“Oh, Pompeius,” said Caesar as he put the letter down, “you are in a league all of your own!”
He frowned, thinking of the last part of Pompey’s missive first. Titus Labienus had left Rome to return to Picenum soon after he relinquished office, and presumably had resumed his affair with Mucia Tertia. A pity. Ought he perhaps to write and warn Labienus what was coming? No. Letters were prone to be opened by the wrong people, and there were some who were past masters of the art of resealing them. If Mucia Tertia and Labienus were in danger, they would have to deal with it themselves. Pompey the Great was more important; Caesar was beginning to see all sorts of alluring possibilities after the Great Man came home with his mountains of loot. The land wasn’t going to be forthcoming; his soldiers would go unrewarded. But in less than three years’ time, Gaius Julius Caesar would be senior consul, and Publius Vatinius would be his tribune of the plebs. What an excellent way to put the Great Man in the debt of a far greater man!
*
Both Servilia and Marcus Crassus had been right; after that amazing day in the Forum, Caesar’s year as urban praetor became very peaceful. One by one the rest of Catilina’s adherents were tried and convicted, though Lucius Novius Niger was no longer the judge in the special court. After some debate the Senate decided to transfer the trials to Bibulus’s court once the first five had been sentenced to exile and confiscation of property.
And, as Caesar learned from Crassus, Cicero got his new house. The biggest Catilinarian fish of all had never been named by any of the informers—Publius Sulla. Most people knew, however, that if Autronius had been involved, so had Publius Sulla. The nephew of the Dictator and husband of Pompey’s sister, Publius Sulla had inherited enormous wealth, but not his uncle’s political acumen and certainly not his uncle’s sense of self-preservation. Unlike the rest, he had not entered the conspiracy to increase his fortune; it had been done to oblige his friends and alleviate his perpetual boredom.
“He’s asked Cicero to defend,” said Crassus, chuckling, “and that puts Cicero in a frightful predicament.”
“Only if he intends to consent, surely,” said Caesar.
“Oh, he’s already consented, Gaius.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Because our swan of an ex-consul has just been to see me. Suddenly he has the money to buy my house—or hopes he has.”
“Ah! How much are you asking?”
“Five million.”
Caesar leaned back in his chair, shaking his head dolefully. “You know, Marcus, you always remind me of a speculation builder. Every house you build for your wife and children you swear by all the Gods is going to stay theirs. Then along comes someone with more money than sense, offers you a fat profit, and—bang! Wife and children are homeless until the next house is built.”
“I paid a long price for it,” said Crassus defensively.
“Not nearly as long as five million!”
“Well, yes,” said Crassus, then brightened. “Tertulla has taken a dislike to the place, as a matter of fact, so she isn’t brokenhearted at the thought of moving. I’m going to buy on the Circus Maximus side of the Germalus this time—next door to that palace Hortensius maintains to house his fish ponds.”
“Why has Tertulla taken a dislike to it after all these years?” Caesar asked skeptically.
“Well, it belonged to Marcus Livius Drusus.”
“I know that. I also know he was murdered in its atrium.’’
“There’s something there!” Crassus whispered.
“And it’s welcome to gnaw at Cicero and Terentia, eh?” Caesar began to laugh. “I told you at the time that it was a mistake to use black marble inside—too many dark corners. And, knowing how little you pay your servants, Marcus, I’d be willing to bet some of them have a fine old time of it moaning and sighing out of the shadows. I would also be willing to bet that when you move, your evil presences will go with you—unless you cough up some solid wage rises, that is.”
Crassus brought the subject back to Cicero and Publius Sulla. “It appears,” he said, “that Publius Sulla is willing to ‘lend’ Cicero the entire sum if he defends.”
“And gets him off,” said Caesar gently.
“Oh, he’ll do that!” This time Crassus laughed, an extremely rare event. “You ought to have heard him! Busy rewriting the history of his consulship, no less. Do you remember all those meetings through September, October and November? When Publius Sulla sat beside Catilina supporting him loudly? Well, according to Cicero that wasn’t Publius Sulla sitting there, it was Spinther wearing his imago!”
