Antony and Cleopatra (35 page)

“He has not been idle in other respects,” said the wife to Agrippa.

Octavian looked blank for a moment, then laughed. “Oh, the ‘Grow More Wheat in Italia!’ campaign! Yes, I’ve gone into yet more debt on behalf of Rome. My figures revealed that a farmer with a large family needs two hundred
modii
of wheat a year to feed everyone. But one
iugerum
yields far more than that, and of course the farmer sells his surplus unless the creatures of the field and whatever other omens he believes tell him that a drought or a flood is coming. In which case, he ensiles more grain. However, the signs say that we’re not due for drought or flood next year. So I’m offering to pay wheat farmers thirty sesterces the
modius
for their surplus. A sum that the private vendors to whom they usually sell will not be prepared to match. What I’m hoping is to see some of our veterans actually
grow
something on their allotments. Most of them rent their land to vignerons because they like to drink wine—that’s how the mind of a retired soldier works, it seems to me.”

“Anything that means having to buy less grain from Sextus next harvest is good, Caesar,” Agrippa said, “but will it answer? How much do you think to buy?”

“Half of our needs,” Octavian said calmly.

“It will cost, but not what Sextus will ask for. Maecenas said Lepidus hadn’t acted to preserve the African supply—what’s going on there?” Agrippa asked.

“He’s getting too big for his boots,” said Livia Drusilla, casting that stone to see if Agrippa looked to her husband for confirmation. But he didn’t, simply accepted the statement—and her—as equal to Octavian’s. Oh, Agrippa, I love you too!

Agrippa’s armor creaked as he tried to get more comfortable—too many backless field chairs.

“He doesn’t know, Caesar,” she said, eyes glowing. “Tell him, then let the poor man divest himself of that awful cuirass.”

“
Edepol!
I forgot!” Octavian exclaimed, and jigged in delight. “In less than a month, Marcus, you will be senior consul of Rome.”

“Caesar!” Agrippa breathed, stunned. A wave of joy spread through him, transfigured his stern face. “Caesar, I am not—I am not worthy!”

“No one in the world is worthier, Marcus. All I’ve done is handed you a bruised and bleeding Rome, hungry and all but beaten. I had to concede the junior consulship to Caninius for no better reason than that he’s Antonius’s cousin, but on terms—he’ll be succeeded by Statilius Taurus as suffect in Julius. The Senate is shivering, for you showed enough of your steel when you were
praetor urbanus
to make them understand you won’t be merciful.”

“What you haven’t said, Caesar, is how much this appointment must be resented by the men with the blood. Mine is base.”

“Appointment?” Octavian asked, grey eyes widening. “My dear Agrippa, you were elected
in absentia,
a boon they wouldn’t grant to Divus Julius. And your blood isn’t base, it’s good, legitimate Roman blood. I know whose sword I’d rather have at my side, and it doesn’t belong to a Fabius or a Valerius.
Or
a Julius.”

“Oh, this is terrific! It means I can get to work on Portus Julius with consular authority! Only you or Antonius could impede me, and you won’t, and he can’t. Thank you, Caesar, thank you!”

“Would that all my decisions were greeted with such pleasure,” Octavian said wryly, eyes meeting his wife’s. “Livia Drusilla is right, you must get into more comfortable clothes. For myself, I have to go back to writing that letter to Antonius.”

“No, don’t,” Agrippa said, half out of his chair.

“Don’t?”

“Don’t.” Agrippa managed to extricate himself. “It’s gone beyond letters. Send Maecenas.”

“The wheel in a rut,” said Livia Drusilla, coming to press her cheek against Agrippa’s. “We have become the wheel in a rut, Caesar. Agrippa is right. Send Maecenas.”

She slipped away then to her own suite of rooms, which held a large sitting room furnished in the most luxurious way, but no other ostentation, even in her sleeping cubicle. There was a big closet, for Livia Drusilla loved clothes, but by far the roomiest area was her private
tablinum
, her study, that didn’t ape that of a man—it was that of a man. Since she had come to Caesar without a dowry or a servant, the freedmen who acted as her secretaries belonged to him, and she had had the clever idea of rotating them between his study and hers so that everyone clerical knew what was going on and could pinch-hit in a crisis.

