Caesar's Women (103 page)

“Well, we know it wasn't us,” said Ahenobarbus, “so who?”

“It has to be Caesar,” said Bibulus, helping himself to wine.

“What did he have to gain?” asked Metellus Scipio, frowning.

“Even I can't tell you that, Scipio,” said Bibulus. At which moment his gaze rested on Gaius Piso, the only one still sitting. An awful fear filled him; he drew in his breath audibly. “Piso!” he cried suddenly. “Piso, you didn't!”

The bloodshot eyes, sunk into Gaius Piso's fleshy face, blazed scorn. “Oh, grow up, Bibulus!” he said wearily. “How else was this idiocy to succeed? Did you and Cato really think Vettius had the gall and the guts to carry your scheme through? He hated Caesar, yes, but he was terrified of the man too. You're such amateurs! Full of nobility and high ideals, weaving plots you've neither the talent nor the cunning to push to fruition—sometimes you make me sick, the pair of you!”

“The feeling goes both ways!” Cato shouted, fists doubled.

Bibulus put his hand on Cato's arm. “Don't make it worse, Cato,” he said, the skin of his face gone grey. “Our honor is dead along with Vettius, all thanks to this ingrate.” He drew himself up. “Get out of my house, Piso, and never come back.”

The chair was overturned; Gaius Piso looked from one face to the next, then deliberately spat upon the flagstones at Cato's feet. “Vettius was my client,” he said, “and I was good enough to use to coach him in his role! But not good enough to give advice. Well, fight your own fights from now on! And don't try to incriminate me, either, hear me? Breathe one word, and I'll testify against the lot of you!''

Cato dropped to sit on the stone coping around the fountain playing in the sun, droplets flashing a myriad rainbows; he covered his face with his hand d back and forth, weeping.

“Next time I see Piso, I'll flatten him!” said Ahenobarbus fiercely. “The cur!”

“Next time you see Piso, Lucius, you'll be very polite,” said Bibulus, wiping away his tears. “Oh, our honor is dead! We can't even make Piso pay. If we do, we're looking at exile.”

The sensation surrounding the death of Lucius Vettius was all the worse because of its mystery; the brutal murder lent a ring of truth to what might otherwise have been dismissed as a fabrication. Someone had plotted to assassinate Pompey the Great, Lucius Vettius had known who that someone was, and now Lucius Vettius was silenced. Terrified because Vettius had said his name (and also the name of his loyal and loving son-in-law), Cicero shifted the blame to Caesar, and many of the minor boni followed his example. Bibulus and Cato declined to comment, and Pompey blundered from one bewilderment to another. Logic said very loudly and clearly that, the Vettius Affair had no meaning or basis in fact, but those involved were not disposed to think logically.

Public opinion veered away from the triumvirs yet again, and seemed likely to remain adverse. Rumors about Caesar proliferated. His praetor Fufius Calenus was booed at the theater during the ludi Apollinares; gossip had it that Caesar through Fufius Calenus intended to cancel the right of the Eighteen to the bank of reserved seats just behind the senators. Gladiatorial games funded by Aulus Gabinius were the scene of more unpleasantness.

Convinced now that his religious tactics were the best way, Bibulus struck. He postponed the curule and Popular elections until the eighteenth day of October, publishing this as an edict on the rostra, the platform of Castor's and the bulletin board for public notices. Not only was there a stench in the lower Forum arising from the body of Lucius Vettius, said Bibulus, but he had also seen a huge shooting star in the wrong part of the sky.

Pompey panicked. His tame tribune of the plebs was bidden summon the Plebs into meeting, and there the Great Man spoke at length about the irresponsibility Bibulus was displaying more blatantly than any shooting star could display itself in the night skies. As an augur himself, he informed the despondent crowd, he would swear that there was nothing wrong with the omens. Bibulus was making everything up in order to bring Rome down. The Great Man then talked Caesar into convoking the People and speaking against Bibulus, but Caesar could not summon up the enthusiasm to put his usual fire into his speech, and failed to carry the crowd. What ought to have been an impassioned plea that the People should follow him to Bibulus's house and there beg that Bibulus put an end to all this nonsense emerged without any passion whatsoever. The People preferred to go to their own homes.

