Antony and Cleopatra (27 page)

Did such a man confess his weaknesses to another man? No, he did not. He might confess his frustrations, his trials, his bouts of practical depression. But never the weaknesses or flaws in his character. Therefore to use Maecenas was out of the question. He would have to conduct these negotiations himself.

On the twenty-third day of September each year he had his birth anniversary, and now had celebrated twenty-four of them. A fog had descended over the years just after his divine father’s assassination; he didn’t remember quite how he had marshaled the strength to embark upon his career, aware that some of his deeds were due to the folly of youth. But they had turned out well, and that was what he recollected. Philippi formed a watershed, for after it he remembered everything with crystal clarity. He knew why. In the aftermath of Philippi he had faced down Antony and won. A simple demand: the head of Brutus. That was when his future had unfolded before his mental gaze, and he had seen his way. Antony had given in after a performance that went from terrifying rage to bathetic tears. Yes, he had given in.

His encounters with Antony hadn’t been numerous since, but at each of them he had found himself stronger, until, at the last such, he had spoken his mind without even the faintest falter in his breathing. He wasn’t Antony’s equal anymore; he was Antony’s superior. Perhaps because Divus Julius had never managed to break him, Cato Uticensis came into his mind, and he knew at last what Divus Julius had always known: that no one can break a man who has no idea he owns an imperfection. Take Cato Uticensis out of the equation, and you had—Tiberius Claudius Nero. Another Cato, but a Cato without an intellect.

He went to call on Nero at an hour of the short morning that would see him arrive after the last of Nero’s clients had gone, but before Nero himself could sally forth to sniff the damp winter air and see what was going on in the Forum. Had Nero been a lawyer of repute, he might have been defending some noble villain against accusations of peculation or fraud, but his advocacy was not prized; he would act for his friends in the fourth or fifth position if they asked, but none had recently. His circle was small, composed of ineffectual aristocrats like himself, and most of it had followed Antony to Athens, preferring that to living in Octavian’s Rome of taxes and riots.

It would have given Nero untold satisfaction to have declined to see this unwelcome caller, but civility said that he ought, and punctiliousness said that he must.

“Caesar Octavianus,” he said stiffly, rising to his feet, but not moving from behind his desk, or extending a hand. “Pray be seated.” He did not offer wine or water, simply sank back into his chair and gazed at that detested face, so smooth, appallingly young. It reminded him that he was now in his mid-forties and had not yet been consul; he had been praetor the year of Philippi, no help to anyone’s career, least of all his. If he couldn’t mend his fortunes, he would never be consul, for to get himself elected would take massive bribes. Nearly a hundred men were standing for the praetorship next year and the Senate was talking of letting sixty or more actually hold office; that would release a flood of ex-praetors to contest every consulship for the next generation.

“What do you want, Octavianus?” he asked.

Out with it: best so. “I want your wife.”

An answer that left Nero bereft of words; dark eyes wide, he gaped and gobbled, choked, had to get clumsily to his feet and run for the water jug. “You jest,” he said then, chest heaving.

“Absolutely not.”

“But—but that’s ridiculous!” Then the implications of the request began to sink in. Mouth tight, he returned to his desk to sit down again, hands clenched around the homely contours of a cheap pottery beaker; his set of gilt goblets and flagons had vanished. “You want my wife?”

“Yes.”

“That she’s unfaithful is bad enough, but with
you
—!”

“She hasn’t been unfaithful. I’ve only met her once, in the ruins of Fregellae.”

Deciding that Octavian’s request wasn’t carnal, but rather a mystery, Nero asked, “What do you want her for?”

“Marriage.”

“She
has
been unfaithful! The child is yours! I curse her, I curse her, the
cunnus
! Well, you’ll not get her the easy way, you filthy prick! Out my door she goes, her disgrace spread far and wide!” The beaker spilled, the hands that held it shaking.

“She is innocent of any transgression, Nero. As I’ve said, I met her only once, and from start to finish of that encounter, she behaved with complete decorum—such exquisite manners! You chose well in your wife. Which is why I want her as my wife.”

