The Course of Honour (6 page)

‘You seem to have worked everything out.'

‘I think a girl in my position has to,' Caenis said quietly.

Antonia, who favoured Caenis strongly, and who disliked having to involve herself in the private lives of her staff, seemed to tire of the conversation. ‘Well, you were right to speak to me. I have no wish to deprive you of companionship. But rank must be respected—'

‘I am a slave,' Caenis agreed quietly. ‘If he wants a mistress, he has to look elsewhere.'

‘So long as you accept it. So long as you make him accept it too! Don't let him ask questions.' Don't get pregnant, thought Antonia. Don't force me to discipline you; don't betray my trust. ‘And don't let yourself be hurt.'

Squaring up the writing tablets on her knee, Caenis laughed unhappily. ‘Thank you, madam.'

‘Caenis, you undervalue yourself!'

In the girl before her Antonia saw what Vespasian must see—that fine, bright, interesting look that marked an intelligent woman; a look which in drawing the eye also lifted the heart. A man with the taste to admire such quality was more dangerous than any philanderer or hustler.

With an angry jerk at the cushions under her back, Antonia conceded, ‘Ask Athenaïs to find you something decent to wear.'

Caenis felt startled. She had been intending to borrow Veronica's best blue gown, since she knew that Veronica had worked herself an invitation to a function which required only a silver anklet and a wisp of gauze.

‘Something will be found for you,' Antonia brusquely said again.

Then, much as she distrusted other people's support, Caenis understood that in speaking out she had softened Antonia's strict principles. Her mistress would keep her, and indulge her. She had earned more than her lady's goodwill. She had become her favourite.

 

______

 

Something
was found; something wonderful. Athenaïs, who mended Antonia's clothes, carried the garment to her cubicle. Her face split with a shy grin. ‘Pamphila has screwed up her face and let you have this!' Pamphila was the wardrobe mistress. She always ensured that her own turnout was spectacular, but was not renowned for parting with good things to other slaves.

Caenis whistled, which made Athenaïs giggle. She was deeply in awe of the secretary for being able to read and write, even though Caenis had made it plain since she first entered Antonia's household that to anyone half sensible she was perfectly approachable. Athenaïs immediately made her try on the dress then squatted on the floor to alter the hem length, frowning with concentration as her nimble fingers flew. She seemed even more excited than Caenis was herself.

‘I don't suppose you could persuade Pamphila to find me an undertunic too?'

Athenaïs scoffed. ‘I don't suppose you would like to try being the person who asked her?'

‘No; I know my limits, dear!'

So Caenis came to the pantomime in her own shift, but a gown that had once belonged to the daughter of Mark Antony. It was one that showed its pedigree, in a shade of amber-brown, as plain as it had once been expensive. Veronica would think it dull stuff, but Caenis recognised true elegance. It was linen woven through at Tyre with Chinese silk, a material so light she found it fabulous to wear. The dress moved as she moved; it lay soft against the skin, tenderly cool during the heat of the day then with the evening chill whisperingly warm.

‘You look nice,' Vespasian remarked. No man had ever said that to Caenis before; none had ever thought he needed to. But he as usual was examining her. ‘You look happy.'

For the first time Caenis glimpsed that although exquisite features and fine robes must help, real good looks depended on a glad heart. ‘Happy?' she quipped. ‘Well, strolling out with a bankrupt will soon settle that! Shall we walk?' she asked helpfully.

‘I do have the price of a litter for my female companion.'

‘Of course,' she murmured. No slave travelled in such style. Teasing
him helped cover her unease. ‘But I was afraid that if you spent your small change now, you might have to miss your interval honey-cake.'

‘Thanks!' he said, suddenly meeting her halfway. ‘I do like a girl who grasps the practicalities.'

Caenis stated quietly for the second time that week, ‘I think a girl in my position has to.'

They walked.

 

 

 

 

T
o walk through Rome was to bludgeon through one teeming city bazaar. The main time for trade was in the morning before the fabric of the buildings and the air in the streets heated up unbearably, but in Mediterranean tradition, after a long siesta—lunch, nap, a little light lovemaking—businesses gradually reopened for their second, more leisurely session in the afternoon. This was the time at which Caenis and Vespasian set out.

