Caesar is Dead
Page 26
Antonius, who had gulped a large cupful of potently spiced Mareotic wine, saw that flutter of her body, and took it for an invitation. Forgetting everything save that she was so close, so fragrantly desirable, he shivered in turn, involuntarily snapping between thumb and forefinger the thin handle of the cup he held. Dropping the cup on to the floor, he turned to her, eager to escape from the oppressions of the world and from the mockery of words he couldn’t understand; and as she was lifting with a vaguely disquieted surprise, he clasped her in his arms.
Cleopatra heard a voice whispering in her blood: The seal is broken, not worthily, for who could be worthy after Caesar? But it is broken, and it is pleasantly broken. A wave of stormy sweetness mounted up within her, shaking her violently; and she felt like the scattering petals of the rose that she had thrown at Thatris.
An hour later she clapped her hands and bade Thatris fetch more wine. Antonius lay with his head on her breasts, and, looking down, she could see only the short, curly hairs with here and there a thread of grey. She held him tight and would not let him move as the girl returned with the tray. Then she poured out a cupful of wine silently on to the floor, an oblation to the dead Caesar in whose house she lay.
Antonius drank, and felt his mood of golden warmth fading. He knew that she was about to ask something of him; and he would agree, although it would be something he detested.
“I said that this time I meant to make a gift to the consul Antonius,” she said. “Very well. I offer him his consulship.”
“I haven’t lost it yet,” said Antonius, mystified.
“Within a week you will lose it, unless you do as I say.” She patted him as he started, unable altogether to smother his anger. “Don’t think I threaten you. It is not my actions of which I speak. Are you so badly informed of what goes on at Rome that you don’t know what I mean? Within a week the populace will have risen and taken control of the city. They will slay all Caesar’s murderers that they can catch —and —”
“Yes?”
“Naturally they will call for the son of Caesar as Caesar’s successor. Don’t jump like that. It’s not my own plans I mention, but those that live in the full hearts of the people.”
He considered her statement. There was a scheme of hers somewhere behind what she said. The people had never thought of Caesarion.
“How do you know this?”
“There is a man whose work can rouse the people. He calls himself Marius.”
“A charlatan. A madman.”
“Still, he can rouse the people, and I hear that he is calling for Caesarion.”
Antonius saw her plan. She had bribed this loon of a prophet. But there was danger and an insane power in the man if he was given a free hand; the people were so ready for any call of turbulence. Antonius hated the scheme; a typical piece of eastern chicanery, unRoman, purely destructive, doomed to a futile exhaustion. Hercules, he’d crush it.
She felt the tautening of his muscles. “But as you are thinking, there’s no coherence in a mob. It is nothing but a lot of drops of water, without consistency. Yet water, when it moves in mass, has its hammering power. A wave can smash a boat in two if it drops sheer. After the mob has passed, there will be a new Rome — or none at all. I admire Rome. I would not like it to be smashed. That is why I speak to the only man who can bring the new Rome to birth.”
Was it true? Had he the virtue in him? And if he had, was Cleopatra’s the right way?
She went on, “On what side will you stand?”
He answered hoarsely, “No harm shall come to you. That I swear. But I can’t see my way yet ... Perhaps you’re right.”
He saw the mob surging out, breaking down all the old walls, and himself carried on the crest. Why not? He drank again. “Perhaps you’re right. But where do I come in if Caesarion is to be proclaimed?”
“You will be his regent — and I will be your wife.”
She spoke in a low voice that sank into his vitals with a knife-thrust of warmth. But he wasn’t more astonished than she herself. She thought quickly. It was the only way. Her brother would have to be assassinated, and Fulvia could be divorced. Not until now had she faced the fact that she would have to marry Antonius if she was to succeed. It was what she had wanted with Caesar, but she had never dared to state it openly. Something in Caesar, while stirring her to strange depths, had always daunted her.