She went straight to her prayer cubicle, another one of her ideas, where altars were set up to Vesta, Juno Lucina, Opsiconsiva, and the Bona Dea. If her theology was a little muddled, that was because she hadn’t been as educated in the state religion as a male child; simply, she held those four godly forces the ones she must pray to. Vesta, for giving her a proper home; Juno Lucina, for a child; Opsiconsiva, to increase Rome’s wealth and power; and the Bona Dea because she knew the Bona Dea had brought her to Caesar’s side to be his helpmate as well as his wife.

A golden cage of white doves hung from a stand; making kissing sounds, she took one to each altar, there to offer it. But not to kill; the moment each bird had rested on the altar, she carried it to the window and threw it into the air, watching it fly away with hands crossed on her bosom, face uplifted raptly.

For months she had listened to her husband rave about his beloved Marcus Agrippa—listened not in skepticism, but in despair. How could she possibly compete with this paragon? Who had cradled Caesar’s head in his lap on that terrible voyage from Apollonia to Barium after Divus Julius had been assassinated; who brought him around whenever his asthma threatened to kill him; who had always been there until the defection of Salvidienus had exiled him to Further Gaul. Marcus Agrippa, the coeval. The same birthday, though not in the same month. Agrippa was born on the twenty-third day of Julius, Octavian on the twenty-third day of September, both in the same year. They were now twenty-five, and had been together for nine years.

Any other woman might have plotted to drive a wedge between them, but Livia Drusilla was not so stupid or so credulous. They shared a bond she knew instinctively no one could break, so why waste her essence trying? No, what she had to do was ingratiate herself with Marcus Agrippa, get him on her side—or, at least, bring him to see that her side was Caesar’s side. In her mind she had envisioned a titanic struggle; naturally he would view her with jealousy and distrust. Not for one moment did she believe what rumor said: that they were lovers in every way. Perhaps the seeds of that lay in Caesar, but had been resolutely put away for all time, he had told her. Not admitting they existed, but giving her the gist of a conversation he had had with Divus Julius in a gig galloping through Further Spain. Seventeen. He had been an inexperienced and sickly
contubernalis
privileged to serve with the greatest Roman who ever lived. And Divus Julius had warned him that his beauty allied to his delicate look would lead to allegations that he serviced men—in homophobic Rome, a hideous handicap for a public career. No, he and Agrippa were not lovers. What they had was a deeper tie than the flesh, a unique fusion of their spirits. And, understanding that, she had been terrified of Marcus Agrippa, the one she wouldn’t succeed in winning as her ally. That his blood was beneath the contempt of a Claudius Nero had ceased to matter; if Agrippa was an intrinsic part of Caesar’s miraculous survival, then to the new Livia Drusilla his blood was as good as her own. Better, even.

Today the meeting had come and gone, leaving her as lighthearted as the vision of a butterfly on the wind. For she had learned that Marcus Agrippa truly did love as few were able or willing to love—without self, without conditions, without fear of rivals, without craving favors or distinction.

There are three of us now, she thought, watching Opsiconsiva’s dove soar above the pines so high that its wingtips gleamed gold from the sinking sun. There are three of us to nurture Rome, and three is a lucky number.

The last dove belonged to the Bona Dea, her private offering that concerned herself only. But as it flew upward, an eagle dropped out of the sky to grab it, carry it away. An eagle…Rome has taken my offering, and she is a greater goddess than the Bona Dea. What can that mean? Do not ask, Livia Drusilla! No, do not ask.

Maecenas never minded being sent to negotiate in places like Athens, where he kept a small residence he had no intention of ever sharing with his wife, a typical Terentia Varrone—haughty, proud, extremely conscious of her status. Here, like Atticus, he could indulge his homosexual side discreetly and delightfully. But that must wait; first, he had to see Marcus Antonius, who was said to be in Athens, though Athens hadn’t set eyes on him. Apparently he was not in a mood for philosophy or lectures.

And, indeed, when Maecenas sallied forth to pay his respects to the Great Man, he found him absent; it was Octavia who welcomed him, sat him in an Attic chair he couldn’t find beautiful.

“Why is it,” he said to Octavia, accepting wine, “that the Greeks, so brilliant at everything, have never truly appreciated the curve? If there’s anything I dislike about Athens, it’s the mathematical rigidity of its right angles.”

