The October Horse (65 page)

“Only one thing worries me,” said Cleopatra over a late meal.

“What's that, my love?”

“I am still not with child.”

“Well, I haven't been able to get across the Tiber nearly as often as I had hoped,” he said calmly, “and it seems I am not a man who impregnates his women the moment he doffs his toga.”

“I fell with Caesarion immediately.”

“Accidents do happen.”

“It must be because I don't have Tach'a with me. She could read the petal bowl, she knew the days to make love.”

“Offer to Juno Sospita. Her temple is outside the sacred boundary,” he said easily.

“I have offered to Isis and Hathor, but I suspect they don't like being so far from Nilus.”

“Never mind, they'll be home again soon.”

She rolled over on the couch, her big golden eyes raised to his face. Yes, he was terribly tired, and sometimes forgetful of his sweet drink. There had been one public episode when he fell and twitched, but luckily Hapd'efan'e had been there and got the syrup down before he needed to intubate. Caesar, recovered, had blamed it on muscle cramps, which seemed to satisfy his audience. The one good thing about it was that it had given him a fright, so he had been more mindful since, Hapd'efan'e more alert.

“You've grown so beautiful in my eyes,” he said, rubbing one palm on her belly. Poor little girl, deprived of her issue because a Roman man, Pontifex Maximus, could not condone incest. Purring and stretching, she lowered her long black lashes, reached out a hand to touch him.

“Me, with my great beaky nose and my scrawny body?” she asked. “Even at sixty, Servilia is more beautiful.”

“Servilia is an evil woman, make no mistake about that. Once I did think her beautiful, but what kept me in her toils was never beauty. She's intelligent, interesting, and devious.”

“I've found her a very good friend.”

“For her own purposes, believe me.”

Cleopatra shrugged. “What do her purposes matter? I'm not a Roman woman she can ruin, and you're right, she's intelligent and interesting. She saved me from dying of boredom while you were in Spain. Through her, I actually met a few more Roman women. That Clodia!” She giggled. “A female rake, very good company. And she brought me Hortensia, surely the most intelligent woman here.”

“I wouldn't know. After Caepio died—and that's over twenty years ago—she donned widow's weeds and refused every suitor who dangled after her. I'm surprised she mixes with Clodia.”

“Perhaps,” said Cleopatra demurely, “Hortensia prefers to have lovers. Perhaps she and Clodia sit together and choose them from among the naked young swimmers in the Trigarium.”

“One thing about that family of Claudians, they never have cared about their reputations. Do they still visit, Clodia and Hortensia?”

“Often. In fact, I see more of them than I do of you.”

“A reproach?”

“No, I understand, but that doesn't make your absences any easier to bear. Though since you've been back, I see more Roman men. Lucius Piso and Philippus, for instance.”

“And Cicero?”

“Cicero and I don't get along,” said Cleopatra, pulling a face. “What I want to know is, when will you bring some of the more famous Roman men to visit me? Like Marcus Antonius. I'm dying to meet him, but he ignores my invitations.”

“With Fulvia for wife, he wouldn't dare accept them.” Caesar grinned. “She's very possessive.”

“Well, don't tell her he's coming.” After a small pause she said, wistfully, “Won't I see you again until the Ides are gone? I'd hoped for tomorrow too.”

“I can sleep in your bed tonight, my love, but at dawn I must get back to the city. Too much work.”

“Then tomorrow night?” she pressed.

“I can't. Lepidus is having a men's dinner I daren't miss. I'll have to work through it, but at least I'll have a chance to shake a few hands I mightn't otherwise. It would be churlish to tell Brutus and Cassius about their provinces for the first time in the full glare of the Senate.”

“Two more famous men I've never met.”

“Pharaoh, you're twenty-five years old now, therefore quite old enough to realize why a great many of Rome's most prominent men and women are reluctant to make your acquaintance,” Caesar said levelly. “They call you the Queen of Beasts, and blame you for my reputed desire to become the King of Rome. You're deemed a corrupting influence.”

“How idiotic!” she cried, sitting up indignantly. “There's no one in the world could influence your thinking.”

