“Poor man,” said Aurelia, “it’s very hard for him.”
“It is,” agreed Dalmatica, whose brown beauty was softer than Aurelia remembered, and whose grey eyes were much sadder.
The conversation passed to mundanities for a little while, Dalmatica tactfully steering it away from the more uncomfortable topics her stepdaughter would have chosen. Not a natural talker, Aurelia was content to contribute an occasional mite.
Dalmatica, who had a boy and a girl by her first husband, Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, as well as the twins, was preoccupied with her eldest, Aemilia Scaura.
“The prettiest girl!” she said warmly, and looked happy. “We think she’s pregnant, but it’s a little early to be sure.”
“Whom did she marry?” Aurelia asked; she never kept up with who married whom.
“Manius Acilius Glabrio. They’d been betrothed for years, Scaurus insisted. Traditional ties between the families.”
“He’s a nice fellow, Glabrio,” said Aurelia in carefully neutral tones; privately she considered him a loudmouthed and conceited son of a far better father.
“He’s a conceited loudmouth,” said Cornelia Sulla flatly.
“Now, now, he wouldn’t suit you, but he does suit Aemilia Scaura,” said Dalmatica.
“And how is dear little Pompeia?” asked Aurelia quickly.
Cornelia Sulla beamed. “Absolutely ravishing! She’s eight now, and at school.” Because she was Sulla’s daughter and had much of his detachment, she went on to say, “Of course she is abysmally stupid! I’ll count myself fortunate if she learns enough Latin to write a thank—you note—she’ll certainly never manage to learn any Greek! So I’m very glad she’s going to be a beauty. It’s better that a girl’s beautiful than brilliant.”
“It certainly is when it comes to finding a husband, but a decent dowry helps,” said Aurelia dryly.
“Oh, she’ll have a decent dowry!” said Pompeia’s mother. “Tata has grown to be enormously rich, and she’ll inherit a bit from him as well as from the Pompeii Rufi—who have quite changed their tune since I was a widow living in their house! Then they made my life a misery, but now I bask in reflected light from tata. Besides, they’re afraid he might proscribe them.”
“Then we’ll have to hope that Pompeia finds a very nice husband,” said Dalmatica, and looked at Aurelia in a more serious way. “It is delightful to see you and I hope I can now count on you as a much-needed friend, but I know you didn’t come merely to pay your respects—you’re too renowned as a sensible woman who minds her own business. What is this trouble, Aurelia? How may I help you?”
The story came out, told in that unsensational and unvarnished style Aurelia had made her own. She could not fault her audience, who listened in complete silence.
“We must do something,” said Dalmatica when the tale was told. She sighed. “Lucius Cornelius has too many things on his mind, and I’m afraid he’s not a very warm person.” She shifted, looked uncomfortable. “You were his friend for many years,” she said awkwardly. “I can’t help thinking that if you could not influence him, I stand little chance.”
“I trust that isn’t true,” said Aurelia stiffly. “He did come to see me from time to time, but I do assure you there was nothing untoward between us. It was not my so—called beauty that drew him. Unromantic though it may sound, what drew him was my common sense.”
“I believe that,” said Dalmatica, smiling.
Cornelia Sulla assumed control. “Well, it’s all a long way down the river,” she said briskly, “and it can’t influence what we need today. You’re quite right, Aurelia, when you say you can’t try to see tata on your own again. But you must try to see him—and the sooner, the better. He’s between laws at the moment. It will have to be a formal delegation. Priests, male relatives, Vestal Virgins, you. Mamercus will help, I’ll talk to him. Who are Caesar’s closest relatives not on the proscription lists?”
“The Cottae—my three half brothers.”
“Good, they’ll add luster to the delegation! Gaius Cotta is a pontifex and Lucius Cotta is an augur, which gives them a religious importance too. Mamercus will plead for you, I know. And we’ll need four Vestal Virgins. Fonteia, because she is the Chief Vestal. Fabia. Licinia. And Caesar Strabo’s daughter, Julia, of Caesar’s own family. Do you know any of the Vestals?”
“Not even Julia Strabo,” said Aurelia.
“Never mind, I know them all. Leave it to me.”
