Allan Massie - Caesar

"Don't you know that in your language a neuter plural subject takes a singular verb?"

"Grammar," she giggled, "my tutors were always on at me about grammar. It matters awfully, I don't think."

"You do know Caesar will have to leave Egypt, don't you? Will you be all right when we go?"

She scratched the top of her plump thigh.

"I've got an itch. What was that you were saying?"

"I was asking if you'll be all right when we leave Egypt."

My words sounded silly.

"Why does he call you 'Mouse'?" she said.

"It's a childhood nickname."

"It suits you. Of course I'll be all right. I'm the Queen." "I think sometimes you can't wait for us to go." "Doesn't everybody think like that about Romans?" (You'll agree with her, Artixes, won't you? I wish your father would let me go.)

"Does Caesar know you feel like tha t?" "I wouldn't tell him." "But you tell me." "Mmm."

She pulled up her skirt, and pointed her finger at a round red spot, on the inside of her thigh, near the top.

"Look, that's why I'm itching. It's a bite. I think saliva would be good for it. Would you like to lick, Mouse?"

It was the hour when there are no shadows, but it was cool and dark in the great chamber, and I knelt on the marble, which had ingathered the heat of the dry season, with my head between the legs of the Queen who was also a girl less than half my age, and did as she bid. My tongue rippled over that red spot, and her fingers twined in my hair, and then she drew my head back, and thrust the fingers of her other hand between my lips.

"Now taste my cunty fingers."

Delight suffused me. I swivelled, pressing myself between her legs and my hands kneading the flesh. The Greek word "ecstasy" means in its root standing outside oneself, and I knew ecstasy then, seeing the picture we made and living it at the same time.

"I shall make Caesar give me a child, I think," she said. Her legs held me tight, and she withdrew her hand and bent down and kissed my mouth, thrusting her tongue where her fingers had been a moment before.

Caesar said: "There is no reas on why I should not divorce Cal purnia and marry Cleopatra. It would be a fine thing. Even Alexander did not achieve such a marriage. To take possession of Egypt is to hold the East… the East, of which Pompey boasted himself master."

He must have known it was impossible, and since Cleopatra was not a Roman citizen, also illegal. Even the appearance of such a marriage would destroy his position in Rome. I could imagine what a meal Cicero would make of it, and I couldn't believe Caesar did not understand this himself. And yet, at that moment, I encouraged him.

"Bring the Queen to Rome," I said.

Each time I return to Rome, the city seems less itself. There are new buildings and new people, and what used to be familiar has lost its old proportions. (I write in this present-perfect tense, though it is improbable I shall have again this experience of a return home that is like an arrival somewhere unknown.)

On this occasion my mother had even moved house. The noise on the Esquiline, she said, had become insupportable, and so she was now living in a property inherited from her mother, which stood on the Aventine. It was peaceful there, with blackbirds and siskins in the garden, and, she assured me, a nightingale when darkness fell. It felt wrong, that absence of bustle.

"The truth is," she said, "you hear more Greek spoken than Latin where we were. Now tell me all about Caesar, darling Mouse. Is he well? Is it true that he is having an affair with the Queen of Egypt? And did you simply adore Egypt, or hate it? People always do one or the other, mostly the latter. Dear Pompey claimed he adored the place, and look at what it did for him. But you haven't answered my questions."

"You haven't given me time, and so I've forgotten now what they were…"

"Don't be a tease."

"Very well, Mother. In reverse order: I neither loathed Egypt nor loved it; the Queen of Egypt is having an affair with Caesar, but neither heart will be broken. As for the General, Caesar is Caesar: I'm sure you must have heard him say so."

"He wrote to me, you know, by the last post, to say how well you had done, and how I should be so very proud of you."

"Caesar excels at graciousness. You know that too, Mother."

"I've asked Calpurnia to supper. I hope you don't mind. She is desperate to have word of her hero-husband."

"What word should I give her? He has sent her presents by me. That's something, I suppose."

"I leave it to you to decide. There's no doubt, by the way, that she knows all about the Queen."

"Nobody, Mother, does that."

I withdrew, sacrificed to our family gods (as it is proper to do after a journey, to honour them and express gratitude for one's safe arrival) and retired to the chamber which had been prepared for me. I could not sleep. My mind was troubled, as it had been for weeks now, by images of Cleopatra. It amused me that my mother had arranged that Calpurnia should be with us; it showed that her capacity for demure mischief-making was not exhausted.

Calpurnia is more of a puzzle to me than Cleopatra. Of course it's well known that Caesar married her for political reasons — her father, Calpurnius Piso, was consul in 58 and a trusted ally of Pompey's when Caesar and Pompey first came together in friendship. But he remained married long after the political value of the union had expired, and he did so even though Calpurnia was notably lacking in charm or beauty. Thin, angular, with a voice like an Ostia fishwife, and a temper to match, she frequently embarrassed Caesar at dinner-parties. She had the absurd habit of disputing people's observations on matters of which she could not be other than ignorant. Moreover, she didn't hesitate to contradict Caesar himself. I remember once when the talk turned on the question of the transmigration of souls — a theory that had long attracted Caesar — and he spoke of how, visiting Athens for the first time, he had found his way to the house which he was seeking without enquiring directions from any passer-by, but travelling with certainty as if he had already made that journey many times, perhaps even daily, in another life, she interrupted to suggest that he was probably drunk, because it's well-known that drunk men are favoured by fortune…

"Besides," she said, "I expect it was a brothel you were seeking, and I've never heard of a pig that couldn't find its way to a sty."

Caesar tried to laugh it off — and indeed Calpurnia made this last comment with a bray like a she-ass, inviting us to share the joke — but he wasn't pleased. I wondered then if he was frightened of Calpurnia.

It sounds absurd. We all know that Caesar was fearless. He made a point often enough of telling us so. Yet, as my friend Gaius Valerius Catullus was wont to say, "The most mysterious silence in the world is that which surrounds a man and woman when they are alone together."

Now, naturally enough, she questioned me narrowly concerning Cleopatra — Calpurnia was the sort of woman who always knew the stories that were going the rounds. She didn't trouble to hide her conviction that Caesar was again being unfaithful to her. Most women would conceal such knowledge, on account of their pride. But Calpurnia's pride was of a different order; she delighted in presenting herself to the world as a wronged woman.

"She's of an age to be his granddaughter," she said. "Not quite."

"I've done my calculations. She would be under marriageable age if she was a Roman. What does he see in her?"

"She amuses him. There's nothing more to it. Except this: the relationship is political. The importance of Egypt is well-recognised. Therefore it's a good thing to be on friendly terms with its Queen."