•      •      •

Marcus Aemilius Lepidus had done very well for himself since Caesar had been declared Dictator. The youngest of the three sons of that Lepidus who, with Brutus's father, had rebelled against Sulla, he had been born with a caul over his face; this was considered a mark of lifelong good fortune. Certainly he had been lucky to be too young to become embroiled in his father's revolt; the oldest boy had died in it, and the second boy, Paullus, had spent many years in exile. The family was patrician and immensely august, but after Lepidus Senior died of a broken heart, there didn't seem to be any chance that it would retrieve its position among the greatest of the Famous Families of Rome. Then Caesar had bribed the recalled Paullus into a consulship he had hoped to see enable him to be elected consul himself without crossing the pomerium to declare his candidacy. Unfortunately Paullus was a slug, not worth the enormous sum Caesar had paid him; Curio, bought more cheaply, had proven of better value.

But none of Caesar's ploys to avoid unmerited prosecution had worked; crossing the Rubicon into rebellion, always his last resort, became the only alternative. And Marcus Lepidus, the youngest of those three sons, had immediately seen his opportunity, allied himself with Caesar, and never looked back. In personality he was easygoing and unobservant, was prone to seek the least taxing way to do things, and was generally regarded as a political lightweight. To Caesar, however, he had two great virtues: he was Caesar's man through and through, and a high enough aristocrat to give Caesar's faction some much needed respectability.

His first wife had been a Cornelia Dolabellae who had owned no dowry, but died shortly thereafter in childbirth. His next bride came with five hundred talents; she was the middle daughter of Servilia and her second husband, Silanus. Junilla had married him some years before Caesar crossed the Rubicon, years during which her money kept Lepidus afloat. When civil war came, his mother-in-law, Servilia, was quite happy to have him and Vatia Isauricus in Caesar's camp, since Brutus and Tertulla were in Pompey's camp. No matter to Servilia which side won the war—she couldn't lose.

Lepidus was the son-in-law she liked the least, principally because his birth was so lofty that he never bothered to flatter her. But Lepidus, a tall, handsome man whose blood links to the Julii Caesares showed in his face, cared nothing for Servilia's good opinion. Nor did Junilla, who happened to love Lepidus very much. They had two sons and a daughter, all still children.

Enriched through allegiance to Caesar, Lepidus had bought an imposingly large residence on the Germalus of the Palatine, overlooking the Forum, and owned a dining room large enough to hold six couches. His cooks were quite as good as Cleopatra's, his wine cellar commended by those privileged to sample its contents.

Well aware that Caesar was likely to quit Rome the moment the meeting of the Senate on the Ides was over, Lepidus had gotten in early and secured Caesar for his dinner party on the evening before the Ides. He also invited Antony, Dolabella, Brutus, Cassius, Decimus Brutus, Trebonius, Lucius Piso, Lucius Caesar, Calvinus and Philippus; he had badly wanted Cicero, who declined “due to my grievous state of health.”

Much to his surprise, Caesar arrived first.

“My dear Caesar, I thought you'd be the last to come and the first to go,” Lepidus said, greeting him in the awesome atrium.

“There's method in my madness, Master of the Horse,” Caesar said, one hand indicating the retinue behind him, which included his Egyptian physician. “I'm afraid I'm going to be unpardonably rude by working all the way through dinner, so I came early enough to ask that you allocate me your meanest couch all to myself. Put whomsoever you like in the locus consularis, just give me an end couch where I can read, write and dictate without driving the rest of your guests to distraction.”

Lepidus took this with good humor unruffled. “Whatever you want shall be yours, Caesar,” he said, leading the awkward guest of honor into the dining room. “I'll bring a fifth couch, then take your pick.”

“How many are we?”

“Twelve, including you and me.”

“Edepol! That will leave you with two men only on one of your couches,” Caesar said.

“Not to worry, Caesar. I'll put Antonius on my couch in the locus consularis and no one between us,” Lepidus said with a grin. “He's such a hulk that three on his couch is a tight squeeze.”

“Actually, I'm going to even you up,” Caesar said as servants carried a fifth couch in and put it beyond the lone couch to the left of the host's lectus medius, which formed the crosspiece of the U. “I'll take it, it will suit me nicely. Plenty of room to spread my papers out, and, if you would, a chair behind it for my secretary. I'll use one man at a time, the rest can wait outside.”

“I'll see to it that they have comfortable chairs and plenty to eat,” Lepidus said, hurrying away to call his steward.

Thus it was that when the others began to arrive, they found Caesar already ensconced on the least enviable couch, a secretary on a chair behind him and the rest of his couch littered with piles of papers and scrolls.