“What can I do to help?” asked Dalmatica, a little overawed at so much Sullan efficiency.
“Your job is to get the delegation an appointment to see tata tomorrow afternoon,” said Cornelia Sulla.
“That may be easier said than done. He’s so busy!”
“Nonsense! You’re too humble, Dalmatica. Tata will do anything for you if you ask him. The trouble is that you hardly ever ask, so you have no idea how much he loves to do things for you. Ask him at dinner, and don’t be afraid,” said Sulla’s daughter. To Aurelia she said, “I’ll get everyone here early. You can have some time with them before you go in.”
“What should I wear?” asked Aurelia, preparing to go.
Cornelia Sulla blinked. So did Dalmatica.
“I only ask,” said Aurelia apologetically, “because he commented on my clothes last time I saw him. He disliked them.”
“Why?” demanded Cornelia Sulla.
“I think he found them too drab.”
“Then wear something colorful.”
So out of the chest came dresses Aurelia had put away years ago as too undignified and skittish for an aristocratic Roman matron. Blues? Greens? Reds? Pinks? Lilacs? Yellows? In the end she decided upon layers of pink, darkest underneath, and shading through to a gauzy overlay of palest rose.
Cardixa shook her head. “All giddied up like that, you look just as you did when Caesar’s father came to dinner at your uncle Rutilius Rufus’s. And not a day older!”
“Giddied up, Cardixa?”
“You know, like one of those Public Horses on parade.”
“I think I’ll change.”
“No you won’t! You don’t have time. Off you go at once. Lucius Decumius will take you,” said Cardixa firmly, pushing her out the door onto the street, where, sure enough, Lucius Decumius waited with his two sons.
Since Lucius Decumius had enough sense to hold his tongue about Aurelia’s appearance and his sons no tongues at all, the long walk to the far side of the Palatine proceeded in silence. Every moment Aurelia waited for word to come from Priscus and Gratidia that it was too late, that Caesar was dead, and every moment that this word did not come was one more blessing.
Somehow the news had got round the insula that Caesar was at death’s door; little gifts kept arriving, everything from bunches of flowers from the Cuppedenis Markets to peculiar amulets from the Lycians on the fifth floor and the mournful sounds of special prayers from the Jewish floor. Most of Aurelia’s tenants had been with her for years, and had known Caesar since he was a baby. Always an alert, insatiably curious, chatty child, he had wandered from floor to floor experimenting with that dubious (his mother thought it very dubious) quality he possessed in abundance, charm. Many of the women had wet—nursed him, fed him tidbits from their national dishes, crooned to him in their own languages until he learned what the crooning meant, then sang their songs with them—he was extremely musical—and taught himself to pick away at peculiar stringed instruments, or blow through all kinds of pipes and flutes. As he grew older, he and his best friend, Gaius Matius from the other ground—floor flat, extended their contacts beyond the insula and into the Subura at large; and now the news of his illness was getting around the Subura too, so the little gifts kept arriving from further and further afield.
How do I explain to Sulla that Caesar means different things to different people? That he has the most intense Romanness about him, yet is also a dozen different nationalities? It is not the priest business matters most to me, it is what he is to everyone he knows
. Caesar belongs to Rome, but not to Rome of the Palatine. Caesar belongs to Rome of the Subura and the Esquiline, and when he is a great man he will bring a dimension to his office no other man could, simply because of the breadth of his experience, of his life. Jupiter only knows how many girls—and women as old as I am!—he’s slept with, how many forays he’s gone on with Lucius Decumius and those ruffians from the crossroads college, how many lives he touches because he is never still, never too busy to listen, never uninterested. My son is only eighteen. But I believe in the prophecy too, Gaius Marius! At forty my son will be formidable. And I hereby vow to every god there is that if I have to journey to the Underworld to bring back the three—headed dog of Hades, I will, to see that my son lives.
But of course when she got to Sulla’s house and was ushered into a room stuffed with important people, she did not have all that eloquence at her command, and her face was closed upon her thoughts; she simply looked austere, severe. Daunting.
