The Grass Crown (25 page)

“Well, Servilia,” said Livia Drusa briskly, “I am very glad that you can like your tata. But you’ll have to display a little maturity when he comes home and you talk together again. What I’ve told you about my own dislike of him is a confidence. Our secret.”

“Why? Doesn’t he already know?”

Livia Drusa frowned, puzzled. “If you talk to your father so much, Servilia, you surely know he has not the slightest idea I dislike him. Your tata is not a perceptive kind of man. If he were, I may not have disliked him.”

“Oh, well, we never waste time discussing you,” said Servilia contemptuously. “We talk about important things.”

“For a seven-year-old, you’re very good at hurting people.”

“I’d never hurt my tata,” said the seven-year-old.

“Good for you! Remember what I said, however. What I’ve told you—or tried to tell you—today is our secret. I’ve honored you with a confidence, and I expect you to treat that confidence as a Roman patrician woman would—with respect.”

When Lucius Valerius Flaccus and Marcus Antonius Orator were elected censors in April, Quintus Poppaedius Silo arrived at Drusus’s house in a mood of great excitement.

“Oh, how wonderful to be able to talk without Quintus Servilius around!” exclaimed Silo with a grin; he never made any bones about his antipathy toward Caepio, any more than Caepio disguised his own antipathy.

Understanding this—and secretly agreeing with Silo even if family loyalties prevented his saying so—Drusus ignored the remark. “What’s brought you to the boil?” he asked.

“Our censors! They’re planning the most comprehensive census ever taken, and they’re going to change the way it’s taken.” Silo raised his arms above his head exultantly. “Oh, Marcus Livius, you have no idea how pessimistic I had become about the Italian situation! I had begun to see no other way out of our dilemma than secession and war with Rome.”

This being the first Drusus had heard of Silo’s fears, he sat very straight in his chair and looked at Silo in alarm. “Secession? War?” he asked. “Quintus Poppaedius, how can you even say such words? Truly, the Italian situation will be solved by peaceful means—I am dedicated to that end!”

“I know you are, my friend, and you must believe me when I say that secession and war are far from what I want. Italy doesn’t need these alternatives any more than Rome does. The cost in money and men would cripple our nations for decades afterward, no matter which side won. There are no spoils in civil wars.”

“Don’t even think of it!”

Silo wriggled on his chair, put his arms on Drusus’s desk and leaned forward eagerly. “that’s just it, I’m not thinking of it! Because I’ve suddenly seen a way to enfranchise enough Italians to make a big difference in how Rome feels about us.”

“You mean a mass enfranchisement?”

“Not total enfranchisement, that would be impossible. But great enough that once the thing is done, total enfranchisement will follow,” said Silo.

“How?” asked Drusus, feeling a little cheated; he had always thought of himself as ahead of Silo in the planning of full Roman citizenship for the Italians, but it now appeared his complacence had been mistaken.

“Well, as you know, the censors have always cared more about discovering who and what live inside Rome than anything else. The rural and provincial censuses have been tardy and completely voluntary. A rural man wanting to register has had to go to the duumviri of his municipality or town, or else journey to the nearest place with municipal status. And in the provinces, a man has had to go to the governor, which can be a long journey. Those who care make the trip. Those who don’t promise themselves they’ll do it next time and simply trust that the clerks of the census transfer their names from the old rolls to the new—which mostly they do.”

“I am quite aware of all this,” said Drusus gently.

“It doesn’t matter, I think you must hear it again right now. Our new censors, Marcus Livius, are a curious pair. I’ve never thought of Antonius Orator as particularly efficient, yet I suppose when you think about the kind of campaign he had to wage against the pirates, he must be. As for Lucius Valerius, flamen Martialis and consular, all I remember about him is what a mess he made of Saturninus’s last year in office, when Gaius Marius was too ill to govern. However, they do say that there’s no man born without a talent of some kind! Now it turns out that Lucius Valerius has a talent for—I suppose you’d have to call it logistics. I came in through the Colline Gate today, and I was walking across the lower Forum when Lucius Valerius appeared.” Silo opened his strange eyes wide, and heaved a theatrical gasp. “Imagine my surprise when he hailed me, asked me if I had any time to talk! An Italian! Naturally I said I was entirely his to command. Turns out he wanted me to recommend him the names of some Roman citizen Marsi who would be willing to take a census of citizens and Latin Rights citizens in Marsic territory. By dint of looking stupid, in the end I got the whole story out of him. They—he and Antonius Orator, that is—intend to employ a special staff of what they’re calling census clerks, and send them all over Italy and Italian Gaul late this year and early next year to conduct a census in the rural fastnesses. According to Lucius Valerius, your new censors are worried that the system as it has always been practised overlooks a large group of rural citizens and Latins who are unwilling to bestir themselves to register. What do you think of that?”

