To the north there reared the bulk of the Capitol, one hump higher than its twin, an absolute confusion of temples with gaudily painted pillars, pediments, gilded statues atop orange-tiled roofs. Jupiter Optimus Maximus’s new home (the old one had burned down some years earlier) was still a-building, Caesar noted with a frown; Catulus was definitely a tardy custodian of the process, never in enough of a hurry. But Sulla’s enormous Tabularium was now well and truly finished, filling in the whole front-central side of the mount with arcaded storeys and galleries designed to house all of Rome’s archives, laws, accounts. And at the bottom of the Capitol were other public premises—the temple of Concord, and next to it the little old Senaculum, in which foreign delegations were received by the Senate.

In the far corner beyond the Senaculum, dividing the Vicus Iugarius from the Clivus Capitolinus, lay Caesar’s destination. This was the temple of Saturn, very old and large and severely Doric except for the garish colors bedaubing its wooden walls and pillars, home of an ancient statue of the God that had to be kept filled with oil and swaddled with cloth to prevent its disintegration. Also—and more germane to Caesar’s purpose—it was the home of the Treasury of Rome.

The temple itself was mounted atop a podium twenty steps high, a stone infrastructure within which lay a labyrinth of corridors and rooms. Part of it was a repository for laws once they had been engraved on stone or bronze, as Rome’s largely unwritten constitution demanded that all laws be deposited there; but time and the plethora of tablets now dictated that a new law be whisked in one entrance and out another for storage elsewhere.

By far the bulk of the space belonged to the Treasury. Here in strong rooms behind great internal iron doors lay Rome’s tangible wealth as bullion—ingots of gold and silver amounting to many thousands of talents. Here in dingy offices lit by flickering oil lamps and grilles high in the outside walls there worked the nucleus of the civil servants who kept Rome’s public account books, from those senior enough to qualify as tribuni aerarii to humble ledger-enterers and even humbler public slaves who swept the dusty floors but usually contrived to ignore the cobwebs festooning the walls.

Growth of Rome’s provinces and profits had long rendered Saturn too small for its fiscal purpose, but Romans were loath to give up anything once designated as a place for some governmental enterprise, so Saturn floundered on as the Treasury. Subhoards of coined money and bullion had been relegated to other vaults beneath other temples, the accounts belonging to years other than the current one had been banished to Sulla’s Tabularium, and as a consequence Treasury officials and underlings had proliferated. Another Roman anathema, civil servants, but the Treasury was, after all, the Treasury; the public moneys had to be properly planted, cultivated and harvested, even if that did mean abhorrently big numbers of public employees.

While his entourage hung back to watch bright-eyed and proud, Caesar strolled up to the great carved door in the side wall of Saturn’s podium. He was clad in spotless white toga with the broad purple stripe of the senator on the right shoulder of his tunic, and he wore a chaplet of oak leaves around his head because this was a public occasion and he had to wear his Civic Crown on all public occasions. Whereas another man might have gestured to an attendant to ply the knocker, Caesar did that himself, then waited until the door opened cautiously and a head appeared around it.

“Gaius Julius Caesar, quaestor of the province of Further Spain under the governorship of Gaius Antistius Vetus, wishes to present the accounts of his province, as law and custom demand,” said Caesar in a level voice.

He was admitted, and the door closed behind him; all the clients remained outside in the fresh air.

“I believe you only got in yesterday, is that right?” asked Marcus Vibius, Treasury chief, when Caesar was conducted into his gloomy office.

“Yes.”

“There isn’t any hurry about these things, you know.”

“As far as I’m concerned there is. My duty as quaestor is not ended until I have presented my accounts.”

Vibius blinked. “Then by all means present them!”

Out from the sinus of Caesar’s toga came seven scrolls, each one sealed twice, once with Caesar’s ring and once with Antistius Vetus’s ring. When Vibius went to break the seals on the first scroll, Caesar stopped him.

“What is it, Gaius Julius?”

“There are no witnesses present.”

Vibius blinked again. “Oh well, we don’t usually worry too much about trifles like that,” he said easily, and picked up the scroll with a wry smile.

Caesar’s hand came out, wrapped itself around Vibius’s wrist. “I suggest you commence to worry about trifles like that,” said Caesar pleasantly. “These are the official accounts of my quaestorship in Further Spain, and I require witnesses throughout my presentation. If the time isn’t convenient to produce witnesses, then give me a time which is convenient, and I will come back.”

The atmosphere inside the room changed, became frostier. “Of course, Gaius Julius.”

But the first four witnesses were not to Caesar’s taste, and it was only after some twelve had been inspected that four were found who did suit Caesar’s taste. The interview then proceeded with a speed and cleverness which had Marcus Vibius gasping, for he was not used to quaestors with a grasp of accounting, nor to a memory so good it enabled its owner to reel off whole screeds of data without consultation of written material. And by the time that Caesar was done, Vibius was sweating.

“I can honestly say that I have rarely, if ever, seen a quaestor present his accounts so well,” Vibius admitted, and wiped his brow. “All is in order, Gaius Julius. In fact, Further Spain ought to give you a vote of thanks for sorting out so many messes.” This was said with a conciliatory smile; Vibius was beginning to understand that this haughty fellow intended to be consul, so it behooved him to flatter.

“If all is in order, I will have an official paper from you to say so. Witnessed.”

“I was about to do it.”

“Excellent!” said Caesar heartily.

“And when will the moneys arrive?” asked Vibius as he ushered his uncomfortable visitor out.

Caesar shrugged. “That is not in my province to control. I imagine the governor will wait to bring all the moneys with him at the end of his term.”

A tinge of bitterness crept into Vibius’s face. “And isn’t that typical?” he exclaimed rhetorically. “What ought to be Rome’s this year will remain Antistius Vetus’s for long enough for him to have turned it over as an investment in his name, and profited from it.”

“That is quite legal, and not my business to criticize,” said Caesar gently, screwing up his eyes as he emerged into bright Forum sunshine.

“Ave, Gaius Julius!” snapped Vibius, and shut the door.

During the hour that this interview had consumed, the lower Forum had filled up a little, people scurrying about to complete their tasks before midafternoon and dinnertime arrived. And among the fresh faces, noted Caesar with an inward sigh, was that belonging to Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, whom he had once lifted effortlessly and put on top of a lofty cupboard in front of six of his peers. Then apostrophized as a flea. Not without reason! They had taken but one look at each other and detested each other; it did happen that way from time to time. Bibulus had offered him the kind of insult which called for physical retaliation, secure because his diminutive size prevented Caesar’s hitting him. He had implied that Caesar obtained a magnificent fleet from old King Nicomedes of Bithynia by prostituting himself to the King. In other circumstances Caesar might not have let his temper slip, but it had happened almost immediately after the general Lucullus had implied the same thing. Twice was once too many; up went Bibulus onto the cupboard, with some pungent words accompanying him. And that had been the start of almost a year living in the same quarters as Bibulus while Rome in the person of Lucullus showed the city of Mitylene in Lesbos that it could not defy its suzerain. The lines had been divided. Bibulus was an enemy.

He hadn’t changed in the ten years which had elapsed since then, thought Caesar as the new group approached, Bibulus in its forefront. The other branch of the Famous Family Calpurnius, cognominated Piso, was filled with some of Rome’s tallest fellows; yet the branch cognominated Bibulus (it meant spongelike, in the sense of soaking up wine) was physically opposite. No member of the Roman nobility would have had any difficulty in deciding which Famous Family branch Bibulus belonged to. He wasn’t merely small, he was tiny, and possessed of a face so fair it was bleak—jutting cheekbones, colorless hair, invisible brows, a pair of silver-grey eyes. Not unattractive, but daunting.