“I hope you’re joking, Marcus.”
“Yes and no. Cicero now insists that Publius Sulla spent the bulk of those many nundinae looking after his interests in Pompeii! He was hardly in Rome, did you know that?”
“You’re right, it must have been Spinther wearing his imago.”
“He’ll convince the jury of it, anyway.”
At which moment Aurelia poked her head round the door. “When you have the time, Caesar, I would like a word with you,” she said.
Crassus rose. “I’m off, I have some people to see. Speaking of houses,” he said as he and Caesar walked to the front door, “I must say the Domus Publica is the best address in Rome. On the way to and from everywhere. Nice to pop in knowing there’s a friendly face and a good drop of wine.”
“You could afford the good drop of wine yourself, you old skinflint!”
“You know, I am getting old,” said Crassus, ignoring the noun. “What are you, thirty-seven?”
“Thirty-eight this year.”
“Brrr! I’ll be fifty-four.” He sighed wistfully. “You know, I did want a big campaign before I retired! Something to rival Pompeius Magnus.”
“According to him, there are no worlds left to conquer.”
“What about the Parthians?”
“What about Dacia, Boiohaemum, all the lands of the Danubius?”
“Is that where you’re going, is it, Caesar?”
“I’ve been thinking of it, yes.”
“The Parthians,” said Crassus positively, stepping through the door. “More gold that way than to the north.”
“Every race esteems gold most,” said Caesar, “so every race will yield gold.”
“You’ll need it to pay your debts.”
“Yes, I will. But gold isn’t the great lure, at least for me. In that respect Pompeius Magnus has things correct. The gold just appears. What’s more important is the length of Rome’s reach.”
Crassus’s answer was a wave; he turned in the direction of the Palatine and disappeared.
There was never any point in trying to avoid Aurelia when she wanted a word, so Caesar went straight from the front door to her quarters, now thoroughly imprinted with her hand: none of the handsome decor was visible anymore, covered with pigeonholes, scrolls, papers, book buckets, and a loom in the corner. Suburan accounts no longer interested her; she was helping the Vestals in their archiving.
“What is it, Mater?” he asked, standing in the doorway.
“It’s our new Virgin,” she said, indicating a chair.
He sat down, willing now to listen. “Cornelia Merula?”
“The very same.”
“She’s only seven, Mater. How much trouble can she make at that age? Unless she’s wild, and I didn’t think she was.”
“We have put a Cato in our midst,” said his mother.
“Oh!”
“Fabia can’t deal with her, nor can any of the others. Junia and Quinctilia loathe her, and are beginning to pinch and scratch.”
“Bring Fabia and Cornelia Merula to my office now, please.”
Not many moments later Aurelia ushered the Chief Vestal and the new little Vestal into Caesar’s office, an immaculate and most imposing setting glowing dully in crimson and purple.
There was a Cato look to Cornelia Merula, who reminded Caesar of that first time he had ever seen Cato, looking down from Marcus Livius Drus
us’s house onto the loggia of Ahenobarbus’s house, where Sulla had been staying. A skinny, lonely little boy to whom he had waved sympathetically. She too was tall and thin; she too had that Catonian coloring, auburn hair and grey eyes. And she stood the way Cato always stood, legs apart, chin out, fists clenched.
“Mater, Fabia, you may sit down,” said the Pontifex Maximus formally. One hand went out to the child. “You may stand here,” he said, indicating a spot in front of his desk. “Now what’s the trouble, Chief Vestal?” he asked.
“A great deal, it seems!” said Fabia tartly. “We live too luxuriously—we have too much spare time—we are more interested in wills than Vesta—we have no right to drink water which hasn’t been fetched from the Well of Juturna—we don’t prepare the mola salsa the way it was done during the reigns of the kings—we don’t mince the October Horse’s parts properly—and more besides!”
