Colleen McCullough - 5. Caesar

"No one can beat you," said Rhiannon, her tone smug. Amused, Caesar rolled onto his side and propped his head up on one hand to look at her. "That pleases you?" "Oh, yes. You're the father of my son." ' "So might Dumnorix have been." Her teeth flashed in the gloom. "Never!" "That's interesting." She pulled her hair out from under her, a difficult and somewhat painful task; it lay then between them like a river of fire. "Did you have Dumnorix killed because of me?" she asked. "No. He was intriguing to create trouble during my absence in Britannia, so I ordered him to accompany me to Britannia. He thought that meant I'd kill him over there, away from all eyes which might condemn me for it. He ran away. Whereupon I showed him that if I wanted him killed, I'd have him killed under all eyes. Labienus was pleased to oblige. He never liked Dumnorix." "I don't like Labienus," she said, shivering. "Not surprising. Labienus belongs to that group of Roman men who believe that the only trustworthy Gaul is a dead one," said Caesar. "That goes for Gallic women too." "Why didn't you object when I said Orgetorix would be King of the Helvetii?" she demanded. "He is your son, yet you have no son! At the time Orgetorix was born I didn't understand how famous and influential you are in Rome. I do now." She sat up, put her hand on his shoulder. "Caesar, take him! To be king of a people as powerful as the Helvetii is a formidable fate, but to be the King of Rome is a far greater fate." He shrugged her hand off, eyes flashing. "Rhiannon, Rome will have no king! Nor would I consent to Rome's having a king! Rome is a republic and has been for five hundred years! I will be the First Man in Rome, but that is not to be Rome's king. Kings are archaic; even you Gauls are realizing that. A people prospers better when it is administered by a group of men who change through the electoral process." He smiled wryly. "Election gives every qualified man the chance to be the best or the worst." "But you are the best! No one can beat you! Caesar, you were born to be king!" she cried. "Rome would thrive under your rule you'd end in being King of the World!" "I don't want to be King of the World," he said patiently. "Just the First Man in Rome first among my equals. If I were king, I'd have no rivals, and where's the fun in that? Without a Cato and a Cicero to sharpen my wits, my mind would stultify." He leaned forward to kiss her breasts. "Leave things be, woman." "Don't you want your son to be a Roman?" she asked, snuggling against him. "It's not a matter of wanting. My son is not a Roman." "You could make him one." "My son is not a Roman. He's a Gaul." She was kissing his chest, winding a rope of hair around his growing penis. "But," she mumbled, "I'm a princess. His blood is better than it could be with a Roman woman for mother." Caesar rolled on top of her. "His blood is only half Roman and that the half which cannot be proven. His name is Orgetorix, not Caesar. His name will remain Orgetorix, not Caesar. When the time comes, send him to your people. I rather like the idea that a son of mine will be a king. But not the King of Rome." "What if I were a great queen, so great that even Rome saw my every virtue?" "If you were Queen of the World, my dear, it wouldn't be good enough. You're not Roman. Nor are you Caesar's wife." Whatever she might have said in answer to that was not said; Caesar stopped her mouth with a kiss. Because he enchanted her sexually, she left the subject to succumb to her body's pleasure, but in one corner of her mind she stored the subject for future contemplation. And future contemplation was all through that winter, while the great Roman legates passed in and out of Caesar's stone door, paid court to her son, lay on the dining couches, talking endlessly of armies, legions, supplies, fortifications ... I do not understand, nor has he made me understand. My blood is far greater than the blood of any Roman woman! I am the daughter of a king! I am the mother of a king! But my son should be the King of Rome, not the King of the Helvetii. Caesar makes no sense with his cryptic answers. How can I hope to understand what he will not teach? Would a Roman woman teach me? Could a Roman woman? So while Caesar busied himself with the preparations for his pan-Gallic conference in Samarobriva, Rhiannon sat down with an Aeduan scribe and dictated a letter in Latin to the great Roman lady Servilia. A choice of correspondent which proved that Roman gossip percolated everywhere.

