which she could tell him. Perhaps the lack of years between her and his eldest son exacerbated the natural divide of two people who were basically incompatible. Quintus had apparently been devoted to his mother and always made a point of invoking her memory at prayers. That was as it should be; according to Aulus she had been an upright Roman lady and it was reasonable to suppose her sons would be put out at their father taking on another wife.
Quintus waited until the slave was out of earshot before he spoke again. ‘You don’t disapprove of me yet you’re not proud of me?’
Claudia wondered if he was really asking what she thought, putting to her a question he could never address to his father. Or was he just fishing for praise? Considering the way he treated her, and all women for that matter, what opinions she had should count for nothing. The easy way out would be to say, ‘Of course, Quintus.’ But she could not bring herself to do so.
‘Not unreservedly, no!’ she replied.
‘That smacks of more equivocation.’
‘Please, Quintus. You are much admired by others, let that suffice. You have done nothing to offend me and many things that please your father. Yet he would, like me, wish you were a trifle less serious.’
That did surprise him. ‘Serious? No one has ever accused me of that.’
‘Parents, especially step-parents, observe their children differently, more closely perhaps than other people.’
Yet she was thinking that no one observed Quintus as much as he did himself; he behaved like a man watching his own image in a play. His younger brother, Titus, was much more relaxed, but the second boy was the very image of Aulus, physically and morally. Quintus was angry, she could see that and Claudia regretted having taken the conversation in this direction. Her stepson lacked a sense of humour, which meant that, at this moment, he needed to say something to restore his self-esteem.
‘Children observe their elders as well, madam, and they don’t always like what they see.’
Claudia made a point of sitting upright in her couch, smoothing the folds of her gown, composing her features before replying. ‘Such as?’
‘Since father is absent, I shall speak freely…’
‘Please do!’
Quintus lay back on his couch, aware that he had reasserted his hold on the conversation. ‘It seems to me that our visit to Illyricum could have been a happier affair. He certainly seemed glad to see us all when we arrived, especially you, yet within days he was cast down into a deep depression that lasted until our departure. He’ll be home before the year is out and should the same thing occur here in Rome, Titus and I might wonder at the relationship between you.’
Her voice was icy. Again, Quintus had made her sound like an interloper in the Cornelii household. ‘It’s perfectly in order to wonder, Quintus, just as long as you don’t pry!’
Her tone seemed to increase the lethargy in his voice, rather than diminish it. ‘Who would need to pry? You may think you disguise your coldness to him very well, but you don’t. It’s plain enough to see, for anyone who cares to look.’
‘If you expect me to explain, to you, my relationship with your father, I fear you’re going to be disappointed.’
The calm evaporated and his voice became hard. ‘I require no explanation, lady. Remember who it was who rescued you from those barbarians.’
Claudia dropped her head, the dark ringlets of her hair cascading forward. ‘That I shall never forget.’
‘And I’m neither blind nor stupid.’
She raised her head again, looking her stepson right in the eye. ‘This is leading up to something, Quintus.’
‘It is indeed. I have a concern that nothing you do, or have done, will stain my family name.’
‘Don’t you mean your name? Or should I say your prospects,’ she snapped.
Quintus spoke slowly, deliberately. ‘I don’t know why father tolerates it.’
‘Perhaps you’d best ask him.’
‘I think he’s suffered enough. He may not have eyes to see, but I have. So has my brother, I should think. If the truth ever emerged about what happened in Spain, our name would be coated in mud.’
‘And your precious career would grind to a halt.’ Quintus made to speak, but she shouted him down. ‘Don’t interrupt me. I am from a family that is every bit as noble as yours. While your father is alive I answer to him and to him alone. You asked earlier what it is I disapprove of. Well this dinner is one thing. You are so careful of your dignity, you cannot even dine informally in your own house.’
Quintus was genuinely surprised at an attack on that topic and it showed on his face, but Claudia denied him any chance to respond.
‘I hope, and believe, that you esteem your father and wish to emulate him, but I cannot help but think that you lack the one quality he has in abundance, the one quality that makes him a great man, the lack of which will make you mediocre, regardless of how high you climb politically. That quality is natural humility.’
Quintus was stung by the rebuke, though, in truth it was not serious, but he was a grown man, a praetor, and as a senior magistrate unaccustomed to being addressed so. His anger was caused by the dent his stepmother had delivered to his self-esteem rather than anything in the actual words she had used. He stood up abruptly, his round face quivering with suppressed passion, his black eyes full of what looked remarkably like hate.
‘He has enough natural humility to abide the daily insult your coolness heaps upon him. If I lack that quality, then I’m thankful for it. In his shoes I wouldn’t skulk away in some godforsaken province like Illyricum. I’d end it, one way or another!’
‘I would welcome that, if only for his sake,’ Claudia replied softly.
Quintus, in his rage, did not hear. He was halfway out of the dining room, kicking off his sandals and calling for his shoes. But he did deliver one last parting shot.
‘I rue the day I found you and left you alive for my “oh so humble” father.’
Claudia felt the tears sting her eyes and closed them tight to shut off the flow. No one regretted that day more than she did, herself; no one had the nightly curse of remembrance. Even to open up to someone as unsympathetic as Quintus would have provided some kind of release from the constant mental turmoil that plagued her life.
The shuffling sound alerted her to the fact that the slaves had entered the dining area to clear up. Hastily she rose to her feet, and keeping her head down so they should not observe that she was distressed, Claudia hurried to her own chamber, thinking that if things were bad now, they would be worse soon. Aulus’s term as Governor of Illyricum was coming to its end. He would be home, living with her in the same house, a constant reminder by day of the tortured dreams that haunted her nights.
Aulus returned in the Spring, leaving behind him in Illyricum a province at peace, a border quiet if not entirely secure from raids. He was welcomed to Rome by two consuls grateful for the way he had, by his enlightened governorship, eased their burden. He was well aware they were adherents of Lucius Falerius, who had fought hard to engineer their appointment, just as he knew that his real report would be made to him, but all the proper forms had to be preserved to maintain the fiction that the pair holding what was supposed to be the supreme office of the Republic were their own men.
The note from Lucius was also couched in the proper form, with a date and a wish that Aulus would call; that he, as a man who still had an interest in the safety of the Republic, would welcome his oldest, dearest friend, Aulus Cornelius, and would be eager to hear from him the details of what he had found in Illyricum, and what he had left; that, after a gap of fourteen days, no one, not even given the most malicious tongue, could accuse him of interference in the affairs of state. There had been a time, Aulus thought as he read it, that when he came home Lucius would have been at his house to greet him, a degree of warmth that would have been very welcome.
Other senators called on him in between receipt of the note and their meeting, men who were political opponents of the Falerii faction. Some had been supporters of Tiberius Livonius and honestly shared his views on citizenship and land grants to the poor, others were more opportunistic, spouting high principles while hoping to seduce him into backing some cause more to do with their own greed or ambition than proper government. Each, though greeted politely and subjected to all proper hospitality, left disappointed. Aulus would not even consent to
