Outraged, Nicomedes shook himself free. “I wish you would stop telling me what to do!”
“Not until you do it!”
“I’ll do it, I’ll do it!”.
“Now. There’s no time like the present.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow might see King Mithridates appear over the hill.”
“Tomorrow will not see King Mithridates! He’s in Colchis, and two thirds of his soldiers are dead.”
Caesar sat down, looking interested. “Tell me more.”
“He took a quarter of a million men to teach the savages of the Caucasus a lesson for raiding Colchis. Typical Mithridates! Couldn’t see how he could lose fielding so many men. But the savages didn’t even need to fight. The cold in the high mountains did the work for them. Two thirds of the Pontic soldiers died of exposure,” said Nicomedes.
“Rome doesn’t know this.” Caesar frowned. “Why didn’t you inform the consuls?”
“Because it’s only just happened—and anyway, it is not my business to tell Rome!”
“While you’re Friend and Ally, it most definitely is. The last we heard of Mithridates, he was up in Cimmeria reshaping his lands at the north of the Euxine.”
“He did that as soon as Sulla ordered Murena to leave Pontus alone,” nodded Nicomedes. “But Colchis had been refractory with its tribute, so he stopped off to rectify that and found out about the barbarian incursions.”
“Very interesting.”
“So as you can see, there is no elephant.”
Caesar’s eyes twinkled. “Oh yes there is! An even larger elephant. It’s called Rome.”
The King of Bithynia couldn’t help it; he doubled up with laughter. “I give in, I give in! You’ll have your fleet!”
Queen Oradaltis walked in, the dog at her heels, to find her ancient husband without his face painted, and crying with laughter. Also decently separated by some feet from a young Roman who looked just the sort of fellow who would be sitting in much closer proximity to one like King Nicomedes.
“My dear, this is Gaius Julius Caesar,” said the King when he sobered a little. “A descendant of the goddess Aphrodite, and far better born than we are. He has just maneuvered me into giving him a large and prestigious fleet.”
The Queen (who had no illusions whatsoever about Nicomedes) inclined her head regally. “I’m surprised you haven’t just given him the whole kingdom,” she said, pouring herself a goblet of wine and taking up a cake before she sat down.
The dog bumbled over to Caesar and dumped itself on his feet, gazing up adoringly. When Caesar bent to give it a resounding pat, it collapsed, rolled over, and presented its fat belly to be scratched.
“What’s his name?” asked Caesar, who clearly liked dogs.
“Sulla,” said the Queen.
A vision of her sandaled toe administering a kick to Sulla’s private parts rose up before Caesar’s inner gaze; it was now his turn to double up with laughter.
Over dinner he learned of the fate of Nysa, only child of the King and Queen, and heir to the Bithynian throne.
“She’s fifty and childless,” said Oradaltis sadly. “We refused to allow Mithridates to marry her, naturally, but that meant he made it impossible for us to find a suitable husband for her elsewhere. It is a tragedy.”
“May I hope to meet her before I leave?” asked Caesar.
“That is beyond our power,” sighed Nicomedes. “When I fled to Rome the last time Mithridates invaded Bithynia, I left Nysa and Oradaltis here in Nicomedia. So Mithridates carried our girl off as a hostage. He still has her in his custody.”
“And did he marry her?”
“We think not. She was never a beauty, and she was even then too old to have children. If she defied him openly he may have killed her, but the last we heard she was alive and being held in Cabeira, where he keeps women like the daughters and sisters he won’t permit to marry,” said the Queen.
“Then we’ll hope that when next the two elephants collide on that path, King Nicomedes, the Roman elephant wins the encounter. If I’m not personally a part of the war, I’ll make sure whoever is in command knows whereabouts Princess Nysa is.”
“By then I hope I’ll be dead,” said the King, meaning it.
“You can’t die before you get your daughter back!”
“If she should ever come back it will be as a Pontic puppet, and that is the reality,” said Nicomedes bitterly.
“Then you had better leave Bithynia to Rome in your will.”
