The events of the night were so wrapped up in his thoughts that it took Narcissus a moment to remember that apart from the wedding to Silius, there had once been another grim farce with Messalina wearing her saffron shoes and vermilion veil in front of witnesses.

  * * *

  He was ready to go.

  “Thanks, Caenis.” On his feet, he was staring at her in an odd way. “There is something I want to ask you.” He rubbed his eyes, so shy of making the request that Caenis was embarrassed by the fact that she thought she had guessed what it was.

  Narcissus was not effeminate. She believed he had mistresses, though they flitted in and out of his life, leaving no substantial mark. He was too serious now to be offering such a liaison to her. He needed her to confide in; he would not surrender that for some fleeting dalliance.

  He was thinking how to put it.

  “I can look after the Empire,” Narcissus said in that flat, tired voice. “I need somebody to look after the Emperor.”

  Caenis breathed. It was not what she had prepared herself to hear. Those sharp wits of her childhood still betrayed her into difficulty.

  In her surprise she became more vicious than she liked. “I always knew a state servant resembled a pimp! All that pestering and being pestered; all that soiled money changing hands on the backstairs!”

  “You are quite right; if I could save him by fixing him up I would!” Narcissus replied patiently, though he was still so weary he could hardly stand. “He told the Guards, he had been so unfortunate with his wives he was determined to live single all his life; they could kill him if he changed his mind. Well, the Guards may, or they may not—but he has already demanded a shortlist from Pallas, Callistus, and me, so unless I can call up some generous and discreet alternative, we can reckon the next matrimonial disaster is well on its way.”

  They were not exactly quarreling, so an answer was required. For once he had astonished her. He assumed that Caenis would want to do this for Rome—not at the expense of her personal interests; rather, he did not realize she might have hopes or ambitions otherwise.

  “Oh, I am grateful for your flattery; a girl needs a bit of that! But looking after an emperor,” declared Caenis, comparatively mildly for her, “is something for which I am unqualified.”

  “An emperor could do a lot worse.”

  “Oh, he will!” she returned drably. “We both know that.”

  She would not move. It was his own fault; he had taught her to reach rapid judgments, then bravely stick to them.

  So Narcissus braced himself for the burdens of the Empire, the Emperor, and the Emperor’s new wife, whoever she turned out to be. He did wonder (Caenis had not entirely lost her sensitivity) whether, if he ever needed it, Caenis would look after him. On the whole he preferred not to ask. He knew he sank too much of himself into his work for the question to be fair. Besides, he also knew his capabilities. Taking care of an empire was straightforward enough, but taking responsibility for Caenis required a special kind of man.

  She had always been his favorite, and he wanted the best for her. He still thought even an emperor could do worse.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The search for a new wife for Claudius was conducted on brisk official lines. His Chief Ministers each selected a candidate, whose merits they set out in elaborate position papers, which were debated at a formal meeting with the Emperor in the chair. This system seemed no worse than granting free rein to the ludicrous eccentricities of personal taste.

  Narcissus supported: Candidate A, Aelia Paetina; married to Claudius once before, she was the mother of his daughter Claudia Antonia—the sound, no-nonsense, known-quantity candidate.

  Callistus supported: Candidate B, Lollia Paulina; an extremely beautiful woman, she had married Caligula briefly, though under duress—the brilliant and popular candidate. She was fabulously wealthy too. Lest anyone doubt it, when she went to a dinner party covered in jewels she took the bills of sale to prove what her gemstones had cost.

  Pallas supported: Candidate C, Agrippina; Claudius’ niece. She was Caligula’s sister, one of the famous three—the underhand, dangerous, dark-horse candidate. She had a son, Domitius Ahenobarbus, so she had proved her fertility. Her ambitions for that son were likely to be ferocious—but then Claudius had a son of his own, Britannicus.

  It was illegal for an uncle to marry his niece, so Claudius did just that.

  “That’s the trouble with formal meetings.” Narcissus sighed despondently. “Either no decision at all, or the worst choice on the Chairman’s casting vote.”