As Cornelia Sulla had promised, there were four Vestals, all of them younger than she was; having entered at seven or eight, a Vestal left the Order after thirty years, and none of these, including the Chief Vestal, was yet due to retire. They wore white robes with long sleeves gathered in fine folds by a longitudinal rib, more white drapes over that, the chain and medal of a Vestal’s bulla, and on their heads crowns made of seven tiers of rolled wool, over which there floated fine white veils. The life, which was female—oriented and virginal—though not sequestered—endowed even the youngest of Vestals with a massive presence; no one knew better than they that their chastity was Rome’s good luck, and they radiated consciousness of their special status. Few of them contemplated breaking their vows, as most of them grew into the role from a most malleable age, and took enormous pride in it.
The men were togate, Mamercus with the purple border he could now wear thanks to his position as praetor peregrinus, and the Cottae, too young yet for purple-bordered togas, in plain white. Which meant that Aurelia in her gradations of pink was by far the most colorful of them all! Mortified, she felt herself stiffen into stone, and knew that she would not do well.
“You look magnificent!” breathed Cornelia Sulla in her ear. “I had quite forgotten how absolutely beautiful you are when you decide to bring the beauty out. You do, you know. You shut it up as if it didn’t exist, and then suddenly—there it is!”
“Do the others understand? Do they agree with me?” Aurelia whispered back, wishing she had worn bone or beige.
“Of course they do. For one thing, he is the flamen Dialis. And they think he’s terrifically brave, to stand up to the Dictator. No one does. Even Mamercus. I do, sometimes. He likes it, you know. Tata, I mean. Most tyrants do. They despise weaklings, even though they surround themselves with weaklings. So you go in at the head of the delegation. And stand up to him!”
“I always have,” Caesar’s mother said.
Chrysogonus was there, smarming with exactly the correct amount of oil to the various members of the delegation; he was beginning to get a reputation as one of the chief profiteers of the proscriptions, and had become enormously rich. A servant came to whisper in his ear, and he bowed his way to the great double doors opening into Sulla’s atrium, then stood back to let the delegation enter.
*
Sulla waited for them in a sour mood rooted in the fact that he knew he had been tricked by a parcel of women, and angry because he hadn’t been able to find the steel to resist them. It wasn’t fair! Wife and daughter pleaded, cajoled, looked sad, made him aware that if he did this futile thing for them, they would be eternally in his debt—and if he did not, they would be very put out. Dalmatica wasn’t so bad, she had a touch of the whipped cur in her that Scaurus no doubt had instilled during those long years of imprisonment, but Cornelia Sulla was his blood, and it showed. Termagant! How did Mamercus cope with her and look so happy? Probably because he never stood up to her. Wise man. What we do for domestic harmony! Including what I am about to do.
However, it was at least a change, a diversion in the long and dreary round of dictatorial duties. Oh, he was bored! Bored, bored, bored … Rome always did that to him. Whispered the forbidden blandishments, conjured up pictures of parties he couldn’t go to, circles he couldn’t move in…. Metrobius. It always, always came back to Metrobius. Whom he hadn’t seen in—how long? Was that the last time, in the crowd at his—triumph? Inauguration as consul? Could he not even remember that?
What he could remember was the first time he had seen the young Greek, if not the last. At that party when he had dressed up as Medusa the Gorgon, and wore a wreath of living snakes. How everyone had squealed! But not Metrobius, adorable little Cupid with the saffron dye running down the insides of his creamy thighs and the sweetest arse in the world …
The delegation came in. From where he stood beyond the huge aquamarine rectangle of the pool in the middle of the vast room, Sulla’s gaze was strong enough to absorb the entire picture they made. Perhaps because his mind had been dwelling upon a world of theater (and one particular actor), what Sulla saw was not a prim and proper Roman delegation but a gorgeous pageant led by a gorgeous woman all in shades of pink, his favorite color. And how clever that she had surrounded herself by people in white with the faintest touches of purple!
The world of dictatorial duties rolled away, and so did Sulla’s sour mood. His face lit up, he whooped in delight.
