Colleen McCullough - 4. Caesar's Women

And so Caesar left the Forum somewhat more comfortable with the thought that the next few years would be spent here in Rome. It wouldn't be easy, and that pleased him. Catulus, Bibulus and the rest of the boni would make sure he suffered. But there were friends too; Appius Claudius wasn't tied to a faction, and as a patrician he would favor a fellow patrician. But what about Cicero? Since his brilliance and innovation had sent Gaius Verres into permanent exile, everyone knew Cicero, who labored under the extreme disadvantage of having no ancestors worth speaking of. A homo novus, a New Man. The first of his respectable rural family to sit in the Senate. He came from the same district as Marius had, and was related to him; but some flaw in his nature had blinded him to the fact that outside of the Senate, most of Rome still worshiped the memory of Gaius Marius. So Cicero refused to trade on that relationship, shunned all mention of his origins in Arpinum, and spent his days trying to pretend that he was a Roman of the Romans. He even had the wax masks of many ancestors in his atrium, but they belonged to the family of his wife, Terentia; like Gaius Marius, he had married into the highest nobility and counted on Terentia's connections to ease him into the consulship. The best way to describe him was as a social climber, something his relative Gaius Marius had never been. Marius had married the older sister of Caesar's father, Caesar's beloved Aunt Julia, and for the same reasons Cicero had married his ugly Terentia. Yet to Marius the consulship had been a way to secure a great military command, nothing else. Whereas Cicero saw the consulship itself as the height of his ambitions. Marius had wanted to be the First Man in Rome. Cicero just wanted to belong by right to the highest nobility in the land. Oh, he would succeed! In the law courts he had no peer, which meant he had built up a formidable group of grateful villains who wielded colossal influence in the Senate. Not to mention that he was Rome's greatest orator, which meant he was sought after by other men of colossal influence to speak on their behalf. No snob, Caesar was happy to accept Cicero for his own merits, and hoped to woo him into that Caesar faction. The trouble was that Cicero was an incurable vacillator; that immense mind saw so many potential hazards that in the end he was likely to let timidity make his decisions for him. And to a man like Caesar, who had never let fear conquer his instincts, timidity was the worst of all masters. Having Cicero on his side would make political life easier for Caesar. But would Cicero see the advantages allegiance would bring him? That was on the lap of the Gods. Cicero was besides a poor man, and Caesar didn't have the money to buy him. His only source of income aside from his family lands in Arpinum was his wife; Terentia was extremely wealthy. Unfortunately she also controlled her own funds, and refused to indulge Cicero's taste for artworks and country villas. Oh, for money! It removed so many difficulties, especially for a man who wanted to be the First Man in Rome. Look at Pompey the Great, master of untold wealth. He bought adherents. Whereas Caesar for all his illustrious ancestry did not have the money to buy adherents or votes. In that respect, he and Cicero were two of a kind. Money. If anything could defeat him, thought Caesar, it was lack of money.

On the following morning Caesar dismissed his clients after the dawn ritual and walked alone down the Vicus Patricii to the suite of rooms he rented in a tall insula located between the Fabricius dye works and the Suburan Baths. This had become his bolt hole after he returned from the war against Spartacus, when the living presence of mother and wife and daughter within his own home had sometimes rendered it so overpoweringly feminine that it proved intolerable. Everyone in Rome was used to noise, even those who dwelled in spacious houses upon the Palatine and Carinae slaves shouted, sang, laughed and squabbled as they went about their work, and babies howled, small children screamed, womenfolk chattered incessantly when they weren't intruding to nag or complain. Such a normal situation that it scarcely impinged upon most men at the head of a household. But in that respect Caesar chafed, for in him resided a genuine liking for solitude as well as little patience for what he regarded as trivia. Being a true Roman, he had not attempted to reorganize his domestic environment by forbidding noise and feminine intrusions, but rather avoided them by giving himself a bolt hole. He liked beautiful objects, so