“I have heard – and indeed seen – more than enough. It seems to me quite clear that any man who would marry this woman cannot have done so in the expectation that she would remain faithful to him. Therefore, I am happy to recommend that this lady’s dowry should be returned to her in full.”
As a roar of approval echoed around the court, Marcus Rufio at last found his voice. Getting to his feet, his face red with anger, he shouted over the applause.
“It’s a lie, it’s all bloody lies I tell you!”
“What’s that?” Pompey craned his neck.
Publius Dolabella was hissing, “No, you fool,” and trying to drag his kinsman back down to his seat, but Rufio shook off the hand on his arm.
“It’s a lie, I tell you! It’s all lies! That bitch has never looked at another man, let alone persuaded one to look at her!” He jabbed his finger angrily at Drusilla. “You think I’ll let you make a fool of me in this ridiculous get-up?”
A look of triumph came into Hortensia’s eyes as Pompey tilted his head and observed Marcus Rufio quizzically.
“Never looked at another man, you say?”
“I swear to you, consul. I have never seen these clothes on her before.” Marcus Rufio stepped forward eagerly, keen to keep Pompey’s attention. “She’s a drab, plain creature, usually, and rarely leaves the house. The idea of her trysting with this mud-stained fool is preposterous. She’s so frigid no one could get near her without a mounting block.”
He looked around expectantly as though inviting people to laugh at this remark but a ripple of whispering had broken out instead. Rufio’s companions were boot-faced and a muscle twitched in Publius Dolabella’s cold, set jaw. But still Marcus Rufio did not understand the mood of the room and tried again to appeal to Pompey, pointing an accusatory finger at Hortensia and Drusilla.
“I promise you, consul! These women are lying to the court!”
Everyone, including Pompey, seemed to anticipate Hortensia’s answer but waited for her to deliver it. She did not disappoint, raising an eyebrow expressively and turning slightly as if to invite the whole room to share in the joke.
“What a coincidence. Because if we’re lying, then so are you!”
The courtroom erupted. Publius Dolabella rose and stalked out of the room without a backward glance. Drusilla sank to her knees with her hands over her face and was immediately helped onto a bench by the chattering women from the front row, who smoothed the mantle around her shoulders and offered their box of dates to her. Hortensia, struggling to keep a broad grin from cracking her face, held up her arms for silence.
“My fellow citizens,” she announced grandly. “What you have just witnessed is an attempt to defraud the people of Rome. Not of money, but of justice. This man –” she pointed at a dumbfounded Marcus Rufio “– has tried to blacken the name of a respectable Roman matron – for that is indeed Drusilla’s true character. You could not find a more honorable woman in the whole of the city. These clothes and the story of an affair were indeed simply a ploy to force Marcus Rufio to reveal his true colors. You all know the story of how, centuries ago, Sextus Tarquinius raped the maiden Lucretia and then falsely accused her of unchastity. You know too how the citizens of Rome were not deceived by his calumny, and overthrew the tyrannical rule of Sextus and his fellow kings. I think we all owe a debt of gratitude to Consul Pompey for upholding the values on which our Republic was founded.”
A thundering roar of approval greeted her speech, in which Marcus Rufio was the only non-participant. He stood quite still, staring at Hortensia with a mixture of disbelief and darkening rage.
“You bloody bitch,” he snarled softly and for a moment he looked as though he would have lunged at her. But Lucrio, who had quietly slipped through the crowd as Pompey delivered his verdict, had now materialized at Hortensia’s side. Checked by the glare in the dark Lusitanian’s eye, Marcus Rufio shot Hortensia one last look of malevolent hatred before storming out of the court, roughly pushing aside a few wags who tried to prolong his humiliation with their remarks.
Hortensia meanwhile was being hailed on all sides by admiring spectators wanting to congratulate her. She received their plaudits willingly and for a time was caught up in the crowd but then noticed Drusilla trying to catch her eye. Reading the expression in her anxious face, she quickly turned to Pompey, who was heaving himself up from the judge’s chair. “There is still the issue of the children in this case, consul,” she said urgently. “There are two, a boy aged five and a girl aged three. Marcus Rufio is trying to prevent my friend from being mother to them.”
