Aspects of the Goddess
Title: Aspects of the Goddess
Play: Julius Caesar
Author: likeadeuce
Recipient: dontcrosscross
Summary: Five meetings between Portia Catonis and Calpurnia Pisonis. Includes Portia/Calpurnia, Portia/Brutus, and various other pairings, mostly historical. With bonus Mark Antony, because that's never a bad thing.
Rating: R (language)
Author's Notes: Sections of the story are titled for epithets of the goddess Juno, and the subject that they govern.
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I. Jugalis: Marriage (53 B.C.)
"You darling creature," Calpurnia says, and, taking both of Portia's hands in hers, pulls the into an embrace. "You've grown so since last we met. I can't believe you're about to be married. You look radiant. You're the image of your mother."
My mother was a whore, Portia thinks.
Slipping back from the older woman's arms as soon as she feels she can politely do so, Portia says, in the correct and measured tones she has rehearsed with her governess, "Thank you for your hospitality."
Calpurnia's eyebrows rise, and Portia sees she has noticed the failure to acknowledge the particular compliment. Portia sees that Caesar's wife misses very little.
"Poor lamb," says Calpurnia. "I imagine you have no memory of Atilia." Keeping one of Portia's hands in hers, she leads her toward the couch where their meal will be served. All the time, she keeps up this stream of words. "Your mother was a great beauty, of course, but you must have heard horrid things. The truth is, she was the picture of virtue."
Which hardly explains Father divorcing her for adultery, Portia thinks. She is direly uncomfortable but, of the many uncomfortable duties attendant on her impending marriage, dining with Caesar's wife, who she hardly knows, in Caesar's home, where she has never been, at least has the virtue of novelty. Portia is resolved, if nothing else, to gather sufficient details to spin an amusing tale for Tertia and her other cousins. "Hmm," she says out loud.
Calpurnia either takes the girl's noises as encouragement or, more likely, is determined to fare forward in spite of any reaction. "Cato has always possessed an unfortunate tendency toward jealousy. Especially where Caesar is concerned. Now I don't mean to imply, of course, that your father's differences with my husband are only a matter of jealousy. Cato is a statesman for the ages, dear. Caesar knows this. It's only that great men, you know, are frightfully stubborn." She squeezes Portia's hand, and seems to expect a sympathetic look, which the girl dutifully provides. Portia is barely fifteen and has hardly seen enough of the world to form a general opinion of great men, much less a cynical one. But there's a certain flattery to being included in Calpurnia's assumption.
"But your mother, I assure you. Atilia was only a victim of circumstances. I knew her well, Portia, she was my friend, and Caesar never laid a hand on her. I don't mean to say your father was insincere when he divorced her."
"I am certain," Portia says stiffly, "that whatever choices my father made were in keeping with his sense of honor."
"Well, of course they were. I hope I have never suggested that your father is less than honorable. It is always the honorable men, isn't it?" she says with a thin smile. "Sadly, honor isn't always coupled with judgment. Cato was overcome by emotion, I have no doubt. But later -- too late, I must sadly say -- he knew he had wronged her. I can tell he did, because he gave in so readily when I asked to see you today. If Portia is to be married, I told him, if my friend Atilia's daughter is to take a husband, I simply must have the opportunity to congratulate her. I promised, you see. When your mother was dying, I promised her I would."
This tale strikes Portia, at the start, as a convenient fiction -- a series of overlapping and entangled fictions, moreover, that she has no particular desire to believe. Why should she want to see her father as a vindictive man with poor judgment? Yet as Calpurnia goes on, Portia can't escape the appeal to her heart. Portia's mother did want her looked after, and by such an important woman as Calpurnia. It is still almost certainly a fiction (though to what end? Portia wonders. Why should Calpurnia bother with Portia at all if there's no truth in the story?) but suddenly it's a more pleasant one. "Thank you," she says softly, and almost musters a genuine smile.
"Now, you must tell me everything." Calpurnia is apparently satisfied she has won Portia's good will and is ready to move on to gossip. "What do you think of the man?"
"He is --" Portia chooses her words carefully. "A good man. A friend of my father's." And almost as old. Bibulus isn't the match she would have chosen, but a first marriage so rarely is. "He's well-read and virtuous. . ."
"Yes, yes." This clearly isn't the information that interests Calpurnia. "How is your cousin Brutus taking the news?"
"Marcus Brutus?" Portia frowns. "I can't imagine how it affects him. He's tutoring me in Greek. I hope he won't have to leave off once I get married. But if he does, it's more likely to devastate me, and rid him of a troublesome pupil." Portia had run through half a dozen tutors who, while sympathetic to Cato's theories that a proper Roman woman should be highly educated, were ill-prepared for a slip of a girl to ask so many (they considered) impertinent questions. Her level-headed and ever-patient cousin had finally volunteered to step in, and it hadn't occurred to her that marrying Bibulus would interfere with the lessons. That would indeed be devastating, as they'd nearly gotten through The Iliad and were ready to start Euripides.
"I hope I haven't spoken out of turn," Calpurnia says, with all the sincerity of a woman who lives with the confidence that anything and everything she has to say will always be taken in turn. "I assumed that you knew. Brutus is madly in love with you."
"Brutus is?" Portia doesn't mean to, but she lets out a laugh. Thinking of Brutus's measured voice and unreadable face, she asks, "How could you tell?"
She means the question as rhetorical -- the very idea is so preposterous -- but Calpurnia answers seriously. "Your cousin dines with Caesar often. The way he speaks of you, the glowing terms he uses -- oh, darling, a woman knows these things."
Portia hears an insult in this remark. As well as she thinks she knows Brutus, she can't tell anything of the kind. She isn't a woman, then, in Calpurnia's estimate? "I'm sure you're mistaken."
"Oh, Portia. You have much to learn. I'm sure we'll be great friends." Leaning close, she says, "Whatever differences the men in our lives have, we should never let them affect our enjoyment of each other's company. Don't you think?"
Portia knows this is a fiction, as well, and shakes her head but smiles, inviting Calpurnia to go on. This is, after all, a woman who has survived and thrived as the third wife of a very demanding, very public man. There are things Portia could learn from her. There is much to a Roman woman's education, she suspects, that she will not find in Euripides.
II. Panda: Goddess of asylum, charity, and hospitality (46 B.C.)
"I simply need to go on with things." Portia smiles, meekly, accepting the wine Calpurnia places before her. "It will be difficult for a time, but what use is our philosophy if it doesn't teach us to bear our griefs?"