  * * *

  It was when Agrippina married Claudius, as a sense of impending doom depressed her, that Caenis deliberately made a decision that surprised some of her friends. There was a knight she knew privately, Marius Pomponius Gallus, a good-tempered, decent, thoroughly amusing man. Narcissus had introduced them. For several years past Marius had been asking her to marry him. Quite suddenly, Caenis agreed. He had in fact asked her the first time they went to bed. This burst of initial enthusiasm later faded to a good-mannered routine; he was more startled than anyone when she did say yes. But he received the news stoically, and they began to look for dinner bowls and napkin sets.

  A couple of years later, luckily before Agrippina really made her presence felt, Flavius Vespasianus was elected to a consulship. That same year, still intending to marry Caenis, Marius Pomponius Gallus unexpectedly died.

  It all seemed sadly unimportant. Caenis knew she could have turned Marius into a bridegroom—quite a keen one—if she had wanted; she realized that what she had really been looking forward to most was a home of her own instead of the inelegant apartments where she had lived ever since Antonia died. She wanted peace and permanence, and on a long lease. So with the help of Narcissus, who was generous with money and time, she found a site and had built for herself a substantial, tasteful house, which she would own until she died.

  Her new home lay just outside the northeast city boundary, on the Via Nomentana. The site was not well chosen, since it was right beside the huge Praetorian Camp, built for the Guards by Sejanus. The location caused her constant teasing from her friends. Still, she was spared from enduring neighbors. And there would never be burglaries or riots.

  Narcissus had given her a steward: Aglaus. Caenis first inspected Aglaus in the wild garden at Narcissus’ own private house. She knew better than to accept a gift from a minister of state sight unseen.

  Narcissus’ gardens, though enclosed on all sides by the wings of his mansion, were as spacious and well designed as any public park. The noise of the city was muffled by trees. Songbirds clustered in the bushes and bounced about the gutters of the house; there were white doves basking on the pantiles of the roof. The wild garden was full of water: rectangular pools where stone nymphs with calm, regular faces looked down into the reeds among whose wiry clumps moved contemplative fish; fountains everywhere; and streams that wriggled through casual arrangements of shrubs to splash into shell-shaped porphyry bowls. Sometimes at night little candles were set afloat like stars in these bowls. At every turn stood a bench or seat; every bench had a pleasing view.

  There was another more conventional garden, with neat borders set with hedges of trimmed rosemary, grave statues of the imperial family that studded formal acanthus beds, and cypress trees bristling at intervals like a military guard along the fine-grained gravel paths. That was a place to take foreign ambassadors. This was for friends.

  Caenis and Narcissus relaxed on a stone seat among the arching fronds of an abutilon, with their feet on the edge of a pond. It was late in the year. Caenis was still in mourning. She wrapped her head in a dignified white mantle and hoped to impress her new slave. They watched him approach: not quite in his twenties, short as all Palace slaves were and slightly rickety, a lean face with a blue chin. He had a way of looking at people too directly, which Caenis recognized; he was brave to the verge of revolt. If he chose, he would do his work well in a defiant, offhand way; handled wrongly he was at an age where he could soon be written off as insubordinate and sold to a lupin-seller.

  Narcissus let him stand.

  “This is Antonia Caenis, an important freedwoman of the imperial family.”

  No sign of recognition; he was definitely surly. She let him see her weighing him up, then spoke in her calm, trained voice. “Aglaus, isn’t it? What’s his work like, Narcissus?”

  “He’s lazy, sly, and insolent,” Narcissus replied cheerfully. “They all are nowadays. Don’t expect our standards anymore.” He was well aware Caenis would think the belligerent lad worth saving: so like herself at the same age.

  “Tell me, Aglaus; are you ambitious?”

  “Yes, madam.” He spoke with the weary indifference of someone giving the answers he knows to be correct.

  Caenis pinched her mouth. “Then you have a rare choice. I need a steward. Your chance to be in charge.”

  Now the lad put his shoulders back and began to act on his own behalf. Obviously he had thought this through. “The penalty, I suppose, is a mistress who knows all the dodges herself? Safe enough if I know before I start! I suppose madam will have a front door with a bronze seahorse knocker, and closed shutters shading all her rooms?”

