Rivals of the Republic Read online

  “Are you going to make a joke now?” she asked teasingly as she watched Caepio’s eyes on her.

  He shook his head slowly. “No,” he said simply. “I’m lost for words as usual.” He lay down beside her and for a time there were no more words between them.

  SHE OPENED HER eyes. A glimmer of light from the hearth glowed through the slats of the half-open sanctuary door. She could just feel a breeze on her cheek from the temple entrance beyond. Was he still here? Her lips parted and she tried to breathe but it was as though her throat was caught in a metal vice, sealing in her voice and permitting only the finest filament of air to pass through. The guards outside would never be able to hear her now. Her eyelids drooped. She could still feel the man’s fingers around her neck, the terrible, agonizing pain, then the feeling of light-headedness before darkness had overwhelmed her.

  The man. He had taken something from the sanctuary.

  Her eyes flickered open once more. She tried to concentrate on conserving the small amount of air still in her lungs as her gaze wandered around the room. She imagined where he had been standing when she opened the door. Straight ahead, directly opposite in fact. He had been balanced on the portable ladder they used to reach the higher shelves. It must have been a noise from the movement of the ladder that she had heard. He had just withdrawn something – a document – from an archive halfway up the wall. But whose was the archive? The ladder was still where he had left it. Her lips moved slightly as she counted down the number of niches from the top row of shelves, her gaze coming to rest on one next to the seventh rung of the ladder, where she thought she had seen the movement of his hand. She stared. That particular archive was fuller than the others around it. Few citizens were important enough to store that many documents here. She was almost certain …

  The tiny pocket of air caught in her throat. Lifting her head and hauling herself on to her hands and knees, she began to crawl slowly through the half-open door of the sanctuary and into the main chamber of the temple. Her breathing was tight and desperately shallow. As she came closer to the hearth at the center of the temple, her white dress was soiled by the thin film of soot covering the tiled floor. The flames burned bright like a beacon. She knew she was not going to reach the temple door. Collapsing next to the great hearth chair where she had been sitting so dutifully until just a few minutes before, she pressed her cheek gratefully to the cool marble. Then she stretched out her hand into the shadow under the hearth chair, and with one pale, slender finger, she dreamily began to swirl letters into the dark powdery canvas.

  The sound of approaching footsteps stayed her arm. She lay still now, not flinching at the man’s curse of annoyance nor resisting when she felt his hands around her neck again. But the look on her face as she died was still one of shock. For as he dragged her up from the floor, she could see the person now accompanying him, a figure dressed – just like her – all in white.

  OUTSIDE CAEPIO’S VILLA, the remaining guests had finally dispersed, the last few drunken revelers loudly singing as they slowly wended their way down the hill, their voices growing fainter and gradually being swallowed up by the rattle of evening traffic from the city below. The urchin children had returned to their own dark, grime-fettered neighborhood, leaving a trail of broken nut-shells scattered between the paving stones in their wake. Only Hortensius’s inebriated client Bibulus – an aspiring poet – had failed to make his departure, intending apparently to spend the night sprawled over the threshold composing wedding hymnals in honor of his patron’s daughter. But his happy, hazy contemplation of the stars was suddenly blocked by a dark figure standing overhead and to his alarm, he felt a strong pair of hands picking him up by the front of his robes and dragging him to his feet. A razored slant of firelight from one of the dying braziers cut menacingly across his assailant’s face, and he recoiled in horror.

  “Do you have a home?” came the rasping enquiry.

  Bibulus nodded hastily.

  “Then get back to it.”

  The terrified poet made no attempt to resist the shove that propelled him down the hill.

