The Year of Confusion(83)

I hoped that the presence of these scheming women might add interest to what promised to be a dull evening. Much as I esteemed the company of Callista, I had never been able to abide the droning lectures of philosophers, and I had endured many such, as Julia had dragged me around from one learned gathering to another. She had a wholly lamentable taste for such high-toned, edifying entertainments, whereas I much preferred a good fight or chariot race.

Hermes nudged me. “Look who’s here now.”

The litter that entered the courtyard was unmistakable. It was Fulvia’s. The bearers were her usual matched Libyans with their outlandish, colorful costumes and their hair dressed in innumerable plaits. First to emerge was Antonius himself. The lady herself emerged, dressed, so to speak, in a gown of Coan cloth that resembled smoke drifting about her voluptuous little body.

“She’s holding up well for her age,” Julia observed.

“So she is. Shall we go in? It’s getting a bit crowded out here.”

Echo met us at the door and conducted us inside, with Antonius and his wife right behind us. The inner courtyard, with its small, tasteful fountain and pool, had been set with numerous chairs and couches. At a dinner party there would have been couches for nine, but there was no such customary limitation on salons like this. The women crowded together near the fountain to gossip and sound one another out while the men gathered in a corner to commiserate. I was headed that way when Antonius came up to me.

“Dreadful business eh, Decius?” he said, grabbing a cup from a passing servant. I did the same. “I wouldn’t mind if it was like a Greek symposium, where everybody’s drunk by nightfall, but Callista’s little dos aren’t like that. All very refined. I hope I can last until we go to Cleopatra’s. Then things should liven up.”

“This is the sort of thing we must do if we prize domestic harmony,” I told him.

“There’s such a thing as too much harmony, if you ask me,” he groused, burying his beak in his wine. “Ahh, Corinthian. Haven’t tasted it in years.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever tried it. I thought I knew them all.” I tasted the wine and it was decent enough but it had that resinous flavor I’ve always found objectionable in Greek wines. “I thought so. It’s the sort of stuff women serve to keep the men from drinking too much.”

“It won’t stop me,” Antonius said. “Odd sort of group, isn’t it?”

I studied the guests and was surprised that I knew many of them. Brutus was there, doubtless escorting his mother although he was a known habitué of these events. Marcus Aemilius Lepidus was there as well. Caesar had picked him as Master of Horse for that year, an office previously held by Antonius himself. As the dictator’s second-in-command he supposedly held a powerful office, but Caesar was such a hands-on dictator in all his doings that the office was little more than an empty honor, pretty much reduced to presiding over the Senate on days when Caesar did not feel like attending. I noted with little joy that Sallustius was oozing his way among the more illustrious guests, ferreting out secrets, no doubt. Cassius Longinus was with his wife, looking like a man who wished lightning would strike him. I didn’t spot Cicero.

“More politics here than philosophy,” I agreed, “but at least there’s that lot.” I nodded to where the astronomers were chatting among themselves. Sosigenes was among them, along with the Indian and the Arab and the other Greeks. “Caesar just told me he’s sending them back to Alexandria. Maybe this is Callista’s send-off for them.”

“If she keeps the wine coming I can endure it,” he said.

“Stay by me,” I advised. “Hermes has a skin of Massic under his toga.”

“Good for you. I was wondering why he was wearing a toga.” By that time men rarely ever wore the toga except for sacrifices and Senate meetings, voting, and other formal occasions. Antonius and I and most of the other men wore the much lighter synthesis, a garment popularized by Caesar back when he was setting the fashion for Roman men. Nevertheless, the toga remained better for concealing things. Besides the wine, Hermes had our weapons beneath his.

The general hubbub stilled as Callista made her entrance from the back of the house. She was dressed as usual in a modest Greek gown of the finest wool. It was deep blue, with a simple fret embroidered at the hem. Her hair was parted in the middle, gathered at her nape and hung to her waist in back. Her only jewelry was a pair of serpent armlets. The men in the room had eyes only for her. In her austere simplicity she outshone the great beauties of Rome.