Colleen McCullough - 4. Caesar's Women

The next morning Clodia presented herself at the Pontifex Maximus's front door accompanied by several other female members of the Clodius Club. "Is Pompeia in?" she asked Eutychus. "She is receiving, domina," said the steward, bowing as he admitted them. And off up the stairs the party went, while Eutychus hurried about his business. No need to summon Polyxena; young Quintus Pompeius Rufus was out of Rome, so there would be no men present. It was evident that Pompeia had spent the night weeping; her eyes were puffed and reddened, her demeanor woebegone. When Clodia and the others bustled in, she leaped to her feet. "Oh, Clodia, I was sure I'd never see you again!" she cried. "My dear, I wouldn't do that to you! But you can't really blame my brother, now can you? Polyxena tells Aurelia everything." "I know, I know! I'm so sorry, but what can I do?" "Nothing, dear one, nothing." Clodia seated herself in the manner of a gorgeous bird settling, then smiled around the group she had brought with her: Fulvia, Clodilla, Sempronia Tuditani, Palla, and one other whom Pompeia didn't recognize. "This," said Clodia demurely, "is my cousin Claudia from the country. She's down on a holiday." "Ave, Claudia," said Pompeia Sulla, smiling with her usual vacancy, and thinking that if Claudia was a rustic, she was very much in the mold of Palla and Sempronia Tuditani wherever she came from must deem her racy indeed, with all that paint and lush bleached hair. Pompeia tried to be polite. "I can see the family likeness," she said. "I should hope so," said cousin Claudia, pulling off that fantastic head of bright gold tresses. For a moment Pompeia looked as if she was about to faint: her mouth dropped open, she gasped for air. All of which was too much for Clodia and the others. They screamed with laughter. Sssssh!'' hissed Publius Clodius, striding in a most unfeminine way to the outer door and slamming its latch home. He then returned to his seat, pursed up his mouth and fluttered his lashes. "My dear, what a divine apartment!" he fluted. "Oh, oh, oh!" squeaked Pompeia. "Oh, you can't!" "I can, because here I am," said Clodius in his normal voice. "And you're right, Clodia. No Polyxena." "Please, please don't stay!" said Pompeia in a whisper, face white, hands writhing. "My mother in law!" "What, does she spy on you here too?" "Not usually, but the Bona Dea is happening soon, and it's being held here. I'm supposed to be organizing it." "You mean Aurelia's organizing it, surely," sneered Clodius. "Well yes, of course she is! But she's very meticulous about pretending to consult me because I'm the official hostess, the wife of the praetor in whose house Bona Dea is being held. Oh, Clodius, please go! She's in and out all the time at the moment, and if she finds my door latched, she'll complain to Caesar." "My poor baby!" crooned Clodius, enfolding Pompeia in a hug. "I'll go, I promise." He went to a magnificent polished silver mirror hanging on the wall, and with Fulvia's assistance twitched his wig into place. "I can't say you're pretty, Publius," said his wife as she put the finishing touches to his coiffure, "but you make a passable woman" she giggled "if of somewhat dubious profession!" "Come on, let's go," said Clodius to the rest of the visitors, "I only wanted to show Clodia that it could be done, and it can!" The door latch flipped; the women went out in a cluster with Clodius in its middle. Just in time. Aurelia appeared shortly thereafter, with her brows raised. "Who were they, hustling themselves off in a hurry?" "Clodia and Clodilla and a few others," said Pompeia vaguely. "You'd better know what sort of milk we're serving." "Milk?" asked Pompeia, astonished. "Oh, Pompeia, honestly!" Aurelia stood just looking at her daughter in law. "Is there nothing inside that head except trinkets and clothes?'' Whereupon Pompeia burst into tears. Aurelia emitted one of her extremely rare mild expletives (though in a muffled voice), and whisked herself away before she boxed Pompeia's ears. Outside on the Via Sacra the five genuine articles plus Clodius scurried up the road rather than down it toward the lower Forum; safer than encountering someone male they knew very well. Clodius was delighted with himself, and pranced along attracting quite a lot of attention from the well to do lady shoppers who frequented the area of the Porticus Margaritaria and the upper Forum. It was therefore with considerable relief that the women managed to get him home without someone's penetrating his