Quintus Servilius Caepio did not come home until autumn of the following year, having traveled from Smyrna in Asia Province to Italian Gaul, then to Utica in Africa Province, to Gades in Further Spain, and finally back to Italian Gaul. Scattering great prosperity in his wake. But gathering even more prosperity unto himself. And slowly, slowly, the Gold of Tolosa became translated into other things; big tracts of rich land along the Baetis River in Further Spain, apartment buildings in Gades, Utica, Corduba, Hispalis, Old Carthage and New Carthage, Cirta, Nemausus, Arelate, and every major town in Italian Gaul and the Italian peninsula; the little steel and charcoal towns he created in Italian Gaul were joined by textile towns; and wherever the farmlands were superlative, Quintus Servilius Caepio bought. He used Italian banks rather than Roman, Italian companies rather than Roman. And nothing of his fortune did he leave in Roman Asia Minor.
When he arrived at the house of Marcus Livius Drusus in Rome, his coming was unheralded. In consequence, he discovered that his wife and daughters were absent.
“Where are they?” he demanded of his sister.
“Where you said they could be,” answered Servilia Caepionis, looking bewildered.
“What do you mean, I said?”
“They’re still living on Marcus Livius’s Tusculan farm,” she said, wishing Drusus would come home.
“Why on earth are they living there?”
“For peace and quiet.” Servilia Caepionis put her hand to her head. “Oh dear, I must have got it all muddled up! I was so sure Marcus Livius told me you had agreed to it.”
“I didn’t agree to anything,” said Caepio angrily. “I’ve been away for over a year and a half, I come home expecting to be welcomed by my wife and children, and I find them absent! This is ridiculous! What are they doing in Tusculum?”
One of the virtues the men of the Servilii Caepiones most prided themselves upon was sexual continence allied to marital fidelity; in all his time away, Caepio had not availed himself of a woman. Consequently, the closer he got to Rome, the more urgent his expectations of his wife had become.
“Livia Drusa was tired of Rome and went to live in the old Livius Drusus villa at Tusculum,” said Servilia Caepionis, her heart beating fast. “Truly, I thought you had given your consent! But in all events, it has certainly done Livia Drusa no harm. I’ve never seen her look better. Or so happy.” She smiled at her only brother. “You have a little son, Quintus Servilius. He was born last December, on the Kalends.”
That was good news indeed, but not news capable of dispelling Caepio’s annoyance at discovering his wife absent, his own satiation postponed.
“Send someone to bring them back at once,” he said.
Drusus came in not long afterward to find his brother-in-law sitting stiffly in the study, no book in his hand, nor anything on his mind beyond Livia Drusa’s delinquency.
“What’s all this about Livia Drusa?” he demanded as Drusus came in, ignoring the outstretched hand and avoiding the brotherly salutation of a kiss.
Warned by his wife, Drusus took this calmly, simply went round his desk and sat down.
“Livia Drusa moved to my Tusculan farm while you were away,” said Drusus. “There’s nothing untoward in it, Quintus Servilius. She was tired of the city, is all. Certainly the move has benefited her, she’s very well indeed. And you have a son.”
“My sister said she was under the impression I had given my permission for this relocation,” said Caepio, and blew through his nose. “Well, I certainly didn’t!”
“Yes, Livia Drusa did say you’d given your permission,” said Drusus, unruffled. “However, that’s a minor thing. I daresay she didn’t think of it until after you’d gone, and saved herself a great deal of difficulty by telling us you had consented. When you see her, I think you’ll understand that she acted for the best. Her health and state of mind are better than I’ve ever known. Clearly, country life suits her.”
“She will have to be disciplined.”
Drusus raised one pointed brow. “That, Quintus Servilius, is none of my business. I don’t want to know about it. What I do want to know about is your trip away.”
*
When the servant escort arrived at Drusus’s farm late in the afternoon of that same day, Livia Drusa was on hand to greet them. She betrayed no dismay, simply nodded and said she would be ready to travel to Rome at noon tomorrow, then summoned Mopsus and gave him instructions.
The ancient Tusculan farmstead was now something more like a country villa, equipped with a peristyle-garden and all hygienic conveniences; Livia Drusa hurried through its gracious proportions to her sitting room, closed the door and the shutters, threw herself on the couch and wept. It was all over; Quintus Servilius was home, and home to Quintus Servilius was the city. She would never be allowed to so much as visit Tusculum again. No doubt he now knew of her lie about obtaining his permission to move here— and that alone, given his temperament, would put Tusculum permanently out of bounds for her.
Cato Salonianus was not at his country villa because the Senate was in full session in Rome; it had been several weeks since Livia Drusa had last seen him. Tears over, she went to sit at her worktable, drew forward a sheet of paper, found her pen and ink, and wrote to him.
My husband is home, and I am sent for. By the time you read this, I will be back within the walls of my brother’s house in Rome, and under everyone’s eye. How and when and where we may ever meet again, I do not know.
Only how can I live without you? Oh, my most beloved, my dearest one, how will I survive? Not to see you—not to feel your arms, your hands, your lips— I cannot bear it! But he will hedge me round with so many restrictions, and Rome is such a public place— I despair of ever seeing you again! I love you more than I can tell. Remember that. I love you.
