“Taller than any obelisk!” Cleo said. “A metal eyesore! And an imp! In this neighborhood!”
“One has no idea, signora. One has been preparing the garden. Or one was –” Niccolo cast a reluctant eye to the roses, lush and undisciplined, and sprouting shoots from every knot and branch of the tree roses. “– until the imp.” Another shell went over. Another explosion. “May we hope for Cicero, signori?”
“Hope is the word for it,” Julius said and headed off, Cleo close beside, snugging her purse under her arm. “I have to talk to Augustus. The wretch is wanting an apology.”
“Pro di immortales!” was Augustus’ predictable reaction, on the other side of the desk. “I didn’t kill him!”
“He is what he is,” Julius said with a shrug. “He is what he always was. I got along with him. Mostly. He’s an old Republican, he’s a vain old man … death didn’t youthen him a bit. We want something from him. He’s named a price. He wants an apology in the Hell’s Tribune, and he’ll take it once the case is settled. You just have to put out a little press release, ‘Old Feud Settled, Augustus Denounces Former Ally,’ that sort of thing. He’s willing to wait.”
“Contingent,” Cleo said demurely, from the corner chair by the potted palm. “Contingent on settling.”
Augustus glowered. He’d died old, of a dish Livia had served him, but lately he’d gotten younger, lost the chins, and now his ears stuck out. Maybe, Julius reflected, it was the combination of young Marcus Brutus and Cleopatra’s boy Caesarion in the household, that had Augustus, First Citizen of Rome, suddenly looking thirtyish, with a prominent Adam’s apple: Augustus, his nephew, was a posthumous adoption of his – born simply Octavius, a two-name man, a commoner; adoption by a patrician Julian had made him Caius Iulius Caesar Octavianus, and the Senate, doing all it could to bolster the man who’d steadied the ship of state on course, had tacked on the Augustus bit.
Good administrator, his namesake. Good kid. Thank the gods he’d stuck that adoption in his will, even if it upset Cleopatra, whose Caesarion had not been Roman enough, and Marcus Brutus, who hadn’t been legitimate enough.
It had really disappointed Marcus Antonius, magister equitum, who in the way of Roman adoptions, had had every right to think his old mentor might have adopted him. Do Antonius credit – he had had his hands on the will, had gotten that nasty surprise, and still, in the haze of an honest grief and in fear for his own life, had added two and two and figured first, Octavius could cast legitimacy on the government and second, that a boy like Octavius could be handled.
Right, on the first count.
Wrong, on the second. Octavius, once turned Octavianus, couldn’t be handled.
Cleo had gotten clear of Rome before she caught hell. Antonius had stayed and tried to take Octavian’s share of power. Really wrong.
Antonius had had his enemies’ list. He’d had Cicero killed. And cousin Lucius. Among others. And he’d tried the old gambit of establishing an authority outside Rome, off in the east. That never had worked. Neither had alcohol.
In the end – he’d killed Brutus and he’d gotten on the bad side of Caesarion. Neither of the boys had liked him. And truth be known, he’d fallen on Julius’ bad side long before the Ides of March business … so much so Julius just wasn’t damned sure he hadn’t been involved.
He couldn’t ask Brutus. Who didn’t remember the event. And Caesarion hadn’t been there.
But, damn, he wondered. Ask him which he felt better about, Cicero or Antonius, and the unlikely answer was Cicero.
He’d said as much, talking the old warhorse into taking the boys’ part against Tiberius.
“I’ll give him his statement,” Augustus said, a muscle jumping in his jaw. And in English. “Damn him.”
“Damn Tiberius,” Julius muttered, “first.”
“When is he coming?” Augustus asked, and looked ceilingward as something screamed overhead. “What are they doing out there?”
“The Cong are out of the Park. On Richelieu’s lawn.”
“With the Audit going on,” Augustus muttered. “We do not need the attention, uncle. We do not need it.”
“He should be here within the hour. He refused the car. One believes, however, he is actually taking a taxi.”
“Marvelous,” Augustus said. “Talk sense to the boys. They’ll listen to you.”
That was an optimistic estimate.
“Let me talk to him,” Julius said, delivering a kiss to Cleopatra’s cheek.
“Don’t hit him,” Cleo said.
“I won’t hit him,” Julius said, took a deep breath, and resolved not to, no matter the provocation.
There was a science to handling the boys – it relied mostly on talking to Brutus and letting Brutus talk to Caesarion. Long hair, grease, and leather jackets had become the vogue … since Caesarion had turned up. Rabbit’s-foot key chains, and the plaint that they needed a car.
Not this decade, they didn’t.
Especially not with Erra and the Seven downtown.
Loud rock-and-roll resounded from the pool room – had been a part of the library. Had been. Now it housed two teen rebels who had a round-the-clock guard on their whereabouts – quietly, politely, but there.
Julius passed the legionary guard – on loan from a lower tier of hell – and quietly nudged the door open. Inside it sounded like the Gauls in head-on attack. The teens who lived in this lower hell called it music … and played it at full volume.
Julius walked past the infernal device and switched it off.
Stunning silence. And two teenagers going on twenty and too damned old for stunts like Caesarion had pulled.
“I’ve got you a lawyer,” he said. “We’re going to try to settle with the old goat.”
“Doesn’t matter to me,” Caesarion said, pool cue in hand. He turned and made his shot. His half-brother just glowered.
“Nothing’s our fault,” Brutus said.
“I wouldn’t care if you drowned the old sod,” Julius said. “What I do care about – isn’t for you to know. Figure it out. Let me explain, however, that if you get sued, and if you have to testify downtown – they’ll slice off parts of you until they’re satisfied. Ask Niccolo how it is to wind up on Slab One. He’ll give you a description. But then – downtown – they might not kill you. They might just leave you in viable pieces. Will I be sorry? Probably. But you’ll be a lot sorrier.”
Caesarion had stopped the pool shots, and looked at him about as level-on as Caesarion ever had. Thinking. That was an improvement.
“Dying’s a bitch,” Julius said. “But there’s far worse. You don’t want to attract attention until these prehistoric types are out of town. So stay here – And,” he added, since he had the undivided attention of both of them, almost unprecedented, “Cicero was born a prig, he practiced at it, and he died one. But he is good with the establishment. And it’s my earnest hope he’ll come up with a way to avoid your going to court, which you really don’t need right now – because if the old goat doesn’t settle, you’ll be arrested, you’ll be presumed guilty until proven innocent, and we haven’t got a way to prove you’re innocent. So let us get you out of this, and then you can go back to being whatever you like.”