Clients excluded, Bibulus was not alone; he was walking side by side with an extraordinary man who wore no tunic under his toga. Young Cato, from the coloring and the nose. Well, that friendship made sense. Bibulus was married to a Domitia who was the first cousin of Cato’s brother-in-law, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus. Odd how all the obnoxious ones stuck together, even in marriage. And as Bibulus was a member of the boni, no doubt that meant Cato was too.

“In search of a little shade, Bibulus?” asked Caesar sweetly as they met, his eyes traveling from his old enemy to his very tall companion, who thanks to the position of the sun and the group did actually cast his shadow across Bibulus.

“Cato will put all of us in the shade before he’s done” was the reply, uttered coldly.

“The nose will be a help in that respect,” said Caesar.

Cato patted his most prominent feature affectionately, not at all put out, but not amused either; wit escaped him. “No one will ever mistake my statues for anyone else’s,” he said.

“That is true.” Caesar looked at Bibulus. “Planning to run for any office this year?” he asked.

“Not I!”

“And you, Marcus Cato?”

“Tribune of the soldiers,” said Cato tersely.

“You’ll do well. I hear that you won a large collection of decorations as a soldier in Poplicola’s army against Spartacus.”

“That’s right, he did!” snapped Bibulus. “Not everyone in Poplicola’s army was a coward!”

Caesar’s fair brows lifted. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. You chose Crassus to campaign with.”

“I had no choice in the matter, any more than Marcus Cato will have a choice when he’s elected a tribune of the soldiers. As military magistrates, we go where Romulus sends us.”

Whereupon the conversation foundered and would have ceased except for the arrival of another pair far more congenial to Caesar at least: Appius Claudius Pulcher and Marcus Tullius Cicero.

“Barely here, I see, Cato!” said Cicero merrily.

Bibulus had had enough, and took himself and Cato off.

“Remarkable,” said Caesar, watching the diminishing Cato. “Why no tunic?”

“He says it’s part of the mos maiorum, and he’s trying to persuade all of us to go back to the old ways,” said Appius Claudius, a typical member of his family, being a dark and medium-sized man of considerable good looks. He patted Cicero’s midriff and grinned. “All right for fellows like himself and Caesar, but I can’t think exposure of your hide would impress a jury,” he said to Cicero.

“Pure affectation,” said Cicero. “He’ll grow out of it.” The dark, immensely intelligent eyes rested on Caesar and danced. “Mind you, I remember when your sartorial affectations upset a few of the boni, Caesar. Those purple borders on your long sleeves?’’

Caesar laughed. “I was bored, and it seemed like something bound to irritate Catulus at the time.”

“It did, it did! As leader of the boni, Catulus fancies himself the custodian of Rome’s customs and traditions.”

“Speaking of Catulus, when does he plan to finish Jupiter Optimus Maximus? I can’t see any progress at all.”

“Oh, it was dedicated a year ago,” said Cicero. “As to when it can be used—who knows? Sulla did leave the poor fellow in severe financial difficulties over the job, you know that. Most of the money he has to find out of his own purse.”

“He can afford it, he sat comfortably in Rome making money out of Cinna and Carbo while Sulla was in exile. Giving Catulus the job of rebuilding Jupiter Optimus Maximus was Sulla’s revenge.”

“Ah, yes! Sulla’s revenges are still famous, though he’s been dead ten years.”

“He was the First Man in Rome,” said Caesar.

“And now we have Pompeius Magnus claiming the title,” said Appius Claudius, his contempt showing.

What Caesar might have said in answer to this was not said, for Cicero spoke.

“I’m glad you’re back in Rome, Caesar. Hortensius is getting a bit long in the tooth, hasn’t been quite the same since I beat him in the Verres case, so I can do with some decent competition in the courts.”

“Long in the tooth at forty-seven?” asked Caesar.

“He lives high,” said Appius Claudius.

“So do they all in that circle.”

“I wouldn’t call Lucullus a high liver at the moment.”

“That’s right, you’re not long back from service with him in the East,” said Caesar, preparing to depart by inclining his head toward his retinue.

“And glad to be out of it,” said Appius Claudius with feeling. He snorted a chuckle. “However, I sent Lucullus a replacement!”

“A replacement?”

“My little brother, Publius Clodius.”

“Oh, that will please him!” said Caesar, laughing too.

*

And so Caesar left the Forum somewhat more comfortable with the thought that the next few years would be spent here in Rome. It wouldn’t be easy, and that pleased him. Catulus, Bibulus and the rest of the boni would make sure he suffered. But there were friends too; Appius Claudius wasn’t tied to a faction, and as a patrician he would favor a fellow patrician.

But what about Cicero? Since his brilliance and innovation had sent Gaius Verres into permanent exile, everyone knew Cicero, who labored under the extreme disadvantage of having no ancestors worth speaking of. A homo novus, a New Man. The first of his respectable rural family to sit in the Senate. He came from the same district as Marius had, and was related to him; but some flaw in his nature had blinded him to the fact that outside of the Senate, most of Rome still worshiped the memory of Gaius Marius. So Cicero refused to trade on that relationship, shunned all mention of his origins in Arpinum, and spent his days trying to pretend that he was a Roman of the Romans. He even had the wax masks of many ancestors in his atrium, but they belonged to the family of his wife, Terentia; like Gaius Marius, he had married into the highest nobility and counted on Terentia’s connections to ease him into the consulship.

The best way to describe him was as a social climber, something his relative Gaius Marius had never been. Marius had married the older sister of Caesar’s father, Caesar’s beloved Aunt Julia, and for the same reasons Cicero had married his ugly Terentia. Yet to Marius the consulship had been a way to secure a great military command, nothing else. Whereas Cicero saw the consulship itself as the height of his ambitions. Marius had wanted to be the First Man in Rome. Cicero just wanted to belong by right to the highest nobility in the land. Oh, he would succeed! In the law courts he had no peer, which meant he had built up a formidable group of grateful villains who wielded colossal influence in the Senate. Not to mention that he was Rome’s greatest orator, which meant he was sought after by other men of colossal influence to speak on their behalf.

No snob, Caesar was happy to accept Cicero for his own merits, and hoped to woo him into that Caesar faction. The trouble was that Cicero was an incurable vacillator; that immense mind saw so many potential hazards that in the end he was likely to let timidity make his decisions for him. And to a man like Caesar, who had never let fear conquer his instincts, timidity was the worst of all masters. Having Cicero on his side would make political life easier for Caesar. But would Cicero see the advantages allegiance would bring him? That was on the lap of the Gods.

Cicero was besides a poor man, and Caesar didn’t have the money to buy him. His only source of income aside from his family lands in Arpinum was his wife; Terentia was extremely wealthy. Unfortunately she also controlled her own funds, and refused to indulge Cicero’s taste for artworks and country villas. Oh, for money! It removed so many difficulties, especially for a man who wanted to be the First Man in Rome. Look at Pompey the Great, master of untold wealth. He bought adherents. Whereas Caesar for all his illustrious ancestry did not have the money to buy adherents or votes. In that respect, he and Cicero were two of a kind. Money. If anything could defeat him, thought Caesar, it was lack of money.

*

On the following morning Caesar dismissed his clients after the dawn ritual and walked alone down the Vicus Patricii to the suite of rooms he rented in a tall insula located between the Fabricius dye works and the Suburan Baths. This had become his bolt-hole after he returned from the war against Spartacus, when the living presence of mother and wife and daughter within his own home had sometimes rendered it so overpoweringly feminine that it proved intolerable. Everyone in Rome was used to noise, even those who dwelled in spacious houses upon the Palatine and Carinae—slaves shouted, sang, laughed and squabbled as they went about their work, and babies howled, small children screamed, womenfolk chattered incessantly when they weren’t intruding to nag or complain. Such a normal situation that it scarcely impinged upon most men at the head of a household. But in that respect Caesar chafed, for in him resided a genuine liking for solitude as well as little patience for what he regarded as trivia. Being a true Roman, he had not attempted to reorganize his domestic environment by forbidding noise and feminine intrusions, but rather avoided them by giving himself a bolt-hole.