Calpurnia gives her hand a sympathetic pat. "Brave words, my dear girl. But you're only lately a widow. And now an orphan as well. I've had far too many of these conversations in recent months. It's enough to make one hate these wars." She shakes her head. "Pompey's folly."
Portia is still reeling from the news of Pompey's defeat, of her father's suicide at Utica, but by no means is she ready to admit to the folly of the entire enterprise. "My men are dead. That doesn't mean they were in the wrong." She regrets the words instantly, and covers her face, anticipating a reprimand. "Forgive me. My grief --"
"The war is over now," Calpurnia says, as though this renders the rightness and wrongness of it entirely moot. "And your grief gives you license. But. Don't abuse it."
"No," Portia says. "No, of course, I wouldn't. And I have so much to --" The word almost catches in her throat, but it is the thing she came here to say, and so she says it. "thank. I have so much to thank Caesar for. The mercy he has shown to -- so many of Pompey's -- of my father's --. My brother is coming home, with a full pardon. And Cassius, my cousin Tertia's husband. And," she stumbles over the name, "Brutus --" and wishes she hadn't said it. Calpurnia must know, as everyone does, that Caesar's army was ordered to give Brutus special treatment. She also must know, better than anyone, that Caesar's mercy to Brutus owes a good deal to his attachment to Brutus's mother, Servilia.
Calpurnia places a hand on her shoulder. "Your cousin will be home, reading Greek with you again, before you know it."
"Oh, I hope so," Portia says, so fervently that she feels the heat rise to her face. Calpurnia does not miss much, at all, and she fears her thoughts are too evident. Portia knows the prospect of her cousin's return, when her husband is dead and her father is dead, should not bring her so much -- can she call it happiness? How can she even think of happiness. Besides. Brutus has a wife. "I know Brutus is honorable," Portia says, hesitantly raising her eyes. "And he cares for Caesar. He's just a bit hard-headed." She gives a rueful smile that admits to the understatement.
Calpurnia shakes her head. "There are those honorable men, again. But. Pompey and Caesar put him in a nearly impossible position." Portia looks up in surprise, as Calpurnia continues. "Him and so many others. I've been here for days. Receiving orphans and widows. Trading bromides about their husband's honor and Caesar's mercy."
This unexpected acknowledgment, this hint of real empathy under the diplomatic pantomime, is too much for Portia, and for the first time since learning of her father's death, the tears begin to flow. "I'm sorry," she gasps, and Calpurnia holds out her arms. It's as though the great statue of Juno had turned to flesh and reached out to embrace her.
"There, there," says Calpurnia. "You were right to begin with, you know. You will find a way to go on."
"Thank you," says Portia. "Though I still don't know how."
"You may find that you do. We women often have the capacity to surprise ourselves."
III. Moneta: Juno Who Warns (45. B.C)
"So it's true." Calpurnia says. "You are determined to marry Brutus."
The contempt and suspicion dripping from Calpurnia's voice are not at all what Portia expected, but she keeps her smile in place. "I wanted to tell you before -- before you heard it somewhere else." It's far too late for that; it turns out. She should know better than to underestimate the speed of gossip in Rome, or Calpurnia's ability to stand at the center of it. "I wanted to tell you because -- you may not remember -- it was years ago, before I married Bibulus -- but you were the first to tell me Brutus was in love with me."
"Oh, yes," Calpurnia says, her voice oddly cold. "You didn't believe me, as I recall."
"I didn't. I was young. But --Ever since then, it's become more and more clear. I suppose we've both known for years, but there were always other people."
"There still are other people, surely. I know it seems a small detail in the blush of first love, but he does have a wife."
Portia feels the heat rise to her face, realizing how much she's displayed of her own selfishness -- dismissing her own dead husband and Brutus's very much living wife with a few careless words. Portia has never made a concerted attempt at selfishness before. She isn't entirely certain how to handle it. "Brutus and Claudia would hardly be the first couple in Rome to get a divorce."
"Divorce is nothing. Everyone gets divorced. But on what grounds? Not for the sake of an alliance, not because she can't give him children. Simply because he'd rather marry someone else?"
Yes, she thinks, the new-discovered pleasure of selfishness rearing its head again. Because it's me! "Because we love each other," she says impatiently. "What more honorable motive can two people have?" Portia could say a good deal more of Brutus's honor, but discretion puts a check on her tongue. She could explain that she would gladly have been Brutus's mistress if he'd asked. She'd had one proper Roman marriage end in civil war and death; she was in no great hurry for another.
But it was Brutus who had insisted. I'm tired of lies and self-enforced misery and living my life for the sake of family I don't even like, he had said. And that declaration seemed to have so much to do with so many people who weren't her, it almost made it easier for her to decide to do what she wanted, anyway. If marrying Brutus meant that much to him, how selfish could it be of her?
"This is our choice, Calpurnia. Mine and Brutus's. Claudia's not happy about it, and I do feel bad for her. But she's never been happy with him, either, and it's worse since he got back from the war. I don't see what good it does any of us for all of us to pretend that none of us hate our lives." She finally draws a breath to consider whether any of what she's said makes sense.
Calpurnia answers with a bitter smile. "Happy," she says. "That makes it all sound so simple. I don't suppose you've considered what happens to Rome when every man and woman chases after their own personal butterflies. Who's left to hold the edifice together?"
"I'm not talking about society, I'm talking about --" She stops, thinking of Calpurnia's position. She's married to a man of legendary appetites, who yet insists (publicly, at least) on his own wife's virtue, and she's handled the considerable task of keeping that position for close to fifteen years. "I'm sorry, Calpurnia," Portia says. "I spoke without thinking. If it helps, I doubt we're going to start any sort of a movement. Rome's too invested in its own hypocrisy."
"Hypocrisy, my dear girl, is the tribute vice pays to virtue. As such, it has its advantages."
"If it helps more -- Brutus's mother hates the idea of this marriage -- hates me for that matter -- more than you can probably imagine."
"Perhaps that shouldn't help. But it does. Good luck to you, my dear. I only hope the two of you know what you're doing."
"For the first time in my life, I'm certain that I do."
"I'm fairly certain that you don't. But -- if it helps -- I hope I might be wrong."
IV. Regina: Queen who Wields the Thunderbolt (44 B.C.)
This time, Portia goes to Calpurnia's home under an armed guard, loyal to Brutus and Cassius.
Brutus has tried to dissuade her from going at all. "You want to walk in there, into Caesar's home? After what we did to him?"
