Стивен Сейлор: The Throne of Caesar

“I’m afraid I can’t stay to eat,” he said. “Nor can you, Papa.”

“Why not?” Even as I spoke, I knew the answer. Meto would never have arrived in a litter like the one outside my door if he had simply come to pay a visit. It was the sort of conveyance, comfortable yet discreet, that a powerful man like the Dictator would send to bring someone to his presence. Meto saw the comprehension on my face and nodded.

“What in Hades can Caesar want with me ?” I shook my head. “Cicero and Caesar in one day—and while recovering from a vicious hangover! I don’t think I can manage it.”

Bethesda pursed her lips. “The hangover is entirely your own fault. And you will certainly not decline an invitation to see the Dictator.”

Since my elevation to Equestrian status, my wife had become increasingly conscious of her own new social rank and that of our children. She and Diana seemed always busy with preparations for some festival, mingling with other matrons of their newly achieved class. I was rather surprised—and pleased—at how readily the other Roman matrons seemed to accept Bethesda, considering that she had been born a slave (and abroad, in Egypt), and had become a free woman only through marriage with me, a Roman of humble origins. But many things in Rome surprised me these days. Times had changed. Many who had been at the pinnacle had fallen into the abyss, and many, like my wife, who had begun life at the very bottom, now found themselves, if not at the top, then allowed on occasion to rub elbows with those who were.

“Don’t you have some function to go to today?” I said irritably.

“As a matter of fact, Mother,” said Diana, “don’t forget that we have a meeting at the Temple of Vesta, to talk about planning for the festival of Anna Perenna on the Ides. Oh, and there’s a gathering right after that, at Fulvia’s house, to talk about the Liberalia. So much is happening in the next few days.”

“You’re going to Marc Antony’s house?” I said. Though our meetings over the years had been amicable, I had not seen the Dictator’s right-hand man in many months—not since he’d abandoned his scandalous affair with the actress Cytheris and married the most ambitious widow in Rome. The joke went that the only reason Fulvia hadn’t married Caesar was that he already had one wife too many—meaning both Calpurnia and Queen Cleopatra. Fulvia, twice the widow of rising politicians struck down in their prime, had now settled on Antony. I smiled. “If you think your husband drinks too much, imagine being married to Antony.”

“On the contrary,” said Bethesda, “Fulvia has pulled him into shape quite nicely. He hardly drinks at all, takes vigorous exercise every day, stays out of trouble, and is firmly back in Caesar’s good graces.”

“If only women could be generals, then Antony could stay at home while his wife goes out to conquer something.”

“You joke, husband, but Fulvia is a marvel at organizing things. There’s no task too challenging. No detail, large or small, escapes her. Truly, the woman is a wonder. Marc Antony is very lucky to have finally found a wife who appreciates his talents and is determined to see him make the most of them.…”

As she continued to extol the virtues of Fulvia, my thoughts wandered. Might it be that Caesar wanted to see me for the same reason as had Cicero—to find out if I knew anything, or could discover anything, about any danger that might loom in the remaining days before he left Rome? What sort of predicament might arise should I find myself pulled between them? How simpler my life would be if other men would leave me alone.

“What does Caesar want?” I asked Meto.

“A golden throne,” he said with a straight face. “Oh, you mean with you, Papa? Quite honestly, I don’t know, though I have a suspicion.”

“Share it, then.”

“I’d rather not, in case I’m wrong.”

“Oh, come now, Meto. Speak.”

“Papa, really, I’d rather not.” A shadow flitted across his smiling face, and I was reminded, as perhaps he was, of a time in the past when we had been sadly estranged. His loyalty to Caesar had come between us—at least, that was my way of explaining the trouble. Whatever the cause, I never wanted such a gulf to open between us again.

“Very well, then, I shall go to see the Dictator and find out for myself what he wants from me. You’ll be coming, too, I hope?”

“Of course, Papa. We can talk on the way and catch up on family news. I’d love to know how Eco and his brood have been faring since they moved down to Neapolis. Is it true that he and Menenia are living in a villa twice the size of this house?”

Paid for, I thought, by a small portion of the same windfall that landed me in the Equestrian class. “Their house is quite modest compared to all the luxurious estates surrounding them on the Cup,” I said, using the name locals preferred for the Bay of Neapolis. “Your brother is doing very well. Plenty of work for a Finder, he says. Adultery and murder and backstabbing among the old rich, or what’s left of them. Even worse behavior among the new rich who’ve moved into all those villas left vacant by senators who died in the war.”

“And Eco took Rupa with him?” Mute Rupa, a blond Sarmatian, was the youngest of my three adopted sons, and the brawniest.

“Well, we didn’t need two such big fellows here in Rome, did we?” I nodded toward my son-in-law. “I could hardly afford to feed both! Rupa serves as a bodyguard for Eco, as Davus does for me.”

“If only Caesar was as concerned about bodyguards,” said Meto. “And Mopsus and Androcles—they’re down in Neapolis as well?”

“Those two! Too loud and rowdy for the household of an old fellow with delicate nerves like myself,” I said, though in fact I often missed the two slave boys. “They serve as Eco’s messengers and errand runners, as they once served me. As I say, he’s very busy. The Cup practically brims with crime.”

“Not like Rome, then,” said Meto. “With Caesar in charge, there’s much less crime than there used to be, don’t you think?”

“Less crime of the sort perpetrated by one rich man against another, yes. With Caesar watching, the powerful mind their manners. But there’s more crime of the petty sort, I think, crimes of the poor against the poor. The war left a lot of broken men in Rome, maimed in body or mind or both. Broken women, too. Desperate people resort to desperate measures—thievery, threats, violence, murder. That’s what I hear, anyway, during my evenings down at the Salacious Tavern.”

Meto frowned. “Mother tells me you’re down there quite often these days, drinking more than you used to.”

“It passes the time. But the Dictator awaits. Should I take Davus with me?”

“No need. Caesar’s litter-bearers will see you safely home.”

“Then as soon as I can change into my toga, let’s be off.”

VI

Mistakenly, I had assumed that the litter-bearers would take us to Caesar’s official residence in the city where he lived with Calpurnia, called the Regia, only a short trip from my house. When the bearers turned in the opposite direction, I shot a questioning look at Meto seated on the cushions opposite me.

“We’re headed out of the city, to the garden estate across the Tiber,” he explained. “The trip will give us plenty of time to talk. You’ve been there before, haven’t you?”

“As a matter of fact, I dropped in on the queen when she was last here in Rome, when Caesar was staging his four triumphs.”

“Ah, yes. And now Cleopatra is in residence there once again.”

“With her son, I hear. Or should I say their son?”

Meto smiled. “As you well know, Papa, there is reality, and then there is official reality.”