Colleen McCullough - 5. Caesar

After forty years of enduring friendship, Cicero and Atticus had a falling-out. Whereas Cicero, who had endured paroxysms of fear because of Publius Clodius, thought Clodius's death the best news Rome could possibly get, Atticus genuinely grieved. "I don't understand you, Titus!" Cicero cried. "You're one of the most important knights in Rome! You have business interests in almost every sort of enterprise, therefore you were one of Clodius's chief targets! Yet here you are sniveling because he's dead! Well, I am not sniveling! I am rejoicing!" "No one should rejoice at the untimely loss of a Claudius Pulcher," said Atticus sternly. "He was brilliant and he was the brother of one of my dearest friends, Appius Claudius. He had wit and he had a good measure of erudition. I enjoyed his company very much, and I'll miss him. I also pity his poor little wife, who loved him passionately." Atticus's bony face took on a wistful look. "Passionate love is rare, Marcus. It doesn't deserve to be cut off in its prime." "Fulvia?" squawked Cicero, outraged. "That vulgar strumpet who had the gall to barrack for Clodius in the Forum when she was so heavy with child she took up the space of two? Oh, Titus, really! She might be the daughter of Gaius Gracchus's daughter, but she's a disgrace to the name Sempronius! And the name Fulvius!" Mouth pinched, Atticus got up abruptly. "Sometimes, Cicero, you're an insufferably puckered-up prude! You ought to watch it there's still straw behind your Arpinate ears! You're a bigoted old woman from the outer fringes of Latium, and no Tullius had ventured to take up residence in Rome when Gaius Gracchus walked the Forum!" He stalked out of Cicero's reception room, leaving Cicero flabbergasted. "What's the matter with you? And where's Atticus?" barked Terentia, coming in. "Gone to dance attendance on Fulvia, I presume." "Well, he likes her, always did. She and the Clodias have always been very broadminded about his affection for boys." "Terentia! Atticus is a married man with a child!" "And what's that got to do with the price of fish?" demanded Terentia. "Truly, Cicero, you're an old woman!" Cicero flinched, winced, said nothing. "I want to talk to you." He indicated the door to his study. "In there?" he suggested meekly. "Unless you don't mind being overheard?" "It makes no difference to me." "Then here will do, will it, my dear?" She cast him a suspicious glance, but decided that bone was not worth a pick and said, "Tullia wants to divorce Crassipes." "Oh, what's the matter now?" cried Cicero, exasperated. Terentia's superbly ugly face grew uglier. "The poor girl is beside herself, that's what's the matter! Crassipes treats her like dog's mess on the sole of his boot! And where's the promise you were so convinced he showed? He's an idler and a fool!" Hands to his face, Cicero gazed at his wife in dismay. "I am aware that he's a disappointment, Terentia, but it isn't you who has to find another dowry for Tullia, it's me! If she divorces Crassipes he'll keep the hundreds of thousands of sesterces I gave him along with her, and I'll have to find another lot on top of that! She can't stay single like the Clodias! A divorced woman is the target for every gossip in Rome." "I didn't say she intended to stay single," said Terentia enigmatically. Cicero missed the significance of this, concerned only about the dowry. "I know she's a delightful girl, and luckily she's attractive. But who will marry her? If she divorces Crassipes, she'll be trailing two husbands behind her at the age of twenty-five. Without producing a child." "There's nothing wrong with her baby works," said Terentia. "Piso Frugi was so sick he didn't have the energy before he died, and Crassipes doesn't have the interest. What Tullia needs is a real man." She snorted. "If she finds one, it will be more than I ever did." Why that statement should have caused a name to pop into his mind instantaneously, Cicero afterward didn't know. Just that one did. Tiberius Claudius Nero! A full patrician, a wealthy man and a real man. He brightened, forgot Atticus and Fulvia. "I know just the fellow!" he said gleefully. "Too rich to need a big dowry too! Tiberius