3. Fortune's Favorites

by Colleen McCullough

  Sulla waited for them in a sour mood rooted in the fact that he knew he had been tricked by a parcel of women, and angry because he hadn't been able to find the steel to resist them. It wasn't fair! Wife and daughter pleaded, cajoled, looked sad, made him aware that if he did this futile thing for them, they would be eternally in his debt and if he did not, they would be very put out. Dalmatica wasn't so bad, she had a touch of the whipped cur in her that Scaurus no doubt had instilled during those long years of imprisonment, but Cornelia Sulla was his blood, and it showed. Termagant! How did Mamercus cope with her and look so happy? Probably because he never stood up to her. Wise man. What we do for domestic harmony! Including what I am about to do. However, it was at least a change, a diversion in the long and dreary round of dictatorial duties. Oh, he was bored! Bored, bored, bored ... Rome always did that to him. Whispered the forbidden blandishments, conjured up pictures of parties he couldn't go to, circles he couldn't move in.... Metrobius. It always, always came back to Metrobius. Whom he hadn't seen in how long? Was that the last time, in the crowd at his triumph? Inauguration as consul? Could he not even remember that? What he could remember was the first time he had seen the young Greek, if not the last. At that party when he had dressed up as Medusa the Gorgon, and wore a wreath of living snakes. How everyone had squealed! But not Metrobius, adorable little Cupid with the saffron dye running down the insides of his creamy thighs and the sweetest arse in the world ... The delegation came in. From where he stood beyond the huge aquamarine rectangle of the pool in the middle of the vast room, Sulla's gaze was strong enough to absorb the entire picture they made. Perhaps because his mind had been dwelling upon a world of theater (and one particular actor), what Sulla saw was not a prim and proper Roman delegation but a gorgeous pageant led by a gorgeous woman all in shades of pink, his favorite color. And how clever that she had surrounded herself by people in white with the faintest touches of purple! The world of dictatorial duties rolled away, and so did Sulla's sour mood. His face lit up, he whooped in delight. "Oh, this is wonderful! Better than a play or the games! No, no, don't come an inch closer to me! Stand on that side of the pool! Aurelia, out in front. I want you like a tall, slender rose. The Vestals to the right, I think, but the youngest can stand behind Aurelia, I want her against a white background. Yes, that's right, good! Now, fellows, you stand to the left, but I think we'll have young Lucius Cotta behind Aurelia too, he's the youngest and I don't think he'll have a speaking part. I do like the touches of purple on your tunics, but Mamercus, you spoil the effect. You should have abandoned the praetexta, it's just a trifle too much purple. So you off to the far left." The Dictator put his hand to his chin and studied them closely, then nodded. "Good! I like it! However, I need a bit more glamor, don't I? Here I am all alone looking just like Mamercus in my praetexta, and just as mournful!" He clapped his hands; Chrysogonus popped out from behind the delegation, bowed several times. "Chrysogonus, send my lictors in crimson tunics, not stodgy old white togas and get me the Egyptian chair. You know the one crocodiles for arms and asps rearing up the back. And a small podium. Yes, I must have a small podium! Covered in purple. Tyrian purple, none of your imitations. Well, go on, man, hurry!" The delegation which had not said a word reconciled itself to a long wait while all these stage directions were seen to, but Chrysogonus was not chief administrator of the proscriptions and steward to the Dictator for nothing. In filed twenty four lictors clad in crimson tunics, the axes inserted in their fasces, their faces studiously expressionless. On their heels came the small podium held between four sturdy slaves, who placed it in the exact center at the back of the pool and proceeded to cover it neatly with a tapestry cloth in the stipulated Tyrian purple, so dark it was almost black. The chair arrived next, a splendid thing of polished ebony and gilt, with ruby eyes in the hooded snakes and emerald eyes in the crocodiles, and a magnificent multihued scarab in the center of the chair back. Once the stage was set, Sulla attended to his lictors. "I like the axes in the bundles of rods, so I'm glad I'm Dictator and have the power to execute within the pomerium! Now let me see.... Twelve to the left of me and twelve to the right of me in a line, boys, but close together. Fan yourselves away so that you're nearest to me next to me, and dribble