“Well, have I not?” Julius demanded. “Tell me where I have overreached myself, since my return. Have my promises not been made good? Ask the Tenth, or the Fourth you once commanded. They would not see any harm in my appointments.”

Brutus sensed the rising temper and cooled his own. Julius allowed him a greater freedom than anyone else, more even than Mark Antony, but he was not an equal.

“You have done what you said you would,” he replied neutrally.

Julius narrowed his eyes as he looked for some hidden meaning, then his face cleared and Brutus felt sweat break out on his skin in relief.

“It has been a good year,” Julius said, nodding to himself. “My son grows and in time I think the people will accept Cleopatra.”

Brutus forced his mouth shut, knowing the subject was tender. The citizens had welcomed the new temple to Venus. On the day of its consecration, they had come in great numbers to admire the work and leave offerings. Inside, they found the goddess had the face of the Egyptian queen. To Julius’s fury, someone had defaced the statue by painting golden nipples on it. A permanent guard had to be posted and a reward offered for the names of those responsible. As yet, it had gone unclaimed.

Brutus did not dare look at Julius in case his glowering expression made him laugh. He could only be pushed so far and Brutus was adept at finding the limit whenever his bitterness needed some outlet. Pricking at Julius’s vanity was a dangerous pleasure, indulged only when he could no longer bear the constant stream of festivals and Triumphs.

Unnoticed, Brutus wound his fingers into a knot. He wondered if the citizens ever hungered for the honest tedium of normal life. The city had no routine when the Dictator could announce another great games or suddenly decide his latest Triumph would last another week. The citizens would always cheer and drink what they were given, but Brutus imagined a strained edge to their voices that matched his own dissatisfaction.

He had enjoyed the Triumph scenes of Gaul, with a lice-ridden Vercingetorix dragged in chains to a public execution. Brutus had been given the best seats to witness the death of wolves and boar. Even the Tiber had been dammed to fill a circus with water stained red by fighting ships on its surface. Wonder had followed wonder and the Senate had responded in a desperate frenzy, calling Julius “Imperator” and “Dictator for Life.” His latest statue had a simple plaque to the “Unconquered God,” and when Brutus had seen it, he had drunk himself unconscious and lost two days.