"It shows he's a complete worm, and you're a sucker. With no need to put himself out again, he gets himself a treasure—a good manager, clever and amusing, an armful any man would envy—"
"A canteen of cutlery, a good set of Greek bowls, cheap shorthand, and no risk any longer of having ragamuffin children." Caenis spoke with a deliberate lightness that would prove to Veronica that she knew all the implications. Then, more benevolent than Veronica had ever seen her in thirty years, she handed her friend a small object, which she took from a clip on her belt.
"Whatever's that?"
It was an old iron key. From a nation whose ironmasters and brass-founders were of the highest caliber, this was a pitiful specimen. It was two inches long, with a bent stem and missing one of its rusty teeth; it hung from a short piece of twisted leather thong that was greasy and blackened with age; an unsavory toggle, possibly amber but probably some grimmer fossil, was knotted at the farther end.
Caenis explained: "What you have in your hand is a symbolic gesture of the sentimental Sabine kind. I shall never be married with the witnesses and auguries; he won't take me in torchlight procession to his house; his servants will not greet me with fire and salt when I arrive. But there used to be a tradition—most people don't bother anymore—that a Roman ceremonially handed the keys of his house to his bride as a sign that she was now in charge of his domestic affairs."
"So?" demanded Veronica curiously, eyeing askance the grizzly little relic that still lay on her palm.
"That is the key to Vespasian's store-cupboard," Caenis reported. Veronica hastily handed it back.
* * *
Their living together hardly merited public notice. Vespasian had been right. Because he had done all society required, society took a lenient view when he did that which—in theory—ought to be condemned. Besides, almost from the first day their partnership appeared to everyone as they saw it themselves: the inevitable way for Caenis and Vespasian to live. There was no fuss. There were few confrontations. Vespasian now held such a substantial reputation that an act of open eccentricity actually enhanced his position. Rome, which had bound itself in edicts and regulations, admired a man with the self-confidence to stand up for principles of his own in his personal affairs.
Vespasian was still living quietly in country retirement, which helped. He kept his house in Rome, since a consular senator had to appear from time to time, unless he wanted to be reprimanded by the Emperor—or worse. But he spent as much time as possible at Reate, and that suited everyone. His provincial appointment was continually deferred. Nobody told him that the delay was due to the enmity of Agrippina, but he drew the obvious conclusion. He had become more of an outsider than ever, not that he seemed to mind too much. He was still ambitious enough to want the post, but dreaded the expense of it.
The Emperor's mother had enjoyed a brief spell of unprecedented influence, but caused such outrage by her assumption of almost equal powers with Nero and her improper public appearances as his consort that a year after his accession Nero was able to insist that she withdraw from the main Palace complex and take up residence in the House of Livia. This freed Nero to indulge in artistic pursuits, sexual license with male and female conquests, all-day banquets, gladiatorial shows, and a fairly humane political policy encouraged by his mentors, the philosopher Seneca and the Praetorian commander Burrus.
His alleged incest with Agrippina was long past. Eventually his irritation at her cloying mother-love and her dominating ambition reached the point where in the grand Claudian tradition he determined to be rid of her. Exile to a small island seemed insufficient; she had been exiled before, and proved she could survive and return worse than ever. At first he tormented her with lawsuits and encouraged her to take unwanted holidays. It took him four years of such scheming to work up the courage for a serious attack. Then, while Agrippina was staying at Antonia's huge seaside villa at Bauli, he managed to dispose of her—though not without a farcical series of failed attempts. He failed to poison her (she kept taking antidotes), or drown her (when her galley fell to pieces in the Bay of Naples, she swam to safety), or to crush her under a collapsible ceiling (someone had warned her it was there). He stopped being subtle. He simply had her put to the sword: one more of Antonia's grandchildren violently destroyed. But the accusation of matricide was one Nero would find harder to shake off than he first realized.
Freed from Agrippina's jealousy, Vespasian began to spend more time in Rome again, and eventually—though not immediately—he was awarded his province. As Narcissus had long ago promised, he was to be Governor of Africa.
"Of course you're heartbroken, Caenis," Veronica consoled her. "Still, you should get a nice rest from him while he trips off to the hot spots. Will he let you stay in his house while he's away?" She had phrased it tactfully, since she was well aware that the house Caenis owned herself was far more elegant and comfortable.
"I'm going to Africa with him."
Even Veronica, who had seen a great deal of human nature and of life, was nonplussed. "Well! Make sure you keep your lease on your own house—and insist that miser pays your fare."
"No need. As part of the Governor's household, the travel pass for transporting me to Africa will be provided, with the customary bad grace, by the State Treasury. I count as one of the Governor's traveling chests."
"You really know how to make a fool of yourself for a man," Veronica told her frankly.
By the time Caenis and Vespasian reached Africa, their lives had grown into one another inextricably. Their domestic partnership was by then some years old, and their relationship had assumed a solid permanence. They lived together, at the same pace, in the same style, sharing the same debates and humor, locked close in body and thought. They became a single unit, satisfied with one another and with life.
Of Vespasian's governorship in Africa three things were remembered afterward: First, despite the opportunities for profit, Vespasian came home no richer than he went; in fact his credit was used up, and he had been keeping his bank account buoyant by commercial flirtations, mostly involving wet fish. Second, it was grudgingly agreed that his term of office ran with dignity and justice. Third, the only sour incident recorded was when the people of Hadrumetum rioted and pelted him with turnips.
What went unrecorded—perhaps because though just it was not dignified—was how the Governor of Africa cursed the lively temperament of the people of Hadrumetum but managed to capture two of their turnips. He took them home to present to Caenis with his good-humored grin. Caenis, straight-faced, had them made into soup, which the Governor ate with great gusto, particularly since he had not had to pay for it.
THIRTY-FOUR
Nothing lasts.
They had enjoyed fourteen years under Claudius; then there were fourteen years of Nero to be endured. For most of that reign Caenis lived with Vespasian. Although in political terms the time seemed endless to those who did not court the Emperor's favor, for her it flew by.
They had achieved almost a decade of quiet domesticity, which was a long time. It was longer than most marriages survived before death or divorce intervened; it was much longer than many people even hoped to stick things out. Cautious as she was, she had begun to believe she could hope to end her days living like this.
Then, when Flavius Vespasianus was fifty-seven—late for any man to embark on a new phase in his life—he made the mistake of accompanying Nero on his fabled tour of Greece. It was a musical tour. Nero by then had ceased to heed his friends' warnings that stage and arena appearances, whether as a charioteer or a singer, would offend public opinion to a damaging degree. He now saw himself as an artiste; nobody dared to scoff at him openly, while the flatterers who surrounded him encouraged his flight from reality.