I Am Livia (7 page)

“I tell you, the boy must be praised, honored, and”—Cicero made a little waving motion with his hand, pointing at the ceiling, and raising his eyes piously upward—“elevated!”

Tiberius Nero laughed. My father had the grace to look repelled.

Maybe Cicero only meant that Caesar was to be first flattered and utilized, and then in due time stripped of power. But reclining across from the man, taking in his smug and predatory smile, I felt he intended something far worse. I flinched at the thought of young Caesar someday finding himself at the mercy of this duplicitous old man.

The girl who heard Cicero’s famous jibe was not made of ice. Rather, my sympathies went every which way. I was still so tender, I wanted to protect everyone. I wanted to protect Father and his friends from young Caesar’s betrayal. I wanted to protect that handsome boy, Caesar Octavianus, from the savagery I heard in Cicero’s jest. If Mark Antony had made an appearance at dinner, perhaps my sympathy would have flowed even in his direction, and I would have wanted to protect him too.

When Tiberius Nero and I went home that evening, he commented on what I had said to Cicero. “You’re perfectly right,” he said. “I ought to be praetor by now. If they think they can give praetorian powers to a mere adolescent and go on passing me over, they’re wrong. The next time I see Cicero I’m going to tell him so.” He nuzzled my neck and carried me off to bed.

The next morning, I went to visit a dressmaker in the market district. I traveled by litter, my personal maid Pelia, a Greek girl, sitting beside me. The litter was roomy, the cushions and the curtains yellow silk. The six bearers had been chosen for both their strength and their looks, and they matched, all being olive-skinned and dark-haired. No elegant lady would have bearers who did not match.

As I leaned back against my silk cushions, with Pelia waving a peacock feather fan to keep me cool, I tried not to think about last evening’s dinner.

“Oh, stop fanning me,” I said to Pelia. “Heaven knows, it doesn’t make it any cooler. Are we near the dressmaker’s ye
t
?” I pulled the curtain of the litter aside and looked out. A thrill of surprise went through me.

There, on the crowded market street, young Caesar came walking along, his fair hair shining in the sunlight. He was flanked by two other well-dressed young men, who I supposed were his friends, and trailed by a knot of servants.

I would ask myself afterward why I did what I did then. Certainly I felt a pull of attraction and a nudge of sympathy. Maybe Caesar’s youth called to me because I was also young. I would not have sought Caesar out, but now, seeing him, I acted on impulse. I ordered my litter bearers to stop and said to Pelia, “That young man—” I pointed. “Run and tell him that the lady Livia Drusilla would like a word with him.”

She jumped out of the litter and did my bidding.
When Caesar came walking back with her, he looked rather grim, but I did not stop to wonder why that was.

“Last night, at dinner, after you left—” I spoke in a whisper because I did not want the litter bearers to hear. I knew I could secure Pelia’s silence, but I did not trust them.

“Last nigh
t
?” Caesar said. He leaned close to hear, so close his nose was almost through the parted curtain.

“There was talk about you—your future. And Cicero said something.” I repeated the words and made the little gesture Cicero had used, pointing upward.

Even as I spoke, I feared that Caesar would look at me as if I were a fool and say,
So what? Praised, honored, elevated? What could be better?

But he did not. “Elevated?” he said. “You heard the way he spoke.
What do you think he meant by that word?”

“I can’t be certain if he meant removed from power or…”

“From this earth?”

“It could be dangerous for you to trust him.”

“There could never be any question of my trusting him. But ‘the boy must be praised, honored, and elevated’? Those were his exact words?” Caesar shook his head. “And here I thought he was getting to like me a little. But obviously, he has no liking for me at all.” He added in a hard voice, “And what’s more, he has no respect.”

I noticed only at that moment the change in Caesar’s appearance. The evening before, he had looked positively blithe. Now his eyes were bloodshot, and there was tension and pain in his features. “Something else has happened, hasn’t i
t
?
” I said. “Something bad?”

“My mother died suddenly last night.”

“Oh! I’m sorry.”

He looked away. “She always worried about me. Too much. I think worry helped kill her.” He shifted his focus back to me. “Thank you for what you just told me. Did I say that already? I’m a little distracted. But thank you.”

The implications of what I had done pressed in on me. I reached out and gripped his hand. “I don’t ask for thanks.” I kept my voice down. “But please, promise me no one will ever know I told you what Cicero said.”

“I promise.” He added, “You can take my word.”

“I know I can take your word.” Somehow I did.

“I would value your friendship.”

There was a world of meaning in how he said the word “friendship.” Oh, no romantic meaning, which was how some women might have heard it. I released his hand, as quickly as if it had burnt my fingers. “I won’t be your spy.”

He nodded, unsurprised.

“The truth is, I can’t be your friend.”
These words stuck in my throat.

