Caesar (57 page)

“Yes,” said Lucius, clearly not as enthusiastic at Brutus's arrival as his stepmother was.“ Ave, Lucius,” said Brutus, smiling to reveal that he had beautiful teeth and that the smile, were it located in a less off-putting face, possessed a winning, spontaneous charm. “I'm sorry to spoil your fun, but I must talk to Porcia in private.” Lucius, the same kind of diminutive, frosty-looking person as his father, shrugged and wandered off, kicking at the grass disconsolately.“ Isn't he lovely?” asked Porcia, conducting Brutus to her own rooms. “Isn't this lovely?” she asked then, gesturing at her sitting room proudly. “I have so much space, Brutus!”

“They say that every kind of plant and creature abhors emptiness, Porcia, and it is quite true, I see. You've managed to overcrowd it magnificently.”

“Oh, I know, I know! Bibulus is always telling me to try to be tidy, but it isn't in my nature, I'm afraid.” She sat down on one chair, he on another. At least, he reflected, Bibulus kept sufficient staff to make sure his wife's shambles was dust-free and that the chairs were vacant. Her dress sense hadn't improved, he noticed; she was wearing yet another baby-cack-brown canvas tent which emphasized the width of her shoulders and gave her a slight air of the Amazon warrior. But her mop of fiery hair was considerably longer and thus even more beautiful, and the large grey eyes were as sternly luminous as he had remembered them to be.“ What a pleasure to see you,” she said, smiling.“ And to see you, Porcia.”

“Why haven't you come to call before? Bibulus has been away now for almost a year.”

“It isn't done to call on a man's wife in his absence.” She frowned. “That's ridiculous!”

“Well, his first two wives were unfaithful to him.”

“They have nothing to do with me, Brutus. If it were not for Lucius, I'd have been desperately lonely.”

“But you do have Lucius.”

“I dismissed his pedagogue—idiotic man! I teach Lucius myself these days, and he's come ahead so well. You can't beat learning in with a rod; you have to sustain fascination with it.”

“I can see he loves you.”

“And I love him.” The reason for his mission gnawed at him, but Brutus found himself wanting to know a lot more about Porcia the married woman, and knew that the moment he broached the subject of death, his chance to discover her thoughts would vanish. So for the moment he pushed it away and said, “How do you like married life?”

“Very much.”

“What do you like most about it?”

“The freedom.” She snorted with laughter. “You've no idea how marvelous it is to live in a house without Athenodorus Cordylion and Statyllus! I know tata esteems them highly, but I never could. They were so jealous of him! If it looked as if I might have a few moments alone in his company, they'd rush in and spoil it. All those years, Brutus, living in the same house as Marcus Porcius Cato, knowing myself his daughter, and yet never able to be alone with him, free of his Greek leeches—I loathed them! Spiteful, petty old men. And they encouraged him to drink.” A great deal of what she said was true, but not all of it; Brutus thought Cato drank of his own volition, and that it had a great deal to do with his animosity for those he deemed unworthy of the mos maiorum. And Marcia. Which just went to show that Brutus too hadn't divined Cato's most fiercely guarded secret: the loneliness of life without his brother Caepio, his terror of loving other people so much that living without them was agony.“ And did you like being married to Bibulus?”

“Yes,” she said tersely.“ Was it very difficult?” Not having been raised by women, she interpreted this as a man would, and answered frankly. “The sexual act, you mean.” He blushed, but blushes didn't stand out on his dark, stubbly face; he answered with equal frankness. “Yes.” Sighing, she leaned forward with her linked hands between her widely separated knees; Bibulus clearly had not broken her of her mannish habits. “Well, Brutus, one accepts its necessity. The Gods do it too, if one believes the Greeks. Nor have I ever found any evidence in the writings of any philosopher that women are supposed to enjoy it. It is a reward for men, and if men did not seek it actively, it would not exist. I cannot say worse of it than that I suffered it, nor better of it than that it did not revolt me.” She shrugged. “It is a brief business, after all, and once the pain becomes bearable, nothing truly difficult.”

“But you're not supposed to feel pain after the first time, Porcia,” said Brutus blankly.“ Really?” she asked indifferently. “That has not been so for me.” Then she said, apparently unwounded, “Bibulus says I am juiceless.” Brutus's blush deepened, but his heart was wrung too. “Oh, Porcia! Maybe when Bibulus comes back it will be different. Do you miss him?”