“Which simply demonstrates their good sense,” Caesar said to Pompey over dinner in the Domus Publica. “We're approaching this in the wrong way, Magnus.”

Very depressed, Pompey lay with his chin on his left hand and shrugged. “The wrong way?” he asked gloomily. “There just isn't a right way, is the trouble.”

“There is, you know.”

One blue eye turned Caesar's way, though the look accompanying it was skeptical. “Tell me this right way, Caesar.”

“It's Quinctilis and election time, correct? The games are on, and half of Italia is here to enjoy itself. Hardly anyone in the Forum crowd at the present moment is a regular. How do they know what's been happening? They hear of omens, junior consuls watching the skies, men murdered in prison, and terrific strife between factions in office as Rome's magistrates. They look at you and me, and they see one side. Then they look at Cato and hear of Bibulus, and they see another side. It must seem stranger than a Pisidian ritual.”

“Huh!” said Pompey, chin back on his hand. “Gabinius and Lucius Piso are going to lose, that's all I know.”

“You're undoubtedly right, but only if the elections were to be held now,” said Caesar, brisk and energetic once more. “Bibulus has made a mistake, Magnus. He should have left the elections alone, let them be held now. Were they held now, both the consuls would be solidly boni. By postponing them, he's given us time and the chance to retrieve our position.”

“We can't retrieve our position.”

“If we agitate against this latest edict, I agree. But we stop agitating against it. We accept the postponement as legitimate, as if we wholeheartedly condone Bibulus's edict. Then we work to recover our clout with the electorate. By October we'll be back in favor again, Magnus, wait and see. And in October we'll have the consuls of our faction, Gabinius and Lucius Piso.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I am absolutely sure of it. Go back to your Alban villa and Julia, Magnus, please! Stop worrying about politics in Rome. I shall skulk until I give the House my legislation to stop governors of provinces fleecing their flocks, which won't be for another two months. We lie low, do nothing and say nothing. That gives Bibulus and Cato nothing to scream about. It will also silence young Curio. Interest dies when nothing happens.”

Pompey tittered. “I heard that young Curio really rammed his fist up your arse the other day.”

“By referring to events during the consulship of Julius and Caesar, rather than Caesar and Bibulus?” asked Caesar, grinning.

“In the consulship of Julius and Caesar is really very good.”

“Oh, very witty! I laughed when I heard it too. But even that can work in our favor, Magnus. It says something young Curio should have paused to think about before he said it—that Bibulus is not a consul, that I have had to be both consuls. By October that will be very apparent to the electors.”

“You cheer me enormously, Caesar,” said Pompey with a sigh. He thought of something else. “By the way, Cato seems to have had a severe falling out with Gaius Piso. Metellus Scipio and Lucius Ahenobarbus are siding with Cato. Cicero told me.”

“It was bound to happen,” said Caesar gravely, “as soon as Cato found out that Gaius Piso had Vettius murdered. Bibulus and Cato are fools, but they're honorable fools when it comes to murder.”

Pompey was gaping. “Gaius Piso did it?”

“Certainly. And he was right to do it. Vettius alive was no threat to us. Vettius dead can be laid at my door. Didn't Cicero try to persuade you of that, Magnus?”

“Well…” muttered Pompey, going red.

“Precisely! The Vettius Affair happened in order to make you doubt me. Then when I began publicly questioning Vettius, and kept on publicly questioning him, Gaius Piso saw that the ploy was going to fail. Hence Vettius's death, which prevented all conclusions save those founded in sheer speculation.”

“I did doubt you,” said Pompey gruffly.

“And very naturally. However, Magnus, do remember that you are of far more use to me alive than dead! It's true that did you die, I'd inherit a great many of your people. But do you live, your people are bound to support me to the last man. I am no advocate of death.”

Because the Plebs and the plebeian magistrates did not function under the auspices, Bibulus's edict could not prevent the election of plebeian aediles or tribunes of the plebs. Those went to the polls at the end of Quinctilis as scheduled, and Publius Clodius was returned as president of the new College of Tribunes of the Plebs. No surprise in that; the Plebs were very prone to admire a patrician who cared so much about the tribunate of the plebs that he would abrogate his status in order to espouse it. Clodius had besides a wealth of clients and followers due to his generosity, and his marriage to Gaius Gracchus's granddaughter brought him many thousands more. In him, the Plebs saw someone who would support the People against the Senate; did he support the Senate, he would never have abrogated his patrician status.

