He must have thought she would have forgotten. She interrupted calmly: "Your name is Titus Flavius Vespasianus." He began to grin with delight at once. She recited in her most efficient voice: "Your father was Flavius Sabinus, a citizen of Reate, so your voting tribe is the Quirina; your mother is Vespasia Polla. You wear the gold ring of the knights. Your patron is the elevated Lucius Vitellius, who brings your brother to Antonia's house—"
"Do you speak to my brother?" he interrupted in surprise.
"No, certainly not." She was determined to reach her joke: "You are a second son with no reputation, but respectable, so I need to be polite." Vespasian clenched the corner of his mouth in anticipation; he possessed a rapidly developing sense of humor and liked what he had glimpsed of hers. So Caenis said, knowing how much he would enjoy it, "As for your rating refreshments, lord—I worked out your status the first time we met!"
FIVE
When Vespasian came to get her he held out his hand and swiftly clasped hers. Nobody had ever done that before.
"Hello, Caenis." With the greeting his voice dropped half a tone. Her breath tangled somewhere above her middle ribs as she withdrew her hand with care.
"Hello . . ." She did not know how to address him.
He gazed at her for a moment inscrutably. "Titus," he instructed.
Very few people ever used his personal name. In the offhand Roman way his whole family was named Titus—grandfather, father, brothers, and cousins all the same—so people called him Vespasian, even at home. This intimacy offered to Caenis was the measure of the mistake the man was letting himself make. Presumably he did not realize; Caenis did.
"You look nice."
For once she smiled. Antonia had given her a new dress.
* * *
She had felt compelled to mention him to Antonia.
"Madam, when I go to the theater this evening, I have made an arrangement to meet a gentleman." The statement plunged her into visible difficulty. Doubt was transfiguring her mistress's face.
They had been in a room at Livia's House where the walls were decorated with elegant swags of greenery looped between columns, below a high golden frieze portraying tiny figures in dreamy cityscapes. Antonia reclined in a long sloping chair, while Caenis perched on a low stool with a tablet on her knees. Antonia liked to work hard without distractions, but once they finished, sometimes she kept back her secretary for a few moments of casual talk. It did her good to unbend. She tired more easily nowadays than she wanted to admit. She had lived twice as long as many people and survived more griefs than most.
The old lady stirred. Her well-attended skin had preserved its sweet suppleness until now, but her face had grown thinner, and since Livilla's disgrace despair was beginning to show in the fine creases at the corners of her eyes.
The moment had become awkward.
"Why are you telling me?" Antonia demanded. "Do you wish me to forbid it?"
Caenis was taking an enormous risk. When the Chief Secretary, Diadumenus, had first stipulated that Antonia must be told of any approaches from knights or senators, he had meant approaches on business matters; there ought to be no other kind of commerce with their lady's slaves.
"I prefer to be open, madam."
In other households it was usually understood that other commerce did occur. . . . Not here. Or if here, it never happened openly.
Even after knowing Caenis for several years, Antonia immediately decided her slave had loose morals and would be easy prey for a political shark. It was unfair; Caenis had always been scrupulous.
"You ask me to condone the friendship? How long have you been dealing with this man?"
Caenis said tersely, "I don't deal with him. I don't even know if he expects it."
Antonia moved impatiently. "Come; who is he?"
"Flavius Vespasianus, a knight from Reate. The family is not prominent, though his brother, Sabinus, has been here as a client of Lucius Vitellius. Madam, you asked me long ago if I had male followers, and I told you no."
There was some improvement in Antonia's expression. "So what is this?"
"A slight friendship I struck up with a newcomer to Rome, nothing more." How could it be? The sheer impossibility filled her with dread. "He has been on service abroad and has few friends in Rome."
"Yet he sought you out!"
"I believe that was coincidence."
"You believe nothing of the sort! Is he seeking only your favors, or does he hope for influence?"
"That I do not know," admitted Caenis. "But if I find out what he thinks he is seeking, the sooner I can disillusion him."
Antonia sighed with irritation. "Are you deceiving yourself—or trying to deceive me?" Caenis wisely made no reply. "Have you confided in anybody else? I thought you were friendly with that girl Veronica?"
With a pang of resentment, Caenis finally grasped how nearly her friendship with Veronica had jeopardized her post. She took the opportunity to speak up: "Veronica has a good heart. I do like her, but that does not mean I admire her life. And she has never influenced mine, madam." She smiled reassuringly. "I have never even mentioned Vespasian to Veronica."
"I will not have my staff used by ambitious young men," declared Antonia, though she liked people who stood up to her; she could be weakening.
Caenis decided to show she was shrewd. "I value my position too highly to risk it through foolishness. Besides, madam, if your court is seen as a desirable forum for young men who wish to advance in public life—as it must be—then he and his brother have obtained their entrée anyway. Somebody, their father perhaps, has ensured that they are taken up by Vitellius. Vespasian cannot believe knowing me will improve on that."
Now her mistress seemed amused. "Then, my dear, what does he want?"
"I suppose, what they all want," Caenis decided, so as two women together they laughed and nodded distrustfully. "He will be due for a disappointment! Madam, if he intends to pick my brains for your secrets, I shall certainly give him a sharp answer. I believe he knows that. No—as I told you, I suspect he is just a young man who lacks friends in Rome. I am under no delusions; once he finds his feet in society that will be the end of me."
"You seem to have worked everything out."
"I think a girl in my position has to," Caenis said quietly.
Antonia, who favored Caenis strongly, and who disliked having to involve herself in the private lives of her staff, seemed to tire of the conversation. "Well, you were right to speak to me. I have no wish to deprive you of companionship. But rank must be respected—"
"I am a slave," Caenis agreed quietly. "If he wants a mistress, he has to look elsewhere."
"So long as you accept it. So long as you make him accept it too! Don't let him ask questions." Don't get pregnant, thought Antonia. Don't force me to discipline you; don't betray my trust. "And don't let yourself be hurt."
Squaring up the writing tablets on her knee, Caenis laughed unhappily. "Thank you, madam."
"Caenis, you undervalue yourself!"
In the girl before her Antonia saw what Vespasian must see—that fine, bright, interesting look that marked an intelligent woman, a look that in drawing the eye also lifted the heart. A man with the taste to admire such quality was more dangerous than any philanderer or hustler.
With an angry jerk at the cushions under her back, Antonia conceded, "Ask Athenaïs to find you something decent to wear."