The Course of Honour (11 page)

Caenis made no reply. There was a long, not entirely amicable silence.

Antonia asked stiffly, ‘Do you want to get married?' Caenis shuddered. ‘Do you wish to set up in some business? Run a salon? Open a shop?' Caenis laughed. Antonia breathed; the rings on her gnarled fingers flashed restlessly. ‘Would you leave me?'

‘Not if you would let me stay.'

Antonia knew she was beaten.

She sighed. ‘Don't expect too much,' she warned. ‘A slave is sheltered; a free woman faces more responsibilities than you may realise.'

Although Caenis was too sensitive to argue, she lifted her head; she saw Antonia close her eyes momentarily, with a faint smile. They both knew Caenis would glide into responsibility fearlessly. She was ready to be her own woman. To hold her back would condemn her. Anyone who cared for her must sympathise.

‘Perhaps you will be good enough,' the lady Antonia instructed her, with petulant formality, ‘to prepare for me another of these documents.' Caenis knew her well enough to wait. ‘You will not be asked to buy your citizenship. Caenis, you are stubborn and independent—but, my dear, this was to be my gift to you and I refuse to forgo that pleasure!'

 

So it was now to a distinguished imperial freedwoman that Vespasian had to dispatch his least ruffianly slave. Not only was Antonia's house the highest ranking private home in Rome, by virtue of their position close to the imperial family, her freedwoman possessed more clout than any tax collector's son. Vespasian would not consider visiting the House of Livia without his own patron, Lucius Vitellius, and he felt wary of making a personal approach to Caenis before he knew how she would react. He was not entirely certain his scab-kneed lad would be admitted.

He was right that here they had no ‘Welcome' sign set into their scrubbed mosaic floor. However, letters addressed to Caenis were always promptly delivered and Vespasian's slave was permitted to
wait for her reply. At ease in her long chair in one of the tasteful reception rooms, with her own slavegirl in attendance for decency's sake, Caenis smiled a little as she dictated it to a thin Greek scribe.

So pleasant to hear from you; so kind of you to remember me. You may visit me here at any time, tomorrow perhaps if you wish.
I
should very much like to see
you
!

A. C.

Vespasian decided not to wait until tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

T
he House of Livia, Antonia's house, like any substantial residence in Rome turned inwards on courtyards full of quiet sunlight and the soothing splash of fountains. Blank walls faced outwards, even though this dwelling possessed the added seclusion of a position on the Palatine. Everything was designed to eliminate the bustle of exterior crowds and to provide, even within the capital, a family haven of strict privacy and peace. The architects had not reckoned with the havoc that the mad Julio-Claudian family could cause in any haven, but for once the defect was not the architects' fault.

There was one courtyard garden, shaded in summer by a fig tree and overhead roses, surrounded by a colonnade. Nobody went there much nowadays. The wicker chairs and folding tables were stored on one side, together with terracotta urns of tender bulbs which had been brought under the roof for shelter. Entranced by a neglected sprawl of jasmine, Caenis had made this her private domain. It was a faintly dusty, comfortable place, kept private from formal visitors. She liked to lounge there even late in the day when the palest sunshine lancing down low over the main pantiles soon made it surprisingly warm. Sometimes after dinner when Antonia retired early to bed, Caenis sat there in silence in the dark.

Her little slave, a child who lacked any susceptibility to the romance
of private thought, usually brought her a bowl of pistachios and a proper table lamp.

 

‘Hello, Caenis.'

There was a lamp being brought but no nuts, and it was not her little slave.

‘Who is it?' she gurgled foolishly. Pointless: no one else spoke her name with the solemnity of a religious address. Vespasian's substantial shadow unravelled and shrank down and up the folding doors that led out from the house. ‘Oh! I had better call my girl.'

‘You had better not,' he retorted calmly. ‘I've just given her a copper to keep out of the way.'

Reaching her, he held aloft his pottery lamp: the same sunny disposition, the same frowning face. Gazing back, where she reclined amongst cushions wrapped in a deep blue robe, Caenis felt herself breaking into a slow, tranquil grin to welcome him.