In the morning she went for her walk as always, informing her household that she would be back before noon, when all was to be ready for the journey to Rome. Usually she hurried to her rendezvous, but this morning she dawdled, drinking in the beauty of the autumn countryside, committing every tree and rock and bush to memory for the lonely years to come. And when she reached the tiny whitewashed two-room house in which she and Cato had met for twenty-one months now, she drifted from one wall to another, touching everything with tenderness, sadness. Against hope she had hoped he would be there, but he was not; so she left the note lying in open view on their bed, knowing no one would dare enter the house.
And then it was off to Rome, being bounced and thrown about in the closed two-wheeled carpentum Caepio considered appropriate transportation for his wife. At first Livia Drusa had insisted upon having Little Caepio—as everyone called her son—inside the vehicle with her, but after two of the fifteen miles had been covered, she gave the baby to a strong male slave and commanded that he be carried on foot. Servililla remained with her a little longer, then her stomach revolted against the rough journey and she had to be held out the carriage window so often that she too was bidden walk. Nothing would Livia Drusa have liked better than to join the pedestrians, but when she asked to do this, she was informed firmly that the master’s instructions were clear on one point—she must ride inside the carpentum with windows covered.
Servilia, unlike Lilla, possessed a cast-iron digestion, so she too remained in the carriage; offered the chance to walk, she had announced loftily that patrician women didn’t walk. It was easy to see, thought Livia Drusa, that the child was very excited, though only living in close proximity to her for so long had given her mother this insight. Of external evidence there was little, just an extra glitter in the dark eyes and two creases in the corners of the small full mouth.
“I’m very glad you’re looking forward to seeing tata,” said Livia Drusa, hanging on to a strap for dear life when the carpentum lurched precariously.
“Well, I know you’re not,” said Servilia nastily.
“Try to understand!” cried the mother. “I so loved living in Tusculum, is all! I loathe Rome!”
“Hah,” said Servilia.
And that was the end of the conversation.
Five hours after starting out, the carpentum and its big escort arrived at the house of Marcus Livius Drusus.
“I could have walked faster!” said Livia Drusa tartly to the carpentarius as he prepared to drive his hired vehicle away.
Caepio was waiting in the suite of rooms they had always lived in. When his wife walked through the door he nodded to her aloofly, and when she shepherded his two daughters in after her so that they might say hello to tata before going to the nursery, they too were dowered with an aloof, disinterested nod. Even when Servilia gave him her widest, shiest smile, he did not unbend.
“Off you go, and ask Nurse to bring little Quintus,” said Livia Drusa, pushing the girls out the door.
But Nurse was already waiting. Livia Drusa took the baby from her and carried him into the sitting room herself.
“There, Quintus Servilius!” she said, smiling. “Meet your son. Isn’t he beautiful?”
That was a mother’s exaggeration, as Little Caepio was not a beautiful child. Nor, however, was he ugly. At ten months of age he sat very straight in Livia Drusa’s arms and looked at his audience as directly as he did soberly; not a smiling or charming child. The ample mop of straight, lank hair on his head was a most aggressive shade of red, his eyes were a light hazel-brown, his physique long of limb, thin of face.
“Jupiter!’’ said Caepio, gazing at his son in astonishment. “Where did he get red hair from?”
“My mother’s family, so Marcus Livius says,” Li via Drusa answered composedly.
“Oh!” said Caepio, relieved; not because he suspected his wife of infidelity, but because he liked all the ends neatly tied and tucked away. Never an affectionate man, he did not attempt to hold the baby, and had to be prompted before he chucked Little Caepio under the chin and talked to him like a proper tata.
Finally, “Good,” said Caepio. “Give him back to his nurse. It’s time you and I were alone, wife.”
“But it’s dinnertime,” said Livia Drusa as she carried the baby back to the door and handed him through it to Nurse. “In fact,” she said, heart beginning to knock at the prospect of what had to come, “dinner’s late. We can’t possibly delay it further.”
He was closing the shutters and bolting the door. “I’m not hungry,” he said, starting to unwind his toga, “and if you are, that’s too bad. No dinner for you tonight, wife!”
Though he was not a sensitive or perceptive man, Quintus Servilius Caepio could not but be aware of the change in Livia Drusa the moment he climbed into bed beside her and pulled her urgently against him. Tense. Utterly unresponsive.
“What’s the matter with you?” he cried, disappointed.
‘‘ Like all women, I’ m beginning to dislike this business,” she said. “After we have two or three children we lose interest.”
“Well,” said Caepio, growing angry, “you’d better grow some interest back! The men of my family are continent and moral, we are famous for sleeping only with our wives.” It came out sounding pompous, ridiculous, as if learned by rote.
Thus the night could be called a successful reunion only on the most basic level; even after repeated sexual assaults by Caepio, Livia Drusa remained cold, apathetic, then offended her husband mightily by going to sleep in the middle of his last effort, and snoring. He shook her viciously awake.