The idea was marvellously attractive to Antonius, and the nearness of her body made it seem feasible. It was an idea so entirely impractical that perhaps it was the very one suitable for a world gone mad. Objections rushed into his mind, but he brushed them aside. They were all based in the old state of things; if he and Cleopatra began a new world, where would the old rules apply? But it was all too risky, grounded on the noise of a mob.
She knew why he was hesitant. “It isn’t only Rome. Egypt will be ours. The rest of the East is ripe for the change. Gaul and Spain know only that they must bow to new masters; it’s all one to them who the masters are. But Caesar’s name they revere. All the veterans will be on our side.”
She hurried on, speaking vehemently. Antonius saw the force of all her arguments; there was something inescapably right about them; yet he couldn’t quite make the first step, the utter repudiation of the Roman constitution and the fiction that all Romans were free. Even Caesar had never dreamed of such a step; however much he used the mob, he worked within the law, straining it perhaps, yet searching for a principle of continuity in change. Would not these uncompromising measures snap the life out of the world? Yet Caesar had perished. Perhaps amid violence only Cleopatra’s way would succeed. But what courage was needed; there was a magnificence about her plan.
“Don’t you see that the world’s disorder can no longer be tolerated? Henceforth the State must accept responsibility for its citizens, for the landless and out-of-work and ill? That is the meaning behind all this tumult. It is the people demanding that their rulers be responsible, and it clouds itself in the dream of a god. You and I are the gods of the earth ...”
He reached for more wine; but he knew that no amount of wine, not even of this rich Mareotic vintage, could intoxicate him as her words were intoxicating him — the greatness of her vision and the nearness of her rose-scented body.
*
“Where has Marcus gone this afternoon?”
Fulvia looked narrowly at Lucius, who raised his brows and shook his head. Then he spoke: “Something to do with the veterans, I suppose.”
She looked at him suspiciously again and turned away. Lucius put his hand into the bosom of his tunic and felt the stiff edge of the paper that Antonius had handed him. He had been hurt at not being told its contents; and seeing that the seal was carelessly done and no knot tied in the string, he had opened it. It read: “If I’m not back by midnight, bring a couple of hundred soldiers and interview Cleopatra. She will know all about it.” Lucius wanted to follow Fulvia and give her the note. Antonius deserved it for not having trusted his brother; but Lucius had another motive in wanting Fulvia to see that writing, a motive that made him writhe with black discontent. For it was not part of his code to woo a brother’s wife; and he had no abstract code of fidelity to a wife. He was shocked at his brother’s behaviour, shocked as he would have been to see a man throw a jewel down a sewer — or since he did not care for jewels, a beautifully figured and tempered sword. For swords he loved; swords and Fulvia.
*
There was a scratching noise outside the door of the house of Cytheris, and the janitor at length opened and looked out wondering if a dog was trying to gnaw the door down; there were some very hungry dogs in Rome, and nowadays anything might happen — hadn’t news come that a bull had spoken in the Sabine uplands? He saw a cloaked, disreputable figure and suspected the worst.
“What are you doing to our door?” he asked, indignantly. “This isn’t a privy, let me remind you.”
“I must see your mistress,” said Fabullus. “I have a message — from Gallus.”
Cytheris was surprised, but not unpleased, awakening from her reverie. Gallus must have written another poem and been unable to wait; she forgot that she was supposed to be out. Then she remembered, and was angry. Gallus was trying to catch her in a lie.
Fabullus shambled in, and at once she knew that something was wrong — something far worse than a simple trap to find whether she was at home. There was an evil look in the man’s face. It recalled many things; faces dimly lighted-up in the slaves’ quarters of her childhood, a negro half-blind and slavering, men trying to be reassuring, beastly faces.
“What is it?” she asked, in alarm. “Is he hurt?”