They were starting on the Palatine, where the imperial family and those wealthy enough to imitate them had established their pleasant detached residences along the lower flank, with fine views over the Forum. When they plunged down from the Hill it was to make their way to the Theatre of Balbus along the Triumphal Way; their passage was hectic. To the rest of the world the Empire was giving the elegance of planned public buildings in spacious piazzas, wide roads, and new towns built upon geometric street plans that were four-square as the military forts from which they derived. Rome itself remained an eight-hundred-year-old honeycomb, a traditional maze of tight-cornered streets which clambered up and down the Seven Hills, often no more than inadequate passageways, twisting alleys, aimless double-backs, and crumbling cul-de-sacs. All of these were packed to bursting point.

‘I'm going to lose you,' Vespasian muttered. ‘Better hold my hand.'

‘Oh no!' In horror Caenis buried her hands under the light folds of her stole. He raised a dour eyebrow; she would not give way.

The press of people in the narrow streets did not deter a man of his sturdiness. Keeping close behind his shoulder she slipped after him as he moved unhurriedly; he forced a path more courteously than most men of his status ever managed. He checked frequently, though she sensed he was sufficiently alive to her presence to know immediately if they did separate in the crush. Once a water-carrier with two wildly sloshing cauldrons slung on a bowed pole pushed impatiently between them on his way from a public fountain to the upper quarters of an apartment block; she caught at Vespasian's toga, but with one of his abrupt smiles he was already slowing up to wait for her.

Freckles of sunlight flickered on their faces as they reached the smaller streets; these were just wide enough to glimpse the sky far away between corners of the roofs on the six-storey blocks whose cramped apartments were piled one upon the other like towers of slipper-limpets on a rock. Everywhere taverns and workshops spilled out in front of them, for by day life was lived in the streets. The pillars of the arcades were garlanded with metalware—bronze flagons and copper jugs with chains through their handles like preposterous necklaces. They stepped around leaning stacks of pottery, then ducked under baskets hung on ropes above their heads. They squeezed past touts with trays of piping-hot meat-pies, pressed back under balconies as sedan chairs jostled by, paused to watch a game of draughts on a makeshift board scratched in the dust. Assailed by noise and smells and the shoving of a polyglot humanity which at times carried them along helpless on the tide, at length they reached their destination.

‘Show me your ticket!' Caenis commanded. ‘Then I can look out for you—but you mustn't wave.' Gravely he produced the ivory disc from which she memorised the number of his seat. ‘If you still want to see me, I'll wait over there afterwards by the fortune-teller's booth. If I leave early I'll send down a message.'

‘I'll be there,' he assented sombrely.

 

______

 

Women sat at the top of the third tier of seats in the theatre, after the various ranks of masculine citizens; Caenis had saved up for a ticket, to avoid having to stand on the upper terrace with foreigners and less thrifty slaves. Even from this high perch she soon picked out Vespasian; already the way he moved seemed vividly familiar. Usually she followed a play almost ahead of the actor, but she constantly lost Blathyllos today. Her concentration kept skittering off to the fourteen rows in the first tier, reserved for knights.

The art of the tragic pantomime had developed nearly to its peak. Few new plays were written; those shown now comprised part of the communal memory. The mood of the story was conveyed by an orchestra of wind and percussion while the words, which the audience often knew by heart, were sung either by a small choir or a soloist. Nowadays there was only one actor, who portrayed all the parts; he honed himself for this with a strict regimen of diet and exercise. He presented the action through a combination of mime and dance, where each gesture, each glance, each delicate flexing of a muscle, each precise modulation of a nerve, caught the imagination and through the imagination the heart.

Blathyllos was good. At first he commanded his audience simply by standing still and drawing on their expectation. His slightest movement carried right to the back of the auditorium and as in all the best theatre it was apparently effortless. He used suspense, horror, confusion, sentiment, and joy. He brought them through heroism and pity, anger and desire, grief and triumph. By the end even Caenis felt wrung. The final applause discovered her blinking, dry-mouthed, momentarily bemused.

