Caesar's Women (77 page)

But it seemed Servilia was not in the mood to sort out her status; she greeted him fully clad and rather soberly, then sat in a chair and asked for wine.

“Missing Silanus?” he asked.

“Perhaps I am.” She began to turn the goblet between her hands, round and round. “Do you know anything about death, Caesar?”

“Only that it must come. I don't worry about it as long as it's quick. Were I to suffer Silanus's fate, I'd fall on my sword.”

“Some of the Greeks say there is a life after it.”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Not in the conscious sense. Death is an eternal sleep, of that I'm sure. We don't float away disembodied yet continue to be ourselves. But no substance perishes, and there are worlds of forces we neither see nor understand. Our Gods belong in one such world, and they're tangible enough to conclude contracts and pacts with us. But we don't ever belong to it, in life or in death. We balance it. Without us, their world would not exist. So if the Greeks see anything, they see that. And who knows that the Gods are eternal? How long does a force last? Do new ones form when the old ones dwindle? What happens to a force when it is no more? Eternity is a dreamless sleep, even for the Gods. That I believe.”

“And yet,” said Servilia slowly, “when Silanus died something went out of the room. I didn't see it go, I didn't hear it. But it went, Caesar. The room was empty.”

“I suppose what went was an idea.”

“An idea?”

“Isn't that what all of us are, an idea?”

“To ourselves, or to others?”

“To both, though not necessarily the same idea.”

“I don't know. I only know what I sensed. What made Silanus live went away.”

“Drink your wine.”

She drained the cup. “I feel very strange, but not the way I felt when I was a child and so many people died. Nor the way I felt when Pompeius Magnus sent me Brutus's ashes from Mutina.”

“Your childhood was an abomination,” he said, got up and crossed to her side. “As for your first husband, you neither loved him nor chose him. He was just the man who made your son.”

She lifted her face for his kiss, never before so aware of what constituted Caesar's kiss because always before she had wanted it too badly to savor and dissect it. A perfect fusion of senses and spirit, she thought, and slid her arms about his neck. His skin was weathered, a little rough, and he smelled faintly of some sacrificial fire, ashes on a darkening hearth. Perhaps, her wondering mind went on through touch and taste, what I try to do is have something of his force with me forever, and the only way I can get it is this way, my body against his, him inside me, the two of us spared for some few moments all knowledge of other things, existing only in each other …

Neither of them spoke then until both of them had slipped in and out of a little sleep; and there was the world again, babies howling, women shrieking, men hawking and spitting, the rumble of carts on the cobbles, the dull clunk of some machine in a nearby factory, the faint tremble which was Vulcan in the depths below.

“Nothing,” said Servilia, “lasts forever.”

“Including us, as I was telling you.”

“But we have our names, Caesar. If they are not forgotten, it is a kind of immortality.”

“The only one I'm aiming for.”

A sudden resentment filled her; she turned away from him. “You're a man, you have a chance at that. But what about me?”

“What about you?” he asked, pulling her to face him.

“That,” she said, “was not a philosophical question.”

“No, it wasn't.”

She sat up and linked her arms about her knees, the ridge of down along her spine hidden by a great mass of fallen black hair.

“How old are you, Servilia?”

“I'll soon be forty-three.”

It was now or never; Caesar sat up too. “Do you want to marry again?” he asked.

“Oh, yes.”

“Who?”

She turned wide eyes to stare at him. “Who else, Caesar?”

“I can't marry you, Servilia.”

Her shock was perceptible; she cringed. “Why?”

“For one thing, there are our children. It isn't against the law for us to marry and for our children to marry each other. The degree of blood is permissible. But it would be too awkward, and I won't do it to them.”

“That,” she said tightly, “is a prevarication.”

“No, it isn't. To me it's valid.”

“And what else?”

“Haven't you heard what I said when I divorced Pompeia?” he asked. ” 'Caesar's wife, like all Caesar's family, must be above suspicion.' ”

“I am above suspicion.”

“No, Servilia, you're not.”

“Caesar, that's just not so! It's said of me that I am too proud to ally myself with Jupiter Optimus Maximus.”

“But you weren't too proud to ally yourself with me.”

