The Grass Crown (28 page)

So they had an enjoyable meal together despite the situation, and Drusus felt more capable of dealing with whatever else the day might bring. Which was just as well; early afternoon brought him fresh trouble in the shape of Marcus Porcius Cato Salonianus.

Inviting Cato to join him in a stroll about the colonnade, Drusus prepared himself for the worst.

“What do you know about all this?” he asked calmly.

“I had a visit from Quintus Servilius Caepio and Lucius Marcius Philippus not so many moments ago,” said Cato, his tones as level and unemotional as Drusus’s.

“Both of them, eh? I presume Philippus’s role was that of a witness,” said Drusus.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“Caepio simply informed me that he had divorced his wife on the grounds of her adultery with me.”

“Nothing else?”

Cato frowned. “What else is there? However, he said it in front of my wife, who has gone to her father.”

“Ye gods, it goes on and on!” cried Drusus, throwing his hands in the air. “Sit down, Marcus Porcius. I had better tell you all of it. The divorce is only the beginning.”

All of it had Cato angrier than Drusus had been; the Porcii Catones put on a grand front of imperturbable coolness, but to the last man—and woman—they were renowned for their tempers. It took Drusus a long time and many reasonable words to persuade Cato that if he went to find Caepio and killed him—or even half killed him—matters would only be worse for Livia Drusa than they already were. After he was sure Cato’s temper was well mended, Drusus took him to Livia Drusa; any doubts he might have harbored as to the depth of the feeling between them were allayed in that first look which passed between them. Yes, this was a love for life. Poor things!

“Cratippus,” he said to his steward after he had left the lovers together, “I am hungry again, and I intend to eat dinner immediately. Inform the lady Servilia Caepionis, would you?”

But the lady Servilia Caepionis elected to eat in the nursery, where Servilia had laid herself on her bed and announced that no morsel of food nor drop of water would pass her lips, and that when her father heard she was dead, he would be sorry.

Off went Drusus alone to the dining room, wishing the day would end and that his allotted span on earth did not contain another such. Sighing gratefully, he settled himself in solitary state upon his couch to await the gustatio.

“What’s this I hear?” cried a voice from the door.

“Uncle Publius!”

“Well, what’s the real story?” Publius Rutilius Rufus demanded, kicking off his shoes and waving the servant away who wanted to wash his feet. He clambered onto the couch beside Drusus and leaned on his left elbow, his perky homely face alight with curiosity, luckily salved by an accompanying sympathy and concern. “Rome is absolutely buzzing with garbled versions of a dozen different kinds—divorce, adultery, slave lovers, wife-beating, nasty children—where does it all come from, and so quickly?”

Drusus, however, was not able to tell him, for this last invasion was too much; he lay back on his bolster and literally cried with laughter.

Publius Rutilius Rufus was right, all of Rome was buzzing; two and two were cleverly added together and mostly totaled the correct figure, considerably aided by the fact that the youngest of the divorced wife’s three children had a thatch of bright red hair—and that Marcus Porcius Cato Salonianus’s hugely rich but vulgar wife, Cuspia, had also served her husband with divorce papers. That inseparable pair, Quintus Servilius Caepio and Marcus Livius Drusus, were now not on speaking terms, though Caepio for one kept insisting it had nothing to do with divorced wives, but was on account of the fact that Drusus had stolen his ring.

There were those with sufficient intelligence and sense of rightness who noticed that all the best people were siding with Drusus and his sister. Others of less admirable character—like Lucius Marcius Philippus and Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica—were siding with Caepio, as were those sycophantic knights who browsed in the same commercial fields as Gnaeus Cuspius Buteo, Cato’s wronged wife’s father, nicknamed “The Vulture.” Then there were those who sided with no one, finding the whole sensation exquisitely funny; among these was Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Princeps Senatus, just beginning to surface again after several years of extreme quietness following the disgrace of his wife’s falling in love with Sulla; he felt he could afford to laugh, since young Dalmatica’s crush had been unrequited, and she was now beginning to swell with a child Scaurus knew full well could be no one’s save his own. Publius Rutilius Rufus was another who laughed, in spite of his position as the adultress’s uncle.