“How do you expect us to have another son?” he asked, his fingers digging painfully into her shoulders.
“I don’t want any more children,” she said.
“If you’re not careful,” he mumbled, coming to his climax, “I’ll divorce you.”
“If divorce meant I could go back to Tusculum to live,” she said above the groans of his climax, “I wouldn’t mind it in the least. I hate Rome. And I hate this.” She wriggled out from under him. “Now may I go to sleep?”
Tired himself, he let this go, but in the morning he resumed the subject the moment he woke, his anger grown greater.
“I am your husband,” he said to her as she slid out of bed, “and I expect my wife to be a proper wife.”
“I told you, I’ve lost interest in the whole business!” she said tartly. “If that doesn’t suit you, Quintus Servilius, then I suggest you divorce me.”
But Caepio’s brain had grasped the fact that she wanted a divorce, though as yet had not thought of infidelity. “There will be no divorce, wife.”
“I can divorce you, you know.”
“I doubt your brother would allow it. Not that it makes any difference. There will be no divorce. Instead, you will flog a little interest—or rather, I will.” He picked up his leather belt and folded it double, tugging at it to make it snap.
Livia Drusa stared at him in simple amazement. “Oh, do stop posturing!” she said. “I’m not a child!”
“You’re behaving like one.”
“You wouldn’t dare touch me!”
For answer, he grabbed her arm, twisted it deftly behind her back and pulled her nightgown up to hold it in his same hand. The belt curled with a loud crack against her flank, then against her thigh, her buttock, her calf. At first she tried to struggle free, then understood that he was capable of breaking her arm if he had to. Each time he struck her the pain increased, a fierce fire going deeper than skin; her gasps became sobs, then cries of fear. When she sank to her knees and tried to cradle her head in her arms he let her go, took the belt in both hands and flogged her huddled body in a frenzy of rage.
Her screams began to go through him like a glorious paean of joy; he ripped her gown completely away and wielded his belt until his arms were so tired he couldn’t raise them.
The belt fell, was kicked away. Hand locked in her hair, Caepio dragged his wife to her feet and back to the airless sleeping cubicle, sour and stinking from the night.
“Now we’ll see!” he panted, grasping his huge erection in one hand. “Obedience, wife! Otherwise there’ll be more!” And, mounting her, he truly thought that her leaping flinches, the feeble beating of her fists, her anguished cries, were excitement.
The noises emanating from the Caepio suite had not gone unnoticed. Sidling along the colonnade to see if her beloved tata was awake, little Servilia heard it all, as did some of the house servants. Drusus and Servilia Caepionis did not hear, nor were they informed; no one knew how to tell them.
After bathing her mistress, Livia Drusa’s maid reported the extent of the damage in the slave quarters, face terrified.
“Covered in huge red welts!” she said to the steward, Cratippus. “Bleeding! And the bed covered in blood! Poor thing, poor thing!”
Cratippus wept desolately, powerless to help himself— but did not weep alone, for there were many among the household servants who had known Livia Drusa since early childhood, had always pitied her, cared about her. And when these old retainers set eyes upon her that morning they wept again; she moved at the pace of a snail, and looked as if she wanted to die. But Caepio had been cunning, even in the midst of his engorged fury. Not a mark showed on arms, face, neck, feet.
*
For two months the situation continued unchanged, save that Caepio’s beatings—administered at intervals of about five days—altered in pattern; he would concentrate upon one specific area of his wife’s body, thus permitting other areas time to heal. The sexual stimulus he found irresistible, the sense of power fantastic; at last he understood the wisdom of the old ways, the reasons behind the paterfamilias. The true purpose of women.
Livia Drusa said nothing to anyone, even the maidservant who bathed her—and now dressed her wounds as well. The change in her was patent, and worried Drusus and his wife a great deal; all they could put it down to was her return to Rome, though Drusus, remembering how she had resisted marriage to Caepio, also found himself wondering whether it was the presence of Caepio at base of her dragging footsteps, her haggard face, her utter quietness.
Inside herself, Livia Drusa felt hardly anything beyond the physical agony of the beatings and their aftermath. Perhaps, she would find herself wondering dully, this was a punishment; or perhaps in so much actual pain the loss of her beloved Cato was made bearable; or perhaps the gods were really being kind to her, for she had lost the three-month child Caepio would certainly have known he hadn’t fathered. In the shock of Caepio’s sudden return that complication hadn’t risen to the surface of her mind before it ceased to be a complication. Yes, that must be it. The gods were being kind. Sooner or later she would die, when her husband forgot to stop. And death was infinitely preferable to life with Quintus Servilius Caepio.
The entire atmosphere within the house had changed, a fact Drusus for one fretted about; what should have occupied his thoughts was his wife’s pregnancy, a most unexpected and joyous gift they had long despaired of receiving. Yet Servilia Caepionis fretted too, as blighted by this inexplicable pall of darkness as was Drusus. What was the matter? Could one unhappy wife truly generate so much general gloom? His servants were so silent and serious, for one thing. Normally their noisy progress about his house was a perpetual minor irritation, and he had been used since childhood to being wakened occasionally by a huge burst of hilarity from the quarters below the atrium. No more. They all crept round with long faces, answered in monosyllables, dusted and polished and scrubbed as if to tire themselves out because they couldn’t sleep. Nor was that veritable tower of strong composure, Cratippus, acting like himself.