off a bit into the distance at your far ends.... Good, good!" He swung back to stare at the delegation, frowning. "That's what's wrong! I can't see Aurelia's feet, Chrysogonus! Bring in that little golden stool I filched from Mithridates. I want her to stand on it. Go on, man, hurry! Hurry!" And finally it was all done to his satisfaction. Sulla sat down in his crocodile and snake chair on the Tyrian purple small podium, apparently oblivious to the fact that he should have been seated in a plain ivory curule chair. Not that anyone in the room was moved to criticize; the important thing was that the Dictator was enjoying himself immensely. And that meant a greater chance for a favorable verdict. "Speak!" he said in sonorous tones. "Lucius Cornelius, my son is dying " "Louder, Aurelia! Play to the back of the cavea!" "Lucius Cornelius, my son is dying! I have come with my friends to beseech you to pardon him!" "Your friends? Are all these people your friends?" he asked, his amazement a little overdone. "They are all my friends. They join with me in beseeching you to allow my son to come home before he dies," Aurelia enunciated clearly, playing to the back row of the cavea, and getting into her stride. If he wanted a Greek tragedy, he would get a Greek tragedy! She extended her arms to him, the rose colored draperies falling away from her ivory skin. Lucius Cornelius, my son is but eighteen years old! He is my only son!" A throb in the voice there, it would go over well yes, it was going over well, if his expression was anything to go by! "You have seen my son. A god! A Roman god! A descendant of Venus worthy of Venus! And with such courage! Did he not have the courage to defy you, the greatest man in all the world? And did he show fear? No!" "Oh, this is wonderful!" Sulla exclaimed. "I didn't know you had it in you, Aurelia! Keep it coming, keep it coming!" "Lucius Cornelius, I beseech you! Spare my son!" She managed to turn on the tiny golden stool and stretched out her hands to Fonteia, praying that stately lady would understand her part. "I ask Fonteia, Rome's Chief Vestal, to beg for the life of my son!" Luckily by this the rest were beginning to recover from their stupefaction, could at least try. Fonteia thrust out her hands and achieved a distressed facial expression she hadn't used since she was four years old. "Spare him, Lucius Cornelius!" she cried. "Spare him!" "Spare him!" whispered Fabia. "Spare him!" shouted Licinia. Whereupon the seventeen year old Julia Strabo upstaged everyone by bursting into tears. "For Rome, Lucius Cornelius! Spare him for Rome!" thundered Gaius Cotta in the stentorian voice his father had made famous. "We beg you, spare him!" "For Rome, Lucius Cornelius!" shouted Marcus Cotta. "For Rome, Lucius Cornelius!" blared Lucius Cotta. Which left Mamercus, who produced a bleat. "Spare him!" Silence. Each side gazed at the other. Sulla sat straight in his chair, right foot forward and left foot back in the classical pose of the Roman great. His chin was tucked in, his brow beetled. He waited. Then: "No!" So it began all over again. And again he said: "No!" Feeling as limp and wrung out as a piece of washing but actually improving in leaps and bounds Aurelia pleaded for the life of her son a third time with heartbroken voice and trembling hands. Julia Strabo was howling lustily, Licinia looked as if she might join in. The beseeching chorus swelled, and died away with a third bleat from Mamercus. Silence fell. Sulla waited and waited, apparently having adopted what he thought was a Zeus like aspect, thunderous, regal, portentous. Finally he got to his feet and stepped to the edge of his small Tyrian purple podium, where he stood with immense dignity, frowning direfully. Then he sighed a sigh which could easily have been heard in the back row of the cavea, clenched his fists and raised them toward the gilded ceiling's splendiferous stars. "Very well, have it your own way!" he cried. "I will spare him! But be warned! In this young man I see many Mariuses!" After which he bounced like a baby goat from his perch to the floor, and skipped gleefully along the side of the pool. "Oh, I needed that! Wonderful, wonderful! I haven't had so muc
