Most of that had disappeared or greatly eased after he went to Aedepsus. Of his face he wouldn’t think, he who had been so beautiful in his youth that men had made absolute fools of themselves, so beautiful after he attained maturity that women had made absolute fools of themselves. But one thing which had not disappeared was his need to drink wine. Yielding to the inevitable, the priest—physicians of Aedepsus had persuaded him to exchange his sweet fortified wine for the sourest vintages available, and over the months since, he had come to prefer his wine so dry it made him grimace. When the itch was not upon him he kept the amount he drank under some sort of control, in that he didn’t let it interfere with his thought processes. He just drank enough to improve them—or so he told himself.
“I’ll keep Ofella and Catilina with me,” he said to Crassus and Metellus Pius, stoppering up the flask again. “However, Verres is the epitome of his name—an insatiably greedy boar. I think I will send him back to Beneventum, for the time being at least. He can organize supplies and keep an eye on our rear.”
The Piglet giggled. “He might like that, the honey—boy!”
This provoked a brief grin in Crassus. “What about yon Cethegus?” he asked, legs aching from hanging down limply; they were very heavy legs. He shifted his weight a little.
“Cethegus I shall retain for the moment,” said Sulla. His hand strayed toward the wine, then was snatched away. “He can look after things in Campania.”
*
Just before his army crossed the river Volturnus near the town of Casilinum, Sulla sent six envoys to negotiate with Gaius Norbanus, the more capable of Carbo’s two tame consuls. Norbanus had taken eight legions and drawn himself up to defend Capua, but when Sulla’s envoys appeared carrying a flag of truce, he arrested them without a hearing. He then marched his eight legions out onto the Capuan plain right beneath the slopes of Mount Tifata. Irritated by the unethical treatment meted out to his envoys, Sulla proceeded to teach Norbanus a lesson he would not forget. Down the flank of Mount Tifata Sulla led his troops at a run, hurled them on the unsuspecting Norbanus. Defeated before the battle had really begun, Norbanus retreated inside Capua, where he sorted out his panicked men, sent two legions to hold the port of Neapolis for Carbo’s Rome, and prepared himself to withstand a siege.
Thanks to the cleverness of a tribune of the plebs, Marcus Junius Brutus, Capua was very much disposed to like the present government in Rome; earlier in the year, Brutus had brought in a law giving Capua the status of a Roman city, and this, after centuries of being punished by Rome for various insurrections, had pleased Capua mightily. Norbanus had therefore no need to worry that Capua might grow tired of playing host to him and his army. Capua was used to playing host to Roman legions.
“We have Puteoli, so we don’t need Neapolis,” said Sulla to Pompey and Metellus Pius as they rode toward Teanum Sidicinum, “and we can do without Capua because we hold Beneventum. I must have had a feeling when I left Gaius Verres there.” He stopped for a moment, thought about something, nodded as if to answer his thought. “Cethegus can have a new job. Legate in charge of all my supply columns. That will tax his diplomacy!”
“This,” said Pompey in disgruntled tones, “is a very slow kind of war. Why aren’t we marching on Rome?”
The face Sulla turned to him was, given its limitations, a kind one. “Patience, Pompeius! In martial skills you need no tuition, but your political skills are nonexistent. If the rest of this year teaches you nothing else, it will serve as a lesson on political manipulation. Before ever we contemplate marching on Rome, we have first to show Rome that she cannot win under her present government. Then, if she proves to be a sensible lady, she will come to us and offer herself to us freely.”
“What if she doesn’t?” asked Pompey, unaware that Sulla had already been through this with Metellus Pius and Crassus.
“Time will tell” was all Sulla would say.
They had bypassed Capua as if Norbanus inside it did not exist, and rolled on toward the second of Rome’s consular armies, under the command of Scipio Asiagenus and his senior legate, Quintus Sertorius. The little and very prosperous Campanian towns around Sulla did not so much capitulate as greet him with open arms, for they knew him well; Sulla had commanded Rome’s armies in this part of Italy for most of the duration of the Italian War.