disguise. "I'm going to be asked for days to come who was that strange creature with me this morning!" said Clodia wrathfully once the trappings were off and a washed, respectable Publius Clodius had disposed himself on a couch. "It was all your idea!" he protested. "Yes, but you didn't have to make a public spectacle of yourself! The understanding was that you'd wrap up well there and back, not simper and wiggle for all the world to wonder at!" "Shut up, Clodia, I'm thinking!" "About what?" "A little matter of revenge." Fulvia cuddled up to him, sensing the change. No one knew better than his wife that Clodius kept a list of victims inside his head, and no one was more prepared to help him than his wife. Of late the list had shrunk; Catilina was no more, and Arabs were probably permanently erased from it. So which one was it? "Who?" she asked, sucking his earlobe. "Aurelia," he said between his teeth. "It's high time someone cut her down to size." "And just how do you plan to do that?" Palla asked. "It won't do Fabia any good either," he said thoughtfully, "and she's another needing a lesson." "What are you up to, Clodius?" asked Clodilla, looking wary. "Mischief!" he caroled, grabbed for Fulvia and began to tickle her unmercifully.

Bona Dea was the Good Goddess, as old as Rome herself and therefore owning neither face nor form; she was numen. She did have a name, but it was never uttered, so holy was it. What she meant to Roman women no man could understand, nor why she was called Good. Her worship lay quite outside the official State religion, and though the Treasury did give her a little money, she answered to no man or group of men. The Vestal Virgins cared for her because she had no priestesses of her own; they employed the women who tended her sacred medicinal garden, and they had custody of Bona Dea's medicines, which were for Roman women only. As she had no part in masculine Rome, her huge temple precinct lay outside the pomerium on the slope of the Aventine just beneath an outcropping rock, the Saxum Sacrum or sacred stone, and close to the Aventine water reservoir. No man dared come near, nor myrtle. A statue stood within the sanctuary, but it was not an effigy of Bona Dea, only something put there to trick the evil forces generated by men into thinking that was her. Nothing was what first it seemed in the world of Bona Dea, who loved women and snakes. Her precinct abounded in snakes. Men, it was said, were snakes. And owning so many snakes, what need had Bona Dea for men? The medicines Bona Dea was famous for came from a garden all about the temple itself, beds of various herbs here, and elsewhere a sea of diseased rye planted each May Day and harvested under the supervision of the Vestals, who took its smutty ears of grain and made Bona Dea's elixir from them while thousands of snakes dozed or rustled amid the stalks, ignored and ignoring. On May Day the women of Rome woke their Good Goddess from her six month winter sleep amid flowers and festivities held in and around her temple. Roman citizen women from all walks of life flocked to attend the mysteries, which began at dawn and were ended by dusk. The exquisitely balanced duality of the Good Goddess was manifest in May birth and rye death, in wine and milk. For wine was taboo, yet had to be consumed in vast quantities. It was called milk and kept in precious silver vessels called honeypots, yet one more ruse to confound male things. Tired women wended their way home replete with milk poured from honeypots, still tingling from the voluptuous dry slither of snakes and remembering the powerful surge of snake muscle, the kiss of a forked tongue, earth broken open to receive the seed, a crown of vine leaves, the eternal female cycle of birth and death. But no man knew or wanted to know what happened at Bona Dea on May Day. Then at the beginning of December Bona Dea went back to sleep, but not publicly, not while there was a sun in the sky or one ordinary Roman woman abroad. Because what she dreamed in winter was her secret, the rites were open only to the highest born of Rome's women. All her daughters might witness her resurrection, but only the daughters of kings might watch her die. Death was sacred. Death was holy. Death was private. That this year Bona Dea would be laid to rest in the house of the Pontifex Maximus was a foregone conclusion; the choice of venue was in the province of the Vestals, who were constrained by the fact that this venue had to be the house of an incumbent praetor or consul. Not since the time of Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus had there been an opportunity to celebrate the rites in the Domus Publica itself. This year there was. The urban praetor Caesar's house was selected, and his wife Pompeia Sulla would be the official hostess. The date was to be the third night of December, and on that night no man or male child was permitted to remain in the Domus Publica, including slaves. Naturally Caesar was delighted at the choice of his house, and happy to sleep in his rooms on the lower Vicus Patricii; he might perhaps have preferred to use the old apartment in Aurelia's insula, except that it was at present occupied by Prince Masintha of Numidia, his client and the loser in a court case earlier in the year. That temper definitely frayed easier these days! At one stage he had become so incensed at the lies Prince Juba was busy telling that he had reached out and hauled Juba to his feet by seizing his beard. Not a citizen, Masintha faced flogging and strangling, but Caesar had whisked him away in the care of Lucius Decumius and was still hiding him. Perhaps, thought the Pontifex Maximus as he wandered uphill toward the Subura, just this night he could sample one of those deliciously earthy Suburan women time and the elevation of his fortunes had removed from his ken. Yes, what a terribly good idea! A meal with Lucius Decumius first, then a message to Gavia or Apronia or Scaptia ... Full darkness had fallen, but for once that part of the Via Sacra which meandered through the Forum Romanum was illuminated by torches; what seemed an endless parade of litters and lackeys converged on the main doors of the Domus Publica from all directions, and the smoky pall of light caught flashes of wondrously hued robes, sparks from fabulous jewelry, glimpses of eager faces. Cries of greeting, giggles, little snatches of conversation floated on the air as the women alighted and passed into the vestibule of the Domus Publica, shaking their trailing garments out, patting their hair, adjusting a brooch or an earring. Many a headache and many a temper tantrum had gone into the business of planning what to wear, for this was the best opportunity of the year to show one's peers how fashionably one could dress, how expensive the treasures in the jewel box were. Men never noticed! Women always did. The guest list was unusually large because the premises were so spacious; Caesar had tented over the main peristyle garden to exclude prying eyes on the Via Nova, which meant the women could congregate there as well as in the atrium temple, the Pontifex Maximus's vast dining room, and his reception room. Lamps glimmered everywhere, tables were loaded with the most sumptuous and tasty food, the honeypots of milk were bottomless and the milk itself was a superb vintage. Coveys of women musicians sat or walked about playing pipes and flutes and lyres, little drums, castanets, tambourines, silvery rattles; servants passed constantly from one cluster of guests to another with plates of delicacies, more milk. Before the solemn mysteries began the mood had to be correct, which meant the party had to have passed beyond its food, milk and chatty stage. No one was in a hurry; there was too much catching up to do as faces long unseen were recognized and hailed, and warm friends clumped to exchange the latest gossip. Reptilian snakes had no part in putting the Bona Dea to sleep; her winter soporific was the snakelike whip, a wicked thing ending in a cluster of Medusa like thongs which would curl as lovingly about a woman's flesh as any reptile. But the flagellation would be later, after Bona Dea's winter altar was lit and enough milk had been drunk to dull the pain, raise it instead to a special kind of ecstasy. Bona Dea was a hard mistress. Aurelia had insisted that Pompeia Sulla stand alongside Fabia to do door duty and welcome the guests, profoundly glad that the ladies of the Clodius Club were among the last to arrive. Well, of course they would be! It must have taken hours for middle aged tarts like Sempronia Tuditani and Palla to paint that many layers on their faces though a mere sliver of time to insert their stringy bodies into so little! The Clodias, she had to admit, were both exquisite: lovely dresses, exactly the right jewelry (and not too much of it), touches only of stibium and carmine. Fulvia as always was a law unto herself, from her flame colored gown to several ropes of blackish pearls; there was a son about two years old, but Fulvia's figure had certainly not suffered. "Yes, yes, you can go now!" her mother