The Course of Honour Page 18

  Veronica was squealing with despair. ‘Oh Juno! There’s nothing left to throw –’

  Snatching it off, she tossed down her limp parsley crown; Caenis leant a little over the balustrade, laughing, as she watched the dark sorry skein twist slightly before it bumped past his tunic skirt and landed on the tip of the legate’s ornamented greave, like something slightly unpleasant marring the silver gilt below his sturdy knee. Vespasian flexed one leg to flick it off. He glanced down.

  Then he looked up.

  Caenis realised the world was very sad.

  She supposed he saw a balcony like all the others he had passed, crammed with vulgar people screeching and waving stupid hats. She could tell at once that he had noticed her, standing silent at the front, for his face automatically cleared. A woman in a white dress. He used to say, white made her seem invisible; he liked her best in blue.

  It was six years since Caligula was assassinated by Chaerea. The man below had spent a year and a half in Germany while Narcissus organised the landing force, then nearly four in Britain, and almost twelve months handing over the Second to his successor before making his way back to Rome. He would be thirty-eight on 17 November. Caenis was – whatever age she was. She had a fair idea: the same as he. Even a little older perhaps. Yet she looked down at Vespasian with a clear, unashamed gaze, for she kept the comfortable habit of still thinking herself a girl, standing at the eager threshold of life. (Sometimes Caenis made herself wonder how long this habit could go on.)

  Everything passes.

  Feeling nothing so much as mournful regret, Caenis could see that Vespasian felt touched by a similar moment himself. He looked thoughtful, and a little melancholy.

  He had everything now. It would be easy to feel jealous – yet so much less tiring at her age to be conventionally tolerant instead! She had always known he would be famous. She had once asked him to remember her, when he was. It did not seem important any more. Yet she knew he did remember. The quiet recollection flickered in his face; she permitted a pale acknowledgement to answer in her own. She was glad that she had known the man; glad too that she had seen him come to this.

  Old friends. Two people who knew nothing now of each other’s lives, nor ever would, nor even wanted to. Two people merely happy, amidst a clamour that was disturbing to them both, to recognise some stillness and calm in an old familiar face.

  He was still looking up.

  ‘Do something!’ squeaked Veronica. Then in horror, ‘Caenis, don’t do that!’ Caenis had something from the picnic ready to hand.

  His face lit.

  ‘Caenis – no!’

  Vespasian, expectant, lifted his chin. Caenis leant out, held his eye for a second and a half, then lobbed her gift. ‘Io Vespasiane!’

  She had thrown it straight at him: he trapped it against his brilliant armour with one wrist. It was half a Lucanian salami. Veronica collapsed.

  Somebody pulled Caenis back before she fell. Laughing, laughing with him, she struggled to keep her feet so she could see.

  The procession jerked. The chariot moved. The crowd were acclaiming him; his business was with the crowd.

  ‘Io Vespasiane! Triumphe Io!’

  After him his officers stiffly marched past. Then after them the whole street became dappled with the reflected light that flashed off the armour of Vespasian’s marching troops.

  Veronica whimpered, ‘O Juno, Caenis. Oh my heart! What did he do?’

  Caenis, though she realised she must be white as theatrical chalk, managed to speak complaisantly enough. ‘Tucked it under his elbow, in a bundle with his batons – saving it for later, I dare say!’

  ‘Did he smile? Did he wave? Did you see what he did with my crown?’

  ‘Always was a surly bastard,’ Caenis said.

  ‘Turn round here!’ commanded Veronica, above a new wave of commotion from the crowd. ‘What else?’

  ‘He saluted,’ Caenis said, in a faint voice that her friend could hardly catch above the row. ‘Actually, I think he saluted me.’

  There was nothing for it: Caenis turned around.

  Then Veronica could see that all the kohl with which Caenis had earlier that morning outlined those great cynical eyes was now streaking down her face. Caenis was by nature incompetent with cosmetics, but Veronica had done her best to train her, so she was not as bad as that. She was crying.