the three rooms he rented on the second floor of this insula belied their location. His only real friend, Marcus Licinius Crassus, was an incurable acquisitor of estates and properties, and for once Crassus had succumbed to a generous impulse, sold Caesar very cheaply sufficient mosaic flooring to cover the two rooms Caesar himself used. When he had bought the house of Marcus Livius Drusus, Crassus had rather despised the floor's antiquity; but Caesar's taste was unerring, he knew nothing so good had been produced in fifty years. Similarly, Crassus had been pleased to use Caesar's apartment as practice for the squads of unskilled slaves he (very profitably) trained in prized and costly trades like plastering walls, picking out moldings and pilasters with gilt, and painting frescoes. Thus when Caesar entered this apartment he heaved a sigh of sheer satisfaction as he gazed around the perfections of study cum reception room and bedroom. Good, good! Lucius Decumius had followed his instructions to the letter and arranged several new items of furniture exactly where Caesar had wanted. They had been found in Further Spain and shipped to Rome ahead of time: a glossy console table carved out of reddish marble with lion's feet legs, a gilded couch covered in Tyrian purple tapestry, two splendid chairs. There, he noted with amusement, was the new bed Lucius Decumius had mentioned, a commodious structure in ebony and gilt with a Tyrian purple spread. Who could guess, looking at Lucius Decumius, that his taste was quite up there with Caesar's? The owner of this establishment didn't bother checking the third room, which was really a section of the balcony rimming the interior light well. Either end of it had been walled off for privacy from the neighbors, and the light well itself was heavily shuttered, allowing air but forbidding prying eyes any sight of its interior. Herein the service arrangements were located, from a man sized bronze bath to a cistern storing water to a chamber pot. There were no cooking facilities and Caesar did not employ a servant who lived in the apartment. Cleaning was in the care of Aurelia's servants, whom Eutychus sent down regularly to empty the bath water and keep the cistern filled, the chamber pot sweet, the linen washed, the floors swept, and every other surface dusted. Lucius Decumius was already there, perched on the couch, his legs swinging clear of the exquisitely colored merman on the floor, his eyes upon a scroll he held between his hands. "Making sure the College accounts are in order for the urban praetor's audit?" asked Caesar, closing the door. "Something like that," Lucius Decumius answered, letting the scroll fly shut with a snap. Caesar crossed to consult the cylinder of a water clock. "According to this little beast, it's time to go downstairs, dad. Perhaps she won't be punctual, especially if Silanus has no love of chronometers, but somehow the lady didn't strike me as a person who ignores the passage of time." "You won't want me here, Pavo, so I'll just shove her in the door and go home," said Lucius Decumius, exiting promptly. Caesar seated himself at his desk to write a letter to Queen Oradaltis in Bithynia, but though he wrote as expeditiously as he did everything else, he had not done more than put paper in front of him when the door opened and Servilia entered. His assessment was right: she was not a lady who ignored time. Rising, he went round the desk to greet her, intrigued when she extended her hand the way a man would. He shook it with exactly the courteous pressure such small bones demanded, but as he would have shaken a man's hand. There was a chair ready at his desk, though before she arrived he had not been sure whether to conduct this interview across a desk or more cozily ensconced in closer proximity. His mother had been right: Servilia was not easy to read. So he ushered her to the chair opposite, then returned to his own. Hands clasped loosely on the desk in front of him, he looked at her solemnly. Well preserved if she was nearing thirty seven years of age, he decided, and elegantly dressed in a vermilion robe whose color skated perilously close to the flame of a prostitute's toga and yet contrived to appear unimpeachably respectable. Yes, she was clever! Thick and so black its highlights shone more blue than red, her hair was pulled back from a center parting to meet a separate wing covering the upper tip of each ear, the whole then knotted into a bun on the nape of her neck. Unusual, but again respectable. A small, somewhat pursed mouth, good clear white skin, heavily lidded black eyes fringed with long and curling black lashes, brows