He liked beautiful objects, so the three rooms he rented on the second floor of this insula belied their location. His only real friend, Marcus Licinius Crassus, was an incurable acquisitor of estates and properties, and for once Crassus had succumbed to a generous impulse, sold Caesar very cheaply sufficient mosaic flooring to cover the two rooms Caesar himself used. When he had bought the house of Marcus Livius Drusus, Crassus had rather despised the floor’s antiquity; but Caesar’s taste was unerring, he knew nothing so good had been produced in fifty years. Similarly, Crassus had been pleased to use Caesar’s apartment as practice for the squads of unskilled slaves he (very profitably) trained in prized and costly trades like plastering walls, picking out moldings and pilasters with gilt, and painting frescoes.

Thus when Caesar entered this apartment he heaved a sigh of sheer satisfaction as he gazed around the perfections of study-cum-reception-room and bedroom. Good, good! Lucius Decumius had followed his instructions to the letter and arranged several new items of furniture exactly where Caesar had wanted. They had been found in Further Spain and shipped to Rome ahead of time: a glossy console table carved out of reddish marble with lion’s feet legs, a gilded couch covered in Tyrian purple tapestry, two splendid chairs. There, he noted with amusement, was the new bed Lucius Decumius had mentioned, a commodious structure in ebony and gilt with a Tyrian purple spread. Who could guess, looking at Lucius Decumius, that his taste was quite up there with Caesar’s?

The owner of this establishment didn’t bother checking the third room, which was really a section of the balcony rimming the interior light well. Either end of it had been walled off for privacy from the neighbors, and the light well itself was heavily shuttered, allowing air but forbidding prying eyes any sight of its interior. Herein the service arrangements were located, from a man-sized bronze bath to a cistern storing water to a chamber pot. There were no cooking facilities and Caesar did not employ a servant who lived in the apartment. Cleaning was in the care of Aurelia’s servants, whom Eutychus sent down regularly to empty the bath water and keep the cistern filled, the chamber pot sweet, the linen washed, the floors swept, and every other surface dusted.

Lucius Decumius was already there, perched on the couch, his legs swinging clear of the exquisitely colored merman on the floor, his eyes upon a scroll he held between his hands.

“Making sure the College accounts are in order for the urban praetor’s audit?” asked Caesar, closing the door.

“Something like that,” Lucius Decumius answered, letting the scroll fly shut with a snap.

Caesar crossed to consult the cylinder of a water clock. “According to this little beast, it’s time to go downstairs, dad. Perhaps she won’t be punctual, especially if Silanus has no love of chronometers, but somehow the lady didn’t strike me as a person who ignores the passage of time.”

“You won’t want me here, Pavo, so I’ll just shove her in the door and go home,” said Lucius Decumius, exiting promptly.

Caesar seated himself at his desk to write a letter to Queen Oradaltis in Bithynia, but though he wrote as expeditiously as he did everything else, he had not done more than put paper in front of him when the door opened and Servilia entered. His assessment was right: she was not a lady who ignored time.

Rising, he went round the desk to greet her, intrigued when she extended her hand the way a man would. He shook it with exactly the courteous pressure such small bones demanded, but as he would have shaken a man’s hand. There was a chair ready at his desk, though before she arrived he had not been sure whether to conduct this interview across a desk or more cozily ensconced in closer proximity. His mother had been right: Servilia was not easy to read. So he ushered her to the chair opposite, then returned to his own. Hands clasped loosely on the desk in front of him, he looked at her solemnly.

Well preserved if she was nearing thirty-seven years of age, he decided, and elegantly dressed in a vermilion robe whose color skated perilously close to the flame of a prostitute’s toga and yet contrived to appear unimpeachably respectable. Yes, she was clever! Thick and so black its highlights shone more blue than red, her hair was pulled back from a center parting to meet a separate wing covering the upper tip of each ear, the whole then knotted into a bun on the nape of her neck. Unusual, but again respectable. A small, somewhat pursed mouth, good clear white skin, heavily lidded black eyes fringed with long and curling black lashes, brows he suspected she plucked heavily, and—most interesting of all—a slight sagging in the muscles of her right cheek that he had also noticed in the son, Brutus.

Time to break the silence, since it appeared she was not about to do so. “How may I help you, domina?” he asked formally.

“Decimus Silanus is our paterfamilias, Gaius Julius, but there are certain things pertaining to the affairs of my late first husband, Marcus Junius Brutus, that I prefer to deal with myself. My present husband is not a well man, so I try to spare him extra burdens. It is important that you do not misunderstand my actions, which may seem on the surface to usurp duties more normally in the sphere of the paterfamilias,” she said with even greater formality.

The expression of aloof interest his face had displayed since he sat down did not change; Caesar merely leaned back a little in his chair. “I will not misunderstand,” he said.

Impossible to say she relaxed at that, for she had not seemed from the moment of her entry to be anything other than relaxed. Yet a more assured tinge crept into her wariness; it looked at him out of her eyes. “You met my son, Marcus Junius Brutus, the day before yesterday,” she said.

“A nice boy.”

“I think so, yes.”

“Still technically a child.”

“For some few months yet. This matter concerns him, and he insists it will not wait.” A faint smile touched the left corner of her mouth, which seemed from watching her speak to be more mobile than the right corner. “Youth is impetuous.”

“He didn’t seem impetuous to me,” said Caesar.

“Nor is he in most things.”

“So I am to gather that your errand is on behalf of something young Marcus Junius Brutus wants?”

“That is correct.”

“Well,” said Caesar, exhaling deeply, “having established the proper protocol, perhaps you’ll tell me what he wants.”

“He wishes to espouse your daughter, Julia.”

Masterly self-control! applauded Servilia, unable to detect any reaction in eyes, face, body.

“She’s only eight,” said Caesar.

“And he not yet officially a man. However, he wishes it.”

“He may change his mind.”

“So I told him. But he assures me he will not, and he ended in convincing me of his sincerity.”

“I’m not sure I want to betroth Julia yet.”

“Whyever not? My own daughters are both contracted already, and they are younger than Julia.”

“Julia’s dowry is very small.”

“No news to me, Gaius Julius. However, my son’s fortune is large. He doesn’t need a wealthy bride. His own father left him extremely well provided for, and he is Silanus’s heir too.”

“You may yet have a son to Silanus.”

“Possibly.”

“But not probably, eh?”

“Silanus throws daughters.”

Caesar leaned forward again, still appearing detached. “Tell me why I should agree to the match, Servilia.”

Her brows rose. “I should have thought that was self-evident! How could Julia look higher for a husband? On my side Brutus is a patrician Servilius, on his father’s side he goes back to Lucius Junius Brutus, the founder of the Republic. All of which you know. His fortune is splendid, his political career will certainly carry him to the consulship, and he may well end in being censor now that the censorship is restored. There is a blood relationship through the Rutilii as well as through both the Servilii Caepiones and the Livii Drusi. There is also amicitia through Brutus’s grandfather’s devotion to your uncle by marriage, Gaius Marius. I am aware that you are closely related to Sulla’s family, but neither my own family nor my husband had any quarrel with Sulla. Your own dichotomy between Marius and Sulla is more pronounced than any Brutus can lay claim to.”

“Oh, you argue like an advocate!” said Caesar appreciatively, and finally smiled.

“I will take that as a compliment.”

“You should.”

Caesar got up and walked round the desk, held out his hand to help her rise.

“Am I to have no answer, Gaius Julius?”

“You will have an answer, but not today.”

“When, then?” she asked, walking to the door.

