Night of the Wolf (21 page)

He was old.

This was Lucius’ first thought:
He has grown old,
and he had. He was raising Fulvia’s hand to his lips and bestowing a pretty compliment on her. Nothing trite. He compared her to a Praxiteles’ Venus he had seen in Greece and ordered copied. The copy would be shipped to Rome to grace his peristyle when he finally settled down.

Being compared to the titular goddess of his house was high praise indeed. Lucius wondered irreverently how much it was costing her, but then she was her father’s child and would do nothing without the hope of substantial gain.

At length, the old man with Caesar’s face turned to him. Yes, he was old and the years had not been kind to the conqueror. His lips, once full and sensual, seemed to have thinned out and they were not rose, but pale in the torchlight. The aristocratic high cheekbones and bladelike nose were still present. But the cheeks were sunken; the nose jutted imperially, but seemed thinner now; the skin, yellow, drew tight across the bone. His neck, to put it bluntly, might have belonged to a barnyard fowl. Loose skin stretched in wattles from his chin to the midpoint of his throat, and below them, the masculine swelling was pronounced. Yes, he was old and the hounds of time hot on his heels.

“This will be your brother,” the great man said, and offered him his hand.

Lucius took it and found himself blushing furiously.

The hand was hot and dry. The voice that charmed his legions into unimaginable valor and scourged the Senate like a whip was still beautiful. “I understand,” the beautiful voice said, “that you have only lately been treacherously wounded by elements of the enemy while on patrol.”

The bastard is a genius at his craft of managing men,
Lucius thought.
He already has me cornered and soon will drag me off in triumph to worship with the rest of his followers. He had the sheer, cold-eyed efficiency to find out where and how I got my injury and has the ability to make a thoroughly stupid and lax officer who managed to get himself almost fatally stabbed in the back, sound like a hero. Mind your tongue, and express your appreciation.

Lucius never afterward remembered what he said, but it must have been satisfactory since he got a smile from Caesar; but he saw quite clearly that what happened to his lips didn’t extend to the hazel eyes. They seemed as cold and abstracted as ever.

All this is business as usual with him,
Lucius thought.
I wonder why he’s here?

After the compliment, he was, in effect, dismissed as Caesar turned his attention back to Fulvia.

A few more legionnaires trailed after Caesar. The last one in placed a torch near the gatekeeper’s cella and stood with his back against the door. The others fanned out through the peristyle, personally checking all the entrances and exits and ordering the curious servants back to their posts. They quickly herded everyone without business in the kitchen or dining room away from the area.

“Very efficient,” Fulvia commented.

“Yes,” Cleopatra answered softly, “but they’re Spanish mercenaries. My guards, not his.”

“I beg you, Caesar, take proper care of yourself,” Fulvia gushed. “So many like me depend on you.”

Caesar laughed. “I don’t need to worry about myself. There are so many others to take care of that for me.” He entered the triclinium first, the two women followed, and Lucius brought up the rear.

He looked at Cleopatra. No, she wasn’t beautiful, but she was something he had never seen before—a woman the equal of Caesar.

Tall and slender, her skin carried just a touch of the amber lent to her by her Egyptian forebears. In all other respects, she looked more Greek with her light hair, rather like autumn honey, golden brown. He was sure some rather clever bleaching and oiling must have been done, because it shone like a young girl’s.

For a moment, she looked raw-boned, but then he saw she belonged to a completely different physical type than Latin women. Not for her the ample hips and abundant breasts. Her hips weren’t wide. Her stomach was set between them, a round shape with concavities rather the way a pearl rests in a cup. She was long-waisted, the curve of her midsection rising, nipped in at the slender waist, up to two high breasts, small, but so perfectly shaped he was sure they were bare beneath their silken covering. The silk gown she wore was at least as revealing as Fulvia’s. In fact, he was sure she was completely naked under the gown and it was soft as a scarf.

Yes, her chin was pointed, her nose showed the Semitic ancestry, but her eyes were pure Greek, wide, pale with tawny lashes. They reminded him of Alexander’s—those portraits, statues, and paintings he had seen. But then all those Macedonians had probably been related to one another, whether they admitted to the relationship or not.