Scipio Asiagenus was camped between Teanum Sidicinum and Cales, where a small tributary of the Volturnus, fed by springs, provided a great deal of slightly effervescent water; even in summer its mild warmth was delightful.
“This,” said Sulla, “will be an excellent winter camp!” And sat himself and his army down on the opposite bank of the streamlet from his adversary. The cavalry were sent back to Beneventum under the charge of Cethegus, while Sulla himself gave a new party of envoys explicit instructions on how to proceed in negotiating a truce with Scipio Asiagenus.
“He’s not an old client of Gaius Marius’s, so he’ll be much easier to deal with than Norbanus,” said Sulla to Metellus Pius and Pompey. His face was still in remission and his intake of wine was somewhat less than on the journey from Beneventum, which meant that his mood was cheerful and his mind very clear.
“Maybe,” said the Piglet, looking doubtful. “If it were only Scipio, I’d agree wholeheartedly. But he has Quintus Sertorius with him, and you know what that means, Lucius Cornelius.”
“Trouble,” said Sulla, sounding unworried.
“Ought you not be thinking how to render Sertorius impotent?”
“I won’t need to do that, Piglet dear. Scipio will do it for me.” He pointed with a stick toward the place where a sharp bend in the little river drew his camp’s boundary very close to the boundary of Scipio’s camp on the far shore. “Can your veterans dig, Gnaeus Pompeius?”
Pompey blinked. “With the best!”
“Good. Then while the rest are finishing off the winter fortifications, your fellows can excavate the bank outside our wall, and make a great big swimming pool,” said Sulla blandly.
“What a terrific idea!” said Pompey with equal sangfroid, and smiled. “I’ll get them onto it straightaway.” He paused, took the stick from Sulla and pointed it at the far bank. “If it’s all right with you, General, I’ll break down the bank and concentrate on widening the river, rather than make a separate swimming hole. And I think it would be very nice for our chaps if I roofed at least a part of it over—less chilly later on.”
“Good thinking! Do that,” said Sulla cordially, and stood watching Pompey stride purposefully away.
“What was all that about?’’ asked Metellus Pius, frowning; he hated to see Sulla so affable to that conceited young prig!
“He knew,” said Sulla cryptically.
“Well, I don’t!” said the Piglet crossly. “Enlighten me!”
“Fraternization, Piglet dear! Do you think Scipio’s men are going to be able to resist Pompeius’s winter spa? Even in summer? After all, our men are Roman soldiers too. There is nothing like a truly pleasurable activity shared in common to breed friendship. The moment Pompeius’s pool is finished, there will be as many of Scipio’s men enjoying it as ours. And they’ll all get chatty in no time—same jokes, same complaints, same sort of life. It’s my bet we won’t have to fight a battle.”
“And he understood that from the little you said?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’m surprised he agreed to help! He’s after a battle.”
“True. But he’s got my measure, Pius, and he knows he will not get a battle this side of spring. It’s no part of Pompeius’s strategy to annoy me, you know. He needs me just as much as I need him,” said Sulla, and laughed softly without moving his face.
“He strikes me as the sort who might prematurely decide that he doesn’t need you.”
“Then you mistake him.”
*
Three days later, Sulla and Scipio Asiagenus parleyed on the road between Teanum and Cales, and agreed to an armistice. About this moment Pompey finishe
d his swimming hole, and—typically methodical—after publishing a roster for its use that allowed sufficient space for invaders from across the river, threw it open for troop recreation. Within two more days the coming and going between the two camps was so great that,
“We may as well abandon any pretense that we’re on opposite sides,” said Quintus Sertorius to his commander.
Scipio Asiagenus looked surprised. “What harm does it do?” he asked gently.