“And how do you know what happens to the October Horse’s parts, little blackbird?” Caesar asked the child kindly, preferring to call her that (Merula meant a blackbird). “You haven’t been in the Atrium Vestae long enough to have seen an October Horse’s parts.” Oh, how hard it was not to laugh! The parts of the October Horse which were rushed first to the Regia to allow some blood to drip onto the altar, then to Vesta’s sacred hearth to allow the same, were the genitalia plus the tail complete with anal sphincter. After the ceremonies all of these were cut up, minced, mixed with the last of the blood, then burned; the ashes were used during a Vestal feast in April, the Parilia.
“My great-grandmother told me,” said Cornelia Merula in a voice which promised one day to be as loud as Cato’s.
“How does she know, since she isn’t a Vestal?”
“You,” said the little blackbird, “are in this house under false pretenses. That means I don’t have to answer you.”
“Do you want to be sent back to your great-grandmother?”
“You can’t do that, I’m a Vestal now.”
“I can do it, and I will if you don’t answer my questions.”
She was not at all cowed; instead, she thought about what he said carefully. “I can only be ejected from the Order if I am prosecuted in a court and convicted.”
“What a little lawyer! But you are wrong, Cornelia. The law is sensible, so it always makes provision for the occasional blackbird caged up with snow-white peahens. You can be sent home.” Caesar leaned forward, eyes chilly. “Please don’t try my patience, Cornelia! Just believe me. Your great-grandmother would not be amused if you were declared unsuitable and sent home in disgrace.”
“I don’t believe you,” Cornelia said stubbornly.
Caesar rose to his feet. “You’ll believe me after I’ve taken you home this very moment!” He turned to Fabia, listening fascinated. “Fabia, pack her things, then send them on.”
Which was the difference between seven and twenty-seven; Cornelia Merula gave in. “I’ll answer your questions, Pontifex Maximus,” she said heroically, eyes shining with tears, but no tears falling.
By this time Caesar just wanted to squash her with hugs and kisses, but of course one couldn’t do that, even were it not so important that she be, if not tamed, at least made tractable. Seven or twenty-seven, she was a Vestal Virgin and could not be squashed with hugs and kisses.
“You said I’m here under false pretenses, Cornelia. What did you mean by that?”
“Great-grandmother says so.”
“Is everything great-grandmother says true?’’
The grey eyes widened in horror. “Yes, of course!”
“Did great-grandmother tell you why I’m here under false pretenses, or was it simply a statement without facts to back it up?” he asked sternly.
“She just said so.”
“I am not here under false pretenses, I am the legally elected Pontifex Maximus.”
“You are the flamen Dialis,” Cornelia muttered.
“I was the flamen Dialis, but that was a very long time ago. I was appointed to take your great-grandfather’s place. But then some irregularities in the inauguration ceremonies were discovered, and all the priests and augurs decided I could not continue to serve as flamen Dialis.”
“You are still the flamen Dialis!”
“Domine,” he said gently. “I am your lord, little blackbird, which means you behave politely and call me domine.”
“Domine, then.”
“I am not still the flamen Dialis.”
“Yes you are! Domine.”
“Why?”
“Because,” said Cornelia Merula triumphantly, “there isn’t a flamen Dialis!”
“Another decision of the priestly and augural colleges, little blackbird. I am not the flamen Dialis, but it was decided not to appoint another man to the post until after my death. Just to make everything in our contract with the Great God absolutely legal.”
“Oh.”
“Come here, Cornelia.”
She came round the corner of his desk reluctantly, and stood where he pointed, two feet away from his chair.
“Hold out your hands.”
She flinched, paled; Caesar understood great-grandmother a great deal better when Cornelia Merula held out her hands as a child does to receive punishment.
His own hands went out, took hers in a firm warm clasp. “I think it’s time you forgot great-grandmother as the authority in your life, little blackbird. You have espoused the Order of Rome’s Vestal Virgins. You have passed out of great-grandmother’s hands and into mine. Feel them, Cornelia. Feel my hands.”
