The Raven and the Rose (29 page)

Julia took a slice of apple and stuck it in her mouth, her mind racing.

 
Antony was arriving at the Atrium soon to unseal Caesar’s will, and Julia was praying that Marcus would be with him. Verrix had come to the Atrium that morning with a message that Larthia would visit Julia the following day, but he had said nothing at all about Marcus.
 

“Why are you so jittery?” Margo asked her. “The civil unrest is subsiding, Antony has the government well in hand. The Senate has voted to implement Caesar’s policies and your grandfather will not be prosecuted for murder. You should be smiling!”

“We don’t know the contents of the will,” Julia said, diverting Margo from the real source of her agitation.

“You’ll find out soon enough. Livia wants all of the Vestals to witness the opening and dispensing of the will to prove that it wasn’t altered.”

Julia nodded. Danuta had already told her; that’s why she was pacing.

“You’d better go down to the recording room,” Margo said. “The runner said Antony was on his way.”

Julia left her suite and walked toward the room where the transfer of the will would take place; she met Junia Distania in the hall and the two of them went together. When the women reached their destination Antony, Marcus, and Tiberius Germanicus were standing in the hall with Livia Versalia.

Julia could barely conceal her utter relief at seeing Marcus. She had not been able to ask anyone about him and until she saw him herself she wasn’t sure he had survived the recent coup attempt in good health.

His eyes met hers and she had to look away; everything he felt showed in his face.

“Shall we begin?” Livia said, and they all filed after her into the recording room. As her audience watched she selected a scroll from the stacks which lined the wall, broke the wax seal with her thumb, and handed it Mark Antony.

Antony unrolled it and glanced over it, taking in its contents quickly, and then said, “I have the Senate’s permission to read this aloud to the people.”
 

Livia bowed her head.

“May I take this with me?” he asked.

She nodded. “I have kept two copies. Please sign the register.”

Antony scrawled his signature in the spot she indicated and his two companions did the same.

“I will be reading this from the temple steps before the funeral,” Antony said, the will clutched in his hand. “Will you and your women come out with me?”

Livia nodded and the little band of women in saffron robes trailed after Antony and the two centurions. The consul and his companions walked purposefully through the passage that led to the Aedes. Julia tried to catch up with the men but they had already emerged into the sunlight at the temple entrance by the time she stood behind Marcus. She was close enough to touch him, but surrounded by many eyes. She fixed her gaze on his broad, beloved back as Antony began to speak.
 

A huge crowd, responding to the funeral notices posted in the forum, had gathered in the temple square.

In the last version of his will Caesar made his nephew Octavian his principal heir, and left his gardens along the Tiber to the people of Rome to be used as a park, along with three gold pieces to every citizen. But it was the provision that adopted Brutus, his murderer, as his second heir, that sent an angry murmur through the the listening crowd.

“To the forum, citizens, to look your last upon your best, departed friend,” Antony concluded, urging the crowd to gather around the bier, which was being prepared for cremation. As the people, buzzing like goaded bees, pushed and shoved their way toward the forum, where the ivory funeral couch awaited immolation, Marcus turned back to Julia.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She opened her mouth to answer, but looked away from him deliberately when Livia said behind her, “Are you coming, Julia Rosalba?”

Julia shot Marcus a look of pure despair and turned around obediently.

“Coming,” she replied.

Marcus abandoned his attempt to speak to her and trotted down the steps.

The Vestals followed the mob at a discreet distance and listened to Antony deliver the funeral oration. He reminded the people of the oath the Senators had taken to watch over Caesar’s safety, and he enumerated the decrees and honors which they had voted for the departed man. He talked about Caesar’s victories and his love of the state, as well as the perfidy of the assassins, gradually inflaming the fury of his listeners. By the time he showed them Caesar’s rent and bloodied gown, they were roaring.

 
The enraged crowd pressed forward as the soldiers present tossed their arms on the bier and the magistrates set fire to it. Several individuals took up sticks and made tapers of them, taking fire from the cremation couch, and then ran out of the forum, intending to burn the houses of the assassins. The mob streamed after them, tripping and shoving in their eagerness to destroy.
 

Marcus ran up to Livia in the confusion and said, “Come with me, I’ll give your women an escort.”

The Vestals hurried up the steps behind him as he, with drawn sword, opened the temple door and saw them through it. As Julia passed him he said in an undertone, “Keep yourself safe. I’ll find a way.”

Julia wanted to stop, but she contented herself with one long look into his dark eyes and then hurried inside with the rest.

* * *

By evening it was all over. The houses of Brutus and Cassius were burned to the ground, the Senate chamber was vandalized, and the assassins had fled the city. The funeral pyre still burned in the forum, casting an orange glow over the adjoining buildings. Stories of the days’ doings filtered into the Atrium, and Margo was a fountain of gossip, as usual. Now that the real danger had passed, and her team had won, she was as eager for each tidbit as a pi dog for scraps.

“And the house of Brutus is still smoldering,” she said with satisfaction. “Nothing left but a pile of smoking sticks, and just what he deserved.”

“And my grandfather’s estate?”

“His servants doused the flames and saved it. Casca was not the main target, anyway, the will made Brutus the focus of the citizens’ outrage.”

Julia rose and went to the hall, where Costia, the laundress, was talking to one of the kitchen skivvies. The laundress handed Julia a stack of her shifts and went on with her conversation as if Julia had not appeared.