h fun since I slept between my stepmother and my mistress! Being the Dictator is no kind of life! I don't even have time to go to the play! But this was better than any play I've ever seen, and I was in the lead! You all did very well. Except for you, Mamercus, spoiling things in your praetexta and emitting those peculiar sounds. You're stiff, man, too stiff! You must try to get into the part!" Reaching Aurelia, he helped her down from her (solid) gold stool and hugged her over and over again. "Splendid, splendid! You looked like Iphigenia at Aulis, my dear." "I felt like the fishwife in a mime." He had forgotten the lictors, who still stood to either side of the empty crocodile throne with wooden faces; nothing about this job would ever surprise them again! "Come on, let's go to the dining room and have a party!" the Dictator said, shooing everybody in the chorus before him, one arm about the terrified Julia Strabo. "Don't cry, silly girl, it's all right! This was just my little joke," he said, rolled his eyes at Mamercus and gave Julia Strabo a push between her shoulder blades. "Here, Mamercus, find your handkerchief and clean her up." The arm went round Aurelia. "Magnificent! Truly magnificent! You should always wear pink, you know." So relieved her knees were shaking, Aurelia put on a fierce frown and said, her voice in her boots, 'In him I see many Mariuses!' You ought to have said, 'In him I see many Sullas!' It would have been closer to the point. He's not at all like Marius, but sometimes he's awfully like you." Dalmatica and Cornelia Sulla were waiting outside, utterly bewildered; when the lictors went in they hadn't been very surprised, but then they had seen the small podium go in, and the Tyrian purple cloth, and the Egyptian chair, and finally the gold stool. Now everyone was spilling out laughing why was Julia Strabo crying? and Sulla had his arm around Aurelia, who was smiling as if she would never stop. "A party!" shouted Sulla, pranced over to his wife, took her face between his hands and kissed her. "We're going to have a party, and I am going to get very, very drunk!" It was some time later before Aurelia realized that not one of the players in that incredible scene had found anything demeaning in Sulla's impromptu drama, nor made the mistake of deeming Sulla a lesser man because he had staged it. If anything, its effect had been the opposite; how could one not fear a man who didn't care about appearances? No one who participated ever recounted the story, made capital out of it and Sulla at dinner parties, or tittle tattled it over sweet watered wine and little cakes. Not from fear of their lives. Mostly because no one thought Rome would ever, ever believe it.

  When Caesar arrived home he experienced the end results of his mother's one act play at once; Sulla sent his own doctor, Lucius Tuccius, to see the patient. "Frankly, I don't consider Sulla much of a recommendation," Aurelia said to Lucius Decumius, "so I can only hope that without Lucius Tuccius, Sulla would be a lot worse." "He's a Roman," said Lucius Decumius, "and that's something. I don't trust them Greeks." , "Greek physicians are very clever." "In a theory etical way. They treats their patients with new ideas, not old standbys. Old standbys are the best. I'll take pounded grey spiders and powdered dormice any day!" "Well, Lucius Decumius, as you say, this one is a Roman." As Sulla's doctor emerged at that moment from the direction of Caesar's room, conversation ceased. Tuccius was a small man, very round and smooth and clean looking; he had been Sulla's chief army surgeon, and it had been he who sent Sulla to Aedepsus when Sulla had become so ill in Greece. "I think the wisewoman of Nersae was right, and your son suffered the ague without a pattern," he said cheerfully. "He's lucky. Few men recover from it." "Then he will recover?" asked Aurelia anxiously. Oh, yes. The crisis has long passed. But the disease has left his blood enervated. That's why he has no color, and why he is so weak." "So what does we do?" demanded Lucius Decumius pugnaciously. "Well, men who have lost a lot of blood from a wound show much the same symptoms as Caesar," said Tuccius, unconcerned. "In such cases, if they didn't die they gradually got better of their own accord. But I always found it a help to feed them the liver of a sheep once a day. The younger the sheep, the quicker the recovery. I recommend that Caesar eat the liver of a lamb and drink three hen's eggs beaten into goat's milk every day." "What, no medicine?" asked Lucius Decumius suspiciously. "Medicine won't cure Caesar's ailment. Like the Greek physicians of Aedepsus, I believe in diet over medicine in most situations," said Lucius Tuccius firmly. "See? He's a Greek after all!" said Lucius Decumius after the doctor had departed. "Never mind that," said Aurelia briskly. "I shall adhere to his recommendations for at least a market interval. Then we shall see. But it seems sensible advice to me." "I'd better start for the Campus Lanatarius," said the little man who loved Caesar more than he did his sons. "I'll buy the lamb and see it slaughtered on the spot." The real hitch turned out to be the patient, who flatly refused to eat the lamb's liver, and drank his first mixture of egg and goat's milk with such loathing that he brought it