  Veronica still thought Caenis had never enjoyed much of a life. Which was why, since she understood these things, she spoke quite gently, explaining to her friend in simple terms the sterner points of military etiquette: ‘Darling, be fair. What choice did he have? You can’t expect Vespasian, the Hero of Britain, to salute a Lucanian sausage!’ Veronica said.

  PART FOUR:

  BRITANNICUS

  When the Caesars were Claudius and Nero but not Britannicus

  XXIII

  They had fourteen years, almost, of the new order under Claudius.

  It was a long time for any government; long enough, at any rate, for people to forget what things were like before. As long as it took for the child Britannicus, who had been born at the moment when his father was propelled so quaintly to the throne, to arrive within sight of his coming-of-age.

  Fourteen years. Then Claudius ate a dish of mushrooms which disagreed with him so violently he died. But what happened to Britannicus had begun some years before. It started with his mother.

  By the time Narcissus called the secret conference about Valeria Messalina, Britannicus was seven. He had been familiar with crowds all his life; while he was small Claudius loved to hold him up in the amphitheatre and cry, ‘Good luck to you, my boy!’ The audience always roared it back with enthusiasm; Britannicus was popular. He became tall for his age, showing character and quick wits. The Claudians were in general a good-looking family (Caenis believed a few more snub noses and squints might have produced more sensible Claudians). Even the Emperor himself, in repose, stopped slobbering and twitching and looked a handsome man. His wife, Messalina, possessed captivating looks: their son became an attractive child. Good luck he never possessed, however.

  If Messalina had not captivated Callistus, Pallas or Narcissus it was only because she never tried. She preferred Mnester, the ballet dancer, for a time; afterwards a parade of young knights, senators, gladiators, soldiers, ambassadors even, then finally Gaius Silius, a consul elect at an impressively youthful age who was, as Veronica said, the best-looking man in Rome.

  Caenis reflected, ‘I suppose she feels there is no point being an empress unless you can pick and choose.’

  Veronica winced and peered at her sideways, not sure how much Caenis knew. ‘Darling, Messalina is not choosy at all!’

  Caenis nodded; she knew.

  Whether, as people besotted by her crimes wanted afterwards to recall, Messalina really did leave the Palace at night disguised in a blonde wig to offer her fine body to all comers at a common brothel was to some extent irrelevant. Her behaviour was bad enough to make people believe it. Her bored trifling with noblemen, then her infatuation with Silius and the dangerous farce to which it led were true, and enough to bring about her fall. If satirical poets and salacious biographers wanted to be bawdy about an empress, it would be good news for booksellers. It was not so good for Octavia and Britannicus. But they were Antonia’s grandchildren; in their family tradition unless they became monsters themselves, life would deal monstrously with them.

  Messalina’s affair with Gaius Silius was too dangerous. Lovers alone might have been overlooked; revolution could not be. When the Empress actually persuaded Silius to divorce his noble wife – at which he with logic and some spirit responded by asking the Empress to divorce her husband in return – Narcissus had little choice but to act. He summoned the Emperor’s committed friends to a meeting at his own house. Caenis now realised the full value of this house: it was wonderfully comfortable, packed with pleasing works of art, he had Alexandrian flautists, there were flatfish in marble pools, the kitchen never closed and t
he water was always warm. It was an ideal place to plot.

  ‘As a woman am I invited on the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief?’ Caenis demanded of Narcissus scathingly. He did not deny it. He knew she was truculent and outspoken, but blisteringly loyal to Antonia’s family. He knew too that she despised Messalina but probably understood her.

  It was Narcissus himself, still with his old pinched oriental nose but nowadays distinctly fleshy otherwise, who set out the situation for the rest: ‘It’s quite clear Messalina has been waiting for our man’s visit to Ostia. He’s gone off to inaugurate his new harbour. This evening, while Claudius is safely out of Rome, she will marry Silius. You can’t blame him – tangling with the Empress is dangerous enough; he may as well risk everything on the throw. So he marries Messalina, in full form; he adopts Britannicus, and they grapple for the throne.’