Fulvia looked green with envy. Cleopatra was older than she was and had borne a child, but she managed somehow to look better than Fulvia or most Roman women ever would. If the Egyptian queen reached seventy, she would still make most Latin women look fat and frowsy beside her.

“My lady,” Lucius said, “before we met I felt the poets were too fulsome in their praises of you. Now that I have seen you, I know that even the verses of Homer in which he praised the Cyprian goddess were inadequate to describe the beauty of your person or the charm of your manner.”

Cleopatra smiled up at Caesar and gave Lucius a glance that almost caused his knees to turn to mush on the spot.

“The mother of my house was Venus and she bestowed the fairest of her daughters on me,” Caesar said. He and Cleopatra reached one of the couches and they reclined together.

Lucius chose one couch and Fulvia took another.

His sister wore enough jewelry to raise a new legion for Caesar. Gold bracelets, gold necklaces, gold armlets, and enough rings to make it difficult for her to eat.

Several wines were brought in and offered to Caesar; reds directly from glazed clay flasks and whites chilled in snow. He rejected several, then accepted three to be shared by him and the queen.

“My, what a beautiful room,” Cleopatra said as Caesar began tasting.

“Planned and executed by my father, as are the more modern parts of the villa,” Fulvia replied, giving Lucius a warning glance.

Lucius did his best not to allow his sister to catch his eye and to look innocent. “But surely,” he said smoothly, “the Queen of Egypt is used to more luxury than this. I heard the palace at Alexandria is—”

“A drafty labyrinth,” Cleopatra broke in. “Many parts of it are of immense magnificence, other parts are haunted by both great and bloody legends generated by my forebears, but nowhere do I find the comfort and relaxation created by the inhabitants of Rome. These villas are wonderfully suited to the climate of your great city.”

Lucius chuckled. “Most began as farmhouses, surrounded by open fields, housing livestock—horses, mules, cattle, and sheep—alongside people.”

The queen laughed, a deep, throaty sound that caressed Lucius in all sorts of places. He found himself wanting to make her laugh again.

“What have we here—a historian, an antiquarian, or . . .”

“A troublemaker,” Fulvia interposed. “He knows very well that however beautiful some parts of the house are, this villa displays its commercial origins a little too publicly for me. I had my eye on one villa at Baiae, but he tripped me up by his careless disposal of a very valuable piece of property. But,” she sighed, “what is a poor woman to do when she finds herself in opposition to the men in her family . . . except obey.”

“Poor darling,” Cleopatra said in mock sympathy. “I wouldn’t worry if I were you. I’m sure you’ll find any number of villas everywhere at your disposal after tonight’s dinner.” She laughed again.

Caesar glanced down at the wine in a golden cup encrusted with pearls he was holding and joined in the laughter. “Ah, the Basilian family,” he said. “I know I will receive nothing but the best in your household.”

The slaves arrived with the first course, the gustatio, just then, serving the powerful pair across from Lucius first.

The night was cool and the louvered doors separating the torch-lit garden outside were partially drawn, but Lucius found he could smell the men and women serving dinner, even above the odor of garlic, ham, and pear, apple, plum, and quince preserves.

Caesar, Cleopatra, and Fulvia inspired mortal terror in the slaves. One of them was the girl he’d chased away from what he considered his personal pet doves. She was pretty and he liked her because she sang a lot while she was going about her work and he thought she had a beautiful voice. But at this hour, she was gray with fear.

Lucius found he had no appetite and Cleopatra didn’t seem beautiful anymore.
I must be going insane. The wound must have afflicted my mind,
he thought.
Why should I care what these people feel or think?

But when the girl started to pour his wine and the gold pitcher she held rattled against the lip of his cup, he was alarmed. She looked as if she might faint.

He reached out and grabbed her wrist. She seemed to awaken with a start. Color flooded her cheeks and her lips parted.

Fulvia glanced at them both and her lips thinned with wrath.

“Would you get me some lettuce, arugula, and chestnuts and bring some of that fine oil we got yesterday?” he asked the girl.

Caesar and Cleopatra helped themselves to melon with a dressing of vinegar and oil spiced with a bit of pepper.

Fulvia ate dormice with honey. “If I’d known you wanted a salad, I’d have had the cook fix one for you, brother dear.”

