Colleen McCullough - 5. Caesar

Curio tore home to the Palatine whooping, whirled Fulvia off her feet and kissed her. Not confined to the Campus Martius as Caesar was, he had been home now for five days. "Fulvia, Fulvia, I'm to have my own command!" he cried. "Tell me!" "I'm to lead four legions four legions, imagine it! to Sicily and then to Africa! My own war! I'm propraetore, Fulvia, and I'm to wreath my fasces in laurels! I'm in command! I have six lictors! My second-in-command is a hoary Gallic veteran, Caninius Rebilus! I'm his superior! I've got Pollio too! Isn't it wonderful?" And she, so loyal, so wholehearted a supporter, beamed, kissed him all over his dear freckled face, hugged him and exulted for him. "My husband the propraetor," she said, and had to kiss his face again many times. "Curio, I'm so pleased!" Her expression changed. "Does that mean you have to leave at once? When will your imperium be conferred?" "I don't know that it ever will be," said Curio, undismayed. "Caesar gave all of us propraetorian status, but, strictly speaking, he's not authorized to. So I daresay we'll have to wait for our leges curiatae." Fulvia stiffened. "He means to be dictator." "Oh, yes." Curio sobered, frowned. "It was the most amazing meeting I've ever attended, meum mel. He sat there and he dished out the jobs without, it seemed, drawing breath. Crisp, succinct, absolutely specific. Over and done with in mere moments. The man's a phenomenon! Fully aware that he has no authority whatsoever to depute anyone to do anything, yet for how long has he been thinking of it? He's a complete autocrat. I suppose ten years in Gaul as master of everyone and everything would have to change a man, but ye Gods, Fulvia, he was born a dictator! If I don't understand any aspect of him, it's how he ever managed to hide what he is for so long. Oh, I remember how he used to irritate me when he was consul I thought him royal then! But I actually believed that Pompeius pulled his strings. I know now that no one has ever pulled Caesar's strings." "He certainly pulled my Clodius's strings, little though my Clodius would care to hear me say that." "He won't be gainsaid, Fulvia. And somehow he'll manage to do it without spilling oceans of Roman blood. What I heard today was the dictator sprung fully armed from the brow of Zeus." "Another Sulla." Curio shook his head emphatically. "Oh, no. Never Sulla. He doesn't have Sulla's weaknesses." "Can you continue to serve someone who will rule Rome as an autocrat?" "I think so. For one reason. He's so eminently capable. What I would have to do, however, is make sure that Caesar didn't change our way of looking at things. Rome needs to be ruled by Caesar. But he's unique. Therefore no one can be permitted to rule after him." "A mercy then that he has no son," said Fulvia. "Nor any member of his family to claim his place."

Down in the damp and shady cleft which was the Forum Romanum stood the residence of the Pontifex Maximus, a huge and chilly structure without architectural distinction or physical beauty. With winter just arriving, the courtyards were too cold to permit their being used, but the mistress of the house had a very nice sitting room well warmed by two braziers, and here she ensconced herself cozily. The suite had belonged to the mother of the Pontifex Maximus, Aurelia, and in her days its walls had been impossible to see for pigeonholes, book buckets and accounts. All of that impedimenta had gone; the walls once more shone dully crimson and purple, the gilded pilasters and moldings glittered, the high ceiling was a honeycomb of plum and gold. It had taken considerable persuasion to coax Calpurnia down from her suite on the top floor; Eutychus the steward, now into his seventies, had managed it by hinting that all the servants were too decrepit these days to climb the stairs. So Calpurnia had moved down, and that had been almost five years ago long enough by far not to feel the presence of Aurelia these days as anything more than an additional warmth. Calpurnia sat with three kittens in her lap, two tabby and one black-and-white, her hands lying lightly on their fat bodies. They were asleep. "I love the abandonment of their sleep," she said to her visitors in a grave voice, smiling down. "The world might end, and they would dream on. So lovely. We of the gens Humana have lost the gift of perfect sleep." "Have you seen Caesar?" asked Marcia. The large brown eyes lifted, looked sad. "No. I think he is too busy." "Haven't you tried to contact him?" asked Porcia. "No." "Don't you think you ought?" "He's aware I'm here, Porcia." It wasn't said with a snap or a snarl; it was a simple statement of fact. A peculiar trio, some intruder might have thought, coming upon Caesar's wife entertaining Cato's wife and Cato's daughter. But she and Marcia had been friends ever since Marcia had gone to be wife to