The Tribune's Curse (4 page)

“What is it?” I asked them.

“Look what she’s hired,” Cassandra said.

I peered out over their shoulders and grunted as if I’d been punched in the stomach. Just outside the gate was a litter draped in pale green silk covered with Scythian embroidery done in gold thread. Squatting by its polished ebony poles were four black Nubians, a matched set, wearing Egyptian kilts and headdresses.

“Have they arrived?” Julia said from behind me.

“They have,” I said, not wanting my slaves to hear me upbraiding her, although they knew perfectly well what was going through my head. “You look lovely, my dear.”

And indeed she did. Julia had great natural beauty, and she knew how to enhance it. Besides that, she had the patrician bearing that makes its possessor seem taller and more stately, and her gown was made of the infamous Coan cloth, although it was multilayered to avoid the transparency that outraged the Censors.

We went outside and climbed into the litter, which was furnished with plump cushions stuffed with goose down and fragrant herbs. The bearers lifted the poles to their brawny shoulders and bore us off so smoothly that it was like floating. Hermes and Cypria walked behind us. Once in a while I could hear them trading barbed remarks in the slang used by slaves. They didn’t get along well.

“Julia,” I said, “with the expenses of the aedileship facing us, why did you hire this pretentious conveyance? It must cost more than our regular household expenses for a week.”

“That is a vulgar consideration, Decius,” she said. “I hired it because we are calling on Fausta.” She shot me a sidelong glance. “And on the
praetor urbanus
, of course. We would be doing our distinguished hosts little credit if we were to arrive in some rickety old litter covered with patched linen and carried by spavined, mismatched slaves. You must live up to the dignity of the office you seek, my dear.”

“As you say, my love,” I said, conceding defeat. With Julia, winning an argument was usually far more painful than losing.

The Nubians deposited us in the narrow street before the massive door of Milo’s house. The moment I stepped from the litter, I saw the effect of Fausta’s renovations. The entire block of apartments facing that side of the house was gone. Instead, the other side of the street featured a beautifully landscaped park, complete with fountains and pools in which swans paddled contentedly.

“What happened here?” I said, gasping. “Was there a fire?”

“Nothing of the sort,” Julia informed me. “Fausta thought
this dingy neighborhood was too cramped, so she had some of the tenements demolished. Milo already owned them, anyway. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“It’s pretty enough,” I admitted. “But his whole point in putting the main door on this side was that the street was too narrow for his enemies to use a battering ram against it. They could build a siege tower in that park.”

“It’s worth putting up with a little danger to live with proper dignity. Come along, the guests are gathering.”

We went inside, and a whole horde of pretty young slaves of both sexes swarmed around us, draping our necks with wreaths of flowers, placing chaplets around our brows, anointing our hands with perfume, and scattering rose petals before us. This was another change. I’d never seen anyone but strong-arm men in Milo’s house before. His lictors had been dismissed for the evening, but the six
fasces
were ranged on stands by the door in token of his
imperium
.

The atrium was changed as well. Fausta had knocked three or four rooms into one huge one, and had raised the ceiling as well and added a window of many small panes above the door to admit the sunlight that was now available owing to the demolition of the buildings across the street. The walls were painted with wonderful frescoes depicting mythological subjects, and the floor was covered with picture mosaics of outdoor scenes. Picture mosaics were a new fashion, introduced by the Egyptian ambassador. Around the periphery of the room were statues of ancestors. Her ancestors, not his.

“Have you ever seen such an improvement?” Julia asked me.

“It’s—different,” I admitted.

“Fausta brought me here when she began the renovations.” She shook her head. “As if Milo really expected her to live in that dark old fortress! I came to visit often while the work was going on. It gave me no end of ideas.”

I felt the first, small ticklings of trepidation. Fausta was a Cornelian, and Julia was a Julian, and Julia would have to go Fausta one better. At the very thought I began to tremble.