A faint but alluring perfume came stealing from her as she preceded Caesar, who was about to tell her he would give her his answer after the elections when he suddenly noticed something that fascinated him into wanting to see her again sooner than that. Though she was irreproachably covered up as her class and status demanded, the back of her robe had sagged to expose the skin over neck and spine to the middle of her shoulder blades, and there like a finely feathered track a central growth of black fuzz traveled down from her head to disappear into the depths of her clothing. It looked silky rather than coarse and lay flat against her white skin, but it was not lying as it was intended to lie because whoever had dried her back after her bath hadn’t cared enough to smooth it carefully into a crest along the well-padded knobs of her spine. How it cried out for that small attention!

“Come back tomorrow, if that is convenient,” said Caesar, reaching past her to open the door.

No attendant waited on the minute stair landing, so he walked her down two flights to the vestibule. But when he would have taken her outside, she stopped him.

“Thank you, Gaius Julius, this far will do,” she said.

“You’re sure? It’s not the best neighborhood.”

“I have an escort. Until tomorrow, then.”

Back up the stairs to the last lingering tendrils of that subtle perfume and a feeling that somehow the room was emptier than it had ever been. Servilia… She was deep and every layer was differently hard, iron and marble and basalt and adamas. Not at all nice. Not feminine, either, despite those large and shapely breasts. It might prove disastrous to turn one’s back on her, for in his fancy she had two faces like Janus, one to see where she was going and one to see who followed behind. A total monster. Little wonder everyone said Silanus looked sicker and sicker. No paterfamilias would intercede for Brutus; she hadn’t needed to explain that to him. Clearly Servilia managed her own affairs, including her son, no matter what the law said. So was betrothal to Julia her idea, or did it indeed stem from Brutus? Aurelia might know. He would go home and ask her.

And home he went, still thinking about Servilia, what it would be like to regulate and discipline that thin line of black fuzz down her back.

“Mater,” he said, erupting into her office, “I need an urgent consultation, so stop what you’re doing and come into my study!”

Down went Aurelia’s pen; she stared at Caesar in amazement. “It’s rent day,” she said.

“I don’t care if it’s quarter day.”

He was gone before he had quite finished that short sentence, leaving Aurelia to abandon her accounts in a state of shock. Not like Caesar! What had gotten into him?

“Well?’’ she asked, stalking into his tablinum to find him standing with his hands behind his back and rocking from heels to toes and back again. His toga lay in a massive heap on the floor, so she bent to pick it up, then tossed it out the door into the dining room before shutting herself in.

For a moment he acted as if she hadn’t yet arrived, then started, glanced at her in mingled amusement and—exhilaration? before moving to seat her in the chair she always used.

“My dear Caesar, can’t you stay still, even if you can’t sit down? You look like an alley cat with the wind in its tail.”

That struck him as exquisitely funny; he roared with laughter. “I probably feel like an alley cat with the wind in its tail!”

Rent day disappeared; Aurelia realized from what interview with whom Caesar must just have emerged. “Oho! Servilia!”

“Servilia,” he echoed, and sat down, suddenly recovering from that fizzing state of exaltation.

“In love, are we?” asked the mother clinically.

He considered that, shook his head. “I doubt it. In lust, perhaps, though I’m not even sure of that. I dislike her, I think.”

“A promising beginning. You’re bored.”

“True. Certainly bored with all these women who gaze adoringly and lie down to let me wipe my feet on them.”

“She won’t do that for you, Caesar.”

“I know, I know.”

“What did she want to see you for? To start an affair?”

“Oh, we haven’t progressed anywhere as far along as that, Mater. In fact, I have no idea whether my lust is reciprocated. It may well not be, because it only really began when she turned her back on me to go.”

“I grow more curious by the moment. What did she want?”

“Guess,” he said, grinning.

“Don’t play games with me!”

“You won’t guess?”

“I’ll do more than refuse to guess, Caesar, if you don’t stop acting like a ten-year-old. I shall leave.”

“No, no, stay there, Mater, I’ll behave. It just feels so good to be faced with a challenge, a little bit of terra incognita.”

“Yes, I do understand that,” she said, and smiled. “Tell me.”

“She came on young Brutus’s behalf. To ask that I consent to a betrothal between young Brutus and Julia.”

That obviously came as a surprise; Aurelia blinked several times. “How extraordinary!”

“The thing is, Mater, whose idea is it? Hers or Brutus’s?”

Aurelia put her head on one side and thought. Finally she nodded and said, “Brutus’s, I would think. When one’s dearly loved granddaughter is a mere child, one doesn’t expect things like that to happen, but upon reflection there have been signs. He does tend to look at her like a particularly dense sheep,”

“You’re full of the most remarkable animal metaphors today, Mater! From alley cats to sheep.”

“Stop being facetious, even if you are in lust for the boy’s mother. Julia’s future is too important.”

He sobered instantly. “Yes, of course. Considered in the crudest light, it is a wonderful offer, even for a Julia.”

“I agree, especially at this time, before your own political career is anywhere near its zenith. Betrothal to a Junius Brutus whose mother is a Servilius Caepio would gather you immense support among the boni, Caesar. All the Junii, both the patrician and the plebeian Servilii, Hortensius, some of the Domitii, quite a few of the Caecilii Metelli—even Catulus would have to pause.”

“Tempting,” said Caesar.

“Very tempting if the boy is serious.”

“His mother assures me he is.”

“I believe he is too. Nor does he strike me as the kind to blow hot and cold. A very sober and cautious boy, Brutus.”

“Would Julia like it?” asked Caesar, frowning.

Aurelia’s brows rose. “That’s an odd question coming from you. You’re her father, her marital fate is entirely in your hands, and you’ve never given me any reason to suppose you would consider letting her marry for love. She’s too important, she’s your only child. Besides, Julia will do as she’s told. I’ve brought her up to understand that things like marriage are not hers to dictate.”

“But I would like her to like the idea.”

“You are not usually a prey to sentiment, Caesar. Is it that you don’t care much for the boy yourself?” she asked shrewdly.

He sighed. “Partly, perhaps. Oh, I didn’t dislike him the way I dislike his mother. But he seemed a dull dog.”

“Animal metaphors!”

That made him laugh, but briefly. “She’s such a sweet little thing, and so lively. Her mother and I were so happy that I’d like to see her happy in her marriage.”

“Dull dogs make good husbands,” said Aurelia.

“You’re in favor of the match.”

“I am. If we let it go, another half as good may not come Julia’s way. His sisters have snared young Lepidus and Vatia Isauricus’s eldest son, so there are two very eligible matches gone already. Would you rather give her to a Claudius Pulcher or a Caecilius Metellus? Or Pompeius Magnus’s son?”

He shuddered, flinched. “You’re absolutely right, Mater. Better a dull dog than ravening wolf or mangy cur! I was rather hoping for one of Crassus’s sons.”

Aurelia snorted. “Crassus is a good friend to you, Caesar, but you know perfectly well he’ll not let either of his boys marry a girl with no dowry to speak of.”

“Right again, Mater.” He slapped his hands on his knees, a sign that he had made up his mind. “Marcus Junius Brutus let it be, then! Who knows? He might turn out as irresistibly handsome as Paris once he’s over the pimple stage.”

“I do wish you didn’t have a tendency to levity, Caesar!” said his mother, rising to go back to her books. “It will hamper your career in the Forum, just as it does Cicero’s from time to time. The poor boy will never be handsome. Or dashing.”

“In which case,” said Caesar with complete seriousness, “he is lucky. They never trust fellows who are too handsome.”

“If women could vote,” said Aurelia slyly, “that would soon change. Every Memmius would be King of Rome.”

“Not to mention every Caesar, eh? Thank you, Mater, but I prefer things the way they are.”

