Lindsey Davis - The course of Honor

Caenis listened for a moment to the clunk-clunk ing of the goat bells, the tireless cicadas, the sporadic whistling of shepherds in the distance and, nearer at hand, a few contented hens. "Titus, I am a music-lover! It was a dangerous fiasco, and I am not sure I could have kept my temper with anyone—including your fool of a papa. How fortunate that my uncharacteristic headache had compelled me to stay in my room."

Titus grinned happily. "Well, I knew he wasn't safe. I remember when I took up the harp myself, he told me that from then on I was on my own in life—and by the way, I never want to see another little dish of hard green olives."

"I've just served you some, my darling; eat them and be quiet. Vespasian, your son is teasing you."

Vespasian, who was reading a letter, grunted.

Titus ventured, more cautiously, "Father, I never really understood why you came on the concert tour. It was obviously an exercise in regal self-indulgence. We could have tossed dice on whether Nero offended you mortally, or you him."

Vespasian sniffed this time.

"Playing his part in public life," scoffed Caenis.

"By nodding off?" Titus guffawed. "Well! I'm going for a walk. Yet again." There was not much else to do.

"Give me a kiss, then," Caenis commanded.

Titus was on the point of leaving his couch, when there came a sudden commotion outside the dining room. Before anyone could move, through the doors from the terrace burst a terrified plough-ox that had broken its yoke and run amok. An aimless horn swept a table lamp to the ground with a sickening crash. Caenis, who was not keen on animals even in their proper place, stayed perfectly still. The ox dusted a shelf with the frowsy clump of its tail.

The room was small; the ox was huge. The servants who had been about to clear away breakfast all took to their heels. Caenis noticed that even Titus swallowed. Vespasian looked over the top of his letter; the ox snorted, then dribbled menacingly, as its frantic hooves scrabbled on the tiled floor.

"Hello, boy!" Vespasian greeted him. "Lost your way?"

"Oh, my love," scolded Caenis, "I wish you wouldn't invite your friends for breakfast."

The ox took one step farther into the room; she picked up a spoon, the only implement at hand. She wondered if smacking it hard on the nose would make it go away. They could hear the approaching, panicky voices of the tillers of Greek fields who had lost their angry but valuable animal.

"Dear heart," Caenis murmured seductively to Vespasian, "do tell us what to do."

"Trying to think of a plan," he mused. "Difficult logistics."

"Well, you're the country boy!" Caenis snapped.

"The poor creature's frightened," Titus sympathized.

" I'm frightened," said Caenis, "and I live here, so I take precedence! I'd like to go to my room and do a decent bit of sewing, so perhaps one of you men could be masterful and sort out this incident."

"I've never seen you do sewing," Vespasian commented in wry surprise; then he continued talking amiably to the ox.

The tillers of Greek fields were peering in horror around the shattered doors. The ox filled the room. There was no space to turn it around. The tillers of fields plainly regretted having come to look.

"Shoo!" snarled Caenis crossly to the ox. "Go home."

Then the ox, charmed perhaps by the quality of Flavian repartee, suddenly advanced toward Vespasian, bowed its great head, and sank to one knee as if it were very tired.

The chattering of the tillers of fields dropped to an awestruck hum. Even Caenis and Titus looked impressed.

Titus said, "You have to hand it to him. For the son of a tax collector he knows how to bring a damn great beastie down at his feet!"

Removing an ox backward from a small decorative room requires great skill. It was a skill that the owners of the runaway ox possessed only fragmentarily. The two Flavians provided a rope and offered them much sound advice based on military tactics and higher mathematics. By the time everyone had gone it was lunchtime, and the room was wrecked.

Vespasian finally allowed himself to say, "By the gods, I thought we came out of that rather well."

Titus lay on his back on a bench. "Something to write home to Domitian anyway. I think I might faint now if nobody minds."

"Symbol of power, an ox, you know." Vespasian winked, knowing Caenis would be annoyed.

"You are living in disgrace on a mountaintop, eating fruit," she quipped nastily. "The only powerful thing round here is the smell of manure. Tell me, why is breakfast with the Flavians always so nerve-wracking?"

Since the ox had gone home and she was still holding the spoon, she smacked Vespasian with the spoon instead.

* * *

Not long afterward he was summoned back to the court. Knowing how Caenis felt about breakfast, he waited to tell her until they were at lunch.

"I'm coming with you," she said at once.

"No, you're not. If this means Nero has thought up a suitable way of executing a man who snores through his songs—slow torture by bagpipes, I dare say, or drowning in a water organ—then I'll have to endure it—but no usurping Claudian with his brains in his backside is going to get his hands on my family!"

"In law I'm not your family," Caenis commented quietly. Vespasian often swore, though not so often in front of her, because the Sabines were famously old-fashioned, and in all cultures being old-fashioned means denying women any fun; but he said tersely, "Damn the law."

Caenis nonetheless went with him.

* * *

He was spared strangling with a lyre string.

They found themselves presented with a mansion in which to lodge; they were invited to dine with the Emperor; the chamberlain now greeted them with oozing respect. Vespasian was welcomed by Nero himself with flattery, good wishes, and every sign of amity. Vespasian had dreamed that his family would start to prosper from the day Nero lost a tooth; as they arrived, they passed Nero's dentist with a molar on a little silver dish.

After dinner he was called into conference with the Emperor and his chief advisers, such as they nowadays were. When he emerged he had been offered a new post. He told Caenis at once what it was, and at once she understood what it must mean.

They returned to their donated villa in complete silence. Late as it was, Vespasian sent off a message to bring Titus as soon as possible. All the way home he had gripped her hand tightly in his.

They went into a room where they could sit. The house that Nero had placed at their disposal belonged to some wealthy old man who rarely visited. It was furnished in Roman fashion, but crammed with Greek artifacts. Every room was burdened with sideboards groaning under black-figure bowls and vases, bronzes, and pottery statuettes. There were carpets hung on the walls. Marble gods shared the dining room, while the buffet table used at lunchtime was five hundred years old. It was like living in an art gallery. The very rugs flung over the ivory-legged couches were draped not for comfort but display. Caenis hated it.

Vespasian took a chair; she sat sideways on a couch. This reversal of the normal pattern was typical of the casual way they had always lived. One of their own slaves, sensing late-night discussion, poured them amber resinated wine, unasked. For a long time neither drank. Once they were alone Caenis wished Vespasian would come nearer, but she realized that he wanted to be able to look at her. True to her old training, her face gave little away.

There had been a serious rebellion in Judaea. Vespasian had been offered the province, plus control of a large army, with permission to take Titus on his staff. It was, as he admitted to Caenis at once, partly in recognition of his military talent but mainly because he was too obscure to pose any political threat if a major fighting force were entrusted to his command. The appointment would be for the usual period of three years.