“Poor Lepidus!” said Lucius Caesar, eyes dancing. “You'd do best to put Calvinus, Philippus and me on the couch opposite this impolite reprobate. None of us is timid enough to leave him alone, and who knows? He might actually talk a little.”

When the first course was carried in, Mark Antony and Lepidus reclined alone on the lectus medius; Dolabella, Lucius Piso and Trebonius reclined to the immediate right, with Philippus, Lucius Caesar and Calvinus beyond them; on the immediate left lay Brutus, Cassius and Decimus Brutus, with Caesar beyond them.

Naturally Caesar's industriousness came as no surprise to any of the diners, so the meal and the conversation proceeded merrily, aided by an excellent Falernian white to accompany the fishier, more nibbly first course, a superb Chian red to accompany the meaty, more substantial main course, and a sweetish, slightly effervescent white wine from Alba Fucentia to accompany the desserts and cheeses which formed the third, final course.

Philippus was ecstatic over a new dessert Lepidus's cooks had devised, a gelatinous mixture of cream, honey, pulped early strawberries, egg yolks, and egg whites beaten stiffly, the whole turned out of a chilled mold shaped like a peacock and decorated with piped whipped cow's cream dyed in pinks, greens, blues, lilacs and yellows from leaf and petal juices.

“Tasting this,” he mumbled, “I admit that my Mons Fiscellus ambrosia is too sickly-sweet. This is perfect! Absolute ambrosia! Caesar, do have some!”

Caesar glanced up, grinned, took a spoonful and looked quite astonished. “You're right, Philippus, it is ambrosia. Clause ten: it shall not be lawful to sell, barter, gift or otherwise dispose of a free grain chit, on penalty of fifty nundinae throwing lime into the paupers' pits of the necropolis.” He ate another spoonful. “Very good! My physician would approve. Clause eleven: upon the death of a holder of a free grain chit, it shall be returned to the plebeian aedile's booth together with proof of death ...”

“I thought,” said Decimus Brutus, “that the free grain dole legislation was already in place, Caesar.”

“Yes, it is, but upon rereading it, I found it too ambiguous. The best laws, Decimus, contain no loopholes.”

“I like the punishment,” said Dolabella. “Shoveling lime on stinking mass graves will deter anybody from almost anything.”

“Well, I had to think of a deterrent, which is very difficult when people have no money to pay fines and no property to impound. Holders of free grain chits are very poor,” said Caesar.

“Now that your head is up from your papers, answer me one question,” said Dolabella. “I note you want a hundred pieces of artillery per legion for the Parthian campaign. I know you're an ardent exponent of artillery, Caesar, but isn't that excessive?”

“Cataphracts,” said Caesar.

“Cataphracts,” asked Dolabella, frowning.

“Parthian cavalry,” said Cassius, who had seen them in their thousands at the Bilechas River. “Clad in chainmail from head to foot. They ride giant horses clad in chainmail too.”

“Yes, I remembered in your report to the Senate, Cassius, that you said they couldn't charge at a full gallop, and it occurred to me that they would suffer terribly from heavy bombardment in the early stages of a battle,” said Caesar, looking pensive. ”It may also be possible to bombard the trains of camels bringing spare arrows up to the Parthian archer cavalry. If my ideas are wrong, I'll put however much of the artillery into storage, but somehow I don't think I'm wrong."

“Nor do I,” said Cassius, looking impressed.

Antony, who detested all-men dinners populated by the stuffier among his peers, listened to this with his eyes roving thoughtfully over the three men on the lectus imus to his left—Brutus, Cassius and Decimus Brutus—and then onward to Caesar. Tomorrow, my dear cousin, tomorrow! Tomorrow you will be dead at the hands of these three men and that unappreciated genius facing them, Trebonius. He's stuck to it, and it's going to happen. Did you ever see a more miserable face than Brutus's? Why is he in it, if he's so terrified? I bet he never plunges his dagger in!

“Returning to lime pits, necropolises and death,” Antony said suddenly and loudly, “what's the best way to die?”

Brutus jumped, went white, put his spoon down quickly.

“In battle,” said Cassius instantly.

“In one's sleep,” said Lepidus, thinking of his father, forced to divorce the wife he worshiped, pining away for her so slowly.

“Of sheer old age,” said Dolabella, chuckling.

“With the taste of something like this coating one's tongue,” said Philippus, licking his spoon.