Pompey stepped down from the dais, one calloused hand raised in a placatory gesture. “Your friend may rest easy. I think it preferable that her children should reside with her. Any mother who would go to such lengths for her children is a credit to her sex … as indeed are you, my dear. My felicitations on your first triumph. I should be surprised if it were the last.” He smiled but cocked an eyebrow rather sternly. “I am not sure I approve, mind. A woman speaking in a man’s place.”
Hortensia twinkled at him. “A great general like yourself knows that sometimes one must learn to think like the enemy.”
Pompey beamed and waggled a finger at her. “I shall expect you to come to supper at my villa you know.”
“Only if my husband is included in the invitation,” replied Hortensia demurely.
Pleased with this response, the consul exited the court on a roar of laughter, surrounded by a swarm of his adoring public.
XII
“CAN YOU FORGIVE ME?”
They were outside the court once more in the sunshine of the forum. Drusilla had swapped her colorful clothing for sober hues once more and the only traces of her recent transformation were a few faint smears of yellow on her eyelids, which had proved impossible to wash off in the public fountain. It had taken them some time to exit the court, so many people wanted to congratulate Hortensia and bestow messages of support upon Drusilla. Once outside, Lucrio had gone to arrange for Hortensia’s litter to be brought as close to the basilica as possible. Rixus had not been seen since he was borne off to the local taberna by his new circle of friends from the gallery.
Hortensia waited apprehensively for an answer to her question.
“I did think I might lose control of my emotions at any second,” confessed Drusilla. “It was so hard to seem indifferent to the things that Publius Dolabella was saying about me. But forgive you?” She shook her head incredulously. “You have given me back my children. For that, I can never thank you enough.”
Hortensia took the hand that was held out to her. “You will let me know if you have any further difficulties? Just send me word if Marcus Rufio should still try to keep you from seeing Marcus and Cassia. Pompey has given his word that they should live with you.”
“I don’t think even Marcus Rufio would attempt to make an enemy of Pompey. But he will try and find some way to revenge himself on me, I know it. I have publicly humiliated him. Will your husband still act as his patron, do you think?”
“Not if I have anything to do with it,” replied Hortensia drily.
Drusilla smiled but looked worried. “I fear that Rufio will wish revenge on you too. How can I ever repay you for what you have done for me?”
Hortensia shook her head vigorously. “Oh no, Papa says that advocates are not allowed to take payment for pleading a case. Just promise me that when you do marry again, you will choose a better husband than Marcus Rufio.”
Drusilla slipped her hand into her pouch purse and extracted the gold dolphin necklace that she had worn in court. “Will you at least keep this? Not to wear of course, but as a reminder of me and a token of my gratitude? Although I beg that you will banish the memory of me wearing it.”
Hortensia laughed and accepted the necklace. “I don’t think I shall ever be able to get the image out of my mind as long as I live. But I accept the gift gladly.”
Lucrio reappeared with the four litter-bearers at his heels, car
rying their green-and-gold burden. Drusilla and Hortensia said their farewells and Hortensia promised to visit her. She then turned back to Lucrio, expecting his assistance in helping her climb into the litter, but realized that his gaze was instead intently fixed on something over her shoulder. Curious, Hortensia turned around to see a large, noisy crowd spilling out from one of the two permanent tribunal courts on the other side of the forum. A small contingent was detaching itself to form a small group off to one side and Hortensia quickly realized that at the center of this group was her father, his proud figure and sleek black head easily recognizable even from a distance. He was flanked by Caecilius, Caepio and her cousin Brutus – looking youthfully bullish – along with a group of older men in senatorial robes who had their heads together as if conferring intently. But the noise was all coming from the rest of the crowd, who were so large in number that some of them had to climb up the steps of the temple of Castor in order to get a clear view of the recipient of their adulation – a very tall, hawkish figure standing at their center with one arm raised aloft. Gradually it dawned on Hortensia what they were all chanting.