"The lot of you walked in to Antony's," she says. "And walked out with an agreement that is supposed to save the peace. The only difference between that and what I'm asking is that Calpurnia was actually married to the man. And I never stabbed anyone."
Her husband flinches, visibly, at the mention of violence. "And you against me as well, Portia?" His words are inflected with the half-ghostly laugh that's cropped up from time to time since the Ides. Lack of sleep is working on him, for certain; what else might be at play, Portia hasn't entirely worked out yet.
She takes him by the hands, looks up into his eyes. "Stop that," she says. "I'm not. I'm with you, the way I've always been with you." She lets the dress slide away from her leg, to remind him of the wound she gave herself. I fear nothing. Whatever they do to me because of you, the scar tells him, I will bear it. "But this is the right thing to do. Calpurnia was his wife. She deserves at least as much personal consideration as his bloody Master of the Horse, or whatever they used to call that fool Antony."
Brutus frowns. "Should we send Tertia?" His sister; Cassius's wife. Does he mean send her as well? Send her instead? It doesn't matter. Does he even know a thing about his sister?
"Leave Tertia out of this," she says firmly. "Cassius is lucky she didn't stab him in the face when she found out what he'd been plotting all this time, behind her back."
Brutus flinches again, averting his face from her. Portia grabs at his arm. "Brutus. Husband." He turns reluctantly back. "You need sleep. That is the best I can tell you now. I would love to comfort you. You are Rome to me, and all of Rome is bleeding. But, please. We can't forget who held the knife."
He looks down at his hands, clenching and unclenching the fingers. "I've killed men in war. I've felt their blood on my hands." He raises his eyes to her. "He covered his face, Portia."
"Stop," she says. "Stop now. You believe what you did was right? That it was necessary?" When he doesn't speak for a moment she says, "This is important. If you don't believe it, no one else will."
"I believe it."
"And I believe you." She raises a hand to his face. "Absolutely and without hesitation. That is exactly why I have to go to Calpurnia."
"Go. Be safe." He shakes his head. "You're more than I deserve."
"I'm not," she says. "If you didn't deserve so much, I wouldn't do so much for you."
She kisses him, and he holds her hand for a long moment, before letting her fingers slip away. When she turns, the wound in her thigh shoots a pain up her body, but Portia refuses to let it show.
Portia has her own reasons for insisting on the meeting. Calpurnia was kind to her, beyond kind, when she most needed it. They are friends of an odd sort, and despite all this, Portia didn't think of her once on the Ides. She knew what her husband and the others were doing. Before leaving for the Senate that morning, he had as good as told her She thought of Brutus, of Cassius and Tertia, their friends and their wives. She'd thought of Antony, even, Antony who might be in the way. But on that day, it was fear of the conspiracy's failure that had possessed her. She had given no thought to the price of success. She'd given no thought to the woman who now stared at her across the table.
"This is indeed unprecedented," Calpurnia says. "A league of butchers sending out their women as emissaries to set forth the reasons for their slaughter." The hall is large, and Calpurnia's voice echoes.
"Not a slaughter," Portia says. "It was never a slaughter. We must think of Caesar's death as a sacrifice. A bloodletting for the good of Rome. Not butchers, then, but priests, and the reasons are our ritual." Not only voices echo but footsteps. Portia has taken note of how many guards were in the hallway, and she works to match the locations with the footfalls. She should be safe here. Agreements have been made, and everyone should be safe, at least, until the funeral. But Portia can't help listening for the approach of strangers.
Calpurnia replies with a thin smile. "Inventing a ritual once the murder is over and done with does not metamorphose butchery into sacrifice. Your husband is hardly the first man to try it, and he will not succeed."
"This is not about my husband, Calpurnia. I asked to come to y ou. Because you cared about my mother and I care about you, and because you deserve as much consideration as the men gave to Antony." A pair of the footfalls stops for just a moment, at the name. That would be just like the man, prowling around and listening for news of himself. Portia continues loudly. "What do you think, Antonius? Compared to Brutus and Cassius, how am I doing?"
Silence for a moment, then Calpurnia says, "Don't skulk. It makes you seem guilty of something. And if you must hide in dark corners, at least have the grace to stand still."
Antony's voice drifts in from the corridor. "I'm composing," he says testily. "And therefore deep in thought."
"An unaccustomed state for you, no doubt," Calpurnia answers. "In any case, you're a guest here. No need to hide yourself."
"Pacing helps me write. It's a very common thing." But he walks in the door and slouches into a seat at the side of the table between them. He looks haggard and unshaven, which seems to be the fashion in Rome since the Ides. Portia doesn't know if it's comforting or frightening how much his condition reminds her of her husband's. Planting his elbows on the table, Antony laces his fingers together and rests his chin on them. "Do go on," he says, making a show of staring raptly at Portia. "I'm to compose a variation on this theme myself, and I want to make sure I get all the notes down."
"You mean Caesar's eulogy," Portia says.
"Not a eulogy, no." He says this with the tone of a virtuous schoolboy. "An oration, yes, but a eulogy won't do." Then, moving into an oratorical bluster, as though trying out a line, he waves his hands and says, "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him." Neither Calpurnia nor Portia reacts -- what is there to say? -- and he slumps back in his chair. "Women. You're no help."
"There's nothing amiss here besides Antony's manners," says Calpurnia. "He is helping me to sort out Caesar's affairs."
"I wasn't concerned," says Portia. "It seems to be a natural alliance."
Calpurnia leans forward. "I'm not certain which of us you mean that as an insult to."
"I'll take it," Antony says. "I'm used to it." He turns to Portia. "You can go back and report to your men that tempers are strained on this side. But. I am on board, I am doing as instructed. I am following the party line. It may kill me by inches, but --"
"-- but better inches than daggers?" Portia asks. It's not a planned retort, but she likes the feeling of power it gives her when Antony's hands clench on the table top, when she can see in his eyes how much he hates her.
"If you've nothing left to do but threaten my houseguests," says Calpurnia, "my man can show you to the door. Now. If you have any more to say on behalf of the butchers you choose to call friends. . ."
"They are honorable men," Portia snaps. Antony lifts his eyes and gives her a curious look.
"There you are with your 'honorable' again," Calpurnia says quietly. "May the gods save us all from honorable men."
Antony gives a little gasp, and, leaping to his feet, announces, "Brilliant!"
"Thank you?" Calpurnia says, uncertainly.
