Colleen McCullough - 5. Caesar

THE RUBICON from JANUARY 1 until APRIL 5 of 49 B.C.

ROME

At dawn on the first day of the new year, Gaius Scribonius Curio arrived at his house on the Palatine, where he was greeted ecstatically by his wife. "Enough, woman!" he said, hugging the breath out of her, so glad was he to see her. "Where's my son?" "You're just in time to see me give him his first meal of the day," Fulvia said, took him by the hand and led him to the nursery, where she lifted the snoozing baby Curio from his cradle and held him up proudly. "Isn't he beautiful? Oh, I always wanted to have a red-haired baby! He's your image, and won't he be naughty? Urchins always are." "I haven't seen any urchin in him. He's absolutely placid." "That's because his world is ordered and his mother transmits no anxieties to him." Fulvia nodded dismissal to the nursery maid and slipped her robe off her shoulders and arms. For a moment she stood displaying those engorged breasts, milk beading their nipples: to Curio, the most wonderful sight he had ever seen and all because of him. His loins ached with want of her, but he moved to a chair as she sat down in another and held the baby, still half asleep, to one breast. The reflex initiated, baby Curio began to suck with long, audible gulps, his tiny hands curled contentedly against his mother's brown skin. "I wouldn't care," he said in a gruff voice, "if I were to die tomorrow, Fulvia, having known this. All those years of Clodius, and I never realized what a true mother you are. No wet nurses, just you. How efficient you are. How much motherhood is a part of living for you, neither a nuisance nor a universe." She looked surprised. "Babies are lovely, Curio. They're the ultimate expression of what exists between a husband and wife. They need little in one way, lots in another. It gives me pleasure to do the natural things with them and for them. When they drink my milk, I'm exalted. It's my milk, Curio! I make it!" She grinned wickedly. "However, I'm perfectly happy to let the nursery maid change the diapers and let the laundry maid wash them." "Proper," he said, leaning back to watch. "He's four months old today," she said. "Yes, and I've missed three nundinae of seeing him grow." "How was Ravenna?" He shrugged, grimaced. "Ought I to have asked, how is Caesar?" "I don't honestly know, Fulvia." "Haven't you talked with him?" "Hours every day for three nundinae." "And yet you don't know." "He keeps his counsel while he discusses every aspect of the situation lucidly and dispassionately," said Curio, frowning and leaning forward to caress the undeniably red fuzz on his son's working scalp. "If one wanted to hear a master Greek logician, the man would be a disappointment after Caesar. Everything is weighed and defined." "So?" "So one comes away understanding everything except the single aspect one wants most to understand." "Which is?" "What he intends to do." "Will he march on Rome?" "I wish I could say yes, I wish I could say no, meum mel. But I can't. I have no idea." "They don't think he will, you know. The boni and Pompeius." "Fulvia!" Curio exclaimed, sitting up straight. "Pompeius can't possibly be that naive, even if Cato is." "I'm right," she said, detaching baby Curio from her nipple, sitting him up on her lap to face her and bending him gently forward until he produced a loud eructation. When she picked him up again, she transferred him to her other breast. This done, she resumed speaking as if there had been no pause. "They remind me of certain small animals the kind which own no real aggression, but make a mock show of it because they've learned that such mock shows work. Until the elephant comes along and treads on them because he simply doesn't see them." She sighed. "The strain in Rome is enormous, husband. Everyone is petrified. Yet the boni keep on behaving like those mock-aggressive little animals. They posture and prate in the Forum, they send the Senate and the Eighteen into absolute paroxysms of fear. While Pompeius says all sorts of weighty and gloomy things about civil war being inevitable to mice like poor old Cicero. But he doesn't believe what he says, Curio. He knows that Caesar has only one legion this side of the Alps, and he has had no evidence that more are coming. He knows that were more to come, they'd be in Italian Gaul by now. The boni know those things too. Don't you see? The louder the fuss they make and the more upsetting it is, the greater their victory will appear when Caesar gives in. They want to cover themselves in glory." "What if Caesar doesn't give in?" "They'll be stepped on." She looked at Curio keenly. "You must have some sort of instinct about what will happen, Gaius. What does your instinct say?" "That Caesar is still trying to solve his dilemma legally." "Caesar doesn't dither." "I am aware of that." "Therefore it's all sorted out in his mind already." "Yes, in that I think you're right, wife." "Are you here for a purpose, or are you home for good?" "I've been entrusted with a letter from Caesar to the Senate. He wants it read today at the inaugural meeting of the new consuls." "Who's to read it out?" "Antonius. I'm a privatus these days; they wouldn't listen." "Can you stay with me for a few days at least?" "I hope I never have to leave again, Fulvia." Shortly thereafter Curio departed for the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitol, wherein the New Year's Day meeting of the Senate was always held. When he returned several hours later, he brought Mark Antony with him. The preparations for dinner took some moments; prayers had to be said, an offering made to the Lares and Penates, togas doffed and folded, shoes removed, feet washed and dried. During all of which Fulvia held her peace, then usurped the lectus imus for herself she was one of those scandalously forward women who insisted on reclining to eat. "Tell me everything," she said as soon as the first course was laid out and the servants had retired. Antony ate, Curio talked. "Our wolfing friend here read Caesar's letter out so loudly that nothing could overcome his voice," said Curio, grinning. "What did Caesar have to say?" "He proposed that either he should be allowed to keep his provinces and his army, or else that all other holders of imperium should step down at one and the same moment he did." "Ah!" Fulvia exclaimed, satisfied. "He'll march." "What makes you think that?" asked her husband. "He made an absolutely absurd, unacceptable request." "Well, I know that, but..." "She's right," mumbled Antony, hand and mouth full of eggs. "He'll march." "Go on, what happened next?" "Lentulus Crus was in the chair. He refused to throw Caesar's proposal open to debate. Instead, he filibustered on the general state of the nation." "But Marcellus Minor is the senior consul; he has the fasces for January! Why wasn't he in the chair?" "Went home after the religious ceremonies," mumbled Antony, "Headache or something." "If you're going to speak, Marcus Antonius, take your snout out of the trough!" said Fulvia sharply. Startled, Antony swallowed and achieved a penitent smile. "Sorry," he said. "She's a strict mother," said Curio, eyes adoring her. "What happened next?" asked the strict mother. "Metellus Scipio launched into a speech," said Curio, and sighed. "Ye Gods, he's boring! Luckily he was too eager to get to his peroration to waffle on interminably. He put a motion to the House. The Law of the Ten Tribunes was invalid, he said, and that meant Caesar had no right whatsoever to his provinces or his army. He would have to appear inside Rome as a privatus to contest the next consular elections. Scipio then moved that Caesar be ordered to dismiss his army by a date to be fixed, or else be declared a public enemy." "Nasty," said Fulvia. "Oh, very. But the House was all on his side. Hardly anyone voted against his motion." "It didn't pass, surely!" Antony gulped hastily, then said with commendable clarity, "Quintus Cassius and I vetoed it." "Oh, well done!"