The Grass Crown (35 page)

“Shall I try again?” he asked irrepressibly.

“No, thank you,” she said, taking a seat. “Some wine?”

“Please.” He looked around. “Still alone, Aurelia?”

“Still alone. And perfectly happy, I do assure you.”

“You are the most self-sufficient person I have ever met. If it hadn’t been for that one little episode, I’d be tempted to think you inhuman—or superhuman!—so I’m glad it happened. One could not maintain a friendship with a genuine goddess, could one?”

“Or a genuine demon, Lucius Cornelius,” she countered.

He laughed. “All right, I yield!”

The wine came, was poured. Sipping at his cup, he looked at her across its brim, her face rayed by the fizzing little purple bubbles the slightly effervescent wine gave off. Perhaps it was the peace and contentment of his new friendship with his son allowed his eyes an extra measure of vision, pierced the lucent windows of her mind and dived into the depths beyond, there to discover layer upon layer of complexities, contingencies, conundrums, all logically put away in carefully sorted categories.

“Oh!” he said, blinking, “There isn’t a facade to you at all! You are exactly what you seem to be.”

“I hope so,” she said, smiling.

“We mostly aren’t, Aurelia.”

“Certainly you aren’t.”

“So what do you think exists behind my facade?”

But she shook her head emphatically. “Whatever I think, Lucius Cornelius, I shall keep to myself. Something tells me it is safer.”

“Safer?”

She shrugged. “Why that word? I don’t honestly know. A premonition? Or something from long ago, more likely. I don’t have premonitions, I’m not giddy enough.”

“How are your children?” he asked, changing the subject to something safer.

“Would you like to see for yourself?”

“Why not? My own have surprised me, that much I can tell you. I confess I shall find it hard to be civil to Marcus Aemilius Scaurus. Four years, Aurelia! They’re almost grown up, and I was not here to see it happen.”

“Few Roman men of our class are, Lucius Cornelius,” she said placidly. “In all likelihood you would have gone away even had that business with Dalmatica never happened. Just enjoy your children while you can; and don’t think harshly of what cannot now be altered.”

The fine fair brows he darkened artificially lifted quizzically. “There is so much about my life that I would change! that’s the trouble, Aurelia. So much I regret.”

“Regret it if you must, but don’t let it color today or tomorrow,” she said, not mystically, but practically. “If you do, Lucius Cornelius, the past will haunt you forever. And—as I have told you several times before—you still have a long course to run. The race has hardly commenced.”

“You feel that?”

“Completely.”

And in trooped her three children, Caesars all. Julia Major called Lia was ten years old and Julia Minor called Ju-ju was almost eight. Both girls were tall, slender, graceful; they looked like Sulla’s dead Julilla, save that their eyes were blue. Young Caesar was six. Quite how he contrived to give the impression that his beauty was greater than that of his sisters, Sulla didn’t know, only felt it. A totally Roman beauty, of course; the Caesars were totally Roman. This was the boy, he remembered, who Publius Rutilius Rufus had said could read at a glance. That indicated an extraordinary degree of intelligence. But many things might happen to Young Caesar to damp down the fires of his mind.

“Children, this is Lucius Cornelius Sulla,” said Aurelia.

The girls murmured shy greetings, whereas Young Caesar turned on a smile which caught at Sulla’s breath, stirred him in a way he hadn’t felt since his first meeting with Metrobius. The eyes looking directly at him were very like his own—palest blue surrounded by a dark ring. They blazed intelligence. Here am I as I might have been had I known a mother like the wonderful Aurelia and never known a drunkard like my father, thought Sulla. A face to set Athens on fire, and a mind too.

“They tell me, boy,” said Sulla, “that you’re very clever.”

The smile became a laugh. “Then you haven’t been talking to Marcus Antonius Gnipho,” Young Caesar said.

“Who’s he?”

“My tutor, Lucius Cornelius.”

“Can’t your mother teach you for two or three more years?”

“I think I must have driven her mad with my questions when I was a little boy. So she got a tutor for me.”

“Little boy? You’re still that.”

