The Pillars of Rome r-1

by Jack Ludlow

  With the head of the house absent Quintus had moved back with his wife and child to his own family home, a setting that allowed him a greater degree of independence than he enjoyed in the house of his father-in-law. Prior to the meal he had led the family prayers in a sonorous voice and performed the rituals in elaborate fashion. Quintus liked to entertain but tonight was solely a family occasion. Nevertheless it was typical of him to insist on so ritual a dinner for just two people. Claudia had been forced to dress her hair and don a flowing, formal garment. His own wife Pulchra was with child again and unwell, with no appetite for food, so she had been ordered to bed by her unsympathetic husband.

  Claudia had been told that Quintus had been a playful boy and a wild youth, popular with his classmates. That carefree spirit, if it ever existed, had gone; he was very much a nobleman now, full of gravitas and conscious of his station in the Roman world. A praetor, Quintus harboured the ultimate goal of standing for the consulship, though he had a good few years to wait before he would become eligible and many offices to fill on the way. The route of honour they called it, yet when Claudia thought of some of the despicable creatures who had climbed that ladder, including a goodly number who had achieved that eminent, supreme accolade of serving as a consul, she wondered if the appellation was appropriate.

  ‘Do I have to initiate all the conversation,’ said Quintus from his position on the couch. His voice carried just a trace of that petulance which, combined with arrogance, had become the hallmark of his behaviour.

  Claudia greeted this with a slight smile. ‘A mere woman speak at dinner, without permission, Quintus? I wouldn’t dream of breaching the bounds of what is known to be proper behaviour. I’m surprised that you of all people should suggest such an outlandish thing.’

  ‘Me of all people! What precisely does that mean?’

  ‘Oh come, Quintus. You pride yourself on your manners.’

  Quintus swung one foot in an arc, his eyes on the toes of his sandals. ‘I do think a stepmother is allowed to open a conversation with her husband’s eldest son.’

  That avoidance of the appellation stepson was a roundabout way to deliver an insult, meant to underline that Quintus still regarded her as some kind of interloper in the Cornelii household. Claudia responded by treating him to a look of mock horror. ‘The gods forbid.’

  ‘You choose to tease me?’

  ‘You do tend to invite it, Quintus.’

  He tried to assume a disinterested look. ‘Do I indeed?’

  His lethargy angered Claudia and she spoke sharply, her tone somewhat harsher than she truly intended. ‘Everything you do is undertaken in the light of its effect on your precious career.’

  Quintus stiffened slightly. ‘Precious? That word makes my behaviour sound suspect.’

  ‘Are you saying that you don’t value your career?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  Claudia thought of his browbeaten wife, sent to bed simply because she might embarrass him for her want of appetite and spoke with a trace of sadness. ‘More than anything in the world, I think.’

  ‘I refuse to accept the implied rebuke in those words,’ he snapped.

  Claudia produced a mocking smile. ‘Oh dear. I seem to have offended you.’

  ‘Not offended, but I cannot fathom why you mind my behaviour. I cannot think what it is I’ve done to cause you to speak this way.’

  Claudia maintained that mocking smile, her voice taking on a note of irony. ‘You have done nothing you should be ashamed of.’

  ‘Ashamed! That’s another word that is out of place. I know you’re not much given to explanation, Lady Claudia, but I would appreciate it if you would just speak plainly for once.’

  ‘Now you’re rebuking me.’

  ‘Perhaps I am, but I would dearly like to know what you’re getting at. What is it I have done to earn your barely disguised disapproval.’

  Claudia leant forward slightly. ‘I don’t disapprove of you.’