“As the third Attalus did with Asia, and Ptolemy Apion with Cyrenaica? Never!” declared the King of Bithynia.
“Then it will fall to Pontus. And Pontus will fall to Rome, which means Bithynia will end up Roman anyway.”
“Not if I can help it.”
“You can’t help it,” said Caesar gravely.
*
The next day the King escorted Caesar down to the harbor, where he was assiduous in pointing out the complete absence of ships rigged for fighting.
“You wouldn’t keep a navy here,” said Caesar, not falling for it. “I suggest we ride for Chalcedon.”
“Tomorrow,” said the King, more enchanted with his difficult guest in every passing moment.
“We’ll start today,” said Caesar firmly. “It’s—what? Forty miles from here? We won’t do it in one ride.”
“We’ll go by ship,” said the King, who loathed traveling.
“No, we’ll go overland. I like to get the feel of terrain. Gaius Marius—who was my uncle by marriage—told me I should always journey by land if possible. Then if in future I should campaign there, I would know the lie of the land. Very useful.”
“So both Marius and Sulla are your uncles by marriage.”
“I’m extraordinarily well connected,” said Caesar solemnly.
“I think you have everything, Caesar! Powerful relatives, high birth, a fine mind, a fine body, and beauty. I am very glad I am not you.”
“Why?”
“You’ll never not have enemies. Jealousy—or envy, if you prefer to use that term to describe the coveting of characteristics rather than love—will dog your footsteps as the Furies did poor Orestes. Some will envy you the beauty, some the body or its height, some the birth, some the mind. Most will envy you all of them. And the higher you rise, the worse it will become. You will have enemies everywhere, and no friends. You will be able to trust neither man nor woman.”
Caesar listened to this with a sober face. “Yes, I think that is a fair comment,” he said deliberately. “What do you suggest I do about it?”
“There was a Roman once in the time of the Kings. His name was Brutus,” said the King, displaying yet more knowledge of Rome. “Brutus was very clever. But he hid it under a facade of brutish stupidity, hence his cognomen. So when King Tarquinius Superbus killed men in every direction, it never once occurred to him to kill Brutus. Who deposed him and became the first consul of the new Republic.”
“And executed his own sons when they tried to bring King Tarquinius Superbus back from exile and restore the monarchy to Rome,” said Caesar. “Pah! I’ve never admired Brutus. Nor will I emulate him by pretending I’m stupid.”
“Then you must take whatever comes.”
“Believe me, I intend to take whatever comes!”
“It’s too late to start for Chalcedon today,” said the King slyly. “I feel like an early dinner, then we can have some more of this wonderfully stimulating conversation, and ride at dawn.”
“Oh, we’ll ride at dawn,” said Caesar cheerfully, “but not from here. I’m leaving for Chalcedon in an hour. If you want to come, you’ll have to hurry.”
Nicomedes hurried, for two reasons: the first was that he knew he had to keep a strict eye on Caesar, who was highhanded; and the second that he was fathoms deep in love with the young man who continued to profess that he had no weakness for men.
He found Caesar being thrown up into the saddle of a mule.
“A mule?”
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“A mule,” said Caesar, looking haughty.
“Why?”
“It’s an idiosyncrasy.”
“You’re on a mule, and your freedman rides a Nesaean?”
“So your eyes obviously tell you.”
Sighing, the King was helped tenderly into his two—wheeled carriage, which followed Caesar and Burgundus at a steady walk. However, when they paused for the night under the roof of a baron so old he had never expected to see his sovereign again, Caesar apologized to Nicomedes.
“I’m sorry. My mother would say I didn’t stop to think. You’re very tired. We ought to have sailed.”
“My body is devastated, that’s true,” said Nicomedes with a smile. “However, your company makes me young again.”
Certainly when he joined Caesar to break his fast on the morning after they had arrived in Chalcedon (where there was a royal residence), he was bright and talkative, seemed well rested.
“As you can see,” he said, standing on the massive mole which enclosed Chalcedon’s harbor, “I have a neat little navy. Twelve triremes, seven quinqueremes, and fourteen undecked ships. Here, that is. I have more in Chrysopolis and in Dascylium.”
