Caesar (6 page)

I thank you for your offer, Caesar. Very kind of you to think of me and remember that I am due for election as a quaestor this year. Unfortunately I am not yet sure that I have my quaestorship, as the elections are still pending. We hope to know in December, when they say the People in their tribes will elect the quaestors and the tribunes of the soldiers. But I doubt we will see any elections for the senior magistrates. Memmius refuses to step down as a candidate for the consulship, and Uncle Cato has sworn that until Memmius does step down, he will allow no curule elections. Do not, by the way, take any notice of those scurrilous rumors going around about Uncle Cato's divorce from Marcia. Uncle Cato cannot be bought. I am going to Cilicia as the personally requested quaestor of the new governor for next year, Appius Claudius Pulcher. He is now my father-in-law. I married his oldest daughter, Claudia, a month ago. A very nice girl. Once again, thank you for your kind offer. My mother is well. She is, I understand, writing to you herself.

Take that! Caesar put the curled single sheet of paper down, blinking not with tears but with shock. For six long years Brutus never married. Then my daughter dies, and he is married within nundinae of it. He cherished hope, it seems. Waited for her, sure she would grow very tired of being married to an old man without anything to recommend him beyond his military fame and his money. No birth, no ancestors worth naming. How long would Brutus have waited? I wonder. But she had found her true mate in Pompeius Magnus, nor would he have tired of her. I've always disliked myself for hurting Brutus, though I didn't know how much Julia meant to him until after I had done the deed. Yet it had to be done, no matter who was hurt or how badly. Lady Fortuna gifted me with a daughter beautiful and sprightly enough to enchant the one man I needed desperately. But how can I hold Pompeius Magnus now?

Like Brutus, Servilia had written only once to, for example, Cicero's fourteen separate epics. Not a long letter, either. Odd, however, the feeling he experienced when he touched the paper she had touched. As if it had been soaked in some poison designed to be drunk through the fingertips. He closed his eyes and tried to remember her, the sight and the taste, that destructive, intelligent, fierce passion. What would he feel when he saw her again? Almost five years. She would be fifty now to his forty-six. But probably still extremely attractive; she took care of herself, kept her hair as darkly moonless as her heart. For it was not Caesar responsible for the disaster who was Brutus; the blame for Brutus had to be laid squarely at his mother's door.

I imagine you've already seen Brutus's refusal. Everything always in order, that's you, so men first. At least I have a patrician daughter-in-law, though it isn't easy sharing my house with another woman who is not my own blood daughter and therefore unused to my authority, my way of doing things. Luckily for domestic peace, Claudia is a mouse. I do not imagine Julia would have been, for all her air of fragility. A pity she lacked your steel. That's why she died, of course. Brutus picked Claudia for his wife for one reason. That Picentine upstart Pompeius Magnus was dickering with Appius Claudius to get the girl for his own son, Gnaeus. Who might be half Mucius Scaevola, but doesn't show it in either his face or his nature. He's Pompeius Magnus without the mind. Probably pulls the wings off flies. It appealed to Brutus to steal a bride off the man who had stolen his bride from him. He did it too. Appius Claudius not being Caesar. A shoddy consul and no doubt next year a particularly venal governor for poor Cilicia. He weighed the size of my Brutus's fortune and his impeccable ancestry against Pompeius Magnus's clout and the fact that Pompeius's younger boy, Sextus, is the one who's likely to go farthest, and the scales came down in Brutus's favor. Whereupon Pompeius Magnus had one of those famous temper tantrums. How did Julia deal with them? You could hear the bellows and screeches all over Rome.

Appius then did a very clever thing. He offered Pompeius Magnus his next girl, Claudilla, for Gnaeus. Not yet seventeen, but the Pompeii have never been averse to cradle-snatching. So everybody wound up happy. Appius got two sons-in-law worth as much as the Treasury, two horribly plain and colorless girls got eminent husbands, and Brutus won his little war against the First Man in Rome.

He's off to Cilicia with his father-in-law, this year they hope, though the Senate is being sticky about granting Appius Claudius leave to go to his province early. Appius responded by informing the Conscript Fathers that he'd go without a lex curiata if he had to, but go he would. The final decision has not yet been made, though my revolting half brother Cato is yammering about special privileges being extended to patricians. You did me no good turn there, Caesar, when you took Julia off my son. He's been as thick as syrup with Uncle Cato ever since. I can't bear the way Cato gloats over me because my son listens more to him these days than he does to me.