up. The staff held a conference with Aurelia. Must the liver be raw?'' asked Murgus the cook. Aurelia blinked. "I don't know. I just assumed it." "Then could we send to Lucius Tuccius and ask?" from the steward, Eutychus. "Caesar is not an eater by that I mean that the sheer taste of food does not send him into ecstasies. He is conservative but not fussy. However, one of the things I have always noticed is that he will not eat things with a strong smell of their own. Like eggs. As for that raw liver pew! It stinks!" Let me cook the liver and put plenty of sweet wine in the egg and milk," pleaded Murgus. "How would you cook the liver?" Aurelia asked. "I'd slice it thin, roll each slice in a little salt and spelt, and fry it lightly on a very hot fire." "All right, Murgus, I'll send to Lucius Tuccius and describe what you want to do," said the patient's mother. Back came the message: "Put what you like in the egg and milk, and of course cook the liver!" After that the patient tolerated his regimen, though not with any degree of affection. "Say what you like about the food, Caesar, I think it is working was his mother's verdict. "I know it's working! Why else do you think I'm eating the stuff?" was the patient's disgruntled response. Light broke; Aurelia sat down beside Caesar's couch with a look on her face that said she was going to stay there until she got some answers. "All right, what's the real matter?" Lips pressed together, he stared out the open window of the reception room into the garden Gaius Matius had made in the bottom of the light well. "I have made the most wretched business out of my first venture on my own," he said at last. "While everybody else behaved with amazing courage and daring, I lay like a log with nothing to say and no part in the action. The hero was Burgundus, and the heroines you and Ria, Mater." She hid her smile. "Perhaps there's a lesson to be learned, Caesar. Perhaps the Great God whose servant you still are! felt you had to be taught a lesson you've never been willing to learn that a man cannot fight the gods, and that the Greeks were right about hubris. A man with hubris is an abomination." "Am I really so proud you think I own hubris?" he asked. "Oh, yes. You have plenty of false pride." "I see absolutely no relevance between hubris and what happened at Nersae," said Caesar stubbornly. "It's what the Greeks would call hypothetical." "I think you mean philosophical." Since there was nothing wrong with her education, she did not acknowledge this quibble, simply swept on. "The fact that you own an overweening degree of pride is a grave temptation to the gods. Hubris presumes to direct the gods and says that a man is above the status of men. And as we Romans know! the gods do not choose to show a man he is above himself with what I might call a personal intervention. Jupiter Optimus Maximus doesn't speak to men with a human voice, and I am never convinced that the Jupiter Optimus Maximus who appears to men in dreams is anything more than a figment of dreams. The gods intervene in a natural way, they punish with natural things. You were punished with a natural thing you became ill. And I believe that the seriousness of your illness is a direct indication of the degree of your pride. It almost killed you!" "You impute a divine vector," he said, "for a disgustingly animal event. I believe the vector was as mundanely animal as the event. And neither of us can prove our contention, so what does it matter? What matters is that I failed in my first attempt to govern my life. I was a passive object surrounded by heroism, none of which w
as mine." "Oh, Caesar, will you never learn?" The beautiful smile came. "Probably not, Mater." "Sulla wants to see you." "When?" "As soon as you're well enough, I am to send to him for an appointment." "Tomorrow, then." "No, after the next nundinae." "Tomorrow." Aurelia sighed. "Tomorrow." He insisted upon walking without an attendant, and when he discovered Lucius Decumius lurking some paces behind him, sent his watchdog home with a firmness Lucius Decumius dared not defy. I am tired of being cosseted and clucked over!" he said in the voice which frightened people. "Leave me alone!" The walk was demanding, but he arrived at Sulla's house far from exhausted; now definitely on the mend, he was mending rapidly. "I see you're in a toga," said Sulla, who was sitting behind his desk. He indicated the laena and apex disposed neatly on a nearby couch. "I've saved them for you. Don't you have spares?" "Not a second apex, anyway. That one was a gift from my wonderful benefactor, Gaius Marius." "Didn't Merula's fit?" "I have an enormous head," said Caesar, straight faced. Sulla chuckled. "I believe you!" He had sent to Aurelia to ask if Caesar knew of the