“What ought I to think?” asked Drusus blankly.

“First of all, that it’s clear thinking, Marcus Livius.”

“Certainly! Businesslike too. But what special virtue does it possess to have you wagging your tail so hard?”

“My dear Drusus, if we Italians can get at these so-called census clerks, we’ll be able to ensure that they register large numbers of deserving Italians as Roman citizens! Not rabble, but men who ought by rights to have been Roman citizens years and years ago,” said Silo persuasively.

“You can’t do that,” said Drusus, his dark face stern. “It’s as unethical as it is illegal.”

“It’s morally right!”

“Morality is not at issue, Quintus Poppaedius. The law is. Every spurious citizen entered on the Roman rolls would be an illegal citizen. I couldn’t countenance that, any more than you should. No, say no more! Think about it, and you’ll see I’m right,” said Drusus firmly.

For a long moment Silo studied his friend’s expression, then flung his hands up in exasperation. “Oh, curse you, Marcus Livius! It would be so easy!”

“And just as easy to unravel once the deed was done. In registering these false citizens, you expose them to all the fury of Roman law—a flogging, their names inscribed on a blacklist, heavy fines,” said Drusus.

A sigh, a shrug. “Very well then, I do see your point,” said Silo grudgingly. “But it was a good idea.”

“No, it was a bad idea.” And from that stand, Marcus Livius Drusus would not be budged.

Silo said no more, but when the house—emptier these days—was stilled for the duration of the night, he took an example from the absent Livia Drusa without being aware he did, by going to sit outside on the balustrade of the loggia.

It had not occurred to him for one moment that Drusus would fail to see matters in the same way he did; had it, he would never have brought the subject up to Drusus. Perhaps, thought Silo sadly, this is one of the reasons why so many Romans say we Italians can never be Romans. I didn’t understand Drusus’s mind.

His position was now invidious, for he had advertised his intentions; he saw that he could not rely upon Drusus’s silence. Would Drusus go to Lucius Valerius Flaccus and Marcus Antonius Orator on the morrow, tell them what had been said?

His only alternative was to wait and see. And he would have to work very hard—but very subtly!—to convince Drusus that what had been said was a bright idea conceived between the Forum and the lip of the Palatine, something foolish and unworthy that a night’s sleep had squashed flat.

For he had no intention of abandoning his plan. Rather, its simplicity and finality only made its attractions grow. The censors expected many thousands of additional citizens to register! Why then should they query a markedly increased rural enrollment? He must travel at once to Bovianum to see Gaius Papius Mutilus the Samnite, then they must both travel to see the other Italian Ally leaders. By the time that the censors started seriously looking for their small army of clerks, the men who led the Italian Allies must be ready to act. To bribe clerks, to put clerks in office prepared to work secretly for the Italian cause, to alter or add to any rolls made available to them. The city of Rome he couldn’t tamper with, nor did he particularly want to. Non-citizens of Italian status within the city of Rome were not worth having; they had migrated from the lands of their fathers to live more meanly or more fatly within the environs of a huge metropolis, they were seduced beyond redemption.

For a long time he sat on the loggia, thoughts chasing across his mind, ways and means and ends to achieve the ultimate end—equality for every man within Italy.

And in the morning he set out to erase that indiscreet talk from Drusus’s mind, suitably penitent yet cheerful with it, as if it didn’t really matter in the least to him now that Drusus had shown him the error of his ways.

“I was misguided,” he said to Drusus, but in light tones. “A night’s sleep told me you are absolutely right.”

“Good!” said Drusus, smiling.