“Oh, they have some affection for the curve, Maecenas. There is no column capital half as lovely as the Ionic to me. Like an unfurled scroll, each end curling up. I know Corinthian acanthus leaves have become more popular on capitals, but they are
too
much. To me, they reflect a certain decadence,” said Octavia, smiling.

She looked, thought Maecenas, a little careworn, though she couldn’t yet be thirty. Like her brother, she had developed dark stains around those luminous aquamarine eyes, and her mouth had a sadder curve. Speaking of curves. Was the marriage in trouble? Surely not! Even a lusty, rip-roaring type like Marcus Antonius couldn’t fault Octavia, as wife or woman.

“Where is he?”

Her eyes clouded, she shrugged. “I have no idea. He’s been back a
nundinum
, but I’ve hardly seen him. Glaphyra has come to town, escorted by her two younger sons.”

“No, Octavia, he wouldn’t philander under your nose!”

“I have told myself that, and I
think
I believe myself.”

The Arch Manipulator leaned forward in that angular chair. “Come, my dear, it isn’t Glaphyra eating at you. You have too much good sense for that. What is really the matter?”

Her eyes looked blind, her hands moved helplessly. “I am at a loss, Maecenas. All I can tell you is that Antonius has changed in some way I can’t put my finger on. I expected him to return full of good health and hollering for diversion—he always loves to visit a theater of war, it rejuvenates him. But he came back—oh, I don’t know,
blighted
. Is that the right word? As if his trip had drained him of something he desperately needs to keep up his good opinion of himself. There have been other changes—he has fallen out with Quintus Dellius, whom he sent packing. And he won’t see Plancus, here on a visit from Asia Province. Just took the tribute Plancus brought and ordered him back to Ephesus. Plancus is beside himself, but the most I can get out of Antonius is that he can’t trust any of his friends. That all they do is lie to him. Pollio wanted to confer with him here about Caesar’s difficulties in Italia—he’s having trouble keeping Antonius’s senatorial faction up to the mark, whatever that means. But he wasn’t allowed to come!”

“I heard that his most serious falling-out was with Publius Ventidius,” Maecenas said.

“Well, all Rome must know about that,” she said wryly. “He made a terrible mistake in thinking that Ventidius took a bribe.”

“Perhaps that’s what’s the matter.”

“Perhaps,” she said, then turned her head. “Ah! Antonius!”

He entered with that lightness of foot and grace that always amazed Maecenas; big, muscle-bound men were supposed to lumber. The smooth-skinned face was lowering, but not because of some transient mood, Maecenas fancied; this was its usual expression these days, he divined. When Antony saw Maecenas he stopped, scowled.

“Oh, you!” he said, flinging himself into a chair but not reaching for the wine. “I suppose your arrival was inevitable, though I rather thought your slimy master would continue to write me begging letters.”

“No, he felt it was time for a begging Maecenas.”

Octavia rose. “I’ll leave you in private,” she said, ruffling the auburn curls as she passed Antony’s chair. “Behave yourselves.”

Maecenas laughed, Antony did not.

“What does Octavianus want?”

“What he always wants, Antonius. Warships.”

“I don’t have any.”

“
Gerrae!
The Piraeus is stuffed with them.” Maecenas set his wine to one side and steepled his fingers. “Antonius, you cannot go on avoiding a meeting with Caesar Octavianus.”

“Hah! It wasn’t I who failed to show up at Brundisium.”

“You sent no word of your coming, and you moved so swiftly that you caught Caesar Octavianus on the wrong foot, still in Rome. Then you didn’t wait until he could make the journey.”

“He had no intention of making the journey. He just wanted to see me hop at his command.”

“No, he wouldn’t do that.”

The argument went around and around for several hours, during which they ate a meal in no mood to relish the dainties Octavia’s cooks had put together—and during which Maecenas watched his quarry like a cat a mouse: still, yet quivering with anticipation. Octavia, you are closer to the mark than you realize, he thought; blighted is exactly the right word to describe this new Antonius.

Finally he slapped his hands on his thighs and produced a noise of exasperation, the first sign he had made of impatience. “Antonius, admit that without your help, Caesar Octavianus cannot defeat Sextus Pompeius!” he said.

Antony lifted his lip. “I admit that freely.”