In other ways, even better ways, life had been generous. She had known contentment and a quiet mind. Whatever happened to her now, never again would she feel that tearing sense of unfulfillment she had struggled against as a young girl. She was born a slave; she won herself the rank of a Roman citizen. She had belonged to a family. Not as a slave; not as a freedwoman: in her own right she had become a Flavian.
From her fastidious wardrobe she chose a light formal gown that always made her feel graceful, which she fastened on the shoulders with two British bluestone brooches. No other jewelry . . . none at all. She held her gold bangle in her hand.
She walked back to the room where Aglaus had left her; on his eventual return he would look for her there. She sat down. It was rather like preparing to take Antonia's dictation. She cleared her mind of all thought and all pain, all prospects of the future, all yearning for the past.
She felt like Cleopatra, bereft of her Mark Antony; Caenis, who herself bore Mark Antony's name, waiting like Cleopatra for the last exulting Roman to stride into her palace and confront her. Cleopatra, robed in a blue that was clearer and deeper than gentians: Cleopatra, defeated, on the day that she died.
FORTY-ONE
Rome: city of light.
Aglaus had found his friend on the Palatine. Now they were striding down from the old administrative Palace, across the eastern end of the Forum, and toward the Quirinal. They walked swiftly, for the city was humming and this was not an occasion for a quiet evening stroll. By now there were few people about. Some took no notice of the two men; others looked after them thoughtfully, as they disappeared unobtrusively, heading for the Viminal Gate.
At the Forum they had paused. They had come on to the Via Sacra, just by the round Temple of Vesta with its little pointed roof and distinctive latticework. Looking to their left down the long southern edge of the Forum, past the Julian courthouse and the massive portico of the Temple of Saturn, they could see at the far end the Tabularium, solid as a harbor wall around the base of the Capitol. Above it, the brow of the hill stood shockingly altered. Gone was the glittering roof of the Temple of Jupiter, gone the Temple itself. All the buildings that clothed the lower flanks of the hill were blackened; some leaned dangerously, others were reduced to occasional half-walls upthrust in stark jags to the evening sky. To the far right beside the prison, deserted and deceptively bathed in sunlight, lay the Gemonian Steps, where the bodies of dead traitors were flung.
Without a word they moved on.
It was the time of the evening that took the breath away. As the dusk fell, there was always this magical moment in Rome, when the tufa blocks of the buildings and the pavements seemed to reflect their own glow, exuding an aureole of mellow golden light, faintly tinged rose, as if that light had been held back like the day's warmth within the city's stones and now slowly released itself. The freedman with the blue chin smiled.
A city of statues. At every crossroad, on every level, before and beside every temple, clustering around every square: faces both men knew so well they normally hardly noticed them became suddenly vivid that evening. Some tranquil eyes stared out over their heads; others followed them. The gods, the generals, the Caesars—impassive noble faces in gilded marble and bronze, soon to be joined by Vespasian's wrinkled brow and blithe expression. Catching Aglaus' thought, his companion smiled faintly too. His expression was ironical.
A city of water. The fountains played only a little sluggishly as the pressure sank after an exceptional draft of millions of gallons had been sucked from the aqueducts into the bathhouses, which took priority. Fountain spray drifted across the deserted streets in a fine haze. Occasionally as they crossed a paved-in conduit they could hear the chuckling of the water that rushed so energetically from the baths toward the mighty caverns of the main sewers.
The Romans were in their houses. After the joyous excitement of their Emperor's long-awaited entry that afternoon, only their litter remained behind in the streets. They were at home, snatching at food, loudly comparing notes on what they had managed to see. Later that night every one of them was to sit down by voting tribe and district to a thanksgiving banquet, the whole city feasting like a big cheerful family presided over by their fatherly Emperor.
Once the Emperor was known to be in residence, the city had relaxed. He would be living, since it existed, in Nero's dreadful Golden House; its hated entrance was opposite them now, studded with gemstones and glittering gold, its approach from the Forum surrounded by a triple colonnade. Nearby stood the mighty bronze Colossus: Nero in a radiate crown, dominating the skyline from every direction.
Something would have to be done about all that, Vespasian had already decreed. The extensive grounds of the Golden House must be restored as soon as possible to public use. For the rest, perhaps the best thing would be to pull it all down, fill in that vast lake, then build over the crater something for all Rome: some wonder to unite the city and excite the world. . . . He and Titus could always live in the old Palace of Tiberius and Caligula. That place of tall cold corridors, rarely used staterooms, abandoned offices. And pantries.
He had asked after Caenis. He had been told what she had said.
At the Golden House, after his baggage was brought in, the Emperor had made a personal sacrifice to his household gods. "Who arranged for my lares to be here?"
Standing beside him, his teenaged granddaughter Flavia raged through her teeth, "Who do you think?"
Caenis.
Afterward Flavia Domitilla interviewed her grandfather just long enough to accept the present he had brought her, then to inform him that in the matter of Caenis he was an unprincipled pig. The Emperor Vespasian would be famous for allowing people to be frank. "Thanks for the opinion!" growled her grandfather to Flavia. "Come and give me a kiss."
"No," said Flavia. He looked at her with mooning eyes. She knew what Caenis would say. So Flavia, who was fiercely fond of her grand-papa, gave him a pecky kiss.
Shaken, the Emperor requested a bedroom—not too fancy and nothing Nero had ever used—where before the banquet that evening he could give his elderly bones a quiet lie-down. Someone with no sense asked if they should provide a girl for him. He stared.
Then the Emperor said, no thanks; he had always preferred to provide his own.
* * *
Aglaus and his friend had reached the Porta Nomentana. They walked more quickly, for here people were standing about looking curious. The Via Nomentana, home to a famous female resident, had been expecting something better than one seedy chamberlain today. In a small crowd outside the Gate there was an air of disappointment, mingled with lingering hope. Aglaus saluted those who greeted him. He seemed harassed and unfriendly. His companion, modestly smothered in an old mulberry-colored cloak with its clasp hanging off by a thread, looked endearingly shy. Behind them a dog barked; then, when Aglaus spun angrily, it scampered away.
Aglaus banged on the door, but although the parade was over the porter had not returned. He swore briefly, then scrambled to get out his own keys. He swiftly unlocked the formidable ironmongery, talking now all the time. He was beginning to feel nervous. The dead silence of the deserted house gave him an unexpected chill.
"Come in. Mind how you step. There may still be water about. You must be entering the cleanest house in Rome; try not to slip on the tiles. Let me relieve you of that terrible cloak. Today all Rome took to the streets, but in this house we polished up our door-furniture and washed our frescoes down. All Rome troops off to cheer, but our lady tucks her skirt in her belt and scrubs out the latrine. We, sir, have rearranged our sideboards, swept our steps, and poked out the nasty desiccated things that were lying in dark crevices under the beds. . . ."