Colleen McCullough - 6. The October Horse - A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra

"Did you have an enjoyable time?" Caesar asked when his contubernalis returned, aware that he gave the lad little chance to mingle with his fellows. "Yes, I did, but it made me realize how privileged I am." "In what way, Octavius?" "Oh, plenty of money in my purse, everything I need, your favor," said Octavius frankly. "Agrippa and Salvidienus have neither money nor favor, yet they're two very good men, I think." "If they are, then they'll rise under Caesar, rest assured. Ought I to take them on the Parthian campaign?" "Definitely. But on your own staff, Caesar. With me, since I won't be old enough to run Rome in your absence." "You really want to come? The dust will be frightful." "I still have much to learn from you, so I'd like to try." "Salvidienus I know. He led the cavalry charge at Munda, and won nine gold phalerae. A typical Picentine, I suspect very brave, a superior military mind, capable of plotting. Whereas Agrippa I can't place. Tell him to be present when we leave in the morning, Octavius," said Caesar, curious to see what kind of confrere Octavius would choose as a friend. Meeting Agrippa was a revelation. Privately Caesar thought him one of the most impressive young men he had ever seen. Had he been homelier, there was a great deal of Quintus Sertorius in him, but the good looks put him in a category all his own. If he had gone to a big Roman school for the sons of knights, he would inevitably have been the head prefect. The sort you could trust always to give of his best infinitely reliable, utterly devoid of fear, athletic, and extremely intelligent. A stalwart. A pity his education hadn't been better. Also his blood, very mediocre. Both would retard any hope of a public career in Rome. One reason why Caesar was determined to change Rome's social structure sufficiently to permit the rise of men as eminently capable as the seventeen-year-old Agrippa promised to be. For he wasn't a prodigy like Cicero, nor did he have the ruthlessness of a Gaius Marius, two New Men who had gotten there. What he would need was a patron, and that Caesar himself would be. His great-nephew had an eye for choosing good men, a comfort. While Agrippa stood stiffly to attention and answered Caesar's pleasant but probing questions, Octavius, observed Caesar out of the corner of his eye, stood and stared at Agrippa adoringly. Not the same kind of adoring looks he gave Caesar by any means. Hmmm. Sometimes a secretary traveled with them in their gig, but this morning Caesar elected that he and Octavius should be alone. Time for that talk, postponed because Caesar wasn't looking at all forward to it. "You like Marcus Agrippa very much," Caesar commenced. "Better than anyone I've ever met," said Octavius instantly. When you have to lance a boil, cut deep and cruelly. "You're a very pretty fellow, Octavius." The startled Octavius didn't take that as a compliment. "I hope to grow out of it, Caesar," he said in a small voice. "I see no evidence that you ever will, because you can't exercise long enough and hard enough to develop Agrippa's kind of physique or mine, for that matter. You're always going to be much as you look now a very pretty fellow, and rather willowy." Octavius's face was growing red. "Do you mean what I think you mean, Caesar? That I appear effeminate?" "Yes," Caesar said flatly. "So that's why men like Lucius Caesar and Gnaeus Calvinus eye me the way they do." "Quite so. Do you cherish any tender feelings toward your own sex, Octavius?" The red was fading, the skin now too pale. "Not that I have noticed, Caesar. I admit that I might look at Marcus Agrippa like a ninny, but I I I admire him so." "If you cherish no tender feelings, then I suggest that the ninny looks cease. Make sure you never do develop tender feelings. Nothing can retard a man's public career more effectively than that particular failing, take it from one who knows," said Caesar. "The accusation about King Nicomedes of Bithynia?" "Precisely. An unjustified accusation, but unfortunately I hadn't endeared myself to my commanding officer, Lucullus, or to my colleague Marcus Bibulus. They took great delight in using it as a political slur, and it was still haunting me at my triumph." "The Tenth's song." "Yes," said Caesar, lips thin. "They have paid." "How did you counter the accusation?" Octavius asked, curious. "My mother a remarkable woman! advised me to cuckold my political rivals, the more publicly, the better. And never to befriend any among my colleagues with that rumor around them. Never, she said, give anyone the tiniest particle of evidence that the accusation was more than spite," said Caesar, looking straight ahead. "And don't, she said, spend time in Athens." "I remember her very well." Octavius grinned. "She terrified the life out of me." "And out of me too, from time to time!" Caesar reached to take Octavius's hands, clasp them strongly. "I am passing her advice on to you, though in a different vein, as we are very, very different sorts of men. You don't have the kind of appeal to women that I did when I was