  Callistus, who as Secretary of Petitions spent his whole life stating the obvious to people who did not want to hear it, said at once, ‘That’s the end of us!’

  No one answered. For some, that was not entirely the point. It would be the end of them, and their man – and all their work.

  Pallas, Antonia’s old messenger, shifted suddenly on his couch, exclaiming in exasperation, ‘I still can’t believe it can go so far and poor besotted Claudius has not the slightest idea.’

  After a moment Narcissus murmured, almost in embarrassment for their man, ‘You know Claudius.’ And when no one answered that either, ‘Well; he has a great deal on his mind.’

  It was true. Claudius as Emperor had produced the energy and concentration that only a true eccentric ever shows. In the year his wife tried to divorce him (Romans were always divorcing their wives; it struck Caenis irreverently that while it was discourteous of Messalina not to mention to her husband her plans for that afternoon, at least taking the initiative herself made a change) – in that year, Claudius was preoccupied with his administrative duties as Censor, easing the penalties for debt, issuing edicts about snakebites and against unruly behaviour in the theatre, then finishing construction of his splendid aqueducts which brought the clear water of the Caerulean springs fifty miles from the mountains across the Campagna on arches that were in some places a hundred feet high. He had continued to write scholarly histories. He involved himself in the internal affairs of Armenia and Germany, then in a speech whose political diplomacy would have astonished those who had judged him inadequate in his youth, he persuaded the Senate to open their ranks to some long-standing allies from Gaul. He survived an assassination attempt without losing his nerve. He gave time to his pet schemes: he revived the College of Soothsayers and introduced three new letters into the official alphabet.

  It was the eighth centenary of the traditional founding of Rome. Claudius inaugurated the Ludi Saecularii, the ancient commemorative Games. They were supposed to be held only once every hundred years so no one would attend who had ever seen them before; in fact Augustus had held them too, but that was a mere technicality. This time there was a Trojan Pageant in the Circus at which young boys from leading families performed intricate feats of horsemanship while their parents and grandparents chewed off their nails expecting tantrums, broken legs and trampled heads. On this occasion Britannicus led one of the dressage teams. The other was taken by Domitius Ahenobarbus, the son of Claudius’ niece Agrippina. He was three years older and far more confident so of course he came off best; although Britannicus conducted himself with the gravity of a tiny Aeneas in the field, as soon as the dimple-kneed imperial infant reached home it ended in tears.

  Claudius did all this, and no one had ever suggested he was too busy to pay attention to his wife. Everyone else knew, she was too busy for him.

  Caenis spoke, since no one else would risk it: ‘Claudius believes his pretty darling is matchless in bed and a perfect mother – faithful, devoted, clever, helpful and sweet. Whatever you do, remember he believes that because it is what he wants to believe.’

  Various freedmen wriggled and scratched themselves, sensing some general criticism of their sex.

  She leant forwards with her elbows on her knees. She addressed herself to Narcissus, partly because she knew and understood him best, and partly because his colleagues were arguing for caution, frightened that interference would have unpleasant results for themselves. ‘Show him that they are stealing his throne – he believes himself the best man to hold it now. Perhaps he is. His ignorance of Messalina’s antics makes it easier; the truth will be devastating, and he is a vain man. She can work him; ensure that she never gets the chance. Work him yourselves –’ She used the plural, though she guessed that this would be one man’s work. ‘What will affect Claudius most will be the fact that she has thrown up their marriage in his face.’

  It struck Narcissus that Caenis was not, as it had turned out, telling them the woman’s point of view but the man’s. He glanced at Callistus and Pallas for support, failed to find it, then rehearsed what he could say: ‘Yes . . . “Sir, do you know you are divorced?”’ He ended with a gesture, open-palmed like an acrobat. The effect was sinister.

  ‘That poor besotted bastard!’ Callistus commented.