  Lucrio limped a few paces down the slope after him, making sure that he had really disappeared and that no other drunken malingerers were still lurking. But then he caught sight of the view and paused where he stood, looking out at the city spread in all its dark, pulsing, undulating glory below him. Down to his right were the crowded alleyways and filthy tenements of the Subura, where the poorest residents of the city scraped out a half-existence; to his left the great arena of the Circus Maximus, where the howling mob gathered on festival days to watch chariot-racing and gladiatorial games; and in front of him, the Capitoline, the smallest and most sacred of Rome’s hills, at whose foot lay the Roman forum with its patchwork of temples, shops, law courts and municipal buildings including the senate house. The city was alive with the clatter of hooves and wagon-wheels on the stone paving and the shouts of the vehicles’ drivers, as they loaded and unloaded their wares or squabbled with fellow road-users over who had the right of way. From the Palatine, the noise was a distant hum. For those living in the Subura, it must have been deafening. It was only Lucrio’s second night in the city but already he understood the complaint intoned by Caepio’s slaves that only the rich could afford a decent night’s sleep in Rome. But gazing out at this seething metropolis, one thought dominated his mind. He was out there somewhere. Lucrio knew he would recognize him the moment he set eyes on him, with or without his tribune’s uniform. Every line of those angular features, every nuance of that lazy, savage Roman voice was burned into his memory. He could still see Taio falling in the dirt with bewilderment in his brown eyes and a newly drawn seam around his neck, still hear his mother’s screams above the noise of the tribune’s ferocious pleasure.

  He glanced back into the cool, shadowy atrium of the villa. All the household slaves had been sent to their own quarters, which lay in the eastern wing of the house, just between the kitchen and the stables. The only light came from a candle on the corridor leading to the west wing where the master’s private room was situated. A cool breeze rushed through the atrium and for a moment, Lucrio thought he heard a faint peal of laughter. Turning quickly away, he resumed his contemplation of the city landscape, a fire of emotions raging in his cool, green eyes.

  SEVERAL HOURS LATER, as the lavender light of dawn began to dapple the murky waters of the Tiber, Bibulus woke up with a terrible headache. Squinting and moaning in protest as the early morning sun tried to prise open his eyelids, he gradually became aware that he was lying across a rubbish pile which smelt very strongly of cattle excrement. Levering himself upright and waving an arm irritably at a pair of hovering pigeons which retreated and began pecking at a pile of cabbage leaves near his feet, Bibulus tried to piece together the sequence of events that had led him to make his bed here. He had a dim recollection of that Spanish thug of a steward manhandling him down the Palatine. After that his memory became very fuzzy but one thing was clear: he would certainly alert Hortensius to the fact that his new son-in-law had some very unsavory individuals in his employment.

  As the sights and sounds of his dingy surroundings came more sharply into focus, Bibulus realized that he was in the Forum Boarium where the cattle merchants habitually plied their trade. Just off to his left he could see the yellow curve of the Tiber, where some men gathered on the riverbank seemed to be shouting at someone or something in the water below his line of vision. Presumably it was this noise which had woken him from his uncomfortable slumber. Several of the onlookers were crouched on their haunches, reaching down into the river, and Bibulus caught a glimpse of something large and white being dragged up onto the bank. He wondered if it was a dead swan – they did often cluster around this section of the river in the hope of surplus food from the market being thrown into the water. Despite his throbbing headache, Bibulus was suddenly struck with inspiration. His portfolio did not yet contain an opus on Leda and the Swan. Perhaps this could be the poetic opportuni
ty that would finally win him the notice he deserved. Dragging himself to his feet, he limped groggily toward the gaggle of workers who were now standing in a circle, looking down at their quarry. Bibulus mused excitedly over what meter to choose – elegiacs? Or should he be more ambitious and attempt an epic in hexameters?

  Then a gap opened in the circle of onlookers, and with a great shudder of horror, Bibulus saw what they were all staring at. Not a swan, but the body of a woman dressed all in white, her ashen, bloated face turned sightlessly up toward the sky. Straggly brown hair clung like seaweed to her wet, pallid skin, which was mottled with purple bruising around her neck. Her eyes were glassy and bloodshot and her mouth sagged open as though her last breath had just escaped her body.

  Staggering away with his hand over his mouth, Bibulus managed to make it back to his rubbish pile before adding his own contribution to it.