he suspected she plucked heavily, and most interesting of all a slight sagging in the muscles of her right cheek that he had also noticed in the son, Brutus. Time to break the silence, since it appeared she was not about to do so. "How may I help you, domina? he asked formally. Decimus Silanus is our paterfamilias, Gaius Julius, but there are certain things pertaining to the affairs of my late first husband, Marcus Junius Brutus, that I prefer to deal with myself. My present husband is not a well man, so I try to spare him extra burdens. It is important that you do not misunderstand my actions, which may seem on the surface to usurp duties more normally in the sphere of the paterfamilias, she said with even greater formality. The expression of aloof interest his face had displayed since he sat down did not change; Caesar merely leaned back a little in his chair. "I will not misunderstand," he said. Impossible to say she relaxed at that, for she had not seemed from the moment of her entry to be anything other than relaxed. Yet a more assured tinge crept into her wariness; it looked at him out of her eyes. "You met my son, Marcus Junius Brutus, the day before yesterday," she said. "A nice boy." "I think so, yes." "Still technically a child." "For some few months yet. This matter concerns him, and he insists it will not wait." A faint smile touched the left corner of her mouth, which seemed from watching her speak to be more mobile than the right corner. "Youth is impetuous." "He didn't seem impetuous to me," said Caesar. "Nor is he in most things." "So I am to gather that your errand is on behalf of something young Marcus Junius Brutus wants?" "That is correct." "Well," said Caesar, exhaling deeply, "having established the proper protocol, perhaps you'll tell me what he wants." "He wishes to espouse your daughter, Julia." Masterly self control! applauded Servilia, unable to detect any reaction in eyes, face, body. "She's only eight," said Caesar. And he not yet officially a man. However, he wishes it." "He may change his mind." "So I told him. But he assures me he will not, and he ended in convincing me of his sincerity." "I'm not sure I want to betroth Julia yet." "Whyever not? My own daughters are both contracted already, and they are younger than Julia." "Julia's dowry is very small." "No news to me, Gaius Julius. However, my son's fortune is large. He doesn't need a wealthy bride. His own father left him extremely well provided for, and he is Silanus's heir too." "You may yet have a son to Silanus." "Possibly." "But not probably, eh?" "Silanus throws daughters." Caesar leaned forward again, still appearing detached. "Tell me why I should agree to the match, Servilia." Her brows rose. I should have thought that was self evident! How could Julia look higher for a husband? On my side Brutus is a patrician Servilius, on his father's side he goes back to Lucius Junius Brutus, the founder of the Republic. All of which you know. His fortune is splendid, his political career will certainly carry him to the consulship, and he may well end in being censor now that the censorship is restored. There is a blood relationship through the Rutilii as well as through both the Servilii Caepiones and the Livii Drusi. There is also amicitia through Brutus's grandfather's devotion to your uncle by marriage, Gaius Marius. I am aware that you are closely related to Sulla's family, but neither my own family nor my husband had any quarrel with Sulla. Your own dichotomy between Marius and Sulla is more pronounced than any Brutus can lay claim to." "Oh, you argue like an advocate!" said Caesar appreciatively, and finally smiled. "I will take that as a compliment." "You should." Caesar got up and walked round the desk, held out his hand to help her rise. "Am I to have no answer, Gaius Julius?" "You will have an answer, but not today." "When, then?" she asked, walking to the door. A faint but alluring perfume came stealing from her as she preceded Caesar, who was about to tell her he would give her his answer after the elections when he suddenly noticed something that fascinated him into wanting to see her again sooner than that. Though she was irreproachably covered up as her class and status demanded, the back of her robe had sagged to expose the skin over neck and spine to the middle of her shoulder blades, and there like a finely feathered track a central growth of black fuzz traveled down from her head to disappear into the depths of her clothing. It looked silky rather than coarse and lay flat against her white skin, but it was not lying as it was intended to lie because whoever had dried her back after her bath