  Going home afterwards, Caenis reflected privately how Claudius had a graceful knack of choosing whom to trust as his friends. His wives were disasters and though all four of those, including Messalina, had been chosen for him by his relatives, Caenis doubted he would do better for himself. In marriage a man looked for a boost to his bank account, adornment for his home, and a submissive sexual partner. It would be a man of rare intelligence who realised he might so much more wisely share his household with a friend.

  That was a long night.

  The sharp clear morning with its indigo sky had become the blazing autumn afternoon when Narcissus came to Caenis at Antonia’s house. She had never seen anyone so completely exhausted. He owned a home that ran with peaceful decorum, yet she saw on this one occasion that to return to his good-tempered battalions of servants would be to remain unbearably alone. He had passed beyond his private strength. His competence was all used up.

  ‘Freedman, rest. I will send word; I will watch.’

  She dismissed all her own slaves. Then she herself attended to the shutters, poured water for him to wash his hands and face, mixed wine with honey which he proved too tired to drink, took his shoes, set the cushions around him and laid the rug over him while he slept.

  Caenis stayed in the room.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said briefly when he woke.

  He lay on his back for a long while, the rug flung aside now so she could see his hands interlaced limply on his chest. Narcissus’ hands were unusually small. She had noticed that when she was fourteen and secretly in love with him in a frightening physical way, as a girl will be with a teacher who concentrates her mind. They had come a long way since then.

  He was thinking. From a nearby reclining chair Caenis silently watched; it was an intimacy few would ever share with him. The olive-skinned face was hollow-cheeked in rare relaxation, although he knew she was there. His eyes were frantic with thought and dark with melancholy; their gaze fluttered about the ceiling, from bead-and-dart cornice to the plaster moulding that had been smoked to an oily gloss by lamps, and on to the solid ball from which hung the delicate bronze swansnecks of an unlit chandelier. He saw nothing.

  People blamed the man for personal ambition. Yet his gratitude to Claudius would always come from a full heart. He regretted his patron’s weaknesses, but appreciated the man’s strengths and did so completely without cynicism. There was love there. He would be glad that he had saved the day (Caenis recognised from his stillness how he must have done that) but Narcissus would not really exult. He would feel for his man’s tragedy as Claudius himself, understandably, could not bear to feel.

  Sensing some shift in the focus of his reverie, Caenis asked gently, ‘Well?’

  ‘I have watched a heart break.’ He closed his eyes.

  Finally he spoke again. ‘How does a man rea
ct? While returning from a journey in all innocence, he meets the stark news that his wife has taken a lover – many lovers – there is incontrovertible proof. Now she has left him without a word and been married, in front of witnesses: banquet, bridal regalia, sacrifices, new marital bed. All this is common knowledge in the city from the Senate and the army down to the sleaziest barbershops and waterfront booths. His clean white pearl has been rolled in a night-soil cart. His betrayal is a barrack-room byword. Caenis, what should he do?’

  He turned on his elbow and stared at her.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked again in her calm, quiet way.

  ‘He said very little. I don’t suppose he ever will. The story was so fantastic he realised it must be true. As we approached Rome on his return from Ostia, Messalina was celebrating the marriage with a mock grape harvest at the Gardens of Lucullus. Hair flowing in the breeze, treading vats, waving Bacchic wands – everyone disgustingly drunk. You can imagine the scene.’

  There was a fastidious pause. The gardens had once belonged to Asinius Gallus; Messalina accused him of adultery with a woman of whom she was jealous, then compelled him to judicial suicide; it was the easiest way to wrest away the man from his gardens, which he had refused to sell. ‘Her party vanished; most of them were picked up later by the Guards. She walked – walked! – the whole length of the city almost alone, then started out towards Ostia in a garden-rubbish cart. She took the Chief Vestal Virgin to help argue her case, and sent for the children to soften his heart.’

  ‘Poor mites!’

  Caenis imagined them brought by panic-stricken maids, presented to a silent father more or less in the public street, glimpsing their mother distraught, terrified by wild faces and the charged atmosphere – then taken home to an empty palace with no one to explain. Britannicus was seven, Octavia not much more than a year older. Caenis would go and see them when she could.