“Ah, my dear, you realize that it may be quite some time before we can expect to live on such a scale—”

She giggled, covering her mouth with a palm fan to do so. “Oh, Decius, of course I know that! These things take time. But sooner or later you must inherit from your father, and of course Caesar will favor you after your service with him, and you’ll have a praetorian province before long.” She placed a hand on my shoulder and kissed my cheek. “I know that it will be four, maybe five years before we can have a place like this. Come on, let’s see the rest!” Going shaky in the knees, I followed her.

We were headed for the
impluvium
when Fausta found us. She and Julia went through the customary embrace and exchange of compliments while I dawdled, wishing Milo would show up. Fausta was as golden blond as a German princess, one of the few Roman women who came by the look naturally. Her gown was likewise of Coan cloth, and it was of a single, transparent layer, but Fausta had the bearing to get away with it. She carried herself so regally that she could walk through a room naked and only after she was gone would anyone realize it.

“Come along,” Fausta said. “I’ve finally got the
impluvium
stocked. You must see it.” We followed her beneath an archway and into a vast area open to the sky. She had gutted the whole four-story structure and remodeled it. Where before there had been a vertical air shaft faced with windows of upper rooms, she had stepped each floor back from the one below so that now there were three balconies like theater seats built for gods. From each balcony were draped huge garlands, and upon them stood giant vases from which sprang colorful flowers and even small trees. Along the railings roosted pigeons and even peacocks, and incense burned in dozens of bronze braziers.

A change as great had been wrought on the floor. Before, there had been a modest catch-basin for rainwater. Now there was a veritable lake, and its pungent scent astonished me.

“Is this seawater?” I asked. “Exactly,” Fausta affirmed. “It’s so tiresome having sea fish brought all the way up from Ostia on barges, and it’s never really fresh when it arrives. I have the water brought up in casks. It has to be renewed frequently, but it’s worth the effort. I get so tired of river fish.”

I could see a variety of marine life disporting beneath the surface: mullets, tunny fish, eels, even squid. The water wasn’t perfectly clear, but I could see that the bottom was another mosaic, this one a colossal figure of Neptune in his shell chariot drawn by
hippocampi
. His hair and beard were the traditional blue, the trappings of his chariot and the head of his trident gilded with pure gold leaf. I saw a wading slave armed with a similar, but more prosaic, trident. The weapon darted out, and he pulled it back with a wriggling tunny fish impaled on the tines. The onlookers applauded as if he’d speared a lion in the Circus. Around the periphery, other slaves plied the water with eel forks.

“Can’t ask for anything fresher than that,” I said, my stomach rumbling with anticipation. I knew that Julia would have to have a pond just like it, only bigger, but I was willing to worry about it later. I could see that Milo’s previously Spartan concept of dining had gone the way of everything else.

“Decius,” Julia said, “Fausta is going to show me her new wardrobe. Do try to stay out of trouble.”

“Trouble? What sort of trouble could I get into in a place like this?” Julia rolled her eyes in exasperation and went off arm in arm with Fausta. Sometimes I had the feeling that my wife didn’t trust me.

The place was thronged with guests and their attendants, and I was delighted to see that Fausta hadn’t chosen the entire guest
list. I saw Lisas, the seemingly perpetual ambassador from Egypt who had been in Rome as long as I could remember. He had a slave supporting him on either side, not because he was drunk but because he was so obese. His outrageous practices and unique perversions had been the subject of gossip for a couple of generations, but he was one of the most jovial and gregarious men I ever knew, which is just what you want in an ambassador.

Young Antonius arrived, already slightly tipsy, and began flirting with all women present, slave or free. I knew him slightly, and he waved to me with his wine cup. He was one of those ridiculously handsome, personable young men who never fear to do or say anything that comes into their heads, because they know they are universally adored and will always be forgiven.

I grabbed a cup from a passing server and began looking for Milo. I found his assembly room, which was filled with his thugs, all of them decently attired for a change, eating and playing games at long tables. Hermes was among them, playing knucklebones and probably losing. The walls were decorated with chariot races and animal hunts and gladiator fights, subjects dear to the hearts of Milo’s men but undoubtedly not chosen by the lady of the house. The grand families happily sponsored the Games, but they considered them far too vulgar to be fit subjects for domestic ornament.