Cicero. Cicero.
Hortensia’s eyes flickered disbelievingly back to her father. He was standing with his back to her and not by the slightest slump of his shoulders did his posture betray a hint of defeat. But she could see Caecilius shaking his bald head and there was no mistaking the somber mood of the circle around Hortensius in stark contrast to the euphoria of the opposition. Cicero’s diminutive wife Terentia was standing alongside her husband with an expression of proud triumph etched across her aquiline features.
Blindly Hortensia turned back to Lucrio.
“Help me up please. I want to go straight to my father’s house and wait for him …”
“Who is that man?”
Hortensia blinked in surprise. Lucrio had never interrupted her before.
“The man standing alongside your father.”
She turned her head in bewilderment and squinted at the group standing on the steps alongside Hortensius. She could just make out the squat, flush-faced figure of her father’s client Gaius Verres, who was shaking his head and grinning, as though to suggest some embarrassing mistake had been made by someone. Talking to him was a rakish individual with black hair, his arms folded over the grey cloak casually draped over one shoulder, who Hortensia recognized immediately as the scarred man from Crassus’s games. Otherwise there were several men whose faces she either couldn’t see or didn’t know.
Hortensia turned back to Lucrio and made a gesture of impatience. “I don’t know which man you mean.”
“The man in grey.” There was a strange quiver in his voice.
“I can’t … Dolabella, I think, Tiberius Dolabella, but what does it matter? Don’t you realize what must have happened? My father has …”
She broke off with a gasp as Lucrio seized her upper arms, gripping them tightly.
“Where does he live? How do I find him again?” His normally cool green eyes were ablaze with a ferocious intensity Hortensia had never seen before. His dark face was so close to hers that she could feel his breath on her cheek and smell the sweat on his skin. His gaze bored into her, as though he were trying to read the answer he needed from her face. But the look of shock in her eyes eventually brought him back to his senses and his fingers slackened their grip. For a moment he stared at the white marks on her arms.
“Forgive me, domina,” he said in a low voice. Then he disappeared into the throng, his dark head receding toward the crowd chanting Cicero’s name.
XIII
THE NEXT MORNING, HORTENSIA WALKED THE SHORT DISTANCE UP THE Palatine to her father’s house, followed closely by one of her slaves holding a canopy over her head to protect her from the hot morning sun. She found her mother dead-heading roses in the garden, listlessly plucking at the brown, shriveled petals with her thin fingers.
“Where is Papa? Some of his clients are waiting to see him in the atrium.”
“Oh, are they?” Lutatia sounded flustered. “I don’t think your father intends to see anyone today. He is in the garden somewhere with Quintus and then he is going to court. But I know he will be so glad of a visit from you.”
Hortensia flung herself down on a bench. “It all sounds quite ridiculous,” she said sulkily. “I still don’t understand what happened. The trial is only a day old yet Caepio tells me that it’s as good as over already. Papa hasn’t even had an opportunity to address the court!”
“No,” admitted Lutatia. “I believe Cicero has been very clever, calling his first witnesses instead of using up his allocated speaking time. But his opening address was still very powerful, I understand.”
Hortensia flared up. “It could not have been that good. I don’t see why everyone is talking as though Papa’s defeat is inevitable. He just needs to wait until it is his turn to address the jury. Then we shall see how smug that awful wife of Cicero’s looks,” she added darkly.
Lutatia looked bewildered at this but then shook her head sorrowfully.
“I heard your Papa tell Caecilius that there was no chance of an acquittal for Verres now. He said the evidence Cicero has gathered is overwhelming, that even he was taken aback by the extent of it. It will be several days before they’ve heard all of the witnesses against Verres.”
“I have no difficulty believing in Verres’s guilt,” retorted Hortensia stubbornly. “But Papa would still win if he was given the chance to speak.”