  Quintus swung his feet to the floor, waving aside the slave intent on serving him. Claudia observed that one of his greatest failings was the way he sought the approval of others, even those he probably despised. Aulus, his father, was not like that; he looked at everything with a clear idea of right and wrong, then acted accordingly. Time had even allowed Claudia to see that his actions, when he had come to her in that isolated wagon, sprang from the same trait of natural nobility. That his behaviour had trapped her did nothing to alter the fact; Aulus had acted from the highest of motives, never aware of the despair he had inflicted on her, because there were no circumstances in which she could tell him. Perhaps the lack of years between her and his eldest son exacerbated the natural divide of two people who were basically incompatible. Quintus had apparently been devoted to his mother and always made a point of invoking her memory at prayers. That was as it should be; according to Aulus she had been an upright Roman lady and it was reasonable to suppose her sons would be put out at their father taking on another wife.

  Quintus waited until the slave was out of earshot before he spoke again. ‘You don’t disapprove of me yet you’re not proud of me?’

  Claudia wondered if he was really asking what she thought, putting to her a question he could never address to his father. Or was he just fishing for praise? Considering the way he treated her, and all women for that matter, what opinions she had should count for nothing. The easy way out would be to say, ‘Of course, Quintus.’ But she could not bring herself to do so.

  ‘Not unreservedly, no!’ she replied.

  ‘That smacks of more equivocation.’

  ‘Please, Quintus. You are much admired by others, let that suffice. You have done nothing to offend me and many things that please your father. Yet he would, like me, wish you were a trifle less serious.’

  That did surprise him. ‘Serious? No one has ever accused me of that.’

  ‘Parents, especially step-parents, observe their children differently, more closely perhaps than other people.’

  Yet she was thinking that no one observed Quintus as much as he did himself; he behaved like a man watching his own image in a play. His younger brother, Titus, was much more relaxed, but the second boy was the very image of Aulus, physically and morally. Quintus was angry, she could see that and Claudia regretted having taken the conversation in this direction. Her stepson lacked a sense of humour, which meant that, at this moment, he needed to say something to restore his self-esteem.

  ‘Children observe their elders as well, madam, and they don’t always like what they see.’

  Claudia made a point of sitting upright in her couch, smoothing the folds of her gown, composing her features before replying. ‘Such as?’

  ‘Since father is absent, I shall speak freely…’

  ‘Please do!’

  Quintus lay back on his couch, aware that he had reasserted his hold on the conversation. ‘It seems to me that our visit to Illyricum could have been a happier affair. He certainly seemed glad to see us all when we arrived, especially you, yet within days he was cast down into a deep depression that lasted until our departure. He’ll be home before the year is out and should the same thing occur here in Rome, Titus and I might wonder at the relationship between you.’

  Her voice was icy. Again, Quintus had made her sound like an interloper in the Cornelii household. ‘It’s perfectly in order to wonder, Quintus, just as long as you don’t pry!’

  Her tone seemed to increase the lethargy in his voice, rather than diminish it. ‘Who would need to pry? You may think you disguise your coldness to him very well, but you don’t. It’s plain enough to see, for anyone who cares to look.’

  ‘If you expect me to explain, to you, my relationship with your father, I fear you’re going to be disappointed.’

  The calm evaporated and his voice became hard. ‘I require no explanation, lady. Remember who it was who rescued you from those barbarians.’

  Claudia dropped her head, the dark ringlets of her hair cascading forward.
‘That I shall never forget.’

  ‘And I’m neither blind nor stupid.’

  She raised her head again, looking her stepson right in the eye. ‘This is leading up to something, Quintus.’

  ‘It is indeed. I have a concern that nothing you do, or have done, will stain my family name.’

  ‘Don’t you mean your name? Or should I say your prospects,’ she snapped.

  Quintus spoke slowly, deliberately. ‘I don’t know why father tolerates it.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d best ask him.’

  ‘I think he’s suffered enough. He may not have eyes to see, but I have. So has my brother, I should think. If the truth ever emerged about what happened in Spain, our name would be coated in mud.’

