I Am Livia (41 page)

The months passed, and Antony and Tavius continued their angry correspondence. Tavius urged Antony to return to his lawful marriage and start acting like a Roman official, not a Greco-Egyptian potentate. Antony said his personal affairs were his own business. Tavius strengthened his army, as was only prudent. In Rome, he continued his feverish building. The common people looked at all the scaffolds, all the busy workmen, all the glittering marble, and they applauded him. They applauded me too. But no one had a stronger claim on their affection than Octavia did. She was seen as tolerating a painful marriage for the sake of Rome.

“The people love her,” I told Tavius one day. “And they love you too, for keeping the peace.”

He grimaced. “The simple hearts of the Roman people.”

“Everyone speaks about Octavia’s greatness of soul.”

He sat on the couch in his study, looking over some petitions from the provinces. He threw the document in his hands on the side table. “Why do you keep praising her?”

“Because I feel for her. She said to me the other day that you hardly speak to her lately. That you don’t even like to look at her.”

His face flushed. “Gods above!” he shouted. “Are you too obtuse to understand? For her to let Antony treat her as he does turns my stomach. She’s my sister. This situation is a dishonor to
me
. Don’t you even see tha
t
?”

I did not bite my tongue or try to soothe his wounded spirit, for the tension we lived under had frayed my nerves just as it had his. I shouted back at him, “Can’t you think of her? Or think of the men who will die if there’s war between you or Antony? Can’t you ever think of someone besides yoursel
f
?”

Then we both fell silent and stared at each other.

He said in an icy voice, “It’s good to know my honor means nothing to you.”

I was shaken. “Your honor lies in preserving the peace. In serving Rome.”

“Yes, in serving Rome,” he said.

We said no more. Afterward I walked on tiptoe with him. I feared that if he flung harsh words at me, I would fling them back, and then where would we be? I could not for the life of me find the right phrases, the loving touch that would have served me. Then a most remarkable thing occurred.

At first, I thought I had miscounted the days. I recalculated. No, I had made no error.
Well, perhaps I had some small bodily indisposition.
When a half-month had gone by and I still had seen no stain on my undergarments, I began to believe my greatest hope would be realized. Still, I said nothing to Tavius, for fear of disappointing him. I noticed an aching in my breasts and remembered that as an early sign when my sons were conceived. Even so, I feared that I could be wrong.

I made a decision to wait ten more days, just to be sure, before I told Tavius the news. But he knew me too well. On the second day, as we prepared for bed, he took my face in both his hands and studied me. “I see that little secret smile of yours.
What are you keeping from me?”

“What do you think it is?”

“You invested in more vineries, didn’t you? Without telling me? Didn’t I say it’s a time to be especially cautious with our money?”

I smiled up at him. “I haven’t bought any vineries.”

“Then wha
t
?”

“I’m carrying your child.”

As time had gone by, Tavius had tried to act as if our childlessness did not matter. I had never believed this pretense. Now, seeing how his face lit up, I sensed how desperately he had wanted us to have a child.

He kissed me until I was breathless. “Our son will rule the whole empire,” he said. “All of it. I swear to you.”

I felt a cold prickle on the back of my neck and almost said,
What about Antony?
But he had spoken in wild exuberance. It seemed foolish to make an issue of his words.

“Can we still—?”
Tavius murmured.

“Of course,” I said.

I had to keep whispering words of reassurance: “Beloved, the baby won’t mind.
”
We came together so gently that night. Out of our happiness grew a fresh flowering of love. The soft, unhurried caresses, the murmured endearments, the all-encompassing tenderness reminded me of how it had been when we first married.

Perhaps it was the greatest joy I ever experienced in my life. To lie in my husband’s arms and know his child nestled within me, to picture a little boy with his blue eyes. To know I had not failed him after all. It had taken so long.
We both felt as if we had been blessed with a miracle.

I made thank-offerings at all the temples. In particular, I thanked Diana. I asked only one thing more of her—that I bear a male child.

Yet, even at this time, which ought to have been so happy, there was still the tension with Antony, which sooner or later might destroy all our peace. And grief, very close to home. Tiberius Nero was dying.

I tried not to admit it at first, though he grew paler, thinner, and more spectral each time I saw him. He had an ulcer on his leg that would not heal. The doctors lanced it three times, and drained pus from it, but the ulcer worsened. I brought him medicinal drinks, but his sickness was far beyond the reach of any healing skill of mine.

“I’m for it,” he said to me one day, as I sat by his bedside.

“No,” I said. “It’s just a matter of time until you get better.”

“We know each other too well for lies.”

I bit my lip.

“About my will—”

“Don’t talk about that,” I said. “Talk about getting well.”

“Livia, dear, I’m in very little pain right now. But the pain will come back, and then I’ll take a draught for it, and I won’t be able to talk. So listen to me now.”