“Littler,” said Young Caesar, not at all daunted.

“Precocious,” said Sulla dismissively.

“Not that word, please!”

“Why not, Young Caesar? What do you know, at six, about the nuances in a word?”

“About that one, enough to know that it’s almost always applied to haughty little girls who sound exactly like their grandmothers,” said Young Caesar sturdily.

“Ahah!” said Sulla, looking more interested. “that’s not got out of a book, is it? So you have eyes which feed your clever mind with information, and from it you make deductions.”

“Naturally,” said Young Caesar, surprised.

“Enough. Go away now, all of you,” said Aurelia.

The children went, Young Caesar smiling at Sulla over his shoulder until he caught his mother’s eye.

“If he doesn’t burn out, he’ll either be an adornment to his class or a thorn in its paw,” said Sulla.

“Hopefully an adornment,” said Aurelia.

“I wonder?” And Sulla laughed.

“You’re standing for praetor,” said Aurelia, changing the subject, sure Sulla had had enough of children..

“Yes.”

“Uncle Publius says you’ll get in.”

“Let us hope he’s more like Teiresias than Cassandra, then!”

He was like Teiresias; when the votes were counted, not only was Sulla a praetor, but—as he was returned at the top of the poll—he was also praetor urbanus. Though under normal circumstances the urban praetor’s duties were almost entirely involved with the courts and with those petitioning for litigation, he was empowered (if both the consuls were absent or unfit to govern) to act in loco consularis—to defend Rome and command its armies in case of attack, to promulgate laws, to direct the Treasury.

The news that he was to be urban praetor dismayed Sulla greatly. The urban praetor could not be away from Rome for more than ten days at a time; the office denied Sulla a bolt-hole, he was forced to remain inside Rome among all the temptations of his old life and in the same house as a woman he despised. However, he now had a form of support never before so much as imagined, in the person of his son. Young Sulla would be his friend, Young Sulla would be in attendance on him in the Forum, Young Sulla would be at home each evening to talk to, to laugh with. How like his first cousin Young Caesar he was! To look at, anyway. And the lad had a good mind, even if not in Young Caesar’s class. Sulla had a strong feeling that he wouldn’t have liked his son nearly as much were he as clever as Young Caesar.

The elections had produced a bigger shock than Sulla’s topping the praetors’ poll, a shock not without its amusing side for those not directly affected. Lucius Marcius Philippus had announced his candidacy for consul, convinced he was the jewel in an uninspiring field. But first place went to the younger brother of the censor Lucius Valerius Flaccus, one Gaius Valerius Flaccus. That was all right, perhaps; at least a Valerius Flaccus was a patrician, his family influential! But the junior consul was none other than that ghastly New Man, Marcus Herennius! Philippus’s howls of outrage could be heard in Carseoli, vowed the Forum frequenters, chuckling. Everyone knew where the fault lay, including Philippus—in those remarks of Publius Rutilius Rufus during his speech advocating a kinder lex Licinia Mucia. Until then, the world had forgotten how Gaius Marius had bought Philippus after he had been elected a tribune of the plebs. But insufficient time had elapsed between that speech and Philippus’s consular candidacy for people to forget all over again.

“I’ll get Rutilius Rufus for this!” vowed Philippus to Caepio.

“We’ll both get him,” said Caepio, also smarting.

Scant days before the end of that year Livia Drusa gave birth to a boy, Marcus Porcius Cato Salonianus Junior—a skinny, screeching baby with the Catonian red hair, a long neck, and a nose which sat in the middle of his homely newborn face like a huge hooked beak, utterly inappropriate. He had presented as a footling breech and refused to co-operate, with the result that his emergence into the world was arduously long, his mother both cut and torn by the time the midwives and doctors extricated him from the birth canal.

“But, domina,” said Apollodorus Siculus, “he is quite without harm—no bruises, no swellings, no blueness.” A slight smile crossed the little Greek physician’s face. “If his behavior at birth is anything to go by, domina, be warned! He will grow up to be a difficult man.”