These men all knew me, and I was the recipient of much backslapping and congratulation and well-wishing. Should Milo and I ever fall out, they would cut my throat with equal enthusiasm, but until then they were my boon companions. Plus, they knew that someday I might be judging them in court, and it is always wise to be on good terms with a man who could send you to the mines or the lions or set you free at his whim.

“Decius! Welcome!” I turned and at last saw Milo coming through a side door. He clapped me on the shoulder, and, as always, I braced myself for a shock. He used no force, naturally,
but the reaction was instinctive to one who knew how powerful he was. He had the strongest hands I ever encountered on a human being and could break a man’s jaw with an open-hand slap. I had seen him, on a bet, tie a horseshoe into a knot with the fingers of one hand.

“The changes here have been—remarkable, Titus,” I said.

“Has Fausta been showing you how she’s ruining me?” His grin was rueful.

“Only a part, and it frightens me to see the look it puts in Julia’s eye. How are you going to curb her extravagance when you go to govern your province?” We still had a rule that a promagistrate’s wife had to stay in Rome while he was abroad.

He grimaced. “I don’t plan to go. I’m like you, Decius: I don’t want to leave Rome. I’ll follow Pompey’s example and send my legate to run the place and send me the money. It’s the only way I’ll ever keep up with her. Come along, let’s eat. I’m famished!”

I went with him into the
triclinium
, which had been remodeled on a scale with the rest of the house. It was large enough for full-sized banquets, and for that evening it had been laid out with places for at least eighteen guests instead of the usual nine, apparently on the chance that each guest would bring along a friend, which was permitted under the newly loosened rules of etiquette.

Another departure from tradition was that the women reclined at the table along with the men, instead of sitting on chairs. I almost wished Cato could be there so that I could enjoy the shocked look on his face.

Julia came up to me, trailed by her maidservant. “Aren’t these paintings wonderful?”

I studied them for a few moments. They depicted the banquets of the gods, with Jupiter taking his cup from Ganymede, Venus winking across the table at a sour-faced Mars, Vulcan enchanting his mechanical servitors, and all the rest of the company
having a high old time while the Graces danced for them.

“Well,” I said, “if Fausta gets tired of the guests, she can just look at the walls and feel she’s among equals.”

Julia swatted me with her fan, laughing. “You’re incorrigible. She’s put me next to that fat Egyptian. I hope he doesn’t try anything disgusting.”

“Just put up with him,” I advised. “He can only dream. He’s long past carrying out any of his intentions. Besides, he’s one of my favorite people in Rome. And he’s incredibly useful and a veritable mine of gossip. If Lisas hasn’t heard about it, either it didn’t happen, or it isn’t going to.”

“I’ll see what I can get out of him.”

She wandered off, and I was led to my place. I flopped down, and Hermes took my sandals and settled himself to wait on me, a duty he hated. I saw that there were seventeen places occupied, the place traditionally called the “consul’s place” being left vacant, as it always was in a praetor’s house, just in case a consul should decide to show up.

I was delighted to see that the man on my right was none other than Publilius Syrus, who was quickly winning a place for himself as Rome’s most famous actor, playwright, and impresario. On my other side was Caius Messius, a plebeian aedile that year who had celebrated an uncommonly fine Floralia.

“This is extraordinarily lucky,” I said to Syrus. “I’ve been meaning to look you up, since I’ll be aedile next year.”

“Spoken like a true Metellus,” said Messius. “Already planning your
ludi
, and you haven’t even been elected yet. Well, you can’t pick a better man to arrange your theatricals than Syrus. The plays he put on for me went over wonderfully. My election to the praetorship is assured.”

“I have two new dramas in the works,” Syrus told me. “And six short comedies.”

“Nothing about Troy, I hope. That war’s been done to death.”
Even worse, Caesar had been secretly hiring poets and playwrights to write about Aeneas, on the pretext that Caesar’s family, the
gens
Julia, were descended from Julus, son of Aeneas. And the grandmother of Julus was none other than the goddess Venus herself. We had all been blissfully unaware of the divine ancestry of Caesar until he decided to tell us about it.