“One must miss one's husband,” she said.“ You didn't learn to love him.”

“I love my father. I love little Lucius. I love you too, Brutus. But Bibulus I respect.”

“Did you know that your father wanted me to marry you?” Her eyes widened. “No.”

“He did. But I wouldn't.” That blighted her. She said gruffly, “Why not?”

“Nothing to do with you, Porcia. Only that I gave my love to someone who didn't love me.”

“Julia.”

“Yes, Julia.” His face twisted. “And when she died, I just wanted a wife who meant nothing to me. So I married Claudia.”

“Oh, poor Brutus!”

He cleared his throat. “Aren't you curious as to what brings me here today?”

“I'm afraid I didn't think beyond the fact that you've come.” He shifted in his chair, then looked directly at her. “I'm deputed to break some painful news to you, Porcia.” Her skin paled, she licked her lips. “Bibulus is dead.”

“No, Bibulus is well. But Marcus and Gnaeus were murdered in Alexandria.” The tears coursed down her face at once, but she said not one word. Brutus fished out his handkerchief and gave it to her, knowing full well that she would have put hers into service as a blotter or a mop. He let her weep for some time, then got to his feet a little awkwardly.“ I must go, Porcia. But may I come back? Would you like me to tell young Lucius?”

“No,” she mumbled through the folds of linen. “I'll tell him, Brutus. But please come back.” Brutus went away saddened, though not, he realized, for the sons of Marcus Bibulus. For that poor, vital, glorious creature whose husband could say no better of her than that she was—oh, horrible word!— juiceless.

Cato was still lobbying among the minor boni to succeed in postponing the discussion of Caesar's provinces until the Ides of November when the word came that Quintus Hortensius was dying, and had sent for him. The atrium was quite crowded by well-wishers, but the steward conducted Cato into the “reclining room” at once. Hortensius lay on the beautiful bed, swaddled in blankets and shivering dreadfully, the left side of his mouth drooped and drooling, his right hand picking at the bedclothes around his neck. But, as on Cato's earlier visit, Hortensius recognized him immediately. Young Quintus Hortensius, who was the same age as Brutus and well ensconced in the Senate, got up from his chair and offered it to Cato with true Hortensian courtesy.“ Won't be long,” said Hortensius very thickly. “Had a stroke this morning. Can't move my left side. Can still speak but tongue gone clumsy. What a fate for me, eh? Won't be long. Another stroke soon.” Cato pulled the blankets away until he could take that feebly plucking right hand comfortably in his own; it clung pathetically.“ Left you something in my will, Cato.”

“You know I don't accept inheritances, Quintus Hortensius.”

“Not money, hee hee,” the dying man tittered. “Know you won't take money. But will take this.” Whereupon he closed his eyes and seemed to fall into a doze. Still holding the hand, Cato had time to look about, which he did not in dread but with a steeled determination. Yes, Marcia was there, with three other women. Hortensia he knew well; she was his brother Caepio's widow and had never remarried. Her daughter by Caepio, young Servilia, was just about of marriageable age, Cato realized with a shock—where did the years go? Was it that long since Caepio died? Not a nice girl, young Servilia. Did owning the name predispose them, all the Servilias? The third one was young Hortensius's wife, Lutatia, daughter of Catulus and therefore a double first cousin to her husband. Very proud. Very beautiful in an icy way. Marcia had fixed her eyes upon a chandelier in the far corner of the room; he was free to gaze at her without fearing to meet her eyes, he knew that. The other three women he had dismissed in his misogynistic way, but he couldn't dismiss Marcia. He didn't have that kind of memory which could conjure up the exact lineaments of a beloved face, and that had been one of the saddest aspects of his ongoing sorrow since his brother Caepio had died. So he stared at Marcia in amazement. Was that how she looked?He spoke, loudly and harshly; Hortensius started, opened his eyes, and kept them open, smiling gummily at Cato.“ Ladies, Quintus Hortensius is dying,” he said. “Bring up chairs and sit where he can see you. Marcia and young Servilia, here by me. Hortensia and Lutatia, on the other side of the bed. A man who is dying must have the comfort of resting his eyes on all the members of his family.” Young Quintus Hortensius, now ranged around by his wife and his sister, had taken his father's paralyzed left hand in his hold; he was a rather soldierly fellow for the offspring of a most unmilitary man, but then the same could be said of Cicero's son, much younger. Sons didn't seem to take after their fathers. Cato's own son was not soldierly, not valorous, not political. How odd, that both he and Hortensius should have produced daughters eminently more suited to follow in the family footsteps. Hortensia understood the law brilliantly. Had the gift of oratory. Led a scholarly existence. And Porcia was the one who could have taken his place in Senate and public arena. His arrangement of the family around the bed meant that he didn't have to look at Marcia, though he was intensely conscious of her body scant inches from his own. They sat on through the hours, hardly aware that servants came in to light the lamps as darkness fell, leaving the bedside only for brief visits to the latrine. All looking at the dying man, whose eyes had fallen shut again with the going of the sun. At midnight the second stroke liberated a huge spate of blood under pressure into the vital parts of his brain and killed them so quickly, so subtly that no one realized the second stroke had taken place. Only the cooling temperature of the hand he held told Cato, who drew a deep breath and carefully untwined his numbed fingers from that clutch. He stood up.“ Quintus Hortensius is dead,” he said, reached across the bed to pluck the flaccid left hand from Hortensius's son, and folded them across the chest. “Put in the coin, Quintus.”