As dawn broke at the end of the old year, Drusus caught his steward before Cratippus could instruct the door warden to admit the master’s clients from the street.
“Just a moment,” said Drusus, pointing toward his study. “I want to see you.”
But after he closed the room to all other comers, he found himself unable to broach the subject, and walked up and down, up and down, while Cratippus stood in one place and looked steadfastly at the floor. Finally Drusus stopped, faced his steward.
“Cratippus, what is the matter?” he asked, his hand extended. “Have I offended you in some way? Why are the servants so unhappy? Is there some terribly important thing I have overlooked in my treatment of you? If there is, please tell me. I wouldn’t have any slave of mine rendered miserable through my fault, or the fault of anyone else among my family. But especially I wouldn’t want you made miserable. Without you, the house would fall down!”
To his horror, Cratippus burst into tears; Drusus stood for a moment without the slightest idea what to do, then instinct took over and he found himself seated with his steward on the couch, his arm about the heaving shoulders, his handkerchief put into service. But the kinder Drusus became, the harder Cratippus wept. Close to tears himself, Drusus got up to fetch wine, persuaded Cratippus to drink, soothed and hushed and rocked until finally his steward’s distress began to die down.
“Oh, Marcus Livius, it has been such a burden!”
“What has, Cratippus?”
“The beatings!”
“The beatings?”
“The way she screams, so quietly!” Cratippus wept anew.
“My sister, you mean?” asked Drusus sharply.
“Yes.”
Drusus could feel his heart accelerating, his face grow dark with blood, his hands begin to tremble. “Tell me! In the name of our household gods, I command you to tell me!”
“Quintus Servilius. He will end in killing her.”
The trembling had become visible shaking, it was necessary to draw a huge breath. “My sister’s husband is beating her?”
“Yes, domine, yes!” The steward struggled to compose himself. “I know it is not my place to comment, and I swear I would not have! But you asked me with such kindness, such concern—I—I—”
“Calm yourself, Cratippus, I am not angry with you,” said Drusus evenly. “I assure you, I am intensely grateful to be informed of this.” He got to his feet, and helped Cratippus up gently. “Go to the door warden now, and have him make my excuses to my clients. They will not be admitted today, I have other things to do. Then I want you to ask my wife to go to the nursery and remain there with the children because I have need to send every servant down to the cellar to do some special work for me. You will make sure that every servant goes to quarters, and you will then do so yourself. But before you leave, make your last task a request to Quintus Servilius and my sister to come here to my study.”
In the moments Drusus had to himself, he disciplined his body to stillness and his anger to detachment, for he told himself that perhaps Cratippus was overreacting, that things might not be as bad as the servants obviously thought.
One unblinkered look at Livia Drusa told him no one had exaggerated, that it was all true. She came through the door first, and he saw the pain, the depression, the fear, an unhappiness so deep it had no end. He saw the deadness in her. Caepio entered in her wake, more intrigued than worried.
Standing himself, Drusus asked no one to sit down. Instead, he stared at his brother-in-law with loathing, and said, “It has come to my attention, Quintus Servilius, that you are physically assaulting my sister.”
It was Livia Drusa who gasped. Caepio braced himself and assumed an expression of truculent contempt.
“What I do to my wife, Marcus Livius, is no one’s business except my own,” he said.
“I disagree,” said Drusus as calmly as he could. “Your wife is my sister, a member of a great and powerful family. No one in this house beat her before she was married. I will not permit you or anyone else to beat her now.”
“She is my wife. Which means she is in my hand, not yours, Marcus Livius! I will do with her whatever I will.”
“Your connections to Livia Drusa are by marriage,” said Drusus, face hardening. “My connections are blood. And blood matters. I will not permit you to beat my sister!”
“You said you didn’t want to know about my methods of disciplining her! And you were right. It’s none of your business.”
“Wife-beating is everybody’s business. The lowest of the low.” Drusus looked at his sister. “Please remove your clothes, Livia Drusa. I want to see what this wife-beater has done.”
“You will not, wife!” cried Caepio in righteous indignation. “Display yourself to one not your husband? You will not!”
“Take off your clothes, Livia Drusa,” said Drusus.
Livia Drusa made no move to obey, did not speak.
“My dear, you must do this thing,” said Drusus gently, and went to her side. “I have to see.”
When he put his arm about her she cried out, pulling away; keeping his touch as light as possible, Drusus unfastened her robe at its shoulders.
No greater contempt did a man of senatorial class have than for a wife-beater. Yet, knowing this, Caepio found himself without the courage to stop Drusus unveiling his work. Then the gown was hanging below Livia Drusa’s breasts, and there, marring their beauty, were scores of old welts, lividly purple, sulphurously yellow. Drusus untied the girdle. Both gown and undergarment fell about his sister’s feet. Her thighs had taken the most recent assault and were still swollen, the flesh scarlet, crimson, broken. Tenderly Drusus pulled dress and undergarment up, lifted her nerveless hands, placed their fingers around her clothes. He turned to Caepio.
