Lindsey Davis - The course of Honor

"As a woman am I invited on the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief?" Caenis demanded of Narcissus scathingly. He did not deny it. He knew she was truculent and outspoken, but blisteringly loyal to Antonia's family. He knew too that she despised Messalina but probably understood her.

It was Narcissus himself, still with his old pinched oriental nose but nowadays distinctly fleshy otherwise, who set out the situation for the rest: "It's quite clear Messalina has been waiting for our man's visit to Ostia. He's gone off to inaugurate his new harbor. This evening, while Claudius is safely out of Rome, she will marry Silius. You can't blame him—tangling with the Empress is dangerous enough; he may as well risk everything on the throw. So he marries Messalina, in full form; he adopts Britannicus, and they grapple for the throne."

Callistus, who as Secretary of Petitions spent his whole life stating the obvious to people who did not want to hear it, said at once, "That's the end of us!"

No one answered. For some, that was not entirely the point. It would be the end of them, and their man—and all their work.

Pallas, Antonia's old messenger, shifted suddenly on his couch, exclaiming in exasperation, "I still can't believe it can go so far and poor besotted Claudius has not the slightest idea."

After a moment Narcissus murmured, almost in embarrassment for their man, "You know Claudius." And when no one answered that either, "Well; he has a great deal on his mind."

It was true. Claudius as Emperor had produced the energy and concentration that only a true eccentric ever shows. In the year his wife tried to divorce him (Romans were always divorcing their wives; it struck Caenis irreverently that while it was discourteous of Messalina not to mention to her husband her plans for that afternoon, at least taking the initiative herself made a change)—in that year, Claudius was preoccupied with his administrative duties as Censor, easing the penalties for debt, issuing edicts about snakebites and against unruly behavior in the theater, then finishing construction of his splendid aqueducts, which brought the clear water of the Caerulean springs fifty miles from the mountains across the Campagna on arches that were in some places a hundred feet high. He had continued to write scholarly histories. He involved himself in the internal affairs of Armenia and Germany; then, in a speech whose political diplomacy would have astonished those who had judged him inadequate in his youth, he persuaded the Senate to open its ranks to some long-standing allies from Gaul. He survived an assassination attempt without losing his nerve. He gave time to his pet schemes: He revived the College of Soothsayers and introduced three new letters into the official alphabet.

It was the eighth centenary of the traditional founding of Rome. Claudius inaugurated the Ludi Saecularii, the ancient commemorative Games. They were supposed to be held only once every hundred years so no one would attend who had ever seen them before; in fact Augustus had held them too, but that was a mere technicality. This time there was a Trojan Pageant in the Circus at which young boys from leading families performed intricate feats of horsemanship while their parents and grandparents chewed off their nails expecting tantrums, broken legs, and trampled heads. On this occasion Britannicus led one of the dressage teams. The other was taken by Domitius Ahenobarbus, the son of Claudius' niece Agrippina. He was three years older and far more confident, so of course he came off best; although Britannicus conducted himself with the gravity of a tiny Aeneas in the field, as soon as the dimple-kneed imperial infant reached home it ended in tears.

Claudius did all this, and no one had ever suggested he was too busy to pay attention to his wife. Everyone else knew; she was too busy for him.

* * *

Caenis spoke, since no one else would risk it: "Claudius believes his pretty darling is matchless in bed and a perfect mother—faithful, devoted, clever, helpful and sweet. Whatever you do, remember he believes that because it is what he wants to believe. "

Various freedmen wriggled and scratched themselves, sensing some general criticism of their sex.

She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. She addressed herself to Narcissus, partly because she knew and understood him best, and partly because his colleagues were arguing for caution, frightened that interference would have unpleasant results for themselves. "Show him that they are stealing his throne—he believes himself the best man to hold it now. Perhaps he is. His ignorance of Messalina's antics makes it easier; the truth will be devastating, and he is a vain man. She can work him; ensure that she never gets the chance. Work him yourselves. . . ."She used the plural, though she guessed that this would be one man's work. "What will affect Claudius most will be the fact that she has thrown up their marriage in his face."

It struck Narcissus that Caenis was not, as it had turned out, telling them the woman's point of view but the man's. He glanced at Callistus and Pallas for support, failed to find it, then rehearsed what he could say: "Yes . . . ‘ Sir, do you know you are divorced?' " He ended with a gesture, open-palmed like an acrobat. The effect was sinister.

"That poor besotted bastard!" Callistus commented.

* * *

Going home afterward, Caenis reflected privately how Claudius had a graceful knack of choosing whom to trust as his friends. His wives were disasters, and though all four of those, including Messalina, had been chosen for him by his relatives, Caenis doubted he would do better for himself. In marriage a man looked for a boost to his bank account, adornment for his home, and a submissive sexual partner. It would be a man of rare intelligence who realized he might so much more wisely share his household with a friend.

That was a long night.

The sharp clear morning with its indigo sky had become the blazing autumn afternoon when Narcissus came to Caenis at Antonia's house. She had never seen anyone so completely exhausted. He owned a home that ran with peaceful decorum, yet she saw on this one occasion that to return to his good-tempered battalions of servants would be to remain unbearably alone. He had passed beyond his private strength. His competence was all used up.

"Freedman, rest. I will send word; I will watch."

She dismissed all her own slaves. Then she herself attended to the shutters, poured water for him to wash his hands and face, mixed wine with honey which he proved too tired to drink, took his shoes, set the cushions around him, and laid the rug over him while he slept.

Caenis stayed in the room.

"Thank you," he said briefly when he woke.

He lay on his back for a long while, the rug flung aside now so she could see his hands interlaced limply on his chest. Narcissus' hands were unusually small. She had noticed that when she was fourteen and secretly in love with him in a frightening physical way, as a girl will be with a teacher who concentrates her mind. They had come a long way since then.

He was thinking. From a nearby reclining chair Caenis silently watched; it was an intimacy few would ever share with him. The olive-skinned face was hollow-cheeked in rare relaxation, although he knew she was there. His eyes were frantic with thought and dark with melancholy; their gaze fluttered about the ceiling, from bead-and-dart cornice to the plaster molding that had been smoked to an oily gloss by lamps, and on to the solid ball from which hung the delicate bronze swansnecks of an unlit chandelier. He saw nothing.

People blamed the man for personal ambition. Yet his gratitude to Claudius would always come from a full heart. He regretted his patron's weaknesses, but appreciated the man's strengths and did so completely without cynicism. There was love there. He would be glad that he had saved the day (Caenis recognized from his stillness how he must have done that), but Narcissus would not really exult. He would feel for his man's tragedy as Claudius himself, understandably, could not bear to feel.