second part of the prophecy, and having received a negative answer, had decided Caesar wouldn't hear it from him. But he fully intended to discuss Marius. His thinking had swung completely around, thanks to two factors. The first was Aurelia's information about the circumstances behind Caesar's being dowered with the flaminate Dialis, and the second was his one act play, which he had enjoyed (and the party which had followed) with huge gusto; it had refreshed him so thoroughly that though it was now a month in the past, he still found himself remembering bits and pieces at the most inappropriate moments, and had been able to apply himself to his laws with renewed energy. Yes, the moment that magnificent looking delegation had walked into his atrium so solemnly and theatrically he had been lifted out of himself out of his dreary appalling shell, out of a life devoid of enjoyment and lightness. For a short space of time reality had utterly vanished and he had immersed himself inside a sparkling and gorgeous pageant. And since that day he had found hope again; he knew it would end. He knew he would be released to do what he longed to do, bury himself and his hideousness in a world of hilarity, glamor, idleness, artificiality, entertainments, grotesques and travesties. He would get through the present grind into a very different and infinitely more desirable future. "You made a thousand mistakes when you fled, Caesar," said Sulla in a rather friendly way. "I don't need to be told. I'm well aware of it." "You're far too pretty to disappear into the furniture, and you have a natural sense of the dramatic," Sulla explained, ticking his points off on his fingers. "The German, the horse, your pretty face, your natural arrogance need I go on?" "No," said Caesar, looking rueful. "I've already heard it all from my mother and several other people." "Good. However, I'd be willing to bet they didn't give you the advice I intend to. Which is, Caesar, to accept your fate. If you are outstanding if you can't blend into the background then don't hare off on wild excursions which demand you can. Unless, as I once did, you have a chance to masquerade as a rather terrific looking Gaul. I came back wearing a torc around my neck, and I thought the thing was my luck. But Gaius Marius was right. The thing was noticeable in a way I didn't want to be noticed. So I gave up wearing it. I was a Roman, not a Gaul and Fortune favored me, not an inanimate hunk of gold, no matter how lovely. Wherever you go, you will be noticed. Just like me. So learn to work within the confines of your nature and your appearance." Sulla grunted, looked a little astonished. "How well meaning I am! I hardly ever give well meaning advice." "I am grateful for it," said Caesar sincerely. The Dictator brushed this aside. "I want to know why you think Gaius Marius made you the flamen Dialis.'' Caesar paused to choose his words, understanding that his answer must be logical and unemotional. "Gaius Marius saw a lot of me during the months after he had his second stroke," he began. Sulla interrupted. "How old were you?" "Ten when it started. Almost twelve when it finished." "Go on." "I was interested in what he had to say about soldiering. I listened very intently. He taught me to ride, use a sword, throw a spear, swim." Caesar smiled wryly. "I used to have gigantic military ambitions in those days." "So you listened very intently." "Yes, indeed. And I think that Gaius Marius gained the impression that I wanted to surpass him." "Why should he?" Another rueful look. "I told him I did!" "All right, now to the flaminate. Expound." "I can't give you a logical answer to that, I really can't. Except that I believe he made me flamen Dialis to prevent my having a military or a political career," said Caesar, very uncomfortably. "That answer isn't all founded in my conceit. Gaius Marius was sick in his mind. He may have imagined it." "Well," said Sulla, face inscrutable, "since he's dead, we'll never know the real answer, will we? However, given that his mind was diseased, your theory fits his character. He was always afraid of being outshone by men who had the birthright. Old and great names. His own name was a new one, and he felt he had been unfairly discriminated against because he was a New Man. Take, for example, my capture of King Jugurtha. He grabbed all the credit for that, you know! My work, my skill! If I had not captured Jugurtha, the war in Africa could never have been ended so expeditiously and finally. Your father's cousin, Catulus Caesar, tried to give me the credit in his memoirs, but he was howled down." Not if his life depended upon it would Caesar have betrayed by word or look what he thought of this astonishing version of the capture of King Jugurtha. Sulla