She did so, shyly and very timidly. How sad, he thought, that until her eighth year she has clearly never been hugged or kissed by the paterfamilias, and now her new paterfamilias is bound by solemn and sacred laws never to hug or kiss her, child that she is. Sometimes Rome is a cruel mistress.
“They’re strong, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“And much bigger than yours.”
“Yes.”
“Do you feel them shake or sweat?”
“No, domine.”
“Then there is no more to be said. You and your fate are in my hands, I am your father now. I will care for you as a father, the Great God and Vesta require it. But most of why I will care for you is because you are you, a little girl. You won’t be slapped or spanked, you won’t be shut in dark cupboards or sent to bed without your supper. That is not to say the Atrium Vestae is a place without punishment, only that punishments should be carefully thought out, and always made to fit the crime. If you break something, you will have to mend it. If you soil something, you will have to wash it. But the one crime for which there is no other punishment than being sent home as unsuitable is the crime of sitting in judgement on your seniors. It is not your place to say what the Order drinks, how that drink is obtained, nor which side of the cup is the side to sip from. It is not your place to define what exactly is Vestal tradition or custom. The mos maiorum is not a static thing, it doesn’t stay as it was during the reigns of the kings. Like everything else in the world, it changes to suit the times. So no more criticisms, no more sitting in judgement. Is that understood?’’
“Yes, domine.”
He let go her hands, never having put himself closer to her than those two feet. “You may go, Cornelia, but wait outside. I want to speak to Fabia.”
“Thank you, Pontifex Maximus,” sighed Fabia, beaming.
“Don’t thank me, Chief Vestal, just cope with these ups and downs sensibly,” said Caesar. “I think in future it might be wise if I take a more active part in the education of the three young girls. Classes once every eight days from an hour after dawn until noon. On, let us say, the third day after the nundinus.”
The interview was clearly at an end; Fabia rose, made an obeisance, and left.
“You handled that extremely well, Caesar,” said Aurelia.
“Poor little thing!”
“Too many spankings.”
“What an old horror great-grandmother mu
st be.”
“Some people live to be too old, Caesar. I hope I do not.”
“The important thing is, have I banished Cato?”
“Oh, I think so. Especially if you tutor her. That’s an excellent idea. Not Fabia nor Arruntia nor Popillia has one grain of common sense, and I cannot interfere too much. I am a woman, not the paterfamilias.”
“How odd, Mater! In all my life I have never been paterfamilias to a male!”
Aurelia got to her feet, smiling. “For which I am very glad, my son. Look at Young Marius, poor fellow. The women in your hand are grateful for your strength and authority. If you had a son, he would have to live under your shadow. For greatness skips not one but usually many generations in all families, Caesar. You would see him as yourself, and he would despair.”
*
The Clodius Club was gathered in the big and beautiful house Fulvia’s money had bought for Clodius right next door to the expensive insula of luxury apartments that represented his most lucrative investment. Everyone of genuine importance was there: the two Clodias, Fulvia, Pompeia Sulla, Sempronia Tuditani, Palla, Decimus Brutus (Sempronia Tuditani’s son), Curio, young Poplicola (Palla’s son), Clodius, and an aggrieved Mark Antony.
“I wish I were Cicero,” he was saying gloomily, “then I’d have no need to get married.”
“That sounds like a non sequitur to me, Antonius,” said Curio, smiling. “Cicero’s married, and to a shrew at that.”
“Yes, but he’s so well known to be able to get people off at trial that they’re even willing to ‘lend’ him five million,” Antony persisted. “If I could get people off at trial, I’d have my five million without needing to marry.”
“Oho!” said Clodius, sitting up straighten “Who’s the lucky little bride, Antonius?”
“Uncle Lucius—he’s paterfamilias now because Uncle Hybrida won’t have anything to do with us—refuses to pay my debts. My stepfather’s estate is embarrassed, and there’s nothing left of what my father had. So I have to marry some awful girl who smells of the shop.”
“Who?” asked Clodius.
“Her name’s Fadia.”
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