augurs sent our messenger back to us with great speed, bearing a letter that Tavius read at once. “They said I’m to take good care of that hen, and plant the twig, just as I thought,”
Tavius told me. “You see, I was right.”

“And the meaning of the omen?”

He read aloud from the letter. “ ‘The eagle is Rome’s symbol and is also a sacred bird belonging to Father Jupiter. The hen is female. The laurel means victory. Therefore, we understand that Jupiter grants victory or great benefit to Rome, through a female.’ ”
Tavius looked at me. “Specifically, through you.” He gave me a slightly grudging smile, then glanced down at the letter again. “Nothing in here about me, except, oh yes, the gods obviously approve of my marriage, since the hen fell into your lap while I was riding with you.”

I remembered how as a girl I had wanted to perform mighty deeds for my country, and how out of reach that had seemed because I was female. Now the gods seemed to be saying that as Tavius’s wife I could indeed accomplish great things for Rome. It was wonderful to think that this could be so.

I was especially affectionate to Tavius in bed that night.
We were happy together, and omens and augurs’ verdicts were banished from our minds.

The days we had to be together, free of responsibilities, passed quickly. “Before we go back to Rome,
”
T
avius said one morning, “I want to take a side trip. There is an important supporter who has been begging me to visit him
.
V
edius Pollio. Have you ever heard of him?”

I had not.

“Well, he’s eccentric,
”
T
avius said. “But he is extremely rich and was loyal to my father.”

We set out the next morning for Vedius’s villa in a carriage, accompanied by Tavius’s bodyguards. Our time of bucolic peace was over. As if to emphasize the point, the weather had turned bitter cold. It was a three-hour journey, so I pulled my cloak tight around me. Tavius, also warmly dressed, began to wheeze a bit. I looked at him with concern.

“Sometimes cold weather has this effect on me,” he said indifferently.

“Maybe we should visit Vedius another time,” I said.

“Certainly not.”

“Tavius—”

“
I am not sick,
” he said.

So we continued on.

Vedius’s villa resembled a small city more than a house. As I stepped down from the carriage, at the front gate, I stared wide-eyed, amazed by the villa’s sheer size
.
V
edius came out to greet us. “Caesar!” he cried, and threw his arms around Tavius. “And your beautiful wife!” He did not hug me but contented himself with grabbing my hand and wringing it.

Despite the cordial greeting, on first sight I did not like the man. I did not like his thick lips or his bulging eyes, or how his graying hair ringed his forehead in pomaded curls swept forward to hide the fact that he was going bald. I did not like his wife, Opimia, with her wide, brittle smile, or their eagerness to show off the house—or rather the palace—they lived in. They took us on a tour, through room after room filled with exquisite Greek statues by famous masters.
We also passed wall murals of incredible vulgarity, showing gods and goddesses in sexual congress. Gold and silver glittered everywhere.

They led us out on a balcony that overlooked a pond. The pond, a perfect oval, was gray beneath the cloudy sky. The banks were paved with black marble. The air had a dank, unpleasant smell. “The pond’s not natural,”
Vedius informed us. “Did you think it was? No, no. I created it. It took months to dig.”

Tavius and I both admired the pond, as Vedius expected us to.

“And what do you think I have it stocked with? What do you think?”
Vedius looked at me.

“Fish?” I suggested.

“No, no. Eels! And not just any eels. Lampreys! Their tongues have teeth on them. They can clamp their tongue on a man and drain him of blood. Imagine being attacked by a hundred of them, two hundred! Anybody who falls in that pond dies a very unpleasant death, believe me!”

Tavius had said the man was eccentric. I did not ask why he would want to have a pond filled with lampreys beside his house. I was mainly interested in getting off that balcony. But Tavius leaned over the balcony railing and gazed into the pond, trying to see the lampreys lurking in its depths. “Do you feed them?”

“Of course, Caesar,”
Vedius said. “Whenever one of my slaves does something to annoy me, I throw him to the lampreys!”

It was Vedius’s notion of a joke. Tavius chuckled.

The tour continued.
We saw more artwork, more furniture with gold trim. Compared to this, Tavius’s villa—which I had thought luxurious—seemed like a simple country house. I did not feel envy, though, just a strong desire to leave.

Tavius acted like the soul of amiability during the whole tour. No doubt he reminded himself that the friendship of a man as spectacularly rich as Vedius could come in handy. The house was warm—golden braziers in every room. At least he had stopped wheezing.

Finally, Vedius led us into his dining room. He introduced us to two other guests, a young couple, his nephew and the nephew’s wife. Slaves scurried about, serving us from huge platters of food.
We lay on carved ivory couches with green silk cushions and drank sweet wine from costly crystal goblets that sparkled bright as diamonds. I admired the goblets, I must admit. I had rarely seen any so fine.