“I’m a proprietor,” said Fabullus, making an attempt to stand upright. “I own a fullery, though I’m at law about it. The state of the law dealing with partnerships is disgraceful. Several eminent counsel agreed with me. Give us time, they said. But judgment in my favour will be pronounced any day now. Any day.”
“What do you want with me?” She was paralysed by her sense of evil, by the dark memories aroused.
“It’s all only for your own good.” He shook his finger at her. “Do you know a fellow called Gallus?”
“What about him?”
“Ah, I thought you knew him. For he knows you. Inside-out one might say. He says you’ve got a mole on your left what-do-you-call-it.”
She paled and quivered. His words lashed her; he was a spectre combining all the evil she had ever known; if he had raised his hand to kill her, she couldn’t have moved. She looked up, wide-eyed, imploring. “Go on.”
“He was bragging about you to a whole tavern-full, scribbling up jokes on the wall to prove it all. The great poet, he says, has made a capture, a woman that calls herself a bad actress by trade, but her name in the dark is Cytheris, and she has a mole, guess where. So he drew a picture of her, mole and all, and wrote her name. And I thought I’d tell you about it. I don’t expect to be believed in a world of liars, so you’ll find the drawing on the wall of the Crab Tavern. But he drew you fatter than you are.”
He squinted at her and tried to look gallant, laying his head on one side and closing an eye.
Cytheris didn’t want to hear any more. She knew it was true; it was what she’d expected. Gallus was nothing but a baby of vanity, a cruel idiotic baby; and she had given him her heart. Well, she’d take it back, though she died. She would regain her old balance. It had been more decent to be mercenary, ready-limbed, laughing; what had happened to make her dream of other things?
“What do you want?” she asked. “Money, I suppose. Everyone wants money.”
“I wouldn’t say no,” replied Fabullus, proudly realising that he’d come out of pure malice, without a single thought of reward. “But I came in th’interests — of public morality.” He achieved the phrase with an effort and swung to save himself from falling. “What about calling for a cask of wine, and you and me having a night out? He didn’t draw you half as nice as you are.”
Cytheris found her purse, threw it at him, and said coldly, though she could not see him through the starting tears. “Take that and get out before you’re thrown out.”
She succeeded in holding back her tears till Fabullus had reclaimed the purse from the floor and left the room.
*
Dusk had settled down when Antonius crossed the Bridge, muffled in his abolla. He still felt elevated to the height of Cleopatra’s conceptions and sure that he wouldn’t fail them. What had been tormenting him all these weeks but the feeling that he couldn’t step into Caesar’s place because he had nothing to give on Caesar’s level? Alone, he was still a pretender; but with Cleopatra to hearten him he could become Caesar’s equal. Her schemes seemed madly impossible at first glance, and yet the more one thought about them the more they seemed the only ones adequate to the needs of the world.
But he felt the lack of a lieutenant. Much would have to be done before he could divorce Fulvia. That would be the hardest moment of all; but he could do it by a note; he needn’t face her. But who could he use as his lieutenant? His brothers would be of use later, but he shrank from speaking to them yet. Gaius wouldn’t take the matter with the right seriousness; and Lucius, Antonius obscurely felt, would somehow object, would fight against the divorcing of Fulvia. Then Antonius had an idea that made him stride on faster with hurdling pulse. Dolabella was the man. He had been hiding ever since the indiscretions of the days following the murder; he would be only too pleased at any chance of a new start; he was the other consul, and young, reckless, inflammable, the very kind of fellow to see the full sweep of Cleopatra’s plans and ardently embrace them.
But how to get in touch with him? Of course Antonius could send a messenger, but preferred some more personal approach if possible; a message could be so easily misunderstood. Then he had it. Cytheris had been seeing Dolabella, for Fulvia had mentioned it, to see if she could catch Antonius out in a jealous response. She was the very person; dear, light-hearted Cytheris. Antonius warmed with affection for her, and had a strong desire to see her, to tell her all about Cleopatra. That last part mightn’t be advisable, but he still wanted to see her. He had broken clear away from Fulvia, and felt the impulse to rebel even further strengthening in him. He wanted to see Cytheris if only because he’d sworn to Fulvia never to see her again.