in law said to Pompeia after Fulvia had gushed her greetings, and smiled sourly to herself as Caesar's flighty wife skipped off arm in arm with her friend, chattering happily. Not long afterward Aurelia decided everyone was present and left the vestibule. Her anxiety to make sure things were going well would not let her rest, so she moved constantly from place to place and room to room, eyes darting hither and thither, counting servants, assessing the volume of food, cataloguing the guests and whereabouts they had settled. Even in the midst of such a controlled chaos her abacus of a mind told off this and that, facts clicking into place. Yet something kept nagging at her what was it? Who was missing? Someone was missing! Two musicians strolled past her, refreshing themselves between numbers. Their pipes were threaded round their wrists, leaving their hands to cope with milk and honey cakes. "Chryse, this is the best Bona Dea ever," said the taller one. "Isn't it just?" agreed the other, mumbling through a full mouth. "I wish all our engagements were half as good, Doris." Doris! Doris! That's who was missing, Pompeia's maid Doris! The last time Aurelia had seen her was an hour ago. Where was she? What was she up to? Was she smuggling milk on the sly to the kitchen staff, or had she guzzled so much milk herself that she was somewhere in a corner sleeping or sicking up? Off went Aurelia, oblivious to the greetings and invitations to join various groups, nose down on a trail only she could follow. Not in the dining room, no. Nor anywhere in the peristyle. Definitely not in the atrium or the vestibule. Which left the reception room to search before starting into other territory. Perhaps because Caesar's saffron tent above the peristyle was such a novelty, most of the guests had decided to gather there, and those who remained were ensconced in the dining room or the atrium, both opening directly onto the garden. Which meant that the reception room, enormous and difficult to light because of its shape, was quite deserted. The Domus Publica had proved once more that two hundred visitors and a hundred servants couldn't crowd it. Aha! There was Doris! Standing at the Pontifex Maximus's front door in the act of admitting a woman musician. But what a musician! An outlandish creature clad in the most expensive gold threaded silk from Cos, fabulous jewels around her neck and woven through her startling yellow hair. Tucked into the crook of her left arm was a superb lyre of tortoiseshell inlaid with amber, its pegs made of gold. Did Rome own a female musician able to afford a dress or jewels or an instrument like this woman's? Surely not, else she would have been famous! Something was wrong with Doris too. The girl was posturing and simpering, covering her mouth with her hand and rolling her eyes at the musician, in an agony of conspiratorial glee. Making no sound, Aurelia inched her way toward the pair with her back to the wall where the shadows were thickest. And when she heard the musician speak in a man's voice, she pounced. The intruder was a slight fellow of no more than medium height, but he had a man's strength and a young man's agility; shrugging off an elderly woman like Caesar's mother would be no difficulty. The old cunnus! This would teach her and Fabia to torment him! But this wasn't an elderly woman! This was Proteus! No matter how he twisted and turned, Aurelia hung on. Her mouth was open and she was shouting: "Help, help! We are defiled! Help, help! The mysteries are profaned! Help, help!" Women came running from everywhere, automatically moving to obey Caesar's mother as people had snapped to obey her all of her life. The musician's lyre fell jangling to the floor, both the musician's arms were pinioned, and sheer numbers defeated him. At which moment Aurelia let go, turned to face her audience. "This," she said harshly, "is a man." By now most of the guests were assembled to stand horror struck as Aurelia pulled off the golden wig, ripped the flimsy and costly gown away to reveal a man's hairy chest. Publius Clodius. Someone began to scream sacrilege. Wails and cries and shrieks swelled to such a pitch that the entire Via Nova was soon craning from every window; women fled in all directions howling that the rites of Bona Dea were polluted and profaned while the slaves bolted to their quarters, the musicians prostrated themselves tearing out hair and scratching breasts, and the three adult Vestal Virgins flung their veils over their devastated faces to keen their grief and terror away from all