When she regained the street she thought for one wild moment that Vespasian would not come. She was waiting, sufficiently far from the main throng of people for him to pick her out yet near enough to the entrance not to feel threatened by pickpockets or pimps. She saw Vespasian heading in the opposite direction, she was sure. Still highly strung from the drama, she could not believe it. Distraught, she almost began to walk away alone.

He materialised from the dispersing crowd just in time.

‘Hello, Caenis!' He must have gone to find two slaves, his own or
more likely his brother's, who now followed behind him with cudgels through their belts. ‘Sorry; have I kept you waiting?'

‘It didn't matter,' she lied gallantly.

 

‘Want your fortune told?' Vespasian was glancing at the booth; a man of evil Egyptian aspect, with a red pointed cap and no teeth, popped up like a puppet over the canvas half-door the moment he spoke: evidently able to prophesy customers. ‘I'll pay for it—are you frightened?' Very little frightened Caenis. She said nothing and Vespasian egged her on. ‘Don't you believe in horoscopes? You old sceptic!'

‘I know my future: hard work, hard luck, and a hard death at a hard age!' Caenis told him grimly. ‘I can't do it. You need to say when you were born.'

For a moment he did not understand.

Each freeborn Roman citizen, male or female, was registered with the Censor within eight or nine days of birth. A free citizen honoured his own birthday and those of his ancestors and family as his happiest private festivals when his household gods were wreathed with garlands while everyone who owed him respect gave thanks. Important men honoured the birthdays of political figures they admired. The birthday of the Emperor was a public festival.

Caenis was a slave: she did not know when her birthday was.

He was quick; no need now to explain.

Pride made her do so anyway; she could be brutal when she chose: ‘Slavegirls' brats, sir, are not heralded by proud fathers in the
Daily Gazette.
The fact that I exist is marked only by my standing here before you, blood and bone decked out in a new dress. The modern philosophers may grant me a soul, but nobody—lord,
nobody
—burdens me with a fate to be foreseen!'

‘
Ouch!
' he remarked. She felt better. He did not apologise; there was no point. Instead he turned to the astrologer in his down-to-earth way. ‘Here's a challenge then; can we offer this lass any consolation?'

The man let his eyes glaze with practised guile. He was draped in unclean scarves which were intended to suggest oriental mystery, though to Caenis they were simply a reflection of the poor standards
of hygiene that applied here in the Ninth District. A tinsel zodiac twinkled sporadically on a string above his head. One of the Fish had lost its tail and the Twins were slowly drifting apart from their heavenly embrace.

‘Her face can never be upon the coinage!' the astrologer intoned suddenly in a high-pitched voice. How subtly ambiguous, Caenis thought. The man managed to imply that some uninvited blast of truth had struck him in the midriff just above whatever he had for dinner. Caenis reckoned this could not be healthy if he did it every day. He wavered; Vespasian chinked some coppers into a grimy hand which shot out promptly despite the apparent trance. ‘Her life is kindly; kindly her death. Bones light as charcoal, thin hair . . . she goes to the gods wrapped in purple; Caesar grieves; lost is his lady, his life's true reverse . . .'

He fell silent, then looked up abruptly, his eyes dark with shock.

Vespasian folded his arms. ‘Steady on with the treason,' he tackled the man jovially, ‘but if some character's after my turtledove I'd like to be ready for him! What Caesar is this? Not the old goat, I trust—' Meaning Tiberius. ‘Did you manage to get a glimpse of the laundry label in his cloak?'

Edging away in confusion at having been called his turtledove, Caenis murmured, ‘Emperors don't have name-tags. It's considered unnecessary on the purple, you know.'

The astrologer gave Vespasian a nicely judged crazy stare.

 

Caenis had fled.

‘Shall we walk?' Vespasian offered, as he caught her up with a sniff.

Wanting to resist being disturbed by the fraudulent predictions of a soiled Egyptian in a dirty Greek blanket, Caenis growled amiably, ‘As you see I am already walking. I presupposed you had squandered my fare home on fly-blown titbits and lukewarm wine from every tout.' She knew he had kept his seat throughout.