Read Online Caesar by Colleen McCullough - Free Book Online Page A

after so long, Caesar still experienced a twinge of guilt every time he thought of that name. Brutus had loved Julia so much, patiently waited through more than ten years of betrothal for her to grow up to proper marriageable age. But then a veritable gift from the Gods had landed in Caesar's lap: Julia had fallen madly in love with Pompey the Great, and he with her. Which meant that Caesar could bind Pompey to his cause with the most delicate and silken of ropes, his own daughter. He broke her engagement to Brutus (who had been known by his adopted name of Servilius Caepio in those days) and married her to Pompey. Not an easy situation, quite above and beyond Brutus's shattered heart. Brutus's mother, Servilia, had been Caesar's mistress for years. To keep her sweet after that insult had cost him a pearl worth six million sesterces.
    I thank you for your offer, Caesar. Very kind of you to think of me and remember that I am due for election as a quaestor this year. Unfortunately I am not yet sure that I have my quaestorship, as the elections are still pending. We hope to know in December, when they say the People in their tribes will elect the quaestors and the tribunes of the soldiers. But I doubt we will see any elections for the senior magistrates. Memmius refuses to step down as a candidate for the consulship, and Uncle Cato has sworn that until Memmius does step down, he will allow no curule elections. Do not, by the way, take any notice of those scurrilous rumors going around about Uncle Cato's divorce from Marcia. Uncle Cato cannot be bought. I am going to Cilicia as the personally requested quaestor of the new governor for next year, Appius Claudius Pulcher. He is now my father-in-law. I married his oldest daughter, Claudia, a month ago. A very nice girl. Once again, thank you for your kind offer. My mother is well. She is, I understand, writing to you herself.
    Take that! Caesar put the curled single sheet of paper down, blinking not with tears but with shock. For six long years Brutus never married. Then my daughter dies, and he is married within nundinae of it. He cherished hope, it seems. Waited for her, sure she would grow very tired of being married to an old man without anything to recommend him beyond his military fame and his money. No birth, no ancestors worth naming. How long would Brutus have waited? I wonder. But she had found her true mate in Pompeius Magnus, nor would he have tired of her. I've always disliked myself for hurting Brutus, though I didn't know how much Julia meant to him until after I had done the deed. Yet it had to be done, no matter who was hurt or how badly. Lady Fortuna gifted me with a daughter beautiful and sprightly enough to enchant the one man I needed desperately. But how can I hold Pompeius Magnus now?
    Like Brutus, Servilia had written only once to, for example, Cicero's fourteen separate epics. Not a long letter, either. Odd, however, the feeling he experienced when he touched the paper she had touched. As if it had been soaked in some poison designed to be drunk through the fingertips. He closed his eyes and tried to remember her, the sight and the taste, that destructive, intelligent, fierce passion. What would he feel when he saw her again? Almost five years. She would be fifty now to his forty-six. But probably still extremely attractive; she took care of herself, kept her hair as darkly moonless as her heart. For it was not Caesar responsible for the disaster who was Brutus; the blame for Brutus had to be laid squarely at his mother's door.
    I imagine you've already seen Brutus's refusal. Everything always in order, that's you, so men first. At least I have a patrician daughter-in-law, though it isn't easy sharing my house with another woman who is not my own blood daughter and therefore unused to my authority, my way of doing things. Luckily for domestic peace, Claudia is a mouse. I do not imagine Julia would have been, for all her air of fragility. A pity she lacked