The Grass Crown

by Colleen McCullough

  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 bra
in 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.

  After bathing her mistress, Livia Drusa's maid reported the extent of the damage in the slave quarters, face terrified.

  "Covered in huge red welts!" she said to the steward, Cratippus. "Bleeding! And the bed covered in blood! Poor thing, poor thing!"

  Cratippus wept desolately, powerless to help himself— but did not weep alone, for there were many among the household servants who had known Livia Drusa since early childhood, had always pitied her, cared about her. And when these old retainers set eyes upon her that morning they wept again; she moved at the pace of a snail, and looked as if she wanted to die. But Caepio had been cunning, even in the midst of his engorged fury. Not a mark showed on arms, face, neck, feet.

  For two months the situation continued unchanged, save that Caepio's beatings—administered at intervals of about five days—altered in pattern; he would concentrate upon one specific area of his wife's body, thus permitting other areas time to heal. The sexual stimulus he found irresistible, the sense of power fantastic; at last he understood the wisdom of the old ways, the reasons behind the paterfamilias. The true purpose of women.

  Livia Drusa said nothing to anyone, even the maidservant who bathed her—and now dressed her wounds as well. The change in her was patent, and worried Drusus and his wife a great deal; all they could put it down to was her return to Rome, though Drusus, remembering how she had resisted marriage to Caepio, also found himself wondering whether it was the presence of Caepio at base of her dragging footsteps, her haggard face, her utter quietness.

  Inside herself, Livia Drusa felt hardly anything beyond the physical agony of the beatings and their aftermath. Perhaps, she would find herself wondering dully, this was a punishment; or perhaps in so much actual pain the loss of her beloved Cato was made bearable; or perhaps the gods were really being kind to her, for she had lost the three-month child Caepio would certainly have known he hadn't fathered. In the shock of Caepio's sudden return that complication hadn't risen to the surface of her mind before it ceased to be a complication. Yes, that must be it. The gods were being kind. Sooner or later she would die, when her husband forgot to stop. And death was infinitely preferable to life with Quintus Servilius Caepio.

  The entire atmosphere within the house had changed, a fact Drusus for one fretted about; what should have occupied his thoughts was his wife's pregnancy, a most unexpected and joyous gift they had long despaired of receiving. Yet Servilia Caepionis fretted too, as blighted by this inexplicable pall of darkness as was Drusus. What was the matter? Could one unhappy wife truly generate so much general gloom? His servants were so silent and serious, for one thing. Normally their noisy progress about his house was a perpetual minor irritation, and he had been used since childhood to being wakened occasionally by a huge burst of hilarity from the quarters below the atrium. No more. They all crept round with long faces, answered in monosyllables, dusted and polished and scrubbed as if to tire themselves out because they couldn't sleep. Nor was that veritable tower of strong composure, Cratippus, acting like himself.

  As dawn broke at the end of the old year, Drusus caught his steward before Cratippus could instruct the door warden to admit the master's clients from the street.

  "Just a moment," said Drusus, pointing toward his study. "I want to see you."

  But after he closed the room to all other comers, he found himself unable to broach the subject, and walked up and down, up and down, while Cratippus stood in one place and looked steadfastly at the floor. Finally Drusus stopped, faced his steward.

  "Cratippus, what is the matter?" he asked, his hand extended. "Have I offended you in some way? Why are the servants so unhappy? Is there some terribly important thing I have overlooked in my treatment of you? If there is, please tell me. I wouldn't have any slave of mine rendered miserable through my fault, or the fault of anyone else among my family. But especially I wouldn't want you made miserable. Without you, the house would fall down!"

  To his horror, Cratippus burst into tears; Drusus stood for a moment without the slightest idea what to do, then instinct took over and he found himself seated with his steward on the couch, his arm about the heaving shoulders, his handkerchief put into service. But the kinder Drusus became, the harder Cratippus wept. Close to tears himself, Drusus got up to fetch wine, persuaded Cratippus to drink, soothed and hushed and rocked until finally his steward's distress began to die down.

  "Oh, Marcus Livius, it has been such a burden!"

  "What has, Cratippus?"

  "The beatings!"

  "The beatings?"

  "The way she screams, so quietly!" Cratippus wept anew.

  "My sister, you mean?" asked Drusus sharply.

  "Yes."

  Drusus could feel his heart accelerating, his face grow dark with blood, his hands begin to tremble. "Tell me! In the name of our household gods, I command you to tell me!"

  "Quintus Servilius. He will end in killing her."

  The trembling had become visible shaking, it was necessary to draw a huge breath. "My sister's husband is beating her?"

  "Yes, domine, yes!" The steward struggled to compose himself. “I know it is not my place to comment, and I swear I would not have! But you asked me with such kindness, such concern—I—I—"

  "Calm yourself, Cratippus, I am not angry with you," said Drusus evenly. "I assure you, I am intensely grateful to be informed of this." He got to his feet, and helped Cratippus up gently. "Go to the door warden now, and have him make my excuses to my clients. They will not be admitted today, I have other things to do. Then I want you to ask my wife to go to the nursery and remain there with the children because I have need to send every servant down to the cellar to do some special work for me. You will make sure that every servant goes to quarters, and you will then do so yourself. But before you leave, make your last task a request to Quintus Servilius and my sister to come here to my study."

  In the moments Drusus had to himself, he disciplined his body to stillness and his anger to detachment, for he
told himself that perhaps Cratippus was overreacting, that things might not be as bad as the servants obviously thought.

  One unblinkered look at Livia Drusa told him no one had exaggerated, that it was all true. She came through the door first, and he saw the pain, the depression, the fear, an unhappiness so deep it had no end. He saw the deadness in her. Caepio entered in her wake, more intrigued than worried.

  Standing himself, Drusus asked no one to sit down. Instead, he stared at his brother-in-law with loathing, and said, "It has come to my attention, Quintus Servilius, that you are physically assaulting my sister."

  It was Livia Drusa who gasped. Caepio braced himself and assumed an expression of truculent contempt.

  "What I do to my wife, Marcus Livius, is no one's business except my own," he said.

  "I disagree," said Drusus as calmly as he could. "Your wife is my sister, a member of a great and powerful family. No one in this house beat her before she was married. I will not permit you or anyone else to beat her now."

  "She is my wife. Which means she is in my hand, not yours, Marcus Livius! I will do with her whatever I will."

  "Your connections to Livia Drusa are by marriage," said Drusus, face hardening. "My connections are blood. And blood matters. I will not permit you to beat my sister!"

  "You said you didn't want to know about my methods of disciplining her! And you were right. It's none of your business."

  "Wife-beating is everybody's business. The lowest of the low." Drusus looked at his sister. "Please remove your clothes, Livia Drusa. I want to see what this wife-beater has done."

  "You will not, wife!" cried Caepio in righteous indignation. "Display yourself to one not your husband? You will not!"

  "Take off your clothes, Livia Drusa," said Drusus.

  Livia Drusa made no move to obey, did not speak.

  "My dear, you must do this thing," said Drusus gently, and went to her side. "I have to see."

  When he put his arm about her she cried out, pulling away; keeping his touch as light as possible, Drusus unfastened her robe at its shoulders.