Yet as things turned out in the end, neither of the guilty participants in the affair suffered the way Marcus Livius Drusus was made to suffer.

“Or perhaps it would be better to say,” Drusus grumbled to Silo not long after the new consuls entered office, “that, as usual, I seem to wind up being responsible for everybody’s baby! If I had all the money which that wretched boor Caepio has cost me over the years in one way or another, I’d be considerably better off! My new brother-in-law, Cato Salonianus, has been left without a feather to fly with—he’s strapped by dowry payments to Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus on behalf of his sister—and of course his wife’s fortune has been withdrawn, along with the support of her social-climbing father. So not only have I had to pay Lucius Domitius. out, but I am—as usual!—expected to house my sister, her husband, and her rapidly expanding family—she’s increasing again!”

Though he knew he was offering scant comfort to Drusus, Silo too joined the ranks of those who saw the funny side, and laughed until he hurt. “Oh, Marcus Livius, never was a Roman nobleman abused as you are!”

“Stop it,” said Drusus, grinning. “I could wish that life—or Fortune, or whoever it is—treated me with a little more of the respect I deserve. But whatever my life might have been like before Arausio—or had there never been an Arausio!—is now utterly beyond me. All I know is that I cannot abandon my poor sister—and that, though I tried not to, I like my new brother-in-law a great deal better than I liked my old one. Salonianus may be the grandson of a girl born in slavery, but he’s a true gentleman nonetheless, and my house is the happier for sheltering him. I even approve of the way he treats Livia Drusa, and I must say he’s won my wife over—she was inclined to think him quite unacceptable coming from that particular brood, but now she likes him very well.”

“It pleases me that your poor little sister is happy at last,” said Silo. “I always had the feeling she existed in some deep misery, but she concealed her predicament with the will of a true Livius Drusus. However, it’s a pity you can’t free yourself of pensioners—I take it you’ll have to finance Salonianus’s career?”

“Of course,” said Drusus, displaying no chagrin. “Luckily my father left me with more money than I can ever spend, so I’m not reduced to penury yet. Think of how annoyed Caepio will be when I push a Cato Salonianus up the cursus honorum!”

“Do you mind if I change the subject?” asked Silo abruptly.

“Not at all,” said Drusus, surprised. “Hopefully the new subject is going to contain a detailed description of your doings over the past few months—I haven’t seen you in nearly a year, Quintus Poppaedius.”

“Is it that long?” Silo did some calculations, and nodded. “You’re right. Where does time go?” He shrugged. “Nothing very much, actually. My business ventures have benefited, is all.”

“I don’t trust you when you’re cagey,” said Drusus, delighted to see this friend of his heart. “However, I daresay you have no intention of telling me what you’ve really been up to, so I won’t make it hard for you by pressing. What was the subject you wanted to bring up, then?”

“The new consuls,” said Silo.

“Good ones, for a change,” said Drusus happily. “I don’t know when we’ve elected such a solid pair—Crassus Orator and Scaevola! I’m expecting great things.”

“Are you? I wish I could say the same. I’m expecting trouble.”

“On the Italian front? Why?”

“Oh, rumor as yet. I hope unfounded, though somehow I doubt that, Marcus Livius.” Silo scowled. “The censors have gone to the consuls with the registers of Roman citizens throughout Italy, and I hear are concerned about the vast number of new names on the rolls. Idiots! One moment they’re prating about how their new census methods will reveal many more citizens than the old way did, the next moment they’re saying there are too many new citizens!”

“So that’s why you’ve not been to Rome in months!” cried Drusus. “Oh, Quintus Poppaedius, I warned you! No, no, please don’t lie to me! If you do we can’t continue to be friends, and I for one would be the poorer! You doctored the rolls.”