I write to you, lady Servilia, because I know that you have been an intimate friend of Caesar's for many years, and that when Caesar returns to Rome, he will resume his friendship. Or so they say here in Samarobriva. I have Caesar's son, who is now three years old. My blood is royal. I am the daughter of King Orgetorix of the Helvetii, and Caesar took me off my husband, Dumnorix of the Aedui. But when my son was born, Caesar said that he would be brought up a Gaul in Gallia Comata, and insisted that he have a Gallic name. I called him Orgetorix, but I would far rather have called him Caesar Orgetorix. In our Gallic world, it is absolutely necessary that a man have at least one son. For that reason, men of the nobility have more than one wife, lest one wife prove barren. For what is a man's career, if he has no son to succeed him? Yet Caesar has no son to succeed him, and will not hear of my son's succeeding him in Rome. I asked him why. All he would answer was that I am not Roman. I am not good enough, was what he meant. Even were I the Queen of the World, yet not Roman, I would not be good enough. I do not understand, and I am angry. Lady Servilia, can you teach me to understand?

The Aeduan secretary took his wax tablets away to transcribe Rhiannon's short letter onto paper, and made a copy which he gave to Aulus Hirtius to pass on to Caesar. Hirtius's chance came when he informed Caesar that Labienus had brought the Treveri to battle with complete success. "He trounced them," said Hirtius, face expressionless. Caesar glanced at him suspiciously. "And?" he asked. "And Indutiomarus is dead." That news provoked a stare. "Unusual! I thought both the Belgae and the Celtae had learned to value their leaders enough to keep them out of the front lines." "Er they have," said Hirtius. "Labienus issued orders. No matter who or how many got away, he wanted Indutiomarus. Er not all of him. Just his head." "Jupiter, the man is a barbarian himself!" cried Caesar, very angry. "War has few rules, but one of them is that you don't deprive a people of its leaders through murder! Oh, one more thing I'll have to wrap up in Tyrian purple for the Senate! I wish I could split myself into as many legates as I need and do all their jobs myself! Isn't it bad enough that Rome should have displayed Roman heads on the Roman rostra? Are we now to display the heads of our barbarian enemies? He did display it, didn't he?" "Yes, on the camp battlements." "Did his men acclaim him imperator?" "Yes, on the field." "So he could have had Indutiomarus captured and kept for his triumphal parade. Indutiomarus would have died, but after he had been held in honor as Rome's guest, and understood the full extent of his glory. There's some distinction in dying during a triumph, but this was mean shabby! How do I make it look good in my senatorial dispatches, Hirtius?" "My advice is, don't. Tell it as it happened." "He's my legate. My second-in-command." "True." "What's the matter with the man, Hirtius?" Hirtius shrugged. "He's a barbarian who wants to be consul, in the same way Pompeius Magnus wanted to be consul. At any kind of price. Not at peace with the mos maiorum." "Another Picentine!" "Labienus is useful, Caesar." "As you say, useful," he said, staring at the wall. "He expects that I'll choose him as my colleague when I'm consul again five years from now." "Yes." "Rome will want me, but it won't want Labienus." "Yes." Caesar began to pace. "Then I have some thinking to do." Hirtius cleared his throat. "There is another matter." "Oh?" "Rhiannon." "Rhiannon?" "She's written to Servilia." "Using a scribe, since she can't write herself." "Who gave me a copy of the letter. Though I haven't let the courier take the original until you approve it." "Where is it?" Hirtius handed it over. Yet another letter was reduced to ashes, this one in the brazier. "Fool of a woman!" "Shall I have the courier take the original to Rome?" "Oh, yes. Make sure I see the answer before Rhiannon gets it, however." "That goes without saying." Down came the scarlet general's cloak from its T-shaped rack. "I need a walk," said Caesar, throwing it round his shoulders and tying its cords himself. Then he looked at Hirtius, eyes detached. "Have Rhiannon watched." "Some better news to take out into the cold, Caesar." The smile was rueful. "I need it! What?" "Ambiorix has had no luck yet with the Germani. Ever since you bridged the Rhenus they've been wary. Not all his pleading and cajoling has seen one German company cross into Gaul."