‘Antonia Caenis; Caenis Antonia!' He pronounced it in full as a deliberate compliment, acknowledging her new right to be named after her patroness: that bad-tempered slavey he had first met with the pan of hot sausage, for ever now allied to the noble families of Augustus Caesar and Mark Antony.

‘Just Caenis,' she shrugged. He barked with mirth; she would never change.

He set his lamp on a plinth. ‘An imperial freedwoman,' he marvelled. ‘Smiling in a verandah under the stars.' He sat on the edge of a pillar base, holding his head ruefully between his hands. ‘O elegant and influential young lady! Far, far above a poor provincial bumpkin's reach.'

‘Never,' Caenis told him softly. The dim lamplight wavered on that wonderfully jovial face so the shadow of his nose hooked in a mad slant over one cheek while the outline of his chin lapped wildly down into the hollow of his throat.

‘Never? Oh I think in many ways you always were . . .' She felt like a flattered queen. He said, shining with joy for her, ‘You look as if your
heart could burst with pride. You should have told me you had been made up—I suppose you know I've followed you about all day. I won't tell you the things I was starting to imagine when I saw how you were queening it. Fortunately the Saepta Julia shuts up shop quite late.'

The Saepta Julia was the market for jewellery and antiques; Caenis reckoned it was not one of Vespasian's customary haunts. ‘I thought the Saepta was where a gentleman goes when he wants to waste a great deal of money?'

‘Spend a lot anyway,' remarked Vespasian lightly. ‘There you are. With my congratulations. Don't get excited; you can't eat it.' Withdrawing his right hand from the fold of his toga, he dropped a small but heavy package into her lap. It was tied with the kind of sleek ribbon which stated that the contents had been purchased at hideous cost.

Deeply troubled, Caenis shook her head. ‘My word, this does look like a bribe, senator!'

‘Sadly for me, I know you can't be bought. Go on.'

‘What is it?' She was as stubborn as ever.

‘New shackles.' He waited for her to look. It was a good gold bangle, in strikingly elegant taste, and of first-quality gold. ‘Since you like to sit in the dark,' he said, ‘I shall have to tell you I had your name engraved inside—so you can't pawn it and neither can you take it back. Your name, and also,' he added bravely, ‘mine.'

There was a very slight pause.

‘It's lovely . . . You can't afford it,' she protested. ‘You know you can't.'

‘No. A polite girl,' Vespasian observed, ‘would try it on.' Caenis obediently did so.

That pillar base was striking up cold through his clothes; he stood up. For a bad moment she thought he was already taking his leave.

‘Titus, thank you!'

He was visibly surprised. ‘You accept my gift?'

‘Certainly.'

They both knew that with her obstinate streak she might not intend accepting anything else; she wondered if his spirits sank. Without exactly flirting, she found herself enjoying her sense of command.

As she admired the bangle, Caenis lifted her feet from the floor. She was sitting in a silly summer chair that hung like a cradle from a frame. Now she automatically stretched her toes and swung; when she slowed, Vespasian lent a helping hand.

‘Welcome home!' she exclaimed belatedly, looking up. ‘Thank you for writing to me; I enjoyed your letters.'

‘Thank you too.'

‘My last to you has probably gone astray.'

Nothing ruffled him. ‘Probably lie in the Cretan quaestors' work box for the next forty years, filed under “Too Difficult” . . . Glad to see me back?'

‘Mmm!' The chair spun slightly, so her robe brushed against him before he steadied the basketwork then pushed the contraption straight again. Lulled by the methodical rhythm of the swing, Caenis murmured, ‘I have heard that the girls in Crete are famously attractive.'

‘The girls in Crete,' returned Vespasian gravely, ‘are ravishing. But their fathers are famously fierce.'

‘I expect people manage.'

‘I believe people do.' He pushed her chair slightly harder than before. ‘Of course you always get the odd romantic who prefers to save up his initiative for some clever brown eyes he left behind at home . . . Antonia Caenis,' he mused, perhaps changing the subject. ‘Caenis, in the dark with her shoes off—lovely feet!—Caenis, in a hanging chair. Very rash, young lady,
some bad man may tip you out!
'

And Vespasian tipped her out himself.