The one eye Sertorius was left with rolled toward the sky. Always a big man, his physique had set with the coming of his middle thirties into its final mold—thick—necked, bull—like, formidable. And in some ways this was a pity, for it endowed Sertorius with a bovine look entirely at variance with the power and quality of his mind. He was Gaius Marius’s cousin, and had inherited far more of Marius’s personal and military brilliance than had, for instance, Marius’s son. The eye had been obliterated in a skirmish just before the Siege of Rome, but as it was his left one and he was right—handed, its loss had not slowed him down as a fighter. Scar tissue had turned his pleasant face into something of a caricature, in that its right side was still most pleasant while its left leered a horrible contradiction.
So it was that Scipio underestimated him, did not respect or understand him. And looked at him now in surprise.
Sertorius tried. “Asiagenus, think! How well do you feel our men will fight for us if they’re allowed to get too friendly with the enemy?”
“They’ll fight because they’re ordered to fight.”
“I don’t agree. Why do you think Sulla built his swimming hole, if not to suborn our troops? He didn’t do it for the sake of his own men! It’s a trap, and you’re falling into it!”
“We are under a truce, and the other side is as Roman as we are,” said Scipio Asiagenus stubbornly.
“The other side is led by a man you ought to fear as if he and his army had been sown from the dragon’s teeth! You can’t give him one single little inch, Asiagenus. If you do, he will end in taking all the miles between here and Rome.”
“You exaggerate,” said Scipio stiffly.
“You’re a fool!” snarled Sertorius, unable not to say it.
But Scipio was not impressed by the display of temper either. He yawned, scratched his chin, looked down at his beautifully manicured nails. Then he looked up at Sertorius looming over him, and smiled sweetly. “Do go away!” he said.
“I will that! Right away!” Sertorius snapped. “Maybe Gaius Norbanus can make you see sense!”
“Give him my regards,” Scipio called after him, then went back to studying his nails.
So Quintus Sertorius rode for Capua at the gallop, and there found a man more to his taste than Scipio Asiagenus. The loyalest of Marians, Norbanus was no fanatical adherent of Carbo’s; after the death of Cinna, he had only persisted in his allegiance because he loathed Sulla far more than he did Carbo.
“You mean that chinless wonder of an aristocrat actually has concluded an armistice with Sulla?” asked Norbanus, voice squeaking as it uttered that detested name.
“He certainly has. And he’s permitting his men to fraternize with the enemy,” said Sertorius steadily.
“Why did I have to be saddled with a colleague as stupid as Asiagenus?” wailed Norbanus, then shrugged. “Well, that is what our Rome is reduced to, Quintus Sertorius. I’ll send him a nasty message which he will ignore, but I suggest you don’t return to him. I hate to think of you as a captive of Sulla’s—he’d find a way to murder you. Find something to do that will annoy Sulla.”
“Eminent good sense,” said Sertorius, sighing. “I’ll stir up trouble for Sulla among the towns of Campania. The townspeople all declared for Sulla, but there are plenty of men who aren’t happy about it.” He looked disgusted. “Women, Gaius Norbanus! Women! They only have to hear Sulla’s name and they go limp with ecstasy. It’s the women decided which side these Campanian towns chose, not the men.”
“Then they ought to set eyes on him,” said Norbanus, and grimaced. “I believe he looks like nothing human.”
“Worse than me?”
“A lot worse, so they say.”
Sertorius frowned. “I’d heard something of it, but Scipio wouldn’t include me in the treating party, so I didn’t see him, and Scipio made no reference to his appearance.” He laughed grimly. “Oh, I’ll bet that hurts him, the pretty mentula! He was so vain! Like a woman.”
Norbanus grinned. “Don’t like the sex much, do you?” “They’re all right for a poke. But I’ll have none to wife! My mother is the only woman I have any time for at all. Now she is what a woman ought to be! Doesn’t stick her nose into men’s affairs, doesn’t try to rule the roost, doesn’t use her cunnus like a weapon.” He picked up his helmet and clapped it on his head. “I’ll be off, Gaius. Good luck convincing Scipio that he is wrong. Verpa!”
