‘She’ll be very grateful.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I can give her the biggest prize of all. I can give her Sejanus.’
PART V
CHAPTER XIIII
‘Io, Io, Io, Saturnalia!’ Vespasian and Sabinus cried together as they came through the door of the triclinium at Vespasian’s estate at Cosa, bearing dishes of food.
‘Io, io, io Saturnalia,’ the few freedmen and house slaves that were left on the estate, along with Sextus and Marius, replied boisterously.
They reclined on the three couches around a low table and held their wine cups aloft in a toast to the annual festival of goodwill. All of them had been drinking steadily throughout the afternoon whilst Vespasian, Sabinus and Clementina had, with some help from the kitchen slave, prepared the meal. Vespasian and Sabinus placed the dishes on the table and Clementina did the rounds with the wine jug, replenishing the empty cups that had just been enthusiastically drained.
The room was decorated with the branches of fir trees and brightly berried holly; everyone within it, whether free, freed or slave, was wearing a brimless conical felt hat: the pileus, the symbol of manumission. All their tunics were brightly coloured, not the normal white, russet or plain undyed wool, but a dazzling array of clashing colours, worn only at this time during the year: the six-day-long festival of Saturn. This was the climax of the festival; the day when the household was turned upside down and masters waited on slaves and freedmen and they, in return, were allowed to be disrespectful (but not blatantly rude) back.
The diners surveyed the dishes of grilled fish with fennel and whole, roast suckling kid with a plum and caper sauce and made appreciative sounds.
‘That looks a lot better than the slop your wizened old grandmother used to turn out after her annual foray into the kitchen; if she could find it,’ Attalus, Tertulla’s steward and sparring companion, observed. ‘But I don’t suppose you spoilt young brats can remember the horrors of the old bat’s cooking?’
‘And I’ve no doubt that you let her know your exact feelings each year as she presented it, Attalus,’ Vespasian replied, laughing at the description of his grandmother by the one man who had probably loved her more than he.
‘On the contrary, boy, as you should remember.’ Attalus grinned as he again drained his cup. ‘Because I was allowed to be disrespectful to her over the Saturnalia it wasn’t nearly so much fun, so I used to be deferential, compliant and meek instead. The perfect slave, in other words. Six days of that used to drive her mad; she could never wait for the festival to be over. I sometimes think that she used to make her “King for the day” feast awful on purpose, just to get me to make a sarcastic remark about it; but I never did, I ate every morsel of the ghastly swill that the daft old cow put in front of me. An act of genius, but then, I was always far more clever than any of your family.’ He held his cup in the air and waved it at Clementina. ‘Fill this up, wench, to the brim, just like you’ve been.’
Raucous laughter broke out around the room; Clementina reddened but smiled as she automatically put her hand on her swollen belly, and hurried around the table to serve him.
Sabinus bristled slightly but managed to join in the laughter; the comment had not been malicious and was well within the spirit of the Saturnalia, which he still enjoyed despite his new religion; he now looked on it as a prelude to the solemnity of celebrating the birth of Mithras in a few days’ time. ‘If you think that those two dishes look edible, Attalus,’ he cried, ‘just wait until you see the others. I think that even a starving Gallic sailor who’d been at sea for a month would shy at them.’
This brought another round of rowdy laughter; Gauls were not known for their nautical abilities or their culinary skills.
‘Clementina, my dear, would you distribute the gifts whilst we fetch the remaining dishes?’ Sabinus asked, pointing to a collection of wax candles, earthenware figurines and the pile of new tunics on a table in the corner of the room.
Clementina smiled prettily at her husband. ‘My pleasure, Sabinus.’
Sabinus smiled back at his new wife and left the room.
Vespasian followed him out, full of of seasonal wellbeing. He had always loved the Saturnalia; it cheered him up, which was exactly what it had been designed for when it had been first brought in almost 250 years before to bring joy to the Roman people after the disastrous defeat at Lake Trasimene at the hands of Hannibal, where over fifteen thousand Roman sons, brothers and fathers had been killed. It had originally been just a one-day celebration but had grown over the years. Humourists suggested that because the year after Trasimene over fifty thousand Romans were killed at Cannae an extra day was added to cheer people up even more.
Vespasian did not know the truth of the matter but enjoyed the macabre wit. He was pleased to have his spirits lifted; it had been a long and difficult five months at Cosa. He had not been bored — there had been so much to do around the estate, which had fallen slightly into decline in the two and a half years since Tertulla’s death. Attalus had done his best to keep it running smoothly since but because in her will she had freed all her slaves the estate was undermanned. Some of the newly freed decided to stay on the estate but most had decided to try their luck in Cosa or even Rome. Attalus had bought a few new slaves but had, rightly, been reluctant to make large purchases without Vespasian’s permission. The restocking of the field-slave force had taken up a lot of his time in the first couple of months and then more recently he had been occupied by getting the estate back up to its full capacity before winter slowed down the agricultural life for a few months.
He had busied himself every day from dawn until dusk working hard at what he knew best; the days had not been the problem, it was the evenings. Since Clemens had brought his sister Clementina to Cosa in August for her marriage to Sabinus, Vespasian had been forced to have dinner every evening with two people who had very quickly fallen in love. The truth of the matter was that, for the first time in his life, he was jealous of his brother. He was jealous of his happiness; he was jealous of his love and how it was returned; he was jealous of him having the woman he loved in his bed every night; he was jealous of everything that Sabinus had because he could not share the same thing with Caenis.
Antonia had once sent Caenis to Cosa, ostensibly with a message saying that Caligula had arrived on Capreae along with Clemens and that she was awaiting news. However, three months on no news had come and Vespasian was starting to fret about his inactivity; his career was not going to progress so far from Rome, however much he enjoyed farming.
Caenis had stayed for four days — and nights — but that had been back in September and he had not seen her since. Four days they had had playing man and wife — sharing a walk in the morning, a couch at dinner, a bed at night. He had been grateful to Sabinus and Clementina for treating her as an equal, despite her slave status, without a hint of condescension; but in some ways that had emphasised the problem: no matter how much anyone pretended, she was still a slave and could only ever hope to be freed, never free.
When Clementina’s pregnancy had been confimed at around the time of his birthday in November, his jealousy had become almost impossible to keep hidden; his brother was having a child with a woman that he loved yet he, Vespasian, could never do the same with Caenis because the child would not be a citizen. He could never marry Caenis because of the Augustan law, the Lex Papia Poppaea, which forbade the union between a freedwoman and a senator; if he was to continue to serve Rome he would be elected as a quaestor, at or after the prescribed age of twenty-four, and, because his uncle was of senatorial class, he would automatically gain a seat in the Senate.