  This was rather quaint for Caenis, but she understood what he meant. “Naturally! Dried flowers, tiny portions at table, all the servants creeping around in soft felt shoes.”

  Narcissus gave vent to his awful laugh.

  “Men visiting?” interrogated the slave. He certainly had a cheek.

  “Not often,” she returned placidly, retreating from the thought of Marius.

  “Women, then?”

  “Not if I can help it. And unless you ask my permission, neither will you! Nor do I want smooth-faced altar boys from the Temple of Ganymede loitering around my kitchen door.”

  His impertinence, far from enraging her, was winning her interest. She could not bear people in her home who lacked character. He was deliberately trying out how far he could go, his lip curling into a sneer that would do well for suppressing butchers who overcharged. “Keep leaky lapdogs? Tame ducks? Crocodiles?”

  “No,” Caenis responded briefly. “Whose interview is this?”

  “Mine, I hope.” Aglaus was forthright. “You can sell me; I’ll be stuck.”

  Caenis turned to Narcissus dispassionately. “No harm in spirit, but will he be polite to my friends?”

  “Yes, madam!” said the slave, smirking. She guessed he did not want to work for a woman; she did not blame him for that, since with the rare exception of Antonia, neither did she.

  The chance of responsibility was tantalizing him. He declared, “I’ll risk it. I’ll take the post.”

  “Will you, by Jupiter!” Narcissus exclaimed.

  Caenis shushed him. “Oh, I’ll give him a trial. Thank you, Aglaus.”

  He saluted her politely enough now. “Antonia Caenis.”

  “Caenis will do. Just Caenis.” She would never change.

  “Well; Lady Caenis then.”

  Narcissus nodded tetchily to dismiss him.

  Both Caenis and Narcissus smiled, suddenly remembering old times.

  “Seems ideal to me,” the freedman told her. “You’ll squabble, but the fellow will adore you.”

  Caenis said drily, “I’m not sure adoration is a commodity I recognize, or even want.”

  There was a small silence. She needed to ask Narcissus about Marius’ will; he was giving her time to start.

  It was at that point she became aware, and Narcissus must have noticed too, that hasty footsteps were approaching from the house. Someone had clattered down the informal stone steps behind them, skidded under a small palm tree that leaned across one of the paved areas, and was now striding through the long arch of trellis where in summer the honeysuckle formed a sweet approach to this nook where Narcissus liked to sit. Someone who knew Narcissus well enough to come straight out here unannounced. Someone thoroughly agitated. A man whose heavy step Caenis had instantly recognized.

  She settled her mantle more closely around her face. The man arrived. Narcissus looked up. His visitor flung himself onto a second bench. He began to speak; saw someone there; recognized her; checked himself quietly. “Sorry. No one told me I was disturbing you. I’ll come back.” He was already on his feet.

  It was Flavius Vespasianus, minus his troop of ceremonial lictors, but otherwise in full consular robes.

  * * *

  Normally everything gave way for a city magistrate. Even the Chief Secretary became faultlessly polite. “Consul! I know this lady has something to discuss with me, but she will not object to waiting; shall I ask her to withdraw?”

  Vespasian muttered in his abrupt way, “Thanks. No need.”

  “Is this private?” Narcissus worried.

  Vespasian flopped down again on the other bench. That old frown bit deeply into his brow. Now that he had accustomed himself to the situation, he resented its disturbing anyone else. “No. Stop flapping, Narcissus. If the lady wants me to go she’ll tell me to skip over the Styx, and if she wants to leave herself she’ll up and disappear.”

  So true! Caenis looked at the pool.

  Narcissus was sufficiently shy of private relationships to be embarrassed by this meeting; until now he had somehow prevented any such confrontation with what he thought was exquisite tact. He was feeling far more uncomfortable than either of the other two. Blushing, he asked the Consul whatever was wrong. Vespasian wrenched off a branch from a nearby shrub, and began tearing it to shreds.

  “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.”