Of course the boni succeeded in having three tribunes of the plebs elected, and Cicero was so afraid that Clodius would succeed in trying him for the murder of Roman citizens without trial that he had spent lavishly to secure the election of his devoted admirer Quintus Terentius Culleo.

“Not,” said Clodius to Caesar, breathless with excitement, “that I'm very worried by any of them. I'll sweep them into the Tiber!”

“I'm sure you will, Clodius.”

The dark and slightly mad-looking eyes flashed. “Do you think you own me, Caesar?'' Clodius asked abruptly.

Which question provoked a laugh. “No, Publius Clodius, no! I wouldn't insult you by dreaming of it, let alone thinking it. A Claudian—even a plebeian one!—belongs to no one save himself.”

“In the Forum they're saying that you own me.”

“Do you care what they're saying in the Forum?”

“I suppose not, provided that it doesn't damage me.” Clodius uncoiled with a sudden leap, sprang to his feet. “Well, I just wanted to ascertain that you didn't think you owned me, so I'll be off now.”

“Oh, don't deprive me of your company quite yet,” Caesar said gently. “Sit down again, do.”

“What for?”

“Two reasons. The first is that I'd like to know what you plan for your year. The second is that I'd like to offer you any help you might need.”

“Is this a ploy?”

“No, it's simply genuine interest. I also hope, Clodius, that you have sufficient sense to realize that help from me might make all the difference to the legality of your laws.”

Clodius thought about this in silence, then nodded. “I can see that,” he said, “and there is one area in which you can help.”

“Name it.”

“I need to establish better contact with real Romans. I mean the little fellows, the herd. How can we patricians know what they want if we don't know any of them? Which is where you're so different from the rest, Caesar. You know everyone from the highest to the lowest. How did you do that? Teach me,” said Clodius.

“I know everyone because I was born and brought up in the Subura. Every day I rubbed shoulders with the little fellows, as you call them. At least I detect no shade of patronage in you. But why do you want to get to know the little fellows? They're of no use to you, Clodius. They don't have votes which matter,”

“They have numbers,” said Clodius.

What was he after? Apparently interested only as a matter of courtesy, Caesar sat back in his chair and studied Publius Clodius. Saturninus? No, not the same type, Mischief? Certainly. What could he do? A question to which Caesar confessed he could find no answer. Clodius was an innovator, a completely unorthodox person who would perhaps go where no one had been before. Yet what could he do? Did he expect to draw thousands upon thousands of little fellows to the Forum to intimidate the Senate and the First Class into doing whatever it was that the little fellows wanted? But that would happen only if their bellies were empty, and though grain prices were high at the moment, Cato's law prevented the price's being handed down to the little fellows. Saturninus had seen a crowd of gigantic proportions and been inspired to use it to further his own end, which was to rule Rome. Yet when he summoned it to do his bidding, it never came. So Saturninus died. If Clodius tried to imitate Saturninus, death would be his fate too. Long acquaintance with the little fellows— what an extraordinary way to describe them!—gave Caesar insight none of his own big fellows could hope to have. Including Publius Clodius, born and brought up on the Palatine. Well, perhaps Clodius wanted to be Saturninus, but if so, all he would discover was that the little fellows could not be massed together destructively. They were just not politically inclined.

“I met someone you know in the Forum the other day,” Clodius remarked some time later. “When you were trying to persuade the crowd to follow you to Bibulus's house.”

Caesar grimaced. “A stupidity on my part,” he said.

“That's what Lucius Decumius said.”

The impassive face lit up. “Lucius Decumius? Now there's a fascinating little fellow! If you want to know about the little fellows, Clodius, then go to him.”

“What does he do?”

“He's a vilicus, the custodian of the crossroads college my mother has housed since before I was born. A little depressed these days because he and his college have no official standing.”

“Your mother's house?” asked Clodius, brow wrinkling.

“Her insula. Where the Vicus Patricii meets the Subura Minor. These days the college is a tavern, but they still meet there.”

“I shall look Lucius Decumius up,” said Clodius, sounding well satisfied.

“I wish you'd tell me what you plan to do as a tribune of the plebs,” said Caesar.