Quintus Hortensius, into an exile of the spirit and the flesh. Not unlike, Marcia had thought then, the exile poor Calpurnia dwelled in. They had found each other's company very pleasant, for each was a gentle soul without much liking for intellectual pursuits and no liking at all for the traditional women's occupations spinning, weaving, sewing, embroidering; painting plates, bowls, vases and screens; shopping; gossiping. Nor was either woman a mother. It had started with a courtesy call after the death of Julia, and another after Aurelia's death not much more than a month later. Here, thought Marcia, was an equally lonely person: someone who would not pity her, someone who would not find fault with her for acceding so tamely to her husband's actions. Not all Roman women were so compliant, no matter what their social status. Though, they found as the friendship prospered, they both envied the lot of women in the lower classes they could be professionally qualified as physicians or midwives or apothecaries, or work in trades like carpentering or sculpting or painting. Only the upper-class women were constrained by their status into ladylike homebound activities. Not a cat fancier, Marcia had found Calpurnia's chief hobby a little unbearable at first, though she discovered after some exposure to them that cats were interesting creatures. Not that she ever yielded to Calpurnia's pleas that she take a kitten for herself. She also shrewdly concluded that if Caesar had given his wife a lapdog, Calpurnia would now be surrounded by puppies. Porcia's advent was quite recent. When Porcia had realized after Marcia's return to Cato's household that she was friendly with Caesar's wife, Porcia had had a great deal to say. None of it impressed Marcia, nor, when Porcia complained to Cato, was he moved to censure his wife. "The world of women is not the world of men, Porcia," he shouted in his normal way. "Calpurnia is a most respectable and admirable woman. Her father married her to Caesar, just as I married you to Bibulus." But after Brutus had left for Cilicia a change had come over Porcia the stern Stoic who had no truck with the world of women lost her fire, secretly wept. Dismayed, Marcia saw what Porcia herself was trying desperately to hide, would not speak about: she had fallen in love with someone who had refused her when offered her, someone who had now gone away. Someone who was not her husband. With her young stepson moving out of her ken, Porcia needed a warmer kind of stimulus than philosophy and history. She was moldering. Sometimes Marcia worried that she was dying the subtlest death of all she mattered to no one. Thus, badgered into consenting and under solemn oath not to embark upon political talk or speak scathingly of her father's and her husband's most hated enemy, Porcia too began to visit. Miraculously, she enjoyed these outings. As both were good people at heart, Porcia found herself quite unable to despise Calpurnia. Goodness recognized goodness. Besides which, Porcia liked cats. Not that she had ever seen one at close quarters before; cats slunk through the night, yowled for mates, ate rodents or lived around kitchens begging for scraps. But from the moment Calpurnia held out her enormously fat and complacent orange Felix and Porcia found herself holding this soft, cuddly, thrumming creature, she liked cats. Friendship with Calpurnia aside, it kept her coming back to the Domus Publica, for she knew better than to think that father or husband would approve of enjoying the company of an animal, dog or cat or fish. Loneliness, Porcia began to see, was not her own exclusive province. Nor was unrequited love. And in these two things she grieved for Calpurnia as much as for herself. No one to fill her life, no one to look at her with love. Except her cats. "I still think you should write," Porcia persisted. "Perhaps," said Calpurnia, rolling one kitten over. "And yet, Porcia, that would be an intrusion. He is so busy. I don't understand any of it, and I never will. I just make offerings to keep him safe." "So do we all for our men," said Marcia. Old Eutychus staggered in with steaming hot sweet wine and a plate loaded with goodies; no one save he was allowed to wait on this last living one of the beloved Domus Publica ladies. The kittens were returned to the padded box with their mother, which opened its green eyes wide and looked at Calpurnia reproachfully. "That was unkind," said Porcia, sniffing the mulled wine and wondering why Bibulus's staff never thought of it on these cold, misty days. "Poor mama cat was enjoying a little peace." The last word fell, echoed, lay between them. Calpurnia broke off a piece of the best-looking honey-cake and took it across to the shrine of the Lares and Penates. "Dear Gods of the Household," she prayed, "grant us peace." "Grant us peace," prayed Marcia. "Grant us peace," prayed Porcia.