  ‘And your precious career would grind to a halt.’ Quintus made to speak, but she shouted him down. ‘Don’t interrupt me. I am from a family that is every bit as noble as yours. While your father is alive I answer to him and to him alone. You asked earlier what it is I disapprove of. Well this dinner is one thing. You are so careful of your dignity, you cannot even dine informally in your own house.’

  Quintus was genuinely surprised at an attack on that topic and it showed on his face, but Claudia denied him any chance to respond.

  ‘I hope, and believe, that you esteem your father and wish to emulate him, but I cannot help but think that you lack the one quality he has in abundance, the one quality that makes him a great man, the lack of which will make you mediocre, regardless of how high you climb politically. That quality is natural humility.’

  Quintus was stung by the rebuke, though, in truth it was not serious, but he was a grown man, a praetor, and as a senior magistrate unaccustomed to being addressed so. His anger was caused by the dent his stepmother had delivered to his self-esteem rather than anything in the actual words she had used. He stood up abruptly, his round face quivering with suppressed passion, his black eyes full of what looked remarkably like hate.

  ‘He has enough natural humility to abide the daily insult your coolness heaps upon him. If I lack that quality, then I’m thankful for it. In his shoes I wouldn’t skulk away in some godforsaken province like Illyricum. I’d end it, one way or another!’

  ‘I would welcome that, if only for his sake,’ Claudia replied softly.

  Quintus, in his rage, did not hear. He was halfway out of the dining room, kicking off his sandals and calling for his shoes. But he did deliver one last parting shot.

  ‘I rue the day I found you and left you alive for my “oh so humble” father.’

  Claudia felt the tears sting her eyes and closed them tight to shut off the flow. No one regretted that day more than she did, herself; no one had the nightly curse of remembrance. Even to open up to someone as unsympathetic as Quintus would have provided some kind of release from the constant mental turmoil that plagued her life.

  The shuffling sound alerted her to the fact that the slaves had entered the dining area to clear up. Hastily she rose to her feet, and keeping her head down so they should not observe that she was distressed, Claudia hurried to her own chamber, thinking that if things were bad now, they would be worse soon. Aulus’s term as Governor of Illyricum was coming to its end. He would be home, living with her in the same house, a constant reminder by day of the tortured dreams that haunted her nights.

  Aulus returned in the Spring, leaving behind him in Illyricum a province at peace, a border quiet if not entirely secure from raids. He was welcomed to Rome by two consuls grateful for the way he had, by his enlightened governorship, eased their burden. He was well aware they were adherents of Lucius Falerius, who had fought hard to engineer their appointment, just as he knew that his real report would be made to him, but all the proper forms had to be preserved to maintain the fiction that the pair holding what was supposed to be the supreme office of the Republic were their own men.

  The note from Lucius was also couched in the proper form, with a date and a wish that Aulus would call; that he, as a man who still had an interest in the safety of the Republic, would welcome his oldest, dearest friend, Aulus Cornelius, and would be eager to hear from him the details of what he had found in Illyricum, and what he had left; that, after a gap of fourteen days, no one, not even given the most malicious tongue, could accuse him of interference in the affairs of state. There had been a time, Aulus thought as he read it, that when he came home Lucius would have been at his house to greet him, a degree of warmth that would have been very welcome.

  Other senators called on him in between receipt of the note and their meeting, men who were political opponents of the Falerii faction. Some had been supporters of Tiberius Livonius and honestly shared his views on citizenship and land grants to the poor, others were more opportunistic, spouting high principles while hoping to seduce him into backing some cause more to do with their own greed or ambition than proper government. Each, though greeted politely and subjected to all proper hospitality, left disappointed. Aulus would not even consent to discuss the nature of Lucius’s power, let alone condemn it; all they had was the constantly repeated refrain that their host was allied to no party, that he was a servant of Rome, with no desire to be or support anyone who sought to be her master.