had been Marius's legate! No matter how brilliant the actual capture had been, the credit had to go to Marius! It was Marius had sent Sulla off on the mission, and Marius who was the commander of the war. And the general couldn't do everything himself that was why he had legates in the first place. I think, thought Caesar, that I am hearing one of the early versions of what will become the official story! Marius has lost, Sulla has won. For only one reason. Because Sulla has outlived Marius. "I see," said Caesar, and left it at that. Scuffling a little, Sulla got out of his chair and walked across to the couch where the garb of the flamen Dialis lay. He picked up the ivory helmet with its spike and disc of wool, and tossed it between his hands. "You've lined it well," he said. "It's very hot, Lucius Cornelius, and I dislike the feel of sweating," said Caesar. "Do you change the lining often?" Sulla asked, and actually lifted the apex to sniff its interior. "It smells sweet. Ye gods, how a military helmet can stink! I've seen horses turn up their noses at the prospect of drinking from a military helmet." A faint distaste crossed Caesar's face, but he shrugged, tried to pass it off. "The exigencies of war," he said lightly. Sulla grinned. It will be interesting to see how you cope with those, boy! You're a trifle precious, aren't you?" "In some ways, perhaps," said Caesar levelly. The ivory apex bounced onto the couch. "So you hate the job, eh?" Sulla asked. "I hate it." "Yet Gaius Marius was afraid enough of a boy to hedge him round with it." "It would seem so." "I remember they used to say in the family that you were very clever could read at a glance. Can you?'' "Yes." Back to the desk: Sulla shuffled his papers and found a single sheet which he tossed at Caesar. "Read that," he said. One glance told Caesar why. It was execrably written, with such a squeezing together of the letters and absence of columns that it really did look like a continuous, meaningless squiggle. "You don't know me Sulla but do I have something to tell you and it is that there is a man from Lucania named Marcus Aponius which has a rich property in Rome and I just want you to know that Marcus Crassus had this man Aponius put on the proscription list so he could buy the property real cheap at auction and that is what he did for two thousand sesterces A Friend.'' Caesar finished his effortless translation and looked at Sulla, eyes twinkling. Sulla threw back his head and laughed. "I thought that's what it said! So did my secretary. I thank you, Caesar. But you haven't seen it and you couldn't possibly have read it even if you had seen it.'' "Absolutely!" "It causes endless trouble when one cannot do everything oneself," Sulla said, sobering. "That is the worst feature about being Dictator. I have to use agents the task is too Herculean. The man mentioned in there is someone I trusted. Oh, I knew he was greedy, but I didn't think he'd be so blatant." "Everyone in the Subura knows Marcus Licinius Crassus." "What,
because of his little arsons the burning insulae?" "Yes and his fire brigades which arrive the moment he's bought the property cheaply, and put the fire out. He's becoming the Subura's biggest landlord. As well as the most unpopular. But he won't get his hands on my mother's insula!" vowed Caesar. "Nor will he get his hands on any more proscription property," said Sulla harshly. "He impugned my name. I warned him! He did not listen. So I will never see him again. He can rot." It was awkward listening to this: what did Caesar care about the troubles a dictator had with his agents? Rome would never see another dictator! But he waited, hoping Sulla would eventually get to the point, and sensing that this roundabout route was Sulla's way of testing his patience and probably tormenting him too. "Your mother doesn't know it and nor do you, but I didn't order you killed," the Dictator said. Caesar's eyes opened wide. "You didn't? That's not what one Lucius Cornelius Phagites led Ria to believe! He got off with three talents of my mother's money pretending to spare me when I was ill. You've just finished telling me how awful it is to have to use agents because they get greedy. Well, that's as true of the bottom as it is of the top." "I'll remember the name, and your mother will get her money back," said Sulla, obviously angry, "but that is not the point. The point is that I did not order you killed! I ordered you brought before me alive so I could ask you exactly the questions I have asked you." "And then kill me." "That was my original idea." "And now you've given your word that you won't kill me." "I don't suppose you've changed your mind about divorcing Cinna's daughter?" "No. I will never divorce her." "So that leaves Rome with a