"I meant me. But no. You, too. I could kiss you. I won't, but -- I could, and --" He turns to Portia. "Even you. Especially you." He leans down enough to brush the top of her hair with his lips and whispers, "Better to die by daggers or inches in the end, I wonder?" And he glides out of the room.
"Has Antony gone mad?" Portia asks, looking after him.
"All of Rome runs mad," says Calpurnia. "Why should he be otherwise?"
Portia turns to Calpurnia, and says the one thing she knows she shouldn't. "I'm sorry."
"Not yet you aren't," Calpurnia says. "Not sorry enough. But you surely will be."
V. Abeona: Goddess of Departures (42 B.C.)
Portia is lying in bed, naked, her mind dull with wine. The bed is in a small room, in a small house, to which Portia has been reduced. It has been almost two years since Brutus was driven out of Rome. Portia had agreed to stay behind for a short time. A short time ended a long time ago, and Portia has stopped counting days. Brutus's mother has put around that Portia's mind is not entirely right, anymore -- perhaps had never been right -- and has hired attendants to keep her from harming herself.
Portia does not think she is mad. She simply cannot leave her rooms. At first she did not want to, and then they would not let her, and now she does not want to again. She has food and wine, she has some letters (though never from Brutus), and sometimes she even has a visitor.
Today she has Calpurnia. She has Calpurnia in bed beside her, talking about Mark Antony.
"Everyone must think Antony and I are lovers," Calpurnia says, in a grand voice, as though she is still a hostess, and they are at a party for the cream of Roman society.
"I don't think of you except when you're here," Portia says, "and I try not to think of Antony at all. So I certainly don't think of you being lovers." She tries the word in her mind: "Lover." She has had two husbands, but she doesn't think she's had a lover before. Portia wonders if Calpurnia is her lover. Calpurnia comes here sometimes, and she climbs into Portia's bed. But Portia doesn't think that 'love' is a word for what they do.
"I had Antony once or twice," Calpurnia says, not hearing Portia's protestation, or uninterested in it. "Right after. I had him. I thought I wouldn't. I thought I'd turn him down if he tried -- when he tried. I knew he would. But I didn't. It's oddly flattering, when a man like that takes an interest. It doesn't make sense to be flattered, because it's hard to imagine a woman, man, or beast he wouldn't stick his cock in, given half the chance. Some people say Caesar was like that, but it wasn't true. Caesar discriminated."
Portia brings a hand to her forehead. She wants more wine to beat back the threatening lucidity, but she only has Calpurnia.
"Do you know what he wanted in bed?" Calpurnia runs a hand over Portia's breast, and, indifferent to her indifference, continues. "He wanted to fuck, of course. But he also wanted to cry half the night, then lie awake and talk about Caesar. Nothing but Caesar. Can you imagine?"
From her tone, Portia can tell, Calpurnia thinks she's repeating something scandalous. Portia has learned a good deal of scandal in here; Calpurnia is not the only one who repeats stories to Portia as though to a dead end. And why not? Who would take the word of a madwoman? Who, in particular, would take her word about Antony, a man she has every reason to hate?
Calpurnia's idea of scandal is nonsense, though. "You talk as though that were disgraceful. But all you're saying is that Antony was sincere. He loved Caesar as much as he always said he did."
"More," Calpurnia answers. "It always has to be more with Antony. It has to be most. He believes he has lost more than anyone, that he is the most wronged. It drives everything he has done, everything he will ever do. What he makes of Rome. This is all because of what they did to Caesar." Pressing her fingers to Portia's forehead, she says, "I've thought about it, dear, and this all falls on you."
"On me?" Portia repeats. She wonders, for a moment, who is supposed to be the mad woman.
"I've thought about this a good deal," Calpurnia repeats. "I've been over that day so many times in my mind. Who could have put a stop to it. And of all the people in Rome, I believe it was you. Brutus loved you. He would have listened to you. And without Brutus, they would never have gone forward. They needed Brutus to clothe their butchery in honor." She laughs at that word, tainted forever by Antony's use at the funeral, "The honorable men," he said over and over. "The honorable men whose daggers stabbed Caesar."
"They were wrong about Brutus," says Portia. "Cassius and the others were wrong."
"He failed," says Calpurnia. "That doesn't mean they were wrong about what he could have done, only that he did it very badly."
"No. I mean, yes, he failed. He couldn't get Rome behind him. But anyone would have failed. There weren't any noble ideas that could overcome their acts. The knives in the Senate, all that blood. You can't match that up with noble ideas and expect the people to embrace you. Looking back, it's hard to believe they didn't see it.
"
Calpurnia's eyes narrow. "You object to their methods, then. You would have killed my husband better?"
"They didn't consult me before they did it." She hesitates. Brutus told her, but he never asked her. "I couldn't have stopped them," she says, which is true as far as it goes. She couldn't have stopped Brutus because it never would have occurred to her that she should.
"Have you heard of Philippi?" Calpurnia asks, beginning to gather her clothes.
"In Macedonia," Portia says, automatically, forever Brutus's dutiful scholar. "Founded by Philip II, connected to Rome by the Via Egnatia."
"It's where you're husband's going to die," Calpurnia tells her. "If he hasn't already." She touches her bag. "I have letters from Antony."
"Antony could lose," Portia says stiffly.
"He won't," Calpurnia answers. She hesitates for a moment, then says, "You've read your Euripides. You'll remember what they did to the Trojan Women."
Of course she remembers. The women of Troy. They were forced to watch their children's slaughter, driven mad, given as slaves or married off to the victors once their husbands were dead.
"They won't do that to you," Calpurnia assures her. "They'll just forget. Hardly any of them know you're here already, and most of them work for your mother-in-law who hates you." Putting a hand on Portia's hair, she says, "Soon Brutus will be dead and you'll be stranded in this hole, and no one will even remember to put you out of your misery. There isn't much I could do if I wanted to. But. I've bribed your . . .attendants. Tomorrow morning they'll be away for at least two hours. The doors will be locked, of course. You can't escape. But there is a fireplace, there are some -- blunt instruments if no sharp objects. You're resourceful. You're Cato's daughter. I'm sure that you'll manage to fall on your sword with as much elegance as he did."
"Why?" Portia asks.
"Why help you die?"
"Why any of this? Why did you take an interest in me in the first place? Why come here after me, when everyone else has forgotten?"
"Why?" She puts a hand to the side of Portia's face. "Because you look like your mother. And Portia? The woman was a whore. She was lustful and she was glorious, and I loved her. She coughed herself to death in a room worse than this because your virtuous old guard father threw her out in the street. And you? You turned out to be an honorable woman. And Rome is going to burn for it."