He's such a hypocrite, Cato. Always prating about the Republic and the mos maiorum and the degeneracy of the old ruling class, yet he can always find a reason why what he wants is a Right Act. The most beautiful thing about having a philosophy, it seems to me, is that it enables its owner to find extenuating circumstances for his own conduct in all situations. Look at his divorcing Marcia. They say every man has a price. I believe that. I also believe that senile old Hortensius coughed up Cato's price. As for Philippus—well, he's an Epicure, and the price of infinite pleasure comes high.

Speaking of Philippus, I had dinner there a few afternoons ago. It's just as well your niece, Atia, is not a loose woman. Her stepson, young Philippus—a very handsome and well-set-up fellow!—gazed at her all through dinner the way a bull gazes at the cow on the other side of the fence. Oh, she noticed, but she pretended she didn't. The young man will get no encouragement from her. I just hope Philippus doesn't notice. Otherwise the cozy nest Atia has found herself will go up in flames. She produced the only occupant of her affections for my inspection after the meal was over. Her son, Gaius Octavius. Your great-nephew, he must be. Aged exactly nine—it was his birthday. An amazing child, I have to admit it. Oh, if my Brutus had looked like that, Julia would never have consented to marry Pompeius Magnus! The boy's beauty quite took my breath away. And so Julian! If you said he was your son, everybody would believe it. Not that he's very like you, feature by feature, just that he has— I really don't know how to describe it. There is something of you about him. On his inside rather than his outside. I was pleased to see, however, that little Gaius Octavius is not utterly perfect. His ears stick out. I told Atia to keep his hair a trifle on the long side.

And that is all. I do not intend to offer you my condolences for the death of Julia. You can't make good babies with inferior men. Two tries, neither successful, and the second one cost her life. You gave her to that oaf from Picenum instead of to a man whose breeding was the equal of her own. So be it on your own head.

Maybe it was the sum of all those years of vitriol armored Caesar now; he put Servilia's letter down and did no more than rise to wash the touch of it off his hands. I think I hate her more than I do her loathsome half brother Cato. The most remorseless, cruel and bitter woman I have ever known. Yet if I saw her tomorrow, our love affair would probably resume. Julia called her a snake; I remember that day well. It was a valid description. That poor, pathetic, spineless boy of hers is now a poor, pathetic, spineless man. Face ruined by festering sores, spirit ruined by one enormous festering sore, Servilia. Brutus didn't decline a quaestorship with me because of principles or Julia or Uncle Cato's opposition; he likes money too much, and my legates make a great deal of it. No, Brutus declined because he didn't want to go to a province wracked by war. To do so might expose him to a battle. Cilicia is at peace. He can potter around it, illegally lending money to provincials, without a flying spear or arrow any closer to him than the Euphrates.

Two more letters, then he would finish for the day and order his servants to pack up. Time to move to Samarobriva. Get it over and done with, Caesar! Read the one from your wife and the one from your mother. They'll hurt far more with their loving words than Servilia's savagery ever could. So he sat down again in the silence of his private room, no eyes upon him, put the letter from his mother on the table and opened the one from his wife, Calpurnia. Whom he hardly knew. Just a few months in Rome with an immature, rather shy girl who had prized the orange kitten he had given her as much as Servilia prized her six-million-sestertius pearl.

Caesar, they all say it is my place to write and give you this news. Oh, I wish it were not. I have neither the wisdom nor the years to divine how best to go about it, so please forgive me if, in my ignorance, I make things even harder for you to bear than I know they will be anyway.

When Julia died, your mama's heart broke. Aurelia was so much Julia's mother. She brought her up. And Aurelia was so delighted at her marriage, how happy she was, how lovely her life.

We here in the Domus Publica live a very sheltered existence, as is fitting in the house of the Vestal Virgins. Though we dwell in the midst of the Forum, excitement and events touch us lightly. We have preferred it that way, Aurelia and I: a sweet and peaceful enclave of women free from scandal, suspicion or reproach. But Julia, who visited us often when she was in Rome, brought a breath of the wide world with her. Gossip, laughter, small jokes.