“Get out of my house,” he said, face rigidly controlled.
“My wife is my property,” said Caepio. “I am entitled at law to treat her in any way I deem necessary. I can even kill her.”
“Your wife is my sister, and I will not see a Livius Drusus abused as I would not abuse the most stupid and intractable of my farm animals,’’ said Drusus. ‘‘ Get out of my house!’’
“If I go, she goes with me,” said Caepio.
“She remains with me. Now leave, wife-beater!”
Then a shrill little voice screamed from behind them in venomous outrage: “She deserves it! She deserves it!” The child Servilia went straight to her father’s side and looked up at him. “Don’t beat her, Father! Kill her!”
“Go back to the nursery, Servilia,” said Drusus wearily.
But she clutched at Caepio’s hand and stood defying Drusus with feet apart, eyes flashing. “She deserves to be killed!” the child shrieked. “I know why she liked living in Tusculum! I know what she did in Tusculum! I know why the boy is red!”
Caepio let go her hand as if it burned, enlightenment dawning. “What do you mean, Servilia?” He shook her mercilessly. “Go on, girl, say what you mean!”
“She had a lover—and I know what a lover is!” cried his daughter, lips peeled back from her teeth. “My mother had a lover! A red man. They met every single morning in a house on his estate. I know—I followed her! I saw what they did together on the bed! And I know his name! Marcus Porcius Cato Salonianus! The descendant of a slave! I know, because I asked Aunt Servilia Caepionis!” She turned to gaze up at her father, face transformed from hatred to adoration. “Tata, if you won’t kill her, leave her here! She’s not good enough for you! She doesn’t deserve you! Who is she, after all? Only a plebeian—not patrician like you and me! If you leave her here, I’ll look after you, I promise!”
Drusus and Caepio stood turned to stone, whereas Livia Drusa came at last to life. She fastened her gown and her girdle, and confronted her daughter.
“Little one, it isn’t as you think,” she said, very gently, and reached out to touch her daughter’s cheek.
The hand was struck away fiercely; Servilia flattened herself against her father. “I know what to think! I don’t need you to tell me! You dishonored our name—my father’s name! You deserve to die! And that boy isn’t my father’s!”
“Little Quintus is your father’s,” said Livia Drusa. “He is your brother.”
“He belongs to the red man, he’s the son of a slave!” She plucked at Caepio’s tunic. “Tata, take me away, please!”
For answer, Caepio took hold of the child and pushed her away from him so roughly that she fell. “What a fool I’ve been,” he said, low-voiced. “The girl is right, you deserve to die. A pity I didn’t use my belt harder and more often.” Fists clenched, he rushed from the room with his daughter running after him calling for him to wait for her, howling noisy tears.
Drusus and his sister were alone.
His legs didn’t seem to want to hold him up; he went to his chair, sat down heavily. Livia Drusa! Blood of his blood! His only sister! Adultress, meretrix. Yet until this hideous interview he had not understood how much she meant to him; nor could he have known how deeply her plight would touch him, how responsible he felt.
“It’s my fault,” he said, lip quivering.
She sank down on the couch. “No, my fault,” she said.
“It’s true? You do have a lover?”
“I had a lover, Marcus Livius. The first, the only one. I haven’t seen or heard from him since I left Tusculum.”
“But that wasn’t why Caepio beat you.”
“No.”
“Why, then?”
“After Marcus Porcius, I just couldn’t keep up the pretense,” said Livia Drusa. “My indifference angered him, so he beat me. And then he discovered he liked beating me. It—it excited him.”
For a brief moment Drusus looked as if he would vomit; then he lifted his arms and shook them impotently. “Ye gods, what a world we live in!” he cried. “I have wronged you, Livia Drusa.”
She came to sit in the client’s chair. “You acted according to your lights,” she said gently. “Truly, Marcus Livius, I came to understand that years ago. Your many kindnesses to me since then have made me love you—and Servilia Caepionis.”
“My wife!” Drusus exclaimed. “What might this do to her?”
“We must keep as much as possible from her,” said Livia Drusa. “She’s enjoying a comfortable pregnancy, we can’t jeopardize it.”
Drusus was already on his feet. “Stay there,” he said, moving to the door. “I want to make sure her brother doesn’t say anything to upset her. Drink some wine. I’ll be back.”
But Caepio hadn’t even thought of his sister. From Drusus’s study he had rushed to his own suite of rooms, his daughter crying and clinging to his waist until he slapped her across the face and locked her in his bedroom. There Drusus found her huddled on the floor in a corner, still sobbing.
The servants had been summoned back to duty, so Drusus helped the little girl up and ushered her outside to where one of the nurserymaids hovered doubtfully in the distance. “Calm down now, Servilia. Let Stratonice wash your face and give you breakfast.”
“I want my tata!”
“Your tata has left my house, child, but don’t despair. I’m sure that as soon as he’s organized his affairs he’ll send for you,” Drusus said, not sure whether he was thankful Servilia had blurted out all the truth or whether he disliked her for it.
