‘My son will be the king of Egypt and you will be the regent until the day he comes of age. You will be protected, honoured, respected.’

‘King of Egypt?’ repeated Cleopatra, in an offended tone.

‘Yes, my queen,’ replied Caesar. ‘You should be glad of it. Only a Roman can govern Rome and only as long as he succeeds in justifying his powers.’

Caesar was plagued by the disagreeable thought that the only emotion emanating from Cleopatra was raw ambition. Nothing else. Not that he expected love from a queen, but it made him feel very alone at that moment. He felt torn by doubt and menaced by impending threats, by his own physical ailments, by the awareness that he who climbs high has much further to fall.

‘I must go now,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back to see you, if you like, as soon as I can.’

He walked towards the door and a servant rushed over to open it for him.

‘There are men who would do much more for me,’ said Cleopatra.

Caesar turned.

‘You’ll have noticed, I imagine, how Mark Antony looks at me.’

‘No, I haven’t. But you may be right. That’s why he is Antony and I am Caesar.’

7

Romae, in Foro Caesaris, a.d. VII Id. Mart., hora undecima

Rome, the Forum of Caesar, 9 March, four p.m.

The evening service was over and Caesar was leaving, accompanied by the priests who had celebrated the rites in the Temple of Venus Genetrix. He saw Silius coming towards him from the Rostra and stopped under the portico, allowing the priests to go on their way.

‘Where were you?’ asked Caesar.

Silius came closer. ‘I ran into some friends near the Theatre of Pompey and we had a drink together. Do you think Publius Sextius will join us here in Rome?’

‘I think so. Actually, according to my calculations, he should be here within a day or two at most.’

‘So he has completed his mission.’

‘As far as I’m concerned, he has. But you can never say. Something unexpected might hold him up. What kills me is the waiting. Rome has a system of roads and communications like nowhere else has ever had, but still news travels slowly. Too slowly for the person waiting.’

He sat on the steps of the temple to watch the men at work in the Curia and every once in a while raised his eyes to the tattered grey clouds that flitted over the city.

‘I can’t wait to get away. Politics in Rome are so tiresome.’

‘The expedition will not be risk-free,’ remarked Silius.

‘At least there I’ll have my enemies opposite me, on the battlefield, and I’ll be surrounded by men I can trust. Here I never know what to think about the person in front of me.’

‘What you say is true. In battle you have to trust the others around you. Everyone’s life depends on it.’

‘See this portico? Not too long ago a delegation from the Senate came to meet me here. To inform me of all the honours they’d heaped upon me in a single session. I told them I’d rather they stop adding on new honours and appointments, and start taking them away.’

Silius smiled.

‘Do you know what they answered? That I was an ingrate. That I hadn’t risen to my feet as they approached, as if I considered myself a god, given the situation, or a king. Seated on my throne under the portico of a temple.’

‘Yes, I heard that as well. But there’s no way you can avoid such talk. Any gesture you make, even the most trifling, is amplified and suddenly assumes great significance. Major significance! It’s the price you have to pay for your rise to power.’

‘Well, the true reason was that even Caesar must partake in his share of human misery. Do you know why I didn’t get up?’ he said with an ironic smile. ‘Because I had diarrhoea. The consequences might have been embarrassing.’

‘No one would believe such a thing, you know that. But it is through such stories that they’re trying to ruin your image with the people. Convince them that you would be their king.’

Caesar lowered his head in silence and sighed. With his arms folded across his knees he looked like a tired labourer. Then he raised his eyes and gazed at Silius with an enigmatic expression.

‘Do you believe that?

‘What, that you want to be king?’

‘Yes. What else?’

Silius gave him a puzzled look. ‘Only you can answer that, but several things you’ve done or said would make one believe so. Not this last thing you’ve told me, of course.’

‘Tell me what, then.’

‘The day of the Lupercalia. .’

Caesar sighed again, shaking his head. ‘We’ve talked about that. I told you exactly how things really went. But of course no one believes that it wasn’t a scene I’d orchestrated myself. Perhaps not even you, Silius.’

‘To be honest, it’s difficult to believe otherwise. What’s more, the presence of Cleopatra here in Rome with the child has really struck people the wrong way. Cicero for one can’t stand her. It’s only natural for people to think that she’d be pushing for the establishment of a hereditary monarchy, with little Ptolemy Caesar as your natural heir.’

The forum was beginning to empty out little by little. People were leaving the square and making their way back home to prepare for dinner, especially those who had guests. The priests closed the sanctuary doors and from the Capitol the smoke of a sacrifice rose and drifted into the grey clouds. Even the columns of Venus’s temple had taken on the colour of the sky.

‘You can’t believe such a thing. Only an idiot would do something so foolish. It’s sheer madness to think that the Romans would allow themselves to be governed by any king, much less a foreign one.’

‘Exactly, commander. It’s not about Cleopatra. It’s Antony’s behaviour that I can’t explain. I’ve reflected on this at length. The question is crucial, because the answer implies a fundamental failing on the part of one of your most important supporters, a man whose loyalty you need to be able to count on.’

The look in Caesar’s eye was like none Silius had ever seen there before, not even when Antistius had told him openly what he thought about his illness. A feeling of intense sadness flooded through Silius as he thought he recognized dismay and perhaps even fear in the gaze of his invincible commander.

‘You know,’ said Caesar, ‘every so often I feel like a beer. It’s been a long time since I had a beer.’

Silius was not fooled. When the commander changed the subject so abruptly, it meant that he was bent on avoiding some particularly distressing thought.

‘Beer, commander? There’s a tavern at Ostia that serves excellent beer. Just the way you like it, dark and at the right temperature, straight out of the cellar. But seeing as you probably don’t want to go so far, I can have an amphora brought by for lunchtime tomorrow.’

But Silius was waiting for an answer, not about the beer, and Caesar knew that.

‘What do you know about Antony that I don’t know?’ he said eventually, scowling.

‘Nothing. . nothing that you don’t know. Nonetheless I think that. . Publius Sextius might. .’

‘Might what?’

‘Might be able to learn what he’s up to.’

‘Have you spoken to him about this?’

‘Not exactly, but I know that he has his suspicions and I’d say that he won’t give up until he finds a convincing answer.’

‘Are you trying to tell me that Publius Sextius is investigating Antony on his own initiative?’

‘Publius Sextius would investigate anything that could possibly involve your personal safety, if I know him well. But you, commander, what do you think? What do you think of Mark Antony? Of the man who would have made you king? That gesture of his at the Lupercalia, how do you explain it? Recklessness? Mere distraction?’

Caesar was quiet for quite some time, considering all the angles of the thorny question as perhaps he never had before. In the end, he said, ‘Antony may not have understood what was happening and acted instinctively. Perhaps he’s been feeling overlooked lately and thought he would gain favour in my eyes with a gesture of that sort. Antony is a good soldier but he’s never understood much about politics. And it’s all about politics. . knowing what your adversaries are thinking, foreseeing their moves and having your counter-moves ready.’