Quintus Servilius Caepio did not come home until autumn of the following year, having traveled from Smyrna in Asia Province to Italian Gaul, then to Utica in Africa Province, to Gades in Further Spain, and finally back to Italian Gaul. Scattering great prosperity in his wake. But gathering even more prosperity unto himself. And slowly, slowly, the Gold of Tolosa became translated into other things; big tracts of rich land along the Baetis River in Further Spain, apartment buildings in Gades, Utica, Corduba, Hispalis, Old Carthage and New Carthage, Cirta, Nemausus, Arelate, and every major town in Italian Gaul and the Italian peninsula; the little steel and charcoal towns he created in Italian Gaul were joined by textile towns; and wherever the farmlands were superlative, Quintus Servilius Caepio bought. He used Italian banks rather than Roman, Italian companies rather than Roman. And nothing of his fortune did he leave in Roman Asia Minor.

When he arrived at the house of Marcus Livius Drusus in Rome, his coming was unheralded. In consequence, he discovered that his wife and daughters were absent.

“Where are they?” he demanded of his sister.

“Where you said they could be,” answered Servilia Caepionis, looking bewildered.

“What do you mean, I said?”

“They’re still living on Marcus Livius’s Tusculan farm,” she said, wishing Drusus would come home.

“Why on earth are they living there?”

“For peace and quiet.” Servilia Caepionis put her hand to her head. “Oh dear, I must have got it all muddled up! I was so sure Marcus Livius told me you had agreed to it.”

“I didn’t agree to anything,” said Caepio angrily. “I’ve been away for over a year and a half, I come home expecting to be welcomed by my wife and children, and I find them absent! This is ridiculous! What are they doing in Tusculum?”

One of the virtues the men of the Servilii Caepiones most prided themselves upon was sexual continence allied to marital fidelity; in all his time away, Caepio had not availed himself of a woman. Consequently, the closer he got to Rome, the more urgent his expectations of his wife had become.

“Livia Drusa was tired of Rome and went to live in the old Livius Drusus villa at Tusculum,” said Servilia Caepionis, her heart beating fast. “Truly, I thought you had given your consent! But in all events, it has certainly done Livia Drusa no harm. I’ve never seen her look better. Or so happy.” She smiled at her only brother. “You have a little son, Quintus Servilius. He was born last December, on the Kalends.”

That was good news indeed, but not news capable of dispelling Caepio’s annoyance at discovering his wife absent, his own satiation postponed.

“Send someone to bring them back at once,” he said.

Drusus came in not long afterward to find his brother-in-law sitting stiffly in the study, no book in his hand, nor anything on his mind beyond Livia Drusa’s delinquency.

“What’s all this about Livia Drusa?” he demanded as Drusus came in, ignoring the outstretched hand and avoiding the brotherly salutation of a kiss.

Warned by his wife, Drusus took this calmly, simply went round his desk and sat down.

“Livia Drusa moved to my Tusculan farm while you were away,” said Drusus. “There’s nothing untoward in it, Quintus Servilius. She was tired of the city, is all. Certainly the move has benefited her, she’s very well indeed. And you have a son.”

“My sister said she was under the impression I had given my permission for this relocation,” said Caepio, and blew through his nose. “Well, I certainly didn’t!”

“Yes, Livia Drusa did say you’d given your permission,” said Drusus, unruffled. “However, that’s a minor thing. I daresay she didn’t think of it until after you’d gone, and saved herself a great deal of difficulty by telling us you had consented. When you see her, I think you’ll understand that she acted for the best. Her health and state of mind are better than I’ve ever known. Clearly, country life suits her.”

“She will have to be disciplined.”

Drusus raised one pointed brow. “That, Quintus Servilius, is none of my business. I don’t want to know about it. What I do want to know about is your trip away.”

When the servant escort arrived at Drusus’s farm late in the afternoon of that same day, Livia Drusa was on hand to greet them. She betrayed no dismay, simply nodded and said she would be ready to travel to Rome at noon tomorrow, then summoned Mopsus and gave him instructions.

The ancient Tusculan farmstead was now something more like a country villa, equipped with a peristyle-garden and all hygienic conveniences; Livia Drusa hurried through its gracious proportions to her sitting room, closed the door and the shutters, threw herself on the couch and wept. It was all over; Quintus Servilius was home, and home to Quintus Servilius was the city. She would never be allowed to so much as visit Tusculum again. No doubt he now knew of her lie about obtaining his permission to move here—and that alone, given his temperament, would put Tusculum permanently out of bounds for her.