“Yes.”

“Quintus Poppaedius, I told you! Oh, what a mess!” For some time Drusus sat with his head in his hands, while Silo, feeling more uncomfortable than he had expected to, sat saying nothing and thinking hard. Finally Drusus lifted his head.

“Well, there’s no point in repining, I suppose.” He got to his feet, shaking his head at Silo in patient exasperation. “You had better go home—don’t show your face in this city for a long time to come, Quintus Poppaedius. We can’t afford to tickle the interest of some particularly bright member of the anti-Italian faction by having you on prominent display. I’ll do what I can in the Senate, but unfortunately I’m still a junior, I won’t be called upon to speak. Among those who can speak, your friends are going to be few, alas.”

Silo was standing too. “Marcus Livius, it will come to war,” he said. “I’ll go home because you’re right, someone will start wondering if they see my face. But, if nothing else, this shows there is no peaceful way to gain enfranchisement for Italy.”

“There is a way. There must be a way,” Drusus said. “Now go, Quintus Poppaedius, as unobtrusively as you can. And if you plan to use the Colline Gate, detour around the Forum, please.”

Drusus himself didn’t detour around the Forum; he went straight there, togate and looking for familiar faces. There was no meeting of Senate or Comitia, but a man could be fairly sure of seeing people in the general area of the lower Forum. And luckily the first valuable man Drusus spied was his uncle, Publius Rutilius Rufus, wandering toward the Carinae and his house.

“This is one time I could wish Gaius Marius was here,” said Drusus as they found a quiet place in the sun just to one side of the ancient Forum trees.

“Yes, I’m afraid there won’t be much support in the Senate for your Italian friends,” said Rutilius Rufus.

“I think there could be—if only there was a powerful man present to urge a little thought. But with Gaius Marius still away in the east, who is there? Unless, Uncle, you—?”

“No,” said Rutilius Rufus firmly. “I am sympathetic to the Italian cause, but a power in the Senate I am not. If anything, I’ve lost auctoritas since my return from Asia Minor—the tax-farmers are still screaming for my head. Quintus Mucius they know they can’t get, he’s too important. But an old and humble consular like me, who never had a famous reputation in the law courts or was a famous orator or led a famous army to victory? No, I haven’t enough clout, truly.”

“So you’re saying there’s little can be done.”

“That’s what I’m saying, Marcus Livius.”

On the other side of popular opinion there was much being done, however. Quintus Servilius Caepio sought an interview with the consuls, Crassus Orator and Mucius Scaevola, and the censors, Antonius Orator and Valerius Flaccus. What he had to say interested the four men enormously.

“Marcus Livius Drusus is to blame for this,” said Caepio. “In my hearing he has said many times that the Italians must be given the full citizenship, that there can be no difference between any men within Italy. And he has powerful Italian friends—the leader of the Marsi, Quintus Poppaedius Silo, and the leader of the Samnites, Gaius Papius Mutilus. From the things I overheard in Marcus Livius’s house, I would be prepared to swear formally that Marcus Livius Drusus allied himself with those two Italians and concocted a plan to tamper with the census.”

“Quintus Servilius, have you other evidence to substantiate your accusation?” asked Crassus Orator.

Whereupon Caepio drew himself up with immense dignity, and looked suitably offended. “I am a Servilius Caepio, Lucius Licinius! I do not lie.” Offense became angry indignation. “Evidence to substantiate my accusation? I do not accuse! I simply state the facts. Nor do I need ’evidence’ to substantiate anything! I repeat—I am a Servilius Caepio!”

