Lindsey Davis - The course of Honor

Caenis became furiously sarcastic: "And Titus admires her too? What a positive sense of family she has! . . . I'm sorry." She hated to quarrel.

"Fair enough." So did he.

"Oh, you're so understanding I could spit!"

Suddenly Caenis found she did not care about Berenice. Titus was supposed to be seriously in love with the woman; best leave it at that. There would be enough to do trying to ensure that that damned romantic Titus was not too badly hurt.

Of course, worrying about the Emperor's son was not for her.

She was squinting at Vespasian's feet. Everyone knew he had stopped an arrow at the siege of Jotapata. There had been so much blood and pain he had fainted; then the army panicked, until Titus galloped up distraught, thinking him dead. Now Vespasian raised one foot quietly so she could inspect the healed scar. She realized it was unlikely Queen Berenice had been able to conduct two separate conversations with him at the same time. He was a very private man.

He was staring at her. Caenis glared back. He was vividly tanned. He was covered with purple—gaudy folds of the stuff drooping almost to the floor—and so stiff with padded gold she could hardly take it in. Embroidered acanthus leaves writhed about his neck. Her familiar friend had become something abominable. Thank the gods he had left his wreath behind; she could not have stomached the sight of him ceremonially crowned.

Yet he looked utterly right. He was matter-of-fact in his new splendor, slightly rumpled after a long day, and ignoring the effect he must know all that color and bullion braid would make. This was the man for Rome. Rome looked to this man, and his gifted sons, for common sense and stability. Rome would not be disappointed: a quiet life with high taxes, business moving in the law courts, and elegant new civic buildings. Order in the provinces and fine wares in the marketplace. Oratory valued, but philosophy too dangerous: old-fashioned public service virtues. Music and the arts modestly encouraged. Plenty of work for schoolteachers, accountants, and engineers. Decent statues set up in safe clean streets to an amiable Emperor whose way of life would be notorious only for its simplicity.

None of the Caesars had ever kept a concubine. Yet after the antics of the Claudians, would anybody notice? Would anybody care?

They were silent together, as only friends can be. The longer he stayed with her the more difficult parting would be, yet Caenis felt calmed by his presence in a way she had not dared to expect. It was impossible to pretend to feel hostility. Between them lay too great a legacy of frankness in the past.

Vespasian was remembering that astrologer at the Theater of Balbus, who said her face could never be upon the coinage. On the obverse the old man, grinning with embarrassment; flip over—only some suitable religious scene: Mars perhaps, or Fortune. He needed a great coin issue; soon would have to decide its design.

Not Caenis; no. Thinking of all the prinked madams who did make it through the mint—Messalina with corrugated rolls of hair all across her great fat head, or starched Livia with her long nose and that wild squint, or worst, Agrippina—he was glad. Caenis would never belong in that mad company. Besides, no dye-cutter could catch her character. And he would not like to see her debased, reduced, diminished to some staring nag in an improbable coiffure: Caenis slipping through the filthy fingers of fishmongers and fornicators; Caenis dropped down drains at all the outposts of the Empire; Caenis cemented under the footings of every barracks and basilica.

Yet the man in the booth had known it; she was his life's true reverse.

"So much to tell you!" His voice was soft. Spotting her stiff look, he added wryly, "And no doubt one or two points of order you intend putting to me."

Certainly: Cremona; the Flavian generals; Domitian; Sabinus; whatever Vespasian could have imagined he was doing when he let himself be lured into faith-healing at Alexandria . . . Caenis said none of it. For one thing, he knew. For another, he probably agreed with her.

"I'm a republican," she told him.

"Every Caesar should keep one," he returned patiently.

"I shall always say what I think."

"Wonderful—" He moved abruptly. "Look at me, Caenis! Just look, will you? Well?"

"What?" She pretended she could not fathom him. She noticed there were laughter lines, seamed white by the desert sun, at the corners of his eyes. "What?" she demanded again gruffly, though she knew.

"Look here! This man collapsed on your couch is Vespasian—older, balder, paunchier, a little more scratchy and a great deal more slow. Tired out with grief and sick of Eastern food, yet your man . . ."

His tone dropped. "Why won't you come?" he asked.

"You would be disgraced—"

"You're worth it."

"Oh, stop staring!"

"Stop ranting! I'm just looking at you. Such a relief to be in the same room again. See you. Hear your voice . . . To wonder which of us will win."

"You're enjoying this."

"Of course. Been longing for a wrangle with you." Caenis was blindingly tired. She knew he could see it. He was offering to let her bury her weariness in him. "Your house was always so wonderfully peaceful, lass. . . . You look all in; have you had anything to eat today?"

"No."

He was reaching for the handbell, but she stopped him with a violent shake of her head. He gave her a look that said she would dine decently tonight if he had to grip her jaws and force in the food, like feeding medicine to a sick dog. Caenis stared down at the floor. When she looked up again Vespasian mouthed her a kiss, like some liquid-eyed lad lounging on the steps of a temple, annoying female passers-by. She could not help it; she blushed.

"You had better go," she told him. "The banquet."

He shrugged. He stopped flirting and became more businesslike. "Entirely up to you. If you don't want to go, we'll just have a quiet night in. I don't mind. Might as well enjoy my position. Entire city reclines at table formally, only to be told: The Emperor is having a bite of supper at home instead. Don't suppose they'll mind either, so long as they all get a nice slice of goose in sesame sauce and a pomegranate to take home."

He was being ridiculous. Caenis ignored him.

He waited a short time, then tried again. "Caenis, don't renege. I never asked you, ‘Live with me just until something better crops up.' "

"No. No; you were always generous to me. Don't worry; I won't grumble or throw vases or make you watch me cry—"

"No," he answered bleakly. "I remember that. But don't you know your stricken face haunted me for twenty years?"

Caenis thought she knew. "I forgot to say," she murmured, soothing him because he was upset, "you may of course keep my set of silver knives."

"Oh thanks! Those were all I was worrying about." She saw him sigh slightly, still in a low mood. She gazed at him with smiling eyes until she knew he had rallied, because he exclaimed, with one of his surges of energy, "Caenis, stop clinging to your rock like a stubborn winkle! Lass, you have your fixed view of what you are allowed—not much. An emperor invites you to dinner with all Rome, and you have to prove that you're still down-to-earth by cleaning out the lavatory yourself!"

"I keep a tidy house," she muttered defiantly.

"You'll keep a tidy palace."

"After four emperors in eighteen months I dread to think what's clogging up the drains."

"Don't bring it to show me, that's all I ask. . . ." He leaned toward her more urgently, since she had hinted at the possibility that she might be there. "I want you to come—you must come!"

"The Emperor commands!"

"Don't be ridiculous; I was always polite to you."

Caenis was running out of strength.

She took a deep breath. She told him bluntly: She did not want to lurk at his Palace in some dark nook across a cold corridor, the sorry embarrassment from his past that he was too kindhearted to shed. This dramatic declaration, which she had been practicing in her head for a year now, rang less nobly than she had always hoped.