Too exhausted to do more than smile wanly, Livia Drusa found herself hoping she would have no more children; this was the first time she had suffered enough during labor to feel negative afterward.

It was some days before her other children were permitted to see her, days during which Cratippus was obliged to administer the household unaided, as Livia Drusa was now its mistress.

Servilia predictably came no further than the door, refusing to acknowledge her new half brother. Lilla—sternly indoctrinated these days by her elder sister—tried to stay aloof, but succumbed to her mother’s coaxing and ended in kissing the thin, wriggling mite tucked into Livia Drusa’s arm. Porcia called Porcella was too young at fourteen months to be invited to this puerperal visit, but Young Caepio, now turned three, was. His reaction was ecstatic. He couldn’t get enough of this new baby brother, demanding to hold him, to cuddle him, to kiss him.

“He’s going to be mine,” said Young Caepio, digging his heels in as his nursemaid attempted to drag him away.

“I give him to you, little Quintus,” said Livia Drusa, enormously grateful that one of Young Cato’s siblings had taken to him wholeheartedly. “You shall have full charge of him.”

Though she hadn’t come into the room, Servilia lingered in the doorway until Lilla and Young Caepio. were removed, then edged just a few feet closer to the bed. Her eyes rested upon her mother derisively, her sore spirit finding satisfaction in Livia Drusa’s haggard face, weary look.

“You’re going to die,” Servilia said, looking smug.

Livia Drusa’s breath caught. “Nonsense!” she said sharply.

“You will die,” the ten-year-old insisted. “I have wished it to happen, so it will. It did to Aunt Servilia Caepionis when I wished her dead!”

“To say things like that is as silly as it is unkind,” said the mother, heart knocking frantically. “Wishes cannot make things happen, Servilia. If they do happen and you have wished, it is a coincidence, no more. Fate and Fortune are responsible, not you! You are just not important enough to engage the attention of Fate and Fortune.”

“It’s no use, you can’t convince me! I have the Evil Eye! When I ill-wish people, they die,” said the child gleefully, and disappeared.

Livia Drusa lay silent, eyes closed. She didn’t feel well; she hadn’t felt well since Young Cato was born. Yet believe that Servilia was responsible, she could not. Or so she told herself.

But over the next few days, Livia Drusa’s condition deteriorated alarmingly. A wet-nurse had to be found for Young Cato, who was removed from his mother’s room, whereupon Young Caepio pounced and took charge of him.

Apollodorus Siculus clucked. “I fear for her life, Marcus Livius,” he said to Drusus. “The bleeding is not profuse, but it is remorseless, and nothing seems to help. She has a fever, and there is a foul discharge mixed with the blood.”

“Oh, what is the matter with my life?” cried Drusus, rubbing the tears out of his eyes. “Why is everyone dying?”

A question of course that could not be answered; nor did Drusus take credence of Servilia’s ill-wishing when Cratippus, who loathed the child, reported it to him. Nevertheless, Livia Drusa’s condition continued to deteriorate.

The worst thing, thought Drusus, was that there was no other woman in the house of higher status than slaves. Cato Salonianus was with his wife as much as possible, but Servilia had to be kept away, and it seemed to both Drusus and Cato that Livia Drusa looked for something or someone who was not there. Servilia Caepionis, probably. Drusus wept. And made up his mind what to do.

On the following day he went to visit a house into which he had never stepped; the house of Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus Livianus. His brother. Though his father had told him Mamercus was no son of his. So long ago! Would he be received?

“I want to speak to Cornelia Scipionis,” he said.

The door warden, whose mouth had been open to say that the master of the house was not home, shut it, nodded instead. Drusus was conducted to the atrium, and there waited a short time.

He literally did not recognize the elderly woman who stumped in, grey hair pulled back in an unflattering bun, clothes drab and chosen without regard for color schemes, body stout, face scrubbed and rather ugly; she looked, he thought, very like the busts of Scipio Africanus which dotted the Forum. Which was not surprising, given that she was closely related to him.

“Marcus Livius?” she asked in a lovely mellow deep voice.