Cytheris had told the janitor not to admit anyone else, but Antonius didn’t wait to be refused. He pushed past, leaving the janitor silenced by his broad-shouldered presence of authority; and before any objections could be made, he had passed the hall and entered the bedroom.
She was seated on the bed, trying to find the energy to summon her maids and retire; and she looked up terrified at the footsteps, the figures of Fabullus and Gallus merging in her mind to produce something indescribably abhorrent. But she saw the familiar and unexpected face of Antonius, and her heart came back to her. She jumped up, crossed the room, and caught him in her arms.
“You dear old thing,” she said. “O what a beating you’ll get at home for this.”
He was surprised at the heat of her welcome, and wondered for the first time if it had really been wise to come. The past should be left in the past. But her pleasure was so sincere; he couldn’t but be pleased in turn.
She beat on his chest with her small fists. “What a big strong man. I’d forgotten there was any such men left except in a virgin’s dream. And yet he’s got a heart thumping inside as loudly as in any pretty young poet.” She laid her head on his breast.
Roaring with laughter, he gave her a hug and let her go. Then he quietened. “But I’ve come on business, young woman.”
“I love business,” she said, smoothing the bed-coverlet. “I know twenty-three new indecent songs. But come and tell me how grandma Fulvia punished you for stealing the honeypot.”
He sat down. “You’re the sweetest girl that ever prospered for being naughty, and you make me homesick for a romp. But you don’t realise what a world it’s suddenly become. I can’t think of anything but politics. Young woman, the fate of the world rests on these shoulders of mine.”
“They’re broad enough. One of them can carry me, so I suppose the two of them won’t have any trouble with the world “
“You must listen.” He caught her hands, and then recalled how he had caught Cleopatra’s hands once. He let the hands of Cytheris fall into her lap, and spoke with wrinkled brow. “I want your help. I want you to take a message to Dolabella for me.”
She shrank back. “Dolabella!”
Too late he realised what a fool he had made of himself coming to ask a late mistress to convey a message to his fortunate successor. No woman could bear such a rank lack of jealousy. He tried to cover himself.
“Of course it pangs me to
the heart to ask you, darling, but I heard how friendly with him you were; and I said to myself: Away with jealous thoughts, Cytheris is the one to help.”
She saw how he was trying to make up for the way he had wounded her; he was a dear, a brutally clumsy dear. She liked him still, very much liked him, even if he had been so crude in telling her that he no longer cared whose she was ... Dolabella, the man whom everyone knew to be his enemy, the seducer of his late wife Antonia ...
“I’ll take the message,” she said, blithely. After Gallus why should she expect anything of men? She must be hard. She had lost her old tender-hearted aloofness; nothing remained now but deliberate hardness to save her.
*
Gallus was lying in bed in his attic with his hands under his head, still wrapt in the remembered touch of Cytheris. Images of her lithe limbs floated across the darkness, mingling with images of himself as an acclaimed poet and statesman, turning to Cytheris always.
Leonidas lay on his pallet in a corner and watched through the window a star that hung against the eaves like a welling drop of silver water. He knew that the stars were daemons with power over his life, but he wasn’t very afraid, because he had bought a powerful charm consisting of a paper-slip inscribed with words in a strange language and a strong smell of fish. The smell was the smell of Venus, the sea-goddess, who often rode a porpoise, though Leonidas didn’t believe the sailor who swore he’d seen a sea-nymph with breasts on her buttocks. He sighed. He’d certainly burn the house down if he tried to boil a sheep’s head in the cauldron he’d bought a week ago out of his savings; he’d have to keep it till Gallus had a country house; years and years perhaps. Gallus saw the star and felt that it was the eye of Venus, a guardian light exhaled from the essence of Cytheris.
*