Lindsey Davis - The course of Honor

Narcissus muttered, "I'll—"

"No. I'll go."

"Then I had better explain why she's—"

"No need," said Vespasian. "I know. Of course I know."

* * *

Her feelings had nothing to do with Vespasian being there.

She sat on a seat beside the dripping fronds of a monumental fern, breathing hard, with one hand to her head. It was all too much. Marius dead, and now his stupid will . . . He had left her precisely half as much again as he had left to each of his freedmen: enough to embarrass his family, yet a harshly unequal gesture for a woman who had been prepared to become his wife. She wanted to refuse the legacy, as any heir was entitled to do. His cautiousness was so insulting.

She sat, thinking about this, and thinking too about Marius. She still knew he was a comparatively decent man. He had not understood what he had done.

Someone was coming for her. She heard the footsteps, while trying to ignore them.

"Caenis?" Her Sabine friend.

He waited, on the other side of the fern, to let her readjust. Probably afraid she had been crying. Left to herself she probably would have been. People never knew when to leave you to yourself.

"Your old Greek nanny panicked."

"I'll come." Caenis sat forward, intending to rise, but Vespasian was on the narrow path, sticky with fallen leaves. He was blocking her way.

"Don't get up." He stayed there; so she stayed on the seat. "You're wanting advice?"

Caenis said nothing. Obviously Narcissus had told him everything. Politicians were so arrogant about other people's private affairs.

Vespasian risked it: "Share your troubles with a friendly magistrate. I won't charge," he chivvied, as she still sat stony-faced. He was more heavily built and a great deal more pompous nowadays. "Though you might consider a drop in the interest on my loan." She still said nothing. He went on, with the natural complaisant assumption that no one in good society would ever be deliberately rude, "Tell me to mind my own business if you like—"

"Mind your own business, Consul!" Caenis roared.

She turned away bitterly.

But all he said was, "Don't be daft, lass!" then came and sat beside her on the bench. Caenis was probably forty. Even in the country, nobody was ever going to call her "lass" again.

"Don't fight."

"Don't interfere!"

"Look; Caenis—"

"Leave me alone!"

"I can't; I promised your lady a long time ago—I had heard you were planning to get married. I'm so sorry." Caenis once again spun to her feet. He snapped: "Oh, sit down, you short-tempered shrike, and listen to me!"

Marius would never have called her names. Nor, she knew, would she ever in fact have married him. This stranger knew her better than Marius would ever have done.

"Come on; come back."

Although she did not storm off, she huddled away, shrouding herself in the white robe he so hated. He sighed. Then, speaking formally as a magistrate he told her, "Listen then. It's quite simple. Legally the choice is yours. But unless you feel very strongly, my advice is to keep quiet. The man is dead; you can't get back at him. Taking a stand is fine in principle, but you'll be the one who ends up feeling wretched. If you reject his miserable legacy, you'll stir up more bad feeling than if you meekly accept and spend it all on a new hat." Caenis had the grace to nod. His voice softened. "There's a knee here you can sit on if you want to have a cry." She ignored that. After a moment he demanded sourly, "Whatever did you want to get married for anyway?"

"Oh, the usual reasons!" Caenis flared. "Bed, board, someone to bully—and a half-decent companion for my old age!"

Vespasian laughed.

She whirled back toward him so at last he could see just how colorless she was, and her despair. He was truly appalled. Whatever she was intending to hurl at him died on the instant.

In fact they had frightened one another.

Yet he was not Rome's Consul for nothing. His face went blank. He turned the situation at once. He stood up. "Yes; quite right. Better go back. That oily-chinned old woman of a freedman will think something's going on."

So they went back.

"Get your advice?" Narcissus fluffed.

"Yes."

"Will you take it?"

"Probably."

"There!" Narcissus exclaimed, like the nanny Vespasian had called him; Vespasian, to his credit, openly winced.

Unable to bear any more of this, Caenis was determined to go home. Narcissus embraced her as he usually did when she left. He said to Vespasian (so Caenis began to wonder just how many conversations about her these two had held), "I'll have to fix her up with a nice tolerant widower; somebody brave, someone the Empire owes a favor to—"

Caenis broke free. "Oh, you brass-necked cretin! Being saddled with a half-baked widower is not what I require at all."

Even Vespasian crackled, "Great gods, Narcissus—leave the poor girl alone!"

For a second she felt they were haggling over her, as Vespasian had once done with Antonia. They talked across her, about her, at her, with men's knowing air. They liked to flatter themselves they could help in her business affairs. They liked to fidget when she showed distress. Because they were men they were competitive. Neither wanted her. Neither wanted to know anything of her private aches. But neither wanted the other to show he knew her best.

Vespasian held out his hand. In front of Narcissus, she really had no choice; Caenis gave him her own. A Consul probably shook hands with hundreds of people every day. But not crushing most of them in such a deliberate grip. "Antonia Caenis."

When he spoke her name she had to look away.

* * *

After she had gone, Narcissus agitated primly, "Thanks. Anything happen?"

"We had a brief but bloody fight." Vespasian was staring at him. "Nothing unusual."

"Actually, I was afraid that seeing you might upset her."

Some grim jest twitched at one corner of the Consul's mouth.

"She's all right," he said. Helpless, Narcissus realized the full extent of the mistake he had made. "She's used to it," Vespasian stated drably. Then, after the faintest pause, "No doubt one day I'll get used to it myself."

TWENTY-FIVE

Claudius had married Agrippina on the New Year's Day immediately following Messalina's death. On that occasion Caenis made an excuse not to attend the wedding. She could not in conscience offer her support.

On the day Claudius was married, Lucius Silanus, who had been betrothed for years to the Emperor's infant daughter, Octavia, accepted the inevitable and committed suicide (a heavy hint that he was in disgrace had been dropped when he was struck off as praetor with only one day of the magistracy left to serve). Agrippina's son by her previous marriage, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, was betrothed to Octavia instead.

At Agrippina's urging, Ahenobarbus was soon also adopted by Claudius. This raised some eyebrows. No outsider had ever been adopted into the patrician Claudian house, and besides, the Emperor had a son of his own; the adoption unnecessarily supplanted Britannicus. As a newcomer to the family Ahenobarbus took a Claudian surname; now he was called Nero.

One of the arguments used by Pallas to secure Nero's adoption was that Claudius ought to arrange a protector for his own boy. Ironically, from then on, even during his father's lifetime, Britannicus was treated at the Palace as an unwelcome guest of doubtful parentage; any slaves or freedmen loyal to him were gradually removed, and officers in the army who gave him their allegiance were encouraged to transfer abroad or promoted out of the way. His new brother gave him no support; entirely the opposite.

Next, Claudius agreed that Nero should be declared of age early, and start his public career. He became a consul designate without holding other positions, and was styled Prince of Youth. There was a difficult scene when Britannicus refused to address him by his adopted name. Britannicus was disciplined, his best tutors were dismissed, and he lost even more of his slaves.