*

Servilia did not mention her interview with Caesar when she returned home, either to Brutus or Silanus. Nor did she mention that on the morrow she was going to see him again. In most households the news would have leaked through the servants, but not in Servilia’s domain. The two Greeks whom she employed as escorts whenever she ventured out were old retainers, and knew her better than to gossip, even among their compatriots. The tale of the nursemaid she had seen flogged and crucified for dropping baby Brutus had followed her from Brutus’s house to Silanus’s, and no one made the mistake of deeming Silanus strong enough to cope with his wife’s temperament or temper. No other crucifixion had happened since, but of floggings there were sufficient to ensure instant obedience and permanently still tongues. Nor was it a household wherein slaves were manumitted, could don the Cap of Liberty and call themselves freedmen or freedwomen. Once you were sold into Servilia’s keeping, you stayed a slave forever.

Thus when the two Greeks accompanied her to the bottom end of the Vicus Patricii the following morning, they made no attempt to see what lay inside the building, nor dreamed of creeping up the stairs a little later to listen at doors, peer through keyholes. Not that they suspected a liaison with some man; Servilia was too well known to be above reproach in that respect. She was a snob, and it was generally held by her entire world from peers to servants that she would deem Jupiter Optimus Maximus beneath her.

Perhaps she would have, had the Great God accosted her, but a liaison with Gaius Julius Caesar certainly occupied her mind most attractively as she trod up the stairs alone, finding it significant that this morning the peculiar and rather noisome little man of yesterday was not in evidence. The conviction that something other than a betrothal would come of her interview with Caesar had not occurred until, as he had ushered her to the door, she sensed a change in him quite palpable enough to trigger hope—nay, anticipation. Of course she knew what all of Rome knew, that he was fastidious to a fault about the condition of his women, that they had to be scrupulously clean. So she had bathed with extreme care and limited her perfume to a trace incapable of disguising natural odors underneath; luckily she didn’t sweat beyond a modicum, and never wore a robe more than once between launderings. Yesterday she had worn vermilion: today she chose a rich deep amber, put amber pendants in her ears and amber beads around her neck. I am tricked out for a seduction, she thought, and knocked upon the door,

He answered it himself, saw her to the chair, sat behind his desk just as he had yesterday. But he didn’t look at her as he had yesterday; today the eyes were not detached, not cold. They held something she had never seen in a man’s eyes before, a spark of intimacy and ownership that did not set her back up or make her dismiss him as lewd or crude. Why did she think that spark honored her, distinguished her from all her fellow women?

“What have you decided, Gaius Julius?” she asked.

“To accept young Brutus’s offer.”

That pleased her; she smiled broadly for the first time in his acquaintance with her, and revealed that the right corner of her mouth was definitely less strong than the left. “Excellent!” she said, and sighed through a smaller, shyer smile.

“Your son means a great deal to you.”

“He means everything to me,” she said simply.

There was a sheet of paper on his desk; he glanced down at it. “I’ve drawn up a proper legal agreement to the betrothal of your son and my daughter,” he said, “but if you prefer, we can keep the matter more informal for a while, at least until Brutus is further into his manhood. He may change his mind.”

“He won’t, and I won’t,” answered Servilia. “Let us conclude the business here and now.”

“If you wish, but I should warn you that once an agreement is signed, both parties and their guardians at law are fully liable at law for breach-of-promise suits and compensation equal to the amount of the dowry.”

“What is Julia’s dowry?” Servilia asked.

“I’ve put it down at one hundred talents.”

That provoked a gasp. “You don’t have a hundred talents to dower her, Caesar!”

“At the moment, no. But Julia won’t reach marriageable age until after I’m consul, for I have no intention of allowing her to marry before her eighteenth birthday. By the time that day arrives, I will have the hundred talents for her dowry.”

“I believe you will,” said Servilia slowly. “However, it means that should my son change his mind, he’ll be a hundred talents poorer.”

“Not so sure of his constancy now?’’ asked Caesar, grinning.

“Quite as sure,” she said. “Let us conclude the business.”

“Are you empowered to sign on Brutus’s behalf, Servilia? It did not escape me that yesterday you called Silanus the boy’s paterfamilias.”

She wet her lips. “I am Brutus’s legal guardian, Caesar, not Silanus. Yesterday I was concerned that you should think no worse of me for approaching you myself rather than sending my husband. We live in Silanus’s house, of which he is indeed the paterfamilias. But Uncle Mamercus was the executor of my late husband’s will, and of my own very large dowry. Before I married Silanus, Uncle Mamercus and I tidied up my affairs, which included my late husband’s estates. Silanus was happy to agree that I should retain control of what is mine, and act as Brutus’s guardian. The arrangement has worked well, and Silanus doesn’t interfere.”

“Never?” asked Caesar, eyes twinkling.

“Well, only once,” Servilia admitted. “He insisted I should send Brutus to school rather than keep him at home to be tutored privately. I saw the force of his argument, and agreed to try it. Much to my surprise, school turned out to be good for Brutus. He has a natural tendency toward what he calls intellectualism, and his own pedagogue inside his own house would have reinforced it.”

“Yes, one’s own pedagogue does tend to do that,” said Caesar gravely. “He’s still at school, of course.”

“Until the end of the year. Next year he’ll go to the Forum and a grammaticus. Under the care of Uncle Mamercus.”

“A splendid choice and a splendid future. Mamercus is a relation of mine too. Might I hope that you allow me to participate in Brutus’s rhetorical education? After all, I am destined to be his father-in-law,” said Caesar, getting up.

“That would delight me,” said Servilia, conscious of a vast and unsettling disappointment. Nothing was going to happen! Her instincts had been terribly, dreadfully, horribly wrong!

He went round behind her chair, she thought to assist her departure, but somehow her legs refused to work; she had to continue to sit like a statue and feel ghastly.

“Do you know,” came his voice—or a voice, so different and throaty was it—”that you have the most delicious little ridge of hair as far down your backbone as I can see? But no one tends it properly, it’s rumpled and lies every which way. That is a shame, I thought so yesterday.”

He touched the nape of her neck just below the great coil of her hair, and she thought at first it was his fingertips, sleek and languorous. But his head was immediately behind hers, and both his hands came round to cup her breasts. His breath cooled her neck like a breeze on wet skin, and it was then she understood what he was doing. Licking that growth of superfluous hair she hated so much, that her mother had despised and derided until the day she died. Licking it first on one side and then the other, always toward the ridge of her spine, working slowly down, down. And all Servilia could do was to sit a prey to sensations she had not imagined existed, burned and drenched in a storm of feeling.

Married though she had been for eighteen years to two very different men, in all her life she had never known anything like this fiery and piercing explosion of the senses reaching outward from the focus of his tongue, diving inward to invade breasts and belly and core. At some stage she did manage to get up, not to help him untie the girdle below her breasts nor to ease the layers of her clothing off her shoulders and eventually to the floor—those he did for himself—but to stand while he followed the line of hair with his tongue until it dwindled to invisibility where the crease of her buttocks began. And if he produced a knife and plunged it to the hilt in my heart, she thought, I could not move an inch to stop him, would not even want to stop him. Nothing mattered save the ongoing gratification of a side of herself she had never dreamed she owned.

His own clothing, both toga and tunic, remained in place until he reached the end of his tongue’s voyage, when she felt him step back from her, but could not turn to face him because if she let go the back of the chair she would fall.

“Oh, that’s better,” she heard him say. “That’s how it must be, always. Perfect.”

He came back to her and turned her round, pulling her arms to circle his waist, and she felt his skin at last, put up her face for the kiss he had not yet given her. But instead he lifted her up and carried her to the bedroom, set her down effortlessly on the sheets he had already turned down in readiness. Her eyes were closed, she could only sense him looming over her, but they opened when he put his nose to her navel and inhaled deeply.

“Sweet,” he said, and moved down to mons veneris. “Plump, sweet and juicy,” he said, laughing.