“I don’t care if he’s Romulus,” said Marcus Livius Drusus when the consuls and the censors came to see him. “If you can’t see that these ’facts’ he says he’s simply stating are part of Quintus Servilius Caepio’s current persecution of me and mine, then you’re not the men I think you are! Ridiculous nonsense! Why should I plot against the interests of Rome? No son of my father could do such a thing. For Silo and Mutilus I cannot speak. Mutilus has never been inside my house, as a matter of fact, and Silo comes only as my friend. That I believe the franchise should be extended to every man in Italy is a matter of record, I make no secret of it. But the citizenship I would see extended to the Latins and the Italians must be legal, given freely by the Senate and People of Rome. To falsify the census in any way—be it by physically altering the rolls or by men testifying to a citizenship they do not own entitlement to—is something I could not condone, no matter how right I believe the cause behind it to be.” He threw his arms wide, then up in the air. “Take it or leave it, Quirites, that’s all I have to say. If you believe me, then come and drink a cup of wine with me. If you believe that unconscionable liar Caepio, then leave my house and don’t come back.”

Laughing softly, Quintus Mucius Scaevola linked his arm through Drusus’s. “I for one, Marcus Livius, would be very pleased to drink a cup of wine with you.”

“And I,” said Crassus Orator.

The censors elected to drink wine too.

“But what worries me,” said Drusus in the dining room later that afternoon, “is how Quintus Servilius got hold of his so-called information. Only one conversation occurred between me and Quintus Poppaedius on this subject, and that was many moons ago, when the censors were first elected. ”

“What transpired, Marcus Livius?” asked Cato Salonianus.

“Oh, Silo had some wild scheme to enroll illegal citizens, but I dissuaded him. Or thought I did. That was the end of it as far as I was concerned. Why, I hadn’t even seen Quintus Poppaedius until recently! Yet—how did Caepio get his information?”

“Perhaps he did overhear you, perhaps he wasn’t out,” said Cato, who didn’t honestly approve of Drusus’s attitude about the Italians, but was in no case to criticize; one of the more distressing aspects of being Drusus’s pensioner.

“Oh, he was definitely out,” said Drusus dryly. “He was out of Italy at the time, and he certainly didn’t sneak back for one day in order to eavesdrop on a conversation I didn’t know I was going to have until it happened.”

“Then—how indeed?” asked Cato. “Something you’d written he might have been able to find?”

Drusus shook his head so positively he left his audience in no doubt. “I have written nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“Why are you so sure Quintus Servilius had help in framing his accusations?” asked Livia Drusa.

“Because he accused me of falsifying the enrollment of new citizens, and lumped me with Quintus Poppaedius.”

“Could he not have plucked that out of thin air?”

“Perhaps, except for one really worrying aspect—he gave a third name. Gaius Papius Mutilus of the Samnites. Where did he learn that particular name? I knew of it only because I knew Quintus Poppaedius had grown very friendly with Papius Mutilus. The thing is, I’m certain both Quintus Poppaedius and Papius Mutilus did falsify the rolls. But how did Caepio know it?”

Livia Drusa got to her feet. “I cannot promise anything, Marcus Livius, but it’s possible I can provide an answer. Will you excuse me for a moment?”

Drusus, Cato Salonianus, and Servilia Caepionis waited out the moment, hardly curious; what could Livia Drusa produce to answer such a mysterious question, when the real answer was probably that Caepio had made a lucky guess?

Back came Livia Drusa marching her daughter Servilia in front of her, one hand digging into the child’s shoulder.

“Stand right here, Servilia. I want to ask you something,” said Livia Drusa sternly. “Have you been visiting your father?”

The girl’s small face was so still, so expressionless that it struck those who observed it as a guilty face, guarded.

“I require a truthful answer, Servilia,” said Livia Drusa. “Have you been visiting your father? And before you speak, I would remind you that if you answer in the negative, I will make enquiries in the nursery of Stratonice and the others.”

“Yes, I visit him,” said Servilia.

Drusus sat up straight, so did Cato; Servilia Caepionis sank lower in her chair, shielding her face with her hand.

“What did you tell your father about your Uncle Marcus and his friend, Quintus Poppaedius?”

“The truth,” said Servilia, still expressionless.

“What truth?”

“That they have conspired to put Italians on the roll of Roman citizens.”