hadn't cared enough to smooth it carefully into a crest along the well padded knobs of her spine. How it cried out for that small attention! "Come back tomorrow, if that is convenient," said Caesar, reaching past her to open the door. No attendant waited on the minute stair landing, so he walked her down two flights to the vestibule. But when he would have taken her outside, she stopped him. "Thank you, Gaius Julius, this far will do," she said. "You're sure? It's not the best neighborhood." "I have an escort. Until tomorrow, then." Back up the stairs to the last lingering tendrils of that subtle perfume and a feeling that somehow the room was emptier than it had ever been. Servilia... She was deep and every layer was differently hard, iron and marble and basalt and adamas. Not at all nice. Not feminine, either, despite those large and shapely breasts. It might prove disastrous to turn one's back on her, for in his fancy she had two faces like Janus, one to see where she was going and one to see who followed behind. A total monster. Little wonder everyone said Silanus looked sicker and sicker. No paterfamilias would intercede for Brutus; she hadn't needed to explain that to him. Clearly Servilia managed her own affairs, including her son, no matter what the law said. So was betrothal to Julia her idea, or did it indeed stem from Brutus? Aurelia might know. He would go home and ask her. And home he went, still thinking about Servilia, what it would be like to regulate and discipline that thin line of black fuzz down her back. "Mater," he said, erupting into her office, "I need an urgent consultation, so stop what you're doing and come into my study!" Down went Aurelia's pen; she stared at Caesar in amazement. "It's rent day," she said. "I don't care if it's quarter day." He was gone before he had quite finished that short sentence, leaving Aurelia to abandon her accounts in a state of shock. Not like Caesar! What had gotten into him? Well?'' she asked, stalking into his tablinum to find him standing with his hands behind his back and rocking from heels to toes and back again. His toga lay in a massive heap on the floor, so she bent to pick it up, then tossed it out the door into the dining room before shutting herself in. For a moment he acted as if she hadn't yet arrived, then started, glanced at her in mingled amusement and exhilaration? before moving to seat her in the chair she always used. "My dear Caesar, can't you stay still, even if you can't sit down? You look like an alley cat with the wind in its tail." That struck him as exquisitely funny; he roared with laughter. "I probably feel like an alley cat with the wind in its tail!" Rent day disappeared; Aurelia realized from what interview with whom Caesar must just have emerged. "Oho! Servilia!" "Servilia," he echoed, and sat down, suddenly recovering from that fizzing state of exaltation. "In love, are we?" asked the mother clinically. He considered that, shook his head. "I doubt it. In lust, perhaps, though I'm not even sure of that. I dislike her, I think." "A promising beginning. You're bored." "True. Certainly bored with all these women who gaze adoringly and lie down to let me wipe my feet on them." "She won't do that for you, Caesar." "I know, I know." "What did she want to see you for? To start an affair?" "Oh, we haven't progressed anywhere as far along as that, Mater. In fact, I have no idea whether my lust is reciprocated. It may well not be, because it only really began when she turned her back on me to go." "I grow more curious by the moment. What did she want?" "Guess," he said, grinning. "Don't play games with me!" "You won't guess?" "I'll do more than refuse to guess, Caesar, if you don't stop acting like a ten year old. I shall leave." "No, no, stay there, Mater, I'll behave. It just feels so good to be faced with a challenge, a little bit of terra incognita." "Yes, I do understand that," she said, and smiled. "Tell me." "She came on young Brutus's behalf. To ask that I consent to a betrothal between young Brutus and Julia." That obviously came as a surprise; Aurelia blinked several times. "How extraordinary!" The thing is, Mater, whose idea is it? Hers or Brutus's?" Aurelia put her head on one side and thought. Finally she nodded and said, "Brutus's, I would think. When one's dearly loved granddaughter is a mere child, one doesn't expect things like that to happen, but upon reflection there have been signs. He does tend to look at her like a particularly dense sheep," "You're full of the most remarkable animal metaphors today, Mater! From alley cats to sheep." "Stop being facetious, even if you are in lust for the boy's