Something in the usually opaque eyes said that Octavian spoke the truth; his cerebral apparatus already taxed to its limits, Nero resorted to logic. “But people don’t just go around asking men for their wives! It’s ludicrous! What do you expect me to say? I don’t
know
what to say! You can’t be serious! This sort of thing just isn’t
done
! You do have a trace of noble blood, Octavianus, you ought to know it isn’t done!”

Octavian smiled. “As I understand it,” he said in ordinary tones, “a senescent Quintus Hortensius once went around to Cato Uticensis and asked if he could marry Cato’s daughter, a child at the time. Cato said no, so he asked for one of Cato’s nieces. Cato said no, so he asked for Cato’s wife. And Cato said yes. Wives, you see, are not of the same blood, though I admit yours is. That wife was Marcia, who was my stepsister. Hortensius paid through the nose for her, but Cato wouldn’t take a penny. The money went entirely to my stepfather, Philippus, chronically short of cash. An Epicure of the most expensive kind. Perhaps if you viewed my request in the same light as Cato did Hortensius’s, it would make it more credible. If you prefer, believe that, like Hortensius, I was visited by a dream Jupiter who said I must marry your wife. Cato found that a reasonable reason. Why shouldn’t you?”

A new thought had dawned on Nero as he listened to this: he was playing host to a madman! Quiet enough at the moment, but who knew when he might erupt into utter mania? “I’m going to call my servants and have you thrown out,” he said, thinking that, phrased thus, it didn’t sound too incendiary, wouldn’t provoke violence.

But before he could open his mouth to bellow for help, his visitor leaned across the desk and clasped his arm. Nero went as still as a mouse transfixed by the stare of the basilisk.

“Don’t do that, Nero. Or at least, let me finish first. I am not mad, I pledge my word on that. Do I behave like a madman? I simply want to marry your wife, which necessitates that you divorce her. But not in disgrace. Cite religious reasons, everyone accepts those, and honor is preserved on both sides. In return for your yielding me this pearl beyond price, I will undertake to lighten your present financial difficulties. In fact, I’ll conjure them out of existence better than a Samian magician. Come now, Nero, wouldn’t you like that?”

The eyes looked suddenly away, focusing beyond Octavian’s right shoulder, and the thin, saturnine face took on an expression of cunning. “How do you know I’m financially embarrassed?”

“All Rome knows,” Octavian said coolly. “You should have banked with Oppius or the Balbi, you really should. The heirs of Flavus Hemicillus are a shifty lot, anyone save a fool could see that. Unfortunately, you happen to be a fool, Nero. I heard my divine father say so on several occasions.”

“What is going
on
?” Nero cried, mopping up the spilled water with a napkin as if in this trifling task he might banish the confusions of the last quarter hour. “Are you making fun of me? Are you?”

“Anything but, I do assure you. All I ask is that you divorce your wife immediately upon religious grounds.” He reached into the sinus of his toga and pulled out a piece of folded paper. “They are detailed in this, to save your getting a headache thinking of some. In the meantime, I’ll make my own arrangements with the College of Pontifices and the Quindecimviri regarding my marriage, which I intend to celebrate as quickly as I can.” He rose. “Of course it goes without saying that you will have full custody of both your children. When the second one is born, I’ll send it to you at once. A pity they won’t know their mother, but far be it from me to block a man’s right to his children.”

“Ah—um—ah,” said Nero, unable to assimilate the deftness with which he had been maneuvered into all this.

“I imagine her dowry is gone beyond recall,” said Octavian, a trace of contempt in his voice. “I’ll pay your outstanding debts—anonymously—give you an income of a hundred talents a year, and help you bribe if you seek the consulship. Though I’m not in a position to guarantee you’ll be elected. Even the sons of gods cannot dam the spate of public opinion effectively.” He walked to the door, turned to look back. “You will send Livia Drusilla to the House of the Vestals as soon as you divorce her. The moment you’ve done that, our business is concluded. Your first hundred talents are already lodged with the Balbi. A good firm.”

And out he went, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Much of what had transpired was fading fast, but Nero sat and tried to make sense of what he could, which was chiefly to do with the alleviation of his money worries. Though Octavian hadn’t said it, a healthy streak of self-preservation told Nero that he had two alternatives: tell the whole world, or be silent forever. If he talked, the debts would remain unpaid and the promised income would be withdrawn. If he kept his mouth shut, he would be able to take up his rightful position in Rome’s highest stratum, something he prized more than any wife. Therefore he would be silent.