“Of course not!”

He shrugged. “And there you have it.”

“Have what?”

“You're not above suspicion. You're an unfaithful wife.”

“I am not!”

“Rubbish! You've been unfaithful for years.”

“But with you, Caesar, with you! Never before with anyone, and never since with anyone else, even Silanus!”

“It doesn't matter,” said Caesar indifferently, “that it was with me. You are an unfaithful wife.”

“Not to you!”

“How do I know that? You were unfaithful to Silanus. Why not later to me?”

It was a nightmare; Servilia drew a breath, fought to keep her mind on these incredible things he was saying. “Before you,” she said, “all men were insulsus. And after you, all other men are insulsus.”

“I won't marry you, Servilia. You're not above suspicion, and you're not above reproach.”

“What I feel for you,” she said, struggling on, “cannot be measured in terms of the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do. You are unique. Not for any other man—or for a god!—would I have beggared my pride or my good name. How can you use what I feel for you against me?''

“I'm not using anything against you, Servilia, I'm simply telling you the truth. Caesar's wife must be above suspicion.”

“I am above suspicion!”

“No, you're not.”

“Oh, I don't believe this!” she cried, shaking her head back and forth, hands wrung together. “You are unfair! Unjust!”

And clearly the interview was over; Caesar got off the bed. “You must see it that way, of course. But that doesn't change it, Servilia. Caesar's wife must be above suspicion.”

Time went by; she could hear Caesar in the bath, apparently at peace with his world. And finally she dragged herself out of the bed, dressed.

“No bath?” he asked, actually smiling at her when she went through to the balcony service room.

“Today I'll go home to bathe.”

“Am I forgiven?”

“Do you want to be?”

“I am honored to have you as my mistress.”

“I believe you really do mean that!”

“I do,” he said sincerely.

Her shoulders went back, she pressed her lips together. “I will think about it, Caesar.”

“Good!”

Which she took to mean that he knew she'd be back.

And thank all the Gods for a long walk home. How did he manage to do that to me? So deftly, with such horrible civility! As if my feelings were of no moment— as if I, a patrician Servilia Caepionis, could not matter. He made me ask for marriage, then he threw it in my face like the contents of a chamber pot. He turned me down as if I had been the daughter of some rich hayseed from Gaul or Sicily. I reasoned! I begged! I lay down and let him wipe his feet on me! I, a patrician Servilia Caepionis! All these years I've held him in thrall when no other woman could—how then was I to know he would reject me? I genuinely thought he would marry me. And he knew I thought he would marry me. Oh, the pleasure he must have experienced while we played out that little farce! I thought I could be cold, but I am not cold the way he is cold. Why then do I love him so? Why in this very moment do I go on loving him? Insulsus. That is what he has done to me. After him all other men are utterly insipid. He's won. But I will never forgive him for it. Never!

Having Pompey the Great living in a hired mansion above the Campus Martius was a little like knowing that the only barrier between the lion and the Senate was a sheet of paper. Sooner or later someone would cut a finger and the smell of blood would provoke an exploratory paw. For that reason and no other it was decided to hold a contio of the Popular Assembly in the Circus Flaminius to discuss Piso Frugi's format for the prosecution of Publius Clodius. Bent on embarrassing Pompey because Pompey so clearly wanted no part of the Clodius scandal, Fufius Calenus promptly asked him what he thought of the clause instructing the judge himself to hand-pick the jury. The boni beamed; anything which embarrassed Pompey served to diminish the Great Man!

But when Pompey stepped to the edge of the speaker's platform a huge cheer went up from thousands of throats; apart from the senators and a few senior knights of the Eighteen, everyone had come just to see Pompey the Great, Conqueror of the East. Who over the course of the next three hours managed so thoroughly to bore his audience that it went home.

“He could have said it all in a quarter of an hour,” whispered Cicero to Catulus. “The Senate is right as always and the Senate must be upheld—that's all he actually said! Oh, so interminably'!”

“He is one of the worst orators in Rome,” said Catulus. “My feet hurt!”

But the torture wasn't done, though the senators could now sit down; Messala Niger called the Senate into session on the spot after Pompey concluded.

“Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus,” said Messala Niger in ringing tones, “would you please give this House a candid opinion on the sacrilege of Publius Clodius and the bill of Marcus Pupius Piso Frugi?”

So strong was fear of the lion that no one groaned at this request. Pompey was seated among the consulars and next to Cicero, who swallowed hard and retreated into a daydream about his new city house and its decor. This time the speech took a mere hour; at its end Pompey sat down on his chair with a thump loud enough to wake Cicero with a start.

Tanned face gone crimson with the effort of trying to remember the techniques of rhetoric, the Great Man ground his teeth. “Oh, surely I've said enough on the subject!”

“You surely have said enough,” Cicero answered, smiling sweetly.

The moment Crassus rose to speak, Pompey lost interest and began to quiz Cicero about the more gossipy events in Rome during his absence, but Crassus hadn't got into stride before Cicero was sitting bolt upright and paying absolutely no attention to Pompey. How wonderful! The bliss! Crassus was praising him to the skies! What a terrific job he'd done when consul to bring the Orders much closer together; knights and senators ought to be happily entwined. …

“What on earth made you do that?” Caesar asked Crassus as they walked along the Tiber towpath to avoid the vegetable vendors of the Forum Holitorium, clearing up at the end of a busy day.

“Extol Cicero's virtues, you mean?”

“I wouldn't have minded if you hadn't provoked him into such a long-winded reply about concord among the Orders. Though I do admit he's lovely to listen to after Pompeius.”

“That's why I did it. I loathe the way everyone bows and scrapes to the odious Magnus. If he looks sideways at them, they cringe like dogs. And there was Cicero sitting next to our hero, utterly wilted. So I thought I'd annoy the Great Man.”

“You did. You managed to avoid him in Asia, I gather.”

“Assiduously.”

“Which might be why some people have been heard to say that you packed yourself and Publius off in an easterly direction to avoid being in Rome when Magnus got here.”

“People never cease to amaze me. I was in Rome when Magnus got here.”

“People never cease to amaze me. Did you know that I'm the cause of the Pompeius divorce?”

“What, aren't you?”

“For once I am absolutely innocent. I haven't been to Picenum in years and Mucia Tertia hasn't been to Rome in years.”

“I was teasing. Pompeius honored you with his widest grin.” The Crassus throat produced a rumble, the signal that he was about to embark upon a touchy subject. “You're not doing too well with the loan wolves, are you?”

“I'm keeping them at bay.”

“It's being said in money circles that this year's praetors will never go to provinces thanks to Clodius.”

“Yes. But not thanks to Clodius, the idiot. Thanks to Cato, Catulus and the rest of the boni faction.''

“You've sharpened their wits, I'll say that.”

“Have no fear, I'll get my province,” said Caesar serenely. “Fortune hasn't abandoned me yet.”

“I believe you, Caesar. Which is why I'm now going to say something to you that I've never said to any other man. Other men have to ask me—but if you find you can't get out from under your creditors before that province comes along, apply to me for help, please. I'd be putting my money on a certain winner.”

“Without charging interest? Come, come, Marcus! How could I repay you when you're powerful enough to obtain your own favors?''

“So you're too stiff-necked to ask.”

“I am that.”

“I'm aware how stiff a Julian neck is. Which is why I've offered, even said please. Other men fall on their knees to beg. You'd fall on your sword first, and that would be a shame. I won't mention it again, but do remember. You won't be asking, because I've offered with a please. There is a difference.”

At the end of February, Piso Frugi convoked the Popular Assembly and put his bill outlining the prosecution of Clodius to the vote. With disastrous consequences. Young Curio spoke from the floor of the Well to such telling effect that the entire gathering cheered him. Then the voting bridges and gangways were erected, only to be stormed by several dozen ardent young members of the Clodius Club led by Mark Antony. They seized possession of them and defied the lictors and Assembly officials so courageously that a full-scale riot threatened. It was Cato who took matters into his own hands by mounting the rostra and abusing Piso Frugi for holding a disorderly meeting. Hortensius spoke up in support of Cato; whereupon the senior consul dismissed the Assembly and called the Senate into session instead.