mother. Julia's future is too important." He sobered instantly. "Yes, of course. Considered in the crudest light, it is a wonderful offer, even for a Julia." "I agree, especially at this time, before your own political career is anywhere near its zenith. Betrothal to a Junius Brutus whose mother is a Servilius Caepio would gather you immense support among the boni, Caesar. All the Junii, both the patrician and the plebeian Servilii, Hortensius, some of the Domitii, quite a few of the Caecilii Metelli even Catulus would have to pause." "Tempting," said Caesar. "Very tempting if the boy is serious." "His mother assures me he is." "I believe he is too. Nor does he strike me as the kind to blow hot and cold. A very sober and cautious boy, Brutus." "Would Julia like it?" asked Caesar, frowning. Aurelia's brows rose. "That's an odd question coming from you. You're her father, her marital fate is entirely in your hands, and you've never given me any reason to suppose you would consider letting her marry for love. She's too important, she's your only child. Besides, Julia will do as she's told. I've brought her up to understand that things like marriage are not hers to dictate." "But I would like her to like the idea." "You are not usually a prey to sentiment, Caesar. Is it that you don't care much for the boy yourself?" she asked shrewdly. He sighed. "Partly, perhaps. Oh, I didn't dislike him the way I dislike his mother. But he seemed a dull dog." "Animal metaphors!" That made him laugh, but briefly. "She's such a sweet little thing, and so lively. Her mother and I were so happy that I'd like to see her happy in her marriage." "Dull dogs make good husbands," said Aurelia. "You're in favor of the match." I am. If we let it go, another half as good may not come Julia's way. His sisters have snared young Lepidus and Vatia Isauricus's eldest son, so there are two very eligible matches gone already. Would you rather give her to a Claudius Pulcher or a Caecilius Metellus? Or Pompeius Magnus's son?" He shuddered, flinched. "You're absolutely right, Mater. Better a dull dog than ravening wolf or mangy cur! I was rather hoping for one of Crassus's sons." Aurelia snorted. "Crassus is a good friend to you, Caesar, but you know perfectly well he'll not let either of his boys marry a girl with no dowry to speak of." "Right again, Mater." He slapped his hands on his knees, a sign that he had made up his mind. "Marcus Junius Brutus let it be, then! Who knows? He might turn out as irresistibly handsome as Paris once he's over the pimple stage." "I do wish you didn't have a tendency to levity, Caesar!" said his mother, rising to go back to her books. "It will hamper your career in the Forum, just as it does Cicero's from time to time. The poor boy will never be handsome. Or dashing." "In which case," said Caesar with complete seriousness, "he is lucky. They never trust fellows who are too handsome." "If women could vote," said Aurelia slyly, "that would soon change. Every Memmius would be King of Rome." "Not to mention every Caesar, eh? Thank you, Mater, but I prefer things the way they are." Servilia did not mention her interview with Caesar when she returned home, either to Brutus or Silanus. Nor did she mention that on the morrow she was going to see him again. In most households the news would have leaked through the servants, but not in Servilia's domain. The two Greeks whom she employed as escorts whenever she ventured out were old retainers, and knew her better than to gossip, even among their compatriots. The tale of the nursemaid she had seen flogged and crucified for dropping baby Brutus had followed her from Brutus's house to Silanus's, and no one made the mistake of deeming Silanus strong enough to cope with his wife's temperament or temper. No other crucifixion had happened since, but of floggings there were sufficient to ensure instant obedience and permanently still tongues. Nor was it a household wherein slaves were manumitted, could don the Cap of Liberty and call themselves freedmen or freedwomen. Once you were sold into Servilia's keeping, you stayed a slave forever. Thus when the two Greeks accompanied her to the bottom end of the Vicus Patricii the following morning, they made no attempt to see what lay inside the building, nor dreamed of creeping up the stairs a little later to listen at doors, peer through keyholes. Not that they suspected a liaison with some man; Servilia was too well known to be above reproach in that respect. She was a snob, and it was generally held by her entire world from peers to servants that she would deem Jupiter Optimus Maximus beneath her. Perhaps she would have, had