Cato Salonianus was not at his country villa because the Senate was in full session in Rome; it had been several weeks since Livia Drusa had last seen him. Tears over, she went to sit at her worktable, drew forward a sheet of paper, found her pen and ink, and wrote to him.

My husband is home, and I am sent for. By the time you read this, I will be back within the walls of my brother’s house in Rome, and under everyone’s eye. How and when and where we may ever meet again, I do not know.

Only how can I live without you? Oh, my most beloved, my dearest one, how will I survive? Not to see you—not to feel your arms, your hands, your lips—I cannot bear it! But he will hedge me round with so many restrictions, and Rome is such a public place—I despair of ever seeing you again! I love you more than I can tell. Remember that. I love you.

In the morning she went for her walk as always, informing her household that she would be back before noon, when all was to be ready for the journey to Rome. Usually she hurried to her rendezvous, but this morning she dawdled, drinking in the beauty of the autumn countryside, committing every tree and rock and bush to memory for the lonely years to come. And when she reached the tiny whitewashed two-room house in which she and Cato had met for twenty-one months now, she drifted from one wall to another, touching everything with tenderness, sadness. Against hope she had hoped he would be there, but he was not; so she left the note lying in open view on their bed, knowing no one would dare enter the house.

And then it was off to Rome, being bounced and thrown about in the closed two-wheeled carpentum Caepio considered appropriate transportation for his wife. At first Livia Drusa had insisted upon having Little Caepio—as everyone called her son—inside the vehicle with her, but after two of the fifteen miles had been covered, she gave the baby to a strong male slave and commanded that he be carried on foot. Servililla remained with her a little longer, then her stomach revolted against the rough journey and she had to be held out the carriage window so often that she too was bidden walk. Nothing would Livia Drusa have liked better than to join the pedestrians, but when she asked to do this, she was informed firmly that the master’s instructions were clear on one point—she must ride inside the carpentum with windows covered.

Servilia, unlike Lilla, possessed a cast-iron digestion, so she too remained in the carriage; offered the chance to walk, she had announced loftily that patrician women didn’t walk. It was easy to see, thought Livia Drusa, that the child was very excited, though only living in close proximity to her for so long had given her mother this insight. Of external evidence there was little, just an extra glitter in the dark eyes and two creases in the corners of the small full mouth.

“I’m very glad you’re looking forward to seeing tata,” said Livia Drusa, hanging on to a strap for dear life when the carpentum lurched precariously.

“Well, I know you’re not,” said Servilia nastily.

“Try to understand!” cried the mother. “I so loved living in Tusculum, is all! I loathe Rome!”

“Hah,” said Servilia.

And that was the end of the conversation.

Five hours after starting out, the carpentum and its big escort arrived at the house of Marcus Livius Drusus.

“I could have walked faster!” said Livia Drusa tartly to the carpentarius as he prepared to drive his hired vehicle away.

Caepio was waiting in the suite of rooms they had always lived in. When his wife walked through the door he nodded to her aloofly, and when she shepherded his two daughters in after her so that they might say hello to tata before going to the nursery, they too were dowered with an aloof, disinterested nod. Even when Servilia gave him her widest, shiest smile, he did not unbend.

“Off you go, and ask Nurse to bring little Quintus,” said Livia Drusa, pushing the girls out the door.

But Nurse was already waiting. Livia Drusa took the baby from her and carried him into the sitting room herself.

“There, Quintus Servilius!” she said, smiling. “Meet your son. Isn’t he beautiful?”

That was a mother’s exaggeration, as Little Caepio was not a beautiful child. Nor, however, was he ugly. At ten months of age he sat very straight in Livia Drusa’s arms and looked at his audience as directly as he did soberly; not a smiling or charming child. The ample mop of straight, lank hair on his head was a most aggressive shade of red, his eyes were a light hazel-brown, his physique long of limb, thin of face.

“Jupiter!” said Caepio, gazing at his son in astonishment. “Where did he get red hair from?”

“My mother’s family, so Marcus Livius says,” Li via Drusa answered composedly.