I sat in the same bedchamber I had first entered as a girl of fourteen, where I used to gaze at the ceiling, wishing that he would take his hands off me. I thought of never seeing him or hearing his voice again, and my eyes burned with tears. “I am listening,” I said.

“Well, I’m freeing a few of my slaves and leaving bequests for them. You’ll see that my wishes are honored, I’m sure.”

I nodded. His red-haired slave girl now spent her time hovering over his sickbed. I guessed he would provide for her.

“With the exception of those small bequests, everything goes to the boys. I’m happy to be able to leave them fairly well off.” For a moment, he did look happy, even self-satisfied. “And I named just the right guardian for them and their property, until they come of age.”

I had pushed the thought of this away, because I had not been able to accept that Tiberius Nero was dying. But there had to be a male guardian. The idea of a stranger with authority over my sons disturbed me.
What if
Tiberius Nero had made the wrong choice?

He read my expression. “Don’t you trust me? Of course I chose Caesar.
Who else? That’s what you’d advise, isn’t i
t
?”

I fought to control a sob. “Yes,” I said. “Yes. It’s what I would advise. Yes. Thank you.”

“Caesar promised me once that he would see the boys well placed in the army and public careers. I’m sure I can take his word on that. They’ll be important men. I’m leaving quite a legacy behind me. Livia, dear, I beg you, stop crying.”

I tried, but I found I could not.

He said with a faint smile, “Really, you’ve got to do better than this. I’m not even dead yet.”

“You never said you forgave me,” I said. “You’ve been so kind. But you never said that.”

“Ah well…” His face tensed. I saw that he was suffering pain.

“I’ll get the girl to bring you a draught,” I said.

“Yes, do that, will you?”

I went to the door and gave an order.

When I came back, Tiberius Nero said, “You were fond of me, weren’t you? I know you sometimes used to playact in bed. Women do that. But it wasn’t all an act, was i
t
?”

I shook my head and took his hand. It felt fleshless now, just bone. “I cared for you. I still do. And in Sparta—in Sparta for a while—well, we were happy in Sparta.”

“Sparta,” he said. “Well, well.”
Then his face contorted. “If only Caesar hadn’t come along…Livia, I do forgive you. Cupid’s arrow, righ
t
? But curse it, you should have ducked. I’m joking, I’m just joking. Mars, help me, it’s bad now, it’s very bad.
Will you tell Lollia to hurry with that drink?”

If my son Tiberius had been a year or two younger, no one would have expected him to play the part of a man at his father’s funeral. Even at his age—nine—he was very young for it, young to deliver his father’s eulogy and to light his pyre.

Tavius took his duties as guardian seriously from the first. “People will remember how he acts now,” he said to me. “It’s important for his future.”

Some part of me wanted to cry out that my son was a little boy who had spent the night weeping for his father. He was not up to speechmaking. Though I kept silent, my qualms must have affected Tavius. Before we set out for Tiberius Nero’s house, where his body lay in the atrium ready for its final journey, he took my son aside. “If this is too hard for you, you’ve only to say it. You don’t have to give the speech.”

“Sir, I’m Father’s eldest son.
Who else should speak about him? Drusus?”

Quite gently, Tavius said, “What I mean is I can give the eulogy in your place.”

Tiberius’s eyes blazed. “You? But Father wouldn’t want you to do it. He would want me.”

Tavius had placed his hand on Tiberius’s shoulder. He removed it. But he said in the same gentle voice, “You’re right. He would want you to do it.”

We walked to the Forum behind the open wagon on which the body lay—Tiberius Nero resting on his side, his limbs arranged as if he were on a dinner couch waiting for a feast to be set before him. In front of the wagon the men in wax portrait masks marched in seemly rows—his ancestors leading him to the afterlife. The hired mourners wailed, and crowds came out to look at us. Many people joined the procession. I held Drusus’s hand, and Tavius held Julia’s. Tiberius walked a little apart from the rest of the family.

In the Forum, friends of his father escorted Tiberius up to the speakers’ platform. He spoke to the assembled multitude. “We come here to honor my father, the former praetor Tiberius Claudius Nero.
”
T
iberius’s high-pitched boy’s voice was steady and surprisingly strong. “My father was an able senator and a great military commander. Julius Caesar himself praised him for his bravery.” He spoke about his father’s contribution to Julius Caesar’s famous victories in Gaul. The speech had been written for him, of course, but he had memorized every word. “As you all know,” he said toward the end, “my father was a steadfast and devoted friend to my dear stepfather, Caesar Octavianus.” I had feared his garbling this line or saying it halfheartedly. But no one could have faulted his delivery.

Later, at the Field of Mars, Tiberius took the flaming brand, strode forward and lit his father’s pyre, and stood there watching it burn, holding back his tears. I saw his father at that moment—not the uncertain politician but the man who had led raid after raid against the enemy at Perusia though the cause was hopeless. I also saw the courage of his grandsire, my own father. A voice in my heart whispered,
My son will be a great man
.