the Great God accosted her, but a liaison with Gaius Julius Caesar certainly occupied her mind most attractively as she trod up the stairs alone, finding it significant that this morning the peculiar and rather noisome little man of yesterday was not in evidence. The conviction that something other than a betrothal would come of her interview with Caesar had not occurred until, as he had ushered her to the door, she sensed a change in him quite palpable enough to trigger hope nay, anticipation. Of course she knew what all of Rome knew, that he was fastidious to a fault about the condition of his women, that they had to be scrupulously clean. So she had bathed with extreme care and limited her perfume to a trace incapable of disguising natural odors underneath; luckily she didn't sweat beyond a modicum, and never wore a robe more than once between launderings. Yesterday she had worn vermilion: today she chose a rich deep amber, put amber pendants in her ears and amber beads around her neck. I am tricked out for a seduction, she thought, and knocked upon the door, He answered it himself, saw her to the chair, sat behind his desk just as he had yesterday. But he didn't look at her as he had yesterday; today the eyes were not detached, not cold. They held something she had never seen in a man's eyes before, a spark of intimacy and ownership that did not set her back up or make her dismiss him as lewd or crude. Why did she think that spark honored her, distinguished her from all her fellow women? "What have you decided, Gaius Julius?" she asked. "To accept young Brutus's offer." That pleased her; she smiled broadly for the first time in his acquaintance with her, and revealed that the right corner of her mouth was definitely less strong than the left. "Excellent!" she said, and sighed through a smaller, shyer smile. "Your son means a great deal to you." "He means everything to me," she said simply. There was a sheet of paper on his desk; he glanced down at it. "I've drawn up a proper legal agreement to the betrothal of your son and my daughter," he said, "but if you prefer, we can keep the matter more informal for a while, at least until Brutus is further into his manhood. He may change his mind." "He won't, and I won't," answered Servilia. "Let us conclude the business here and now." "If you wish, but I should warn you that once an agreement is signed, both parties and their guardians at law are fully liable at law for breach of promise suits and compensation equal to the amount of the dowry." "What is Julia's dowry?" Servilia asked. "I've put it down at one hundred talents." That provoked a gasp. "You don't have a hundred talents to dower her, Caesar!" "At the moment, no. But Julia won't reach marriageable age until after I'm consul, for I have no intention of allowing her to marry before her eighteenth birthday. By the time that day arrives, I will have the hundred talents for her dowry." "I believe you will," said Servilia slowly. "However, it means that should my son change his mind, he'll be a hundred talents poorer." Not so sure of his constancy now?'' asked Caesar, grinning. "Quite as sure," she said. "Let us conclude the business." "Are you empowered to sign on Brutus's behalf, Servilia? It did not escape me that yesterday you called Silanus the boy's paterfamilias." She wet her lips. "I am Brutus's legal guardian, Caesar, not Silanus. Yesterday I was concerned that you should think no worse of me for approaching you myself rather than sending my husband. We live in Silanus's house, of which he is indeed the paterfamilias. But Uncle Mamercus was the executor of my late husband's will, and of my own very large dowry. Before I married Silanus, Uncle Mamercus and I tidied up my affairs, which included my late husband's estates. Silanus was happy to agree that I should retain control of what is mine, and act as Brutus's guardian. The arrangement has worked well, and Silanus doesn't interfere." "Never?" asked Caesar, eyes twinkling. "Well, only once," Servilia admitted. "He insisted I should send Brutus to school rather than keep him at home to be tutored privately. I saw the force of his argument, and agreed to try it. Much to my surprise, school turned out to be good for Brutus. He has a natural tendency toward what he calls intellectualism, and his own pedagogue inside his own house would have reinforced it." "Yes, one's own pedagogue does tend to do that," said Caesar gravely. "He's still at school, of course." "Until the end of the year. Next year he'll go to the Forum and a grammaticus. Under the care of Uncle Mamercus." A splendid choice and a splendid future. Mamercus is a relation of