She cheered up at once. “He will send for me, he will,” she said, walking with her uncle onto the colonnade.
“Now go with Stratonice,” said Drusus, and added sternly, “Try to be discreet, Servilia. For your aunt’s sake as well as your father’s—yes, your father’s!—you cannot say a word about what has transpired here this morning.”
“How can my talking hurt him? He’s the victim.”
“No man enjoys the humbling of his pride, Servilia. Take my word for it, your father won’t thank you if you chatter.’’
Servilia shrugged, went off with her nursemaid; Drusus went then to visit his wife, and told her as much as he thought she needed to know. To his surprise, she took the news tranquilly.
“I’m just glad we know now what the matter is,” she said, remaining wrapped round by the bloom of her pregnancy. “Poor Livia Drusa! I am afraid, Marcus Livius, that I do not like my brother very much. The older he becomes, the more intractable he seems to get. Though I remember that when we were children, he used to torment the slaves’ children.”
Back to Livia Drusa, who was still sitting in the client’s chair, apparently composed.
He sat down again. “What a morning! Little did I know what I was unleashing when I asked Cratippus why he and the servants were so unhappy.”
“Were they unhappy?” asked Livia Drusa, puzzled.
“Yes. Because of you, my dear. They had heard Caepio beating you. You mustn’t forget they’ve known you all your life. They’re extremely fond of you, Livia Drusa.”
“Oh, how nice! I had no idea.”
“Nor did I, I confess. Ye gods, I’ve been dense! And I am very, very sorry for this mess.”
“Don’t be.” She sighed. “Did he take Servilia?”
Drusus grimaced. “No. He locked her in your room.”
“Oh, poor little thing! She adores him so!”
“I gathered that. I just can’t understand it.”
“What happens now, Marcus Livius?”
He shrugged. “To be honest, I haven’t the faintest inkling! Perhaps the best thing all of us can do is to behave as normally as possible under the circumstances, and wait to hear from—” He nearly said Caepio, as he had been doing all morning, but forced himself back to the old courtesy, and said, “Quintus Servilius.”
“And if he divorces me, as I imagine he will?”
“Then you’re well rid of him, I’d say.”
Livia Drusa’s major preoccupation now surfaced; she said anxiously, “What about Marcus Porcius Cato?”
“This man matters a great deal to you, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, he matters.”
“Is the boy his, Livia Drusa?”
How often she had worked at this in her mind! What would she say when some member of the family queried her son’s coloring, or his growing likeness to Marcus Porcius Cato? It seemed to her that Caepio owed her something in return for the years of patient servitude, her model behavior—and those beatings. Her son had a name. If she declared that Cato was his sire, he lost that name—and, given that he had been born under that name, he could not escape the taint of illegitimacy did she deny it to him. The date of his birth did not exclude Caepio as his father; she was the only person who knew beyond any doubt that Caepio was not his father.
“No, Marcus Livius, my son is Quintus Servilius’s child,” she said firmly. “My liaison with Marcus Porcius began after I knew I was pregnant.”
“It is a pity then that he has red hair,” said Drusus, no expression on his face.
Livia Drusa smiled wryly. “Have you never noticed the tricks Fortune delights in playing upon us mortals?” she asked. “From the time I met Marcus Porcius, I had a feeling Fortune was plotting cleverly. So when little Quintus came out with red hair, I was not at all surprised—though I am aware no one will believe me.”
“I will stand by you, sister,” said Drusus. “Through thick and thin, I will lend you every iota of support I can.”
Tears gathered in Livia Drusa’s eyes. “Oh, Marcus Livius, I do thank you for that!”
“It is the least I can do.” He cleared his throat. “As for Servilia Caepionis, you may rest assured she will support me—and therefore you.”
*
Caepio sent the divorce notification later that day, and followed it up with a private letter to Drusus that had Drusus metaphorically winded.
“Do you know what that insect says?” he demanded of his sister, who had been seen by several physicians, and was now relegated to her bed.
As she was lying on her stomach while two medical acolytes plastered the back of her from shoulders to ankles with bruise-drawing poultices, it was difficult for her to see Drusus’s face; she had to twist her neck until she could glimpse him out of the corners of her eyes. “What does he say?” she asked.
“First of all, he denies paternity for every one of his three children! He refuses to return your dowry, and he accuses you of multiple infidelities. Nor will he repay me for the expense of housing him and his for the last seven and more years—his grounds, it appears, are that you were never his wife and your children are not his, but other men’s.”
Livia Drusa dropped her head into the pillow. “Ecastor! Marcus Livius, how can he do this to his daughters, if not to his son? Little Quintus is understandable, but Servilia and Lilla? This will break Servilia’s heart.”
“Oh, he has more to say than that!” said Drusus, waving the letter. “He is going to change his will to disinherit his three children. And then he has the gall to demand back from-me ‘his’ ring! His ring!”
