‘But people would understand if only they knew!’ Scribonia cried. ‘I too heard that canard, and I simply assumed it was true. Couldn’t Caesar have published a pamphlet or something?’
‘His pride wouldn’t let him. Nor would it have been prudent. People don’t want senior magistrates who are likely to die early. Besides, Antonius got in first.’ Octavia looked miserable. ‘He isn’t a bad man, but he’s so healthy himself that he has no patience with those who are sickly or delicate. To Antonius, the asthma is an act, a pretext to excuse cowardice. We’re all cousins, but we’re all very different, and Little Gaius is the most different. He’s desperately driven. The asthma is a symptom of it, so the Egyptian physician who ministered to Divus Julius said.’
Scribonia shivered. ‘What do I do if he can’t breathe?’
‘You’ll probably never see it,’ said Octavia, having no trouble seeing that her new sister-in-law was falling in love with Little Gaius. Not a thing she could avert, but understandably a thing that was bound to lead to bitter sorrow. Scribonia was a lovely woman, but not capable of fascinating either Little Gaius or Imperator Caesar. ‘In Rome his breathing is usually normal unless there’s drought. This year has been halcyon. I don’t worry about him while he’s here, nor should you. He knows what to do if he has an attack, and there’s always Agrippa.’
‘The stern young man who stood with him at our wedding.’
‘Yes. They’re not like twins,’ Octavia said with the air of one who has puzzled a conundrum through to its solution. ‘No rivalry exists between them. It’s more as if Agrippa fits into the voids in Little Gaius. Sometimes when the children are being particularly naughty, I wish I could split myself into two of me. Well, Little Gaius has succeeded in doing that. He has Marcus Agrippa, his other half.’
By the time that Scribonia left Octavia’s house, she had met the children, a tribe whom Octavia treated as if all of them were born of her own womb, and learned that next time she came, Atia would be there. Atia, her mother-in-law. She also dug deeper into the secrets of this extraordinary family. How could Caesar pretend that his mother was dead? How great were his pride and hauteur, that he couldn’t excuse the understandable lapse of an otherwise unimpeachable woman? According to Octavia, the mother of Imperator Caesar Divi Filius could have absolutely no failings. His attitude spoke volumes about what he expected from a wife. Poor Servilia Vatia and Clodia, virgins both, but hampered by having morally unsatisfactory mothers. As he did himself, and better Atia was dead than living proof of it.
Yet, walking home between two gigantic and fierce German guards, his face filled her thoughts. Could she make him love her? Oh, pray she could make him love her! Tomorrow, she resolved, I will offer to Juno Sospita for a pregnancy, and to Venus Erucina that I please him in bed, and to the Bona Dea for uterine harmony, and to Vediovis just in case disappointment is lurking. And to Spes, who is Hope.
SEVEN
Octavian was in Rome when the news came from Brundisium that Marcus Antonius, accompanied by two legions, had attempted to enter its harbor, but been rebuffed. The chain had been cranked up, the bastions manned. Brundisium didn’t care what status the monster Antonius enjoyed, the letter said, nor did it care if the Senate ordered it to admit him. Let him enter Italia anywhere he liked: just not through Brundisium. Since the only other port within the area able to land two legions was Tarentum, on the far side of the heel, a foiled and furious Antonius had had to land his men in much smaller ports around Brundisium, thus scattering them.
‘He should have gone to Ancona,’ Octavian said to Agrippa. ‘He’d have been able to link up with Pollio and Ventidius there, and by now would be marching on Rome.’
‘Were he sure of Pollio, he would have,’ Agrippa replied, ‘but he isn’t sure of him.’
‘Then you believe Plancus’s letter tattling of doubts and discontent?’ Octavian waved a single sheet of paper.
‘Yes, I do.’
‘So do I,’ Octavian said, grinning. ‘Plancus is in a cleft stick – he’d prefer Antonius, but he wants to keep an avenue open to me in case the time comes to hop the fence to our side of it.’
‘You have too many legions around Brundisium for Antonius to band his men together again until Pollio arrives, which my scouts say won’t happen for at least a nundinum.’
‘Time enough for us to reach Brundisium, Agrippa. Are our legions placed across the Via Minucia?’
‘Perfectly placed. If Pollio wants to avoid a fight, he’ll have to march to Beneventum and the Via Appia.’
Octavian put his pen in its holder and gathered his papers together in neat piles that comprised correspondence with bodies and persons, drafts of laws, and detailed maps of Italia. He rose. ‘Then it’s off to Brundisium,’ he said. ‘I hope Maecenas and my Nerva are ready? What about the neutral one?’
‘If you didn’t bury yourself under a landslide of papers, Caesar, you’d know,’ Agrippa said in a tone only he dared use to Octavian. ‘They’ve been ready for days. And Maecenas has sweet-talked the neutral Nerva into coming along.’
‘Excellent!’
‘Why is he so important, Caesar?’
‘Well, when one brother elected Antonius and the other me, his neutrality was the only way the Cocceius Nerva faction could continue to exist should Antonius and I come to blows. Antonius’s Nerva died in Syria, which left a vacancy on his side. A vacancy that saw Lucius Nerva in a lather of sweat – did he dare choose to fill it? In the end, he said no, though he would not choose me either.’ Octavian smirked. ‘With his wife wielding the lash, he’s tied to Rome, therefore – neutrality.’
‘I know all that, but it begs the question.’
‘You’ll have an answer if my scheme succeeds.’
What had jerked Mark Antony off his comfortable Athenian couch was a letter from Octavian.
‘My very dear Antonius,’ it said, ‘it grieves me sorely to have to pass on the news I have just received from Further Spain. Your brother Lucius died in Corduba not very long into his tenure as governor. From all the many reports I have read of the matter, he simply dropped dead. No lingering, no pain. The physicians say it was a catastrophe originating in the brain, which autopsy revealed was full of blood around its stem. He was cremated in Corduba, and the ashes were sent to me along with documentation sufficient to satisfy me on all counts. I hold his ashes and the reports against your coming. Please accept my sincere condolences.’ It was sealed with Divus Julius’s sphinx ring.
Of course Antony didn’t believe a word of it beyond the fact that Lucius was dead; within a day he was hurrying to Patrae and orders had gone to western Macedonia to embark two legions from Apollonia immediately. The other eight were put on stand-by for shipment to Brundisium as soon as he summoned them.
Intolerable that Octavian should have the news first! And why had no word come to him ahead of that letter? Antony read the missive as a challenge thrown down: your brother’s ashes are in Rome – come and get them if you dare! Did he dare? By Jupiter Optimus Maximus and all the gods, he dared!
An informative letter from Plancus to Octavian sped off from Patrae, where the enraged Antony was obliged to wait until his two legions were confirmed as sailed. It went (had Antony only known of its contents, it would not have) together with Antony’s curt order to Pollio to get his legions moving down the Via Adriatica; at the moment they were in Fanum Fortunae, where Pollio could move on Rome along the Via Flaminia, or hug the Adriatic coast to Brundisium. A quailing Plancus begged a place on Antony’s ship, judging his chances of slipping through the lines to Octavian easier on Italian soil. By now he was desperately wishing that he hadn’t sent that letter – could he be sure Octavian wouldn’t leak its contents back to Antony?
His guilt made Plancus an edgy,