Lindsey Davis - The course of Honor

"Will you, by Jupiter!" Narcissus exclaimed.

Caenis shushed him. "Oh, I'll give him a trial. Thank you, Aglaus."

He saluted her politely enough now. "Antonia Caenis."

"Caenis will do. Just Caenis." She would never change.

"Well; Lady Caenis then."

Narcissus nodded tetchily to dismiss him.

Both Caenis and Narcissus smiled, suddenly remembering old times.

"Seems ideal to me," the freedman told her. "You'll squabble, but the fellow will adore you."

Caenis said drily, "I'm not sure adoration is a commodity I recognize, or even want."

There was a small silence. She needed to ask Narcissus about Marius' will; he was giving her time to start.

It was at that point she became aware, and Narcissus must have noticed too, that hasty footsteps were approaching from the house. Someone had clattered down the informal stone steps behind them, skidded under a small palm tree that leaned across one of the paved areas, and was now striding through the long arch of trellis where in summer the honeysuckle formed a sweet approach to this nook where Narcissus liked to sit. Someone who knew Narcissus well enough to come straight out here unannounced. Someone thoroughly agitated. A man whose heavy step Caenis had instantly recognized.

She settled her mantle more closely around her face. The man arrived. Narcissus looked up. His visitor flung himself onto a second bench. He began to speak; saw someone there; recognized her; checked himself quietly. "Sorry. No one told me I was disturbing you. I'll come back." He was already on his feet.

It was Flavius Vespasianus, minus his troop of ceremonial lictors, but otherwise in full consular robes.

* * *

Normally everything gave way for a city magistrate. Even the Chief Secretary became faultlessly polite. "Consul! I know this lady has something to discuss with me, but she will not object to waiting; shall I ask her to withdraw?"

Vespasian muttered in his abrupt way, "Thanks. No need."

"Is this private?" Narcissus worried.

Vespasian flopped down again on the other bench. That old frown bit deeply into his brow. Now that he had accustomed himself to the situation, he resented its disturbing anyone else. "No. Stop flapping, Narcissus. If the lady wants me to go she'll tell me to skip over the Styx, and if she wants to leave herself she'll up and disappear."

So true! Caenis looked at the pool.

Narcissus was sufficiently shy of private relationships to be embarrassed by this meeting; until now he had somehow prevented any such confrontation with what he thought was exquisite tact. He was feeling far more uncomfortable than either of the other two. Blushing, he asked the Consul whatever was wrong. Vespasian wrenched off a branch from a nearby shrub, and began tearing it to shreds.

"Oh, these accursed imperial women! First we come home from the back of beyond to find Messalina picking off every friend or colleague Claudius owns, then you and Pallas set him up with another scheming, suspicious, incestuous Julian cow who decides to make it her business to run the Empire. . . ." This description of the Augusta, as Agrippina now styled herself, exactly fitted Narcissus' own opinion, Caenis knew.

He murmured fussily, "Consul, you are under stress."

" Stress! Narcissus, the woman's impossible. I have to deal with her so long as Claudius leaves her loose. Oh, I'll stick out my term, but she must know what I think."

"She knows what you said when Caligula accused her of adultery and conspiracy!" Narcissus reprimanded him.

"So we're permanent enemies! When my time's up as Consul I'll have to leave the court."

"Sounds wise!"

"Sounds unjust!"

Narcissus shrugged in that slightly oriental way. "Yes. Still, serenity and leisure on your country estate—it's a Roman ideal. You'll be balloted soon for a provincial governorship. Enjoy yourself meanwhile. Weed your vines, or whatever you have; keep your head down and keep your temper. A good man—best out of the way."

The Consul was still furious. "I'll have nothing!"

Narcissus suddenly sat up. "No, sir! On my list you have an honest wife and three healthy children, the army's acclaim, the Senate's respect, and the liking of a great many private citizens. Your funds may be low—"

This was not the best way to calm Vespasian down. He hurled what was left of the branch into the pond, slightly splashing the edge of her white funereal dress, so Caenis pulled back her feet to protect it. She only ever owned one. There were few people Caenis thought worth wearing mourning for.

"Low? Low? Listen," Vespasian raged. "I've thought about this! She's going to block my appointment; I know it. Anyway, if I do get a province, I'll need to mortgage my estate just to be able to live in the proper style, even abroad. Is this right? My children were born into beggary; we have no family silver on the table, and Domitian's just made his poor little entrance in an attic over Pomegranate Street." He was well into his stride. Domitian was his second son, born at the end of October. There was a daughter too. "I shall be a governor who runs mule trains and dabbles in franchises for fish—a trader in tuna, a fiddler with flounders, a man permanently after his percentage on cuttlefish and cubes of cod! Your lady friend can stop twitching and laugh if she likes."

Caenis, who had been sinking deeper into herself, realized abruptly that she was the audience for whom his last flamboyant outburst had been played.

Vespasian had at first been ignoring her as deliberately as she was ignoring him; suddenly he turned and addressed her directly with that disconcerting drop in his tone: "Hello, Caenis!"

"Hello," she said.

It was the first time they had spoken for nearly thirteen years.

* * *

The Chief Secretary, whose very inexperience made him a sentimentalist, noticed at once that the Consul stopped frowning. Vespasian's mood had clarified like a wax tablet melting for reuse. Even so, it seemed that these two wanted to say nothing more to one another.

Sucking his lower lip, the Consul challenged the freedman again: "Well! If you're so sure it's going to be all right, which province will I get?"

"Africa," replied Narcissus. Vespasian whistled; Caenis stirred: Africa was the prize.

"Thought it was supposed to be a lottery?"

"Oh it is, Consul! Never let anybody tell you otherwise." Repenting his frankness, Narcissus told him carefully, "You must keep up your state."

"Oh thanks!" Vespasian was scathing, but looked preoccupied; Caenis knew he would be trying to work out just how the lottery was fiddled. So was she. "Ask your gloomy visitor if she needs her savings yet?"

Narcissus merely looked demure, but when Caenis continued to stare into the pool in silence, he felt obliged to clear his throat and ask, "Do you, Caenis?"

Caenis replied quietly, to Narcissus, "No."

"Generous friends!" rapped Narcissus to Vespasian.

He commented tersely, to Narcissus, "Yes." Then he burst out at Caenis herself. "Always in white these days! You look terrible in white." Caenis was damned if at this time of her life she was going to start letting men tell her what she ought to wear. He detected the thought. "Sorry. Impertinent. You'll have to forgive me; I've known you a long time."

"No, Consul." He was startled. So was she; yet she continued without mercy: "You knew me," Caenis told him bluntly, "for a short while, a very long time ago !"

She shot to her feet, tight-lipped, and walked away to another part of the garden by herself.

There was a tense silence. Narcissus had no idea what he ought to do. "Shall I—"

"Leave her!" Vespasian whipped toward him. "So long as she gets angry," he explained clearly, as if it were important that in future Narcissus understood this, "she's all right." There was another pause. Vespasian was staring the way Caenis had gone.