difficult problem. I can't have you killed, you don't want the job, you won't divorce Cinna's daughter because she's your way out of the job and don't bother trying to give me high flown explanations about honor and ethics and principles!" Suddenly a look of incredible old age came into the ruined face, the unsupported lips folded and flapped, worked on themselves; he was Cronus contemplating eating his next child whole. "Did your mother tell you what transpired?" "Only that you spared me. You know her." "Extraordinary person, Aurelia. Ought to have been a man." Caesar's most charming smile dawned. "So you keep saying! I must admit I'm rather glad she wasn't a man." "So am I, so am I! Were she a man, I'd have to look to my laurels." Sulla slapped his thighs and leaned forward. "So, my dear Caesar, you continue to be a trouble to all of us in the priestly colleges. What are we going to do with you?" Free me from my flaminate, Lucius Cornelius. You can do nothing else save kill me, and that would mean going back on your word. I don't believe you would do that." "What makes you think I wouldn't break my word?" Caesar raised his brows. "I am a patrician, one of your own kind! But more than that, I am a Julian. You'd never break your word to one as highborn as I." "That is so." The Dictator leaned back in his chair. "We of the priestly colleges have decided, Gaius Julius Caesar, to free you from your flaminate, just as you have surmised. I can't speak for the others, but I can tell you why I want you freed. I think Jupiter Optimus Maximus does not want you for his special flamen. I think he has other things in mind for you. It is very possible that all of the business about his temple was his way of freeing you. I do not know for sure. I only feel it in my bones but a man can do far worse than to follow such instincts. Gaius Marius was the longest trial of my life. Like a Greek Nemesis. One way or another, he managed to spoil my greatest days. And for reasons I do not intend to go into, Gaius Marius exerted himself mightily to chain you. I tell you this, Caesar! If he wanted you chained, then I want you freed. I insist upon having the last laugh. And you are the last laugh." Never had Caesar conceived of salvation from this unlikely quarter. Because it had been Gaius Marius who chained him, Sulla would see him freed. As he sat there looking at Sulla, Caesar became unshakably convinced that for no other reason was he being released. Sulla wanted the last laugh. So in the end Gaius Marius had defeated himself. I and my colleagues of the priestly colleges are now of the opinion that there may have been a flaw in the rituals of your consecration as flamen Dialis. Several of us not I, but enough others were present at that ceremony, and none of them can be absolutely certain that there was not a flaw. The doubt is sufficient given the blood soaked horror of those days, so we have agreed that you must be released. However, we cannot appoint another flamen Dialis while you live, just in case we are mistaken and there was no flaw." Sulla put both palms down on his desk. "It is best to have an escape clause. To be without a flamen Dialis is a grave inconvenience, but Jupiter Optimus Maximus is Rome, and he likes things to be legal. Therefore while you live, Gaius Julius Caesar, the other flamines will share Jupiter's duties among them." He must speak now. Caesar moistened his lips. "This seems a just and prudent course," he said. "So we think. It means, however, that your membership in the Senate ceases as of the moment the Great God signifies his consent. In order to obtain his consent, you will give Jupiter Optimus Maximus his own animal, a white bull. If the sacrifice goes well, your flaminate is over. If it should not go well why, we will have to think again. The Pontifex Maximus and the Rex Sacrorum will preside" a flicker of antic mirth came and went in the pale cold eyes "but you will conduct the sacrifice yourself. You will provide a feast for all the priestly colleges afterward, to be held in the temple of Jupiter Stator in the upper Forum Romanum. This offering and feast are in the nature of a piaculum, to atone for the inconveniences the Great God must suffer because he will have no special priest of his own." "I am happy to obey," said Caesar formally. "If all goes well, you are a free man. You may be married to whomsoever you choose. Even Cinna's brat." "I take it then that there has been no change in Cinnilla's citizen status?" asked Caesar coolly. "Of course there hasn't! If there had been, you'd wear the laena and apex for the rest of your life! I'm disappointed in you, boy, that you even bothered to ask." "I asked, Lucius Cornelius, because the lex Minicia will automatically extend to apply to my children