Play: Julius Caesar
Author: likeadeuce
Recipient: dontcrosscross
Summary: Five meetings between Portia Catonis and Calpurnia Pisonis. Includes Portia/Calpurnia, Portia/Brutus, and various other pairings, mostly historical. With bonus Mark Antony, because that's never a bad thing.
Rating: R (language)
Author's Notes: Sections of the story are titled for epithets of the goddess Juno, and the subject that they govern.
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I. Jugalis: Marriage (53 B.C.)
"You darling creature," Calpurnia says, and, taking both of Portia's hands in hers, pulls the into an embrace. "You've grown so since last we met. I can't believe you're about to be married. You look radiant. You're the image of your mother."
My mother was a whore, Portia thinks.
Slipping back from the older woman's arms as soon as she feels she can politely do so, Portia says, in the correct and measured tones she has rehearsed with her governess, "Thank you for your hospitality."
Calpurnia's eyebrows rise, and Portia sees she has noticed the failure to acknowledge the particular compliment. Portia sees that Caesar's wife misses very little.
"Poor lamb," says Calpurnia. "I imagine you have no memory of Atilia." Keeping one of Portia's hands in hers, she leads her toward the couch where their meal will be served. All the time, she keeps up this stream of words. "Your mother was a great beauty, of course, but you must have heard horrid things. The truth is, she was the picture of virtue."
Which hardly explains Father divorcing her for adultery, Portia thinks. She is direly uncomfortable but, of the many uncomfortable duties attendant on her impending marriage, dining with Caesar's wife, who she hardly knows, in Caesar's home, where she has never been, at least has the virtue of novelty. Portia is resolved, if nothing else, to gather sufficient details to spin an amusing tale for Tertia and her other cousins. "Hmm," she says out loud.
Calpurnia either takes the girl's noises as encouragement or, more likely, is determined to fare forward in spite of any reaction. "Cato has always possessed an unfortunate tendency toward jealousy. Especially where Caesar is concerned. Now I don't mean to imply, of course, that your father's differences with my husband are only a matter of jealousy. Cato is a statesman for the ages, dear. Caesar knows this. It's only that great men, you know, are frightfully stubborn." She squeezes Portia's hand, and seems to expect a sympathetic look, which the girl dutifully provides. Portia is barely fifteen and has hardly seen enough of the world to form a general opinion of great men, much less a cynical one. But there's a certain flattery to being included in Calpurnia's assumption.
"But your mother, I assure you. Atilia was only a victim of circumstances. I knew her well, Portia, she was my friend, and Caesar never laid a hand on her. I don't mean to say your father was insincere when he divorced her."
"I am certain," Portia says stiffly, "that whatever choices my father made were in keeping with his sense of honor."
"Well, of course they were. I hope I have never suggested that your father is less than honorable. It is always the honorable men, isn't it?" she says with a thin smile. "Sadly, honor isn't always coupled with judgment. Cato was overcome by emotion, I have no doubt. But later -- too late, I must sadly say -- he knew he had wronged her. I can tell he did, because he gave in so readily when I asked to see you today. If Portia is to be married, I told him, if my friend Atilia's daughter is to take a husband, I simply must have the opportunity to congratulate her. I promised, you see. When your mother was dying, I promised her I would."
This tale strikes Portia, at the start, as a convenient fiction -- a series of overlapping and entangled fictions, moreover, that she has no particular desire to believe. Why should she want to see her father as a vindictive man with poor judgment? Yet as Calpurnia goes on, Portia can't escape the appeal to her heart. Portia's mother did want her looked after, and by such an important woman as Calpurnia. It is still almost certainly a fiction (though to what end? Portia wonders. Why should Calpurnia bother with Portia at all if there's no truth in the story?) but suddenly it's a more pleasant one. "Thank you," she says softly, and almost musters a genuine smile.
"Now, you must tell me everything." Calpurnia is apparently satisfied she has won Portia's good will and is ready to move on to gossip. "What do you think of the man?"
"He is --" Portia chooses her words carefully. "A good man. A friend of my father's." And almost as old. Bibulus isn't the match she would have chosen, but a first marriage so rarely is. "He's well-read and virtuous. . ."
"Yes, yes." This clearly isn't the information that interests Calpurnia. "How is your cousin Brutus taking the news?"
"Marcus Brutus?" Portia frowns. "I can't imagine how it affects him. He's tutoring me in Greek. I hope he won't have to leave off once I get married. But if he does, it's more likely to devastate me, and rid him of a troublesome pupil." Portia had run through half a dozen tutors who, while sympathetic to Cato's theories that a proper Roman woman should be highly educated, were ill-prepared for a slip of a girl to ask so many (they considered) impertinent questions. Her level-headed and ever-patient cousin had finally volunteered to step in, and it hadn't occurred to her that marrying Bibulus would interfere with the lessons. That would indeed be devastating, as they'd nearly gotten through The Iliad and were ready to start Euripides.
"I hope I haven't spoken out of turn," Calpurnia says, with all the sincerity of a woman who lives with the confidence that anything and everything she has to say will always be taken in turn. "I assumed that you knew. Brutus is madly in love with you."
"Brutus is?" Portia doesn't mean to, but she lets out a laugh. Thinking of Brutus's measured voice and unreadable face, she asks, "How could you tell?"
She means the question as rhetorical -- the very idea is so preposterous -- but Calpurnia answers seriously. "Your cousin dines with Caesar often. The way he speaks of you, the glowing terms he uses -- oh, darling, a woman knows these things."
Portia hears an insult in this remark. As well as she thinks she knows Brutus, she can't tell anything of the kind. She isn't a woman, then, in Calpurnia's estimate? "I'm sure you're mistaken."
"Oh, Portia. You have much to learn. I'm sure we'll be great friends." Leaning close, she says, "Whatever differences the men in our lives have, we should never let them affect our enjoyment of each other's company. Don't you think?"
Portia knows this is a fiction, as well, and shakes her head but smiles, inviting Calpurnia to go on. This is, after all, a woman who has survived and thrived as the third wife of a very demanding, very public man. There are things Portia could learn from her. There is much to a Roman woman's education, she suspects, that she will not find in Euripides.
II. Panda: Goddess of asylum, charity, and hospitality (46 B.C.)
"I simply need to go on with things." Portia smiles, meekly, accepting the wine Calpurnia places before her. "It will be difficult for a time, but what use is our philosophy if it doesn't teach us to bear our griefs?"