mine too. Might I hope that you allow me to participate in Brutus's rhetorical education? After all, I am destined to be his father in law," said Caesar, getting up. "That would delight me," said Servilia, conscious of a vast and unsettling disappointment. Nothing was going to happen! Her instincts had been terribly, dreadfully, horribly wrong! He went round behind her chair, she thought to assist her departure, but somehow her legs refused to work; she had to continue to sit like a statue and feel ghastly. "Do you know," came his voice or a voice, so different and throaty was it "that you have the most delicious little ridge of hair as far down your backbone as I can see? But no one tends it properly, it's rumpled and lies every which way. That is a shame, I thought so yesterday." He touched the nape of her neck just below the great coil of her hair, and she thought at first it was his fingertips, sleek and languorous. But his head was immediately behind hers, and both his hands came round to cup her breasts. His breath cooled her neck like a breeze on wet skin, and it was then she understood what he was doing. Licking that growth of superfluous hair she hated so much, that her mother had despised and derided until the day she died. Licking it first on one side and then the other, always toward the ridge of her spine, working slowly down, down. And all Servilia could do was to sit a prey to sensations she had not imagined existed, burned and drenched in a storm of feeling. Married though she had been for eighteen years to two very different men, in all her life she had never known anything like this fiery and piercing explosion of the senses reaching outward from the focus of his tongue, diving inward to invade breasts and belly and core. At some stage she did manage to get up, not to help him untie the girdle below her breasts nor to ease the layers of her clothing off her shoulders and eventually to the floor those he did for himself but to stand while he followed the line of hair with his tongue until it dwindled to invisibility where the crease of her buttocks began. And if he produced a knife and plunged it to the hilt in my heart, she thought, I could not move an inch to stop him, would not even want to stop him. Nothing mattered save the ongoing gratification of a side of herself she had never dreamed she owned. His own clothing, both toga and tunic, remained in place until he reached the end of his tongue's voyage, when she felt him step back from her, but could not turn to face him because if she let go the back of the chair she would fall. "Oh, that's better," she heard him say. "That's how it must be, always. Perfect." He came back to her and turned her round, pulling her arms to circle his waist, and she felt his skin at last, put up her face for the kiss he had not yet given her. But instead he lifted her up and carried her to the bedroom, set her down effortlessly on the sheets he had already turned down in readiness. Her eyes were closed, she could only sense him looming over her, but they opened when he put his nose to her navel and inhaled deeply. "Sweet," he said, and moved down to mons veneris. "Plump, sweet and juicy," he said, laughing. How could he laugh? But laugh he did; then as her eyes widened at the sight of his erection, he gathered her against him and kissed her mouth at last. Not like Brutus, who had stuck his tongue in so far and so wetly it had revolted her. Not like Silanus, whose kisses were reverent to the point of chasteness. This was perfect, something to revel in, join in, linger at. One hand stroked her back from buttocks to shoulders; the fingers of the other gently explored between the lips of her vulva and set her to shivering and shuddering. Oh, the luxury of it! The absolute glory of not caring what kind of impression she was making, whether she was being too forward or too backward, what he was thinking of her! Servilia didn't care, didn't care, didn't care. This was for herself. So she rolled on top of him and put both her hands around his erection to guide it home, then sat on it and ground her hips until she screamed her ecstasy aloud, as transfixed and pinioned as a woodland creature on a huntsman's spear. Then she fell forward and lay against his chest as limp and finished as that woodland creature killed. Not that he was finished with her. The lovemaking continued for what seemed hours, though she had no idea when he attained his own orgasm or whether there were several or just the one, for he made no sound and remained erect until suddenly he ceased. "It really is very big," she said, lifting his penis and letting it drop against his belly. "It