*
After some thought, Sertorius decided to ride from Capua toward the Campanian coast, where the pretty little town of Sinuessa Aurunca might just be ripe for a declaration against Sulla. The roads everywhere in Campania were free enough from trouble; Sulla had not attempted any blockades aside from a formal investment of Neapolis. No doubt he would shortly put a force outside Capua to keep Norbanus in, but there had been no sign of it when Sertorius visited. Even so, Sertorius felt it advisable to stay off the main roads. He liked the sensation of a fugitive existence; it carried an extra dimension of real life with it, and reminded him slightly of the days when he had posed as a Celtiberian warrior of some outlandish tribe in order to go spying among the Germans. Ah, that had been the life! No chinless wonders of Roman aristocrats to placate and defer to! Constant action, women who knew their place. He had even had a German wife, sired a son by her without once ever feeling that she or the boy hampered him. They lived in Nearer Spain now, up in the mountain stronghold of Osca, and the boy would be—how time flew!—almost a man. Not that Quintus Sertorius missed them, or hankered to set eyes upon this only child. What he missed was the life. The freedom, the sole ruling excellence, which was how a man acquitted himself as a warrior. Yes, those were the days….
As was his invariable habit, he traveled without any kind of escort, even a slave; like his cousin, dear old Gaius Marius, he believed that a soldier ought to be able to care for himself completely. Of course his kit was back in Scipio Asiagenus’s camp and he would not go back for it—or would he? Come to think of it, there were a few items he would sorely miss: the sword he normally used, a shirt of chain mail he had picked up in Further Gaul of a lightness and workmanship no smith in Italy could match, his winter boots from Liguria. Yes, he would go back. Some days would elapse before Scipio would fall.
So he turned his horse around and headed back toward the northeast, intending to swing beyond Sulla’s camp on its far side. And discovered that some distance in his rear a small party was proceeding along the rutted track. Four men and three women. Oh, women! Almost he reversed direction once more, then resolved to pick up speed and hasten by them. After all, they were heading seaward, he was now going back toward the mountains.
But as they loomed larger he frowned. Surely the man in their lead was familiar? A veritable giant, flaxen-haired and massive of thews, just like thousands more German men he had known—Burgundus! Ye gods, it was! Burgundus! And behind him rode Lucius Decumius and his two sons!
Burgundus had recognized him; each man kicked his horse in the ribs and rode to a meeting, with little Lucius Decumius flogging his beast to catch up. Trust Lucius Decumius not to miss a word of any conversation!
“What on earth are you doing here?” Sertorius asked after the handshakes and the backslappings were over.
“We’re lost, that’s what we’re doing here,” said Lucius Decumius, glaring at Burgundus balefully. “That heap of German rubbish swore he knew the way! But do he? No, he do not!”
Years of exposure to Lucius Decumius’s never-ending spate of (quite well meant) insults had inured Burgundus to them, so h
e bore them now with his usual patience, merely eyeing the small Roman the way a bull eyed a gnat.
“We’re trying to find the lands of Quintus Pedius,” said Burgundus in his slow Latin, smiling at Sertorius with a liking he felt for few men. “The lady Aurelia is going to fetch her daughter to Rome.”
And there she was, plodding along upon a stout mule and sitting absolutely straight, not a hair out of place nor a single smear of dust upon her fawn traveling robe. With her was her huge Gallic serving maid, Cardixa, and another female servant Sertorius did not know.
“Quintus Sertorius,” she said, joining them and somehow assuming command.
Now she was a woman! Sertorius had said to Norbanus that he prized only one of the breed, his mother, but he had quite forgotten Aurelia. How she managed to be beautiful as well as sensible he didn’t know; what he did know was that she was the only woman in the entire world who was both. Added to which, she was as honorable as any man, she didn’t lie, she didn’t moan or complain, she worked hard, and she minded her own business. They were almost exactly the same age—forty-and had known each other since Aurelia had married Gaius Julius Caesar over twenty years earlier.
“Have you seen my mother?” Sertorius asked as she prodded her mule to lead them slightly apart from the rest of her party.
“Not since last year’s ludi Romani, so you would have seen her yourself since I have. But she’ll be down to stay with us again this year for the games. It’s become a regular habit.”
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