Calpurnia gives her hand a sympathetic pat. "Brave words, my dear girl. But you're only lately a widow. And now an orphan as well. I've had far too many of these conversations in recent months. It's enough to make one hate these wars." She shakes her head. "Pompey's folly."
Portia is still reeling from the news of Pompey's defeat, of her father's suicide at Utica, but by no means is she ready to admit to the folly of the entire enterprise. "My men are dead. That doesn't mean they were in the wrong." She regrets the words instantly, and covers her face, anticipating a reprimand. "Forgive me. My grief --"
"The war is over now," Calpurnia says, as though this renders the rightness and wrongness of it entirely moot. "And your grief gives you license. But. Don't abuse it."
"No," Portia says. "No, of course, I wouldn't. And I have so much to --" The word almost catches in her throat, but it is the thing she came here to say, and so she says it. "thank. I have so much to thank Caesar for. The mercy he has shown to -- so many of Pompey's -- of my father's --. My brother is coming home, with a full pardon. And Cassius, my cousin Tertia's husband. And," she stumbles over the name, "Brutus --" and wishes she hadn't said it. Calpurnia must know, as everyone does, that Caesar's army was ordered to give Brutus special treatment. She also must know, better than anyone, that Caesar's mercy to Brutus owes a good deal to his attachment to Brutus's mother, Servilia.
Calpurnia places a hand on her shoulder. "Your cousin will be home, reading Greek with you again, before you know it."
"Oh, I hope so," Portia says, so fervently that she feels the heat rise to her face. Calpurnia does not miss much, at all, and she fears her thoughts are too evident. Portia knows the prospect of her cousin's return, when her husband is dead and her father is dead, should not bring her so much -- can she call it happiness? How can she even think of happiness. Besides. Brutus has a wife. "I know Brutus is honorable," Portia says, hesitantly raising her eyes. "And he cares for Caesar. He's just a bit hard-headed." She gives a rueful smile that admits to the understatement.
Calpurnia shakes her head. "There are those honorable men, again. But. Pompey and Caesar put him in a nearly impossible position." Portia looks up in surprise, as Calpurnia continues. "Him and so many others. I've been here for days. Receiving orphans and widows. Trading bromides about their husband's honor and Caesar's mercy."
This unexpected acknowledgment, this hint of real empathy under the diplomatic pantomime, is too much for Portia, and for the first time since learning of her father's death, the tears begin to flow. "I'm sorry," she gasps, and Calpurnia holds out her arms. It's as though the great statue of Juno had turned to flesh and reached out to embrace her.
"There, there," says Calpurnia. "You were right to begin with, you know. You will find a way to go on."
"Thank you," says Portia. "Though I still don't know how."
"You may find that you do. We women often have the capacity to surprise ourselves."
III. Moneta: Juno Who Warns (45. B.C)
"So it's true." Calpurnia says. "You are determined to marry Brutus."
The contempt and suspicion dripping from Calpurnia's voice are not at all what Portia expected, but she keeps her smile in place. "I wanted to tell you before -- before you heard it somewhere else." It's far too late for that; it turns out. She should know better than to underestimate the speed of gossip in Rome, or Calpurnia's ability to stand at the center of it. "I wanted to tell you because -- you may not remember -- it was years ago, before I married Bibulus -- but you were the first to tell me Brutus was in love with me."
"Oh, yes," Calpurnia says, her voice oddly cold. "You didn't believe me, as I recall."
"I didn't. I was young. But --Ever since then, it's become more and more clear. I suppose we've both known for years, but there were always other people."
"There still are other people, surely. I know it seems a small detail in the blush of first love, but he does have a wife."
Portia feels the heat rise to her face, realizing how much she's displayed of her own selfishness -- dismissing her own dead husband and Brutus's very much living wife with a few careless words. Portia has never made a concerted attempt at selfishness before. She isn't entirely certain how to handle it. "Brutus and Claudia would hardly be the first couple in Rome to get a divorce."
"Divorce is nothing. Everyone gets divorced. But on what grounds? Not for the sake of an alliance, not because she can't give him children. Simply because he'd rather marry someone else?"
Yes, she thinks, the new-discovered pleasure of selfishness rearing its head again. Because it's me! "Because we love each other," she says impatiently. "What more honorable motive can two people have?" Portia could say a good deal more of Brutus's honor, but discretion puts a check on her tongue. She could explain that she would gladly have been Brutus's mistress if he'd asked. She'd had one proper Roman marriage end in civil war and death; she was in no great hurry for another.
But it was Brutus who had insisted. I'm tired of lies and self-enforced misery and living my life for the sake of family I don't even like, he had said. And that declaration seemed to have so much to do with so many people who weren't her, it almost made it easier for her to decide to do what she wanted, anyway. If marrying Brutus meant that much to him, how selfish could it be of her?
"This is our choice, Calpurnia. Mine and Brutus's. Claudia's not happy about it, and I do feel bad for her. But she's never been happy with him, either, and it's worse since he got back from the war. I don't see what good it does any of us for all of us to pretend that none of us hate our lives." She finally draws a breath to consider whether any of what she's said makes sense.
Calpurnia answers with a bitter smile. "Happy," she says. "That makes it all sound so simple. I don't suppose you've considered what happens to Rome when every man and woman chases after their own personal butterflies. Who's left to hold the edifice together?"
"I'm not talking about society, I'm talking about --" She stops, thinking of Calpurnia's position. She's married to a man of legendary appetites, who yet insists (publicly, at least) on his own wife's virtue, and she's handled the considerable task of keeping that position for close to fifteen years. "I'm sorry, Calpurnia," Portia says. "I spoke without thinking. If it helps, I doubt we're going to start any sort of a movement. Rome's too invested in its own hypocrisy."
"Hypocrisy, my dear girl, is the tribute vice pays to virtue. As such, it has its advantages."
"If it helps more -- Brutus's mother hates the idea of this marriage -- hates me for that matter -- more than you can probably imagine."
"Perhaps that shouldn't help. But it does. Good luck to you, my dear. I only hope the two of you know what you're doing."
"For the first time in my life, I'm certain that I do."
"I'm fairly certain that you don't. But -- if it helps -- I hope I might be wrong."
IV. Regina: Queen who Wields the Thunderbolt (44 B.C.)
This time, Portia goes to Calpurnia's home under an armed guard, loyal to Brutus and Cassius.
Brutus has tried to dissuade her from going at all. "You want to walk in there, into Caesar's home? After what we did to him?"