“Yes,” he said, completely at a loss how to proceed.

“How like your father you are!” she said, but without evidence of dislike. She sat down on the edge of a couch, and indicated a chair opposite. “Seat yourself, my son.”

“I suppose you’re wondering what brings me here,” he said, and felt a huge lump grow in his throat. His face worked, he struggled desperately to preserve his composure.

“Something very serious,” she said, “so much is obvious.”

“It’s my sister. She’s dying.”

A change came over her, she got immediately to her feet. “Then we have no time to waste, Marcus Livius. Let me only tell my daughter-in-law what’s amiss, then we’ll go.”

He didn’t even know that she had a daughter-in-law; nor might she know his wife was dead. His brother Mamercus he knew slightly from seeing him around the Forum, but they never spoke; the ten years between them meant that Mamercus was not yet old enough to enter the Senate. But, it seemed, he was married.

“You have a daughter-in-law,” he said to his mother as they left the house.

“Just recently,” said Cornelia Scipionis, beautiful voice suddenly colorless. “Mamercus married one of the sisters of Appius Claudius Pulcher last year.”

“My wife died,” he said abruptly.

“Yes, I heard that. I’m sorry now I didn’t come to see you. But I didn’t honestly think I’d be a welcome face in time of grief, and I have a great deal of pride. Too much pride, I know.”

“I take it I was supposed to come to you.”

“Something like that.”

“I didn’t think of it.”

Her face twisted. “that’s understandable,” she said evenly. “It’s interesting that you’d climb down for the sake of your sister, but not for yourself.”

“That’s the way of the world. Or our world, at any rate.”

“How long has my daughter got?”

“We don’t know. The doctors think very little time now, but she’s fighting it. Yet she has some great fear too. I don’t know what, or why. Romans are not afraid of dying.”

“Or so we tell ourselves, Marcus Livius. But beneath the show of fearlessness, there’s always a terror of the unknown.”

“Death isn’t an unknown.”

“Do you not think so? Perhaps it’s rather that life is sweet.”

“Sometimes.”

She cleared her throat. “Can you not call me Mama?”

“Why should I? You left home when I was just ten years old, and my sister five.”

“I couldn’t live with that man a moment longer.”

“I’m not surprised,” he said dryly. “He wasn’t the sort of person to put up with a cuckoo in his nest.”

“Your brother Mamercus, you mean?”

“Who else?”

“He is your full brother, Marcus Livius.”

“That’s what my sister keeps telling her daughter about her son,” said Drusus. “But one look at Young Caepio is enough to tell the biggest fool whose son he really is.”

“Then I suggest you look more closely at Mamercus. He’s a Livius Drusus to the life, not a Cornelius Scipio.” She paused, added, “Or an Aemilius Lepidus.”

They had come to the house of Drusus. After the door warden admitted them, Cornelia Scipionis gazed about her in awe.

“I never saw this house,” she said. “Your father had truly wonderful taste.”

“It’s a pity he didn’t have a truly wonderful warmth,” said Drusus bitterly.

The mother glanced sideways at him, but said nothing.

Whether the passionately unhappy curse of Servilia had any influence with Fate and Fortune or not, Livia Drusa grew to believe it had. For she had come to realize that she was dying, and could find no other reason for it. Four children had she brought into the world without a single complication; why should a fifth change that pattern? Everyone knew they got easier to bear.

When the stout little elderly lady appeared in the doorway of her room, Livia Drusa simply stared, wondering who was wasting her ebbing energy on a stranger. The stranger walked inside, her hands outstretched.

“I’m your mother, Livia Drusa,” the stranger said, sat down on the edge of the bed, and took her girl into her arms.

They both wept, as much for the unexpectedness of this reunion as for the lost years, then Cornelia Scipionis made her daughter comfortable, and sat on a chair drawn up close.

The already clouding eyes drank in that plain Scipionic face, the matronly garb, the unadorned hair, wondering.

“I thought you’d be very beautiful, Mama,” she said.

“A typical eater of men, you mean.”