  The meeting with Lucius was cordial without being effusive and both maintained the fiction it was only curiosity that made his host delve so deeply into what had happened during Aulus’s governorship, only an aid to memory that had his scribe writing down so many details on crop and mine yields, tax revenues set against expenditure and the state of relations on the borders of the province. Yet it was clear as the discussion progressed that Lucius was less than happy, and Aulus had to gently chide him several times for his rather high-handed methods of interrogation. It was only after one of those that the truth of his irritability began to surface.

  Having had no hand in the choice of his successor, Aulus, when asked, refused to cast any opinion on his abilities, something in which Lucius was less restrained, and it was during a peroration on the perceived faults of one Vegetius Flaminus that Aulus realised that he was, in part, being castigated himself, for so weakening the Falerii power that the head of that faction had been forced to agree to the appointment of a man of whom he thoroughly disapproved.

  ‘You know how hard I fought against everything that Tiberius Livonius proposed, but at least, in his own crackpot way, the man was honest. Not Vegetius! He and others like him have taken up the Livonian baton as a stick with which to beat me and don’t they just love the way the riff-raff sing their praises and draw me as a beast on the walls. They no more believe in his ideas than do I, but they will happily string along our Latin allies and take bribes from them to bring such measures before the house. You have no notion of how hard I have to work to keep them at bay and when this came up, replacing you. Just to avoid defeat on something far more important, I was forced to concede. Every vote involves a concession to some interest or other. It should not be so, and would not be so, if men who should know better saw where their duty lay.’

  ‘Then retire,’ said Aulus, tired of this litany of self-pity mixed with disguised complaint.

  Lucius narrowed his eyes as he looked at Aulus. ‘Would you leave the field of battle without a victory?’ The lack of a response was answer enough. ‘No, my friend, you would not, and neither shall I.’

  ‘Lucius, let us dine together and perhaps talk of other things, more pleasant things.’

  ‘I fear I would find that difficult, Aulus, so much does my care for the Republic master my time. At least my candidates for next year’s consular elections are relatively safe. If I had denied Vegetius Flaminus they might not have been.’

  Aulus repeated his invitation as a way of staying off politics, of which he was bored. ‘But you will try to come to dinner?’

  ‘Yes, I will. And it will be pleasant to see again the Lady Claudia, who I must say I have sadly neglected to entertain in your absence, though she did decline more than one invitation from me.’

  Claudia did
not like Lucius, and both men knew it, for she too had heard about the jokes that Lucius had helped circulate at the time of their marriage. ‘With good reason I’m sure.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Lucius, with a wide smile. ‘Though I must say she is less vivacious since you both returned from Spain. I fear campaigning did not suit her.’

  Aulus knew he should not react; Lucius was chiding him too, but he could not keep the terse tone out of his voice. ‘I think you have forgotten, my friend, how exhausting fighting in the field can be.’

  ‘It has one great advantage over fighting in the Senate, Aulus. In the field you know precisely who are your enemies and who are your friends.’ As Aulus swelled up to react, Lucius added quickly, with an air designed to disarm, ‘but I so look forward to an evening spent in the company of you both, and I assure you, politics will not intrude.’

  When Aulus invited Lucius to dine, both men knew that it would not be an intimate affair. Quite apart from his own family, the in-laws of Quintus were present, as were Claudia’s parents and several of Aulus’s old field commanders, each provided with a dining couch. As was the custom they ate without drinking and then drank without eating, watered but still potent wine, which was the point at which matters took a turn for the worse.

  Even with all those people to distract him, the evening was not a success. Lucius and Claudia, close together as he was the guest of honour, sniped at each other continually, though each did so with smiles that left the other guests to wonder whether their barbed comments were examples of wit or malice. Aulus knew better, knew that his wife was defending him, because Lucius, despite his promise, could not leave politics alone, something which left him too confused to intervene. Why would a woman who showed him no affection in private be so stoutly defensive of his reputation in public? That she had little time for Lucius, he knew, and that went back to the time of their wedding.