“Oh!” said Caepio, relieved; not because he suspected his wife of infidelity, but because he liked all the ends neatly tied and tucked away. Never an affectionate man, he did not attempt to hold the baby, and had to be prompted before he chucked Little Caepio under the chin and talked to him like a proper tata.

Finally, “Good,” said Caepio. “Give him back to his nurse. It’s time you and I were alone, wife.”

“But it’s dinnertime,” said Livia Drusa as she carried the baby back to the door and handed him through it to Nurse. “In fact,” she said, heart beginning to knock at the prospect of what had to come, “dinner’s late. We can’t possibly delay it further.”

He was closing the shutters and bolting the door. “I’m not hungry,” he said, starting to unwind his toga, “and if you are, that’s too bad. No dinner for you tonight, wife!”

Though he was not a sensitive or perceptive man, Quintus Servilius Caepio could not but be aware of the change in Livia Drusa the moment he climbed into bed beside her and pulled her urgently against him. Tense. Utterly unresponsive.

“What’s the matter with you?” he cried, disappointed.

“Like all women, I’ m beginning to dislike this business,” she said. “After we have two or three children we lose interest.”

“Well,” said Caepio, growing angry, “you’d better grow some interest back! The men of my family are continent and moral, we are famous for sleeping only with our wives.” It came out sounding pompous, ridiculous, as if learned by rote.

Thus the night could be called a successful reunion only on the most basic level; even after repeated sexual assaults by Caepio, Livia Drusa remained cold, apathetic, then offended her husband mightily by going to sleep in the middle of his last effort, and snoring. He shook her viciously awake.

“How do you expect us to have another son?” he asked, his fingers digging painfully into her shoulders.

“I don’t want any more children,” she said.

“If you’re not careful,” he mumbled, coming to his climax, “I’ll divorce you.”

“If divorce meant I could go back to Tusculum to live,” she said above the groans of his climax, “I wouldn’t mind it in the least. I hate Rome. And I hate this.” She wriggled out from under him. “Now may I go to sleep?”

Tired himself, he let this go, but in the morning he resumed the subject the moment he woke, his anger grown greater.

“I am your husband,” he said to her as she slid out of bed, “and I expect my wife to be a proper wife.”

“I told you, I’ve lost interest in the whole business!” she said tartly. “If that doesn’t suit you, Quintus Servilius, then I suggest you divorce me.”

But Caepio’s brain had grasped the fact that she wanted a divorce, though as yet had not thought of infidelity. “There will be no divorce, wife.”

“I can divorce you, you know.”

“I doubt your brother would allow it. Not that it makes any difference. There will be no divorce. Instead, you will flog a little interest—or rather, I will.” He picked up his leather belt and folded it double, tugging at it to make it snap.

Livia Drusa stared at him in simple amazement. “Oh, do stop posturing!” she said. “I’m not a child!”

“You’re behaving like one.”

“You wouldn’t dare touch me!”

For answer, he grabbed her arm, twisted it deftly behind her back and pulled her nightgown up to hold it in his same hand. The belt curled with a loud crack against her flank, then against her thigh, her buttock, her calf. At first she tried to struggle free, then understood that he was capable of breaking her arm if he had to. Each time he struck her the pain increased, a fierce fire going deeper than skin; her gasps became sobs, then cries of fear. When she sank to her knees and tried to cradle her head in her arms he let her go, took the belt in both hands and flogged her huddled body in a frenzy of rage.

Her screams began to go through him like a glorious paean of joy; he ripped her gown completely away and wielded his belt until his arms were so tired he couldn’t raise them.

The belt fell, was kicked away. Hand locked in her hair, Caepio dragged his wife to her feet and back to the airless sleeping cubicle, sour and stinking from the night.

“Now we’ll see!” he panted, grasping his huge erection in one hand. “Obedience, wife! Otherwise there’ll be more!” And, mounting her, he truly thought that her leaping flinches, the feeble beating of her fists, her anguished cries, were excitement.

The noises emanating from the Caepio suite had not gone unnoticed. Sidling along the colonnade to see if her beloved tata was awake, little Servilia heard it all, as did some of the house servants. Drusus and Servilia Caepionis did not hear, nor were they informed; no one knew how to tell them.