Free Caesar's Women by Colleen McCullough

Aurelia.
    “You're in favor of the match.”
    “I am. If we let it go, another half as good may not come Julia's way. His sisters have snared young Lepidus and Vatia Isauricus's eldest son, so there are two very eligible matches gone already. Would you rather give her to a Claudius Pulcher or a Caecilius Metellus? Or Pompeius Magnus's son?”
    He shuddered, flinched. “You're absolutely right, Mater. Better a dull dog than ravening wolf or mangy cur! I was rather hoping for one of Crassus's sons.”
    Aurelia snorted. “Crassus is a good friend to you, Caesar, but you know perfectly well he'll not let either of his boys marry a girl with no dowry to speak of.”
    “Right again, Mater.” He slapped his hands on his knees, a sign that he had made up his mind. “Marcus Junius Brutus let it be, then! Who knows? He might turn out as irresistibly handsome as Paris once he's over the pimple stage.”
    “I do wish you didn't have a tendency to levity, Caesar!” said his mother, rising to go back to her books. “It will hamper your career in the Forum, just as it does Cicero's from time to time. The poor boy will never be handsome. Or dashing.”
    “In which case,” said Caesar with complete seriousness, “he is lucky. They never trust fellows who are too handsome.”
    “If women could vote,” said Aurelia slyly, “that would soon change. Every Memmius would be King of Rome.”
    “Not to mention every Caesar, eh? Thank you, Mater, but I prefer things the way they are.”
    Servilia did not mention her interview with Caesar when she returned home, either to Brutus or Silanus. Nor did she mention that on the morrow she was going to see him again. In most households the news would have leaked through the servants, but not in Servilia's domain. The two Greeks whom she employed as escorts whenever she ventured out were old retainers, and knew her better than to gossip, even among their compatriots. The tale of the nursemaid she had seen flogged and crucified for dropping baby Brutus had followed her from Brutus's house to Silanus's, and no one made the mistake of deeming Silanus strong enough to cope with his wife's temperament or temper. No other crucifixion had happened since, but of floggings there were sufficient to ensure instant obedience and permanently still tongues. Nor was it a household wherein slaves were manumitted, could don the Cap of Liberty and call themselves freedmen or freedwomen. Once you were sold into Servilia's keeping, you stayed a slave forever.
    Thus when the two Greeks accompanied her to the bottom end of the Vicus Patricii the following morning, they made no attempt to see what lay inside the building, nor dreamed of creeping up the stairs a little later to listen at doors, peer through keyholes. Not that they suspected a liaison with some man; Servilia was too well known to be above reproach in that respect. She was a snob, and it was generally held by her entire world from peers to servants that she would deem Jupiter Optimus Maximus beneath her.
    Perhaps she would have, had the Great God accosted her, but a liaison with Gaius Julius Caesar certainly occupied her mind most attractively as she trod up the stairs alone, finding it significant that this morning the peculiar and rather noisome little man of yesterday was not in evidence. The conviction that something other than a betrothal would come of her interview with Caesar had not occurred until, as he had ushered her to the door, she sensed a change in him quite palpable enough to trigger hope—nay, anticipation. Of course she knew what all of Rome knew, that he was fastidious to a fault about the condition of his women, that they had to be scrupulously clean. So she had bathed with extreme care and limited her perfume to a trace incapable of disguising natural odors underneath; luckily she didn't sweat beyond a modicum, and never wore a robe more than once between launderings. Yesterday she had worn vermilion: today she chose a rich deep