How could he laugh? But laugh he did; then as her eyes widened at the sight of his erection, he gathered her against him and kissed her mouth at last. Not like Brutus, who had stuck his tongue in so far and so wetly it had revolted her. Not like Silanus, whose kisses were reverent to the point of chasteness. This was perfect, something to revel in, join in, linger at. One hand stroked her back from buttocks to shoulders; the fingers of the other gently explored between the lips of her vulva and set her to shivering and shuddering. Oh, the luxury of it! The absolute glory of not caring what kind of impression she was making, whether she was being too forward or too backward, what he was thinking of her! Servilia didn’t care, didn’t care, didn’t care. This was for herself. So she rolled on top of him and put both her hands around his erection to guide it home, then sat on it and ground her hips until she screamed her ecstasy aloud, as transfixed and pinioned as a woodland creature on a huntsman’s spear. Then she fell forward and lay against his chest as limp and finished as that woodland creature killed.

Not that he was finished with her. The lovemaking continued for what seemed hours, though she had no idea when he attained his own orgasm or whether there were several or just the one, for he made no sound and remained erect until suddenly he ceased.

“It really is very big,” she said, lifting his penis and letting it drop against his belly.

“It really is very sticky,” he said, uncoiled lithely and disappeared from the room.

When he returned her sight had come back sufficiently to perceive that he was hairless like the statue of a god, and put together with the care of a Praxiteles Apollo.

“You are so beautiful,” she said, staring.

“Think it if you must, but don’t say it” was his answer.

“How can you like me when you have no hair yourself?”

“Because you’re sweet and plump and juicy, and that line of black down ravishes me.” He sat upon the edge of the bed and gave her a smile that made her heart beat faster. “Besides which, you enjoyed yourself. That’s at least half the fun of it as far as I’m concerned.”

“Is it time to go?” she asked, sensitive to the fact that he made no move to lie down again.

“Yes, it’s time to go.” He laughed. “I wonder if technically this counts as incest? Our children are engaged to be married.”

But she lacked his sense of the ridiculous, and frowned. “Of course not!”

“A joke, Servilia, a joke,” he said gently, and got up. “I hope what you wore doesn’t crease. Everything is still on the floor in the other room.”

While she dressed, he began filling his bath from the cistern by dipping a leather bucket into it and tossing the water out from the bucket into the bath tirelessly. Nor did he stop when she came to watch.

“When can we meet again?” she asked.

“Not too often, otherwise it will pall, and I’d rather it didn’t,” he said, still ladling water.

Though she was not aware of it, this was one of his tests; if the recipient of his lovemaking proceeded with tears or many protestations to show him how much she cared, his interest waned.

“I agree with you,” she said.

The bucket stopped in mid-progress; Caesar gazed at her, arrested. “Do you really?”

“Absolutely,” she said, making sure her amber earrings were properly hooked into place. “Do you have any other women?”

“Not at the moment, but it can change any day.” This was the second test, more rigorous than the first.

“Yes, you do have a reputation to maintain, I can see that.”

“Can you really?”

“Of course.” Though her sense of humor was vestigial, she smiled a little and said, “I understand what they all say about you now, you see. I’ll be stiff and sore for days.”

“Then let’s meet again the day after the Popular Assembly elections. I’m standing for curator of the Via Appia.”

“And my brother Caepio for quaestor. Silanus of course will stand for praetor in the Centuries before that.”

“And your other brother, Cato, will no doubt be elected a tribune of the soldiers.”

Her face squeezed in, mouth hard, eyes like stone. “Cato is not my brother, he’s my half brother,” she said.

“They say that of Caepio too. Same mare, same stallion.”

She drew a breath, looked at Caesar levelly. “I am aware of what they say, and I believe it to be true. But Caepio bears my own family’s name, and since he does, I acknowledge him.”

“That’s very sensible of you,” said Caesar, and returned to emptying his bucket.

Whereupon Servilia, assured that she looked passable if not as unruffled as she had some hours before, took her departure.

Caesar entered the bath, his face thoughtful. That was an unusual woman. A plague upon seductive feathers of black down! Such a silly thing to bring about his downfall. Down fall. A good pun, if inadvertent. He wasn’t sure he liked her any better now they were lovers, yet he knew he was not about to give her her congé. For one thing, she was a rarity in other ways than in character. Women of his own class who could behave between the sheets without inhibition were as scarce as cowards in a Crassus army. Even his darling Cinnilla had preserved modesty and decorum. Well, that was the way they were brought up, poor things. And, since he had fallen into the habit of being honest with himself, he had to admit that he would make no move to have Julia brought up in any other way. Oh, there were trollops among his own class, women who were as famous for their sexual tricks as any whore from the late great Colubra to the ageing Praecia. But when Caesar wanted an uninhibited sexual frolic, he preferred to seek it among the honest and open, earthy and decent women of the Subura. Until today and Servilia. Who would ever have guessed it? She wouldn’t gossip about her fling, either. He rolled over in the bath and reached for his pumice stone; no use working with a strigilis in cold water, a man needed to sweat in order to scrape.

“And how much,” he asked the drab little bit of pumice, “do I tell my mother about this? Odd! She’s so detached I usually find no difficulty in talking to her about women. But I think I shall don the solid-purple toga of a censor when I mention Servilia.”

*

The elections were held on time that year, the Centuriate to return consuls and praetors first, then the full gamut of patricians and plebeians in the Popular Assembly to return the more minor magistrates, and finally the tribes in the Plebeian Assembly, which restricted its activities to the election of plebeian aediles and tribunes of the plebs.

Though it was Quinctilis by the calendar and therefore ought to have been high summer, the seasons were dragging behind because Metellus Pius Pontifex Maximus had not been prone to insert those extra twenty days each second February for many years. Perhaps not so surprising then that Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus—Pompey the Great—was moved to visit Rome to behold the due process of electoral law in the Plebeian Assembly, since the weather was springish and halcyon.

Despite his claim that he was the First Man in Rome, Pompey detested the city, and preferred to live upon his absolutely vast estates in northern Picenum. There he was a virtual king; in Rome he was uncomfortably aware that most of the Senate detested him even more than he did Rome. Among the knights who ran Rome’s business world he was extremely popular and had a large following, but that fact couldn’t soothe his sensitive and vulnerable image of himself when certain senatorial members of the boni and other aristocratic cliques made it clear that they thought him no more than a presumptuous upstart, a non-Roman interloper.

His ancestry was mediocre, but by no means nonexistent, for his grandfather had been a member of the Senate and married into an impeccably Roman family, the Lucilii, and his father had been the famous Pompey Strabo, consul, victorious general of the Italian War, protector of the conservative elements in the Senate when Rome had been threatened by Marius and Cinna. But Marius and Cinna had won, and Pompey Strabo died of disease in camp outside the city. Blaming Pompey Strabo for the epidemic of enteric fever which had ravaged besieged Rome, the inhabitants of the Quirinal and Viminal had dragged his naked body through the streets tied behind an ass. To the young Pompey, an outrage he had never forgiven.

His chance had come when Sulla returned from exile and invaded the Italian Peninsula; only twenty-two years old, Pompey had enlisted three legions of his dead father’s veterans and marched them to join Sulla in Campania. Well aware that Pompey had blackmailed him into a joint command, the crafty Sulla had used him for some of his more dubious enterprises as he maneuvered toward the dictatorship, then held it. Even after Sulla retired and died, he looked after this ambitious, cocksure sprig by introducing a law which allowed a man not in the Senate to be given command of Rome’s armies. For Pompey had taken against the Senate, and refused to belong to it. There had followed the six years of Pompey’s war against the rebel Quintus Sertorius in Spain, six years during which Pompey was obliged to reassess his military ability; he had gone to Spain utterly confident that he would beat Sertorius in no time flat, only to find himself pitted against one of the best generals in the history of Rome. In the end he simply wore Sertorius down. So the Pompey who returned to Italia was a much changed person: cunning, unscrupulous, bent on showing the Senate (which had kept him shockingly short of money and reinforcements in Spain) that he, who did not belong to it, could grind its face in the dust.