eyes save those belonging to Bona Dea. By now Aurelia was scrubbing at Clodius's insanely laughing face with a part of her robe, smearing black and white and red into a streaky muddy brown. "Witness this!" she roared in a voice she had never possessed. "I call upon all of you to bear witness that this male creature who violates the mysteries of Bona Dea is Publius Clodius!" And suddenly it wasn't funny anymore. Clodius stopped his cackling, stared at the stony and beautiful face so close to his own, and knew a terrible fear. He was back inside that anonymous room in Antioch, only this time it wasn't his testicles he was afraid of losing; this time it was his life. Sacrilege was still punishable by death the old way, and not even an Olympus of every great advocate Rome had ever produced would get him off. Light broke on him in a paroxysm of horror: Aurelia was the Bona Dea! He marshaled every vestige of strength he owned, tore free of the imprisoning arms, then bolted for the passageway which led between the Pontifex Maximus's suite of rooms and the triclinium. Beyond lay the private peristyle garden, freedom beckoning from the far side of a high brick wall. Like a cat he leaped for its top, scrabbled and clawed his way up, twisted his body to follow his arms, and fell over the wall onto the vacant ground below. "Bring me Pompeia Sulla, Fulvia, Clodia and Clodilla!" snapped Aurelia. "They are suspect, and I will see them!" She bundled up the gold tissue dress and the wig and handed them to Polyxena. "Put those away safely, they're evidence." The gigantic Gallic freedwoman Cardixa stood silently waiting for orders, and was instructed to see the ladies off the premises as expeditiously as possible. The rites could not continue, and Rome was plunged into a religious crisis more serious than any in living memory. "Where is Fabia?" Terentia appeared, wearing a look Publius Clodius would not have cared to see. "Fabia is gathering her wits, she'll be better soon. Oh, Aurelia, Aurelia, this is shocking! What can we do?" "We try to repair the damage, if not for our own sakes, for the sake of every Roman woman. Fabia is the Chief Vestal, the Good Goddess is in her hand. Kindly tell her to go to the Books and discover what we can do to avert disaster. How can we bury Bona Dea unless we expiate this sacrilege? And if Bona Dea is not buried, she will not rise again in May. The healing herbs will not come up, no babies will be born free of blemish, every snake creature will move away or die, the seed will perish, and black dogs will eat corpses in the gutters of this accursed city!" This time the audience didn't scream. Moans and sighs rose and whispered away into the blacknesses behind pillars, inside corners, within every heart. The city was accursed. A hundred hands pushed Pompeia, Fulvia, Clodia and Clodilla to the front of the dwindling crowd, where they stood weeping and staring about in confusion; none of them had been anywhere near when Clodius was discovered, they knew only that Bona Dea had been violated by a man. The mother of the Pontifex Maximus looked them over, as just as she was merciless. Had they been a part of the conspiracy? But every pair of eyes was wide, frightened, utterly bewildered. No, Aurelia decided, they had not been in on it. No woman above a silly Greek slave like Doris would consent to something so monstrous, so inconceivable. And what had Clodius promised that idiotic girl of Pompeia's to obtain her co operation? Doris stood between Servilia and Cornelia Sulla, weeping so hard that nose and mouth ran faster than eyes, Her turn in a moment, but first the guests. Ladies, all of you except the four front rows please go outside. This house is unholy, your presence here unlucky. Wait in the street for your conveyances, or walk home in groups. Those at the front I need to bear witness, for if this girl is not put to the test now, she will have to wait to be questioned by men, and men are foolish when they question young women." Doris's turn came. "Wipe your face, girl!" barked Aurelia. "Go on, wipe your face and compose yourself! If you do not, I'll have you whipped right here!" The girl's homespun gown came into play, the command obeyed because Aurelia's word was absolute law. "Who put you up to this, Doris?" "He promised me a bag of gold and my freedom, domina!'' "Publius Clodius?" "Yes." "Was it only Publius Clodius, or was someone else involved?" What could she say to lessen the coming punishment? How could she shrug off at least a part of the blame? Doris thought with the speed