“Oh, I like to do my own. You should try one. The mixture of chestnuts, bitter cress or arugula, and nuts with oil and a little salt is wonderful.”

When the girl returned, he took the things she brought, on a gold tray no less, and mixed them himself.

The curiosity of both of the distinguished guests was piqued and they tried his concoction.

“My doctor feels sweet and bitter greens, oil, and nuts are the best way to arouse the appetites of his patients,” Lucius explained.

“I think I particularly like this one,” Caesar said. “Philo would be the doctor, of course. He treats my wife’s headaches and has done wonders with her. To calm her, I mean.”

Lucius, who felt sure he was looking across the small circular table at Calpurnia’s worst headache, agreed blandly.

At length, the slaves cleared the gustatio. White wine and a bread made with pine nuts and hard cheese were served.

The wine rocked Lucius’ senses. He’d never tasted anything like it. It was subtle, fragrant with the flower of the gray sage, and intoxicating at the same time. Over Caesar’s shoulder, in the shadows of the garden, he saw the cellarius and Philo both wearing triumphant smirks.

“Ah,” Caesar whispered, “incomparable. My dear, I count my acquaintance with your family the greatest of good fortune.”

Fulvia smiled and offered a toast with the wine. “To our continued success.”

Then the slaves brought in the mensa prema. The food was all of the plainest variety. They had their choice of five or six, including a roast of wild boar with prune sauce; a rare treat of a beef stew cooked with mushrooms; grilled liver wrapped in omentum or caul fat; a whole roasted suckling pig seasoned with pepper, bayberries, rue, silphium, and olive oil; and last but not least, a young, unweaned goat with a sauce of pitted damsons, wine, garlic, and oil.

“Parthian kid,” Caesar remarked. “Is that a hint, my dear daughter of Hortensus?”

“Are the Parthians next on your menu, Caesar?” Fulvia asked as he and the queen helped themselves to small portions of the tender meat

“I don’t know,” Caesar answered. “If I can raise enough money . . .”

“There is not even a need to ask, Caesar,” Fulvia said demurely.

“No,” he replied. “I owe your father’s daughter a great debt and I haven’t been able to repay most of it.”

“No need,” Fulvia said. “What I propose will make both of us rich beyond dreams.”

“What?”

“Wine,” Fulvia said. “Gaul is prime vine-growing country.”

“What!”

“I know, I know,” she said, waving her hand, “but I have hunted over much of it and, I tell you, with the right investment, you will reap a twenty-fold reward. No, more than twenty-fold. Fifty-fold.”

Lucius was about to laugh when he realized Caesar was taking her seriously.

“What would you want? How much land? How many men?”

“I leave that to your generosity,” Fulvia said. “In my study, I have maps prepared. All wars generate slaves. It doesn’t matter where they come from. My people can train them.”

“I think it’s a perfectly mad scheme, but I’ve learned to respect your judgment. After all, both you and your father had the courage to bet on me.”

“There’s one other thing I would ask you.” Fulvia positively simpered.

“What?”

“Not for myself, for my brother. Before you march to Parthia, please assure him of a command in your army. Make him one of your legates, if possible.”

Caesar gave Lucius an opaque look. “I believe he is the last male of his line, isn’t he? It would be a shame if the very notable Basilian family were to die out.”

Lucius hoped his fear—abject terror, actually—didn’t show on his face. The last thing he wanted now was another military engagement. He wondered if even the most redoubtable soldier didn’t want to come home at last.

But then, he was looking at one who had just finished a brutal war but was now ready to march out and begin another one: Caesar himself.

Lucius wasn’t the only one doing some staring. Caesar and Cleopatra both gazed in his direction, looking faintly amused.

Cleopatra saved the situation, an embarrassing one for him, by saying, “I doubt if a man having just recovered from a nearly mortal wound wants to contemplate an immediate return to combat. Your wound
was
nearly mortal, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, nearly mortal and very painful for a long time, nearly a year.”

“Yes,” Caesar said, “and a legate has to be able to perform his duties, be strong enough to carry out the orders given him by his commanding officer. In any case, worries about any new campaigns must wait until next summer . . . when the Senate is finished honoring me.”