  VIII

  HORTENSIA LAY ON A COUCH IN HER PRIVATE ROOM JUST OFF THE atrium, a roll of literature unraveled on her lap. She had assured her father that she would keep up both her Greek and her rhetoric exercises, and though she knew he would have reproached her for doing so from a recumbent position, she had just been reading aloud some passages from Demosthenes. Her performance was causing much confusion among Caepio’s staff, who kept peering into the room expecting to find that their new mistress was entertaining guests whose arrival they had not noticed. But after almost an hour’s practice, Hortensia was now thoroughly bored and longing for some kind of distraction.

  As was customary for a new bride, she had received a number of courtesy calls over the past few days from other Roman matrons, some of them friends of her mother, others noted hostesses such as Marcus Fulvius Bambalio’s wife, Sempronia, who had come to inspect Servilius Caepio’s young bride and pass condescending judgment on her afterwards. She had been proud to receive their congratulations on the election of her father and Caecilius to the consulship two days before, but had not been able to contribute anything to their shocked, gossipy discussion about the dead Vestal Virgin found in the Tiber on the morning after her wedding. A suicide, apparently – the silly girl had evidently broken her vow of chastity and embroiled herself in a love affair – probably she feared discovery and threw herself into the river rather than face the terrifying punishment of being buried alive. This led to some tart commentary on the Vestal’s aptitude for the role in the first place, to the effect that this was what came of allowing girls from plebeian as well as patrician families to be considered for the sacred role.

  These distinguishing visits aside, there was little else to fill Hortensia’s day apart from accompanying her mother on social calls of their own, or submitting to the lengthy ministrations of Elpidia who, like Lucrio, had accompanied Hortensia to her marital home and insisted that she should not leave her private quarters before being properly clothed and coiffed as befitted her new position. Caepio had laughingly pleaded with his bride not to occupy herself with wool-work and she had little interest in the running of the kitchen, preferring to leave this under the stewardship of Aulus the cook. Her father’s gardener Rixus had been coming over most days to replant the villa’s garden. But Rixus did not rate Hortensia’s horticultural knowledge and since she refused to procure for him one of the preciously rare and expensive cherry tree saplings which general Licinius Lucullus had been shipping back from his eastern campaigns, he had turned a deaf ear to all her other ideas, insisting the plants she wanted would not grow on Palatine soil. This, and his habit of taking a nap in the shade of a cypress tree during the hottest part of the afternoon, lying sprawled in such a way that his tunic often rode up to reveal glimpses of a grubby, ill-fitting loincloth straining over fleshy buttocks, soon persuaded Hortensia to abandon her daily stroll around the peristyle.

  She picked up the Demosthenes again with a sigh and was just preparing to resume her reading when she heard voices in the hall outside, one of which seemed to be female. She suspected it must be another friend of her mother come to lend her patronage, and tip-toed cautiously to the doorway of her salon. A woman dressed in a chestnut brown tunic with a matching mantle drawn up over her head was standing at the threshold to the front door, palms outspread in pleading entreaty to Eucherius, the young door-keeper. He had been proud to assume temporary duty for Lucrio – to whom Hortensia had given permission to go and search the Subura for people who might give him news of his family – and was now shaking his head very firmly at the woman.

  “Good morning,” said Hortensia curiously. “Are you looking for someone?”

  The woman had started at the sound of another voice and stared at the young mistress of the house in embarrassed dismay. “It is nothing. I was hoping I might find my husband here, that is all. Marcus Rufio? He is one of your husband’s clients and I thought he might be here for morning salutatio. But I am sorry to have disturbed you, I will go.”

  She gathered up her skirts and turned back toward the street but Hortensia interrupted. “I could ask my husband if he has been here if you’d like.”

  “No,” the woman interjected hastily. “Please, I have no wish to involve your husband.”