Claudius Nero!" Terentia's thin-lipped mouth fell open. "Nero?" "Nero. Young, but bound to reach the consulship." "Grrr!" snarled Terentia, marching out of the room. Cicero looked after her, bewildered. What had happened to his golden tongue today? It could charm no one. For which, blame Publius Clodius. "It's all Clodius's fault!" he said to Marcus Caelius Rufus when Caelius walked in. "Well, we know that," Caelius said with a grin, threw an arm about Cicero's shoulders and steered him studyward. "Why are you out here? Unless you've taken to keeping the wine out here?" "No, it's right where it always is, in the study," Cicero said, sighing in relief. He poured wine, mixed it with water, sat down. "What brings you today? Clodius?" "In a way," said Caelius, frowning. He was, to use Terentia's phrase, a real man, Caelius. Tall enough, handsome enough and virile enough to have attracted Clodia and kept her for several years. And he had been the one to do the dropping, for which Clodia had never forgiven him; the result had been a sensational trial during which Cicero, defending Caelius, had aired Clodia's scandalous behavior so effectively that the jury had been pleased to acquit Caelius of attempting to murder her. The charges had been multiple and gone much further, but Caelius got off and Publius Clodius had never forgiven him. This year he was a tribune of the plebs in a very interesting College which was largely pro-Clodius, anti-Milo. But Caelius was pro-Milo, very definitely. "I've seen Milo," he said to Cicero. "Is it true he came back to town?" "Oh, yes. He's here. Lying low until he sees which way the wind in the Forum is blowing. And rather unhappy that Pompeius chose to vanish." "Everyone I've spoken to is siding with Clodius." "I'm not, so much I can assure you!" snapped Caelius. "Thank all the Gods there are for that!" Cicero swirled his drink, looked into it, pursed his lips. "What does Milo intend to do?" "Start canvassing for the consulship. We had a long talk, and agreed that his best course is to behave as if nothing out of the way happened. Clodius encountered him on the Via Appia and attacked him. Clodius was alive when Milo and his party retreated. Well, that's the truth of it." "Indeed it is." "As soon as the stink of fire in the Forum dies down, I'm going to call a meeting of the Plebs," said Caelius, holding out his goblet for more wine-and-water. "Milo and I agreed that the smartest thing to do is to get in first with Milo's version of what happened." "Excellent!" A small silence fell, which Cicero broke by saying diffidently, "I imagine Milo has freed all the slaves who were with him." "Oh, yes." Caelius grinned. "Can't you see all the Clodius minions demanding Milo's slaves be tortured? Yet who can believe anything said under torture? Therefore, no slaves." "I hope it won't come to trial," said Cicero. "It ought not to. Self-defense precludes the need for trial." "There'll be no trial," said Caelius confidently. "By the time there are praetors to hear the case, it will be a distant memory. One good thing about the present state of anarchy: if some tribune of the plebs who bears Milo a grudge Sallustius Crispus, for example tries to institute a trial in the Plebeian Assembly, I'll veto it. And tell Sallustius what I think of men who seize an unhappy accident as an excuse to get back at a man who flogs another man for plundering his wife's virtue!" They both smiled. "I wish I knew exactly where Magnus stands in all this," said Cicero fretfully. "He's grown so cagey in his old age that one can never be sure what he thinks." "Pompeius Magnus is suffering from a terminal case of overinflated self-importance," said Caelius. "I never used to think that Julia was an influence for the good, but now she's gone I've changed my mind. She kept him busy and out of mischief." "I'm inclined to back him for Dictator." Caelius shrugged. "I haven't made up my mind yet. By rights Magnus ought to back Milo to the hilt, and if he does, then he's got my support." He grimaced. "The trouble is, I'm not sure he does intend to back Milo. He'll wait and see which way the wind in the Forum is blowing." "Then make sure you give a terrific speech for Milo."