"The lot of you walked in to Antony's," she says. "And walked out with an agreement that is supposed to save the peace. The only difference between that and what I'm asking is that Calpurnia was actually married to the man. And I never stabbed anyone."
Her husband flinches, visibly, at the mention of violence. "And you against me as well, Portia?" His words are inflected with the half-ghostly laugh that's cropped up from time to time since the Ides. Lack of sleep is working on him, for certain; what else might be at play, Portia hasn't entirely worked out yet.
She takes him by the hands, looks up into his eyes. "Stop that," she says. "I'm not. I'm with you, the way I've always been with you." She lets the dress slide away from her leg, to remind him of the wound she gave herself. I fear nothing. Whatever they do to me because of you, the scar tells him, I will bear it. "But this is the right thing to do. Calpurnia was his wife. She deserves at least as much personal consideration as his bloody Master of the Horse, or whatever they used to call that fool Antony."
Brutus frowns. "Should we send Tertia?" His sister; Cassius's wife. Does he mean send her as well? Send her instead? It doesn't matter. Does he even know a thing about his sister?
"Leave Tertia out of this," she says firmly. "Cassius is lucky she didn't stab him in the face when she found out what he'd been plotting all this time, behind her back."
Brutus flinches again, averting his face from her. Portia grabs at his arm. "Brutus. Husband." He turns reluctantly back. "You need sleep. That is the best I can tell you now. I would love to comfort you. You are Rome to me, and all of Rome is bleeding. But, please. We can't forget who held the knife."
He looks down at his hands, clenching and unclenching the fingers. "I've killed men in war. I've felt their blood on my hands." He raises his eyes to her. "He covered his face, Portia."
"Stop," she says. "Stop now. You believe what you did was right? That it was necessary?" When he doesn't speak for a moment she says, "This is important. If you don't believe it, no one else will."
"I believe it."
"And I believe you." She raises a hand to his face. "Absolutely and without hesitation. That is exactly why I have to go to Calpurnia."
"Go. Be safe." He shakes his head. "You're more than I deserve."
"I'm not," she says. "If you didn't deserve so much, I wouldn't do so much for you."
She kisses him, and he holds her hand for a long moment, before letting her fingers slip away. When she turns, the wound in her thigh shoots a pain up her body, but Portia refuses to let it show.
Portia has her own reasons for insisting on the meeting. Calpurnia was kind to her, beyond kind, when she most needed it. They are friends of an odd sort, and despite all this, Portia didn't think of her once on the Ides. She knew what her husband and the others were doing. Before leaving for the Senate that morning, he had as good as told her She thought of Brutus, of Cassius and Tertia, their friends and their wives. She'd thought of Antony, even, Antony who might be in the way. But on that day, it was fear of the conspiracy's failure that had possessed her. She had given no thought to the price of success. She'd given no thought to the woman who now stared at her across the table.
"This is indeed unprecedented," Calpurnia says. "A league of butchers sending out their women as emissaries to set forth the reasons for their slaughter." The hall is large, and Calpurnia's voice echoes.
"Not a slaughter," Portia says. "It was never a slaughter. We must think of Caesar's death as a sacrifice. A bloodletting for the good of Rome. Not butchers, then, but priests, and the reasons are our ritual." Not only voices echo but footsteps. Portia has taken note of how many guards were in the hallway, and she works to match the locations with the footfalls. She should be safe here. Agreements have been made, and everyone should be safe, at least, until the funeral. But Portia can't help listening for the approach of strangers.
Calpurnia replies with a thin smile. "Inventing a ritual once the murder is over and done with does not metamorphose butchery into sacrifice. Your husband is hardly the first man to try it, and he will not succeed."
"This is not about my husband, Calpurnia. I asked to come to y ou. Because you cared about my mother and I care about you, and because you deserve as much consideration as the men gave to Antony." A pair of the footfalls stops for just a moment, at the name. That would be just like the man, prowling around and listening for news of himself. Portia continues loudly. "What do you think, Antonius? Compared to Brutus and Cassius, how am I doing?"
Silence for a moment, then Calpurnia says, "Don't skulk. It makes you seem guilty of something. And if you must hide in dark corners, at least have the grace to stand still."
Antony's voice drifts in from the corridor. "I'm composing," he says testily. "And therefore deep in thought."
"An unaccustomed state for you, no doubt," Calpurnia answers. "In any case, you're a guest here. No need to hide yourself."
"Pacing helps me write. It's a very common thing." But he walks in the door and slouches into a seat at the side of the table between them. He looks haggard and unshaven, which seems to be the fashion in Rome since the Ides. Portia doesn't know if it's comforting or frightening how much his condition reminds her of her husband's. Planting his elbows on the table, Antony laces his fingers together and rests his chin on them. "Do go on," he says, making a show of staring raptly at Portia. "I'm to compose a variation on this theme myself, and I want to make sure I get all the notes down."
"You mean Caesar's eulogy," Portia says.
"Not a eulogy, no." He says this with the tone of a virtuous schoolboy. "An oration, yes, but a eulogy won't do." Then, moving into an oratorical bluster, as though trying out a line, he waves his hands and says, "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him." Neither Calpurnia nor Portia reacts -- what is there to say? -- and he slumps back in his chair. "Women. You're no help."
"There's nothing amiss here besides Antony's manners," says Calpurnia. "He is helping me to sort out Caesar's affairs."
"I wasn't concerned," says Portia. "It seems to be a natural alliance."
Calpurnia leans forward. "I'm not certain which of us you mean that as an insult to."
"I'll take it," Antony says. "I'm used to it." He turns to Portia. "You can go back and report to your men that tempers are strained on this side. But. I am on board, I am doing as instructed. I am following the party line. It may kill me by inches, but --"
"-- but better inches than daggers?" Portia asks. It's not a planned retort, but she likes the feeling of power it gives her when Antony's hands clench on the table top, when she can see in his eyes how much he hates her.
"If you've nothing left to do but threaten my houseguests," says Calpurnia, "my man can show you to the door. Now. If you have any more to say on behalf of the butchers you choose to call friends. . ."
"They are honorable men," Portia snaps. Antony lifts his eyes and gives her a curious look.
"There you are with your 'honorable' again," Calpurnia says quietly. "May the gods save us all from honorable men."
Antony gives a little gasp, and, leaping to his feet, announces, "Brilliant!"
"Thank you?" Calpurnia says, uncertainly.
"I meant me. But no. You, too. I could kiss you. I won't, but -- I could, and --" He turns to Portia. "Even you. Especially you." He leans down enough to brush the top of her hair with his lips and whispers, "Better to die by daggers or inches in the end, I wonder?" And he glides out of the room.