Pompey had proceeded to do so, with the connivance of two other men—Marcus Crassus, victor against Spartacus, and none other than Caesar. With the twenty-nine-year-old Caesar pulling their strings, Pompey and Crassus used the existence of their two armies to force the Senate into allowing them to stand for the consulship. No man had ever been elected to this most senior of all magistracies before he had been at the very least a member of the Senate, but Pompey became senior consul, Crassus his colleague. Thus this extraordinary, underaged man from Picenum attained his objective in the most unconstitutional way, though it had been Caesar, six years his junior, who showed him how to do it.

To compound the Senate’s misery, the joint consulship of Pompey the Great and Marcus Crassus had been a triumph, a year of feasts, circuses, merriment and prosperity. And when it was over, both men declined to take provinces; instead, they retired into private life. The only significant law they had passed restored full powers to the tribunes of the plebs, whom Sulla had legislated into virtual impotence.

Now Pompey was in town to see next year’s tribunes of the plebs elected, and that intrigued Caesar, who encountered him and his multitudes of clients at the corner of the Sacra Via and the Clivus Orbius, just entering the lower Forum.

“I didn’t expect to see you in Rome,” said Caesar as they joined forces. He surveyed Pompey from head to foot openly, and grinned. “You’re looking well, and very fit besides,” he said. “Keeping your figure into middle age, I see.”

“Middle age?” asked Pompey indignantly. “Just because I’ve already been consul doesn’t mean I’m in my dotage! I won’t turn thirty-eight until the end of September!”

“Whereas I,” said Caesar smugly, “have very recently turned thirty-two—at which age, Pompeius Magnus, you were not consul either.”

“Oh, you’re pulling my leg,” said Pompey, calming down. “You’re like Cicero, you’ll joke your way onto the pyre.”

“That witty I wish I was. But you haven’t answered my serious question, Magnus. What are you doing in Rome for no better reason than to see the tribunes of the plebs elected? I wouldn’t have thought you’d need to employ tribunes of the plebs these days.”

“A man always needs a tribune of the plebs or two, Caesar.”

“Does he now? What are you up to, Magnus?”

The vivid blue eyes opened wide, and the glance Pompey gave Caesar was guileless. “I’m not up to anything.”

“Oh! Look!” cried Caesar, pointing at the sky. “Did you see it, Magnus?”

“See what?” asked Pompey, scanning the clouds.

“That bright pink pig flying like an eagle.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“Correct, I don’t believe you. Why not make a clean breast of it? I’m not your enemy, as you well know. In fact, I’ve been of enormous help to you in the past, and there’s no reason why I oughtn’t help your career along in the future. I’m not a bad orator, you have to admit that.”

“Well…” began Pompey, then fell silent.

“Well what?”

Pompey stopped, glanced behind at the crowd of clients who followed in their wake, shook his head, and detoured slightly to lean against one of the pretty marble columns which propped up the arcade outside the Basilica Aemilia’s main chamber. Understanding that this was Pompey’s way of avoiding eavesdroppers, Caesar ranged himself alongside the Great Man to listen while the horde of clients remained, eyes glistening and dying of curiosity, too far away to hear a word.

“What if one of them can read our lips?’’ asked Caesar.

“You’re joking again!”

“Not really. But we could always turn our backs on them and pretend we’re pissing into Aemilia’s front passage.”

That was too much; Pompey cried with laughter. However, when he sobered, noted Caesar, he did turn sufficiently away from their audience to present his profile to it, and moved his lips as furtively as a Forum vendor of pornography.

“As a matter of fact,” muttered Pompey, “I do have one good fellow among the candidates this year.”

“Aulus Gabinius?”

“How did you guess that?”

“He hails from Picenum, and he was one of your personal staff in Spain. Besides, he’s a good friend of mine. We were junior military tribunes together at the siege of Mitylene.” Caesar pulled a wry face. “Gabinius didn’t like Bibulus either, and the years haven’t made him any fonder of the boni.”

“Gabinius is the best of good fellows,” said Pompey.

“And remarkably capable.”

“That too.”

“What’s he going to legislate for you? Strip Lucullus’s command off him and hand it to you on a golden salver?”

“No, no!” snapped Pompey. “It’s too soon for that! First I need a short campaign to warm my muscles up.”

“The pirates,” said Caesar instantly.

“Right this time! The pirates it is.”

Caesar bent his right knee to tuck its leg against his column and looked as if nothing more was going on than a nice chat about old times. “I applaud you, Magnus. That’s not only very clever, it’s also very necessary.”

“You’re not impressed with Metellus Little Goat in Crete?”

“The man’s a pigheaded fool, and venal into the bargain. He wasn’t brother-in-law to Verres for nothing—in more ways than one. With three good legions, he barely managed to win a land battle against twenty-four thousand motley and untrained Cretans who were led by sailors rather than soldiers.”

“Terrible,” said Pompey, shaking his head gloomily. “I ask you, Caesar, what’s the point in fighting land battles when the pirates operate at sea? All very well to say that it’s their land bases you need to eradicate, but unless you catch them at sea you can’t destroy their livelihood—their ships. Modern naval warfare isn’t like Troy, you can’t burn their ships drawn up on the shore. While most of them are holding you off, the rest form skeleton crews and row the fleet elsewhere.”

“Yes,” said Caesar, nodding, “that’s where everyone has made his mistake so far, from both Antonii to Vatia Isauricus. Burning villages and sacking towns. The task needs a man with a true talent for organization.”

“Exactly!” cried Pompey. “And I am that man, I promise you! If my self-inflicted inertia of the last couple of years has been good for nothing else, it has given me time to think. In Spain I just lowered my horns and charged blindly into the fray. What I ought to have done was work out how to win the war before I set one foot out of Mutina. I should have investigated everything beforehand, not merely how to blaze a new route across the Alps. Then I would have known how many legions I needed, how many horse troopers, how much money in my war chest—and I would have learned to understand my enemy. Quintus Sertorius was a brilliant tactician. But, Caesar, you don’t win wars on tactics. Strategy is the thing, strategy!”

“So you’ve been doing your homework on the pirates, Magnus?”

“Indeed I have. Exhaustively. Every single aspect, from the largest to the smallest. Maps, spies, ships, money, men. I know how to do the job,” said Pompey, displaying a different kind of confidence than he used to own. Spain had been Kid Butcher’s last campaign. In future he would be no butcher of any sort.

Thus Caesar watched the ten tribunes of the plebs elected with great interest. Aulus Gabinius was a certainty, and indeed came in at the top of the poll, which meant he would be president of the new College of Tribunes of the Plebs which would enter office on the tenth day of this coming December.

Because the tribunes of the plebs enacted most new laws and were traditionally the only legislators who liked to see change, every powerful faction in the Senate needed to “own” at least one tribune of the plebs. Including the boni, who used their men to block all new legislation; the most powerful weapon a tribune of the plebs had was the veto, which he could exercise against his fellows, against all other magistrates, and even against the Senate. That meant the tribunes of the plebs who belonged to the boni would not enact new laws, they would veto them. And of course the boni succeeded in having three men elected—Globulus, Trebellius and Otho. None was a brilliant man, but then a boni tribune of the plebs didn’t need to be brilliant; he simply needed to be able to articulate the word “Veto!”

Pompey had two excellent men in the new College to pursue his ends. Aulus Gabinius might be relatively ancestorless and a poor man, but he would go far; Caesar had known that as far back as the siege of Mitylene. Naturally Pompey’s other man was also from Picenum: a Gaius Cornelius who was not a patrician any more than he was a member of the venerable gens Cornelia. Perhaps he was not as tied to Pompey as Gabinius was, but he certainly would not veto any plebiscite Gabinius might propose to the Plebs.