Livia Drusa knew which ring her brother referred to at once. An heirloom which had belonged to their father and his father before him, and said to be a seal-ring of Alexander the Great. From the time as a lad Quintus Servilius Caepio had become friends with Marcus Livius Drusus he had coveted the ring, watched it transferred from Drusus the Censor’s dead finger to Drusus’s living one, and finally, leaving for Smyrna and Italian Gaul, he had begged of Drusus that he be allowed to wear the ring as a good-luck charm. Drusus had not wanted to let his ring go, but felt churlish, and in the end handed it over. However, the moment Caepio returned, Drusus asked for his ring. At first Caepio had tried to find some reason why he ought to be allowed to keep it, but eventually took it off and gave it back, saying with a laugh which rang hollow,
“Oh, very well, very well! But the next time I go away, Marcus Livius, you must give it back to me—it’s a lucky gem.”
“How dare he!” snarled Drusus, clutching at his finger as if he expected Caepio to materialize at his elbow and snatch the ring, which was too small for any but the little finger, yet was too large for that; Alexander the Great had been a very small man.
“Take no notice, Marcus Livius,” Livia Drusa comforted, then turned her head again to look at him as best she could. “What will happen to my children?” she asked. “Can he do this thing?”
“Not after I’ve dealt with him,” said Drusus grimly. “Did he send you a letter too?”
“No. Just the bill of divorcement.”
“Then rest and get well, my dear.”
“What shall I tell the children?”
“Nothing, until I finish with their father.”
Back to his study went Marcus Livius Drusus, there to take a length of best-quality Pergamum parchment (he wanted what he wrote to stand the test of time), and reply to Caepio.
You are of course at liberty to deny the paternity of your three children, Quintus Servilius. But I am at liberty to swear that indeed they are your offspring, and so I will swear if it should come to that. In a court of law. You ate my bread and drank my wine from April in the year that Gaius Marius was consul for the third time until you left for abroad twenty-three months ago, and I then continued to feed, clothe, and shelter your wife and family while you were away. I defy you to find any evidence of infidelity on the part of my sister during the years in which you and she lived in this house. And if you examine the birth records of your son, you will see that he too must have been conceived in my house.
I would strongly suggest that you abandon any and all intentions to disinherit your three children. If you persist in your present attitude, I will undertake to conduct in a court of law a suit against you on behalf of your children. During my address to the jury I will make very free of certain information I have concerning the aurum Tolosanum, the whereabouts of huge sums of money you have removed from deposit in Smyrna and invested in banking houses, property and unsenatorial trade practices throughout the western end of the Middle Sea. Among the witnesses I would find myself forced to call would be several of Rome’s most prestigious doctors, all of whom can attest to the potentially maiming nature of the beatings you inflicted upon my sister. Further to this, I would be fully prepared to call my sister as a witness, and my steward, who heard what he heard.
As regards my sister’s dowry, the hundreds of thousands of sesterces you owe me for supporting you and yours—I will not soil my hands with repayment. Keep the money. It will do you no good.
Finally, there is the matter of my ring. Its status as a Livian family heirloom is so much a fact of public record that you would be wise to cease and desist from claiming it.
The letter was sealed and a servant dispatched at once to carry it to Caepio’s new lair, the house of Lucius Marcius Philippus. Having been kicked sprawling, his servant limped back to inform Drusus that there would be no reply. Smiling a little, Drusus bestowed ten denarii upon his injured slave, then sat back in his chair, closed his eyes, and amused himself by imagining Caepio’s thwarted rage. There would be no lawsuit, he knew. And no matter whose son little Quintus really was, officially he was going to remain Caepio’s. The heir to the Gold of Tolosa. His smile enlarging, Drusus found himself wanting badly to believe that little Quintus would turn out to be a long-necked, big-nosed, red-haired cuckoo in the Servilius Caepio nest. How delicious a retribution that would be for a wife-beater!
He went shortly thereafter to the nursery and called his niece Servilia out into the garden. Until today he hadn’t ever really noticed her save to smile at her in passing, or pat her on the head, or give her a gift at the appropriate time, or reflect that she was a surly little wretch, never smiled. How can Caepio deny her? he wondered; she was her father through and through, vengeful little beast. Drusus believed children should be neither seen nor heard when it came to adult affairs, and her behavior that morning had horrified him. Tattle-telling, malicious child! It would have served her right if Caepio had been allowed to do what he intended, and disown her.
Following on these thoughts, his face when Servilia came out of the nursery and down the path to the peristyle fountain was flinty, and his eyes were cold.
“Servilia, since you made yourself privy to the congress of your elders this morning, I thought it best to inform you myself that your father has seen fit to divorce your mother.’’
“Oh, good!” said Servilia, honor satisfied. “I’ll pack my things and go to him now.”
“You will not,” said Drusus, enunciating very clearly. “He doesn’t want you.”
The child went so pale that under normal circumstances Drusus would have feared for her, and laid her down; as it was, he simply stood watching her rock. But she didn’t faint, she righted herself instead, and her color flowed back dark red.
“I do not believe you,” she said. “My tata wouldn’t do that to me, I know he wouldn’t!”
Drusus shrugged. “If you don’t believe me, go and see him yourself,” he said. “He’s not far away, just a few doors down at the house of Lucius Marcius Philippus. Go to him and ask him.”