"Has Antony gone mad?" Portia asks, looking after him.
"All of Rome runs mad," says Calpurnia. "Why should he be otherwise?"
Portia turns to Calpurnia, and says the one thing she knows she shouldn't. "I'm sorry."
"Not yet you aren't," Calpurnia says. "Not sorry enough. But you surely will be."
V. Abeona: Goddess of Departures (42 B.C.)
Portia is lying in bed, naked, her mind dull with wine. The bed is in a small room, in a small house, to which Portia has been reduced. It has been almost two years since Brutus was driven out of Rome. Portia had agreed to stay behind for a short time. A short time ended a long time ago, and Portia has stopped counting days. Brutus's mother has put around that Portia's mind is not entirely right, anymore -- perhaps had never been right -- and has hired attendants to keep her from harming herself.
Portia does not think she is mad. She simply cannot leave her rooms. At first she did not want to, and then they would not let her, and now she does not want to again. She has food and wine, she has some letters (though never from Brutus), and sometimes she even has a visitor.
Today she has Calpurnia. She has Calpurnia in bed beside her, talking about Mark Antony.
"Everyone must think Antony and I are lovers," Calpurnia says, in a grand voice, as though she is still a hostess, and they are at a party for the cream of Roman society.
"I don't think of you except when you're here," Portia says, "and I try not to think of Antony at all. So I certainly don't think of you being lovers." She tries the word in her mind: "Lover." She has had two husbands, but she doesn't think she's had a lover before. Portia wonders if Calpurnia is her lover. Calpurnia comes here sometimes, and she climbs into Portia's bed. But Portia doesn't think that 'love' is a word for what they do.
"I had Antony once or twice," Calpurnia says, not hearing Portia's protestation, or uninterested in it. "Right after. I had him. I thought I wouldn't. I thought I'd turn him down if he tried -- when he tried. I knew he would. But I didn't. It's oddly flattering, when a man like that takes an interest. It doesn't make sense to be flattered, because it's hard to imagine a woman, man, or beast he wouldn't stick his cock in, given half the chance. Some people say Caesar was like that, but it wasn't true. Caesar discriminated."
Portia brings a hand to her forehead. She wants more wine to beat back the threatening lucidity, but she only has Calpurnia.
"Do you know what he wanted in bed?" Calpurnia runs a hand over Portia's breast, and, indifferent to her indifference, continues. "He wanted to fuck, of course. But he also wanted to cry half the night, then lie awake and talk about Caesar. Nothing but Caesar. Can you imagine?"
From her tone, Portia can tell, Calpurnia thinks she's repeating something scandalous. Portia has learned a good deal of scandal in here; Calpurnia is not the only one who repeats stories to Portia as though to a dead end. And why not? Who would take the word of a madwoman? Who, in particular, would take her word about Antony, a man she has every reason to hate?
Calpurnia's idea of scandal is nonsense, though. "You talk as though that were disgraceful. But all you're saying is that Antony was sincere. He loved Caesar as much as he always said he did."
"More," Calpurnia answers. "It always has to be more with Antony. It has to be most. He believes he has lost more than anyone, that he is the most wronged. It drives everything he has done, everything he will ever do. What he makes of Rome. This is all because of what they did to Caesar." Pressing her fingers to Portia's forehead, she says, "I've thought about it, dear, and this all falls on you."
"On me?" Portia repeats. She wonders, for a moment, who is supposed to be the mad woman.
"I've thought about this a good deal," Calpurnia repeats. "I've been over that day so many times in my mind. Who could have put a stop to it. And of all the people in Rome, I believe it was you. Brutus loved you. He would have listened to you. And without Brutus, they would never have gone forward. They needed Brutus to clothe their butchery in honor." She laughs at that word, tainted forever by Antony's use at the funeral, "The honorable men," he said over and over. "The honorable men whose daggers stabbed Caesar."
"They were wrong about Brutus," says Portia. "Cassius and the others were wrong."
"He failed," says Calpurnia. "That doesn't mean they were wrong about what he could have done, only that he did it very badly."
"No. I mean, yes, he failed. He couldn't get Rome behind him. But anyone would have failed. There weren't any noble ideas that could overcome their acts. The knives in the Senate, all that blood. You can't match that up with noble ideas and expect the people to embrace you. Looking back, it's hard to believe they didn't see it.
"
Calpurnia's eyes narrow. "You object to their methods, then. You would have killed my husband better?"
"They didn't consult me before they did it." She hesitates. Brutus told her, but he never asked her. "I couldn't have stopped them," she says, which is true as far as it goes. She couldn't have stopped Brutus because it never would have occurred to her that she should.
"Have you heard of Philippi?" Calpurnia asks, beginning to gather her clothes.
"In Macedonia," Portia says, automatically, forever Brutus's dutiful scholar. "Founded by Philip II, connected to Rome by the Via Egnatia."
"It's where you're husband's going to die," Calpurnia tells her. "If he hasn't already." She touches her bag. "I have letters from Antony."
"Antony could lose," Portia says stiffly.
"He won't," Calpurnia answers. She hesitates for a moment, then says, "You've read your Euripides. You'll remember what they did to the Trojan Women."
Of course she remembers. The women of Troy. They were forced to watch their children's slaughter, driven mad, given as slaves or married off to the victors once their husbands were dead.
"They won't do that to you," Calpurnia assures her. "They'll just forget. Hardly any of them know you're here already, and most of them work for your mother-in-law who hates you." Putting a hand on Portia's hair, she says, "Soon Brutus will be dead and you'll be stranded in this hole, and no one will even remember to put you out of your misery. There isn't much I could do if I wanted to. But. I've bribed your . . .attendants. Tomorrow morning they'll be away for at least two hours. The doors will be locked, of course. You can't escape. But there is a fireplace, there are some -- blunt instruments if no sharp objects. You're resourceful. You're Cato's daughter. I'm sure that you'll manage to fall on your sword with as much elegance as he did."
"Why?" Portia asks.
"Why help you die?"
"Why any of this? Why did you take an interest in me in the first place? Why come here after me, when everyone else has forgotten?"
"Why?" She puts a hand to the side of Portia's face. "Because you look like your mother. And Portia? The woman was a whore. She was lustful and she was glorious, and I loved her. She coughed herself to death in a room worse than this because your virtuous old guard father threw her out in the street. And you? You turned out to be an honorable woman. And Rome is going to burn for it."