Interesting though all of this was for Caesar, the one man elected who worried him the most was tied neither to the boni nor to Pompey the Great. He was Gaius Papirius Carbo, a radical sort of man with his own axe to grind. For some time he had been heard to say in the Forum that he intended to prosecute Caesar’s uncle, Marcus Aurelius Cotta, for the illegal retention of booty taken from Heracleia during Marcus Cotta’s campaign in Bithynia against Rome’s old enemy, King Mithridates. Marcus Cotta had returned in triumph toward the end of that famous joint consulship of Pompey and Crassus, and no one had questioned his integrity then. Now this Carbo was busy muddying old waters, and as a tribune of the fully restored Plebs he would be empowered to try Marcus Cotta in a specially convened Plebeian Assembly court. Because Caesar loved and admired his Uncle Marcus, Carbo’s election was a big worry.

The last ballot tile counted, the ten victorious men stood on the rostra acknowledging the cheers; Caesar turned away and plodded home. He was tired: too little sleep, too much Servilia. They had not met again until the day after the elections in the Popular Assembly some six days earlier, and, as predicted, both had something to celebrate. Caesar was curator of the Via Appia (“What on earth possessed you to take that job on?’’ Appius Claudius Pulcher had demanded, astonished. “It’s my ancestor’s road, but that big a fool I am not! You’ll be poor in a year”), and Servilia’s so-called full brother Caepio had been elected one of twenty quaestors. The lots had given him duty inside Rome as urban quaestor, which meant he didn’t have to serve in a province.

So they had met in a mood of satisfaction as well as mutual anticipation, and had found their day in bed together so immensely pleasurable that neither of them was willing to postpone another. They met every day for a feast of lips, tongues, skin, and every day found something new to do, something fresh to explore. Until today, when more elections rendered a meeting impossible. Nor would they find time again until perhaps the Kalends of September, for Silanus was taking Servilia, Brutus and the girls to the seaside resort of Cumae, where he had a villa. Silanus too had been successful in this year’s elections; he was to be urban praetor next year. That very important magistracy would raise Servilia’s public profile too; among other things, she was hoping that her house would be chosen for the women-only rites of Bona Dea, when Rome’s most illustrious matrons put the Good Goddess to sleep for the winter.

And it was time too that he told Julia that he had arranged her marriage. The formal ceremony of betrothal would not take place until after Brutus donned his toga virilis in December, but the legalities were done, Julia’s fate was sealed. Why he had put the task off when such was never his custom niggled at the back of his mind; he had asked Aurelia to break the news, but Aurelia, a stickler for domestic protocol, had refused. He was the paterfamilias; he must do it. Women! Why did there have to be so many women in his life, and why did he think the future held even more of them? Not to mention more trouble because of them?

Julia had been playing with Matia, the daughter of his dear friend Gaius Matius, who occupied the other ground-floor apartment in Aurelia’s insula. However, she came home sufficiently ahead of the dinner hour for him to find no further excuse for not telling her, dancing across the light-well garden like a young nymph, draperies floating around her immature figure in a mist of lavender blue. Aurelia always dressed her in soft pale blues or greens, and she was right to do so. How beautiful she will be, he thought, watching her; perhaps not the equal of Aurelia for Grecian purity of bones, but she had that magical Julia quality which Aurelia, so pragmatic and sensible and Cottan, did not. They always said of the Julias that they made their men happy, and he could believe that every time he saw his daughter. The adage was not infallible; his younger aunt (who had been Sulla’s first wife) had committed suicide after a long affair with the wine flagon, and his cousin Julia Antonia was on her second ghastly husband amid increasing bouts of depression and hysterics. Yet Rome continued to say it, and he was not about to contradict it; every nobleman with sufficient wealth not to need a rich bride thought first of a Julia.

When she saw her father leaning on the sill of the dining room window her face lit up; she came flying across to him and managed to make her scramble up and over the wall into his arms a graceful exercise.

“How’s my girl?” he asked, carrying her across to one of the three dining couches, and putting her down beside him.

“I’ve had a lovely day, tata. Did all the right people get in as tribunes of the plebs?”

The outer corners of his eyes pleated into fans of creases as he smiled; though his skin was naturally very pale, many years of an outdoor life in forums and courts and fields of military endeavor had browned its exposed surfaces, except in the depths of those creases at his eyes, where it remained very white. This contrast fascinated Julia, who liked him best when he wasn’t in the midst of a smile or a squint, and displayed his fans of white stripes like warpaint on a barbarian. So she got up on her knees and kissed first one fan and then the other, while he leaned his head toward her lips and melted inside as he never had for any other female, even Cinnilla.

“You know very well,” he answered her, the ritual over, “that all the right people never get in as tribunes of the plebs. The new College is the usual mixture of good, bad, indifferent, ominous and intriguing. But I do think they’ll be more active than this year’s lot, so the Forum will be busy around the New Year.”

She was well versed in political matters, of course, since both father and grandmother were from great political families, but living in the Subura meant her playmates (even Matia next door) were not of the same kind, had scant interest in the machinations and permutations of Senate, Assemblies, courts. For that reason Aurelia had sent her to Marcus Antonius Gnipho’s school when she turned six; Gnipho had been Caesar’s private tutor, but when Caesar donned the laena and apex of the flamen Dialis on arrival of his official manhood, Gnipho had returned to conducting a school with a noble clientele. Julia had proven a very bright and willing pupil, with the same love of literature her father owned, though in mathematics and geography her ability was less marked. Nor did she have Caesar’s astonishing memory. A good thing, all who loved her had concluded wisely; quick and clever girls were excellent, but intellectual and brilliant girls were a handicap, not least to themselves.

“Why are we in here, tata?” she asked, a little puzzled.

“I have some news for you that I’d like to tell you in a quiet place,” said Caesar, not lost for how to do it now that he had made up his mind to do it.

“Good news?”

“I don’t quite know, Julia. I hope so, but I don’t live inside your skin, only you do that. Perhaps it won’t be such good news, but I think after you get used to it you won’t find it intolerable.”

Because she was quick and clever, even if she wasn’t a born scholar, she understood immediately. “You’ve arranged a husband for me,” she said.

“I have. Does that please you?”

“Very much, tata. Junia is betrothed, and lords it over all of us who aren’t. Who is it?”

“Junia’s brother, Marcus Junius Brutus.”

He was looking into her eyes, so he caught the swift flash of a creature stricken before she turned her head away and gazed straight ahead. Her throat worked, she swallowed.

“Doesn’t that please you?” he asked, heart sinking.

“It’s a surprise, that’s all,” said Aurelia’s granddaughter, who had been reared from her cradle to accept every lot Fate cast her way, from husbands to the very real hazards of childbearing. Her head came round, the wide blue eyes were smiling now. “I’m very pleased. Brutus is nice.”

“You’re sure?”

“Oh, tata, of course I’m sure!” she said, so sincerely that her voice shook. “Truly, tata, it’s good news. Brutus will love me and take care of me, I know that.”

The weight of his heart eased, he sighed, smiled, took her little hand and kissed it lightly before enfolding her in a hug. It never occurred to him to ask her if she could learn to love Brutus, for love was not an emotion Caesar enjoyed, even the love he had known for Cinnilla and for this exquisite sprite. To feel it left him vulnerable, and he hated that.

Then she skipped off the couch and was gone; he could hear her calling in the distance as she sped to Aurelia’s office.

“Avia, avia, I am to marry my friend Brutus! Isn’t that splendid? Isn’t that good news?”

Then came the long-drawn-out moan that heralded a bout of tears. Caesar listened to his daughter weep as if her heart was broken, and knew not whether joy or sorrow provoked it. He came out into the reception room as Aurelia ushered the child toward her sleeping cubicle, face buried in Aurelia’s side.

His mother’s face was unperturbed. “I do wish,” she said in his direction, “that female creatures laughed when they’re happy! Instead, a good half of them cry. Including Julia.”