 

Her heart stopped.

He caught her, as he meant to do, with one strong arm around her while the other held back the chair and saved it from banging into her. He brought her close against him, as she immediately realised he would. He turned her into the tiny pool of lamplight so he could search her face while she could see the determination lighting his. As she came into his arms it felt as natural and secure as she had always known it would.

She squealed once, then grew still. ‘Titus—'

‘Caenis—'

They both knew what was going to happen next. They knew Caenis wanted it as much as he.

In the second when she passed from the cold atmosphere of the terrace into the warmth of his embrace she shivered, because she was startled, yet there was never any doubt. She had long ago made her choice. Against his chest she was conscious of his struggle to control his breath; her back arched slightly under the pressure of his arm; she caught his face between both hands and they moved together into an unfaltering kiss. At her eager response she heard his groan of relief, then afterwards as her cheek pressed his, he felt her own shuddering sigh.

‘Come to bed with me, Caenis. Oh—' Unable even to wait for her reply he kissed her again, at demanding length. ‘Convinced?'

Caenis, who even now did not smile easily, smiled at Vespasian. ‘Convinced!'

Then he astonished her again; he suddenly held her, not in the great wrestler's hug she expected but as tenderly as some ceramic almost too delicate to touch, while he muttered against the complicated pleating of her hair, ‘Oh Antonia Caenis . . . Welcome to freedom—and welcome to me!' Then she knew this was a truly sentimental man. She put it from her mind. ‘Is there somewhere we can go?' He could have taken her then and there, in the dark, amongst the stored furniture and tubs of desiccated flowers; he was ready and her need was as urgent as his.

But Caenis possessed a modest comfortable room where, as a freedwoman, she was entitled to entertain her friends. She was proud of her achievements; she took him there.

 

It was as she had always expected. This man was her other half. The bungled conjunctions in her previous experience were swept from her memory. The unwelcome clutches which had once seemed to be her only future could be angrily rebuffed. She would never again fall prey to incongruous hangers-on. She need never be coerced by her
own insecurity. Now she knew everything. She had found the joy she had tried so hard to believe in.

They were perfectly at ease. They had already established a companionship which ran deep and true. Each took, each gave with overwhelming honesty, openness and delight.

When at the end Vespasian rolled over and lay on his back, he covered with one great hand deep brown eyes that were no longer so steady. ‘
Oh lass!
'

Caenis was laughing as she rested her head upon his hammering heart, one arm outflung across his body to the edge of the bed. ‘
Oh yes!
'

She felt his breathing start to settle but he was not asleep, for after a time he drew the coverlet around her and gathered her close. When he spoke his voice sounded subdued, as if he had somehow been caught off guard. ‘A fine pair, you and I.'

Caenis found and kissed his hand. After a moment she confessed, ‘I wish you had not given me your present.'

‘Mmm?'

‘I did not want a bribe.'

By then he was shaking with laughter. ‘You deserve a present. And you're well worth a bribe! . . . I was certain it would make you say no.' His arm tightened around her; his voice steadied. ‘I won't be shaken off now.'

‘What?'

‘Don't try to send me away.'

He knew her at least as well as she knew herself, for that was of course what Caenis had intended to do.

‘No,' she told him gently, and settled against his shoulder as if for sleep, so he probably assumed his challenge had persuaded her. ‘While you want me, I shall never do that.'

Her intention had been overturned. Quite simply there was no longer any choice. She would not send Vespasian away because she could not.

Nor could she sleep. She lay with a throbbing brain as she buckled together her resources to cope with the commitment she had made.
Impossible to tell whether Vespasian realised how she had withdrawn into herself; she hoped not, for she did not want him to wonder why. There was nothing to be done about it; nothing she even wanted to do. But Caenis recognised now, now when it was far too late, the mistake she had made: she had entered into a contract whose conditions were the exchange of friendship and pleasure on terms that should be utterly businesslike.

And she had given this terrible contract to a man with whom she was inescapably in love.