His mouth tightened. “I understand. Obviously your loyalties lie elsewhere.”

My loyalties. Yes, I had loyalties. But I had betrayed them, betrayed the confidence of Cicero, who was my father’s ally. It amounted to a betrayal of my father. I felt disbelief at what I had done just moments before, and I almost blamed Caesar for it, as if he had exerted some iniquitous pull on me. But the fault was mine. I was drawn to him, and should not be. I raised my hands and covered my face, shaken and ashamed.

“Livia Drusilla, what’s wrong?”

I lowered my hands. “I regret what I’ve done. I owe my father every loyalty.”

He nodded, and said in a bleak voice, “Of course. Loyalty to your own blood is the foundation of all virtue.”
Then he smiled faintly. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. After all, your motives were good, weren’t they? Just pure kindness?”

I did not answer.

“My mother was so kind,” he said. “I’ve been feeling today as if most of the kindness has gone out of the world. For me, anyway. In general, women are much kinder than men. No man living would have brought me a warning about Cicero and asked nothing in return.”

“No?” I said.

“Don’t you realize tha
t
?” He shook his head, as one might over the simplicity of a child. “Livia Drusilla, I’ve been keeping you here talking, but sooner or later someone may notice, and that could be awkward for you. So in a moment I’ll say farewell and walk away. But I want you to know that I never forget a favor or an injury, and I make it a practice to pay both back with interest. Thank you for the kindness you just did me. Maybe you won’t end up regretting it after all.”

“Cicero thinks you will forgo vengeance for your uncle. But he’s a fool, isn’t he?”

“Only my friends have the right to ask me that kind of question,” Caesar said. His eyes altered, took on an inward look. It was so cold, so removed from me, I felt as if I were gazing at someone I had never met before. He pressed his lips together, as though he was trying to hold back words it was better not to utter. But then his expression softened, and he spoke. “I’ll say this—if you can detach your husband and your father from their allegiance to Brutus, they’ll probably thank you in the end.”

I recoiled. The implicit threat to both my husband and my father was clear. I understood the full magnitude of the sin I had committed. This man who I had tried to help was my family’s deadly enemy.

He read my face, I am sure. Accurately, and with no surprise, and yet with a certain sadness. If he could read my expression, I could read his too. It was almost as if he had spoken his thoughts aloud:
So now you truly see me, and you don’t like me anymore. I can expect no more kindness from you.

“I have to go and buy mourning clothes for my mother’s funeral,” he said. “Farewell, Livia Drusilla.” He walked away.

My mother called on me that afternoon. It was not like her usual visits. She often came to see me, usually bringing Secunda with her. She would inspect my house, frequently finding dirt in corners that I had not noticed. “You must keep in mind that even the best slave will do only the minimum that is required,” she would tell me. “That is human nature. If you are too lazy to discipline your servants, you will wind up living in squalor.” I would nod my head obediently, and Secunda would nod too.

This time my mother had left my sister at home and was uninterested in housekeeping.
We sat in the garden. She said to me with no preamble, “Your behavior at dinner last night was unseemly and rude. I am most displeased, and so is your father.”

Silent, I gazed at the tree near the garden wall, which was flowering with peach blossoms.

She leaned forward and gave me a hard tap on the knee. “Livia, pay attention. It is possible for a woman to influence public affairs. I’m not saying that one should, but that one can. Everyone knows Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, did it.”

In the Forum stood statues of the Gracchi brothers, great political reformers and champions of the common people who had lived three generations ago. Nearby was a statue of their mother—our only public statue of a female that was not a goddess or an allegorical figure but an actual Roman woman who had once lived.

“A woman can exert influence through her sons, as Cornelia did,” Mother said. “Or through her husband. And in no other way. Can it really be you don’t know this?”

“In some countries, women are queens and rule kingdoms,” I said.

“I am talking about Rome, not barbarian lands. Listen to me. What you should have done, if you decided Cicero—Cicero!—needed your advice was whisper what you thought into Tiberius Nero’s ear.” Mother averted her gaze for a moment. “At a time when he was likely to be receptive, that is what I mean. And if you were truly clever you would arrange matters so that he arose next morning convinced that it was he who had worked out why Cicero was going down the wrong path. He would have emerged from the house eager to seek Cicero out and show him the flaws in his thinking.”

And Cicero would have heard him,
I thought
. The old goat would probably not have changed course anyway, but at least he would have had to listen.

“There are ways for a woman to get what she wants in this world. If you are wise, you will use them.”

“I will remember what you said, Mother.”

She let out a breath and settled back in her chair. “See that you do.”

As long as I could remember, a distance had existed between Mother and me. Yet at that moment I felt she did care about me, in her way. It made me wish to confide in her. I repeated to her the words that Caesar had said, which I had taken as a threat to Father and Tiberius Nero.

She grew somber. “Well, your father should certainly know about this.”