He opened the piece of paper Octavian had given him and conned the few lines of its single column with painful slowness. Yes, yes, this would salve his pride! Religiously impeccable. For it was dawning upon him that if Livia Drusilla were damned as an unfaithful wife, he would wear the horns of a cuckold and be laughed at. Old man with luscious young wife, along comes young man, and…Oh, that would
never
do! Let the world make what it would of this fiasco; he for one was going to behave as if nothing more salacious than a religious impediment had occurred. He drew a piece of paper forward and began to write out the bill of divorcement, then, the deed done, he summoned Livia Drusilla.

No one had thought to tell her that Octavian had visited, so she appeared looking exactly as she always did—submissive and demure, the quintessential good wife. Beautiful, he decided as he studied her. Yes, she
was
beautiful. But why had Octavian’s fancy alighted upon her? Upstart though he was, he could have his pick. Power drew women like moths to a flame, and Octavian had power. What on earth did she have that he had detected in one meeting, yet six years of marriage hadn’t revealed to a husband? Was he, Nero, blind, or was Octavian deluded? The latter, it had to be the latter.

“Yes,
domine
?”

He handed her the bill of divorcement. “I am divorcing you immediately, Livia Drusilla, on religious grounds. Apparently a verse in the new addition to the Sibylline Books has been interpreted by the Quindecimviri as pertaining to our marriage, which must be dissolved. You are to pack your belongings and go to the House of the Vestals at once.”

Shock struck her mute, numbed her feelings, dazed her mind. But she stood her ground without swaying; the only outward sign of the blow was a suddenly pallid face.

“May I see the children?” she asked when she could.

“No. That would render you
nefas
.”

“So I must give up the one still in my womb.”

“Yes, the moment it is born.”

“What is to happen to me? Will you refund my dowry?”

“No, I will not refund your dowry or any part of it.”

“Then how am I to live?”

“How you manage to live is no longer my concern. I’ve been instructed to send you to the House of the Vestals, that is all.”

She turned on her heel and went back to her tiny domain, so cluttered with things she detested, from her distaff to her loom, used to spin thread to weave fabric no one ever wore, for she was not an adept at either craft and had no wish to be one. The place was smelly at this time of year; she was expected to bind bunches of dried fleabane to keep pests at bay, and she was
nundinae
behind because she hated the job. Oh, for the days when Nero had given her a few sesterces to hire books from Atticus’s lending library! Now it had come down to spin, weave, and bind.

The baby began to kick at her cruelly—his brother all over again. It might be an hour before he ceased his pummeling, getting his exercise at her expense. Soon her bowel would rebel, she would have to run for the latrine and pray no one was there to hear her. The servants considered her beneath their notice, smart enough to know that Nero considered her beneath his notice. Thoughts whirling, she sat on her weaving stool and looked through her window at the colonnade and the dilapidated peristyle garden beyond it.

“Keep still, you—you
thing
!” she cried to the baby.

As if by magic, the pounding ceased—why hadn’t she thought of doing that before? Now she could start to think.

Freedom, and from a quarter no one could have dreamed of, she least of all. A verse in the latest Sibylline Book! She knew that fifty years ago Lucius Cornelius Sulla had commissioned the Quindecimviri to search the world for fragments of the partially burned Sibylline Books—what were fragments doing outside Rome? But she had always thought of this collection of abstruse couplets and quatrains as completely aethereal, having no relation to ordinary people or ordinary events. Earthquakes, wars, invasions, fires, the death of mighty men, the birth of children destined to save the world: that was what the prophetic books were all about.

Though she had asked Nero what she would live on, Livia Drusilla wasn’t worried about that. If the gods had deigned to notice her—as clearly they had—and to relieve her of this ghastly marriage, then they would not let her descend to soliciting men outside Venus Erucina’s, or starve. The exile in the House of the Vestals must be a temporary thing; a Vestal was adlected at six or seven years of age, and had to maintain her virginity for the thirty years of her service, for her virginity represented Rome’s luck. Nor did the Vestals take women in—she must be special indeed! What lay in the future she couldn’t begin to guess, nor did she try to guess. It was enough that she was free, that her life was going somewhere at last.