“I will,” said Servilia hardily, and off she marched, her nurserymaid hurrying after her.
“Let her go, Stratonice,” said Drusus. “Just keep her company and make sure she comes back.”
How unhappy they all are, thought Drusus, staying where he was by the fountain. And how unhappy I would be were it not for my beloved Servilia Caepionis and our little son— and the child in her womb, settling down so cosily. His mood of contrition was wearing off, replaced by this urge to lash out at Servilia, since he couldn’t reach her father. And then, as the weak sun warmed his bones and some of the stirrings of the day subsided, his sense of fairness and justice righted itself; he became once more Marcus Livius Drusus, advocate of those who had been wronged. But never advocate of Quintus Servilius Caepio, wronged though he might be.
When Servilia reappeared he was still sitting by the sunny silvered stream of water gushing out of a scaly dolphin’s mouth, his eyes shut, his face its normal serene self.
“Uncle Marcus!” she said sharply.
He opened his eyes and managed a smile. “Hello,” he said. “What happened?”
“He doesn’t want me, he says I’m not his, he says I’m the daughter of someone else,” said the child, closed tight.
“Well, you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Why should I? You’re on her side.”
“Servilia, you can’t remain unsympathetic toward your mother. It’s she who is wronged, not your father.”
“How can you say that? She had a lover!”
“If your father had been kinder to her, she wouldn’t have found a lover. No man can find excuse for beating his wife.’’
“He should have killed her, not beaten her. I would have.”
Drusus gave up. “Oh, go away, you horrible girl!”
And hopefully, Drusus thought, closing his eyes again, Servilia would benefit from her father’s rejection. As time went on, she would draw closer to her mother. It was natural.
Finding himself hungry, he ate bread and olives and hard-boiled eggs with his wife shortly thereafter, and acquainted her more fully with what had happened. Since he knew her to have the Servilius Caepio sense of fitness and standing, he wasn’t sure how she would react to the news that her sister-in-law had been divorced because of an involvement with a man of servile origins. But—though the identity of Livia Drusa’s lover did disappoint her—Servilia Caepionis was too much in love with Drusus ever to go against him; long ago she had discovered that families always meant divided loyalties, so had elected to leave all her loyalty with Drusus. The years of sharing her house with Caepio had not endeared him to her, for the insecure inferiority of childhood had quite gone and she had lived with Drusus for long enough to have received some of his courage.
So they had an enjoyable meal together despite the situation, and Drusus felt more capable of dealing with whatever else the day might bring. Which was just as well; early afternoon brought him fresh trouble in the shape of Marcus Porcius Cato Salonianus.
Inviting Cato to join him in a stroll about the colonnade, Drusus prepared himself for the worst.
“What do you know about all this?” he asked calmly.
“I had a visit from Quintus Servilius Caepio and Lucius Marcius Philippus not so many moments ago,” said Cato, his tones as level and unemotional as Drusus’s.
“Both of them, eh? I presume Philippus’s role was that of a witness,” said Drusus.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Caepio simply informed me that he had divorced his wife on the grounds of her adultery with me.”
“Nothing else?”
Cato frowned. “What else is there? However, he said it in front of my wife, who has gone to her father.”
“Ye gods, it goes on and on!” cried Drusus, throwing his hands in the air. “Sit down, Marcus Porcius. I had better tell you all of it. The divorce is only the beginning.”
All of it had Cato angrier than Drusus had been; the Porcii Catones put on a grand front of imperturbable coolness, but to the last man—and woman—they were renowned for their tempers. It took Drusus a long time and many reasonable words to persuade Cato that if he went to find Caepio and killed him—or even half killed him—matters would only be worse for Livia Drusa than they already were. After he was sure Cato’s temper was well mended, Drusus took him to Livia Drusa; any doubts he might have harbored as to the depth of the feeling between them were allayed in that first look which passed between them. Yes, this was a love for life. Poor things!
“Cratippus,” he said to his steward after he had left the lovers together, “I am hungry again, and I intend to eat dinner immediately. Inform the lady Servilia Caepionis, would you?”
But the lady Servilia Caepionis elected to eat in the nursery, where Servilia had laid herself on her bed and announced that no morsel of food nor drop of water would pass her lips, and that when her father heard she was dead, he would be sorry.
Off went Drusus alone to the dining room, wishing the day would end and that his allotted span on earth did not contain another such. Sighing gratefully, he settled himself in solitary state upon his couch to await the gustatio.
“What’s this I hear?” cried a voice from the door.
“Uncle Publius!”
“Well, what’s the real story?” Publius Rutilius Rufus demanded, kicking off his shoes and waving the servant away who wanted to wash his feet. He clambered onto the couch beside Drusus and leaned on his left elbow, his perky homely face alight with curiosity, luckily salved by an accompanying sympathy and concern. “Rome is absolutely buzzing with garbled versions of a dozen different kinds— divorce, adultery, slave lovers, wife-beating, nasty children—where does it all come from, and so quickly?”
Drusus, however, was not able to tell him, for this last invasion was too much; he lay back on his bolster and literally cried with laughter.