“Father—even my brother—”

Cornelia Scipionis patted the hand she held, smiling. “Oh, they’re Livii Drusi—what more can one say on that subject? I love life, girl! I always, always did. I like to laugh, I don’t take the world seriously enough. My friends numbered as many men as women. Just friends! But in Rome a woman cannot have men friends without half the world at least assuming she has more on her mind than intellectual conversation. Including, as it turned out, your father. My husband. Yet I felt myself entitled to see my friends—men as well as women—whenever I wanted. But I certainly didn’t appreciate the gossip, nor the way your father always believed what the gossipers said ahead of his wife. He never once took my side!”

“So you never did have lovers!” Livia Drusa said.

“Not in the days when I lived with your father, no. I was more maligned than maligning. Even so, I came to realize that if I stayed with your father, I would die. So after Mamercus was born I allowed your father to think that he was the child of old Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus, who was one of my dearest friends. But no more my lover than any other of my men friends. When old Mamercus asked to adopt my baby, your father agreed at once—provided I would go too. But he never divorced me, isn’t that odd? Old Mamercus was a widower, and was very glad to welcome the mother of his new adopted son. I went to a much happier house, Livia Drusa, and lived with old Mamercus as his wife until he died.”

Livia Drusa managed to lift herself off her pillows. “But I thought you had many love affairs!” she said.

“Oh, I did, dear girl. After old Mamercus died. For a while, dozens of them. But love affairs pall, you know. They’re only a way of exploring human nature if a strong attachment is lacking, which it mostly is. One looks for something, always hoping to find it. But then one day a realization dawns—that love affairs are more trouble than they’re worth, that the elusive something cannot be found in this way. It’s some years now since I’ve had a lover, actually. I’m happier simply living with my son Mamercus and enjoying my friends. Or I was until Mamercus married.” She pulled a face. “I don’t like my daughter-in-law.”

“Mama, I’m dying! I’ll never know you now!”

“Better the little we have than nothing, Livia Drusa. It isn’t all your brother’s fault,” said Cornelia Scipionis, facing the truth without flinching. “Once I left your father, I made no attempt to try to see you or your brother Marcus. I could have. I didn’t.” She squared her shoulders, adopted a cheerful mien. “Anyway, who says you’re dying? It’s almost two months since you had your baby. Too long for him to make you die.”

“It isn’t his fault I’m dying,” said Livia Drusa. “I’ve been cursed. I have the Evil Eye.”

Cornelia Scipionis stared, astonished. “The Evil Eye? Oh, Livia Drusa, what rubbish! It doesn’t exist.”

“Yes, it does.”

“Child, it does not! And who is there to hate you enough for that, anyway? Your ex-husband?”

“No, he doesn’t even think about me.”

“Who, then?”

But Livia Drusa shivered, wouldn’t answer.

“Tell me!” her mother commanded, sounding every inch a Scipio.

“Servilia.” It came out as a whisper.

“Servilia?” Brows knitted, Cornelia Scipionis worked the name out. “You mean a daughter by your first husband?”

“Yes.”

“I see.” She patted Livia Drusa’s hand. “I won’t insult you by telling you this is all your imagination, my dear, but you must overcome your feelings. Don’t give the girl the satisfaction.”

A shadow fell across her; Cornelia Scipionis turned around to see a tall, red-haired man in the doorway, and smiled at him. “You must be Marcus Porcius,” she said, getting up. “I’m your mother-in-law, and I’ve just had a wonderful reunion with Livia Drusa. Look after her now. I must find her brother.”

Out to the colonnade she went, eyes darting about fiercely until she saw her older son sitting by the fountain.

“Marcus Livius!” she said sharply when she reached him. “Did you know that your sister believes herself ill-wished?”

Drusus looked shocked. “She doesn’t!”

“Oh yes she does! By a daughter called Servilia.”

His lips thinned. “I see.”

“Now you’re not surprised, my son.”

“Anything but. That child is a menace. Having her in my house is like playing host to the Sphinx—a monster capable of organized thought.”

“Is it possible Livia Drusa is dying because she does believe herself cursed?”