“Doesn’t Byzantium take a share of the Bosporan tolls?”
“Not these days. The Byzantines used to levy the tolls—they were very powerful, used to have a navy almost the equal of the Rhodians. But after the fall of Greece and then Macedonia, they had to keep a large land army to repel the Thracian barbarians, who still raid them. Simply, Byzantium couldn’t afford to keep a navy as well as an army. So the tolls passed to Bithynia.”
“Which is why you have several neat little navies.”
“And why I have to retain my neat little navies! I can donate Rome ten triremes and five quinqueremes altogether, from what is here and what is elsewhere. And ten undecked ships. The rest of your fleet I’ll hire.”
“Hire?” asked Caesar blankly.
“Of course. How do you think we raise navies?”
“As we do! By building ships.”
“Wasteful—but then you Romans are that,” said the King. “Keeping your own ships afloat when you don’t need them costs money. So we Greek—speaking peoples of Asia and the Aegean keep our fleets down to a minimum. If we need more in a hurry, we hire them. And that is what I’ll do.”
“Hire ships from where?” asked Caesar, bewildered. “If there were ships to be had along the Aegean, I imagine Thermus would have commandeered them already.”
“Of course not from the Aegean!” said Nicomedes scornfully, delighted that he was teaching something to this formidably knowledgeable youth. “I’ll hire them from Paphlagonia and Pontus.”
“You mean King Mithridates would hire ships to his enemy?”
“Why would he not? They’re lying idle at the moment, and costing him money. He doesn’t have all those soldiers to fill them, and I don’t think he plans an invasion of Bithynia or the Roman Asian province this year—or next year!”
“So we will blockade Mitylene with ships belonging to the kingdom Mitylene so badly wants to ally itself with,” said Caesar, shaking his head. “Extraordinary!”
“Normal,” said Nicomedes briskly.
“How do you go about the business of hiring?”
“I’ll use an agent. The most reliable fellow is right here in Chalcedon.”
It occurred to Caesar that perhaps if ships were being hired by the King of Bithynia for Rome’s use, it ought to be Rome paying the bill, but as Nicomedes seemed to regard the present situation as routine, Caesar wisely held his tongue; for one thing, he had no money, and for another, he wasn’t authorized to find the money. Best then to accept things as they were. But he began to see why Rome had problems in her provinces, and with her client kings. From his conversation with Thermus, he had assumed Bithynia would be paid for this fleet at some time in the future. Now he wondered exactly how long Bithynia would have to wait.
“Well, that’s all fixed up,” said the King six days later. “Your fleet will be waiting in Abydus harbor for you to pick it up on the fifteenth day of your October. That is almost two months away, and of course you will spend them with me.”
“It is my duty to see to the assembling of the ships,” said Caesar, not because he wished to avoid the King, but because he believed it ought to be so.
“You can’t,” said Nicomedes.
“Why?”
“It isn’t done that way.”
Back to Nicomedia they went, Caesar nothing loath; the more he had to do with the old man, the more he liked him. And his wife. And her dog.
*
Since there were two months to while away, Caesar planned to journey to Pessinus, Byzantium, and Troy. Unfortunately the King insisted upon accompanying him to Byzantium, and upon a sea journey, so Caesar never did get to either Pessinus or Troy; what ought to have been a matter of two or three days in a ship turned into almost a month. The royal progress was tediously slow and formal as the King called into every tiny fishing village and allowed its inhabitants to see him in all his glory—though, in deference to Caesar, without his maquillage.
Always Greek in nature and population, Byzantium had existed for six hundred years upon the tip of a hilly peninsula on the Thracian side of the Bosporus, and had a harbor on the horn—shaped northern reach as well as one on the southern, more open side. Its walls were heavily fortified and very high, its wealth manifest in the size and beauty of its buildings, private as well as public.