“That’s quite a mural,”
Tavius said, gazing at the wall.

It depicted a centaur ravishing a nymph.

“Stunningly lifelike, isn’t i
t
?” said Vedius’s nephew.

Slaves brought in the second course, along with wine of a different vintage. The crystal goblets we were using were being exchanged for new ones, equally beautiful. Suddenly we heard a crash. I turned my head to look. One of the slaves had dropped a crystal cup. A lanky young man with a lantern jaw, he stood stock-still, gazing down at the shards at his feet. His face looked corpse-like, tinged with green.

“You idiot!”
Vedius shouted, getting up from his dining couch. He rushed toward the slave. I was sure he was going to pummel him.

Well, one does see these scenes sometimes even in the homes of well-bred people,
I thought. A server spills some wine, and his mistress slaps him. Or a cook spoils the dinner, and his master insists on flogging him before the dinner guests. I personally found such scenes repulsive, but one cannot tell other people how to treat their own slaves.

But Vedius did not lay a finger on the man who had broken the goblet. Instead he yelled, “Krito, do you know what this means? I’ll tell you, you clumsy fool! It means you’re going to the lampreys!”

My stomach clenched, but I thought,
Of course it’s an empty threat. Who would condemn a man to be eaten alive for breaking a cup?
I looked at Tavius. He gave me a slight smile and shook his head. He thought as I did, that we were watching a cruel piece of theater, nothing more.

I glanced at the slave. His eyes darted around wildly. He took his master at his word.

Vedius clapped his hands and shouted, “Lecto! Brumio! Phaedo!”
Three other slaves—brawny fellows—rushed into the dining room. “To the lampreys,”
Vedius said.

The slaves started toward Krito. He backed away, looking around for an avenue of escape. Then he threw himself down on his knees before the couch on which Tavius and I reclined, grasped the edge of
Tavius’s toga, and cried, “Lord, save me! Help me, please!”

Tavius smiled. It was a rather stiff and embarrassed smile. “Krito, your master doesn’t intend to throw you to the lampreys.” He looked at Vedius and, still smiling but with something hard in his voice, said, “I’m sure Krito has learned his lesson and won’t ever break another of your cups. In any case, we’ve had enough of this, don’t you think?”

“You’re right about this much, Caesar,”
Vedius said. “He’ll never break another of my cups.”

Tavius went rigid. The smile died on his face. “You’re not serious.”

“But I am,”
Vedius said.

“For heaven’s sake, Vedius,”
Tavius said, “this is absurd. Even if you have no human feeling—it’s a stupid waste of a valuable slave.”

“It’s worth it to me,”
Vedius said.

“Over a
cup
?”
Tavius stared at him. “Don’t you think it’s out of proportion? To have a man eaten alive over a cup?”

I imagined being Krito, kneeling there on the floor, listening to this conversation.

“He’s my
slave, and I can do what I want with him
,”
Vedius said.

“No one is suggesting otherwise,”
Tavius said.

Krito groaned.

“Vedius,”
Tavius said, “I’d appreciate it if you would change your mind. You see, the man appealed to me for help, and I feel a kind of obligation.” He managed to sound as if he were asking a reasonable person for an ordinary favor.

“I’m sorry I can’t oblige you, Caesar,”
Vedius said.

No one should ever interfere between master and slave. So I had always been taught. But my heart constricted when Vedius gestured to the men he had summoned to drag Krito away. I looked at Tavius. He compressed his lips, and his face went flinty.
And so we will watch, and allow this awful thing to happen,
I thought
.
My mind groped for words to move Vedius. But what words could affect this madman?

Tavius’s voice rang out. “Aulus!”

The head of his bodyguard came racing in from the atrium, followed by five soldiers.

“Get every piece of crystal in this house and bring it in here,” Tavius said. “Every piece, you understand?”

Aulus stared at him for one moment, then spun on his heel and went off with his men to do Tavius’s bidding. Everyone else in the dining room had frozen: Krito kneeling on the floor, the slaves who had been about to haul him away,
Vedius, the other guests. All eyes were on Tavius.

Tavius stood and picked up the goblet he had been drinking from, looked at it for a moment as if to assess its worth, and then, half-filled with wine as it was, threw it to the floor. It crashed and shattered.

“Caesar!
”
V
edius wailed as if a child of his had just been slaughtered.

Tavius ignored him. He looked at me and wordlessly extended his hand for my goblet. He was white with rage, his eyes like blue points of fire. I gave him my cup. He flung it to the floor. Then he went in turn to each of the other people at the table. He held out his hand. No one spoke. Each person handed him a crystal goblet.
Crash! Crash! Crash!