by my wife. And that is quite unacceptable. I have not been proscribed. Why should my children suffer?" "Yes, I see that," said the Dictator, not at all offended at this straight speaking. "For that reason, I will amend my law to protect men like you. The lex Minicia de liberis will apply only to the children of the proscribed. If any of them are lucky enough to marry a Roman, then their children will be Roman." He frowned. "It should have been foreseen. It was not. One of the penalties of producing so much legislation so quickly. But the way in which it was drawn to my attention put me publicly in a ridiculous position. All your fault, boy! And your silly uncle, Cotta. The priestly interpretation of my laws anent the other laws of Rome already on the tablets must stand for the children of the proscribed." "I'm glad for it," said Caesar, grinning. "It's got me out of Gaius Marius's clutches." "That it has." Sulla looked brisk and businesslike, and changed the subject. Mitylene has revolted from Roman tribute. At the moment my proquaestor Lucullus is in the chair, but I have sent my praetor Thermus to govern Asia Province. His first task will be to put down the revolt of Mitylene. You have indicated a preference for military duty, so I am sending you to Pergamum to join Thermus's staff. I expect you to distinguish yourself, Caesar," said Sulla, looking his most forbidding. "On your conduct as a junior military tribune rests the final verdict about this whole business. No man in Roman history is more revered than the military hero. I intend to exalt all such men. They will receive privileges and honors not given to others. If you win accolades for bravery in the field, I will exalt you too. But if you do not do well, I will push you down harder and further than Gaius Marius ever could have." "That's fair," said Caesar, delighted at this posting. "One more thing," said Sulla, something sly in his gaze. "Your horse. The animal you rode while flamen Dialis, against all the laws of the Great God." Caesar stiffened. "Yes?" "I hear you intend to buy the creature back. You will not. It is my dictate that you will ride a mule. A mule has always been good enough for me. It must also be good enough for you." The like eyes looked a like murder. But oh no! said Gaius Julius Caesar to himself, you won't trap me this way, Sulla! "Do you think, Lucius Cornelius, that I deem myself too good for a mule?" he asked aloud. "
I have no idea what you deem yourself too good for." "I am a better rider than any other man I have ever seen," said Caesar calmly, "while you, according to reports, are just about the worst rider ever seen. But if a mule is good enough for you, it is certainly more than good enough for me. And I thank you sincerely for your understanding. Also your discretion." "Then you can go now," said Sulla, unimpressed. "On your way out, send in my secretary, would you?" His little flash of temper sent Caesar home less grateful for his freedom than he would otherwise have been; and then he found himself wondering if such had not been Sulla's purpose in stipulating that final rather picayune condition about a mule. Sulla didn't want his gratitude, didn't want Aurelia's son in any kind of cliental bondage to him. A Julian beholden to a Cornelian? That was to make a mockery of the Patriciate. And, realizing this, Caesar ended in thinking better of Lucius Cornelius Sulla than he had when he left that man's presence. He has truly set me free! He has given me my life to do with what I will. Or what I can. I will never like him. But there have been times when I have found it in me to love him. He thought of the horse Bucephalus. And wept. "Sulla is wise, Caesar," said Aurelia, nodding her full approval. ' The drains on your purse are going to be considerable. You must buy a white bull without flaw or blemish, and you won't find such for less than fifty thousand. The feast you have to provide for all of Rome's priests and augurs will cost you twice that. After which, you have to equip yourself for Asia. And support yourself in what I fear will be a punishingly expensive environment. I remember your father saying that the junior military tribunes despise those among them who cannot afford every luxury and extravagance. You're not rich. The income from your land has accumulated since your father died, you've not had any need to spend it. That is going to change. To buy back your horse would be an unwelcome extra. After all, you won't be here to ride the beast. You must ride a mule until Sulla says otherwise. And you can find a splendid mule for under ten thousand." The look he gave his mother was not filial, but he said no word, and if he dreamed of his horse and mourned its permanent passing, he kept those things to himself.