 
“And Brutus’ gladiators set upon that centurion of the first cohort,” she said, “the one who witnessed the unsealing of the will, and clubbed him to death. It happened just this afternoon, after the funeral, when Brutus was trying to get away and...”

Julia didn’t hear any more; her vision was going dim and there was a roaring sound in her ears. She sleepwalked back into her suite as the servants passed on down the hall. Margo looked up at her and then stood abruptly.

“Julia, what is it?” she said, moving toward the younger woman. “Are you all right?”

Julia’s eyes rolled back in her head and she fell to the floor in a dead faint.

Chapter 9

Julia blinked dazedly, realized that she was lying on her couch, and then heard voices above her head.

“I don’t know what happened,” Margo said to Livia, “she came into the room and passed out on the floor. Danuta helped me move her to the couch and we called you.”

Livia knelt next to the bed and chafed Julia’s wrists. “I think she’s coming around,” Livia said to Margo. Then, “Julia, can you hear me?”

“Yes,” Julia whispered. Memory came flooding back on a tide of misery; Marcus was dead and she was pregnant. She closed her eyes again and moaned.

“Summon that physician who’s been tending her,” Livia said to Margo.

“No,” Julia said feebly, trying to sit up.

“Nonsense,” Livia said firmly. “We can’t have you fainting, you’ve not been well for some time, since the night of my anniversary as I recall. Margo, send a messenger now.”

Margo rose quickly to obey, and Julia knew that her fate was sealed.
 

She was doomed.

Unless Paris was the worst doctor Greece ever produced, he would listen to her symptoms, perform his examination, and conclude that she was pregnant. He would certainly tell Livia.
 

Julia knew that concealing such information concerning a Vestal would mean prosecution for a capital crime.

If Marcus was dead, she didn’t mind dying herself, but what about his baby?

Julia’s eyes filled with tears and she turned her face to the wall.

* * *

“What’s going on, little rosalba, Livia Versalia is very worried about you,” Paris said heartily, pulling back Julia’s left eyelid and then letting it fall.

That much Julia knew. Livia was worried enough to relax the rule about allowing physicians to come to the Atrium, but Julia was certain that her concern would change to fury when she learned the true cause of Julia’s malaise.

“Have you been eating?” Paris asked.

“Yes,” Julia said.

“No,” Margo replied from a corner of the room.

Julia shot her a look, to silence her.
 

“She has no appetite and if she manages to get something down it usually comes right back up again,” Margo added, ignoring Julia’s mute rebuke.

Paris nodded and turned Julia’s head, looking into her ear. Julia wanted to end the charade and tell him the diagnosis, but there was always the slim chance he might miss it.

“I’ll have to ask you to disrobe now, madame,” Paris said, and Julia rose unsteadily, handing her garments to Margo, who scurried forward to take them.
 

When Julia was prone once more the doctor examined her more intimately. She closed her eyes when felt his hands on her breasts, palpating them, squeezing the nipples; when she opened them again she saw the realization dawning in his face. She knew he felt the same way she did.

He was frightened.

“Step forward, please,” he said shortly to Margo, all business now. She moved to the edge of the couch, her eyes flashing to Julia’s face. When Paris began to perform an internal examination Julia saw from Margo’s expression that she knew too.

Paris stood, wiping his hands on a cloth, a thin film of perspiration forming on his upper lip. “When is Livia Versalia returning?” he asked Margo.

“Shortly,” she replied nervously, as Julia donned her stola again.
 

He nodded. “Excuse me for a moment, please,” he said, stepping into the other room. Julia heard the trickle of liquid from a pitcher.

He was taking a drink.

“How?” Margo said, sitting next to Julia on the couch, shaking her head, her eyes bleak.

“The usual way,” Julia replied.

“Who?”

Julia didn’t answer.

“Was it rape?”

Julia shook her head again.

Margo grasped her hand. “You must tell me, maybe I can help you,” she said urgently.

“No one can help me.”

“Not even the father?”

“Not even the father.”

“Julia, please tell me who it is. I’ll go and find him, and maybe...”

Livia came into the anteroom of the suite, silencing Margo, as Paris emerged from the bedchamber. When Livia saw the looks on the faces turned toward her she knew the news was grave.

“Is it a fatal illness?” she asked Paris, and Julia thought, in my case it is.

Paris swallowed hard, his face pale. “This woman is pregnant,” he said.

Livia looked stunned for a long moment, then expelled her breath in a rush.
 

“How long has she been in this condition?” she said, her tone flat and uninflected.

“Not long. One moon, maybe two.”

Livia turned to Margo. “Summon the physician Antistius to confirm this diagnosis. In the meantime, Julia Rosalba is to be placed under house arrest, confined to her quarters.”

Margo murmured her assent reluctantly.
 

“If Antistius agrees with Paris I will ask the
pontifex maximus
to convene a tribunal,” Livia said. “The court will determine the disposition of Julia Rosalba’s case, according to the provisions of the
Lex Papia
.”

Livia’s voice was as cool as water. She looked back at Paris, who stood rooted to the spot. “You will be called as a witness, of course, and consider yourself a suspect for
cohabitus
.”

Paris goggled at Livia, aghast. “What are you saying?” he whispered weakly.

“To my knowledge you are the only man this woman has seen on a regular basis during the last two months.”

“I never touched her!” Paris sputtered. “Only in a professional manner, I never...”
 

Livia held up her hand for silence, interrupting him.
 

“You will have your chance to speak in the proper place and at the proper time.”

She swept from the room, leaving Julia, Margo and the doctor all staring after her.