Стивен Сейлор - The Throne of Caesar

“Make up something.”

“Invent a threat? Accuse someone falsely? I don’t think so.”

“Then think of something else!” Her voice broke. She clutched my arm so fiercely that I felt the sharpness of her fingernails through the thin wool of Cinna’s summer toga.

“What is it you fear, Calpurnia?”

“Something terrible is going to happen. I know it! Last night, when the two of us were in bed, the doors of the room flew open—yet no one touched them.”

“The wind, Calpurnia—”

“No, not the wind! This was something else. There was … a presence … something … someone … in the room with us.…”

“Who? ”

Her face became even paler. She wrinkled her brow. “Pompey?”

I shook my head. “A nightmare, and the storm, and the wind—”

“No! Caesar and I were both wide awake when the doors opened. He felt it, too. The expression on his face—I’ve never seen him look like that. He looked … afraid.”

This was hard for me to imagine. Once I had stood beside Caesar on a pier in Alexandria while catapult bombardments fell all around us, and he had shown not the least trace of fear. My task at that moment, it seemed to me, was not to prevent Caesar from going about his business but to somehow calm Caesar’s wife. Before I could say anything, she spoke again.

“Then I had a dream. The pediment of this house broke in two and fell on us—on Caesar and me—right there on our bed—and he was trapped beneath it. I saw blood—a pool of blood, spreading across the floor. I tried to lift the pediment, but the marble was too heavy and the corners were too sharp. They cut my hands.…” She stared down at her open palms and then held them before me, as if to show me wounds, but the flesh was intact.

“Calpurnia, you’ve had a terrible night. A sleepless night, full of bad dreams. You’re worried for Caesar. Of course you are. He’s about to set off for the ends of the earth. And I think perhaps Caesar is a bit unwell. That must worry you, too—”

“Yes, that’s it! You must convince him that he’s not well enough to go to the Senate meeting. There’s too much at stake. His speech is too important. He’s not well enough to properly deliver it—”

“I’m not a physician, Calpurnia.”

She clutched herself and rolled her eyes. “Perhaps the sacrifice at Calvinus’s house will indicate a warning. Perhaps the divination performed before the Senate meets will be so unfavorable—”

“I’m not a haruspex, either. You should be talking to Spurinna.”

“He’s with Caesar, at Calvinus’s house. Spurinna warned him already, a month ago—”

“But the month has come and gone.”

“Not quite! The Ides haven’t yet passed. This is the final day before the period of greatest danger passes. Caesar must somehow survive the Ides.…”

“Calpurnia, he’ll be surrounded by friends and supporters all day. Where is he safer than at a meeting of the Senate, where every member has taken a sacred vow to protect him?”

“The Senate! A nest of vipers. Vipers, one and all!” She stared at me with a wild look, then seemed to notice that I was wearing a senatorial toga. “Not you, Finder. I trust you! Do you know how rare it is, that I can say such a thing? That’s why I plucked you out of that room, you of all men.”

“You can also trust my son. Meto would die for Caesar,” I said. And probably he will die, or lose an eye, or a limb, I thought, somewhere off in Parthia, far from home, far from me, serving your husband and his never-ending quest for glory.…

“Yes, Meto I also trust. The two of you, then—the two of you must help me! Say or do something, whatever you must, to persuade Caesar to—”

We heard shouts from the vestibule. Men called out Caesar’s name. The Dictator had just returned.

“Go to him, Finder.”

“And you?”

“I’ll stay here. A woman has no place in that gathering. Go, now! Convince him to stay home. Say or do whatever you must. I beg you!”

I left her and headed back to the vestibule.

XXXI

Everyone in the vestibule had gathered around Caesar, pressing as closely as they could. Like bees in the hive clustered around the king bee, the drones all alike in white togas, Caesar resplendent in the toga of a triumphing general, solid purple with gold embroidery, with a laurel wreath on his brow—the clothes which by order of the Senate he alone was allowed to wear on formal occasions. How was I to get close to him, let alone do as Calpurnia asked?

I was struck by how vulnerable he seemed at that moment. Any one of the men in that room, armed with a dagger, could conceivably land a fatal blow before anyone else could react. Why had Caesar given up his Spanish bodyguards and made himself so accessible, not just to friends like these but also to anyone he passed in the street? But Caesar’s safety was a matter for Caesar to judge, not me, and not Calpurnia. I wasn’t there to do her bidding, never mind that her lavish compensation had altered my fortunes and set me on my present course. I was here for my own sake and that of my family, not just my children and grandchildren but all the generations to come. On this day I was to become a senator .

Meto approached and spoke in my ear. “He’s not going. He’s staying home!”

“What?”

“Caesar isn’t attending the meeting today. He’s just sent Antony to inform the Senate.”

I looked across the room and saw the back of Antony’s head as he moved toward the front doorway. “So the Senate won’t meet today?”

“Perhaps they will, with Antony presiding as consul. But they won’t attend to business of any great importance without Caesar there. The question of Dolabella’s consulship, and Cinna’s proposal about foreign wives—”

“And my installation?”

Meto sighed and shook his head. “Caesar himself must nominate you. It won’t be done in his absence. This delay may even postpone our departure for Parthia. It’s not every day the Senate can legally meet.…” He squinted, as if visualizing a calendar in his head.

I felt profoundly disappointed, yet oddly relieved. A part of me still found the notion that I was to become a Roman senator too far-fetched to ever come true, and perhaps it was. Beyond Meto’s shoulder, I saw Caesar wave his hands to disperse the tangle of togas around him. As he left the vestibule, heading toward the private quarters he shared with Calpurnia, he passed just behind Meto, so close I could have touched him. How different he appeared from the glittering dinner companion the previous night. Like Calpurnia, he looked pale and drawn. Neither had gotten much sleep during the long, stormy night.

As soon as Caesar departed, the vestibule was abuzz with hushed conversations.

“Why will Caesar not attend?” I asked Meto.

“I’m not sure, Papa. Cinna told me that Calpurnia is set against it—”

“As she’s just told me.”

“But I can’t imagine that alone would convince him to stay home. The warnings of an anxious wife—”

“It was my warning that convinced him,” said Spurinna, suddenly joining our conversation. He was dressed in the traditional yellow robes and conical hat of a haruspex.

“Your warning? How so?” I asked.

“We’ve both just come from Calvinus’s house. I was there when Caesar arrived. I could see that he was worried, as well he might be. Fretful. Distracted. Not at all his usual self. He tried to make light of it. ‘Ah, Spurinna,’ he said to me, ‘the Ides have come, yet here I stand before you, alive and well.’ And I answered, ‘The Ides have come, Caesar, but are not yet gone. Not yet gone! ’ That gave him a start. Every drop of blood drained from his face! He performed the ceremony, but his mind was elsewhere. When he was ready to leave, he insisted I come with him. ‘I’ll let you explain to everyone,’ he said, though I wasn’t sure what he meant until we got here and he dispatched Antony to give the Senate his regrets. Well, better to take heed of my warning at the last moment than not at all! I can’t tell you what a relief this is. The past month has hung heavy over me. The dread I’ve felt, fearing at every moment that something terrible might befall the Dictator. But as long as he spends the rest of the day here in the Regia, I’m sure that Calpurnia will keep him safe and sound.”