Caesar's Women Read Online Free PDF Page B

missing.” She turned her shoulder, looking bored. “Go away, Cato, do! You'll get Brutus over my dead body. We may not share the same father—I thank the Gods for that mercy!—but we do share the same kind of steel. And I, Cato, am far more intelligent than you.” She managed to produce a sound reminiscent of a cat's purr. “In fact, I am more intelligent by far than either of my half brothers.”
    This third barb pierced him to the marrow. Cato stiffened, his beautiful hands clenched into fists. “I can tolerate your malice when it's aimed at me, Servilia, but not when your target is Caepio!” he roared. “That is an undeserved slur! Caepio is your full brother, not my full brother! Oh, I wish he was my full brother! I love him more than anyone else in the world! But I will not permit that slur, especially coming from you!”
    “Look in your mirror, Cato. All of Rome knows the truth.”
    “Our mother was part Rutilian—Caepio inherited his coloring from that side of her family!”
    “Rubbish! The Rutilians are sandy-fair, on the short side, and quite lacking the nose of a Cato Salonianus.” Servilia snorted contemptuously. “Like to like, Cato. From the time of your birth, Caepio gave himself to you. You're peas from the same pod, and you've stayed as thick as pea soup all your lives. Won't be parted, never argue— Caepio is your full brother, not mine!”
    Cato got up. “You're a wicked woman, Servilia.”
    She yawned ostentatiously. “You just lost the battle, Cato. Goodbye, and good riddance.”
    He flung his final word behind him as he left the room: “I will win in the end! I always win!”
    “Over my dead body you'll win! But you'll be dead before me.”
    After which she had to deal with another of the men in her life: her husband, Decimus Junius Silanus, whom she had to admit Cato had summed up neatly as a puking ninny. Whatever was the matter with his gut, he did have a tendency to vomit, and he was inarguably a shy, resigned, rather characterless man. All of his goods, she thought to herself as she watched him pick his way through dinner, are on his countertop. He's just a pretty face, there's nothing behind. Yet that is so obviously not true of another pretty face, the one belonging to Gaius Julius Caesar. Caesar… I am fascinated with him, by him. For a moment there I thought I was fascinating him too, but then I let my tongue run away with me, and offended him. Why did I forget he's a Julian? Even a patrician Servilian like me doesn't presume to arrange the life or the affairs of a Julian.…
    The two girls she had borne Silanus were at dinner, tormenting Brutus as usual (they deemed Brutus a weed). Junia was a little younger than Caesar's Julia, seven, and Junilla was almost six. Both were medium brown in coloring, and extremely attractive; no fear they would displease their husbands! Very good looks and fat dowries were an irresistible combination. They were, however, already formally betrothed to the heirs of two great houses. Only Brutus was uncommitted, though he had made his own choice very clear. Little Julia. How odd he was, to have fallen in love with a child! Though she did not usually admit it to herself, this evening she was in a mood for truth, and acknowledged that Brutus was sometimes a puzzle to her. Why for instance did he persist in fancying himself an intellectual? If he didn't pull himself out of that particular slough, his public career would not prosper; unless like Caesar they also had tremendous reputations as brave soldiers, or like Cicero had tremendous reputations in the law courts, intellectuals were despised. Brutus wasn't vigorous and swift and outgoing like either Caesar or Cicero. A good thing perhaps that he would become Caesar's son-in-law. Some of that magical energy and charm would rub off, had to rub off. Caesar …
    Who sent her a message the following day that he would be pleased to see her privately in his rooms on the lower Vicus Patricii, two floors