  Hortensia stared at her curiously. Her visitor was perhaps ten years older than herself, clearly no longer young but with an open, attractive face. Her dress was not expensive but it was elegant, her hair drawn up in a simple but modish style, and she spoke in a well-bred voice.

  “Is it something I can help you with?” Hortensia pressed.

  The woman paused on the threshold, looking harassed and uncertain. “I do not think so. Thank you. It is kind of you to ask but … I do not think anyone can help me.”

  She looked for a moment as though she was going to lose control of her tightly-controlled emotions and Hortensia’s interest was now thoroughly whetted. She dismissed the abashed Eucherius with a wave and held out her other hand to her guest.

  “Won’t you please come into the garden and tell me about it? My name is Hortensia. You have created quite a mystery and I’m afraid I won’t be happy until I know what it is. Is your husband in some kind of trouble?”

  She indicated toward the hallway leading to the back of the house and after some hesitation, the woman followed her. Half the garden was still in shade, and they sat down on a bench in a cool corner under some olives. A large pile of smooth, flat pebbles had been heaped up next to a low stone wall where Rixus was planning to create a small fountain.

  “So,” began Hortensia companionably. “Do tell me your name and a little more about your husband and why you are so anxious to speak with him.”

  The woman began to pleat the folds of her dress between thin, nervous fingers.

  “My name is Drusilla. As for my husband, I am afraid I misled you slightly when I called him that. He is not, or at least he has all but ceased to be. He … we are just divorced.” She looked rueful but her jaw was set defiantly. “It was not my decision though I cannot say the fact grieves me.”

  Hortensia felt the slight smugness of the newly and happily wedded woman but schooled her face into an expression of sympathetic interest.

  “Is your husband so very disagreeable?”

  “I did not used to think so,” Drusilla said quietly. “But I should have listened to my mother when she tried to dissuade me from marrying him.”

  “Presumably your father had some say in the matter?”

  Drusilla shook her head. “No. My father is dead, he fought for Marius during the civil war. I have a guardian, naturally – my uncle – but he has interested himself very little in my upbringing or that of my brothers and sisters. When my mother told him I wished to marry Marcus Rufio, he dismissed her concerns and said it would be a great alliance for us. Well, now after six years I know what my mother knew all along. I married a man I thought was charming and respected. I soon discovered that he was reckless and a spendthrift who had only married me because my father’s will left a handsome dowry for myself and my sisters on the occasion of our marriages. Now Marcus Rufio has stol
en that dowry from me. But much more than that, he has stolen the children I bore him and does not intend to let me see them ever again.”

  Her head dropped into her palm and she burst into tears, the tears seeping out between her splayed fingers.

  Hortensia stared at her, feeling a sense of shocked pity yet also consternation at having a strange, hysterical woman in her house. Fortunately, Drusilla regained control of her emotions quite quickly and having repressed her sobbing breaths, sat upright again and apologized for her loss of bearing.

  “I am sorry if I have embarrassed you. You have been very kind to listen to me, but there is really nothing you can do. I only came to find Marcus Rufio to see if he might reconsider allowing me to see my children at least.”

  “How old are they? What are their names?” asked Hortensia tentatively.

  “My son Marcus is five. Cassia, my daughter, is just three. If I could just have them with me for some of the time, I would not ask Marcus Rufio for anything else. I am living with my mother again now and we can survive without the return of the dowry.”

  “But, forgive me, I am sure that the dowry is yours to keep,” interjected Hortensia. “Presumably you were married without manus – in other words, your uncle is still your legal guardian, not your husband?” She received a silent nod in reply. “Well then the money is yours,” asserted Hortensia triumphantly. “Your husband has no right to it and it must be returned on your divorce. I have some knowledge of these matters, you see. My father is a famous advocate,” she said with a proud smile.

  Drusilla shook her head despairingly. “I wish it were that simple. You see, Marcus Rufio has accused me of immoral behavior. He claims that I am an adulteress, and as such, he is under no obligation to return my dowry to me. As for my children, he claims that my influence would corrupt their character.”