The Thracian Bosporus was more beautiful than the Hellespont—and more majestic, thought Caesar, having sailed through the Hellespont. That King Nicomedes was the city’s suzerain became obvious from the moment the royal barge was docked; every man of importance came flocking to greet him. However, it did not escape Caesar that he himself got a few dark looks, or that there were some present who did not like to see the King of Bithynia on such good terms with a Roman. Which led to another dilemma. Until now Caesar’s public associations with King Nicomedes had all been inside Bithynia, where the people knew their ruler so well that they loved his whole person, and understood him. It was not like that in Byzantium, where it soon became obvious that everyone assumed Caesar was the King of Bithynia’s boyfriend.
It would have been easy to refute the assumption—a few words here and there about silly old fools who made silly old fools of themselves, and what a nuisance it was to be obliged to dicker for a fleet with a silly old fool. The trouble was, Caesar couldn’t bring himself to do that; he had grown to love Nicomedes in every way except the one way Byzantium assumed he did, and he couldn’t hurt the poor old man in that one place he himself was hurting most—his pride. But there were cogent reasons why he ought to make the true situation clear, first and foremost because his own future was involved. He knew where he was going—all the way to the top. Bad enough to attempt that hard climb hiding a part of his nature which was real; but worse by far to attempt it knowing that the inference was quite unjustified. If the King had been younger he might have decided upon a direct appeal, for though Nicomedes condemned the Roman intolerance of homosexuality as un—Hellenic, barbarian even, he would out of his naturally warm and affectionate nature have striven to dispel the illusion. But at his advanced age, Caesar couldn’t be sure that the hurt this request would produce would not also be too severe. In short, life, Caesar was discovering after that enclosed and sheltered adolescence he had been forced to endure, could hand a man conundrums to which there were no adequate answers.
Byzantine resentment of Romans was due, of course, to the occupation of the city by Fimbria and Flaccus four years earlier, when they—appointed by the government of Cinna—had decided to head for Asia and a war with Mithridates rather than for Greece and a war with Sulla. It made little difference to the Byzantines that Fimbria had murdered Flaccus, and Sulla had put paid to Fimbria; the fact remained that their city had suffered. And here was their suzerain fawning all over another Roman.
Thus, having arrived at w
hat decisions he could, Caesar set out to make his own individual impression on the Byzantines, intending to salvage what pride he could. His intelligence and education were a great help, but he was not so sure about that element of his nature that his mother so deplored—his charm. It did win over the leading citizens of the city and it did much to mollify their feelings after the singular boorishness and brutishness of Flaccus and Fimbria, but he was forced in the end to conclude that it probably strengthened their impressions of his sexual leanings—male men weren’t supposed to be charming.
So Caesar embarked upon a frontal attack. The first phase of this consisted in crudely rebuffing all the overtures made to him by men, and the second phase in finding out the name of Byzantium’s most famous courtesan, then making love to her until she cried enough.
“He’s as big as a donkey and as randy as a goat,” she said to all her friends and regular lovers, looking exhausted. Then she smiled and sighed, and stretched her arms voluptuously. “Oh, but he’s wonderful! I haven’t had a boy like him in years!”
And that did the trick. Without hurting King Nicomedes, whose devotion to the Roman youth was now seen for what it was. A hopeless passion.
Back to Nicomedia, to Queen Oradaltis, to Sulla the dog, to that crazy palace with its surplus of pages and its squabbling, intriguing staff.
“I’m sorry to have to go,” he said to the King and Queen at their last dinner together.
“Not as sorry as we are to see you go,” said Queen Oradaltis gruffly, and stirred the dog with her foot.
“Will you come back after Mitylene is subdued?’’ asked the King. “We would so much like that.”
“I’ll be back. You have my word on it,” said Caesar.
“Good!” Nicomedes looked satisfied. “Now, please enlighten me about a Latin puzzle I have never found the answer to: why is cunnus masculine gender, and mentula feminine gender?’’
Caesar blinked. “I don’t know!”
“There must surely be a reason.”
“Quite honestly, I’ve never thought about it. But now that you’ve drawn it to my attention, it is peculiar, isn’t it?”
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