“Oh, this is wonderful! Better than a play or the games! No, no, don’t come an inch closer to me! Stand on that side of the pool! Aurelia, out in front. I want you like a tall, slender rose. The Vestals—to the right, I think, but the youngest can stand behind Aurelia, I want her against a white background. Yes, that’s right, good! Now, fellows, you stand to the left, but I think we’ll have young Lucius Cotta behind Aurelia too, he’s the youngest and I don’t think he’ll have a speaking part. I do like the touches of purple on your tunics, but Mamercus, you spoil the effect. You should have abandoned the praetexta, it’s just a trifle too much purple. So you—off to the far left.” The Dictator put his hand to his chin and studied them closely, then nodded. “Good! I like it! However, I need a bit more glamor, don’t I? Here I am all alone looking just like Mamercus in my praetexta, and just as mournful!”
He clapped his hands; Chrysogonus popped out from behind the delegation, bowed several times.
“Chrysogonus, send my lictors in—crimson tunics, not stodgy old white togas—and get me the Egyptian chair. You know the one—crocodiles for arms and asps rearing up the back. And a small podium. Yes, I must have a small podium! Covered in—purple. Tyrian purple, none of your imitations. Well, go on, man, hurry!”
The delegation—which had not said a word—reconciled itself to a long wait while all these stage directions were seen to, but Chrysogonus was not chief administrator of the proscriptions and steward to the Dictator for nothing. In filed twenty-four lictors clad in crimson tunics, the axes inserted in their fasces, their faces studiously expressionless. On their heels came the small podium held between four sturdy slaves, who placed it in the exact center at the back of the pool and proceeded to cover it neatly with a tapestry cloth in the stipulated Tyrian purple, so dark it was almost black. The chair arrived next, a splendid thing of polished ebony and gilt, with ruby eyes in the hooded snakes and emerald eyes in the crocodiles, and a magnificent multihued scarab in the center of the chair back.
Once the stage was set, Sulla attended to his lictors. “I like the axes in the bundles of rods, so I’m glad I’m Dictator and have the power to execute within the pomerium! Now let me see…. Twelve to the left of me and twelve to the right of me—in a line, boys, but close together. Fan yourselves away so that you’re nearest to me next to me, and dribble off a bit into the distance at your far ends…. Good, good!” He swung back to stare at the delegation, frowning. “That’s what’s wrong! I can’t see Aurelia’s feet, Chrysogonus! Bring in that little golden stool I filched from Mithridates. I want her to stand on it. Go o
n, man, hurry! Hurry!”
And finally it was all done to his satisfaction. Sulla sat down in his crocodile and snake chair on the Tyrian purple small podium, apparently oblivious to the fact that he should have been seated in a plain ivory curule chair. Not that anyone in the room was moved to criticize; the important thing was that the Dictator was enjoying himself immensely. And that meant a greater chance for a favorable verdict.
“Speak!” he said in sonorous tones.
“Lucius Cornelius, my son is dying—”
“Louder, Aurelia! Play to the back of the cavea!”
“Lucius Cornelius, my son is dying! I have come with my friends to beseech you to pardon him!”
“Your friends? Are all these people your friends?” he asked, his amazement a little overdone.
“They are all my friends. They join with me in beseeching you to allow my son to come home before he dies,” Aurelia enunciated clearly, playing to the back row of the cavea, and getting into her stride. If he wanted a Greek tragedy, he would get a Greek tragedy! She extended her arms to him, the rose—colored draperies falling away from her ivory skin. “Lucius Cornelius, my son is but eighteen years old! He is my only son!” A throb in the voice there, it would go over well-yes, it was going over well, if his expression was anything to go by! “You have seen my son. A god! A Roman god! A descendant of Venus worthy of Venus! And with such courage! Did he not have the courage to defy you, the greatest man in all the world? And did he show fear? No!”
“Oh, this is wonderful!” Sulla exclaimed. “I didn’t know you had it in you, Aurelia! Keep it coming, keep it coming!”
“Lucius Cornelius, I beseech you! Spare my son!” She managed to turn on the tiny golden stool and stretched out her hands to Fonteia, praying that stately lady would understand her part. “I ask Fonteia, Rome’s Chief Vestal, to beg for the life of my son!”
Luckily by this the rest were beginning to recover from their stupefaction, could at least try. Fonteia thrust out her hands and achieved a distressed facial expression she hadn’t used since she was four years old.
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