and cunning of one who had been sold into slavery after pirates had raided her Lycian fishing village; she had been twelve years old, ripe for rape and suitable for sale. Between that time and Pompeia Sulla she had endured two other mistresses, older and colder than the wife of the Pontifex Maximus. Life in service to Pompeia had turned out to be an Elysian Field, and the little chest beneath Doris's cot in her very own bedroom within Pompeia's quarters was full of presents; Pompeia was as generous as she was careless. But now nothing mattered to Doris except the prospect of the lash. If her skin was flayed off her, Astyanax would never look at her again! If men looked, they would shudder. "There was one other, domina," she whispered. "Speak up so you can be heard, girl! Who else is involved?'' "My mistress, domina. The lady Pompeia Sulla." In what way?'' asked Aurelia, ignoring a gasp from Pompeia and a huge murmur from the witnesses. If there are men present, domina, you never let the lady Pompeia out of Polyxena's sight. I was to let Publius Clodius in and take him upstairs, where they could be alone together." "It's not true!" wailed Pompeia. "Aurelia, I swear by all our Gods that it isn't true! I swear it by Bona Dea! I swear it, I swear it, I swear it!" But the slave girl clung stubbornly to her story of assignation; she would not be budged. An hour later Aurelia gave up. "The witnesses may go home. Wife and sisters of Publius Clodius, you too may go. Be prepared to answer questions tomorrow when one of us will see you. This is a women's affair; you will be dealt with by women." Pompeia Sulla had collapsed to the ground long since, where she lay sobbing. "Polyxena, take the wife of the Pontifex Maximus to her own rooms and do not leave her side for one instant." "Mama!" cried Pompeia to Cornelia Sulla as Polyxena helped her to her feet. "Mama, help me! Please help me!" Another beautiful but stony face. "No one can help you save Bona Dea. Go with Polyxena, Pompeia." Cardixa had returned from her duty at the great bronze doors; she had let the tearful guests out, their creased and wilting robes whipping about their bodies in a bitter wind, unable to walk from shock yet doomed to wait a long time for vanished litters and escorts certain they wouldn't be needed until dawn. So they sat down on the verge of the Via Sacra and huddled together to keep out the cold, gazing through horrified eyes at a city accursed. "Cardixa, lock Doris up." What will happen to me?'' the girl cried as she was marched away. "Domina, what will happen to me?" "You will answer to Bona Dea." The hours of the night wore down toward the thin misery of cock crow; there were left Aurelia, Servilia and Cornelia Sulla. "Come to Caesar's office and sit. We'll drink some wine" a sad laugh "but we won't call it milk." The wine, from Caesar's stock on a console table, helped a little; Aurelia passed a trembling hand across her eyes, pulled her shoulders back and looked at Cornelia Sulla. "What do you think, avia? Pompeia's mother asked. "I think the girl Doris was lying." "So do I," said Servilia. "I've always known my poor daughter was very stupid, but I have never known her to be malicious or destructive. She just wouldn't have the courage to assist a man to violate the Bona Dea, she really wouldn't." "But that's not what Rome is going to think," said Servilia. "You're right, Rome will believe in assignations during a most holy ceremony, and gossip. Oh, it is a nightmare! Poor Caesar, poor Caesar! To have this happen in his house, with his wife! Ye gods, what a feast for his enemies!" cried Aurelia. "The beast has two heads. The sacrilege is more terrifying, but the scandal may well prove more memorable," from Servilia. "I agree." Cornelia Sulla shuddered. "Can you imagine what's being said along the Via Nova this moment, between the uproar which went on here and the servants all dying to spread the tale as they hunt for litter bearers through the taverns? Aurelia, how can we show the Good Goddess that we love her?" "I hope Fabia and Terentia what an excellent and sensible woman she is! are busy finding that out right now." "And Caesar? Does he know yet?" asked Servilia, whose mind never strayed far from Caesar. Cardixa has gone to tell him. They speak Arvernian Gallic together if there's anyone else present." Cornelia Sulla rose to her feet, lifting her brows to Servilia in a signal that it was time to go. "Aurelia, you look so tired. There's nothing more we can do. I'm going home to bed, and I hope you intend to do the same."