“I am sure you are right dear,” agreed Lutatia vaguely. “But if Verres is guilty then perhaps …” She stopped when she realized Hortensia was paying her no heed but was now irritably plucking at the blooms nearest her, carelessly pulling away several healthy pink petals as well as the faded brown ones. “You know, darling, the odd thing is your father doesn’t seem as upset as you’d think. His pride is wounded, you can tell that of course, but he actually went so far as to say that Cicero had done an excellent job and deserved credit for it.”
“Well of course he said that, he’s just putting a brave face on things, don’t you know him at all?”
Realizing that her daughter was angrily preoccupied, Lutatia offered to go and tell Hortensius of her arrival. She found her husband on the lower terrace, wearing a look of repulsion as he watched a hunched-over Quintus spitting out a mouthful of flat, grey objects, long strands of saliva coating their progress toward the parched grass.
“What on earth is the matter with him?” asked Lutatia in horror.
Hortensius flicked her a bored glance. “Your guess is as good as mine, my dear.”
“But what has he been eating? Surely those are not stones?”
“Pebbles. Designed to encourage him to open his mouth more and aid his lamentable diction. But I admit I had not bargained for the size of the boy’s tongue. It’s as though a giant sea-slug resides in his gullet, rendering all coherent communication hopeless.”
Quintus dashed the back of his hand over his mouth and straightened up, cheeks flushed and eyes watering. Without looking at his father, he marched off toward the house, his usual ungainly stride exaggerated by his angrily pumping shoulders. Hortensius brushed a few specks of dirt from the hem of his tunic.
“Well, now that your son has called things to a halt in his usual elegant fashion, perhaps you will see to it that I am not further disturbed this morning. I am due in court later. See that Rixus clears this away.” He stepped ostentatiously around the regurgitated pebbles.
“I came to tell you Hortensia has called. She is waiting for you inside.” Lutatia was still watching her retreating son.
“Splendid. At least I do not have to be embarrassed for the manners of one of my children.” He began to stroll toward the villa.
“You push Quintus too hard.”
Hortensius stopped in his tracks, his frame suddenly rigid. Lutatia looked terrified by her own daring. “He is only fifteen years old. You said yourself that your talents only truly developed when you were sixteen, and he
does not have your gifts.”
“For once, my dear, we agree on something,” snarled Hortensius. “He has obviously inherited his powers of speech from you.”
Lutatia quailed under her husband’s baleful eye. “He … he is interested in history and politics. He has made a great study of the battle at the Colline Gate, he would love to talk more about it with you and your part in Sulla’s campaign …”
“Spare me,” sneered Hortensius. “The boy does not have the slightest aptitude for anything.”
He suddenly saw Hortensia standing in her mother’s shadow. Quintus’s violent progress through the house had stirred her to retrace his footsteps and she was now watching her father, a look of questioning reproach in her eyes.
“Hortensia! Are you here alone?” He switched tone easily. “What a delight to see you, my child. Where is Caepio?”
“He is coming up soon, Papa, he was busy with a client.”
She walked into her father’s embrace and pressed her face into his chest, inhaling the rich cedar and lemon scent he always wore. Lutatia drifted away, plucking at dead leaves as she went. Hortensia watched her mother’s departure then lifted her head and fixed her eyes on her father.
“Papa, I know you must be angry. I heard about what happened in court yesterday. But you must not take it out on Mama. It isn’t her fault that the trial isn’t going well.”
Hortensius’s bright blue eyes narrowed but all he said was, “What nonsense you do talk sometimes my dear. Why should I be angry? Besides, the trial isn’t over yet. Plenty of time for the luck to turn.”
Hortensia looked doubtful but further conversation was stalled by the arrival of Caepio, striding across the grass toward them.
“Lutatia told me I would find you both here. I am sorry I could not accompany you before, my dearest, and sorrier still that I must interrupt your meeting.” He addressed himself to Hortensius. “I have just seen Caecilius and he says that some of the witnesses you had lined up to speak for Verres are threatening to back out.”
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