When she died, your mama's heart broke. I was there near Julia's bedside, and I watched your mama being so strong, for Pompeius's sake as well as for Julia's. So kind! So sensible in everything she said. Smiling when she felt it called for. Holding one of Julia's hands while Pompeius held the other. It was she who banished the doctors when she saw that nothing and no one could save Julia. It was she who gave us peace and privacy for the hours that remained. And after Julia was gone, she yielded her place to Pompeius, left him alone with Julia. She bundled me out of the room and took me home, back to the Domus Publica. It isn't a very long walk, as you know. She said not one word. Then when we got inside our own door, she uttered a terrible cry and began to howl. I couldn't say she wept. She howled, down on her knees with the tears pouring out in floods, and beat her breast, and pulled her hair. Howling. Scratching her face and neck to bleeding ribbons. The adult Vestals all came running, and there were all of us weeping, trying to get Aurelia to her feet, trying to calm her down, but not able to stop weeping ourselves. I think in the end we all got down on the floor with her, and put our arms about her and about ourselves, and stayed there for most of the night. While Aurelia howled in the most terrible, awful despair. But it ended. In the morning she was able to dress and go back to Pompeius's house, help him attend to all the things which had to be done. And then the poor little baby died, but Pompeius refused to see him or kiss him, so it was Aurelia who made the arrangements for his tiny funeral. He was buried that same day, and she and I and the adult Vestals were his only mourners. He didn't have a name, and none of us knew what the third praenomen among that branch of the Pompeii is. We knew only Gnaeus and Sextus, both taken. So we decided on Quintus; it sounded right. His tomb will say Quintus Pompeius Magnus. Until then, I have his ashes. My father is attending to the tomb, for Pompeius will not. There is no need to say anything about Julia's funeral, for I know that Pompeius has written it. But your mama's heart was broken. She wasn't with us anymore, just drifted—you know what she was like, so brisk and martial in her step, but now she just drifted. Oh, it was awful! No matter which one of us she saw—the laundry maid, Eutychus, Burgundus, Cardixa, a Vestal—or me—she would stop and look at us and ask, “Why couldn't it have been me? Why did it have to be her? I'm no use to anyone! Why couldn't it have been me?” And what could we say in reply? How could we not weep? Then she would howl, and ask all over again, “Why couldn't it have been me?” That went on for two months, but only in front of us. When people came to pay condolence visits, she pulled herself together and behaved as they expected she would. Though her appearance shocked everyone. Then she shut herself in her room and sat upon the floor, rocking back and forth, and humming. With sometimes a huge cry, and the howling would begin again. We had to wash her and change her clothes, and we tried so hard to persuade her to get into her bed, but she would not. She wouldn't eat. Burgundus pinched her nose while Cardixa poured watered wine down her throat, but that was as far as any of us felt we could go. The very thought of holding her down and forcibly feeding her made all of us sick. We had a conference, Burgundus, Cardixa, Eutychus and the Vestals, and we decided that you would not want her fed by force. If we have erred, please, we beg you, forgive us. What we did was done with the very best of intentions. This morning she died. It was not difficult, nor a great agony for her. Popillia the Chief Vestal says it is a mercy. It had been many days since she had any sensible congress with us, yet just before the end she came to her senses and spoke lucidly. Mostly about Julia. She asked all of us—the adult Vestals were there too—to offer sacrifices for Julia to Magna Mater, Juno Sospita and the Bona Dea. Bona Dea seemed to worry her dreadfully; she insisted that we promise to remember Bona Dea. I had to swear that I would give Bona Dea's snakes eggs and milk all year round, every year. Otherwise Aurelia seemed to think that some terrible disaster would befall you. She didn't speak your name until just before she died. The last thing she said was “Tell Caesar all of this will go to his greater glory.” Then she closed her eyes and ceased to breathe. There is nothing more. My father is dealing with her funeral, and he is writing, of course. But he insisted that I should be the one to tell you. I am so sorry. I will miss Aurelia with every beat of my heart. Please take care of yourself, Caesar. I know what a blow this will be, following so closely upon Julia. I wish I understood why these things happen, but I do not. Though somehow I know what her last message to you meant. The Gods torture those they love the best. It will all go to your greater glory.