"Oh, these accursed imperial women! First we come home from the back of beyond to find Messalina picking off every friend or colleague Claudius owns, then you and Pallas set him up with another scheming, suspicious, incestuous Julian cow who decides to make it her business to run the Empire. . . ." This description of the Augusta, as Agrippina now styled herself, exactly fitted Narcissus' own opinion, Caenis knew.
He murmured fussily, "Consul, you are under stress."
"Stress! Narcissus, the woman's impossible. I have to deal with her so long as Claudius leaves her loose. Oh, I'll stick out my term, but she must know what I think."
"She knows what you said when Caligula accused her of adultery and conspiracy!" Narcissus reprimanded him.
"So we're permanent enemies! When my time's up as Consul I'll have to leave the court."
"Sounds wise!"
"Sounds unjust!"
Narcissus shrugged in that slightly oriental way. "Yes. Still, serenity and leisure on your country estate—it's a Roman ideal. You'll be balloted soon for a provincial governorship. Enjoy yourself meanwhile. Weed your vines, or whatever you have; keep your head down and keep your temper. A good man—best out of the way."
The Consul was still furious. "I'll have nothing!"
Narcissus suddenly sat up. "No, sir! On my list you have an honest wife and three healthy children, the army's acclaim, the Senate's respect, and the liking of a great many private citizens. Your funds may be low—"
This was not the best way to calm Vespasian down. He hurled what was left of the branch into the pond, slightly splashing the edge of her white funereal dress, so Caenis pulled back her feet to protect it. She only ever owned one. There were few people Caenis thought worth wearing mourning for.
"Low? Low? Listen," Vespasian raged. "I've thought about this! She's going to block my appointment; I know it. Anyway, if I do get a province, I'll need to mortgage my estate just to be able to live in the proper style, even abroad. Is this right? My children were born into beggary; we have no family silver on the table, and Domitian's just made his poor little entrance in an attic over Pomegranate Street." He was well into his stride. Domitian was his second son, born at the end of October. There was a daughter too. "I shall be a governor who runs mule trains and dabbles in franchises for fish—a trader in tuna, a fiddler with flounders, a man permanently after his percentage on cuttlefish and cubes of cod! Your lady friend can stop twitching and laugh if she likes."
Caenis, who had been sinking deeper into herself, realized abruptly that she was the audience for whom his last flamboyant outburst had been played.
Vespasian had at first been ignoring her as deliberately as she was ignoring him; suddenly he turned and addressed her directly with that disconcerting drop in his tone: "Hello, Caenis!"
"Hello," she said.
It was the first time they had spoken for nearly thirteen years.
* * *
The Chief Secretary, whose very inexperience made him a sentimentalist, noticed at once that the Consul stopped frowning. Vespasian's mood had clarified like a wax tablet melting for reuse. Even so, it seemed that these two wanted to say nothing more to one another.
Sucking his lower lip, the Consul challenged the freedman again: "Well! If you're so sure it's going to be all right, which province will I get?"
"Africa," replied Narcissus. Vespasian whistled; Caenis stirred: Africa was the prize.
"Thought it was supposed to be a lottery?"
"Oh it is, Consul! Never let anybody tell you otherwise." Repenting his frankness, Narcissus told him carefully, "You must keep up your state."
"Oh thanks!" Vespasian was scathing, but looked preoccupied; Caenis knew he would be trying to work out just how the lottery was fiddled. So was she. "Ask your gloomy visitor if she needs her savings yet?"
Narcissus merely looked demure, but when Caenis continued to stare into the pool in silence, he felt obliged to clear his throat and ask, "Do you, Caenis?"
Caenis replied quietly, to Narcissus, "No."
"Generous friends!" rapped Narcissus to Vespasian.
He commented tersely, to Narcissus, "Yes." Then he burst out at Caenis herself. "Always in white these days! You look terrible in white." Caenis was damned if at this time of her life she was going to start letting men tell her what she ought to wear. He detected the thought. "Sorry. Impertinent. You'll have to forgive me; I've known you a long time."
"No, Consul." He was startled. So was she; yet she continued without mercy: "You knew me," Caenis told him bluntly, "for a short while, a very long time ago!"
She shot to her feet, tight-lipped, and walked away to another part of the garden by herself.
There was a tense silence. Narcissus had no idea what he ought to do. "Shall I—"
"Leave her!" Vespasian whipped toward him. "So long as she gets angry," he explained clearly, as if it were important that in future Narcissus understood this, "she's all right." There was another pause. Vespasian was staring the way Caenis had gone.
Narcissus muttered, "I'll—"
"No. I'll go."
"Then I had better explain why she's—"
"No need," said Vespasian. "I know. Of course I know."
* * *
Her feelings had nothing to do with Vespasian being there.
She sat on a seat beside the dripping fronds of a monumental fern, breathing hard, with one hand to her head. It was all too much. Marius dead, and now his stupid will . . . He had left her precisely half as much again as he had left to each of his freedmen: enough to embarrass his family, yet a harshly unequal gesture for a woman who had been prepared to become his wife. She wanted to refuse the legacy, as any heir was entitled to do. His cautiousness was so insulting.
She sat, thinking about this, and thinking too about Marius. She still knew he was a comparatively decent man. He had not understood what he had done.
Someone was coming for her. She heard the footsteps, while trying to ignore them.
"Caenis?" Her Sabine friend.
He waited, on the other side of the fern, to let her readjust. Probably afraid she had been crying. Left to herself she probably would have been. People never knew when to leave you to yourself.
"Your old Greek nanny panicked."
"I'll come." Caenis sat forward, intending to rise, but Vespasian was on the narrow path, sticky with fallen leaves. He was blocking her way.
"Don't get up." He stayed there; so she stayed on the seat. "You're wanting advice?"
Caenis said nothing. Obviously Narcissus had told him everything. Politicians were so arrogant about other people's private affairs.
Vespasian risked it: "Share your troubles with a friendly magistrate. I won't charge," he chivvied, as she still sat stony-faced. He was more heavily built and a great deal more pompous nowadays. "Though you might consider a drop in the interest on my loan." She still said nothing. He went on, with the natural complaisant assumption that no one in good society would ever be deliberately rude, "Tell me to mind my own business if you like—"
"Mind your own business, Consul!" Caenis roared.
She turned away bitterly.
But all he said was, "Don't be daft, lass!" then came and sat beside her on the bench. Caenis was probably forty. Even in the country, nobody was ever going to call her "lass" again.
"Don't fight."
"Don't interfere!"
"Look; Caenis—"
"Leave me alone!"
"I can't; I promised your lady a long time ago—I had heard you were planning to get married. I'm so sorry." Caenis once again spun to her feet. He snapped: "Oh, sit down, you short-tempered shrike, and listen to me!"