His brother was doing well, as their mother pointed out. Sabinus, who had held the civic post of aedile the year Sejanus fell, had then progressed without difficulty to being elected as a magistrate two years later. By the time he was forty Sabinus would be hoping for a consulship. Meanwhile, Vespasian had reached twenty-five, the year he himself was eligible to stand as a senator, though so far he had done nothing about it. A second son, he had a more easygoing attitude than his brother. He did not want to follow Sabinus into a public career—though he had no clear idea what he hankered for instead. His mother was determined to overcome his restlessness.
She was winning. She could not make him run in the Senate elections the year that he should have, but soon afterward Vespasian let himself agree to return to Rome. Lucius Vitellius was prevailed upon to introduce him to high circles. This brought him into a tight-knit group of four notable families—the Vitellii, the Petronii, the Plautii, and the Pomponii—who all had long-standing ties of marriage and common interest and who were increasingly prominent in government. After Sejanus fell, their importance had increased. Their members were awarded a flock of consulships, and it was generally perceived that they owed at least some of their success to Antonia.
Only foolishness would have allowed a young man who had access to this powerful group to miss his opportunity. Unless he chose to run off to be a traveling lyre player, with a beard and battered sandals, Vespasian was bound to end up dancing attendance at the House of Livia.
"I could bar this upstart!" offered Tyrannus.
Tyrannus was the slave who screened Antonia's guests. It was a post she had virtually invented, for in most Roman homes free access to the householder for people wishing to pay their respects or to submit petitions was traditional, but most households were not headed by women. Modesty forbade such free access to the House of Livia.
"There is no reason to bar him." Caenis felt embarrassed to discover that everyone knew Vespasian had sought an entanglement with her—and that it had not happened.
"I'm on your side, Caenis."
"I do appreciate that. We need not punish him."
"Oh, well—if you put his nose out of joint!"
Hardly likely, thought Caenis, as she braced herself to keep calm during Vespasian's visit.
She refused to hide. He too had no intention of pretending they were strangers. In what amounted to a public situation, they were able to find a wry formality for dealing with one another. So they would pass in corridors as if by accident (though it happened quite often). They would treat one another to exaggerated politeness, inquiring after each other's health. They even stood in the atrium discussing the weather as if there had never been that fierce tug of attraction between them.
Yet remembrance of their old friendship never died either. Caenis liked to let Vespasian see important men respectfully seeking her advice about how to approach Antonia. In return, Vespasian would fold his strong arms in his toga and cheerfully wink at her.
When he was twenty-six his mother finally prevailed. He was elected to the Senate, assuming the title of quaestor, a junior finance official, then given a posting to Crete.
EIGHT
"Hello, Caenis." Her Sabine friend.
The odd thing was, even after so long she felt no more surprise when he turned up again wanting to see her than when he had first stayed away.
It was November. Huddled in her cloak because the Palace was freezing, Caenis drove herself to continue writing until the next period. Even then she looked up only with her eyes, the picture of a secretary too intent to interrupt.
"Senator!" She was shocked. Here was Vespasian's familiar burly figure, uneasily swaddled in formal clothes—brilliant white woollen cloth, with wide new purple bands.
She did know he had been elected to the Senate. Antonia sent her every day to copy the news from the Daily Gazette, which was posted up for the public in the Forum. Caenis had recited the latest list of postings to quaestor while Antonia, who realized the young knight from Reate was no longer an issue, ignored his name with tact.
"Ludicrous, isn't it?" He smiled.
"Is your voting tribe short of candidates?" Caenis jibed with mild offensiveness. Senators elect were entitled to sit on special benches and listen in to the judgments to gain experience; most provincials felt this entitlement was one a prudent man should be seen eagerly taking up. It was late morning; Vespasian had probably come here from the Curia. Bound for Crete, he could only have come to say good-bye.
He hovered just inside the door. This time he passed no comment on the decor, even though the damp plaster had been cleanly reinstated, while the new paint on the dados and frescos still smelled fresh. (Caenis had succeeded in subverting the prefect in charge.)
"You're going to throw me out," said Vespasian unhappily.
"I ought to," she replied with controlled candor. "I owe it to myself."
"Of course you do." At last she lifted her head. He said calmly, "Please don't."
Caenis retorted, "Naturally, sir, I abase myself like an oriental ambassador—on my face, on the floor, at your feet!"
She stayed at her table.
Vespasian quietly crossed the room, accepting her sarcasm, then piled his toga in untidy folds on his knees as he took a low stool in front of her. He watched her with those frank brown eyes; she tilted her head, watching him. She remembered the frown; the energy of his stare; his physical stillness—the dangerous feeling that this man was offering his confidence, and she might without warning find she was sharing hers.
"What can I do for you, senator?" she inquired, honoring him again with his new title, her tone more subdued than the question required.
Vespasian leaned his elbow on her table. The wobbly legs had been stabilized for her by a carpenter, who then polished up the whole piece with beeswax. Caenis folded her hands on the farthermost gleaming edge.
He was making no attempt to explain. First he had decided against seeing her again; well, she didn't want to see him. And now he had decided to come back: well!
He said, "I'm trying to get hold of some notes for a decent shorthand system. The ones in the libraries are not for taking away." This ploy was at least novel. Mad humor danced in his face as Caenis tried to resist laughing too. "When I go abroad, if I'm just trailing around after some self-opinionated governor who doesn't trust me to do anything, I may at least manage to learn taking notes properly."
His year as a quaestor would involve traveling out to one of the foreign provinces to be the governor's finance officer and deputy. Unless they happened to have worked together before and had built up a friendship, governors and their quaestors often despised each other. In any case, she imagined Vespasian might make a prickly subordinate.
Delving into the conical basket in which she carried her equipment to and fro, Caenis produced her own battered reference sheets. She had been taught shorthand and several kinds of ciphering long ago. "This is a list of symbols I once made for myself. If you can read my scribble, take it, please."
When taking notes for her own purposes she wrote so quickly her handwriting could be eccentric, but as he glanced through, he nodded. "Thanks." He was just like her; set a document in his hand, and he was instantly devouring it.
While he was still reading she forced herself to say, "I see the Senate has published next year's postings."
"I've drawn Cyrenaica and Crete."
"Crete will be pleasant. . . . When do you leave?"