really is very sticky," he said, uncoiled lithely and disappeared from the room. When he returned her sight had come back sufficiently to perceive that he was hairless like the statue of a god, and put together with the care of a Praxiteles Apollo. "You are so beautiful," she said, staring. "Think it if you must, but don't say it" was his answer. "How can you like me when you have no hair yourself?" "Because you're sweet and plump and juicy, and that line of black down ravishes me." He sat upon the edge of the bed and gave her a smile that made her heart beat faster. "Besides which, you enjoyed yourself. That's at least half the fun of it as far as I'm concerned." "Is it time to go?" she asked, sensitive to the fact that he made no move to lie down again. "Yes, it's time to go." He laughed. "I wonder if technically this counts as incest? Our children are engaged to be married." But she lacked his sense of the ridiculous, and frowned. "Of course not!" "A joke, Servilia, a joke," he said gently, and got up. "I hope what you wore doesn't crease. Everything is still on the floor in the other room." While she dressed, he began filling his bath from the cistern by dipping a leather bucket into it and tossing the water out from the bucket into the bath tirelessly. Nor did he stop when she came to watch. "When can we meet again?" she asked. "Not too often, otherwise it will pall, and I'd rather it didn't," he said, still ladling water. Though she was not aware of it, this was one of his tests; if the recipient of his lovemaking proceeded with tears or many protestations to show him how much she cared, his interest waned. "I agree with you," she said. The bucket stopped in mid progress; Caesar gazed at her, arrested. "Do you really?" "Absolutely," she said, making sure her amber earrings were properly hooked into place. Do you have any other women?" "Not at the moment, but it can change any day." This was the second test, more rigorous than the first. "Yes, you do have a reputation to maintain, I can see that." "Can you really?" "Of course." Though her sense of humor was vestigial, she smiled a little and said, "I understand what they all say about you now, you see. I'll be stiff and sore for days." "Then let's meet again the day after the Popular Assembly elections. I'm standing for curator of the Via Appia." "And my brother Caepio for quaestor. Silanus of course will stand for praetor in the Centuries before that." "And your other brother, Cato, will no doubt be elected a tribune of the soldiers." Her face squeezed in, mouth hard, eyes like stone. "Cato is not my brother, he's my half brother," she said. They say that of Caepio too. Same mare, same stallion." She drew a breath, looked at Caesar levelly. "I am aware of what they say, and I believe it to be true. But Caepio bears my own family's name, and since he does, I acknowledge him." "That's very sensible of you," said Caesar, and returned to emptying his bucket. Whereupon Servilia, assured that she looked passable if not as unruffled as she had some hours before, took her departure. Caesar entered the bath, his face thoughtful. That was an unusual woman. A plague upon seductive feathers of black down! Such a silly thing to bring about his downfall. Down fall. A good pun, if inadvertent. He wasn't sure he liked her any better now they were lovers, yet he knew he was not about to give her her cong. For one thing, she was a rarity in other ways than in character. Women of his own class who could behave between the sheets without inhibition were as scarce as cowards in a Crassus army. Even his darling Cinnilla had preserved modesty and decorum. Well, that was the way they were brought up, poor things. And, since he had fallen into the habit of being honest with himself, he had to admit that he would make no move to have Julia brought up in any other way. Oh, there were trollops among his own class, women who were as famous for their sexual tricks as any whore from the late great Colubra to the ageing Praecia. But when Caesar wanted an uninhibited sexual frolic, he preferred to seek it among the honest and open, earthy and decent women of the Subura. Until today and Servilia. Who would ever have guessed it? She wouldn't gossip about her fling, either. He rolled over in the bath and reached for his pumice stone; no use working with a strigilis in cold water, a man needed to sweat in order to scrape. "And how much," he asked the drab little bit of pumice, "do I tell my mother about this? Odd! She's so detached I usually find no difficulty in talking to her about women. But I think I shall don the solid purple toga of a censor when I mention Servilia."