“He died so peacefully!” said Hortensia, astonished.“ Why should he not?” asked Cato, and walked from the room to seek the solitude of the cold, wintry garden. He paced the paths for long enough to grow used to the moonless, clouded night, intent upon remaining there until the deathbed was passed into the care of the undertakers; then he would slip through the garden gate into the street without going back to the house. Not thinking of Quintus Hortensius Hortalus. Thinking of Marcia. Who materialized before him so suddenly that he gasped. And none of it mattered. Not the years, the aged husband, the loneliness. She walked into his arms and took his face between her hands, smiling up at him.“ My exile is over,” she said, and offered him her mouth. He took it, wrung with pain, wracked with guilt, all the ardor and immensity of feeling he had passed on to his daughter liberated, uncontrollable, as fierce and wondrous as it had been in those long-forgotten days before Caepio died. His face was wet with tears, she licked them up, he pulled at her black robe and she at his, and together they fell upon the freezing ground, oblivious. Not once in the two years when she had been with him had he made love to her as he did then, holding nothing back, helpless to withstand the enormity of the emotion which invaded him. The dam had burst, he flew asunder, not all the stringent discipline of his self-inflicted and pitiless ethic could mar this stunning discovery or keep his spirit from leaping into a joy he had never known existed, there with her and within her, over and over and over again. It was dawn when they parted, not having spoken a single word to each other; nor did they speak when he tore himself away and let himself out through the garden gate into the stirring street. While she gathered her clothing about her in some wry semblance of order and retreated unseen to her own suite of rooms in that vast house. She ached, but with triumph. Perhaps this exile had been the only way Cato could ever have come to terms with what he felt for her; smiling, she sought her bath. Philippus came to see Cato that morning, and blinked his weary eyelids in surprise at the appearance of Rome's most famous and dedicated Stoic: vibrant with life, actually grinning!"

Don't offer me any of that ghastly piss you call wine,“ said Philippus, seating himself in a chair. Cato sat to one side of his shabby desk and waited.” I'm the executor of Quintus Hortensius's will,“ the visitor said, looking distinctly peevish.” Oh yes, Quintus Hortensius said something about a bequest."

“Bequest? I'd rather call it a gift from the Gods!”

The pale red eyebrows rose; Cato's eyes twinkled. “I'm all agog, Lucius Marcius,” he said.“ What's the matter with you this morning, Cato?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“Absolutely everything, I would have said. You're odd.”

“Yes, but I always was.” Philippus drew a breath. “Hortensius left you the entire contents of his wine cellar,” he said.“ How very nice of him. No wonder he said I'd accept.”

“It doesn't mean a thing to you, does it, Cato?”

“You're quite wrong, Lucius Marcius. It means a great deal.”

“Do you know what Quintus Hortensius has in his cellar?”

“Some very good vintages, I imagine.”

“Oh, yes, he has that! But do you know how many amphorae?”

“No. How could I?”

“Ten thousand amphorae!” Philippus yelled. “Ten thousand amphorae of the finest wines in the world, and who does he go and leave it to but you! The worst palate in Rome!”

“I see what you mean and how you're feeling, Philippus.” Cato leaned forward, put his hand on Philippus's knee, a gesture so strange from Cato that Philippus almost drew away. “I tell you what, Philippus. I'll make a bargain with you,” said Cato.“ A bargain?”