young. I made them yearn to tame me, to capture my heart, while making it all too plain to everyone that I could not be tamed and had no heart. That you can't do, you don't have the arrogance or self-assurance. Deservedly or not, you do exude a slight air of effeminacy. I blame it on your illness, which has worried your mother into cosseting you. It has also prevented your attending the boys' drills regularly enough to permit your peers to know you well. In every generation there are individuals like your cousin Marcus Antonius, who deem all men effeminate if they can't lift anvils and sire a bastard every nundinum. Thus Antonius actually got away with kissing his boon companion Gaius Curio in public no one could ever credit that Antonius and Curio were genuine lovers." "And were they?" Octavius asked, fascinated. "No. They just liked to scandalize the stuffy. Whereas if you did that, the response would be very different, and Antonius would be your first accusator." Caesar drew a breath. "Since I doubt you have the stamina or the physical presence to make a reputation as a great philanderer, I recommend a different ploy. You should marry young, and build a reputation as a faithful husband. Some may deem you a dull dog, but it works, Octavius. The worst that will be said of you is that you are un-adventurous and under the cat's foot. Therefore choose a wife with whom you can enjoy domestic peace, yet a woman who gives onlookers the impression that she rules the roost." He laughed. "That's a tall order and one you may not be able to fill, but keep it in mind. You're far from stupid, and I've noticed that you usually manage to get your own way. Are you following me? Do you understand what I'm saying?" "Oh, yes," said Octavius. "Oh, yes." Caesar released his hands. "So no looking at Marcus Agrippa with naked adoration. I realize why you do, but others won't be so perceptive. Cultivate his friendship, by all means, but always remain a little aloof. I say cultivate his friendship because he is exactly your own age, and one day you'll need adherents like him. He shows great promise, and if he owes his advancement to you, he'll give you his complete loyalty because that's the kind of man he is. I say remain at a slight distance from him because he should never gain the impression that he is an intimate of yours on equal terms with you. Make him fides Achates to your Aeneas. After all, you have the blood of Venus and Mars in your veins, whereas Agrippa is a Messapian Oscan of no ancestry. All men should be able to aspire to be great and do great things, and I would build a Rome that allowed them to fulfill their destinies. But some of us have the additional gift of birth, which endows us with an additional burden we must prove ourselves worthy of our ancestors, rather than found an ancestry." The countryside was rolling by; shortly they would cross the Baetis River on their long journey to the Tagus River. Octavius stared out the window, not seeing a thing. Then he licked his lips, swallowed, and turned to look directly into Caesar's eyes, which were kind, sympathetic, caring. "I understand everything you've said, Caesar, and I thank you I more than you can ever know. It is absolutely sensible advice, and I will follow it to the letter." "Then, young man, you will survive." Caesar's eyes twinkled. "I've noticed, by the way, that though we've flown around all of Further Spain throughout this spring, you haven't suffered one attack of asthma." "Hapd'efan'e explained it," said Octavius, who felt lighter, more confident, shriven. "When I'm with you, Caesar, I feel safe. Your approval and protection wrap around me like a blanket, and I experience no anxieties." "Even when I speak on distasteful subjects?" "The more I know you, Caesar, the more I regard you as my father. My own died before I needed him to talk about men's cares and difficulties, and Lucius Philippus Lucius Philippus " "Lucius Philippus gave up the duties of fatherhood at around the time that you were born," said Caesar, absurdly delighted at the result of a conversation he had dreaded. "I too lacked a father, but I was better served with my particular mother. Atia is all a mother. Mine was as much a father. So if I can be of help in paternal matters, I'm pleased to be of help." It isn't fair, Octavius was thinking, that I should get to know Caesar so late. If I had known him like this when I was a child, perhaps I wouldn't suffer the asthma at all. My love for him is boundless, I would do anything for him. Soon we will be done in the Spains, and he'll go back to Rome. Back to that awful woman across the Tiber, with her ugly face and her beast-gods. Because of her and the little boy, he won't touch Egypt's wealth. How clever women are. She has enslaved the ruler of the world and ensured the survival of her kingdom. She will keep its wealth for her son, who is not a Roman. "Tell me about the treasure vaults, Caesar," he said aloud, and turned big grey eyes, filled with innocence, to his idol. Relieved to have a new subject, Caesar obliged. It was a subject he couldn't air to any Roman save this one, a mere lad who thought of him as a father.